Go out to all the world, and tell the Good News

I did not come with eloquence or human wisdom as I proclaimed to you the testimony about God...

"The overflowing mercy of God is the sole reason upon which Paul’s ministry is based and at the same time it is that which the Apostle must announce to everyone. ...

..."Here we touch the mystery of mercy and of God’s choice. The Father loves us all and wants to save us all, and for this reason He calls some people conquering them through His grace, so that through them His love can reach all people. The mission of the whole people of God is to announce the marvelous works of the Lord, first and foremost the Paschal mystery of Christ, through which we have passed from the darkness of sin and death to the splendor of His new and eternal life. " --Pope Francis' homily for Christian Unity Vespers

"We have to put mercy before judgment, and in any event God's judgment will always be in the light of his mercy." --Pope Francis' homily for Holy Mass and Opening of the Holy Door

For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written:

“I will destroy the wisdom of the wise;
    the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate.”

Where is the wise person? Where is the teacher of the law? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe. Jews demand signs and Greeks look for wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength. Brothers and sisters, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth. But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. God chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before him. It is because of him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God—that is, our righteousness, holiness and redemption. Therefore, as it is written: “Let the one who boasts boast in the Lord.”

 

And so it was with me, brothers and sisters. When I came to you, I did not come with eloquence or human wisdom as I proclaimed to you the testimony about God. For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. I came to you in weakness with great fear and trembling. My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power, so that your faith might not rest on human wisdom, but on God’s power. --1 Corinthians 1,2:1-5

He came to Nazareth, where he had grown up, and went according to his custom into the synagogue on the sabbath day. He stood up to read and was handed a scroll of the prophet Isaiah. He unrolled the scroll and found the passage where it was written:

The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring glad tidings to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, and to proclaim a year acceptable to the Lord.

Rolling up the scroll, he handed it back to the attendant and sat down,
and the eyes of all in the synagogue looked intently at him.
He said to them, “Today this Scripture passage is fulfilled in your hearing.” --Lk 1:1-4; 4:14-21

"...they were all filled with fury.
They rose up, drove him out of the town,
and led him to the brow of the hill
on which their town had been built,
to hurl him down headlong."

Image source

Ordinary

When it pools at the flame's root
wax is most itself - yielding topmost
aglow; bee walls to new creation.

As hexagonal honey poured
from the primary ward, is the light astride
cord soot giving, open and ovoid.

When the smoking crown by breath is bared
with a rim fang and fetal wick, entrails
spilled and stiff, it will go for eons

uneaten by decay, unburning, simple wax;
highest of nature we burn to stub before
the tomb-springing life from rolled, stone door.

Title: Summer Moonrise over Bose Hill

Medium: Oil on canvas board

Size: 9in x 12in

A painting I previously posted wasn't where it needed to be (as is often the case) and so I changed it quite a bit, which is now the image here.

Icon - Mother of God

Mother of God Glykophilousa "Most Honourable"

Gorecki's Fourth!

Gorecki's fourth symphony, entitled, Tansman Episodes:




Holy mackerel. Funny how when I was listening to this for the first time I thought "Last Things" before I knew any of the following, which is all rather very recent news.

I really like this fourth symphony. Very much reminded me of the Second (which is not only one of my favourites in Gorecki's opus but among symphonies in general) and Beatus Vir. As with those works, it is the kind of deep "like" that you know will become more so upon further acquaintance.

And this from another site:

Today, Górecki’s son, composer Mikolaj, who completed the Symphony No. 4 after his father’s death, discusses their relationship, as both father and son and teacher and pupil, and relates his efforts to complete the piece after the precise indications for orchestration his father had left in the score. Mikolaj Górecki also explores the wide range and contrast among the different movements of the Fourth Symphony, and the influence of Henryk’s earlier works in each one.

Mass sexual assault by Muslim migrants. Coward leaders in denial.

Levant updates:


They covered up and falsified reports:

Damnatio Memoriae

"Controversial to whom? Well that's obvious." LOL.



"These people we're bringing in are not in desperate need of help...Out of ten families they approached, seven declined the invitation to come to Canada. Well, if you fear for your life, you'll go to Iceland; you'll go to anywhere...but that's not the case, because only three out of ten are accepting Canada's offer. And that's because we're fishing in the wrong pond. That's the only reason." --Guidy Mamann

"We're trying to gin up numbers to meet that political sport." --Ezra Levant

I really don't like criticizing movies because I feel like I'm ruining other peoples' enjoyment of them. If someone said to me, "You know, I really enjoyed #TheForceAwakens until I read your review, but now I've changed my mind about it", I would be absolutely horrified. I don't want to change anyone's mind or steal anyone's enjoyment. Just "FYI".

That being said, I finally got around to seeing Interstellar the other night, and oh my Lord, what a big steaming pile that movie is. I didn't hate it as much as I hated Birdman, though I hated it more than I hated The Tree of Life, which means the hatred was fairly significant.

I was so thankful when the movie was over because once it was over I felt that I was waking up from a nightmare. Not a nightmare with bogey men and rabid dogs; but one of those nightmares that involves you in a million strands of amorphous complexity but after which, upon waking, you immediately release everything from its hold on you in a great breath of gratitude for the dewfall grace of waking up. Sweet, sweet waking up. For solid ground under your feet and simple tasks to perform. For truth and reality and sobriety and homely wonder. For the Eucharistic Lord loving you in the simple here and now, in the very depths of your own dumb self. His loving you changing you.

The love that moves the sun and the other stars is not an immanent evolutionary consciousness - oh thank God!

Love did not become cosmic consciousness, but became a man. And to reach me, he didn't become the whole human species, taking up time-space relativity; but he took up a cross made of wood and laid himself upon it. Love is not just love. Oh thank God!

Christopher Nolan's Interstellar was structurally interesting at the beginning. But he's too tendentious. He's too portentous.

"For the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear." --2 Timothy 4:3

Actually, I really do like criticizing movies.

More amazing Gorecki

Image source

Jame Harley writes about the piece.

haiku

In falsehood mired!
Spring to soul's bulb: truth, light starved.
Clods break, the darts start.