A detail of history I learned from Kim Young-ha's excellent novel Black Flower, the story of the one thousand Koreans duped into indentured servitude in the Yucatán in the frst years of the last century. More on "the worst act of violence committed against any Chinese diasporic community of the Americas during the twentieth century" — Book Details 1911 Massacre of Chinese Immigrants in Torreon, Mexico. (Read entire post.)Share
The Pasch of the Lord: Heart of the Liturgy
Hermann Schmidt opens his Hebdomada Sancta with the lapidary phrase: "Pascha est cor liturgiae." The heart of the liturgy is the Paschal Mystery of Christ's death, Resurrection and Ascension, accomplished once and for all in Christ the Head, and extended by means of the liturgy to all his members throughout history. Dame Aemiliana Löher, the Benedictine of Herstelle writes in The Great Week, a book I never tire of reading at this time of the year, that, "It will never be possible for the Church in her liturgy to make anything else present or anything else the subject of her celebration than the Pasch of Christ."
All Christian worship is but a continuous celebration of the Pasch: the sun, dawning each day, draws in its course an uninterrupted train of Eucharists; every celebration of Mass prolongs the Pasch. Each day of the liturgical year, and within each day, every instant of the Church's sleepless vigil, continues and renews the Pasch. (Louis Bouyer, Le Mystère Pascal)The Liturgy is the Church's Primary Theology
The Paschal Mystery is the ultimate and unrepeatable word from God, to God and about God. Actualized in the liturgy, the Paschal Mystery is the substance and expression of the Church's theologia prima, the ground and reference of her theologia secunda. The complement of Schmidt's aphorism Pascha est cor liturgiae is that the Pasch of Christ, sacramentally mediated in the liturgy, is the wellspring of a living, doxological theology, the only kind of theology that a monk can embrace fully and find himself at home in.
The Mystery of ChristShare
In repeating the enactment of the liturgy, the Church has access to the "unique, unrepeatable mystery of Christ"; day after day, week after week, and year after year, the Church is caught up in the transforming glory of the Paschal Mystery of Christ, her Bridegroom and Head. Through the actio, the Paschal Mystery irrigates and transforms all of human life, healing those who partake of the sacraments and drawing the Church, already here and now, into the communion of the risen and ascended Christ with the Father in the Holy Spirit. Because it is the heart of the liturgy, the Pasch of the Lord is the heart of theology, and the heart of Christian piety as well. (Read entire post.)
According to the chronicle of Adam of Usk, Llewellyn was a ‘bountiful’ member of the Carmarthenshire gentry, a country squire whose household used ‘fifteen pipes of wine’ annually. This is not to imply that the man was a drunk but shows him to be a wealthy and generous host.
ShareAt the time in question Llewellyn was around sixty years of age, too old to fight perhaps, but it is believed two of his sons were at Glyn Dŵr’s side. Henry IV forced Llewellyn to lead him to Glyn Dŵr’s base camp, and for several weeks the old man led the King on a goose chase through the wild uplands of Deheubarth, allowing Glyn Dŵr time to escape into Gwynedd and gain a position of greater strength. (Read entire post.)
You can fight to save the whales, dolphins, and baby sea turtles, but if you fight to save traditional marriage, you will be called a “bigot” and be compared with hate groups....Share
May explained that the relationship between marriage and children is considered secondary today. “Not every married man and woman has children, but every child has a mother and father. It is what connects them. When a man and woman marry,” he said “they choose to make themselves irreplaceable to each other, and that is what capacitates them to receive a child as a gift. That child is irreplaceable to them and they are both irreplaceable to the child… their choice to marry creates the circle of irreplaceability that we call the family.”
He uses the starting point of children’s rights to help others see the truth and beauty of marriage. May says that the fact that our society is facing a crisis in marriage highlights our need to strengthen the recognition of what it is. According to him, this has nothing to do with homosexuality but the ability to have laws, school curricula, and institutions that teach our children about the importance of men and women marrying before having children. (Read entire article.)
Much of Edmonia Lewis’ early life is unknown. She is believed to have been born some time between 1840 and 1845, the daughter of an Ojibwa (Chippewa) mother and a free black father from the West Indies. Her parents died when she was very young and her older brother Samuel provided guidance and material support for her.Share
Lewis attended Oberlin College but left before completing her studies. After an apprenticeship with a master sculptor in Boston, Massachusetts, she opened her own studio. She used the money she earned from selling portraits of abolitionists— plus funds from Samuel— to finance a trip to Italy, where she had dreamed of studying and working. By 1880, she had settled there permanently, returning to the US frequently to show and sell her work. She gained international acclaim for her portraits of abolitionists and for her depictions of ethnic and religious themes.
By the turn of the 20th century, the neoclassical genre Lewis favored became less popular, and she faded into obscurity. She never married and had no known children. The details of where and when Lewis died remained a mystery until fairly recently. However, in 2011, a British historian uncovered evidence the artist was living in London when she died on September 17, 1907. (Read entire post.)
Death is not improvised. One dies as one has lived. The Eucharistic death of Saint Benedict was the seal placed upon a long Eucharistic life. (Blessed Schuster says that Saint Benedict would have been about eighty years old at the time of his death.) One will die as one has lived. In Chapter 4 of the Holy Rule, Saint Benedict enjoins his monk to "keep death daily before his eyes"; this means, in effect, that a monk is to live each day in the very dispositions in which he wants to be found at the hour of his death.Share
To die loving, I must love always. To die praying, I must pray always. To die forgiving, I must forgive always. To die in a state of adoration, I must live in a state of adoration. To die gratefully, I must live in gratitude. To die peacefully, I must live in peace. I die humbly, I must live humbly. To die united to Jesus in His Passion, I must live united to Jesus in His Passion. To die facing the Eucharistic Face of Jesus, I must live facing the Eucharistic Face of Jesus. (Read entire post.)
Te Martyrum candidatus laudat exercitus.~ from the Te DeumWhen I wrote to Dr. Moss requesting her latest work The Myth of Persecution, I received a prompt and gracious reply assuring me of a copy. Dr. Moss hoped that I would not see the book as an attack upon the Church. I responded that I did not see the book as an attack on the Church and even if it was, the Church has been through worse. We have nothing to fear from the truth of history.
That Paul himself would admit that he had participated in this practice [i.e., “persecuting the church of God”] lends credibility to the narrative of Acts, but it does not prove that Jews persecuted Christians. The primary reason for this is that there were no Christians! Not only did the name ‘Christian’ not yet exist, but the idea of Christians as a group distinct from the rest of Judaism did not exist in the lifetime of the apostles. (p.133)So according to Myth of Persecution, St. Stephen the first martyr was not a bona fide martyr. Whatever the people later to be known as Christians were called, Paul persecuted them, and later repented of it. The Acts of the Apostles affirms that the Followers of Jesus were first called Christians in Antioch (Acts 11:26) a good hundred years before Dr. Moss claims they began to be called Christians. Furthermore, Dr. Moss claims that the Christians were not really persecuted by the Romans, but "prosecuted." (pp. 159-160) "Romans saw themselves not as persecutors but as prosecutors....Just because Christians were prosecuted or executed, even unjustly, does not mean that they were persecuted." (pp163-164). Unfortunately, this sort of sophistry is rampant in the book.
Dr Teresa Belton told the BBC cultural expectations that children should be constantly active could hamper the development of their imagination. She quizzed author Meera Syal and artist Grayson Perry about how boredom had aided their creativity as children. Syal said boredom made her write, while Perry said it was a "creative state".Share
The senior researcher at the University of East Anglia's School of Education and Lifelong Learning interviewed a number of authors, artists and scientists in her exploration of the effects of boredom. She heard Syal's memories of the small mining village, with few distractions, where she grew up.
Dr Belton said: "Lack of things to do spurred her to talk to people she would not otherwise have engaged with and to try activities she would not, under other circumstances, have experienced, such as talking to elderly neighbours and learning to bake cakes.
"Boredom is often associated with solitude and Syal spent hours of her early life staring out of the window across fields and woods, watching the changing weather and seasons.
"But importantly boredom made her write. She kept a diary from a young age, filling it with observations, short stories, poems, and diatribe. And she attributes these early beginnings to becoming a writer late in life." (Read entire post.)
ShareTor is a local word of Celtic origin meaning rock outcropping or hill. The Glastonbury Tor is 514 feet high and when you finally approach the top you find the ruins of St. Michael’s Church. Monks have worshiped here since the fifth century and this present church survived until the Dissolution of the Monasteries in 1539 when the last Abbot of Glastonbury, the gentle and good old Richard Whiting, was hanged, drawn and quartered along with two of his monks.From all sides the country of Somerset rolled away so far below me. The wind rushed about the ruins; I was almost unnerved by their ferocity.I was almost entirely alone on the Tor that day. (Read entire post.)
As a musical form of monastic devotional literature, the collection of cantigas also presents the reader with orthodox theological teaching promulgated by the Church during the thirteenth century: such cantigas as 306 and 320, the former of which recounts the story of a heretic who is cleansed of his lack of belief in the virginity of Mary, and the latter praising Mary for restoring the goodness to earth that Eve had taken away, respond to the ecclesiastic debates and formation of doctrine that were taking place during these years of the Central Middle Ages. In response to the formation of Catholic dogma taking place at this time, Greenia very nicely states that Alfonso X designated himself a “national broker in the economy of salvation” and that “he seemingly felt that he owed it to his people to serve them in facilitating their salvation.” His Cantigas “formed an ongoing project for the religious welfare of the masses, and as an unobtrusive educational tool.” (Read entire post.)Share
It was an astonishing achievement – a spiritual, intellectual, educational and administrative success – and it was Heloise who had made it so. Yet she denied doing this for the glory of God. No, to her last recorded pronouncement she declared that she did all for the love of Peter Abelard, the controversial scholar who had seduced her, got her with child, married her and then, sinking under the horror of the vengeance exacted on him by her kinsfolk, ordered her to become a Religious like himself. (Read entire post.)Share
ShareConrad Black’s piece today is bewildering. Just at a time when even some non-papal audiences have become sick of the bill of poisonous goods the feminist revolution made women and men sign up for in the name of faux freedom, he hopes Pope Francis not only abandons Catholic theology but good sense. It is surrender to the sexual revolution that has, in part, led to the catechetical and public-witness crisis we’re in. And while, of course, it is true that Catholics can tend to be just like everyone else when it comes to sex as “a mere extension of the pleasures of heterosexual affection,” it is meant to be something more. Don’t we want our children to see it as something more? Don’t we want something more? In her surveying, Mary Hasson of the Ethics and Public Policy Center has found even women who aren’t on board with all of Church teaching wanting to know more about it in Sunday homilies. At a time when we can see clearly in our midst so much of what Paul VI warned of in Humanae Vitae, why wouldn’t we want to repropose a beautiful understanding about men and women, the Sacrament of marriage, and God’s love for us? Why wouldn’t we want a further unpacking of the teachings of Pope John Paul II on human sexuality? We’d all lose out if the Church caved to critics who want it to “modernize.” The Church needs to communicate better, teach more, but not cave.My reading recommendation for Mr. Black is Mary Eberstadt’s Adam and Eve after the Pill. I suspect he might find himself agreeing with it more than he’d think. (Read entire post.)
A feminine woman has the effect of a sunrise on a man's soul.Share
In the words of novelist Alex Waugh, she draws a man "into a magic circle where everything is fresher, cleaner; where there is peace, warmth, comfort. She produces in him the desire to be his best."
A feminine woman has the effect of a sunrise on a man's soul.
In the words of novelist Alex Waugh, she draws a man "into a magic circle where everything is fresher, cleaner; where there is peace, warmth, comfort. She produces in him the desire to be his best."
- See more at: http://www.henrymakow.com/051201.html#sthash.R7klVOHu.dpufFeminism is no longer about equal opportunity for women. It is a thuggish, devious synthesis of Marxism and lesbianism used by ruling elites to undermine individuals and weaken society. It is to society what AIDS is to the body.
But men are also to blame. We have accepted the feminist lie that women should be independent and pursue careers. We have abandoned the many gentle and loving women who instinctively want to build their lives around a man. We have pursued the busy, neurotic, overachievers who guarantee us heartbreak, divorce and broken family.
By pursuing these women, we are really seeking our own lost masculinity. Many of us are happy to evade the responsibility of earning a living, and taking charge of a family. In either case we are condemning ourselves to frustration and arrested development.
- See more at: http://www.henrymakow.com/051201.html#sthash.R7klVOHu.dpufFeminism is no longer about equal opportunity for women. It is a thuggish, devious synthesis of Marxism and lesbianism used by ruling elites to undermine individuals and weaken society. It is to society what AIDS is to the body.
But men are also to blame. We have accepted the feminist lie that women should be independent and pursue careers. We have abandoned the many gentle and loving women who instinctively want to build their lives around a man. We have pursued the busy, neurotic, overachievers who guarantee us heartbreak, divorce and broken family.
By pursuing these women, we are really seeking our own lost masculinity. Many of us are happy to evade the responsibility of earning a living, and taking charge of a family. In either case we are condemning ourselves to frustration and arrested development.
- See more at: http://www.henrymakow.com/051201.html#sthash.R7klVOHu.dpufFeminism is no longer about equal opportunity for women. It is a thuggish, devious synthesis of Marxism and lesbianism used by ruling elites to undermine individuals and weaken society. It is to society what AIDS is to the body.
But men are also to blame. We have accepted the feminist lie that women should be independent and pursue careers. We have abandoned the many gentle and loving women who instinctively want to build their lives around a man. We have pursued the busy, neurotic, overachievers who guarantee us heartbreak, divorce and broken family.
By pursuing these women, we are really seeking our own lost masculinity. Many of us are happy to evade the responsibility of earning a living, and taking charge of a family. In either case we are condemning ourselves to frustration and arrested development.
- See more at: http://www.henrymakow.com/051201.html#sthash.R7klVOHu.dpufFeminism is no longer about equal opportunity for women. It is a thuggish, devious synthesis of Marxism and lesbianism used by ruling elites to undermine individuals and weaken society. It is to society what AIDS is to the body.
But men are also to blame. We have accepted the feminist lie that women should be independent and pursue careers. We have abandoned the many gentle and loving women who instinctively want to build their lives around a man. We have pursued the busy, neurotic, overachievers who guarantee us heartbreak, divorce and broken family.
By pursuing these women, we are really seeking our own lost masculinity. Many of us are happy to evade the responsibility of earning a living, and taking charge of a family. In either case we are condemning ourselves to frustration and arrested development.
- See more at: http://www.henrymakow.com/051201.html#sthash.R7klVOHu.dpufFeminism is no longer about equal opportunity for women. It is a thuggish, devious synthesis of Marxism and lesbianism used by ruling elites to undermine individuals and weaken society. It is to society what AIDS is to the body.(Read entire post.)
But men are also to blame. We have accepted the feminist lie that women should be independent and pursue careers. We have abandoned the many gentle and loving women who instinctively want to build their lives around a man. We have pursued the busy, neurotic, overachievers who guarantee us heartbreak, divorce and broken family.
By pursuing these women, we are really seeking our own lost masculinity. Many of us are happy to evade the responsibility of earning a living, and taking charge of a family. In either case we are condemning ourselves to frustration and arrested development.
- See more at: http://www.henrymakow.com/051201.html#sthash.R7klVOHu.dpuf
Also in 1524, Margaret had finished one of her grandest projects as a scholar and an intellectual. She translated the soliloquy on the Lords Prayer called “Precatio dominica”, by the Dutch humanist and great friend of her father’s, Erasmus of Rotterdam. Her aim was to write vivid and readable English prose. The work isn’t an exact word-for –word translation but an attempt to represent Erasmus’s “sense and meaning”. Her book is called “A Devout Treatise upon the Pater Noster, made first in Latin by the most famous doctor Master Erasmus Roterodamus, and turned into English by a young, virtuous and well-learned gentlewoman of xix years of age”. It was published in October 1524. Margaret became the first non-royal woman to publish a book she had translated into English. (Read entire post.)Share
GOD'S FIRST DECLARATION about man (the human being generally, and the male specifically) is, "It is not good for man to be alone." Now, presumably, in order to solve the problem of man's aloneness, God could have made another man or even a community of men. But instead God solved man's aloneness by creating one other person, a woman — not a man, not a few women, not a community of men and women. Man's solitude was not a function of his not being with other people; it was a function of his being without a woman. Of course, Judaism also holds that women need men. But both the Torah statement and Jewish law have been more adamant about men marrying than about women marrying. Judaism is worried about what happens to men and to society when men do not channel their passions into marriage. In this regard, the Torah and Judaism were highly prescient: the overwhelming majority of violent crimes are committed by unmarried men. Thus, male celibacy, a sacred state in many religions, is a sin in Judaism. In order to become fully human, male and female must join. In the words of Genesis, "God created the human ... male and female He created them." The union of male and female is not merely some lovely ideal; it is the essence of the Jewish outlook on becoming human. To deny it is tantamount to denying a primary purpose of life.Share
While traditional Judaism is not as egalitarian as many late twentieth century Jews would like, it was Judaism — very much through its insistence on marriage and family and its rejection of infidelity and homosexuality — that initiated the process of elevating the status of women. While other cultures were writing homoerotic poetry, the Jews wrote the Song of Songs, one of the most beautiful poems depicting male-female sensual love ever written. (Read entire post.)
Amid the crush of news reports in the past month that followed Pope Benedict's unprecedented resignation from the papacy, one of the most intriguing was the decision by His All-Holiness, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, to attend Pope Francis' installation as Bishop of Rome. The occasion is being presented in the media as something that has not happened since the ecclesiastical schism that separated Christian East and Christian West in the eleventh century. But that characterization is almost certainly wrong--this is quite likely the first time in history that a Bishop of Constantinople will attend the installation of a Bishop of Rome. And this is a profoundly bold step in ecumenical relations between the Orthodox and the Roman Catholics, one that could have lasting significance. (Read entire post.)Share
Why do so many people still accept the incest allegation against Anne and George Boleyn as being true? Come to that, why do so many people believe the other allegations against Anne, despite the overwhelming evidence to the contrary? Anne was charged with adultery with a man she barely knew, a servant she probably wouldn’t have touched with an over-sized jousting pole, one of the King’s best friends who was married, and a youth who was good at tennis. The indictment doesn’t even make sense in that on all but two of the dates Anne was supposed to have committed adultery either she was somewhere else or the man was. Perhaps it was adultery by proxy!Share
Here I’m just dealing with the supposed incest and the reasons why it is still believed to be true. What you do read quite often are comments that there were rumours about Anne and George and their inappropriate relationship during their lifetime. It is assumed that there must have been rumours which resulted in the eventual charge. But the recurring suggestion that there were rumours about the siblings relationship during their lives is a myth. There were no rumours. Not one shred of evidence has come down to us to suggest that anyone believed they that had an ‘unnatural relationship’. (Read more.)
LOPEZ: People other than abused children need the healing of “sexual wounds.” Is this a book for a lot of different kinds of sexual wounds? Some self-inflicted? Some cultural?
EDEN: I believe that the greatest wound caused by childhood sexual abuse is the wound to the child’s identity. John Paul II in his Letter to Families talked about how children need to develop their identity in an environment of truth and love. You can’t do that if you are subjected to lies and what John Paul called “the opposite of love,” which is “use” — that is, being treated as an object.
Being abused caused me to develop an identity that was founded not on truth but rather on the lies of my abusers — the utilitarian lies that made me believe I had no value beyond my usefulness to others. So, as a teenager and young adult, acting out of the lies I had absorbed, I compounded my pain by using people and letting them use me.
I tell readers in My Peace I Give You that they are not responsible for the abuse they suffered in childhood. We have that truth from the mouth of Christ when he casts woe upon those who would tempt little ones, and it has been affirmed again and again by the Church. But healing means more than recovering from the sins that were committed against us. It also means seeking and accepting God’s forgiveness for those sins we ourselves committed. I address both those issues in My Peace I Give You. For that reason, I believe its message helpful for anyone who is recovering from any kind of trauma or pain, particularly those in twelve-step programs, which likewise distinguish between healing from harm caused by others and ending harmful behavior. (Read entire interview.)
One might have expected a swell of pride from Argentine officialdom when the news broke that the nation has produced a man so highly esteemed around the world. Instead the Kirchner government's pit bulls in journalism—men such as Horacio Verbitsky, a former member of the guerrilla group known as the Montoneros and now an editor at the pro-government newspaper Pagina 12—immediately began a campaign to smear the new pontiff's character and reputation at home and in the international news media.Share
The calumny is not new. Former members of terrorist groups like Mr. Verbitsky, and their modern-day fellow travelers in the Argentine government, have used the same tactics for years to try to destroy their enemies—anyone who doesn't endorse their brand of authoritarianism. In this case they allege that as the Jesuits' provincial superior in Argentina in the late 1970s, then-Father Bergoglio had links to the military government.
This is propaganda. Mrs. Kirchner and her friends aren't yet living in the equivalent of a totalitarian state where there is no free press to counter their lies. That day may come soon. The government is now pressuring merchants, under threat of reprisals, not to buy advertising in newspapers. The only newspapers that aren't on track to be financially ruined by this intimidation are those that the government controls and finances through official advertising, like Mr. Verbitsky's Pagina 12. Argentines refer to the paper as "the official gazette" because it so reliably prints the government's line.
Intellectually honest observers with firsthand knowledge of Argentina under military rule (1976-1983) are telling a much different story than the one pushed by Mr. Verbitsky and his ilk. One of those observers is Adolfo Pérez Esquivel, winner of the 1980 Nobel Peace Prize. Last week he told BBC Mundo that "there were bishops that were complicit with the dictatorship, but Bergoglio, no." As to the charge that the priest didn't do enough to free junta prisoners, Mr. Pérez Esquivel said: "I know personally that many bishops who asked the military government for the liberation of prisoners and priests and it was not granted."
Former Judge Alicia Oliveira, who was herself fired by the military government and forced into hiding to avoid arrest, told the Argentine newspaper Perfil last week that during those dark days she knew Father Bergoglio well and that "he helped many people get out of the country." In one case, she says there was a young man on the run who happened to look like the Jesuit. "He gave him his identification card and his [clergy attire] so that he could escape."
Ms. Oliveira also told Perfil that when she was in hiding at the home of the current minister of security, Nilda Garré, the two of them "ate with Bergoglio." As Ms. Oliveira pointed out, Ms. Garré "therefore knows all that he did."
Graciela Fernández Meijide, a human-rights activist and former member of the national commission on the disappearance of persons, told the Argentine press last week that "of all the testimony I received, never did I receive any testimony that Bergoglio was connected to the dictatorship."
None of this matters to those trying to turn Argentina into the next Venezuela. What embitters them is that Father Bergoglio believed that Marxism (and the related "liberation theology") was antithetical to Christianity and refused to embrace it in the 1970s. That put him in the way of those inside the Jesuit order at the time who believed in revolution. It also put him at odds with the Montoneros, who were maiming, kidnapping and killing civilians in order to terrorize the population. Many of those criminals are still around and hold fast to their revolutionary dreams.
For them, the new pope remains a meddlesome priest. In the slums where the populist Mrs. Kirchner claims to be a champion of the poor, Francis is truly beloved because he lives the gospel. From the pulpit, with the Kirchners in the pews, he famously complained of self-absorbed politicians. He didn't name names, but the shoe fit. Nestór Kirchner, the late president and Cristina's husband, responded by naming him "the head of the opposition."
As Ms. Fernández Meijide observed last week, "I have the impression that what bothers the current president is that Bergoglio would not get in line, that he denounces the continuation of extreme poverty." That's not the regime's approved narrative.
(Read entire post.)
Every account of what Irish people ate, from the pre-Christian Celts up through the 16th-century anti-British freedom fighters, revolves around dairy. The island's green pastures gave rise to a culture that was fiercely proud of its cows (one of the main genres of Ancient Irish epics is entirely about violent cattle rustling), and a cuisine that revolved around banbidh, or "white foods."
There was drinking milk, and buttermilk, and fresh curds, and old curds, and something called "real curds," and whey mixed with water to make a refreshing sour drink. In 1690, one British visitor to Ireland noted that the natives ate and drank milk "above twenty several sorts of ways and what is strangest for the most part love it best when sourest." He was referring to bainne clabair, which translates as "thick milk," and was probably somewhere between just straight-up old milk and sour cream. And in the 12th century, a satirical monk (this is Ireland, after all), wrote a fake "vision" in which he traveled to the paradise of the Land of Food, where he saw a delicious drink made up of "very thick milk, of milk not too thick, of milk of long thickness, of milk of medium thickness, of yellow bubbling milk, the swallowing of which needs chewing." And many British tacticians, sending home notes on how best to suppress local rebellions, noted that the majority of the population lived all summer on their cows' milk, so the best way to starve out the enemy would just be to kill all the cows.
But above all, beloved by Hibernians from Belfast to Bantry, was butter. In a scholarly article from 1960, A.T. Lucas wrote that "recent international statistics show that the consumption of butter per head of the population is higher in Ireland than almost anywhere else in the world and the writer believes that the history of butter in the country can be summed by saying that, were comparable figures available, the position would be found to be the same in any year from at least as early as the beginning of the historic period down to 1700."
And the Irish didn't like their butter just one way: from the 12th century on, there are records of butter flavored with onion and garlic, and local traditions of burying butter in bogs. Originally, it's thought that bog butter began as a good storage system, but after a time, buried bog butter came to be valued for its uniquely boggy flavor.
Grains, either as bread or porridge, were the other mainstay of the pre-potato Irish diet, and the most common was the humble oat, usually made into oatcakes and griddled (ovens hadn't really taken off yet). And as was often the case in the more northern parts of Europe, the climate made growing wheat relatively difficult, so it was reserved for the fancier parts of society, and consequently thought of as a real treat. One of the many early Irish saints--Molua--had the superpower of sowing non-wheat grains and having wheat spring up, a sign of his holiness. As with milk, the Irish managed to squeeze a cornucopia of different products out of one main ingredient, and according to the Encyclopedia of Food and Culture, a "refreshing drink called sowens" was made from slightly fermented wheat husks, and a "jelly called flummery" was made by boiling the sowens. As traditional as it seems, the Irish Soda Bread that you might be trundling out this weekend wasn't invented until 19th century, since baking soda wasn't invented until the 1850s.
Besides the focus on oats and dairy (and more dairy), the Irish diet wasn't too different from how we think of it today. They did eat meat, of course, though the reliance on milk meant that beef was a rarity, and most people probably just fried up some bacon during good times, or ate fish they caught themselves. For veggies, the Irish relied on cabbages, onions, garlic, and parsnips, with some wild herbs and greens spicing up the plate, and on the fruit front, everyone loved wild berries, like blackberries and rowanberries, but only apples were actually grown on purpose. And, if you lived near the coast, edible seaweed like dulse and sloke made for tasty salads and side dishes. (Read entire post.)
“¡Viva Cristo Rey!” (“Long Live Christ the King.”) That was the rallying cry for millions of Mexicans during the second and third decades of the 20th century, as revolutionary governments, modeled after the Bolshevik regime in Russia, unleashed round after round of persecution and terror throughout Mexico. For Greater Glory, the newly released epic film starring Andy Garcia and Eva Longoria, provides a stirring introduction to the “Cristero War,” or “Cristiada” (1926-1929), a heroic chapter of Mexico’s history that, until now, has been almost virtually unknown in the United States (as well as in Mexico, where the government has suppressed true reports of the persecutions and all favorable mention of the Cristeros, who finally rose up to fight for religious liberty).I agree, as I said above, that the film is actually incredibly restrained when it comes to showing violence in light of some of the atrocities which actually took place. Sadly, it was American arms which aided the Socialist Mexican government in its fight against the Cristeros, leading to the eventual defeat of the freedom fighters. This film is a step in the right direction and I hope it inspires the younger generation to study on their own the history which formal education may have denied them.
The wholesale raping, pillaging, destruction and desecration of churches, torture and murder of Catholic priests, closing of Catholic schools, the takeover of education by anti-Christian propagandists, and other outrages initiated by the regime of President Plutarco Elias Calles, ultimately drove the long-suffering Mexican people to take up arms against the dictatorial oppressor. Tens of thousands — mostly peasants — joined the Cristero army, led by Gen. Enrique Gorostieta (played by Andy Garcia in the movie). Although poorly armed and usually outnumbered, the Cristeros repeatedly inflicted decisive defeats upon Calles’ army. Unable to defeat the Cristeros militarily, Calles resorted to diplomatic treachery, suing for peace and promising to restore religious liberty. Hundreds of Cristero leaders who accepted his amnesty and laid down their arms were tortured and executed; thousands of Cristero supporters were hunted down and murdered. It is to America’s everlasting shame that our White House and State Department not only aided Calles in this deception but also provided him with arms and airplanes, while blocking all attempts by the Cristeros — Christian freedom fighters — to buy arms and munitions. In so doing, the U.S. government aligned itself with the anti-Christian forces that have been initiating communistic revolutions throughout the world since that great atheistic prototype, the French Revolution of 1789.
Although Mexico is overwhelmingly Catholic (and was even more so at the beginning of the 20th century), the Mexican Constitution of 1917 reflected the Marxist and anti-clerical zeitgeist of the Bolshevik Revolution of that same year. In addition to confiscating all property (churches, schools, universities, hospitals, monasteries, convents, rectories, etc.) of the Catholic Church, the new Constitution placed draconian restrictions on Catholic worship and Catholic clergy, forbidding priests, bishops, and nuns even to wear their religious garb in public, on pain of fine and imprisonment.
For Plutarco Calles, the anti-clerical provisions of the revolutionary constitution were insufficient; he illegally added his own more brutal measures to augment it. Although For Greater Glory does portray on film some of the cruel reality and barbarism of Calles’ attack on Mexico’s Catholics, it understates the depravity and the viciousness of his pitiless campaign. (Read entire review.)
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| The Real General Gorostieta with His Bride |
And I say to thee: That thou art Peter; and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. And I will give to thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven. And whatsoever thou shalt bind upon earth, it shall be bound also in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose upon earth, it shall be loosed also in heaven. (Matthew 16: 18-19)
From the Vatican Information Service, here are details about the symbols found on Francis’ coat of arms:
The shield has a bright blue background, at the centre top of which is a yellow radiant sun with the IHS christogram on it representing Jesus (it is also the Jesuit logo). The IHS monogram, as well as a cross that pierces the H, are in red with three black nails directly under them. Under that, to the left, is a star representing Mary, Mother of Christ and the Church. To the right of the star is a nard flower representing Joseph, Patron of the Universal Church. With these symbols the Pope demonstrates his love for the Holy Family.
Another interpretation, HERE. ShareFrancis’ papal motto, displayed with the coat of arms, is also the same as the one he used as a bishop; it is “miserando atque eligendo,” which in Latin means “by having mercy, by choosing him.” It is taken from a homily of the Venerable Bede on the call of St. Matthew: “Jesus saw the tax collector and by having mercy chose him as an Apostle saying to him: Follow me.” Vatican Radio explains the significance of this passage to the Holy Father:This homily, which focuses on divine mercy and is reproduced in the Liturgy of the Hours on the Feast of Saint Matthew, has taken on special significance in the Pope's life and spiritual journey.
In fact it was on the Feast of Saint Matthew in 1953 that a young, seventeen-year-old Jorge Bergoglio was touched by the mercy of God and felt the call to religious life in the footsteps of Saint Ignatius of Loyola.
(Read entire article.)
Liturgical conversations have resurfaced with a vengeance over the past few days. Just a few points there: A few days ago, a church historian was quoted as saying, “You have to remember that Benedict was a clotheshorse.” What that expert fails to recognize was that Benedict’s attention to papal garb was not about vanity – I mean – really. It was about what he was always about: history And not history as a museum, out of an antiquarian interest, but as a link from the present to the past. The red shoes – so maligned even by Catholics who should know better – are a symbol of blood. Blood , people. The blood of the martyrs and the blood of Christ on which His vicar stands, and through him, all of us. Popes – yes, even John XXIII and Paul VI – wore them until John Paul II stopped. Then Benedict reinstated them. That is, he humbled himself before history and symbol and put the darn things on.Share
Why did he reinstate them? Because he was vain, monarchical and arrogant? Because he was out of touch with the poor? Because he was, in the terms of the esteemed professor, a “clotheshorse?” Because they look good? I doubt it, because, you know, they don’t, not really. Maybe – just maybe – because he believes was they symbolize? That his office is rooted in the blood of the martyrs, especially Peter? And that it is good for the Pope in the 21st century to maintain this link to and through other Popes who have done the same thing, to Peter, and then to Christ?
[...]
For me, it comes down to this. Both of these Popes were and are pastors. Both have given their lives for us, for Christ. We can – and should be open to being – taught by both. All I’m saying is that – as Pope Francis himself has acknowledged in his own words these past few days – Pope Benedict was all about Christ. He spent 8 years as your Pope, “proposing Jesus Christ” through his words and actions – even his red shoes. If Pope Francis’ actions so far preach Christ more clearly to you then so be it. Christ is who is important, and we are a Church of great diversity for a reason. But what has been so bizarre and even saddening over the past few days is a tone and implication that Benedict was somehow about something else besides Jesus Christ. (Read entire post.)
Old Mandeville will feel a lot like Olde England when the Jane Austen Literary Festival unveils its annual celebration of Regency style and literary sensibility March 9-10. The festival mixes books and bonnets, contests and conversation, lectures and laughs — and even includes a dance in period costume.Share
“We keep things fun, and that keeps people interested,” said Kerri Blache, who helped to found the event in 2008. “The panel discussions and talks about Austen’s era are quite interesting, but we also have events that appeal to anyone who likes to dress up in costume.”
Costumes are not required, but they do add an extra element to the Austen Festival. Blache estimates that in 2012 about 60 percent of festgoers wore Regency garb.
“You won’t see people dressed in recycled Carnival costumes,” Blache said. “A lot of research and hand-sewing goes into these costumes. The idea is to take a trip back in time, to get a feel for Jane Austen’s era.” (Read entire post.)
Nolite tangere christos meos et in prophetis meis nolite malignari. (I Par. 16:22, The Vulgate)Fr. Angelo has a superb post on "Benedict and Francis: the Law and the Prophets" in which he discusses the prophetic aspect of the papacy. To quote:
The Catechism also teaches us that all the baptized participate in the triple office of Christ as priest, prophet and king (783). However, priests, especially bishops who have the fullness of the priesthood and most especially the pope as the Vicar of Christ and Head of the apostolic college, have a mandate to exercise these three offices in a particular way. These offices are the proper functions of the Holy Father and the bishops: the priest sanctifies by offering sacrifice; the prophet teaches by delivering God’s message; and the king governs by shepherding God’s people after the heart of Christ (cf., Jer 3:15). (Read entire post.)As I mentioned in a previous post, Our Holy Father has been viciously attacked by certain elements in the Church. Terry Nelson made the connection of the attacks with one of the visions at Fatima, saying:
Just remember, Our Lady is the one who emphasized the papacy at Fatima, and called for prayers for the Holy Father. I somehow doubt she was referring to just one specific Pope... as Cardinal Ratzinger noted in his commentary on the Third Secret: "Beginning from Pius X up to the present Pope, they all shared the sufferings of the century and strove to go forward through all the anguish along the path which leads to the Cross." Post election reaction reminds me of something Blessed Jacinta said:I agree.
I saw the Holy Father in a very big house, kneeling by a table, with his head buried in his hands, and he was weeping. Outside the house, there were many people. Some of them were throwing stones, others were cursing him and using bad language. Poor Holy Father, we must pray very much for him.”Along with the enemies of the Church, there are many devotees of Our Lady, crusaders for the Truth, cursing, using bad language, against Pope Francis since his election. I doubt Our Lady would be pleased.
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"the Holy Father will have much to suffer."
"These are the two olive trees and the two lampstands that stand before the Lord of the earth."UPDATE: It is interesting that the name Bergoglio can be taken to mean "Mount of Olives." Of course, it can also mean "mountain range" which is interesting in the light of the prophecy by Blessed Tomasuccio, who said that a worthy Shepherd shall come from "beyond the mountains" twelve years into the millennium:
(Rev 11:4)
Then God's temple in heaven was opened, and the ark of his covenant was seen within his temple. There were flashes of lightning, rumblings, peals of thunder, an earthquake, and heavy hail.
(Rev 11:19)
One from beyond the mountains shall become the Vicar Of God. Religious and clerics shall take part in this change. Outside the true path, there will be only disreputable men; I shrug my shoulders when the Bark of Peter is in danger and there is no one to lend it help... The schismatic shall fall into the scorn of the Italian faithful... By about twelve years shall the millennium have passed when the resplendent mantle of legitimate power shall emerge from the shadows where it was being kept by the schism. And beyond harm from the one who is blocking the door of salvation, for his deceitful schism shall have come to an end. And the mass of the faithful shall attach itself to the worthy Shepherd, who shall extricate each one from error and restore to the Church its beauty. He shall renew it.Our Holy Father will ascend the papal throne on St. Joseph's day. Remember how St. Joseph appeared blessing the crowd at Fatima on October 13, 1917? Lucia wrote of that day, saying:
After Our Lady had disappeared into the immense distance of the firmament, we beheld St. Joseph with the Child Jesus and Our Lady robed in white with a blue mantle, beside the sun. St. Joseph and the Child Jesus appeared to bless the world, for they traced the Sign of the Cross with their hands. When, a little later, this apparition disappeared, I saw Our Lord and Our Lady; it seemed to me that it was Our Lady of Dolours. Our Lord appeared to bless the world in the same manner as St. Joseph had done. This apparition also vanished, and I saw Our Lady once more, this time resembling Our Lady of Carmel.As I said above, the papacy has a prophetic character. It is interesting how our new Pope is a sum and total of the great Religious orders whose Rules of Life have long given prophetic witness to the Church and the World. He was immediately preceded by Benedict. He is a Jesuit who comes to us in the habit of the Dominicans, who use the Augustinian rule. He bears the name Francis and is proceeded by the great silence of the Carmelites. It was amazing how the silence enveloped St. Peter's square when he first asked for prayers and blessing on the balcony....
"And when it opened the seventh seal, there was silence in the heaven about half an hour."(Apoc. 8:1)In the St. Malachy prophecy, according to Father Thibaut, "Petrus Romanus" represents the sum and total of all the Popes, as I have written before. I do think that Pope Benedict is the "Glory of the Olive" for he has opened the door to the Two Witnesses, who will come to the world at a time of great Apostasy.
"And after the earthquake a fire: the Lord is not in the fire, and after the fire a whistling of a gentle air. [13] And when Elias heard it, he covered his face with his mantle, and coming forth stood in the entering in of the cave, and behold a voice unto him, saying: What dost thou here, Elias?" (1 Kings 19:12-13)
Then I was given a measuring rod like a staff, and I was told, “Rise and measure the temple of God and the altar and those who worship there, but do not measure the court outside the temple; leave that out, for it is given over to the nations, and they will trample the holy city for forty-two months. And I will grant authority to my two witnesses, and they will prophesy for 1,260 days, clothed in sackcloth.”Perhaps Benedict and Francis are the Witnesses who have appeared in many prophecies. However, it could be that the other Witness will be a great Catholic lay-leader, who in prophecies has been labeled the Great Monarch. We must wait and see how things unfold. Share
(Apoc. 11:1-3)
Saint Patrick himself was conscious that God had used him to do great things. In his Confession, he writes: "I am very much God's debtor, who gave me such grace that many people were reborn in God through me and afterwards confirmed, and that clerics were ordained for them everywhere, for a people just coming to the faith, whom the Lord took from the utmost parts of the earth." By preaching, baptizing, ordaining priests, and consecrating virgins, Saint Patrick changed the face of Ireland. He did not blush to apply to the Irish people the prophecy of Hosea: "I will have mercy on her that was without mercy. And I will say to that which was not my people: Thou art my people. . . . And in the place where it was said: 'You are not my people': it shall be said to them: 'Ye are the sons of the living God'" (Hos 2:23-24; 1:10).Share
Saint Patrick, conscious of his own weakness, was in awe of the power of the grace of Christ. "How," he asks, "did it come to pass in Ireland that those who never had a knowledge of God, but until now always worshipped idols and things impure, have now been made a people of the Lord, and are called sons of God, that the sons and daughters of the kings of the Irish are seen to be monks and virgins of Christ?" The psalmist expresses Saint Patrick's wonder before the work of grace in the hearts of a great number: "He has not done thus for any other nation" (Ps 147:20). (Read entire post.)
Why the interest in classical literature in Ireland? Irish scholars and monastics of the golden age influenced people well beyond Ireland. By the seventh century, the Irish were confirmed as competent Latinists. Irish Virgilian studies and the Filargirian tradition were taken up in the seventh century; the latter being a collection and commentary on Virgil. The other Virgilian tradition was Servian. Services was a fifth century commentator with another commentary from the seventh century by Servius Danielis. Who read Virgil in medieval Ireland? Monks in Irish monasteries. (Read entire article.)Share
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| His Holiness Pope Francis, "Lowly yet Chosen" |
I heard people, in fact, media people, "Is this new hope, is he a liberal? Is he a conservative?" He's a Catholic! It's no more complicated than that. Catholicism is what it is. You don't have to believe it. You don't have to follow it. But it's not up to them to modernize to you. It's not up to any religion, although some do this, 'cause they want the money. They want the membership. But the Catholic Church doesn't do it. It's not up to them to bend and shape and mold itself to accommodate the shrinking depravity of a worldwide culture. It's to provide the exact opposite. It's to provide a beacon out of depravity, among other things.
Pope Francis I is bad news for the Drive-By Media. He is adamantly opposed to abortion. He is adamantly opposed to euthanasia. He has called the pro-choice movement a culture of death. He opposes same-sex marriage, which he has called demonic in origin. He opposes gay adoption on the grounds that it is discriminatory to the child. He opposed Argentina's legalizing of same-sex marriage. He called it a real and dire anthropological throwback. He was exiled by the Cristina Kirchner government. He was dispatched to the northern climes and the outposts of Argentina. He literally was cast out by the government.
And you know who rescued him? John Paul II. He's a protege, by the way, of John Paul II. John Paul II rescued Pope Francis from what essentially was internal exile, and he was made archbishop of Buenos Aires. And this just happened in early 2000. It's not that long ago. The Argentinean government had basically taken this pope, cast him out. He was teaching math. He was teaching high school math in small, little towns in northern Argentina because he refused to go along with Cristina Kirchner at present and her husband, who was her predecessor. He refused to go along with any of the cultural modernization, and as such they had nothing to do with him. And the Jesuits, of which he is one, had many left-wing members, and they were eager to cast him out, which they did. Oh, yeah, there are left-wing and right-wing Jesuits. There are left-wing and right-wing Catholics, as you know.
And this man, if you had to categorize him, you would have to call him -- and I really don't like doing this, but if it will help facilitate, help people understand, it would be accurate to say that he is a conservative. He's a conservative theologian. I had somebody that I really trust in these matters, a Catholic, who is in Rome, tell me today that in their opinion, Pope Francis is the Catholic equivalent of our Founding Fathers on federalism. But I find it fascinating that he refused to accede, refused to go along with any of the cultural modernization, which was same-sex marriage, contraception, abortion on demand.
And the Jesuits, the left-wing Jesuits working with the Kirchner government, basically threw him out. And he's rescued by John Paul II, made archbishop of Buenos Aires, and then a cardinal, and almost became pope when Benedict became pope, but the people that put him up -- he didn't want to be pope -- the people that put him up for pope in the conclave in 2005 were simply trying to block Benedict. And they failed. He's not crazy about being pope now, apparently. But he accepted it.
You know what he did today? Twelve hours after becoming pope he got in a small, little typical Italian putt-putt car and went to the hotel where he was staying during the conclave and picked up his bags and then went to a local church, which is devoted to the Virgin Mary, and prayed. This is stuff that presidents and popes dispatch underlings to go do. "Go get my bags. They're over at the hotel. Bring 'em back here to my papal apartment." He dressed up in his official pope togs and got in the car and drove over to the little hotel where he was staying, nothing fancy, picked up his own bags and went to church and went back to the Vatican.
I read some things this man has said -- and don't get the wrong idea. I'm just telling you why I like this so far. I'm reading things that he's said that I have authored in the Undeniable Truths of Life. One of my Undeniable Truths of Life is that senior citizens -- I'm paraphrasing my own truth; I don't have it right in front of me -- senior citizens are among the most valuable resource we have for our young people. And, of course, young people throw the elderly away and they laugh at 'em, old-fashioned fuddy-duddies, don't know what they're talking about. To the young, every old person has Alzheimer's. To the young, every old person has Parkinson's.
This man said that the elderly are the seat of wisdom in any society, is how he put it. He says adoption by homosexuals is a form of discrimination against children, which is why you're only gonna be hearing about the aspects of his life I just described, this common man, everyday man. This is not what they were hoping for.
The Vatican is apparently a mess, too, the Vatican Curia -- the White House, if you will -- the administrative aspect. One of the first things that he's going to do when he really sits down and gets serious, is there's a 300-page report on all of the corruption, the back-stabbing, the basic disintegration of the administration of the Vatican, all the petty politics. There's a report done that details it all, and he's gonna be charged here with making the appropriate changes, if he deems them necessary.People have said that the Prophecy of St. Malachy has been proved false. I do not think so. I think it has been fulfilled. Another Jesuit, Fr. René Thibaut, surmised that the prophecy about "Peter the Roman" does not signify a future pope calling himself “Pope Peter II” but rather Petrus Romanus symbolizes all the Roman pontiffs since St. Peter, for the Church has continually undergone persecution of some kind. For Fr. Thibaut and other scholars, the final pope mentioned on the list is given the mysterious title Gloriae olivae, “The Glory of the Olive.” Fr. Thibaut says that the olive represents the people of God whom His judgment will glorify. It is then, as Fr. Thibaut interprets, that the kingdom of God will be manifested in an extraordinary manner. Benedict XVI is De gloria olivae, the last pope on the list. Fr. Thibaut makes it clear that this does not indicate the end of the world but the end of an era. Now we have a Jesuit pope, the first one, who is also the first pope from the New World. A new era has indeed begun. It is cause for hope rather than trepidation, hope which inspires reverence, prayer and vigilance.
In the same place I saw in a dream that I was with my oldest brother and younger sister. While we were walking we came to a door and heard the words: "The pope is inside, if you wish to see him." We entered and kissed his feet as he stood on the ground. I was amazed that he would sit upon the ground and looked upon his short narrow bed with its very poor covering. I said: "Why is it, Father, that you have such a poor bed? The poorest of the poor bishops of the world would not have a meaner one." The pope said to me, "We must be humbled." Suddenly we were on our way down a mountain and I saw him in the habit of the Friars Minor [i.e. the Franiciscans]. (Read more at Emmett O'Regan's Unveiling the Apocalypse.)Remember the prophecies of the "Three Days Darkness" which everyone started reading in the 1980's? People were buying special kits with Holy Water and blessed candles to protect themselves? Mr. O'Regan has his own theory about that particular Prophecy, which is interesting for those interested in Catholic and Scriptural prophecies:
Although the prophecies of the Three Days of Darkness appear to be directly related to the "time, times, and half a time" in the Book of Daniel and the Apocalypse (and would therefore be synonymous with the 35 years of apostasy leading up to the millennium), there is also the possibility that they can be used to point to another date. If the Three Days of Darkness are to be interpreted as representing three decades of darkness - three decades which are to be calculated from before the appearance of the Morning Star announcing the arrival of the new dawn in the Great Jubilee Year 2000, then we could have an alternative date concerning the start of the Great Apostasy - the year 1970; which is just before the end of the Zeitoun apparitions (see the post Our Lady of Light and the Apocalyptic Nativity). And if we use the alternative figure for the duration of the abomination of desolation, which is given in Rev 11 as 42 "months" (which is the equivalent of the three and a half years), then the "gentiles" trampling upon the Holy City would last for a period of 42 years - after which a restoration would take place. So according to this interpretation, the "trampling" of the Holy City underfoot would only last until up to the year 2012, and the restoration would begin the year after, in 2013. So this interpretation could also be used to support the Worthy Shepherd Prophecy.We have no way of knowing whether these prophetic utterances apply to our time or not. Let us watch and pray.
Also worth noting is that there appears to be a division of the period of apostasy similar to the seventy years being cut short in Rev 11:1-3 below:
Then I was given a measuring rod like a staff, and I was told, “Rise and measure the temple of God and the altar and those who worship there, but do not measure the court outside the temple; leave that out, for it is given over to the nations, and they will trample the holy city for forty-two months. And I will grant authority to my two witnesses, and they will prophesy for 1,260 days, clothed in sackcloth.”
(Rev 11:1-3) (Read more.)
Sitting in his workshop in San Telmo, pencil in hand, goldsmith Juan Carlos Pallarols drafts one of his most meaningful works of art: a chalice that will be delivered to “Pope Jorge” on behalf of all Argentines.
Pallarols knows that this is not just another piece amongst his many other works that have earned him the reputation of being one of the best goldsmiths in the world. This is special.Do read on how Our Holy Father came to pray the 15 decade rosary every day.
“It’s a particular gift, it’s for a friend, for a good man, but this is not just a gift coming from me. It comes from the Argentine population,” he said, still moved by the news. Unlike many of the great objects created by him and his goldsmith family, this one stands out for its simplicity. “It’s a simple chalice, like Bergoglio ism” he explains. Years ago, the artist created a chalice for former Pop Benedict XVI with the help of Bergoglio himself, and they both delivered it in person to Ratzinger a few months after he was elected as the Vicar of Christ. “While creating the design, Bergoglio would give his opinion about it and I’m trying to bring that back to this new work,” he explains.
“It will be simple. It will feature images of Our Lady of Lujan and Mary Untier of Knots, whose first painting was brought into the country by him. It will also feature Jesuit symbols and Argentine icon. It will be made of silver, a metal that represents our country.”
For Pope Benedict’s chalice, the artist visited several areas of Argentina and allowed thousands of Catholic followers to chisel it once so Argentines could “be a part” of the work. This time the process will be similar.
“We began working on this new chalice in Argentina, but in the next few days we will exhibit it at the entrance to the Vatican - under close watch by the Swiss Guard – so people can leave their mark. It will also go to Barcelona since I’m currently working on a chalice for the Sagrada Familia, which was commissioned by Bishop Sistach.
Lluis Martínez Sistach was one of the cardinals close to Bergoglio who took part in the recent conclave that elected him as Pope. But this isn’t the only object that Pallarols will be carrying to Rome. For the last four months, he has been working in an exhibit named “Argentina: the gaucho, art and faith”, curated by Roberto Vega, which will be opening in May in one of the galleries of the Vatican Museums.
A collection of 120 pieces will be exhibited.
Laughing, but respectful of the decision “coming from above,” he explains: “When we started working on the exhibit we wondered if it was a sign that the next Pope was going to be Bergoglio. What do you know, it ended up being him.” (Read entire article.)
In a tribute to Pope John Paul II written after the Pontiff’s death in 2005, Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio of Buenos Aires recounted how the Pope’s example inspired him to “recite the 15 mysteries of the Rosary every day.”
“If I remember well it was 1985,” Cardinal Bergoglio wrote. “One evening I went to recite the Holy Rosary that was being led by the Holy Father. He was in front of everybody, on his knees. The group was numerous; I saw the Holy Father from the back and, little by little, I got lost in prayer. I was not alone: I was praying in the middle of the people of God to which I and all those there belonged, led by our Pastor.”
“In the middle of the prayer I became distracted, looking at the figure of the Pope: his pity, his devotion was a witness,” he continued. “And the time drifted away, and I began to imagine the young priest, the seminarian, the poet, the worker, the child from Wadowice… in the same position in which knelt at that moment, reciting Ave Maria after Ave Maria. His witness struck me.” (Read more.)
Our Holy Father as a young Jesuit, third from the left, with his family
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| Our Lady, "Undoer of Knots" |
