THE comments by R Parker (CL 7/10/07) can be answered in several ways, but perhaps the best way is to appreciate the complexity of what are our shortest prayers and therefore what appear misleadingly as our simplest.
I nominate “making the Sign of the Cross” and the “saying the Glory be to the Father …” as those prayers.
Both are complex since they address the Trinity and that is why Professor Hurtado required 600 pages to treat the topic in an informed way.
He even related at his public lecture that the task led him to experience “eczema” and writer’s block, such was the burden history and scholarship bears on this topic.
We begin and end our liturgies by making the Sign of the Cross but how many experience the depth?
I once attended a lecture of one hour that examined our participation in making the Sign of the Cross as part of our liturgy.
I wonder if many people are ever “gobsmacked” when they participate in that part of the liturgy.
The Mass rises to one of its crucial points when we invoke the Trinity at the concluding part of the Eucharistic Prayer.
Saying the “Glory be to the Father …” is also one of those prayers to which we are particularly desensitised.
Pope Benedict XVI has written extensively on the inner life shared by the Trinity and now shared with us.
God does not live within His own glory but shares it with us so that our life may be shared with others. We are glorified in the life of our God as Trinity.
The Gloria and the Creed at Mass are but theological formulas writ large saying no more than the “Sign of the Cross” and the “Glory Be …”
We think falsely that the Resurrection is our trump card.
However, Pope Benedict XVI teaches that Christians have much more to offer the world when we witness to what making the Sign of the Cross means.
VINCE HODGE
Paddington, Qld
