Steyn, Spong, Kempton, and the Passion of the Christ 2021

 Where were you on February 25th, 2004?  Well, we might not remember the exact date, but most of us (except the youngsters) will remember the event.  On this date seventeen years ago Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ was released. That year Ash Wednesday fell on the 25th of February, and Gibson intentionally timed the release of his film, a cinematic depiction of the last 24 hours of the human life of Jesus, to coincide with the beginning of Lent.

     It's hard to overstate the impact the film made at the time.  It remained the largest grossing non - English Language film of all time (all the dialogue was in Aramaic and Latin) until 2017, when it was overtaken by something called Wolf Warrior 2 (your guess is as good as mine).  It sparked quite a bit of controversy, as well as some substantial discussion . . . [click HERE to continue reading this post on Spes in Domino]

Allegri’s Miserere- Music for the First Monday in Lent

"The Repentance of King David,"
C. 1650, artist unknown

 One of the best known of Lenten musical compositions today is the setting Gregorio Allegri composed some time in the 1630’s for Psalm 51.  The piece is known as the Miserere (i.e., “Have mercy”) from it’s first word in Latin.  Allegri composed it specifically for use in Tenebrae services in the Vatican’s Sistine Chapel.

     And in the Sistine Chapel it stayed, for almost a century and a half.  The Popes did not allow transcriptions of Allegri’s mezmerizing composition to be made, and only three authorized versions were given away to private individuals (to Holy Roman Emperor Leopold I, to King John V of Portugal, and to the musically gifted Franciscan Giovanni Battista Martini).  

     That all changed when a 14 year old visitor to Rome named Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart heard the Miserere sung in the Sistine Chapel.  He listened closely and, when he went back to his room, he wrote down the music from memory . . .  [to hear Allegri's Miserere and read the rest of the post click HERE]

The Christian Cannot Live Without The Eucharist

 Babies need to be touched. They need human touch not just for their general emotional well-being, but in some very specific, measurable ways. There is good evidence that sufficient physical contact with another human being is necessary for proper brain development [see here and here, for instance].  

  We need the Second Person of the Holy Trinity to become man so that we can look on the Face of our Creator (St. Paul calls him “the image of the invisible God”, Colossians 1:15).

     Less publicity has been given to the fact that contact, including physical contact, with other human beings continues to be important as we grow older. One study shows that Professional basketball teams “whose players touch each other more often win more games.” Another demonstrates that “those who had more hugs had a better immune response to the cold virus”. I could go on, but you get the idea: touching other human beings is essential for human flourishing.  

      It’s often the way that modern science breathlessly discovers what people have known all along.  The Church has always known that we’re both spiritual and physical, and need each other not just to “be there”, but literally to be there: that’s why the Church is an ecclesia, from the Greek ἐκκλησία, an assembly of the people.  We need to believe and worship in the company of other people.  We need physical means like the sacraments to fully experience God’s grace.  We need the Second Person of the Holy Trinity to become man so that we can look on the Face of our Creator (St. Paul calls him “the image of the invisible God”, Colossians 1:15). We need the Eucharist.

     [Click HERE to continue reading this article on Spes in Domino]

What's Up With Chocolate and Lent?

       The last thing we need is conflicting messages, don't you think? Especially when it concerns the State of our Souls.  Imagine my dismay, then, when I came across two different signs at two different churches telling me to do opposite things to observe Lent. What's up with that?

    I first published this Throwback Thursday Blast From The Past on March 6th 2016.

To Give It Up Or Not . . .  

 

   What’s up with the chocolate?  As I was driving home from work last week I passed a church with a signboard out front that said, “Lent: Give Up Chocolate, Not Hope.”  I kept thinking about it all the way home, both because I think the folks who put up the sign were trying to make an important point, but also because they were (inadvertently, no doubt) undercutting their message at the same time (I'll explain how below).  I had decided to write about it, and took a picture of the sign on my way to an event at another church (neither was my parish church).  When I got to the second church, as I was running through my thoughts on the first sign, I saw another sign, or really a notice on a bulletin board in the hallway: “Don’t Give Up Chocolate For Lent.”  Hmmm . . . one tells me to give up chocolate, the other says the opposite. Well now, should I or shouldn't I? What's a Good Christian to do . . . ? [Click HERE to read the whole post on Spes in Domino]

Ash Wednesday and Valentine’s Day – Fruit of the Same Tree

The pink Valentine clutter has not yet completely abandoned the shelves of retailers, as we’re just three days past the feast of the most well-known of unknown saints, and yet today we put on ashes and the purple of Lent. Whether by chance or design St. Valentine’s Day and Ash Wednesday often find themselves in close proximity. A few years ago when the two apparently contrary feasts occupied the same day, I saw a post on a certain social media network (which I refuse to name, as I have since renounced it and all its works and empty promises) that caused me to stop and think about the connection between the two . . . [Click HERE to read the entire post at Spes in Domino]

"Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring", by J.S. Bach

 I absolutely love J.S. Bach’s Joy-filled celebration of Jesus Christ’s love for humanity, “Jesu Joy of Man’s Desiring”.  Ash Wednesday is just two days away, so this is my last opportunity to get it in as a Music Monday selection before Lent . . . 

[Post and video HERE at Spes in Domino] 

St. Valentine, Patron of Agape

 A Cloud of Witnesses

      The Letter to the Hebrews tells us that we live out our life of faith here on earth in view of a “cloud of witnesses” (Hebrews 12:1), which is to say our holy predecessors. They watch over us from before the Throne of God, where they cheer us on and intercede on our behalf.  At the time the letter was written, all these witnesses were holy men and women from Old Testament times, but that cloud has been expanding constantly over the centuries since to include countless Christian Saints. They are truly our witnesses before God, and also our examples, heroes who show us the path to follow.

     Speaking for myself, one of the unintended rewards of dabbling in bloggery over the past few years is that, in researching and writing blog posts on many of these saints, I’ve come to know them so much better. I’ve come to a deeper appreciation of famous heroes of the faith whom I thought I already knew, such as St. Joseph and St. Therese of Lisieux. I’ve also come to know many more obscure saints, some of whom I had never heard of before: St. Peregrinus and St. Mellitus are just two examples. Today, however, we have the curious case of a saint who somehow manages to fall into both of these categories. He is universally “known”, at least insofar as his name is a household word, even among non-Catholics, and in fact among non-Christians.  At the same time, a great many people don’t even know they’re speaking the name of a Christian saint, and those who do know it know almost nothing about the man himself, or even whether he was one man, or two . . . 

[Click HERE to continue reading on Spes in Domino]

A Smaller, Purer Church?

 "It seems a good time to take a break from all the culture war stuff."  So I said in the introduction to my last post.  The Lord knows we could all use a break, and yet the hits keep on coming, don't they? Well, as that witty old atheist Leon Trotsky might have said, "You may not be interested in the Culture War, but the Culture War is interested in you".  The forces pushing culture war don't seem to feel the need for a break at all, and they're coming right at us.

     But the Culture War, you might recall, is only one front in the larger war.  In some earlier posts (here and here) I used the image of a pyramid to illustrate the different levels upon which our society is built, with politics the top (and least important), with culture underlying politics, and religion as the bottom level, the basis for the whole structure. I've touched previously on the political and cultural fronts of the war (which is, at root, a spiritual conflict); today we're going to look at the religious front . . .

[click here to continue reading at Spes in Domino]