Thus begins my last full day on the road.
Yesterday we were at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Here is a nice little Sienese Madonna and Child by a favorite of mine, Sano di Pietro (+1481). I’m thinking his workshop did this one.
It is unusual for its round, tondo format.
Note, however, the Christological Goldfinch!
The tulips are blooming along Park Avenue (on the way to Pastrami Queen on Lexington).
Tonight we are going to a gala/fundraiser for the Monks at Norcia. His Eminence Card. Burke will be there. I was told by Fr. Benedict the other day (we were on the same airplane together) that they have shipped in 15 cases of Norcia beer! What a treat.
More on that later.
Meanwhile, isn’t she lovely?
These wonderful devotional figures were carved from ivory and were meant for private contemplation. It is good simply to be quiet and still with holy images. A trip to a museum can be a kind of pilgrimage, if you are patient.
Notice how she is crushing a slithery chimerical figure under her feet.
UPDATE:
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Pastrami on a Friday.
I’m in.
Except this now nullifies my vote in the sidebar poll, “Should the US Bishops have us return to obligatory “meatless Fridays” during the whole year and not just during Lent?” Yipes.
Ah, the Norcia monks are great! I’ve already decided that Nietzsche never met any Benedictines, or he never could have written that crap about joyless Christians.
I thought the current rule is that you can eat meat on Friday if you perform some act of charity or mercy instead. Father’s in New York. That can be an act of penance in itself – as is moderating this blog!
I think I gained 5 pounds just looking at all the yummy food you have posted lately.
Might that slithery chimerical figure be a precise use of the iconography (contemporary with this Madonna ans Child) of the serpent in the garden tempting Eve?