Guests

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)

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 elocution which was truly remarkable, I used to get him to read pieces of my own aloud, because he could put more significance into them than I could myself; and he could read them at sight, no matter how illegible the condition of the manuscript might be. He had the old cultivation, the old literary passion, the old training. His favorite bits of prose and verse lived for him with a perennial life, and he could rehearse and recite them, as people used to do in 1850. —John Jay Chapman, Uncollected Memories, 2022, p. 28.

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

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 loss of the Devil. —Barzun, The Use and Abuse of Art, “Art the Redeemer”, p. 91

phobia: an exaggerated usually inexplicable and illogical fear Merriam-Webster

phobia: a persistent and irrational fear APA

Unpopular opinions about postures during Mass:

  1. The Great Amen at the end of the Eucharistic Prayer is better sung standing than kneeling.
  2. The Agnus Dei is better sung kneeling than standing.
  3. The people should remain kneeling when the priest sits after giving Communion.

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

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 people blind themselves to the word of God. —Fr. Julian A. Davies, OFM, in his homily today

The educated have much to unlearn.

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

Controversy should be permitted on controversial issues.

My sins are, I hope, all forgivable.

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 she entered Carmel she read a few books, but most of them were of no great merit. —John Beevers, Saint Thérèse the Little Flower: The Making of a Saint, “Gospels alone”

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 Israelis weren’t polite because in Hebrew “toilet” and “service” were the same word. Of course he knew the word and laughed.

A sleeping person remains a person, I hope.

“What happens to our soul when we sleep?"@JudaismIslam

Egg, nymph, adult: one praying mantis.

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 better word?

At the northern end of the Tomhannock Reservoir.

HABITUAL GRACE: Constant supernatural quality of the soul which sanctifies a person inherently and makes him or her just and pleasing to God. Also called sanctifying grace or justifying grace. —Catholic Dictionary