We are pleased to present this review of a recently-published book by Dr David Birch of Melbourne (Australia).
Dr Birch is retired from a University career in Linguistics and Communication Studies. Initially educated in the United Kingdom as a Medievalist, he completed an Honours dissertation on the language of the 14th Century English Mystics, and a DPhil on the polemical writings of St Thomas More. He has spent a lifetime - both in public worship and in private - with Latin prayer and lectio divina. He resides in Victoria (Australia), and is an aspirant to the eremitical life.
Now to a few words about this admirable and scholarly work. Offering a prayer in the Latin language has been part of Catholic life in the West for almost 2,000 years. Each Latin prayer, whether prayed in public worship, or in private contemplation, is saturated with the very rich history of the Roman Catholic Church. The place of Latin prayer thus forms an intrinsic part of the deep and extensive patrimony that is Catholic Tradition.
This study Latin Prayer : Aspects of Language and Catholic Spirituality explores a way of prayer within that patrimony and Tradition. Its approach is linguistic, but expressed through a Catholic heart which is steeped in this Latin Tradition. Over thirteen chapters Dr Birch, freely taking extracts from the Missale Romanum, Breviarium Romanum, the Scripture itself and devotional prayers, explores a wide range of grammatical, linguistic and stylistic features of Latin prayer. By including a very comprehensive bibliography of Liturgical Latin, this book helps to offer a linguistic means to a spiritual end, through a vocabulary of language, grammar and prayer, aiming at exploring and articulating some of the spiritual depths, Catholic sensibilities, and modern day opportunities, that lie at the heart of the Latin prayer of the Catholic Church.
It might be observed that this volume is neither primarily a "how to learn Latin" primer, nor is it a compendium of Latin prayers, but rather it is a structured meditation on the nature of prayer. It is also a spiritual response to many of the developments in Catholicism since the Second Vatican Council - not least so recently - which have attempted to sweep aside the Latin prayer of almost 2,000 years of Catholic worship and assign it to an obscure and scorned footnote in history.
Much has been written about these various developments elsewhere, but this book does not actively seek to engage in the varied politics surrounding the many decades of contemporary change and commentary in the Church. Neither does it seek overtly to politicise these issues or to direct its readers to a form of Latin isolationism.
Rather, it seeks to invest Catholic prayer with a much greater sense of what it has been, may be, and indeed still is, to many Catholics worldwide. To that end, Dr Birch attempts to engage with what it is to be a praying Catholic, imbued with the sort of sensibilities, the sense of the sacred, the awe and the separateness from everyday things that praying in a hieratic language (which is no longer anyone’s mother tongue) can bring.
The central message of the book is not complicated : God is extraordinary, and praying in an extraordinary language like Latin, helps to bring to our consciousness that extraordinariness. It is among the attractive features of this book that it is not interested in seeking to make God ordinary just like one of us, as much contemporary theology and liturgy seeks to do. Reading this book presents challenges to the reader, just as the Christian life presents to all who follow it.
For those who know Latin there can be found in Latin Prayer : Aspects of Language and Catholic Spirituality many prayers both familiar and unfamiliar. And perhaps those who have no Latin will be inspired by this book to learn it. This reviewer hopes that everyone, by reading Dr Birch's study and regardless of linguistic skills, will discover and marvel at the depth, power and potency of the Catholic patrimony and Tradition in Latin prayer; and value it as an ever-relevant, ever-new and rewarding spiritual path.
One last and important note : All royalties from the sale of this book will be donated in full to the Benedictine monks of the Notre Dame Priory Colebrook, in Tasmania (Australia).
Images from the pages of this book have been reproduced with the cooperation of Dr Birch.
This volume may be purchased from your local bookshop by ordering it with
ISBN 978-0-6454193-0-6
It is also available in paperback and as an e-book at amazon.com and major online bookstores.
Contacting Dr Birch :
