Today's celebrations:

• Afterfeast of Transfiguration, happy Transfiguration belatedly New Calendarists and Uniates!


• St Anne, the Granny of God, 25 July in Eastern Calendar, which is today according to Old Calendar. Happy name's day all Annes!


• Had the pleasure of attending the marriage of Rafaël and Stéphanie in St Sévérin parish this evening, MEILLEURS VŒUX!


• Before which I had heard, in the Abbey Bookshop, the song:
  
  

  "Dance, dance, wherever you may be,
  For I am the Lord of the dance" said He:
  "And I'll lead you all, wherever you may be
  And I'll lead you all in the dance" said He.

  
  
  And that is true, for He danced on the gates of Hell, when he came down there.

Why then is there a canon forbidding priests to dance in public? Because the liturgy participates in the highest dance, that of the angels who fall down before God singing the Trisagion. What you normally call dances, like Squaredance or Waltz, takes it model in somewhat lower angelic spirits, though still great, who lead the stars in the dance that is visible for human eyes. Or maybe they too get up to the throne of God once in a while --- I have not yet read Dionysios Areopagita.

This message on guardian angels by Plinio Correa de Oliveira says:

"There are angels to watch over groups, families of souls, societies and other institutions, so that everything that exists is guarded by angels. This, incidentally, is part of the role of the angels, for they maintain the whole material universe executing all of the decrees of God."

UPDATE:

There is a darker side to the ban on dances in public for priests. In pagan religions like the Greek or the Hindoo, false divinities were regarded as inventors or protectors of dance. When I was young I told nuns who had been treating Elvis "he is the King of music" - no, Jesus is the King of Music, they said. As there was Elvis so there were Apollon, Dionysos and Shiva (to name some) to pose as "King of dance" (Natârâja). And in both Greek and Indian sources we have stories that make these divinities look like masks of the devil: death, intoxication, false but selffulfilling prophecy. That is not "somewhat lower but still high", that is real low. Even if their title is false, the association may make it unfitting for priests - or else the Roman adage "nemo saltat sobrius, nisi forte insanit".