An Easter ceremony at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre today in Jerusalem.
Women waiting for the Via Crucis or ‘Way of the Cross’ performance to pass by in Chicago yesterday.
Easter Worship
Luther on Meditating on Christ's Suffering
[Some] so sympathize with Christ as to weep and lament for him because he was so innocent, like the women who followed Christ from Jerusalem, whom he rebuked, in that they should better weep for themselves and for their children. Such are they who run far away in the midst of the Passion season, and are greatly benefitted by the departure of Christ from Bethany and by the pains and sorrows of the Virgin Mary, but they never get farther. Hence they postpone the Passion many hours, and God only knows whether it is devised more for sleeping than for watching. And among these fanatics are those who taught what great blessings come from the holy mass, and in their simple way they think it is enough if they attend mass. To this we are led through the sayings of certain teachers, that the mass opere operati, non opere operantis, is acceptable of itself, even without our merit and worthiness, just as if that were enough. Nevertheless the mass was not instituted for the sake of its own worthiness, but to prove us, especially for the purpose of meditating upon the sufferings of Christ. For where this is not done, we make a temporal, unfruitful work out of the mass, however good it may be in itself. For what help is it to you, that God is God, if he is not God to you? What benefit is it that eating and drinking are in themselves healthful and good, if they are not healthful for you, and there is fear that we never grow better by reason of our many masses, if we fail to seek the true fruit in them?
… St. Bernard was so terror-stricken by Christ’s sufferings that he said: I imagined I was secure and I knew nothing of the eternal judgment passed upon me in heaven, until I saw the eternal Son of God took mercy upon me, stepped forward and offered himself on my behalf in the same judgment.
"What a death were it then to see God die?"
Let mans Soule be a Spheare, and then, in this,
The intelligence that moves, devotion is,
And as the other Spheares, by being growne
Subject to forraigne motion, lose their owne,
And being by others hurried every day,
Scarce in a yeare their naturall forme obey:
Pleasure or businesse, so, our Soules admit
For their first mover, and are whirld by it.
Hence is’t, that I am carryed towards the West
This day, when my Soules forme bends toward the East.
There I should see a Sunne, by rising set,
And by that setting endlesse day beget;
But that Christ on this Crosse, did rise and fall,
Sinne had eternally benighted all.
Yet dare I’almost be glad, I do not see
That spectacle of too much weight for mee.
Who sees Gods face, that is selfe life, must dye;
What a death were it then to see God dye?
It made his owne Lieutenant Nature shrinke,
It made his footstoole crack, and the Sunne winke.
Could I behold those hands which span the Poles,
And tune all spheares at once peirc’d with those holes?
Could I behold that endlesse height which is
Zenith to us, and our Antipodes,
Humbled below us? or that blood which is
The seat of all our Soules, if not of his,
Made durt of dust, or that flesh which was worne
By God, for his apparell, rag’d, and torne?
If on these things I durst not looke, durst I
Upon his miserable mother cast mine eye,
Who was Gods partner here, and furnish’d thus
Halfe of that Sacrifice, which ransom’d us?
Though these things, as I ride, be from mine eye,
They’are present yet unto my memory,
For that looks towards them; and thou look’st towards mee,
O Saviour, as thou hang’st upon the tree;
I turne my backe to thee, but to receive
Corrections, till thy mercies bid thee leave.
O thinke mee worth thine anger, punish mee,
Burne off my rusts, and my deformity,
Restore thine Image, so much, by thy grace,
That thou may’st know mee, and I’ll turne my face.
John Donne, “Good Friday, 1613. Riding Westward”
Changing the Movies Big
Scott Cairns Inks Three-Film Deal with Disney — “It’s time we got literary types back in Hollywood–think of what Faulkner did for Gunga Din. Look, Scotty’s got the right stuff–think Indiana Jones meets the Philokalia.”
Real dragons
I’m going to go off on the subject of dragons again today, but I want to open my argument out a bit, and consider it in the context of the Christian holiday we’re entering this weekend.
Liberals reject (I’m speaking generally, of course—there are liberals who believe in these teachings) the doctrine of Christ’s substitutionary (that means acting as a substitute) atonement, as well as of His physical resurrection. This rejection is not based (I think) merely on a materialist rejection of miracles—though of course socialism (the true religion of the left) is a materialist philosophy, assuming and promoting the world-view that man lives by bread alone.
The atonement and the resurrection are an existential threat to the central morality—that is, relativism—of the left. Continue reading Real dragons
The History of Sugar
Elizabeth Abbott has the interesting and ugly history of sugar in a new book.
O might those sighs and tears return again
O might those sighs and tears return again
Into my breast and eyes, which I have spent,
That I might in this holy discontent
Mourn with some fruit, as I have mourned in vain;
In mine Idolatry what showers of rain
Mine eyes did waste! what griefs my heart did rent!
That sufferance was my sin; now I repent;
‘Cause I did suffer I must suffer pain.
Th’ hydropic drunkard, and night-scouting thief,
The itchy lecher, and self-tickling proud
Have the remembrance of past joys for relief
Of comming ills. To (poor) me is allowed
No ease; for long, yet vehement grief hath been
Th’ effect and cause, the punishment and sin.
John Donne, Holy Sonnet III
"If It's Worth Doing, It's Worth Doing Badly"
“You have to allow yourself the liberty of writing poorly.” Loren Eaton talks about writing through the mess of initial drafts.
Robin and Lance, and stuff
Take a guess. Do you think I’m, possibly, just a little excited about this upcoming movie (thanks to Steve Schaper for sharing the trailer with me)?
Sure, I have quibbles. The ship is centuries before its time. There’s a helmet that belongs in a different period, too. But all in all it looks good, and although I’d never pictured Russell Crowe as Bold Robin, he makes a rattling good warrior. All the talk of “the law” is good. I might mention that Robin is traditionally placed in Nottinghamshire, which is part of the old English Danelaw. There was a legacy of Norse republicanism in those parts.
Last weekend, when the Vikings and I lent our considerable glamor to the preview of How to Train Your Dragon, we went out to eat afterward, and the discussion turned to the old 1950s Robin Hood TV series with Richard Green, which we older Vikings remembered with great fondness. Some of the younger Vikings knew it too. Continue reading Robin and Lance, and stuff
Cut! What's Matt's Line?
Matt Scottoline gives us “Moments from famous films I would have ruined had I been the star.”
From It’s a Wonderful Life: “What do you want? The moon? Really? There is no possible way any person can do that. Ugh. Never mind.”
Cut! (Thanks to Books, Inq.)