The office of the US presidency has been hijacked in the most cynical, undisguised, arrogant, unprincipled, often dilettante, and sometimes thuggish manner imaginable. —John Harris, New Year’s Day, 2021
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 a childish way. What if we, as unplayful adults, insistently link our nation’s plunderers to the evidence of their plunder? “I won’t support Mr. Biden’s bills, whose presidency is illegitimate… our nation’s policy with China will remain in free fall until we have a legitimate president… I’m not surprised by the bid to pack the court, since it reflects the bullying anomy which brought this illegitimate regime to power.” Always, every day, speak the horrible truth out in the open. —John Harris
Chief Nolo considers idle chatter a great corruptive of sacred mission. John Harris
We leave a purely theological discussion and move on to a question that is more prudential and disciplinary. —Archbishop Víctor Manuel Fernández
You speak for men and not God. Sc. 53, Matthew 16:23, Mark 8:33
Unfortunately, “enslavers” has come to include all slave owners.
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 V
Now come the greens.
The potato salad is the first to arrive.
“The Church of the modern world”. Quoted
The Church wants to be a church of a world that is passing – has passed.
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 we know how long the knots tied by poor Francisco Franco, when he said this phrase in 1969, actually lasted. Caminante Wanderer
I thought at the time was a cliché. Now I know it’s a cliché because it’s true. —Peter Hitchens
The choice of belief is driven by desire. —Peter Hitchens
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.
Prayers
Peter Brooke, A note on the controversy concerning Eric Gill
“Master, Master, haven’t we done great things in your name?” Sc. 31
He knows you by little things.
“only one little onion” —quoted by Gary Saul Morson
“an hour” —Sc. 71, Matthew 20:12
“And indeed,” Alyosha asks himself, “was it to make wine abundant at poor weddings He had come down to earth?” —Gary Saul Morson
Alyosha, instructed by Father Zossima, detects the presence of the Holy Spirit in love of life [“the sheer, biological life force”] for its own sake. —Gary Saul Morson
Thus is the Holy Spirit in the dandelion, in the cockroach, in the human fetus.