Carl E. Olson's Blog, page 10
August 31, 2016
August 30, 2016
Cardinal Raymond Burke on Life, Truth, Mother Teresa, Islam, and Cardinal Sarah
U.S. Cardinal Raymond L. Burke, patron of the Knights and Dames of Malta, and Auxiliary Bishop Athanasius Schneider of Astana, Kazakhstan, walk in the 6th annual March for Life in Rome May 8, 2016. (CNS photo/Paul Haring)
by Carl E. Olson | Catholic World Report
Speaking to reporters from Rome about his new book, the American prelate goes on record about Christians and Muslims (they don't worship the same God) and Cardinal Sarah (“I agree with him completely...").
In a wide-ranging international teleconference call on Monday with media members, Cardinal Raymond Leo Burke spoke in detail about many timely topics, including the priority of standing up for life in addressing poverty and other social ills, the witness and message of Mother Teresa, essential differences between Christianity and Islam, and the recent controversy over remarks by Cardinal Robert Sarah about liturgical orientation. The occasion of the call was Cardinal Burke's recent book Hope For the World: To Unite All Things in Christ (Ignatius Press), an interview given to French author Guillaume d'Alançon in 2015, and translated by Michael J. Miller for Ignatius Press.
Since being named a bishop by Pope John Paul II in 1994, Cardinal Burke has become one of more well-known prelates in the English-speaking world, known for his willingness to address controversial topics forthrightly, despite often being criticized. Noted as a canon lawyer, Cardinal Burke was made a cardinal by Pope Benedict XVI in 2010, and then called to Rome to become Prefect of the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura. During the two recent Synods on the Family, Cardinal Burke spoke out often about his concerns, telling CWR during the October 2014 gathering that he thought the Synod's mid-term report "lacks a solid foundation in the Sacred Scriptures and the Magisterium", a remark made a month after he was removed from his position as Prefect and named chaplain to the Order of Malta by Pope Francis.
Cardinal Burke, conversing from Rome, told reporters that his new book was motivated by a desire to reflect on his upbringing and how he discerned his vocation as priest, and also "to reflect as a pastor, as a bishop, on certain on certain critical issues of the day". As such, he noted, the book is a "kind of testimony of faith on my part", and the hope is that the book, in keeping with its title, will "give hope" to readers.
Asked about an apparent shifting of priorities among American bishops since the beginning of Francis' pontificate, Cardinal Burke pointed out that while the issues of abortion, poverty, immigration, and global warming all have "moral importance", the Church's tradition and philosophical reason both indicate that "the fundamental question has to be the question of human life itself, the respect for the inviolable dignity of human life and of its Creator, of its Source, and the union of a man and a woman in marriage, which according to God's plan is the place where new human life is welcomed and nurtured."
He expressed concern that the matter of human life and the issues of abortion, artificial insemination, contraception, and euthanasia be placed somehow on the same level as "questions regarding immigration and poverty." The first priority, he emphasized, must be given to proper respect for human life and for the family in order to have "the right orientations in addressing all of the other questions" and challenges faced by people in daily life. It makes no sense, he pointed out, to be concerned with immigration or poverty "if human life itself is not protected in society ... The first justice accorded to any human being is to respect life itself, which is received from God..." Cardinal Burke observed there are some who advocate an elimination of certain parts of the population in order to fight poverty, or who adhere to a "contraceptive mentality" in order to pursue a sort of "social engineering" harmful to society and to individuals.
The former Archbishop of St. Louis emphasized that bishops have a responsibility to proclaim the truth of Christ in love within the Church, following the example of Christ himself, knowing that the love that will "best serve society is the truth, a truth that respects God's plan for us from the moment of creation..." When he travels, the cardinal said, he finds that people want to hear "the truth of the faith" from priests, bishops, and cardinals—"they aren't interested in my personal opinions about things, which won't save their souls, and I am as aware of that as they are; they look to me to reflect very deeply on the truths of the Faith and their application on society today, and to speak to that truth with love and care for society." The fundamental mission of Catholics in the world is to be united to Christ and to "give witness to the truth", a witness that is "very much needed in our time".
Asked how it was that he, as a young seminarian in the Sixties, avoided falling into the "craziness" of that era, Cardinal Burke credited his parents and his upbringing. He acknowledged he was not unaffected by the "tumultuous" times, especially after going to Catholic University of America in Washington, DC, in 1968 to study philosophy. He credits the "stable and good" discipline, prayer life, and formation he experienced in minor seminary, which he entered at the age of fourteen. He lamented that so many seminarians, seminary professors, and priests at CUA abandoned their vocations and ministry during that time. But he "simply couldn't be convinced that this so-called 'new way', this 'new Church'" was a good and right path, as if what he had been taught growing up was now "wrong and needed to be abandoned". He expressed, however, "great sympathy" for many of those who lost their way, saying that it was a "very tumultuous time and we were young".
Reflecting on the upcoming canonization of Mother Teresa by Pope Francis on Sunday, September 4th, Cardinal Burke expressed his happiness that the famous nun will be named a saint, saying "she has been an inspiration to me from my years in the seminary when I first came to know her".
Continue reading at www.CatholicWorldReport.com.
August 27, 2016
New: "The Time Before You Die: A Novel of the Reformation" by Lucy Beckett
Now available from Ignatius Press:
The Time Before You Die: A Novel of the Reformation
by Lucy Beckett
A powerful, beautifully written historic novel of loss, finding and being found, set in a very traumatic period in Europe. The turbulent sixteenth century saw the disintegration of medieval Christendom as it was split into sovereign states. This was particularly destructive in Tudor England where rapid switches in government policy and religious persecution shattered the lives of many.
Especially affected were the monks and nuns who were persecuted by the wholesale dissolution of the monasteries carried out under Henry VIII. One of these monks, Robert Fletcher, a Carthusian of the dismantled priory of Mount Grace in Yorkshire, is the hero of this novel.
The story of this strong, vulnerable man is told in counterpoint with the story of one of the most interesting men in all of English history, Reginald Pole, a nobleman, scholar and theologian who was exiled to Italy for twenty years. He was a Cardinal of the Church, papal legate at the Council of Trent, and as Archbishop of Canterbury, with his cousin Queen Mary Tudor, they tried, in too short a time, to renew Catholic England. This man, in the tragic last months of his life, becomes in the novel the friend of Robert Fletcher, condemned as a heretic.
Readers will learn much from this novel of the anguished period which gave birth to Tridentine Catholicism as well as to the Anglican and other Protestant churches, and which martyred Carthusian monks as well as Thomas More, Thomas Becket, Thomas Cranmer and many others. The profound issues raised in this novel, which contains no altered historical facts but more human truth than facts alone can deliver, have not gone away. With the 500th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation in 2017, there will be wide interest in these issues.
Lucy Beckett lives in Yorkshire and was educated at Cambridge University. For many years she was a professor of literature at Ampleforth Abbey. Her books include In the Light of Christ, a comprehensive study of the Western literary tradition; The Time before You Die, a novel about the English Reformation; and A Postcard from the Volcano. These have been warmly praised on both sides of the Atlantic. She is married and has four children.
Praise for The Time Before You Die:
“This great novel places us in the turbulent time of the English Reformation where we experience the common trauma of the day, and then, as in all excellent historical fiction, we ask ourselves, ‘Where does my choice lie?’ Seldom has this challenge been given so well. Beckett is a very gifted writer."
—Michael D. O’Brien, Author, Father Elijah: An Apocalypse
“Lucy Beckett combines scholarship with imagination to tell the story of an evicted Carthusian monk and of a great ecclesiastical statesman who tragically failed to save England for the Catholic Church. An enlightening, moving, historical novel that is a pleasure to read.”
—Piers Paul Read, Author, Alive: The Andes Survivors
August 26, 2016
"Kubo and the Two Strings" is brilliantly animated neo-pagan poison
by Nick Olszyk at The Dispatch at Catholic World Report
Along with recent films ParaNorman and Boxtrolls, the Laika studio has a notable track record of promoting New Age progressive spiritual values—and Kubo reaches a new low point.
MPAA Rating: PG
USCCB Rating:A-II
Reel Rating: (1 out of 5 reels) 
In The Usual Suspects, Roger Kint stated that “the greatest trick the Devil ever played was convincing the world he didn’t exist.” That may have been true in the 20th century, when fascism and communism terrorized the world, but now the Devil has shifted his strategy. In the 21st century, his trick is getting people to believe that Jesus Christ promotes his agenda. Kubo and the Two Strings, the new and widely praised film from the Laika animation studio, is such a trap. Keep kids far, far away.
Snatching a trope from Disney, the story starts as the baby Kubo (Art Parkinson) is rescued by his goddess Mother (Charlize Theron), but not before his grandfather, the Moon King, kills his human father and rips out his left eye. They spend the next twelve years in a cave hiding, with Kubo earning money on the streets of rural Japan by telling stories with his shamisen. “Never go out after sunset,” Mother tells him, “or my sisters will find you and take your other eye.” Kubo is not only a great storyteller but also the possessor of special powers because of divine blood. As he plays the shamisen, origami figures come to life and dramatize his stories. While he has the admiration of the townspeople, his life is still a mystery. Injured in the rescue, his mother suffers from an unknown mental disorder, and it’s hard to discern whether her tales are true. As he learns more about his past the tables are upset again and again, culminating in a hero’s quest to find his father’s armor and confront his grandfather.
The spirituality starts out simple as well but becomes more complex before revealing its sinister nature in the third act.
August 24, 2016
Surprised by the Beauty of 20th-Century Music: Interview with Robert R. Reilly
(Photo: us.fotolia.com/BillionPhotos.com)
Surprised by the Beauty of 20th-Century Music | Paul Senz | CWR
While avant-garde art dominated the past century, notes Robert R. Reilly, glorious and melodic music was being written all along, even if often suppressed or neglected.
Robert R. Reilly has written about classical music for more than 35 years, including for Crisis magazine, where he was music critic for 16 years. He has also written about music for High Fidelity, Musical America, Schwann/Opus, and the American Record Guide. He is the director of The Westminster Institute, which was established in 2009 to "promote individual dignity and freedom for people throughout the world by sponsoring high-quality research, with a particular focus on the threats from extremism and radical ideologies." During a quarter century of government service, Reilly worked in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, in the White House under President Ronald Reagan, and in the U. S. Information Agency; he was also the director of Voice of America. In addition to his writings about music, he has written widely on foreign policy, "war of ideas" issues, Islam, and culture.
He recently corresponded with Catholic World Report about a new and expanded edition, published by Ignatius Press, of his book Surprised by Beauty: A Listener's Guide to the Recovery of Modern Music.
CWR: You have been in the military, served in the White House under President Reagan, and were director of Voice of America. How did you become a music critic? And how, in particular, did you become interested in modern classical music? How did you end up writing music reviews for Crisis magazine?
Robert R. Reilly: Well, I was thunderstruck by music when I heard, quite by accident, Jan Sibelius’s Fifth Symphony. By the time the recording was over, I was a changed person. I was 19 years old at the time; my music quest began. I plunged in in search of the experience and for an explanation as to why I had had it. What was it about? French poet René Char wrote that the “grace of the stars resides in their compelling us to speak.” This music compelled me to speak. So, some 15 years later, after I gained the right vocabulary and enough experience, I began writing about it and the other treasures I had discovered. As you pointed out, this was not my day job. My day job was fighting the Evil Empire.
So, as an avocation, I wrote for a number of musical journals like High Fidelity and Musical America. Then Deal Hudson, whom I did not know at the time, moved to Washington, DC, to take over Crisis magazine. He came to my house and, out of the blue, asked me to contribute a monthly article about classical music. He is one of those rare conservatives who are culturally literate in every sphere, including classical music, about which he is equally enthused. I did that for 16 years.
It was Deal who suggested that we publish a book of my essays. It turned out that most of what I had written was about 20th century music. That had not occurred by any design of mine or his. That book, the first edition of Surprised by Beauty, came out in 2002, with Deal as the publisher.
Lo and behold, some 14 years later, now the second edition of the book is out—this time from Ignatius Press. It is more than twice as long as the original and completely revised. There is so much more good news about the recovery of modern music in this listening guide. I hope readers will be enticed to explore some of the many CD recommendations in it. I emphasize that this is not a book with technical jargon written for music specialists. It is for the general reader who has an open mind, an open heart, and who opens his ears.
CWR: The terms "modern music" and "modern classical music" are usually not met positively by those who hold to more traditional beliefs about the arts, culture, and religion. Is it the case, however, that stereotypes and assumptions have obscured necessary distinctions between various composers, movements, and schools of music?
Reilly: Modern art strove hard to earn its bad reputation. It succeeded. People fled the concert halls because they did not want to hear what sounded like a catastrophe in a boiler factory. Likewise, many people shunned modern painting when canvases looked like someone had spilled a plate of spaghetti. Modern architecture seemed to be a contest as to who could design a building that best disguised the fact that human beings would be in it.
Unfortunately, the avant-garde gained control over the levers of the art world—by which I mean the commissions, the prizes, the positions in academe, the cultural press, etc. Unless you played ball with the avant-garde, your artistic goose was cooked. This was not true for some of the giants who continued to write in the traditional tonal manner, but it was decidedly true for the up-and-coming younger composers from the mid-20th century until about 20 years ago. They suffered a lot.
The whole point of my book is to announce that it is safe to come out of the bomb shelters now. Not only is beautiful music being written again but, it turns out, beautiful music was written all along, throughout the 20th century. It simply went underground. Some of it was suppressed (literally the case in some Communist regimes), some of it was simply neglected, but it is surfacing once again. And it is glorious. These are the composers I write about in this book, along with the recommended recordings of their works. They are the other 20th century about which most people have never heard – though there are a number of composers, like Samuel Barber, Benjamin Britten, and Ralph Vaughan Williams, whom they probably have heard of, who are in the book. Of course, I also include contemporary composers. The tremendously good news is that we are living at the time of a major musical renaissance.
CWR: In the Introduction, "Is Music Sacred?", you explain how destructive musical revolution of the 1920s, directed by Schoenberg and others, rejected tonality and melody. What were some of the deeper reasons for this revolution? In what way that revolution relate to the cultural upheavals in Western societies?
Reilly: Yes, there were deeper reasons that were ultimately metaphysical and spiritual. Music, art and architecture reflected a wholesale rejection of form, which is another way of saying Nature. I recall one artist saying, “If I don’t do anything else in my artistic life, I want to smash form” – which expresses, shall we say, a certain resentment of reality.
Going back to Pythagoras, the traditional understanding of music held that it was somehow an approximation of “the music of the spheres.” In fact, Pythagoras thought that music was the ordering principle of the world. The whole point of approximating the heavenly harmony was to instill inner harmony in the soul. Following Pythagoras, Plato taught that “rhythm and harmony find their way into the inward places of the soul, on which they mightily fasten, imparting grace, and making the soul of him who is rightly educated graceful”. This idea of “the music of the spheres” runs through the history of Western civilization with an extraordinary consistency, even up to the 20th century. At first, it was meant literally; later, poetically.
Then it was rejected.
August 23, 2016
Photographer who captured Mother Teresa’s canonization image available for interviews
San Francisco, August 23, 2016 – Portrait photographer Michael Collopy has worked with many famous people, but when he recalls his work photographing Mother Teresa, he says, “I have never met anyone who could compare to the spiritual depth of character and selfless love that Mother displayed over the course of my 15 years of knowing her.”
A painting of one of Michael Collopy’s photographs in his book Works of Love Are Works of Peace
has been chosen to be the official Sainthood image of Mother Teresa. The image will be revealed at the canonization and then it will be in the homes of the Missionaries of Charity worldwide.
Another one of Collopy’s photographs from Works of Love Are Works of Peace is being used for both the official Vatican Saint Teresa stamp, as well as for the recent cover of Time magazine.
Michael Collopy is available for interviews about his experiences photographing Mother Teresa, both now and during his upcoming trip to Rome for the canonization on September 4.
Works of Love Are Works of Peace, now available in paperback, was more than four years in the making and published with the cooperation of Mother Teresa. This large format 224 page book offers the most comprehensive photographic documentation of the apostolic work and prayer life of the Missionaries of Charity published. Destined to serve as an important historical record, this “illustrated prayer book” vividly portrays the peace and joy that can come when “small things” are done with great love.
The more than 180 fine art quality tri-tone The stamp to mark the canonisation of Blessed Teresa of Calcutta photographs, along with spiritual counsel from Mother Teresa, will provide a lifetime of rich material for prayer and meditation. Also included with Mother Teresa’s special permission, is the contents of the Missionaries of Charity daily prayer book as well as a most personal and profound letter on the interior life written by Mother Teresa to her entire order. Though meant originally as an instruction to those in her order, this “I Thirst” letter has become a source of spiritual light and encouragement, drawing innumerable hearts and souls closer to God.
USA Today says, “This is a book infused with grace.”
“This exceptionally well-produced photo-documentary chronicles the work of Mother Teresa and the order she founded. Avoiding sentimentality, the photographs show the love of Christ in action,” says Christianity Today.
Works of Love are Works of Peace is “quietly eloquent,” says the San Francisco Examiner.
In the introduction to this beautiful photobook, Mother Teresa writes, “Let us pray that this book will draw people to Jesus, help them realize how much God loves them, and help them to want to pray. Let it be for the glory of God and the good of His people.”
About the Author:
Michael Collopy is one of the preeminent portrait photographers of our time, well known for his commissioned portraits of a variety of world figures ranging from Mikhail Gorbachev and Margaret Thatcher to Frank Sinatra and Placido Domingo. A student of such luminaries as Ansel Adams and Richard Avedon, Collopy’s work has been published in books, magazines, newspapers, and on record and CD covers worldwide.
Michael Collopy is available for interviews about this book. To request a review copy or an interview with Michael Collopy, please contact: Rose Trabbic, Publicist, Ignatius Press at (239) 867-4180 or rose@ignatius.com
Product Facts:
Title: WORKS OF LOVE ARE WORKS OF PEACE
Mother Teresa of Calcutta and the Missionaries of Charity
Release Date: July 2016
Length: 224 Pages • 9 x 11 Sewn Softcover Photobook
Price: $19.95
ISBN: 978-1-62164-129-2
Order: 1-800-651-1531 • www.ignatius.com
August 22, 2016
Poverty, Politics, and the Church in Pope Francis’s Argentina
Pope Francis passes a sign in Spanish referencing his name, mercy and Argentina as he greets the crowd during his general audience in St. Peter's Square at the Vatican June 1. (CNS photo/Paul Haring)
Poverty, Politics, and the Church in Pope Francis’s Argentina | Samuel Gregg | Catholic World Report
Argentina is trying to break with 70 years of populism, corruption, and general economic decline. But in the age of the Argentine pope, what role will the Church play in this process?
Before Jorge Bergoglio’s election as the first Latin American pope in 2013, Argentina was famous for many things: tango, its magnificent pampas, the beautiful late-nineteenth century architecture that marks much of Buenos Aires, to name just a few. Unfortunately, other things also come to mind: rampant and persistent corruption, extreme political instability, and, above all, the fact that Argentina is the twentieth century’s textbook-case of largely self-inflicted economic decline. Consider that as late as 1940, Argentina was the economic equal of Australia and Canada. Since then it’s been generally downhill.
During a recent trip to Argentina, however, I was immediately struck by the optimism that marked Argentines themselves. This contrasted with the widespread gloom visibly characterizing the country that I’d noticed on previous visits. One reason for the difference is that Argentina elected a non-Perónist to the presidency in November 2015, thus terminating 13 years of rule by the late Néstor Kirchner and his wife Cristina. They belonged to the wave of Latin American leftist-populists who came to power from the late-1990s onwards and who brought political and economic disarray in their wake.
Since assuming office, Argentina’s new President, Mauricio Macri, has sought to take the country in very different directions. He ended Argentina’s backing of the Chávista regime that has all but destroyed Venezuela. Macri is also exposing deep-seated corruption, the most notorious case thus far being a former Kirchner government official caught hiding several million US dollars in a convent. This has been accompanied by an effort to detoxify public discourse of the demagogic rhetoric that’s long plagued Argentine politics. Economically, Macri has started, albeit cautiously, moving Argentina away from its closed, highly-statist economic arrangements. This has included abolishing currency and capital controls as well as eliminating some price-controls, particular export taxes, and specific subsidies.
Thus far, opinion polls suggest that a slim but wavering majority of Argentines support Macri’s reforms. As one Jesuit remarked to me, many Argentines view Macri as the nation’s last chance to reverse the trend towards permanent decline. Judging, however, from the anti-Macri posters and demonstrations throughout Buenos Aires, plenty of Argentines oppose the reforms. Perónist politicians, long accustomed to using public office to dispense favors to supporters, aren’t going quietly. Likewise, Argentina’s powerful trade unions have said they’ll resist changes to the country’s heavily-regulated labor markets which, like all such markets, effectively discourage businesses from hiring people.
Another question occupying many Argentines’ minds is the stance of another important institution in the country’s life. Is the Catholic Church going to help smooth the path away from populism? Or will it, in the name of defending the poor, encourage resistance to reform? In all such discussions, Pope Francis’s words and actions feature prominently.
August 20, 2016
Saint Teresa of Jesus and the Search for the Sacred
Saint Teresa of Jesus and the Search for the Sacred | Fr. Erik Varden, OCSO | Catholic World Report
Does the Church’s liturgy enable, now, the expression and communication of sacred realities? Is the ‘sacred’ still a meaningful category?
Among the signal events to mark the Church’s life in 2015 was the 500th birthday of St Teresa of Jesus. The year’s peak event, her feast on 15 October, was overshadowed by headlines from the Synod; yet this year has been nonetheless a Teresian year, calling to mind the Castilian Doctor’s formidable legacy. I found myself gently haunted by Teresa while reading Fr Uwe Michael Lang’s Signs of The Holy One
.
I should like, with her help, to reflect on questions raised by the book. For this is a volume that interrogates. It formulates problems not susceptible of easy resolution. There is material here for an examen of consciousness. I invoke the term ‘consciousness’ advisedly. Although Fr Lang mainly addresses issues of liturgical praxis, he knows better than just to bemoan the transgression of rubrics. He points towards a breakdown of sense in liturgy. He shows how this breakdown ominously points to senselessness likewise in life and belief. It is tempting to imagine his subtitle ending with a question mark: ‘Liturgy, Ritual, and Expression of the Sacred?’ Does the Church’s liturgy enable, now, the expression and communication of sacred realities? Is the ‘sacred’ still a meaningful category?
The book’s first part expounds the sense-content of ‘sacredness’ as defined by modern anthropology and theology. The sheer variety of approaches bewilders. This is brought out in the second part, which indicates wrong turns taken in sacred architecture, music, and art over the past half-century. They happened because the signifier ‘sacred’ was often put, as it were, on its head. Hijacked by human criteria, it could no longer effectively point upward and out to the transcendent. The crisis of sacred liturgy and art is thus a crisis of purpose, of finality. By way of illustration, Fr Lang cites examples apt to make the reader smile. Really, though, there is cause for sadness. When the proclamatory impact of Christian devotion is compromised; when the aesthetic response to faith becomes purely subjective, cut off from a sharable paradigm; when ritual seems little more than fortuitously repeated action: then woe is us, for the Gospel is not preached with the force it requires and deserves. What can we do? How can we respond? We might turn for counsel to the half-millenarian, plain-speaking Doctor of Ávila.
Teresa’s Autobiography, completed in her fiftieth year, chronicles the irruption of the divine into an ordinary life. Seeing Teresa at a distance, we may object to the adjective ‘ordinary’. She seems anything but! Teresa, however, argued this point with passion. She was conscious of singular favour shown her; but she insisted that nothing in her nature marked her out from the common run of men and women. She presents her life in its extraordinariness as a typical life, an exemplar each of us might emulate, had we but faith and courage to surrender to God’s work in us. The trajectory she traces reaches from the outset right to the loftiest end of spiritual life. She counsels souls who wobble ‘like hens, with feet tied together’ but also those who soar like eagles (xxxix.12). Nor does she forget the perplexing darkness of the long intermediate stage when the soul, like a timid dove, is dazzled by rare glimpses of God’s Sun while, ‘when looking at itself, its eyes are blinded by clay. The little dove is blind’ (xx.29). Everything she writes, she tells us, is born of experience. For long years she herself ‘had neither any joy in God nor pleasure in the world’ (viii.2). She lived in an in-between state, a no-woman’s land. What changed it? No summary can do justice to her subtle account of the transformative miracle wrought in her by God. We can, though, get some sense of its impact. Teresa testifies how, at a decisive juncture, ‘todos los que me conocían veían claro estar otra mi alma’: her soul had become other; it was no longer what it used to be (xxviii.13). She had seen something that changed her way of seeing. It caused others to see her differently. It was not, she says, a matter of ‘a radiance that dazzles’, rather of ‘a soft whiteness’, ‘an infused radiance’ that, for being gentle, was so unlike any earthly light that in comparison with it ‘the brightness of our sun seems dim’. Measured against Uncreated Light all light of this world seems ‘artificial’. Had we a choice, she assures us, we should never again ‘want to open our eyes for the purpose of seeing it’ (xxviii.5). To entertain such grace is not just sweetness and joy. It brings on a new kind of homelessness, a numbing sense of being out of place, and that for good. At the end of her book Teresa remarks that life in this world seems to her now ‘a kind of sleep’ (xl.22). She yearns to awaken to eternity. She is weary of being torn apart by existential - or better, essential - tension, for ‘natural weakness’ cannot sustain such spiritual vehemence (xl.7). Anyone who makes even moderate progress in prayer is reminded, like her, of how little Spirit our natural human frame can bear. ‘¡Válgame Dios!’, he or she might exclaim with Teresa: ‘God help me!’
Teresa is a witness to the beautiful dimension of faith. When she speaks of it, she is categorical: ‘The fact of seeing Christ left an impression of his exceeding beauty etched on my soul to this day: once was enough’ (xxxvii.4). This beauty is disturbing, even dangerous.
August 19, 2016
New from Ignatius Press: E-book of "Ben Hur: A Tale of the Christ"
Now available from Ignatius Press as an Electronic Book Download:
by Lewis Wallace
With Introduction by Mark Brumley
Ben-Hur is the classic, best-selling book behind the many famous film versions. The author, Lew Wallace, created a literary biblical epic in this exciting and inspirational story of friendship betrayed, revenge, and, ultimately forgiveness and redemption.
Subtitled "A Tale of the Christ", Ben-Hur is the story of the fictional main character's life encounter Jesus of Nazareth. Wrongly condemned for attempted assasination and sedition, the Jewish prince Judah Ben-Hur is betrayed by his erstwhile childhood Roman friend, Messala, and is sentenced to the galleys while his family is cruely imprisoned.
A providential turn of events brings Ben-Hur to a fierce chariot race with Messala and, ultimately, back to Jerusalem, during the ministry of Jesus. Ben-Hur's faith in Jesus as the Messiah is challenged by his crucifixion at the hands of both the Romans and Jewish authorities. But neither Ben-Hur's story nor Jesus' story ends there.
Bibliography included.
August 18, 2016
Friendship, forgiveness, and chariots: The Ben-Hur team discusses their new film
From left to right: Jack Huston, Toby Kebbell, Roma Downey, Rodrigo Santoro, and Morgan Freeman
attend the Mexico premiere of Paramount Pictures' "Ben-Hur" at the Metropolitan Theater on
August 9, 2016 in Mexico City, Mexico. (Image via facebook.com/BenHurFilm)
The actors and production crew behind Ben-Hur talk about their fresh take on a classic tale of betrayal and mercy | Jim Graves
Paramount Pictures and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures will release its remake of Ben-Hur on Friday, August 19. The movie is a retelling of the 1880 novel by retired Civil War Union General Lew Wallace, and it follows Jewish prince Judah Ben-Hur (played by Jack Huston) as he is betrayed into slavery by his friend, Roman officer Messala (Toby Kebbell). The film is set in and around Jerusalem 2,000 years ago, and Judah encounters Christ at key moments in his life.
The best-known presentation of Ben-Hur is the 1959 version starring Charlton Heston, which received 11 Academy Awards, including Best Picture. The 2016 version follows the same general story line, with some significant differences. The modern version has a distinctly more Christian message, and unlike the 1959 version, Christ has a larger, speaking role.
That this version is more clearly religious is no doubt due to the influence of executive producers and husband-wife team Mark Burnett and Roma Downey, known for their productions The Bible, A.D.: The Bible Continues, and Son of God. They describe themselves as “the noisiest Christians in Hollywood,” and admit that the new Ben-Hurengages in stealth evangelism, presenting Christ’s message of “love and forgiveness” to viewers who ordinarily would never darken the door of a church.
A classic story retold
The story opens depicting the close, adoptive-brother relationship between Judah Ben-Hur and Messala. In the opening scene the pair are racing horses for sport in the countryside, and Judah is thrown from his horse and injured. Messala leaps from his horse to care for his fallen friend, and ends up carrying him back to the city. During Judah’s recovery we learn that the house of Ben-Hur is a royal Jewish home, while Messala worships pagan gods.
Seeking adventure, Messala leaves Jerusalem to join the Roman army. He distinguishes himself as a soldier as he battles the Empire’s foes. He returns to Jerusalem three years later, and is happily welcomed home by Judah and his friend’s mother and sister. Messala is in love with Judah’s sister, which contributes to the animosity between Messala and Judah when their relationship sours.
Judah, meanwhile, enjoys the good life as a prince. In the new version of Ben-Hur, Judah’s wife Esther (portrayed by Iranian-born actress Nazanin Boniadi) has a larger role than in the 1959 film. Early on in the movie the pair first meet Christ while shopping in the marketplace. Judah is a pacifist, wanting nothing to do with the Jewish Zealots trying to overthrow Roman rule, but is clearly no fan of Roman brutality. Christ, while engaging in carpentry in the public square, introduces a novel concept to the pair: “Love your enemies.” It is an idea that Judah initially finds absurd.
Christ is portrayed by Brazilian actor Rodrigo Santoro. He was chosen to play Christ, Downey said, because “he’s got strength, kindness, and depth.”
Santoro said, “Billions of people all over the world have a very personal and intimate relationship with this man, with his image, with what he represents. It’s a tremendous responsibility, but it’s also a unique opportunity to have a chance to explore and to have a deeper understanding of what he went through, and try to practice his teachings.”
The most challenging scene for Santoro was near the end of the film, during Christ’s crucifixion. Filming took place on a “bitterly cold” day in the historic town of Matera, Italy. “When I was up there on that cross it was so cold it was almost unbearable,” Santoro said. “I was on the top of a cliff looking over all those people and Matera in the background, just waiting.”
“When they took me down from the cross, my body was involuntarily shaking; I couldn’t stop,” he continued. “It was probably the most emotionally charged experience I’ve ever had.”
Live-action excitement in the age of CGI
When Messala returns to Jerusalem after three years of warfare, he is a respected Roman officer. He tells Judah that Pontius Pilate, the new Roman governor, will be coming into the city and requests his help in identifying and arresting the Zealots among the people. Judah, who secretly—albeit reluctantly—helped an injured Zealot named Dismas, refuses. Dismas—the “Good Thief” on the cross alongside Christ—attempts to murder Pilate as he enters the city. Judah and his family are arrested, and the relationship between Judah and Messala is severed. Judah is sent to be a galley slave, chained to his seat and manning an oar, and his mother and sister are imprisoned.
The second part of the film includes its two great action sequences.
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