Daily Archives: 23 May 2006

24 May: St. Vincent of Lérins

Today is the feast of St. Vincent of Lérins (5th c.).  He is the fellow who gave us a famous rule for distinguishing true Catholic teaching from heresy.  In a work called the Commonitorium, written ostensibly to help us remember … Read More

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Hey! More TOAD news! Well… frog news.

I am sure all of you, and especially fellow patristicist Mike Aquilina watch the blog Laudator Temporis Acti. But if you didn’t get it today, do check out his messgae on frogs which the author called after the famous line from the play by Aristophanes.

In the meantime, I wish you all a good day with a hearty chorus of Brekekekex koax koax. Read More

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A link was fixed

I fixed a link to an audio clip of His Holiness speaking in Latin to a group of students during his Regina Caeli address a couple weeks back. Sorry about that. I hope it works for you now. Read More

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Tuesday of the 6th Week of Easter

EXCERPT:
Every once in a while when I need a break, I hop the train and zip up to Orvieto, famous for its white wine and glorious cathedral decorated on the outside with carvings by Maitani. (There is also a really good restaurant I like there.) In the cathedral there is a chapel with frescos painted by Signorelli. One of them depicts the resurrection. Perfect 33 year olds are literally crawling, pushing, drawing themselves up from out of a totally blank, flat, white surface. The white plain represents how matter, even prime matter, is “zeroed out” until it receives its characteristics and properties by a form, which in the case of human beings is the soul. You can see that at first they are skelatal and sort of transparent. Their bones take form and then flesh is added. They seem also to be nearly asleep at first and then they wake up and look around, amazed. One fellow is helping another drawing by pulling him out by his arms. Perhaps they had been friends. There are some rather courtly skeletons elegantly processing in from the right who are yet to be enfleshed. Their illium blades are slightly cocked in that stylish renaissance angle so typical of the era. What I think is happening with some skeletons coming out the the prime matter and some sauntering in is that some of us will need an “extreme makeover”, since our mortal remains will have been entirely consumed into other substances. Some, howver, will still have their bones and the makeover won’t be quite so complete. Above, mighty angels blow trumpets, now in this direction, now in that direction. The newly risen acknowledge them with upraised arms, listening to their call. To our modern eye the expressions on their faces might seem at first to look like boredom. We must remember the convention in painting of the era that the expression represents serene detachment and control of the appetites, peace of soul undisturbed by the impulses of our lower nature due to the wounds in our souls from original sin and bad habits. In the resurrection, these will all be healed. Read More

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Where would Dante place spammers?

I wonder where Il Poeta would have put spammers in the Inferno. I recently put some spam catching plugins into the software running this blog and they are saving me a great deal of work.  However, I do have my … Read More

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Coadjutor curiosity

While I am pondering the subject, here is a super informal poll:

How do you pronounce “coadjutor”?

Do you say A) “coádjutor” or B) “coadjútor”?
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