It is amazing the variety of mail I receive to keep me on my toes. Apart from an enquiry about Georgian clock faces (I am still working on that one), on Wednesday there slipped through the letter box a copy of "An Taifreann Naofa: an aid to the celebration of Mass in Irish for priest and people" This gives the text of the Ordinary of the Mass with copious erudite lexical notes supplied by the Eagarthóir [Editor to you and me] but includes no hints as to pronunciation. As we know Irish pronunciation is the Celtic way of getting back at the stupid Saxon as they fox us with 'Dun Laoghaire' etc., so if I am going to be up to the mark by March 17^th. I am going to have to get to grips with "Creidim in aon Dia amháin, an tAhair uilechumhachtach .... " (beginning of the Creed) etc.

There is a play by Brian Friel "Translations", about the Royal Engineers in Ireland in 1833 making the first Ordinance Survey and asking the locals all the place names The locals give the names and the gormless English struggle to put down what they hear - the results can be seen on bilingual Irish roadsigns to this day It reminds me of the recent book "Blessed art thou a monk swimming" which is what one young Irish schoolgirl thought we said in the Hail Mary. In such ways is faith confused

Well nowadays we can talk of faith in the purest English accent possible and people won't have a clue what we are saying. We must take nothing for granted; we must go back to basics. That is actually very good for us. If you want to do a little test imagine you are reading St Mark's Gospel to someone who has never heard of Christ "The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ the Son of God " What is 'gospel'? What is 'Jesus'? What is 'Christ'? What is 'God'? How does God have a Son? And so on and so on.