Oddly, what I was hoping for!!
via Gregg the Obscure
I'm not as cool as Rick, as brave as Victor, as pretty as Ilsa ...
I chose not to copy the picture.
You are Captain Renault. "How extravagant of
you, throwing away women like that. Someday
they may be scarce."
Which Casablanca character are you?
brought to you by Quizilla
Tuesday, April 22, 2003
Encouragement from the Psalter
From Psalm 107. Confitemini Domino.
O GIVE thanks unto the LORD, for he is gracious, * and his mercy endureth for ever.
9 For he satisfieth the empty soul, * and filleth the hungry soul with goodness.
14 For he brought them out of darkness, and out of the shadow of death, * and brake their bonds in sunder.
20 He sent his word, and healed them; * and they were saved from their destruction.
29 For he maketh the storm to cease, * so that the waves thereof are still.
30 Then are they glad, because they are at rest; * and so he bringeth them unto the haven where they would be.
35 Again, he maketh the wilderness a standing water, * and water-springs of a dry ground.
36 And there he setteth the hungry, * that they may build them a city to dwell in;
37 That they may sow their land, and plant vineyards, * to yield them fruits of increase.
39 And again, when they are minished and brought low * through oppression, through any plague or trouble;
41 Yet helpeth he the poor out of misery, * and maketh him households like a flock of sheep.
43 Whoso is wise, will ponder these things; * and they shall understand the loving-kindness of the LORD.
From Psalm 107. Confitemini Domino.
O GIVE thanks unto the LORD, for he is gracious, * and his mercy endureth for ever.
9 For he satisfieth the empty soul, * and filleth the hungry soul with goodness.
14 For he brought them out of darkness, and out of the shadow of death, * and brake their bonds in sunder.
20 He sent his word, and healed them; * and they were saved from their destruction.
29 For he maketh the storm to cease, * so that the waves thereof are still.
30 Then are they glad, because they are at rest; * and so he bringeth them unto the haven where they would be.
35 Again, he maketh the wilderness a standing water, * and water-springs of a dry ground.
36 And there he setteth the hungry, * that they may build them a city to dwell in;
37 That they may sow their land, and plant vineyards, * to yield them fruits of increase.
39 And again, when they are minished and brought low * through oppression, through any plague or trouble;
41 Yet helpeth he the poor out of misery, * and maketh him households like a flock of sheep.
43 Whoso is wise, will ponder these things; * and they shall understand the loving-kindness of the LORD.
Well I wonder
Graffito I saw recently, in neatly stencilled letters, on one of the rougher blocks of Newton Street. I'll replace the classic ineffable f-word with "flip" :
FLIP WAR
FLIP BUSH
FLIP RICH
WHITE MEN
FLIP ISRAELI
APARTHEID
FLIP WHACK
EMCEES
love, Tawhid
Well! Thank you for sharing! Have a nice day!
Graffito I saw recently, in neatly stencilled letters, on one of the rougher blocks of Newton Street. I'll replace the classic ineffable f-word with "flip" :
FLIP WAR
FLIP BUSH
FLIP RICH
WHITE MEN
FLIP ISRAELI
APARTHEID
FLIP WHACK
EMCEES
love, Tawhid
Well! Thank you for sharing! Have a nice day!
An Ars Poetica in Prose
The good poetry gets written when nobody's looking except a few close and trusted friends, alias angels, who urge all manner of antics, including revision -- including but not limited to : pentameter, ballad meter, surrealism, paradox, assonance, slang, archaism, dramatic monologues of drunken uncles, slant rhyme, sight rhyme, dactyls and spondees. Learn them all by the time you're sixteen and keep using them till you're a hundred and sixteen. Build up what works and take down what doesn't. What works? You decide. And don't be afraid to read things, lyrics and epics, epigrams and sonnets, dithyrambs and disasters, old and good, new and magnificent, middle-aged and dreadful, recently engendered and bewilderingly strange. The experimental, or the just plain mental. The ones who count syllables and the ones who don't. The ones who make sense and the ones who don't. The immediate, the plain, the expansive, the cramped, the dark, the intransigent. Easy and obscure. Fluent and recalcitrant. Difficult and lucid. Slow and steady. Don't fret about originality, because no one is original. It all comes from somewhere. From the three-way intersection of heaven and earth and your own mindsoul; from the quirks of the heart of the language itself. Live with one eye on back when and the other on eventually. Transfigure both past and future into now.
The good poetry gets written when nobody's looking except a few close and trusted friends, alias angels, who urge all manner of antics, including revision -- including but not limited to : pentameter, ballad meter, surrealism, paradox, assonance, slang, archaism, dramatic monologues of drunken uncles, slant rhyme, sight rhyme, dactyls and spondees. Learn them all by the time you're sixteen and keep using them till you're a hundred and sixteen. Build up what works and take down what doesn't. What works? You decide. And don't be afraid to read things, lyrics and epics, epigrams and sonnets, dithyrambs and disasters, old and good, new and magnificent, middle-aged and dreadful, recently engendered and bewilderingly strange. The experimental, or the just plain mental. The ones who count syllables and the ones who don't. The ones who make sense and the ones who don't. The immediate, the plain, the expansive, the cramped, the dark, the intransigent. Easy and obscure. Fluent and recalcitrant. Difficult and lucid. Slow and steady. Don't fret about originality, because no one is original. It all comes from somewhere. From the three-way intersection of heaven and earth and your own mindsoul; from the quirks of the heart of the language itself. Live with one eye on back when and the other on eventually. Transfigure both past and future into now.
Urban Pastoral
And summer beckons, hectic streams of bliss :
Austere aesthetes, forsake your shelvish delvings.
Sun-glare and life-thrust, bees and fire-flowers,
Asphalt earth practices its warp and shimmer --
Language captures its prey, its lively prize :
Dangerous promise of her fierce black eyes.
2003
Austere aesthetes, forsake your shelvish delvings.
Sun-glare and life-thrust, bees and fire-flowers,
Asphalt earth practices its warp and shimmer --
Language captures its prey, its lively prize :
Dangerous promise of her fierce black eyes.
2003
Monday, April 21, 2003
Reverent or trendy?
This observer says, the former
At another weblog, this cross from the Holy Name Cathedral of Chicago was proposed as a malapert example of a "Resurrection Crucifix." I disagree with the implied dispraise. I find it quite moving -- our Lord's agonies are not absent from the shape of the wood; this is not an effortless Resurrection, not a case of "he fell asleep and woke up, bright-eyed, bushy-tailed." I find the sculpture to be muscular, to be sinewed; it is as if the Christ is bursting through stone! This is a crucifix of force and of spiritual potency, I believe.
To those who would argue that our Lord's agonies should not be implicit, but explicit, I say : Consider the cross of San Damiano. Was it engendered by a deficit of reverence?
Some "resurrection crosses" are trite; the other weblog does provide examples which do not succeed in inspiring the observer. But I am not inclined to pass by the cross above with a quick, snippy quip; I am inclined to linger.
I've been somewhat over-emphatic, I fear. What are your opinions?
This observer says, the former
At another weblog, this cross from the Holy Name Cathedral of Chicago was proposed as a malapert example of a "Resurrection Crucifix." I disagree with the implied dispraise. I find it quite moving -- our Lord's agonies are not absent from the shape of the wood; this is not an effortless Resurrection, not a case of "he fell asleep and woke up, bright-eyed, bushy-tailed." I find the sculpture to be muscular, to be sinewed; it is as if the Christ is bursting through stone! This is a crucifix of force and of spiritual potency, I believe.
To those who would argue that our Lord's agonies should not be implicit, but explicit, I say : Consider the cross of San Damiano. Was it engendered by a deficit of reverence?
Some "resurrection crosses" are trite; the other weblog does provide examples which do not succeed in inspiring the observer. But I am not inclined to pass by the cross above with a quick, snippy quip; I am inclined to linger.
I've been somewhat over-emphatic, I fear. What are your opinions?
Catherine de Hueck Doherty
I realize more and more as I travel, as I keep vigil, as I pray, that what the world needs is not more projects, more apostolic works, more works of mercy, more social works, more community development programs. What it needs most today is communities of love, little islands flung everywhere by the hand of God so that men may, like St Thomas, touch the wounds love always makes.
From I Live On an Island (Ave Maria Press, 1979), p. 27.
I realize more and more as I travel, as I keep vigil, as I pray, that what the world needs is not more projects, more apostolic works, more works of mercy, more social works, more community development programs. What it needs most today is communities of love, little islands flung everywhere by the hand of God so that men may, like St Thomas, touch the wounds love always makes.
From I Live On an Island (Ave Maria Press, 1979), p. 27.
Arial!
via Gregg the Obscure
Arial - You're pretty normal. That's certainly not
a bad thing, as a lot of people like you.
What Font Are You? (Standard Fonts)
brought to you by Quizilla
via Gregg the Obscure
Arial - You're pretty normal. That's certainly not
a bad thing, as a lot of people like you.
What Font Are You? (Standard Fonts)
brought to you by Quizilla
A scary moment
Thank God it wasn't worse
Wheelchair racer collides with girl who runs onto course. No serious injuries.
Thank God it wasn't worse
Wheelchair racer collides with girl who runs onto course. No serious injuries.
Cheruiyot's afire! My, my, my Zakharova!
Winners of the 2003 Boston Marathon : Robert Cheruiyot of Kenya & Svetlana Zakharova of Russia.
Or at least that's how the newspapers will report it. This is truly an event where the winners are everyone who finished, and even some who didn't but gave it their best shot.
Sorry if that seems silly. What's perhaps even siller : I cry over the marathon. It's awesome and inspiring and incredible.
Winners of the 2003 Boston Marathon : Robert Cheruiyot of Kenya & Svetlana Zakharova of Russia.
Or at least that's how the newspapers will report it. This is truly an event where the winners are everyone who finished, and even some who didn't but gave it their best shot.
Sorry if that seems silly. What's perhaps even siller : I cry over the marathon. It's awesome and inspiring and incredible.
Fred Reed
gives a mildly provocative (not dangerously provocative, despite his subtitle), sane, modest proposal about education -- and he reasons against those who say that we need not learn certain things. The rambunctiousness here gives way to an elegance of logic that we (I) find appealing.
Actually, his provocative idea is : should we resegregate public schools, along the lines of "schools interested in teaching the liberal arts, algebra, science, civilization" and "schools for those who really don't want to learn all that much other than the basics we need to survive"? He exhorts whoever's listening : Don't enstupidate the schools to which I send my daughters.
gives a mildly provocative (not dangerously provocative, despite his subtitle), sane, modest proposal about education -- and he reasons against those who say that we need not learn certain things. The rambunctiousness here gives way to an elegance of logic that we (I) find appealing.
Actually, his provocative idea is : should we resegregate public schools, along the lines of "schools interested in teaching the liberal arts, algebra, science, civilization" and "schools for those who really don't want to learn all that much other than the basics we need to survive"? He exhorts whoever's listening : Don't enstupidate the schools to which I send my daughters.
Death be not proud
John Donne
Death be not proud, though some have callèd thee
Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so,
For those whom thou think'st thou dost overthrow,
Die not, poor death, nor yet canst thou kill me.
From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be,
Much pleasure, then from thee, much more must flow,
And soonest our best men with thee do go,
Rest of their bones, and soul's delivery.
Thou art slave to Fate, Chance, kings, and desperate men,
And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell,
And poppy, or charms can make us sleep as well,
And better than thy stroke; why swell'st thou then?
One short sleep past, we wake eternally,
And death shall be no more; death, thou shalt die.
Death be not proud, though some have callèd thee
Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so,
For those whom thou think'st thou dost overthrow,
Die not, poor death, nor yet canst thou kill me.
From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be,
Much pleasure, then from thee, much more must flow,
And soonest our best men with thee do go,
Rest of their bones, and soul's delivery.
Thou art slave to Fate, Chance, kings, and desperate men,
And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell,
And poppy, or charms can make us sleep as well,
And better than thy stroke; why swell'st thou then?
One short sleep past, we wake eternally,
And death shall be no more; death, thou shalt die.
T S O'Rama
remembers a good priest, who left this life in the sure and certain hope of lasting life on Friday -- at age 50.
(Permalinks not working -- scroll to post headed "Death of a Good Priest.")
I have yet to read the newspaper articles that Mr O'Rama links to, but the personal recollections do convey some of this priest's exceptional grace.
remembers a good priest, who left this life in the sure and certain hope of lasting life on Friday -- at age 50.
(Permalinks not working -- scroll to post headed "Death of a Good Priest.")
I have yet to read the newspaper articles that Mr O'Rama links to, but the personal recollections do convey some of this priest's exceptional grace.
Easter
by Eric Milner-White (1884-1963)
THOU ART RISEN, O LORD!
Let the gospel trumpets speak,
and the news as of holy fire,
burning and flaming and inextinguishable,
run to the ends of the earth.
THOU ART RISEN, O LORD!
Let all creation greet the good tidings
with jubilant shout;
for its redemption has come,
the long night is past, the Saviour lives!
and rides and reigns in triumph
now and unto the ages of ages.
THOU ART RISEN, O LORD!
Let the quiet Altar dazzle with light;
let us haste to thy Presence
wondering, incredulous for joy;
and partake of thy Risen Life.
THOU ART RISEN, MY LORD AND MY GOD!
Rise up, my heart, give thanks, rejoice!
And do thou, O Lord, deign to enter it
despite the shut doors.
Shew me thy hands and thy side,
that it is thou thyself.
Send me about thy business,
servant of the living King, the King of kings;
and hide my life in thine
for ever and ever.
From My God, My Glory : Aspirations, acts, and prayers on the desire for God, ed. Joyce Huggett (Triangle/SPCK, 1994), p. 69.
by Eric Milner-White (1884-1963)
THOU ART RISEN, O LORD!
Let the gospel trumpets speak,
and the news as of holy fire,
burning and flaming and inextinguishable,
run to the ends of the earth.
THOU ART RISEN, O LORD!
Let all creation greet the good tidings
with jubilant shout;
for its redemption has come,
the long night is past, the Saviour lives!
and rides and reigns in triumph
now and unto the ages of ages.
THOU ART RISEN, O LORD!
Let the quiet Altar dazzle with light;
let us haste to thy Presence
wondering, incredulous for joy;
and partake of thy Risen Life.
THOU ART RISEN, MY LORD AND MY GOD!
Rise up, my heart, give thanks, rejoice!
And do thou, O Lord, deign to enter it
despite the shut doors.
Shew me thy hands and thy side,
that it is thou thyself.
Send me about thy business,
servant of the living King, the King of kings;
and hide my life in thine
for ever and ever.
From My God, My Glory : Aspirations, acts, and prayers on the desire for God, ed. Joyce Huggett (Triangle/SPCK, 1994), p. 69.
Sunday, April 20, 2003
from A Primitive Like an Orb
The Rat recently blogged some Wallace Stevens, and so I figured I'd do the same. I searched for 45 minutes to come up with the perfect "lines chosen at random"! So here they are :
VII
The central poem is the poem of the whole,
The poem of the composition of the whole,
The composition of blue sea and of green,
Of blue light and of green, as lesser poems,
And the miraculous multiplex of lesser poems,
Not merely into a whole, but a poem of
The whole, the essential compact of the parts,
The roundness that pulls tight the final ring
VIII
And that which in an altitude would soar,
A vis, a principle or, it may be
The meditation of a principle,
Or else an inherent order active to be
Itself, a nature to its natives all
Beneficence, a repose, utmost repose,
The muscles of a magnet aptly felt,
A giant on the horizon, glistening,
IX
And in bright excellence adorned, crested
With every prodigal, familiar fire,
And unfamiliar escapades : whirroos
And scintillant sizzlings such as children like,
Vested in the serious folds of majesty,
Moving around and behind, a following,
A source of trumpeting seraphs in the eye,
A source of pleasant outbursts on the ear.
The Rat recently blogged some Wallace Stevens, and so I figured I'd do the same. I searched for 45 minutes to come up with the perfect "lines chosen at random"! So here they are :
VII
The central poem is the poem of the whole,
The poem of the composition of the whole,
The composition of blue sea and of green,
Of blue light and of green, as lesser poems,
And the miraculous multiplex of lesser poems,
Not merely into a whole, but a poem of
The whole, the essential compact of the parts,
The roundness that pulls tight the final ring
VIII
And that which in an altitude would soar,
A vis, a principle or, it may be
The meditation of a principle,
Or else an inherent order active to be
Itself, a nature to its natives all
Beneficence, a repose, utmost repose,
The muscles of a magnet aptly felt,
A giant on the horizon, glistening,
IX
And in bright excellence adorned, crested
With every prodigal, familiar fire,
And unfamiliar escapades : whirroos
And scintillant sizzlings such as children like,
Vested in the serious folds of majesty,
Moving around and behind, a following,
A source of trumpeting seraphs in the eye,
A source of pleasant outbursts on the ear.
The Easter Hymn of the Mother of God
from the Eastern Church
The angel cried aloud to her who was full of grace : Rejoice, O pure Maiden, and again I say, Rejoice; thy Son hath risen the third day from the tomb.
Shine, shine, thou new Jerusalem : for the glory of the Lord hath risen upon thee! Rejoice in the dance and exult, O Sion! And do thou, O Mother of God, most pure, delight in the Rising of thy Child!
from the Eastern Church
The angel cried aloud to her who was full of grace : Rejoice, O pure Maiden, and again I say, Rejoice; thy Son hath risen the third day from the tomb.
Shine, shine, thou new Jerusalem : for the glory of the Lord hath risen upon thee! Rejoice in the dance and exult, O Sion! And do thou, O Mother of God, most pure, delight in the Rising of thy Child!
from Easter Sermon of St John Chrysostom
via St Benedict's Parish, Baltimore, mentioned by (attended by) Gerard
Let all then enter the joy of our Lord!
Both the first and the last and those who come after, enjoy your reward!
Rich and poor, dance with one another, sober and slothful, celebrate the day.
Those who have kept the fast and those who have not, rejoice today, for the table is richly spread.
Fare royally upon it -- the calf is a fatted one.
Let no one go away hungry.
All of you, enjoy the banquet of faith!
All enjoy the riches of his goodness.
Let no one cry over his poverty, for the universal Kingdom has appeared!
Let no one mourn that he has fallen again and again, for forgiveness has risen from the grave.
Let no one fear death, for the death of our Savior has set us free.
He has destroyed it by enduring it.
He spoiled the power of hell when he descended thereto.
Isaiah foretold this when he cried, Death has been frustrated in meeting him below!
It is frustrated, for it is destroyed.
It is frustrated, for it is annihilated.
It is frustrated, for now it is made captive.
For it grabbed a body and discovered God.
It took earth and behold! it encountered heaven.
It took what was visible, and was overcome by what was invisible.
O Death, where is your sting?
O Death, where is your victory?
Christ is risen,
and the demons are cast down.
Christ is risen,
and life is set free.
Christ is risen,
and the tomb is emptied of the dead.
For Christ, having risen from the dead, is become the first-fruits of those who sleep.
To him be glory and power forever and ever!
Amen. Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia!
via St Benedict's Parish, Baltimore, mentioned by (attended by) Gerard
Let all then enter the joy of our Lord!
Both the first and the last and those who come after, enjoy your reward!
Rich and poor, dance with one another, sober and slothful, celebrate the day.
Those who have kept the fast and those who have not, rejoice today, for the table is richly spread.
Fare royally upon it -- the calf is a fatted one.
Let no one go away hungry.
All of you, enjoy the banquet of faith!
All enjoy the riches of his goodness.
Let no one cry over his poverty, for the universal Kingdom has appeared!
Let no one mourn that he has fallen again and again, for forgiveness has risen from the grave.
Let no one fear death, for the death of our Savior has set us free.
He has destroyed it by enduring it.
He spoiled the power of hell when he descended thereto.
Isaiah foretold this when he cried, Death has been frustrated in meeting him below!
It is frustrated, for it is destroyed.
It is frustrated, for it is annihilated.
It is frustrated, for now it is made captive.
For it grabbed a body and discovered God.
It took earth and behold! it encountered heaven.
It took what was visible, and was overcome by what was invisible.
O Death, where is your sting?
O Death, where is your victory?
Christ is risen,
and the demons are cast down.
Christ is risen,
and life is set free.
Christ is risen,
and the tomb is emptied of the dead.
For Christ, having risen from the dead, is become the first-fruits of those who sleep.
To him be glory and power forever and ever!
Amen. Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia!
Alleluias from the Psalter!
Psalm 148, Revised Standard Version
1: Praise the LORD! Praise the LORD from the heavens, praise him in the heights!
2: Praise him, all his angels, praise him, all his host!
3: Praise him, sun and moon, praise him, all you shining stars!
4: Praise him, you highest heavens, and you waters above the heavens!
5: Let them praise the name of the LORD! For he commanded and they were created.
6: And he established them for ever and ever; he fixed their bounds which cannot be passed.
7: Praise the LORD from the earth, you sea monsters and all deeps,
8: fire and hail, snow and frost, stormy wind fulfilling his command!
9: Mountains and all hills, fruit trees and all cedars!
10: Beasts and all cattle, creeping things and flying birds!
11: Kings of the earth and all peoples, princes and all rulers of the earth!
12: Young men and maidens together, old men and children!
13: Let them praise the name of the LORD, for his name alone is exalted; his glory is above earth and heaven.
14: He has raised up a horn for his people, praise for all his saints, for the people of Israel who are near to him. Praise the LORD!
Psalm 148, Revised Standard Version
1: Praise the LORD! Praise the LORD from the heavens, praise him in the heights!
2: Praise him, all his angels, praise him, all his host!
3: Praise him, sun and moon, praise him, all you shining stars!
4: Praise him, you highest heavens, and you waters above the heavens!
5: Let them praise the name of the LORD! For he commanded and they were created.
6: And he established them for ever and ever; he fixed their bounds which cannot be passed.
7: Praise the LORD from the earth, you sea monsters and all deeps,
8: fire and hail, snow and frost, stormy wind fulfilling his command!
9: Mountains and all hills, fruit trees and all cedars!
10: Beasts and all cattle, creeping things and flying birds!
11: Kings of the earth and all peoples, princes and all rulers of the earth!
12: Young men and maidens together, old men and children!
13: Let them praise the name of the LORD, for his name alone is exalted; his glory is above earth and heaven.
14: He has raised up a horn for his people, praise for all his saints, for the people of Israel who are near to him. Praise the LORD!
Saturday, April 19, 2003
Kathleen Norris
"Triduum Notes : Saturday" from The Cloister Walk
The air is full of the anticipation of snow, a howling wind. Words will not let me be : in cold and silence you are born, from the womb of earth, the cloud of snow yet to fall. And from somewhere in the liturgy : What has been prepared for me? Tonight I have a big responsibility; after the Service of Light, after the long story of the Exultet is sung -- "This is the night, this is the night" -- I will speak the first words of the Liturgy of the Word, the opening lines of Genesis : "In the beginning, God ..."
My friend Columba and I share this first reading -- here, they divide it between God and a narrator. Rehearsing in the abbey's chapter house, we had flipped a coin, and Columba won the part of God, which I didn't mind in the least. The narrator has better lines. Now, standing in the church full of people I can barely see, I say them slowly, as if I had all the time in the world. It is the creation of the world we are saying, and I'm surprised to find surprise in the lines : let there be ... and there was, God waiting to see, and to call it good.
As my eyes grow accustomed to the light in the church, I can see my husband hunched in the balcony. I had warned him not to come, because the Mass usually puts him in such a bad mood.
[...]
Nearly three hours after we've begun, the abbot announces, just before the final blessing, that coffee and orange juice and light refreshments will be served in the Great Hall. I wonder if Benedictines can do anything without feeding people, without making it a party. And it's quite a party, full of stone-sober people who are drunk on liturgy. I look for my husband. He's been outside smoking, and when he comes up to us he puts his arm around me and says to the monks, "The last time I went to the Vigil it was still in Latin, but you guys do it up right." They laugh. "The choir sounded magnificent," David says to me. "You liked it?" I reply, amazed. "It was beautiful," he says, and he seems to mean it. "Abbot Timothy," I say, "we have an emergency. This is not the man I married." The abbot laughs, we all laugh, and visit until nearly 2 A.M.
Norris, op. cit. (Riverhead Books, 1996), pp. 181-2.
"Triduum Notes : Saturday" from The Cloister Walk
The air is full of the anticipation of snow, a howling wind. Words will not let me be : in cold and silence you are born, from the womb of earth, the cloud of snow yet to fall. And from somewhere in the liturgy : What has been prepared for me? Tonight I have a big responsibility; after the Service of Light, after the long story of the Exultet is sung -- "This is the night, this is the night" -- I will speak the first words of the Liturgy of the Word, the opening lines of Genesis : "In the beginning, God ..."
My friend Columba and I share this first reading -- here, they divide it between God and a narrator. Rehearsing in the abbey's chapter house, we had flipped a coin, and Columba won the part of God, which I didn't mind in the least. The narrator has better lines. Now, standing in the church full of people I can barely see, I say them slowly, as if I had all the time in the world. It is the creation of the world we are saying, and I'm surprised to find surprise in the lines : let there be ... and there was, God waiting to see, and to call it good.
As my eyes grow accustomed to the light in the church, I can see my husband hunched in the balcony. I had warned him not to come, because the Mass usually puts him in such a bad mood.
[...]
Nearly three hours after we've begun, the abbot announces, just before the final blessing, that coffee and orange juice and light refreshments will be served in the Great Hall. I wonder if Benedictines can do anything without feeding people, without making it a party. And it's quite a party, full of stone-sober people who are drunk on liturgy. I look for my husband. He's been outside smoking, and when he comes up to us he puts his arm around me and says to the monks, "The last time I went to the Vigil it was still in Latin, but you guys do it up right." They laugh. "The choir sounded magnificent," David says to me. "You liked it?" I reply, amazed. "It was beautiful," he says, and he seems to mean it. "Abbot Timothy," I say, "we have an emergency. This is not the man I married." The abbot laughs, we all laugh, and visit until nearly 2 A.M.
Norris, op. cit. (Riverhead Books, 1996), pp. 181-2.
Exsultet
On this page, in English and Latin.
And below, in Latin :
Exsultet iam angelica turba caelorum:
exultent divina mysteria:
et pro tanti Regis victoria tuba insonet salutaris.
Gaudeat et tellus tantis irradiata fulgoribus:
et, aeterni Regis splendore illustrata,
totius orbis se sentiat amisisse caliginem.
Laetetur et mater Ecclesia,
tanti luminis adornata fulgoribus:
et magnis populorum vocibus haec aula resultet.
Quapropter astantes vos, fratres carissimi, (1962: "adstantes")
ad tam miram huius sancti luminis claritatem,
una mecum, quaeso,
Dei omnipotentis misericordiam invocate.
Ut, qui me non meis meritis
intra Levitarum numerum dignatus est aggregare,
luminis sui claritatem infundens,
cerei huius laudem implere perficiat.
(1962: Per Dominum nostrum Iesus Christum filium suum: Qui cum eo vivit et regnat in unitate Spiritus Sancti Deus. Per omnia saecula saeculorum. R. Amen.)
V. Dominus vobiscum.
R. Et cum spiritu tuo.
V. Sursum corda.
R. Habemus ad Dominum.
V. Gratias agamus Domino Deo nostro.
R. Dignum et iustum est.
Vere dignum et iustum est,
invisibilem Deum Patrem omnipotentem
Filiumque eius unigenitum,
Dominum nostrum Iesum Christum,
toto cordis ac mentis affectu et vocis ministerio personare.
Qui pro nobis aeterno Patri Adae debitum solvit,
et veteris piaculi cautionem pio cruore detersit.
Haec sunt enim festa paschalia,
in quibus verus ille Agnus occiditur,
cuius sanguine postes fidelium consecrantur.
Haec nox est,
in qua primum patres nostros, filios Israel
eductos de Aegypto,
Mare Rubrum sicco vestigio transire fecisti.
Haec nox est,
quae peccatorum tenebras columnae illuminatione purgavit.
Haec nox est,
quae hodie per universum mundum in Christo credentes,
a vitiis saeculi et caligine peccatorum segregatos,
reddit gratiae, sociat sanctitati.
Haec nox est,
in qua, destructis vinculis mortis,
Christus ab inferis victor ascendit.
Nihil enim nobis nasci profuit, nisi redimi profuisset.
O mira circa nos Tuae pietatis dignatio!
O inaestimabilis dilectio caritatis:
ut servum redimeres, Filium tradidisti!
O certe necessarium Adae peccatum,
quod Christi morte deletum est!
O felix culpa,
quae talem ac tantum meruit habere Redemptorem!
O vere beata nox,
quae sola meruit scire tempus et horam,
in qua Christus ab inferis resurrexit!
Haec nox est, de qua scriptum est:
Et nox sicut dies illuminabitur:
et nox illuminatio mea in deliciis meis.
Huius igitur sanctificatio noctis fugat scelera, culpas lavat:
et reddit innocentiam lapsis et maestis laetitiam.
Fugat odia, concordiam parat et curvat imperia.
In huius igitur noctis gratia,
suscipe, sancte Pater, laudis huius sacrificium vespertinum,
quod tibi in hac cerei oblatione sollemni,
per ministrorum manus
de operibus apum, sacrosancta reddit Ecclesia.
Sed iam columnae huius praeconia novimus,
quam in honorem Dei rutilans ignis accendit.
Qui, licet sit divisus in partes,
mutuati tamen luminis detrimenta non novit.
Alitur enim liquantibus ceris,
quas in substantiam pretiosae huius lampadis
apis mater eduxit.
(1962: O vere beata nox,
quae exspoliavit Aegyptios,
ditavit Hebraeos!
Nox in qua terrenis caelestia,
humanis divina iunguntur.)
(O vere beata) nox,
in qua terrenis caelestia, humanis divina iunguntur!
Oramus ergo te, Domine,
ut cereus iste in honorem tui nominis consecratus,
ad noctis huius caliginem destruendam,
indeficiens perseveret.
Et in odorem suavitatis acceptus,
supernis luminaribus misceatur.
Flammas eius lucifer matutinus inveniat:
Ille, inquam, lucifer, qui nescit occasum:
Christus Filius tuus,
qui, regressus ab inferis, humano generi serenus illuxit,
(1962: Precamur ergo te, Domine: ut nos famulos tuos, omnemque clerum, et devotissimum populum: una cum beatissimo Papa nostro N. et Antistite nostro N., quiete temporum concessa, in his paschalibus gaudiis, assidua protectione regere, gubernare et conservare digneris. Respice etiam ad eos, qui nos in potestate regunt, et, ineffabili pietatis et misericordiae tuae munere, dirigere cogitationes eorum ad iustitiam et pacem, ut de terrena operositate ad caelestem patriam perveniant cum omni populo tuo. Per eundem Dominum nostrum Iesum Christum, Filium tuum: Qui tecum vivit et regnat in unitate Spiritus Sancti Deus: per omnia saecula saeculorum. R. Amen.)
et vivit et regnat in saecula saeculorum.
R. Amen.
On this page, in English and Latin.
And below, in Latin :
Exsultet iam angelica turba caelorum:
exultent divina mysteria:
et pro tanti Regis victoria tuba insonet salutaris.
Gaudeat et tellus tantis irradiata fulgoribus:
et, aeterni Regis splendore illustrata,
totius orbis se sentiat amisisse caliginem.
Laetetur et mater Ecclesia,
tanti luminis adornata fulgoribus:
et magnis populorum vocibus haec aula resultet.
Quapropter astantes vos, fratres carissimi, (1962: "adstantes")
ad tam miram huius sancti luminis claritatem,
una mecum, quaeso,
Dei omnipotentis misericordiam invocate.
Ut, qui me non meis meritis
intra Levitarum numerum dignatus est aggregare,
luminis sui claritatem infundens,
cerei huius laudem implere perficiat.
(1962: Per Dominum nostrum Iesus Christum filium suum: Qui cum eo vivit et regnat in unitate Spiritus Sancti Deus. Per omnia saecula saeculorum. R. Amen.)
V. Dominus vobiscum.
R. Et cum spiritu tuo.
V. Sursum corda.
R. Habemus ad Dominum.
V. Gratias agamus Domino Deo nostro.
R. Dignum et iustum est.
Vere dignum et iustum est,
invisibilem Deum Patrem omnipotentem
Filiumque eius unigenitum,
Dominum nostrum Iesum Christum,
toto cordis ac mentis affectu et vocis ministerio personare.
Qui pro nobis aeterno Patri Adae debitum solvit,
et veteris piaculi cautionem pio cruore detersit.
Haec sunt enim festa paschalia,
in quibus verus ille Agnus occiditur,
cuius sanguine postes fidelium consecrantur.
Haec nox est,
in qua primum patres nostros, filios Israel
eductos de Aegypto,
Mare Rubrum sicco vestigio transire fecisti.
Haec nox est,
quae peccatorum tenebras columnae illuminatione purgavit.
Haec nox est,
quae hodie per universum mundum in Christo credentes,
a vitiis saeculi et caligine peccatorum segregatos,
reddit gratiae, sociat sanctitati.
Haec nox est,
in qua, destructis vinculis mortis,
Christus ab inferis victor ascendit.
Nihil enim nobis nasci profuit, nisi redimi profuisset.
O mira circa nos Tuae pietatis dignatio!
O inaestimabilis dilectio caritatis:
ut servum redimeres, Filium tradidisti!
O certe necessarium Adae peccatum,
quod Christi morte deletum est!
O felix culpa,
quae talem ac tantum meruit habere Redemptorem!
O vere beata nox,
quae sola meruit scire tempus et horam,
in qua Christus ab inferis resurrexit!
Haec nox est, de qua scriptum est:
Et nox sicut dies illuminabitur:
et nox illuminatio mea in deliciis meis.
Huius igitur sanctificatio noctis fugat scelera, culpas lavat:
et reddit innocentiam lapsis et maestis laetitiam.
Fugat odia, concordiam parat et curvat imperia.
In huius igitur noctis gratia,
suscipe, sancte Pater, laudis huius sacrificium vespertinum,
quod tibi in hac cerei oblatione sollemni,
per ministrorum manus
de operibus apum, sacrosancta reddit Ecclesia.
Sed iam columnae huius praeconia novimus,
quam in honorem Dei rutilans ignis accendit.
Qui, licet sit divisus in partes,
mutuati tamen luminis detrimenta non novit.
Alitur enim liquantibus ceris,
quas in substantiam pretiosae huius lampadis
apis mater eduxit.
(1962: O vere beata nox,
quae exspoliavit Aegyptios,
ditavit Hebraeos!
Nox in qua terrenis caelestia,
humanis divina iunguntur.)
(O vere beata) nox,
in qua terrenis caelestia, humanis divina iunguntur!
Oramus ergo te, Domine,
ut cereus iste in honorem tui nominis consecratus,
ad noctis huius caliginem destruendam,
indeficiens perseveret.
Et in odorem suavitatis acceptus,
supernis luminaribus misceatur.
Flammas eius lucifer matutinus inveniat:
Ille, inquam, lucifer, qui nescit occasum:
Christus Filius tuus,
qui, regressus ab inferis, humano generi serenus illuxit,
(1962: Precamur ergo te, Domine: ut nos famulos tuos, omnemque clerum, et devotissimum populum: una cum beatissimo Papa nostro N. et Antistite nostro N., quiete temporum concessa, in his paschalibus gaudiis, assidua protectione regere, gubernare et conservare digneris. Respice etiam ad eos, qui nos in potestate regunt, et, ineffabili pietatis et misericordiae tuae munere, dirigere cogitationes eorum ad iustitiam et pacem, ut de terrena operositate ad caelestem patriam perveniant cum omni populo tuo. Per eundem Dominum nostrum Iesum Christum, Filium tuum: Qui tecum vivit et regnat in unitate Spiritus Sancti Deus: per omnia saecula saeculorum. R. Amen.)
et vivit et regnat in saecula saeculorum.
R. Amen.
Easter Vigil, 1966
by Karol Wojtyla (b. 1920)
This is a Night above all nights, when
keeping watch at Your grave
we are the Church.
This is the night of strife
when hope and despair do battle within us.
This strife overlays all our past struggles,
filling them all to their depths.
(Do they lose their sense then, or gain it?)
This is the Night, when the earth's ritual attains its beginning.
A thousand years is like one night :
the night keeping watch
at Your grave.
From The Place Within : The Poetry of Pope John Paul II, trans. Jerzy Peterkiewicz (Random House, 1982, 1994), p. 140.
by Karol Wojtyla (b. 1920)
This is a Night above all nights, when
keeping watch at Your grave
we are the Church.
This is the night of strife
when hope and despair do battle within us.
This strife overlays all our past struggles,
filling them all to their depths.
(Do they lose their sense then, or gain it?)
This is the Night, when the earth's ritual attains its beginning.
A thousand years is like one night :
the night keeping watch
at Your grave.
From The Place Within : The Poetry of Pope John Paul II, trans. Jerzy Peterkiewicz (Random House, 1982, 1994), p. 140.
Zone of Death
by William Everson (Brother Antoninus, 1912-1994)
Wind is not nigh.
No Holy Ghost,
Spirit outspilt,
Burnt this charred day.
What sin did this?
Could I?
Hot light blares.
Stars, outblistered now,
Mark time, extinct.
Night might bring
The seasonal constellations
In its sphere,
But night is nowhere.
Sun. Sand.
The noon-crazy jays
Cackle and gibber,
Jar on the gritted ear.
Dawn sneaked in unsmelt.
No wine, no water here.
Now the lance-riddled man
On yon pronged tree,
Stretched in the death-tread there,
Opens his executing eye
And gibbets me.
From The Voice That Is Great Within Us : American Poetry of the Twentieth Century, ed. Hayden Carruth (Bantam Books, 1970), p. 353.
by William Everson (Brother Antoninus, 1912-1994)
Wind is not nigh.
No Holy Ghost,
Spirit outspilt,
Burnt this charred day.
What sin did this?
Could I?
Hot light blares.
Stars, outblistered now,
Mark time, extinct.
Night might bring
The seasonal constellations
In its sphere,
But night is nowhere.
Sun. Sand.
The noon-crazy jays
Cackle and gibber,
Jar on the gritted ear.
Dawn sneaked in unsmelt.
No wine, no water here.
Now the lance-riddled man
On yon pronged tree,
Stretched in the death-tread there,
Opens his executing eye
And gibbets me.
From The Voice That Is Great Within Us : American Poetry of the Twentieth Century, ed. Hayden Carruth (Bantam Books, 1970), p. 353.
mud above the ankles
a smile-engendering simile at Notes from a Hillside Farm
Down at the sheep barn there was mud above the ankles, sometimes up to the boot top, grabbing and holding on like an insistent drunk at a party -- "Have you heard the one about . . .?"
a smile-engendering simile at Notes from a Hillside Farm
Down at the sheep barn there was mud above the ankles, sometimes up to the boot top, grabbing and holding on like an insistent drunk at a party -- "Have you heard the one about . . .?"
Encyclical letter
Ecclesia de Eucharistia.
I have not read it in its entirety, and prefer to read documents of this length in hard copy so as to underline in faint pencil, or to make marginal notations : but what I have read of it gives the impression of a richness and a depth far beyond that reported by the media ("Gasp! Horror! He's saying Catholics shouldn't receive Protestant communion" -- what the blogger at Disputations called the Ginger factor, after the Far Side cartoon : the media hearing only what they want to hear).
Ecclesia de Eucharistia.
I have not read it in its entirety, and prefer to read documents of this length in hard copy so as to underline in faint pencil, or to make marginal notations : but what I have read of it gives the impression of a richness and a depth far beyond that reported by the media ("Gasp! Horror! He's saying Catholics shouldn't receive Protestant communion" -- what the blogger at Disputations called the Ginger factor, after the Far Side cartoon : the media hearing only what they want to hear).
The world's last night
John Donne's Holy Sonnet XIII via Lane Core.
See also, at Blog from the Core, a poem by C S Lewis.
John Donne's Holy Sonnet XIII via Lane Core.
See also, at Blog from the Core, a poem by C S Lewis.
Friday, April 18, 2003
from Isaiah 52 and 53
He grew up like a sapling before him,
like a shoot from the parched earth;
there was in him no stately bearing to make us look at him,
nor appearance that would attract us to him.
He was spurned and avoided by people,
a man of suffering, accustomed to infirmity,
one of those from whom people hide their faces,
spurned, and we held him in no esteem.
Yet it was our infirmities that he bore,
our sufferings that he endured,
while we thought of him as stricken,
as one smitten by God and afflicted.
But he was pierced for our offenses,
crushed for our sins;
upon him was the chastisement that makes us whole,
by his stripes we were healed.
We had all gone astray like sheep,
each following his own way;
but the LORD laid upon him
the guilt of us all.
Though he was harshly treated, he submitted
and opened not his mouth;
like a lamb led to the slaughter
or a sheep before the shearers,
he was silent and opened not his mouth.
Oppressed and condemned, he was taken away,
and who would have thought any more of his destiny?
When he was cut off from the land of the living,
and smitten for the sin of his people,
a grave was assigned him among the wicked
and a burial place with evildoers,
though he had done no wrong
nor spoken any falsehood.
[...]
Because of his affliction
he shall see the light in fullness of days;
through his suffering, my servant shall justify many,
and their guilt he shall bear.
Therefore I will give him his portion among the great,
and he shall divide the spoils with the mighty,
because he surrendered himself to death
and was counted among the wicked;
and he shall take away the sins of many,
and win pardon for their offenses.
He grew up like a sapling before him,
like a shoot from the parched earth;
there was in him no stately bearing to make us look at him,
nor appearance that would attract us to him.
He was spurned and avoided by people,
a man of suffering, accustomed to infirmity,
one of those from whom people hide their faces,
spurned, and we held him in no esteem.
Yet it was our infirmities that he bore,
our sufferings that he endured,
while we thought of him as stricken,
as one smitten by God and afflicted.
But he was pierced for our offenses,
crushed for our sins;
upon him was the chastisement that makes us whole,
by his stripes we were healed.
We had all gone astray like sheep,
each following his own way;
but the LORD laid upon him
the guilt of us all.
Though he was harshly treated, he submitted
and opened not his mouth;
like a lamb led to the slaughter
or a sheep before the shearers,
he was silent and opened not his mouth.
Oppressed and condemned, he was taken away,
and who would have thought any more of his destiny?
When he was cut off from the land of the living,
and smitten for the sin of his people,
a grave was assigned him among the wicked
and a burial place with evildoers,
though he had done no wrong
nor spoken any falsehood.
[...]
Because of his affliction
he shall see the light in fullness of days;
through his suffering, my servant shall justify many,
and their guilt he shall bear.
Therefore I will give him his portion among the great,
and he shall divide the spoils with the mighty,
because he surrendered himself to death
and was counted among the wicked;
and he shall take away the sins of many,
and win pardon for their offenses.
Another recent bit
of patristic "roulette" from Doxos
It is better to make peace with your own soul than to pacify those who are at variance by your teaching.
Isaac of Syria
of patristic "roulette" from Doxos
It is better to make peace with your own soul than to pacify those who are at variance by your teaching.
Isaac of Syria
Encouragement from the Psalter
this time, from the Revised English Bible with the Apocrypha
from Psalm 31
7 I shall rejoice and be glad in your unfailing love,
for you have seen my affliction
and have cared for me in my distress.
19 How great is your goodness,
stored up for those who fear you,
made manifest before mortal eyes
for all who turn to you for shelter.
21 Blessed be the Lord,
whose unfailing love for me was wonderful
when I was in sore straits.
22 In sudden alarm I said,
'I am shut out from your sight.'
But you heard my plea
when I called to you for help.
24 Be strong and stout-hearted,
all you whose hope is in the Lord.
+ + + + +
from Psalm 34
18 The Lord is close to those whose courage is broken;
he saves those whose spirit is crushed.
this time, from the Revised English Bible with the Apocrypha
from Psalm 31
7 I shall rejoice and be glad in your unfailing love,
for you have seen my affliction
and have cared for me in my distress.
19 How great is your goodness,
stored up for those who fear you,
made manifest before mortal eyes
for all who turn to you for shelter.
21 Blessed be the Lord,
whose unfailing love for me was wonderful
when I was in sore straits.
22 In sudden alarm I said,
'I am shut out from your sight.'
But you heard my plea
when I called to you for help.
24 Be strong and stout-hearted,
all you whose hope is in the Lord.
+ + + + +
from Psalm 34
18 The Lord is close to those whose courage is broken;
he saves those whose spirit is crushed.
Good Friday
by Vernon Watkins (1906-1967)
After the winter solstice came
Ice and low flame,
The cockerel step by which the light
Shortened the sleep of earth and night.
And slowly as the days of Lent
Waxed and were spent,
Trees, birds and flowers all increased
In expectation of the feast.
Spring with such promise did abound
That the gemmed ground
Already showed in clustered grass
The printless light of unseen stars.
But now light grows where rays decline.
Now the crushed wine
Transfigures all, leaf, blossom, fruit,
By reference to the sacred root.
Day must die here that day may break.
Time must forsake
Time, and this moment be preferred
To any copy, light or word.
In this a night we apprehend
Which has no end.
Day dies. We make our choice, and say :
'This, this we seek; no second day.'
Not in the speculative skies
Instruction lies,
But in the nails of darkness driven
Into these hands which hold up heaven.
For, as old ages antedate
Love's present weight,
So the pulse falling gives the chain
Momentum to what years remain.
All lives, to flourish, here should stop
Still; and all hope
To live, must die here first, and pull
New ages to this mountain skull.
Now let the geography of lands
Learn from these hands,
And from these feet the unresting seas
Take, from unfathomed grief, their ease.
Our mortal life is composite
Until we knit
All possible days to this, and make
A seal, from which true day must break.
Come, Easter, come : I was afraid
Your star had strayed.
It was behind our darkest fears
Which could not see their God for tears.
by Vernon Watkins (1906-1967)
After the winter solstice came
Ice and low flame,
The cockerel step by which the light
Shortened the sleep of earth and night.
And slowly as the days of Lent
Waxed and were spent,
Trees, birds and flowers all increased
In expectation of the feast.
Spring with such promise did abound
That the gemmed ground
Already showed in clustered grass
The printless light of unseen stars.
But now light grows where rays decline.
Now the crushed wine
Transfigures all, leaf, blossom, fruit,
By reference to the sacred root.
Day must die here that day may break.
Time must forsake
Time, and this moment be preferred
To any copy, light or word.
In this a night we apprehend
Which has no end.
Day dies. We make our choice, and say :
'This, this we seek; no second day.'
Not in the speculative skies
Instruction lies,
But in the nails of darkness driven
Into these hands which hold up heaven.
For, as old ages antedate
Love's present weight,
So the pulse falling gives the chain
Momentum to what years remain.
All lives, to flourish, here should stop
Still; and all hope
To live, must die here first, and pull
New ages to this mountain skull.
Now let the geography of lands
Learn from these hands,
And from these feet the unresting seas
Take, from unfathomed grief, their ease.
Our mortal life is composite
Until we knit
All possible days to this, and make
A seal, from which true day must break.
Come, Easter, come : I was afraid
Your star had strayed.
It was behind our darkest fears
Which could not see their God for tears.
Thursday, April 17, 2003
from Psalm 22. Deus, Deus meus.
11 O go not from me; for trouble is hard at hand, * and there is none to help me.
19 But be not thou far from me, O LORD; * thou art my succour, haste thee to help me.
24 For he hath not despised nor abhorred the low estate of the poor; * he hath not hid his face from him; but when he called unto him he heard him.
11 O go not from me; for trouble is hard at hand, * and there is none to help me.
19 But be not thou far from me, O LORD; * thou art my succour, haste thee to help me.
24 For he hath not despised nor abhorred the low estate of the poor; * he hath not hid his face from him; but when he called unto him he heard him.
Five Short-Shorts
by Hayden Carruth (b. 1921)
Why speak of the use
of poetry? Poetry
is what uses us.
*
Ah, you beast of love,
my cat, my dove, my spider
-- too late I'm natured.
*
A hard journey. Yes,
it must be. At the end they
all fall asleep.
*
Your tears, Niobe,
are your children now. See how
we have multiplied.
*
So be it. I am
a wholeness I'll never know.
Maybe that's the best.
from The Voice That Is Great Within Us : American Poetry of the Twentieth Century, ed. H. Carruth (Bantam Books, 1970), pp. 482-3.
by Hayden Carruth (b. 1921)
Why speak of the use
of poetry? Poetry
is what uses us.
*
Ah, you beast of love,
my cat, my dove, my spider
-- too late I'm natured.
*
A hard journey. Yes,
it must be. At the end they
all fall asleep.
*
Your tears, Niobe,
are your children now. See how
we have multiplied.
*
So be it. I am
a wholeness I'll never know.
Maybe that's the best.
from The Voice That Is Great Within Us : American Poetry of the Twentieth Century, ed. H. Carruth (Bantam Books, 1970), pp. 482-3.
Hymn : Vexilla Regis
The royal banners forward go,
The cross shines forth in mystic glow;
Where he in flesh, our flesh Who made,
Our sentence bore, our ransom paid.
Where deep for us the spear was dyed,
Life's torrent rushing from His side,
To wash us in that precious flood,
Where mingled water flowed, and blood.
Fulfilled is all that David told
In true prophetic song of old,
Amidst the nations, God, saith he,
Hath reigned and triumphed from the tree.
O tree of beauty, tree of light!
O tree with royal purple dight!
Elect on whose triumphal breast
Those holy limbs should find their rest.
Blest tree, whose chosen branches bore
The wealth that did the world restore,
The price of humankind to pay,
And spoil the spoiler of his prey.
Upon its arms, like balance true,
He weighed the price for sinners due,
The price which none but He could pay,
And spoiled the spoiler of his prey.
O cross, our one reliance, hail!
Still may thy power with us avail
To give new virtue to the saint,
And pardon to the penitent.
To Thee, eternal Three in One,
Let homage meet by all be done:
As by the cross Thou dost restore,
So rule and guide us evermore.
+ + + + +
Vexilla Regis prodeunt:
Fulget Crucis mysterium,
Qua vita mortem pertulit,
Et morte vitam protulit.
Quae vulnerata lanceae
Mucrone diro, criminum
Ut nos lavaret sordibus,
Manavit unda, et sanguine.
Impleta sunt quae concinit
David fideli carmine,
Dicendo nationibus:
Regnavit a ligno Deus.
Arbor decora et fulgida,
Ornata regis purpura,
Electa digno stipite
Tam sancta membra tangere.
Beata, cujus brachiis
Pretium pependit saeculi,
Statera facta corporis,
Tulitque praedam tartari.
O Crux ave spes unica,
Hoc passionis tempore
Piis adauge gratiam,
Reisque dele crimina.
Te, fons salutis Trinitas,
Collaudet omnis spiritus:
Quibus Crucis victoriam
Lariris, adde praemium.
Venantius Honorius Fortunatus, 569
trans. John Mason Neale, 1851
The royal banners forward go,
The cross shines forth in mystic glow;
Where he in flesh, our flesh Who made,
Our sentence bore, our ransom paid.
Where deep for us the spear was dyed,
Life's torrent rushing from His side,
To wash us in that precious flood,
Where mingled water flowed, and blood.
Fulfilled is all that David told
In true prophetic song of old,
Amidst the nations, God, saith he,
Hath reigned and triumphed from the tree.
O tree of beauty, tree of light!
O tree with royal purple dight!
Elect on whose triumphal breast
Those holy limbs should find their rest.
Blest tree, whose chosen branches bore
The wealth that did the world restore,
The price of humankind to pay,
And spoil the spoiler of his prey.
Upon its arms, like balance true,
He weighed the price for sinners due,
The price which none but He could pay,
And spoiled the spoiler of his prey.
O cross, our one reliance, hail!
Still may thy power with us avail
To give new virtue to the saint,
And pardon to the penitent.
To Thee, eternal Three in One,
Let homage meet by all be done:
As by the cross Thou dost restore,
So rule and guide us evermore.
+ + + + +
Vexilla Regis prodeunt:
Fulget Crucis mysterium,
Qua vita mortem pertulit,
Et morte vitam protulit.
Quae vulnerata lanceae
Mucrone diro, criminum
Ut nos lavaret sordibus,
Manavit unda, et sanguine.
Impleta sunt quae concinit
David fideli carmine,
Dicendo nationibus:
Regnavit a ligno Deus.
Arbor decora et fulgida,
Ornata regis purpura,
Electa digno stipite
Tam sancta membra tangere.
Beata, cujus brachiis
Pretium pependit saeculi,
Statera facta corporis,
Tulitque praedam tartari.
O Crux ave spes unica,
Hoc passionis tempore
Piis adauge gratiam,
Reisque dele crimina.
Te, fons salutis Trinitas,
Collaudet omnis spiritus:
Quibus Crucis victoriam
Lariris, adde praemium.
Venantius Honorius Fortunatus, 569
trans. John Mason Neale, 1851
Via Doxos
what the blogger calls 'Patristic Roulette' !!
Abba Xanthios said, "A dog is better than I am, for he has love and he does not judge."
what the blogger calls 'Patristic Roulette' !!
Abba Xanthios said, "A dog is better than I am, for he has love and he does not judge."
The Poets
by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882)
O ye dead Poets, who are living still
Immortal in your verse, though life be fled,
And ye, O living Poets, who are dead
Though ye are living, if neglect can kill,
Tell me if in the darkest hours of ill,
With drops of anguish falling fast and red
From the sharp crown of thorns upon your head,
Ye were not glad your errand to fulfil?
Yes; for the gift and ministry of Song
Have something in them so divinely sweet,
It can assuage the bitterness of wrong;
Not in the clamor of the crowded street,
Not in the shouts and plaudits of the throng,
But in ourselves, are triumph and defeat.
by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882)
O ye dead Poets, who are living still
Immortal in your verse, though life be fled,
And ye, O living Poets, who are dead
Though ye are living, if neglect can kill,
Tell me if in the darkest hours of ill,
With drops of anguish falling fast and red
From the sharp crown of thorns upon your head,
Ye were not glad your errand to fulfil?
Yes; for the gift and ministry of Song
Have something in them so divinely sweet,
It can assuage the bitterness of wrong;
Not in the clamor of the crowded street,
Not in the shouts and plaudits of the throng,
But in ourselves, are triumph and defeat.
Encouragement from the Psalter
via the Msgr Knox translation of the Holy Bible
from Psalm 51 (50 in Knox)
... tidings send me of good news and rejoicing, and the body that lies in the dust shall thrill with pride.
+ + + + +
from Psalm 19 (18 in Knox)
... he has made a pavilion for the sun, which comes out as a bridegroom comes from his bed, and exults like some great runner who sees the track before him.
That latter, for the marathoners who take to the course on Easter Monday !!
via the Msgr Knox translation of the Holy Bible
from Psalm 51 (50 in Knox)
... tidings send me of good news and rejoicing, and the body that lies in the dust shall thrill with pride.
+ + + + +
from Psalm 19 (18 in Knox)
... he has made a pavilion for the sun, which comes out as a bridegroom comes from his bed, and exults like some great runner who sees the track before him.
That latter, for the marathoners who take to the course on Easter Monday !!
Bishop KALLISTOS (Ware) of Diokleia
author of The Orthodox Way
God alone is noun; all created things are adjectives.
Orthodox quote for today via the website of Boston's OCA cathedral.
Ware, op. cit. (SVS Press, 2002), p. 45
author of The Orthodox Way
God alone is noun; all created things are adjectives.
Orthodox quote for today via the website of Boston's OCA cathedral.
Ware, op. cit. (SVS Press, 2002), p. 45
Encouragement
from the Psalter
Psalm 93. Dominus regnavit.
2 He hath made the round world so sure, * that it cannot be moved.
5 The waves of the sea are mighty, and rage horribly; * but yet the LORD, who dwelleth on high, is mightier.
+ + + + +
Psalm 84. Quam dilecta!
5 Blessed is the man whose strength is in thee; * in whose heart are thy ways.
6 Who going through the vale of misery use it for a well [...]
from the Psalter
Psalm 93. Dominus regnavit.
2 He hath made the round world so sure, * that it cannot be moved.
5 The waves of the sea are mighty, and rage horribly; * but yet the LORD, who dwelleth on high, is mightier.
+ + + + +
Psalm 84. Quam dilecta!
5 Blessed is the man whose strength is in thee; * in whose heart are thy ways.
6 Who going through the vale of misery use it for a well [...]
Psalm 38. Domine, ne in furore.
PUT me not to rebuke, O LORD, in thine anger; * neither chasten me in thy heavy displeasure :
2 For thine arrows stick fast in me, * and thy hand presseth me sore.
3 There is no health in my flesh, because of thy displeasure; * neither is there any rest in my bones, by reason of my sin.
4 For my wickednesses are gone over my head, * and are like a sore burden, too heavy for me to bear.
5 My wounds stink, and are corrupt, * through my foolishness.
6 I am brought into so great trouble and misery, * that I go mourning all the day long.
7 For my loins are filled with a sore disease, * and there is no whole part in my body.
8 I am feeble and sore smitten; * I have roared for the very disquietness of my heart.
9 Lord, thou knowest all my desire; * and my groaning is not hid from thee.
10 My heart panteth, my strength hath failed me, * and the light of mine eyes is gone from me.
11 My lovers and my neighbours did stand looking upon my trouble, * and my kinsmen stood afar off.
12 They also that sought after my life laid snares for me; * and they that went about to do me evil talked of wickedness, and imagined deceit all the day long.
13 As for me, I was like a deaf man, and heard not; * and as one that is dumb, who doth not open his mouth.
14 I became even as a man that heareth not, * and in whose mouth are no reproofs.
15 For in thee, O LORD, have I put my trust; * thou shalt answer for me, O Lord my God.
16 I have required that they, even mine enemies, should not triumph over me; * for when my foot slipt, they rejoiced greatly against me.
17 And I truly am set in the plague, * and my heaviness is ever in my sight.
18 For I will confess my wickedness, * and be sorry for my sin.
19 But mine enemies live, and are mighty; * and they that hate me wrongfully are many in number.
20 They also that reward evil for good are against me; * because I follow the thing that good is.
21 Forsake me not, O LORD my God; * be not thou far from me.
PUT me not to rebuke, O LORD, in thine anger; * neither chasten me in thy heavy displeasure :
2 For thine arrows stick fast in me, * and thy hand presseth me sore.
3 There is no health in my flesh, because of thy displeasure; * neither is there any rest in my bones, by reason of my sin.
4 For my wickednesses are gone over my head, * and are like a sore burden, too heavy for me to bear.
5 My wounds stink, and are corrupt, * through my foolishness.
6 I am brought into so great trouble and misery, * that I go mourning all the day long.
7 For my loins are filled with a sore disease, * and there is no whole part in my body.
8 I am feeble and sore smitten; * I have roared for the very disquietness of my heart.
9 Lord, thou knowest all my desire; * and my groaning is not hid from thee.
10 My heart panteth, my strength hath failed me, * and the light of mine eyes is gone from me.
11 My lovers and my neighbours did stand looking upon my trouble, * and my kinsmen stood afar off.
12 They also that sought after my life laid snares for me; * and they that went about to do me evil talked of wickedness, and imagined deceit all the day long.
13 As for me, I was like a deaf man, and heard not; * and as one that is dumb, who doth not open his mouth.
14 I became even as a man that heareth not, * and in whose mouth are no reproofs.
15 For in thee, O LORD, have I put my trust; * thou shalt answer for me, O Lord my God.
16 I have required that they, even mine enemies, should not triumph over me; * for when my foot slipt, they rejoiced greatly against me.
17 And I truly am set in the plague, * and my heaviness is ever in my sight.
18 For I will confess my wickedness, * and be sorry for my sin.
19 But mine enemies live, and are mighty; * and they that hate me wrongfully are many in number.
20 They also that reward evil for good are against me; * because I follow the thing that good is.
21 Forsake me not, O LORD my God; * be not thou far from me.
Wednesday, April 16, 2003
Wednesday of Holy Week takes precedence
but the saint for April 16th is Benedict Joseph Labre.
Via Quenta Nârwenion.
but the saint for April 16th is Benedict Joseph Labre.
Via Quenta Nârwenion.
a few lines from Psalm 56
as it appears in Magnificat
You have kept an account of my wanderings;
you have kept a record of my tears;
are they not written in your book?
This I know, that God is on my side.
O God, I will offer you praise
for you have rescued my soul from death,
that I may walk in the presence of God
and enjoy the light of the living.
as it appears in Magnificat
You have kept an account of my wanderings;
you have kept a record of my tears;
are they not written in your book?
This I know, that God is on my side.
O God, I will offer you praise
for you have rescued my soul from death,
that I may walk in the presence of God
and enjoy the light of the living.
estlin alive
poem XLIX from One Times One
trees
were in(give
give)bud when to me
you
made for by love
love said did
o no yes
earth was in
(live
live)spring
with all beautiful
things when to
me
you gave gave darling
birds are
in(trees are in)
song
when to me you
leap and i'm born we
're sunlight of
oneness
Cummings, op. cit. (Liveright, 2002), p. 51
poem XLIX from One Times One
trees
were in(give
give)bud when to me
you
made for by love
love said did
o no yes
earth was in
(live
live)spring
with all beautiful
things when to
me
you gave gave darling
birds are
in(trees are in)
song
when to me you
leap and i'm born we
're sunlight of
oneness
Cummings, op. cit. (Liveright, 2002), p. 51
Emily Dickinson
1830-1886
Between these years -- a Life --
Of unobtrusive Fame --
Of nameless Notoriety --
Anonymous -- Renown --
Gathering gemlike Accidents
Of primness and panache --
A coruscating heaven's-worth
Of Treasures -- in the Mesh --
A canticle of Lazarus
That makes a poor soul rich --
A Wealth of Sound -- a golden Trove --
That hallows Avarice --
A talent for the Sparrow --
A farthing for the King --
Such prodigal Economies
And saintly Reasoning!
Your ardent Chill -- engenders --
A realm of Light beyond
The World we know -- of Task and Tears --
Of Thorn and Scorn -- and Wound
Your cloistered Ecstasies possess
A foretaste of the Next
Illimitable brilliancy
Undimmed -- and unsurpassed --
2002
Between these years -- a Life --
Of unobtrusive Fame --
Of nameless Notoriety --
Anonymous -- Renown --
Gathering gemlike Accidents
Of primness and panache --
A coruscating heaven's-worth
Of Treasures -- in the Mesh --
A canticle of Lazarus
That makes a poor soul rich --
A Wealth of Sound -- a golden Trove --
That hallows Avarice --
A talent for the Sparrow --
A farthing for the King --
Such prodigal Economies
And saintly Reasoning!
Your ardent Chill -- engenders --
A realm of Light beyond
The World we know -- of Task and Tears --
Of Thorn and Scorn -- and Wound
Your cloistered Ecstasies possess
A foretaste of the Next
Illimitable brilliancy
Undimmed -- and unsurpassed --
2002
In Country Heaven
by Dylan Thomas (1914-1953)
Always when he, in country heaven,
(Whom my heart hears),
Crosses the breast of the praising East, and kneels,
Humble in all his planets,
And weeps on the abasing hill,
Then in the delight and grove of beasts and birds
And the canonized valley
Where the dewfall stars sing grazing still
And the angels whirr like pheasants
Through naves of leaves,
Light and his tears glide down together
(O hand in hand)
From the country eyes, salt and sun, star and woe
Down the cheek bones and whinnying
Downs into the low browsing dark.
Housed in hamlets of heaven swing the loft lamps,
In the black buried spinneys
Bushes and owls blow out like candles,
And seraphic fields of shepherds
Fade with their rose-
White, God's bright, flocks, the belled lambs leaping,
(His gentle kind);
The shooting star hawk statued blind in a cloud
Over the blackamoor shires
Hears the belfries and the cobbles
Of the twelve apostles' towns ring in his night;
And the long fox like fire
Prowls flaming among the cockerels
In the farms of heaven's keeping,
But they sleep sound.
by Dylan Thomas (1914-1953)
Always when he, in country heaven,
(Whom my heart hears),
Crosses the breast of the praising East, and kneels,
Humble in all his planets,
And weeps on the abasing hill,
Then in the delight and grove of beasts and birds
And the canonized valley
Where the dewfall stars sing grazing still
And the angels whirr like pheasants
Through naves of leaves,
Light and his tears glide down together
(O hand in hand)
From the country eyes, salt and sun, star and woe
Down the cheek bones and whinnying
Downs into the low browsing dark.
Housed in hamlets of heaven swing the loft lamps,
In the black buried spinneys
Bushes and owls blow out like candles,
And seraphic fields of shepherds
Fade with their rose-
White, God's bright, flocks, the belled lambs leaping,
(His gentle kind);
The shooting star hawk statued blind in a cloud
Over the blackamoor shires
Hears the belfries and the cobbles
Of the twelve apostles' towns ring in his night;
And the long fox like fire
Prowls flaming among the cockerels
In the farms of heaven's keeping,
But they sleep sound.
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.
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