#twitterangelus

As Joseph Shaw pointed out in my comments yesterday, and as I have had occasion to remark before, Twitter is not the place for reasoned argument or discussion of any subtlety.

However, perhaps surprisingly, it can be a place of prayer.

Yesterday, I was about to end a few minutes time-wasting on Twitter to get on with some more important things (that's not a very big claim...) when I noticed it was mid-day.  On a whim - or prompted by my Guardian Angel - I tweeted (@ nobody, just into the ether) the first line of the Angelus, in Latin.

To my surprise and delight I got an instant response, in Latin, from @sitsio.  We completed the Angelus  in traditional antiphonal fashion, and I left Twitter and got on with other things.

Later that day I was on Twitter again (well, it is the holidays, he pleaded in weak self-defence) when @PartTimePilgrim asked if @sitsio was going to lead the Angelus at 6.00 pm.  Somebody had noticed - and not only that, thought it a good enough idea to repeat.  The vote was for English that time, and we were joined by several more people, including @AmandaMoll who retweeted the proceedings from a traffic jam on the M25.

So if you are online at midday or 6pm (UK time) look for the #twitterangelus hashtag and join in. If you are up at 6am, you could lead it then!

If you are in a different timezone (colonial press please copy) you could start it there at the appropriate time.

(Hint: it's probably easiest to have typed it out in advance, and copy, paste and send).

There's plenty of acrimony on Twitter, not least with regard to Catholicism: let's inject some prayer there too, and allow the Holy Spirit to renew the face of the earth.