Cummings

a salesman is an it that stinks Excuse

Me whether it's president of the you were say
or a jennelman name misder finger isn't
important whether it's millions of other punks
or just a handful absolutely doesn't
matter and whether it's in lonjewray

or shrouds is immaterial it stinks

a salesman is an it that stinks to please

but whether to please itself or someone else
makes no more difference than if it sells
hate condoms education snakeoil vac
uumcleaners terror strawberries democ
ra(caveat emptor)cy superfluous hair

or Think We've Met subhuman rights Before

"I'll speak with your mama outside"

Thus spake Skippy Gates. According to the police report (PDF).

Jennifer Paterson on "meditation"

When we were filming it was often impossible to get to Mass, as the Catholic churches were either too far away or the services were at times when we were working. Hallaton had a charming medieval church and as we were hanging about while a service was going on I told Jennifer I was going inside to meditate. She became very agitated telling me I was risking my immortal soul and that she would pray for me. It was very peaceful at the back of the church and I had done many things more likely to endanger my soul.

Clarissa Dickson Wright, Spilling the Beans (Hodder & Stoughton, 2008), p. 248

One "Fat Lady" remembers another

Jennifer was an old-fashioned pre-Vatican II Catholic. The Second Vatican Council had done away with Latin as the language of the Church and introduced the vernacular, the priest now faced the congregation during Mass and all the strange things that would send you straight to hell such as eating meat on Friday or on a day of abstinence, or attending a service in a Protestant church had gone. Jennifer was deeply disapproving of these changes and during Mass when we were told to offer each other a sign of peace she would stare fixedly ahead and if anyone put out their hand she would glare fiercely and nod! As a result of this, although she lived just behind Westminster Cathedral where the uncle she lived with was gentilhommo, or steward, to the cardinal and another uncle had been a monseigneur she would get on her bike and ride fifteen minutes through the busy streets to attend Mass in Latin with, as she put it, all the bells, smells and glamour that make it fun.

Clarissa Dickson Wright, Spilling the Beans (Hodder & Stoughton, 2008). p. 233

Grab that crab, Clarissa!

Am reading Spilling the Beans, the autobiography of the surviving member of Britain's Two Fat Ladies, Clarissa Dickson Wright. Or should one say, Clarissa Theresa Philomena Aileen Mary Josephine Agnes Elsie Trilby Louise Esmerelda Dickson Wright. Enjoying it so far. More on this, perhaps, later.

We tend to concur

Victor Davis Hanson of National Review on Obama's "stupid" comment in the aftermath of Gatesgate.

From the archives

... but this is how limericks are done.

First draft of a limerick

Unless one is being ironic,
One should balk at the label "iconic":
It's a quickie definer
Of celebrities minor
And major (the bright and moronic) ...

Iconic! Iconic!

I just heard someone on the news describe the Taco Bell Chihuahua with that much-abused adjective.

The blogger at Enchiridion

may yet convert me to an appreciation of the poems of G K Chesterton! (Here and here.)

There's something wrong

with the SEARCH BLOG feature on this blog. It doesn't recognize posts older than, say, a year and a half old.

I was looking for an old post of mine, using a word that I know appeared in the post, and it didn't show.

However, if one goes to Edit Posts, and then searches posts that way, everything is fine.

I'd complain to Blogger if I knew how, and if I thought it would do any good.

Stephen Fry

Language was something more than power then, it was more than my only resource in a world of tribal shouts and athleticism and them, the swimmers and singers, it was also a private gem collection, a sweet shop, a treasure chest.

from Moab Is My Washpot : An Autobiography (Random House, 1997), p. 89

Non è solo un' icona "gay"

Fascinating info about a L'Osservatore Romano article on Oscar Wilde, including a link to the article (in Italian), and links to the reactions of some of the denser journalists out there.

Hat tip to the CIN Blog.

Sanity

We believe that the dynamic unconscious exists and that unconscious motivation does play an important role in the moral life of mature people. This does not mean, however, that the classical principles of moral theology, though more sensitively applied in the light of recent psychological insights, are outmoded.

George Hagmaier, CSP, and Robert Gleason, SJ, Counselling the Catholic : Modern Techniques and Emotional Conflicts (Sheed & Ward, 1959), p. 216

Abbie someone

Don't know why the volume is so low on this clip, but ... enjoy.

Hart Crane

The earth may glide diaphanous to death;
But if I lift my arms it is to bend
To you who turned away once, Helen, knowing
The press of troubled hands, too alternate
With steel and soil to hold you endlessly.
I meet you, therefore, in that eventual flame
You found in final chains, no captive then --
Beyond their million brittle, bloodshot eyes;
White, through white cities passed on to assume
That world which comes to each of us alone.

Accept a lone eye riveted to your plane,
Bent axle of devotion along companion ways
That beat, continuous, to hourless days --
One inconspicuous, glowing orb of praise.

from "For the Marriage of Faustus and Helen"

Countee Cullen

The meek are promised much in a book I know,
But one grows weary turning cheek to blow.

(I forget the name of the poem these lines come from; I do remember that it's a sonnet.)

Carretto

[...] for him who suffers, theology is not enough. Something more is necessary.

Carlo Carretto, Letters from the Desert, p. 117 in my copy

I want to have a blurb on Sancta Sanctis!

Here's my best effort. To be sung to the tune of Nat King Cole's "Unforgettable":

Enbrethiliel,
            in every way,
Enbrethiliel,
            you make my day!

(I should do a whole song, but, alas! my creative faculties are on the wane.)

Meditation from Magnificat

Jesus could have persuaded [his would-be followers] ... by a fiery speech, for example, or by irrefutable arguments, by extraordinary promises, or by the irresistible radiance of his personality. But had he resorted to such means he would not really have respected them. In that case he would have been putting pressure on them and so desecrated the sanctuary of their freedom. [...]

Only a gratuitous and completely disinterested love could so profoundly and swiftly persuade them. Only a completely free love could arouse a love which was equally free and spontaneous. Love can only unfold completely in a heart which is fully expectant and open, in the intimate and hidden place in every human being where freedom still slumbers unconsciously. Only love can engender love, a love which will never regret anything, whatever happens; a love, strong as death, which will never be quenched, either by a flood of temptations or by the storm of death. It is because Jesus wanted us that he chose us.

André Louf, OCSO (italics mine)

Possibly upcoming

A brief exploration of the Augustinian formula ama et fac quod vis, and a modern distortion thereof.

Quotation from current reading

And the Antichrist, with an air of scholarly excellence, tells us that any exegesis that reads the Bible from the perspective of faith in the living God, in order to listen to what God has to say, is fundamentalism; he wants to convince us that only his kind of exegesis, the supposedly purely scientific kind, in which God says nothing and has nothing to say, is able to keep abreast of the times.

Pope Benedict XVI, Jesus of Nazareth, p. 36

Commonweal and Our Lady of Victory

Bishops need to help heal the wounds of division, not deepen them.

Summary of a recent Commonweal editorial (from the website)

:: :: :: :: ::

Humble the enemies of our holy religion, and frustrate their evil purposes.

From a prayer to Our Lady of Victory, found in a prayer manual from 1948