(Image via Pexels) No grouching from me today! At least in this post- maybe later. I just wanted to share two wonderful bits out of my morning’s reading. The first: “Finding Joy in the Kitchen with the Help of Brother Lawrence” from David Russel Mosley of Letters From The Edge Of Eflland here on Patheos Catholic. Today he was able find some simple peace in the ordinary as refuge of from the day’s frustrations. One thing that stood out to me particularly... Read more
(image via Pixabay) Remember that wonderful legend about the angel chopping a man’s hands off on the Dormition icon? There’s another popular version of the story, which was pointed out to me by alert readers Ksenia and Ryan. According to Susan Schneider of “Ask About the Orthodox Faith:” Bewailing their separation from the Mother of God, the Apostles prepared to bury Her all-pure body. A solemn procession went from Zion through Jerusalem to the Garden of Gethsemane. Unbelieving inhabitants of Jerusalem,... Read more
Image via Pixabay This post is a part of the Patheos Catholic Channel series, “Catholicity: Identity and Its Discontents.” Steel Magnificat both cordially invites and heartily encourages our readers to read more here. (Additionally this is the piece I was writing last Friday before several more urgent items turned up. I am aware of the irony of the first paragraph considering that, and hope it allows everyone a good chuckle.) When I sit down to write here and have multiple tabs up, it... Read more
(Image via Wikimedia Commons) …from my Orthodox friend over at Morphodoxing. Whatever your disagreements with Orthodoxy or anything else, just click that link and read it through. It made my hair stand on end. My friend is a brilliant woman who knows what it’s like to suffer for a baby, far more than I do or most mothers I know. You who have borne a child will go to your grave filled with memories of the prototype for her life,... Read more
(Image via Pixabay.) Some of you have probably seen the same headlines I have about the Pope treating the homeless to pizza. Scrolling past the large number of gratuitous Pope photos on the Independent (apparently some of them are links for other Pope stories), one quickly learns that – while this venture is done on papal authority and does include papal pizzeria visits – the protagonist of the story is actually Konrad Krajewski, the Papal Almoner. (If the title is unfamiliar,... Read more
This is a public domain historic standard icon of the Dormition of the Theotokos (think the Assumption, Westerners), courtesy of Wikimedia Commons, and I love it. We have Mother Mary deceased in the foreground, on one of those elaborate violently tilted beds of which I’ve remarked before. I can’t quite tell whether she’s lying on a cushion or surrounded by a visible nimbus of light, and the ambiguity is probably deliberate. She is lying in a similar position to the... Read more
(Image: St Macarius the Great with Cherub, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.) So last Friday I found myself in an unfortunate position for a blogger. I don’t want to write outrage stuff but I was sitting on a pile of stuff I really felt I ought to object to, and that it would be worthwhile to share my reasons for doing so with all of you. I didn’t end up writing it, because some news and such came up. I found... Read more
(image via pixabay) A friend is suffering a lot right now, and there’s not much anyone can do. Pray for them, if you would. Thank you. I’m not doing so well myself. Pray for me and I’ll pray for you. Those of you who have been with me for any length of time know that I’m not the most knowledgeable gal on Patheos Catholic. I’m not an apologist. I don’t have a lot of answers. Snark, yes, and I like to... Read more
(Image via Pixabay) Rebecca Bratten Weiss of Suspended In Her Jar just wrote a fantastic post explaining things I wish a large number of otherwise well-intentioned Catholic men of my acquaintance understood. She writes: “Women who do not conform to societal standards for prettiness or femininity are reviled by those who think women should be objects for male pleasure – even supposedly chaste pleasures, such as enjoying a nice cup of tea with a nice girl who’s pretty in a way... Read more
(image via Pixabay) Did you ever see something on the internet that upset you immensely? Something that grossed you out so much, you wanted to take a hot shower and scour yourself with steel wool? I just had one of those. This is worse than the time I googled “Trypopophobia.” Don’t google that, by the way. I just read this article from Aletia, which is usually a reliable source of excellent writing. This is my first exposure to Ryan Williams. For... Read more
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In