Sunny Weekend

I hiked seven miles barefoot on Saturday. I didn't want to get my shoes dirty, and I wanted to be able to cross streams, plus one of my goals is to toughen my feet for barefoot walking. It was very warm and sunny. The recent floods caused the streams to overflow their banks, washing away the leafmould, leaving banks of sand and tufts of bright moss and Christmas fern under the dappled canopy. Never did the woods look so clean.

I passed a number of people in the trails: groups of laughing young college lads, late-twenty-something couples with their dogs, middle-aged men with a teenaged daughter or two. I glanced up to see one of the college lads had left behind his friends and was standing atop a bank watching me. He was excited to see how my feet were doing. I was excited to see he was wearing the same barefoot shoes I have. We talked about it for a bit.

 This morning I tried praying the Little Office of the BVM in Latin. It took me 50 minutes to recite Matins and Lauds. I thought I was familiar enough with the English to glean the sense of the Latin, but I spent considerable time consulting the English text again. By the end my mouth was sore, my throat was dry, and my tongue was twisted. I admire the monks who prayed this whole Office in addition to the Divine Office.

This afternoon I went for a run, but my feet were sore from yesterday's hike. I walked to the library and read from an essay by Walter Pater, interrupted by an invitation from Dad to join him for dinner.

My sister and Lucy sat by me while I nailed all the loose nails back in my dad's deck. Lucy liked to watch the hammer. My sister and I talked for a long time, even continuing along the whole walk down to the creek through the woods, trailing behind my dad and Bryan and the dogs. The dogs loved fetching sticks from the creek, not just Dad's dogs that do it every day, but my sister's dogs too. I carried Lucy back up the dirt road to the house. Earlier she was playful, laughing and kicking and making babbles. I noticed in the woods and at he creek she got very quiet and still, and her eyes were as if in a trance. It really did seem as if she were in contemplation.

Dad's two friends had the food almost ready when we got back. It turned out the horse I couldn't find had been dead for a month. Lightning struck the barn during the bad storms and Uncle Steve found her dead on the barn floor the next day. We had huge ribeye steaks.

The Wreck of the Deutschland

These past few weeks are the first time I've paid much attention to this poem by Fr. Hopkins. In spite of the glaring mispelling of Gerard's name, I really like this performance I found on Youtube:

Being a Man of Goodwill

We are about to put the Gloria away for Lent. I was thinking about the line from it, peace to men of goodwill (St. Luke 2:14). What is a man of goodwill? Am I a man of goodwill?

I thought of two definitions of a man of goodwill:

A negative/small definition. A man of goodwill is one who forgives, who lets go of grudges and aversions.

A positive/broad definition. A man of goodwill is one who sympathizes with the good and aims to bring it to fruition.

Just as it's easier to tear something apart than to put something together, so also any man can condemn what is bad, but it takes a man of higher virtue to sympathize with the good. That is why we love to be around optimists so much, even if they sometimes overlook aspects of reality. They show in themselves a rising above our natural inclination, which is to see the bad first. And this is why the law needs a presumption of innocence, and gossip is so pernicious, because our native tendency is to more readily believe the evil story than the good. But this doesn't have to be so.

God sympathizes with the good in us more than He condemns the bad; this imbalance manifests itself in Grace. God tips the balance in favor of the good, because He wants to help us please Him. So, I think a man of goodwill is like God; he treats his fellow-man graciously, sympathizing with the good in him and helping to bring it about.

In this case, I know that I'm not always a man of goodwill. But I aspire to be one, and I must begin by treating others as God has treated me.  I must sympathize with the good, and aim that it should flourish.

Early Music VI: Cat's Fugue

Domenico Scarlatti, Fuga (K. 30)
Toyohiko Satoh, Lute

This fugue in g minor is popularly known as the Cat Fugue, though Scarlatti did not use this name.

Child in the Manger

It's set to the Gaelic tune Bunesson (the same one used with "Morning Has Broken").

Child in the manger, Infant of Mary,
Outcast and Stranger, Lord of all,
Child Who inherits all our transgressions,
All our demerits on Him fall.

Once the most holy Child of salvation
Gently and lowly lived below.
Now as our glorious mighty Redeemer,
See Him victorious o’er each foe.

Prophets foretold Him, Infant of wonder;
Angels behold Him on His throne.
Worthy our Savior of all our praises;
Happy forever are His own.

The Manly Beauty of Robert Bridges

I have to admit I didn't like Robert Bridges much formerly. I didn't care much for his poetry, though it has warmed on me some, and I thought he was too severe to and unappreciative of his friend Gerard Manley Hopkins. The truth is, though, that none of us would know about Hopkins if it weren't for Bridges. And, if we look beneath the manly exterior and mannerisms, Bridges is found out to be quite a shy and sensitive person himself, which explains some of his coolness. Hopkins biographer Robert Bernard Martin suggests that one reason Bridges kept Hopkins' poetry a private for so long was that he was afraid that it wouldn't be appreciated.

On the other hand, I have a little bit of an infatuation for Bridges' beard. Perhaps the most viral thing I ever posted on Tumblr was a photo of Robert Bridges, which was ping-ponged among beard blogs for weeks thereafter. It seems that not only us, but the Oxford guys of Bridges' day were taken by his manly beauty. This is how Martin describes it:

'His extraordinary personal charm ... lay in the transparent sincerity with which every word and motion expressed the whole of his character, its greatness and its scarcely less memorable littleness.' Behind the physical presence 'was always visible the strength of a towering and many-sided nature, at once aristocratic and unconventional, virile and affectionate, fearlessly inquiring and profoundly religious. 

A photograph of Bridges taken a decade after he first met Hopkins shows a face that one might expect of an athlete who had neglected to take care of himself: heavy, mustachioed, looking as if he were more interested in beer and bulldogs than in poetry. But the testimony of those who knew him is of someone who looked very different. Two of his friends, who were probably not unusually affected by good looks in other men, recorded that they could hardly take their eyes off him and thought him 'the possessor of the most beautiful face ever seen in a man'. (Gerard Manley Hopkins: A Very Private Life, p. 60, emphasis original)

Life Update

This weekend I've been taking care of my dad's dogs while he's down in Key West. Actually, he has been gone since Wednesday, and I've been in the office by myself. It was too wet and cold for the other guys to work, so they hung around the shop most of the week, doing odd jobs and stopping in to talk. My dad's dog Fancy did not like me for a long time, but now that I've been feeding her for the past few days, she's starting to warm up to me. Now she follows me at my side wherever I go, and whines when I leave.

I helped host a bonfire at our lake house last night. It was one of the most well-attended young adults group social events we've had so far. We had five Christmas trees to burn. The flames were huge. There were some new faces as well. It was very windy and cold at the lake, though, and the recent rains meant that the water was up higher than normal, making for less space for a fire.

My niece is crawling all over the place now. She even climbs up on things and stands on her own for a second or so before falling. When I left, I kept saying "bye bye" and she kept saying "bye." But my sister assured me she is not using words, that it was just a sound she always makes. Yet, I never noticed her make that sound until I started saying bye.

A couple at my parish invited me over for dinner this weekend. They cooked an amazing chicken stew. Apparently, the key ingredient was anchovies. It had so much flavor. I ended up staying for a long time, in spite of my oppressive shyness. We had a lot in common.

I think I'm getting a cold. I'm over at my mom's house and about to take a nice hot bath with peppermint bath salts and continue my Hopkins reading.

Beautiful Sunday Hymn

Last Sunday, the Benedictine monks sang this hymn at morning prayer, accompanied by organ, and I found it so beautiful. Since then I looked but couldn't find it online anywhere, and the book it is in seems to be out of print. My friend sent me an image of the song, which I reconstructed using Noteflight. I also exported a simple audio file of the melody, embedded below.

Four Books on GMH

Thanks to AbeBooks and Christmases, I've got four books on Gerard Manley Hopkins.

The first I read (5 years ago as a library book) was Gerard Manley Hopkins: A Very Private Life, by Robert Bernard Martin, professor emeritus of English at Princeton.

This is a very comprehensive biography (~ 420 pages), giving special interest especially to Hopkins' early years. The style is more direct than the one below. If it errs, I think it errs on the side of presenting Hopkins as a genius driven to insanity by his repressed homosexuality in conflict with his (self-imposed) religion and strict life as a Jesuit. Martin had access to the unpublished portions of Hopkins' diaries, which apparently proves his points.

The next I read (3 years ago) is Gerard Manley Hopkins: A Life, by Paul Mariani, chair in English at Boston College. Another comprehensive book (~ 430 pages) in a more lyrical style, placing more interest in Hopkins' life post-conversion. If it errs, I think it errs on the side of hagiography. Mariani's son is himself a Jesuit. I think Mariani paints a more accurate image of what led Hopkins to become a Catholic and a Jesuit, though his portrayal of what led Hopkins to the brink of despair and suicide is less convincing.

The next is In Extremity, by John Robinson. I haven't read much from this one yet. It is not a comprehensive biography, though it does touch on biographical elements in close-to chronological order. It is a more in-depth analysis of the poetry, as far as I can see. From what I gleaned, the thesis of the book is that Hopkins lived his life intentionally "in extremity." 

The last, not a biography, but a historical fiction novel featuring Hopkins as a main character, is Exiles, by Ron Hansen. I've read about a third of it. Though the dialogue and details had to be invented, they seem closely tied to real events in Hopkins' life, or things he wrote in his journals, or things other people wrote about him. It covers the period of Hopkins' life when he came out of poetic silence by writing The Wreck of the Deutschland, providing the backstories of the nuns who were drowned in the shipwreck.

Thoughts and Notes on the Rule of St. Benedict

The retreat I went on last weekend was on humility, as St. Benedict presents it in his Rule. One comment a monk made, which I found very interesting, is that St. Benedict never uses the word "wisdom" in the Rule, but he always uses "humility" as basically a synonym for wisdom. For St. Benedict, humility is the root of all virtue, the root of all knowledge, the root of all healthy relationships, including our relationships with God and ourselves. In a way, humility is wisdom, though this was a wisdom that needed to be revealed by God, who took on the greatest humility possible. Such wisdom is not the wisdom of natural man; indeed, it appears like foolishness to him.

Another point that I got from the retreat was that the most effective way of growing in humility is by being humiliated (and this, the Abbot demonstrated by Mother Teresa's example). We should not actively seek out humiliation, or humiliate ourselves purposely, but when humiliation comes (and it inevitably will), this is the time to grow in humility.

Since the retreat, I have been reading over the Rule, reading other sections besides the one on humility. What strikes me with the rule is its extreme practicality, and its deep understanding of human nature. The essence of the rule is that it is not good to go alone, because we do not know what is good for ourselves, or, even when we do, were are not effective at carrying it out. It is better to be under someone, than to govern ourselves. Human nature is broken, and we are prone to weakness, contradictions, mistakes, and we need an environment that cultivates in us our best qualities so that we can become the persons God wills us to be. And this is what the Rule is for, for the creating of such an environment.

I am also struck by how "modern" the Rule is. We are entering a new Dark Age, where the very foundations of our civilization are crumbling, and every man is retreating to his own quarters and his own way of doing things, a (sub)urban feudalism, though this is masked by the pseudo-connectivity of the digital age. We need the wisdom of St. Benedict more than ever, that intentional community and friendships will form and carry our civilization forward to more happy and spiritually-thriving times. And, we need a new chivalry, a new class of men with a code of Christian honor, to rise to the needs of the poor and the weak, for we no longer can count on a government to provide these things, nor, sadly, our many broken families. These men must lay down their lives for Truth, as the knights of old, that it may everywhere be known and honored.

St. Benedict, pray for us.

O weary pilgrims, chanting of your woe

O WEARY pilgrims, chanting of your woe,
That turn your eyes to all the peaks that shine,
Hailing in each the citadel divine
The which ye thought to have enter'd long ago;
Until at length your feeble steps and slow
Falter upon the threshold of the shrine,
And your hearts overhurden'd doubt in fine
Whether it be Jerusalem or no:

Dishearten'd pilgrims, I am one of you;
For, having worshipp'd many a barren face,
I scarce now greet the goal I journey'd to:
I stand a pagan in the holy place;
Beneath the lamp of truth I am found untrue,
And question with the God that I embrace.

(Sonnet 23 from Robert Bridges' The Growth of Love)

Robert Bridges

Fr. Hopkins photo found: Amazing!

I have read about this photo and wanted to find it for a few years now, and have only been able to find small, grainy versions of it. Well, I now found a large, clearer print today. This is Fr. Hopkins in December 1883, age 39, just before moving to Ireland, which will be the darkest period of his life (he will there go to the brink of despair, and die five years later, though his last words will be whispering over and over "I am so happy. I am so happy").

I was struck by the account Paul Mariani gives of the event:

There is a photograph of Hopkins taken on the grounds late in December, with one of the ivy-laced main buildings as backdrop. Hopkins, in buttoned black soutane and biretta, looks very uncomfortable, his body imploding inward, as if he wished he were anywhere but here. 

[...]And so, on January 30, 1884, the University Senate votes to accept Hopkins, who in truth does not want the job, though he will of course in obedience do as he is bidden. Eyre for one knows just how disappointed Hopkins must be at having to leave Stonyhurst for Dublin, but there it is. Fiat, done, approved by his fellow Jesuits in England and Ireland and Rome. Ah well, Eyre writes Purbrick just after Hopkins has packed his things and left for Ireland. In poor Father Hopkins "we had a man of fine classical learning and perhaps overly gentle teaching methods." And some - who will go unnamed - having "stoned the prophet," will now "want to build him a monument!"

Seated on right.

Strange, his right eye looks darker than it should be, almost like a black eye. Photo defect, perhaps?

More from St. Benedict's Abbey (Tour of Sacristy and Chapels)

Here are some more photos from the Abbey:

Prayer "before Mass" in the Sacristy. It reads, "Give virtue to my hands, O Lord, that being cleansed from all stain I might serve you with purity of mind and body."

Father Abbot's miter.

You'll never guess what happened to this monstrance. It was mauled by a she-bear on a remote slope in Colorado.

St. Benedict's church, the original church of the monastery before the new one was built. Has a beautiful high altar with baldacchino and perpetual adoration.

Chapel of Our Lady of Guadalupe in the crypt of the Abbey church. There are about a dozen or more side altars for the days when each priest celebrated low Mass, before concelebration was permitted.

Gold stoles from the abbot's pontifical vestment sets.

St. Scholastica chapel. Still has the altar cards from the old days. Strange but pretty stained glass.

Glimpses of a Monastery

I awoke at 4:45 this morning, a good two hours before sunrise, and to a cold still air outside of -4 degrees. Br. Placidus drove me to the airport in Kansas City. I took some photos this weekend during retreat downtime and monastery tours. Here's a few I've uploaded this afternoon.

Missouri River as viewed from St. Benedict's Abbey in Atchison, Kansas. 

Guest house and monastery.

Monastery at dawn after a night of snow.

My guesthouse room after Compline.

Guesthouse room desk.

Snowy morning after Mass.

Satire III

For Christmas my mom gave me an audio CD of John Donne's poetry (a great way to learn it!), to which I've been listening going to and from work lately. I love this poem.

Satire III
by John Donne

Kind pity chokes my spleen; brave scorn forbids
Those tears to issue which swell my eyelids;
I must not laugh, nor weep sins and be wise;
Can railing, then, cure these worn maladies?
Is not our mistress, fair Religion,
As worthy of all our souls' devotion
As virtue was in the first blinded age?
Are not heaven's joys as valiant to assuage
Lusts, as earth's honour was to them? Alas,
As we do them in means, shall they surpass
Us in the end? and shall thy father's spirit
Meet blind philosophers in heaven, whose merit
Of strict life may be imputed faith, and hear
Thee, whom he taught so easy ways and near
To follow, damn'd? Oh, if thou dar'st, fear this;
This fear great courage and high valour is.
Dar'st thou aid mutinous Dutch, and dar'st thou lay
Thee in ships' wooden sepulchres, a prey
To leaders' rage, to storms, to shot, to dearth?
Dar'st thou dive seas, and dungeons of the earth?
Hast thou courageous fire to thaw the ice
Of frozen North discoveries? and thrice
Colder than salamanders, like divine
Children in th' oven, fires of Spain and the Line,
Whose countries limbecs to our bodies be,
Canst thou for gain bear? and must every he
Which cries not, "Goddess," to thy mistress, draw
Or eat thy poisonous words? Courage of straw!
O desperate coward, wilt thou seem bold, and
To thy foes and his, who made thee to stand
Sentinel in his world's garrison, thus yield,
And for forbidden wars leave th' appointed field?
Know thy foes: the foul devil, whom thou
Strivest to please, for hate, not love, would allow
Thee fain his whole realm to be quit; and as
The world's all parts wither away and pass,
So the world's self, thy other lov'd foe, is
In her decrepit wane, and thou loving this,
Dost love a wither'd and worn strumpet; last,
Flesh (itself's death) and joys which flesh can taste,
Thou lovest, and thy fair goodly soul, which doth
Give this flesh power to taste joy, thou dost loathe.
Seek true religion. O where? Mirreus,
Thinking her unhous'd here, and fled from us,
Seeks her at Rome; there, because he doth know
That she was there a thousand years ago,
He loves her rags so, as we here obey
The statecloth where the prince sate yesterday.
Crantz to such brave loves will not be enthrall'd,
But loves her only, who at Geneva is call'd
Religion, plain, simple, sullen, young,
Contemptuous, yet unhandsome; as among
Lecherous humours, there is one that judges
No wenches wholesome, but coarse country drudges.
Graius stays still at home here, and because
Some preachers, vile ambitious bawds, and laws,
Still new like fashions, bid him think that she
Which dwells with us is only perfect, he
Embraceth her whom his godfathers will
Tender to him, being tender, as wards still
Take such wives as their guardians offer, or
Pay values. Careless Phrygius doth abhor
All, because all cannot be good, as one
Knowing some women whores, dares marry none.
Graccus loves all as one, and thinks that so
As women do in divers countries go
In divers habits, yet are still one kind,
So doth, so is Religion; and this blind-
ness too much light breeds; but unmoved, thou
Of force must one, and forc'd, but one allow,
And the right; ask thy father which is she,
Let him ask his; though truth and falsehood be
Near twins, yet truth a little elder is;
Be busy to seek her; believe me this,
He's not of none, nor worst, that seeks the best.
To adore, or scorn an image, or protest,
May all be bad; doubt wisely; in strange way
To stand inquiring right, is not to stray;
To sleep, or run wrong, is. On a huge hill,
Cragged and steep, Truth stands, and he that will
Reach her, about must and about must go,
And what the hill's suddenness resists, win so.
Yet strive so that before age, death's twilight,
Thy soul rest, for none can work in that night.
To will implies delay, therefore now do;
Hard deeds, the body's pains; hard knowledge too
The mind's endeavours reach, and mysteries
Are like the sun, dazzling, yet plain to all eyes.
Keep the truth which thou hast found; men do not stand
In so ill case, that God hath with his hand
Sign'd kings' blank charters to kill whom they hate;
Nor are they vicars, but hangmen to fate.
Fool and wretch, wilt thou let thy soul be tied
To man's laws, by which she shall not be tried
At the last day? Oh, will it then boot thee
To say a Philip, or a Gregory,
A Harry, or a Martin, taught thee this?
Is not this excuse for mere contraries
Equally strong? Cannot both sides say so?
That thou mayest rightly obey power, her bounds know;
Those past, her nature and name is chang'd; to be
Then humble to her is idolatry.
As streams are, power is; those blest flowers that dwell
At the rough stream's calm head, thrive and do well,
But having left their roots, and themselves given
To the stream's tyrannous rage, alas, are driven
Through mills, and rocks, and woods, and at last, almost
Consum'd in going, in the sea are lost.
So perish souls, which more choose men's unjust
Power from God claim'd, than God himself to trust.

Weekend Retreat

By time this (scheduled) post is posted, I should be starting a retreat I've gone to for the weekend (grateful to my father for the extended weekend!). I'll be with the Benedictines at St. Benedict's Abbey in Kansas (my first adventure to this State and to the Great Plains). The topic of the retreat is from the rule of St. Benedict. I'll be praying for all my friends and usuals, and hope you'll mention a prayer for me too. You needn't worry about me not returning; I just bought a new car on credit.

Early Music V: Private Performances

The problem with most recordings of the clavichord is that they treat it as an instrument for public performance. The result is a distant dinky noise that doesn't much merit being called music or art. No, the clavichord is an instrument for private performance, for the player and perhaps someone sitting alongside him. The clavichord developed primarily as a practice instrument for organists, which allowed them to play quietly in their homes, even at night while others were sleeping. That it was primarily a practice instrument for private purposes (with the exception of some larger later instruments) should not lead one to think any less of the instrument, for among the stringed keyboard instruments, nothing comes close to the clavichord in its sensitivity, intimacy, and expressiveness.

What I love about this performance of Padre Antonio Soler's concertos (on two clavichords!) is that, besides being an incredibly articulate interpretation, it also is one of the few that captures the clavichord at its best: how the player or his intimate companion hears it. Check it out.

Padre Antonio Soler, Concerto No. 1 in C major, for two keyboards

Bernard Brauchli and Esteban Elizondo, clavichords

"I did say yes," he would acknowledge, trembling at the memory of it, when "at lightning and lashed rod" God heard him, "truer than tongue, confess / Thy terror, O Christ, O God." But was that confession a cry of surrender, or the cry of someone unable any longer to hold back the stress of something surging through the very marrow of his soul? It would be the beginning too of his realization that he would have to give up remaining where he was, on ground he understood - the symbolic remembrance of Christ in the Eucharist - because that way of seeing things was no longer enough. He would come to hunger after nothing less than the Real Presence, God actually indwelling in things as simple as bread and wine, and see it as the logical extension of God's indwelling among us, pitching His tent in the desert of ourselves so that He could speak to us as He had with Moses in the tent.

Two look at the world around them. One thinks of oil or gold or another human being and puts a value on it or him or her. Another looks at the world and sees news of God's presence calling. Or two look at a piece of bread or a cup of wine and see bread or wine only - the quotidian, the physical thing itself, while another looks at the same two things and is shaken to the very core by the God-saturated reality brimming in the deepest self. And these ways of seeing come to make all the difference in one's life, one's thoughts, even in the way one comes to taste words.

And so with Hopkins, who for complex reasons needed, he felt, to become a Catholic and (better, worse) a Jesuit priest. Neither choice could possibly lead to preferment or even acceptance in his world, the world of late Victorian England. But they were - those choices - the logical outcome for him of much deep thinking and soul-searching. It would mean going counter to the secular and agnostic cutting-edge thinking of his own day, whether that thinker was Hegel or Lyell, Darwin or Freud. It would mean creating a radically new idiom that would lead to the renewal and possibilities of English, giving it back something of its original Anglo-Saxon force, besides recovering anew the all-but-forgotten beauties of plainchant. It would mean a poetry lettered and saturated with a language shimmering with the possibilities of a sacramental vision of the world around us. It would come to mean the possibility of actually renewing both the world and its words.

So give it a day, a date, a going forth, a crossing over, all in an instant, finally, a yes and a yes again. Call it Wednesday, July 18, 1866. Call it an out-of-the way point somewhere south of London and name it Horsham, on a dull midsummer's day with curds-and-whey clouds faintly appearing and disappearing. Call it what he would with its wondrous, irresistible forces working on him. The instress of it, like the ooze of virgin oil crushed in the presence of God's hands, an anointing, a yes.

(from Paul Mariani's Gerard Manley Hopkins: A Life. Such a wonderful book.)

La de Juigné

I've spent the last week immersed in Jacques Duphly's music. After a while, much of it sounds the same. I would not put him on a level of genius with a J.S. Bach. Yet, his music has a way of making a harpsichord sound fantastic. Duphly's genius is in making the most of the acoustic qualities of this instrument, bringing out its charms as well as its dark sides. One has the sense, almost, that the instrument was made to play his music, rather than the other way around.

Here's one piece as an example "La de Juigné". This one uses the Alberti bass (common also in Mozart's music).

Early Music IV: Jacques Duphly

Jacques Duphly (Du Phly), Allemande en ré mineur

One of the last great French harpsichordists, Duphly died the day after the storming of the Bastille.

Religious Orthodoxy in the Old South

I've continued reading the Southern essays by Richard Weaver. "The Older Religiousness in the South" has some interesting thoughts about religion in the South:

It is plain that just as there was much in the economic and social structure of the Old South to suggest Europe before the Great Plague and the peasant rebellions, so there was much in its religious attitude to recall the period before the Reformation. For although the South was heavily Protestant, its attitude toward religion was essentially the attitude of orthodoxy: it was a simple acceptance of a body of belief, an innocence of protest and schism by which religion was left one of the unquestioned and unquestionable supports of the general settlement under which men live. One might press the matter further and say that it was a doctrinal innocence, for the average Southern knew little and probably cared less about casuistical theology: what he recognized was the acknowledgement, the submissiveness of the will, and that general respect for order, natural and institutional, which is piety.

He takes some swipes at New England:

New England, acting out of that intellectual pride which has always characterized her people, allowed religion to become primarily a matter for analysis and debate, if we take here the point of view of the conservative religionist. Instead of insisting upon a simple grammar of assent, which a proper regard for the mysteries would dictate, they conceived it their duty to explore principles, and when they completed the exploration, they came out, not with a secured faith, but with an ethical philosophy, which illuminated much, but which had none of the binding power of the older creed.

There is also an essay that I would like to reflect on later, that treats the topic of what it means to be a gentleman. Weaver sets up the gentleman and the self-made man as antipodes, and associates the gentleman with the South and tradition/aristocracy, and the self-made man with the North and modernism/the bourgeoisie.

Icon of the Madonna and Child in a Hortus Conclusus

I found this Russian icon today. I love it. I don't know if this style of black icon has a name, but I've seen several like this that I love. Here's another:

Linen Stitch Scarf

I've been wanting to use the linen stitch ever since I first learned how to knit. I love the way it looks. It's kind of a hybrid of knitting and weaving. It's made by alternating knit stitches and slipped stitches, which causes the yarn to pass over and under knit stitches (hence the woven appearance). It's a great way to combine colors.

I learned a new way to do this stitch, which makes it really easy. You only need to work on the front side if you cut the yarn at the end of each row and go back to the beginning with a new end of yarn. This avoids the purl stitches that would have to be worked on the back side, which allows the knitting to go by really fast when using the Continental method. It also allows for a new color on each row, if desired. At the end, there are all these strands of yarn that can be twisted into tassels, as I did.

All rolled up.

It drapes really well. Click to zoom in on textures.

I used two really cheap cotton yarns (Peaches & Cream brand), in a coral color and a variegated green-blue-yellow. The scarf is 190 stitches long. The front and back sides have different textures. Unlike stockinette stitch, it doesn't curl, is less elastic, but holds its shape better. I think this stitch would also make a great blanket. It looks really girly, so I won't be wearing it unless I'm in my truck with boots, a black lab, and a shotgun. 

Customary Kisses (solita oscula)

If you like kisses, the Mass has unfortunately become much less interesting for you in the past hundred years. Yesterday, in search for an answer about the priest kissing the Sacred Host at Mass prior to the kiss of peace, I consulted a wonderful book called The Holy Mass by Dom Prosper Guéranger (1805-1875). The book has some great one-liners, all the better because he's entirely serious. For instance:

The Priest has yet two other Prayers to recite before the Communion. Those now found in the Missal are not very ancient; nevertheless, they are at least a thousand years old.

Not very ancient, but at least a thousand! Anyway, it turns out that, in the Mass of St. Pius V, the priest kisses the altar in front of the Sacred Host, rather than the Host itself.

Dom Prosper Guéranger

But the older form of the Mass is filled with many other kisses, called solita oscula. Pretty much every time the deacon gives or receives something from the celebrant, he kisses both the object and the hand of the celebrant. Adrian Fortescue, English Catholic priest and liturgist (1874-1923), who wrote Ceremonies of the Roman Rite Described, describes it thus:

The ceremonial kiss (osculum), which occurs frequently, should be made by merely touching the object with the closed lips. The rule is that every time anyone hands anything to the celebrant one kisses first the object, then the celebrant's hand. On taking things from the celebrant, first his hand, then the thing is kissed. But blessed candles and palms are kissed first when they are taken. When the Sanctissimum is exposed, only the kiss at the epistle, gospel, and for the chalice and paten remain. The thurible is then not kissed, nor the incense spoon. If the Ordinary assists at his throne the thurible is not kissed when handed to the celebrant, nor the incense spoon, nor the celebrant's hand at the epistle and gospel. At Masses for the dead and at funerals nothing is ever kissed.

Fortescue, however, is of the opinion that all this kissing is a little too florid for the austere Roman Rite, and hoped it would be reformed:

Two points occur which one might hope the authorities would simplify. One is the constant kissing. Certainly this is a very ancient sign of reverence; in some few cases, as, for instance, to kiss the hand of a bishop, no one would wish to see it abolished. But would not the actions gain in dignity if the endless kissing of objects and of the celebrant's hand by the deacon ceased? At such a simple action, so constantly repeated, as the deacon performs incensing, are eight "solita oscula." He has to kiss the spoon, the hand, the hand, the spoon; the thurible, the hand, the hand, the thurible. If only from the point of view of artistic effect these repeated inclinations of the head are not graceful. If all kissing were reduced to the chief cases of the paten and chalice and, at certain more important moments, of the hand of a bishop, the general effect of a ceremony would be calmer, and the osculum would become a more real sign of respect.

Fr. Adrian Fortescue

Personally, I've seen it in real life, and I kind of like the ceremonial kisses. They show a polite reverence for the office of the priest. Though, I will admit, kissing seems more in keeping with Latin or Oriental culture than Anglo-Protestant culture, which informs the American Catholic aesthetic.

You can see video footage of these kisses in the 1940 Easter Mass on YouTube:

Check out these times: 50:40, 51:18 - 51:40

Kissing the altar before the kiss of piece is at 1:05:26

Kissing the Sanctissimum

Today I was blessed to attend Mass for the Octave of Christmas at Blessed Sacrament Parish, one of Birmingham's ecclesiastical gems located on the west side. It was a low Mass in the Extraordinary Form. The dark Romanesque church was about half-full. I attended Mass there many Sundays when I lived in Birmingham. The priest offered confessions before and after Mass, and after the Leonine Prayers, we all sung the Veni Creator Spiritus for the plenary indulgence.

In the missal, I read the most beautiful thing. At the kiss of peace, there was a little note in the missal that said, in former times, the priest used to kiss the Sacred Host before the kiss of peace. In the solemn Masses I've attended, I noticed that the kiss of peace begins with the celebrant and deacon, then the deacon to subdeacon, and down from there. Thus, in former times, the kiss would have rather begun between the celebrant and the Sacred Host, and down to the deacon, etc.

I couldn't find an image of the priest kissing the Host, which makes sense if it is a more ancient practice. However, I found an image of the priest kissing the paten. I'm not sure if this is related: