As Potter noted, I have a tendency to overexplain when it comes to Alphonse. But here, I am hoping it serves a larger purpose: namely, to help launch Dorian Speed’s Art for the Sake of Grace project and its consideration of arts and patrons and things Catholic. Thanks, Dorian! I really am tickled to have been a part of it.
Burrell on Kierkegaard on Kierkegaard
April 18, 2012 by at 10:18 am
Craig Burrell takes a look at Kierkegaard’s The Point of View for my Work as an Author.
Something for the Kollektiv to consider … “Points of View for Our Work as Bloggers”?
The Korrektiv Kounselor is Now a Blogging Bishop
April 11, 2012 by at 3:18 pm
Bishop Daniel E. Flores of Brownsville, Texas was kind enough to join JOB, McNabb and myself in darkest Wisconsin for the inaugural Gerasene Writer’s Conference. That’s him in the picture, walking the Way of the Cross. The picture hails from his new blog En pocas palabras. Something worth your attention, thinks me. And while you’re at it, say a prayer that he’s able to join us again this year!
Korrektiv: Medieval Edition
April 9, 2012 by at 4:45 am
The Means of Communication issue of Lapham’s Quarterly contains a fabulous collection of complains and marginal notes by the monks assigned to copy manuscripts in the era before the printing press. With their bitchy complaints—“I am very cold,” “Oh, my hand”—they insert themselves into the holy texts and often, in the process, disrupt the sanctity of the words they’re supposedly copying: “Now I’ve written the whole thing: for Christ’s sake give me a drink.”
[...]
Marginalia might include comments like the ones from our miserable monks, but also an entire free-flowing range of artistic flourishes and doodles that make up the edges of medieval manuscripts. “Once the manuscript page becomes a matrix of visual signs and is no longer one of flowing linear speech,” Camille writes, “the stage is set not only for supplementation and annotation but also for disagreement and juxtaposition—what the scholastics called disputatio.”
[...]
That these psalters and books of hours often contained sacrilegious sentiments right alongside their holy piety, it seems, was perhaps the point: “We should not see medieval culture exclusively in terms of binary oppositions—sacred/profane, for example, or spiritual/worldly,” Camille explains. “Travesty, profanation, and sacrilege are essential to the continuity of the sacred in society.”
[...]
A 1323 missal illuminated by Petrus de Raimbeaucourt [...] contains [a] picture of a scribe harassed by monkeys: while he tries to copy, they mimic him, drink his ink, and distract him. One moons him, an obscene gesture suggested by a suggestive line break in the Latin above: the word culpa, “sin,” is cut at cul, so that the line reads instead Liber est a cul—“the book is to the ass.”
Hello, Newman.
April 2, 2012 by at 12:11 am
Nothing is more common in an age like this, when books abound, than to fancy that the gratification of a love of reading is real study. Of course there are youths who shrink even from story books, and cannot be coaxed into getting through a tale of romance. Such Mr. Brown was not; but there are others, and I suppose he was in their number, who certainly have a taste for reading, but in whom it is little more than the result of mental restlessness and curiosity. Such minds cannot fix their gaze on one object for two seconds together; the very impulse which leads them to read at all, leads them to read on, and never to stay or hang over any one idea. The pleasurable excitement of reading what is new is their motive principle; and the imagination that they are doing something, and the boyish vanity which accompanies it, are their reward. Such youths often profess to like poetry, or to like history or biography; they are fond of lectures on certain of the physical sciences; or they may possibly have a real and true taste for natural history or other cognate subjects;—and so far they may be regarded with satisfaction; but on the other hand they profess that they do not like logic, they do not like algebra, they have no taste for mathematics; which only means that they do not like application, they do not like attention, they shrink from the effort and labour of thinking, and the process of true intellectual gymnastics. The consequence will be that, when they grow up, they may, if it so happen, be agreeable in conversation, they may be well informed in this or that department of knowledge, they may be what is called literary; but they will have no consistency, steadiness, or perseverance; they will not be able to make a telling speech, or to write a good letter, or to fling in debate a smart antagonist, unless so far as, now and then, mother-wit supplies a sudden capacity, which cannot be ordinarily counted on. They cannot state an argument or a question, or take a clear survey of a whole transaction, or give sensible and appropriate advice under difficulties, or do any of those things which inspire confidence and gain influence, which raise a man in life, and make him useful to his religion or his country.
John Henry Cardinal Newman, The Idea of a University, Part 2, Article 4, Section 1
Special Cross-Platform Promotional Supplement Feature
March 25, 2012 by at 3:36 pm
Speaking of vaultless ambition and bottomless sloth: baby has a blog.
March 19, 2012 by at 10:16 am
Adventures in Apocalyptic Marianism
March 10, 2012 by at 11:59 am
One link leads to another.
Mr. Burrell of All Manner of Thing recently added Bad Catholic to his blogroll, which prompted me to take a fresh look at Bad Catholic. Then I noticed “Heaven Speaks” on the Bad Catholic menu bar. Marc, the proprietor of Bad Catholic, says: “A year ago, my life was changed by the grace of God, through a little pamphlet written by Anne, a Lay Apostle, who claims to be receiving interior locutions (private revelation) from Jesus, Mary and the Saints.” Marc offers to send you one of said pamphlets if you drop him a note.
Marc’s endorsement made me curious, so I Googled “Anne lay apostle” and found Anne’s website, Direction for Our Times: Official Resources for Lay Apostles of Jesus Christ the Returning King. I read Anne’s “Introduction Letter” — a little goofy with the mention of vague illnesses and such, but possibly genuine. She also mentions Medjugorje, which I’m pretty fond of, but which might be enough to cause other Catholics I know to spit on the ground and turn away. So I found my way to Anne’s online library. After poking around a bit, I discovered that the documents overlap. The “pamphlets” and “volumes” are compiled and organized into the “books” — so I gravitated to the latter, starting with the first one, Climbing the Mountain. Now I’ve read the first thirty pages or so of Anne’s account of getting a tour of heaven with Jesus Himself as the tour guide, and involving casual encounters with Anne’s grandmother, St. Clare, St. John of the Cross, St. Peter, St. Bernard, St. John the Apostle, Our Lady, and others. Heaven is vast, with mountains and streams and rooms, gathering places and places of solitude where souls absorb and learn from Jesus, festivals of celebration, and meetings where saints strategize about how best to usher in the renewal of the world and the return of Christ as King. “Jesus said that we live in an age of disobedience, which means that many souls are living in rebellion to God’s will. He says that we are moving out of this time, toward an age of obedience, when most souls will live in unity with God’s will. The time we are in now is a transition period.” It’s pretty heady stuff, exciting, astonishing — maybe even genuine and not just Anne’s own personal excursion into a creative writing project that got out of control … maybe!
So I returned to Google. Hmmm… “Claims of Private Revelation: True or False? An Evaluation of the messages to ‘Anne,’ a lay apostle” sounds possibly useful. Someone by the name of Ronald L. Conte Jr (his CV, of sorts, here) concludes that Anne’s messages are the genuine deal, to wit:
These messages do not contain any of the characteristics of false private revelation. In truth, they show every indication of being true private revelations from God. These messages are entirely in keeping with the messages found in the Gospel. In my humble and pious opinion as a faithful Roman Catholic theologian, the claims of private revelation to Anne, a wife, mother, and lay apostle, are reliable and trustworthy.
Hmm … side trip to his blog … whoa … okay, whacky, but … interesting. Back to Google and Anne. Okay. Here’s something. Semper Fi Catholic’s Letter to Anne’s Bishop. One a them wacky* forums you find on all sorts of topics. This one is an exchange wherein Anne’s real identity is supposedly revealed, someone provides a link to private emails someone else dug up between Anne and someone she was counseling to divorce her husband in 2001, etc. Supposedly this demonstrates that Anne is a fraud, etc. Oh boy. But I’m still leaning towards accepting Anne as the real McCoy.
Discuss.
* Or perhaps not so wacky; see comments below. And why did I spell it “whacky” just a few lines earlier, but “wacky” here? Speak to me, O Spellcheck. “Whack!”
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