Archive

Sep 28, 2024: Barzun, A Stroll with William James Anyone brought up in the Alps and taking trips among them knows that “a mountain” is never twice the same — in …

Sep 28, 2024: “Where the development of talent is concerned we are still in the food-gathering stage. We do not know how to grow it. Up to now in this country when …

Sep 27, 2024: Some of the authors at IWP Books: Walter Bagehot John Jay Chapman Erwin Chargaff G. Lowes Dickinson E. M. Forster Aldous Huxley Desmond MacCarthy …

Sep 26, 2024: Jacques Barzun on Science as a Side Issue

Sep 25, 2024: John Jay Chapman’s Two Prefaces to his book Practical Agitation (on X Spaces)

Sep 17, 2024: waisberg.micro.blog/2024/09/1…

Sep 14, 2024: // IWP Books

Sep 11, 2024: // IWP Books

Aug 13, 2024: // IWP Books

Aug 10, 2024: // IWP Books

Aug 8, 2024: // IWP Books

Aug 4, 2024: waisberg.micro.blog/2024/08/0…

Jul 29, 2024: // IWP Books

Jul 20, 2024: Aldous Huxley, on “the error of speaking about certain categories of persons as though they were mere embodied abstractions” (Words and Behavior): …

Jul 20, 2024: // IWP Books

Jul 18, 2024: // IWP Books

Jul 17, 2024: on A Word or Two Before I Go: Essays Then and Now & Some Unfinished Business: The Lives of F. Scott Fitzgerald by Arthur Krystal – On the Seawall

Jul 14, 2024: // IWP Books

Jul 13, 2024: x.com/ccitycath…

Jul 11, 2024: www.change.org/p/stop-th…

Jul 11, 2024: // IWP Books

Jul 9, 2024: // IWP Books

Jul 7, 2024: Thank you, Herman Wouk. x.com/LeoTheLes…

Jul 7, 2024: Anecdotal Evidence: ‘A Perpetual Fountain of Fun’

Jul 7, 2024: x.com/LeoTheLes…

Jul 5, 2024: The popular notion is that English prayer is a shattering heresy. Our common law [in Benedictions] allowed it two thousand years ago…. The …

Jul 4, 2024: // IWP Books

Jul 2, 2024: waisberg.micro.blog/2024/07/0…

Jul 2, 2024: x.com/LeoTheLes…

Jul 2, 2024: x.com/leotheles…

Jul 2, 2024: // IWP Books

Jun 27, 2024: // IWP Books

Jun 24, 2024: // IWP Books

Jun 23, 2024: // IWP Books

Jun 20, 2024: // IWP Books

Jun 20, 2024: waisberg.micro.blog/2024/06/2…

Jun 17, 2024: x.com/LeoTheLes…

Jun 17, 2024: // IWP Books

Jun 15, 2024: waisberg.micro.blog/2024/06/1…

Jun 15, 2024: // IWP Books

Jun 14, 2024: Neither dead nor dying. x.com/LeoTheLes…

Jun 14, 2024: Tolerance From E. M. Forster (1940/1951), “Tolerance” (Two Cheers for Democracy): “Tolerance, I believe, will be imperative after the establishment of …

Jun 14, 2024: They look to the future to realize themselves. —Lionel Trilling, 1951? x.com/LeoTheLes…

Jun 13, 2024: IWP Books

Jun 12, 2024: // IWP Books

Jun 9, 2024: // IWP Books

Jun 7, 2024: Mark Richardson, “John Jay Chapman: An Appreciation” (PDF) doshisha.repo.nii.ac.jp/record/27…

Jun 4, 2024: // IWP Books

Jun 2, 2024: waisberg.micro.blog/2024/06/0…

Jun 1, 2024: John Jay Chapman – the greatest and most neglected of American social critics (and not a member). —Hortense Calisher, in John Updike, ed., A Century …

Jun 1, 2024: Charles Scribner III, “Elisabeth Schwarzkopf: Confronting a Calumny” newcriterion.com/article/e…

May 26, 2024: Update: Aldous Huxley at IWP Books: 1923, On the Margin 1925, Along the Road 1926, Jesting Pilate 1927, Proper Studies 1929, Do What You Will 1930, …

May 21, 2024: // IWP Books

May 20, 2024: x.com/leotheles…

May 20, 2024: Overheard: Author & publisher, 1954 x.com/leotheles…

May 18, 2024: x.com/leotheles…

May 17, 2024: Aldous Huxley Interviewed by Mike Wallace. IWP Books https://waisberg.micro.blog/2024/05/16/aldous-huxley-interviewed.html

May 15, 2024: Thomas Mann 1948- www.instagram.com/p/B2Ijh-G…

May 14, 2024: x.com/leotheles…

May 14, 2024: More by Huxley at IWP Books: Grey Eminence (1941) and Themes & Variations (1950) IWP Books …

May 14, 2024: youtu.be/-JS7RIKSa…

May 8, 2024: x.com/wrathofgn…

May 6, 2024: New at IWP Books: Aldous Huxley, 1923, On the Margin. From the Essay on Pleasures: “We have heard a great deal, since 1914, about the things …

May 5, 2024: youtu.be/INMQ-MRZr…

May 3, 2024: Review of D. J. Taylor’s Who Is Big Brother? by Theodore Dalrymple. IWP Books https://waisberg.micro.blog/2024/05/03/review-of-d.html

May 3, 2024: New at IWP Books: Aldous Huxley, 1956, Adonis and the Alphabet. IWP Books https://waisberg.micro.blog/2024/05/02/new-at-iwp.html

Apr 29, 2024: New at IWP Books: Aldous Huxley, 1930, Music at Night. From the Essay on Foreheads Villainous Low: “If by some miracle the dreams of the …

Apr 27, 2024: New at IWP Books: Desmond MacCarthy, Shaw, 1951. From Jacques Barzun’s review of the book: “Desmond MacCarthy has not in this country the …

Apr 27, 2024: youtu.be/16KGORZ_X…

Apr 27, 2024: youtu.be/T3dtqbyCr…

Apr 24, 2024: New at IWP Books, Two by Bernard Shaw: On the Rocks (1934) and Geneva (1938). Jacques Barzun, From Dawn to Decadence: “In his last years, Shaw …

Apr 19, 2024: New at IWP Books: Desmond MacCarthy, Experience, 1935. Three Parts: Of Human Nature; During the War; Digressions of a Reviewer. From the Chapter on …

Apr 16, 2024: Mary Murphy Public Information The Story Behind the Storytelling Interview

Apr 16, 2024: Mary Murphy is one of Nine-to-Five

Apr 16, 2024: The Wolf Shall Dwell with the Lamb

Apr 15, 2024: Tonight: Stories from the Stage

Apr 15, 2024: Sleepless night (in Israel), some of the time working on: Desmond MacCarthy, Humanities, 1954. Now at IWP Books. Chapters on Ibsen, Chekhov, T. S. …

Apr 14, 2024: Gary Saul Morson, “Lucky Joe” [Joseph Epstein]

Apr 14, 2024: Tomorrow night: Mary Murphy

Apr 13, 2024: Joseph Shaw, Why Do Bishops Cover Up Sexual Abuse?

Apr 12, 2024: New at IWP Books: Desmond MacCarthy, Memories, 1953. Chapters on Lytton Strachey, Kipling, Maupassant, Leslie Stephen, Hardy, James Joyce, Landor, …

Apr 8, 2024: Who are your heroes? My Unholy Trinity has been Jesus, Galileo, and Oscar Wilde. Which living person do you most admire?. Among my personal friends, …

Apr 7, 2024: From John Jay Chapman, Letters and Religion New at IWP Books: John Jay Chapman, 1924, Letters and Religion. From the Book: On Horace “It is easier to imagine a substitute for telegraphy …

Apr 5, 2024: New at IWP Books: Desmond MacCarthy, Criticism, 1932. Chapters on Samuel Butler, George Santayana, Boswell, Literary Booms, Literary Snobs, James …

Apr 5, 2024: worldchannel.org/episode/s…

Apr 4, 2024: John Jay Chapman on Horace twitter.com/LeoTheLes…

Apr 2, 2024: Tyler Piccotti on Artemus Ward. Albert Jay Nock on Artemus Ward (1924) and on Artemus Ward’s America (1934). From 1924: “Ward is the property of …

Apr 2, 2024: For Patrick Kurp. New at IWP Books: Desmond MacCarthy, Portraits, 1931. Arthur Krystal (A Word or Two Before I Go, 2023): “Thirty years ago I …

Mar 28, 2024: New at IWP Books: Logan Pearsall Smith, All Trivia, 1933. Arthur Krystal (A Word or Two Before I Go, 2023) on L.P.S.: “Shoulders and elbows were …

Mar 25, 2024: New at IWP Books: Eugene and Roswell Martin Field, 1896, Echoes from the Sabine Farm IWP Books https://waisberg.micro.blog/2024/03/25/new-at-iwp.html

Mar 24, 2024: twitter.com/LeoTheLes…

Mar 23, 2024: Patrick Kurp on Franklin Pierce Adams. IWP Books https://waisberg.micro.blog/2024/03/23/patrick-kurp-on.html

Mar 20, 2024: F.P.A. at IWP Books (Update): Tobogganing on Parnassus (1911) In Other Words (1912) By and Large (1914) Weights & Measures (1917) Something …

Mar 20, 2024: The W-Word by Theodore Dalrymple. “The idea that the sex of a person is simply a matter of choice is a giant ideological lie.” IWP Books …

Mar 20, 2024: Hope for Harvard? by James Hankins. “Few indeed were left who had seen the republic.” IWP Books …

Mar 18, 2024: From F.P.A., the Life and Times of Franklin Pierce Adams by Sally Ashley (1986): “As the months passed, the top of Frank’s rolltop desk became …

Mar 14, 2024: Most of what we have we have received and not acquired.

Mar 14, 2024: Franklin P. Adams at IWP Books: Tobogganing on Parnassus (1911) By and Large (1914) Something Else Again (1920) IWP Books …

Mar 11, 2024: New in Books: Tobogganing on Parnassus, Franklin P. Adams, 1911. On F.P.A.: “In those days of wildly competing newspapers and hired girls, no New York …

Mar 7, 2024: New in Translations: My Head is in the Stars, by Quincy Bass, 1940. IWP Books https://waisberg.micro.blog/2024/03/06/new-in-translations.html

Mar 3, 2024: New in Translations: The Odes of Horace, Translated by Leonard Chalmers-Hunt, 1925. Chalmers-Hunt was one of the founders (in 1933), and the first …

Mar 3, 2024: I spent a few days at the British Library making copies of translations. The numbers in parenthesis show the number of translations added to each of …

Feb 26, 2024: Publication Date, 1483. IWP Books https://waisberg.micro.blog/2024/02/26/publication-date.html

Feb 25, 2024: New in Translations: Robert Louis Stevenson, 1916, An Ode of Horace IWP Books https://waisberg.micro.blog/2024/02/25/new-in-translations.html

Feb 23, 2024: New in Translations. As far as I can ascertain, these are not available elsewhere online: Gilbert F. Cunningham, 1935, Horace: An Essay and Some …

Feb 23, 2024: Patrick Kurp on Rudyard Kipling. IWP Books https://waisberg.micro.blog/2024/02/21/patrick-kurp-on.html

Feb 23, 2024: A Restoration of Vitality to American Institutions by Philip K. Howard IWP Books https://waisberg.micro.blog/2024/02/22/a-restoration-of.html

Feb 22, 2024: Finding God at the Rijksmuseum – William Kolbrener writingonthewall.io/finding-g…

Feb 18, 2024: IWP Books at The Horatian Socitey News Page. IWP Books https://waisberg.micro.blog/2024/02/17/iwp-books-at.html

Feb 16, 2024: New in Translations: John Conington, 1870, The Satires, Epistles, and Art of Poetry of Horace IWP Books …

Feb 10, 2024: From Alfred Noyes, Portrait of Horace: “It is strange to reflect that the thread of the life we have been considering was so closely interwoven …

Feb 8, 2024: New in Translations: Alfred Noyes, 1947, Portrait of Horace IWP Books https://waisberg.micro.blog/2024/02/08/new-in-translations.html

Feb 3, 2024: Collections of English Translations of the Odes. Update: One new collection, 75 new translations added to the others. 175 translations of Solvitur …

Feb 2, 2024: New in Translations: T. R. Glover, 1932, Horace: A Return to Allegiance New in Articles: Percy Lubbock, 1924, “A Lesson of Horace” IWP Books …

Feb 2, 2024: From T. R. Glover, 1932, Horace: A Return to Allegiance: “When Cervantes discusses Don Quixote with his friend in his sore need of introductory …

Jan 31, 2024: New at Translations: Ascott Robert Hope Moncrieff, 1926, Horace Up to Date George Meason & George Frisbie Whicher, 1912, On the Tibur Road New …

Jan 30, 2024: From Walter Bagehot’s “Béranger,” 1857: “The point in which Béranger most resembles Horace is that which is the most essential in the characters …

Jan 30, 2024: Walter Bagehot on Horace (From “Béranger,” 1857): “…the spirit of Horace is alive, and as potent as that of any man. His tone is that of prime …

Jan 30, 2024: Dorothy Sayers on John Milton’s Translation of Ad Pyrrham. IWP Books https://waisberg.micro.blog/2024/01/29/dorothy-sayers-on.html

Jan 26, 2024: By the time of his death in 1955, Sir Ronald Storrs had collected about 350 translations of the Ode to Pyrrha, including 150 to English, 54 to French, …

Jan 24, 2024: Remembering Nicholas Rescher, A Gentle Giant by John Haldane IWP Books https://waisberg.micro.blog/2024/01/24/remembering-nicholas-rescher.html

Jan 23, 2024: “This little collection is dedicated above all to those persons who have no system and belong to no party and are therefore still free to doubt …

Jan 23, 2024: The Humanity of Horace by Llewelyn Morgan. IWP Books https://waisberg.micro.blog/2024/01/22/the-humanity-of.html

Jan 22, 2024: Hod Hasharon, Israel, 2024 IWP Books https://waisberg.micro.blog/2024/01/22/hod-hasharon-israel.html

Jan 15, 2024: All the President’s Mien by Theodore Dalrymple. IWP Books https://waisberg.micro.blog/2024/01/15/all-the-presidents.html

Jan 10, 2024: Theodore Dalrymple on The Food Police. Jacques Barzun on Administering and the Law: “Administering as opposed to administration may be defined …

Jan 9, 2024: Patrick Kurp on Joseph Epstein IWP Books https://waisberg.micro.blog/2024/01/09/patrick-kurp-on.html

Jan 8, 2024: Collections of English Translations of the Odes. Update: 53 Translations Added! 172 translations of Solvitur Acris Hiems (Odes I.4) 218 translations …

Jan 3, 2024: Another year! – another deadly blow! Another mighty Empire overthrown! And We are left, or shall be left, alone; The last that dare to struggle with …

Jan 3, 2024: Broken Codes of Conduct by Theodore Dalrymple. IWP Books https://waisberg.micro.blog/2024/01/03/broken-codes-of.html

Dec 28, 2023: Books and gardens do not make a man immortal. —Newman

Dec 28, 2023: New Collection of Translations: 232 English Translations of Horace’s Persicos Odi (Odes I.38). Including Translations by: William Cowper, Hartley …

Dec 23, 2023: New Collection of Translations: 169 English Translations of Horace’s Solvitur Acris Hiems. IWP Books …

Dec 23, 2023: Collections of English Translations of the Odes (Updated): 169 translations of Solvitur Acris Hiems (Odes I.4) – NEW! 207 translations of Vides Ut …

Dec 18, 2023: A friend of ours who is not Catholic remarked that changing long-held religious beliefs makes it harder to believe, since what was once accepted as …

Dec 16, 2023: The great secret of reading the New Testament is to read it. —Margaret T. Monro, Enjoying the New Testament, p. 23

Dec 15, 2023: Those who receive the Body with unworthy dispositions have in store for them the same punishment as those who pierced it through with nails. —St. John …

Dec 15, 2023: The will is free but weak.

Dec 14, 2023: This present life is the time for penance and for the remission of sins; in the life to come, the just judgment of retribution will take place. —St. …

Dec 14, 2023: Who are you, shipwrecked man? Leontichus found My corpse on the shore and over it heaped this mound, Bewailing his own sad life, for neither is he At …

Dec 14, 2023: The best claim that a college education can possibly make on your respect, the best thing it can aspire to accomplish for you, is this: that it should …

Dec 12, 2023: New Collection of Translations: 202 English Translations of Horace’s Vides Ut Alta. IWP Books …

Dec 8, 2023: Wicked conversations corrupt good characters. —St. Cyrian Evil communications corrupt good manners. 1 Corinthians 15:33, Menander?, Euripides?

Dec 7, 2023: Sheep and Goats All the nations will be gathered…. Lord, when did we …. Lord, when did we …. Sc. 78, Matthew 25: 32, 37, 44 This must mean that …

Dec 6, 2023: Those who wish to proclaim the true Christ by word and example must expect to pay dearly for their profession of faith. —John A. Hardon, S.J., ed., …

Dec 5, 2023: The Christian way is not to make too much of attitude.

Dec 4, 2023: Oren Cahanovitc: Gabor Maté is wrong about Israel twice (Bad arguments and playing the ‘JEWish card’)

Dec 3, 2023: O Fountaine of Blandusia! thou dost shine, More clear then glasse, worthy of sweetest wine; —from Horace’s Fons Bandusiae: A Collection of …

Dec 3, 2023: There was no reply. A glance at the elderly gentleman sitting on the other side of the table told me plainly what he had in his mind; but as he was a highly paid master …

Dec 3, 2023: Collections of English Translations of the Odes (Updated): 211 translations of Carpe Diem (Odes I.11) 238 translations of Integer Vitae (Odes I.22) …

Dec 2, 2023: I propose for consideration the possibility that for the future of Christianity, the Jews are more important than the Greeks or the Romans.

Nov 27, 2023: The Popperian Podcast #29 – Rafe Champion – ‘Jacques Barzun’

Nov 26, 2023: Collections of English Translations of the Odes (Updated): 205 translations of Carpe Diem (Odes I.11) 232 translations of Integer Vitae (Odes I.22) …

Nov 25, 2023: New Collection of Translations: 168 English Translations of Horace’s Vitas Hinnuleo. IWP Books …

Nov 21, 2023: New Collection of Translations: 167 English Translations of Horace’s Eheu Fugaces. IWP Books …

Nov 20, 2023: Brightened my morning.

Nov 19, 2023: Oren Cahanovitc: The Ethnic Cleansing of Jews within Muslim Countries

Nov 18, 2023: Burckhardt on the uncertainty of events One great advantage of studying cultural history is the certainty if its more important facts, compared with those of history in the ordinary sense of …

Nov 17, 2023: Burckhardt: a personal possession of the past – in whatever shape or form I have done everything I possibly could to lead them on to acquire personal possession of the past – in whatever shap or form. I wanted then to be …

Nov 13, 2023: Martin Mosebach and Navid Kermani: “Of course religion is first and foremost a duty."

Nov 9, 2023: In religion, doubt is overrated.

Nov 8, 2023: Oren Cahanovitc, 7 Things pro-Palestinians Forgot to Tell You (…this war is not about land…)

Nov 7, 2023: 11/7/2023 Storytelling Night featuring Mary Murphy Live Stream

Nov 6, 2023: twitter.com/LeoTheLes…

Nov 6, 2023: Charles Scribner III, Scribners: Five Generations in Publishing

Nov 5, 2023: Going for a walk before Mass.

Nov 5, 2023: It seems that Hamas has more support in the West than in the Middle East.

Nov 4, 2023: Jorge H. Aigla, New definitions of worn-out words for the new age

Nov 3, 2023: Oren Cahanovitc: The Palestinian Refugee Problem Explained

Nov 3, 2023: Filipe Rafaeli, Chronicles of an Unvaccinated Leftist

Nov 2, 2023: To continue an injustice is to commit injustice. —Mommsen, quoted by Joseph Epstein, “Hail, Mommsen”

Nov 1, 2023: The bench, as well as the floor, is heated.

Nov 1, 2023: One ought to stress especially those historical realities from which threads run to our own period and culture. There are more of them than one would …

Nov 1, 2023: The Christian Bible includes the Old Testament and not the Koran.

Nov 1, 2023: Behind the Albany, NY, City Hall, Nov. 1, 2023. Haven’t been here in a while.

Nov 1, 2023: NYS Capitol, All Saints Day, 2023. A peace gathering occurs here on the 1st Wednesday of every month.

Nov 1, 2023: The Paternal State and Tyranny The new paternal state, despite its benevolent trappings, carried the potential for the unlimited exercise of power and despotism. With such barriers …

Oct 31, 2023: Why say good? One is good, who is God. If you want life keep the commandments. Sc. 71, Matthew 19:17, Mark 10:18–19, Luke 18:19–20 Spiritual advisors …

Oct 31, 2023: Anti- , pro-, -phobia, -philia should be legal. Government should limit itself to enforcing: “Crime you cannot commit.”

Oct 31, 2023: The average man cannot do the sum, he does not follow the reasoning, but he knows the answer. —John Jay Chapman, “The Unity of Human …

Oct 31, 2023: I imagine that the “Palestinians” – whoever they were – were angry when Cyrus allowed the Jews to return to their homeland.

Oct 31, 2023: The environment of politics is circumstance. Politicians should change their minds – or at least their actions – when circumstances change. The State …

Oct 30, 2023: Possible freeze this week.

Oct 29, 2023: Quote Investigator® on “Writing, … aspiring to the unique …"

Oct 28, 2023: William Schmitt, Way of Martyrs

Oct 28, 2023: Richard Holmes, Are you there, God?

Oct 28, 2023: Mary at Westminster Presbyterian Church last Sunday. Emmanuel Baptist Church in the background.

Oct 28, 2023: Between Israel and no Israel: Israel

Oct 27, 2023: Oren Cahanovitc, The Hostility of the Left and the Arab World Toward Israel (and Why You Should Care)

Oct 27, 2023: I know the girls. Who’s the guy?

Oct 27, 2023: In Guilderland, not the Amazon.

Oct 27, 2023: 77 ° in Albany, NY, on Oct. 27.

Oct 26, 2023: Evidence of lower is not evidence against higher.

Oct 26, 2023: Go out into the roads and the fields and force those you find to come in, until my house is full. Sc. 64, Luke 14:23 God’s kingdom has been coming in …

Oct 26, 2023: Castellio’s family called itself Châteillon, Châtillon, or Châtaillon; under the Savoyard rule, perhaps Castellione or Castiglione. —Stefan …

Oct 26, 2023: Price of a buttermilk biscuit, Chatham, NY July 21, 2021: $3.00 Nov. 13, 2021: $3.75 April 23, 2023: $3.95 Oct. 24, 2023: $4.25

Oct 25, 2023: Philip Francis , 1743 (1708–73; English Clergyman and Writer) translates Horace’s “Rectius Vives”

Oct 25, 2023: Art is less noble and commendable than nature. Popular opinion is wrong: it is much easier to go along the sides, where the outer edge serves as a limit and a guide, than by the middle way, wide …

Oct 25, 2023: New Collection of Translations: 159 English Translations of Horace’s Rectius Vives. IWP Books …

Oct 25, 2023: You are not responsible for your country, for your continent, you are not. You are responsible for yourself. If you are not holy, you are to blame, no …

Oct 25, 2023: Word of the Day: Axiomatic

Oct 24, 2023: Oren Cahanovitc, A Kibbutz Supermarket Tour

Oct 24, 2023: Persona Christi. Persona is feminine, which shows that gender doesn’t determine sex.

Oct 23, 2023: I Spy Spiral

Oct 22, 2023: There are triumphant losses more to be envied than victories. —Montaigne, quoted, Stefan Zeig, The Right to Heresy: Castellio against Calvin

Oct 22, 2023: Whose image and name are on it? Sc. 78, today’s Gospel Here Jesus refers to Genesis 1:26, 27.

Oct 22, 2023: Nobody talks like him. Sc. 56, John 7:46 [@LeoWong](https://micro.blog/LeoWong) The written word has never, in times of tension and doom, the strength …

Oct 21, 2023: Pizza!

Oct 21, 2023: Visiting friends.

Oct 21, 2023: It’s kind of weird to think that the animal-rights activists have more clout with vaccine companies than do the anti-abortion activists. —Robert …

Oct 21, 2023: No final drug is ever completely ‘pure’ and you will find contaminating DNA and cellular debris from the production cell in your final product. When …

Oct 20, 2023: “Master, Master, open the door!” Sc. 78, Matthew 25:11, Luke 13:25 Some who ask to enter will not.

Oct 19, 2023: That there are no contemporary records of Christ’s life should console people who are sad because no one hears them.

Oct 19, 2023: Three pieces by Mark Murphy: One for the Book. Trouble at the ATM? You can bank on it Roughing it in black and white

Oct 19, 2023: Write for today; few of us will be remembered tomorrow, except in eternity.

Oct 19, 2023: Horace’s Donec Gratus Eram A Collection of Translations

Oct 19, 2023: Whether or not a human fetus is a person, it is a human being.

Oct 19, 2023: The flat assertion that society has gained “an increasing awareness” of the dignity of the person is not only patently false, but it makes a mockery …

Oct 19, 2023: If I am important enough to go to heaven, I am important enough to go to hell.

Oct 19, 2023: Michael Gilleland, Donec Gratus Eram: Rudyard Kipling

Oct 19, 2023: One accepts dogma, which is true; one judges pragma, which can be mistaken.

Oct 18, 2023: Zweig, Erasmus of Rotterdam Dozens of times did Luther and Erasmus utter the self-same thoughts, but, whereas Erasmus exercised a titillating effect upon the minds of …

Oct 18, 2023: Netanyahu cannot be trusted.

Oct 18, 2023: Father, forgive them. They don’t know what they are doing. Sc. 87, Luke 23:34 This doesn’t mean it was ok what they did.

Oct 18, 2023: To better understand the present, read about the past.

Oct 18, 2023: Freedom will come from the Jews. Sc. 21; compare John 4:22. However, civil peace – such as it was – came from the Romans.

Oct 18, 2023: There is much blasphemy against the Holy Ghost.

Oct 17, 2023: Leave me. Sc. 31, Matthew 7:23, Luke 13:7, Sc. 78, Matthew 25:46. Not all will be welcomed.

Oct 17, 2023: Spiral and Ember got a haircut.

Oct 17, 2023: “Disproportionate” by Victor Davis Hanson “Disproportionate”. Can anyone recall a war won by proportionate measures? When war is proportionate it more often turns into a Stalingrad—or perhaps …

Oct 17, 2023: Main Street Diner, Valatie, NY

Oct 17, 2023: Mary Murphy told a story at Stories from the Stage.

Oct 16, 2023: Two elements give strength to the bonds that make a society. One is the force of habit in individuals; the other is the force of their collective …

Oct 16, 2023: Why say good? One is good, who is God. If you want life keep the commandments. Sc. 71, Matthew 19:17, Mark 10:18, Luke 18:19 Probably too much …

Oct 16, 2023: Ideas and realities: “For Isaac and his countrymen, and Jews anywhere, it’s an imminent reality.” —Patrick Kurp, ‘All Forms of Evil …

Oct 16, 2023: When men and women rise from the dead they will neither marry nor be given in marriage but will live like God’s angels in heaven. Sc. 78, Matthew …

Oct 15, 2023: Dear Priests: A Catholic at Mass might sometimes completely miss the moments of Consecration. Bells are helpful.

Oct 15, 2023: My baby in me jumped for joy. Sc. 4, Luke 1:44 One tends to use the language of persons one admires, so: “baby”.

Oct 15, 2023: How is it that you came in here without a wedding garment?' —from today’s Gospel All are invited, but you must be appropriately dressed.

Oct 15, 2023: What we care most about we can do nothing about; so: prayer.

Oct 14, 2023: x.com/leotheles…

Oct 13, 2023: This is the synod that doesn’t end twitter.com/LeoTheLes…

Oct 13, 2023: waisberg.micro.blog/2023/10/1…

Oct 12, 2023: youtu.be/XNf40sBcv…

Oct 12, 2023: Mary Pumpkins

Oct 11, 2023: For Jew and Christian, the First Great Commandment is greater than the Second Great Commandment.

Oct 11, 2023: Mortimer is Mortimer Adler.

Oct 10, 2023: Szasz, Karl Kraus and the Soul-Doctors, or: Anti-Freud I tell you this: there is not a thoughtless word that comes from men’s lips but they will have to account for it on the day of judgment. For out …

Oct 10, 2023: Who Cared Who's Gay? Lionel Trilling wrote in response to something I had published about Forster a long time ago. It was an astonishing letter. He said that he realized …

Oct 10, 2023: Anecdote, October 2023. Two friends of our returned from Europe feeling ill. They both self-tested positive for COVID. They went to their doctor, who …

Oct 10, 2023: m.facebook.com/photo.php

Oct 10, 2023: Are bidets a problem or a solution?

Oct 10, 2023: I was told yesterday that there is a shortage of COBOL programmers.

Oct 10, 2023: No race was ever freed except by its own efforts, – no man saved except through himself. —John Jay Chapman Since race is a superstition, read …

Oct 9, 2023: Autumn Love

Oct 9, 2023: Mixed media

Oct 8, 2023: I will restore thy judges as at the first, and thy counsellors as at the beginning. Isaiah 1:26 God can go back.

Oct 8, 2023: Day two at war and no inktober post for today writingatlarge.comNofar S. …

Oct 8, 2023: “He will put those wretched men to a wretched death and lease his vineyard to other tenants who will give him the produce at the proper …

Oct 8, 2023: Whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is gracious, if there is any excellence and …

Oct 8, 2023: Watchtower (agricultural)

Oct 8, 2023: His obedience was angelic, not human. —Father Antonios Mishimshany, superior of Saint Sharbel

Oct 7, 2023: Incompetence will have consequences.

Oct 7, 2023: In English, “Holy Ghost” is better than “Holy Spirit,” since in English a ghost is more a person than a spirit is.

Oct 7, 2023: Peter was given the keys; the lock doesn’t change.

Oct 7, 2023: Books by Monks at Most Holy Trinity Monastery, Petersham, MA

Oct 7, 2023: // IWP Books

Oct 6, 2023: Most Holy Trinity Monastery, Petersham, MA

Oct 6, 2023: There is ham in Petersham.

Oct 6, 2023: // IWP Books

Oct 5, 2023:

Oct 5, 2023: This will do.

Oct 5, 2023: Vanilla-Chocolate

Oct 5, 2023:

Oct 5, 2023: Not walking along the Tiber

Oct 5, 2023: Stone crying because of the Synod

Oct 5, 2023: // IWP Books

Oct 5, 2023: Charles the Wet +

Oct 5, 2023: Seems to be lots of COVID among the vaccinated, or maybe only they are testing.

Oct 4, 2023: At Tori Jiro, Arsenal Yards, Watertown, MA

Oct 4, 2023: // IWP Books

Oct 3, 2023: One is good, who is God. Sc. 71, Matthew 19:17, Mark 10:18, Luke 18:19 This is helpful to me, since I know I’m not good, and I certainly know …

Oct 3, 2023: I want to make sure I recognize this man when I see him.

Oct 3, 2023: Why are you still using Google search?! Google alters your search queries without telling you. John Brady …

Oct 3, 2023: You should at least have given my wealth to usurers, in order that I might get it back with interest. Sc. 78, Matthew 25:27, Luke 19:23 If you …

Oct 3, 2023: Patrick Kurp on Reading the Dictionary. IWP Books https://waisberg.micro.blog/2023/10/03/patrick-kurp-on.html

Oct 3, 2023: New at IWP Articles: Sympathy (1894) by Agnes Repplier. IWP Books https://waisberg.micro.blog/2023/10/03/new-at-iwp.html

Oct 3, 2023: New at IWP Books: In the Dozy Hours (1894) by Agnes Repplier. IWP Books https://waisberg.micro.blog/2023/10/03/172756.html

Oct 3, 2023: Barzun on reading the dictionary in @waisberg

Oct 2, 2023: Many are called, but few choose.

Oct 2, 2023: youtu.be/K4kRf3Qkq…

Oct 2, 2023: If you love Jesus, you love God.

Oct 2, 2023: It’s certainly true that power corrupts, but it’s more true that the corrupt are drawn to power. @ayjay // IWP Books

Oct 2, 2023: Renan, quoted by G. Lowes Dickinson, in a book with this Dedication.

Oct 2, 2023: “The Riddle of the Sea”, by G. Lowes Dickinson via @waisberg

Oct 1, 2023: Agnes Repplier at IWP Books: waisberg.micro.blog/2023/10/0…

Sep 29, 2023: evil in the sight of the Lᴏʀᴅ 1 Samuel 15:19; 2 Samuel 12:9; 1 Kings 11:6, 14:22, 15:26, 34, 16:19, 25, 21:20, 22:52; 2 Kings 3:2, 8:18, 8:27, 13:2, …

Sep 29, 2023: W. H. Auden died fifty years ago today. —@ayjay

Sep 29, 2023: refubium.fu-berlin.de/bitstream… @waisberg

Sep 29, 2023: // IWP Books

Sep 28, 2023: Catholics who are dismayed at the state of the Church should read the Old Testament.

Sep 28, 2023: HELP WANTED: Sales & Marketing Manager at Arion Press via @waisberg

Sep 27, 2023: This afternoon a state trooper rang our doorbell for a reason I did not know. In his hand was my wallet that I had unknowingly dropped in the Empire …

Sep 27, 2023: What would you do if you saw God? Do that, at least once or twice a day.

Sep 27, 2023: [On character] the clodhopper has rights of opinion. —John Jay Chapman

Sep 27, 2023: Any idea must be quite monumental at the beginning of its career, in order that posterity shall afford it more than an asterisk. —John Jay Chapman

Sep 27, 2023: Horace Howard Furnace by John Jay Chapman and by Agnes Repplier via @waisberg

Sep 27, 2023: Erasmus of Rotterdam, the greatest and most brilliant star of his century, is today, we cannot deny the fact, hardly more than a name. —Stefan Zweig

Sep 27, 2023: Memories and Condolences for Christopher Ringwald Every year I come back to read these comments, and sometimes I feel overwhelmed by the way my dad was admired, loved and respected. I feel the deepest …

Sep 27, 2023: (And anyhow, as the Americans would say, what is a cause?) —Aldous Huxley via @waisberg (And anyhow, as the Americans would say, what is a cause?)

Sep 27, 2023: // IWP Books

Sep 26, 2023: I will wipe Jerusalem as a man wipeth a dish, wiping it, and turning it upside down. 2 Kings 21:13 The time may come when many will think that the …

Sep 26, 2023: Hezekiah removed the high places, and brake the images, and cut down the groves, and brake in pieces the brasen serpent that Moses had made: for unto …

Sep 26, 2023: The Court … returns … authority to the people and their elected representatives. —Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization …

Sep 26, 2023: D. G. Myers by Patrick Kurp via @waisberg

Sep 26, 2023: So many of the kings of Israel did which was evil in the sight of the Lord.

Sep 26, 2023: And all the women therein that were with child he ripped up. 2 Kings 15:16

Sep 25, 2023: // IWP Books

Sep 25, 2023: [Michael Dirda on Agnes Repplier](https://www.Washington post.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/15/AR2009071503818.html) via @waisberg

Sep 24, 2023: Prestige is like the blush of a grape, and when it goes, it goes forever. —Theodore Dalrymple via @waisberg

Sep 24, 2023: Brooklyn Heights

Sep 23, 2023: Bento boxes at Rice & Miso, Boerum Hill

Sep 23, 2023: New York Traffic Museum

Sep 23, 2023: Barzun on Teaching by Lee Trepanier

Sep 22, 2023: Grand Central Station

Sep 22, 2023: Writing on the wall near the Poughkeepsie train station.

Sep 22, 2023: Simone Weil was a student of the philosopher Alain (Émile Chartier). —Elizabeth Hardwick via @waisberg

Sep 21, 2023: Athaliah rent her clothes, and cried, Treason, Treason. 2 kings 11:14

Sep 21, 2023: When my master goeth into the house of Rimmon to worship there & leaneth on my hand, when I bow myself in the house of Rimmon: the Lᴏʀᴅ pardon thy …

Sep 21, 2023: If the prophet had bid thee do some great thing, wouldest thou not have done it? how much rather then, when he saith to thee, Wash, and be clean? 2 …

Sep 21, 2023: A plus for unnecessary worrying is the happiness one feels when one learns that the worry was unnecessary.

Sep 21, 2023: “Is life worth living?” Its root meaning, surely, is personal, subjective, solitary. There is a sense in which life is experienced, has always been …

Sep 21, 2023: There is as much difference between me and my selves as between me and others. After Montaigne, “Of the Inconsistency of our Actions”, …

Sep 21, 2023: They answered him, He was an hairy man, and girt with a girdle of leather about his loins. And he said, It is Elijah the Tishbite. 2 Kings 1:8

Sep 21, 2023: That a foreigner could feel such love. —Pierre Villey on Grace Norton @waisberg

Sep 21, 2023: They discovered who the independent people were. And they went about eliminating them. —Solzhenitsyn @waisberg

Sep 20, 2023: The Lᴏʀᴅ hath put a lying spirit in the mouth of all these thy prophets [experts, intelligence officials]. 1 Kings 22:23

Sep 20, 2023: Seest thou how Ahab humbleth himself before me? because he humbleth himself before me, I will not bring the evil in his days: but in his son’s …

Sep 20, 2023: And thou shalt speak unto him, saying, Thus saith the Lᴏʀᴅ, Hast thou killed, and also taken possession? 1 Kings 21:19 This, though Jezebel did the …

Sep 20, 2023: Thus saith the LORD, Because thou hast let go out of thy hand a man whom I appointed to utter destruction, therefore thy life shall go for his life, …

Sep 20, 2023: Yet I have left me seven thousand in Israel, all the knees which have not bowed unto Baal, and every mouth which hath not kissed him. 1 Kings 19:18

Sep 20, 2023: Christ didn’t raise man by becoming man, but by being crucified by man.

Sep 19, 2023: If the Lᴏʀᴅ be God, follow him: but if Baal, then follow him. 1 Kings 18:21

Sep 19, 2023: When Jezebel cut off the prophets of the Lᴏʀᴅ, Obadiah took an hundred prophets, and hid them by fifty in a cave, and fed them with bread and water. 1 …

Sep 19, 2023: And the Lᴏʀᴅ heard the voice of Elijah; and the soul of the child came into him again, and he revived. 1 Kings 17:22

Sep 19, 2023: Asa took away the sodomites out of the land, and removed all the idols that his fathers had made. 1 Kings 15:12

Sep 19, 2023: I like the phrase slept with his fathers. It makes death seem less lonely.

Sep 19, 2023: And he had seven hundred wives, princesses, and three hundred concubines: and his wives turned away his heart. 1 Kings 11:3

Sep 19, 2023: Defending the Rule of Law in Israel

Sep 19, 2023: Descartes anecdotes Descartes once constructed a robot in the form of a girl.

Sep 18, 2023: The Lᴏʀᴅ had commanded him that he should not go after other gods: but he kept not that which the Lᴏʀᴅ commanded. 1 Kings 11:10

Sep 18, 2023: Rainbow sent to us from Brooklyn.

Sep 18, 2023: But will God indeed dwell on the earth? behold, the heaven and heaven of heavens cannot contain thee; how much less this house that I have builded? 1 …

Sep 18, 2023: They shall hear of thy great name, and of thy strong hand, and of thy stretched out arm. 1 Kings 8:42

Sep 18, 2023: There is no man that sinneth not. 1 Kings 8:46

Sep 18, 2023: There is not among us any that can skill to hew timber like the Sidonians. 1 Kings 5:6 That would likely have included Jesus had He lived in the time …

Sep 18, 2023: If I were not Diogenes, I would still wish to be Diogenes. —Diogenes

Sep 18, 2023: We must have faith in our little efforts. The smallest effort produces incalculable results. Alain via @waisberg

Sep 18, 2023: The heart is willing, but the body is weak. Sc. 82 (cf. Matthew 26:41) As we get older, our bodies weaken more, but our hearts must be even more …

Sep 17, 2023: Two Franciscan Knights of the Holy Eucharist attended Mass at Historic St. Mary’s this morning. Of course they knelt and received Communion on the …

Sep 17, 2023: Everything changes, everything passes away. This maxim has often saddened us; the very least it can do is console us once in a while. —Alain via …

Sep 16, 2023: The thing that David had done displeased the Lᴏʀᴅ. 2 Samuel 11:27

Sep 16, 2023: One is good, who is God. Political wisdom.

Sep 16, 2023: I do not believe that our sight extends very far, no matter how great our knowledge. —Alain

Sep 16, 2023: Alain on Predictions

Sep 16, 2023: pisseth against the wall 1 Samuel 25:22, 25:34, 1 Kings 14:10, 16:11, 21:21, 2 Kings 9:8

Sep 16, 2023: There are times when one’s only choice is to vote for the one-eyed man.

Sep 16, 2023: How is it that, despite Babel, the different peoples in the historical books of the Old Testament – at least their leaders – have no difficulty …

Sep 16, 2023: Patrick Kurp on Alain waisberg.micro.blog/2023/09/1…

Sep 15, 2023: Alain, On Happiness.

Sep 15, 2023: If My Library Burned Tonight (1947) by Aldous Huxley

Sep 14, 2023: I am distressed for thee, my brother Jonathan: very pleasant hast thou been unto me: thy love to me was wonderful, passing the love of women. 2 Samuel …

Sep 14, 2023: Aldous Huxley on Muck Transfigured by Love

Sep 14, 2023: Theology is man’s understanding of God; the Gospels are God’s understanding of God.

Sep 13, 2023: Um

Sep 13, 2023: Your phrases should be alive with men and women, filled with stones, metals, chairs, tables, animals. A wholly abstract style is always bad. Concrete …

Sep 13, 2023: To be a Christian is to live in the now and the forever.

Sep 13, 2023: Alain (1962) by André Maurois

Sep 13, 2023: Wallace Shawn on Prophecy

Sep 13, 2023: New at IWP Books: The Buried Candelabrum (1937) by Stefan Zweig

Sep 13, 2023: Miseducating the American Mind by William Deresiewicz

Sep 12, 2023: God becomes man, not man becomes God.

Sep 12, 2023: Formerly, it was a disgrace to think that humans are like other animals; now it is a grace to think that other animals are like humans.

Sep 11, 2023: In the Bible, God repents and man repents.

Sep 11, 2023: The Bible shouldn’t be read just as literature, but as literature it is better than most literature.

Sep 11, 2023: It is the Lᴏʀᴅ: let him do what seemeth him good. 1 Samuel [1 Kings] 3:18

Sep 11, 2023: William James on Transubstantiation Scholasticism has taken the notion of substance from common sense and made it very technical and articulate. Few things would seem to have fewer …

Sep 11, 2023: It is natural to blossom. Even the children, who were vigorously intimidated during the “lessons of edification,” no longer played in the debonair way natural to healthy and …

Sep 11, 2023: The Right to Heresy: Castellio against Calvin (1936) by Stefan Zweig

Sep 10, 2023: The lowest and highest of Jesus' brothers are called to love God.

Sep 10, 2023: Dear Liturgists, Should deacons used the orans posture when saying the Our Father at Mass?

Sep 10, 2023: Tell the church. In stories and probably in life, dispute are often settled by a rabbi. Do disputing Catholics ever go to their pastor to settle an …

Sep 10, 2023: In his homily this morning, Fr. Julian A. Davies, OFM, said, “A watchman would tell you, “If you die in mortal sin, you go to Hell.”

Sep 9, 2023: Come into my Father’s blessing and inherit the kingdom I have prepared for you from the beginning of creation. Sc. 78, Matthew 25:34 One needn’t …

Sep 9, 2023: In Millerton, NY

Sep 9, 2023: From *Erasmus of Rotterdam* by Stefan Zweig @waisberg “The name which was destined to outshine even the name of Erasmus, Rabelais." “His moments of sheerest happiness were those passed at …

Sep 8, 2023: People who are far from God’s kingdom in life will be far from God’s kingdom in death.

Sep 8, 2023: London eye and light, two photos sent to us by someone visiting there.

Sep 8, 2023: waisberg.micro.blog/2023/09/0…

Sep 7, 2023: The gates of hell shall not prevail. Matthew 16:18 Those of us who believe in Jesus should not for a moment consider what would make us believe that …

Sep 7, 2023: Not art appreciation, but more important. We ought to read in such a manner that we appropriate from what we have read the moral lesson that lies hidden behind it. —Georg Brandes For those of …

Sep 7, 2023: The Church must find a place to stand to move the world.

Sep 7, 2023: That many people believe, rightly or wrongly, that the election was stolen makes the belief a political issue that should be discussed, not squelched.

Sep 7, 2023: Jesus was baptized and wore clothes.

Sep 7, 2023: The people were told … The way of the world … Sc. 31, The Sermon on the Mount Jesus builds on morals that were accepted (mores).

Sep 7, 2023: “each other” Gospel Scenes “each other” Bryan A. Garner

Sep 6, 2023: On Numbers 5:15. twitter.com/LeoTheLes…

Sep 6, 2023: Just as an unattractive person gladly receives the love of an attractive person and becomes more attractive, so we gladly receive the love of God and …

Sep 6, 2023: This is another case where a man forces a possible abortion on a woman. twitter.com/Michael4R…

Sep 6, 2023: Why say good? One is good, who is God. Sc.71, Matthew 19:17, Mark 10:18, Luke 18:19 Of course, I want to be good, but with me it’s rather a …

Sep 6, 2023: The angels and saints are happy if you go to Heaven, not unhappy if you go to Hell.

Sep 6, 2023: I’m a great believer in boredom. —Barzun

Sep 6, 2023: Holy Spirit, Holy Spirit, they say, when there is no Holy Spirit.

Sep 6, 2023: Ten thousand difficulties do not make one doubt, as I understand the subject; difficulty and doubt are incommensurate. —Newman

Sep 6, 2023: I’m told that SUNY Albany now prefers to be called “UAlbany.” I suggest a southern flavor: “Y’allbany.”

Sep 6, 2023: Since in prayer we are with God, prayer is its own reward.

Sep 5, 2023: On praying to Mary: Perhaps, think of it this way: we are cup measures; Mary deserves a quart (or more), God, a gallon (or much more, up to infinity). …

Sep 5, 2023: Ernest Hemmingway, “Hills Like White Elephants”

Sep 5, 2023: Charles Scribner III, Scribners: Five Generations in Publishing

Sep 5, 2023: The poor Roman Catholics, obliged to start from scratch, have produced an English Mass which is a cacophonous monstrosity (the German version is quite …

Sep 5, 2023:

Sep 5, 2023: O+A on their way to OIA (official sign).

Sep 5, 2023: waisberg.micro.blog/2023/09/0…

Sep 4, 2023: Jesus was God and Man, not God and Superman.

Sep 4, 2023: Those of us who are bad Catholics need the TLM more than those of us who are good Catholics.

Sep 4, 2023: Jᴇʀᴇᴍɪᴀʜ. [Coming forward] Dismay speaks; concern for Jerusalem cries aloud; the mouth of terror is opened. I speak for Israel, and for the life of …

Sep 4, 2023: Balloon Flower

Sep 4, 2023: Lᴇᴛᴛᴇʀ ᴛᴏ ᴛʜᴀɴᴋ Aᴜᴛʜᴏʀ ᴏғ Iɴsᴄʀɪʙᴇᴅ Cᴏᴘʏ ᴏғ Bᴏᴏᴋ Dear Mr. Emanuel Flower, It was kind of you to think of sending me a copy of your new book. It would have been kinder still to think again and abandon …

Sep 4, 2023: The Enlightenment and Democracy are dead. For better or worse, we in the modern West are all children of the Enlightenment in one way or another, and any wholesale abandonment of democratic …

Sep 4, 2023: The first step of wisdom is to admit, with good humor, that our ideas have no reason to interest anybody. —Nicolás Gómez Dávila

Sep 4, 2023: Two Articles on Nicolás Gómez Dávila: waisberg.micro.blog/2023/09/0…

Sep 4, 2023: … the professoriate of the better universities, which ‘was predominantly Liberal and Leftist, many of them Henry Wallace voters’. …

Sep 4, 2023: O+A in Albany and Santorini

Sep 4, 2023: More by Nicolás Gómez Dávila: waisberg.micro.blog/2023/09/0…

Sep 3, 2023: Georg Brandes on Why we should read, What we should read, and How we should read. micro.blog/LeoWong/2…

Sep 3, 2023: Go and make disciples of all nations. Baptize them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Sc. 98, Matthew 28:19 Evangelizing brings …

Sep 3, 2023: It is better to rise during the Great Amen and to kneel during the Agnes Dei.

Sep 3, 2023: “How can a man be reborn when he is old? Can he go back in his mother’s womb and be born again?” “You must be reborn.” Sc. 79 …

Sep 3, 2023: Arvind Datar, The origins of “Justice must be seen to be done”

Sep 2, 2023: Georg Brandes, "On Reading" The simplest experience of the world proves that a work of great excellence which deeply moves one person leaves another untouched, and that a book …

Sep 2, 2023: Belloc, "Ten Pages of Taine" No increase of the field external to man could transform what was intimate to man within. The frontiers of his nature remained fixed. So far from the …

Sep 2, 2023: It was the first time that any of us young men had come across this fairly common sight of a man who took things within for things without; some of us …

Sep 1, 2023: The term “life” is not exactly a clear and distinct idea. —Jacques Barzun This is obviously untrue and less obviously true.

Sep 1, 2023: This way to Albany.

Sep 1, 2023: Antiparos

Sep 1, 2023: You speak for the pope and not God. —after Sc. 53, Matthew 16:23, Mark 8:33

Sep 1, 2023: Freedom cannot be defined as politicians taking things away from citizens.

Aug 31, 2023: Little Lamb @waisberg

Aug 31, 2023: Schopenhauer and Barzun on Rereading @Waisberg

Aug 30, 2023: Motley heirloom tomatoes. Mary wasn’t sure about the green, so cooking it separately.

Aug 30, 2023: Theodore Leavitt, “Marketing Myopia”, Harvard Business Review, July–August, 1960.

Aug 30, 2023: Balloon Flower

Aug 30, 2023: Barzun, “Trains and the Mind of Man”, Holiday, February 1960

Aug 30, 2023: If we fall seven times, we must pray at least seven times.

Aug 30, 2023: Alain on "The Cult of the Dead" In the same way that we do not think as we would like to, and the course of our thoughts depends principally on what we see, hear and touch, it is …

Aug 30, 2023: Alain’s brevities assume shared knowledge. —George Steiner Alain’s brevities assume shared knowledge.“In the république des instituteurs, Emile-Auguste Chartier was sovereign. He signed himself “Alain.” …

Aug 29, 2023: A basket full of books. —quoted by David Mills, “Grim, pessimistic, unsentimental wisdom to live by from the ancients”

Aug 29, 2023: To enslave is to reduce to slavery or to make a slave of. To buy or own a slave does not enslave the slave, and the person who does either is not an …

Aug 29, 2023: A notable thing about the parables is that there are many tests, but for each person there is just one test. Find out what your test is.

Aug 29, 2023: A couple we know are visiting Athens.

Aug 29, 2023: Hate should not be a crime. Yet this is in thy favour, thou dost abhor the ways of the Nicolations, as I, too, abhor them. —Ronald Knox’s …

Aug 29, 2023: In “a woman and her doctor,” “woman” means a woman with child.

Aug 29, 2023: “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness” —Declaration of Independence “Endowed by their Creator,” but when? Most probably …

Aug 29, 2023: Heine died in poverty, deserted by his friends. The sole person to attend his deathbed in his squalid Parisian garret was the composer Berlioz. “I …

Aug 29, 2023: During the winter of 1894–95 Hamsun visited Paris for the first time. On his return home someone asked him, “At the beginning, didn’t you have …

Aug 28, 2023: Reading and Travelling "My long pupilship with Jacques Barzun began when I was a sophomore at Columbia College and he was an instructor teaching a course entitled “The …

Aug 28, 2023: Carneades used to say that the sons of princes learned nothing rightly but how to manage horses, since in every other exercise everyone gives way to …

Aug 28, 2023: Qui voudrait jouer aux cartes sans risquer jamais de perdre? Voici un vieux roi qui joue avec des courtisans; quand il perd, il se met en colère, et …

Aug 28, 2023: Some months after the end of his term as president, Eisenhower was asked if leaving the White House had affected his golf game. “Yes,” he replied, “a …

Aug 28, 2023: During the Peloponnesian War an eclipse occurred when Pericles was about to set out to sea. As the pilot was too terrified to perform his duties, …

Aug 27, 2023: Alain (Émile Chartier) in English twitter.com/spernerev… @Waisberg

Aug 27, 2023: According to Christ, sinners are punished, but not by Christians.

Aug 27, 2023: Shortly before Austria went fascist, in 1938, Schuschnigg is reported to have said that 25 per cent of the population were for him, 25 per cent for …

Aug 27, 2023: I can’t walk and eat the Body of Christ at the same time.

Aug 27, 2023: Dear Priests, A holy instinct tells us to sing “Agnus Dei” before Communion. The same instinct tells us to sing “Sanctus” …

Aug 27, 2023: After Einstein had gone into exile, a hundred Nazi professors published a book condemning his theory of relativity. Einstein was unconcerned. “If I …

Aug 27, 2023: "A Thessalian brought an exceptionally beautiful horse, named Bucephalus, to the Macedonian court, offering to sell it to King Philip. However, when …

Aug 27, 2023: During William Morris’s last visit to Paris, he spent much of his time in the restaurant of the Eiffel Tower, either eating or writing. When a friend …

Aug 27, 2023: Censuring Stalin at a public meeting, Khrushchev was interrupted by a voice from the audience. “You were one of Stalin’s colleagues,” shouted the …

Aug 26, 2023: A technical term or definition is not always preferable to a common term or definition; usually it is less preferable.

Aug 26, 2023: Downy woodpeckers are regular visitors. Today we were visited by hairy woodpeckers.

Aug 26, 2023: This, too, will pass.

Aug 26, 2023: Although it is late, I hope it will turn out to be Clematis John Paul II.

Aug 26, 2023: Might be nice out today.

Aug 25, 2023: There is no reason to pity the damned.

Aug 25, 2023: Even if your party wins, keep the pressure on. If by chance some party, some administration gives [the agitator] one hundred per cent of what he demands, let him acknowledge it handsomely; but he …

Aug 25, 2023: We who believe in hell are not surprised that men and women do damnable things. (Well, I’m still surprised about women.)

Aug 25, 2023: Good find: I love this: Fred Sanders finds an often-cited obviously-bogus quotation by St. Augustine and shows that … um … it’s …

Aug 24, 2023: It is easy for us to acknowledge that Jesus died for our sins, harder to acknowledge that we chose Barabbas. Jesus Christ, Son of Man. Jesus Barabbas, …

Aug 24, 2023: Hudson Avenue Community Garden

Aug 24, 2023: We think: God. We think: Eternity.

Aug 24, 2023: Not all fears are phobias; nor need one fear to be against.

Aug 24, 2023: Consider that some people go to hell, and the world becomes more rational. Consider that other people go to heaven, and the world becomes more …

Aug 22, 2023: The past several years have shown that many people cling to absurd beliefs contradictory to one’s own beliefs.

Aug 22, 2023: If you want life keep the commandments. Sc. 71, Mark 10:19 When the world was Catholic, the world needed better Catholics; now that the world is not …

Aug 22, 2023: Because they said, He hath an unclean spirit. Mark 3:30 The eternal sin that will not be forgiven: blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, the Advocate, …

Aug 21, 2023: Many people thought that the COVID shots were safe and effective and that the 2020 election was honest.

Aug 20, 2023: Mary Murphy, “New Friends”. Mary Meets Barbie.

Aug 20, 2023: Mary Murphy: Not Just for Kids

Aug 20, 2023: The World is not the Devil My kingdom isn’t in the world. Sc. 87, John 18:36 Two things to consider: When we fight with men, as we sometimes must, we are in this world. When we …

Aug 20, 2023: “my race” —from today’s 2nd Reading, Romans 11:14 “Race” is more commonly translated “people” or …

Aug 20, 2023: HCO Hot Sauce, made in Albany, NY.

Aug 20, 2023: The kids aren’t religious. —Catholic father from Boston visiting his daughter. But he’s not going to Mass either, and his daughter might …

Aug 19, 2023: Herbert Butterfield, Christianity, Diplomacy, and War

Aug 19, 2023: A Bit of Chestnut Street, Albany, NY A nice neighboring family just said goodbye to us. The mother, a professor who will be at Rutgers, made the drawings to remember her old home in her …

Aug 19, 2023: Butterfield holds that to view the United States purpose in World War I as the preservation of the world for democracy was immoral. To seek for …

Aug 18, 2023: God does not destroy His creation, including Satan.

Aug 18, 2023: One can be with God without His talking to you. Usually He doesn’t.

Aug 18, 2023: The Greek Jews shake their heads and go back to the Temple. Sc. 80 Perhaps we should pause more often than we do.

Aug 18, 2023: In Jesus Christ, there is no distance or separation between the medium and the message: it is the one case where we can say that the medium and the …

Aug 18, 2023: The truth shall make you free

Aug 17, 2023: The tax collectors and the prostitutes will enter the kingdom before you. Sc. 78, Matthew 21:311 That person whom you disrespect may be close to …

Aug 17, 2023: If you are not afraid of going to hell, you are in the wrong place.

Aug 17, 2023: One is good, who is God. Sc. 71, Mark 10:18 We are not commanded to be good, but to love.

Aug 17, 2023: We who are so displeased by earthly evil will want to avoid the fires of hell.

Aug 16, 2023: & the selfsame thing the thieves also, who were crucified with him, reproached him with. Matthew 27:44 & they who were crucified with him …

Aug 16, 2023: After seeing Social Justice signs, I was glad to happen upon Peace signs at today’s Empire State Plaza farmers’ market. Turns out at least two of the …

Aug 16, 2023: Ointment Sc. 81

Aug 15, 2023: Greek Jews Sc. 80 Transcript

Aug 15, 2023: When love is lacking in the world, it is churlish not to love the Mother of God.

Aug 15, 2023: Heaven and hell are forever.

Aug 14, 2023: Nicodemus Sc. 79 Transcript

Aug 14, 2023: Is the eye doctor Catholic?

Aug 13, 2023: We cannot see the past in a single, communicable picture except from a point of view, which implies a choice, a personal perspective. —Pieter Geyl, …

Aug 13, 2023: Pieter Geyl on the Criminal Past All revolutions are moved by the conviction, which causes them to be so incalculably dangerous, that it is bringing a new world, a new order; that, …

Aug 13, 2023: O you petty believer, why did you doubt? Sc. 46, Matthew 14:31, today’s Gospel Reading

Aug 13, 2023: Not in the wind. Not in the earthquake. Not in the fire. A tiny whispering sound. —from Today’s First Reading

Aug 13, 2023: celibacy > marriage > adultery

Aug 13, 2023: LeoTheLess’s Twitter Circle

Aug 13, 2023: Question for the vaccinated: Don’t you fear God now that we’re dying? Sc. 87, Luke 23:40

Aug 12, 2023: Patriots cannot be made out of serfs. —Baron vom Stein, quoted in Hazen, Modern Europe, p. 269

Aug 12, 2023: Posers Sc. 78 Transcript

Aug 12, 2023: Trader Joe’s cacio e pepe ravioli given to us by a friend. Quite good.

Aug 12, 2023: Large hibiscus outside the Hudson Avenue Community Garden in Albany NY.

Aug 10, 2023: I embarked very badly on the Spanish affair, I confess ; the immorality of it was too patent, the injustice too cynical. —Napoleon, quoted in Hazen, …

Aug 9, 2023: Napoleon’s court resumed the manners and customs which had been in vogue before the Revolution. —Hazen, Modern Europe, p. 253

Aug 9, 2023: Searching for videos of Perret’s Église St.-Joseph, I came across this 12-year-old video of his Église Notre-Dame du Raincy, made by Father …

Aug 9, 2023: In the box: pork katsu + salad from the SUNY Schenectady Food Truck

Aug 9, 2023: Night Sc. 77 Transcript

Aug 8, 2023: Passover Sc. 76 Transcript

Aug 8, 2023: A Christian not uncommonly says, “I crucified Jesus.” Why exclude the Jews? Acts 2:23, 3:13, 3:15

Aug 8, 2023: Lord, when did we see you? Sc. 78 , Matthew 25:37, 44 An important point for some of us – both Christians and non-Christians – is that Christ …

Aug 7, 2023: It is barbaric that we used to print books in a size and format actually convenient and usable for readers and that this stopped without any …

Aug 7, 2023: Can Christian or Jew expect to get to heaven by not obeying the first great commandment?

Aug 7, 2023: One often has the impression that many of the faithful see the canon of the Mass and consecration as simply a way in which Our Lord becomes present …

Aug 7, 2023: Tie his hands and feet, and throw him into the darkness where he will scream and chew his tongue. Sc. 78, Matthew 22:13 It’s only with gentle Jesus, …

Aug 7, 2023: Hell is for people who would have been better off punished on earth. To do wrong is second only in the scale of evils; to do wrong and not to be …

Aug 7, 2023: Made in the image of God, like Him we demand to be loved.

Aug 7, 2023: I know it, but I don’t believe it. —Arthur Krystal

Aug 7, 2023: You in your lifetime received your good things. Sc. 67, Luke 16:25

Aug 7, 2023: One Will Die Sc. 75 Transcript

Aug 7, 2023: ʟʏsɪsᴛʀᴀᴛᴀ. Well, they say everybody’s business is nobody’s business —Shaw, The Apple Cart There are different works, but the same God. 1 Corinthians …

Aug 7, 2023: Everything must be observed. twitter.com/LeoTheLes…

Aug 7, 2023: During Mass, we speak to God, to the priest, and – once – to persons next to us. The last speech is not as important as the others

Aug 6, 2023: I had a sensation of Shaw nodding courteously, as if to acknowledge that I have at least done my best. —Colin Wilson, George Bernard Shaw So I with …

Aug 6, 2023: 'The Fundamental Objection to Socialism' A nationalised business belongs to nobody – for the ‘state’ is nobody. Shaw had said it in The Apple Cart: ‘Everybody’s business is nobody’s business’ …

Aug 6, 2023: The classics say things that we think and feel, and cannot say better ourselves.

Aug 6, 2023: We “can’t go back,” but we can say the Nicene Creed: “I believe” and “we believe,” not “they …

Aug 6, 2023: It is a serious fault to think that because something is true, one has to feel a particular way about it. Pope Francis and many other priests suffer …

Aug 6, 2023: Catholics tormented by the way Mass is celebrated …

Aug 6, 2023: When an increasing number of people believe an election is stolen, or a vaccination is not safe or effective, it is not a proper response to say to …

Aug 6, 2023: Don’t say “(Lord) hear our prayer,” but “(Lord,) hear our prayer.”

Aug 6, 2023: Better NO Masses? The particular NO Masses that nearly all of us attend might be improved in various or even many ways. For example, by a sound instinct, the cantor at …

Aug 6, 2023: Place of worship ≠ God’s house

Aug 6, 2023: One cannot help liking Nietzsche for his sincerity.

Aug 6, 2023: Without God in life and death You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your might. —Sc. 78, Deuteronomy 6:5, 10:12, Matthew 22:37, …

Aug 5, 2023: If you want to be in heaven after you die, act now as if you belong there.

Aug 5, 2023: The North Creek Mosaic Project

Aug 5, 2023: Entering the Adirondacks

Aug 5, 2023: They were able to return. —Micro Camp 2023: Anna Havron

Aug 5, 2023: Poppy seed bagel from Pearl’s.

Aug 5, 2023: People will be surprised what brings them to heaven or to hell.

Aug 4, 2023: The prodigal son committed a mortal sin, the elder son committed a venial sin. This doesn’t answer anyone’s questions, but is something to …

Aug 4, 2023: Suddenly, unexpectedly, cause unknown.

Aug 4, 2023: “God wouldn’t do that.” But if He would, is He still your God?

Aug 4, 2023: ‘…his ideas, his words, his temperament speak to me with intimacy as well as force…“he does me good”…I stroll with him again and again because he …

Aug 4, 2023: I am against the list. —Barzun

Aug 3, 2023: twitter.com/LeoTheLes…

Aug 3, 2023: Though slavery is evil, to say that a slave cannot benefit from slavery is to say that the slave is not human. Good can come out of evil.

Aug 3, 2023: Lazarus Sc. 74 Transcript

Aug 3, 2023: “Gender dysphoria” should probably be “sex dysphoria,” since the person is dissatisfied with …

Aug 3, 2023: Beautiful Gifts from Belo Horizonte. @waisberg A limited number of free copies are available.

Aug 3, 2023: If I have a mote in my eye, I certainly want it removed.

Aug 3, 2023: “The Body of Christ” twitter.com/leotheles…

Aug 3, 2023: Verity eventually triumphs. —Pascal When force meets force, the weaker must succumb to the stronger; when argument is opposed to argument, the solid and the convincing triumphs over the …

Aug 3, 2023: Walk with me. “WYD participants can visit places of worship such as the mosque, synagogue, Ismaili center, Hindu temple and also some churches linked to …

Aug 3, 2023: If people feel “hurt,” “excluded,” or “unwelcomed” by the central contents of the Church’s teachings on faith and morals, then they feel “hurt,” …

Aug 3, 2023: A bagel from Pearl’s.

Aug 2, 2023: I love power as a musician loves his violin. I love it as an artist. —Napoleon, quoted in Hazen, Modern Europe, p. 236

Aug 2, 2023: Flaubert, Turgenev, Maxime Du Camp, Alphonse Daudet, Emile Zola The conviction that held them together was the conviction that art and morality are two perfectly different things, and that the former has no more to …

Aug 2, 2023: It was not, moreover, on account of any esteem which he accorded to my own productions (I used regularly to send them to him) that I found him so …

Aug 2, 2023: Jericho Sc. 73 Transcript

Aug 2, 2023: We live in a period of controversy without debate. —Barzun (1973) Thread Barzun, “Educational Disputes”, Encounter, November, 1973, pp. …

Aug 2, 2023: My voice. Sc. 56, 62, 87 1 Kings 19:12 Words and tone are the main things to be taught. Spelling, grammar, and punctuation do not precede but follow …

Aug 1, 2023: History: “the torch of truth, the destroyer of prejudice”. —Napoleon (to his mother?), quoted in Hazen, Modern Europe, p. 210

Aug 1, 2023: This picture is about the victory of Christian forgiveness, and of generous love between former rivals. —Madeleine Stebbins, Let’s Look at a …

Aug 1, 2023: “You can’t go back.” —cliché

Aug 1, 2023: Joy is a dilation and an exaltation of the soul. —Lacordaire, quoted by Madeleine Stebbins

Aug 1, 2023: When the two women met, the baby inside Elizabeth jumped for joy! In this miraculous way, the baby greeted Jesus. And Elizabeth suddenly understood …

Aug 1, 2023: If they do not hear Moses and the prophets, they will not listen when a man rises from the dead. Sc. 67, Luke 16:31 One writes joyfully without …

Aug 1, 2023: Don’t strive to amass on earth wealth you won’t long enjoy. Strive to amass in heaven wealth you will enjoy always. Where your treasure is, there your …

Aug 1, 2023: Believe and belove. leowong.micro.blog/2023/08/0…

Aug 1, 2023: The quality of one’s life resides in something immediately felt, not reasoned about—something that does not have to be sought by the indirect path of …

Aug 1, 2023: An attempt to explain the fall of the Jesuits Can you explain it?" “Yes, Judith, I think I can,” Edmund replied. “You see, Father McE. and myself have much in common. We are …

Aug 1, 2023: The worst, and even the mediocre, must be taken for granted as a cultural constant. —Barzun, The House of Intellect, Note to the Reader

Jul 31, 2023: Most of us will improve most in Purgatory.

Jul 31, 2023: You cannot step into the same river twice. Heraclitus. In so far as this is true, attending the TLM is not “going back”.

Jul 31, 2023: He won’t speak for himself, any more than I speak for myself, but will tell you what he hears. —Jesus on the Holy Spirit, Sc. 82, John 14:26 & …

Jul 31, 2023: Precedence Sc. 72 Transcript

Jul 31, 2023: Even in this life, spend more time with Abraham and Lazarus and less time with Dives. They who would pass from here to you cannot, nor can they pass …

Jul 31, 2023: AI is the answers in the back of the book.

Jul 31, 2023: Nobody talks like him.Sc. 56, John 7:46 Plato left everything that he left in writing; Jesus Christ left nothing in writing. —H. Lyman Stebbins

Jul 31, 2023: Suppose we were to progress one step tomorrow – really progress. —H. Lyman Stebbins to C. S. Lewis, in Madeleine F. Stebbins, “Correspondence …

Jul 30, 2023: People who believed in the COVID shots, masks, and lockdowns also believed in the 2020 election.

Jul 30, 2023: Galbanum has a foul aroma to remind us that everyone’s prayers were allowed to be uttered—even those of sinners. —Natan Lawrence, “The Altar of …

Jul 30, 2023: Different from other men – anti-vaxxers, election-deniers, transphobes – and from that trad. —after Sc. 69 and Luke 18:11

Jul 30, 2023: Since I am made in the image of God, what I prefer may be what God prefers. This is the basis of parables. twitter.com/hilarityj…

Jul 29, 2023: Peter Brook, “Sinéad O’Connor: An Event in Irish History” (2021)

Jul 29, 2023: There was a wind, and now we’ll have a little more sky.

Jul 29, 2023: Remember me and do this. Sc. 82, Luke 22:19 We don’t go back, we remember by doing.

Jul 29, 2023: While they’re waiting he has already given them everything they need. Sc. 69, Luke 18:8

Jul 29, 2023: twitter.com/leotheles…

Jul 29, 2023: Every careless word you speak you will have to account for in the day of judgment: by your words you will be saved in that day, and by your words you …

Jul 29, 2023: Life Sc. 71 Transcript

Jul 29, 2023: Ozu, a man with the spirit of clown, was really humorous. So I hate to treat him as legend and worship like a God. The clown is lonely, but he must …

Jul 29, 2023: At the hospital, faced with his body, I didn’t feel like crying at all. Just as my eyes met Hara san (Setsuko Hara), I burst into tears. Looking …

Jul 29, 2023: It’s like rediscovering the wheel, but it’s got to be a better wheel than before. —John Rist, Confusion in the West, 17:21

Jul 29, 2023: The first thing is to clear the ground. —John Rist, Confusion in the West, 22:43

Jul 28, 2023: Why ask God to accept something not as good as the TLM?

Jul 28, 2023: Counterfeit money is money.

Jul 28, 2023: She may still exist in undiminished vigour, when some traveller from New Zealand shall, in the midst of a vast solitude, take his stand on a broken …

Jul 28, 2023: You wouldn’t have to start by believing in God, you should start by being honest. —John Rist, Confusion in the West, Part 3, 22:43

Jul 28, 2023: I do want to emphasize that in contrast to other Catholic thinkers in the Middle Ages, like Aquinas for example, Augustine is not a systematic …

Jul 28, 2023: Possible may not be actual or even probable.

Jul 28, 2023: Humanity is a modern invention. —Sydney Smith, quoted in Barzun, From Dawn to Decadence

Jul 28, 2023: Little boys for small flues is a common phrase in the cards left at the door by itinerant chimney sweepers. —Sydney Smith, quoted in Barzun, From Dawn …

Jul 28, 2023: Infants Sc. 70 Transcript

Jul 28, 2023: Even if I go to Hell I shall try to get someone into Heaven, mainly by praying.

Jul 27, 2023: By using the traditional Byzantine visual theological vocabulary, Rupnik’s art accomplishes the same goal as verbal theological modernism: it uses the …

Jul 27, 2023: Louis Capet was greater on the scaffold than he had been upon the throne. —Hazen, Modern Europe, p. 179

Jul 27, 2023: One doesn’t have to be rigid or even a priest to wear a saturno.

Jul 27, 2023: Jesus is God.

Jul 26, 2023: Eating at Eva’s.

Jul 26, 2023: Salmon River Falls

Jul 25, 2023: But in my opinion, Polus, the unjust or doer of unjust actions is miserable in any case, – more miserable, however, if he be not punished and does not …

Jul 25, 2023: In Manlius, NY, to see the cygnets.

Jul 25, 2023: Elisabeth hears Mary’s voice – her unborn child jumps in her womb. ᴇʟɪᴢᴀʙᴇᴛʜ. My baby in me jumped for joy. Sc. 4, Luke 1:41 and 42 Google “baby …

Jul 24, 2023: God's Kingdom Sc. 69 Transcript

Jul 24, 2023: Father Philip Silhouan Thompson, “Two Blind Men Teach Us to Pray”

Jul 24, 2023: Every monk whose spiritual practice has borne fruit, whatever his age, is called “a beautiful elder.” —Olivier Clément, quoted HT @JohnBrady

Jul 24, 2023: I recommend highly that one reads Johnny Vedmore’s “Schwab Family Values”—Vera Sharav

Jul 24, 2023: Vera Sharav’s Historic Nuremberg Speech: Eugenics Then and Now

Jul 24, 2023: One day he walks to Bethany, where the sisters Martha and Mary welcome him to their home. Sc. 57, Luke 10:38 There seems to be no particular reason …

Jul 23, 2023: France had no desire to be a republic, but it had a fixed and resolute aversion to the Old Regime. —Hazen, Modern Europe, p. 157

Jul 23, 2023: A king’s officer arrives from Capernaum. Sc. 22, John 4:47 If we who aren’t saints can be intercessors, why can’t the saints?

Jul 23, 2023: Thomas Dunn, (1947–2023) RIP. For years we tried to go to his bakery in Canastota on our way to Syracuse. They were always closed, having sold all …

Jul 23, 2023: It is worth a very careful search into the Old Testament, as men call it, to see if it is possible anywhere to find therein a prayer of anybody who …

Jul 23, 2023: One might wonder if Adam & Eve had “full knowledge” & “full consent of the will”. One might even wonder if they …

Jul 23, 2023: Ordering a BLT at McCarroll’s in Latham, NY.

Jul 23, 2023: Feeling is the appropriate arbiter. —Jacques Barzun Feeling is the appropriate arbiter. All reasoning about what is right, civilized and moral rests …

Jul 23, 2023: Nick Hudson, The Truth about the COVID-19 Lockdowns

Jul 22, 2023: To see ourselves as others see us is a rare and valuable gift, without a doubt. But in international relations what is still rarer and far more useful …

Jul 22, 2023: Faith supported the non-juring clergy, the state supported the juring – and the state embarked on a long, gloomy, and unsuccessful struggle to impose …

Jul 22, 2023: Jerome's translation of Origen's On the First Principles In the introduction to his translation, Rufinus implied that Jerome was a follower of Origen. Jerome was so incensed that he produced his own …

Jul 22, 2023: Saul and Balaam and Caiaphas prophesied; the sons of Seæva in the Acts of the Apostles were seen to cast out dæmons; and Judas with the soul of a …

Jul 21, 2023: TheDeclaration of the Rights of Man was a statement of the rights which belong to men because they are human beings, which are not the gift of any …

Jul 21, 2023: F: That is not the “gotcha” that you think it is. I have not. “The statute books are full of laws, of which the Sherman Act is a good example, that …

Jul 21, 2023: One and Nine Sc. 68

Jul 21, 2023: Carl L. Lokke, “Charles Downer Hazen”, Vermont History, July 1958

Jul 21, 2023: The evil that men do lives after them. —Charles Downer Hazen, Modern Europe, 1920, p. 759

Jul 21, 2023: The French Revolution has been frequently ascribed to the influence of the “philosophers” or writers of the 18C. This is putting the cart before the …

Jul 20, 2023: “You can’t go back.” twitter.com/LeoTheLes…

Jul 20, 2023: No bankruptcy, no increase of taxation, no more borrowing. —Turgot to King Louis XVI, quoted in Hazen, Modern Europe, p. 117

Jul 20, 2023: My God is greater than your idol.

Jul 20, 2023: Came upon this. Don’t know about its accuracy. A Comprehensive List of Food Companies and Products That Use Senomyx (Used Aborted Babies)

Jul 20, 2023: You don’t have to believe in hell to go there.

Jul 20, 2023: 102 low dishonest Democrats

Jul 20, 2023: Maybe I am envious of Stendhal? He robbed me of the best atheistic joke, which I of all people could have perpetrated: “God’s only excuse …

Jul 20, 2023: I’ve overthrown the world. Sc. 82, John 16:33 This happens in each one’s mind and heart who believes in Christ.

Jul 20, 2023: It appears that Micro.blog no longer crossposts to Twitter.

Jul 20, 2023: Instead of “the Sacrament of Love”, say “God”. At the moment of adoration, we are all equal, kneeling before the Sacrament of …

Jul 20, 2023: Dear Leo: A Cleveland would be a good president today, don’t you think? Henry [F. Graff, 2007]

Jul 20, 2023: Charles L. Barzun, Where is the Law? A Dialogue Historic judicial decisions come from “outside the law.”

Jul 19, 2023: No citizen of your realm is sure of not seeing his liberty sacrificed to private spite, the spirit of revenge: for no one is so great as to be safe …

Jul 19, 2023: Here Sc. 67 Transcript

Jul 19, 2023: I took only one course with Barzun, and I’m quite sure that my views on poets and novelists were formed before we met. If they hadn’t been, Barzun …

Jul 19, 2023: Two New Books by Arthur Krystal Arthur Krystal, A Word or Two Before I Go “These eleven essays and one evocative story range in subject matter from the depredations of aging …

Jul 19, 2023: What is your level of confidence that the pendulum has swung so far that we will head back to some form of truth and reason? —Jim Sano Opinions will …

Jul 19, 2023: I’m glad that Internet Archive provides the Perennial Edition of From Dawn to Decadence.

Jul 19, 2023: We are none of us tolerant in what concerns us deeply and entirely. —Coleridge, quoted in Barzun, From Dawn to Decadence, p. 273 This means that in a …

Jul 19, 2023: There are 147 en dashes in Gospel Scenes and Reflections and one em dash.

Jul 19, 2023: If Henry Adams were the echo of Gibbon, we would not greatly value the pastiche. —Barzun, From Dawn to Decadence, p. x

Jul 19, 2023: It is waste of breath to point out that every observer is in some way biased. It does not follow that bias cannot be guarded against, that all biases …

Jul 18, 2023: Me: Did you have a good shower? Visitor: Great! Look how clean I am! Me: Haven’t you heard? Albany dirt is invisible.

Jul 18, 2023: Sketch of an inaugural lecture on The Christian Renaissance of the 20th Century to be given by Alan Jacobs. HT @ReaderJohn

Jul 18, 2023: “The Greatest of Sinners” isn’t a competition.

Jul 18, 2023: On earth as it is in hell.

Jul 18, 2023: A Man's A Man for A' That There is a commonplace in St. Thomas Aquinas’s psychology according to which all learning occurs within an imagination and an experience stirred by a …

Jul 17, 2023: Happiness Sc. 66 Transcript

Jul 17, 2023: Tales from the Collection: Mary Murphy, Morely[sic] the Toothless Mastadon[sic] This homebrew rehearsal was apparently considered fit for publication.

Jul 17, 2023: George I of England did not understand a word of English and, as his ministers were similarly ignorant of German, he was compelled to resort to a …

Jul 17, 2023: One large disappointment about Catholicism is its seeming inability to discern evil men. Recent examples appear to include McCarrick, Maciel, Vanier, …

Jul 17, 2023: One doubts that the synod is the work of the Holy Spirit, since the Holy Spirit daily whispers inspirations that Church leaders appear not to hear.

Jul 17, 2023: Let us use inaccurate words, if necessary, in exchange for understanding each other quickly. —Eugenio d’Ors

Jul 17, 2023: “Everything that is not tradition is plagiarism,” according to Salvador Dali. —Frederick Wilhelmsen Eugenio d’Ors?

Jul 17, 2023: Wilhelmsen: The Great Books: Enemies of Wisdom? Great Books fanaticism ignores the audience and in so doing reveals its parochialism, its innocence towards history. We no longer live in a …

Jul 17, 2023: I never read a book when I am away, and seldom when I’m at home.

Jul 16, 2023: I suspect that there are few bureaucratic institutions which employ and place into a position of responsibility even one unfettered individual who …

Jul 16, 2023: Helen B. Ryan, Frank S. Hanlin: A Memorial Statement (1982)

Jul 16, 2023: He tells you why these manuscripts were created and explains to you the complications, expense, and huge undertaking involved in their manufacture and …

Jul 16, 2023: Helen Hazen, “Endless Rewriting” The Helen B. Ryan Papers “contains numerous letters from Ryan’s editor, Jacques Barzun of …

Jul 16, 2023: The praise of history is something exquisite. —Louis XIV, quoted Hazen, Modern Europe, p.28.

Jul 16, 2023: We own this painting. www.instagram.com/reel/CtJn…

Jul 16, 2023: Dear Priests: The Gospel reading is not a warm-up act for you.

Jul 16, 2023: In the NO Mass, the altar server serves comparatively little and is hardly ever at the altar, certainly not at the most important moment of the Mass.

Jul 16, 2023: Eternity is bigger than time.

Jul 16, 2023: Life is more important than looks, faith than followers.

Jul 16, 2023: Desserts on the deck.

Jul 16, 2023: No mutton yesterday at Cafe Mutton.

Jul 16, 2023: To not forgive is human. To say one will not forgive is unchristian.

Jul 16, 2023: He retired after 21 years as Archbishop in 1970, and then served as a parish priest at St. Basil’s Church in Downtown Los Angeles, where he …

Jul 15, 2023: .@ThomasColeSite

Jul 14, 2023: Sc. 31

Jul 14, 2023: “Last Supper”

Jul 14, 2023: “Meaning in the Our Father”

Jul 14, 2023: Sc. 100

Jul 14, 2023: Hmmm. ZeroGPT “Meaning in the Our Father”

Jul 14, 2023: Hmmm, ZeroGPT. Sc. 1

Jul 14, 2023: Micro.blog may stop cross-posting to Twitter tomorrow. If that happens, you see links instead of tweets from me.

Jul 14, 2023: Bastille Day

Jul 14, 2023: It is not when, but what. leowong.micro.blog/2023/07/1…

Jul 14, 2023: All ages are equidistant from eternity, and just as immediately accessible to God’s presence. —Leopold von Rance

Jul 14, 2023: Do you know people who often say “I wonder why,” but never do anything to try to find out?

Jul 14, 2023: Views from the New York State Library

Jul 14, 2023: twitter.com/LeoTheLes…

Jul 13, 2023: Before the NO Mass, people went to Mass in their parish. Now they shop.

Jul 13, 2023: The Stuarts, as was said of the later Bourbons, learned nothing and forgot nothing. —Charles Downer Hazen, Modern Europe, 1920, p. 6

Jul 13, 2023: St. Agnes Roman Catholic Church, Afton, NY In his beloved Afton it took the form of going out of his way at a town gathering to sit next to a neighbor with a drinking problem. It also meant …

Jul 13, 2023: Carlton Joseph Huntley Hayes (16 May 1882 – 3 Sep 1964)

Jul 13, 2023: Totalitarianism is a revolt against all of Western Civilization [Totalitarianism] is a revolt against the moderation and proportion of classical Greece, against the righteousness and justice of the Jewish prophets, …

Jul 13, 2023: Laws they are not which Public approbation hath not made so. —Richard Hooker, Treatise on Ecclesiastical Polity, quoted Gaillard Hunt, “The …

Jul 13, 2023: We hold these truths to be self-evident ... Gaillard Hunt (1862-1924) traced some of Thomas Jefferson’s ideas on liberty to Catholic scholars like Cardinal Robert Bellarmine and argued …

Jul 13, 2023: Conceived, Born, and Cradled Catholic “Marriage to a born Catholic,” says his biographer, Arthur Hughes, “seems to have intensified his interest in his adopted religion …

Jul 13, 2023: John Clare, “The Stranger”

Jul 12, 2023: A couple desiring a child love something that does not and may not ever exist. This is good and natural.

Jul 12, 2023: To evangelize is good, to proselytize is bad. Most people are obviously far more anxious to express their approval and disapproval of things than to describe them. Hence the tendency of words to …

Jul 12, 2023: He testified with many other arguments, and was exhorting them, “Save yourselves from this corrupt generation. Acts 2:40 Was Peter evangelizing or …

Jul 12, 2023: Some examples of the use of “proselytizing”, etc. in the OED: twitter.com/LeoTheLes…

Jul 12, 2023: Separate … is inherently unequal. —Chief Justice Earl Warren, quoted in Robert Pierce Forbes, editor, Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of …

Jul 12, 2023: Discipleship Sc. 65 Transcript

Jul 11, 2023: Reason is to the philosophe what grace is to the Christian. —Encyclopédie, Du Marsais, “Philosopher”, quoted in Robert Pierce Forbes, …

Jul 11, 2023: If there are any men whom [white Americans] have a right to hold in slavery, there may be others who have a right to hold them in slavery. —Richard …

Jul 11, 2023: Fear even yourself.

Jul 11, 2023: Personal knowledge vs. artificial intelligence micro.blog/LeoWong/2…

Jul 11, 2023: In point of fact, nothing is of any worth in the spiritual life, except what ends in practice. –Cécile Bruyère, The Spiritual Life and Prayer

Jul 11, 2023: Most of our Catholic spiritual classics were written for religious. The few that were not assume a Christian culture. Caveat lector.

Jul 11, 2023: Considering that we continue to sin, it behooves us to continue to forgive those who sin against us.

Jul 11, 2023: Simply say no, yes, yes, yes, yes. —after Sc. 31, Matthew 5:37

Jul 11, 2023: Painted crosswalk

Jul 11, 2023: Yellow paint

Jul 11, 2023: Sc. 69, Luke 18:1–8

Jul 11, 2023: Can anything good come out of Nazareth? Sc. 18. John 1:46 We expected to see artificial intelligence, and we find intelligence. —after Pascal I think …

Jul 11, 2023: Guests Sc. 64 Transcript

Jul 11, 2023: Forthcoming in Comment Alan Jacobs https://social.ayjay.org/2023/07/10/forthcoming-in-comment.html

Jul 10, 2023: We are not the Creator, and must accept the mysteries of life as they are given us. —John Jay Chapman Robert Shaw Minturn (1863–1918)

Jul 10, 2023: John Jay Chapman on Robert Shaw Minturn He was able to write for our class gatherings papers which he read aloud, and which reduced every one in the room to tears. This was partly due to his …

Jul 10, 2023: Why say good? One is good, who is God. Sc. 71, Matthew 19:17 Q: What kind of Catholic are you? A: Bad. Walker Percy

Jul 9, 2023: Art plays its part exclusively on earth, where today it feels – though vaguely – the want of something else that went with the loss of God, namely the …

Jul 9, 2023: phobia: an exaggerated usually inexplicable and illogical fear Merriam-Webster phobia: a persistent and irrational fear APA

Jul 9, 2023: Unpopular opinions about postures during Mass: The Great Amen at the end of the Eucharistic Prayer is better sung standing than kneeling. The Agnus …

Jul 9, 2023: The Evangelists, and probably Jesus, quoted the Septuagint. One can be Catholic in English.

Jul 9, 2023: Although you have hidden these things from the wise and the learned you have revealed them to little ones. —from today’s Gospel reading Clever …

Jul 9, 2023: Everyone I know got the shot. If friends and family depended on agreement, I’d be alone.

Jul 9, 2023: Controversy should be permitted on controversial issues.

Jul 9, 2023: My sins are, I hope, all forgivable.

Jul 8, 2023: Toward the end of her life she said: “The Gospels alone are enough for me. I no longer find anything worthwhile in other books.” Before …

Jul 8, 2023: A fellow customer at the car wash asked me what “dubia” meant. Born in Israel, he had just returned from a visit there. I mentioned that I heard that …

Jul 8, 2023: A sleeping person remains a person, I hope. “What happens to our soul when we sleep?" —@JudaismIslam

Jul 8, 2023: Egg, nymph, adult: one praying mantis.

Jul 7, 2023: Assigning sex seems a bad use of the word “assign”, since the assignment doesn’t make a person male or female. What would be a …

Jul 7, 2023: At the northern end of the Tomhannock Reservoir.

Jul 7, 2023: HABITUAL GRACE: Constant supernatural quality of the soul which sanctifies a person inherently and makes him or her just and pleasing to God. Also …

Jul 7, 2023: In social and cultural relations the law rarely intervenes effectively; the protection of rights and feelings only comes from decency and …

Jul 7, 2023: Judas may be in heaven, but art cannot put him there.

Jul 7, 2023: Rodney Stark: Myths too precious to surrender I am competent to reveal that the Crusades were legitimate defensive wars and that the Inquisition was not bloody. I am not competent to explain why …

Jul 7, 2023: Are there any of us who have not heard it said or implied some time somewhere that the people’s Communion is the high point of the Mass? —Philip …

Jul 7, 2023: We have eaten and drunk in thy presence. Luke 13:26 The Eucharist will not save you, if you do evil.

Jul 7, 2023: I never knew you. Sc. 31, Matthew 7:23, Luke 23:25, 27 Spend some time today making yourself known to Jesus.

Jul 6, 2023: To most men argument makes the point in hand only more doubtful, and considerably less impressive. John Henry Newman, The Tamworth Reading Room and …

Jul 6, 2023: When men understand each other’s meaning, they see, for the most part, that controversy is either superfluous or hopeless. John Henry Newman, …

Jul 6, 2023: Dunstan Thompson

Jul 6, 2023: Blessings on Philip Trower and Dunstan Thompson God often makes unexpected appearances, He did so in their lives as well. Philip and Dunstan were visiting Walsingham one weekend, not far from where …

Jul 6, 2023: The action or suggestions of the devil is like water dripping on a stone. An aggravating drip, drip, drip, drip. The action of the Holy Spirit is like …

Jul 6, 2023: I have come across few men in my life of now 90 years whom I have so instantly warmed to and liked. —Philip Trower on Pius XII

Jul 6, 2023: St. Moses the Black. HT Philip Trower

Jul 6, 2023: On *Trower on the Epistles* I was in my father’s study looking for something to read and for the first time I noticed a book called Trower on the Epistles. It was by an ancestor …

Jul 6, 2023: “Cousin Curly” is the only person I have known to have a devotion to John the Baptist. —Philip Trower

Jul 6, 2023: And Nehemiah, who was the governor, and Ezra the priest and the Levites, said to all the people, “Today is holy for you to the LORD your God. Do …

Jul 6, 2023: Offer it up. The only specifically religious idea or practice I remember getting from our Nanny was that of “offering things up” when something went wrong. “Offer …

Jul 6, 2023: What would Nanny have said? —Lord Carrington, quoted by Philip Trower

Jul 6, 2023: Holy Communion at Eaton College before World War II With the other boys in my group I remember discussing what we had been told about not going to Holy Communion if we had done something seriously wrong …

Jul 6, 2023: Only Christianity can confront this. —Sir William Gosselin Trower, father of Philip Trower

Jul 6, 2023: Faith is a gift from God to those who will accept it.

Jul 6, 2023: I can best perhaps describe it as a holy light-heartedness which I have often since noticed in Catholics who have lived and loved their religion since …

Jul 6, 2023: Catholics are catholic, not ideologues.

Jul 5, 2023: Welcome

Jul 5, 2023: Who art in Heaven, Our Father is in heaven; heaven is our home. We are not necessarily far from heaven. The kingdom of heaven is at hand, and perhaps, …

Jul 5, 2023: The office of the US presidency has been hijacked in the most cynical, undisguised, arrogant, unprincipled, often dilettante, and sometimes thuggish …

Jul 5, 2023: Semper Lux Mundi ("Always the Light of the World") Mr. Trump excelled at chaining a name to an epithet during his mercurial political career: Lying Ted, Crooked Hillary, Sleepy Joe. It was effective in …

Jul 5, 2023: Chief Nolo considers idle chatter a great corruptive of sacred mission. John Harris

Jul 5, 2023: We leave a purely theological discussion and move on to a question that is more prudential and disciplinary. —Archbishop Víctor Manuel Fernández You …

Jul 5, 2023: Unfortunately, “enslavers” has come to include all slave owners.

Jul 5, 2023: In Gabriel’s visitation to Mary (Lk. 1:26-38), something takes place that never occurred before in all the exchanges between heaven and earth. Father …

Jul 4, 2023: Now come the greens.

Jul 4, 2023: The potato salad is the first to arrive.

Jul 4, 2023: “The Church of the modern world”. Quoted The Church wants to be a church of a world that is passing – has passed.

Jul 4, 2023: Analysis of motives behind Francis appointing Victor Manuel Fernandez to the Doctrine of the Faith Pope Francis is living his last days, and is looking to ensure that everything he has done in his pontificate will be “tied up and well tied up.” But …

Jul 4, 2023: I thought at the time was a cliché. Now I know it’s a cliché because it’s true. —Peter Hitchens

Jul 4, 2023: The choice of belief is driven by desire. —Peter Hitchens

Jul 3, 2023: Father, forgive them. They don’t know what they are doing. Sc. 87, Luke 23:34 It was still grave sin and great suffering to the Son of God.

Jul 3, 2023: Prayers

Jul 3, 2023: Perea Sc. 63 Transcript

Jul 3, 2023: Peter Brooke, A note on the controversy concerning Eric Gill

Jul 3, 2023: “Master, Master, haven’t we done great things in your name?” Sc. 31 He knows you by little things.

Jul 3, 2023: “only one little onion” —quoted by Gary Saul Morson “an hour” —Sc. 71, Matthew 20:12

Jul 3, 2023: “And indeed,” Alyosha asks himself, “was it to make wine abundant at poor weddings He had come down to earth?” —Gary Saul Morson 19. A Wedding

Jul 3, 2023: Alyosha, instructed by Father Zossima, detects the presence of the Holy Spirit in love of life [“the sheer, biological life force”] for …

Jul 3, 2023: Ivan chooses “not to think.” And this is one way evil happens. —Gary Saul Morson

Jul 3, 2023: “It’s magnificent, Alyosha, this science! . . . And yet I am sorry to lose God.” The Brothers Karamazov, quoted by Gary Saul Morson

Jul 3, 2023: Individuality is essential to humanness, as it is not to molecules. —Gary Saul Morson, quoted by Spencer A. Klavan Hence not just a clump of cells.

Jul 3, 2023: My heart seems to be waiting – for something. Noriko Hirayama

Jul 3, 2023: Whose sins you forgive will be forgiven. Sc. 97, Matthew 16:19, 18:18, John 20:23 A Church that has winked at sin for two generations may have to …

Jul 3, 2023: They Refused Stories or interviews of persons who refused to get the COVID shot might make for a valuable book. Best to do now while memories are …

Jul 2, 2023: He may laugh in the wrong places or stop short at words that he’ll keep for a lifetime. —Wisława Szymborska @waisberg

Jul 2, 2023: True, But Not True Enough You know the story of the old Irish biddy, to whom the neighbors came for a coffee klatch and said, ‘Is this story true about the young widow up the …

Jul 2, 2023: We’re told by friends who brought these back, if you’re on Peaks, go early.

Jul 2, 2023: aversion ≠ phobia

Jul 2, 2023: I believe that Barzun would not write “zero” where “no” would do.

Jul 2, 2023: He that believeth shall not make haste. Isaiah 28:16, quoted in Chapman, “The Negro Question”

Jul 2, 2023: Become more gentle and more intelligent. John Jay Chapman

Jul 2, 2023: The race question certainly puts each of us to the alternative of becoming a great deal holier, a great deal kinder, a great deal deeper in character, …

Jul 2, 2023: You may think it was the girls who did the blushing. When I look back on these many years at Columbia, forty-three now, with only two brief interruptions, my mind is suffused with a host of memories. I …

Jul 2, 2023: America! America! God mend thine every flaw, confirm thy soul in self-control, thy liberty in law. America the Beautiful

Jul 2, 2023: For us who are fallen and continue to fall, it is hard to want less the evil we want. We must then want more the good we also want. Lord, I want – …

Jul 2, 2023: Very few priests know how to speak to God at Mass. This is more evident in the vernacular.

Jul 1, 2023: We pray that heaven come to earth. Meaning in the Our Father This means Good News ahead.

Jul 1, 2023: For me, it is dawn.

Jul 1, 2023: Which saves more souls – evangelizing or proselytizing?

Jul 1, 2023: Jesus says what we should do; he seldom says how we should feel.

Jul 1, 2023: #1393 The modern world will not be punished. It is the punishment. —Nicolás Gómez Dávila archive.org/details/N…

Jun 30, 2023: Marlene A. Condon in Defense of Nature, Nativist Methodology Reveals Dearth of Supporting Evidence for “Invasive”-plant Ideology

Jun 30, 2023: We ask God not to lead us into temptation because often enough it is where we want to go.

Jun 30, 2023: A university has a wealth of knowledge because students enter as freshman knowing everything and leave as seniors knowing nothing. —Columbia …

Jun 30, 2023: Hanukkah Sc. 62 Transcript

Jun 30, 2023: Remembering Zev

Jun 30, 2023: The wheels of justice turn slowly, but grind exceedingly fine. Wikipedia

Jun 30, 2023: The recent Supreme Court decisions seem to to be based more than previously on the written Constitution.

Jun 30, 2023: When we look into the apocryphal gospels, we find ourselves constantly saying of this or that logion, ‘No. It’s a fine saying, but not …

Jun 30, 2023: There is no such thing as modern art; there is only one kind of art and it is everlasting! —Egon Schiele

Jun 30, 2023: Barzun in the Courts

Jun 30, 2023: You are not a category. Banning racial preferences doesn’t ban consideration of an individual’s racial experiences. As all parties agree, nothing in this opinion …

Jun 29, 2023: Two cities have been formed by two loves. City of God, Book XIV, Chapter 28 For St. Augustine, love is not love.

Jun 29, 2023: How will we roll away the stone? Sc. 94, Mark 16:3

Jun 29, 2023: True reform comes slowly; and no race was ever freed except by its own efforts, – no man saved except through himself. —John Jay Chapman, “The …

Jun 29, 2023: From Lionel Trilling, "Mind in the Modern World" At the present time the number of trained academic women is perhaps large enough to support the frequently expressed belief that no lowering of …

Jun 29, 2023: Judgment Sc. 61 Transcript

Jun 29, 2023: I’m told this will be used again.

Jun 28, 2023: He banishes devils by Beelzebub, the prince of devils. Sc. 38, Matthew 9:34, Mark 3:22, Luke 11:18 What, then, is the sin of calling Beelzebub the …

Jun 28, 2023: The Eight Genders in the Talmud by Rachel Scheinerman

Jun 28, 2023: I don’t want ‘cis’ to be censored. —James Esses

Jun 28, 2023: Man, made in God’s image, demands like God to be loved.

Jun 28, 2023: Remember me and do this. Sc. 82, Luke 22:19, 1 Corinthians 11:24-25 Remember the Sabbath day. Exodus 20:8 Observe the Sabbath day. Deuteronomy 5:12 …

Jun 28, 2023: It’s getting harder and harder to get students to actually be interested in some particular topic or skill. Yes, there are plenty of kids who are into …

Jun 28, 2023: In today’s Wordle, I thought John Henry Newman and our daughter thought digestion. I got it in 4 and she in 2. Feed the stomach before feeding the …

Jun 28, 2023: The Seventh Day May not this woman be untied on the Sabbath? Sc. 60

Jun 28, 2023: Seems I’m being given a new bag.

Jun 28, 2023: Carl E. Schorske on Jacques Barzun

Jun 27, 2023: Lord, when did we … Lord, when did we Sc. 78, Matthew 25:37, 44 We cannot be certain whether Jesus will put us on His right side or His left …

Jun 27, 2023: Apparently the photographer has made this public.

Jun 27, 2023: John Jay and Elizabeth Chapman in Hell's Kitchen For two years there was a difficult experiment in New York. The Chapmans took a store on Tenth Avenue below Forty-Ninth Street, in a district known as …

Jun 27, 2023: Of all his talents, painting is the least.—General Ambrogio Spinola on Rubens, quoted in Charles Scribner III, Rubens, p. 124. …

Jun 27, 2023: We tell God what we want. The how we leave to Him.

Jun 26, 2023: You know the 1st commandment. You know the 2nd also. Sc. 78, Matthew 22:37–39, Mark 12:30–31, Luke 10:27, Deuteronomy 6:5. Leviticus 19:18 The Jews …

Jun 26, 2023: He will divide each nation, putting the sheep on his right side and the goats on his left. Sc. 78, Matthew 25:32 There will be no self-identification …

Jun 26, 2023: He knows what you need before you ask him. Sc. 31, Matthew 6:8 Sometimes our prayer is already answered.

Jun 26, 2023: Astilbe and Spiral

Jun 26, 2023: Wealth Sc. 59 Transcript

Jun 25, 2023: Blind mouths, you vomit the ant and swallow the camel. Sc. 78, Matthew 23:24

Jun 25, 2023: And do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; rather, be afraid of the one who can destroy both soul and body in Gehenna. …

Jun 25, 2023: Yet not one falls to the ground without your Father’s knowing it. Sc. 43, Today’s Gospel

Jun 25, 2023: Political flags should not appear on government buildings.

Jun 25, 2023: waisberg.micro.blog/2023/06/2…

Jun 25, 2023: Eternity matters.

Jun 24, 2023: A Catholic Atheist Google Maps: “Austin” by Ellsworth Kelly

Jun 24, 2023: Jason John Paul Haskins in Texas Architect: Abstract Arch: The Duck Test Tradition[alism] Resurgent (Presbyterian ad orientem?)

Jun 24, 2023: My sense is that the apse and altar here [at St. John the Evangelist in Schenectady NY] results in a posture more appropriate to the Tridentine …

Jun 24, 2023: St. John the Evangelist Catholic Church: <Outside> <Inside>

Jun 24, 2023: The rain stopped after the event. Center Square Association photos from 2022

Jun 24, 2023: “Only God can forgive sins.” Sc. 29, Mark 2:7

Jun 24, 2023: Seeing tweets about Marko Rupnik caused me to buy Caravaggio – A Life Sacred and Profane by @Andrew Graham-Dixon In the Book Extract it should be …

Jun 24, 2023: Unfortunately, a rainy day for Center Square’s Stoop Stroll.

Jun 24, 2023: I believe: stop my not believing. Sc. 54, Mark 9:24 One must first believe before one’s unbelief is helped. This man, being but a beginner in …

Jun 24, 2023: I would like to call out to everyone who is riding on this train: “Jump out before the train reaches its destination, even if it costs you your …

Jun 24, 2023: Punishment is the inevitable consequence of man’s attempt to regulate life and society on a system that runs counter to the facts of his own nature. …

Jun 24, 2023: Get out of my way, Satan, you are a stone in my path. You speak for men and not God. Sc. 52, Matthew 16:23, Mark 8:33 Hurtful.

Jun 24, 2023: Is being hurt by the truth a problem? —Fr. Gerald E. Murray, ‘The Synodal Church of ”Me, Myself, and I”'

Jun 24, 2023: waisberg.micro.blog/2023/06/2…

Jun 23, 2023: A baby is delivered, not created, at birth.

Jun 23, 2023: One should not imagine that the Apostles said the Our Father as they walked with Jesus; nor will we say the Our Father in heaven. If you are with …

Jun 23, 2023: The First Amendment does not restrict religion. The First Amendment restricts government.

Jun 23, 2023: After they die, many people are going to places they don’t believe in.

Jun 23, 2023: Jacques Barzun, “Baseball’s Best Cultural Critic”, Turns His Back on the Game, by Douglas McDaniel But: “As this book neared …

Jun 23, 2023: One sometimes has doubts about the small print added to the Gospels.

Jun 23, 2023: The time is coming when whoever kills you will think he is serving God. Sc. 82, John 16:2 This does not mean they are going to heaven.

Jun 23, 2023: U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, 128 Civics Questions and Answers (2020 version)

Jun 23, 2023: The term is not a slur; it is a technical label. —Barzun, From Dawn to Decadence leowong.micro.blog/2023/06/2…

Jun 23, 2023: The words “cis” or “cisgender” are considered slurs on [Twitter]. —Elon Musk “Cisgender” is not a slur. —Cory Bush Let’s Call the Whole Thing …

Jun 23, 2023: Hirschman on the possibility of and search for genuine novelty. The possibility of encountering genuine novelty can never be ruled out – this is indeed one of the principal lessons of the past itself. And there is …

Jun 23, 2023: “J’ay veu en mon temps cent artisans, cent laboureurs, plus sages et plus heureux que des Recteurs de l’Universite.” (I have seen in my time hundreds …

Jun 23, 2023: Temptations perpetually surround us. —Samuel Johnson, quoted by Aldous Huxley, quoted by IWP Books

Jun 23, 2023: The temperamental conservative is a type vulnerable to ridicule, yet not more innately ridiculous than his neighbours. —Agnes Repplier, quoted in …

Jun 23, 2023: Erwin Chargaff on Montaigne’s Essays: “It resembles an ocean from which all manner of things can be drawn forth: a gleaming pearl, a dead …

Jun 23, 2023: There is God’s lamb. Sc. 18

Jun 22, 2023: The inner meaning of the First Great Commandment: To be loved by me hast Thou not done more than I could have dared hope or desire? —Abbé Grou …

Jun 22, 2023: The first Christians were Catholic.

Jun 21, 2023: Abbé Grou, How to Pray Can we consider any method faulty which is the fruit of humility, of the deep feeling of our own incapacity, of a lively faith and confidence in God, …

Jun 21, 2023: A man may receive Holy Communion sacrilegiously, but he cannot pray sacrilegiously. —Fr. Bryan Houghton, “Prayer, Grace & the …

Jun 21, 2023: A Room (Birds chirping in the background?)

Jun 21, 2023: Galilee Teach the nations. Transcript

Jun 21, 2023: Steps were taken that have magnified the idea of race and made it of decisive importance almost everywhere in the culture. —Barzun, From Dawn to …

Jun 21, 2023: Interesting phrase: “habitual or sanctifying grace”. Bryan Houghton, “The priests who disliked Mass'

Jun 20, 2023: Our worker refused a raise and said he would work for us for less than the little we pay him. I better not tell his name. We hope he will eventually …

Jun 20, 2023: Jesus was on earth for 30 years before making his first disciples. It was not enough to be privately, He must act publicly. So must we if we are his …

Jun 20, 2023: Sometimes one learns that a friend is Catholic when he tells you he is going to the funeral Mass for his mother or father.

Jun 20, 2023: Road to Emmaus Sc. 96 Charles Scribner III, "In alia effigie: Caravaggio’s London Supper at Emmaus"

Jun 20, 2023: “Pope” comes from “papa” and earlier words that mean father.

Jun 19, 2023: “Unto This Last”: I give to these last the same as I give you. Sc. 71, Matthew 20:14

Jun 18, 2023: Report The soldiers are told what to say. Transcript

Jun 18, 2023: Happy 50th Birthday to Isaac Waisberg, Publisher.

Jun 18, 2023: Roses on Dove St.

Jun 18, 2023: An A7 notebook for my Micro.blogs.

Jun 18, 2023: Dear Children, Who will pray for your Parents, if not you? A Father

Jun 18, 2023: My name is Legion. Sc. 41, Mark 5:9, Luke 8:30 Such must be removed, not converted.

Jun 18, 2023: Romans 5:10 is in today’s Second Reading. AMicro.blog reply

Jun 18, 2023: The other sex is not greener.

Jun 17, 2023: “Master, Master, haven’t we done great art in your name?” —after Sc. 31, Matthew 7:22

Jun 17, 2023: Even your hairs are counted. Sc. 43, Matthew 10:30, Luke 12:6 Not infrequently one sees a person or persons deeply engaged in a matter one considers …

Jun 17, 2023: Three Mary Magdalene, James’ mother Mary, and Salome Transcript

Jun 16, 2023: Tweets on the Hail Mary 15 tweets + the prayer Transcript

Jun 15, 2023: The Wolf Shall Dwell with the Lamb Yet pups feed on scraps that fall from their master’s table.

Jun 15, 2023: Two of my posts exceeded Micro.blog community guidelines, so anything similar I want to post will be “Twitter exclusives”.

Jun 15, 2023: Time, Talent, and Treasure I was about to give this talk at the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception, Albany, NY, when we were called to the Saint Joseph Provincial House in …

Jun 15, 2023: On the Holy Family Including some after-breakfast burps. Transcript

Jun 14, 2023: Vase of flowers (Albany, NY)

Jun 14, 2023: Chinese lanterns in San Francisco (test for Twitter crossposting).

Jun 14, 2023: Greetings to us from a transcontinental telecommuter.

Jun 14, 2023: LGBTQIA+ is not a community but a special interest group.

Jun 13, 2023: Pope Francis misused his position, gravitas, and moral authority to sell a false “act of love.” —Fr. Irby C. Nichols

Jun 13, 2023: The act is sometimes needed, and wisdom then approves it after the event. Reform consists in taking a bone from a dog. Philosophy will not do it. …

Jun 13, 2023: We are seeing Social Justice without social mercy.

Jun 13, 2023: twitter.com/LeoTheLes…

Jun 13, 2023: “Pepsi, no Coke. —Old-time comedy

Jun 13, 2023: Black Beauty

Jun 13, 2023: In the matter of sex, assignment is not causation.

Jun 13, 2023: We all deserve to go to hell. Some will and some won’t.

Jun 13, 2023: It isn’t dentistry.

Jun 13, 2023: I was first attracted to the Blackshirts because I saw in them the courage, the action, the loyalty, the gift of service and the ability to serve …

Jun 13, 2023: “Not in word list.” Grrrrr. Alan Jacobs https://social.ayjay.org/2023/06/13/not-in-word.html

Jun 13, 2023: We expected to see artificial intelligence, and we find natural intelligence. We are astonished and delighted. —after Pascal

Jun 12, 2023: What is ketchup? Will try OSEM. Uncle Flapjacks IWP Books

Jun 12, 2023: Richard White, grandfather of the groom, died at 5:15 this evening. May he find rest in God.

Jun 12, 2023: “Gender-affirming” is a euphemism for “sex-denying”.

Jun 12, 2023: “Trans” means “over”, “across”, “beyond”, or “on the farther side of”, so whatever …

Jun 12, 2023: A greeting from our daughter this morning.

Jun 12, 2023: Agnes Repplier, A Happy Half-Century and Other Essays, 1908 (IWP Books 2023)

Jun 11, 2023: Just as the fall of Rome helped religion, so does the fall of the West help religion.

Jun 11, 2023: Not only love your neighbor: love your neighbor in a manner that your neighbor loves you. Everyone will know you are following me, if you love each …

Jun 11, 2023: What I say is: today you will be with me in paradise. Sc. 87, Luke 23:43 [Not only in Paradise, but with Him in Paradise.]

Jun 11, 2023: Focus

Jun 11, 2023: This chapel was once a great space bringing one to Christ. The renovation, with its semicircle of chairs and its altar table, made it less effective …

Jun 11, 2023: Mass at the CSJ St Joseph’s Provincial House in Latham.

Jun 11, 2023: It should not be faith-based, but faith-led. Faith led Noah to listen when God warned him about the things in the future that he could not see. …

Jun 11, 2023: Taste isn’t subjective. Others serve the good wine first, and when everybody is beaming bring in the cheap wine – you saved the best for last. …

Jun 11, 2023: The NO Mass is not good enough for God.

Jun 11, 2023: The Historian Who Correctly Predicted What the Internet Would Do to Humanity by Jon Miltimore

Jun 10, 2023: Why the Bishops must speak. archive.org/details/f…

Jun 10, 2023: Caught in the act of possessing documents.

Jun 10, 2023: The Eucharist is not medicine. It is Christ. Make of that what you will.

Jun 10, 2023: I cannot retain true Childhood unless I am continually putting away childish things. —Robert Hugh Benson, The Friendship of Christ, 1912, p. 5

Jun 10, 2023: Time to update the label.

Jun 9, 2023: “The Humanitarian Theory of Punishment”, by C. S. Lewis

Jun 9, 2023: Uncle Flapjacks recommends.

Jun 9, 2023: Heaven and hell are indeed poetic justice, and tells us that God and man have similar predilections.

Jun 9, 2023: This week’s events at the Albany Institute of History and Art

Jun 9, 2023: Choose a color.

Jun 9, 2023: Don’t fear those who can kill the body but not the soul. Fear him who can destroy both body and soul in hell. Sc. 43 Not all fears are phobic.

Jun 9, 2023: To say that one is the worst of sinners and to say that one is never tempted seem contradictory.

Jun 9, 2023: Returning for now to an old Twitter banner.

Jun 9, 2023: Not getting the COVID shot for religious reasons shall cover a multitude of sins.

Jun 9, 2023: Horace, Odes, 4.7 Philip Francis’s translation of Diffugere nives Transcript

Jun 8, 2023: Trump’s Still the One, by Matthew Schmitz and Sohrab Ahmari

Jun 8, 2023: Better face justice in this world than in the next.

Jun 8, 2023: If nothing else, Donald J. Trump is the poster child of political persecution.

Jun 8, 2023: Wood tones

Jun 8, 2023: “We are the artificial intelligence”. Fabio Russo on “Why I don’t call what I do ‘artificial intelligence’”.

Jun 8, 2023: When comes the sun?

Jun 8, 2023: The ode “Diffugere nives”, read by John Derbyshilre (@DissidentRight)

Jun 8, 2023: In my library: Micky Dolenz (@TheMickyDolenz1)

Jun 7, 2023: Looking at this, we decided we would paint the stoop. We may also use feet instead of saucers under the pots.

Jun 7, 2023: A desire to do good is not, and never has been, a motive power in the acquisition of wealth. —Agnes Repplier, “Money”

Jun 7, 2023: Wine is for mirth, and not for madness. —Saint John Chrysostom, quoted, Agnes Repplier, “The Strayed Prohibitionist” [Also quoted in The …

Jun 7, 2023: The absence of data leaves room only for surmise. —Agnes Repplier, “Woman Enthroned” [With “trans-women” we have more data.]

Jun 7, 2023: The world is not nearly so simple a place as the sexualists seem to consider it. “The Virtuous Victorian”

Jun 6, 2023: The counsel of Christ is necessarily personal & intimate. What the Gospel asks, & has always asked, is the reformation of ourselves. What the …

Jun 6, 2023: Mr. Chesterton, upon whom the delight of startling his readers never seems to pall, has declared that men are more sentimental than women, “whose only …

Jun 6, 2023: The FBI stated they were afraid the informant would be killed if unmasked… —Congresswoman Luna The authorities have not been good at protecting …

Jun 6, 2023: The State does not want to tell us what it thinks, the State wants us to think what it tells us.

Jun 6, 2023: Are we more like Carthage or Rome? micro.blog/LeoWong/1…

Jun 6, 2023: I suppose a single live man and a million of live men as well.

Jun 6, 2023: It is permissible to observe a difference between one’s general conclusions and one’s private predilections. What I see and infer makes me reconciled …

Jun 6, 2023: Another photo from a film camera.

Jun 6, 2023: Some photos were taken with a film camera.

Jun 5, 2023: There are always men and women who prefer the triumph of evil, which is a thing they can forget, to prolonged resistance, which shatters their nerves. …

Jun 5, 2023: We have opened our doors to unrestricted immigration, partly because capitalists want plenty of cheap labour, which is not a good reason; and partly …

Jun 5, 2023: Americans should understand that politics is essential to democracy.

Jun 5, 2023: Mother and Father of the Bride

Jun 5, 2023: At our daughter’s wedding, May 13, 2023.

Jun 4, 2023: Appreciation for the altar servers who hold the Communion-plate under one’s chin during Communion. A wonderful service to communicants.

Jun 4, 2023: But why to me – why should my Lord’s mother come to me? I heard your voice – my baby in me jumped for joy. Sc. 4 (Luke 1:43) John was in his sixth …

Jun 3, 2023: When the dead are quoted in this fashion [“Mr. Lowell would agree with me”] and nothing happens, then we know that, despite the assurances …

Jun 3, 2023: This is so emphatically the children’s age that a good many of us are beginning to thank God we were not born in it. —Agnes Repplier, “Popular …

Jun 3, 2023: Human experience is very, very old. It is our surest monitor, our safest guide. To ignore it crudely is the error of those ardent but uninstructed …

Jun 3, 2023: In the genial reign of Henry the Eighth, a docile Parliament passed, at the desire of the King, an “Act to abolish Diversity of Opinion.” —Agnes …

Jun 3, 2023: That vague [censure] which holds everybody responsible for what somebody has done. —Agnes Repplier, “Women and War”

Jun 3, 2023: That religion can lose nothing by the destruction of her monuments is the solace of Christian souls. Agnes Repplier

Jun 3, 2023: Sully, in his memoirs, tells us that, at the siege of Montmélian, a cannon-shot struck the ground close to the spot where he and the king were …

Jun 3, 2023: Do not draw the conclusion that because God loves you, you cannot go to hell.

Jun 3, 2023: This loss of nerve, this “weakening of faith in normal human resistance,” … Agnes Repplier

Jun 3, 2023: “That intricate web of normal expectation,” which Mr. Gilbert Murray tells us is the very essence of human society, provides incentives for reasonable …

Jun 3, 2023: We must forever bear in mind that sentiment is subjective, and a personal thing. However exalted and however ardent, it cannot be accepted as a scale …

Jun 3, 2023: The aim and hope of Liberalism is Progress. When it became clear that Progress could not be obtained through Discussion, Liberalism went for Control.

Jun 3, 2023: If sex and gender identity are different things, what should be based on sex and what on gender identity?

Jun 2, 2023: Belief is indeed a gift for which we cannot be too grateful.

Jun 2, 2023: A Room with a Painting

Jun 2, 2023: Amazing! Praying with Samaritans in their Secretive Synagogue, by The TravelingClatt

Jun 2, 2023: “Fish on Friday” isn’t the name of DEVON’s painting, which we’ll hang elsewhere than shown in this photo. …

Jun 2, 2023: FRAGILE

Jun 2, 2023: Tweet

Jun 1, 2023: Horace, Odes, 3.9 Francis and Walter Davison’s translation of Donec Gratus Eram

Jun 1, 2023: Nobody wants to be a Madame Bovary, even though Flaubert said, “I am Madame Bovary.”

Jun 1, 2023: Horace, Odes, 2.16 Sir Philip Perring’s translation of Otium Divos Transcript

Jun 1, 2023: How can you love me, if you love self-love more than the love that comes from God only? Sc. 44 Two cities have been formed by two loves: the earthly …

Jun 1, 2023: One pot potted.

Jun 1, 2023: “Yes, happiness is a risk (and happiness is a task).” - John Lukacs, A Thread of Years, 1998, p. 9.

May 31, 2023: Supposing you succeed in destroying superstition, what are you going to put in its place? —Casanova to Voltaire, Louis Biancolli, The Book of Great …

May 31, 2023: Horace, Odes, 2.3 Thomas Creech’s translation of Aequam Memento, accompanied by snoring dogs. Transcript

May 30, 2023: When everything is in question, not everyone willl have the answer. Faye, the mama swan taken from Manlius pond, was eaten on Memorial Day

May 30, 2023: w_annie3592 is walking The Way.

May 29, 2023: Waterfront Park on Saratoga Lake

May 29, 2023: If you want micro.blog/LeoWong to follow you on @microdotblog, please let me know, since micro.blog doesn’t reveal one’s followers, only the …

May 28, 2023: At the words that follow, up to and including the Virgin Mary, all bow. who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, Did you bow …

May 28, 2023: God’s will is done in hell, but not as in heaven.

May 28, 2023: Pentecost is a Jewish and a Christian feast day.

May 27, 2023: Brooklyn is renowned for its ladies.

May 27, 2023: One who was more intimate with the history of philosophy than probably anyone else in the 20th century, Etienne Gilson, said that Chesterton was “one …

May 26, 2023: Spiralpine

May 25, 2023: Expanding the deck a bit.

May 25, 2023: "Last Supper" From Gospel Scenes and Reflections

May 24, 2023: Man, the reasonable being, totally unable to state a case based on events that are a matter of record, nimbly hops to what would have been the case if …

May 24, 2023: There can be no return to common sense, for no one has ever been there. Meditations in Wall Street

May 24, 2023: Heaven appears to have ordained a great many things which it is supposed to disapprove of. Meditations in Wall Street

May 24, 2023: On their way to being exalted, the humble usually resign themselves comfortably to seeing the proud humbled. Meditations on Wall Street Vengeance is …

May 24, 2023: The man who has a dogmatic creed has more time left for his business. Meditations in Wall Street

May 24, 2023: And lead us not into temptation. It is more difficult not to want to be tempted than it is to refrain from yielding. Meditations in Wall Street

May 24, 2023: Sometimes you see little changes fluttering their pennons to show you that a great change is on its way. Meditations in Wall Street

May 24, 2023: Epictetus was born in slavery, and did a slave’s work. —Albert Jay Nock, Introduction to Meditations in Wall Street

May 24, 2023: The State is the poorest instrument imaginable for improving human society. Albert Jay Nock, Introduction to Meditations in Wall Street

May 24, 2023: I have picked out those which best exhibit the remarkable scope and range of the author’s observations; they are no more than one in five of the …

May 24, 2023: Some bishops wished to have a greater presence of the Extraordinary Form of the Mass, but could not because the older priests would create havoc in …

May 24, 2023: "I feel something within me that compels me to burn Rome." (2006) Snoring dogs in the background: do not be like them. Read

May 24, 2023: For the birds.

May 24, 2023: Fun fact: the Brooklyn Bridge opened 140 years ago today.

May 23, 2023: Jacques Barzun on Clerihews Barzun’s Introductory Ode to The Clerihews of Paul Horgan 📖

May 23, 2023: Horace, Odes, 1.22 Christopher Smart’s two translations of Integer Vitae. 📖

May 23, 2023: Our ancestors were not fools. —Rudyard Kiping Horace’s Integer Vitae: A Collection of Translations

May 23, 2023: Horace, Odes, 1.11 Sir Thomas Hawkins' translation of Carpe Diem. 📖

May 22, 2023: Buying a new painting by Devon Grimes. 🎨 🖌️

May 21, 2023: 99. Fishing Hear Gospel Scenes and Reflections

May 21, 2023: 100. Home Hear Gospel Scenes and Reflections

May 21, 2023: In Joyce’s Ulysses for hundreds of pages we have merely the successive & passive states of mind of one man during a few hours. —James …

May 21, 2023: ‘Lead us not into temptation.’ The presence of this phrase in the Lord’s Prayer reveals its author’s profoundly realistic appreciation of human nature. Why should we pray that we …

May 20, 2023: In spite of everything that has happened, everybody thinks he is right. —Aldous Huxley, Science, Liberty and Peace (1947) [emphasis added]

May 20, 2023: Meaning in the Our Father The Our Father is not the prayer that our Lord Jesus prayed. It is the prayer that He taught us to pray. Who we are includes at the very least all who …

May 20, 2023: What book last changed your thinking? Jacques Barzun’s From Dawn to Decadence: 1500 to the Present – 500 Years of Western Cultural Life. It gave me a framework for how to absorb and …

May 18, 2023: 29150313 To receive Someone is not to get something.

May 18, 2023: 20140306 Fasts are gifts to God.

May 18, 2023: 20150129 A sanctuary without a communion rail is like picture without a frame.

May 18, 2023: 20150113 “All pious practices come second to prayer.” —Père Lamy “The Blessed Virgin takes her cloak to cover the souls who are good …

May 18, 2023: 20150103 It is easy to say “I know”, but unless I am as saint I don’t know.

May 18, 2023: 20140131 “Dear God, yes I realize what it was you revealed, what no human could conceive: your humility. You even humbled yourself beyond death on the …

May 18, 2023: 20141210 “A great man is one image – one thing, so to speak – to his valet, another to his son, another to his wife, another to his greatest friend. None …

May 18, 2023: 20141209 Neither inspired nor infallible, but obedient. “Who can really pray to a Being, about whose existence he is seriously in doubt?” …

May 18, 2023: 20141205 Free will does not mean free choice.

May 18, 2023: 20141203 Once you’re in Heaven, there are no more tests [or temptations?].

May 18, 2023: 20141201 It is not so important to be right as to be with. All good come from God.

May 18, 2023: 20141121 “Many things are uncertain. God is pleased and rejoices when a soul distrusts Him for His own sake; because it loves Him, it is prudent and …

May 18, 2023: 20141120 Confession.

May 18, 2023: 20141119 Are there no saints on the Internet?

May 18, 2023: 20141112 One can always be of Love’s party.

May 18, 2023: 20141110 Forgiveness must be asked for.

May 18, 2023: 20141109 Abstract art is sauce without meat.

May 18, 2023: 20141028 Difference between trying to do good and trying to do good for God.

May 18, 2023: 20141024 Confession

May 17, 2023: 20141023 With prayer, things happen that would not have happened. Every Catholic is in a culture in time, but Catholicism is “beyond culture” and …

May 17, 2023: 20141022 To love God, be a Catholic. The Church wants an open-admissions policy, but has not plans for remedial education. Evidence of the latter is …

May 17, 2023: 20141021 The Church wants to say welcome but doesn’t say why anyone should want to come in. The wrong thing to say is that the Church has …

May 17, 2023: 20141020 Priests should not wear, much less look at, their wristwatches during Mass. I would like to die praying.

May 17, 2023: 20141009 Christendom vs. Christianity; or rather: the idea of Christendom vs. Christianity. One cannot imagine Jesus being a team player.

May 17, 2023: 20141006 Is the Gospel still news.

May 17, 2023: 20141002 If I knew, I would pray. Since I don’t know, I will pray. Since I shall know, I do pray. He lived, he loved, he prayed.

May 17, 2023: 20140923 Adam’s sin was no worse than the sins I commit at least seven times a day. “Rise up again.”

May 17, 2023: 20140913 No need to kill time in heaven.

May 17, 2023: 20140909 “If you who are evil” applies to everybody, so no need to think that the finger is pointed particularly at you. But of course, …

May 17, 2023: 20140905 The usefulness of sour grapes. The consciousness of a dog is somewhere between that of a dead Jesus and that of the living Jesus.

May 17, 2023: 20140904 Someone will benefit from a prayer. Love responds to love. Every time I pray someone benefits.

May 17, 2023: 20140901 If it doesn’t matter to God, it needn’t matter to me. If it matters to me, I can pray for it to God.

May 17, 2023: 20140828 It may not be what God wants, but at least it’s not what I want.

May 17, 2023: 20140827 “Religion is not our concern; it is God’s concern: be still and know.” —Thomas R. Kelly “Count on God knocking on the doors of …

May 17, 2023: 20140826 “Then you don’t really want to, you don’t love God above all else in the world, with all your head and soul and mind and …

May 17, 2023: 20140420 “When God loves, all he desires is to be loved in return; the sole purpose of his love is to be loved in return, in the knowledge that …

May 17, 2023: 20140804 We can cause good by praying. We cannot cause evil by not praying. If God counts our prayers, it’s okay to pray for little things. Not …

May 17, 2023: 20140802 Say, not only think, your prayers.

May 17, 2023: 20140801 The fear that God is not love.

May 17, 2023: 20140731 What’s on a dog’s bucket list? Could the beasts present in the stable not be present in heaven?

May 17, 2023: 20140728 “My Lord and my God.” A prayer for doubters.

May 17, 2023: 20140727 Mary is just as loving and less demanding than Jesus.

May 17, 2023: 20140723 My dog, an object of my love, sleeps most of the day. Mainly we are important because we are His. The dead know.

May 17, 2023: 20140722 Superstitious practices are a kind of discipline. If the time comes, “no authority” will prove no hindrance.

May 17, 2023: 20140719 What were vocations are now careers.

May 17, 2023: 20140718 The things one cares most about, one can do little about. If the hairs of our heads are counted, so are our dogs counted.

May 17, 2023: 20140717 “My yoke,” meaning joining with Jesus and pulling together. “Sweet (easy) yoke,” meaning the yoke is well-fitted …

May 17, 2023: 20140709 Praying for felt needs is like buying. Praying for unfelt needs is like saving.

May 17, 2023: 20140707 You don’t have to be good, you don’t have to feel good. [You have to do good?] Man created God. So? We cannot know what God is. …

May 17, 2023: 20140702 “Do not use clever words (GO TO HELL). Their cuteness wears off very fast and their mnemonic value is too subjective. Besides they …

May 17, 2023: 30140630 To avoid sin, avoid temptation. “The proof is obedience.” —Dr. Mark Miravalle

May 17, 2023: 30140624 Neither the desert nor the city is the Promised Land. “Then who can be saved?” is a pertinent question. The stable in which Jesus …

May 17, 2023: 30140623 Judging is a way of trying to make sense of experiences. Mom slowly recovering from a fall that hurt or head and back: “I’m …

May 17, 2023: 30140622 Occasion is not cause.

May 17, 2023: 30140621 Pin your hopes on the next life. There’ll be plenty of time for self-improvement after you die.

May 17, 2023: 30140619 Americans are the Chosen People, like the Jews.

May 17, 2023: 30140617 Little children aren’t saints.

May 17, 2023: 20140616 No need to prove you are a sinner.

May 17, 2023: 20140615 To myself: The biggest liar: you. The biggest lie: you. The reason for sex is babies. Selfish and sentimental.

May 17, 2023: 20140612 The importance of the vocative.

May 17, 2023: 20140424 I prefer good news to bad news, comedy to tragedy.

May 17, 2023: 20140418 Anne’s 10th birthday. Last night the new bishop met Anne and said, “She reminds us of the dogginess of God.” Anne woke us …

May 17, 2023: 20140412 In heaven Beethoven again hears. And Milton sees.

May 17, 2023: 20140410 Observe the commas.

May 17, 2023: 20140409 The dead are not behind us, but ahead of us.

May 17, 2023: 20140323 The Mass is greater than the Gospels.

May 17, 2023: 20140301 … neither do the spirits damn’d lose all their virtue; Paradise Lost, II. 482–483

May 16, 2023: 20140228 Prayers not pronouncements. Art is a good deed done. Music is a good deed being done.

May 16, 2023: 20140221 One of the greatest advantages of religion over science is that stupid people can understand religion as well as and often better than smart …

May 16, 2023: 20140214 “Two immigrants from Germany [meet] for the first time after many years in New York. One asks the other: ‘Are you happy …

May 16, 2023: 20140212 “Great movements in the arts, like revolutions, don’t last more than about fifteen years. After that the flame dies down and people prefer …

May 16, 2023: 20140211 “Great works of art can be produced by barbarous societies.” Kenneth Clark, Civilization, 1. “Where some way of thought or …

May 16, 2023: 20140210 Not: history is; but: histories are. So much telling, so little showing. It is true that we have a guardian angel. But a photo of us with our …

May 16, 2023: 20140209 The “next life” is already “this life” for those who have died.

May 16, 2023: 20140207 “I [the archpriest, a grave and serious priest, told me] – eyewitness to the frenetic enthusiasm of the five, six thousand people shouting …

May 16, 2023: 20140206 Because believers are not good, some think they are good because they don’t believe.

May 16, 2023: 2014 0130 I believe because I sin. “The saints themselves do not perform miracles; this is done by God at their request.” Piers Paul Read …

May 16, 2023: 20140129 Prayer is active non-doing.

May 16, 2023: “The fine line between proper devotion and fanaticism is not difficult to cross.” Vittorio Messori, Foreword to Francesco Castelli, Padre …

May 16, 2023: 20140124 If my left hand does not know it, why should the Internet? Don’t be surprised if you are tempted to do something damnable. In prayer, …

May 16, 2023: 20140123 When we are in heaven there will not be much call for compassion.

May 16, 2023: 20140121 Salvation of souls. Not because souls love God, but because God loves souls.

May 16, 2023: 20140120 “The only thing that distinguishes a saint from other people on earth is his capacity for love.” Houselander, Guild, 142. …

May 16, 2023: 20140117 “Lay an egg or purr on [or?] something and you’ll soon feel yourself again, I assure you.” Andersen, “The Ugly …

May 16, 2023: 20140116 A little child is less conscious of itself than of its parents. We are that which God loves." Houselander, Guilt, 156. “What is the …

May 16, 2023: 20140114 “It is of interest that Rimbaud, too, was followed in his restless wandering life by the prayers of his devout and rather dull little sister, …

May 16, 2023: 20140113 The Church persecuted its greatest saints: Padre Pio, St. Joan, Jesus. It is not I who pray, but the Holy Spirit.

May 16, 2023: 20140113 The Church persecuted its greatest saints: Padre Pio, St. Joan, Jesus.

May 16, 2023: 20140112 The answer is not necessarily the solution.

May 16, 2023: 20140114 Not I but Jesus brought you [me?] to Jesus. It is [would be?] easier – though still difficult – for me to to be Setsuka Hara than to be Jesus to you. …

May 16, 2023: 20140110 Not that dog loved me, but that I loved dog. At the Transfiguration, Moses and Elijah, not Pharaoh and Ahab.

May 16, 2023: 20140109 If I knew my sins I would confess them. Resolve – and prepare – to go to Confession at [before?] Easter.

May 16, 2023: 20140108 “The more guilty we are, the less guilty we feel.” Caryll Houselander, Guilt, 1951, 2. ‘Man cannot love himself as he really is, …

May 16, 2023: 20140108 The more guilty we are, the less guilty we feel." Caryll Houselander, Guilt, 1951, 2.

May 16, 2023: 20140107 After a certain point the task is not to get better but to not get worse. If you want appreciation, pray for the dead.

May 16, 2023: 20140106 Pray for what makes you pray.

May 16, 2023: 20140105 I hope the good I do to my dog I do to my God.

May 16, 2023: 20130104 Whenever you want to save money, do something that doesn’t. I don’t want to make you happy. I want you do be happy. “All of …

May 16, 2023: 20140102 Be ready to go when he says come.

May 16, 2023: 20131229 Do always the good that you fell occasionally.

May 16, 2023: 20130102 Be ready to go when he says come.

May 16, 2023: 20131226 Since I can’t count on myself, why should I count on another? [Much too pessimistic.]

May 16, 2023: 20131212 Perhaps I should have an Our Lady of Guadalupe blotter to press on my first use of Noodler’s Heart of Darkness ink.

May 16, 2023: 20131207 Do God’s will whatever the reason.

May 16, 2023: 20131206 I believe in experience, including others' experience. I can know what I haven’t experienced, by faith [and from others].

May 16, 2023: 20131205 Adam & Eve were not Jews. Civilization is not necessary for salvation. One can be a great ______ without entering the kingdom of heaven. J[esus] …

May 16, 2023: About Gospel Scenes and Reflections Read Hear LeoTheLess on Twitter Leo Wong on Blogger

Feb 28, 2023: Mary Murphy, “Eating Wild”