Francis Beckwith on Marilyn Chambers and Jerry Falwell

Francis Beckwith comments on media responses to the deaths of porn star Marilyn Chambers and the Rev. Jerry Falwell. Here's an excerpt:

We live in an age in which we know precisely what recycle bin our newsprint and soda bottles belong. But we have no idea what a human being is, what it’s supposed to do, or who or what it is permissible to sleep with. So, this is the lesson of our time: the "good" man is the one who treats his garbage with greater care than his own soul. This is why, for our cultural gatekeepers, Ms. Chambers is an icon and the Rev. Falwell did not die soon enough.

Read the rest.

via Keith Pavlischek

Regina Coeli (Latin Easter chant)

Surrexit Christus, alleluia

Poem for Good Friday: James Wright's "Saint Judas"

When I went out to kill myself, I caught
A pack of hoodlums beating up a man.
Running to spare his suffering, I forgot
My name, my number, how my day began,
How soldiers milled around the garden stone
And sang amusing songs; how all that day
Their javelins measured crowds; how I alone
Bargained the proper coins, and slipped away.

Banished from heaven, I found this victim beaten,
Stripped, kneed, and left to cry. Dropping my rope
Aside, I ran, ignored the uniforms:
Then I remembered bread my flesh had eaten,
The kiss that ate my flesh. Flayed without hope,
I held the man for nothing in my arms.

from Collected Poems
Wesleyan University Press, 1971

All our good deeds, all our goodness itself, if we betray that one friendship, are for nothing.

Come and Visit

Me, that is. And my esteemed friend Joseph Bottum. We're blogging now at Icons and Curiosities, a religious-items shopping blog providing, at this very moment, an array of . . . uh, one t-shirt, which is a start. There will be more shortly, as soon as one of us who shall remain nameless can figure out how to log in to the stupid Wordpress page.

Coming soon! Easter Pretty Barbie! Chocolate-covered bunny-shaped air! Loaves and fishes in not-necessarily-Biblical quantities! While supplies last! Call now!

Anton Bruckner 'Christus Factus Est'

More music for Holy Week. I love Felice Anerio's motet on this text (and it's way easier to sing, too), but the Bruckner's just stunning.

For Good Friday: Crux Fidelis

The text is attributed to Venantius Fortunatus; this numinous setting to King John IV of Portugal.

ARTE VOCAL - O VOS OMNES (Pablo Casals)

Must-hear music for Holy Week, taken as my friend Nathaniel notes, from the Tenebrae of Holy Saturday. I love the Victoria setting which Nathaniel's posted, but this atmospheric version by Casals is my favorite.

Links Not Necessarily Related to Holy Week, but Interesting, Maybe

A Weekend Off the Grid
via The Common Room We haven't done this, or anything like it -- at least, not on purpose. But the idea of freeing ourselves, at least to some extent, from our utilities is an intriguing one. It's especially intriguing the day we get the power bill . . .

BBC Wales: Iron Age Celts. Fun interactive site much enjoyed by the currently-Celt-obsessed Helier and Crispina (who have also been busy discovering artifacts, like a rusty metal file and twelve cents, in the garden plot which until three days ago was a big hole of wat -- I mean, a military earthwork -- by the backyard wall).

In case you were wondering, after yesterday's Gospel, what spikenard actually is . . .

What Epiphany has been up to, besides Latin, Macbeth, the Krebs Cycle, sines and cosines, and prom committee: exploring Irish fiddle-playing and looking into doing this this summer with some of her friends.

What I've been up to:
1. Music for Holy Week
To Mock Your Reign
My Song Is Love Unknown
Ah, Holy Jesus

2. Reading the new-ish Flannery O'Connor biography

3. Digging up baby volunteer forsythias and dividing daylilies and planting them in different places around my yard. Found plant food in the garage. My landscaping cost thus far: $0, unless you count the pack of pansies I bought last fall for $1.99. God gave us forsythias, vinca, daylilies, irises and monkey grass for a reason.

4. Laundry

5. Thinking about this year's seder for Maundy Thursday. The link takes you to photos from last year's, at our old house in Memphis. This year we have a bigger dining room, and will have company, too, for the most beautiful weekend of the year.

Poetry for Passiontide

I've posted this poem here before, possibly more than once. But you know, there are things in this world that bear repeating.

I Am the Great Sun

From a Normandy crucifix of 1632


I am the great sun, but you do not see me,
I am your husband, but you turn away.
I am the captive, but you do not free me,
I am the captain you will not obey.

I am the truth, but you will not believe me,
I am the city where you will not stay,
I am your wife, your child, but you will leave me,
I am that God to whom you will not pray.

I am your counsel, but you do not hear me,
I am the lover whom you will betray.
I am the victor, though you will not cheer me,
I am the holy dove whom you will slay.

I am your life, but if you will not name me,
Seal up your soul with tears, and never blame me.

Charles Causley
From Collected Poems 1951-2000
London: Picador, 2000