Tuesday, April 15, 2003
In my craft or sullen art
by Dylan Thomas (1914-1953)
In my craft or sullen art
Exercised in the still night
When only the moon rages
And the lovers lie abed
With all their griefs in their arms,
I labour by singing light
Not for ambition or bread
Or the strut and trade of charms
On the ivory stages
But for the common wages
Of their most secret heart.
Not for the proud man apart
From the raging moon I write
On these spindrift pages
Nor for the towering dead
With their nightingales and psalms
But for the lovers, their arms
Round the griefs of the ages,
Who pay no praise or wages
Nor heed my craft or art.
by Dylan Thomas (1914-1953)
In my craft or sullen art
Exercised in the still night
When only the moon rages
And the lovers lie abed
With all their griefs in their arms,
I labour by singing light
Not for ambition or bread
Or the strut and trade of charms
On the ivory stages
But for the common wages
Of their most secret heart.
Not for the proud man apart
From the raging moon I write
On these spindrift pages
Nor for the towering dead
With their nightingales and psalms
But for the lovers, their arms
Round the griefs of the ages,
Who pay no praise or wages
Nor heed my craft or art.
Had some enemy decried me,
I could have borne it patiently; some open ill-wisher, I could have sheltered myself from his attack. But thou, my second self, my familiar friend! How pleasant was the companionship we shared, thou and I; how lovingly we walked as fellow pilgrims in the house of God!
+ + + + + + + + + + + + + +
The verses above were part of the morning prayers in Magnificat for today. (Magnificat uses the Grail Version; here I have used Msgr Knox's translation.) The verses are from Psalm 55, or 54 in the Vulgate's and in Knox's reckoning. They are included in the Holy Week readings as a foreshadowing of how our blessed Lord is treated by Judas, his disciple turned traitor.
But there is, I would venture, a different way of reading those lines. Perhaps could we read them as what sinners say to God, what Judas might have thought about our Lord, what absurd words reach the lips, what thoughts reach the mind, of those who have been "disappointed" by the infinite grandeur of God, the limitless compassion, the omniscient understanding -- failing to make Itself small and palatable and cozy and free of shock?
Were there not those in our Lord's day who were looking for a political Messiah, a revolutionary savior, to throw off the yoke of Roman oppression, to return the chosen people to temporal glory? Don't we sometimes approach the Lord looking for some temporal or worldly gain, and then, not finding it, use Jeremiah's words "You deceived me, and I let myself be deceived" (cf. Jer 20:7)?
Do we ever approach the Crucified Son of God, strangely, almost bizarrely, expecting him to remove all our obstacles, our roadblocks, our slings and arrows, our thorns and nettles? And aren't we reminded time and time again Unless you take up your cross ... Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake ... but we continue to think "Well, those admonitions are for other kinds of Christians, maybe for the heroic saints of old. It's good enough to be, well, to be good enough."
And when the world, or parts of it, come at us with whatever it comes at us with, don't we turn to the Lord in petulance and defiance and say, "Hey, Buddy," (perhaps not so bluntly but this must be the effect) "weren't you supposed to take care of this problem? Haven't I been one of your friends? Aren't we simpatico? I'm keeping my part of the bargain : I'm going to Mass, I'm praying, I'm steering clear of Grave Sin X and Very Grave Sin Y and (most of the time) More-than-Semi-Grave Sin Z. Aren't you going to hold up your end? Aren't you going to make my life easier? Didn't You say, My yoke is easy and my burden is light?"
And so on, with such similar mockeries of God which we pray are burned up like so many dead leaves in the bonfire of his mercy.
Have we ever come to prayer accusing God, secretly, subconsciously, or even openly, of being a traitor to us?
I know I have. And how is this possible, when to ponder for longer than twenty seconds the smallest of his mercies to me, should send me to my knees in tears of gratitude ... but no ... I have a splinter of the Cross, one thorn of the mockery-crown, a milligram of the scorn that He called his glory ... and I complain endlessly and fiercely and unmanfully. And complain, and complain.
He forgave his enemies from the cross. And I never forget a slight.
He was silent before his judges. I am garrulous with self-justifications and excuses.
His touch brought healing and new life.
He helped all who came to him and believed in him.
His was a life of kenosis, of self-emptying, and of fervent prayer.
And he had not where to lay his head. And he called his death-pains his glory.
May the blood of Christ, shed on the cross for our redemption, silence those devils, and expel them from me, who dare to call God traitor and deceiver, even unconsciously, for whatever flimsy pretext or treasonable reason.
I could have borne it patiently; some open ill-wisher, I could have sheltered myself from his attack. But thou, my second self, my familiar friend! How pleasant was the companionship we shared, thou and I; how lovingly we walked as fellow pilgrims in the house of God!
+ + + + + + + + + + + + + +
The verses above were part of the morning prayers in Magnificat for today. (Magnificat uses the Grail Version; here I have used Msgr Knox's translation.) The verses are from Psalm 55, or 54 in the Vulgate's and in Knox's reckoning. They are included in the Holy Week readings as a foreshadowing of how our blessed Lord is treated by Judas, his disciple turned traitor.
But there is, I would venture, a different way of reading those lines. Perhaps could we read them as what sinners say to God, what Judas might have thought about our Lord, what absurd words reach the lips, what thoughts reach the mind, of those who have been "disappointed" by the infinite grandeur of God, the limitless compassion, the omniscient understanding -- failing to make Itself small and palatable and cozy and free of shock?
Were there not those in our Lord's day who were looking for a political Messiah, a revolutionary savior, to throw off the yoke of Roman oppression, to return the chosen people to temporal glory? Don't we sometimes approach the Lord looking for some temporal or worldly gain, and then, not finding it, use Jeremiah's words "You deceived me, and I let myself be deceived" (cf. Jer 20:7)?
Do we ever approach the Crucified Son of God, strangely, almost bizarrely, expecting him to remove all our obstacles, our roadblocks, our slings and arrows, our thorns and nettles? And aren't we reminded time and time again Unless you take up your cross ... Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake ... but we continue to think "Well, those admonitions are for other kinds of Christians, maybe for the heroic saints of old. It's good enough to be, well, to be good enough."
And when the world, or parts of it, come at us with whatever it comes at us with, don't we turn to the Lord in petulance and defiance and say, "Hey, Buddy," (perhaps not so bluntly but this must be the effect) "weren't you supposed to take care of this problem? Haven't I been one of your friends? Aren't we simpatico? I'm keeping my part of the bargain : I'm going to Mass, I'm praying, I'm steering clear of Grave Sin X and Very Grave Sin Y and (most of the time) More-than-Semi-Grave Sin Z. Aren't you going to hold up your end? Aren't you going to make my life easier? Didn't You say, My yoke is easy and my burden is light?"
And so on, with such similar mockeries of God which we pray are burned up like so many dead leaves in the bonfire of his mercy.
Have we ever come to prayer accusing God, secretly, subconsciously, or even openly, of being a traitor to us?
I know I have. And how is this possible, when to ponder for longer than twenty seconds the smallest of his mercies to me, should send me to my knees in tears of gratitude ... but no ... I have a splinter of the Cross, one thorn of the mockery-crown, a milligram of the scorn that He called his glory ... and I complain endlessly and fiercely and unmanfully. And complain, and complain.
He forgave his enemies from the cross. And I never forget a slight.
He was silent before his judges. I am garrulous with self-justifications and excuses.
His touch brought healing and new life.
He helped all who came to him and believed in him.
His was a life of kenosis, of self-emptying, and of fervent prayer.
And he had not where to lay his head. And he called his death-pains his glory.
May the blood of Christ, shed on the cross for our redemption, silence those devils, and expel them from me, who dare to call God traitor and deceiver, even unconsciously, for whatever flimsy pretext or treasonable reason.
Isaiah 49
from today's Mass readings
Though I thought I had toiled in vain,
and for nothing, uselessly, spent my strength,
Yet my reward is with the Lord,
my recompense is with my God.
from today's Mass readings
Though I thought I had toiled in vain,
and for nothing, uselessly, spent my strength,
Yet my reward is with the Lord,
my recompense is with my God.
This is extremely bizarre
Went to edit my template just now, to move the dialy psalm-verse a wee bit closer to the top. And what do I find, but my old template. With the young Russian girl holding a candle, with Queen Latifah, with no psalm-verse at all on the template. Obviously, the current template is in someone's memory or you wouldn't be seeing the church of Spencer Abbey or St Patrick's stamp or the psalm-verse (scroll way down) ... but how can blogger-google-pyra-whatchamacallit properly display what I've put in, but when I go to edit ... provide me with data that a month or two out of date?
+ + + + + + + + + + + + + +
Here is today's psalm-verse
Thou wilt shew me the path of life: in thy presence is fulness of joy; at thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore.
Psalm 16:11 (KJV)
Went to edit my template just now, to move the dialy psalm-verse a wee bit closer to the top. And what do I find, but my old template. With the young Russian girl holding a candle, with Queen Latifah, with no psalm-verse at all on the template. Obviously, the current template is in someone's memory or you wouldn't be seeing the church of Spencer Abbey or St Patrick's stamp or the psalm-verse (scroll way down) ... but how can blogger-google-pyra-whatchamacallit properly display what I've put in, but when I go to edit ... provide me with data that a month or two out of date?
+ + + + + + + + + + + + + +
Here is today's psalm-verse
Thou wilt shew me the path of life: in thy presence is fulness of joy; at thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore.
Psalm 16:11 (KJV)
In parallel accordance
with instruction from a confessor about prayer, I may try to make the remainder of the Holy Week bloggings a bit more personal and informal, more direct, fewer quotations (although I'm sure they won't be absent!), fewer pilferings from the Magnificat booklet unless something really compels -- more relaxed conversation and shared reflection and things like the cordless phone and the second mug of coffee. More personabibble, less literary. More colloquial, less formal. See? I've already started being colloquial; I've used the word "colloquial." But you know what I mean.
And the confessor's advice about prayer certainly wasn't to relinquish the Psalms or the rosary, but to add five minutes or more to every day where such cor ad cor loquitur honest conversation with the blessed Lord takes place. Sound advice, that. Also the reminder that "God is not fragile"!!
So, we get up to heaven by being down to earth!
with instruction from a confessor about prayer, I may try to make the remainder of the Holy Week bloggings a bit more personal and informal, more direct, fewer quotations (although I'm sure they won't be absent!), fewer pilferings from the Magnificat booklet unless something really compels -- more relaxed conversation and shared reflection and things like the cordless phone and the second mug of coffee. More personabibble, less literary. More colloquial, less formal. See? I've already started being colloquial; I've used the word "colloquial." But you know what I mean.
And the confessor's advice about prayer certainly wasn't to relinquish the Psalms or the rosary, but to add five minutes or more to every day where such cor ad cor loquitur honest conversation with the blessed Lord takes place. Sound advice, that. Also the reminder that "God is not fragile"!!
So, we get up to heaven by being down to earth!
Am awake (sort of)
but can't think of what next to blog. So there's this little note, to make sure I let everyone know I'm awake.
This is just to say
that my brain
craves the caffeine
from the second
mug of coffee
which I started a
few minutes ago
in anticipation
of eventual
breakfast.
Forgive me, dear
friends. This
morning, I'm not
quite as alert
and perky as I
should be!
I may go off & read the Psalms in the Revised English Bible -- the translation is sometimes flat & faltering, but I find it less cacophonous than NAB. And, from a bibliophiliacal standpoint, the REB with Apocrypha is one of the most attractive books I own. And I got it second-hand, but scarcely thumbed -- it would seem -- by its previous owner.
Yesterday was, briefly, a Psalm 22/ 88/ 102 kind of day. But then, as if in answer to an unconsciously offered (Advent!) antiphon Rorate coeli desuper, the heavens rained a wee bit of grace upon the parched and weary land. Now that's the good kind of rain!
It vexes me a little that I don't know who or what Scoglietto is in the Oscar Wilde sonnet directly herebelow. A place? A painter of old? Maybe the former : it means "little rock" or "small crag."
I shall, as MacArthur said, return.
but can't think of what next to blog. So there's this little note, to make sure I let everyone know I'm awake.
This is just to say
that my brain
craves the caffeine
from the second
mug of coffee
which I started a
few minutes ago
in anticipation
of eventual
breakfast.
Forgive me, dear
friends. This
morning, I'm not
quite as alert
and perky as I
should be!
I may go off & read the Psalms in the Revised English Bible -- the translation is sometimes flat & faltering, but I find it less cacophonous than NAB. And, from a bibliophiliacal standpoint, the REB with Apocrypha is one of the most attractive books I own. And I got it second-hand, but scarcely thumbed -- it would seem -- by its previous owner.
Yesterday was, briefly, a Psalm 22/ 88/ 102 kind of day. But then, as if in answer to an unconsciously offered (Advent!) antiphon Rorate coeli desuper, the heavens rained a wee bit of grace upon the parched and weary land. Now that's the good kind of rain!
It vexes me a little that I don't know who or what Scoglietto is in the Oscar Wilde sonnet directly herebelow. A place? A painter of old? Maybe the former : it means "little rock" or "small crag."
I shall, as MacArthur said, return.
Monday, April 14, 2003
Sonnet
Written in Holy Week at Genoa
by Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)
I wandered through Scoglietto's far retreat,
The oranges on each o'erhanging spray
Burned as bright lamps of gold to shame the day;
Some startled birds with fluttering wings and fleet
Made snow of all the blossoms, at my feet
Like silver moons the pale narcissi lay :
And the curved waves that streaked the great green bay
Laughed i' the sun, and life seemed very sweet.
Outside the young boy-priest passed singing clear,
"Jesus the Son of Mary has been slain,
O come and fill his sepulchre with flowers."
Ah, God! Ah, God! Those dear Hellenic hours
Had drowned all memory of thy bitter pain,
The Cross, the Crown, the Soldiers and the Spear.
1881
Written in Holy Week at Genoa
by Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)
I wandered through Scoglietto's far retreat,
The oranges on each o'erhanging spray
Burned as bright lamps of gold to shame the day;
Some startled birds with fluttering wings and fleet
Made snow of all the blossoms, at my feet
Like silver moons the pale narcissi lay :
And the curved waves that streaked the great green bay
Laughed i' the sun, and life seemed very sweet.
Outside the young boy-priest passed singing clear,
"Jesus the Son of Mary has been slain,
O come and fill his sepulchre with flowers."
Ah, God! Ah, God! Those dear Hellenic hours
Had drowned all memory of thy bitter pain,
The Cross, the Crown, the Soldiers and the Spear.
1881
I haven't even read all of it yet
but from the initial few hundred words, it is the most necessary article ever written : A long look at Oscar Wilde's Catholicism, the years of pondering and (if you will) flirtation with Rome that laid the groundwork for his deathbed conversion. Via Don at Catholic Bookshelf.
but from the initial few hundred words, it is the most necessary article ever written : A long look at Oscar Wilde's Catholicism, the years of pondering and (if you will) flirtation with Rome that laid the groundwork for his deathbed conversion. Via Don at Catholic Bookshelf.
from The Wisdom of the English Mystics
ed. Robert Way (New Directions, 1978)
I.
William Blake wrote in his letters : The tree which moves some to tears of joy is in the eyes of others only a green thing that stands in the way.
II.
William Blake wrote in Jerusalem :
I rest not upon my great task
To open the Eternal Worlds, to open the immortal Eyes
Of man towards the World of Thought : into Eternity
Ever expanding in the Bosom of God, the Human Imagination.
O Saviour, pour upon me thy spirit of meekness and love,
Annihilate the Selfhood in me : be thou all my life.
V.
[unattributed]
Love is the true price of love.
ed. Robert Way (New Directions, 1978)
I.
William Blake wrote in his letters : The tree which moves some to tears of joy is in the eyes of others only a green thing that stands in the way.
II.
William Blake wrote in Jerusalem :
I rest not upon my great task
To open the Eternal Worlds, to open the immortal Eyes
Of man towards the World of Thought : into Eternity
Ever expanding in the Bosom of God, the Human Imagination.
O Saviour, pour upon me thy spirit of meekness and love,
Annihilate the Selfhood in me : be thou all my life.
V.
[unattributed]
Love is the true price of love.
Chiara Lubich
from today's Magnificat reflection
Christians are called to live their lives fully, to swim in the light, to plunge into a sea of crosses, and not to mope. Instead, all too frequently our life is listless, our mind is misty, our will indecisive. Why? Because educated in the ways of the world, we have become used to living as individuals. This is a contradiction of the Christian life.
Christ is love. The Christian cannot be anything else. Love generates communion. Communion is the foundation and the summit of the Christian life. [...] However, fraternal communion is not a static beatitude. It requires repeated conquests. [...]
from today's Magnificat reflection
Christians are called to live their lives fully, to swim in the light, to plunge into a sea of crosses, and not to mope. Instead, all too frequently our life is listless, our mind is misty, our will indecisive. Why? Because educated in the ways of the world, we have become used to living as individuals. This is a contradiction of the Christian life.
Christ is love. The Christian cannot be anything else. Love generates communion. Communion is the foundation and the summit of the Christian life. [...] However, fraternal communion is not a static beatitude. It requires repeated conquests. [...]
A silver trumpet muffled in silk
1904-2000
The phrase above is how Sir Alec Guinness described the voice of the late Sir John Gielgud, who would have been 99 today.
1904-2000
The phrase above is how Sir Alec Guinness described the voice of the late Sir John Gielgud, who would have been 99 today.
Gee, thanks!
Check out the droll explanatory paragraph for the No Spring Chicken webring (we note thereat the presence of one member of St Blog's Parish!).
Check out the droll explanatory paragraph for the No Spring Chicken webring (we note thereat the presence of one member of St Blog's Parish!).
Sunday, April 13, 2003
via g. minefield & o. house
You are drip coffee. You are practical, business-
like and hands-off, except for when your
'machine' needs 'servicing' and 'cleaning'.
What Kind of Coffee Are You?
brought to you by Quizilla
Exactly right. And I am grateful that there wasn't an indefinite article preceding "drip."
You are drip coffee. You are practical, business-
like and hands-off, except for when your
'machine' needs 'servicing' and 'cleaning'.
What Kind of Coffee Are You?
brought to you by Quizilla
Exactly right. And I am grateful that there wasn't an indefinite article preceding "drip."
Olivier Clément
I mentioned him below in connection with meditations written for the Via Crucis, but I should also like to recommend this particular book called Three Prayers. It is a book I must reacquire.
The three prayers are the Our Father, the O Heavenly King (to the Holy Spirit), and the prayer of St Ephrem.
I mentioned him below in connection with meditations written for the Via Crucis, but I should also like to recommend this particular book called Three Prayers. It is a book I must reacquire.
The three prayers are the Our Father, the O Heavenly King (to the Holy Spirit), and the prayer of St Ephrem.
John Derbyshire
on the Europeanness of Ireland. On the word "Republican" meaning something drastically different in Ireland than it does in the USA. And with an excellent Waugh quotation. I'm summarizing badly, but the Hibernian bloggers especially should read the whole thing, and possibly smile more than once.
on the Europeanness of Ireland. On the word "Republican" meaning something drastically different in Ireland than it does in the USA. And with an excellent Waugh quotation. I'm summarizing badly, but the Hibernian bloggers especially should read the whole thing, and possibly smile more than once.
Saturday, April 12, 2003
Action and contemplation
and cordless phones
This somewhat half-baked simile just struck me ... but it is amazing how much the human person is, in the theistic world-view, something akin to a cordless telephone.
Think of the cordless phone. It sometimes sits in the cradle, or whatever it's called, to be recharged. But it sits getting recharged with the expectation that it will be used, and perhaps used quite often!
Work and prayer. Will our work succeed if we don't get recharged -- sitting, receptive to the grace from above? Or will our connections be hampered by static? Similarly, can a cordless phone expect to sit idle day after day, week after week, without occasionally being used for the purposes of the caller?
Never quite thought of it this way before. And I don't quite know what made me think of it now! But we are all the cordless phones of the Lord; may our connections be free of static!
and cordless phones
This somewhat half-baked simile just struck me ... but it is amazing how much the human person is, in the theistic world-view, something akin to a cordless telephone.
Think of the cordless phone. It sometimes sits in the cradle, or whatever it's called, to be recharged. But it sits getting recharged with the expectation that it will be used, and perhaps used quite often!
Work and prayer. Will our work succeed if we don't get recharged -- sitting, receptive to the grace from above? Or will our connections be hampered by static? Similarly, can a cordless phone expect to sit idle day after day, week after week, without occasionally being used for the purposes of the caller?
Never quite thought of it this way before. And I don't quite know what made me think of it now! But we are all the cordless phones of the Lord; may our connections be free of static!
Rules for Good Living
a collaborative poem written in 1990 or 1991 by dylan and Deborah
dylan's lines in purple
Deborah's lines in the redder shade
Although, at six o'clock, I am not a
miracle of a thousand leaves,
nonetheless, my bridesmaids
coddle me, their plaything for a day.
"Apples!" exclaimed the holy voyeur
as he opened the fidgie-fater.
"Alas, my hamster Woozy bought no beer!
And the turpentine is full of turpitude."
April, that crummy ditz, skidded
on her skateboard into my sandbox. Then we
rolled onto my castle (O messy ecstasy!)
killing hundreds of tiny devil's chesspieces.
After the ceremony, bellies were glue
and the peaches hid behind the door.
[etc.]
+ + + + + + + + + +
Interstitial matter
Am just going to type a short paragraph (or two) here, as I think there should be some kind of buffer zone between the extreme frivolity of the anthem above, and the solemn meditation by the martyred monk below. Perhaps I may even remove the poem at a later date, but it does give some idea of where I was at, circa age 21.
I'm tempted, also, to discuss this morning's weather, but the weather remains, for the moment, undiscussable. There is a rumor that sun will emerge by early this afternoon.
a collaborative poem written in 1990 or 1991 by dylan and Deborah
dylan's lines in purple
Deborah's lines in the redder shade
Although, at six o'clock, I am not a
miracle of a thousand leaves,
nonetheless, my bridesmaids
coddle me, their plaything for a day.
"Apples!" exclaimed the holy voyeur
as he opened the fidgie-fater.
"Alas, my hamster Woozy bought no beer!
And the turpentine is full of turpitude."
April, that crummy ditz, skidded
on her skateboard into my sandbox. Then we
rolled onto my castle (O messy ecstasy!)
killing hundreds of tiny devil's chesspieces.
After the ceremony, bellies were glue
and the peaches hid behind the door.
[etc.]
+ + + + + + + + + +
Interstitial matter
Am just going to type a short paragraph (or two) here, as I think there should be some kind of buffer zone between the extreme frivolity of the anthem above, and the solemn meditation by the martyred monk below. Perhaps I may even remove the poem at a later date, but it does give some idea of where I was at, circa age 21.
I'm tempted, also, to discuss this morning's weather, but the weather remains, for the moment, undiscussable. There is a rumor that sun will emerge by early this afternoon.
Venerable Charles de Foucauld
allows our Blessed Lord to speak in this excerpt from today's Magnificat reflection
Like all poor people, I was exposed to scorn, and it was because in the eyes of the world I was a poor "Nazarene" that I was so persecuted and ill-treated during my public ministry -- that the first time I spoke in the synagogue at Nazareth they wanted to throw me down a cliff, while in Galilee they called me Beelzebub and in Judea devil and possessed. It was why they treated me as an imposter and traitor and killed me on gallows between two thieves. They took me for an ambitious nobody.
Be taken as what I was taken for, my child, unlearned, poor, of lowly birth, also for what you really are : unintelligent, untalented, and ungifted. Always look for the meanest tasks, but cultivate your mind. But do it secretly. Do not let the world know. I was infinitely wise, but no one knew it. [...] Be very unlearned in the eyes of men, and very learned in the knowledge of God at the foot of my tabernacle. [...]
allows our Blessed Lord to speak in this excerpt from today's Magnificat reflection
Like all poor people, I was exposed to scorn, and it was because in the eyes of the world I was a poor "Nazarene" that I was so persecuted and ill-treated during my public ministry -- that the first time I spoke in the synagogue at Nazareth they wanted to throw me down a cliff, while in Galilee they called me Beelzebub and in Judea devil and possessed. It was why they treated me as an imposter and traitor and killed me on gallows between two thieves. They took me for an ambitious nobody.
Be taken as what I was taken for, my child, unlearned, poor, of lowly birth, also for what you really are : unintelligent, untalented, and ungifted. Always look for the meanest tasks, but cultivate your mind. But do it secretly. Do not let the world know. I was infinitely wise, but no one knew it. [...] Be very unlearned in the eyes of men, and very learned in the knowledge of God at the foot of my tabernacle. [...]
Excerpts from The Roman Triptych
a recent sequence of poems by His Holiness John Paul II. Via Catholic Bookshelf.
a recent sequence of poems by His Holiness John Paul II. Via Catholic Bookshelf.
Friday, April 11, 2003
Friday five
via Fructus Ventris
1. What was the first band you saw in concert?
Simple Minds at the Wang Center, 1985.
2. Who is your favorite artist/band now?
To narrow it to just one? Tracy Chapman.
3. What's your favorite song?
Most Christmas carols are up there in the top 10. I like the way the Miserable Offenders sang "There's a wideness in God's mercy." I like No Doubt's "Hey, Baby."
4. If you could play any instrument, what would it be?
Guitar, piano.
5. If you could meet any musical icon (past or present), who would it be and why?
Maybe Sir Paul McCartney. Just to say hello.
via Fructus Ventris
1. What was the first band you saw in concert?
Simple Minds at the Wang Center, 1985.
2. Who is your favorite artist/band now?
To narrow it to just one? Tracy Chapman.
3. What's your favorite song?
Most Christmas carols are up there in the top 10. I like the way the Miserable Offenders sang "There's a wideness in God's mercy." I like No Doubt's "Hey, Baby."
4. If you could play any instrument, what would it be?
Guitar, piano.
5. If you could meet any musical icon (past or present), who would it be and why?
Maybe Sir Paul McCartney. Just to say hello.
Sorry!
I've removed the St Patrick icon that was here, because the text of the blog would always "break up" after that point, and if it continues to act weird after changing it in this wise I'll remove the post altogether.
Also, via this Orthodox website in England ... an excuse for an article on priestly celibacy in Roman Catholicism, in which the nameless (and somethingelseless) author attempts to connect celibacy to the scandal of actual and alleged sexual abuse of minors. We don't blame alcohol-related car crashes on laws that prohibit drunk driving.
Odd rhetoric in this article about the scandals being the fruit of 900 years of Roman error.
I've removed the St Patrick icon that was here, because the text of the blog would always "break up" after that point, and if it continues to act weird after changing it in this wise I'll remove the post altogether.
Also, via this Orthodox website in England ... an excuse for an article on priestly celibacy in Roman Catholicism, in which the nameless (and somethingelseless) author attempts to connect celibacy to the scandal of actual and alleged sexual abuse of minors. We don't blame alcohol-related car crashes on laws that prohibit drunk driving.
Odd rhetoric in this article about the scandals being the fruit of 900 years of Roman error.
Five years ago
when he walked and prayed the Via Crucis, the Holy Father employed meditations written by the Orthodox theologian Olivier Clément. I have often wondered whether these meditations were ever published in book form.
No matter. Here they are in French. And here, in Italian.
Should I work on an English translation?
when he walked and prayed the Via Crucis, the Holy Father employed meditations written by the Orthodox theologian Olivier Clément. I have often wondered whether these meditations were ever published in book form.
No matter. Here they are in French. And here, in Italian.
Should I work on an English translation?
Louis Lavelle
from today's Magnificat reflection
No one realizes his life alone, but only through the mediation of others. I need the reassurance and the help of friends, but I need men's hatred, too. It tests me, forces me to become aware of my limitations, to grow, to perform a work of ceaseless self-purification; it makes me more faithful to myself, protects me from all temptations to take the easy way to "success"; it compels me to fall back on what is deepest, most secret, and most spiritual in me, where those who hate me are powerless to hurt, where they meet no object into which to fix their claws, and nothing they can destroy. [...]
from today's Magnificat reflection
No one realizes his life alone, but only through the mediation of others. I need the reassurance and the help of friends, but I need men's hatred, too. It tests me, forces me to become aware of my limitations, to grow, to perform a work of ceaseless self-purification; it makes me more faithful to myself, protects me from all temptations to take the easy way to "success"; it compels me to fall back on what is deepest, most secret, and most spiritual in me, where those who hate me are powerless to hurt, where they meet no object into which to fix their claws, and nothing they can destroy. [...]
A prayer to the Most Holy Mother of God
O my most holy Lady, the Mother of God, by thy holy and all-powerful prayers remove from me, thy humble and burdened servant, despair, forgetfulness, lack of understanding, and negligence, and take away all unclean, crafty, and blameworthy thoughts from my smitten heart, and from my darkened mind; quench the flame of my passions, for I am poor and lost; deliver me from many cruel recollections and undertakings, and set me free from all evil actions; for thou art blessed of all generations, and thy most honourable name is glorified unto the ages of ages. Amen.
Via A Manual of Eastern Orthodox Prayers (SVS Press, 1983, 1999), p. 8.
O my most holy Lady, the Mother of God, by thy holy and all-powerful prayers remove from me, thy humble and burdened servant, despair, forgetfulness, lack of understanding, and negligence, and take away all unclean, crafty, and blameworthy thoughts from my smitten heart, and from my darkened mind; quench the flame of my passions, for I am poor and lost; deliver me from many cruel recollections and undertakings, and set me free from all evil actions; for thou art blessed of all generations, and thy most honourable name is glorified unto the ages of ages. Amen.
Via A Manual of Eastern Orthodox Prayers (SVS Press, 1983, 1999), p. 8.
Thursday, April 10, 2003
There's Greek Orthodoxy, and Russian Orthodoxy
and Serbian Orthodoxy, and the OCA, and Antioch, and the Ecumenical Patriarchate.
There is also Celtic Orthodoxy.
Found while looking for the Lorica, which is on their site.
and Serbian Orthodoxy, and the OCA, and Antioch, and the Ecumenical Patriarchate.
There is also Celtic Orthodoxy.
Found while looking for the Lorica, which is on their site.
St Patrick
and yes, I know it's April 10, and not March 17 !!
Breastplate : The Lorica, or Deer's Cry
I arise today
Through a mighty strength, the invocation of the Trinity,
Through a belief in the Threeness,
Through confession of the Oneness
Of the Creator of creation.
I arise today
Through the strength of Christ's birth and His baptism,
Through the strength of His crucifixion and His burial,
Through the strength of His resurrection and His ascension,
Through the strength of His descent for the judgment of doom.
I arise today
Through the strength of the love of cherubim,
In obedience of angels,
In service of archangels,
In the hope of resurrection to meet with reward,
In the prayers of patriarchs,
In preachings of the apostles,
In faiths of confessors,
In innocence of virgins,
In deeds of righteous men.
I arise today
Through the strength of heaven;
Light of the sun,
Splendor of fire,
Speed of lightning,
Swiftness of the wind,
Depth of the sea,
Stability of the earth,
Firmness of the rock.
I arise today
Through God's strength to pilot me;
God's might to uphold me,
God's wisdom to guide me,
God's eye to look before me,
God's ear to hear me,
God's word to speak for me,
God's hand to guard me,
God's way to lie before me,
God's shield to protect me,
God's hosts to save me
From snares of the devil,
From temptations of vices,
From every one who desires me ill,
Afar and anear,
Alone or in a mulitude.
I summon today all these powers between me and evil,
Against every cruel merciless power that opposes my body and soul,
Against incantations of false prophets,
Against black laws of pagandom,
Against false laws of heretics,
Against craft of idolatry,
Against spells of women and smiths and wizards,
Against every knowledge that corrupts man's body and soul.
Christ shield me today
Against poison, against burning,
Against drowning, against wounding,
So that reward may come to me in abundance.
Christ with me, Christ before me, Christ behind me,
Christ in me, Christ beneath me, Christ above me,
Christ on my right, Christ on my left,
Christ when I lie down, Christ when I sit down,
Christ in the heart of every man who thinks of me,
Christ in the mouth of every man who speaks of me,
Christ in the eye that sees me,
Christ in the ear that hears me.
I arise today
Through a mighty strength, the invocation of the Trinity,
Through a belief in the Threeness,
Through a confession of the Oneness
Of the Creator of creation.
and yes, I know it's April 10, and not March 17 !!
Breastplate : The Lorica, or Deer's Cry
I arise today
Through a mighty strength, the invocation of the Trinity,
Through a belief in the Threeness,
Through confession of the Oneness
Of the Creator of creation.
I arise today
Through the strength of Christ's birth and His baptism,
Through the strength of His crucifixion and His burial,
Through the strength of His resurrection and His ascension,
Through the strength of His descent for the judgment of doom.
I arise today
Through the strength of the love of cherubim,
In obedience of angels,
In service of archangels,
In the hope of resurrection to meet with reward,
In the prayers of patriarchs,
In preachings of the apostles,
In faiths of confessors,
In innocence of virgins,
In deeds of righteous men.
I arise today
Through the strength of heaven;
Light of the sun,
Splendor of fire,
Speed of lightning,
Swiftness of the wind,
Depth of the sea,
Stability of the earth,
Firmness of the rock.
I arise today
Through God's strength to pilot me;
God's might to uphold me,
God's wisdom to guide me,
God's eye to look before me,
God's ear to hear me,
God's word to speak for me,
God's hand to guard me,
God's way to lie before me,
God's shield to protect me,
God's hosts to save me
From snares of the devil,
From temptations of vices,
From every one who desires me ill,
Afar and anear,
Alone or in a mulitude.
I summon today all these powers between me and evil,
Against every cruel merciless power that opposes my body and soul,
Against incantations of false prophets,
Against black laws of pagandom,
Against false laws of heretics,
Against craft of idolatry,
Against spells of women and smiths and wizards,
Against every knowledge that corrupts man's body and soul.
Christ shield me today
Against poison, against burning,
Against drowning, against wounding,
So that reward may come to me in abundance.
Christ with me, Christ before me, Christ behind me,
Christ in me, Christ beneath me, Christ above me,
Christ on my right, Christ on my left,
Christ when I lie down, Christ when I sit down,
Christ in the heart of every man who thinks of me,
Christ in the mouth of every man who speaks of me,
Christ in the eye that sees me,
Christ in the ear that hears me.
I arise today
Through a mighty strength, the invocation of the Trinity,
Through a belief in the Threeness,
Through a confession of the Oneness
Of the Creator of creation.
have changed the title
of my poem "untitled 25 XI 2000" to "bridgewater canticle" as many of the phrases came to me during a post-thanksgiving rail commute from bridgewater to boston -- some relatives live near there --
of my poem "untitled 25 XI 2000" to "bridgewater canticle" as many of the phrases came to me during a post-thanksgiving rail commute from bridgewater to boston -- some relatives live near there --
Saint Faustina Kowalska
I began reading her Divine Mercy diary on page 77 because I was arrested and implicated by the following sentence :
Suffering seemed to spring out of the ground.
The contrast, unintended, between "suffering" and the seasonal resonance of "spring" ... as if suffering were in bloom, like a flower! This kind of language has always scared me, but for some reason, that sentence seemed the most fitting place to begin the diary.
I began reading her Divine Mercy diary on page 77 because I was arrested and implicated by the following sentence :
Suffering seemed to spring out of the ground.
The contrast, unintended, between "suffering" and the seasonal resonance of "spring" ... as if suffering were in bloom, like a flower! This kind of language has always scared me, but for some reason, that sentence seemed the most fitting place to begin the diary.
Concluding prayers for the Mysteries of Light
via the May 2003 Magnificat, pp. 17-18.
Baptism in the Jordan
Jesus taking leave of Mary, you accepted John's baptism so that the waters of this world might be made holy for the sacrament of our rebirth. Teach us to recognize the full and complete dignity of the new natures that we receive in baptism, and to live as obedient children of your heavenly Father.
Wedding at Cana
Jesus listening to Mary, you fulfilled the wish of your Mother at a wedding feast and transformed marriage into a covenant of divine love, making families living images of the love that you as God share with the Father and the Holy Spirit. Teach us to live the mystery of our transformation and make us obedient sons and daughters of the Lord who created heaven and earth.
Preaching of the Kingdom
Jesus united with Mary, you revealed to your disciples the mystery of the Godhead and promised the grace of conversion to all who hear and keep the Word of God. Teach us to recognize the Pope, bishops, and our pastors as the legitimate bearers of the authority by which you call every human being to dwell in the one communion of divine friendship.
Transfiguration
Jesus apart from Mary, you, with a blinding light, manifested in your perfect humanity the power of divine grace that transforms every part of our frail human natures. Teach us to embrace the mystery of your luminous presence, so that we who dwell in your brightness may never succumb to the darkness of mortal sin.
Institution of the Eucharist
Jesus, Son of Mary, you handed over to your disciples, in an action that surpasses human understanding, the gift of yourself under the appearances of bread and wine, and you have established an order of priests to ensure that this mystery remain until you come again in glory. Teach us to love the gift and mystery of the priesthood and to encourage young men to answer the vocation that you yourself implant in their hearts.
via the May 2003 Magnificat, pp. 17-18.
Baptism in the Jordan
Jesus taking leave of Mary, you accepted John's baptism so that the waters of this world might be made holy for the sacrament of our rebirth. Teach us to recognize the full and complete dignity of the new natures that we receive in baptism, and to live as obedient children of your heavenly Father.
Wedding at Cana
Jesus listening to Mary, you fulfilled the wish of your Mother at a wedding feast and transformed marriage into a covenant of divine love, making families living images of the love that you as God share with the Father and the Holy Spirit. Teach us to live the mystery of our transformation and make us obedient sons and daughters of the Lord who created heaven and earth.
Preaching of the Kingdom
Jesus united with Mary, you revealed to your disciples the mystery of the Godhead and promised the grace of conversion to all who hear and keep the Word of God. Teach us to recognize the Pope, bishops, and our pastors as the legitimate bearers of the authority by which you call every human being to dwell in the one communion of divine friendship.
Transfiguration
Jesus apart from Mary, you, with a blinding light, manifested in your perfect humanity the power of divine grace that transforms every part of our frail human natures. Teach us to embrace the mystery of your luminous presence, so that we who dwell in your brightness may never succumb to the darkness of mortal sin.
Institution of the Eucharist
Jesus, Son of Mary, you handed over to your disciples, in an action that surpasses human understanding, the gift of yourself under the appearances of bread and wine, and you have established an order of priests to ensure that this mystery remain until you come again in glory. Teach us to love the gift and mystery of the priesthood and to encourage young men to answer the vocation that you yourself implant in their hearts.
Ven. John Henry Cardinal Newman
from today's Magnificat reflection
Our duty lies in risking upon Christ's word what we have, for what we have not; and doing so in a noble, generous way, not indeed rashly or lightly, still without knowing accuraely what we are doing, not knowing either what we give up, nor again what we shall gain; uncertain about our reward, uncertain about our extent of sacrifice, in all respects leaning, waiting upon him, trustin gin him to fulfill his promise, trusting in him to enable us to fulfill our own vows, and so in all respects proceeding without carefulness or anxiety about the future.
[...] there are those who in their secret hearts, if not in open avowal, will draw back. Men allow us ministers of Christ to proceed in our preaching, while we confine ourselves to general truths, until they see that they themselves are implicated in them, and have to act upon them; and then they suddenly come to a stand; they collect themselves and draw back, and say, "They do not see this -- or do not admit that" -- and though they are quite unable to say why that should not follow from what they already allow, which we show must follow, still they persist in saying that they do not see that it does follow; and they look about for excuses, and they [...] are sure to say we carry things too far, when we carry them home to themselves.
This sad infirmity of men, called Christians, is exemplified in the subject immediately before us. Who does not at once admit that faith consists in venturing upon Christ's word without seeing? Yet in spite of this, may it not be seriously questioned, whether men in general, even those of the better sort, venture anything upon his truth at all?
from today's Magnificat reflection
Our duty lies in risking upon Christ's word what we have, for what we have not; and doing so in a noble, generous way, not indeed rashly or lightly, still without knowing accuraely what we are doing, not knowing either what we give up, nor again what we shall gain; uncertain about our reward, uncertain about our extent of sacrifice, in all respects leaning, waiting upon him, trustin gin him to fulfill his promise, trusting in him to enable us to fulfill our own vows, and so in all respects proceeding without carefulness or anxiety about the future.
[...] there are those who in their secret hearts, if not in open avowal, will draw back. Men allow us ministers of Christ to proceed in our preaching, while we confine ourselves to general truths, until they see that they themselves are implicated in them, and have to act upon them; and then they suddenly come to a stand; they collect themselves and draw back, and say, "They do not see this -- or do not admit that" -- and though they are quite unable to say why that should not follow from what they already allow, which we show must follow, still they persist in saying that they do not see that it does follow; and they look about for excuses, and they [...] are sure to say we carry things too far, when we carry them home to themselves.
This sad infirmity of men, called Christians, is exemplified in the subject immediately before us. Who does not at once admit that faith consists in venturing upon Christ's word without seeing? Yet in spite of this, may it not be seriously questioned, whether men in general, even those of the better sort, venture anything upon his truth at all?
Wednesday, April 09, 2003
When being tired is the only prayer
My eyes are open and want to be closed. My brain is tired. It's raining outside. My lower back is snoring. I lie down and begin to snore, and wake myself up thereby. Too tired to read, I pray for friends both far and near. It is dry inside. I pray for those outside. God is above, beside, within. He is the preserver of our words and the refiner of our silences. I do not speak to him, but wordlessly let him take this day -- thus far -- and this exact point in time, of damp that wishes to be dry, of cold that wishes to be warm. Do I wish myself more awake, or less spent? It is good to be tired, even exhausted. It is good to have survived the day's minor pains, to have been cheerful (or was I?) in vexation. And now a space of time to rest. It is fitting, meet and just.
My eyes are open and want to be closed. My brain is tired. It's raining outside. My lower back is snoring. I lie down and begin to snore, and wake myself up thereby. Too tired to read, I pray for friends both far and near. It is dry inside. I pray for those outside. God is above, beside, within. He is the preserver of our words and the refiner of our silences. I do not speak to him, but wordlessly let him take this day -- thus far -- and this exact point in time, of damp that wishes to be dry, of cold that wishes to be warm. Do I wish myself more awake, or less spent? It is good to be tired, even exhausted. It is good to have survived the day's minor pains, to have been cheerful (or was I?) in vexation. And now a space of time to rest. It is fitting, meet and just.
ideally,
a human being who fulfills his true capacity, his by nature -- with all of his will for life, his affection for the real -- ought to be at the mercy of, hanging on moment by moment to, this unreachable, indecipherable, ineffable, absolute Unknown. How does this unknown reveal its will to the human being? How does it communicate its intelligent plan that guarantees the meaning of everything? It speaks through apparently fortuitous circumstances, the banal conditions that determine the human being's every instant.
What a paradox! In order to follow the absolute light of meaning, one would have to be obedient, like one navigating in dense fog, moment by moment, obeying the very thing that is most apparently irrational, that is to say, absurdly shifting circumstances, subject to the wind of time.
One needs great courage ... The human being cannot live five minutes without affirming in some way some ultimate "something" that makes those five minutes worth living.
Msgr Luigi Giussani, from today's Magnificat reflection
a human being who fulfills his true capacity, his by nature -- with all of his will for life, his affection for the real -- ought to be at the mercy of, hanging on moment by moment to, this unreachable, indecipherable, ineffable, absolute Unknown. How does this unknown reveal its will to the human being? How does it communicate its intelligent plan that guarantees the meaning of everything? It speaks through apparently fortuitous circumstances, the banal conditions that determine the human being's every instant.
What a paradox! In order to follow the absolute light of meaning, one would have to be obedient, like one navigating in dense fog, moment by moment, obeying the very thing that is most apparently irrational, that is to say, absurdly shifting circumstances, subject to the wind of time.
One needs great courage ... The human being cannot live five minutes without affirming in some way some ultimate "something" that makes those five minutes worth living.
Msgr Luigi Giussani, from today's Magnificat reflection
Dorothy (Walker ((Thomas (((Flannery O'Connor))) Merton)) Percy) Day
Book about the four is out. Briefish article in Time about the book. Via the blog of Gerard Serafin.
Book about the four is out. Briefish article in Time about the book. Via the blog of Gerard Serafin.
Andrew Sullivan
rather recently
has dissed someone in thus wise :
Only in the cocoon of 43rd Street could such a writer, who gets everything wrong, contradicts himself from day to day, and writes in prose worthy of Anne Lamott could still get front-page play day after day.
"In prose worthy of Anne Lamott." Bravo !!
rather recently
has dissed someone in thus wise :
Only in the cocoon of 43rd Street could such a writer, who gets everything wrong, contradicts himself from day to day, and writes in prose worthy of Anne Lamott could still get front-page play day after day.
"In prose worthy of Anne Lamott." Bravo !!
From the Oremus Hymnal
Online version of the Episcopal 1982 Hymnal
There's a wideness in God's mercy
like the wideness of the sea;
there's a kindness in his justice,
which is more than liberty.
There is welcome for the sinner,
and more graces for the good;
there is mercy with the Savior;
there is healing in his blood.
There is no place where earth's sorrows
are more felt than up in heaven;
there is no place where earth's failings
have such kindly judgment given.
There is plentiful redemption
in the blood that has been shed;
there is joy for all the members
in the sorrows of the Head.
For the love of God is broader
than the measure of the mind;
and the heart of the Eternal
is most wonderfully kind.
If our love were but more faithful,
we should take him at his word;
and our life would be thanks-giving
for the goodness of the Lord.
-- Fr Frederick W. Faber, alt.
Online version of the Episcopal 1982 Hymnal
There's a wideness in God's mercy
like the wideness of the sea;
there's a kindness in his justice,
which is more than liberty.
There is welcome for the sinner,
and more graces for the good;
there is mercy with the Savior;
there is healing in his blood.
There is no place where earth's sorrows
are more felt than up in heaven;
there is no place where earth's failings
have such kindly judgment given.
There is plentiful redemption
in the blood that has been shed;
there is joy for all the members
in the sorrows of the Head.
For the love of God is broader
than the measure of the mind;
and the heart of the Eternal
is most wonderfully kind.
If our love were but more faithful,
we should take him at his word;
and our life would be thanks-giving
for the goodness of the Lord.
-- Fr Frederick W. Faber, alt.
Pepys's headache
with reference to amateur philology
Very calm again, and I pretty well, but my head aked all day.
That, from the recentest entry of Pepys's diary for 1660. We are concerned here with the spelling of "ake." Not merely a matter of the labile orthography one finds in an epoch prior to standardized spelling.
I remember reading excerpts of Passages, the long Cantos-like poem by the late Robert Duncan (1919-1988) in which the poet informed his readers that "ake" was the verb and "ache" was the noun. Originally. And he proffered the following pairs as parallels : wake, watch; bake, batch; make, match. Perhaps "ache" as a noun was pronounced or even spelled "atch"?
Not tonight, dear : I have a head-atch?
Or is there a verb "skrake" to go with "scratch"? Are "lock" and "latch" relatives? What of "take" and "touch"? Did "smoke" become "smotch" become "smutch" become "smudge"?
Just wondering -- or, to tell more truly, just wandering.
Drink, drench !! Or, for flagrant fragrances : stink, stench.
with reference to amateur philology
Very calm again, and I pretty well, but my head aked all day.
That, from the recentest entry of Pepys's diary for 1660. We are concerned here with the spelling of "ake." Not merely a matter of the labile orthography one finds in an epoch prior to standardized spelling.
I remember reading excerpts of Passages, the long Cantos-like poem by the late Robert Duncan (1919-1988) in which the poet informed his readers that "ake" was the verb and "ache" was the noun. Originally. And he proffered the following pairs as parallels : wake, watch; bake, batch; make, match. Perhaps "ache" as a noun was pronounced or even spelled "atch"?
Not tonight, dear : I have a head-atch?
Or is there a verb "skrake" to go with "scratch"? Are "lock" and "latch" relatives? What of "take" and "touch"? Did "smoke" become "smotch" become "smutch" become "smudge"?
Just wondering -- or, to tell more truly, just wandering.
Drink, drench !! Or, for flagrant fragrances : stink, stench.
Merton
from vol. 6 of the journals
from December 14, 1966
A man wrote an article in America on the vernacular liturgy. "If the Church wants to sweep the world like the Beatles ..." with this mentality, what can you expect? But I am afraid that is the trouble. The Church is conscious of being inferior now not only to the Communists but to four English kids with mops of hair (and I like them OK). More and more I see the importance of not mopping the world with the mops, Beatle or liturgical. I am glad to be marginal. The best thing I can do for the "world" is stay out of it -- in as far as one can.
*
from December 16, 1966
A grand dawn -- pre-dawn still -- the long dark line of hills, the varieties of red and dark and purple in the sky, the chalk streak of a gone jet about the black trees, the lights, there in the farm building through the screen of bare oaks ... grass underfoot slipping with unseen frost. I have become so used to the splendor of morning that I remain with my nose in books and don't go to look at it. Same with stars. Yet last night the Swan was plunging down into the west through my high pines and when I got up Cassiopeia was swinging down into the north, the Great Bear over against her in the north east. The Lion sweeping up overhead out of the Southeast, and Arcturus out there over the dark oak wood at the top of the long field.
Made more coffee.
*
from December 28, 1966
Flavian's hermitage doesn't look as if it were lived in. Seems empty, uninhabited -- one hardly knows if he has not yet moved in or if he is moving out. Yet he has been there since August. Two outsize ugly crucifixes -- both slightly hideous in fact. A shower without water in which he stores things. Practically no furniture. No visible book. He was talking of a kind of prayer life in which there was practically no reading, only rosary and psalms.
T. Merton, Learning to Love (HarperSanFrancisco, 1997), pp. 169, 171, 174.
from vol. 6 of the journals
from December 14, 1966
A man wrote an article in America on the vernacular liturgy. "If the Church wants to sweep the world like the Beatles ..." with this mentality, what can you expect? But I am afraid that is the trouble. The Church is conscious of being inferior now not only to the Communists but to four English kids with mops of hair (and I like them OK). More and more I see the importance of not mopping the world with the mops, Beatle or liturgical. I am glad to be marginal. The best thing I can do for the "world" is stay out of it -- in as far as one can.
*
from December 16, 1966
A grand dawn -- pre-dawn still -- the long dark line of hills, the varieties of red and dark and purple in the sky, the chalk streak of a gone jet about the black trees, the lights, there in the farm building through the screen of bare oaks ... grass underfoot slipping with unseen frost. I have become so used to the splendor of morning that I remain with my nose in books and don't go to look at it. Same with stars. Yet last night the Swan was plunging down into the west through my high pines and when I got up Cassiopeia was swinging down into the north, the Great Bear over against her in the north east. The Lion sweeping up overhead out of the Southeast, and Arcturus out there over the dark oak wood at the top of the long field.
Made more coffee.
*
from December 28, 1966
Flavian's hermitage doesn't look as if it were lived in. Seems empty, uninhabited -- one hardly knows if he has not yet moved in or if he is moving out. Yet he has been there since August. Two outsize ugly crucifixes -- both slightly hideous in fact. A shower without water in which he stores things. Practically no furniture. No visible book. He was talking of a kind of prayer life in which there was practically no reading, only rosary and psalms.
T. Merton, Learning to Love (HarperSanFrancisco, 1997), pp. 169, 171, 174.
Tuesday, April 08, 2003
Saint Faustina Kowalska
Prayer. -- A soul arms itself by prayer for all kinds of combat. In whatever state the soul may be, it ought to pray. A soul which is pure and beautiful must pray, or else it will lose its beauty; a soul which is striving after this purity must pray, or else it will never attain it; a soul which is newly converted must pray, or else it will fall again; a sinful soul, plunged in sins, must pray so that it might rise again. There is no soul which is not bound to pray, for every single grace comes to the soul through prayer.
From Divine Mercy in My Soul : Diary of [Saint] Faustina Kowalska (Marian Press, 1987), pp. 81-2.
Prayer. -- A soul arms itself by prayer for all kinds of combat. In whatever state the soul may be, it ought to pray. A soul which is pure and beautiful must pray, or else it will lose its beauty; a soul which is striving after this purity must pray, or else it will never attain it; a soul which is newly converted must pray, or else it will fall again; a sinful soul, plunged in sins, must pray so that it might rise again. There is no soul which is not bound to pray, for every single grace comes to the soul through prayer.
From Divine Mercy in My Soul : Diary of [Saint] Faustina Kowalska (Marian Press, 1987), pp. 81-2.
From today's Magnificat reflection
We are the people of God who should bring the joy of salvation to everyone. With Baptism and the other sacraments, the world of our heart, our feelings, and our human story becomes cleansed and renewed. We are transformed from simple creatures to children of God!
It is an exceptional event : heaven comes down to earth to work the extraordinary in our hearts. This gift is so unique that we can't keep it to ourselves. We have to announce it!
Too many people still do not know that there is a Savior, who came in our midst to bring us the Mercy and the Love of God. The world remains in darkness, troubled and enslaved by fear, because we Christians are living for empty idols. [...] We who have a vocation, in which there is a close rapport with God, get stuck in the mud of the world's selfishness. Called to the high peaks of a proclamation that liberates, we let ourselves be chained by the superficialities of life.
This is the daily experience that my eyes are contemplating, my hands are touching, and my ears are hearing : the dead are raised, prisoners are freed, and the blind see.
Sister Elvira Petrozzi
We are the people of God who should bring the joy of salvation to everyone. With Baptism and the other sacraments, the world of our heart, our feelings, and our human story becomes cleansed and renewed. We are transformed from simple creatures to children of God!
It is an exceptional event : heaven comes down to earth to work the extraordinary in our hearts. This gift is so unique that we can't keep it to ourselves. We have to announce it!
Too many people still do not know that there is a Savior, who came in our midst to bring us the Mercy and the Love of God. The world remains in darkness, troubled and enslaved by fear, because we Christians are living for empty idols. [...] We who have a vocation, in which there is a close rapport with God, get stuck in the mud of the world's selfishness. Called to the high peaks of a proclamation that liberates, we let ourselves be chained by the superficialities of life.
This is the daily experience that my eyes are contemplating, my hands are touching, and my ears are hearing : the dead are raised, prisoners are freed, and the blind see.
Sister Elvira Petrozzi
"In the marvelous phrase of Archbishop Timothy Dolan of Milwaukee, young people will give their lives for a mystery but not for a question mark."
Read "The Catholic Center" by Fr Neuhaus in the April First Things. In it, we are reminded that there is Catholic continuity (JP2, the Magisterium, Scripture & Tradition, two millennia of apostolic succession, etc.) and a bifurcate party of discontinuity (Lefebvre on the right, Garry Wills on the left). Long read, but it's Fr Neuhaus, and therefore a good read.
Via Gerard Serafin.
Read "The Catholic Center" by Fr Neuhaus in the April First Things. In it, we are reminded that there is Catholic continuity (JP2, the Magisterium, Scripture & Tradition, two millennia of apostolic succession, etc.) and a bifurcate party of discontinuity (Lefebvre on the right, Garry Wills on the left). Long read, but it's Fr Neuhaus, and therefore a good read.
Via Gerard Serafin.
This or that
via Oblique
1. Sexier (female) ... Pamela Anderson or Jennifer Garner? I confuse Jennifer G. with Jessica Alba, so the J-gals beat Pam, by several zillion millimeters or miles.
2. Sexier (male) ... Ben Affleck or Matt Damon? Ben looks like the oddest cross between Springsteen and Adam Sandler, so I'll go with Matt.
3. The better piano player ... Billy Joel or Elton John? We need both in our world.
4. Funnier ... David Letterman or Craig Kilborn? Pas de bloody contest : Dave. (Are you like me, kids? Do you fall asleep early? Still, at last glance ... DL.)
5. The dumber cartoon cat ... Stimpy (of Ren & Stimpy) or Tom (of Tom & Jerry)? Stimpy.
6. A better news anchor ... Tom Brokaw or Dan Rather? More of a mensch -- Bob Dole or Fidel Castro? Brokaw. And it ain't close.
7. A better TV chef ... Emeril Lagasse or Jacques Pepin? Emeril, for the exuberance, and for making "careful" rhyme with "raffle." But the Two Fat Ladies ruled. I miss Jennifer.
8. The trashier talk show host ... Maury Povich or Jerry Springer? Maury bores me stiff, and if you're boring, can you be all that trashy? So : Jerry.
9. The worse fast food burger joint ... McDonald's or Burger King? Dunno. Should I say, "We need both in our world"?
10. Of the following two, which one do you consider to be greater ... Franklin D. Roosevelt or Abraham Lincoln? Why? Lincoln wasn't no commie, and he freed the slaves. FDR tried expanding the Supremes to 15 to pack the high court with socialist clones of himself. Abe, to speak honestly, is greater. [Typed spoeak at a first go ... thought of leaving it that way to get a plug from nihil !!]
via Oblique
1. Sexier (female) ... Pamela Anderson or Jennifer Garner? I confuse Jennifer G. with Jessica Alba, so the J-gals beat Pam, by several zillion millimeters or miles.
2. Sexier (male) ... Ben Affleck or Matt Damon? Ben looks like the oddest cross between Springsteen and Adam Sandler, so I'll go with Matt.
3. The better piano player ... Billy Joel or Elton John? We need both in our world.
4. Funnier ... David Letterman or Craig Kilborn? Pas de bloody contest : Dave. (Are you like me, kids? Do you fall asleep early? Still, at last glance ... DL.)
5. The dumber cartoon cat ... Stimpy (of Ren & Stimpy) or Tom (of Tom & Jerry)? Stimpy.
6. A better news anchor ... Tom Brokaw or Dan Rather? More of a mensch -- Bob Dole or Fidel Castro? Brokaw. And it ain't close.
7. A better TV chef ... Emeril Lagasse or Jacques Pepin? Emeril, for the exuberance, and for making "careful" rhyme with "raffle." But the Two Fat Ladies ruled. I miss Jennifer.
8. The trashier talk show host ... Maury Povich or Jerry Springer? Maury bores me stiff, and if you're boring, can you be all that trashy? So : Jerry.
9. The worse fast food burger joint ... McDonald's or Burger King? Dunno. Should I say, "We need both in our world"?
10. Of the following two, which one do you consider to be greater ... Franklin D. Roosevelt or Abraham Lincoln? Why? Lincoln wasn't no commie, and he freed the slaves. FDR tried expanding the Supremes to 15 to pack the high court with socialist clones of himself. Abe, to speak honestly, is greater. [Typed spoeak at a first go ... thought of leaving it that way to get a plug from nihil !!]
Merton
from vol. 6 of the journals
from November 11, 1966. St Martin
Yesterday -- a very good letter from a young married woman in Cincinnati about my "Apology to an Unbeliever," which is in this month's Harper's. She appreciated it -- and says but she never "hears God." And what about it? I tried to answer her honestly without falling into seven deadly heresies -- and realized the complexity of the problem as I never have before. [...]
[...] So trusting in the Spirit whom I don't know and using words to say only as much as we are capable of seeing together at the moment, I try to speak to her as a Brother.
[...] If I do this, then in our honest rapport God himself speaks without anyone being aware (necessarily) of the fact. And I leave the rest to her.
*
from November 12, 1966
Eliot's essay "What Is a Classic?" is short, brilliant, and absurd. His definition of a Classic is solidly useful, and then he proceeds to make its use impossible except for a few choice spirits -- Virgil, Dante, Racine and for no one in English. Perpetual somersaults of logic in order to make sure that this title must be denied Milton precisely because he is such a genius, but also because he does not completely exhaust the possibilities of language -- etc.
*
from November 13, 1966
Today, for a certain type of person, to "listen" is to be in a position where hearing is impossible -- or deceptive. It is the wrong kind of listening : listening for a limited message, an objective sound, a sensible meaning. Actually, one decides one's life by responding to a word that is not well defined, easily explicable, safely accounted for. One decides to love in the face of an unaccountable void, and from the void comes an unaccountable truth. By this truth, one's existence is sustained in peace -- until the truth is too firmly grasped and too clearly accounted for. Then one is relying on words -- i.e., on his own understanding and his own ingenuity in interpreting existence and its "signs." Then one is lost -- has to be found again in the patient Void.
*
from November 16, 1966
Yesterday once again I was going over the whole situation. Should we remain apart? etc. There are moments when it seems utterly wrong to be without her. Yet I know too that, whatever reasonable arguments one might dream up for it, it would be utterly wrong to leave here and drop everything in order to marry her. Neither of us has the strength to stand the pressure this would involve. And we both know it. Yet we love and can't help loving in our own poor way.
Renewed purpose on my part. [...] In any case I know in my heart that my true call is to solitude with God, however much I may love her. She knows this too.
The objective fact of my vows, more than a juridical obligation. It has deep personal and spiritual roots. I cannot be true to myself if I am not true to so deep a commitment.
And yet I love her.
T. Merton, Learning to Love : Exploring Solitude and Freedom, ed. C. Bochen (HarperSanFrancisco, 1997), pp. 158-62, passim.
from vol. 6 of the journals
from November 11, 1966. St Martin
Yesterday -- a very good letter from a young married woman in Cincinnati about my "Apology to an Unbeliever," which is in this month's Harper's. She appreciated it -- and says but she never "hears God." And what about it? I tried to answer her honestly without falling into seven deadly heresies -- and realized the complexity of the problem as I never have before. [...]
[...] So trusting in the Spirit whom I don't know and using words to say only as much as we are capable of seeing together at the moment, I try to speak to her as a Brother.
[...] If I do this, then in our honest rapport God himself speaks without anyone being aware (necessarily) of the fact. And I leave the rest to her.
*
from November 12, 1966
Eliot's essay "What Is a Classic?" is short, brilliant, and absurd. His definition of a Classic is solidly useful, and then he proceeds to make its use impossible except for a few choice spirits -- Virgil, Dante, Racine and for no one in English. Perpetual somersaults of logic in order to make sure that this title must be denied Milton precisely because he is such a genius, but also because he does not completely exhaust the possibilities of language -- etc.
*
from November 13, 1966
Today, for a certain type of person, to "listen" is to be in a position where hearing is impossible -- or deceptive. It is the wrong kind of listening : listening for a limited message, an objective sound, a sensible meaning. Actually, one decides one's life by responding to a word that is not well defined, easily explicable, safely accounted for. One decides to love in the face of an unaccountable void, and from the void comes an unaccountable truth. By this truth, one's existence is sustained in peace -- until the truth is too firmly grasped and too clearly accounted for. Then one is relying on words -- i.e., on his own understanding and his own ingenuity in interpreting existence and its "signs." Then one is lost -- has to be found again in the patient Void.
*
from November 16, 1966
Yesterday once again I was going over the whole situation. Should we remain apart? etc. There are moments when it seems utterly wrong to be without her. Yet I know too that, whatever reasonable arguments one might dream up for it, it would be utterly wrong to leave here and drop everything in order to marry her. Neither of us has the strength to stand the pressure this would involve. And we both know it. Yet we love and can't help loving in our own poor way.
Renewed purpose on my part. [...] In any case I know in my heart that my true call is to solitude with God, however much I may love her. She knows this too.
The objective fact of my vows, more than a juridical obligation. It has deep personal and spiritual roots. I cannot be true to myself if I am not true to so deep a commitment.
And yet I love her.
T. Merton, Learning to Love : Exploring Solitude and Freedom, ed. C. Bochen (HarperSanFrancisco, 1997), pp. 158-62, passim.
The 2003 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry
goes to Paul Muldoon, born in Co. Armagh, resident in the USA since 1987.
I am, alas, unacquainted with his work. Will raid the library anon!
goes to Paul Muldoon, born in Co. Armagh, resident in the USA since 1987.
I am, alas, unacquainted with his work. Will raid the library anon!
Catherine Doherty writes : My thoughts today
go back 10 years -- to a trip to Montréal. I had the privilege of lecturing to our French Canadian brothers and sisters. Shortly before that, I had spent some time in Chicago, that sprawling city of the Midwest that is pulsating with life. I met a variety of people, talked to various groups, immersed myself ever deeper into the problems of humanity. When I returned to my little Canadian island I tried to sort out the ideas, the feelings, the impressions that I had accumulated during my travels.
Why did I find this sorting so painful? On the one hand, it lifted me up to great heights from which, a heart filled with gratitude, I thanked God. For I witnessed in those cities a new Pentecost. The Holy Spirit, the Wind that blows so freshly across our earth, was spreading his fire everywhere in the hearts of men, bidding them to renew this earth and restore it to God.
On the other hand, while sorting out my impressions, I plummeted into intolerable dark depths of pain, an excruciating pain of the spirit that left me bereft of any words with which to express it. Why did joy, pain, fear, gladness and sorrow weave this strange tapestry in my heart?
As I tried to think this out, an answer came : that I had been living, not in the eye of the hurricane, but in some strange "center" between the mystery of Iniquity and the mystery of Light and Love. It had been given to me, by the grace of God, to realize dimly -- but vividly and painfully -- that the battle between the mystery of Light and the mystery of Darkness was going on in the hearts of all men today in an explosive, intense form, perhaps in a form that has never, or seldom, been experienced by those who call themselves followers of Christ.
This battle is so intense in the hearts of Christians that it spills over, as it were, into the hearts of non-Christians. As a result of this inner battle between these two mysteries, the very existence of the world hangs in the balance.
It came to me also that this is the time when Christians must pray for one another and for the whole world as they have never prayed before. At times like this the fine line of the battle is indeed thin, and souls can tumble onto the wrong side of this battle line. Yes, it came to me that this is the time of fasting, prayer and the mortification of all for all.
On the priesthood
A priest to me is Christ wishing to be present in our midst in and through this man he has called to be his priest. It doesn't seem to affect me at all if priests are sinful or holy, or anything in between. I understand that they are men. But frankly, if I am in need of one of them and know that he is living a sinful life, I would still crawl to him to get absolution for my sins, or to receive Viaticum if I were in danger of death.
There came a day during the Russian revolution when there were no priests -- either Roman or Orthodox -- left in Petrograd. They had all been killed or were in prison. When there are no priests one realizes their value -- and it doesn't matter if they are in sin or not. I think it was then that I realized what a priest meant to me.
Catherine de Hueck Doherty, from the "Spring" section of I Live On an Island (Ave Maria Press, 1979), pp. 15-16, 18.
go back 10 years -- to a trip to Montréal. I had the privilege of lecturing to our French Canadian brothers and sisters. Shortly before that, I had spent some time in Chicago, that sprawling city of the Midwest that is pulsating with life. I met a variety of people, talked to various groups, immersed myself ever deeper into the problems of humanity. When I returned to my little Canadian island I tried to sort out the ideas, the feelings, the impressions that I had accumulated during my travels.
Why did I find this sorting so painful? On the one hand, it lifted me up to great heights from which, a heart filled with gratitude, I thanked God. For I witnessed in those cities a new Pentecost. The Holy Spirit, the Wind that blows so freshly across our earth, was spreading his fire everywhere in the hearts of men, bidding them to renew this earth and restore it to God.
On the other hand, while sorting out my impressions, I plummeted into intolerable dark depths of pain, an excruciating pain of the spirit that left me bereft of any words with which to express it. Why did joy, pain, fear, gladness and sorrow weave this strange tapestry in my heart?
As I tried to think this out, an answer came : that I had been living, not in the eye of the hurricane, but in some strange "center" between the mystery of Iniquity and the mystery of Light and Love. It had been given to me, by the grace of God, to realize dimly -- but vividly and painfully -- that the battle between the mystery of Light and the mystery of Darkness was going on in the hearts of all men today in an explosive, intense form, perhaps in a form that has never, or seldom, been experienced by those who call themselves followers of Christ.
This battle is so intense in the hearts of Christians that it spills over, as it were, into the hearts of non-Christians. As a result of this inner battle between these two mysteries, the very existence of the world hangs in the balance.
It came to me also that this is the time when Christians must pray for one another and for the whole world as they have never prayed before. At times like this the fine line of the battle is indeed thin, and souls can tumble onto the wrong side of this battle line. Yes, it came to me that this is the time of fasting, prayer and the mortification of all for all.
On the priesthood
A priest to me is Christ wishing to be present in our midst in and through this man he has called to be his priest. It doesn't seem to affect me at all if priests are sinful or holy, or anything in between. I understand that they are men. But frankly, if I am in need of one of them and know that he is living a sinful life, I would still crawl to him to get absolution for my sins, or to receive Viaticum if I were in danger of death.
There came a day during the Russian revolution when there were no priests -- either Roman or Orthodox -- left in Petrograd. They had all been killed or were in prison. When there are no priests one realizes their value -- and it doesn't matter if they are in sin or not. I think it was then that I realized what a priest meant to me.
Catherine de Hueck Doherty, from the "Spring" section of I Live On an Island (Ave Maria Press, 1979), pp. 15-16, 18.
Six months today
of blogging at this URL : a half-year of morelast
Offered in gratitude to the loyal readers, the occasional visitors, and those just dropping in :
*
In Evening Air
by Theodore Roethke (1908-63)
1
A dark theme keeps me here,
Though summer blazes in the vireo's eye.
Who would be half possessed
By his own nakedness?
Waking's my care --
I'll make a broken music, or I'll die.
2
Ye littles, lie more close!
Make me, O Lord, a last, a simple thing
Time cannot overwhelm.
Once I transcended time :
A bud broke to a rose,
And I rose from a last diminishing.
3
I look down the far light
And I behold the dark side of a tree
Far down a billowing plain,
And when I look again,
It's lost upon the night --
Night I embrace, a dear proximity.
4
I stand by a low fire
Counting the wisps of flame, and I watch how
Light shifts upon the wall.
I bid stillness be still.
I see, in evening air,
How slowly dark comes down on what we do.
*
estlin
#94 of 95 poems
being to timelessness as it's to time,
love did no more begin than love did end;
where nothing is to breathe to stroll to swim
love is the air the ocean and the land
(do lovers suffer?all divinities
proudly descending put on deathful flesh:
are lovers glad? only their smallest joy's
a universe emerging from a wish)
love is the voice under all silences,
the hope which has no opposite in fear;
the strength so strong mere force is feebleness:
the truth more first than sun more last than star
--do lovers love?why then,to heaven with hell.
Whatever sages say and fools,all's well
of blogging at this URL : a half-year of morelast
Offered in gratitude to the loyal readers, the occasional visitors, and those just dropping in :
*
In Evening Air
by Theodore Roethke (1908-63)
1
A dark theme keeps me here,
Though summer blazes in the vireo's eye.
Who would be half possessed
By his own nakedness?
Waking's my care --
I'll make a broken music, or I'll die.
2
Ye littles, lie more close!
Make me, O Lord, a last, a simple thing
Time cannot overwhelm.
Once I transcended time :
A bud broke to a rose,
And I rose from a last diminishing.
3
I look down the far light
And I behold the dark side of a tree
Far down a billowing plain,
And when I look again,
It's lost upon the night --
Night I embrace, a dear proximity.
4
I stand by a low fire
Counting the wisps of flame, and I watch how
Light shifts upon the wall.
I bid stillness be still.
I see, in evening air,
How slowly dark comes down on what we do.
*
estlin
#94 of 95 poems
being to timelessness as it's to time,
love did no more begin than love did end;
where nothing is to breathe to stroll to swim
love is the air the ocean and the land
(do lovers suffer?all divinities
proudly descending put on deathful flesh:
are lovers glad? only their smallest joy's
a universe emerging from a wish)
love is the voice under all silences,
the hope which has no opposite in fear;
the strength so strong mere force is feebleness:
the truth more first than sun more last than star
--do lovers love?why then,to heaven with hell.
Whatever sages say and fools,all's well
Monday, April 07, 2003
Christianity is Christ!
Dear young people, you know that Christianity is not an opinion nor does it consist of empty words. Christianity is Christ! It is a Person, a Living Person! to meet Jesus, to love him and make him loved : this is the Christian vocation. Mary was given to you to help you enter into a more authentic and personal relationship with Jesus. Through her example, Mary teaches you to gaze on him with love, for He has loved us first. Through her intercession, she forms in you a disciple's heart able to listen to her Son, who reveals the face of his Father and the true dignity of the human person.
5. On 16 October 2002 I proclaimed the "Year of the Rosary", and I invited all the children of the Church to make of this ancient Marian prayer a simple and profound exercise in contemplation of the face of Christ. To recite the Rosary means to learn to gaze on Jesus with his mother's eyes, and to love Jesus with his Mother's heart. Today, my dear young people, I am also, in spirit, handing you the Rosary beads. Through prayer and meditation on the mysteries, Mary leads you safely towards her Son! Do not be ashamed to recite the Rosary alone, while you walk along the streets to school, to the university or to work, or as you commute by public transport. Adopt the habit of reciting it among yourselves, in your groups, movements and associations. Do not hesitate to suggest that it be recited at home by your parents and brothers and sisters, because it rekindles and strengthens the bonds between family members. This prayer will help you to be strong in your faith, constant in charity, joyful and persevering in hope.
With Mary, the handmaiden of the Lord, you will discover the joy and fruitfulness of the hidden life. With her, disciple of the Master, you will follow Jesus along the streets of Palestine, becoming witnesses of his preaching and his miracles. With her, the sorrowful Mother, you will accompany Jesus in his passion and death. With her, Virgin of hope, you will welcome the festive Easter proclamation and the priceless gift of the Holy Spirit.
Pope John Paul II, from the Message for 18th World Youth Day, April 2003.
Dear young people, you know that Christianity is not an opinion nor does it consist of empty words. Christianity is Christ! It is a Person, a Living Person! to meet Jesus, to love him and make him loved : this is the Christian vocation. Mary was given to you to help you enter into a more authentic and personal relationship with Jesus. Through her example, Mary teaches you to gaze on him with love, for He has loved us first. Through her intercession, she forms in you a disciple's heart able to listen to her Son, who reveals the face of his Father and the true dignity of the human person.
5. On 16 October 2002 I proclaimed the "Year of the Rosary", and I invited all the children of the Church to make of this ancient Marian prayer a simple and profound exercise in contemplation of the face of Christ. To recite the Rosary means to learn to gaze on Jesus with his mother's eyes, and to love Jesus with his Mother's heart. Today, my dear young people, I am also, in spirit, handing you the Rosary beads. Through prayer and meditation on the mysteries, Mary leads you safely towards her Son! Do not be ashamed to recite the Rosary alone, while you walk along the streets to school, to the university or to work, or as you commute by public transport. Adopt the habit of reciting it among yourselves, in your groups, movements and associations. Do not hesitate to suggest that it be recited at home by your parents and brothers and sisters, because it rekindles and strengthens the bonds between family members. This prayer will help you to be strong in your faith, constant in charity, joyful and persevering in hope.
With Mary, the handmaiden of the Lord, you will discover the joy and fruitfulness of the hidden life. With her, disciple of the Master, you will follow Jesus along the streets of Palestine, becoming witnesses of his preaching and his miracles. With her, the sorrowful Mother, you will accompany Jesus in his passion and death. With her, Virgin of hope, you will welcome the festive Easter proclamation and the priceless gift of the Holy Spirit.
Pope John Paul II, from the Message for 18th World Youth Day, April 2003.
Jacques Fesch
from today's Magnificat reflection
This execution which frightens you, Mama, is nothing in comparison with what awaits sinners in the next world! It is not for me that you should weep, but for sins which offend God. As for me, I am happy. Jesus is calling me to himself, and great graces have been given me. If you could only taste for a single instant the sweetness of the transports of divine love! And could realize the absolute gravity of the slightest offense! God must come first, do not forget it. He calls you and believes in you. You are rich in his love. Many souls are linked with yours, and you will have an account to render.
You must go to Christ, without whom you can do nothing. If you seek him, you will find him, but you must seek him with all your heart. I'm always afraid that without realizing it you are seeking yourself rather than God. You are the handmaid of the Lord, therefore you owe him complete submission. The Lord is your inheritance, therefore you owe him thanks.
Above all, do not seek your own will, but his.
Jacques Fesch (+1957) was a murderer who experienced a profound conversion before his death by execution.
from today's Magnificat reflection
This execution which frightens you, Mama, is nothing in comparison with what awaits sinners in the next world! It is not for me that you should weep, but for sins which offend God. As for me, I am happy. Jesus is calling me to himself, and great graces have been given me. If you could only taste for a single instant the sweetness of the transports of divine love! And could realize the absolute gravity of the slightest offense! God must come first, do not forget it. He calls you and believes in you. You are rich in his love. Many souls are linked with yours, and you will have an account to render.
You must go to Christ, without whom you can do nothing. If you seek him, you will find him, but you must seek him with all your heart. I'm always afraid that without realizing it you are seeking yourself rather than God. You are the handmaid of the Lord, therefore you owe him complete submission. The Lord is your inheritance, therefore you owe him thanks.
Above all, do not seek your own will, but his.
Jacques Fesch (+1957) was a murderer who experienced a profound conversion before his death by execution.
Sunday, April 06, 2003
Credo ut intelligam
blogs in English and German an excerpt from the epic poem Anathemata by the 20th century English poet David Jones, praised by W. H. Auden. Particularly appropriate excerpt to the season, and we note echoes of Eliot and Chaucer in places.
blogs in English and German an excerpt from the epic poem Anathemata by the 20th century English poet David Jones, praised by W. H. Auden. Particularly appropriate excerpt to the season, and we note echoes of Eliot and Chaucer in places.
both plain and grand; both nobly simple and richly extravagant; both sensuous and pure
A review of what looks like a great book on the making of the King James Bible. Via Video mel.
A review of what looks like a great book on the making of the King James Bible. Via Video mel.
Via Dappled Things
An evangelical Protestant in Western Canada writes in praise of the Most Holy Rosary. Do read this one.
An evangelical Protestant in Western Canada writes in praise of the Most Holy Rosary. Do read this one.
With the azure regions above of nearly evangelical purity, and temperatures more characteristic of northern than southern New England, but tolerable, as we walk the uncharacteristically quiet streets and thoroughfares of the neighborhood, with the occasional white cloud smiling down ...
Let's get high
On the sky.
Let's get high
On the sky.
Psalms in Knox trans. vs. Psalms of 1928 BCP ??
I think old Miles Coverdale has the slight lead, and maybe even more than slight. As I compare (see the left margin) "show my dark speech upon the harp" to Knox's "reveal, with the harp's music, things of deep import" -- I say, with fullness of charity toward the ghost of Msgr Knox, that he mustn't begrudge me if I sneak back to the BCP from time to time !! Knox might be a tad clearer, but the music of the Coverdale is truly momentous and immortal.
But the Knox Bible is attractive in many respects, with the ego mater pulchræ dilectionis verse appearing at Ecclesiasticus 24:24, as it should. I may blog more of the Sapiential Books, the Song of Songs, Job, etc. But I think for future bloggings of psalms, I shall revert to "house usage" & employ the excellency of the tremendous '28 (which is, of course, a translation much older than 1928!).
I think old Miles Coverdale has the slight lead, and maybe even more than slight. As I compare (see the left margin) "show my dark speech upon the harp" to Knox's "reveal, with the harp's music, things of deep import" -- I say, with fullness of charity toward the ghost of Msgr Knox, that he mustn't begrudge me if I sneak back to the BCP from time to time !! Knox might be a tad clearer, but the music of the Coverdale is truly momentous and immortal.
But the Knox Bible is attractive in many respects, with the ego mater pulchræ dilectionis verse appearing at Ecclesiasticus 24:24, as it should. I may blog more of the Sapiential Books, the Song of Songs, Job, etc. But I think for future bloggings of psalms, I shall revert to "house usage" & employ the excellency of the tremendous '28 (which is, of course, a translation much older than 1928!).
A prayer to the Holy Spirit
O Heavenly King, O Comforter, the Spirit of Truth, who art everywhere and fillest all things, the treasure of blessings, and giver of life, come and abide in us. Cleanse us from all impurity, and of thy goodness save our souls.
Addendum
and Mr O'Rama kindly points us in the direction of a page of Byzantine/Eastern prayers where the above invocation, and several others, can be found.
O Heavenly King, O Comforter, the Spirit of Truth, who art everywhere and fillest all things, the treasure of blessings, and giver of life, come and abide in us. Cleanse us from all impurity, and of thy goodness save our souls.
Addendum
and Mr O'Rama kindly points us in the direction of a page of Byzantine/Eastern prayers where the above invocation, and several others, can be found.
Psalm 49 (Psalm 48 in Vulgate)
trans. Msgr Ronald Knox, who uses the Vulgate's numbering
Listen, you nations far and wide; let all the world give hearing, poor clods of earth, and men nobly born, for rich and poor the same lesson. Here are wise words, thoughts of a discerning heart; mine to overhear mysteries, and reveal, with the harp's music, things of deep import.
What need have I to be afraid in troubled times, when malice dogs my heels and overtakes me, malice of foes who trust in their own strength, and boast of their great possessions? No man can deliver himself from his human lot, paying a ransom-price to God; too great is the cost of a man's soul; never will the means be his to prolong his days eternally and escape death. True it is, wise men die; but reckless fools perish no less; their riches will go to others, and the grave will be their everlasting home. Age after age, they will live on there, under the fields they once called their own. Short is man's enjoyment of earthly goods; match him with the brute beasts, and he is no better than they.
Fatal path, that ensnares the reckless! Pitiful end of the men that love life! There they lie in the world beneath, huddled like sheep, with death for their shepherd, the just for their masters; soon, soon their image fades, the grave for its tenement. But my life God will rescue from the power of that lower darkness, a life that finds acceptance with him. Do not be disturbed, then, when a man grows rich, and there is no end to his household's magnificence; he cannot take all that with him when he dies, magnificence will not follow him to the grave. While life lasts, he calls himself happy : None but will envy my success; but soon he will be made one with the line of his fathers, never again to see the light. Short is man's careless enjoyment of earthly goods; match him with the brute beasts, and he is no better than they.
trans. Msgr Ronald Knox, who uses the Vulgate's numbering
Listen, you nations far and wide; let all the world give hearing, poor clods of earth, and men nobly born, for rich and poor the same lesson. Here are wise words, thoughts of a discerning heart; mine to overhear mysteries, and reveal, with the harp's music, things of deep import.
What need have I to be afraid in troubled times, when malice dogs my heels and overtakes me, malice of foes who trust in their own strength, and boast of their great possessions? No man can deliver himself from his human lot, paying a ransom-price to God; too great is the cost of a man's soul; never will the means be his to prolong his days eternally and escape death. True it is, wise men die; but reckless fools perish no less; their riches will go to others, and the grave will be their everlasting home. Age after age, they will live on there, under the fields they once called their own. Short is man's enjoyment of earthly goods; match him with the brute beasts, and he is no better than they.
Fatal path, that ensnares the reckless! Pitiful end of the men that love life! There they lie in the world beneath, huddled like sheep, with death for their shepherd, the just for their masters; soon, soon their image fades, the grave for its tenement. But my life God will rescue from the power of that lower darkness, a life that finds acceptance with him. Do not be disturbed, then, when a man grows rich, and there is no end to his household's magnificence; he cannot take all that with him when he dies, magnificence will not follow him to the grave. While life lasts, he calls himself happy : None but will envy my success; but soon he will be made one with the line of his fathers, never again to see the light. Short is man's careless enjoyment of earthly goods; match him with the brute beasts, and he is no better than they.
Mother Marie des Douleurs
from today's Magnificat reflection
There are people who, out of fear of suffering, would prefer not to think too much about our Lord crucified. But to avoid thinking of things in no way alters their reality; and those people who would like it if there were only the Incarnation and the entrance into eternal bliss, by falsifying things terribly, are doing an unimaginable wrong to themselves. As a matter of fact, their willful ignorance will not keep them from being put to the test some day, nor will it prevent suffering from embracing the whole world; but it will leave them without an answer, distressed, incoherent.
If, on the contrary, we really want to know our Savior and his redemptive suffering, we acquire, at the same time that we learn about him, the knowledge of how we should respond to all the circumstances of our lives. And there occurs within us a liberation, a lightening of our burdens, I would even say a serenity which those who have refused to see the cross at the center of things will never know.
from today's Magnificat reflection
There are people who, out of fear of suffering, would prefer not to think too much about our Lord crucified. But to avoid thinking of things in no way alters their reality; and those people who would like it if there were only the Incarnation and the entrance into eternal bliss, by falsifying things terribly, are doing an unimaginable wrong to themselves. As a matter of fact, their willful ignorance will not keep them from being put to the test some day, nor will it prevent suffering from embracing the whole world; but it will leave them without an answer, distressed, incoherent.
If, on the contrary, we really want to know our Savior and his redemptive suffering, we acquire, at the same time that we learn about him, the knowledge of how we should respond to all the circumstances of our lives. And there occurs within us a liberation, a lightening of our burdens, I would even say a serenity which those who have refused to see the cross at the center of things will never know.
Saturday, April 05, 2003
Via Quenta Nârwenion
"Someday I'm going to make an honest woman out of her" -- and he did. Seventy-seven years later.
"Someday I'm going to make an honest woman out of her" -- and he did. Seventy-seven years later.
Attentive to the complexities,
sensitive to the solemnity and the sorrow, compassionate to all, and never flippant or facile, Mr Riddle records a meditation on the current war, prompted by a comment left by a visitor chez lui. He thinks, as always, clearly and with sobriety : and it is impossible not to be in solidarity with him in prayer.
sensitive to the solemnity and the sorrow, compassionate to all, and never flippant or facile, Mr Riddle records a meditation on the current war, prompted by a comment left by a visitor chez lui. He thinks, as always, clearly and with sobriety : and it is impossible not to be in solidarity with him in prayer.
A good poem
for the seasonally indecisive, sleety weather here in Boston today : by the estimable & highly esteemed Lane Core.
Via his poetry page : Some Poetry by E. L. Core.
for the seasonally indecisive, sleety weather here in Boston today : by the estimable & highly esteemed Lane Core.
Via his poetry page : Some Poetry by E. L. Core.
Joseph Manton, C SS R (1904-1998)
Boston's legendary Redemptorist on Our Lady of Walsingham
You can forsake the Mother of God. You can forget her. You can (in a dictator role) forbid other people to honor her. But you can never bury her. Her assumption into heaven proved that. How often bigotry's persecution is like a cloud that temporarily obscures the moon. For a short while the moon seems lost; but the cloud turns out to have been only a ragged chamois cloth that has polished the moon into a gleaming silver tray, brighter than before.
History can tell of times when the very stones that had battered down our Lady's image were gathered up by a repentant posterity and piled up to build a pedestal for the triumphant return of the new Madonna.
Take Walsingham, where the pilgrims have begun to return. There is even a place along the road called the Slipper Chapel where the more devout remove their shoes and plod the last two miles barefoot. But the main point is that they pray the old prayers, sing the old hymns, paying honor once more to the not-old but the ever-young Mary, Our Lady of Walsingham.
J. Manton, from "The King's Candle," in Stumbling Toward Heaven (Our Sunday Visitor, 1979), pp. 169-70.
Boston's legendary Redemptorist on Our Lady of Walsingham
You can forsake the Mother of God. You can forget her. You can (in a dictator role) forbid other people to honor her. But you can never bury her. Her assumption into heaven proved that. How often bigotry's persecution is like a cloud that temporarily obscures the moon. For a short while the moon seems lost; but the cloud turns out to have been only a ragged chamois cloth that has polished the moon into a gleaming silver tray, brighter than before.
History can tell of times when the very stones that had battered down our Lady's image were gathered up by a repentant posterity and piled up to build a pedestal for the triumphant return of the new Madonna.
Take Walsingham, where the pilgrims have begun to return. There is even a place along the road called the Slipper Chapel where the more devout remove their shoes and plod the last two miles barefoot. But the main point is that they pray the old prayers, sing the old hymns, paying honor once more to the not-old but the ever-young Mary, Our Lady of Walsingham.
J. Manton, from "The King's Candle," in Stumbling Toward Heaven (Our Sunday Visitor, 1979), pp. 169-70.
Wilfred Owen (1893-1918)
A different side of the war poet
From My Diary, July 1914
Leaves
Murmuring by myriads in the shimmering trees.
Lives
Wakening with wonder in the Pyrenees.
Birds
Cheerily chirping in the early day.
Bards
Singing of summer scything thro' the hay.
Bees
Shaking the heavy dews from bloom and frond.
Boys
Bursting the surface of the ebony pond.
Flashes
Of swimmers carving thro' the sparkling gold.
Fleshes
Gleaming with wetness to the morning gold.
A mead
Bordered about with warbling water-brooks.
A maid
Laughing the love-laugh with me; proud of looks.
The heat
Throbbing between the upland and the peak.
Her heart
Quivering with passion to my pressed cheek.
Braiding
Of floating flames across the mountain brow.
Brooding
Of stillness; and a sighing of the bough.
Stirs
Of leaflets in the gloom; soft petal-showers;
Stars
Expanding with the starr'd nocturnal flowers.
A different side of the war poet
From My Diary, July 1914
Leaves
Murmuring by myriads in the shimmering trees.
Lives
Wakening with wonder in the Pyrenees.
Birds
Cheerily chirping in the early day.
Bards
Singing of summer scything thro' the hay.
Bees
Shaking the heavy dews from bloom and frond.
Boys
Bursting the surface of the ebony pond.
Flashes
Of swimmers carving thro' the sparkling gold.
Fleshes
Gleaming with wetness to the morning gold.
A mead
Bordered about with warbling water-brooks.
A maid
Laughing the love-laugh with me; proud of looks.
The heat
Throbbing between the upland and the peak.
Her heart
Quivering with passion to my pressed cheek.
Braiding
Of floating flames across the mountain brow.
Brooding
Of stillness; and a sighing of the bough.
Stirs
Of leaflets in the gloom; soft petal-showers;
Stars
Expanding with the starr'd nocturnal flowers.
Golf!
You can play online, you know. Wait for it to load. And have yourself a pleasantly vexing eighteen.
You can play online, you know. Wait for it to load. And have yourself a pleasantly vexing eighteen.
estlin
via i : six nonlectures, p. 86
life is more true than reason will deceive
(more secret or than madness did reveal)
deeper is life than lose:higher than have
--but beauty is more each than living's all
multiplied with infinity sans if
the mightiest meditations of mankind
cancelled are by one merely opening leaf
(beyond whose nearness there is no beyond)
or does some littler bird than eyes can learn
look up to silence and completely sing?
futures are obsolete;pasts are unborn
(here less than nothing's more than everything)
death,as men call him,ends what they call men
--but beauty is more now than dying's when
via i : six nonlectures, p. 86
life is more true than reason will deceive
(more secret or than madness did reveal)
deeper is life than lose:higher than have
--but beauty is more each than living's all
multiplied with infinity sans if
the mightiest meditations of mankind
cancelled are by one merely opening leaf
(beyond whose nearness there is no beyond)
or does some littler bird than eyes can learn
look up to silence and completely sing?
futures are obsolete;pasts are unborn
(here less than nothing's more than everything)
death,as men call him,ends what they call men
--but beauty is more now than dying's when
Kathy the Carmelite
over at Gospel M*I*N*E*F*I*E*L*D
psalmodizes on the virtue of cigars.
Here at more-last, we have had a few furtive and limited encounters with this particular form of sessile and sedative smoking, and for the most part they have been cordial.
I can't smoke too often as I relish unimpaired breathing of comparatively smoke-free air.
over at Gospel M*I*N*E*F*I*E*L*D
psalmodizes on the virtue of cigars.
Here at more-last, we have had a few furtive and limited encounters with this particular form of sessile and sedative smoking, and for the most part they have been cordial.
I can't smoke too often as I relish unimpaired breathing of comparatively smoke-free air.
Steps for meeting Christ in the midst of doubt
by Ronda Chervin
marvellously (uncommonly?) commonsensical, these!
1. Continue to pray to the Jesus you knew before the onslaught of doubt, taking part in religious practices of the past.
2. Proclaim the truths of the faith, even sing of them. (It is remarkable how often the singing of holy songs is mentioned in the lives of the saints as a way to meet Christ in suffering.)
3. Engage in works of love of neighbor. In extending love we dwell in love, and abiding in love we dwell in God even if we don't feel it. This increases the love in our hearts so that after the crisis of faith, we will be even closer to God than before.
4. Understand doubt as a trial that will bring us to a new and greater level of supernatural faith, not dependent on any previous support we might have found in our own reasonings or the faith of others in the community.
5. Offer the sufferings of doubt for those who have not known God at all.
R. Chervin, The Kiss from the Cross : Saints for Every Kind of Suffering (Charis/Servant, 1994), pp. 17-18.
by Ronda Chervin
marvellously (uncommonly?) commonsensical, these!
1. Continue to pray to the Jesus you knew before the onslaught of doubt, taking part in religious practices of the past.
2. Proclaim the truths of the faith, even sing of them. (It is remarkable how often the singing of holy songs is mentioned in the lives of the saints as a way to meet Christ in suffering.)
3. Engage in works of love of neighbor. In extending love we dwell in love, and abiding in love we dwell in God even if we don't feel it. This increases the love in our hearts so that after the crisis of faith, we will be even closer to God than before.
4. Understand doubt as a trial that will bring us to a new and greater level of supernatural faith, not dependent on any previous support we might have found in our own reasonings or the faith of others in the community.
5. Offer the sufferings of doubt for those who have not known God at all.
R. Chervin, The Kiss from the Cross : Saints for Every Kind of Suffering (Charis/Servant, 1994), pp. 17-18.
In the distant hills
here and there
I can see lights in the windows of the little farmhouses that dot the wooded hills. The night is dark except for the dancing stars in the waters of my river and the light that springs so suddenly in the darkness. It reminds me of the Easter Vigil, the Paschal Candle, the Holy Fire lit by the priest.
Soon! my heart cries. Soon! say the lights in the hills. Soon! say the stars dancing in the river. Soon life will appear, as the Lord came forth from the tomb. Yes, yes, soon!
But the next day comes and the earth of my island is still brown, lifeless. The trees have not budded yet. The sun barely shines. There is a mystery and a greyness about the island, as if it wanted to tell me that this is the time of sorrow, the time of conflict between light and darkness. A time of pain that stems from a passionate love. This is Holy Time, hushed time, the time of God's passion in which he writes in characters of blood a love letter to all of us.
It is a time of silence, a time of recollection, a time of prayer. The trees wait to bud. The brown earth longs to sprout its fine greenery, and I learn from it tremendous lessons about God, about love, about time, about eternity.
Catherine de Hueck Doherty, I Live on an Island (Ave Maria Press, 1979), pp. 11-12.
here and there
I can see lights in the windows of the little farmhouses that dot the wooded hills. The night is dark except for the dancing stars in the waters of my river and the light that springs so suddenly in the darkness. It reminds me of the Easter Vigil, the Paschal Candle, the Holy Fire lit by the priest.
Soon! my heart cries. Soon! say the lights in the hills. Soon! say the stars dancing in the river. Soon life will appear, as the Lord came forth from the tomb. Yes, yes, soon!
But the next day comes and the earth of my island is still brown, lifeless. The trees have not budded yet. The sun barely shines. There is a mystery and a greyness about the island, as if it wanted to tell me that this is the time of sorrow, the time of conflict between light and darkness. A time of pain that stems from a passionate love. This is Holy Time, hushed time, the time of God's passion in which he writes in characters of blood a love letter to all of us.
It is a time of silence, a time of recollection, a time of prayer. The trees wait to bud. The brown earth longs to sprout its fine greenery, and I learn from it tremendous lessons about God, about love, about time, about eternity.
Catherine de Hueck Doherty, I Live on an Island (Ave Maria Press, 1979), pp. 11-12.
Saint Vincent Ferrer, OP (+1419)
excerpts from today's Magnificat reflection
All the holy Fathers assure us, and daily experience clearly teaches, that resorting to the passion and cross of the Savior is one of the most excellent remedies against the assaults of the enemy. Saint Bonaventure even says that God permits us to be tempted in order that we may have recourse to it.
"O great God, " he says, "of wondrous and exceedingly loving kindness, who permits us to be tempted, not that we may perish, but that, fearing to offend you, we may have recourse to you, our most secure harbor! ... O you who are tempted," he adds a little further on, "meditate on the wounds of the Savior, hide yourselves in them, and they will ever be to you a comfort and refreshment. [...]"
Nor is this to be wondered at, since they are the weapons he made use of to overthrow and vanquish that satanic horde. They are the instruments of their destruction, disablement, and subjugation; they are the glorious standards of the triumph of the Son of God [...] They are our place of refuge, our safe asylum.
excerpts from today's Magnificat reflection
All the holy Fathers assure us, and daily experience clearly teaches, that resorting to the passion and cross of the Savior is one of the most excellent remedies against the assaults of the enemy. Saint Bonaventure even says that God permits us to be tempted in order that we may have recourse to it.
"O great God, " he says, "of wondrous and exceedingly loving kindness, who permits us to be tempted, not that we may perish, but that, fearing to offend you, we may have recourse to you, our most secure harbor! ... O you who are tempted," he adds a little further on, "meditate on the wounds of the Savior, hide yourselves in them, and they will ever be to you a comfort and refreshment. [...]"
Nor is this to be wondered at, since they are the weapons he made use of to overthrow and vanquish that satanic horde. They are the instruments of their destruction, disablement, and subjugation; they are the glorious standards of the triumph of the Son of God [...] They are our place of refuge, our safe asylum.
Friday, April 04, 2003
Anyone else
who has Haloscan commenting
getting an Access Denied message, for no good reason at all, when trying to go to View/Delete Posts?
Apparently so!
This, from the Haloscan homepage :
"If you have problems logging into the members section for the next 30 minutes, please don't email me. I'll have it sorted out soon."
Okey-dokey.
who has Haloscan commenting
getting an Access Denied message, for no good reason at all, when trying to go to View/Delete Posts?
Apparently so!
This, from the Haloscan homepage :
"If you have problems logging into the members section for the next 30 minutes, please don't email me. I'll have it sorted out soon."
Okey-dokey.
Psalm 121 (Psalm 120 in Vulgate)
trans. Msgr Ronald Knox
I lift up my eyes to the hills, to find deliverance; from the Lord deliverance comes to me, the Lord who made heaven and earth. Never will he who guards thee allow thy foot to stumble; never fall asleep at his post! Such a guardian has Israel, one who is never weary, never sleeps; it is the Lord that guards thee, the Lord that stands at thy right hand to give thee shelter. The sun's rays by day, the moon's by night, shall have no power to hurt thee. The Lord will guard thee from all evil; the Lord will protect thee in danger; the Lord will protect thy journeying and thy home-coming, henceforth and for ever.
trans. Msgr Ronald Knox
I lift up my eyes to the hills, to find deliverance; from the Lord deliverance comes to me, the Lord who made heaven and earth. Never will he who guards thee allow thy foot to stumble; never fall asleep at his post! Such a guardian has Israel, one who is never weary, never sleeps; it is the Lord that guards thee, the Lord that stands at thy right hand to give thee shelter. The sun's rays by day, the moon's by night, shall have no power to hurt thee. The Lord will guard thee from all evil; the Lord will protect thee in danger; the Lord will protect thy journeying and thy home-coming, henceforth and for ever.
from Almost April
by Hayden Carruth (b. 1921)
North winter
month after month.
From early November till now,
almost April,
snow has fallen and fallen,
drifting upon us
in seethe and murmur.
Month after month
air hobbled with snowflakes.
Hour after hour, all hours
of snow searching, hopeless,
aimless in dark hemlock
or light intricate birch.
I have seen snowflakes
all winter
like blurred stars in the air,
queer tumultuous lights
as if in a mist,
soft bodies
like dead moths falling
from the crowns of poisoned trees.
Stars falling, stars
in multitude, the universe
drifting down --
lights without sound or almost
without sound.
And no end to it.
[...]
H. Carruth, From Snow and Rock, from Chaos (New Directions Paperbook 349, 1973), pp. 50-1.
by Hayden Carruth (b. 1921)
North winter
month after month.
From early November till now,
almost April,
snow has fallen and fallen,
drifting upon us
in seethe and murmur.
Month after month
air hobbled with snowflakes.
Hour after hour, all hours
of snow searching, hopeless,
aimless in dark hemlock
or light intricate birch.
I have seen snowflakes
all winter
like blurred stars in the air,
queer tumultuous lights
as if in a mist,
soft bodies
like dead moths falling
from the crowns of poisoned trees.
Stars falling, stars
in multitude, the universe
drifting down --
lights without sound or almost
without sound.
And no end to it.
[...]
H. Carruth, From Snow and Rock, from Chaos (New Directions Paperbook 349, 1973), pp. 50-1.
Psalm 42 (Psalm 41 in Vulgate)
trans. Msgr Ronald Knox
O God, my whole soul longs for thee, as a deer for running water; my whole soul thirsts for God, the living God; shall I never again make my pilgrimage into God's presence? Morning and evening, my diet still of tears! Daily I must listen to the taunt, Where is thy God now? Memories come back to me yet, melting the heart; how once I would join with the throng, leading the way to God's house, amid cries of joy and thanksgiving, and all the bustle of holiday. Soul, art thou still downcast? Wilt thou never be at peace? Wait for God's help; I will not cease to cry out in thankfulness, My champion and my God.
In my sad mood I will think of thee, here in this land of Jordan and Hermon, here on Misar mountain. One depth makes answer to another amid the roar of the floods thou sendest; wave after wave, crest after crest overwhelms me. Would he but lighten the day with his mercy, what praise would I sing at evening to the Lord God who is life for me! Thou art my strong-hold, I cry out to him still; hast thou never a thought for me? Must I go mourning, with enemies pressing me hard; racked by the ceaseless taunts of my persecutors, Where is thy God now? Soul, art thou still downcast? Wilt thou never be at peace? Wait for God's help; I will not cease to cry out in thankfulness, My champion and my God.
trans. Msgr Ronald Knox
O God, my whole soul longs for thee, as a deer for running water; my whole soul thirsts for God, the living God; shall I never again make my pilgrimage into God's presence? Morning and evening, my diet still of tears! Daily I must listen to the taunt, Where is thy God now? Memories come back to me yet, melting the heart; how once I would join with the throng, leading the way to God's house, amid cries of joy and thanksgiving, and all the bustle of holiday. Soul, art thou still downcast? Wilt thou never be at peace? Wait for God's help; I will not cease to cry out in thankfulness, My champion and my God.
In my sad mood I will think of thee, here in this land of Jordan and Hermon, here on Misar mountain. One depth makes answer to another amid the roar of the floods thou sendest; wave after wave, crest after crest overwhelms me. Would he but lighten the day with his mercy, what praise would I sing at evening to the Lord God who is life for me! Thou art my strong-hold, I cry out to him still; hast thou never a thought for me? Must I go mourning, with enemies pressing me hard; racked by the ceaseless taunts of my persecutors, Where is thy God now? Soul, art thou still downcast? Wilt thou never be at peace? Wait for God's help; I will not cease to cry out in thankfulness, My champion and my God.
Prayer to St Mary (2)
by St Anselm of Canterbury (c. 1033-1109)
Virgin venerated throughout the world,
Mother dear to the human race,
Woman, marvel of the angels,
Mary, most holy.
By your blessed virginity you have made all integrity sacred,
and by your glorious child-bearing
you have brought salvation to all fruitfulness.
Great Lady,
to you the joyous company of the saints gives thanks;
to you the fearful crowd of the accused flee;
and to you, Lady of might and mercy,
I flee, a sinner in every way, beyond measure distressed.
*
Lady, it seems to me as if I were already
before the all-powerful justice of the stern judge
facing the intolerable vehemence of his wrath,
while hanging over me is the enormity of my sins,
and the huge torments they deserve.
Most gentle Lady,
whose intercession should I implore
when I am troubled with horror, and shake with fear,
but hers, whose womb embraced
the reconciliation of the world?
Whence should I most surely hope for help quickly in need,
but from her whence I know came the world's propitiation?
Who can more easily gain pardon for the accused
by her intercession,
than she who gave milk to him
who justly punishes or mercifully pardons all and each one?
Most blessed Lady, it is not possible for you to forget
that those merits which are so specially yours
are very necessary to us.
Most gentle Lady, it is not credible that you should not pity
such pitiable suppliants.
The Prayers and Meditations of Saint Anselm with the Proslogion, trans. Benedicta Ward, SLG (Penguin Books, 1973), pp. 110-1.
by St Anselm of Canterbury (c. 1033-1109)
Virgin venerated throughout the world,
Mother dear to the human race,
Woman, marvel of the angels,
Mary, most holy.
By your blessed virginity you have made all integrity sacred,
and by your glorious child-bearing
you have brought salvation to all fruitfulness.
Great Lady,
to you the joyous company of the saints gives thanks;
to you the fearful crowd of the accused flee;
and to you, Lady of might and mercy,
I flee, a sinner in every way, beyond measure distressed.
*
Lady, it seems to me as if I were already
before the all-powerful justice of the stern judge
facing the intolerable vehemence of his wrath,
while hanging over me is the enormity of my sins,
and the huge torments they deserve.
Most gentle Lady,
whose intercession should I implore
when I am troubled with horror, and shake with fear,
but hers, whose womb embraced
the reconciliation of the world?
Whence should I most surely hope for help quickly in need,
but from her whence I know came the world's propitiation?
Who can more easily gain pardon for the accused
by her intercession,
than she who gave milk to him
who justly punishes or mercifully pardons all and each one?
Most blessed Lady, it is not possible for you to forget
that those merits which are so specially yours
are very necessary to us.
Most gentle Lady, it is not credible that you should not pity
such pitiable suppliants.
The Prayers and Meditations of Saint Anselm with the Proslogion, trans. Benedicta Ward, SLG (Penguin Books, 1973), pp. 110-1.
Saint Thomas Aquinas
from today's Magnificat reflection
To hand over an innocent man to suffering and death, against his will, compelling him to die as it were, would indeed be cruel and wicked. But it was not in this way that God the Father handed over Christ. He handed over Christ by inspiring him with the will to suffer for us. By so doing the severity of God is made clear to us, that no sin is forgiven without punishment undergone, which Saint Paul again teaches when he says, "God spared not his own Son."
At the same time God's good-heartedness is shown in the fact that whereas man could not, no matter what the punishment, sufficiently make satisfaction, God has given man someone who can make that satisfaction for him ...
from today's Magnificat reflection
To hand over an innocent man to suffering and death, against his will, compelling him to die as it were, would indeed be cruel and wicked. But it was not in this way that God the Father handed over Christ. He handed over Christ by inspiring him with the will to suffer for us. By so doing the severity of God is made clear to us, that no sin is forgiven without punishment undergone, which Saint Paul again teaches when he says, "God spared not his own Son."
At the same time God's good-heartedness is shown in the fact that whereas man could not, no matter what the punishment, sufficiently make satisfaction, God has given man someone who can make that satisfaction for him ...
Thursday, April 03, 2003
Whose Gesture Summons
a revision : earlier version here
1.
A season of ice-storms it has been :
Love-pangs, anger, dark infernal rages,
Strong drink and tears that will not come.
But heaven's wisdom walks
In the bleak December night
Past the black nerves of trees
Under the cold and speechless stars.
We dare not speak. We know not how.
2.
Instructed, awed and purified
By the burning mercy of her voice;
Vanquished by the ineffable
Justice of her countenance :
To him who sings her praise
Her eyes give life.
Lady of light, teach us to honor thee,
Forsaking our wonted rebellion,
Each base desire and all brash chatter,
All ignoble thought.
2002
a revision : earlier version here
1.
A season of ice-storms it has been :
Love-pangs, anger, dark infernal rages,
Strong drink and tears that will not come.
But heaven's wisdom walks
In the bleak December night
Past the black nerves of trees
Under the cold and speechless stars.
We dare not speak. We know not how.
2.
Instructed, awed and purified
By the burning mercy of her voice;
Vanquished by the ineffable
Justice of her countenance :
To him who sings her praise
Her eyes give life.
Lady of light, teach us to honor thee,
Forsaking our wonted rebellion,
Each base desire and all brash chatter,
All ignoble thought.
2002
Abbey road!
This abbey, to be specific.
+++++++++++++++
Note
added this day to Places Oft
under "Catholic Sites," three abbeys (all Trappist) and a page in praise of Merton.
Perhaps more Cistercian things to come!
This abbey, to be specific.
+++++++++++++++
Note
added this day to Places Oft
under "Catholic Sites," three abbeys (all Trappist) and a page in praise of Merton.
Perhaps more Cistercian things to come!
Chiara Lubich
from today's Magnificat reflection
What ruins some souls is a false "prudence." They call it prudence, but it's a human prudence, and it springs up every time the divine surfaces. It has the appearance of virtue but is more aggravating than vice. It does not want to shake anyone up. It lets the rich go to hell [...] by not enlightening them. Who knows what might happen? It lets the neighbors beat each other up, and even kill, because someone might accuse you of meddling in other people's affairs. You could even end up as a witness in a trial. Why bother to get involved? It advises moderation to the saints, lest something happen to them. [...] It's especially scared of God. [...]
It's a counterfeit virtue. I think it's planted or fertilized by the devil. He can do a lot of business in that climate. There once lived a man who had none of it. That was Christ Jesus. When he went out to preach, at the first lesson they wanted to kill him, there and then. "But he went straight through their midst and walked away" (Lk 4:30).
Look at his life with the eyes of this sort of prudent person and you would call the whole thing an imprudence. Not just that : If these prudent persons were logical in their reasoning, they would draw the conclusion that his death, his crucifixion ... he asked for it ... with his imprudence.
I don't believe there's a word spoken by Jesus that does not jar against these people. [...]
from today's Magnificat reflection
What ruins some souls is a false "prudence." They call it prudence, but it's a human prudence, and it springs up every time the divine surfaces. It has the appearance of virtue but is more aggravating than vice. It does not want to shake anyone up. It lets the rich go to hell [...] by not enlightening them. Who knows what might happen? It lets the neighbors beat each other up, and even kill, because someone might accuse you of meddling in other people's affairs. You could even end up as a witness in a trial. Why bother to get involved? It advises moderation to the saints, lest something happen to them. [...] It's especially scared of God. [...]
It's a counterfeit virtue. I think it's planted or fertilized by the devil. He can do a lot of business in that climate. There once lived a man who had none of it. That was Christ Jesus. When he went out to preach, at the first lesson they wanted to kill him, there and then. "But he went straight through their midst and walked away" (Lk 4:30).
Look at his life with the eyes of this sort of prudent person and you would call the whole thing an imprudence. Not just that : If these prudent persons were logical in their reasoning, they would draw the conclusion that his death, his crucifixion ... he asked for it ... with his imprudence.
I don't believe there's a word spoken by Jesus that does not jar against these people. [...]
estlin
from etc
now winging selves sing sweetly,while ghosts(there
and here)of snow cringe;dazed an earth shakes sleep
out of her brightening mind:now everywhere
space tastes of the amazement which is hope
gone are those hugest hours of dark and cold
when blood and flesh to inexistence bow
(all that was doubtful's certain,timid's bold;
old's youthful and reluctant's eager now)
anywhere upward somethings yearn and stir
piercing a tangled wrack of wishless known:
nothing is like this keen(who breathes us)air
immortal with the fragrance of begin
winter is over--now(for me and you,
darling!)life's star prances the blinding blue
from etc
now winging selves sing sweetly,while ghosts(there
and here)of snow cringe;dazed an earth shakes sleep
out of her brightening mind:now everywhere
space tastes of the amazement which is hope
gone are those hugest hours of dark and cold
when blood and flesh to inexistence bow
(all that was doubtful's certain,timid's bold;
old's youthful and reluctant's eager now)
anywhere upward somethings yearn and stir
piercing a tangled wrack of wishless known:
nothing is like this keen(who breathes us)air
immortal with the fragrance of begin
winter is over--now(for me and you,
darling!)life's star prances the blinding blue
Oxtail soup, commencement addresses, grandiloquence, scorn & shrewdness
and a prayer for safe passage
WFB eulogizes his fellow titan, DPM. Via Ad Orientem.
and a prayer for safe passage
WFB eulogizes his fellow titan, DPM. Via Ad Orientem.
Mertoniana
from vol. 6 of the journals
from November 1, 1966
Heavy rain in the morning. Went down in the dark to concelebrate. Came back with the pocket of my rain coat full of eggs and had me a super breakfast.
*
Rain cleared in late morning. I went for a walk to the Lake Knob, with a great new sense of freedom and discovery -- and determination never to get caught again by a love affair and not let this one flare up again. Only now do I begin to see the state of the ruins! What an embarrassing mess!
*
from November 2, 1966
About four this morning it began to snow. And it turned into a real storm, by evening it was one of the heaviest storms I have ever seen here, though since it was above freezing the snow did not lie as thick as it otherwise might have. But now it is night and still snowing and I think by tomorrow there will be quite a bit of it -- and this only All Souls' Day! I went down in the dark and snow to say my three masses early (others are not saying the 3 Masses anymore -- a few of the older priests are).
*
After dinner I walked out to the woods in the snowstorm. Then back and settled down for the afternoon, let myself be enclosed in the snow and silence, and it has been marvelous. [...] Place quiet and cozy, and I am utterly alone. It is a pure delight, I thank God for it! And again I am overcome with embarrassment to think how I have trifled with this grace.
*
Boughs of evergreen out there in the dark cracking under the weight of the snow!
Merton, Learning to Love (HarperCollins, 1997), pp. 155-7.
from vol. 6 of the journals
from November 1, 1966
Heavy rain in the morning. Went down in the dark to concelebrate. Came back with the pocket of my rain coat full of eggs and had me a super breakfast.
*
Rain cleared in late morning. I went for a walk to the Lake Knob, with a great new sense of freedom and discovery -- and determination never to get caught again by a love affair and not let this one flare up again. Only now do I begin to see the state of the ruins! What an embarrassing mess!
*
from November 2, 1966
About four this morning it began to snow. And it turned into a real storm, by evening it was one of the heaviest storms I have ever seen here, though since it was above freezing the snow did not lie as thick as it otherwise might have. But now it is night and still snowing and I think by tomorrow there will be quite a bit of it -- and this only All Souls' Day! I went down in the dark and snow to say my three masses early (others are not saying the 3 Masses anymore -- a few of the older priests are).
*
After dinner I walked out to the woods in the snowstorm. Then back and settled down for the afternoon, let myself be enclosed in the snow and silence, and it has been marvelous. [...] Place quiet and cozy, and I am utterly alone. It is a pure delight, I thank God for it! And again I am overcome with embarrassment to think how I have trifled with this grace.
*
Boughs of evergreen out there in the dark cracking under the weight of the snow!
Merton, Learning to Love (HarperCollins, 1997), pp. 155-7.
Psalm 25 (Psalm 24 in Vulgate)
trans. Msgr Ronald Knox
All my heart goes out to thee, O Lord, my God. Belie not the trust I have in thee, let not my enemies boast of my downfall. Can any that trust in thee be disappointed, as they are disappointed who lightly break their troth? Direct my way, O Lord, as thou wilt, teach me thy own paths. Ever let thy truth guide me and teach me, O God my deliverer, my abiding hope. Forget not, Lord, thy pity, thy mercies of long ago. Give heed no more to the sins and frailties of my youth, but think mercifully of me, as thou, Lord, art ever gracious. How gracious is the Lord, how faithful, guiding our strayed feet back to the path! In his own laws he will train the humble, in his own paths the humble he will guide. Jealous be thy keeping of covenant and ordinance, and the Lord's dealings will be ever gracious, ever faithful with thee. Kindly be thy judgement of my sin, for thy own honour's sake, my grievous sin.
Let a man but fear the Lord, what path to choose he doubts no longer. Much joy he shall have of his lands and to his heirs leave them. No stranger the Lord is, no secret his covenant, to his true worshippers. On the Lord I fix my eyes continually, trusting him to save my feet from the snare. Pity me, Lord, as thou seest me friendless and forlorn. Quit my heart of its burden, deliver me from my distress. Restless and forlorn, I claim thy pity, to my sins be merciful. See how many are my foes, and how bitter is the grudge they bear me. Take my soul into thy keeping; come to my resuce, do not let me be disappointed of my trust in thee. Uprightness and purity be my shield, as I wait patiently for thy help. When wilt thou deliver Israel, my God, from all his troubles?
trans. Msgr Ronald Knox
All my heart goes out to thee, O Lord, my God. Belie not the trust I have in thee, let not my enemies boast of my downfall. Can any that trust in thee be disappointed, as they are disappointed who lightly break their troth? Direct my way, O Lord, as thou wilt, teach me thy own paths. Ever let thy truth guide me and teach me, O God my deliverer, my abiding hope. Forget not, Lord, thy pity, thy mercies of long ago. Give heed no more to the sins and frailties of my youth, but think mercifully of me, as thou, Lord, art ever gracious. How gracious is the Lord, how faithful, guiding our strayed feet back to the path! In his own laws he will train the humble, in his own paths the humble he will guide. Jealous be thy keeping of covenant and ordinance, and the Lord's dealings will be ever gracious, ever faithful with thee. Kindly be thy judgement of my sin, for thy own honour's sake, my grievous sin.
Let a man but fear the Lord, what path to choose he doubts no longer. Much joy he shall have of his lands and to his heirs leave them. No stranger the Lord is, no secret his covenant, to his true worshippers. On the Lord I fix my eyes continually, trusting him to save my feet from the snare. Pity me, Lord, as thou seest me friendless and forlorn. Quit my heart of its burden, deliver me from my distress. Restless and forlorn, I claim thy pity, to my sins be merciful. See how many are my foes, and how bitter is the grudge they bear me. Take my soul into thy keeping; come to my resuce, do not let me be disappointed of my trust in thee. Uprightness and purity be my shield, as I wait patiently for thy help. When wilt thou deliver Israel, my God, from all his troubles?
from Altarwise by owl-light
by Dylan Thomas (1914-1953)
Hairs of your head, then said the hollow agent,
Are but the roots of nettles and of feathers
Over these groundworks thrusting through a pavement
And hemlock-headed in the wood of weathers.
*
The black ram, shuffling of the year, old winter,
Alone alive among his mutton fold,
We rung our weathering changes on the ladder,
Said the antipodes, and twice spring chimed.
*
Time is the tune my ladies lend their heartbreak,
From bald pavilions and the house of bread
Time tracks the sound of shape on man and cloud,
On rose and icicle the ringing handprint.
*
Green as beginning, let the garden diving
Soar, with its two bark towers, to that Day
When the worm builds with the gold straw of venom
My nest of mercies in the rude, red tree.
by Dylan Thomas (1914-1953)
Hairs of your head, then said the hollow agent,
Are but the roots of nettles and of feathers
Over these groundworks thrusting through a pavement
And hemlock-headed in the wood of weathers.
*
The black ram, shuffling of the year, old winter,
Alone alive among his mutton fold,
We rung our weathering changes on the ladder,
Said the antipodes, and twice spring chimed.
*
Time is the tune my ladies lend their heartbreak,
From bald pavilions and the house of bread
Time tracks the sound of shape on man and cloud,
On rose and icicle the ringing handprint.
*
Green as beginning, let the garden diving
Soar, with its two bark towers, to that Day
When the worm builds with the gold straw of venom
My nest of mercies in the rude, red tree.
Wednesday, April 02, 2003
a poem by
William Carlos Williams
(1883-1963)
This is just to say
I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox
and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast
Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold
+++++++++++++++
a poem by
Kenneth Koch
(1925-2002)
Variations on a Theme by Wiliam Carlos Williams
1
I chopped down the house that you had been saving to live in next
summer.
I am sorry, but it was morning, and I had nothing to do
and its wooden beams were so inviting.
2
We laughed at the hollyhocks together
and then I sprayed them with lye.
Forgive me. I simply do not know what I am doing.
3
I gave away the money that you had been saving to live on for the next ten
years.
The man who asked for it was shabby
and the firm March wind on the porch was so juicy and cold.
4
Last evening we went dancing and I broke your leg.
Forgive me. I was clumsy, and
I wanted you here in the wards, where I am the doctor!
William Carlos Williams
(1883-1963)
This is just to say
I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox
and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast
Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold
+++++++++++++++
a poem by
Kenneth Koch
(1925-2002)
Variations on a Theme by Wiliam Carlos Williams
1
I chopped down the house that you had been saving to live in next
summer.
I am sorry, but it was morning, and I had nothing to do
and its wooden beams were so inviting.
2
We laughed at the hollyhocks together
and then I sprayed them with lye.
Forgive me. I simply do not know what I am doing.
3
I gave away the money that you had been saving to live on for the next ten
years.
The man who asked for it was shabby
and the firm March wind on the porch was so juicy and cold.
4
Last evening we went dancing and I broke your leg.
Forgive me. I was clumsy, and
I wanted you here in the wards, where I am the doctor!
Raniero Cantalamessa, OFM Cap
excerpts from today's Magnificat reflection
Faced with the mystery of the heavenly Father's tenderness we spontaneously turn to Jesus and say to him : "Jesus, you are our elder brother, tell us what we can do to show ourselves worthy of so much love ... on the Father's part!" And Jesus answers us through his Gospel and life. "There is," he says, "something you can do, something I also did and which pleases the Father : have confidence in him, trust in him, and do him credit! Against everything, against everyone, and against yourselves!"
*
When therefore we are in darkness or distress, when we can see nothing ahead of us but absurdity and we are on the point of giving in, let us pull ourselves together and cry out with faith : "Father, I no longer understand you, but I trust you!" Jesus, too, cried out like this in the Garden of Olives. He said : "Father, let this cup pass from me!" The cup did not pass but Jesus did not lose his confidence in the Father and he died exclaiming : "Father, into your hands I commend my spirit!"
*
Referring to man's state before Christ a second-century author said : "Ignorance about the Father was the cause of much distress and fear."
excerpts from today's Magnificat reflection
Faced with the mystery of the heavenly Father's tenderness we spontaneously turn to Jesus and say to him : "Jesus, you are our elder brother, tell us what we can do to show ourselves worthy of so much love ... on the Father's part!" And Jesus answers us through his Gospel and life. "There is," he says, "something you can do, something I also did and which pleases the Father : have confidence in him, trust in him, and do him credit! Against everything, against everyone, and against yourselves!"
*
When therefore we are in darkness or distress, when we can see nothing ahead of us but absurdity and we are on the point of giving in, let us pull ourselves together and cry out with faith : "Father, I no longer understand you, but I trust you!" Jesus, too, cried out like this in the Garden of Olives. He said : "Father, let this cup pass from me!" The cup did not pass but Jesus did not lose his confidence in the Father and he died exclaiming : "Father, into your hands I commend my spirit!"
*
Referring to man's state before Christ a second-century author said : "Ignorance about the Father was the cause of much distress and fear."
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