Skip to main content

Friday Miscellany

It is Candlemas, the feast of the Presentation:


Lord, now you let your servant go in peace;

your word has been fulfilled:

my own eyes have seen the salvation

which you have prepared in the sight of every people:

a light to reveal you to the nations

and the glory of your people Israel.

------------------

Quotes:


There is a story about Newman that I like very much. In his room he had a picture – I think his landlady had given it to him – of the Blessed in Paradise praising God, and every time he came in and out, he used to smile at it and say, 'What! Still at it?'"

- In This House of Brede, by Rumer Godden.

I was late in finding the Rosary, and it has been in addition a great delight to know that others whose virtue and learning is far above mine are companions. I began to use it only after hearing [Ronald] Knox (on a private occasion) say: ‘Personally I do not like the Rosary, but I have a suspicion that Our Lady does.’ Very Knox. 


Reading:





The Dark Hours by Michael Connelly (just finished).





Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Exousia and Potestas

I've been thinking a lot about power and authority, as one does nowadays.   It's the meta-topic in many of the Catholic ecclesial struggles nowadays, of course.  I don't think anyone would dispute that, but it's odd how little it is actually mentioned specifically.    Maybe it's not odd.   Maybe the principles are simply assumed for the most part.  Today I looked up the Latin for "authority", specifically the Vulgate word used in the Luke 20:2 passage , which has been on my mind.    Here's the passage -- the pronoun refers to Jesus: One day as he was teaching the people in the temple area and proclaiming the good news, the chief priests and scribes, together with the elders, approached him 2 and said to him, “Tell us, by what authority are you doing these things? Or who is the one who gave you this authority?” The Latin word used i n the Vulgate is " potestas "   et aiunt dicentes ad illum dic nobis in qua potestate haec facis ...
Post a Comment
Read more

The ideas of all things are in God

Substack is an interesting platform, and currently it is rather interesting to browse through the substacks of people who have ended up there -- sometimes, people whose writing I haven't seen for a long time.  Fr Fessio might be a good example of that.   But I am kind of stuck in the early 2000s, as far as social media goes, and I think I will have to stay here on Blogger with this site, and much as I admire focused blogs I don't think I can write one.   I think if I'm going to post with any kind of regularity, it will have to be a patchwork or a mosaic.   One of my earlier blogs I described as a commonplace book and some form of that is the most viable model, I think.     That actually brings to mind what I was reading this morning -- St Thomas Aquinas on Ideas -- this is from Msr Glenn's Tour of the Summa, which is available online.    He says: An idea or concept is the mind's grasp of an essence. It is the understanding o...
Post a Comment
Read more

Magic and Meaning

“I have not used ‘magic’ consistently, and indeed the Elven-queen Galadriel is obliged to remonstrate with the Hobbits on their confused use of the word both for the devices and operations of the Enemy, and for those of the Elves. I have not, because there is not a word for the latter (since all human stories have suffered the same confusion). Their 'magic’ is Art, delivered from many of its human limitations: more effortless, more quick, more complete (product, and vision in unflawed correspondence). And its object is Art not Power, sub-creation not domination and tyrannous re-forming of Creation. The 'Elves’ are 'immortal’, at least as far as this world goes: and hence are concerned rather with the griefs and burdens of deathlessness in time and change, than with death. The Enemy in successive forms is always 'naturally’ concerned with sheer Domination, and so the Lord of magic and machines; but the problem: that this frightful evil can and does arise from an apparent...
Post a Comment
Read more