“If being in a state of open-mindedness means that you’re asking questions, seeking knowledge, and attempting to fairly evaluate data without bias, it seems that that should be a transitory state — at some point, you find the answers. And once you’ve found the answers to your questions, you’re no longer open to the alternatives (unless you get some new data) because you’ve already evaluated them and rejected them as untrue.
Yet I rarely hear open-mindedness about religion described this way. It’s usually described as a long-term plan, a way of life, e.g. “It’s important to us to raise our children to be open-minded about religion.” It seems to me that if you intentionally plan to stay in that state indefinitely, then what you’re really saying is that you believe that objective truth about spiritual matters cannot be known. And if that’s the case, then you’re taking an active stance against the three major monotheistic belief systems (Judaism, Christianity, Islam) that teach that objective truth does exist and can be known.”
“O my God ! I offer Thee all my actions of this day for the intentions and for the glory of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. I desire to sanctify every beat of my heart, my every thought, my simplest works, by uniting them to Its infinite merits ; and I wish to make reparation for my sins by casting them into the furnace of Its Merciful Love. O my God! I ask thee for myself and for those whom I hold dear, the grace to fulfill perfectly Thy Holy Will, to accept for love of Thee the joys and sorrows of this passing life, so that we may one day be united together in Heaven for all Eternity. Amen.” St. Thérèse of Lisieux
I realise that it’s a contrarian thing to say, but I’ve always hated Klimt. I find the combination of distorted figures and metallic gold in his most famous work to be off-putting — there’s something grotesque and unnatural about those hybrids of metal and flesh – so I was pretty surprised when I saw this painting on another blog (Happy Catholic) and loved it. I think my actual reaction was, “Finally, a Klimt painting I don’t hate!”
Later, I discovered that this painting was created before he entered that famous “Golden phase” that I dislike so much, which is a mystery explained. What a shame that the only work of his that I like was (presumably) destroyed.
“The secular nation descends inexorably into a harsh and dismal unloveliness. Beauty withers in every society that marginalises God and the things of God.”
“It may be different in another world, but in this world, all love requires a sacrifice, and with that sacrifice there is inevitable pain. To reject sacrifice as the condition for the possibility of love is to live an essentially loveless existence.”
“It is […] in the intimacy of your soul, where the God of majesty abides, that you must adore Him continually. From time to time, place your hand over your heart, saying to yourself: ‘God is in me. And He is there not only to sustain my physical life, as in irrational creatures, but He is there acting and operating, to raise me to the highest perfection, if I do not put obstacles in the way of His grace.”
“I think also that you are suffering from suppressed ‘writing’. […] I sense amongst all your pains (some merely physical) the desire to express your feeling about good, evil, fair, foul in some way: to rationalize it, and prevent it just festering.”
John Duncan was an artist of the Celtic revival with a distinctly symbolist style. I saw this painting, St Bride, at the Scottish National Gallery in Edinburgh on New Year’s Day and was immediately captivated by the rich colours and the extravagant details of the angels’ robes. Apparently, it’s a depiction of the Irish saint, Bride, being carried to the Holy Land by angels so that she could witness and assist with the birth of Christ, then becoming his foster mother in the Celtic sense. It wasn’t a legend I’ve heard before but it’s a beautiful one, reflecting the importance of the custom of fosterage in Celtic Christian societies.
Being a symbolist painting though, Duncan’s St Bride doesn’t dwell on the end goal, the lowly stable in Bethlehem. That would be far too direct. The symbolists always aimed to implicitly evoke an effect rather than to explicitly represent a cause. It’s typical that the painting should focus on passage and transition rather than concrete arrival and achievement – it’s very modern in that respect. But St Bride is distinctly less modern in other respects: eyes closed, hands clasped in prayer, Bride (or Brigit as I’ve always known her) abandons herself wholly to the care of the angels, displaying a very old-fashioned (or possibly timeless) certainty and trust in the care of God. And the angels carry her with such delicate tenderness! Their hands don’t grip, clench or force, they support Brigit, almost caressing her. One angel looks back at her with an expression of concern, the other stares forward, eyes fixed on an unseen target – the Lord takes care of our present and our future. We, like Brigit, need only rest in His arms (or the arms of His angels) and trust that He will take us where we need to be. Not very modern at all.
As an aside, it’s funny how any work of art that makes me gasp with love on sight – as this one did – almost always turns out to be in some way connected with symbolism, and it’s funny how often these symbolists turn out have some Christian or Catholic feeling, even if the artists themselves did not practise. I think it comes from the symbolists’ belief in the importance of dreams, imagination and the spirit – the seed of the Divine is sown in all these things and when you seek to cultivate them, if you do not vanish down a rabbit hole of sensuality, self-obsession and ultimate self-destruction (as happened with many of the poètes maudits, the proto-Symbolists), you may well see that seed sprout and flower into beauty, as it did for John Duncan.
“The traditional feminist solution to the “problem” of female biology is unfettered access to contraception and abortion: this reveals an ironically masculine bias. Rather than seeking to change social structures to accommodate the realities of female biology, the feminist movement, since its second wave, has continually and firmly fought instead for women to alter their biology, often through violence, so that it functions more like a man’s. Tellingly, the legal right for a woman to kill a child in her womb was won before the legal right for a woman not to be fired for being pregnant. The message is clear: women must become like men to be free.”
Catholic Commonplace 