Francisco de Quevedo

The blogger at Laudator Temporis Acti gives us a sonnet by the Spanish poet, translated by Willis Barnstone.  A somewhat negative view of "The Ages of Man": not for the prudish!

Jacques Maritain

"The human being down here in the darkness of his fleshly state is as mysterious as the saints in heaven in the light of their glory. There are in him inexhaustible treasures, constellations without end of sweetness and beauty which ask to be recognized and which usually escape completely the futility of our regard. Love brings a remedy for that. One must vanquish this futility and undertake seriously to recognize the innumerable universes that one's fellow being carries within him. This is the business of contemplative love and the sweetness of its regard."

Jacques Maritain, quoted in A Year With Thomas Merton: Daily Meditations from His Journals, ed. Jonathan Montaldo (HarperCollins, 2004), p. 273

Dame Edith Sitwell

"I have got a very nice new lunatic -- a lady in Dublin. She has written to tell me that all R.C. priests have lots of illegitimate children -- usually by their 15-year-old nieces.  I am replying that I know they have.  My own dear confessor often brings round his happy little brood of ten to have tea with me.  Four are by his own niece, but he is sadly forgetful about who are the mothers of the rest.  There were eleven, but unfortunately he ate one, in a fit of absent-mindedness, one Friday.

"Osbert says I must not write this, as it will be published, and people will say (A) that I have no moral sense, (B) that I am flippant; but I reply that it will not be the first, second, or third time that these charges have been brought against me."

Edith Sitwell, from Selected Letters 1919-1964, eds. John Lehmann and Derek Parker (Vanguard Press, 1970), p. 253

The Flying Bum

by William Plomer (1903-73)


In the vegetarian guest-house
All was frolic, feast and fun,
Eager voices were enquiring
‘Are the nettle cutlets done?’
Peals of vegetarian laughter,
Husky wholesome wholemeal bread,
Will the evening finish with a
Rush of cocoa to the head?

Yes, you’ve guessed; it’s Minnie’s birthday,
Hence the frolic, hence the feast.
Are there calories in custard?
There are vitamins in yeast.
Kate is here and Tom her hubby,
Ex-commissioner for oaths,
She is mad on Christian Science,
Parsnip flan he simply loathes.

And Mr Croaker, call him Arthur,
Such a keen philatelist,
Making sheep’s-eyes at Louisa
(After dinner there’ll be whist) –
Come, sit down, the soup is coming,
All of docks and darnels made,
Drinks a health to dear old Minnie
In synthetic lemonade.

Dentures champing juicy lettuce,
Champing macerated bran,
Oh the imitation rissoles!
Oh the food untouched by man!
Look, an imitation sausage
Made of monkey-nuts and spice,
Prunes tonight and semolina,
Wrinkled prunes, unpolished rice.

Yards of guts absorbing jellies,
Bellies filling up with nuts,
Carbohydrates jostling proteins
Out of intestinal ruts;
Peristalsis calls for roughage,
Haulms and fibers, husks and grit,
Nature’s way to open bowels,
Maybe – let them practise it.

‘Hark, I hear an air-raid warning!’
‘Take no notice, let em come.’
‘Who’ll say grace?’ ‘Another walnut?’
‘Listen, what’s that distant hum?’
‘Bomb or no bomb,’ stated Minnie,
‘Lips unsoiled by beef or beer
We shall use to greet our Maker
When he sounds the Great All-Clear.’

When the flying bomb exploded
Minnie’s wig flew off her pate,
Half a curtain, like a tippet,
Wrapped itself round bony Kate,
Plaster landed on Louisa,
Tom fell headlong on the floor,
And a spurt of lukewarm custard
Lathered Mr Croaker’s jaw.

All were spared by glass and splinters
But, the loud explosion past,
Greater was the shock impending
Even than the shock of blast –
Blast we veterans know as freakish
Gave this feast its final course,
Planted bang upon the table
A lightly roasted rump of horse.

Nescopecks?

(Once again, inspired by the Trousered Ape!)


*


I now reside in Arlington,
Where every Sunday's full of sun
And writer's work is never done.
Please join me here in Arlington!


I used to work in Roxbury,
A place of tenement and tree
Where Carmelites have a nunnery.
Hail, blessed, wounded Roxbury!


I've never seen Hyannisport.
I wouldn't sell that small town short.
Some folks drink liquor by the quart
When they sail off Hyannisport.


I was baptized in Somerville:
Lived there two years, for good or ill.
I couldn't reach the windowsill
During my time in Somerville.


The Trappists live in Spencer, Mass.,
Where rabbits scamper through the grass.
Their church has wonderful stained glass!
I should revisit Spencer, Mass.

Fr Robert Barron

Christianity -- like baseball, painting, and philosophy -- is a world, a form of life. And like those other worlds, we first approach it because we perceive it as beautiful. A youngster walks onto the baseball diamond because he finds the game splendid, and a young artist begins to draw because she finds the artistic universe enchanting. [...] No kid will be drawn into the universe of baseball by hearing arguments about the infield-fly rule or disputes about the quality of umpiring in the National League. And none of us will be enchanted by the world of Christianity if all we hear are disputes about it.

via A Maryknoll Book of Inspiration (Orbis Books, 2010), reading for August 28, p. 257

André Louf, OCSO

For our heart is already in a state of prayer.  We receive prayer along with grace in our baptism.  The state of grace, as we call it, is, at the level of the heart, a state of prayer.  From then on, in the profoundest depths of the self, we have a continuing contact with God. The Holy Spirit takes our heart in tow and turns it toward God.  All the time, in fact, he is calling within us and he prays Abba-Father, with supplications and sighs that cannot be put into words, but never for a moment cease within our hearts.

This state of prayer within us is something we always carry about like a hidden treasure.  Somewhere our heart is going full pelt, but we do not feel it.  We are deaf to our praying heart, we fail to see the light in which we live.  For our heart, our true heart, is asleep and it has to be waked gradually -- through the course of a whole lifetime.

A. Louf, from Teach Us How to Pray.

Quoted by Miriam Pollard, OCSO, in her book The Laughter of God: At Ease with Prayer (Wilmington, Delaware: Michael Glazier, Inc.), 1986, pp. 25-26.

Assignment

(see Trousered Ape)


Write me a poem on
Parthenogenesis,
Using the word as a
Thrice-uttered rhyme.


Love to, I would, but I've
Places to go to, and
People to see, so I
Haven't the time.


*


Oh, well, maybe I do have the time --


O rare parthenogenesis!
You've happened once in history.
Without the flesh's intimate bliss
(O rare parthenogenesis!)
A child's born, perfect as a kiss,
And holy as a mystery.
O rare parthenogenesis,
You've happened once in history.

However

... the first moment of true prayer occurs in the experience and awareness of one's limitations. We do not know what our real needs are, and we must learn them all over again each day. In this sense, prayer has the value of pedagogy, it is the great pedagogy of God. While evasion and distractions draw us away from the road to real happiness, prayer brings us back to what is most authentic in man's quest for happiness. "The truth will set you free." Prayer makes us free; it preserves what is most fragile and most precious in us: the integrity of our desire, that desire which, in final analysis, is nothing but the need for God. This is what prayer preserves in us, and must teach us every day, this need for God, which is the distinctive, most profound trait that separates man from the animals. Man is the only being who turns to God to obtain what is lacking for his own fulfillment.

Bernard Bro, OP, via Magnificat magazine, meditation for the day, Tues. 23rd August 2011