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November 5, 2007

Jesuit Saints

In a curious bit of historic irony today is not only the day of the Gunpowder Plot, but the day that those who were falsely accused of instigating it celebrate their illustrious dead.

This link will take you to a site that has brief biographies of Jesuit Saints and this one covers Jesuits Blesseds. Both have a great deal of information delivered concisely.

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The Museum of the Shenandoah Valley

In Winchester, on the land of the historic Glen Burnie estate, is one of the finest small museums I've ever had an opportunity to appreciate it. This is one of those small places with an obvious deep love of their topic, run by people dedicated to it.

The Museum of the Shenandoah valley is relatively small, having a single floor of exhibit space with additional space for meetings, a library, a small gift shop, and an unusually fine cafe that specializes in a variety of tea and scones. with a couple of offerings for actual meals.

The exhibit floor has five major divisions. One part of it is dedicated to the antiques and collectibles assembled by the most recent owners of the Glen Burnie house. These run from paintings, statues and furniture to quilts small textiles and handicrafts.

Adjacent to what might be termed the "fine art" wing is a superb collection of textiles (quilts) artifacts, furniture and items that breath life into the the frontier life and rural life of the Shenandoah valley. There are antiques from the local area crafted by local artisans or owned by local families for a long period of time.

A third area attempts to chronicle, a a small space some of the events of the history of the Shendoah valley and some of the culture of the area. This space is remarkably successful considering its compressed nature. The history stems from the ancient Native American peoples thought to the early nineteenth century touching upon such subjects as distilleries, the humble abode, and the nature and purpose of cow-bells. What's really nice is that this area is highly interactive with computer games for the kids and a number of videos. In addition there is a "cowbell" song that most visitors are reluctant to pursue because it makes such noise--but the Irrepressible with whom I travel eschews these mere mortal concerns.

The fourth area is dedicated to changing exhibits. In the case of our visit, it was dedicated to the photography of a person who might well be called the Ansel Adams of the Shenandoah--Hullihen Williams Moore. Beautiful black and white photographs of the national park really demonstrate the art of photography.

Finally, there is a small gallery of miniatures, and for those who like doll-house like things and miniature furniture and such, these are a treasure. Personally, I don't find these nearly as interesting as the female visitors who were accompanying me--as so we early parted ways with them spending some significant time in the miniature gallery and tea-shop and me visiting much of the rest of the museum.

Your museum visit starts with a context-setting film in a room built from recovered timbers of a 19th century barn. The docents and guides are extremely helpful, well-informed, and a real delight to talk with.

Right next door is the historic Glen Burnie house and gardens--also worth your time if you haven't visited them. This trip we did not take them in, wanting to spend some time instead really observing what the museum had to offer. But I've been through both before and it was among the more interesting tours of a house I've had the opportunity to participate in.

So, if you live in the area and you're looking for a day trip--you might consider a trip out to the Museum of the Shenandoah valley and Glen Burnie house and Gardens. It would reward your investment in time and money. One suggestion for the dedication of a Patsy Cline museum was that the people who ran this museum might also run the Patsy Cline when it was built and dedicated. I could think of no more felicitous decision. The work of the curators and staff in this small museum is far above and beyond what one might find in many more well-known institutions. The Museum of the Shenandoah Valley has much to be proud of.

(Oh, and the day we were there, the lawn beneath one large tree was covered with what looked (from a distance) like green apples and up-close looked like Osage oranges. They were, in fact, the commodious seed-pod coverings of black walnuts. What a wonderful autumnal welcome!)

For official site information--see here.

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Request for Prayers

I have an extremely important presentation to do today and an extremely important inquiry to make. Would you please remember the success of these two ventures in your prayers today?

Thank you

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What Is Home?

I have a curious experience every time I go to Virginia. If I'm driving, I count the states Northward on my journey as steps back into time (even though, technically speaking, I live in the state with the oldest continuously populated city in the Continental United States.) I note other things as well--the way Florida flora only gradually is replaced by more northern species so the net effect is that Georgia and South Carolina are more like Florida, and North Carolina and Virginia like more temperate states. I also note how drab (in comparison only) North Carolina is. It probably isn't drab at all, and that is part of my point. When I cross the border between NC and VA, no matter where it is that I cross it, the heavens open up and a choir of angels sings and light becomes light.

In short, for reasons I can't begin to fathom, Virginia is home. I wasn't born there, I did spend ten formative years there, but so did I in New York, Columbus, Ohio, and other places. Virginia has no claim geographically, chronologically, or otherwise to being home. And yet, it is.

I love Florida. If I can't live in Virginia, Florida is a fine second place, there is no other place I've lived outside of Virginia that I would return to. But Virginia is home. As much as I dislike some aspects of it--winter cold and D.C. traffic, and a certain surliness amongst people who are supposed to help you and a dampening (in the Northern Part of the state) of the tradition of Southern Hospitality and courtesy--still and all, Virginia is home. When I have to leave, it is deeply wrenching--worse, in some ways, than leaving family and friends. l

This time we drove throught a part of Virginia that wasn't even intimately familiar. My home was Northern Virginia and I was acquainted with most of Virginia down through tidewater. This time I drove up through Roanoke and the valley and ridge region. The autumn colors were magnificent. We stopped at natural bridge and the sense of home even there was profound. Even the rocks, folded, tilted, occasionally deformed by the processes that raised the Appalachians, even the rocks spoke of home and reminded me that I belonged in some deep, indeed unfathonable, way.

Have any of the rest of you had similar sorts of experiences with places? Have you happened upon any explanation of the phenomenon (outside of the concept of reincarnation, which I'm not particularly interested in considering at the present time)? I'd love to hear if this is a shared experience or merely the peculiarity of one individual.

Posted by Steven Riddle at 8:35 AM | Comments (5) | TrackBack

November 6, 2007

Detachment á la Beck

I have read about halfway through Father Beck's marvelous book and find a scattering of thirty or so tags--things I want to remember, things I want to share. By sharing, I remember better, but choosing among all the wonderful points is so difficult. In the chapter on detachment alone there must be ten or eleven vital points, but one of the most pointed in made in the story below:

from Soul Provider
Fr. Edward L. Beck

There is a classic Zen story about two celibate monks who are on pilgrimage together. As they approach a raging river, they see a beautiful, distressed young woman standing on the bank afraid to make the crossing. The yonger monk picks the woman up, put her on his shoulders, and wades into the river as the older monk looks on, horrified but saying nothing. When the three reach the other side, the monk puts the grateful woman down safely, and the two monks continue on their journey in silence. Hours go by without the two speaking. The older monk is obviously angry and upset. He finally looks at the younger monk and says, "How could you have done that?" "Done what?" says the younger monk, surprised. "How could you have carried that woman? You know we are to have nothing to do with women and yet you intimately carried her on your shoulders." "My dear brother," replies the younger monk, "I set that woman down on the shore of the river hours ago. Why are you still carrying her."

Of course, this passage speaks to more than mere detachment. It speaks to our habit of nurturing anger over perceived slights, over differences of opinion on religion that make no difference, on matters such as liturgical preference or any number of opinions held either rightly or wrongly by either side of a dispute on religious matters. One could say with almost equal equanimity to either side of the dispute on, say, women's ordination--"The church set that issue down on the banks of the river years ago, why are you still carrying it?" Because, most naturally, we cling to those things for which we feel we have the proper scope of righteous anger--just as does this monk.

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Repent

I particularly cherished the following experience recounted by Fr. Beck. It spoke to me intimately and provoked a line of thought that I had never really considered. We start as Father Beck is trying to avoid the eye of a modern-day John the Baptist in Time's Square:

from Soul Provider
Fr. Edward L. Beck

I maneuvered to get around him, but, seeming to sense that I was an unwilling convert, he would have none of it. He made a bee-line for me as I lowered my head and tried to get lost in the crowd that I now appreciated. He held a tattered black Bible that he massaged gently with his thumb.

"Do you know Jesus as your personal Lord and Savior, young man?"

He was standing right in front of me, blocking my passage. (At least he called me young.) I didn't answer, pretending I thought he was talking to someone else.

"You, sir, do you have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ?" he persisted.

I looked up, unable to ignore him any longer.

"What?" I said, though I'm not sure why, since I had clearly heard the question.

"Do you have a personal relationship with Jesus?" he repeated more forcefully. A woman bumped me from behind letting me know in her own not-so-gentle way that I was blocking the path.

"Yes, I do," I said. "I do, thank you." I walked around him and started to make my way down the street.

"Hey," he called to me. I looked back. "Isn't it wonderful?" His eyes were glowing.

"Not always," I answered truthfully.

I continued walking and was about a hundred feet from him when he shouted, "Well, then, repent, blue eyes, and it will always be.

I don't necessarily take the street-corner prophet at his literal word here, but it occurred to me that with a good deal more repentance, and a good deal less Steven, that personal relationship might be made more manifest to those around me. And a personal relationship with Jesus is next to useless if it isn't influencing the world around us. Perhaps what I need more of, then, is a spirit of continual repentance--heaven knows there isn't a day I go through that doesn't encourage me to confession before participation in Mass. I'm one of those who wishes that confession were offered moments before Mass so there would be some likelihood of making it to Mass before needing to get to confession again. I often wonder whether I've ever really managed to gain a plenary indulgence for any of the poor souls because the conditions are so rigorous. If Mass immediately follows confession and/or the action that merits the plenary indulgence, there is a remote possibility. Otherwise. . .

Repentance, it's not just a seasonal thing--it's a way to live, really live, a life.

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Dante's Purgatory

Two points from Ciardi's translation that I found fascinating and beautiful. At the end of Canto IX, Dante and Virgil enter purgatory proper, having spent the first part of the book in a place at the base of the mount called ante-purgatory. And the passage below describes the first experiences of purgatory:

from Purgatorio
Dante, tr. John Ciardi

The Tarpeian rock-face, in that fatal hour
that robbed it of Metellus, and then the treasure,
did not give off so loud and harsh a roar

as did the pivots of the holy gate--
which were of resonant and hard-forged metal--
when they turned under their enormous weight.

At the first thunderous roll I turned half-round,
for it seemed to me I heard a chorus singing
Te deum laudamus mixed with that sweet sound.

I stood there and the strains that reached my ears
left on my soul exactly that impression
a man receives who goes to church and hears

the choir and organ ringing out their chords
and now does, now does not, make out the words.

Which sounds should be sharply contrasted with the first sounds heard in Hell.

On another point, Ciardi makes the following note:

from Purgatorio Note to Canto IX
John Ciardi

I owe Professor MacAllister a glad thanks for what is certainly the essential clarification. The whole Purgatorio, he points out, is build upon the structure of a Mass. The Mass moreover is happening not on the mountain but in church with Dante devoutly following its well-known steps. I have not yet had time to digest Professor MacAllister's suggestion, but it strikes me immediately as a true insights and promises another illuminating way of reading the .

And I would add to that last line, of reading our lives in faith. Part of our Purgatory are the hours gladly spent here on Earth working out the scars and physical remains of sin in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. Attended with proper reverence, attention, and intention, the Holy Prayer of the Mass advances us far beyond any other activity in which we might engage. Done in the proper spirit of confession and contrition for sins, the activity of Mass begins here on Earth what is completed afterwards by those who have not achieved God's perfection in Purgatory. And perhaps that begins to help us understand what Purgatory actually is.

One final, wonderful point. The efficiency and efficacy of Ciardi's notes are such that one is led to the following passge of Lucan's Pharsalia:

At this Metellus yielded from the path;
And as the gates rolled backward, echoed loud
The rock Tarpeian, and the temple's depths
Gave up the treasure which for centuries
No hand had touched:

Read the entire work--a recounting of Caesar's return from the battle of the Rubicon here.

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Another Library

I don't know what all is included, having just discovered it as I was looking for the Pharsalia quoted in the post below:

Online Medieval and Classical Library

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November 9, 2007

The Prayers of Clarence Thomas/Merry del Val

A friend sent this link to a very interesting article on the prayer life of Clarence Thomas.

In the course of it, there is a litany from Cardinal Merry del Val, that struck my friend as a hard teaching:

Litany of Humility

O Jesus! meek and humble of heart, Hear me.
From the desire of being esteemed,
Deliver me, Jesus.

From the desire of being loved...
From the desire of being extolled ...
From the desire of being honored ...
From the desire of being praised ...
From the desire of being preferred to others...
From the desire of being consulted ...
From the desire of being approved ...
From the fear of being humiliated ...
From the fear of being despised...
From the fear of suffering rebukes ...
From the fear of being calumniated ...
From the fear of being forgotten ...
From the fear of being ridiculed ...
From the fear of being wronged ...
From the fear of being suspected ...

That others may be loved more than I,
Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it.


That others may be esteemed more than I ...
That, in the opinion of the world,
others may increase and I may decrease ...
That others may be chosen and I set aside ...
That others may be praised and I unnoticed ...
That others may be preferred to me in everything...
That others may become holier than I, provided that I may become as holy as I should...

My friend noted that to take it seriously seemed to invite despair. But I pointed out that it was a detailed version of St. John of the Cross' todo y nada. That is, the litany does not prohibit one from accepting such graces as come to one, but asks God to grant us the freedom from fear or desire of these things, because such fear and/or desire was distracting from the "one thing necessary." It isn't that the objects mentioned are not legitimate things to desire or to fear, but rather that in either desire or fear of them we may find ourselves doing things that are not part of our particular vocation--going out of our way to seek or avoid things.

But this seems to be an interesting point and I'd love to hear what others think of the article and especially of the Litany.

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St. Augustine, the City

Spent some time yesterday visiting a Carmelite Community in St. Augustine. That was a wonderful experience. They meet in a house near the Mission of Nombre de Dios the site of which was where the first Mass was offered in the United States in 1565. In addition, the shrine of Our Lady of La Leche is there as well, and a number of other interesting buildings and memorials.

But overall, St. Augustine is a sad little city. It has a beautiful, small historical district, that is so overrun by commercial interests that it is hard to identify anything at all historical about the place. You walk by houses that are hundreds of years old and discover that they've been converted to sales areas for new age relics or bikinis or lingerie.

The Castillo de San Marcos, as a National Park site, is well maintained, well kept (as much as a building almost four hundred years old composed of local coquina can be. It marks a high point of any visit to the city. It overlooks Mantanzas bay and the Bridge of Lions which is under reconstruction now. But as for the rest, it's hard to believe that you're walking through an area of any great vintage--the concerns and the obvious plights--homeless, drug-addled, just plain vicious, are so evident and so numerous, that one is left with the sad recognition that this most historic of cities is in desperate need of God's mercy and help. It was more than a little sad.

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Bearing Our Crosses

I don't do this often, and probably should not do it even as often as I do; however, this notion has been on my mind a great deal in recent months. This is a meditation composed for another web site.

My thanks to Joachim who maintains the site and who gets a really good proof-reader/copyeditor to help improve each meditation.

Whoever does not carry his cross and come after me . . .
(Luke 14:27)

This passage may contain some of the most difficult words that Jesus shared with us. Hating father and mother, carrying crosses, renouncing possessions--what does it all mean, what sense can we make of it? There is such richness here it's impossible to encompass it all, but what I hear almost every time I go back is "whoever does not carry his cross and come after me cannot be my disciple." And I am always encouraged to remember that crosses are not "one size fits all."

Sometimes we look at others in our religious and secular lives and wonder, "Why is it so easy for them? What cross are they carrying?" It does us well to remember that what is a cross for one may not be a cross for another. Crosses are not one-size-fits-all. They are individually tailored to the person we are, and they are excruciating (literally) precisely because they are designed to straighten out what we have made crooked--they are designed to rectify what we have corrupted through our poor choices. Sometimes they are to help others bear their own burdens because we all participate in the economy of salvation--what another cannot carry, we help to bear so that we all advance together.

We must always bear in mind that, like Simon of Cyrene, we do bear the cross, but we bear it for the One who takes away all sin, the One who makes the crooked straight and the lame walk. Jesus doesn't say we need to be nailed to it in the way He was. Rather, He tells us that our job, like that of Simon, is to bear part of the burden for all of humanity. We carry our crosses, but ultimately it was and is Jesus who is nailed to it. We bring the burden of sin--He takes it all away.

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