Bl. Hermann of Reichenau (1054)
Born with cleft palate, cerebral palsy, and spina bifida, he was placed in a Benedictine monastery at seven. A genius in astronomy, theology, poetry, math, music, Arabic, Greek, and Latin, he composed the Salve Regina and Alma Redemptoris Mater. pic.twitter.com/N3PHAEPv4R
— Memento Mori (@TempusFugit4016) September 25, 2021
After several decades, and not of the Rosary in this context, along with other things I had loved to do and that I was good at and I that I had shelved because of seminary and priesthood, I’m getting back into chess.
I’m beating intermediate level “bots”. I’m losing to the higher ranked “bots”, unless they keep coming at me with the same openings or defenses.
Compared to how I played decades ago, my opening game sucks.
But, my middle game sucks.
On the other hand, my end game sucks.
But my end game is a little less sucky in suckingness, even though, paradoxically, fewer pieces on the board usually make for more complicated strategy. Maybe my end game sucks so bad that I don’t even know just how bad it really sucks.
This, however, both discouraged me and spurred me at the same time.
I can understand super famous match games. I can understand entirely crazy positions and bizarre developments or traumatic experiences.
Still… sheesh.
I’m not going to be Magnus or Maximus in chess.
At least I can be Maior … autem me.
In worldly endeavors, so too in the spiritual life. You can be better than you are now, with elbow grease and God’s grace.
When you love something, you engage your will so as to potentialize all your gifts. How crucial it is to know this in order to live our God-given vocations in the way God asks, so that we can fulfill the tiny part He ordained for us from before the creation of the cosmos, and chess. Love must first be given to God. Everything else follows. All else is less good.
Supply the grease and grace will come.
That video was a spur, as is the unbelievable explosion of young people following chess online in live videos.
Great Caesar’s Ghost, what is happening?
It is not an exaggeration to see tens of thousand of viewers live and hundreds of thousands of views of archived live chess play. No. Really. Tens of thousands of people watch chess games, on line, while one of the players comments… on his moves, on his favorite drink, on his moves, on whether hot dogs are better than hamburgers, on his moves, on whether some 25 yr old “pog” (not sure what that is), played against the Pirc. Sometimes, during their hours long podcasts they also are streaming their latest play list, which makes chess seem like the favorite game of Hell. Never mind the scrolling live comments on the side, recorded for perpetuity and the Final Judgment.
It’s enough to raise your hands to heaven and whisper … “Really?”
The video above, as I write, has 1,315,527 views in the 174 from Apr 30, 2021 till now.
7560 views per day.
Young skulls full of mush are competing, coached by masters, in online tournaments for SIX figures. And I do NOT mean the famous painting in the museum of my native place depicting Dante. I’ll give a shout to Robert Royal’s ongoing online courses on the Divine Comedy, presently in Paradiso. Magari. Utinam. HERE I’ve always wanted to teach Dante. Dante is complicated and alluring. What a kick it would be to teach Dante with Royal and Anthony Esolen, who made “the great translation”. (Part 1, Inferno US HERE – UK HERE). I digress.
Chess has its complicated, alluring complexities and its enticing engagement with the “other”.
How much more complex and enticing is Scripture, the orations of the Church, her history, mission and FOUNDER, who is wholly OTHER?
7560 views per day.
That’s more than my daily live-streamed Masses. (Those tens of you who followed, drop a line for developments.)
About my level in chess. Maior if not Magnus.
I invoke Piccarda, whose ascent to her level was swift (cf. Purgatorio, 24.10-15 and Paradiso 3.85).
I renew an invitation for CLERICS (bishops, priests, deacons) who play chess to drop me a line. Maybe we could have a private (very “clericalist”, set apart) chess group. HERE
BTW… if I have Fr. Z’s Kitchen, I might have to have Fr. Z’ Workshop.
I’m presently fixing up and old, dinged-up wooden folding chess box. Maybe this is self-reflective. I haven’t done any wood working since .. since… when I was still winning at chess and when Fischer played Spassky and when I read Tolkien, a huge divine force vector, for the first time.
I need more tools.
UPDATE:
I wrote to the people who handle the wine sales and distribution. They responded:
For shipping questions outside of the U.S., please direct people to email: contact@via-caritatis.com and the European Via Caritatis team will take care of them. Note that our affiliate program only applies to purchases made from the US site.
Hopefully that can be expanded to the UK!
Are things looking grim in secular society and even grimmer in the Church?
Do you look at the present political leadership and say, “What in the blazin’ red HELL are these people doing?”, and at the leadership in the Church and say… well, I don’t even want to go there.
After all, corruptio optimi pessima. Right?
When the Vicissitudes™ are winding you up, wind down by ordering some ….
WINE FROM TRADITIONAL BENEDICTINE MONKS!
I’m talking, of course, about the wonderful monks of Le Barroux in the ethereally beautiful area near Avignon in S. France. They built a glorious medieval but modern abbey and they fill it with chant you can listen to online. They have taken over vineyards that go back to the time of papal sojourn in Avignon and are making good wine.
You can have their wine in YOUR glass in no time!
And this is a way to help the works of religion and the Church in way that you know is a good cause (monks who are preserving Tradition) and your oenological enjoyment. Win – win.
And, because you are readers here, drop my name and get 10% off. Use the code:
FATHERZ10
These Benedictines, like the great men in Norcia and the beautiful nuns of Gower Abbey, are going to be, as has happened before, lights in the darkness, oases of preservation, until better times return.
Until better, brighter times return.
Or the Lord comes, which is fine with me. Bring it on!
After all, motus in finen velocior. Right?
I’m okay with living to see better, brighter times. Even times not so obviously, palpably…. yeeeach would be okay, too.
Your Vetus Ordo (olim aka Extraordinary Form) or reverent Novus Only celebrating, and surely sorely striving, priest would like an introduction to the good Benedictines’ wine through their 3 bottle pack: HERE
I sent in a query about wine for those of you in the UK. Patience.
So, as you contemplate the big HERE prompt, here’s is a little song to cheer you up. It was sent to me by a, O6 buddy of mine for whom I have at times asked you to pray: T.
Order some wine and “Help Is On The Way!” And I don’t mean the Little River Band.
Between Tom Petty and Mahler, I like doses of good ol’ honest, pious Bluegrass.
Holy Church is indefectible. That doesn’t mean that everything we do in it or all the people who guide it are doing God’s will.
From a reader in reaction to the dialogue between Francis and Jesuits in Bratislava. HERE
I had closed the combox on that post. My correspondent, a long-time… loooongitime reader and very knowledgeable about the state of the Church in these USA said, “Better to keep the combox closed” and added this…
See if it doesn’t strike a chord. Edited for anonymity.
I am starting to feel like Jonah, who complained that God took away the shade tree that grew over him. So now the Pope is going after EWTN– which, while solidly orthodox, is hardly the fringe right that some might like to portray it as being. What next? A condemnation of one of the four Gospels? I’m getting to the point where I can’t even stomach Catholic news any more much less secular news. I get the sense that the Pope is engaged in a nasty game of baiting the orthodox in an attempt to trap them into doing something stupid– and many will eagerly jump into the trap.
What a tightrope we walk these days. Perhaps the example of Jesus before Pilate is the best to follow for now for most of us.
Yes, “they win” to some extent, but we have to believe that Jesus has a plan– a grander plan than anything that Satan can concoct and certainly grander than anything you or I could develop.
[…]
I really feel bad for good orthodox priests these days. I’m not under nearly the pressure that many of you must be and I find myself muttering to myself all day and wondering how long before the stress does me in. I don’t know what I would do if I didn’t work for a tiny company that mostly flies under the radar where I can escape the worst of the nonsense that is going on these days.
Try to hang in there. You and I may yet live long enough to see the beginnings of a reversal.
When I was young, I thought that GM would always be around, but that “old” GM stock is worthless today. The Soviet Union seemed as if it was indestructible, but today it is but a memory and Eastern Europe is free of Soviet domination.
There will be a day when people talk about the collapse of China and the liberation of those subjugated by China. God may yet have a miracle in store to prevent Islamic fundamentalists from overrunning the West, though I’m not sure that we deserve such a miracle.
There are any number of things and any amount of sufferings that seemed as if they would never end or go away, but only God can make the claim of being all-powerful and ever-living.
Others can but pretend for a while, like Ozymandias.
No matter how badly those who oppose a whole, integrated understanding of Tradition will drive and harass us, we have to strive not to hate them (as many of them do hate us) and pray for their conversion by whatever means God’s knows will work. We want as many people as possible to have the happiness of Heaven, even those who treat us badly. This earthly life is brief, and so whatever it is that they might need for their benefit would be short compared to the unending bliss of the Beatific Vision. The same applies to us.
We have to examine ourselves carefully and purify our loves.
O God, lover of and guardian of peace and charity: to all our enemies grant peace and true charity; and give to them the remission of all their sins, and mightily snatch us away from their plots.
I have just received a Kindle edition of the mystical Catholic writer Michael D. O’Brien’s new novel, The Sabbatical. US HERE – UK HERE
This is a sequel to The Father’s Tale.
I am excited to get to this soon.
The Father’s Tale – US HERE – UK HERE – was the story of a man who leaves his normal, comfortable life to go in search of his son who has fallen into a cult. It is a
“prodigal son” story with twists and tendrils into Eliot and Hopkins and Russian writers. That’s a massive reduction for such a massive work, over 1000 pages. While I have often thought that O’Brien could have listened to his editor a little more often, each page turn remains oddly compelling. Surely this is because O’Brien writes from depth and a rooting in a strong prayer life. Look at his artwork sometime. HERE
The Sabbatical is about one third the length of The Father’s Tale.
Sticking with O’Brien, some of you are in for a treat. You get to discover his books.
I recommend the following.
Read…
and then the series that hooks back into Father Elijah beginning with:
Outside that series is his extremely successful venture into SciFi:
I believe his most recently released work was, brief and charming.
I really liked that one.
In effect, you can choose where to dive in.
Coat of Arms by D Burkart
A Daily Prayer for Priests
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