Worth a Thousand Words: Artist's Studio

Artist's Studio, Belinda DelPesco

Well Said: Having faith in the Christ in others without being able to see Him

Peter [Maurin] made you feel a sense of his mission as soon as you met him. He did not begin by tearing down, or by painting so intense a picture of misery and injustice that you burned to change the world. Instead, he aroused in you a sense of your own capacities for work, for accomplishment. He made you feel that you and all men had great and generous hearts with which to love God. If you once recognized this fact in yourself you would expect and find it in others. "The art of human contacts," Peter called it happily. But it was seeing Christ in others, loving the Christ you saw in others. Greater than this, it was having faith in the Christ in others without being able to see Him. Blessed is he that believes without seeing.

Dorothy Day, The Long Loneliness

More is More: Hannah & Rose discuss the German paper industry ...

Hannah & Rose discuss the German paper industry, the hidden dangers of diabetes, and why dentists are witches’ natural enemy as they watch Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters (2013).

My favorite funny podcast. The movie is bad but Hannah and Rose are so good!

Pope phones woman planning abortion and convinces her to choose life

Before going through with it, though, she decided to write a letter to a special person. She wrote her story down and slipped it in an envelope; the address was simple: “Holy Father Pope Francis, Vatican City, Rome.” She sent the letter without thinking too much about it. Then, a few days later, the phone began to ring.

“I read your letter.”

The number on the screen was unfamiliar, with the prefix of Rome. She answered, and was struck dumb: “Hello Anna, this is Pope Francis. I read your letter. We Christians must never lose our hope. A child is a gift of God, a sign of Providence.”

Read the whole story.

You know, I get frustrated by the news I see surrounding the Pope sometimes. This is the sort of pastoral action that helps me keep proper perspective.

Also this. It helps me to remember that news stories often don't give the whole picture and actions speak louder than words.

Well Said: The Intimacy of Books

Books give delight to the very marrow of one's bones. They speak to us, consult with us and join with us in a living and intense intimacy.

Petrarch

Worth a Thousand Words: Thrush Nightingale

Thrush Nightingale, Remo Savisaar

Well Said: Why are the wicked joyous?

Perhaps you say, Why are the wicked joyous? Why do they live in luxury? Why do they not toil with me? It is because they who have not put down their names to strive for the crown are not bound to undergo the labors of the contest. They who have not gone down into the race-course do not anoint themselves with oil nor get covered with dust. For those whom glory awaits trouble is at hand. The perfumed spectators are wont to look on, not to join in the struggle, nor to endure the heat, the dust, and the showers ...

St. Ambrose of Milan

Worth a Thousand Words: Alamo Lit Up

Alamo Lit Up, via Traces of Texas
Photo source: UT digitized photos, San Antonio's Special Collections

Worth a Thousand Words: Le Loup d'Aggubio

Luc-Olivier Merson - Le Loup d'Aggubio

I just love the level of detail in this painting and the foreign feel, both of faraway lands and of faraway times. Also, the wolf (le loup) has a halo over his head ... which is a nice touch since Gubbio (Aggubio) is the town in Italy where Francis "converted" the wolf. So we are seeing the wolf's and villagers' "happy ever after" ending.

Worth a Thousand Words: Morning Bathing

Morning Bathing, Remo Savisaar

The Journey Home — My Interview

I had the rare privilege and pleasure of speaking with Marcus Grodi about my conversion story. It airs on The Journey Home show today.

• Mon. May. 21 at 7:00 PM
• Tue. May. 22 at 12:00 AM
• Thu. May. 24 at 1:00 PM

You can also catch it here on YouTube and as a podcast.

After recording, everyone in the office gets together for lunch ... with lots of great stories, of course!

Scott produces and directs the show. He also makes sure you get picked up at the airport and have a delicious meal when you arrive. His hospitality and conversation were really wonderful and meeting him (and his wife!) was one of the great pleasures of the trip.

Ryan Dellacrosse (Fuzati, in Houston) was the other guest being taped that day. I loved hearing his story and getting to meet this energetic guy who has devoted his considerable business knowledge to helping Catholic companies market themselves better.

First thing Monday morning, before recording, you get it started right. With Mass, of course, just as you'd expect!

On the way into the church. 

Surprises abound on the way to Zanesville! Guess what this company did?

Filmspotting - Lord of the Rings 15th Anniversary episode

Filmspotting's latest episode is devoted to the Lord of the Rings film trilogy to mark the 15 year anniversary of the last film coming out.

It is fascinating because one host has watched the films before and loves the book, while the other watched only the first film when they came out and never read the book. Their conversation is really interesting.

Well Said: The accursed inventions that are ruining everything

Meanwhile, the sworn bookseller of the university, Master Andry Musnier, was inclining his ear to the furrier of the king's robes, Master Gilles Lecornu.

"I tell you, sir, that the end of the world has come. No one has ever beheld such outbreaks among the students! It is the accursed inventions of this century that are ruining everything,—artilleries, bombards, and, above all, printing, that other German pest. No more manuscripts, no more books! printing will kill bookselling. It is the end of the world that is drawing nigh."

"I see that plainly, from the progress of velvet stuffs," said the fur–merchant.

Victor Hugo, The Hunchback of Notre Dame

I always love seeing the "current" complaints of our time show up in times long past.

Worth a Thousand Words: Flames

Flames, Uemura Shoen

Lagniappe: Lazarus and David Copperfield

One Sunday night my mother reads to Peggotty and me in there, that Lazarus was raised up from the dead. And I am so frightened that they are obliged to take me out of bed, and show me the quiet churchyard out of the bedroom window, with the dead alllying in their graves at rest, below the solemn moon.

Charles Dickens, David Copperfield

It never would have occurred to me to think about the story of Lazarus as terrifying children. I can see it though. The walking dead ... not a comforting idea without deeper context.

Well Said: I loved the Church for Christ made visible.

I loved the Church for Christ made visible. Not for itself, because it was so often a scandal to me. Romano Guardini said the Church is the Cross on which Christ was crucified; one could not separate Christ from His Cross, and one must live in a state of permanent dissatisfaction with the Church.

Dorothy Day, The Long Loneliness

That is what we really must remember. We will often be dissatisfied with the Church or the people associated with her. But with proper perspective we can love her at the same time as we are scandalized.

Oops! We join the Novena to the Holy Spirit in progress.

I completely forgot that I should have begun the Novena to the Holy Spirit the day after the Ascension. Nine days between Ascension Thursday and Pentecost is perfect for a novena, which is where the word comes from - nine. The apostles obediently prayed with Mary in the Upper Room during that time, not knowing what they were praying for ... but receiving the gifts of the Holy Spirit.

It is these gifts for which we pray during this novena. My apologies as we join the novena halfway through. I've posted all the prayers on the proper days so you can catch up (as I am doing). This link has them all in order (backwards!).

These gifts are worth praying for and this novena is still the only one officially  prescribed by the Church. So it is worth catching up on!

Well Said: Does Prayer Work?

The very question ‘Does prayer work?’ puts us in the wrong frame of mind from the outset. ‘Work’: as if it were magic, or a machine—something that functions automatically. ...

Petitionary prayer is, nonetheless, both allowed and commanded to us: “Give us our daily bread.” And no doubt it raises a theoretical problem. Can we believe that God ever really modifies His action in response to the suggestions of men?

It is not really stranger, nor less strange, that my prayers should affect the course of events than that my other actions should do so. They have not advised or changed God’s mind—that is, His over-all purpose. But that purpose will be realized in different ways according to the actions, including the prayers, of His creatures.

For He seems to do nothing of Himself which He can possibly delegate to His creatures. He commands us to do slowly and blunderingly what He could do perfectly and in the twinkling of an eye. He allows us to neglect what He would have us do, or to fail. Perhaps we do not fully realize the problem, so to call it, of enabling finite free wills to coexist with Omnipotence ...

C.S. Lewis, The World’s Last Night and Other Essays

Somehow reflecting on that passage changed the way I feel about petitionary prayer. It is an action like other actions I might take. It is supernatural action, but it is putting ourselves to some trouble nonetheless. I have prayed my petitions like anyone else, but I haven't (I think) taken my own part in them seriously enough.

It goes hand-in-hand with something that Matt Fradd said on the Pints with Aquinas podcast. Answering a similar question, St. Thomas said that perhaps God has so ordered some events that the only action it takes is our prayer to make things tip one way or the other. Happen or not happen.

Both those thoughts taken together have, as I said, changed how I think about prayer. My prayers matter. It is not all just in God's hands. He invites us to participate also in the creation of miracles.

Weekend Joke: The Farmhand and the Mentally Challenged Worker

The North Dakota Department of Governmental Oversight heard that a small Bismarck farmer was not paying proper wages to his help and sent an agent out to investigate him.

ND Gov employee: “I need a list of your employees and how much you pay them.”

Farmer: “Well, there's my farmhand who's been with me for about a year. I pay him $200 a week plus free room and board.

Then there's the mentally challenged worker. He works about 18 hours every day and does about 90% of all the work around here. He makes about $10 per week, pays his own room and board, and I buy him a bottle of bourbon every Saturday night so he can cope with life. He also sleeps with my wife occasionally.”

ND Gov employee: “That's the guy I want to talk to...the mentally challenged one.”

Farmer: “That would be me.”

Change North Dakota to Texas and farmer to small business owner, and you've got our lives, right here. As a good friend and fellow small business owner told us when we began our company. "It's great working for yourself. You only have to work half a day. And you can pick which twelve hours!"

Met Gala: Outrage or Opportunity?

Rihanna attends opening of the Heavenly Bodies: Fashion and the Catholic Imagination exhibition gala.
STEPHEN LOVEKIN/VARIETY/REX/SHUTTERSTOCK

For anyone like me who wasn't paying attention until I got an email asking for my reaction, New York City’s Metropolitan Museum of Art has put together a collection of pieces showing the way the Catholic Church served as an inspiration to designers throughout history. Working with the Vatican, they were able to include a number of pieces usually kept only in Vatican City.

None of this is worth raising an eyebrow over until you get to the fashion gala that accompanied it where celebrities and designers used "inspired by the Catholic Church" as a launching point for heights of imagination. It got a whole lotta crazy. As did the discussion that followed.

Most people have landed on either being outraged or looking at this as an opportunity to reach out about the faith.

I was on the fence.

On the outrage side, I felt none of these "tolerant" people would express themselves in this way if the topic were a different religion, say Islam or Judaism. However, I imagine they were going for edgy, as is the case with fashion and celebrity, rather than outright mockery. And if we do feel they were mocking Catholicism, what do we expect? Jesus said that the world would treat us no better than it treated him, so this was predicted. And do they know how this would make Catholic feel? Probably most of them haven't been around a devout Catholic in years, if ever.

On the opportunity side, I have enjoyed the stories about people using it as a way to inject more knowledge about Catholicism into public conversation. It can be hard to remember, but shedding light instead of heat is usually the better way. I suddenly remembered the time when some podcast hosts were laughing mockingly about saints and saying that they didn't even know what a saint was. I wrote a brief email ("long time fan, first time emailer here") explaining. And got a nice response. So maybe this gala is a launching point for conversation.

Do I love a lot of the outfits? No. But to be fair, I don't love a lot of outrageous fashion. It really is a reflection of the lack of knowledge about Catholicism in America. So what else is new?

Here are some other responses. Needless to say, be sure to click through and read them all:

Elizabeth Scalia at Word on Fire wrote about how kitschy Catholic art fired her imagination as a child and also about using this as an opportunity to inform.

Parked in the #MetGala Twitter feed, I saw a man describe Zendaya’s stunning take on Joan of Arc as “some sort of Catholic soldier” and shot him a note identifying the saint and urging him to look her up. When another praised a nunnish look, I replied, “Then you’ll love the real thing!” and sent a link to an article on millennial contemplative nuns. One brilliant fellow used the hashtag to showcase beautiful church interiors, inviting people to visit and explore them.

Cardinal Dolan used his attendance and opening speech as a chance to remind people about what the Church really stands for.  He took it all in good fun. Clearly on the "opportunity" side, he told Crux (whose piece is very interesting, especially for Dolan's conversation with George Clooney):

“I did not find the spirit of the evening to be offensive or blasphemous at all,” he said.

“Was some of it edgy? Yes, but I never met any person that seemed to be snippy or snotty about the Church, or who intended anything to be offensive,” said Dolan.

Catholic News Agency has a nice roundup of different responses, incuding a lot of them from non-Catholic publications which I found interesting.

National Catholic Register explains the Vatican's involvement and that they were focused on the exhibit (which would be fascinating to see) while knowing nothing of the gala.

Ross Douthat at the N.Y. Times uses the gala as an opportunity to muse about modernizing the Church and Pope Francis.