—Feast of Our Lady of Walsingham About a month ago, Webster wrote a post about awaking from a long, bad, dream. Blaise Pascal woke me up from a long slumber. His was a shrill alarm too, much like the one on the clock by my nightstand right now. But unlike that one, Blaise’s alarm didn’t have a snooze button. That’s because I had been snoozing for most of my adult life. Before I bumped into Blaise, I had been sleeping... Read more
Sensitiveness Time was, I shrank from what was right, From fear of what was wrong; I would not brave the sacred fight, Because the foe was strong. But now I cast that finer sense And sorer shame aside; Such dread of sin was indolence, Such aim at heaven was pride. So, when my Saviour calls, I rise, And calmly do my best; Leaving to Him, with silent eyes Of hope and fear, the rest. I step, I mount where He... Read more
On Sunday, I heard an interesting perspective on the Roman Collar. Monthly in our parish, we parents of CCD students are required to sit in on the class. This Sunday, the parish catechetical leader, in reviewing elements of the Mass, asked parents and their children why priests wear black clothes and a Roman collar. One parent suggested priests were in mourning over Christ’s death. A child said maybe priests wore black clothes because don’t show dirt as easily. Another thought... Read more
—Feast of St. Matthew the Apostle It all seems so silly now. Before I converted to the Faith, I believed the nonsense that Catholics were biblically illiterate. I remember being amazed at the amount of scriptural knowledge that I noticed when reading Blaise Pascal’s book. And Blaise was a layman. When I read The Imitation of Christ, I was astounded at the depth and breadth of Thomas à Kempis’ knowledge of scripture. And Thomas even wrote parts of the book... Read more
A while back, I wrote a post about my Mustang’s harmonic balancer. It turned out that my own “harmonic balancer” was out of whack too. When my pony sat fallow for all that time, the album that I’m about to share with you sat inside the cassette player. It, just like the car, sat there the whole time. During the waiting period, I did a lot of work on my house. I did a lot of reading too. I was thinking... Read more
Feast of Saints Eustachius It’s still raining in Pakistan. At the end of July, some of the worst flooding ever recorded began to take place there. By early August, torrential rains caused the Indus River to rise above it’s banks, making upwards of eight million people homeless. Yes, you read that right. 8,000,000,000. Think of everyone in the entire state of Virginia being homeless, with hardly any food and barely any drinkable water, and you can imagine what is the... Read more
—Feast of St. Robert Bellarmine Today we celebrate the feast of the saint whose portrait you see here. You can read all about his life elsewhere. What I’m interested in is what this Doctor of the Church has to say about death, and as a consequence, his thoughts on life. I’ve shared Blaise Pascal’s thoughts on death before in this space. Yeah, Frank, we noticed and could you please talk about something else?! Sorry, but I just had a loved... Read more
—Feast of Our Lady of Sorrows I found this little poem, by a forgotten poet, in the journal whose banner you see above. How does one attempt to wrap their mind around the immensity of God and the smallness of our individual selves? If God is the ocean, than we are just streamlets… The Streamlet’s Song. As on its course the mountain streamUnto the valley sped, The echoes listened, wondering,To what its murmurs said.Deep in that mystic solitudeSinging, it passed... Read more
Yesterday was Monday and as such I did a music post. The subject was love, and I called it Love: Three Minus One, because the form of love that I was spot-lighting was not romantic love, or eros as it is known in Greek. Below are some thoughts written by Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen and published in his book entitled The Power of Love, which hit the bookstores back in 1964. Bishop Sheen discusses the radical transformation of love from... Read more
—Feast of St. John Chrysostom Love: Agape, Storge, Phileo, Eros. The four Greek words for love. Currently, all evidence points to modern culture being stuck on eros alone, while ignoring the other three. At least that is how it seems to me. C.S. Lewis wrote a book that I need to get to one of these days, entitled The Four Loves. There needs to be a balance of Love and when one type dominates, harmony is shattered. What to do?... Read more
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