Leo Wong

20140228 Prayers not pronouncements.

Art is a good deed done. Music is a good deed being done.

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 people.

20140214 “Two immigrants from Germany [meet] for the first time after many years in New York. One asks the other: ‘Are you happy here?’' Reply: ‘I am happy, aber glücklich bin ich nicht.'” Albert O. Hirschman, Exit, Voice, and Liberty, 1970, 113.

“Great movements in the arts, like revolutions, don’t last more than about fifteen years. After that the flame dies down and people prefer a cozy glow.” Ibid., 120.

“The convention by which the great events in biblical or secular history could be enacted only by magnificent physical specimens, handsome and well-groomed, went on for a long time — till the middle of the nineteenth century. Only a very few artists — perhaps only Rembrandt and Caravaggio in the first rank — were independent enough to stand against it. And I think that this convention, which as an element in the so-called grand manner, became a deadening influence on the European mind. It deadened our sense of truth, even our sense of moral responsibility ; and led, as we now see, to a hideous reaction.” Ibid., 133.

“Sit we upon the highest throne in the world, yet sit we upon our own tail.” Montaigne, quoted ibid., 163

“The stabilising, comprehensive religions of the world, the religions which penetrate to every part of a man’s being — in Egypt, India or China — gave the female principle of creation at least as much importance as the male, and wouldn’t have taken seriously a philosophy that failed to include them both. These were all what H. G. Wells called communities of obedience. The aggressive, nomadic societies — what he called communities of will — Israel, Islam, the Protestant North, conceived their gods as male. It’s a curious fact that the all-male religions have produced no religious imagery — in most cases have positively forbidden it. The great religious art of the world is deeply ‘involved with the female principle. Of course, the ordinary Catholic who prayed to the Virgin was not conscious of any of this; nor was he or she interested in the really baffling theological problems presented by the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception. He simply knew that the heretics wanted to deprive him of that sweet, compassionate, approachable being who would intercede for him, as his mother might have interceded with a hard master.” Ibid., 177.

“As a rule it is the act of confession that matters, not the attempted cure.” Ibid., 177.

“The sense of grandeur is no doubt a human instinct, but, carried too far, it becomes inhuman. I wonder if a single thought that has helped forward the human spirit has ever been conceived or written down in an enormous room: except, perhaps, in the reading room of the British Museum.” Ibid., 192

20140211 “Great works of art can be produced by barbarous societies.” Kenneth Clark, Civilization, 1.

“Where some way of thought or human activity is really vital to us, internationalism is accepted unhesitatingly.” Ibid., 35.

“How much we have lost by turning churches into museums.” Ibid., 40.

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 guardian angel would be odd.

20140209 The “next life” is already “this life” for those who have died.

“I [the archpriest, a grave and serious priest, told me] – eyewitness to the frenetic enthusiasm of the five, six thousand people shouting ‘miracle’, crowding around him who had received the grace and parting to let him through, so as to form a double living wall around him – got an idea of what must have happened when our Lord performed real miracles before the crowds who acclaimed him!” Msgr Rossi, in Francesco Castelli, Padre Pio Under Investigation, 2011, 85.

20140206 Because believers are not good, some think they are good because they don’t believe.

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

“‘You p-p-persist in your error, my son,’ Father Joe tells him. ‘Contemptus’ does not mean ‘contempt’. It means ‘detachment’”. Piers Paul Read

20140129 Prayer is active non-doing.

“The fine line between proper devotion and fanaticism is not difficult to cross.” Vittorio Messori, Foreword to Francesco Castelli, Padre Pio Under Investigation, [Italy, 2008], 2011, xxi. Still, approach that line.

“We priests are the butchers of Jesus during the Mass, while all of Paradise descends on the altar.” Padre Pio, in Fr. Tarcisio of Cervinara, Padre Pio’s Mass, 45.

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, words embody the Word.

20140123 When we are in heaven there will not be much call for compassion.

20140121 Salvation of souls. Not because souls love God, but because God loves souls.

20140120 “The only thing that distinguishes a saint from other people on earth is his capacity for love.” Houselander, Guild, 142.

“The most striking thing … is the willingness to suffer.” Guilt, 134.

20140117 “Lay an egg or purr on [or?] something and you’ll soon feel yourself again, I assure you.” Andersen, “The Ugly Duckling”

In the world we are Ugly Ducklings, but in heaven we shall be as swans.

“But in spite of his learning the mole had no liking for the sun or for the pretty flowers. He spoke ill of them, although he had never seen them.” Anderson, “Thumbelina”

A little child is less conscious of itself than of its parents.

We are that which God loves." Houselander, Guilt, 156.

“What is the neurotic asks is exactly man is created for; to be love illimitably [beyond deserving].” Houselander, Guilt, 159.

“Whatever God can possibly spare his child he will spare him.” Houselander, Guilt, 184.

The matter of prayer is the words.

Should I pray for the rich? Does anyone pray for the Devil? What id Abraham say to Dives? Pray for the persons you cannot help praying for. Involuntary love is best.

“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, and in the end it was her tide of grace that drew his soul across the river Styx to God.” Houselander, Guilt, 271.

[Since we are most of us dull, shouldn’t most of us pray?]

La fièvre la quitta.

20140113 The Church persecuted its greatest saints: Padre Pio, St. Joan, Jesus.

It is not I who pray, but the Holy Spirit.