The May Magnificat (A Few Words for Wednesday)

May 1, 2012 By Frank Weathers 2 Comments

God is simple, God is all. In his wisdom, he gave us his only begotten son, the new Adam. Jesus, then, is the reimaged God, or God, Version 2.0, if you will.

This God-Man, Jesus, has a Mother, and as such, so do we. For if we are adopted sons and daughters of God, and God became a man, by the power of the Holy Spirit, born of a woman, then the Blessed Virgin, Mary Immaculate, is both his mother, the Theotokos, and ours too. Indeed, Our Mother magnifies Our Lord, and points us ever towards Him. [Read more...]

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Prayer of Columbus (A Few Words for Wednesday)

April 25, 2012 By Frank Weathers Leave a Comment

Ignatian spirituality tries to find God in all things. Many take issue with that premise, especially when stuck knee deep in the mire of day-to-day problems. I don’t claim to be Ignatian in my outlook (nor Franciscan, Benedictine, etc) on events or things. As a Catholic, I’m a little bit of all of those charisms, and more. But I do believe God works through the secular, just as I have faith that all things work for the good.

Here’s an example for you from the Pantheist, non-Catholic, and everything else wrong with the world pen of Walt Whitman. [Read more...]

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The Logical Vegetarian (A Few Words for Wednesday)

April 18, 2012 By Frank Weathers Leave a Comment

The Logical Vegetarian by G. K. Chesterton. This was published in Wine, Water, and Song just last week (er, 1915)…

“Why shouldn’t I have a purely vegetarian drink? Why shouldn’t I take vegetables in their highest form, so to speak? The modest vegetarians ought obviously to stick to wine or beer, plain vegetarian drinks, instead of filling their goblets with the blood of bulls and elephants, as all conventional meat-eaters do, I suppose.” — DALROY.

You will find me drinking rum,
Like a sailor in a slum,
You will find me drinking beer like a Bavarian.
You will find me drinking gin
In the lowest kind of inn,
Because I am a rigid Vegetarian. [Read more...]

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On Divine Mercy Sunday, Shakespeare and a Song

April 15, 2012 By Frank Weathers Leave a Comment


A truth about us as human beings is that we desire justice and not mercy. Yet we have been taught that God himself desires mercy. He said so himself. And today, Divine Mercy Sunday, we are reminded that Our Lord’s mercy is larger than not only all of our sins, but of all of the sins of the entire world. Past, present, and future. [Read more...]

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“Change” (A Few Words for Wednesday)

March 21, 2012 By Frank Weathers 1 Comment

A poem for the season by Katharine Tynan. [Read more...]

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Thoughts from the “Tao Teh Ching” translated by the “Chinese Chesterton”

February 15, 2012 By Frank Weathers 5 Comments

My Chinese Catholic friend, John C.H. Wu wrote several works that I have enjoyed reading over the past several years. I’ve shared posts with you from several of his books, namely Beyond East and West, The Science of Love, and Interior Carmel, the Threefold Way of Love. It is not for nothing that Frank Sheed called John “the Chinese Chesterton.” [Read more...]

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Songs of Education, History (A Few Words for Wednesday)

January 18, 2012 By Frank Weathers Leave a Comment

G.K. Chesterton wrote poems too, and songs, of course. I found this neat little example of satirical verse that could become a quite compelling earworm, when set to a jaunty tune. This is a selection that can be found in Chesterton’s The Ballad of St. Barbara, And Other Verses. This one sounds like it could have come from the comedic masters of Monty Python. [Read more...]

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Because Tradition says December 25 is When Christ was Born

December 23, 2011 By Frank Weathers 2 Comments

And that is good enough for me. Especially because smarter, more capable, and more knowledgeable folks spell it all out for me too.

Fr. Dwight Longenecker: Christmas, Pagan Romans, and Frodo Baggins.

Jake Tawney: The Dating of Christmas.

Alexander Pope: Messiah

And, of course, Linus reciting the passage from St. Luke.

Isn’t Govert Teunisz Flinck’s painting, Angels Announcing the Birth to the Shepherds (1639, oil on wood) beautiful?

Be of good cheer!

UPDATE: Mike Flynn’s letter to the editor.

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For All the Saints: John of the Cross

December 14, 2011 By Frank Weathers Leave a Comment

Today is the feast day of St. John of the Cross, Doctor of the Church. Born in 1542, he was a contemporary of St. Teresa of Avila and a practitioner of contemplative prayer. He is considered one of the foremost poets of Spain. And yet, it is said that he only wrote about 2500 lines of verse. He died on this date at the age of 49 in the year 1591. [Read more...]

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Lines on Pride from Alexander Pope’s An Essay On Man

December 8, 2011 By Frank Weathers 1 Comment

Often times cataclysmic events leave us at a loss. We have feelings and thoughts but struggle to put them into words. Some have been blessed with the gift of the poetic art. These painters of images with words serve to bring the ineffable into focus in our minds. [Read more...]

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