Heavenly Earth: Images of Saint Francis at La Verna

A 2018 exhibition. Today is the feast of the stigmata of St. Francis. From The Leaven:

WASHINGTON (CNS) — St. Francis of Assisi’s reception of the stigmata, the wounds of Christ, at La Verna in Italy and its depiction by artists beginning in the 15th century is the focus of a National Gallery of Art exhibit. “Heavenly Earth: Images of Saint Francis at La Verna” includes 30 pieces of Franciscan art centered on the miraculous 13th-century event. The exhibit was to open Feb. 25. Ginger Hammer, an assistant curator at the museum in Washington, said the display focuses on an “unprecedented event in Western spirituality.” No one in recorded history had experience such an occurrence before St. Francis did in 1224.

It happened while St. Francis was meditating on the passion of Christ during one of his regular retreats in the mountain wilderness. “He wanted to understand the very suffering that Christ endured. The result of his prayers reportedly is that a seraph, or six-winged angel, approached him enfolding the image of Christ on the cross. When the seraph departed, the actual wounds of Christ’s passion were transferred to the body of Francis,” Hammer told Catholic News Service Feb. 20 during a media preview. “That had never happened before and it was quite remarkable that through his own endeavors something mystical of this magnitude could happen to a human being,” she said.

A Franciscan sanctuary and museum complex mark the La Verna site today and continues to welcome pilgrims. The event was so extraordinary that artists over the centuries have tried to capture it to share with others. The exhibit focuses on work in various media from the 15th through 18th centuries. (Read more.)

More information at the National Gallery of Art website, HERE. Share

Trump Took Iran at Its Word — History Will Reward Him

 From Tierney's Real News:

The leaking and finger-pointing on Iran by MAGA disloyalists have begun. The Wall Street Journal reports that in February, then-Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard warned President Donald Trump that if he attacked, “Tehran would rush to close the Strait of Hormuz, destabilizing the global energy market.” Her admonition “echoed warnings Trump was receiving from all corners,” the Journal wrote, including from top military leaders who expressed “concerns about the weapons stockpile and readiness problems for an overstretched force” and from Vice President JD Vance, who “promoted a more cautious approach” focused on negotiations that would be “less costly than a war with unwieldy consequences.”

The message of the leakers is clear: Had Trump only listened to us, we would not be in this mess.

In fact, these self-serving leaks actually show the opposite — by demonstrating what a courageous decision Trump made. Virtually alone, surrounded by naysayers, Trump acted to stop Iran from getting a nuclear weapon.

Indeed, Trump not only ignored the words of the naysayers; he did something few presidents before him have ever done: He listened to the words of the enemy.

The most tragic mistake that world leaders made over the past century was the failure to take the words of the monsters of history seriously. These tyrants repeatedly stated precisely what they intended to do, but their ideas were assumed to be too foolish, or too fantastic, to be serious.

In the early 1900s, Vladimir Lenin published a pamphlet called “What Is To Be Done?,” in which he laid out his plans to overthrow the Russian czar and establish a “dictatorship of the proletariat.” The world didn’t take his words seriously, and the totalitarian empire he founded spawned communist revolution across the globe that killed an estimated 100 million people and brought the world to the brink of nuclear annihilation.

In the 1920s, Adolf Hitler published “Mein Kampf,” in which he laid out his plan to establish a thousand-year Reich in Germany and eradicate the Jews. The world didn’t take his words seriously, and his Nazi regime built gas chambers, set the world aflame and killed 17 million people.

In the late 1990s, Osama bin Laden issued a fatwa declaring war on the West, calling on all Muslims to wage “jihad against the enemies of God, your enemies the Israelis and Americans.” The world didn’t take his words seriously, and on Sept. 11, 2001, his followers flew airplanes into the Pentagon and World Trade Center.

In 2021, Russian President Vladimir Putin published a 7,000 word manifesto explaining that Ukraine had been stolen from Russia, its “historical motherland,” and promising to reunite them. The world didn’t take his words seriously, and a few months later he launched the largest land invasion in Europe since World War II — a war that has resulted in more than 2 million dead and wounded among military personnel and civilians so far. (Read more.)

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The Cost of John Dee’s Sorcery

 While Catholic practices were banned in England as being superstitious, Queen Elizabeth I consulted a wizard. From Sebastian Morello:

There is at present an entire revisionist historiography being developed which explains Henry VIII’s break from Rome not by reference to his desire for a divorce from Catherine of Aragon, but to his failure to secure for himself the Imperial throne of the Holy Roman Empire at the election in 1519. Instead, Charles Habsburg was elected, becoming Emperor Charles V, and Henry was intensely bitter about it. He thought he should be Emperor of Christendom, especially as he had demonstrated that he was a most loyal son of the Church amid the rise of Protestantism, even receiving from the pope the title ‘Defender of the Faith’. When he broke with Rome fifteen years later, he was already talking about his kingdom not as a region of a wider civilisation called Christendom, but as its own island empire over which he was both supreme temporal and spiritual lord.

It took the courtier, spy, and wizard John Dee to explain to Henry’s daughter, Queen Elizabeth I, that having broken with that great empire of Christendom, the Kingdom of England (which also included Wales and Ireland) had before it two possible futures: it could fizzle out into obscurity, or it could expand across the seas and make for itself its own empire, a counter-empire if you will. This counter-empire would expand across the whole world. It would be based not on the baptism of nations in fulfilment of the Great Commission (Matthew 28:19), but rather on the demands of Mammon. Dee came up with a name which would be lasting: he coined the term ‘the British Empire’.

Dee and the warlock, scryer, and speaker of the secret Enochian language Edward Kelly travelled through Europe. Together they stayed for considerable lengths of time at the Imperial court and other royal courts, uncovering the spiritual and temporal sources of the empire with which Dee’s future creation would compete.

Kelly claimed—and I have no reason to disbelieve him—to have been led by what he described as a ‘spiritual creature’ to a container of red powder hidden in the ruins of Glastonbury Abbey. From this powder, he made a tincture which gave him power to alchemically transmutate base metal into gold without any need of the Philosopher’s Stone. Kelly demonstrated the potency of this tincture on numerous occasions, and by it he deeply impressed Dee. (Read more.)

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Chloridia

  

From Tony Riches: "Time travel back to the court of King Charles I with a glimpse of my research - the fascinating full text of Chloridia : rites to Chloris and her nymphs, a Shrovetide masque performed by the queen at Whitehall Palace." (Complete text HERE.)

Costume sketch for masque by Inigo Jones for Henrietta Maria

More on masques, HERE.

Queen Henrietta Maria

 

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What We Fail to Teach, Someone Else Will

 From Elizabeth Johnston:

Last Friday marked 25 years since the September 11 terrorist attacks. A growing number of Americans were not alive when the attacks occurred, and even more were too young to remember them.

Last week, the New York City Council approved a resolution calling upon New York State to incorporate September 11 instruction into schools. The Council also approved the commemorative naming of 26 streets and public places in honor of people who were killed and families affected by the attacks. The Council said the purpose is to pass the lessons of that day to generations who never experienced it.

But that should not be the responsibility of schools alone.

Our children need to understand the evil that occurred that morning, but they also need to hear about the courage that followed it. Tell them about the firefighters who climbed the stairs while everyone else was running down. Tell them about the passengers of Flight 93 who knew they might die but chose to protect others. Tell them about neighbors helping strangers, churches opening their doors, and Americans praying together.

History is more than dates children memorize for a test. It is the inherited memory of a people. When one generation stops telling the truth about what happened, the next generation becomes vulnerable to those who would rewrite it.

Sit down with your children this week and ask what they know about September 11. Show them age-appropriate accounts of the day. Pray for the families who still carry that grief. Talk about courage, sacrifice, evil, patriotism, and the value of every human life.

“Never forget” is not a slogan. It is an assignment passed from one generation to the next. (Read more.)

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A Simple (French) Way of Eating

 From Léonce:

What was passed down to me, first. And then what I learned over time, through experience, curiosity, and a conscious return to common sense. When I really thought about it, I realised that my way of eating rests on three very simple principles.

1. I cook almost everything I eat, using mostly whole or minimally processed ingredients.
2. I very rarely buy ultra-processed foods.
3. And when I feel like eating something sweet, I make it myself.

My kitchen is therefore built around basic ingredients: seasonal fruits and vegetables (organic when possible) whole bread, cheeses, plain yogurts, eggs, butter, flour, sugar, milk (often plant-based, oat milk for instance), pasta, fish, carefully chosen meat, spices, herbs, garlic, onions, shallots, and always a good dark chocolate for homemade cakes. With very little, you can do a great deal. Endless variations, countless meals.

I believe this way of eating comes from my mother, who has always cooked a lot, and from my grandmother before her. When we were children, industrial biscuits were rarely allowed at home. Instead, there was almost always a homemade cake: a chocolate cake, an apple tart, chocolate mousse, pastries made for no particular reason. My father grew a vegetable garden. Seasonal fruits and vegetables were simply part of daily life. I grew up this way, without it ever being framed as a rule or a restriction. It was simply normal.

Even today, my meals follow a fairly traditional structure. Two to three meals a day, depending on the day, my mood, the rhythm of the week. I sometimes skip breakfast if I am not hungry. Other days, especially on weekends, I take my time: pastries from the day before, French toast, waffles, crêpes, chocolate cookies, always homemade. There is something deeply reassuring in these gestures: the anticipation of flavours, even before tasting them, the smell of warm butter in the kitchen, a cake left to cool on the counter while the house slowly grows quiet.

During the week, lunch is often simple, sometimes eaten quickly. In the evenings and on weekends, I like to cook more. Since my years living and working in London, I have lost the very French habit of long lunch breaks, but dinner remains an important moment. The one thing I very rarely do is snack between meals. I was always taught that eating between meals dulls the appetite for the next one. I kept this habit. If I am hungry earlier than expected, I simply eat earlier. (Read more.)

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Guichette

Anna Gibson posts on the eldest child and only daughter of the Royal Governess Madame de Polignac. She was Aglaé de Polignac, the Duchesse de Guiche, whom Marie-Antoinette nicknamed "Guichette." To quote:

Aglaé Louise Françoise Gabrielle de Polignac (7 May 1768 - 30 March 1803) was the first child and only daughter of Yolande Martine Gabrielle de Polastron and Jules de Polignac. In 1780, she was married to the Antoine Louis Marie de Gramont, duc de Guiche. They had three children.

In 1784, the talented Elisabeth Vigee-Lebrun painted the 16 year old Aglaé in a simple, pastoral dress that was popularized in the 1780s by the rise of country and hamlet inspired fashions. (Read more.)

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Trump Unveils Plan to Make It ‘Legally Impossible’ for the Next President to Reopen the Border

 From The Daily BS:

Donald Trump says closing the border isn’t enough.

He wants to make it much harder for the next president to open it again.

Trump unveiled a proposed “No Invasion of Our Country Act” during his address to the Republican midterm convention in Dallas, arguing that his border policies need to be protected from being dismantled by a future administration.

“We will make it legally impossible for any future president to destroy our country by having the right to open the border again,” Trump told the crowd.

“We will pass a No Invasion of Our Country Act.”

The announcement takes direct aim at one of the biggest vulnerabilities of presidential immigration policy: What one president does through executive authority, another president can often undo.

That is precisely what happened after Trump’s first term.

President Joe Biden reversed a number of Trump’s immigration and border policies after entering office in 2021. Trump, upon returning to the White House in January 2025, moved aggressively in the opposite direction again.

Now Trump wants Congress involved.

Putting border restrictions into federal statute could make them substantially more difficult for a future president to reverse simply by signing a new executive order.

But Trump’s promise that the legislation would make it “legally impossible” for another president to reopen the border is considerably more sweeping than what is currently known about the proposal.

A future Congress can amend or repeal federal law, and presidents retain constitutional and statutory authority over immigration enforcement. The precise effect would depend upon the actual legislative language — and that language has not yet been publicly fleshed out in detail. (Read more.)

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The Secrets of Elegance

One must subscribe to read the entire article but what is available is quite interesting. From The Habsburg Way:

It is a common error among the ambitious, or the self-conscious, to confuse elegance for luxury.

To assume that what looks expensive must look good, and conclude therefore that in order to look good, we must spend extravagantly. On the other hand, there are those who are fearful of their own status, and exaggerate roughness through language or clothing to signal that they are ‘one of the people’.

We all know tackiness or scruffiness when we see it, but how can we avoid both and actually embody elegance?

For the answer, we must turn to one of the most popular writers of 19th century France, who achieved the rare feat of being highly conservative, highly eccentric and highly charismatic all at once. In 1830, Honoré de Balzac indeed began his Treatise On Elegant Living to both lampoon the tackiness of post-revolutionary France’s new elites, while also reflecting on why they were getting this so wrong.

So, here is how to stop trying to look elegant, and start being elegant, from the father of ‘elegantology’ itself…(Read more.)

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