Thursday, February 03, 2011
What I Keep Coming Back To
Mahler's Ruckert Lieder, the Cowper Madonna, Brideshead Revisited, Elgar's Dream of Gerontius, my sixteen year old daughter playing Chopin, T.S.Eliot's Four Quartets, red wine at nine, fresh bread in the morning, Therese of Lisieux, a brown lab and a black lab who greet me all a-wagging, my wife tired but happy, my Volvo motorcar, Dame Janet Baker in song, my fourteen year old son serving at the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, Mendlessohn's Elijah, Dante, George Herbert, my twelve year old son beating me at chess, roses, Beethoven's string quartets, the Rule of St Benedict, Compline sung by the monks of Quarr, my eighteen year old son running cross country with the wind in his face, my Honda motorcycle, swimming at six in summer, Brahms, memories of England better more than worse, Oxford and Rome.
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9 comments:
What model Honda you got Father? That's great. I'm with Team Green - Kawasaki. Keep it upright...
'... A man may better beeleeve there is no such man as himself, and that he is not in being, then that here is no God: for himself can cease to be, and once was not, and shall be changed from what he is, and in very many periods of his life knowes not that he is; and so it is every night with him when he sleeps: but none of these can happen to God; and if he knowes it not, he is a fool. Can any thing in this world be more more foolish then to think that all this rare fabrick of heaven and earth can come by chance, when all the skill of art is not able to make an Oyster? To see rare effects and no cause; an excellent government and no Prince; a motion without an immovable,; a circle without a centre; a time without eternity; a second without a first; a thing that begins not from it self, and therefore not to perceive there is something from whence it does begin, which must be without beginning; these things are so against Philosophy, and naturall reason, that he must needs be a beast in his understanding that does not assent to them. This is the Atheist: 'the fool hath said in his heart there is no God.' That's his character: the thing framed saies that nothing framed it; the tongue never made it self to speak, and yet talks against him that did; saying, that which is made, 'is', and that which made it, 'is not'. But this folly is an infinite hell, as much without light or bound, as the Chaos or the primitive nothing.' [...]
-Revd Jeremy Taylor, Chaplain to the martyr King Charles I of Scotland and England.
Life is good when recognized as flowing from our great God, and by the mercies of our Lord and Saviour Jesus christ and the prayers of His Holy Mother.
Mahler's Kindertotenlieder has been mentioned at two blogs in two weeks. I'll have to pay it some attention.
Wow! I keep coming back to some of the same works of art or variations. Mahler's Ruckert Lieder instead of Kindertoten, Frederica von Stade instead of Janet Baker, Beethoven's Third, Fifth and Seventh symphonies instead of string quartets, a Westie and a Norwich terrier instead of labs--but Brideshead; Gerontius, Eliot, red wine at nine (Pinot Noir?), Dante, Herbert . . . all sound great!
I meant Ruckert Lieder.
This made me very happy :)
praise God from whom all blessings flow...!
Thanks for sharing who you are, Fr. Dwight, and for sharing your life with us.
May the Lord continually bless you and keep you and your family always in His love and care!
'But the Devill hath infinitely prevail'd in a thing that is almost as senseless and ignorant as Atheisme, and that is idolatry; not only making god after mans image, but in the likenesse of a calf, of a cat, or a serpent; making men such fools as to worship a quartan ague*, fire and water, onions and sheep. This is the skill man learned, and the Philosphy he is taught by beeleeving the Devil. what wisedome can there be in any man, that cals good evill, and evill good; to say fire is cold, and the Sun black, that fornication can make a man happy, or drunkenesse can make him wise? And this is the state of a sinnerr, of every one that delights in iniquity; he cannot be pleased with it if he thinks it evill; he cannot endure it, without beeleeving this proposition, THAT THERE IS IN DRUNKENESSE, OR LUST, PLEASURE ENOUGH, GOOD ENOUGH TO MAKE HIM AMENDS FOR THE INTOLERABLE PAINS OF DAMNATION.'
-Revd Jeremy Taylor, XXV Sermons, 1653 A.D., p.262
Say as per usual the Padre's righteous calls to repentance and renewal have been said many times before- and note Revd. Taylor was very much an Anglican High Churchman, a veritible crypto-'papist', not as one today might suppose a dissenting hellfire and damnation disestablished 'preacher'.
We should all pray for good Priests like Father Longenecker and those in the Roman Church who do 'beeleeve' in true historic Apostolic Christianity and all the ramifications thereof.
They are most remiss in their duties if they do not TELL THE TRUTH OF THE GOSPEL. They know this and get flak from every quarter because of their stubborn refusal to compromise the Truth and even think of being complicit with the 'evil one'.
*'quatran ague' I take as a euphemism of 'greek fire' not unlike the original prophet Jeremiah's description of 'sticks and stones'as an analogy for the utensils of ancient libidinal cults.
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