Aliens and working at a fevered pitch

What you need to know before reading this: Gwedif is an alien. The narrator is human.

Gwedif pulled up to me as we walked. "I wish we had more time," he said. "This happened with Carl too. Barely time for introductions, and then off to decide the fate of our peoples. If nothing else, we've learned that you humans thrive on crisis."

"Anything worth doing is worth doing at a fevered pitch," I said.

"I don't know about that," Gwedif said. "I think the first place I'll go when I visit your planet—really visit your planet, I mean, not that little trip I took earlier—I think I'll go visit a monastery. Those people seem to have the right idea. Slow meditative spiritual contemplation."

"I think most of the monasteries these days are either making chant CDs or boutique wines," I said.

"Really?" Gwedif said. "Well, hell. What is it with you people?"

John Scalzi, Agent to the Stars

Feast Day: St. Bartholomew, Apostle

Statue of Bartholomew, Pierre Le Gros the Younger.

In St. John's Gospel, Bartholomew is known by the name Nathaniel (the liturgy does not always seem aware of this identity). He hailed from Cana in Galilee, was one of the first disciples called by the Lord. On that initial meeting Jesus uttered the glorious compliment: "Behold, an Israelite indeed in whom there is no guile!" After the Resurrection he was favored by becoming one of the few apostles who witnessed the appearance of the risen Savior on the sea of Galilee (John 21:2). Following the Ascension he is said to have preached in Greater Armenia and to have been martyred there. While still alive, his skin was torn from his body. The Armenians honor him as the apostle of their nation.

Catholic Culture

I just love Nathaniel who is so straight forward that when Philip tells him to come and see the Messiah, just up and says, "Can anything good come from Nazareth?" This is from someone who is from tiny Cana, so little that people argue to this day about where it really was. Just in case we didn't know how tiny and despised Nazareth was.

As Jesus says there truly is no guile in him, because when he mentions the fig tree, Nathaniel bursts out, "Rabbi, you are the Son of God; you are the King of Israel." This is the honest soul who is akin to St. Martha, to St. Teresa of Avila, to St. Thomas — speaking truth with a sharp tongue while simultaneously acknowledging God with whole-heartedness. They resonate with me. (Read the whole exchange here. It's good stuff.)

I remember reading a commentary speculating about that Nathaniel was praying something specific under the fig tree, whose branches go down to the ground and provide a nice private spot. This illuminates one of those moments when a simple statement is a piercing truth that speaks to the heart from God ... and yet means nothing to anyone else around.

Notice what he's holding in the sculpture above? That's right, his flayed skin, the source of his martyrdom. Truly he was without guile and where he gave his heart, he followed to the end. Makes the things I suffer and offer up seem very small.

Maiden with a Laurel Wreath

Henry Ryland, Maiden with a Laurel Wreath

This picture was so arresting  that I just had to share it here. There's just something about Henry Ryland's work that grabs me. See more here.

Mary, Queen of Heaven

 

Coronation of Virgin, Giacomo di Mino, 1340-1350

From the earliest ages of the Catholic Church a Christian people, whether in time of triumph or more especially in time of crisis, has addressed prayers of petition and hymns of praise and veneration to the Queen of Heaven. And never has that hope wavered which they placed in the Mother of the Divine King, Jesus Christ; nor has that faith ever failed by which we are taught that Mary, the Virgin Mother of God, reigns with a mother's solicitude over the entire world, just as she is crowned in heavenly blessedness with the glory of a Queen.

Ad Caeli Reginam
His Holiness Pope Pius XII
Encyclical on Proclaiming the Queenship of Mary
Promulgated October 11, 1954

I remember the thing that made this feast day come into focus for me was learning about King Solomon's Queen Mother who brought cases before him for special attention. I tell you, typology really helps you get a mental grip on things.

Third Occultation of Saturn by the Moon!

Third Occultation of Saturn by the Moon!, Thierry Legault

Click on the image link to see it much larger.

 I discovered Thierry Legault in a Wall Street Journal article years ago. He very graciously gave me permission to share his wonderful photography here. Click here to enjoy all his images. They are superb.

A Saint for Today: St. Pius X

I never paid much attention to St. Pius X before but once you read about him it becomes blindingly obvious that he is a saint we should be asking for intercession in these modern times.

Pope Pius X working in the Vatican Gardens, 1913

He exercised holy intransigence in keeping the faith pure from doctrinal error. He reformed the Sacred Liturgy and promoted the custom of the frequent reception of Holy Communion. The motto of his Pontificate was Instaurare omnia in Christo [To restore all things in Christ]. He died on August 20, 1914. ...

St. Pius X made the motto of his Pontificate a reality -- to restore all things in Christ -- through his deep concern to stem the tide of the many evils that threatened the faithful. He frequently insisted on the damage ignorance of the Faith produces. He used to say: It is useless to expect a person without formation to fulfill his Christian duties. Time and again he pointed out the need to teach the catechism. From his uneasiness concerning the lack of Christian formation there was produced the Catechism of St. Pius X, which has done so much good in the church. His vehement desire to give doctrine in a world starving for the want of it, is reflected throughout his entire magisterium. ...

Many of the errors St. Pius X fought against are uncritically accepted in our own day. In countries evangelized almost twenty centuries ago great numbers of people are ignorant of the most elementary truths of the Faith. Many are defenseless and with the complicity of their own passions allow themselves to be taken by the erroneous opinions of a few. The call of St. Pius X to conserve and spread good doctrine is still a fully current and vital issue.

In whatever way possible, it is especially urgent to make known the teachings of the Church on the meaning of life, on the end of man and his eternal destiny, on marriage, on generosity in the number of children, on the right and duty of parents to choose the education their children receive, on the social doctrine of the Church, on love for the Pope and his teachings and on the evil of abortion. We should do all we can -- family catechism, the diffusion of good books, daily conversations concerning faith and morals ... Moreover, may we never forget as Pope John Paul II reminds us, that faith is strengthened by sharing it.

In Conversation With God : Feast Days July - December

Also, I've gotta love a defender of the faith who can make quips.

The Pope was renowned for performing miracles. One day his former parishioners went to the Vatican to pay him a visit. With their customary simplicity and confidence, devoid of tact, they asked him: Father Beppo (as they used to call him when he was a parish priest), is it true you can work miracles? And the Pope with simplicity and good humor responded: Look, here in the Vatican, you have to turn your hand to a bit of everything. ...

The Catholic Church and the Mood of the Age

The Catholic Church never suits the particular mood of any age, because it was made for all ages. A Catholic knows that if the Church married the mood of any age in which it lived, it would be a widow in the next age. The mark of the true Church is that it will never get on well with the passing moods of the world. "I have chosen you out of the world therefore the world hateth you" – John 15:19.

Venerable Archbishop Fulton Sheen, Love One Another

Our own time certainly testifies to that truth. As Jesus told us, we shouldn't be expected to be treated any differently than he was. We're reminded frequently enough of that fact but still we're surprised when it happens. At least, I know I am!

Whataburger Trot Thru

Two women getting their food on at a Whataburger in Corpus Christi
appeared in the Corpus Christi Caller newspaper
Via Traces of Texas

Burgers, Texas-style.

Notes on Mark: Gradual Journeys

Sebastiano Ricci, Christ Healing the Blind Man

MARK 8:22-26
Jesus usually healed people instantly. I never stopped to wonder why this might be a more gradual healing. It makes me feel a little better at my lack of understanding sometimes when I think that the disciples had the same need for gradual understanding that I do.

The man's more gradual return to sight reflects the gradual journey of Jesus' disciples from spiritual blindness to spiritual insight. Surely they had seen Jesus perform many signs and wonders. Peter later confessed that Jesus was the Christ (Mark 8:29). Yet, as Jesus began to reveal to them what was going to happen -- that he would suffer and die -- the disciples struggled to comprehend God's plan for redemption. "And Peter took him, and began to rebuke him" (8:32). They still lacked the spiritual acuity to grasp God's plan for the salvation of the world through Jesus.

Mark: A Devotional Commentary
(The Word Among Us)

The gradual healing also has been seen by Church fathers to contain even deeper meaning.

Allegorically (St. Bede, In Marcum), Jesus heals the blind man to announce the mystery of redemption. As God Incarnate, Jesus heals man through the sacrament of his human nature, here signified by his hands and spittle. This grace cures our spiritual blindness gradually, and, as with the blind man, progress is measured in proportion to our faith.

Allegorically (St. Jerome, Homily 79), the restoration of the blind man signifies our gradual increase in wisdom, from the darkness of ignorance to the light of truth. Christ's spittle is the perfect doctrine that proceeds from his mouth; it enhances our vision and brings us progressively to the knowledge of God.

The Gospel Of Mark
(The Ignatius Catholic Study Bible)

===== 

Sources and Notes Index   

Lost in Africa

Lost in Africa: A Yarn of Adventure. Frederick Horatio Winder

I guess it is a sign of our times that I looked at the fellow in the lower right corner and, just for a second, thought he was on his cell phone.

The Riddle of Fiction

The riddle of fiction comes to this: Evolution is ruthlessly utilitarian. How has the seeming luxury of fiction not been eliminated from human life?

Jonathan Gottschal, The Storytelling Animal

Jonathan Gottschall measures everything against evolution, which is the only measure he really trusts for giving scientific answers about people and story. Therefore, he isn't able to answer some of the questions he poses in his book because some things just can't be measured by science. (It's still an interesting book. You don't have to answer every question all the time.)

That was what made it entertaining when, some time later in his books, he inadvertently answered the above question with the conclusion that I, as a Catholic, already knew.

Why do stories cluster around a few big themes, and why do they hew so closely to problem structure? Why are stories this way instead of all the other ways they could be? I think that problem structure reveals a major function of storytelling. It suggests that the human mind was shaped for story, so that it could be shaped by story.

Jonathan Gottschal, The Storytelling Animal

Yep.

What Happens Next?

What Happens Next? Guglielmo Zocchi (Italian, 1874-1957)

This is just how I feel when I'm talking over a book with someone!

Saint Patrick's Cathedral, Karachi

St. Patrick's Cathedral, Karachi

This was Wikipedia's photo of the day recently. It reminded us of the painted churches of Texas. There are many of them, but here are a couple that I featured.

Journey to Reality: Sacramental Life in a Secular Age

As modern people, we also need to come to two realizations. We need to understand the ancient, sacramental perspective, but we can't do that without simultaneously understanding on how our own modern, secular perspective influences our thinking.

... In order to understand to understand sacramental Christianity, we have to encounter the sacraments on their own terms. We have to enter into that life and become a part of it; nothing can substitute for that experience. But in order to do this well, in order to hear what the sacraments are trying to tell us, we must take seriously the possibility that we are more secular than we realize—and understand clearly what that means.

This is a really wonderful book that helps us separate the secular thinking we swim in from the sacramental Christian thinking which helps us understand God and reality. Of course, this deepens our relationship with God. It also gives us the tools to be able to share this with others. Understanding what the ancient Christians' perspective not only changes how we think, it also will help completely secular people have a better understanding of Christianity and God.

Zachary Porcu does this wonderfully with simple examples that are woven throughout the book so that we are building on the meaning and context he puts before us. My mind was blown by the concept of the Arché and ultimate reality. As a devout Catholic, I'm a sacramental Christian so many of the concepts Porcu introduced were familiar. But he put a different spin on my understanding which deepened everything.

Highly recommended and this will be on my Best of 2026 list.

Solemnity of the Assumption of Mary (with some modern science commentary)

It's a Holy Day of Obligation! Check local Mass times!

Adam and Eve with the Virgin Mary (detail), Correggio, Assumption of the Virgin
via Khan Academy

The Assumption is the oldest feast day of Our Lady, but we don't know how it first came to be celebrated. ...

On November 1, 1950, Pius XII defined the dogma of the Assumption. Thus he solemnly proclaimed that the belief whereby the Blessed Virgin Mary, at the close of her earthly life, was taken up, body and soul, into the glory of heaven, definitively forms part of the deposit of faith, received from the Apostles. To avoid all that is uncertain the Pope did not state either the manner or the circumstances of time and place in which the Assumption took place — only the fact of the Assumption of Mary, body and soul, into the glory of heaven, is the matter of the definition.

Catholic Culture, where there is a lot more info

Each year on the Assumption of Mary I like to revisit this from The Anchoress. Because it blows my mind. And the Assumption is a good time for mind-blowing. This was originally posted this at Patheos where the original post link no longer works:

When studying Anatomy and Physiology in college, the lesson that briefly discussed fetomaternal microchimerism, became instructive to me on a different level. Learning that every child leaves within his mother a microscopic bit of himself — and that it remains within her forever — the dogma of the Immaculate Conception instantly became both crystal clear and brilliant to me.

Mary, then, was indeed a tabernacle within which the Divinity did reside — not for a limited time, but for all of her life. Understanding this (and considering how the churches seemed to get it ‘way before microscopes told us anything) the Immaculate Conception made and makes perfect sense: God, who is All-Good is also completely Pure; the vessel in which He resides, then, must be pure, too, or it would not be able to sustain all of that “light in which we see light itself.”

Microchimerism also relates to the dogma of the Assumption of Mary, as well. In the psalms we read “you will not suffer your beloved to undergo corruption.” Christ’s divine body did not undergo corruption. It follows that his mother’s body, which contained a cellular component of the Divinity — and a particle of God is God, entire — would not be allowed to become corrupt, either.

I believed it anyway, but that made sense on several levels. Incredible.

Assumption of the Virgin, Correggio
where the above detail is included
Click through to the link to look at it enlarged.

Memorial of St. Maximilian Mary Kolbe, priest and martyr

I could only thank him with my eyes. I was stunned and could hardly grasp what was going on. The immensity of it: I, the condemned, am to live and someone else willingly and voluntarily offers his life for me - a stranger. Is this some dream?

I was put back into my place without having had time to say anything to Maximilian Kolbe. I was saved. And I owe to him the fact that I could tell you all this. The news quickly spread all round the camp. It was the first and the last time that such an incident happened in the whole history of Auschwitz.

For a long time I felt remorse when I thought of Maximilian. By allowing myself to be saved, I had signed his death warrant. But now, on reflection, I understood that a man like him could not have done otherwise. Perhaps he thought that as a priest his place was beside the condemned men to help them keep hope. In fact he was with them to the last.

Testimony of Franciszek Gajowniczek,

for whom Maximilian Kolbe offered himself at Auschwitz

I have long admired Maximilian Kolbe for a lot of reasons. The most famous story about him is that of his martyrdom, when he stepped forward to offer himself in place of a married man with children.

Before World War II, Kolbe traveled to Asia and throughout Europe teaching and preaching the Gospel. He used the latest technology with the most modern printing and radio techniques. He planned to begin a motion picture studio. And then he was imprisoned in 1941 by the Nazis. He was known for walking among the bunks at night, quietly saying, "I am a Catholic priest. Can I do anything for you?"

When a prisoner escaped, Franciszek Gajowniczek was one of the ten men chosen for death in retaliation. He sobbed, "My poor wife! My poor children! What will they do?

Maximilian Kolbe stepped forward before the commandant and said, "I am a Catholic priest. Let me take his place. I am old. He has a wife and children."

It took the prisoners over two weeks to die, imprisoned with no food or water, but the sounds of hymns and prayers came from the room until only Father Kolbe was left. The room was needed for more prisoners so he was killed by injection and his body was burned in the crematorium. I often think of what a blessing his presence was and what a difference he made in helping those men in their ordeal.

Maximilian Kolbe was canonized in 1982 by Pope John Paul II and declared a martyr of charity. He is the patron against drug addiction and for drug addicts, families, prisoners, journalists, and the pro-life movement. He was declared "The Patron Saint of Our Difficult Century" by Saint Pope John Paul II.

I think of the problems we face in our culture, the technology we have available to use in spreading the good news, the choices we sometimes are faced with ... and Maximilian Kolbe is modern enough to be a shining example of how to show God's love and truth.

Truly Saint Maximilian Kolbe is a saint for our time.

More indepth reading:

• Eye witness testimony from Auschwitz
• Maximilian Kolbe: Catholic Subversive by The Anchoress. A good overview of Kolbe's life.
• Catholic Culture has tons of wonderful resources: articles, prayers, recipes, activities and links. 

Schönschreibmeister Sample

Schönschreibmeister Sample
via BibliOdyssey

I'm a sucker for typography and calligraphy. This is like the best of both. Do go over to BibliOdyssey to see all the samples. They are exquisite.

Literature Versus Fantasy Literature

Oftentimes fantasy literature is criticized exactly for being escapist; that it tries to create in people a feeling of another world they can go to and that distracts them from the important things they are supposed to be doing in this present world. I think there is a distinct and unpleasant whiff of the most repellent elements of Marxism and Leninism in that criticism of escape. ... It subordinates literature and it makes it a kind of propaganda, rather than a kind of art.

Michael C. Drout; Rings, Swords, and Monsters course

We don't need explanation about why I shared this do we? Preaching to the Choir, yep that's what we do here.

Ornamental Typography

Via BibliOdyssey

I truly love ornamental typography. Click through on the link to see many of the other letters in this alphabet.

Jezebel's Real Sin

This highlights again what happens when our eyes are opened by experience and context and we then turn them upon something old and familiar only to see it in entirely new light. It is from Agatha Christie's memoir of trips to Syria with her archaeologist husband shortly before World War II, Come Tell Me How You Live. It's one of my favorite books.

An immense dinner materializes in next to no time, and after it, tired and comfortable, with special delicacies in honor of holiday and Mac's arrival (Turkish Delight, preserved aubergines, bars of chocolate and cigars), we sit and talk, for once of subjects other than archaeology.

We come to the question of religions generally--a very vexed question in this particular part of the world, for Syria is full of fiercely fanatical sects of all kinds, all willing to cut each other's throats for the good cause! From there we fall to discussing the story of the Good Samaritan. All the Bible and New Testament stories take on a particular reality and interest out here. They are couched in the language and ideology which we hear daily all around us, and I am often struck by the way the emphasis sometimes shifts from what one has commonly accepted. As a small instance, it came to me quite suddenly that in the story of Jezebel, it is the painting of her face the or tiring of her hair that emphasizes in puritanical Protestant surroundings what exactly a "Jezebel" stands for. But out here it is not the painting and tiring--for all virtuous women paint their faces (or tattoo them), and apply henna to their hair--it is the fact that Jezebel looked out of the window--a definitely immodest act!