Benediction

Abstract: War has ravaged Acholiland in northern Uganda since 1986. The Ugandan army is fighting the Lord's Resistance Movement/Army (LRM/A) rebels. Based on anthropological fieldwork, the article aims at exemplifying the ways in which non-combatant people's experiences of war and violence are domesticated in cosmological terms as strategies of coping, and it relates tales of wars in the past to experiences of violent death and war in the present. There has been a politicized debate in Uganda over whether or not the LRM/A rebels have the elders' ceremonial warfare blessing. In sketching this debate, the article interprets the possible warfare blessing--which some informants interpreted as having turned into a curse on Acholiland--as a critical event that benefits from further deliberation, regardless of its existence or non-existence. It is argued that no warfare blessing can be regarded as the mere utterance of words. Rather, a blessing is performed within the framework of the local moral world. It is finally argued that the issue of the warfare blessing is a lived consequence of the conflict, but, nevertheless, cannot be used as an explanatory model for the cause of the conflict. RESUME Depuis 1986, la guerre ravage l'Acholiland, dans le Nord de l'Ouganda. L'armee ougandaise s'y bat contre les rebelles de la LRM/A (Lord's Resistance Movement/Army). S'appuyant sur des travaux anthropologiques de terrain, l'article cherche a exemplifier la maniere dont les experiences de la guerre et de la violence par les non-combattants sont domestiquees, en termes cosmologiques, en tant que strategies de defense, et etablit un rapport entre des recits de guerre du passe et des experiences de mort violente et de guerre du present. Un debat politise a eu lieu en Ouganda sur la question de savoir si les rebelles de la LRM/A ont recu la benediction officielle des anciens pour se battre. Dans l'esquisse qu'il fait du debat, l'article interprete cette benediction eventuelle, que certains informateurs ont interpretee comme s'etant transformee en malediction appelee sur l'Acholiland, comme un evenement critique qui beneficie de la poursuite du debat, independamment de son existence ou non-existence. L'article soutient qu'une simple formulation de mots nc saurait en aucun cas constituer une benediction. Une benediction serait plutot pratiquee dans le cadre de runivers moral local. Enfin, l'article affirme que la question de la benediction de la guerre est une consequence vecue du conflit qui peut neanmoins servir de modele d'explication de la cause du conflit. ********** In 1981 Yoweri Museveni and the National Resistance Movement/Army (NRM/A) launched a guerrilla war in central Uganda with the objective of replacing Milton Obote's second government. Museveni took up arms arguing that the 1980 elections that brought Obote back to power were rigged. Tito Okello, an army general from Acholiland, northern Uganda, ousted Obote and was head of state for a brief period before Museveni seized power in 1986. Within two years of Museveni's takeover, report Bond and Vincent (2002: 354), 27 different rebel groups were resisting the new government. Only a few have remained over the years, most notably the Lord's Resistance Movement/Army (LRM/A) rebels. Especially affected by war is Acholiland (Gulu, Kitgum and Pader districts) in northern Uganda, where I have conducted anthropological fieldwork for fifteen months, in four phases in 1997-8, 1999-2000, 2002 and 2005. The principal method was participant observation or, better, participant reflection (Finnstrom 2003: 23-35). I spent a great deal of time with a limited number of young adults, many of them displaced to Gulu town, where I was based, and throughout the research I had continuing conversations, rather than formal interviews, with them. These were supplemented by more formal conversations and interviews with other people as well, including older people and various officials. …

Abstract: The origin of the Papal Benediction Sign has been a source of controversy for many generations of medical students. The question has been whether the Papal Benediction Sign posture is the result of an injury to the median nerve or to the ulnar nerve. The increasingly popular use of online "chat rooms" and the vast quantities of information available on the internet has led to an increasing level of confusion. Looking in major anatomy texts, anatomy and board review books as well as numerous internet sites the answer remains unresolved. Through the analysis of functional anatomy of the hand, cultural and religious practices of the early centuries of the Common Era and church art a clear answer emerges. It will become apparent that this hand posture results from an ulnar neuropathy.

Abstract: When Christians worship God, their cultic activities display, in widely varying combinations, attitudes of fear, respect, love, trust, awe, deference and obedience. They worship the Lord with all their heart, soul and strength, confessing their own insignificance in comparison to God, yet expressing confidence in the divine mercy which they believe will assist them through the trials of this life, toward a joyful existence beyond the grave. In the liturgical churches, the dominating mood varies according to the tables of feasts and fasts: Christmas and Easter are times for joyful song, brightly coloured vestments and festive activities. Ash Wednesday and Good Friday are days of penitence, sorrow and sombre hymnody. (‘Remember, Oh Man, that dust thou art…’) Throughout the year, the houses of worship are places of bowed heads and lowered voices, of respect and sobriety, and sometimes of veneration for icons and the objects used in worship. The inventory of revered objects varies considerably, as do the activities thought to be appropriate in this connection, ranging from the Low Protestant's respectful handling of the Bible to the High Churchman's prostration before the Monstrance, in the Benediction of the Holy Sacrament. But it is clear that divine worship normally involves reverence and awe and that it usually involves some form of self-abasement (bending the knee before).

Abstract: Eucharistic devotion was the subject of a remarkable liturgical creativity at the end of the Middle Ages, and during the Counter Reformation. If Corpus Christi had been inscribed into the liturgical calendar and the perpetual adoration tended to reorganize Catholic time around the sacrament of the altar, two other forms of eucharistic devotion first appeared as exceptional and became ordinary: the Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament and the prayers of the Forty Hours' Devotion. The fecundity of the liturgy and of the paraliturgy of the Eucharist between the fifteenth and the seventeenth centuries is largely in line with the reaffirmation of the doctrine of the real presence, which became an identifying mark of Catholicism. This liturgical richness also reflects the suspicions and the criticisms of certain clergy, who saw in innovations the risk of desacralization. Despite potential conflict, the Eucharist, the Corpus Christi, was at the heart of Catholic practices. Keywords: catholic liturgies; Corpus Christi; eucharist; Forty Hours' Devotion