Sublime

"The two sides of 'true' art are beauty, which lifts the soul, and the sublime, which shatters the ego." - Joseph Campbell

Here are four examples of true art:




(Via Brigitta)


(Via Brigitta)



Another version of the last hymn:


It literally captures your soul and carries it on a soaring journey of faith. Aaah. Thank you to the Catholic Church for inspiring, producing and protecting true art.

Sinhala Christmas

The second song is very common in church.

In Bethlehem Town:


A Long Time Ago in Bethlehem (Mary's Boy Child):

On Reality TV

'What is this world coming to? People are eating bugs and rats on a stupid television show [referring to Survivor]. I swear to God, you know TV has become nothing but the petri dish where this country grows its idiots. Don't people have better things to do with their time than to debase themselves coast to coast.'

- Dr. John Becker :D

Run!

One more prayer! These Advent prayers are beautiful. Thank God for the revised translation!

The Collect from the First Sunday of Advent:
Grant your faithful, we pray, almighty God,
the resolve to run forth to meet your Christ
with righteous deeds at his coming,
so that, gathered at his right hand,
they may be worthy to possess the heavenly Kingdom.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reins with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, for ever and ever. Amen

So real and powerful and tangible? Let us run forth to meet the approaching Lord!

To walk amid passing things

Today's concluding prayer struck me. It's beautiful in phrasing and in the image it paints in the mind.

May these mysteries, O Lord,
in which we have participated,
profit us, we pray,
for even now, as we walk amid passing things,
you teach us by them to love the things of heaven
and hold fast to what endures.

(Compare that with the old version, by the way:
Father,
may our communion
teach us to love heaven.
May its promise and hope
guide our way on earth.)

The accidents (the external, physical features) of the Eucharist are both so perishable, so mundane - yet what we love is no longer bread and wine but Christ, our Lord, our eternal joy.

Fr Joseph at Holy Cross said a couple of beautiful things at today's homily which was based on a favourite Gospel passage - the faith of the centurion who wanted his servant healed. Father told us that a possible theme for this season and even this year could be taken from the words of the centurion. 'Only say the word'. Just give me your orders Lord. Tell me to come, and I will come; to go and I will go.

We should pray for such docility to our Lord's wishes!

Father ended by telling us to be determined to give Jesus everything he wants this Christmas; and what he wants is the gift of our hearts.

So yes, Baby Jesus, I'd like to give this heart of mine to you, to do as you please. :)

This is pretty cool

See Amid The Winter's Snow

This is glorious. I've been waiting for several months to post this! :D




Words: Edward Caswall, 1858
Music: "Humility," John Goss, 1871

1. See amid the winter's snow,
Born for us on earth below,
See the tender Lamb appears,
Promised from eternal years.

Chorus
Hail, thou ever-blessed morn!
Hail, redemption's happy dawn!
Sing through all Jerusalem,
Christ is born in Bethlehem.

2. Lo, within a manger lies
He who built the starry skies;
He, who throned in height sublime
Sits amid the cherubim.

3. Say, ye holy shepherds, say
What your joyful news today;
Wherefore have ye left your sheep
On the lonely mountain steep?

4. "As we watched at dead of night,
Lo, we saw a wondrous light;1
Angels singing peace on earth
Told us of the Saviour's birth".

5. Sacred infant, all divine,
What a tender love was Thine,
Thus to come from highest bliss
Down to such a world as this.

6. Teach, O teach us , Holy Child,
By Thy Face so meek and mild,
Teach us to resemble Thee,
In Thy Sweet humility!

Another version:


Shudder. It's so beautiful! Some of these Christmas songs convey so wonderfully the anticipation - the centuries of waiting, the outburst of joy, the triumph, the magic, and even the wintry atmosphere. Aaah. Christmas!

We Long to See You

We long to see You so,
To see the newly born,
We long for Christmas morn,
The sense of time runs slow.

O come, O come, O come,
Our Saviour dear to be.
O come, O come, O come,
We have no King but Thee.

We long to see You so,
To see the angel's glory,
To hear their midnight story
And with the Shepherds go.

We long to see You so,
To print our kisses sweet,
Upon your little feet
While tears of love shall flow.

Here's the first of my Christmas songs this season. :)

Such a simple little hymn, but it's brimming with joyful impatience and tender love isn't it? The choir sang this at the 11am Mass at St Joseph's Church (BT) today. It was my first time hearing it. During the past few weeks there was a bit of this ennui, the joyful feeling of Christmas hadn't yet caught on. I looked at the Orchard decorations rather cynically - oh great, they're up already - they'll look so old and tired by the time it's really Christmas.

But thank God, and thanks to a couple of meditations at Opus Dei, a homily by Fr Cary, a chat with Fr Joe Lopez, some prayers and resolutions, I'm able to start Advent in anticipation and hope.

A blessed Advent to anyone who might happen to be reading this! May hope reign in you, and may you be agents, stars, of hope for others too this lovely, magical season. 'Let us learn from her, the Woman of Advent, how to live our daily actions with a new spirit, with the feeling of profound expectation that only the coming of God can fulfil.' (Pope Benedict, 28 November, 2010).

Two excellent pieces by Mark Shea

[W]hen a poor person at an OWS protest says, “I am an imcompetent sponge who expects you to pay my debts for school” people (rightly) heap contempt on him. When a giant corporate CEO says, “I am an incompetent sponge who drove my company into the ground and now expects a bailout and a golden parachute of $37,000,000” we give it to him and point to the OWS ninny as the real problem....

The reverence, pity, tenderness and compassion American culture has for the immensely powerful and corrupt is one of the strangest spectacles of our civic life. It is one thing to see rich corps funding their own agitprop in their defense. It is quite another to see the massive amount of Stockholm Syndrome from people defending such corporations while they are in the very act of having their pockets picked by bailouts. Where Christian culture once taught us to lavish special concern on the alien, the orphan and the widow, we have very successfully instituted a culture that burns with weepy solicitude for the wealthy, arrogant, and grasping. We retain our sense of sin (and rightly so) when a thug knocks over a 7-11. But we somehow can’t seem to hold on to it when immensely powerful and rich people rob us of billions as a reward for being Too Big to Fail....

Read the entire post here.

One more:

One thing that doesn’t help the growth of the People’s Democratic National Security State of Heaven is when goonish behavior by the police gets documented in a striking photo that goes viral such as this one of an 84 year old woman after she was pepper sprayed:

To be sure, some stalwart defenders of ridiculous police state tactics against harmless people will continue to make excuses for this in my comboxes, but the mayor and the cops here realize they have a big public relations turd on their hands and are back-pedaling, not trying to float the ridiculous claim that an 84 year old woman was such a threat that she needed to be pepper sprayed. She was as much a threat as the 86 year old disabled and bed-ridden woman whom police tased (twice) after standing on her oxygen hose, and whose grandson was then arrested for protesting. She was as much a threat as the 10 year the cops tased for not going to bed. Or the injured kid with a broken back who was tased 19 times.

Again, read the entire post here.
A real voice of reasonableness and sanity Mark is.

Dino

Denver Museum of Science "Dino" from Smoke & Mirrors on Vimeo.

Via Mark Shea.

Oooh

And a bit of Glee too

"O Re Piya / Rolling in the Deep"

Via Shankar

If I died tomorrow

I had an interesting introduction to the band Dream Theatre at the Opus Dei house today. Here's one of their 'softer' songs.

Meaningful lyrics.



I may never find all the answers
I may never understand why
I may never prove
What I know to be true
But I know that I still have to try

If I die tomorrow
I'd be all right
Because I believe
That after we're gone
The spirit carries on

Beautiful Afghanistan

Afghanistan – touch down in flight from Augustin Pictures on Vimeo.

What an excellent video! Vimeo's just great.

What do the saints offer us?

A canticle of hope:

- to those who have been raised up... but have fallen once more;
- to those who have promised gold and all sorts of treasures... but have taken back their word out of weakness;
- to those who have been running swiftly... but have come to a halt;
- to blunderers like us who, after having shed the scales from our souls, have splattered ourselves with mud;
- to those who have already gone to Confession, but have to go back again;
- to those who have "put on" Christ, but discovered a rip in the linings of our heart;
- and to those of us, who...have seen their world of money, comfort, caprice, friends, joys and ambitions tumble around them.

Do not be afraid of the howling winds. The sun will shine again. Jesus comes. Trust him. Go out to meet him.

~ Jesus Urteaga, The Defects of the Saints