The pope’s words were spoken after a concert by Chinese pianist Jin Ju. Here’s a clip from Zenit: “Music,” he said, “great music, gives the spirit repose, awakens profound sentiments and almost naturally invites us to lift up our mind and … Continue reading
Category: Arts and Culture
Incredible Painting of Blessed Damien to be Given to the Pope October 11
What a beautiful story this is! Nothing short of miraculous. CNA reports: As the October 11 canonization of the Fr. Damien de Veuster approaches, an art teacher is leading a small group from Hawaii to Rome to present Pope Benedict … Continue reading
Longfellow and Tolkien: the Finnish Connection
What do the “shores of Gitche Gumee by the shining Big-Sea-Water” have in common with the “Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie”? The Protestant American author of Evangeline and The Song of Hiawatha is not generally associated with the … Continue reading
His English Teacher Was His Occasion of Grace: Actor Eduardo Verástegui
I’ve posted enough bad news for today. Here’s a great and inspiring interview the Catholic Herald of London had with Bella star and pro-life crusader Eduardo Verástegui, the ex-soap opera star and pop singer who isn’t afraid to say that … Continue reading
Truth, Trust, Forgiveness: Three Aids To Peace Without Humbug
On 17 July 2005, Saint Alexis Epigraphs „They are vulnerable to the truth …. Let the truth then be known …. Let us put the truth more sharply …. The truth, however, does not automatically take care of itself …. … Continue reading
Catholic Playwright Provides Inspiring Plays About Catholic Heroes and Saints
Cathal Gallagher is so right. In this CNA interview he cites a Hollywood producer who bragged that movies have more influence on kids than parents do. “I would go further,” he said, “We have lost our youth to entertainment. They … Continue reading
Contribution Of Catholic Letters
(This is the paper written in preparation for a talk given at the 2005 St. Benedict Center Conference.) (Saint Anthony Mary Zaccharia, July 5, 2005) The Contribution Of Catholic Letters To The Conversion Of Our Country A deepening, savored knowledge … Continue reading
‘The Greatest That Ever Lived’ (On the Apotheosis of Michael Jackson)
Think of a civilization as a fruit. The interior of the fruit — its meat — consists of the ideas, principles and beliefs professed by the members of a society, and thence of the civilization of which that society is … Continue reading
Confidence Begins in Childhood
Introduction: This is a short essay, written by my niece, for a composition class she is taking in her first year of college. She got an “A” for it. When my sister gave it to me to read I thought … Continue reading
The Wreck of the Deutschland
The great Catholic priest, convert, and poet, Gerard Manley Hopkins, S.J., was so affected by the sinking, in 1875, of a German ship, the Deutschland, in a storm off the coast of Bremen, and the heroism of five Franciscan sisters … Continue reading
The Poet’s Eye: Gerard Manley Hopkins’ “Margaret Clitheroe”
Of all the books I have read on the lives of saints and holy personages, none has ever moved or inspired me as did Dr. Malcolm Brennan’s Martyrs of the English Reformation. Perhaps it was because, beside such luminaries as … Continue reading
The Death of Chopin
The great nineteenth-century composer, Frédéric François Chopin (1810-1849), was born in the wake of that horrid reign of “enlightened” barbarity, the French Revolution — the age when Masonic philosophers boasted that Reason had finally triumphed over “the Galilean,” Jesus Christ … Continue reading