Perfect in Weakness

Here is a link to a beautiful post on weakness and femininity at Clare's lovely blog The Catholic Young Woman.

Sound familiar?

"We dig deeper and we blow you higher.  We wish to deny all those arbitrary distinctions of vice and virtue, honor and treachery, upon which mere rebels base themselves.  The silly sentamentalists of the French Revolution talked of the Rights of Man!  We hate Rights as we hate Wrongs.  We have abolished Right and Wrong."

- Gregory to Syme, Chesterton's The Man Who was Thursday



Sounds a bit like the current state of affairs, does it not?

Inexpressibly Irritating Fellow



"Suffice it to say that you were an inexpressibly irritating fellow, and, to do you justice, you are still.  I would break twenty oaths of secrecy for the pleasure of taking you down a peg.  That way you have of lighting a cigar would make a priest break the seal of confession."

-Gregory to Syme, Chesterton's The Man Who Was Thursday

Madness

Now, why does a man like to be made sad by viewing doleful and tragic scenes, which he himself could not by any means endure?  Yet, as a spectator, he wishes to experience from them a sense of grief, and in this very sense of grief his pleasure consists.  What is this but wretched madness?

- St. Augustine, Confessions [3.2.2]

Put that way, I can't help but agree... but, in the words of Eunice from Quo Vadis, "Do not ask me, my lord, for I am one of the mad!"

"The Strategems of Thy Love..."

"O my Redeemer, most worthy of love, I will no longer resist the strategems of Thy love; I give Thee from henceforth my whole love."

~St. Alphonsus Liguori, The Passion and Death of Jesus Christ

More Jeeves!



"What-ho, Jeeves!"  I said, entering the room where he waded knee deep in suitcases and shirts and winter suitings, like a sea-beast among rocks.  "Packing?" 

"Yes, sir," answered the honest fellow, for there are no secrets between us.

Life is Beautiful

I really like that song!  After seeing October Baby when it first came out in theatres, I had only one comment...



Larry totally captures it all ;-)!!!!  (It's true, though.  I came out of the theater crying like a baby...  Shhhh... Don't tell...)



"I Will Carry You..."

"Unhappy the audacious soul which hoped that by abandoning you it would find some better thing!  It tossed and turned upon back and side and belly — but the bed is hard, and you alone are rest.  And here you are, to deliver us from our wretched wanderings and set us in your way, and you comfort us and say, 'Run, I will carry you and I will lead you home, and there I will carry you.' [Isaiah 46:4]"

- Confessions, St. Augustine, [6.16.26]

Opportunities



"You are the heir of all the centuries in literature, in art, in science, in commerce, and in every avenue of achievement.  True, the world is full of temptations and opportunities for evil, as it always was, but it is full of far greater opportunities, far more multiplied chances for good.  If you choose to invest your life as you should, you have a field of sublime excellence for that investment." 

-Fr. Edward F. Garesche,  The Catholic Book of Character and Success

Till We Have Faces - C. S. Lewis



     "The Gods have been accused by you. Now's their turn."
     "I cannot hope for mercy."
     "Infinite hopes - and fears - may both be yours.  Be sure that whatever else you get, you will not get justice."
     "Are the gods not just?"
     "Oh no, child.  What would happen to us if they were?" 

Lack of Post

We're having technical difficulties on this end, so please don't mind us if we don't post very regularly for a little while!

Martyrs Are Willing



"You are the new recruit? All right, you are engaged."
"I really have no experience..."
"No one has any experience of the battle of Armageddon."
"But I'm really unfit..."
"You are willing, that is enough."
"Now, really, I know of no occupation for which mere willingness is the final test."
"I do. Martyrs. I am sending you to your death. Good day."

-Syme and the police chief in Chesterton's The Man Who Was Thursday

Life with Jeeves

I have, up to now, neglected a very important pair of individuals, but no longer!  In this post I shall give you a little shower of quotations from a beloved duo... Jeeves and Wooster!



"If there was a defect in his lordships mode of life, it was that he was a little unduly attached to the pleasures of the table-"

"Ate like a pig, you mean?"

"I would not have ventured to put it quite that way, sir, but the expression does meet the facts of the case...."

- Very Good, Jeeves

"And which of us is going to tell Aunt Agatha that?"

"If I might make a suggestion, sir, I would advise that we omitted to communicate with Mrs. Spenser Gregson in any way. I have your suitcase practically packed. It would be a matter of but a few minutes to bring the car around from the garage--"

"And off over the horizon to where men are men?"

"Precisely, sir."

"Jeeves," I said. "I'm not sure that even now I can altogether see eye to eye with regard to your recent activities. You think you have scattered light and sweetness on every side. I am not so sure. However, with this latest suggestion you have rung the bell. I examine it narrowly and I find no flaw in it. It is the goods. I'll get the car at once."

"Very good, sir."

"Remember what the poet Shakespeare said, Jeeves."

"What was that, sir?"

"'Exit hurriedly, pursued by a bear'. You'll find it in one of his plays. I remember drawing a picture of it on the side of the page, when I was at school."

- Very Good, Jeeves

 



I don't know if you know that sort of feeling you get on those days round about the end of April and the beginning of May, when the sky's a light blue, with cotton-wool clouds, and there's a bit of a breeze blowing from the west? Kind of uplifted feeling. Romantic, if you know what I mean. I'm not much of a ladies' man, but on this particular morning it seemed to me that what I really wanted was for some charming girl to buzz up and ask me to save her from assassins or something. So it was a bit of an anti-climax when I merely ran into young Bingo Little, looking perfectly foul in a crimson satin tie decorated with horseshoes.

- The Inimitable Jeeves

"Jeeves," I said. "A rummy communication has arrived from Mr. Glossop."

"Indeed, sir?"

"I will read it to you. Handed in at Upper Bleaching. Message runs as follows:

"'When you come tomorrow, bring my football boots. Also, if humanly possible, Irish water-spaniel. Urgent. Regards. Tuppy.'

"What do you make of that, Jeeves?"

"As I interpret the document, sir, Mr. Glossop wishes you, when you come tomorrow, to bring his football boots. Also, if humanly possible, an Irish water-spaniel. He hints that the matter is urgent, and sends his regards."

"Yes, that's how I read it, too."

- Very Good, Jeeves

One Soul



"To each man one soul only is given; to each soul only is given a little power - the power at some moments to outgrow and swallow up the stars."

~Napoleon of Notting Hill, G. K. Chesterton

Swan Lake

Does music reach a higher perfection?  This is definitely one of the most beautiful musical compositions ever!