Val d'Arno: Ten Lectures on the Tuscan Art Directly Antecedent to the Florentine Year of Victories -- John Ruskin--Prince of the Victorian Critics, if something of an aesthete.
Also Queen of the Air
Praise and Prayer Requests
Please include Linda's concerns in a special way in your prayers today. She is undergoing a most arduous trial at the present time and needs the support of all of us.
For the repose of the soul of M. aged twenty who died in a collision and most especially for the family and friends he left behind.
For the repose of the soul of Sister Anne, precious and beloved advisor to Katherine.
For Katherine, who having lost so substantial an anchor is feeling somewhat at 6s and 7s and for success in her ventures. May the prayers of Sister Anne, who, if not already at the side of Jesus will ascend rapidly on the fragrant offering of prayers from Carmelites the world over, assure her success and sure guidance.
For Terry Schiavo (sp?) who was once again placed in harm's way by a "compassionate" court that washed their hands of blood in the same way as Pilate did--"we only interpret the law."
For Smockmomma's sister Charlene, may God help her, heal her, and above all else hold her close in time of yet another trial.
For a troubled marriage, that it may open to the Lord's healing touch and blossom with all the potential that is within it.
Please continue to pray for Dylan until he returns to us.
A quick sale and an easy move for Tom and his family as they set out on another exciting adventure in life.
For those struggling against self to attain holiness, that the Good Lord will raise up new Saints for our times, visible beacons that draw all people toward Christ.
Having finished Nicolson's God's Secretaries the landscape of bookdom subtly shifted. Now I am in a new phase of the kaleidoscope that has the magnificent Anna Karenina as a background. I'll be reading this for several months in all likelihood. I am amazed by this most recent translation, and will share a couple of notes about it in due course.
But over this steady background there is a plethora of shifting interests. One of my book groups called for a reading of The Alexandria Quartet by Lawrence Durrell. I'm a bit ambivalent about this series as it has a reputation only slightly better than Henry Miller's "Tropics" books. But glancing at a few pages, some of the prose is magnificent.
Also on the list :
Vile Bodies Evelyn Waugh--uproarious in parts. I'm reading it prior to seeing the film version directed by Stephen Fry (Jeeves in the series--about which I should blog also.)
The nonfiction read for the next several days will be the intricate, fascinating, multifaceted The (Mis)Behavior of Markets co-authored by Benoit Mandelbrot.
The home fellowship read continues to be Wilfrid Stinissen's magnicent Nourished by the Word. I've reviewed this before, and it has already touched the hearts and lives of at least one, and possibly several of the group members.
This is the reading list at least until my Saturday reading group meets at which time we'll decide upon another book to consider for future reading.
You've seen enough of it here, I need hardly say more except to note how very much I enjoyed every aspect of this book. (But what is blogging but the art of saying more when nothing more need be said?) Nicolson gives us more a history of the time from which the King James Bible emerged. We get glimpses of a few personalities and some interesting asides here and there on historical figures.
Some things said were enough to make me want to reevaluate certain figures. For example, St. Thomas More's relentless pursuit of Tyndale is a bit off-putting. While Augustine and others relentlessly squashed heresies, this line from More is not what I really want to consider in the lives of the saints: "and for heretics, as they be, the clergy doth denounce them; and, as they be well worthy, the temporality doth burn them; and after the fire of Smithfield hell doth receive them, where the wretches burn forever." On the other hand, the man was a product of his times and subject to the foibles and failings thereof. As Mark Anthony says of Caesar, "If 'twere so 'twas a grievous fault and grievously hath Caesar answered it." It also forced me to reevaluate my esteem for Lancelot Andrewes who was a pious man but not a particularly saintly one. In short, it gave me a fuller picture of the fallible humans that God uses as implements in His work. I don't know that I will ever think less of St. Thomas More, despite his ferocity, but I do come to have a fuller picture of him as a man as well as a saint.
But the delights of this book were the little details, the subtle points about the fact that the Puritans who were to found Plymouth Plantation, while persecuted, really had it easier than any group in the previous 100 years in England. They were merely exiled to Amsterdam where they continued to do as they pleased.
I recommend the book highly to anyone who wishes to understand better the history of the King James Version. Most particularly I recommend it to those who think that the KJV was largely just a copy of Tyndale or the Geneva Bible. While Nicolson acknowledges those debts and even the shortcomings of the KJV, he also points out how carefully constructed and considered the phrasing of this magnificent work is. Whether we like it or not, the KJV resonate through our language like nothing else--even Shakespeare is a distant second. It is found in the rhythms of Faulkner's prose, it gave rise to the phrases of Martin Luther King's speeches and of Abraham Lincoln's "Gettysburg Address." It is central to our understanding of our culture, of the United States, and of much of modern literature. It even influences the post-modernists and present-day literature. For a book 400 years old, that is quite the record.
Highly recommended.
Praise and Prayer Requests
For the repose of the soul of M. aged twenty who died in a collision and most especially for the family and friends he left behind.
For the repose of the soul of Sister Anne, precious and beloved advisor to Katherine.
For Katherine, who having lost so substantial an anchor is feeling somewhat at 6s and 7s and for success in her ventures. May the prayers of Sister Anne, who, if not already at the side of Jesus will ascend rapidly on the fragrant offering of prayers from Carmelites the world over, assure her success and sure guidance.
For Terry Schiavo (sp?) who was once again placed in harm's way by a "compassionate" court that washed their hands of blood in the same way as Pilate did--"we only interpret the law."
For Smockmomma's sister Charlene, may God help her, heal her, and above all else hold her close in time of yet another trial.
For a troubled marriage, that it may open to the Lord's healing touch and blossom with all the potential that is within it.
Please continue to pray for Dylan until he returns to us.
A quick sale and an easy move for Tom and his family as they set out on another exciting adventure in life.
For a deeper understanding of and commitment to the strengthening grace of the sacrament of marriage, especially for those who are presently undergoing trials.
or those struggling against self to attain holiness, that the Good Lord will raise up new Saints for our times, visible beacons that draw all people toward Christ.
For those struggling against self to attain holiness, that the Good Lord will raise up new Saints for our times, visible beacons that draw all people toward Christ.
From a correspondent--an extremely interesting site with everything you always wanted to know about Jansenism but were afraid to ask. Note the inclusion of a PDF of Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange's Grace, being a Thomistic explanation of the doctrine of Grace &c.
It will come as a great relief to you that while I drafted an exceedingly long screed with regard to my political opinions, I have concluded that no one really needs to be bothered with them at all. You've heard enough from me about this, and it is October, too glorious to be further sullied by my meandering tortuous political musings. So, as I have granted you this reprieve, I think you should all return the favor by indulging in either fifteen minutes with the KJV (or other appropriately beautiful translation--Douay Rheims, RSV, etc.) or a similar amount of time with the 1662 BCP.
Later I note after the fact that TSO has also foresworn some degree of political blogging. Tant pis! (and yes, those are false cognates and you should get your mind out of the gutter). He fears he may alienate the 2.5 progressives who occasionally drop by to visit. I don't know where I fall in that mysterious political spectrum having few defined opinions on issues outside of "life." But no amount of political haranguing would ever alienate me from so pleasant a conversational grotto. So, TSO, I say, blog away. If it poses a near occasion of sin, avoid it but otherwise, say what's on your mind and Vive la differerance (opinionwise of course--see above comment about gutters.)!
Here, succinctly stated, is the truth I've come through time to recognize about the King James Bible.
from God's Secretaries
Adam NicolsonEnglish was simply the target, the destination, not the language in which questions of precise meaning were naturally addressed. The Englich sentences were being prepared for others, the non-educated, who had no access to the essence of the text which these scholars, like Bois, had been drinking in for decades. The English, in other words, was itself subservient to the original Greek.
That linguistic hierarchy is also one of the sources of the King James style. This English is there to serve the original not to replace it. It speaks in its master's voice and is not the English you would have heard on the street, then or ever. It took up its life in a new and distinct dimension of linguistic space, somewhere between English and Greek (or, for the Old Testament, between English and Hebrew). These scholars were not pulling the language of scriptures into the English they knew and used at home. The words of the King James Bible are just as much English pushed towards the condition of a foreign language as a foreign language translated into Englilsh. It was, in other words, more important to make English godly than to make the words of God into the sort of prose that any Englilshmen would have written, and that secretarial relationship to the original languages of the scripture shaped the translation.
The majesty of the King James Bible is that the language there spoken has never been spoken by any people as the common tongue.
Taste in translation and in approaches to the Bible is largely, I think, similar to taste in the types of liturgies people prefer. Some prefer Latin Masses of the Tridentine School, others the Novus Ordo, still others the vernacular. All of these are excellent vehicles approved by the Church. The translation of the Bible is similar, although not all translations are of comparable worth. Some sing, and some plod; however all serve one audience or another and are therefore intrinsically valuable.
I love the puritan writers (some of them). I love the puritan spirit (some aspects of it.) The passage that follows details one of the things I love best about them.
from God's Secretaries
Adam NicolsonIt is easy enough to misinterpret men like George Abbot. He was stern, intransigent and charmless. He had no modern virtues and in a modern lilght can look absurd. Early every Thursday moroning from 1594-1599, he preached a sermon on a part of the Book of Jonah. That is 260 Thursdays devoted to a book which, even if it is one of the jewels of the Old Testament--a strange, witty, surreal short story--is precisely four chapters long, a total of forty-eight verses. Abbot devoted over five sermons to each of them. (He was not alone in that; his brother Robert was the author of a vast commentary on Paul's Epistle to the Romans of such tedium that it remains in manuscript to this day; Arthur Hildersham, one of the pushiest of the puritans wrote 152 lectures on Psalm 51: if the Word of God encompassed everything, as these men sincerely believed, then no balloon of commentary or analysis could ever be enough. The age had word-inflation built into it.)
Nicolson understands part of what he writes about here, but I suspect a post-modern sensibility cannot fathom the fact that, indeed the word of God is inexhaustible. I do not find it impossible that someone could preach so long on Jonah. Inspired by the Holy Spirit, in the pursuit of understanding, it is entirely conceivable that such a work could be undertaken, perhaps to the great benefit of all who would receive the word.
The word of God is utterly inexhaustible because it is God speaking not only about Himself (inexhaustible in itself) but also about His deep and abiding love for his creation. With this dual stream of inexhaustibilty, it is no wonder that people deeply in love with the word would wind up with what moderns would view as excess. If one were to compile all of the available extant sermons of those who have preached the word, it would come as no surprise to anyone if certain portions of the Bible had thirty, forty, or fifty sermons devoted to each verse.
In short, it is because we do not cherish this inexhaustibility, this comprehensive commentary on the entire world, that we are so lax at our own scriptural meditations. Let me make this more precise. It is because I do not keep an abiding sense of the every growing, ever fruitful, ever changing depths of the love of God embodied in His direct communications with His people, that I am not reading the Bible in the way it should be read. I read neither as frequently nor as thoroughly as the Word itself demands. Were I to do so, and to face the reality of that reading which also reads me, I would be in a much different place as a Christian. And so I think for many of us. Because Catholics have the supreme gift of Christ Himself in the sacrament of the Eucharist, there is a tendency amongst some to neglect other means by which one enters into communion with and understanding of Jesus Christ. Committed, daily scriptural reading and meditation are absolute essentials for growth in the love of Christ and in the imitation of Him that we are called to. If we are to be like God and to become as God, then we probably should spend some time finding out what that nature is.
A wonderful compendium of all the blesseds named by Pope John Paul II from The Vatican Website. Many thanks to Mr. Cork for the reference. Originally posted to give some insight into the people who were beatified yesterday--including Anna Katharina Emmerick.
Here's the list for Saints, including the Papal homilies on their Canonization.
I suppose I am riding this hobby-horse to death, but I find so much within Stinnisen worthy of attention. I was remarking to the leader of the group with whom I am studying this book a second time that like our other works (Rick Warren and Alan Jones), I am having real problems with this study. Unlike our other studies, my problems with this one is that there is so much in so few pages that I cannot seem to force myself through the book at the pace we want to maintain. I get lost in the magnificence of some of the ideas, and I'm constantly reaching for my Bible--the latter probably the greatest tribute one could pay to such a work.
from Nourished by the Word
Fr. Wilfrid Stinissen O.C.D.The Bible gives us a synthesis of all of reality but not thereby a system. One does not find an elaborated systematic theology or anthropology in the bible. It is always life which is primary. If you direct theoretical questions to the Bible, you receive practical answers. Who is God, you ask? And the Bible replies: live as a child to your heavenly Father, dare to be children, trustful and lighthearted; follow Jesus, who is the Father's image in the world, partake of his suffering and be like him in a death like his; wait for and listen to the Spirit and let its inspiration be shown to advantage in your life. What is prayer you ask? And the reply sounds imperative: so shall you pray: Our Father . . .
What is love? It is wonderful to philosophize over love, over Eros and agape, but you don't have the time; do like the Good Samaritan, give food to those that are hungry.
Will there be many who will get to heaven or only a few, a majority or a minority? "Strive" replies Jesus, "to enter through the narrow door" (LK 13:24). Don't waste your time with speculations over quantities, don't occupy yourself with statistics, but see to it that you yourself are present.
As I have grown in the Carmelite charism, I have discovered any number of wonders implicit in the ancient Rule of St. Albert and spelled out more clearly by the ongoing reformation and redefinition of the Order, particularly in the rule for the third Order. One of the things emphasized at every opportunity is the necessity and the glory of lectio divina. So much so that one Priest of the order described lectio as the glory of contemplative prayer. The order has said that it is highly desirable that communal lectio divina be part of our monthly gatherings. And when we are faithful to that, the monthly meetings are fruitful, productive, and life-changing. When we fail in it, then little else that happens at the meeting is of any worth.
All Catholics and all orders highly prize the word of God, they cannot do otherwise. The Dominicans show how they cherish is in the charism of preaching the word--making it clear for those who have a lesser understanding. But such preaching can only be fueled by spending time in the word, steeping oneself in it. Franciscans bring it to life through evangelical poverty. But such poverty is meaningless unless it calls to mind Him for whom we endure poverty, unless it reifies the word in the world.
The mission of the lay Carmelite is to bring the word of God into the world through our evangelical works. But how can one do that if one is not aware of what the word says? How can one preach by actions if one's own actions are not informed by the Word of God. All that we would say would be falsehood.
Stinissen points out here that above all else, the Word is practical or it lacks any meaning at all for us. We are not given a philosophical system (not that there is anything wrong with such), but rather a set of instructions, commandments, or guidelines that tell us how to be God's children. More than that, we are given multiple views of His Only Begotten Son so that we might better see what it means to be a child of God. And with this equipment, we are to go out into the world and make it real for people who do not even begin to suspect its truth.
Praise and Prayer Requests
Thanksgiving
For the many blessings and beautiful gifts that the Lord gives us day by day. He showers us with the promise of new life and grants us the beauties of this season. (Yes even in Florida, despite the temperatures, autumn has its majestice glory in beauty. Leaves fall from northern trees, and northern birds alight from Florida skies--our sign of autumn.) May He bless us especially in this season so that we may judge aright and wisely select the best possible leaders.
URGENT REQUESTS:
For the repose of the soul of Sister Anne, precious and beloved advisor to Katherine.
For Katherine, who having lost so substantial an anchor is feeling somewhat at 6s and 7s and for success in her ventures. May the prayers of Sister Anne, who, if not already at the side of Jesus will ascend rapidly on the fragrant offering of prayers from Carmelites the world over, assure her success and sure guidance.
For Terry Schiavo (sp?) who was once again placed in harm's way by a "compassionate" court that washed their hands of blood in the same way as Pilate did--"we only interpret the law."
For Smockmomma's sister Charlene, may God help her, heal her, and above all else hold her close in time of yet another trial.
For a troubled marriage, that it may open to the Lord's healing touch and blossom with all the potential that is within it.
Please continue to pray for Dylan until he returns to us.
A quick sale and an easy move for Tom and his family as they set out on another exciting adventure in life.
For a deeper understanding of and commitment to the strengthening grace of the sacrament of marriage, especially for those who are presently undergoing trials.
or those struggling against self to attain holiness, that the Good Lord will raise up new Saints for our times, visible beacons that draw all people toward Christ.
For those struggling against self to attain holiness, that the Good Lord will raise up new Saints for our times, visible beacons that draw all people toward Christ.
For the people of the Sudan that they may know peace and security and that they might learn to live together.
A special request from two gentleman battling particularly troublesome and besetting sins for grace and help as they continue forward.
For all those in the process of discerning vocations to the religious life, for guidance, prudence and good counsel
For our children, that they grow up in security, comfort, and the certain knowledge that they are loved and that they be released from any bonds of darkness, fear, anger, or sadness that bind and threaten them
For all those living under the curse of generational sins, that they may have protection and the inheritance of the past may be made void in their lives.
For all who are suffering from marital problems, most particularly those in our own families or communities, that the Lord may intervene and remind them that a marriage is of three persons.
For mothers and families that struggle with autism and autistic-related disabilities: particularly for M'Lynn, Melissa, Christine, and Betty.
For families that desire more children
For the conversion or return of spouses and loved ones to the Catholic Church, most particularly for Amanda's husband
For the men and women of the American Armed forces in Iraq and Afghanistan and for their families, may the Good Lord provide sustenance, support, compassion, and love that these separated families might continue to grow in strength and love.
Special Prayer Projects:
(1) For Katherine and Franklin, Gordon and Christine, Peter Kucera, and for all who are seeking employment and suffering through difficult times as they wait.
(2)Healthy Pregnancies and good and safe deliveries: For Suki, for a healthy pregancy and a safe delivery. For JCecil3 and Wife. For Pansy Moss. For Mrs. White and child. For Katherine and her friend Corren. Our Lady of La Leche, pray for us. Our Lady of Guadalupe, pray for us. St. Gerard Majella, pray for us. Blessed Gianna, pray for us.