The Liturgical Calendar and Mystical Experiences

Here is an interesting passage from a Catholic Exchange article about Therese Neumann, a supposed stigmatist and visionary from Germany who died in 1962. (I use the word "supposed" not to convey scepticism, but only because she has not yet had any official recognition from Church auhorities.)

Therese’s sufferings and visions conformed exactly to the liturgical calendar of the Catholic Church.  Just as she received the wounds of the Crucifixion on Good Friday, so also were her visions and ecstasies aligned to the liturgical calendar.  For example, when she initially received the sacred stigmata, it was during the liturgical season of Lent.  Although Therese had the wounds of the Passion for the rest of her life, she only experienced the ecstasies of the Passion on Fridays, and only on Fridays during Lent and Advent, and on some of the sorrowful octaves.  Thus, her experience of the Passion was connected only to the relevant liturgical days, and never during joyful seasons, such as Christmas or Easter.  On the Fridays when she did not endure the Passion ecstasy, she would have a vision of the death or martyrdom of the saint whose feast day it happened to be, in recognition of the liturgical calendar.  On All Saints Day, November 1st, she would have a 24-hour ecstasy and see souls of saints from Heaven, and similarly on All Soul’s Day, November 2nd, she saw saints from Purgatory.  Based on the timing of the mystical experiences of Therese Neumann, it seems heaven honors with great respect the liturgical calendar; perhaps we should pay close attention to this as well.

This alignment of mystical experience with the liturgical calendar isn't unique to her case, either.

Full article here.

When Can The British Be Patriotic Again?

 I'm not talking about patriotism based on "shared values" or any of that lark.

I've just started watching the miniseries This Office Life, taken from a Keith Waterhouse novel written in 1978. (I read it a long time ago. It was pretty good.)

The company it's about is called "British Albion Limited."

This seemed pretty common at this time. For instance, there's the Britannia Hospital in the roughly contemporary film of the same name. Both fictional, but realistic.

Why can't British companies call themselves after Albion or Britannia or the Lion and the Unicorn or any of those regal, splendid names?

When is this sort of naive patriotism going to come back?

My Latest Cartoon

I especially like "guy in bed" cartoons and I'm going to do more of them. 

("Guy" because I'm not good at drawing women. Or, if you prefer, I'm even worse at drawing women than at drawing men!)

Poems I Like: Father O'Flynn

This one isn't really a poem, but rather the words to a song. But it can be read as a poem.

I'm not claiming this is great poetry, but I've found myself thinking of it lately. Lines from it have come into my mind unbidden.

I've always liked it. It's gentle, sentimental, and good-natured. It's well-written, too-- there's nothing awkward or crude about it. And it's a reminder of a time when priests in Ireland were admired for being priests-- not for being social crusaders who happened to wear dog collars. I very much like the fact that Father O'Flynn is lauded in the poem for being something of a disciplinarian.

As for the Irishisms:: "Sláinte" is the Irish version of "Cheers" or "To your health!" (you probably knew that), "Father avick" means (rather nonsensically) "Father, my son", and there are two renderings of Irish dialect that might throw you: "onaisy" just means "uneasy", and "Is it lave gaiety all to the laity?" means "Should we leave gaiety all to the laity?".

"Dad and the devil and all" seems to mean "everybody". I've never heard "Dad" used in that way but that's what the context suggests. It's probably a contraction of "Bedad", which is a dated Irish exclamation.

My favourite verse is the one that begins: "Oh, Father O'Flynn, you've the wonderful way with you..."

This poem was written by Alfred Perceval Graves. I never knew, until I looked him up just now, that he was Robert Graves's father. Robert Graves is a poet I've never admired at all, although I can see he had talent. I've never read I, Claudius and I'm never going to. Historical novels are not to my taste.

Father O'Flynn by Alfred Perceval Graves

Of priests we can offer a charmin' variety,
Far renowned for larnin' and piety;
Still, I'd advance ye, widout impropriety,
Father O'Flynn as the flower of them all.

Here's a health to you, Father O'Flynn,
Slainté, and slainté, and slainté agin;
Powerfulest preacher, and
Tenderest teacher, and
Kindliest creature in ould Donegal.

Don't talk of your Provost and Fellows of Trinity,
Famous for ever at Greek and Latinity,
Dad and the divels and all at Divinity,
Father O'Flynn'd make hares of them all!
Come, I venture to give you my word,
Never the likes of his logic was heard,
Down from Mythology
Into Thayology,
Troth! and Conchology if he'd the call.

Och! Father O'Flynn, you've the wonderful way wid you,
All the ould sinners are wishful to pray wid you,
All the young childer are wild for to play wid you,
You've such a way wid you, Father avick!
Still for all you've so gentle a soul,
Gad, you've your flock in the grandest control;
Checking the crazy ones,
Coaxin' onaisy ones,
Liftin' the lazy ones on wid the stick.

And though quite avoidin' all foolish frivolity,
Still at all seasons of innocent jollity,
Where was the playboy could claim an equality
At comicality, Father, wid you?
Once the Bishop looked grave at your jest,
Till this remark set him off wid the rest:
"Is it lave gaiety
All to the laity?
Cannot the clargy be Irishmen too?"

How Can I, Personally, Right Now, Mitigate the Banality of Modern Life?

This question haunts me constantly. I think, instinctively, that it should haunt everybody.

And I think this despite the fact that it's hard to make a moral case for this. Banality isn't evil in itself. (Which is, I suppose, why the phrase "the banality of evil" exists. They wouldn't have to be paired if they weren't distinct. Besides, we all know that evil is often cool and stylish-- superficially, at least.)

Life is becoming more homogenized, standardized, rationalized, disenchanted, etc. etc. I'm convinced of this, though it's a hard thing to quantify.

What can we do about it? What can I do about it? I'm not talking about a grand strategy for a transformation of society. What can we do about it in our immediate environment, right now, with our way of life?

What element of eccentricity, colour, romance, contrarianism, visual poetry, and so forth...can we personally inject into our world? How can we re-enchant our immediate environment?

I haven't even found an answer to this myself, but I'm always asking it.

I'm inspired by people such as the Poe Toaster and Ferdinand Cheval. It would be hard to reach the heights of the latter in particular. But we could try!

Of course, you could all be doing this already.

My Cartoon of Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee

I have a growing urge to draw cartoons so you can expect to see more of them here...whether you want to or not!

I'm a huge fan of both both of these men so this meant entirely affectionately.

Loving America For What It Is

I get very tired of people professing to love the "other" America.

Usually the America of Howard Zinn and the Beat poets and Ledbelly and labour activists and Bob Dylan and college towns and Mother Jones and Allen Ginsberg...you know the drill.

Usually it's that. But choose your own "other" America. It can be Russell Kirk's America just as easily.

I love the America of Mom's apple pie and Fourth of July fireworks and "sir" and "ma'am" and Bibles in hotel rooms and the white picket fence and Norman Rockwell and cheerleaders and  shiny-suited televangelists and the Stars and Stripes on the porch and get-up-and-go. (I don't have much of the latter quality myself, so I admire it.)

You might say this is all a dream, an ideal, an idyll.

Well, you could say the same about the "other America"-- except that's more of a sour-faced ideal laced with resentment. (I'm not having a pop at labour activists, by the way, or even Bob Dylan. You know what I mean. I'm talking about the ensemble.)

Humans are such aspirational beings that it's really impossible to separate the ideal from the reality, because the reality is always striving towards an ideal.

Give me the Norman Rockwell, Happy Days ideal over the one any old day. (Yes, I know Norman Rockwell was a Democrat. Democrats used to be sane!)

I touched on this subject in this blog post ten years ago. I haven't changed my mind.

That's it. God bless America. The vulgar, dime store America.

(You can point out I have never lived in America. I can point to the millions of real Americans who are happier to chant "USA, USA" than to cheer along with "American Idiot" by Green Day.)