There are a lot of members of the Broad Chorus of Catholic Thinkers posting articles, videos and podcasts online. So much in fact that one really doesn’t have the time, energy or computer bandwidth to read all the good things being written up and slapped on a web page. And so I decided to bring examples of a 132 of them together in one post. It consists of bits of Orthodox Catholic thoughts from the Catholic Rigorous Vortex and the Liberal Hippie Catholics and everyone else in-between.

WRN # 18 Cool Tunes From the Broad Chorus of Catholic Thinkers
Easy Access to Tunes and Tweets from the BCCT JULY 29, 2022

The diversity of thought within Catholic teaching, like variety within the strictures of sonnets, is one of its most beautiful features. It is nevertheless important to listen, as much as we can, to a broad chorus of Catholic thinkers. I have found great consolation in the fact that someone holier and smarter than myself has likely asked my questions already; my job is to find them and to listen, and then to make as many people as possible read block quotations about it.
Sharon Kabel , OSB vs. UFO: Stanley Jaki and the Theology of Aliens (June 16, 2021)- OnePeterFive

But of course with so many samples of things to look at in one semi-long post, several nifty, pithy and unique writings and more can get lost in the shuffle. So I decided to take what I gathered and break it up into smaller posts based on themes instead of particular individual Catholic websites. I even added a few other things not found in the larger collage of writings.

In this issue I present to you tunes from the BCCT on…

Culture

Architecture

The Kaplica Czaszek (skull chapel) of St. Bartholomew’s Church, Czermna, Kudowa, Poland dates from the end of the 18th century and is the only such chapel in the country. Over 21,000 human remains are interred here, while the remains of 3,000 victims of plague and war adorn the walls. The remains were collected, cleaned, and arranged by Fr. Vaclav Tomasek between 1776 and 1804 as part shrine, part memento mori. THOMAS L. MCDONALD The Skull Chapel of Czermna –(JUNE 20, 2019) Weird Catholic

Art-Cosmic Battle Between Good and Evil

Massimo Mellini is a master of art and glass work in Florence. His studio embraces a classical style, focusing on traditional mosaics and stained glass windows, mainly in churches. He’s recently been tasked with restoring 700-year-old artwork in the Duomo of Florence.

But Mellini has also done something not-so-traditional in his line of work. His studio has spent the last three years developing an image for a mosaic that – as of yet – has no customer, and no place to be installed.

The work, intended to be 20×40 feet, is based on Revelations 12, and entitled “Cosmic Battle Between Good and Evil.”

Michelle La Rosa For Italian mosaic maker, art is an expression of faith (Jun 1, 2022) (pillarcatholic.com)

Art- Purpose of Art

While art may be used for many purposes, its primary purpose is to celebrate what is True, and Good, and Beautiful. The purpose of all art is to lift mankind out of his finite life in order to contemplate the infinite. The more that art accomplishes this the more it succeeds in its purpose. For this reason the more that artists live their faith the better prepared they will be to speak the language of beauty.

This does not mean that art must deal solely with religious subjects or confine itself to the liturgical space, but it reaches its highest achievements when it does so.
Deacon Lawrence Notes Towards A Theology of Art (June 22, 2022) The Way of Beauty

Food: Drinking Coffee

Coffee is a sign of the existence of a benevolent Creator.

Food: Coffee Sellers

How can a Carmelite Monastery of cloistered monks in the middle of Wyoming become a premier coffee company? Prayer and creativity fueled the astonishing success of Mystic Monks Coffee, now an international success and boasting multiple gourmet collections of coffees, teas, and chocolates.

When one of the monks’ sister bought a small coffee plantation in Costa Rica, the community launched an entirely Internet-based company to sell their special blends roasted (for the first batches) in cast-iron skillets. 12 years later, the monks had enough income to purchase a mountain property and build 24 hermitages. Today, the gothic church at the center of the monastery is under construction, and every bag of Mystic Monk Coffee goes towards its completion and the daily life of the monks.
Erika Ahern Make Your Coffee Break Catholic: 5 Catholic-Run Roasters (May 16, 2022) – CatholicVote org

Food:Drinking Tea is a Solution to Stress

I’ve heard about these cults. Everyone dresses in black and says our Lord’s going to come back and judge us all. These cults attract the police, just like the church does. Our common themed motto is ‘Down With This Sort of Thing”. There was a time when the police in this country were friends of the church; speeding tickets torn up, drunk driving charges quashed, even a blind eye turned to the odd murder!”When these stressful ideas crop up in me head I resort to something calming such as drinking Tea. It doesn’t matter what day it is. There is always time for a nice cup of tea! Didn’t our Lord Himself on the cross pause for a nice cup of tea before giving Himself up for the world? Whenever you need anyone, Our Lord is there with the spiritual tea of his love for you to sip.
Ted Rick, Whenever You Need Anybody,August 31, 2020 (Ecumenical Matters)

Food: How to Eat Like a Catholic

Throughout history, the Church has been at the forefront of “food movements.” Monks began brewing beer in the Middle Ages for their own consumption and then sold it to the public. Religious Orders all over Europe made wine, cheese, bread, and other products. This tradition continues today in Religious communities that farm the land, roast coffee beans, make wine and beer, raise animals, and sell gourmet food items. In fact, Catholics are the perfect people to champion the rebirth of a culinary culture.
How to eat like a Catholic – Catholic Digest

Culture and Leisure

“To get time right, we must get leisure right. Leisure in its true sense transcends time.
And for this very reason, it alone is what makes time come alive, bringing it to its fruition—even when we are at work.”
#WednesdayWisdom from Dr. John Cuddeback.

Literature: Catholic Novels

Literature: Importance of Literature

But literature is a necessary part of the life of any free thinker. This is why analyzing literature is crucial to a liberal arts curriculum. To think well about ethics, the science of human action, one must become acquainted human action. This can be done by living one helluva life, or, by picking up a story. Stories allow us to live many lives. In reading The Odyssey one becomes Odysseus, feels the joy of his virtues and the pains of his vice. What it is to be loved by Kalypso; to be hated by Poseidon.

As logic helps us think freely about philosophy, craft helps us think freely about literature.

Oso Guardiola Craft as a Liberal Art — Dappled Things

Literature: Science Fiction

In November 2015, soon after I was named the director of the Vatican Observatory, Grayson Clary in the Atlantic wrote an article quoting me extensively, with the provocative title, “Why Sci-Fi Has So Many Catholics.” In it he wrote, “Consolmagno cites science and science fiction as sources of great joy, including spiritual joy, in keeping with a core principle of Jesuit spirituality: Find God in all things.” Among other things, the article has made all the more prominent my own bonafides in the world of science fiction.

A writer with a Catholic understanding of good and evil can always bring new light on these old questions. By posing them in settings or situations that pull us away from our comfortable clichés and presumed solutions, we see them, and ourselves, in a new light.

Our Catholic faith can teach us how to see our own story. Adventures set on other planets show that the laws of right and wrong are as universal as the law of gravity. And a Catholic science fiction also can remind us that what the world counts as a happy ending is not always the happiest ending.
Guy Consolmagno Science fiction and Catholic Sensibility(28 July 2017) EWTN

Literature:Tolkien Characters in a Coffee Shop

Scene: a company of characters from The Lord of the Rings are meeting at a local coffee shop for their monthly book club. Here’s what they order.

Frodo Baggins is first in line, ordering a small Dark Roast with a biscotti.

Samwise Gamgee immediately follows, “I’ll have whatever Mr. Frodo’s having” but quickly adds cream and sugar after realizing it would be a bit much for him.

Gollum is beside himself because the coffee shop doesn’t have any raw fish, doesn’t order anything at all.

Lord of the Rings Characters as Coffee Shop Orders — Tea with Tolkien

Music: 17^th Century Tune Redone in 2022

In early June, VOCES8 released this stupendous rendition of William Byrd’s “Ave Verum Corpus.” The piece is a stand out work in Byrd’s collection, which is prized as some of the most adept music composed in England during the Renaissance.

VOCES8’s treatment of the 17th-century tune is phenomenal, as they pronounce the Latin text with all due reverence. Their hushed tones maintain a somber atmosphere for the work, which speaks of the sacrifice Christ made for the world. J-P Mauro – VOCES8 treats our ears to William Byrd’s “Ave Verum Corpus” (06/26/22) (aleteia.org)

Music: Music to Battle Heresy

Music: Musical Theater

Music: Science of Music

Science has proven it and the Bible has affirmed it long before. Music is good for us. The bible is replete with verses [dozens] exhorting us to sing and dance and clearly these two art forms are strongly imbedded in our culture and at mass.

Author, Stacy Horn in her book Imperfect Harmony: Finding Happiness Singing With Others has clearly noted, “Singing is cheaper than therapy, healthier than drinking and more fun than working out.” Music is clearly a nutrient for the nervous system. It is trans-formative, soothes our nerves and elevates our spirits.

Michael J. Baglino 6 Facts You Need to Know About Music, Science, and the Bible (05/30/2022)(catholic365.com)

Movies: Catholic View of Film

Movies-The Godfather and the Eucharist

Corpus Christi is a good time to read The Godfather — the 1969 Mario Puzo novel bears witness to the holiness of the Eucharist. The movie leaves that out.

The most famous scene in The Godfather is Michael Corleone (Al Pacino) serving as godfather at the baptism of his nephew. Coppola cuts away from the godfather’s baptismal promises — Do you renounce Satan? I do renounce him. — to the murders Michael has ordered of the heads of all the rival families.

The juxtaposition of good and evil, the promise of eternal life and premature death, the appearance of pious devotion masking punitive violence; it all makes Coppola’s baptism scene — ancient Latin prayers punctuated by a barrage of gunshots — one of the most memorable in cinematic history.

However, the novel, rich in Catholic imagery, puts Holy Communion in the forefront, not baptism.

Father Raymond J. de Souza Spiritual Wisdom From ‘The Godfather’ (June 17, 2022) National Catholic Register

Movies-Jurassic World Dominion Review

For a while it seems Dominion wants to be the franchise’s Mission: Impossible. Instead, it’s the anti–Top Gun: Maverick.

The achievement of this summer’s extraordinary Tom Cruise legacyquel includes projecting the characters, themes, and trajectories of the original Top Gun more than three decades into the future, gracefully revisiting nearly everything fans loved about the 1986 blockbuster while also shrewdly patching up its issues and improving on it at every turn. Jurassic World Dominion can’t even manage to carry on the themes and trajectories of its immediate predecessor, Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, let alone any of the prior Jurassic films. Maverick almost makes Top Gun a better movie retroactively. Jurassic World Dominion can’t touch the Jurassic Park trilogy, but, capping the Jurassic World trilogy, it makes its two predecessors retroactively worse.
Steven D. Greydanus Jurassic World Dominion (June 10, 2022 ) – Decent Films

Movies: Watching R Rated Films

Is the Bible for or against this ego-dramatic approach to life? Might I suggest we look at the close of the book of Judges, a text marked by enough murder, mayhem, and miscreancy to put Martin Scorsese or Quentin Tarantino to shame.

We have cruelty, crude physical violence, utter disregard of human dignity, sexual immorality, rape, cooperation with sexual abuse of the worst kind, murder, mutilation, and genocide. As an aside, I am always slightly amused when some Christians primly criticize me for watching, and in some cases recommending, films in which violence and immorality are on vivid display. I wonder, “Have they ever even read the Bible?” If the Bible were depicted honestly in film, the movie would receive at least an “R” rating. One of the great virtues of the Scriptures is that they are brutally honest about human beings and the myriad ways that we go wrong, the thousands of bad paths down which we walk.

Bishop Barron, Why Doing What Is Right in Your Own Sight Is Such a Bad Idea – Word on Fire

Travel and Pilgrimage: Take a Course

Franciscan University@FranciscanU (Jun 16, 2022): We are launching free, online courses (non-credit) and the first course available is “The Theology of Pilgrimage” with our president Fr. Dave. Learn more & take the course at franciscan.edu/freecourses

Travel and Pilgrimage: Exploring the Sword of St. Michael

Popular author Fr. Dwight Longenecker and his children, along with veteran filmmaker Stan Williams, are producing a documentary chronicling their intercontinental family trek to the seven monastic sites known as “the Sword of St. Michael”.

Dotting the mountaintops of Europe, stretching 2,500 miles and aligned like pearls on a string, lie seven ancient monasteries. Some of the historic structures still house the cloistered religious orders which founded them, hundreds of years ago. Others have been recommissioned for a secular purpose; and still others stand vacant, stark reminders of the prayer and sacrifice which marked the days inside their walls.

And while the medieval monasteries and shrines were founded at different times and in different countries, served by different religious orders, yet there is a continuity which is hard to attribute to chance.
Kathy Schiffer Monasteries linked to the Archangel Michael share a mission and a message –(June 17, 2022) Catholic World Report

Travel and Pilgrimage: The Holy Land

Chris Stefanick@ChrisStefanick :The greatest honor is that I’ve now brought all of my children to the Holy Land as pilgrims. To lead my children to Jesus is my primary goal Lord, may I embrace my role as spiritual leader of my family even more deeply. It’s the greatest honor of all. #holyland #reallifecatholic

An Irish Pilgrimage Guide to the Holy Land is available from Columba Books, and was written after a decades-long relationship with the region.

“I was lucky enough to go to the Holy Land for the first time when I was 18 years old. And I completely fell in love with the place. I found Jerusalem absolutely intoxicating. I found the Old City almost calling out to me,” Kelly told Crux.

“Just to be there, just to walk around that holy city. To be in the city where Jesus had walked, in a city that is so important to the great monotheistic religions of the world – that was such a joy. To walk around those ancient sites and experience the sounds, the sights, the tastes, the smells, the hustle and bustle, all of the really, really amazing things that came together in this place,” he added.
Charles Collins New guide helps pilgrims fully appreciate the Holy Land (Jun 27, 2022) Crux (cruxnow.com)

Travel and Pilgrimage: To Saunter

In “The Mountain Trail and Its Message,” Albert W. Palmer tells about a conversation he allegedly had with the great naturalist John Muir, in which Muir suggests:

“[The word ‘saunter’ is] a beautiful word. Away back in the Middle Ages people used to go on pilgrimages to the Holy Land, and when people in the villages through which they passed asked where they were going, they would reply, ‘A la sainte terre,’ ‘To the Holy Land.’ And so they became known as sainte-terre-ers or saunterers.”

It turns out I also enjoy a good saunter — although in this case, my destination isn’t “the” Holy Land but rather to be fully in the presence of all the holy creation around me. It’s so refreshing to take a wandering and meditative walk through wherever I happen to be with the experience itself as its end. It’s when sauntering that solutions to problems materialize, creativity flows, and my soul is inspired.
MEGAN ARTEAGA The Parable of the Saunterer: How To Take It Slow and Enjoy the Journey (JUNE 20, 2022) – Busted Halo