Tridentine Community News - Extraordinary Faith Episode 15: London Part 1 of 4 to Debut on EWTN on Monday, April 30; TLMs this coming week

"I will go in unto the Altar of God
To God, Who giveth joy to my youth"
Tridentine Community News by Alex Begin (April 29, 2018):

April 29, 2018 – Fourth Sunday After Easter

Extraordinary Faith Episode 15: London Part 1 of 4 to Debut on EWTN on Monday, April 30 The first of four episodes of Extraordinary Faith filmed in London, England will air on EWTN. Episode 15: London Part 1 of 4 will be shown on Monday, April 30 at 5:30 PM and on Tuesday, May 1 at 2:30 AM. As with all episodes, it will be posted for viewing on the Extraordinary Faith YouTube and Vimeo channels and at www.extraordinaryfaith.tv one month after it debuts on EWTN. You are not imagining things; EWTN scheduled the debut of this later episode of the show before earlier episodes are to debut later this the same week.

As this column has many times emphasized, London is the most exuberantly Catholic city this writer has ever visited. Traditional liturgy and music abounds; the quality of Catholic life, liturgical and otherwise, is unparalleled. These episodes provide a glimpse into this amazing world.

Our visit begins at the center of Catholicism in this capital city, Westminster Cathedral. Rector Canon Christopher Tuckwell explains the myriad of sacramental and devotional offerings at the cathedral. Mass is offered in Latin in the Ordinary Form daily and in the Extraordinary Form at least once per month, with occasional Solemn High Masses at the High Altar.


Dylan Parry was at the time of filming the editor of Westminster Cathedral’s Orémus Magazine; he has since joined the Norbertines and has taken the religious name of Br. Gildas Parry. He explains why Catholic tradition is so strong in London and the role of the late Cardinal Heenan in obtaining the pioneering “Agatha Christie Indult” for the Tridentine Mass in 1971.


Few Catholic parishes in the world can boast of a music program that features occasional polyphonic Masses in Latin. Westminster Cathedral has them all beat: They offer choral Masses most every day of the year, usually with the Cathedral Choir School boys’ choir. Music Director Martin Baker explains their ambitious music program and lets us in on a rehearsal with the choir school.


Occasional devotional processions are a part of the life of many parishes that feature the Traditional Mass. London, however, pretty much outclasses them all: In October there are not one but two major outdoor processions on successive weeks, both starting from Westminster Cathedral. We filmed the Rosary Crusade, in which approximately 2,000 of the faithful process down the main commercial streets of London on a Saturday, from Westminster Cathedral to the London Oratory. The procession ends with standing-room-only Benediction of the Most Blessed Sacrament at the Oratory. How inspiring to see such an enthusiastic public witness to our Holy Faith.


Tridentine Masses This Coming Week

• Tue. 05/01: 8:00 AM Low Mass & 7:00 PM Solemn High Mass at St. Joseph (St. Joseph the Worker)
• Tue. 05/01 7:00 PM: High Mass at Holy Name of Mary, Windsor (St. Joseph the Worker)
• Fri. 05/04 7:00 PM: Solemn High Mass at Old St. Mary’s (St. Monica, Widow) – Celebrant: Fr. Stephen Wolfe, SJ; Deacon: Fr. Joe Tuskiewicz; Subdeacon: Fr. Peter Hrytsyk. Choir will sing Missa Surréxit Pastor Bonus by Orlando di Lassus. Devotions to the Sacred Heart before Mass; reception after Mass.
• Sat. 05/05 8:30 AM: Low Mass at Miles Christi (St. Pius V, Pope & Confessor)

[Comments? Please e-mail tridnews@detroitlatinmass.org. Previous columns are available at http://www.detroitlatinmass.org. This edition of Tridentine Community News, with minor editions, is from the St. Albertus (Detroit), Academy of the Sacred Heart (Bloomfield Hills), and St. Alphonsus and Holy Name of Mary Churches (Windsor) bulletin inserts for April 29, 2018. Hat tip to Alex Begin, author of the column.]

Tridentine Community News - Extraordinary Faith Episode 14: Detroit Part 2 of 2 to Debut on EWTN on Friday, May 4; Flint TLM 101 Presentation & Mass; Tridentine Masses This Coming Week

"I will go in unto the Altar of God
To God, Who giveth joy to my youth"
Tridentine Community News by Alex Begin (April 22, 2018):

April 22, 2018 – Third Sunday After Easter

Extraordinary Faith Episode 14: Detroit Part 2 of 2 to Debut on EWTN on Friday, May 4

The second of two episodes of Extraordinary Faith filmed here in Detroit will air on EWTN. Episode 14: Detroit Part 2 of 2 will be shown on Friday, May 4 at 5:30 PM and on Saturday, May 5 at 2:30 AM. As with all episodes, it will be posted for viewing on the Extraordinary Faith YouTube and Vimeo channels and at www.extraordinaryfaith.tv one month after it debuts on EWTN.

Bob Barnhart, Music Director for the Ordinary Form Masses at Old St. Mary’s Church, explains the architectural features and musical and sacramental offerings of the parish. Video segments of the First Friday Tridentine Mass and the choir led by Wassim Sarweh are shown.


St. Edward on the Lake Pastor and longtime Extraordinary Form celebrant Fr. Lee Acervo continues our series of segments introducing various aspects of the Traditional Mass, with an explanation of the first part of a typical Sunday Mass: the Aspérges and the Prayers at the Foot of the Altar. Video snippets from a Mass at St. Alphonsus, Windsor provide visual examples of the subjects he addresses.

Parish volunteer Mike Smigielski takes us on a tour of the glisteningly restored St. Hyacinth Church. He explains how and why the parish began to host periodic Tridentine Masses, as a model of how other parishes might commence similar initiatives.


In the grand setting of Hamtramck’s St. Florian Church, church supplies expert and Detroit Latin Mass pioneer Fr. Mark Borkowski explains the various components of a complete Tridentine Mass vestment set.


Polish American Historic Site Association volunteers Celeste Grabowski and Bob Duda explain how their group took on the staggering challenge of acquiring from the Archdiocese of Detroit, restoring, and operating the once-closed, massive St. Albertus Church, where Holy Masses are once again being held. Roving Tridentine Mass organist Vladimir Vaculik explains how he used creative and inexpensive techniques to repair and restore the pipe organ at St. Albertus that had been non-functional for over 15 years.




Flint TLM 101 Presentation & Mass

The Flint Tridentine Community will be hosting a Tridentine Mass 101 Workshop, intended to introduce newcomers to the structure and theology of the Extraordinary Form, this Saturday, April 28 at 10:00 AM at St. Matthew Church in Flint. This writer will be the presenter. A High Mass will follow at 12:00 Noon.

Tridentine Masses This Coming Week

• Tue. 04/24 7:00 PM: Low Mass at Holy Name of Mary, Windsor (St. Fidelis of Sigmaringen, Martyr)
• Sat. 04/28 8:30 AM: Low Mass at Miles Christi (St. Paul of the Cross, Confessor)
• Sat. 04/28 12:00 Noon: High Mass at St. Matthew, Flint (St. Paul of the Cross, Confessor) – Part of the TLM 101 Workshop, above

[Comments? Please e-mail tridnews@detroitlatinmass.org. Previous columns are available at http://www.detroitlatinmass.org. This edition of Tridentine Community News, with minor editions, is from the St. Albertus (Detroit), Academy of the Sacred Heart (Bloomfield Hills), and St. Alphonsus and Holy Name of Mary Churches (Windsor) bulletin inserts for April 22, 2018. Hat tip to Alex Begin, author of the column.]

Wee bit of heaven ...

The London Oratory, also called the Brompton Oratory, has a special place in my heart. Cardinal Newman, essentially a patron saint to me on my journey into the Church, figures prominently in the history of the Oratory. Beyond that, it's a magnificent place and easy to find in London. It has three world-class children's choirs, as well as at least one other adult choir; and their music is one of the most beautiful things this side of heaven. (For more on the Oratory choirs, see Alex Begin's column in the post below.)

The humble integrity of the man who played Thomas More in A Man for All Seasons

"Scofield himself was baptized into the faith of his Catholic mother, although he always felt somewhat divided in spiritual matters since his father was Anglican. He was known for being 'a true country gentleman' who put his marriage, family, and home life first and never allowed the fame of his career to go to his head. A classically trained Shakespearian actor and resident of a small village in Sussex, he did not even go in person to collect his Academy Award for Best Actor. He also rejected the offer of knighthood three times, believing in the maxim 'Never the actor before the part he plays.' After his death, many of Scofield's fellow villagers knew next to nothing about his fame in the acting world, simply regarding him as one of their own, the nice old man who always supported local theater productions. Perhaps it is this abiding combination of humility and intellectual honesty, and recognition of the important things of life that truly made him perfectly destined to bring the character of Thomas More to life on screen."

Avellina Balestri, "Silence Louder Than Words: Looking back at A Man for All Seasons," The Latin Mass: The Journal of Catholic Culture and Tradition, Vol. 26, No. 3 (Fall 2017), p. 58.

The impact of Catholic culture on Hemingway

Hemingway rejected the sentimental piety of his mother and the liberal 'social gospel' of the Methodism in which he was raised in the Chicago suburb of Oak Park. After witnessing the brutalities of war in Europe, he could no longer accept the conceits about the 'perfectibility of man' found in his erstwhile suburban Methodist religious culture.

Hemingway was not, however, insensitive to religious ideas and practices -- particularly those found in Catholic cultures -- as is abundantly clear from Matthew Nickel's "Young Hemingway's Wound and Conversion" (Pilgrim: A Journal of Catholic Experience, 2013), excerpted and adapted from the first chapter of his recent work, Hemingway’s Dark Night: Catholic Influences and Intertextualities in the Work of Ernest Hemingway (Wickford, RI: New Street Communications, 2013).

One of the most striking early remarks by Hemingway is in a letter to Ernest Walsh, dated January 2, 1926, in which he refers to himself a Catholic in connection with the Sacrament of extreme unction given to him on the battlefield:

If I am anything I am a Catholic. Had extreme unction administered to me as such in July 1918 and recovered. So guess I am a super-catholic.... Am not what is called a ‘good’ catholic.... But cannot imagine taking any other religion seriously.

Nickel then observes:

It is impossible to know exactly what occurred on the battlefield between Hemingway and the priest, but regardless, there is ample evidence that Hemingway practiced Catholic rituals and that he talked and wrote to others about being a Catholic after World War I. Also, the results of a canonical inquest into Hemingway’s standing in the Catholic Church by the Archdiocese of Paris – which on April 25, 1927 reported he was “certified a Catholic in good standing” -- are telling.

One cannot, of course, sidestep the brute fact of his subsequent depression and suicide in Idaho in 1961. But there is clearly more than meets the eye in the standard secular accounts of Hemingway's life and work.

[Hat tip to Christopher Blosser]

Tridentine Community News - Extraordinary Faith Episode 11: San Francisco Part 2 of 2; TLM scheudule

"I will go in unto the Altar of God
To God, Who giveth joy to my youth"
Tridentine Community News by Alex Begin (June 11, 2017):

June 11, 2017 - Trinity Sunday

Extraordinary Faith Episode 11: San Francisco Part 2 of 2

The last episode of Season 1 of Extraordinary Faith has been posted to YouTube and Vimeo for viewing on-line. This episode, as well as all of the other episodes of Season 1, continues to be re-run on a weekly basis by EWTN on all of their global satellite feeds. EWTN’s strong support for Extraordinary Faith is directly attributable to the feedback they receive at viewer@ewtn.com, and we thank our readers who have taken the time to send in a good word.

Episode 11 – San Francisco Part 2 of 2 – begins with an interview with Fr. Joseph Illo, pastor of Star of the Sea Parish in San Francisco, who is attempting to organize an Oratory of St. Philip Neri there. He explains what an Oratory is, and the noteworthy Oratories in London, Birmingham, and Oxford, England, and Toronto, Ontario, all of which are renowned for traditional liturgy.

The Tridentine Mass isn’t the only form of traditional Catholic liturgy that is regaining popularity in modern times. The traditional Dominican Rite is also enjoying a resurgence, and one of its proponents and celebrants, Fr. Anselm Ramelow, OP, Associate Professor at the Dominican School of Philosophy & Theology in Berkeley, California, explains what it is and how it differs from the Roman Rite. We interview Fr. Anselm in San Francisco’s Dominican parish, appropriately named St. Dominic, and pastor Fr. Michael Hurley gives us a tour of this English Gothic church.


Traditional orders continue to grow and be founded. Fr. Vito Perrone – no relation to Detroit’s Fr. Eduard Perrone – explains the mission of his new order, the Contemplatives of St. Joseph, which offers both the Extraordinary and Ordinary Forms in San Francisco.

Next we head to the southern part of the Bay Area, to San Jose, the hub of Silicon Valley. You would expect to see modern buildings housing tech companies there, but you might be surprised to discover a beautiful historic church, Five Wounds Portuguese National Church, which is home to a Latin Mass community. Canon Olivier Meney of the Institute of Christ the King takes us on a tour.


When you think of Marin County, located north of San Francisco on the other side of the Golden Gate Bridge, you might think of vineyards and beautiful vistas. In the midst of that scenic countryside is the St. Vincent School for Boys, a residential school for disadvantaged young men which has an expansive, architecturally ornate campus. The centerpiece is a stunning chapel which hosts a Tridentine Mass community on Sundays. Facilities Director Jacqui Devine gives us a tour.


Episode 11 may be viewed on the Extraordinary Faith channels on YouTube and Vimeo. A high-res direct link is here: https://vimeo.com/164106931. Soon it will also be viewable – along with some behind-the-scenes photos – on our web site, www.extraordinaryfaith.tv. As always, we encourage you to like the Extraordinary Faith page on Facebook, so you’ll be notified about the latest air dates and additional info about the places we visit.

Season 2 of Extraordinary Faith will debut soon. It begins with a local slant: The first three episodes cover our local Latin Mass scene here in Windsor and Detroit. Details will be provided when EWTN sets their broadcast schedule.

Tridentine Masses This Coming Week

• Mon. 06/12 7:00 PM: Low Mass at St. Josaphat (St. John of San Fecundo, Confessor)
• Tue. 06/13 7:00 PM: Low Mass at Holy Name of Mary, Windsor (St. Anthony of Padua, Confessor & Doctor)
• Sat. 06/17 8:30 AM: Low Mass at Miles Christi (St. Gregory

[Comments? Please e-mail tridnews@detroitlatinmass.org. Previous columns are available at http://www.detroitlatinmass.org. This edition of Tridentine Community News, with minor editions, is from the St. Albertus (Detroit), Academy of the Sacred Heart (Bloomfield Hills), and St. Alphonsus and Holy Name of Mary Churches (Windsor) bulletin inserts for June 11, 2017. Hat tip to Alex Begin, author of the column.]

New Detroit Archdiocese coat of arms design

Do any of you have an opinion about the new Coat of Arms of the Archdiocese of Detroit? Some people seem quite upset by it, like the website that calls it an "Epic Fail," and a logo rather than a coat of arms. I think the archbishop's post-synodal letter will help the viewer to understand some of the imagery in the new design, though whether you like it or not is another question. (Here are images of the designs, old on the left, new on the right.)

Intimations of transcendent beauty, holiness, salvation

Buy/download the album HERE.

[Hat tip to Rorate]

A film in which Christians and non-believers are not cast as natural enemies

Well, this is interesting. I've never cared much for overtly 'Christian' films, which tend in my experience to be too long on didacticism and too short on artistry. But here's what Steven D. Greydanus has to say about 'The Case for Christ,' based on Lee Strobel’s best-selling conversion story:

The atheists and nonbelievers in The Case for Christ don’t have horns and tails, or even mustaches for twirling. They aren’t out to crush believers into dust or banish their beliefs from respectable society.

The believers aren’t persecuted, marginalized victims, but capable, respected professionals in fields ranging from medical science and health care to archaeology, New Testament studies, philosophy, journalism and more. The conflict turns on faith and unbelief, but believers and unbelievers aren’t cast as natural enemies.

In other words, The Case for Christ is far from the paranoid, agonistic world of the two God’s Not Dead films, for which Pure Flix Entertainment is best known. Producers Elizabeth Hatcher-Travis and Pure Flix CEO Michael Scott collaborated on all three films — and Lee Strobel, the protagonist of The Case for Christ, cameoed as himself in God’s Not Dead 2. Yet The Case for Christ is the furthest thing from a God’s Not Dead 3.

The differences start with the real-life story behind The Case for Christ, Strobel’s conversion story from atheism to Christianity. Where the God’s Not Dead films offer lurid distillations of fundamentalist urban legends, The Case for Christ is about real people — at least, about as much as an average fact-based Hollywood drama. Read more >>

[Hat tip to JM]

"Cantate Domino Canticum Novum": A Statement on the Current Situation of Sacred Music

"A Statement on the Current Situation of Sacred Music," Altare Dei: Velociter Currit Sermo Eius, in nine languages with a list of signatories. If you're interested in and concerned about sacred music, you might want to read this.

'Preachy' and 'Boring': review of The Shack

Monica Migliorino Miller, "The Shack’s Preachiness leads to Cinematic Boredom" (Crisis, March 20, 2017).

Edgar Allan Poe's hymn to The Angelus

CATHOLIC HYMN.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

AT morn — at noon — at twilight dim —
Maria! thou hast heard my hymn!
In joy and wo — in good and ill —
Mother of God, be with me still!
When the Hours flew brightly by,
And not a cloud obscured the sky,
My soul, lest it should truant be,
Thy grace did guide to thine and thee;
Now, when storms of Fate o’ercast
Darkly my Present and my Past,
Let my Future radiant shine
With sweet hopes of thee and thine!

-- by Edgar Allan Poe

[Hat tip to L.S.]

Unkilled for so long: on Sir Arnold Lunn

Joseph Martin, "Unkilled for so long" (Imprimatur, October 28, 2016). Now I See, says Martin, was a 'find' - dated but still recommended. This is a detailed and thorough treatment of a convert to the Catholic Faith who was received into the Church on 13th July, 1933, by Mgr. Knox, unleashing thereby on a de-Christianised society one whom Evelyn Waugh called "the most tireless Catholic apologist of his generation." A post well-worth reading!!

Tolkien: England's Anglo-Saxon Catholic Oracle

Joseph Pearce, who spoke recently at Assumption Grotto Church in Detroit on the subject of Tolkien's novels, The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, argues compellingly that Tolkien's works and the characters in them represent a sort of parallel history of redemption, although he didn't use the word, a parallel 'Gospel,' as it were. He has two books that elaborate this thesis, one on Frodo, the other on Bilbo. Very interesting. I'm struck by how so much in his work reads, in places, like a commentary on our own times:

'What about Rivendell and the Elves? Is Rivendell safe?'

'Yes, at present, until all else is conquered. The Elves may fear the Dark Lord, and they may fly before him, but never again will they listen to him or serve him....

'Indeed there is power in Rivendell to withstand the might of Mordor, for a while: and elsewhere other powers still dwell. There is power, too, of another kind in the Shire. But all such places will soon become islands under siege, if things go on as they are going. The Dark Lord is putting forth all his strength.'

In many ways, Tolkien created the classic Anglo-Saxon Catholic myth, a myth for the English-speaking people, a Catholic myth that has its own truth by representing a parallel to another great 'myth,' the greatest 'myth' of all, the 'myth' which turns out to be true; that is, true history from God's point of view: the Bible.

The world we live in is falling into darkness; and the darkness cannot be understood spiritually without penetrating behind the scrim that divides us from the unseen world of principalities and powers at war in the spiritual world. Tolkien takes us there if we have eyes to see. What he shows us is that there is always hope; but our true hope does not always lie in the world around us and the temporal means at hand. There are powers we haven't the means to resist within ourselves. But there are powers greater than those of Mordor for those with the spiritual discernment to understand this truth.

Francis Schaeffer listened to Pink Floyd? Timothy Leary, Eric Clapton, and Keith Richards read or studied with him??

A terrific article in many, many ways. Please do yourself a favor if you are the least bit interested in Christian intellectual culture, and read Jake Meador's "Francis Schaeffer and Christian Intellectualism" (Mere Orthodoxy, August 18, 2016).

The piece sets the stage by tolling the death knell of public Christian intellectual culture round about 1960. Like this:

In his recent essay on Christian intellectualism, Alan Jacobs dates the high point of the public Christian intellectual in America as being in the late 1940s. Citing the influence of thinkers like CS Lewis, WH Auden, and Reinhold Niebuhr, Jacobs argues that the movement began to fade in the 1950s and, by the 1960s, was largely a spent force. By that time Lewis, Auden, and Niebuhr were no longer as relevant in contemporary debates and the next generation had not yet emerged. By the time that generation of leaders did, Jacobs argues, the culture had moved past them and they had become more conversant in the intramural discussions happening in conservative religious circles rather than the broader cultural conversation.

... In dating the decline of the Christian intellectual, Jacobs cites, amongst other things, the evidence offered by major media coverage of prominent public Christians. He notes that both Lewis and Niebuhr made the cover of Time in the late 1940s with Lewis appearing on it in 1947 and Niebuhr doing the same in 1948. What’s funny about this is that Francis Schaeffer, who has been hailed by some as Lewis’s only equal amongst orthodox Christian apologists in the 20th century, also makes a prominent appearance in Time ... but in 1960....

Time‘s description of Schaeffer, however, tells us something about how things had changed during the 12 years between Niebuhr’s cover and Schaeffer’s. In 1960, Time presents Schaeffer as a missionary to the intellectuals, which he no doubt was. But this assumes that Christianity needs missionaries to the intellectuals because the intellectuals are no longer Christian. What had been conflict within the intellectual community 13 years before when they reported on CS Lewis has become an attempt to witness to the intellectual community by 1960. This suggests, in one sense, that Jacobs is right—the Christian public intellectual is dead by 1960, which is why Schaeffer was needed.

But it also raises a separate question: If that intellectual is dead, why is Schaeffer being covered by Time in the first place?Further, why does he have well-known figures from the various counter-cultures as well as popular icons of the era beating down his door to study with him at L’Abri? Timothy Leary, Eric Clapton, and Keith Richards are just three examples of prominent 1960s figures who read or studied with Schaeffer. There are others....

Read more >>

[Hat tip to JM]

In Praise of Rutherford Dust

A reader who is a great fan of vintage cabernets has been singing the virtues of certain labels to me for some time. Most recently in an email, he mentioned Rutherford Dust together with wine in a sentence and, at first, I didn't know what he was talking about. So I asked him, and of course it turned out there's a mythos associated with a particular region in the heart of the Napa Valley in California and even a Rutherford Dust Society with a lovely video [see below] promoting the wines of its region, which, it repeatedly claims, is "all about the dust."

But before I discovered all that, I asked him, my reader, who answered in what can only be described as language approaching poetry, which perhaps only those of us who favour cabernets over every other kind of wine can fully appreciate. Trusting that there are a few of you who are cabernet lovers yourselves out there, here is what he wrote:

Rutherford Dust?

Imagine that you had a few dozen gems
of sizeable, impeccable, Sardonyx
and imagine that you had melted-down those gems
into a liquid and poured those liquid gems
into a handsome wine bottle and then poured that liquid
into a large, and heavy, Waterford Crystal Wine Glass.

That is the black-red canvas of Caymus Cabernet
after 30 minutes resting and breathing in a Decanter.

And upon that beautiful canvas is painted a bouquet of beauty;
an essence of magnificence, and its heavy-perfumed scent
took me right back to Napa when I and The Bride toured there.

I could smell the early morning air of Napa, Baptised as it had been
in a misting of a berry-scented light fog; and I could smell
the rich moist brown-black earth in that gorgeous valley
and I could smell the sight of vines laden with
scores of thousands of gorgeous Cabernet Berries.

The taste of the wine was incomparable.
It was the best wine I have ever slowly sipped
and savored.

It tasted of black cherries;
it tasted of luminescent grapes
(The Bride said, "Wow, it almost tastes like Champagne);
it tasted as though, somehow, God had torn-up
an entire long trellised-row of Cabernet Grapes
in Twilight and miraculously changed all of it,
earth, vine, and grape, into this soul-satisfying wine.

I took over two hours to drink it and I enjoyed
every single second of it
and in the long time between sips
the light velvety coating in my mouth kept-up
its constant confession of delightful decadence
with the curious taste receptors in my mouth.

Road trip to Napa Valley, anyone?

The author of this delectable poetic reflection most of you know by the name of Amateur Brain Surgeon.

"... not despising the day of small things"

Sammy Rhodes, "Meet the New American Dream" (reformation21, January 2016): "Meet the New American Dream, Same as the Old American Dream: Thoughts after seeing Joy":

Movies are more than entertainment, date night venues, or after (during) work escapes. At their best, they are something closer to lay theology or therapy even. A place to take in entire worldviews, sifting their varied messages through one's own grid, taking the parts worth saving, and leaving parts unwanted behind.

Read more >>

[Hat tip to JM]

What can a southerner's tragic sense of life teach a northerner?

I still remember when a history professor at the University of Pittsburgh handed me a copy of Walker Percy's Love in the Ruins one summer. A novel. I hadn't read many novels to that point. A few here and there, but not many. I was a grad student in philosophy. What did I want with fiction? I remember it became my recreational reading for a few weeks that summer, and at first I wondered what hit me. I had never ever read anything quite like this. His antihero characters were somehow captivating, despite all their banalities and flaws. There was an unexpected transparency about them -- like the guy (in another Percy novel) who argued with his psychologist, whom he was seeing because of the guilt he felt over an affair, that guilt was unavoidable after all, because he was guilty.

Love in the Ruins unfolded in its bizarre southern setting with antihero Thomas More musing over how much simpler life in the north was. To use a loose analogy, the northern mind is a bit like war movies made before Vietnam: think of The Sands of Iwo Jima, The Longest Day, or even The Green Beret, right at the outset of the war. The southern mind is more like Platoon, or Apocalypse Now. To read this as a simple contrast between absolutism and relativism would be to miss my point, because the northern mind is perhaps even more relativistic than the southern. No, it has to do with the level of reflection, the complexity of life and its existential questions, what Miguel de Unamuno called the Tragic Sense of Life. The North, despite its fashionable postmodern conceits, is more at ease with the rationalist projects of the Enlightenment than the South. The South is an untamed Faulknerian 'force of nature' that will destroy you, abandon you to the shallow puddle of your autoerotic self-indulgences, or show you how painfully deep the proverbial rabbit hole goes. Percy shows us how deep, and he does this by first hooking the reader unawares (why do I think of Kierkegaard's Diary of a Sedeucer?) into confronting the deep corners of his individual soul and the collective American psyche that he has never dared or even imagined examining.

Amy Welborn, "Walker Percy at 100" (The Catholic World Report, May 27, 2016) -- a good introduction.

[Hat tip to JM]

Winner of Dutch art contest on current multiculturalism in Europe

The title: "WATERING THE TREE OF YOUR OWN DEMISE" (The Burning Platform, May 10, 2016):


[Hat tip L.S.]

Seminary student: the Tridentine Mass "changed my life"

Sacred Heart Major Seminary theology student, Evan Pham, says of the Tridentine Mass that it "changed my life." Here he shares some of his reasons why as he offers tips for newbies. He told me over lunch recently at Ottavia Via in Detroit that he often invites people to the traditional Latin Mass, and when I asked him how he prepares them for the often disorienting first-time experience, he shared with me some of the points in this video. You can find this video at his website, along with some excellent movie reviews, an archive of holy cards he designed, a 'meme museum', as well as his intriguing novel entitled Little Miss Lucifer, which have just begun reading (interestingly, it has its own 'sound track'). He also has a blog. Enjoy.


Related:

• "And they don't even charge admission!" (Musings, January 18, 2008).
• "Advice to Catholics Attending a Tridentine Mass for the first time" (Musings, April 2, 2012).