Te Deum, Pierre Cocherau

 

We really ought to sing a Te Deum every day, and acknowledge God for who He is. And to grow in humility and gratitude.

6th Century Christian Artifact

This news fromWaPo:

“A tiny, exquisitely made box found on an excavated street in Jerusalem is a token of Christian faith from 1,400 years ago, Israeli archaeologists said Sunday.

The box, carved from the bone of a cow, horse or camel, decorated with a cross on the lid and measuring only 0.8 inches by 0.6 inches (2 centimeter by 1.5 centimeter), was likely carried by a Christian believer around the end of the 6th century A.D, according to Yana Tchekhanovets of the Israel Antiquities Authority, one of the directors of the dig where the box was found.

When the lid is removed, the remains of two portraits are still visible in paint and gold leaf. The figures, a man and a woman, are probably Christian saints and possibly Jesus and the Virgin Mary.

The box was found in an excavation outside the walls of Jerusalem’ s Old City in the remains of a Byzantine-era thoroughfare, she said. Uncovered two years ago, it was treated by preservation experts and extensively researched before it was unveiled at an archaeological conference last week.

The box is important in part because it offers the first archaeological evidence that the use of icons in the Byzantine period was not limited to church ceremonies, she said.

Part of a similar box was found three decades ago in Jordan, but this is the only well-preserved example to be found so far, she said. Similar icons are still carried today by some Christian believers, especially from the eastern Orthodox churches.

The relic was found in the City of David excavation, a Jerusalem dig named for the biblical monarch believed to have ruled a Jewish kingdom from the site.

The politically sensitive dig is located in what is today the Palestinian neighborhood of Silwan, just outside the Old City walls in east Jerusalem, the section of the holy city captured by Israel in the 1967 Mideast war and claimed by the Palestinians as their capital.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

Pray For Priests…

…who neglect their divine duty! Announcing an up-and-coming project for folks to pray the Divine Office for priests.

Pay them a visit, The Divine Office Project.

History in the Making

His feast will be October 22!

Bl. John Paul II, Pray For Us!

What a happy day in Christendom! But let us remember a beatification isn’t about the man, but about what God perfected in the man.

Repost: Holy Thursday at FSSP In Urbe

Inquietum Est Cor Meum Donec Requiescat In Te

“Late have I loved you, O Beauty ever ancient, ever new, late have I loved you! You were within me, but I was outside, and it was there that I searched for you. In my unloveliness I plunged into the lovely things which you created. You were with me, but I was not with you. Created things kept me from you; yet if they had not been in you they would have not been at all. You called, you shouted, and you broke through my deafness. You flashed, you shone, and you dispelled my blindness. You breathed your fragrance on me; I drew in breath and now I pant for you. I have tasted you, now I hunger and thirst for more. You touched me, and I burned for your peace.”–St Augustine, Confessions X.xxvii     

  

All Good Things…

Dear readers,

I have been taking the past number of weeks away from the blog to look at things from a different perspective. I once heard it said “If you give the Church your youth, she will never return it.” My own experience of this has lead to some great personal problems. Since leaving seminary life I have found that my identity for the past five years following my conversion was completely summarized in my desire to become a priest. My own conversion is what lead me straight to the seminary after college. When my plans toward the priesthood were dissolved, so was my personal identity. And now over a year later, I am a different person than I was when I first started this blog. I have rebuilt my life from scratch.

Perhaps only ex-seminarians will understand what I’m saying. Perhaps their experience is similar to this—that we, who hoped to devote our entire lives to that great mystery which is the priesthood, were offered a foretaste of so great a promise. And when we took on that identity of “seminarian”, it was as if a veil had been lifted that separated us from the glory of the Altar—not completely unveiled but revealed to us in such a way that we could witness the joy of priesthood with greater clarity than before. And suddenly, when our hearts were full for God and our souls were so readily moved to His service, we were thrown, forcibly, from clarity back into the din and the veil between us and the Priest pulled back again. Only this time: what misery to have had a vision of this mysterious and necessary life of the Priest, only to be made painfully aware of what was lost whenever we should attend the Sacred Mystery!

That is my constant burden now, and that is why this blog must end. While Catholic Eye Candy helped preserve my faith at the trials I suffered at the time of my departure, now it only serves as a bitter reminder that my heart’s one desire was not in union with the judgment of Holy Mother Church. We ought to accept her discernment in all things. She has been good to me, and always shall.

God save you.

–C

Submit Your Votes!

Remember to vote for Catholic Eye Candy under the “Best Visual Treat” category over at the Crescat contest. There is one day left and I’m hoping you’ll all keep voting!

Cult Pervades Culture

I was thinking of all of you today when I was watching a favorite film of mine, “Les Folies des Grandeurs”. This scene came up and I thought of how much you all enjoyed being shocked by the Nazarenos. The plot is a comedy of errors that takes place in 17th century Spain, with a hilarious script written in fast-paced French with quick blurbs and jumbles of almost Macaronic Spanish and German.