On Stratford Caldecott (1953-2014) and All Things Made New (2011)

I give this “review” the unusual title because, although it indeed began as something of a review of the book, All Things Made New: The Mysteries of the World in Christ, on this the first anniversary of his untimely death it ended up becoming far more a belated tribute to an author I regret not discovering long ago, Stratford Caldecott, M.A. (Oxon.), FRSA (Friend of the Royal Society of Arts). Known as “Strat” to his many friends, he was by all accounts greatly beloved by all who knew him, or knew of him – ultimately even by superheroes! Truly, the more I have learned about him in the past few months, the more I have discovered in Stratford Caldecott a kindred spirit whom I would have loved to have had a chance to meet over a brew or few. The conversation would doubtless have been epic!

The CTS New Catholic Bible (2013)

Catholic Truth Society UK

I’ve been meaning to post this for quite a while but am just getting around to it, finally spurred to do so when checking to see if it were available on Amazon.com found that while it has a page [LINK], it shows as currently unavailable and there is virtually no information on it, not even a customer review. I remedied that immediately and decided to also post my thoughts here….

This is my daily reading Bible. A bit of background: I am a convert to Catholicism, back in the 1980s, and my first Catholic Bible was the Jerusalem Bible. Since then I have always loved the high literary quality of the translation (the fact that J. R. R. Tolkien was part of the team producing it back in the 1960s helped in that respect!), except for one thing that I found increasingly irksome – its use of the Divine Name Yahweh against thousands of years of tradition, both Jewish and Christian, rendering it as "The Lord." The Jerusalem Bible may not be the most slavishly literal translation (for that, go to the Douay-Rheims), but I do find it the most readable. Nevertheless, the "Yahweh issue" eventually drove me to other translations, most commonly the Revised Standard Version-Catholic Edition, as a good balance of readability and literal accuracy. Anyway, last year while on the Pilgrimage to Italy [LINK], I went into a little bookstore in St. Peter's Square where I found a red Compact Edition of this Bible (not this edition) as one of the few English editions available. Seeing that it was from the Catholic Truth Society, “Publishers to the Holy See,” I picked it up, and a quick perusal of the introduction revealed that I had finally found my dream reading Bible – a Jerusalem Bible with the Divine Name rendered as "Lord," with an extra attraction as well: The Psalms are printed in the Grail translation, which has become intimately familiar to me from years of reciting the Breviary. The only reason I did not immediately purchase that Bible on the spot was its compact size and tiny print, which I knew was too small for daily reading with my middle-aged eyes. But immediately upon arriving back in the States I was on the Internet seeking out a larger copy, settling on this one, the Standard Edition, basically the next size up, which I purchased directly from the CTS in the UK (The Internet is a Wonderful Thing!). And I have used it daily ever since, because it came with other features I didn't even know about at the time, but which further enhance its utility as a daily reading Bible.