Gospel of Matthew — Transfiguration: The Cloud

Matthew 17:1-8

This is one of the biggies in the gospels and so much has been said about it. I always found that cloud mysterious until I was reminded that the shechinah, the glory of God shows up prominently in Exodus. In a pillar leading the people, covering the mountaintop when Moses visits, etc.

And here is the cloud of God's presence again. Of course.

Transfiguration, Alexander Andreyevich Ivanov

Peter, James, and John did not see any ordinary cloud atop the mountain of transfiguration. They saw the cloud of God's Presence. In the Old Testament God's presence was made manifest to Israel in the form of a thick and luminous cloud. God guided the Israelites through the desert in a pillar of cloud (Exod 13:21-22). At Sinai the cloud of God's glory overshadowed the mountain when Moses received the Ten Commandments (Exod 24:15-18). Later the cloud filled the tabernacle (Exod 40:34). It also filled the temple in Jerusalem at its dedication by Solomon (1 Kings 8:11). However, in the sixth century BC, the prophet Ezekiel received a vision of God's glory cloud leaving the temple and Jerusalem because of the people's sinfulness (Ezek 10). Since that time, god's presence had not been visibly manifest to Israel But the prophets envisioned the return of this cloud to God's people in the eschatalogical age (2 Macc 2:8, Isa 4:5, Eze 43:1-5). Peter, James, and John witnessed the fulfillment of these prophetic hopes when the "bright cloud cast a shadow over them" on the mountain of transfiguration.

Quote is from Catholic Commentary on Sacred Scripture: Gospel of Matthew by Curtis Mitch and Edward Sri. This series first ran in 2008. I'm refreshing it as I go.

Workers, Flowers and the Virgin of San Juan

The Workers, Alfredo Ramos Martinez
Dallas Museum of Art

Continuing last week's Dallas Museum of Art post, we then wandered into an exhibit of Alfredo Ramos Martinez. His style isn't one I'd normally be drawn to, but after just having been immersed in Latin American art, we were primed to take a closer look. I particularly was intrigued by his paintings done on newspaper. All those stripes? Yes. Creative use of newsprint lines in the newspaper. It was really fascinating. Tom especially liked the use of black outline to give a three dimensional aspect to the elements.

Not all his work was like that, of course. I was struck by his floral paintings. These were on loan so we were lucky to see them.

Blue Jar with Flowers, Santa Barbara Museum of Art

La Virgen de San Juan, Santa Barbara Museum

And the Latin American theme continued when we went to lunch afterwards at the San Martin Cafe and Bakery on McKinney Street. It is a Guatemalan restaurant and very trendy, as it turns out. The service and food were excellent. Rose discovered it and she and Mom love going there.

They also had art displayed high up on several walls and the textile art was another link in the chain to the art we'd seen at the DMA. Some it put us in mind of a collection of huipils for putting on statues of the Virgin Mary.

Huipil for a figure of the Virgin of the Rosary, Maya -- Kaqchikel, c. 1905–1925
Dallas Museum of Art

I'll be featuring other paintings soon. No themes, just the stuff that I like a lot.

A drowning man prayed for help. God sent a floating tiki bar filled with priests.

Despite the rough waters, he still thought he could make it back to shore, and so he waved on several boats that had stopped to offer help.


But when his kayak tipped and his hastily-donned lifejacket came up to his ears, Macdonald knew he was in real trouble.

“I thought I was going to die. I was absolutely powerless and wished I had asked for help earlier. I was waving my hand and asked God to please help me,” he said.

God answered his prayers - but not in the form of Jesus walking on water.

“And then, out of the corner of my eye, I saw the tiki boat.”

A tiki boat full of priests.

From Catholic News Agency comes the real life story that reads like God took the old joke about the man trying to escape the flood and gave it a modern twist.

With an inspiring and ironic twist at the end. Just the way God likes to play it. Go read the whole thing.

Lime Crinkle Cookies

These are from Taste of the South magazine which we've found to be a great source for simple, tasty recipes. Rose says these remind her of Fruit Loops. They are just plain good. Get them at Meanwhile, Back in the Kitchen.

Find yourself a cup of tea ...

Find yourself a cup of tea; the teapot is behind you. Now tell me about hundreds of things.

Saki

Hummingbirds, Armadillos, and Fish - Oh My!

Hummingbird pendant, Olmec, 800–400 BC
Dallas Museum of Art

To our delight, we discovered that the Dallas Museum of Art is open again and immediately reserved tickets for the next available time — which was last Sunday.

There's never been a better time to see the art, what with limited numbers admitted for social distancing.

We headed up the stairs near the entrance and found ourselves in a spot we'd never come across — Arts of the Americas. This wound up being ancient art from South America, Central America, and Mexico. There were even a few things from North America, but not many.

We found it surprisingly absorbing, especially when I came across several hummingbird depictions that were thousands of years old. I look at the fierce little hummer who is keeping all the others away from our nectar and love the idea that he's the latest in a migration that has been going on so long.

And there was another familiar figure.

Armadillo ornament, Veraguas, 800–1200 AD
Dallas Museum of Art

And, of course, ear ornaments so large that I'd rather wear one as a necklace.

Ear ornament, Zenú (Sinú), 600–1200 AD
Dallas Museum of Art

There also were large, elaborate panels from buildings and a lot of things that only really impress if you see them in person. We realized that a lot of the oldest pieces were contemporaneous with ancient Egypt and that helped put the art in perspective too.

This bit of the visit began our theme day, though we didn't realize it at the time. More on that later ...

Tenet

A secret agent embarks on a dangerous, time-bending mission to prevent the start of World War III.

It seems clear that Christopher Nolan's got James Bond and Mission Impossible on the mind. His latest action thriller clearly pulls from those franchises as we follow his protagonist forwards and backwards in time and around the world on his dangerous mission.

I was excited about going to this movie because (a) Christopher Nolan, (b) back to a more normal life, (c) support the theater/movie industry. Unfortunately it wound up being another 2020 disappointment.

It pains me to admit this is not a great film. The performances are top notch. The action sequences are good, especially ones with the airplane and highway heist. However, this was offset by a very difficult sci-fi concept that wasn't explained well enough and was really hard to understand visually even once I did have a fairly firm grasp of the idea. (I felt like telling Nolan to rewatch Inception for "how to do it").

Also, the plot itself was confusing and with very little cohesive story itself, other than finding the MacGuffin. Alfred Hitchcock made many wonderful movies with nothing more than that pushing the plot but he always gave us something to care about in the character's life or situation. James Bond and Mission Impossible movies give us fairly little personal motivation but they are always very clear in explaining the villain's evil plan and what the heck is going on.

Nolan gives us nothing more than "the cleverness of me." It felt as if he was so enchanted by his sci-fi concept that it was all he could focus on. And guess what — that wasn't enough for me. Or my viewing companions.

Most egregious was that the sound mixing made a lot of the dialogue incomprehensible. When you've got a really hard concept to get across it is always so much easier if the audience can the dialogue at all. Or even if all you want to do is to help them understand why you are flinging yourself around the world for dangerous missions.

There is a wonderful exchange in Christopher Nolan’s latest film, Tenet, between Robert Pattinson and John David Washington. “Hngmmhmmh,” says Pattinson. “Mmghh nmmhhmmmm nghhh,” replies Washington. Marvellous.

This is how much of Tenet sounded to viewers in cinemas. The film’s dialogue has been criticised by reviewers and audience members for often being impossible to make out. Given how hard Nolan’s blockbuster would be to understand even if all the dialogue was crystal-clear, it is curious that the director has made it doubly difficult to hear the story of a screenplay he supposedly spent five years writing.

The Guardian

I'd think the one thing you don't want the people leaving your movie to talk about for five minutes is how none of them could understand the dialogue. But sound mixing was our topic all the way to the parking lot.

On the bright side, the movie theater was bending over backwards to welcome everyone back, although there were only a few other people at our Saturday matinee. Of course, it was showing in at least 10 other theaters in the same complex so maybe everyone was spread out.

Walking by the Lord's house

I often ask children to imagine walking by the house of the Holy Family in Nazareth. Children who love the Lord might remember that Jesus lives there, and make a gesture of reverence, or say a short prayer. But if we walked by the Lord’s house, and he was out on the porch, and we could look directly at him, we would stop, and talk to him, and know that he was hearing us, and talking to us. So it is with adoring Christ in the Eucharist, visible to us in the monstrance. We see him, and we know that he sees us. We speak to him, and we know that he hears us. When we adore Christ in the Eucharist, exposed in the monstrance, the Lord engages all of our senses, through the ministry of the Church, to awaken us to the power of encountering him—love made visible.

Pope St. John Paul II wrote that through adoration of the Eucharist, “we can say not only that each of us receives Christ, but also that Christ receives each of us. He enters into friendship with us: ‘You are my friends.’”

In friendship, in the dialogue of Eucharistic adoration, God transforms us, so that, in love, we can make gifts of our ourselves to the world, just as Christ has made a gift of himself in the Eucharist.

Bishop James Conley, Holy Thursday Letter, 2017

via A Year with the Eucharist, Paul Jerome Keller

It isn't only children who need these sorts of prompts. I love the mental image of seeing Jesus on his porch and stopping for a chat.

But oh! the blessing it is to have a friend to whom one can speak fearlessly on any subject

Thus ended our little talk: yet it left a pleasant impression. True, the subject was strange enough; my sisters might have been shocked at it; and at my freedom in asking and giving opinions. But oh! the blessing it is to have a friend to whom one can speak fearlessly on any subject; with whom one's deepest as well as one's most foolish thoughts come out simply and safely. Oh, the comfort—the inexpressible comfort of feeling safe with a person—having neither to weigh thoughts nor measure words, but pouring them all right out, just as they are, chaff and grain together; certain that a faithful hand will take and sift them, keep what is worth keeping, and then with the breath of kindness blow the rest away.

Somebody must have done a good deal of the winnowing business this afternoon; for in the course of it I gave him as much nonsense as any reasonable man could stand ...

Dinah Maria (Mulock) Craik, A Life for a Life

Often misattributed to George Eliot. You may find out more about that and the book which this quote is from here.

We need the humanity of Christ.

We need the humanity of Christ. In the many wearinesses of life which come to all, it is not only permissible but often necessary to direct our devotion to the sacred human in the Eucharist. God gave us the sacred humanity of His Son because in his divine wisdom He understood man's need of a God-man. ... We who are so dependent on the sense in order to grasp something of the nonsensible, can understand Christ because He "was made flesh and dwelt among us." We feel that having walked in the flesh, Christ knows both from the experience of many and the omniscience of God all the miseries to which our mortal flesh is heir.

We need the human Christ ... in our sacramental devotion to Him. The humanity of Christ, perhaps more than we realize, serves as the lodestone that brings the suffering and weary and sinful to the Eucharistic God. ...

A Year with the Eucharist, Paul Jerome Keller

quoted - True Devotion to the Blessed Sacrament

A Movie You Might Have Missed #20 — The Dish

It's been 10 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.

This is a favorite of Tom's and the combination of gentle humor with realism is a winning combination.

In  1969, viewing the Apollo moon landing depends on a satellite dish in  Australia that is smack dab in the middle of a sheep pasture. Along with  everything else, the local technicians must deal with their natural  annoyance at having a NASA man foisted upon them to make sure everything goes ok while the locals feel understandable pride at being in the  center of an international spotlight.

Based on a true story, The Dish brims with understated wit that shows the differing cultural attitudes  between Australia and the U.S. while taking us back to the true wonder  of what it meant to watch a man walk upon the moon.

Pavonia

Pavonia (1859). Lord Frederic Leighton (English, 1830-1896).

Isn't she stunning? I could look at this all day.

Summer Corn Salad

a good, different summer salad that it isn't too late to make for Labor Day! Get it at Meanwhile, Back in the Kitchen.

A less than perfect democracy that is still a great success story

We must remember that America is still a great success story. When we criticize—as criticize we must—we should play the part of what James Madison called a "loving critic." Former Democratic Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan put it best: "Am I embarrassed to speak for a less than perfect democracy? Not one bit. Find me a better one. Do Is suppose there are societies that are free of sin? No, I don't. Do I think ours is on balance incomparably the most hopeful set of human relations the world has? Yes, I do. Have we done obscene things? Yes we have. How did our people learn about them? They learned about them on television and in the newspapers.

William J. Bennett, America: The Last Best Hope (Vol. I)

Max

Max
by the brilliant Edward B. Gordon

Blogging Around: Andy Serkis Reads The Hobbit, Gregory the Great, Chinese Persecution of Muslims, Black Leaders Blast Planned Parenthood

ANDY SERKIS READS THE HOBBIT
Later this month Andy Serkis (aka Gollum in the Lord of the Ring movies) has an audiobook recording of The Hobbit coming out. Needless to say I am thrilled. The Rob Inglis reading was never a favorite of mine and listening to Serkis's sample shows how good his narration is.

You can hear it a bit of Riddles in the Dark at YouTube.

GREGORY THE GREAT AND THE GHOST
Via Weird Catholic comes this great story from Pope St. Gregory the Great’s The Dialogues:

Source

"[A] priest used to bathe in the hot springs of Tauriana whenever his health required. One day, as he entered the baths, he found a stranger there who showed himself most helpful in every way possible, by unlatching his shoes, taking care of his clothes, and furnishing him towels after the hot bath.

"After several experiences of this kind, to priest said the himself: ‘It would not do for me to appear ungrateful to this man who is so devoted in his kind services to me. I must reward him in some way.’ So one day he took along two crown-shaped loaves of bread to give him.

"When he arrived at the place, the man was already waiting for him and rendered the same services he had before. After the bath, when the priest was again fully dressed and ready to leave, he offered the man the present of bread, asking him kindly to accept it as a blessing, for it was offered a token of charity.

But the man sighed mournfully and said, ‘Why do you give it to me, Father? That bread is holy and I cannot eat it. I who stand before you was once the owner of this place. It is because of my sins that I was sent back here as a servant. If you wish to do something for me, then offer this bread to almighty God, and so make intercession for me, a sinner. When you come back and do not find me here, you will know that your prayers have been heard.’

"With these words he disappeared, thus showing that he was a spirit disguised as a man. The priest spent the entire week in prayer and tearful supplications, offering Mass for him daily. When he returned to the bath, the man was no longer to be found. This incident points out the great benefits souls derive from the Sacrifice of the Mass. Because of these benefits the dead ask us, the living, to have Masses offered for them, and even show us by signs that it was through the Mass that they were pardoned."

CHINA'S GENOCIDE OF ITS UIGHUR MUSLIMS

In the most extensive investigation of China’s internment camp system ever done using publicly available satellite images, coupled with dozens of interviews with former detainees, BuzzFeed News identified more than 260 structures built since 2017 and bearing the hallmarks of fortified detention compounds. There is at least one in nearly every county in the far-west region of Xinjiang. During that time, the investigation shows, China has established a sprawling system to detain and incarcerate hundreds of thousands of Uighurs, Kazakhs, and other Muslim minorities, in what is already the largest-scale detention of ethnic and religious minorities since World War II.

GetReligion has a wonderful guide to BuzzFeed's story. Every time we think China's not that Communist, remember this type of thing is going on all the time. Hong Kong is nothing new, just more public than a lot of the hijinks China has going on.

BLACK LEADERS BLAST "SYSTEMIC RACISM" OF ABORTION IN LETTER TO PLANNED PARENTHOOD

A coalition of Black leaders is calling out Planned Parenthood for “targeting” Black communities for abortions while professing to support the Black Lives Matter movement.

[...]

“This effort demonstrates the outrage among the Black community that we have been strategically and consistently targeted by the abortion industry ever since the practice was legalized almost 50 years ago,” said Human Coalition Action executive director Rev. Dean Nelson, whose organization coordinated the letter.

The letter noted that 36% of abortions in the U.S. are performed on Black women, who represent only 13% of the country’s female population.

“Black women are five times more likely than white women to receive an abortion,” the letter stated. “In some cities, like New York, more Black children are aborted every year than are born alive.”

“This is no accident,” the letter stated, noting that “79 percent of Planned Parenthood’s surgical abortion facilities are located in or near communities of color.”

About time. Read more at CNA.

The Bridge at Argenteuil

Claude Monet, The Bridge at Argenteuil, 1874

It is so glorious looking. I want to go to there.

A Movie You Might Have Missed #19 — Howl's Moving Castle

It's been 10 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.

19. Howl's Moving Castle

19-year-old Sophie has resigned herself to a drab life in her family's hat shop ... until she is cursed by an evil witch to have an 90-year-old body. She leaves home and goes searching for a way to break the spell. In the countryside she comes upon Howl's strange moving castle which walks about on large chicken legs.

Howl is the young wizard who owns the castle and Sophie soon becomes part of the household as the housekeeper. As she gets to know the members of the little household, we also see that their land is under attack from flying ships dropping bombs. Not only must Sophie find a way to break the curse upon her, but she soon wants to help the others that she has met along the way.

Naturally, Sophie eventually discovers her hidden potential in the magical castle through her honesty, determination, and bravery. This is a complicated story and my summary is extremely simple. It is a pure delight but be prepared to pay attention.

Watching the Spring and Listening to the Wind

Watching the Spring and Listening to the Wind, Tang Yin

Gospel of Matthew — Get behind me, Satan! Continued.

Matthew 16:20-23

Let's continue from the thoughts last time which connect this moment of temptation with Christ's temptation in the wilderness by Satan. Looking at Jesus' words to Peter, William Barclay points out interesting language uses ... and what they mean.

James Tissot, Get Thee Behind Me, Satan (Rétire-toi, Satan), Brooklyn Museum</td>

A further development comes when we closely examine this saying of Jesus in the light of his saying to Satan at the end of the temptations as Matthew records it in Matthew 4:10. Although in the English translations the two passages sound different they are almost, but not quite, the same. ...

The point is that Jesus' command to Satan is simply: "Begone!" while his command to Peter is: "Begone behind me!" that is to say "Become my follower again. Satan is banished from the presence of Christ; Peter is recalled to be Christ's follower. The one thing that Satan could never become is a follower of Christ; in his diabolical pride he could never submit to that; that is why he is Satan. On the other hand, Peter might be mistaken and might fall and might sin, but for him there was always the challenge and the chance to become a follower again. It is as if Jesus said to Peter: "At the moment you have spoken as Satan would. But that is not the real Peter speaking. You can redeem yourself. Come behind me, and be my follower again and even yet, all will be well." ... So long as a man is prepared to try to follow, even after he has fallen, there is still for him the hope of glory here and hereafter.

Quote is from Daily Study Bible Series: Gospel of Matthew, vol. 2 by William Barclay. This series first ran in 2008. I'm refreshing it as I go.