Wretched Saints [Marc Lacy, Assuanta Collins, Shonell Bacon] on Our faith provides energy and focus during the lifelong scamper down the path of righteousness. in turn, potentially providing a next day delivery service to hell s doorstep. . face, that demonstrates how one bad decision can lead to a path of destruction.
Table of contents
- Assuanta Collins
- Are You an Author?
- Wretched Saints | MLF
- Until the Next Time 2: God's Plan by Assuanta Collins (2007-07-01)
This colossal figure, five storeys high, extends from the pavement of the church to the roof. Christopher has a beard which flows in a stream, and legs as thick as the pillars of the nave.
Assuanta Collins
Bending and adoring, he bears on his shoulders a Child with a round face, as white as the chalk of a clown, blessing all corners with a smile. Every disease which the leeches and apothecaries could not alleviate was brought to the Saints. Some indeed were reputed specialists, and the ills they cured were known by their names. If the interceding Saints should, in certain cases, refuse to cure us, at any rate they will make us no worse by a mistaken diagnosis and the exhibition of dangerous remedies.
Though after all, even if our modern practitioners were not ignoramuses, of what use would that be, since the medicines they prescribe are adulterated? He became fidgety with waiting as the hours went by. At last, unable to sit still, he went out to kill the time, but a drizzling rain drove him for shelter into the cathedral.
Are You an Author?
After offering his devotions to the Virgin of the Pillar, he seated himself amid a camp of vacant chairs to meditate. Alas it consists less in acquisitions than in exchanges; I have merely found aridity in the place of indolence; and the results of the exchange I know only too well; of what use is it to go through them once more? The gains to my mind seem to me less distressing and more genuine, and I can make a brief catalogue of them under three heads: Past, Present, and Future.
In most of the churches I found only a colourless ceremonial, a meagre form of service. Haunted by the matchless grandeur of this cathedral, under the guidance of a very intelligent and cultivated priest I have studied religious symbolism, worked up that great science of the Middle Ages which is in fact a language peculiar to the Church, expressing by images and signs what the Liturgy expresses in words.
- Wretched Saints: Marc Lacy, Assuanta Collins, Shonell Bacon: leondumoulin.nl: Books;
- Explore Black Pearls.
- 10 Steps to Winning Texas Holdem Poker (Holdem Strategy Charts).
- The World According to Luke Book I: My Life in Knots.
- Pretty Is as Pretty Does.
In fact, the limit-line of the two branches is not always easy to trace, so often are they grafted together; they inspire each other, intertwine, and at last are almost one. Symbolism has lent the principal charm to my life at Chartres; it occupied and comforted me when I was suffering from finding my soul so importunate and yet so low. He saw it as a thickly branched tree, the root deep set in the very soil of the Bible; from thence, in fact, it drew its substance and its nourishment: A small bough represented Liturgical perfumes, and a mere twig, dried up from the first and almost dead, represented dancing.
David leaping before the Ark shows this. Leonard and his parishioners pirouetted in the choir of the church. In the eighteenth century their traces are found in Roussillon, and at the present day religious dancing still survives; but the tradition of this saintly frisking is chiefly preserved in Spain. And to this day, at Seville, on the festival of the Holy Sacrament, the choir-children turn in a sort of slow waltz as they sing hymns before the high altar of the cathedral. In other towns, on the festivals of the Virgin, a saraband is slowly danced round Her statue, with striking of sticks, and the rattle of castanets; and to close the ceremony by way of Amen the people fire off squibs.
Church dancing is really no more than a gross form of rejoicing among Southern races. We need mention it merely as noteworthy, and that is all. Whichever way man could turn, he still saw Him. And at the same time he saw his own soul as in a mirror that reflected it; in certain animals, certain colours, and certain plants he could discern the qualities which it was his duty to acquire, the vices against which he had to defend himself. And he had other examples before his eyes, for the symbolists did not restrict themselves to turning botany, mineralogy, natural history, and other sciences to the uses of a catechism; some of them, and among others Saint Melito, ended by applying the process to the interpretation of every object that came in their way.
A cithara was to them the breast of the devout man; the members of the human frame became emblematical the head was Christ, the hairs were the saints, the nose meant discretion, the nostrils the spirit of faith, the eye contemplation, the mouth symbolized temptation, the saliva was the sweetness of the inner life, the ears figured obedience, the arms the love of Jesus, the hands stood for good works, the knees for the sacrament of penance, the legs for the Apostles, the shoulders for the yoke of Christ, the breast for evangelical doctrine, the belly for avarice, the bowels for the mysterious precepts of the Lord, the body and loins for suggestions of lust, the bones typified hardness of heart, and the marrow compunction, the sinews were evil members of Anti-Christ.
And these writers extended this method of interpretation to the commonest objects of daily use, even to tools and vessels within reach of all. Thus there was an uninterrupted course of pious teaching. Thus the peasant learnt that his plough was an image of the Cross, that the furrows it made were like the hearts of saints freshly tilled; he knew that sheaves were the fruit of repentance, flour the multitude of the faithful, the granary the Kingdom of Heaven; and it was the same with many pursuits.
In short, this method of analogies was a bidding to everybody to watch and pray better. Thus utilized, symbolism became a break to check the forward march of sin, and at the same time a sort of lever to uplift souls and help them to overleap the stages of the mystical life. This science, translated into so many languages, was no doubt intelligible only in broad outline to the masses, and sometimes, when it percolated through the labyrinthine maze of such minds as that of the worthy Bishop of Mende, it appeared overwrought, full of contradictions, and of double meanings.
It seems then as if the symbolist were spitting a hair with embroidery scissors. But, in spite of the extravagance it tolerated and smiled at, the Church succeeded, nevertheless, by these tactics of repetition, in saving souls and carrying out on a large scale the production of saints. Mysticism in the stricter sense of the word, more fortunate than its handmaidens, survived that period of festive dishonour; for it may be safely asserted that, though it was unproductive while living through that period, it flourished anew in Spain, producing its noblest blossoms in Saint John of the Cross and Saint Teresa.
Since then doctrinal mysticism seems dried up at the source. Not so, however, as regards personal mysticism, which still dwells acclimatized and flourishing in convents. As to the Liturgy and plain-song, they too have gone through very various phases. After being dissected and filtered in the numberless provincial Uses, the Liturgy was brought back to the standard of Rome by the efforts of Dom Guranger, and it may be hoped that the Benedictines at last will also bring all the churches back to the strict use of plain-song. He looked at his cathedral, loving it better than ever now that he was to part from it for a few days.
To impress it the better on his memory he tried to sum it up, to concentrate it, saying to himself,-. Of Earth, for it connotes the elation of the soul, the ascension of man; it points out quite clearly to Christian souls the path of the perfect life. The great front has neither the awful majesty of that of Reims, pierced as it is with tracery, nor the dull melancholy of Notre Dame de Paris, nor the gigantic grace of Amiens, nor the massive solemnity of Bourges; but it is full of imposing simplicity, a lightness, a spring, which no other cathedral has attained to.
And finally, the sculpture of the west front, the Royal Portal, is the most beautiful, the most superterrestrial statuary ever wrought by the hand of man. Scarce a demon is to be seen watching and grinning on its walls to torture souls; in a few small figures it shows indeed the variety of penance, but that is all; and within, the Virgin is above all else the Mother of Bethlehem. It is time to take leave of him before joining the Abbe Plomb at the station. And if only that could relieve the tension, could release me a little from this incoherent frame of mind in which I wander, and allow me to feel at home once more in my own soul and not in a strange place open to all the winds!
I am constantly driven out, and when I want to go home again they are in possession. Well, then, set those prayers aside, and restrict yourself to following, very regularly, the prayers of the services in the convent-chapel. You are less familiar with them, and merely to follow them you will be obliged to read them with care.
Thus you will be less likely to have a divided mind. I know that this is absurd; still, there is no faithful soul who does not know the feeling when the text of his prayers is altered. They are complete, and supreme; for all our desires, all our regrets, all our wailing are contained in the Psalms. The prophet foresaw and said everything leave him, then, to speak for you, and thus, as your interpreter before God, give you his help. This is what old Isaac said to Cassian: Follow these two rules, they will save you from secret upheaval.
When our Lady holds these solemn assizes to gel out of the way. I wait till She is alone before I visit her. Hosts of people shouting canticles with eyes straight to Heaven or looking for Jesus on the groundby way of unction are too much for me. I am all for the forlorn Queens, for the deserted churches and dark chapels. I am of the opinion of Saint John of the Cross, who confesses that he does not love the pilgrimage of crowds because one comes back more distracted than when one started. What it is really a grief to me to leave in quitting Chartres is that very silence, that solitude in the cathedral, those interviews with the Virgin in the gloom of the crypt and the twilight of the nave.
Ah, here alone can one feel near Her, and see Her! This is the vision of an oriental. She thinks of the Virgin as slender, with black hair and eyebrows, eyes dark and greenish, a straight nose, scarlet lips, and a brown skin. You recognize here the Spanish ideal of beauty imagined by the Abbess. According to her, Mary was fair-haired, with large eyes, a rather long nose, a narrow-pointed chin, a clear skin, and not very tall. Here we hive the description given by a German who does not admire dark beauty. A modest feeling of guilt overcame her as Kansas made her selection. I hope that lady is not out there when I return to my car, she thought.
I get approached all the time and I'm really getting tired of having to be on the defensive. I wish I could help more people out, but it's just not safe for a lady to reach into her pocketbook in front of strangers. Realizing the time, Kansas paid for the camera and dashed out the door moving in a b-line toward her vehicle. She didn't even look left or right while crossing the pavement between Target and her car.
Upon her arrival at the vehicle, Kansas sighed briefly and appeared relieved that the strange lady was not around. As she unlocked the door, a squealing witch-like voice bellowed, "Excuse me, ma'am! Kansas' camera went straight up in the air as she lunged forward and smashed her shoulder up against the open vehicle Woman, are you out of your mind?
What in the world do you want from me? I can't even make it to bible study without being badgered to death!
Will you please go away and get a life? Better yet, get a freakin' job! You have no right to speak to me that way," countered the lady. You probably do that to people all day in different parking lots. You scared me, I'm late, and I'm pissed.
Wretched Saints | MLF
So get the hell out of my face. Church Lady who is holier than thou. Unfortunately a trend goes out as quickly as it comes in. Like an aggressive stock, there is potential for quick and extreme success as well as quick and extreme failure. You cannot be angry with someone for taking advantage of a trend because they are just giving the people what they want right?
The industry is wide open and if some just want to make that paper, then so be it. Do not waste any of your time and energy downing them if that is their focus. None of us are the law in terms of literary genres, so we cannot drag anybody to trial for capitalizing on their rights for creative expression. However, you are encouraged to put yourself in a position to where trends and fads will impact; but not control your writing. Your writing will be so solid that people will be able to enjoy it down the line as we incur various phases and changes within overall writing styles and subject matter that people are attracted to.
Finally, if you step out on faith in your literary career, quality writing should be your main focus.
Until the Next Time 2: God's Plan by Assuanta Collins (2007-07-01)
Every step you take and every breath you make should illustrate your hunger for improved writing. If you conduct writing workshops, not only will you help others with their writing, you are also helping yourself. Should you engage in public speaking, it should be a reflection of how serious you are about writing.