As Long as I Live...

Prayer: Gerard van Honthorst, King David Playing the Harp

The Music of the World

Painting: Karl Hartmann,1903

Gaudete!

(To our e-mail subscribers: this post features a video, which can be viewed by going to the blog itself)



Painting: Benozzo Gozzoli, Os Anjos em Adoração, detail

Veni, Veni, Emmanuel

A Standard Not Of Our Own Making

'There is an organ in my home. As I look at the notes on that organ, I could ask which note is good and which note is bad? Which note is right and which note is wrong? One cannot say that any particular note is right or any particular note is wrong. What makes any note right or wrong? Its correspondence to a standard. Once I have a piece of music before me, I know what I ought to do, what note I should hit, what note I ought not to hit. So too, we have a moral standard within us which is our conscience. What is good and bad is in relationship to that standard which is not of our own making.' (Venerable Fulton Sheen)

'Conscience must be informed and moral judgment enlightened....the education of conscience is indispensable for human beings who are subjected to negative influences and tempted by sin to prefer their own judgment and to reject authoritative teachings. The education of the conscience is a lifelong task...In the formation of conscience the Word of God is the light for our path...'(Catholicism of the Catholic Church 1783-1785)

Painting: Michael Ancher, in US public domain due to age

To Higher Things

'Music... is given by God's generosity 

to mortals having rational souls,

in order to lead them to higher things.'
 

Saint Augustine

Painting:  Joseph DeCamp, The Cellist

A Different Quality

'Music rouses the emotions,

it calls the senses to a different quality...

Music comforts the mind in the enduring of labors, 

and singing lightens weariness in solitary tasks.'

St. Isidore 

Painting: Poul Friis Nybo Girl at Piano

Just This Once

Mothers can't help it.  When they run into nearly forgotten YouTube videos with one of their children in them... and even with a photo of said (teenaged) child showing off a newly caught fish... Mothers gotta throw all of their "this is not a deeply personal blog" ideas out the window.  Just this once.   

A mother might remember nearly miscarrying a son.  Fretting and worrying and dismissing others' well intentioned but painful "assurances" that "there can be plenty of other children."  (but I want THIS one ... I already love THIS one... don't they understand...?).  The intense joy when that very son arrives at term, full-voiced and healthy.  The even more intense joy as "Frankie" grows up to love and serve God. 

A mother remembers a little boy's concerns about not wanting to go to Heaven "cause there's angels there, and angels are girls - YUK!!!"  A mother looks at all-grown-up Frankie and thanks God for his faith, for his family, for all of the years.

No, this is not a family blog.  Most of my family members prefer it that way.  Only one is a total extrovert-to-the-core, and it is he who had one half-second of fishing "fame" in a music video, back when he was a teen.  No, Frankie was not singing in it (except with a group around a campfire), but golly - in that one split-second, could he FISH :)!!  Fishing is one of his favorite things to do even now.

The singer in this music video is Chris Rice (who also wrote the song "Go Light Your World," famously recorded by Kathy Troccoli).

Playing backup guitar is singer Michael W. Smith.

The one-second-fisherman is Frankie - who by that time had made his peace with girls :).   
It's his picture on the still shot of the video before you click on it, at least on the one that shows up when I see it.  He's older now, as I write this, but in this picture he bears a striking resemblance to a little boy I once raised.  Can time really have flown so fast?  I sit and stare.

Anyway, today is Divine Mercy Sunday, and I think the song's theme is appropriate.

Besides that:  mothers can't help it.   Just this once.

(Gratefully linking this post to Memoir Monday at Campfires and Cleats)

(This post is linked to Catholic Bloggers Network Linkup Blitz)

Still

Painting: Johansen Viggo, A Christmas Story

Stir Our Hearts

Stir up our hearts,
O Lord,
to prepare the ways
of Thy
only-begotten Son;
that by
His coming
we may be able
to serve Him
with purified minds.
             
                 Roman Missal,
                    5th to 7th century

All Tints of Light

Nature loves, as lady bright,

In gayest guise to shine;

All forms of grace, all tints of light,

Fringe her robe divine

Cardinal John Henry Newman

Let all Your works, made from the sublimity of Your majesty, praise You.

St. Gemma Galgani 

           

This post is linked to Catholic Bloggers Network Monthly Roundup

Walter Moras paintings in US public domain

Only in God

When it's all Been Said and Done

Painting:  "David" by Frederick Leighton

Moments of Autumn Grace

Scents of apple and cinnamon fill my house.  The morning was heavy with storms, dark as night.  I savored sounds of rain while it lasted.  Now, not ready to give up a sense of rainwashed, tea-soothed, quilt-warmed coziness, I turn to my favorite music of all time.  

If there were theme music to my life, this would be it.  Why?   I don't exactly know.

I just know that this piece of music somehow finds its way into every corner of my memory.  Into every shadow of my dreams..... 










This post is linked to Catholic Bloggers Network Monthly Round Up 

(apples photo by Nancy Shuman)