The holy Darcagüey

The holy Darcagüey,
portrait of a Moroccan dervish by José Tapiró y Baró, 1890

 

My heart is breaking ...

 ... for the families of Uvalde, just as it did so recently for the families of Buffalo. And as it has for all the mass shootings we have suffered.

I am praying for everyone in their grief and loss. I also pray for our politicians to get it together, stop their infighting, and implement wise measures from both sides. 

I was reminded this morning that David did not despair, despite all of the setbacks in his eventful life (some self-inflicted to be sure). We too must not despair, but must hope in the Lord and do our utmost, whether it be prayer or whatever actions we can take.

The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.

He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters.

He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake.

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.

Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.

Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.

El Patio

Taken by Traces of Texas

 I love this photo. It is not only so Texan it is so evocative of a place where I'd love to try the Tex Mex!

The Gift Counselor by Sheila M. Cronin

Do all gifts have strings attached?

Yes, believes Jonquil Bloom and she intends to prove it. She's a psychologist who uses her skills in a department store to help shoppers of all ages become good gift givers. Yet, her ten-year-old son wants a dog she won’t let him have.

Enter the handsome bachelor who is ready to settle down.

This is a tale with two purposes. 

On one hand, this is a romance story. Simply written and straight forward with the beats we expect, there are few surprises as to who will wind up with who, despite various misunderstandings along the way. It has a Catholic worldview although the Catholicism doesn't intrude overmuch. A local priest gives a homily or a bit of advice but he rarely shows up. The overall effect is sweet.

On the other hand, it is an unexpected meditation upon gift giving. That is what interested me most. Gift giving and receiving is woven on many strands of the story which gave us a lot of chances to think about it in our own lives. I especially enjoyed seeing Jonquil gently nudge people into considering what they wanted their gifts to achieve. In looking at those interactions, we have a clear view from which to consider Jonquil's own flaws in that area. She has to remove the log from her own eye before trying to help with the splinter in her neighbor's (to loosely quote Jesus).

The author has a good touch with developing characters. The heroine, Jonquil, and her son, Billy, are relatively nuanced although the others are generally all good or bad with few gray areas. Usually that's the kiss of death for me, but in this case folks like Rita, Al, Mr. Merrill, and even Miss Hamilton were allowed just enough growth to make me like them.

Although this isn't the sort of book I usually like, I couldn't put it down.

Note: This was a review copy.

Hoopoe

Hoopoe, Remo Savisaar

Doesn't this look like the craziest woodpecker in the world? I love the coloring and pattern!

A Couple of Fun Things to Keep an Eye On — Dracula Daily and Alice's Adventures

ALICE'S ADVENTURES
(both In Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass)

As frequent visitors know, I love Corey Olsen's Mythgard Academy classes on fantasy and science fiction. They dive very deeply into Tolkein's Middle Earth works (including a lot that most people haven't heard of) but I  stick to the works that most people have heard of like Dune, Dracula, and Watership Down just to name a few. 

 

I was delighted to see the newest series covering a surprising selection, both of Lewis Carroll's Alice books. However, J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis both acknowledged debts to and love of these books, so it makes sense that Mythgard Academy would dive in sooner or later.

Listen here.

 

DRACULA DAILY 

Get the classic novel Dracula delivered to your email inbox, as it happens.

Bram Stoker’s Dracula is an epistolary novel - it’s made up of letters, diaries, telegrams, newspaper clippings - and every part of it has a date. The whole story happens between May 3 and November 10. So: Dracula Daily will post a newsletter each day that something happens to the characters, in the same timeline that it happens to them.

I've read Dracula so many times that I practically have it memorized. But I know it can be intimidating what with being an older book, a classic, about vampires, and suchlike. 

This is the easy way to try it — via email, in small digestible chunks - as it happens to the characters. Sign up here.

 

The Christian is to the world what the soul is to the body.

 Oh my gosh, this is super long but so easy to read and so good! It was in the Office of Readings for Wednesday, May 18 and instantly got marked for my quote journal.

From the Letter to Diognetus

The Christian in the world

Christians are indistinguishable from other men either by nationality, language or customs. They do not inhabit separate cities of their own, or speak a strange dialect, or follow some outlandish way of life. Their teaching is not based upon reveries inspired by the curiosity of men. Unlike some other people, they champion no purely human doctrine. With regard to dress, food and manner of life in general, they follow the customs of whatever city they happen to be living in, whether it is Greek or foreign.

And yet there is something extraordinary about their lives. They live in their own countries as though they were only passing through. They play their full role as citizens, but labour under all the disabilities of aliens. Any country can be their homeland, but for them their homeland, wherever it may be, is a foreign country. Like others, they marry and have children, but they do not expose them. They share their meals, but not their wives. They live in the flesh, but they are not governed by the desires of the flesh. They pass their days upon earth, but they are citizens of heaven. Obedient to the laws, they yet live on a level that transcends the law.

Christians love all men, but all men persecute them. Condemned because they are not understood, they are put to death, but raised to life again. They live in poverty, but enrich many; they are totally destitute, but possess an abundance of everything. They suffer dishonour, but that is their glory. They are defamed, but vindicated. A blessing is their answer to abuse, deference their response to insult. For the good they do they receive the punishment of malefactors, but even then they rejoice, as though receiving the gift of life. They are attacked by the Jews as aliens, they are persecuted by the Greeks, yet no one can explain the reason for this hatred.

To speak in general terms, we may say that the Christian is to the world what the soul is to the body. As the soul is present in every part of the body, while remaining distinct from it, so Christians are found in all the cities of the world, but cannot be identified with the world. As the visible body contains the invisible soul, so Christians are seen living in the world, but their religious life remains unseen. The body hates the soul and wars against it, not because of any injury the soul has done it, but because of the restriction the soul places on its pleasures. Similarly, the world hates the Christians, not because they have done it any wrong, but because they are opposed to its enjoyments.

Christians love those who hate them just as the soul loves the body and all its members despite the body’s hatred. It is by the soul, enclosed within the body, that the body is held together, and similarly, it is by the Christians, detained in the world as in a prison, that the world is held together. The soul, though immortal, has a mortal dwelling place; and Christians also live for a time amidst perishable things, while awaiting the freedom from change and decay that will be theirs in heaven. As the soul benefits from the deprivation of food and drink, so Christians flourish under persecution. Such is the Christian’s lofty and divinely appointed function, from which he is not permitted to excuse himself.

Garden Path

Garden Path, Edward B. Gordon

Holy moly — the archbishop of San Francisco bars Nancy Pelosi from Holy Communion over abortion advocacy

“I must make a public declaration that [Pelosi] is not to be admitted to Holy Communion unless and until she publicly repudiate her support for abortion ‘rights’ and confess and receive absolution for her cooperation in this evil in the sacrament of Penance. I have accordingly sent her a Notification to this effect, which I have now made public,” Cordileone wrote in a letter released Friday.

This is from The Pillar where you may read more and where there is a link to Cordileone's letter to Pelosi.

In reference to those wondering about denying Communion, The Pillar adds this context:

In 2004, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger explained to U.S. bishops that:

Regarding the grave sin of abortion or euthanasia, when a person's formal cooperation becomes manifest (understood, in the case of a Catholic politician, as his consistently campaigning and voting for permissive abortion and euthanasia laws), his Pastor should meet with him, instructing him about the Church's teaching, informing him that he is not to present himself for Holy Communion until he brings to an end the objective situation of sin, and warning him that he will otherwise be denied the Eucharist.

“When ‘these precautionary measures have not had their effect or in which they were not possible,’ and the person in question, with obstinate persistence, still presents himself to receive the Holy Eucharist, ‘the minister of Holy Communion must refuse to distribute it.’”

This decision, properly speaking, is not a sanction or a penalty. Nor is the minister of Holy Communion passing judgment on the person's subjective guilt, but rather is reacting to the person's public unworthiness to receive Holy Communion due to an objective situation of sin.

Essentially, though it probably doesn't  feel that way at this moment, this is Nancy Pelosi's opportunity to deeply examine her faith and whether she truly believes that very faith which she so often professes publicly. It is also a way to stop her creating confusion and scandal about Catholic teachings.

Yellow-Glazed Brush Holder

Yellow-glazed brush-holder, "Chen Guo Zhi" mark;
Jingdezhen Daoguang reign, (1821-50)

I love it when common place items have decorative, artistic touches. I wish that more of our world had such touches.

Well Said: God and religion

It is a great mistake to think that God is chiefly interested in religion.

William Temple

A Thoughtful, Well Written Piece on the Word on Fire Controversy

 Darwin Catholic is always worth reading and never more than in this piece where he looks at what happened with WOF and how it would have been handled in the secular workplaces he's worked for. I'd only heard a little about this and it seemed to be an employee's personal life problem rather than a workplace problem. Which is something that Darwin points out. However, he looks at this from a lot of angles and it is well considered. Here's a bit and then you can go read the whole thing.

The second thing that struck me is that everyone involved seems to have an implicit belief that Catholic organizations should insist on hiring and maintaining only employees who hit some specific standard of personal moral behavior.

It's interesting that this is the substance of an attack on WOF which is generally coming from the left. After all, we're used to a certain sort of Catholic organization controversy where an institution fires an employee for failing to live up to Catholic sexual teachings and more progressive Catholics object that this is unmerciful.

Perhaps what confuses the situation in this case is that the discussion of Gloor's dismissal is being framed as if it were an accusation of either workplace sexual misconduct or clerical sexual abuse. However, the alleged misconduct apparently did not occur in the workplace or with a co-worker, and Gloor is most certainly not a cleric.

Worth a Thousand Words: X

X
by Karin Jurick

A glass ceiling projecting patterns and shadows on the floor while a young woman sketches in the Sculpture Gallery of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City.

Say a prayer, not an editorial

Crater didn't know why the captain wanted him to say a prayer, but he gave it some thought and said, "Dear Lord, I didn't know Tilly, but I hope You'll take her into heaven. She messed up here at the last but that doesn't matter now, not to her and maybe not to You either."

"I said say a prayer, not write an editorial," Teller growled.

The gillie jumped in. For dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return. Dust to dust, ashes to ashes, blessed be the Lord thy God who loves thee still. Amen and good-bye.

Teller stared at the gillie, then said, "Well, at least that thing's got some sense."

Homer Hickam, Crater

The Convent School and The Tower of Las Damas

This was originally published in June 2013. However I love the paintings so much and treasure the memory of the show so much that I am sharing it again, 9 years later. Thursday nights at the museum are still free and it remains relatively unknown.

Martín Rico y Ortega (Spanish, 1833-1908), The School Patio, 1871

We saw this charming painting last night at one of Dallas's best kept secrets, the Meadows Museum at SMU. They are hosting "Impressions of Europe: 19th-Century Vistas by Martin Rico.

I'd never heard of this artist but Thursday nights are free and Tom and I made a date of it. It was really enjoyable, just the right size for an evening's art appreciation to take you out of the everyday world.

Of course, this blog post can't possibly convey the charm of the actual painting, where one is free to examine it closely, seeing the textures and expressions the artist included.

Here is another painting, just to try to lure any Dallasites to the exhibit before it closes on July 7.

Martín Rico y Ortega (Spanish, 1833-1908),
The Tower of Las Damas at the Alhambra, Granada, 1871.

It is not man who goes to God, but God who comes to man.

Almost all religions center around the problem of expiation; they arise out of man's knowledge of his guilt before God and signify the attempt to remove this feeling of guilt through conciliatory actions offered up to God. The expiatory activity by which men hope to conciliate the divinity and to put him in a gracious mood stands at the heart of the history of religion.

In the New Testament the situation is almost completely reversed, It is not man who goes to God with a compensatory gift, but God who comes to man, in order to give to him. He restores disturbed right on the initiative of his own power to love, by making unjust man just again, the dead living again, through his own creative mercy. His righteousness is grace; it is active righteousness, which sets crooked man right, that is, bends him straight, makes him correct. Here we stand before the twist that Christianity put into the history of religion. the New Testament does not say that men conciliate God, as we really ought to expect, since, after all, it is they who have failed, not God. It says, on the contrary, that "in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself." This is truly something new, something unheard of—the starting point of Christian existence and the center of New Testament theology of the cross. God does not wait until the guilty come to be reconciled, he goes to meet them and reconciles them. Here we can see the true direction of the Incarnation, of the cross.

Accordingly, in the New Testament the cross appears primarily as a movement from above to below. It stands there, not as the work of expiation that mankind offers to the wrathful God, but as the expression of the foolish love of God's that gives itself away to the point of humiliation in order thus to save man; it is his approach to us, not the other way about. With this twist in the idea of expiation, and thus in the whole axis of religion, worship, too, man's whole existence, acquires in Christianity a new direction.

Cardinal Ratzinger, Introduction to Christianity

I remember saying that Introduction to Christianity was a terrible name for this book by the cardinal who became Pope Benedict. It was no introduction at all as I think of it which would be gentle and easy to understand. However, it was good. Very good. As this sample shows. I need to reread it.

Keepin' It Cool

Keepin' It Cool
"Anana swims in her 60F chilled water to beat the 95F heat."
taken by Valerie, ucumari photography
Some rights reserved

A Movie You Might Have Missed #63: The Captain's Paradise

It's been 11 years since I began this series highlighting movies I wished more people knew about. I'm rerunning it from the beginning because I still think these are movies you might have missed.

Capt. Henry St. James [referring to his two wives]: That, Rico, is my solution to man's happiness on Earth. Two happy women, each in their way perfect, and in between the company of men, the clash of intellects to stimulate the mind.

Mediterranean ferryboat captain Henry St James (Alec Guiness) has things well organized – a loving and very English wife Maud (Celia Johnson) in Gibraltar, and the loving if rather more hot-blooded Mistress, Nita (Yvonne de Carlo), in Tangiers. A perfect life. As long as neither woman decides to follow him to the other port.

A surprisingly feminist movie ... though in our times we often feel we invented feminism which in itself is not a very worthy attitude. In a way, this is a wonderful bookend to How to Murder Your Wife. Both treat women as something which must be controlled in order to preserve man's peaceful life. Of course, what both films show us is that women are not things, but people. And people can't be easily controlled. With hilarious results.

Thoroughly enjoyable and my favorite so far of the Alec Guiness comedies we've been watching.

A Name Both Revealed and Refused

In revealing his mysterious name, YHWH ("I AM HE Who Is, "I AM WHO AM" or "I AM WHO I AM"), God says who he is and by what name he is to be called. This divine name is mysterous just as God is mystery. It is at once a name revealed and something like the refusal of a name and hence it better expresses God as what he is — infineitely above everything that we can understand or say: he is the "hidden God," his name is ineffable, and he is the God who makes himself close to men.

CCC 206, Catechism of the Catholic Church

This is both illuminating and mind blowing to consider. I've been reading a section of the Catechism every day during my afternoon prayer and it's chock full of good lectio divina material.

Blossoming Tree

A blossoming tree on the beach of the Mediterranean Sea Straits
between the Aegean Sea and the Sea of Marmara.
Edward B. Gordon

A Divine "Punishment"

A divine 'punishment’ is also a divine 'gift’, if accepted, since its object is ultimate blessing, and the supreme inventiveness of the Creator will make 'punishments’ (that is changes of design) produce a good not otherwise to be attained...

J.R.R. Tolkien, The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien

I'll never forget reading the interview where Stephen Colbert talked about this:

He was tracing an arc on the table with his fingers and speaking with such deliberation and care. “I was left alone a lot after Dad and the boys died.... And it was just me and Mom for a long time,” he said. “And by her example am I not bitter. By her example. She was not. Broken, yes. Bitter, no.” Maybe, he said, she had to be that for him. He has said this before—that even in those days of unremitting grief, she drew on her faith that the only way to not be swallowed by sorrow, to in fact recognize that our sorrow is inseparable from our joy, is to always understand our suffering, ourselves, in the light of eternity. What is this in the light of eternity? Imagine being a parent so filled with your own pain, and yet still being able to pass that on to your son.

“It was a very healthy reciprocal acceptance of suffering,” he said. “Which does not mean being defeated by suffering. Acceptance is not defeat. Acceptance is just awareness.” He smiled in anticipation of the callback: “ ‘You gotta learn to love the bomb,’ ” he said. “Boy, did I have a bomb when I was 10. That was quite an explosion. And I learned to love it. So that's why. Maybe, I don't know. That might be why you don't see me as someone angry and working out my demons onstage. It's that I love the thing that I most wish had not happened.”

I love the thing that I most wish had not happened.

I asked him if he could help me understand that better, and he described a letter from Tolkien in response to a priest who had questioned whether Tolkien's mythos was sufficiently doctrinaire, since it treated death not as a punishment for the sin of the fall but as a gift. “Tolkien says, in a letter back: ‘What punishments of God are not gifts?’ ” Colbert knocked his knuckles on the table. “ ‘What punishments of God are not gifts?’ ” he said again. His eyes were filled with tears. “So it would be ungrateful not to take everything with gratitude. It doesn't mean you want it. I can hold both of those ideas in my head.”

Joel Lovell, GQ

It's worth thinking about as you trace back through your own life.

Making Christians Not Mathematicians

Nowhere in the Gospel do we see that the Lord said: "I am sending you a Paraclete who will teach you about the course of the sun and the moon." For He wanted to make Christians not mathematicians.

St. Augustine

Because even waaay back in the day, people were trying to pick apart the Bible because the science didn't look right to them. Some things never change.

Helen Hyde

Helen Hyde

Helen Hyde was the artist who gave us the painting from last week, Moonlight on the Viga Canal. I love the sense of style in this photo as well as her winning expression. Click through the link to read more about her fascinating life and the way she concentrated on Japanese influenced art.

I do not approve of guys using false pretenses on dolls ...

Personally, I never cricize Miss Beulah Beauregard for breaking her engagement to Little Alfie, because from what she tells me she becomes engaged to him under false pretenses and I do not approve of guys using false pretenses on dolls, except, of course, when nothing else will do.

Damon Runyon, It Comes Up Mud

How's that for an opening sentence?

This one's for Rose whose birthday is today. She  hasn't read anything by Damon Runyon that I know of, but her love for the movie Guys and Dolls exposed me to his world ... which led to me reading his stories.

May

May, Très Riches Heures du duc de Berry

The May jaunt, a pageant celebrating the "joli mois de Mai" in which one had to wear green garments known as livree de mai. The riders are young noblemen and women, with princes and princesses being visible. In the background is a chateau thought to be the Palais de la Cite in Paris.

University of Chicago

The Pastry Cook

The Pastry Cook by Joseph Bail

Nature and the contradictions of contemporary secularism

One of the contradictions of contemporary secularism is its worship of nature, on the one hand, and its call for radical liberation from nature, on the other. We are told to eat organically, limit our carbon footprint, protect wild spaces, take public transportation ... We are also told we can choose if we are a male or a female (or something else entirely), that there are no natural differences between the sexes, that we can have intercourse without thinking about reproduction, that babies in wombs are not human life (unless they become "chosen"), that it is "ableist" to distinguish—physically, not morally— between abled and disabled human bodies ...

Christopher Kaczor & Matthew R. Petrusek
Jordan Peterson, God, and Christianity

This is so obvious that I feel really silly for not ever noticing how shockingly bad are the contradictions  of believing both points of view simultaneously. I know many people do so and we are often bombarded by popular opinion supporting any and all of these ideas without ever noticing the logical inconsistencies.

I myself probably would if not for the grace of becoming Catholic and having my feet planted in age-old truths with thousands of years of logic behind them.

Bear Boy

Bear Boy, Remo Savisaar

Mei (May)

Mei, Theo van Hoytema

Jordan Peterson, God and Christianity: The Search for a Meaningful Life

A very kind blog reader sent me this as an Easter gift. Honestly the best thing about it was the really nice note that was included.

I dipped into Jordan Peterson's video series a while back to see what all the fuss was about and found his reasoning very compelling. I was interested that a Jungian psychotherapist seemed to draw all the right conclusions from a close reading of the book of Genesis. Naturally, I've seen many references to Peterson and liked the idea that he has particularly caught the attention of young men who look to his insights for guidance in their lives. In our age of "diversity" this group has been almost deliberately overlooked.

Most of all I wondered how Peterson's conclusions stacked up against a Christian reading of the same scripture and traditions. I wasn't so interested in that question that I was going to watch all of his presentations though. That is why I was delighted when this book came out which does just that. It lived up to its promise in spades.

The authors go through Peterson's 12 rules of life from the book of the same name, look at his reasoning and conclusions, and then compare them to Christian thought. It is amazing how much Peterson gets right, showing that if one has a logical, well trained mind then scripture is not an archaic, impenetrable text as some critics allege. 

More than anything, I admire Peterson's dedication to following lines of thinking through to their logical conclusion, even when it leads to some hard truths. When his thinking goes astray, it is because he is not taking God into the equation, as the authors show time and again.

This makes for fascinating reading. Not only do we see the truths of Christianity from an outside view, but we see where Christianity provides the fullness of truth when God is included (as, indeed, he must be). The authors also take a look at Peterson's later book Beyond Order. Finally, there is a transcript of a 2019 conversation between Peterson and Bishop Robert Barron which makes a perfect ending.

Highly recommended.

Introduction to the Spiritual Life by Brant Pitre

This is a simply excellent book. I thought that Brant Pitre was going to cover the various forms of prayer from easiest (vocal) to most difficult (contemplation and meditation). And there would be some great quotes from Church Fathers along the way. At the most basic, I was correct. However, there is a lot more to it that turns this from an informative book into an inspirational one.

As he loves to do, Pitre is tracing the roots of practices and understanding from Judaism to Jesus to the Christian spiritual classics. This, of course, gives the reader depth and context which in itself is eye opening. However, as each section ends in the classics, we are given solid advice about how to apply ourselves to each particular step of the spiritual life.

That is what this book is all about, after all, the spiritual life. It ranges from forms of prayer to major temptations, from spiritual exercises to the seven capital sins, from how to meditate on scripture to how to hang on when nothing seems to be working (that's called the dark night of the soul).

All along the way,  remedies are offered for all the pitfalls in our way. For example the three major temptations of pleasure, possessions, and pride bring with them discussions of fasting, almsgiving, and prayer. The seven capital sins are each accompanied by a look at the corresponding virtues we can acquire to help in our spiritual struggles.

I found myself unable to put this book down as I recognized my own struggles in the pages and picked up the little tips that already have enriched my prayer life. This is an accessible yet rich book that will reward Christians with many layers for reading and rereading. I can't recommend it highly enough.

Moonlight on the Viga Canal

Moonlight on the Viga Canal – a color woodcut made by Helen Hyde in 1912

Amezaiku Goldfish

Amezaiku goldfish by Shinri Tezuka

 

Yesterday, we saw a painting featuring a Japanese candy seller working on a piece of Amezaiku candy. Wikipedia says:

Amezaiku (飴細工) is Japanese candy craft artistry. An artist takes multi-colored mizuame and, using their hands and other tools such as tweezers and scissors, creates a sculpture. Amezaiku artists also paint their sculpted candy with edible dyes to give the finished work more character. Animals and insects are common amezaiku shapes created to appeal to children. Intricate animal characters are created with expert speed. Some amezaiku artists are also street performers who perform magic tricks and tell stories along with their candy craft entertainment.

When the Bible was chanted by the heralds of God

Who thinks, as he thumbs the closely printed pages, of the time when these words and sentences were not fixed in cold print but chanted or intoned to audiences by the voices of the heralds of God? ...

To understand properly how the bible arose, we must forget the habits we have acquired as modern men and members of a paper civilization. Reading and writing have become such automatic operations that it is difficult for us to realize that some societies have been able to manage almost entirely without them. Our memory has become bloodless and barren, and our faculties of improvisation have more to do with mere words and rhetoric than with poetry and prophecy. In ancient Israel, right up to the time of Christ, it was very different. The ability to speak with fluency, art, and a gift for aphorism was the mark of those who today would be "writers." The trained memory was a superb tool. "A good disciple," said the Jewish scribes, "is like a well-made cistern; he does not let a single drop of his master's teaching escape."

Henri Daniel-Rops, What is the Bible?

The Ameya (Candy Seller)

 

The Ameya, Robert Frederick Blum

Wikipedia tells us: Done in oil on canvas, the illustration depicts a Japanese candy maker (practicing the art of Amezaiku) at work.

Tomorrow I'll have a picture of a truly amazing piece of Amezaiku.

All our trials can become Jesus' trials if we but allow it ...

All our trials can become Jesus' trials if we but allow it, since he has anticipated, condensed and overcome them all in his own temptations. He has "foresuffered" all. We overcome our temptations only by seeing them primarily as his own and ourselves as the ones who wait by his side during the battle. ... in each new trial he undergoes, he reveals to us a new aspect of the holiness, fidelity, and goodness of God in man.

Fire of Mercy, Heart of the Word by Erasmo Leiva-Merikakis

That's one of the things I love most about Jesus — there's nothing I'm facing that he didn't face first.

Still Life with Mushrooms

 

Still Life with Mushrooms by Firmin Baes