Stay tuned here for the Ossa book update on our first book Ossa Latinitatis Sola. Sadly I have nothing new to report in the past year. If you wish to receive email notification of blog entries – and eventual notification of the book’s imminent publication, you may subscribe to the blog via email (located in the bottom right box of our home page). We will not pass your email information on to anyone; you may unsubscribe at any time you wish; our blog postings are periodical, so we shall not pester you.
Ossa book update: Reason for the delay
If you have ever taken a class with Reginald, you will know the importance of the “Reading Sheets”, a collection of texts from very many authors of every age of Latin literature. These Reading Sheets are so important to Reginald’s teaching method that the publisher has agreed to include a set of reading sheets in the first book: Ossa. This requires a sizeable commitment by the publisher because it adds numerous pages to the book and requires a good deal of work in preparing the text and presenting it in a worthy format, for this we are clearly grateful to the Director of Catholic University of America Press. I am told that this process is nearly complete. Thereafter, as I understand it, we shall go into the production phase when the copy editor will edit the book and suggest corrections for Reginald and me to consider.
As I write this, I am preparing to leave Milwaukee for Atchison, Kansas, and then continue to my summer and autumn commitments in Belgium and London. My absence as we await the suggestions from the copy editor means that things are a bit up in the air at present.
Ossium: progress
On our second book, Ossium Carnes Multae, we have completed the initial dictation of the 51 letters of Cicero we set as a goal. Many of the letters I have revised and Reggie has reviewed and thus are in fairly complete form. Others I have yet to revise for review. Reggie and I are completing the authors’ introduction and we have received the exordium from Antonio Salvi in the Vatican Secretariat of State, which we intend to include both in his Latin and our English. Two people have agreed to write prefatory material for the book and I am in contact with them as Reggie and I are concluding our efforts.
Os: progress
Our third element of the Body of Latin is the Os Praesens Ciceronis Epistularis. For this, Reginald has recited all 51 of the letters of Cicero that appear in the Carnes book. The digital recordings need to be edited and then made available.
New York visit
This past month Reginald and I were invited by Jason Pedicone and his collaborators at the Paideia Institute for Humananistic Studies to visit New York. You may read about the event here.
Personal project
I have also submitted my own project to Reginald. I am amplifying my doctoral research on church architecture. I have translated numerous more texts of speaches made at the Second Vatican Council and submitted them to his review. I mention this by way of example of how you might wish to request Reginald to collaborate in your project.
In addition to teaching Liturgy and Latin in London, where I stay at Ealing Abbey, and research in Belgium, where I stay at Keizersberg Abbey, this is one of the places where I feel most free to follow my own life project, to commit myself to the daily task of writing and collaborating with Reginald in preserving and extending his own life project.
Progress update from Daniel McCarthy
monk of St Benedict’s Abbey, Atchison, Kansas
