Quantcast
Channel: island life- in a monastery
Viewing all 1466 articles
Browse latest View live
↧

PADRE OF ISLETA

October 26, 2019, 6:14 pm
$
0
0

Another missionary who had an impact on peoples in our own Southwest  wasFATHER  ANTON DOCHER a French Franciscanborn in 1852, who served as a missionary to Native Americans in New Mexico.
.

Following academic studies and years of military service, in 1887 Father Anton traveled to the United States, where he was first assigned to the Cathedral of Santa Fe for a few years and was ordained. He worked briefly at Taos, before being assigned to the Pueblo of Isleta in New Mexico, where he served for 34 years until his death.

Respected by the Isleta for his open-minded attitude to their customs and ancestral faiths, Father Anton was called Tashide, which means "little helper" in Tewa language. He was known for owning a parrot named Tina, which used very foul language.


Father Docher raised an Isletan orphan boy named Tomas Chavez. When Tomas married Lolita Delores, Father Docher gave the couple five acres and a house in Los Lunas as a wedding gift. Tomas developed a vineyard on this land and supplied wine to the Isleta and local churches. Unfortunately, he died in 1925, three years before Father. His widow Lolita Delores was left with nine children. Father Docher paid for the children’s schooling.

Father on left, Tomas on right

Father Anton became a naturalized United States citizen. Close to the people he served, he referred to himself as an "Indian" in the letters which he sent to his family in France.


Suffering a long illness, Father Anton lived the last three years of his life as a patient at the St JosephHospital(Albuquerque), where he died at the age of 76 on December 18, 1928.

In front of his house with bee hives

Willa Cather used him as a model for her protagonist Padre Jesus de Baca in her novel "Death Comes for the Archbishop" (1927). She visited him shortly before his death.

↧
Search

HOLY FIGHTER- MISSIONARY IN MADAGASCAR

October 28, 2019, 2:14 pm
$
0
0

Another living missionary, who is having a great impact on the peoples of Madagascar, is FATHER PEDRO PABLO, who was born in 1948 in Argentina of Slovene descent. For his service to the poor, he was awarded the Legion of Honor.



His father was a former member of the Home Guard, a Slovenian anti-communist German-led auxiliary police force, and avoided post-war summary executions by fleeing to Italy. He met his future wife in a refugee camp in Italy, where they married. They emigrated together to Argentina to avoid the Yugoslav communist regime.

Father Pedro Opeka speaks 7 languages: Spanish, English, Slovenian, French, Italian, Latin and Malagasy.

In 1968 he joined the Lazarites a missionary order popularly known as Vincentians, founded by St. Vincent de Paul. Part of his formation was in Slovenia and part in Paris, where he came into contact with the Taizé Community near Cluny in France. 

In 1975, Pedro Opeka was ordained priest in Buenos Airesand was given a rural parish in southeast Madagascar. In 1989, his Lazarist superiors appointed him director of a seminary in Antananarivo, the capital. 

Father Opeka  has described Madagascar as “a precious island, with much natural riches and a very happy and welcoming people that live solidarity and mutual help with great respect.”

When he saw a dump from the hills of the city, he discovered people rummaging among garbage to find something to eat, and sleeping in huts made of hemp propped between mountains of waste. Father Pedro began talking to them, to convince them that they could leave that misery and abuse, for their children. With the team of young people from Vangaindrano he had trained, and after long discussions, he wrote the articles and statutes of Akamasoa ('good friends' in the local language).


“From the beginning, the wisdom of its ancestors surprised me as well as the richness of its culture, and in its proverbs the presence of the Creator God is always present. The Malagasy people are very religious, and one grows attached to them very quickly.

He said much has changed since he first arrived. “When I came to this island it was an extraordinary discovery to live in the midst of a people that have an immense enthusiasm to live, to exist, to share. They had respect for persons and for goods, there was almost no delinquency, no robbery or violence.”

Looking back, Father Opeka notes that after the island gained independence in 1960, its socioeconomic and political situation began to deteriorate, while its population continued to increase. “From year to year, we were sinking into poverty without there being any reaction on the part of those governing. All those who took power ended up defrauding the people.”


Having no money, Father Pedro started it all with 900€ he borrowed from various Christian missions. He appointed a team of staff to help him to manage the daily activities and to provide continuous support to poor people.

Today Akamasoa sustains about thirty thousand people in 18 villages, among them ten thousand children, who all go to school, following the building of 37 new schools in the years since Akamasoa's founding.

About four thousand families live in the 18 villages, but another 900,000 Malagasy people have been supported from one day to three weeks in the 'welcome centers', being offered rice, a roof, some clothing and a small package, in order to be 'born again' to life.

Son of a courageous father who taught him building arts, Father Pedro taught the Akamasoa youth how to build houses, first out of wood, and then, bricks and mortar.
Over 3,000 solid houses have been built by Akamasoa to date for people who used to live in card-board boxes on the ground. Every year, Akamasoa builds new schools, clinics, and training and production centres. Over 3,600 jobs have been created for the villagers, who are paid by Akamasoa every month.
A comprehensive economic structure, Akamasoa has grown to being 75% self-sufficient in revenue, thanks to the creation of stone and gravel quarries, to the craft and embroidery workshops, and to a compost centre next to the 'Tana' public rubbish.


 Father Pedro Opeka taught the Akamasoa people tips on how to divide and sort the rubbish, to transport the compost created from rubbish, and to create small agricultural farms. Akamasoa also trains construction artisans (bricklayers, carpenters, cabinet makers, operators and street pavers) who have built or rebuilt roads and bridges to help communities in the villages and all over the country.

In 2007,Father Pedro was named a knight of the Legion of Honor. The award, decreed by the President of France, recognizes his 20 years of public service to the poor in Antananarivo. This award recognizes the ongoing fight led here against poverty by this man of faith and his 412 co-workers: physicians, midwives, teachers, engineers, technicians, and social workers, all of them from Madagascar.

In 2009 he received the Golden Order for Services, which is the highest national decoration of Slovenia.


With the Pope in 2019- who visited Madagascar
In 2012 and 2013 Father Pedro was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize by united Slovenian European Parliament representatives regardless of political party affiliation.

Father Pedro has seen much change in this country since his arrival over 30 years ago, and not for the better, but he sees a glimmer of hope for the nation because “a young president has come to power who seeks to change and to bring peace and social justice to his people.”


Andry Rajoelina,  has begun to attack the corruption and the whole class of favoritisms that impede the country’s economic growth.

“The new president is Catholic and does not hide his faith and for many years now he has come to celebrate Christmas with the poor families of Akamasoa.”

Asked about the role of the Catholic Church on the island, Father Pedro said, “The Church has played an important role in the history of Madagascar. It was the cradle of the education of children in the whole national territory. Indeed, the missionary presence was very important because it brought education, health, dignity.

The force of the Gospel was what kept the hope of the poorest. Without the presence of the church, Madagascarwould be very much poorer.”


This gentle man of God is an example of one who has given up all to follow Christ as he makes a difference to the neglected poor of an almost forgotten country. To many he is known as the "man of miracles".

↧
↧

NOBEL PRIZE MISSIONARY

October 30, 2019, 3:15 am
$
0
0



The last missionary we will consider to end the month dedicated to missionaries is  BISHOP CARLOS FILIPE XIMENES BELO.  He was born in 1948 in the village of Wailakama, near Vemasse, on the north coast of Portuguese Timor. His religious life openly denounced the brutal Indonesian occupation of his country. 

In 1996, he shared the Nobel Peace Prize with José Ramos-Horta for working "towards a just and peaceful solution to the conflict in East Timor". A member of the Salesian Society, he studied in Portugal and Rome before ordination to the priesthood. He returned to Timor in 1981, where he taught.

On the resignation of Martinho da Costa Lopes in 1983, Father Belo was appointed Apostolic Administrator of the Dili diocese, becoming head of the East Timor church and directly responsible to the Pope. On 6 February 1989, he was consecrated titular Bishop of Lorium.

Father Belo was the choice of the Vatican's Pro Nuncio in Jakarta and the Indonesian leaders because of his supposed submissiveness, but he was not the choice of the Timorese priests who did not attend his inauguration.

However within only five months of his assuming office, he protested vehemently, in a sermon in the cathedral, against the brutalities of the Kraras massacre (1983) and condemned the many Indonesian arrests. The church was the only institution capable of communicating with the outside world, so with this in mind the new Apostolic Administrator started writing letters and building up overseas contacts, in spite of the isolation arising from the opposition of the Indonesians and the disinterest of most of the world.

In February 1989 he wrote to the President of Portugal, the Pope, and the UN Secretary-General, calling for a UN referendum on the future of East Timor and for international help for the East Timorese, who were "dying as a people and a nation", but when the UN letter became public in April, he became even more of a target of the Indonesians.

 After a second massacre in the Santa Cruzcemetery in 1991, the bishop hid a number of fleeing resistance leaders and publicized the events to the world. As a result, he was put under surveillance, was prohibited from travelling, and survived two attempts on his life.

Bishop Belo's labors on behalf of the East Timorese and in pursuit of peace and reconciliation were internationally recognized when, along with José Ramos-Horta, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in December 1996.

Bishop Belo capitalized upon this honor through meetings with Bill Clinton of the United States and Nelson Mandela of South Africa. In 1995, he also won the John Humphrey Freedom Award from the Canadian human rights group Rights & Democracy. "Let it be stated clearly that to make peace a reality, we must be flexible as well as wise. We must truly recognize our own faults and move to change ourselves in the interest in making peace... Let us banish anger and hostility, vengeance and other dark emotions, and transform ourselves into humble instruments of peace."

In the aftermath of East Timorese independence on 20 May 2002, the pressure of events and the ongoing stress he endured began to show their effects on Bishop Belo's health. Pope John Paul II accepted his resignation as Apostolic Administrator of Dili on 26 November 2002.

"During the Portuguese time the Church was there. During the Indonesian time the Church was the same and now the Church will be present and preach the same values of the gospel -- justice, peace and reconciliation -- and try to work together with the social organizations."


 Following his resignation Bishop Belo traveled to Portugal for medical treatment. By the beginning of 2004, there were repeated calls for him to return to East Timor and to run for the office of president. However, in May 2004 he told Portuguese state-run television RTP, that he would not allow his name to be put up for nomination. "I have decided to leave politics to politicians," he stated. One month later, on 7 June 2004, Pascuál Chavez, rector major of the Salesian Society, announced from Rome that Bishop Belo, returned to health, would take up a new assignment. In agreement with the Holy See, he would go to Mozambique as a missionary, and live as a member of the Salesian Society in that country.

In a statement released on 8 June, Bishop Belo said that, following two meetings in 2003 and in 2004 with the Prefect of the Congregation for the Evangelisation of Peoples, he would go on a mission to the Diocese of Maputo, the capital of Mozambique, as he had wanted to since his youth. He started in July 2004; the same year he was awarded an Honorary Doctorate from CEU Cardinal Herrera University.



In February 2011 Bishop Belo received the Prize for Lusophonic Personality of the Year, given by MIL: Movimento Internacional Lusófono in the Lisbon Academy of Sciences.

↧

THE GREATEST WAR POET

November 4, 2019, 10:26 am
$
0
0



Before we get into Advent I want to present a few more of the great War poets. One of the best of the poets produced by World War I is SIEGFRIED SASSOON, who was born in 1886 to a  wealthy English family.

His father was a Jewish businessman and his mother, an Anglo-Catholic.  Much of his youth was spent in diversions like endless games of cricket. He received an excellent education, and began to write poetry at a young age.

When World War I began, he volunteered for the British Army. He was decorated for his bravery in battle, and he earned the nickname “Mad Jack” for his seemingly insane acts of valor. The war, however, left him depressed, and this tone is reflected in his poetry, which took on a bitter edge.


His poetry described the horrors of the trenches and satirized the patriotic pretensions of those who, in Siegfried's view, were responsible for a jingoism-fueled war. Sassoon became a focal point for dissent within the armed forces when he made a lone protest against the continuation of the war in his "Soldier's Declaration" of 1917, culminating in his admission to a military psychiatric hospital. This resulted in his forming a friendship with Wilfred Owen, who was greatly influenced by him. Siegfried later won acclaim for his prose work, notably his three-volume fictionalized autobiography, collectively known as the "Sherston Trilogy".

 On 1 November his younger brother Hamo was killed in the Gallipoli Campaign, and in the same month Siegfried was sent to the 1st Battalion in France. There he met Robert Graves, and they became close friends. United by their poetic vocation, they often read and discussed each other's work. Though this did not have much perceptible influence on Graves's poetry, his views on what may be called 'gritty realism' profoundly affected Siegfried's concept of what constituted poetry. Details such as rotting corpses, mangled limbs, filth, cowardice and suicide are all trademarks of his work at this time.
 
With W.B. Yeats
With Hester
His periods of duty on the Western Front were marked by exceptionally brave actions, including the single-handed capture of a German trench in the Hindenburg Line. Armed with grenades, he scattered sixty German soldiers.

 In 1933, he married Hester Gatty, and the couple had one child. The marriage broke down after the Second World War, and Sassoon became increasingly fond of solitude. Towards the end of his life, he converted to Roman Catholicism  due much to the influence of Msgr. Ronald Knox, a fellow literary figure and convert he admired. He paid regular visits to the nuns of the Benedictine Stanbrook Abbey.

Peter Levi wrote in Poetry Review: “One can experience in his poetry the slow, restless ripening of a very great talent; its magnitude has not yet been recognized. … He is one of the few poets of his generation we are really unable to do without.”   Much of his poetry is shrouded in beauty and mystery.

Siegfried died in 1967 from stomach cancer. His papers are held at University of Cambridge. 



EVERYONE suddenly burst out singing;
And I was filled with such delight
As prisoned birds must find in freedom,
Winging wildly across the white
Orchards and dark-green fields;
on—on—and out of sight.
Everyone’s voice was suddenly lifted;
And beauty came like the setting sun:
My heart was shaken with tears; and horror Drifted away … O, but Everyone
Was a bird; and the song was wordless; the singing will never be done.


ABSOLUTION
The anguish of the earth absolves our eyes 
Till beauty shines in all that we can see. 
War is our scourge; yet war has made us wise, 
And, fighting for our freedom, we are free. 

Horror of wounds and anger at the foe,
And loss of things desired; all these must pass. 
We are the happy legion, for we know 
Time’s but a golden wind that shakes the grass. 

There was an hour when we were loath to part 
From life we longed to share no less than others.
Now, having claimed this heritage of heart, 
What need we more, my comrades and my brothers? 

↧

HOLY CHINESE CARDINAL

November 7, 2019, 1:49 pm
$
0
0

We recently had a visit from a lovely man and his parents who were visiting from Shanghai.  He does research at the University of Washington and it turns out he has an uncle who was the cousin toIGNATIUS KUNG PIN-MEI  the Catholic Bishop of Shanghai, China, from 1950 until his death in 2000. He spent 30 years in Chinese prisons for defying attempts by China's Communist government to control Catholics in the country through the government-approved Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association. At the time of his death he was the oldest member of  the College of Cardinals.

On September 8, 1955,  Bishop Kung, along with several hundred priests and church leaders, was arrested and imprisoned. He was sentenced five years later to life imprisonment for counter-revolutionary activities. He was secretly named a Cardinal in pectore in the consistory of 1979 by by Pope  St. John Paul II. The formula in pectore is used when a pope names a cardinal without announcing it publicly in order to protect the safety of the cardinal and his congregation. 

After he was released in 1986, he was kept under house arrest until 1988. Bishop Kung learned he was a cardinal during a private meeting with the Pope in Vatican City in 1988, and his membership in the College of Cardinals was made public in 1991. By then, he had reached the age of 80, so he did not have the right to participate in a conclave.

Cardinal Kung's story is that of a faithful shepherd and a heroic witness to the faith. He refused to renounce God and the Church despite the consequences of imprisonment by communist authorities. In the months leading up to his arrest in 1955, Cardinal Kung refused offers of safe passage out of China to stay by his flock. His example of fidelity has been one of the lynchpins in the underground Catholic community in China. He has become a symbol of the fight for religious freedom.

He had only served 5 years as Bishop of Shanghai before his arrest. In that time, he had already become notorious to the authorities for the respect and devotion he received from Catholics. 

Knowing his arrest was imminent, Bishop Kung trained hundreds of catechists to pass on the faith to future generations. Months after his arrest, he was taken to the dog racing stadium of Shanghai to publicly confess his "crimes." Thousands were present in the stadium as he was pushed to a microphone, hands bound behind his back, and wearing only Chinese pijamas. Instead of a confession, though, the authorities heard, "Long live Christ the King! Long live the Pope!"

The assembled crowd responded, "Long live Christ the King! Long live Bishop Kung!" The authorities quickly removed the Bishop from the scene.

In 1960, he was sentenced to life imprisonment. The night before his trial, the Chief Prosecutor offered him his freedom in exchange for his cooperation in setting up the Chinese Catholics' Patriotic Association. He responded resolutely, "I am a Roman Catholic Bishop. If I denounce the Holy Father, not only would I not be a Bishop, I would not even be a Catholic. You can cut off my head, but you can never take away my duties."

Bishop Kung spent thirty years behind bars, much of it in solitary confinement. He was not permitted to receive visitors, letters, or money to buy essentials. In 1985, he was released from prison to serve another ten years under house arrest. After two and a half years of house arrest, he was officially released, though he was never fully exonerated. In 1988, his nephew, Joseph Kung (president of the Cardinal Kung Foundation), obtained permission to escort him to the U.S.for medical care.

Shortly before his release from prison, the Bishop was permitted to participate in a banquet in honor of Cardinal Jaime Sin of Manila. The authorities carefully separated the two so that Bishop Kung would not have direct contact with the Cardinal. However, during the dinner, Cardinal Sin invited each attendee to sing a song of celebration. Bishop Kung chose "Tu es Petrus et super hanc petram aedificabo Ecclesiam meam" [You are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church] as a sign that he remained faithful to Rome.

When Pope John Paul II presented Cardinal Kung with his red hat in the Consistory on June 29, 1991 in the Vatican, the 90 year old Bishop Kung raised himself up from the wheelchair, put aside his cane and walked up the steps to kneel at the foot of the Pontiff. Visibly touched, the Holy Father lifted him up, gave him his cardinal's hat, then stood patiently as Cardinal Kung returned to his wheelchair to the sounds of a seven-minute standing ovation from 9000 guests in the Audience Hall in the Vatican.


Cardinal Kung has spent the last twelve years giving interviews and homilies to call attention to the conditions in the Catholic Church in China. As a result, in March 1998, the Chinese government officially cancelled his passport, making him an exile from his homeland.

He died in 2000, aged 98, from stomach cancer in Stamford, Connecticut.

In his "Mission" magazine in 1957, Bishop Fulton Sheen wrote: "The West has its Mindszenty, but the East has its Kung. God is glorified in his saints."



↧
↧

A HOLY CARDINAL AND HIS POPE

November 12, 2019, 10:43 pm
$
0
0

Polish Primate CARDINAL STEFAN WYSZNSKI will be beatified on June 7, 2020 in a ceremony held at the Pilsudskiego Square in Warsaw.

Cardinal Wyszynski had been the primate of Polandand one of Pope St. John Paul II’s most ardent supporters, starting when then-Karol Wojtyla was a young bishop.  Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński was often called the Primate of the Millennium.


Born in 1901, his family counted itself among the nobility of Poland, with the coat of arms of Trzywdar,  and the title of baron, although it was not materially well off. His mother died when he was nine and he was sent away to school in Lublin.

He celebrated his first Solemn High Mass of Thanksgiving, at Jasna Góra in Częstochowa, a place of special spiritual significance for many Catholic Poles. The Pauline monastery there holds the picture of the Black Madonna, or Our Lady of Częstochowa, the patron saint and guardian of Poland. Father Wyszyński spent the next four years in Lublin, where in 1929 he received a doctorate at the Faculty of Canon Law and the Social Sciences of the Catholic University of Lublin. His dissertation in Canon Law was entitled The Rights of the Family, Church and State to Schools. For several years after graduation he traveled throughout Europe, where he furthered his education.

He became a priest in 1924 and was made the bishop of Lublin in 1946 at a time when hundreds of thousands of Soviet soldiers were stationed there and communist powers took hold. In 1948, he was made archbishop of Gnieznoand Warsaw, and he was named a cardinal in 1953. But he could not be installed until four years later, in 1957, after his release from a communist prison.


His 1953 arrest was one of the most dramatic events of the communist period. It followed the parallel detention of church leaders in Croatia, Hungary and Czechoslovakia. The cardinal, who was primate of Polandfrom 1948 until his death in 1981, spent three years under house arrest in the 1950s because of his opposition to Poland's communist government.  Even as a child I can remember this and prayers asked for all of Poland.

In 1958, he informed a 38-year-old  Karol Wojtyla that the pope had appointed him as the auxiliary bishop of Krakow.

When then-Cardinal Wojtyla was named to first world Synod of Bishops in 1968, he stayed home to protest the government's denial of a passport to Cardinal Wyszynski. When cardinals were meeting in the Sistine Chapel in October 1978, the Polish pope recalled that Cardinal Wyszynski had approached him and implored, "If they elect you, I beg you not to refuse.''

To many he was the unquestionable leader of the Polish nation (the uncrowned king of Poland), in opposition to the totalitarian government. He is also credited for the survival of Polish Christianity in the face of its repression and persecution during the reign of the 1945–1989 Communist regime. He  is considered by many to be a Polish national hero. Now he will be another saint for them.

The cardinal, who had heard of the assassination attempt on the pope, offered his own life for that of the pontiff's.

Cardinal Wyszynski died at the age of 79 in 1981.

To commemorate the twentieth anniversary of his death, the year 2001 was announced by the Sejm (Polish parliment) as the Year of Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński. The Sejm also honored the Cardinal as a "great Pole, chaplain and statesman".

↧

ANOTHER IRISH SOLDIER - POET

November 16, 2019, 11:10 am
$
0
0
David Rooney

PADRAIG HENRY PEARSE (also known as Pádraic or Patrick) was an Irish teacher, barrister, poet, writer, nationalist, republican political activist and revolutionary who was one of the leaders of the Easter Rising in 1916. Following his execution along with fifteen others, he  came to be seen by many as the embodiment of the rebellion.

 Padraig’s father, James Pearse, established a stonemasonry business in the 1850s, which flourished and provided the Pearses with a comfortable middle-class life. Padraig's maternal grandfather Patrick was a supporter of the 1848 Young Ireland movement, and later a member of the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB). His maternal grand-uncle, James Savage, fought in the American Civil War. The Irish-speaking influence of Padraig's grand-aunt Margaret, together with his schooling at the CBS Westland Row, instilled in him an early love for the Irish language and culture. All of which was to have an influence on his future.

Padraig with Willie, Mary & Briget
He recalls that at the age of ten, praying to God, promising him he would dedicate his life to Irish freedom.  His early heroes were ancient Gaelic folk heroes such as Cúchulainn, though in his 30s he began to take a strong interest in the leaders of past republican movements.

Padraig became a director of the Gaelic League(founded 1893 for the preservation of the Irish language) and edited (1903–09) its weekly newspaper, An Claidheamh Soluis (“The Sword of Light”). To further promote the Irish language as a weapon against British domination, he published tales from old Irish manuscripts and a collection (1914) of his own poems in the modern Irish idiom. He founded St. Enda’s College (1908), near Dublin, as a bilingual institution with its teaching based on Irish traditions and culture.

On the formation of the Irish Volunteers (November 1913) as a counterforce against the Ulster Volunteers (militant supporters of the Anglo-Irish union), Padraig became a member of their provisional committee, and he contributed poems and articles to their newspaper, The Irish Volunteer.

In July 1914 he was made a member of the supreme council of the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB). After the Irish Volunteers split (September 1914), he became a leader of the more extreme nationalist section, which opposed any support for Great Britainin World War I. He came to believe that the blood of martyrs would be required to liberate Ireland, and on that theme he delivered a famous oration in August 1915 at the burial of Jeremiah O’Donovan, known as O’Donovan Rossa, a veteran of Sinn Féin.


He was the first president of the provisional government of the Irish republic proclaimed in Dublin on April 24, 1916, and was commander in chief of the Irish forces in the anti-British Easter Rising that began on the same day.

When Eoin MacNeill, the Chief of Staff of the Volunteers, learned what was being planned without the promised arms from Germany, he countermanded the orders via newspaper, causing the IRB to issue a last-minute order to go through with the plan the following day, greatly limiting the numbers who turned out for the rising.

When the Easter Rising eventually began on Easter Monday, 24 April 1916, it was Pearse who read the Proclamation of the Irish Republic from outside the General Post Office, the headquarters of the Rising.  After six days of fighting, heavy civilian casualties and great destruction of property, Pearse issued the order to surrender.

Padraig and fourteen other leaders, including his brother Willie, were court-martialed and executed by firing squad. He was 36 years old at the time of his death.

Sir John Maxwell, the General Officer commanding the British forces in Ireland, sent a telegram to H.H. Asquith, then Prime Minister, advising him not to return the bodies of the Pearse brothers to their family, saying, "Irish sentimentality will turn these graves into martyrs' shrines to which annual processions will be made, which would cause constant irritation in this country. Maxwell also suppressed a letter from Pearse to his mother, and two poems dated 1 May 1916. He submitted copies of them also to Prime Minister Asquith, saying that some of the content was "objectionable"

Lisa Ryan artist- Ireland

Bean Sléibhe Ag Caoineadh A Mhac

(A Woman Of The Mountain Keens Her Son)
Grief on the death, it has blackened my heart:
lt has snatched my love and left me desolate,
Without friend or companion under the roof of my house
But this sorrow in the midst of me, and I keening.

As I walked the mountain in the evening
The birds spoke to me sorrowfully,
The sweet snipe spoke and the voiceful curlew
Relating to me that my darling was dead.

I called to you and your voice I heard not,
I called again and I got no answer,
I kissed your mouth, and O God how cold it was! 
Ah, cold is your bed in the, lonely churchyard.

O green-sodded grave in which my child is,
Little narrow grave, since you are his bed,
My blessing on you, and thousands of blessings
On the green sods that are over my treasure.

Grief on the death, it cannot be denied,
It lays low, green and withered together,-
And O gentle little son, what tortures me is
That your fair body should be making clay!


↧

HE DIED FOR HIS BELIEFS- ANOTHER CATHOLIC POET

November 20, 2019, 12:23 pm
$
0
0
David Rooney -  Portraits & Lives


Many Irishmen confronted the dilemma of whether to take part in the struggle for independence from England, or join in the larger conflict taking place in Europe. And while much of the Irish populace looked askance at the 1916 Easter Rising, the British hardline response – especially the executions of the Rising’s leaders – changed attitudes, not just about the rebellion but also about Ireland’s participation in the Great War.

Those who went off to war being hailed as heroes, while those who fought on Irish soil were seen with hostility.

JOSEPH MARY PLUNKETT is mostly known for his involvement in the 1916 Easter Rising and his constant crusade for Irish independence. Nevertheless, he was also an accomplished poet and journalist. He came from a wealthy and privileged family, but he eventually caught a passion for Irish nationalism that was to determine the course of his short life.

His father, George Noble Plunkett, had been made a papal count.
Joseph contracted tuberculosis at a young age and spent part of his youth in the warmer climates of the Mediterranean and North Africa.

Plunkett's interest in Irish nationalism spread throughout his family, notably to his younger brothers George and John, as well as his father, who allowed his property in Kimmage, south Dublin, to be used as a training camp for young men who wished to escape conscription in Britain during the First World War.


After joining the ranks of the Irish Republican Brotherhood, Joseph Mary became embroiled in negotiations for Irish freedom, which ultimately led to the planning of the an armed insurrection, known as the Easter Rising.  He was instrumental in planning this uprising, and it was largely his plan that was followed.  Other of the rising's leaders were Patrick Pearse ( another poet and writer) and Tom Clarke and his energetic aide de camp was Michael Collins

After the rebellion was crushed, Plunkett was imprisoned in Kilmainham Gaol, and faced a court martial. Seven hours before his execution by firing squad at the age of 28, he was married in the prison chapel to his sweetheart Grace Gifford, a Protestant convert to Catholicism, whose sister, Muriel, had years before also converted and married his best friend Thomas MacDonagh, who was also executed for his role in the Easter Rising. Grace never married again.



While remembered as a revolutionary, Joseph Mary  Plunkett left a legacy of incredibly stirring poetry. A famous priest once said that other than those committed to the life of religion, the two types of persons most likely to save their souls were poets and soldiers. Joseph Mary Plunkett was both.



As a school child this is one of the poems we had to memorize- most probably not understanding the true meaning

I SEE HIS BLOOD UPON THE ROSE
I see His blood upon the rose
I see His blood upon the rose
And in the stars the glory of His eyes,
His body gleams amid eternal snows,
His tears fall from the skies.
I see His face in every flower;
The thunder and the singing of the birds
Are but His voice—and carven by His power
Rocks are His written words.
All pathways by His feet are worn,
His strong heart stirs the ever-beating sea,
His crown of thorns is twined with every thorn,
His cross is every tree.




I SAW THE SUN AT MIDNIGHT

I saw the Sun at midnight, rising red,
Deep-hued yet glowing, heavy with the stain
Of blood-compassion, and I saw It gain
Swiftly in size and growing till It spread
Over the stars; the heavens bowed their head
As from Its heart slow dripped a crimson rain,
Then a great tremor shook It, as of pain—
The night fell, moaning, as It hung there dead.

O Sun, O Christ, O bleeding Heart of flame!
Thou givest Thine agony as our life’s worth,
And makest it infinite, lest we have dearth
Of rights wherewith to call upon Thy Name;
Thou pawnest Heaven as a pledge for Earth
And for our glory sufferest all shame. 

↧
Search

GOD'S VAGABOND- POET OF WWII

November 23, 2019, 9:53 am
$
0
0

An ex-public schoolboy who fought in WW2 and cared for lepers in Zimbabwe before he was executed by Mugabe is set to become the firstBritish martyr since the martyrs of the 16th century. (In 1970 Pope Paul VI canonized Cuthbert Mayne and 39 British companions -The 40 Martyrs of England and Wales -, who were executed for treason between 1535 and 1679, and the Scottish Catholic martyr John Ogilvie, canonized in 1976.)

JOHN BRADBURNE didn't just look like Jesus, with his long hair, beard and simple, austere clothes. He also gave his life for others.  

In September 1979, the English-born missionary, poet and warden of Mutemwa leper colony in Zimbabwe, then Rhodesia, was caught up in the country's civil war, the Rhodesian Bush War.


His friends told him to flee the imminent arrival of the bloodthirsty ZANU-PF guerillas who thought he was an informer. But he insisted on remaining with the lepers.

 When the guerillas came, they bound John's hands, took him on a forced march and humiliated him. They made him dance and sing, got him to eat excrement and dangled young women in front of him, before interrogating him and subjecting him to a rigged trial.

They offered him the chance to escape so long as he left the country and abandoned his beloved flock. He refused and, when he knelt down to pray, they shot the 58-year-old in the back, leaving him half-naked by the side of the road.

He was buried in a Franciscan habit, as he had requested, in a cemetery 11 miles outside the capital city, Salisbury, now Harare.

Born in Westmorland in 1921, he was the son of an Anglican rector and amazingly enough a relation of Lord Soames, last Governor of Southern Rhodesia, who oversaw the independence of Zimbabwein 1980, soon after John's death.


After private schooling at Gresham's in Norfolk, he fought in World War II with the 9th Gurkha Rifles, heroically escaping Singaporewhen it was invaded by the Japanese in 1942.

After the war, in 1947, he converted to Catholicism after staying with the Benedictines of Buckfast Abbey.  His desire was to become a Benedictine monk,  but the Order would not accept him because he had not been in the Church for two years. (a common practice for new Catholics). He opted to travel instead, wandering the world for 16 years, trying his hand at teaching and forestry, and toiling as a stoker on a steam ship. His only worldly belonging was a single Gladstone bag.

On trips home, John stayed with Carthusian monks in England, and with other religious orders in Israeland Belgium. At one stage, he walked hundreds of miles to Rome and lived for a year in the organ loft of a church in an Italian mountain village.

Throughout this period, he wrote over 6,000 poems, covering a wide range of spiritual, natural, elegiac and narrative subject matter. As he wrote his domestic letters largely in verse, new poems from the recipients are still occasionally found.

In Rodesia in 1969, he found his calling in the rundown leper colony of Mutemwa. John had asked a Jesuit friend,  John Dove,  if he knew of any African caves where he might pray. Father Dove took him to the Mutemwa leper colony at Mutoko, 90 miles east of Salisbury.

Where others had rejected the 80 cruelly maimed lepers, John embraced them and made his home among them, eventually becoming the warden of the colony. Before he arrived, the lepers were treated as outcasts, forced to wear bags on their heads to hide their disfigurement whenever an able-bodied visitor arrived.

In contrast, John prayed with them, drank with them and slept alongside them. He bathed their wounds, cut their nails, shooed away the rats that hounded the colony and, when they died, buried them with dignity.

He built them a small church, and wrote each leper a poem. With his fine voice and classical education, he even taught them to sing Gregorian plainchant in Latin.

Before he died, John said that he had only three wishes: to help lepers, to die a martyr and to be buried in a habit of the Franciscan Order. He achieved all three.

A service is held in John’s memory at Mutemwa every year, drawing as many as 25,000 people each time. In 2009 a Mass commemorating the 30th anniversary of his death was held at Westminster Cathedral in London, England. This year in 2019, marks the 40th Anniversary of John's assassination. This was marked both in Zimbabweat Mutemwa with the pilgrimage and then an exhibition and talks at Westminster Cathedral on21 September 2019, where John's relics were showcased for the first time.

↧
↧

NEW SAINT FOR THE USA

November 28, 2019, 4:50 pm
$
0
0
Yousuf Karsh

Great news for those of us who grew up in the early days of TV. ARCHBISHOP FULTON J. SHEEN will be beatified Dec. 21 at 10 a.m. local time at the Cathedral of St. Mary of the Immaculate Conception in Peoria. This is the same cathedral where Archbishop Sheen was ordained a priest 100 years ago on Sept. 20, 1919.

The cathedral also is the current resting place for the archbishop, who is entombed in a marble vault next to the altar where he was ordained.

In July, Pope Francis approved a miracle attributed to the intercession of the new blessed, leading the way to his beatification.

The miracle concerns the healing of James Fulton Engstrom of Washington, Illinois, who was considered stillborn when he was delivered during a planned home birth Sept. 16, 2010. His parents immediately invoked the prayers of  Bishop Sheen and encouraged others to seek his intercession after the baby was taken to the ER.

Just as doctors were preparing to declare that he was dead, James Fulton’s tiny heart started to beat at a normal rate for a healthy newborn. He had been without a pulse for 61 minutes.


Despite dire prognoses for his future, including that he would probably be blind and never walk, talk or be able to feed himself, the child has thrived. Now a healthy 8-year-old, he likes chicken nuggets, “Star Wars” and riding his bicycle.

The decree of the miracle came about a week after Archbishop Sheen’s remains were transferred from St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New Yorkto Peoria’s cathedral.

In 2002, Peoria Bishop Daniel Jenky launched a campaign for Archbishop Sheen’s sainthood. However, the effort languished for years over legal objections by the New York Archdiocese. The Peoria Diocese said the progression to beatification and sainthood would get the Vatican’s blessing only after his remains were authenticated in the diocese of the origin of the process. Though New York repeatedly tried to block the moving of the remains to Peoria, the Diocese finally got court approval in June.



In 1952, he premiered “Life Is Worth Living,” a weekly half-hour series on the DuMont Television Network. At one point, it was rated the most popular TV program in America. He will be the first American bishop to be beatified. 


↧

THE JOY OF ADVENT

November 30, 2019, 10:23 am
$
0
0
California "Super bloom"

I remember the first time I saw the desert in bloom. I was about 4 years old and we were on the way through the Mojave desert to see my grandmother in Colorado. For those who have not seen a cactus flower, it is hard to imagine the translucent beauty of the petals. And rarely do you find a patch here or there, but rather huge carpets- masses- of flowers carpeting the sand. This stunning beauty is not just because of its visual splendor, but also because it is so unexpected. For most of the year there is no color in the desert. Yet when conditions are right, when the rains come, color explodes into vibrant hues that can look psychedelic.

At times our living in this world is like that desert where we know pain, loneliness dryness, suffering. Knowing this, Holy MotherChurch pierces our souls, heals our woundedness, with joyful reminders of why we are here and what are goal should be.  Advent is one of these times.


The season of Advent is known as one of “Joyful expectation.” In the Church we know the third Sunday of Advent is as Gaudete (Joyful) Sunday  in anticipation of the birth of Our Savor which is close at hand. Yet how many in our modern society really know this joy?  I am not speaking of that happiness bought by material goods, but a deep joy which only can be given to us as gift by the Lord Himself.


The lessons we sing at Christmas Matins are all from Isaiah (35). So each week I will present a verse from this great prophet in speaking to us, through the Church today, about the joy of the Lord, ever present to us, especially in His coming.

“The wilderness and the dry land shall be glad, the desert shall rejoice and blossom; like the crocus it shall blossom abundantly, and rejoice with joy and singing.”

While we see disorder in our world, our hope is that one day the Messiah will bring restoration to His creation. The desert wilderness will blossom. We will find joy where we had forgotten hope. There will be rejoicing, abundance, and exquisite beauty. No more will life wither in the chaos of drought and want, but the Living Water, which is our Savior Himself, will pour forth His bounty watering our weak and weary souls with new graces, bringing us to Himself in glory.




Now is the time, now is the hour, to slow down, look for the hidden flowers in our life and prepare for His coming!

↧

ADVENT ARTIST

December 3, 2019, 4:22 pm
$
0
0

During the weeks of Advent I thought it might be fun to check out some Catholic artists who were well known in their day and perhaps not so much today, but who knew the spirit of Advent - of expectation.

Sketch for Annunciation

 The first is a favorite of Mother Dilecta, having discovered him through "Magnificat" magazine. At  the age of 15 MAURICE DENISwrote in his journal: “I have to be a Christian painter and celebrate all the miracles of Christianity, I feel that it has to be so.”

In 1890 he declared that painting is “basically a flat surface covered with colors disposed in a certain order,” a credo taken up by later Modernists. Maurice would later adopt a more “classical” style after a sojourn in Italy, always believing art should “express the mysteries of the Faith clearly in the play of forms and colors.”

The Annunciation  at Fiesole


 A devout Roman Catholic, he was single-minded in his effort to renew French church art, which had degenerated in the 19th century into what was dismissively called the “Saint-Sulpice style,” after the Paris quarter, specializing in kitsch plaster saints and devotional items. 

Together with Painter Georges Desvallieres, he founded Ateliers d’Art Sacre in 1919 to teach young artists to create works “that serve God, the teachings of the truth and the decoration of places of worship.” Maurice himself, made canvas paintings and wall murals for over 15 churches across France.



The  Catholic Sacrament


A devoted husband and father, the artist often used his beloved first wife, Marthe, and their six children as models, placing sacred figures in settings from his daily life in Saint-Germain-en-Laye, the Breton seacoast, where the family spent their summers, or an Italian villa they had visited in Fiesole, near Florence. Maurice was especially drawn to maternal images of the Virgin Mary, making paintings and prints of the Annunciation and the Madonna and Child in multiple variations.



French Dominican Friar Marie-Alain Couturier, a onetime Ateliers student and leading proponent of Modernist sacred art, said that Maurice  was the painter of “the sweet presence of God in our life.”




↧

LEAP FOR JOY

December 7, 2019, 11:18 am
$
0
0

Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened,
And the ears of the deaf shall be unstopped.
Then the lame shall leap like a deer,
And the tongue of the dumb sing.   (Is. 35:5-6)

Laughter and shouts of joy are signs of coming restoration, so sings the Psalmist. It is an important reminder in the Advent season as we prepare for the Birth of our Savior. He is the cause of our joy. If we are excited about Christ, that excitement is contagious, it will spread. 

Joy has all but disappeared from modern society, and so often people, especially our youth, try to find what they think will being them joy or relief from boredom, from delusion, or suffering.  Yet any sane person knows that drug or alcohol use, a dissipation of one's gifts, and  taking refuge in all sorts of sinful pursuits          does not bring joy, but rather takes one further away from that true cause of joy leading to despair.

As we are overwhelmed with the demands of the season to buy gifts, send cards, attend too many parties, we may feel conflicted by the need to pause and evaluate what this season is all about.

A long time ago I read sorrow can take care of itself but joy must be shared!
Joy  (Christ) is meant to be shared. Let  our gratitude  for His coming extend to family, friends, neighbors, all whom we come in contact with. Hopefully our gratitude can multiply bringing joy (Christ) to our world so in need, especially those nearest to us suffering from spiritual maladies of all sorts.

Pope Francis reminds us of this in his Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Gaudium (“The Joy of the Gospel”) that “the joy of the Gospel fills the hearts and lives of all who encounter Jesus… With Christ joy is constantly born anew.”

↧
↧

AN ANGEL FROM MEXICO

December 10, 2019, 3:46 pm
$
0
0

ANGEL ZARRAGA  was born  in 1886 the son of the physician Dr. Fernando Zárraga and his wife Guadalupe Argüelles in the Barrio de Analco of Durango, Mexico. While attending the Escuela Nacional Preparatoria in Mexico City, he made his first contacts with the prevailing artistic and intellectual scene, and later studied at the Escuela Nacional de Bellas Artes.

Following his studies and with the support of his family he left for France where he would remain for over thirty years. While in Francehe painted murals in the Castle of Vert Coeur and, in 1927, decorated the Mexican Legation in Paris.

He visited and exhibited in  Spain, France and Italy.  He also visited courses at the Royal Academies for Science and the Arts of Belgium.

In 1906 he exhibited some of his pictures in the Museo del Prado, and in 1907 in an exhibition of the ENBA. He participated in the 1909 Biennale di Venezia and exhibited in the Salon at the Piazzale Donatello, Florence. In 1911 he moved to Francefor good, and he only returned to Mexico once at the outbreak of World War II for a short time.

Annunciation



From 1914 Zárraga painted in a Cubist style but after 1921 his work was influenced by Cézanne and Giotto.  Zárraga breaks from representational painting by identifying spheres and cones of light rather than two dimensional planes. The formal composition is further enhanced by the use of bright blues, greens, yellows, and reds. Each field of color thus represents a separate plane. 


As a result of the collapse of the international art market he lost his sponsors and became depressed. During World War II he returned to his home country in 1941, where he painted murals at the Club de Banqueros and in Monterrey Cathedral.


Assumption  of the  Virgin Mary
He died of pneumoniain 1946. A museum of contemporary art in Durango is named after him. One of his paintings sold for almost a million dollars in 1998.   I could find nothing about his personal life, his family, or his religious practices, but from the art works I would say he new a bit Advent.

↧

THAT SUNDAY CALLED JOY

December 14, 2019, 9:34 pm
$
0
0

They shall obtain joy and gladness,
And sorrow and sighing shall flee away.  (Is. 35:10)



At last we come to that Sunday in Advent known as Gaudete (Joy). On this Sunday, pink as a symbol of our joy, is worn at Mass and the candle in the Advent wreath that is pink, is lit as well.  We read in the Old and New Testaments about the joy of our salvation in Jesus Christ.

The peoples of the Old Testament had joy because they anticipated a time when the promised Messiah would come and “those who have been ransomed by the Lord...will enter Jerusalem singing, crowned with everlasting joy. Sorrow and mourning will disappear, and they will be filled with joy and gladness”. 

Today, our joy is anchored in the knowledge that God fulfilled His promise of a Savior- the One who came to free us from the shackles of  original sin.

At this time of year, in the depth of deep darkness- it is dark here by 4:30 P.M.-  we will celebrate the winter Solstice- the longest day of the year. It can be a reminder  of the joy that seems to be lacking in our world at large. There is no room for hope, no possible way to feel anything but misery.  But this is not the thinking of one who understands the true meaning of Advent- of why the Child is born in us, year after year, decade after decade, century after century, and will continue to be born until the end of time.



We as Christians  should be a people full of joy, and Catholics more so because the “cause of our joy” is ever with us in the Eucharist.  
↧
Search

VISITOR IN ADVENT

December 16, 2019, 3:21 pm
$
0
0


No this is not a photo from a calendar  but shot last week on Shaw Island, in front of Blind Bay by our ex intern Marijke, just days before she went home to the Netherlands.

This past weekend was the Christmas Bird Count and the good news is we had many ducks  and more passerines then in past few years.  I am not sure thisGREAT HORNED OWLwill make the list, but he is an awesome sight, especially for all who saw him.

Great Horned Owls vary in color tone across their range: birds from the Pacific Northwest tend to be dark sooty while those across the Southwest are paler and grayer. While Great Horned Owls are nocturnal this fellow did not seem to mind being caught in the open. You may see them at dusk sitting on fence posts or tree limbs at the edges of open areas, or flying across roads or fields with stiff, deep beats of their rounded wings.

This huge owl is found  throughout North America and much of South America.. Aggressive and powerful in its hunting (sometimes known by nicknames such as "tiger owl"), it takes prey as varied as rabbits, hawks, snakes, and even skunks, and will even attack porcupines, often with fatal results for both prey and predator. Great Horned Owls begin nesting very early in the north, and their deep hoots may be heard rolling across the forest on mid-winter nights.


Great Horned Owls have a large repertoire of sounds, ranging from deep booming hoots to shrill shrieks. The male's resonant territorial call "hoo-hoo hoooooo hoo-hoo" can be heard over a mile during a still night. Both sexes hoot, but males have a lower-pitched voice than females. Most calling occurs from dusk to about midnight and then again just before dawn.

Females are larger than males weighing in at about 3.3 pounds to the male’s 2.9 lbs. The wingspan of the female is 56.2 inches to the male’s 52.7 inches.

Be it Advent or summer this rarely seen owl is a welcome visitor to our small island!


↧

A BENEDICTINE NUN IN ADVENT

December 18, 2019, 11:30 am
$
0
0


DAME WERBURG WELCH was born Grace Eileen Welch on 17 May 1894 in Cheltenham.   Her father was raised Protestant, but converted to Catholicism after reading Cardinal  (St.) John Newman's works.  Eileen studied at Southampton School of Art and then at the BristolArtSchool, when the family settled in Bristol.

In 1913, Eileen entered the Convent of the Religious of the Cross as a postulant, before becoming a novice at Stanbrook Abbey (Benedictine) in Worcestershire in 1915.

On 30 November 1919 she took her solemn vows and became Dame Werburg. She intended to give up art, but was persuaded to continue extending her scope to vestment designs and wood-engravings for the Stanbrook Abbey Press. She studied under Desmond Chute and Eric Gill from whom she derived her angular style.
Annunciation

After her paintings, vestment designs and wood-carvings received favorable reviews at exhibitions of the Guild of Catholic Artists and Craftsmen in the 1930s and 1940s, commissions came in from churches and private individuals all over the country. Her illustrations appeared in contemporary Catholic magazines.

Like a true Benedictine nun, her art had to be fitted in with attendance at the Divine Office, as well as the manual work of the community. Over the years she served as chantress, portress, and assistant sacristan, as well as being subprioress from 1956 to 1968. 

During the war she volunteered to take charge of the orchards and was still climbing ladders in her 80s. She suffered a severe stroke in November 1989 and died the following February at the age of 95.




The National Art Library at the Victoria and AlbertMuseumhas an information file on the work of Dame Werburg Welch, containing a brief biographical outline and a collection of wood-engravings and linocuts, with some contemporary photographs of carvings and paintings. Photocopies of working drawings are included. Another collection of her wood engravings and other prints forms part of the Stanbrook Abbey Press.

↧
↧

EVERLASTING JOY- 4TH SUNDAY IN ADVENT

December 22, 2019, 10:26 am
$
0
0

One would almost think that this last Sunday in Advent should have the emphasis on joy- instead it is peace- but that is not our theme this year so we carry to the end this idea of joy- everlasting joy. If we find true joy in Jesus, who comes to redeem us, then that joy is  with us always.

Note, Isaiah  speaks of  rejoicing with songs, which leads me to a pet-peeve.  We celebrate Advent in our country  with Christmas songs from after Thanksgiving to Dec 25 and then it is all over. Those few of us who celebrate many days  after His birth, if we’re lucky we’ll get some religious songs like "Away in a Manger", "O Little Town of Bethlehem" or "Silent Night" which sing  of His birth.


There are so many songs- so much beautiful music- that prepares us for the birth of our Savior, yet we often only hear Jingle Bells or Rudolph the red nose or dashing through snow..........

“Every Valley Shall Be Exalted” from Handel’s Messiah is a great example as is “O Come, O Come Emmanuel”, and my favorite “O Holy Night”. Lesser known but still beautiful “On Jordan’s Bank” and  “The King Shall Come When Morning Dawns”, a song of joy. It has a contemporary setting but is a very old text. 

These songs are about the first coming or the second coming of Christ and they certainly do more to spiritually prepare us than the secular ones about reindeer and sleigh rides!. 


This last Sunday before Christmas we move closer to the day on which we celebrate Christ’s birth, amidst the hustle of preparation and shopping and baking, the rhythm that Advent brings helps us remember the gifts of this season: hope, peace, joy and love. The journey of Advent to Christmas reminds us of God’s gift to us in sending His Son.

At Christmas we celebrate the life of Christ; a life that was itself an expression of love. Our response to God’s gift is to live a life that is an expression of His love. We celebrate that, through Jesus, God made His love visible. One of our main ways we all celebrate this season is through song.  May they reflect the holiness of the time.

↧

CHRISTMAS 2019

December 24, 2019, 9:46 pm
$
0
0


Nikola Sarić, Serbian artist now living in Hannover, Germany.
One of my favorite modern religious artists.



CHRISTMAS  BLESSINGS

 AND

MANY GRACES

↧

AN ARTIST WITH SOUL

December 26, 2019, 4:20 am
$
0
0

Ernst Barlach
 


ERNST BARLACH was a German Expressionist sculptor, printmaker, and writer. Early in his career, he trained under French artists and produced Art Nouveau-styled sculpture and works on paper, but was initially unable to find success. This led to a formative trip to Russia where the artist began creating figurative sculptures inspired by early Gothic art, carving spiritual and emotional themes from hard woods and bronze casts. 

Achieving widespread critical acclaim in his native Germanybefore the First World War, Ernst , once a supporter of German militarization, enlisted as an infantry solder. He served until 1916, when the harsh realities of war quickly transformed his perspective.




Thereafter, Barlach was compelled to produce art in staunch opposition to war and the subsequent rise of Nazi power. His allegorical and pacifist art earned him the label of degenerate, and his work fell out of favor. Born on January 2, 1870, he died in Rostock, Mecklenburg in Germany on October 24, 1938.

I emulated his work when I studied sculpture in Koln, Germany, especially his pieces in wood.

↧
Viewing all 1466 articles
Browse latest View live
Search