June 14, 2010

Three observations:

Been reading Ralph Martin's THE FULFILLMENT OF ALL DESIRE. Wonderful stuff--the Fathers of the Church (and Mothers), so many of them talking about holiness, the signposts, the stages. I'd started it some time back, but bogged. And the prose style can occasionally get in the way, but now that I'm back in I'm very grateful. Growth! I can feel it. The little tubers! I'm into the second part, the Illuminative Way (is it?). Don't get ahead of yourself.

Run you tubers.

And speaking of not getting ahead of yourself, I've been rereading the FIORETTI, trying to get more poems from the same sources I used more than thirty years ago. One of the things that I really like about the text, XXVI today--and the early prayer ("Those who do not do penance") in THE SAINT, EARLY DOCUMENTS book of the scholarly trilogy on him, is the emphasis on hell, justice. We don't hear enough about it, the cut corners that come back. Lots of people are paying for that, I'm sure. I don't know about you, but I rely on mercy so easily. Perhaps that's not a good thing. I need to feel what I am the way the saints did/do.

And the last thing is the Duke. Saw THE SEARCHERS today. It's funny, how Wayne was run out of town in the late 60's; but when you go through everybody's 30 best westerns, the guy keeps showing up. A main--to quote Sam and Dave. (Though the actor who later played Jesus--Jeffrey Hunter, really pales compared to Montgomery Cliff in RED RIVER. Cliff is a good male lead there too.)

Christ is Risen!