Never Despairing of Life

There is a way of living and thinking that I would name negative, another that I would name active. The first consists in seeing always what is defective in people and institutions, not so much to remedy them as to dominate them, in always looking back, and in always looking for whatever separates and disunites. The second consists in joyfully looking life and its responsibilities in the face, in looking for the good in everyone in order to develop and cultivate it, in never despairing of the future, the fruit of our will, and in understanding human faults and miseries, expressing that strong compassion which results in action and no longer allows us to live a useless life. ...

As we go along, let us spread ideas, words, and desires, without looking back to see who gathers them.

Elisabeth Leseur

This was written long before the advent of Facebook, but I feel that it and other such social media are too often used to foster the first way of living instead of the second. Such temptations are always around us, to take the path of disunity. We have to remain vigilant to cultivate the second way of living.

Created in the image of a story-telling God

We are story-telling creatures because we are created in the image of a story-telling God. He is the great Author, weaving together a complex history full of heroes and villains, side plots and side characters. He uses motifs and archetypes. He has favorite themes and tropes. He keeps track of every thread. No sparrow escapes His notice. He writes epics between rival anthills, comedies involving frogs, tragedies about field mice, dramas in the deepest oceans. our Lord is a master Weaver. He spins galaxies and whirlwinds, stitches garments for the forests, unrolls the mountains and hills like a Persian rug, embroiders the stories of men's lives into an enormous tapestry, and encompasses the entirety of human history — from the shiver of Adam's chest as he drew his first breath, to the final trumpet call when all shall be remade.

To be human, to be created in His image, is to tell stories.

Christiana Hale, Deeper Heaven

Carmen Navale - Think of Christ and echo him

Putting this the day before the proper day since that falls on a Sunday this year.

With sweat and blood and Blackwood pine
We laid her keel and faired her lines
Heave, lads, and let the echoes ring

With her keel tight-caulked she swims right well
Let torrents fall and wild gusts swell
Heave, lads, and let the echoes ring

The tempests howl, the storms dismay
But manly strength can win the day
Heave, lads, and let the echoes ring

For clouds and squalls will soon pass on
And victory lies with work well done
Heave, lads, and let the echoes ring

Hold fast! Survive! And all is well
You've suffered worse, He'll calm this swell
Heave, lads, and let the echoes ring

Satan acts to tire the brain
And by temptation souls are slain
Think, lads, of Christ and echo Him

With fixed resolve we scorn the foe
With virtues armed we pray and row
Think, lads, of Christ and echo Him

The king of virtues vowed a prize
For him who wins, for him who tries
Think, lads, of Christ and echo Him

Mashup of 2 translations: Tony Krogh, Anglandicus

I discovered this prayer in The Path of Celtic Prayer by Calvin Miller. However, the book didn't have the whole thing, as I discovered when I went looking for a version to copy into this post. This is going into my quote journal.

For those who don't know Columbanus was an early Irish missionary who traveled through Europe with his brother monks, evangelizing on the way. He viewed life as a pilgrimage and wrote this song which reflects that idea so well. I can see it in my mind's eye, the boat of men singing a call and response maybe, the crashing waves, the serious struggle accompanied by the joy of triumph making it upstream.

Journeying up the Rhine in 610, Columbanus and his disciples supposedly chanted his famous ‘boat song’. One can almost hear the Irish monks dig their oars into the Rhine’s formidable current as they struggle upstream. The poem compares the surging storm waters with the trials and struggles of the Christian life. Columbanus sees the tempests and storms of life overcome by the one who is in Christ. He frequently used the analogy of storms at sea as a picture for hardship and trials.

Anglandicus blog

Columbanus embarking, by an unknown artist
Source

Meditation on a Pudding

MEDITATION ON A PUDDING

Let us seriously reflect of what a pudding is composed. It is composed of flour that once waved in the golden grain, and drank the dews of the morning; of milk pressed from the swelling udder by the gentle hand of the beauteous milkmaid, whose beauty and innocence might have recommended a worse draught; who, while she stroked the udder, indulged no ambitious thoughts of wandering in palaces, formed no plans for the destruction of her fellow-creatures; milk, which is drawn from the cow, that useful animal, that eats the grass of the field, and supplies us with that which made the greatest part of the food of mankind in the age which the poets have agreed to call golden. It is made with an egg, that miracle of nature, which the theoretical Burnet has compared to creation. An egg contains water within its beautiful smooth surface; and an unformed mass, by the incubation of the parent, becomes a regular animal, furnished with bones and sinews, and covered with feathers. – Let us consider; can there be more wanting to complete the Meditation on a Pudding? If more is wanting, more may be found. It contains salt, which keeps the sea from putrefaction: salt, which is made the image of intellectual excellence, contributes to the formation of a pudding.

Samuel Johnson

This never fails to amuse and delight me.

We're meant to enjoy Our Lord and, in Him, our friends, our food, our sleep, our jokes, and the birds' song and the frosty sunrise

It is one of the evils of rapid diffusion of news that the sorrows of all the world come to us every morning. I think each village was meant to feel pity for its own sick and poor whom it can help and I doubt if it is the duty of any private person to fix his mind on ills wh. he cannot help. (This may even become an escape from the works of charity we really can do to those we know).

A great many people (not you) do now seem to think that the mere state of being worried is in itself meritorious. I don't think it is. We must, if it so happens, give our lives for others: but even while we're doing it, I think we're meant to enjoy Our Lord and, in Him, our friends, our food, our sleep, our jokes, and the birds' song and the frosty sunrise.

C.S. Lewis; letter to Dom Bede Griffiths, OSB; Dec. 20, 1946

The immediacy of global bad news, the idea that being worried about something is action enough, the lack of charity shown locally — don't these sound all too familiar in our Facebook, X, social media world? 

Living locally is trendy for food. I like the idea of applying it as Lewis discusses above. We have plenty of chances to act and help locally. And while doing it, we mustn't forget the Lord is with us, mixing in small moments of joy.

Death doesn't have an opposite.

Death doesn't have an opposite. Death is a transition. It is no more the opposite of life than a bridge is the opposite of the land it connects. ... If we could get a glimpse of the eternal nature of our lives, we would view death exactly as we view birth: a necessary tunnel through which we must pass on our journey.

Mother Angelica's Answers, Not Promises

This seems important at this time of year, when light is fading and we've just passed All Saints and All Souls Days.

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

Perfect!

Halloween's Coming: Horror, Monster, and Monstrance

We're going to count down to Halloween with some of my favorite spooky quotes and images. But let's put it in perspective first ... Catholic perspective that is!

By Toby Ord

Most people don't think of horror as a genre of literature or film that is particularly agreeable to Christian sensibilities. However, two of the great practitioners of horror on both page and screen consider their work to be an extension of the gospel. Stephen King, author of many a scary tale, says that he considers himself the spiritual heir of the great Puritan preacher, Jonathan Edwards (who preached the famous sermon "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God"). William Peter Blatty, who penned "The Exorcist" wrote the story precisely in order to show both the depths of demonic evil and to remind the world of the reality of Christ-like self-sacrifice.

By Broederhugo

It is the depth of the darkness of the Enemy that paradoxically highlights the brilliance of the light of Heaven. Indeed, the word "monster" comes from the same root as the word "demonstrate" and "monstrance." A "monster" demonstrates what we can and will be apart from Christ. A monstrance shows forth the saving eucharistic, and self-sacrificial power of him who underwent the worst horror the world has ever known to save us from the terrors of Hell. He has prepared a eucharistic table for us in the presence of Satan himself--and deprived him of his prey.

This Halloween, be not afraid.

Catholic Exchange, Word of Encouragement, Oct. 31, 2005

All-consuming interests

For the faithful believer, understanding God and thereby living a godly life are all-consuming interests.

Bruce Gordon, The Bible

Hey, that's me!

We are made for an existence that is constantly renewed through gift of self in love

The first reading, taken from the Book of Ecclesiastes, invites us ... to come to terms with the experience of our limitations and the fleeting nature of all things that pass away (cf. Eccl 1:2; 2:21-23). On a similar note, the Responsorial Psalm presents us with the image of “the grass that is renewed… in the morning it flourishes and is renewed; in the evening it  fades and withers” (Ps 90:5-6). These are two strong reminders which may be a bit shocking, but which should not frighten us as if they were “taboo” issues to be avoided. The fragility they speak of is, in fact, part of the marvel of creation. Think of the image of grass: is not a field of flowers beautiful? Of course, it is delicate, made up of small, vulnerable stems, prone to drying out, to being bent and broken. Yet at the same time these flowers are immediately replaced by others that sprout up after them, generously nourished and fertilized by the first ones as they decay on the ground. This is how the field survives: through constant regeneration. Even during the cold months of winter, when everything seems silent, its energy stirs beneath the ground, preparing to blossom into a thousand colors when spring comes.

We too, dear friends, are made this way, we are made for this. We are not made for a life where everything is taken for granted and static, but for an existence that is constantly renewed through gift of self in love. This is why we continually aspire to something “more” that no created reality can give us; we feel a deep and burning thirst that no drink in this world can satisfy. Knowing this, let us not deceive our hearts by trying to satisfy them with cheap imitations! Let us rather listen to them! Let us turn this thirst into a step stool, like children who stand on tiptoe, in order to peer through the window of encounter with God. We will then find ourselves before him, who is waiting for us, knocking gently on the window of our soul (cf. Rev 3:20). It is truly beautiful, especially at a young age, to open wide your hearts, to allow him to enter, and to set out on this adventure with him towards eternity.

Pope Leo XIV, Jubilee of Youth Homily, August 3, 2025

 This is truly a beautiful reflection. It makes me look forward to reading Pope Leo's thoughts whenever they come my way.

What kind of head-space am I going to be stuck in now?

There exists a quality of a book that I do not have a name for; it is approached by terms like “mode” and “voice” and “the writer’s world-view”, but isn’t quite any of these. I short-hand it as, “What kind of head-space am I going to be stuck in now?” And is it one I that will enjoy being stuck in? We seek out, I think, any favorite writer’s other books, even if they are varied, in the hopes of entering that agreeable head-space again.

Lois Bujold, reviewing Rivers of London by Ben Aaronovitch

I like that ... "head space." Of course, she is precisely right. This is from the review that got me to try the series, way back in 2015.

God and religion

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

William Temple

Nothing I say can improve upon this.

Never say to God: "Enough!" Simply say: "I am ready."

I ran this in May and am coming back around to it again as my mother is in home-hospice. She's lived with us for almost 6 years. Her 91st birthday will be on August 2. As with many things in life, there is no predicting how long this hospice will last, though she does seem to be slowly powering down.

As hospice was put into place, I realized that, once again, I am being asked to serve at a level that never occurred to me. Not only am I taking care of my mother physically in new ways, but our whole family is. We all have come to grips with this challenge together and it makes me love our family so much more. Even 8-month-old baby Gemma and 4-year-old Andy have done their bit as my mother becomes more herself when my daughter brings them for frequent visits. 

I have never been more thankful to be Catholic as every bit of suffering is not wasted but given dignity and purpose as God uses it for our good. It also makes me remember Thomas Merton's friend saying that we must all desire to be saints. I do desire that. Then when you recognize him pushing you a bit closer to holiiness, as I do now, you say, "yes, but ..."  

This piece is the perfect reminder that instead I must be saying, "I am ready."

Every illness and every trial is permitted by God as the means whereby we can best ensure our salvation and as the material most fitted for our sanctification. Take your illness as a penance given you by God, who knows the extant of your debts to him as well as the best way in which you can discharge them. You should be content to do as he wishes, for he is satisfied with far less than you owe him.

Read into everything God's explicit will. Suffer with our Lord, uniting your sufferings to his. Don't look for sufferings, but do not refuse them. Value them as precious marks of favor that he bestows on you. Don't desire to exchange them for others, but don't torment yourself by adding to them. Don't fix your eyes on the lash that scourges you, but kiss and adore the loving hand and heart wielding it.

God is not content to see you merely suffering with patience. He wants you to be grateful and to approve of what he does. ...

Feel a more lively gratitude towards those who brace you up and invigorate you in your pain than towards those who merely commiserate you. An unpitied pain wins greater merit before God. Never say to God: "Enough!" Simply say: "I am ready."

St. Sebastian Valfre

This is a controversial take on suffering these days. But my own experience makes it seem sound. Not that I am able to be grateful but, without understanding the big picture, I can accept that what God sends is meant for my own good. Especially difficult is the advice that we have a lively gratitude to those who "invigorate" us in our pain. I still resent those people. But remembering that advice helps lessen my resentment some.

When we are most profoundly ourselves

Indeed, to the question as to what distinguishes the human being from an animal, as to what is specifically different about human beings, the answer has to be that they are the beings that God made capable of thinking and praying. They are most profoundly themselves when they discover their relation to their Creator. Therefore the image of God also means that human persons are beings of word and of love, beings moving toward Another, oriented to giving themselves to the Other and only truly receiving themselves back in real self-giving.

Joseph Ratzinger (later Pope Benedict XVI),

In the Beginning…: A Catholic Understanding

of the Story of Creation and the Fall

You can see why this book is so deeply satisfying. This excerpt can't give you a sense of the logic that Ratzinger follows but it leads inexorably to the point above. 

As someone who had God nudge them into the St. Vincent de Paul Society, I can testify about "real self-giving." It has been forcibly brought home that when Jesus talks about the judgment of the nations (Matthew 25:31-46), he's pointing out that helping our neighbors is not only for their own good. It is also for our own full flowering as the people he means us to be. At least that is the path upon which I have found myself.

We are fated into the logic of the universe

The number that governs the whole is seven; in the scheme of seven days it permeates the whole in a way that cannot be overlooked. This is the number of a phase of the moon, and thus we are told throughout this account that the rhythm of our heavenly neighbor also sounds the rhythm of our human life. It becomes clear that we human beings are not bounded by the limits of our own little “I” but that we are part of the rhythm of the universe, that we too, so to speak, assimilate the heavenly rhythm and movement in our own bodies and thus, thanks to this interlinking, are fated into the logic of the universe. In the Bible this thought goes still further. It lets us know that the rhythm of the heavenly bodies is, more profoundly, a way of expressing the rhythm of the heart and the rhythm of God’s love, which manifests itself in there.

Joseph Ratzinger (later Pope Benedict XVI),

In the Beginning…: A Catholic Understanding

of the Story of Creation and the Fall

This continues the paragraph from yesterday, looking at how creation is a part of our very being. I love this so much.

The Ten Commandments are an Echo of Creation

The words "God said" appear ten times in the creation account. In this way the creation narrative anticipates the Ten Commandments. This makes us realize that these Ten Commandments are, as it were, an echo of the creation; they are not arbitrary inventions for the purpose of erecting barriers to human freedom but signs pointing to the spirit, the language, and the meaning of creation; they are a translation of the language of the universe, a translation of God's logic, which constructed the universe.

Joseph Ratzinger (later Pope Benedict XVI),
In the Beginning…: A Catholic Understanding
of the Story of Creation and the Fall

This book is simply wonderful. It's a series of Lenten homilies that Ratzinger delivered. I'd have loved to have been in the audience to receive such wisdom. I can't recommend this book highly enough. We'll see the second half of this paragraph tomorrow, continuing the idea of how deeply embedded we are in creation and creation is in us.

The action of God in history and time

The lesson repeated over and over again in the books of the Bible — unlike the one suggested by Greco-Roman paganism — is that man, in the events of history, is not the plaything of a blind fate but in the hands of a Power, a Principle, a personal God on whom all depends and who wishes to lead him to his true goal.

This is what gives the Bible its very special meaning and what was already known by its inspired authors, who, in all they wrote, had but one purpose: to bring home to men the action of God in the world and in the dimension of time. To reproach them with lack of the famous modern "objectivity" is pointless. For them, history is written at God's dictation as part of His designs: the moral writings seek to elevate man to the likeness of God; poetry in its various forms exalts the glory of the Most High and furnishes believers iwth the means of associating themselves with His work through prayer; and the midrashim bring home the infallibility of His actions.

What give the historical study of the Bible its whole import and puts the Bible as a history book in a class by itself is that this slice of events cut out of time and space reveals the divine action; in fact, it is the divine action, directed toward revelation. An indissoluble union of human realities — some of them a painful, even a lamentable sight — and transcendent and divine realities; that is the very substance of the Bible; that is what constitutes its greatness, but also its difficulty.

Henri Daniel-Rops, What is the Bible?

The most remarkable record a people ever left

So the Bible is in the first place a history. It is the record of a people, in fact the most remarkable record a people has ever left, for future generations, of all it did, suffered, believed, thought, and hoped. It is the record of a family, Abraham's, kept for about two thousand years, the record of a family that from the Patriarch to Jesus can be followed in its human destiny as well as in its providential mission. That is what gives unity to the Bible and all its heterogeneous parts.

Henri Daniel-Rops, What is the Bible?

I love this little known French author. He wrote a multi-volume series of the history of the Church up to his own time. He wrote many great books including St. Vincent de Paul,  Daily Life in the Time of Jesus, Jesus and  His Times, and he wrote this book about the Bible which is a favorite of mine.

Every moment is played against a supernatural backdrop — nothing can be humdrum

You and I are faced with one of those situations (which fortunately are not very numerous in one lifetime) which cannot possibly be adequately judged beforehand. It strikes me as a colossal gamble, or rather, a very great adventure. And personally I am considerably exhilarated by the risks! ... The greatness of the adventure perhaps consists partly in the fact that as a Catholic I can marry only once! But, as with being born, perhaps once is quite sufficient! In the Church, you know, there is a great heightening of every moment of experience, since every moment is played against a supernatural backdrop. Nothing can be humdrum in this scheme.

Marshall McLuhan in a letter to his fiancee,

The Medium and the Light: Reflections on Religion

I love his feeling of excitement at taking the ultimate risk of marriage! He's right!

Testing the Truth

From introduction to the The Medium and the Light: Reflections on Religion by Marshall McLuhan. This is part of McLuhan's conversion story. This is written by McLuhan's son, Eric, one of the editors of the book.

At every turn, while he was investigating the background for his study of Thomas Nashe, he would encounter the Church — what Chesterton called (another book title) The Thing. It was everywhere. At one point, he later told me (and he was never very specific just when that point occurred), he decided that the thing had to be sorted out or he couldn't rest. Either it ws true, or it wasn't. Either the entire matter was true, all of it, exactly as the Church claimed, or it was the biggest hoax ever perpetrated on a gullible mankind. With that choice clearly delineated, he set out to find which was the case. What came next was not more study, but testing.

The matter had to be tested — on its own terms: that is, by prayer. He told me that the principal prayer that he used was not some long or complex formula, but simply, "Lord, please, send me a sign." He reported that, almost immediately, not one but a deluge of signs arrived. And they continued to arrive unabated for a long time. As to just what the signs consisted in and what happened next, well, some things must remain private. The reader may deduce the rest from the fact of his conversion. ...

I simply absolutely love this guy's sheer logic. Here's how it's supposed to work. So let's find out.

And, as it turned out, McLuhan was answered abundantly in the way that only God can.