And he took them up in his arms

This, said in St. Blog's Parish Hall in a thread regarding the scandal of sexual abuse of children and adolescents by priests, drew some recognition:

One unfortunate result of the scandal is that children are getting less love (as they might understand and need it) from priests, brothers, sisters, lay teachers. One sees the difference if one has been among children over the years. Much less “And he took them up in his arms, put his hands upon them, and blessed them.” Rather the opposite: I've seen religious back away from children.

Added two Thoughts Out of Season:

1. The consequences of the scandal have been worse than its causes.

2. Many of the abused don’t know that they will not find peace unless they forgive.

Added lines from Lycidas about “blind mouths”:

The Pilot of the Galilean lake.
Two massy keys he bore of metals twain,
(The golden opes, the iron shuts amain)
He shook his mitred locks, and stern bespake
"How well could I have spared for thee, young swain,
Enow of such as for their bellies' sake
Creep, and intrude, and climb into the fold!
Of other care they little reckoning make
Than how to scramble at the shearers' feast,
And shove away the worthy bidden guest.
Blind mouths! that scarce themselves know how to hold
A sheep-hook, or have learned aught else the least
That to the faithful herdman's art belongs!
What recks it them? What need they? They are sped;
And when they list, their lean and flashy songs
Grate on their scrannel pipes of wretched straw;
The hungry sheep look up, and are not fed,
But swoll'n with wind, and the rank mist they draw,
Rot inwardly, and foul contagion spread;
Besides what the grim wolf with privy paw
Daily devours apace, and nothing said;
But that two-handed engine at the door
Stands ready to smite once, and smite no more."

 

Carnivals

Catholic Carnival XXXI: Belated, But Worth It is at Living Catholicism.

Christian Carnival #71 is at Technogypsy.
 

Can You See This?

 

Notes 108

Vision is seeing what others don’t yet see.

I believe, without reason, that what I do is worth doing.
 

Warning

Heard at work today: “If they use their brains they’ll start thinking.” This reminds me of: “I think, therefore I am dangerous.”
 

Prayers in Typoglycemic

See also: Typoglycemia & Mroe Tcmyyipegloa.
 

Why I Blog

In answer to a question asked by MaryH in St. Blog’s Parish Hall:

I don’t want to blog, but I would feel like the wicked and slothful servant who hid his one talent in the earth. That talent—perhaps quite common—is a singularity that leads me to make and write things that would otherwise not exist—not because they are difficult but because they are not wanted, at least before they are made, and perhaps for a long time afterwards. But the Giver of the talent wants a return on it, and I try to give it back with interest.

Actually, of course, it is not my talent, but “thy talent”—“his lord’s money.” If I have identified it right, I have obeyed my vocation; if not—

“Does it matter? Grace is everywhere . . . .”

Unlike you I crave an audience and praise, but I have had enough of both to know that I shall only be satisfied by One.

See also Time, Talent, and Treasure.
 

Poly 8

The last in a series.

Poly 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
 

Notes 107

The Jews our elder brothers? But Judaism is younger than Christianity.
 

Poly 7

Poly 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
 

Mroe Tcmyyipegloa

See also: Typoglycemia & Prayers in Typoglycemic.

 

Breaking the Rules

Got a nice e-mail from Bob Dawson, a pianist whom I met one day in Holy Cross Church and who is Breaking the Rules.

Bob is mentioned in last Sunday’s New York Times.
 

Notes 106

Not creation but, at least, conception and birth.

There is something Godlike in seeing that light is good.

The Church did not reform itself; hence Luther.

To commit adultery in one’s heart is quite unsatisfying.

Aiovd queizzs and mmees.
 

Typoglycemia

Or so they say.

Type in the box and press <Enter>.

See also: Mroe Tcmyyipegloa & Prayers in Typoglycemic.
 

Lost

Aeschylus wrote more than 90 plays; 7 have survived.
Sophocles wrote more than 120 plays; 7 have survived complete.
Euripides wrote 92 plays; 19 have survived.
Aristophanes wrote 54 plays; 11 have survived.
 

Poly 6

Poly 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
 

02005 05 24 +

“Yeats was under no obligation to make a success story of Mr. O’Casey’s career; he was under no obligation to like The Silver Tassie. But, all other questions aside, we may judge his famous rejection of it in terms of the consequences. Yeats did more than any other man to deflect from the theatre one of its two or three best playwrights. I am not sure that Mr. O’Casey’s later plays are as good as his earlier ones; I am sure they would be better than they are had Yeats and Agate and the rest kept the playwright in the theatre. Though diffuse, and blemished by self-pity and proletarian snobbery, the autobiography, half the time, is as good as the blurbs say it is; one shakes one’s head, not over what O’Casey has written, but over what he has been sidetracked from writing; the autobiography is ersatz; the best passages are scenes from plays that will never be written; scenes by a playwright without a theater.”
—Eric Bentley, “The Case of O’Casey,” in What Is Theater?
 

Poly 5

Poly 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
 

02005 05 23 +

Felix called to say that I have been elected to the Parish Advisory Council.

And what if you ask for suffering and not great works?
 

Circles 2

Circles
 

Notes 104

A person who puts himself in his work is in a vulnerable position.

Some things are so normal they seldom exist.

What must happen may not.
 

Poly 4

Poly 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
 

Notes 103

People who think that the way to get to heaven is not to be noticed.

History is a branch of history.
 

Circles

Circles 2
 

Trinity

Andrei Rublev, The Old Testament Trinity. c. 1410s. Tempera on wood. 142 x 114 c. The Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow