This. Is. A. Gorgeous. Book

The Vatican: Secrets and Treasures of the Holy City

A few weeks ago I received an elaborate mailing piece for this book. I looked through it longingly and then resolutely threw the pieces in the trash. I had no business purchasing a book right now, even if it was a DK Publishing book ... those grown-up picture books that I love so much.

You can easily imagine my delight then when I received an email offering a review copy the next week.

What you may not be able to so easily imagine is just how beautiful this book is. In fact, I took it to my Scripture Study class the night I received it and was afraid I wouldn't get it back. Person after person paged through, lingering over the beautiful photography of the gardens, treasures, and buildings. Each of them asked the price ($35) and then would say, "That's all? But it's such a big book with so much in it..."


Actually, upon checking, I found that DK offers it for a nice discount and Amazon for an even steeper one.

So now that all those preliminaries are out of the way, just what is in this book?

The author is a historian and former Vatican employee who clearly knows his way around the ins and outs of Vatican City. He also knows the Vatican officials well enough to have gotten full cooperation and to be able to display some things that the regular visitor would never see.

Divided into six sections that cover the Church year, history, architecture, daily life, people and treasures, the book goes into much more depth than one would expect. True, many of the 320 pages feature the stunning photography that is DK's trademark. However, the history section has a succinct yet thorough overview of popes and their accomplishments than I expected. In fact, it is nice to see one that handles the basics so well without getting bogged down in the details. Admittedly I tend to read some very indepth books.


I think that my favorite section features people and their jobs. We see at work those famous Swiss Guards (and their training), the ceremonies assistant, the mosaic restorer, the papal photographer, and even what extensive practice that one must have to sing in the choir. All these have multiple photos and captions that put us in place with them.

However, I also enjoyed the architecture section more than I thought I would. Let's face it. It is unlikely that I will ever go to Rome, much less the Vatican. This book puts me there where so much that is integral to the Catholic faith takes place and has taken place for hundreds and hundreds of years.

This is well worth the price and would make a wonderful special Christmas gift for someone. Highly recommended.

To see more inside spreads, visit DK.com

Worth a Thousand Words

Macrocercus ararauna
Blue and yellow maccaw
by Edward Lear

(yes, that Edward Lear ...
read all about it at Bibliodyssey as well as see more of these gorgeous drawings)

Just Because It's Been Kinda Serious Around Here Lately, I Present ... The Hamburger Dress

Via Serious Eats. Is this great or what?

I Won! I Won!

I never win things. If you want to win something have Tom enter for it. He wins a disproportionate amount of the time.

But that streak is now broken. Here's the review of A Thousand Veils that inspired me to enter in the first place. It sounds like a fascinating book.

NaPraGoMo 2 (National Pray to God Month 2)

Why are we here at this blog? ...Or why are we here, period? Believe it or not, this post answers both questions.

Many of you may be familiar with NaNoWriMo, the month where everyone who bears a novel within buckles down and writes it out. As a twist on that fine idea, this is also a perfect month to gets one's prayer life jump-started, improved, deepened, etc. Hence "NaPraGoMo" (National Pray To God Month).

Prayer is the best of habits; it truly does change the way you see things. In stopping and lifting your mind and heart to God, you are giving God permission to act in you (God doesn't need permission, but He wants to be invited). Prayer also tells you in indelible ways who God is and who you were created to be. This website is a simple invitation to pray 15 minutes more than you usually do every day.

I will post a prompt (a prayer, a reflection, a picture, etc.) everyday. These will be more the greater lights of the Christian tradition and Scripture; that is, not me! As I am Catholic, some of these pieces may be rooted particularly in Catholic tradition, but my hope is that all Christians would find this a very welcoming place to be for the month. We share a love for the one, true God. I hope this website could lead people to become more accostumed with taking their concerns to God, and learn to listen a bit better and more often.

A fantastic idea ... which I'm late mentioning, naturally ... but don't let that stop you. Go check it out!

Cardinal Francis George - No Holds Barred on Abortion in Speech

Cardinal George from Chicago laid it on the line when opening the USCCB's meeting this morning. Per John Allen:

Cardinal Francis George, speaking this morning as president of the U.S. bishops’ conference, said all Americans should “rejoice” that a country which once tolerated slavery has elected an African-American as president – and, in the same breath, he issued a blunt challenge to the new administration on abortion.

“If the Supreme Court’s Dred Scott decision, that African Americans were other people’s property and somehow less than persons, were still settled constitutional law, Mr. Obama would not be President of the United States,” George said.

"Today, as was the case a hundred and fifty years ago, common ground cannot be found by destroying the common good," he said.

“The common good can never be adequately incarnated in any society when those waiting to be born can be legally killed at choice,” George said, drawing sustained applause from the bishops.

George said that while efforts to end racism and to promote economic justice are “pillars” of Catholic teaching, so too is opposition to abortion. His address drew a standing ovation from the bishops.

I love that guy!

Read all of John Allen's report here. Whispers in the Loggia has the full text of the speech.

Denying Humanity Through Language

... Yet I noticed that when I became pregnant with my first child, I wasn't terrified of losing the "fetus" to miscarriage; I was terrified of losing the baby. When I was 10 weeks pregnant I didn't buy a handheld Doppler so that I could lie in bed and listen to the "clump of tissue"'s heartbeat; I was listening to my child's heartbeat.

When my doctor first told me that I was pregnant, I remember her asking me what vitamins I was taking. I told her about a brand I liked from Whole Foods, and she cut me off in mid-sentence to give me a stern lecture. It was my responsibility to look out for this little person, she told me, and proceeded to inform me of all the amazing development my baby was going through right now. She gave me a prescription for superior vitamins and rattled off a list of dietary changes I needed to make to nourish my baby.

Less than a year later an acquaintance went to this same doctor with a surprise pregnancy that she did not want. The doctor assured her that the procedure for expelling the "fetus" was a simple one and scheduled her for an abortion. This woman was at the same stage of pregnancy as I had been at that first visit, but the word "baby" was not used at her appointment. I was offered an ultrasound to see my new child with my own eyes; she was not. ...

Jen from Conversion Diary has more to jolt us into thinking about what we choose to overlook and downgrade in her piece, Abortion and Holocaust Comparisons.

Worth a Thousand Words

Stuck taken by Hey Jules at Late to Life

Worth a Thousand Words

Eiffel Tower at Sunset
taken by ParisDailyPhoto

It's First Friday ... Fasting and Praying for an End to Abortion

Ok, I realize this is a very late notice ... I actually remembered to do it, but forgot to blog it!

However, if you're joining in and forgot, just pick another day. Tomorrow's first Saturday which would be another lovely day to offer it up for all those who aren't here to enjoy the fall weather, watch football, and feel the love of their families and friends the way that we can.

It all began here in Dallas -- in our home town, where we raise our families, where we go to church, where we live, and love, and learn, and work.

We are three bloggers who also live in the Dallas area. We are deeply committed to ending abortion in this country. To that end, we have committed ourselves to the following: On each First Friday for the next eleven months, we will fast and pray before the Blessed Sacrament for an end to abortion. This year's commitment will culminate at the annual Dallas March for Life in January of 2009, where we will join our bishop and the faithful of this city in marching to the courthouse where Roe was originally argued.

Original Joint Announcement

In addition to unborn babies and their families, I will be including all those who work to end abortion, as well as the souls of those who work for abortion in my intentions. Also included will be solid catechesis for all Catholics as that is a key issue to most of the misunderstandings on both this issue and others in the secular world.

Zo's Aftermath Message ... Inspirational

Heavens, how I love this guy!

Worth a Thousand Words

The Fast Day Meal. 1731. Jean-Baptiste-Simeon Chardin. (From Olga's Art Gallery)

How Do We Step Back from Our Cultural Immersion and Recognize Evil?

What litmus test could you offer that would apply to all places and all times as a way for a person to look around themselves with completely clear eyes, piercing through even the thickest fog of self-delusion and widespread cultural acceptance, and see that they are surrounded by grave evil? Is there any simple way for a person to immediately undergo an earth-rocking paradigm shift in which they look up and realize that the world around them is not what they thought it was?

One thing that stands out in all these examples is that the victims of the widespread evil were categorized as something less than human. In fact, though the exact level and degree of evil that took place may vary, one thing that unites all of these practices as worthy of a place in the Human Depravity Hall of Fame is not only that innocent people were killed or enslaved, but that their humanity was taken away by the societies around them. The Nazis classified their victims as sub-human, less worthy of life than the better members of the race; wives were burned with their husbands because they were seen as nothing more than property; in the 90's in Rwanda the media fueled the genocide by assuring citizens over and over again that Tutsis were not fully human, referring to them as insects rather than people; the Romans accepted it as a matter of fact that baby girls inherently had fewer rights to live than baby boys; and in early America enslaved men, women and children were accepted by both government and society at large to be barely above livestock in their dignity and worth.

A simply fantastic piece by Jen at Conversion Diary. All prompted by a seemingly innocent photo. Do go read and ponder.

What We Are Now ... And What We Can Become

Many thanks to my friend Don for sending me this link ... the lucky guy, he was there to hear this homily given on the All Saints Vigil. It works today just as well as on that cusp of a feast day. This is the bit that hit me between the eyes, but, of course, do go read the whole thing.

Neither should not be discouraged by the stark contrast between what we are now and what the saints came to be. No saint ever began at the end. St. Augustine began with the prayer, “Lord, give me chastity, but not now.” St. Jerome was told by our Lord that he was more of a Ciceronian than a Christian. And St. Theresa of Avila was a lukewarm religious for 18 years.

No saint began in the ecstasy of love which they now experience. They all began only with the mustard seed of faith, and a clear call from God. With that, they simply acted in accordance with reason.

They made the only rational choice available to them. They simply believed what they knew to be the testimony of the Eternally Begotten Son of God.

They simply understood something every child understands: Truth himself cannot lie. And like a very small child, who has not yet learned how to doubt, who latches onto his Father’s finger, with all the force of his fragile fist, so did the saints grasp on to God and let Him lead them – and sometimes carry them - wherever He willed. They trusted him when He told them that this is a love story. They believed Him when He said, “I came that you might have life, and have it abundantly.” Having believed, they tasted. And having tasted, they fell in love.

We are surrounded by darkness, the darkness of atheistic nihilism and the culture of death, which proclaims that we came from nothing, and that we are going back to nothing, and that human life is ultimately meaningless, marriage is meaningless, everything is meaningless - and that the best we can do is seek some small pleasure or distraction in the passing trifles of this meaningless world, but, thanks be to God, this darkness has not overcome the light which shines within our souls.

We also believe. ...

It is for this reason that we pester and nag those we know who do not believe. It is not because we are right ... it is because, being in love, we want the whole world to be in love as we are. We want that joy and love to be a part of the lives of those who we, in turn, love so much. Having found a good thing, indeed the best of all possible things, we want to pass it on ...

Worth a Thousand Words

Daydreamin'
taken by Hey Jules

A Deadly Irony

I didn't watch any election returns, opting to catch up on a past episode of Chuck. The one thing that I can celebrate is that Obama's election and the hard-fought campaign show how far our country has come in looking at a person for who they are ... and not what color they are. That is worth celebrating. However, in my mind, it is not enough to give me any sort of "happy" feeling. I see it as being more of a concrete acknowledgment of something that has been practiced in much of America for a long time already, at least among those people that I know.

At any rate, I didn't see the scene that so many did of the family onstage during the acceptance speech. However, Historical Christian sums up both what we can celebrate and the deadly irony that we can lament. Here's a bit and then please do go read it all.

... There was one moment that really stuck me, that seemed a powerful symbol of what could perhaps be a truly new era: when both families joined Obama on the stage. And there stood a mix of black and white people, an interracial group now comprising the first families of the nation.

And it wasn’t the white, but the black family that was the First Family, with the white family in support.

What a wonderful image. On the pure level of image, all politics aside, it did give one tiny, faint part of me joy. As I’ve written on this blog before, I hate racism, and I love black people. I want to see them succeed, and excel. On that level, in one very small part of me, I am happy.

But there were also the painful ironies of the night. The first black President – who is radically pro-abortion, when the black community is disproportionally affected by abortion, far more black babies aborted than any other race. ...

Of Bread and Circuses and the Church Militant

I am a Christian, and indeed a Roman Catholic, so that I do not expect "history" to be anything but a long defeat -- though it contains (and in a legend may contain more clearly and movingly) some samples or glimpses of final victory.

J.R.R. Tolkien

More than ever today I am reminded of our society's resemblance to first century Rome. The masses have spoken and overwhelmingly plumped for bread and circuses over harder issues of life. So be it. We have seen grandiose promises. Now there are no excuses for not delivering.

Not for nothing are Christians on earth called the Church Militant. Ours is a warrior's lot, albeit that of a warrior who changes things through personal actions versus slinging arrows (or hard words). Time for us to remember that and toughen up.

Personally, I feel a sense of relief that the election is over and that we know quite clearly what we face. I also feel a sense of emotional emptiness. Some of that also may be the fact that I discovered a couple of days ago that my mother is experiencing kidney failure (reports vary on the extremity of this condition). As well, we continually struggle, as do many, with money and all that jazz.

Whatevah. That's the point of our faith is it not? God is with us always and everywhere and the point of our lives is not to have everything always go our way. Life isn't all sunshine and lollipops and the evidence is all around us. As Paul reminds us:

For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who has similarly been tested in every way, yet without sin. So let us confidently approach the throne of grace to receive mercy and to find grace for timely help.

Hebrews 4:15-16

Also, as a friend of mine reminded me this morning, we have the words of Blessed Julian of Norwich:

All will be well, all will be well, all manner of things will be well.

We have learned much during the campaign. Foremost in my mind:

• Our bishops hopefully will remember this wake up call that the disgracefully poor catechesis of the American faithful has led to a wrongly ordered set of priorities.
  
• I was stunned at the weak excuses and self-justification grasped by some friends who loudly profess faithful Catholicism, in order to justify votes. They were helped with both hands in this by expert logic twisters like Douglas Kmiec but most of them are smart enough to see the faults, had they cared to dig deep enough to try to find the real truth. Likewise, I was reminded just how little logic most people use ... and it is very sad to realize this about friends. However, we are all human and none of us perfect. It is for me to remember this and not be stunned when I am reminded of it.

This morning I inadvertently turned to the wrong week of my In Conversation with God devotional and found the perfect commentary for those feeling overwhelmed at the struggle ahead to maintain the culture of life.

... We can find it difficult to understand many of the things the Lord permits in our life -- pain, sickness, economic ruin, unemployment, the death of a loved one ... Yet God's plans are ordered to our eternal happiness. Our mind can barely make out the most immediate of realities. Shouldn't we put our trust in the Lord, in his loving Providence? Are we to trust the Lord only when things are going our way? We are in God's hands. We could never find a safer refuge. The day will come at the end of our life when the Lord will explain his ways to us, down to even the most insignificant occurrences.

In the face of every setback, of every failure, of every incomprehensible event and blatant injustice, we should reflect on those consoling words of the Lord: What I am doing you do not know now, but afterward you will understand. [Said to Peter when he asks why Jesus is washing his feet.] Then there will be no resentment or sorrow. ... If what happens to us is good, God wants it for us. If it is bad, He does not want it for us, but allows it to happen because He respects man's freedom and the order of nature; in such unlikely circumstances it is nonetheless in God's power to obtain good and advantage for the soul -- even bringing it out of evil itself. (F. Suarez, The Afterlife)

... The Lord will also show us how to view our problems with objectivity. We should take care to see things as they really are. We should not invent problems because of a lack of humility or an over-active imagination. There are many times when a contradiction can be born quietly without making a big issue of it and allowing it to develop into some kind of Greek tragedy.

So onward Christian soldiers. Let us pray. Let us fast. Let us go into the world and make a difference in our own lives, families, and work. That is the leaven the first century Christians brought to the Roman empire that changed the world. They put their faith in the concrete reality of Christ's promises and the example of his life.

We are no less than they. Onward.

"Let the world see. That's America!"

A co-worker and I went to the diner we love, for lunch. It was festooned with American flags and the old guy at the cash register was wearing a flags [on his clothes]: “Didja see all the people lined up to vote this morning?,” he said, beaming. “That’s America. No matter who wins. Let the world see. That’s America!”

The Anchoress's brother Thom's anecdote reminds us of what cuts through the lines of party and issues, red and blue. When we have record numbers of voters, we all win.

The Anchoress also takes the long view which I think is good for everyone to remember.

No matter what happens in this election, take the long view - look further than today, and understand that everything we think, all of our instincts and our imaginative scenarios are limited, because our understanding is always limited. Which is why it is always so good to pray as Solomon did, “Lord, give me an understanding heart.”

An excellent piece about God's will, the world, and our lack of understanding.

Thank You Early Voters!

While 40-50% of Dallasites waited in line up to 4 hours in order to vote early (up from the usual 20%), I was able to stroll right in, vote, and leave in 5 minutes.

There is definitely something to be said for everything in it's appointed time!

Worth a Thousand Words

Blanche Scott [between 1910 and 1915] (from the Library of Congress photos on Flickr)