tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2001778610134453432024-01-21T21:06:45.893+00:00The Thirsty Gargoyle~ lacrimae in corde, in capite risūs ~The Thirsty Gargoylehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07555762505933950270noreply@blogger.comBlogger649125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-200177861013445343.post-31416286832836844072023-11-02T21:26:00.006+00:002023-11-10T06:52:24.225+00:00For those who've gone beforeToday being the feast of All Souls, or The Commemoration of All the Faithful Departed, as my missal has it, it's time to revisit my annual post where I remember those gone before me. It's a special day in the Church calendar dedicated to trying to help those we've loved, and even those we've conspicuously failed to love, and so many who we've never known, to make their way towards God and towardsUnknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-200177861013445343.post-4928895241123277782023-07-26T20:44:00.000+01:002023-07-26T20:44:01.731+01:00Hannibal, Cyrus, and lessons in followshipBack in 2003 Toni Morrison met Peter Olson, the then CEO of Random House, at that year’s Book Expo America, and mentioned having watched a documentary on the Mongols in her hotel after a flight which had left her unsettled. Olson lit up. “I wrote my college thesis on an anti-Soviet revolt in South Central Asia,” he said, continuing, “I would contend that military histories are better for learningUnknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-200177861013445343.post-15355114681013289162023-07-25T09:17:00.005+01:002023-07-25T12:27:41.964+01:00Silos and synodsI was at a conference in Rome a few years ago where people from Google explained that Catholic websites tend to punch well below their weight compared to those of other religious groups for the simple reason that they don’t link to other sites; in the digital environment as so often in the world at large today, Catholicism is a siloed landscape. It doesn’t have to be, though. Even just thinking Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-200177861013445343.post-83994780225944047342023-07-17T15:16:00.009+01:002023-07-17T20:16:04.149+01:00SamildánachI’ve been thinking a lot lately about specialisation, about picking one area and being known for being great at one thing. I’m not sure about this, though, because to take a pointer from Archilochus, the world surely needs foxes as much as it needs hedgehogs. One of the great insights in medical practice over recent decades has been that for all the status that accords to consultants, general Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-200177861013445343.post-71186486772908532942023-05-10T20:11:00.002+01:002023-05-10T20:11:17.455+01:00CoronationIt’s strange to read commentary on the Coronation when it wasn’t even on the radar for me on Saturday; a bit like missing the Biden visit and the indignant rantings about it from some elements of our neighbours’ fourth estate, I missed the Coronation entirely, as we had a First Holy Communion to celebrate in the family.It seems strange to have passed over so rare an event - the first in the my Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-200177861013445343.post-60895566010699015952023-05-04T16:10:00.006+01:002023-05-10T16:18:57.978+01:00ColonistsI saw yesterday that this year’s Dublin Handelfest is being advertised, and perhaps unsurprisingly I felt that same ambivalent twinge of troubled anticipation I felt last year. The festival is great, with concerts and tours and exhibitions, but too often celebrations of Handel’s Dublin sojourn, like the city’s Georgian architecture or writers like Swift and Goldsmith, go hand-in-hand with Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-200177861013445343.post-5042196698958274782023-04-17T19:35:00.007+01:002023-04-18T14:22:39.662+01:00DignityOn the bus back from the airport yesterday I wasted the blue skies and glorious views that were surrounding me and would soon and suddenly be shrouded in an all-concealing fog by spending my time reading a frustrating essay from a few years back, a piece by Edward Feser who I used to rate, with a couple of decent books by him still on the shelves. Entitled 'Three questions for Catholic opponents Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-200177861013445343.post-55592787067958769622023-04-09T10:57:00.002+01:002023-04-09T12:27:56.088+01:00MeaningsDays accumulate meanings as we age. Today would have been my mam’s birthday, were she still with us here, and so with me thinking of her anyway social media throws up recollections of birthdays past. The one from four years ago featured two photos, one from her youth, before she’d married Dad, and one from her time in the nursing home. Her eyes and smile were the same. I had no idea when I postedUnknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-200177861013445343.post-29494246913025253052023-03-29T20:40:00.005+01:002023-04-09T11:29:23.496+01:00ExplorationsThe river Boyne is tidal outside our house, rising and falling as it ebbs and flows with the salty waters of the Irish Sea. The water can drop to a few inches at times, revealing wide gravel beds and even — to the eagle-eyed — the outlines of a few ancient oak canoes, sunk six thousand years ago when the great solar tomb of Newgrange was being built beyond the bend of the river, and now at risk Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-200177861013445343.post-4278434435539627962023-03-23T13:18:00.010+00:002023-05-20T12:20:33.629+01:00The problem of EnglandI'm not sure there's anywhere in the world that annoys me more than Ireland, but England surely runs it a close second. One of the strangest English delusions — we all have our national delusions, and I spend far too much time talking of Irish ones, so indulge me here — is the conviction that nationalism is a disease that afflicts other countries, and especially the emotional Celts. I'm not Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-200177861013445343.post-53134707679263406412023-03-22T12:36:00.003+00:002023-03-22T12:45:29.622+00:00Pausing to preserve ourselvesI’ve used the ‘take a break’ function on Facebook for the first time today, not even knowing about it before this morning, reducing what I can see from someone I’ve considered a friend for years. Some things he did and then doubled down on some weeks ago left me feeling deeply betrayed and profoundly upset, and though I’m not angry with him, being reminded of it through Mr Zuckerberg's algorithmsUnknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-200177861013445343.post-1659876046785470322023-03-20T12:28:00.005+00:002023-03-22T12:30:30.603+00:00A decade after coffeeTen years ago today, in a London week that saw friends married, a clerical funeral, an emergency noctural visit to hospital, a shamefully late lunch rendezvous, and me turning down an ill-considered proposal to commentate on the papal installation Mass, I met up with someone I’d only known through Twitter at the recommendation of a mutual friend. It would be good, he said, if his two historian Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-200177861013445343.post-60976325360529049132023-03-15T12:22:00.002+00:002023-03-22T12:26:33.114+00:00Somewhere on screenThere’s a passage in The Moviegoer where Walker Percy has the narrator muse on what he calls ‘certification’.‘Nowadays when a person lives somewhere, in a neighbourhood, the place is not certified for him,’ he observes. ‘More than likely he will live there sadly and the emptiness which is inside him will expand until it evacuates the entire neighbourhood. But if he sees a movie which shows his Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-200177861013445343.post-55165683059810514652023-03-14T11:23:00.006+00:002023-03-22T12:44:31.315+00:00Triumphant impostersFlicking through Herodotus over breakfast, as you do, it occurs to me again that it’s interesting how the first historian implicitly but clearly rejects the notion that history is written by the victors. ‘Winners?’ he effectively says time and again. ‘Maybe, but for how long?’Mind, this is something I often return to, and was at the heart of the thesis I eventually laid aside, albeit in the hope Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-200177861013445343.post-5076839943077763372023-03-13T11:20:00.003+00:002023-03-22T11:22:30.293+00:00Intersecting destinies It’s strange to think it’s 27 years today since Krzysztof Kiéslowski died, leaving behind a marvellous, tender, profoundly humanising but all too small body of work; had he lived he’d only be 81 now, so imagine how much he could have blessed us with.“My message is 'Live more carefully',” he said once. “Because you don't know what the consequences of your actions may be. You don't know what Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-200177861013445343.post-85875472114336839522023-03-12T11:14:00.007+00:002023-03-22T11:17:18.214+00:00What doth it profit a man...I’ve been wrestling recently with questions of means and ends, and whether desirable ends ever justify dodgy means. Discussions around this tend to get framed, I think, as a choice between failing while keeping your hands clean or succeeding while compromising your values. I’m not sure this is right, though, since in this scenario I think both options are failures, the main difference being that Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-200177861013445343.post-10663264362947075912022-11-02T12:14:00.002+00:002023-03-23T13:20:54.972+00:00Remembering Today is the feast of All Souls, or The Commemoration of All the Faithful Departed, as my missal has it. It's a special day in the Church calendar dedicated to trying to help those we've loved, and even those we've conspicuously failed to love, and so many who we've never known, to make their way towards God and towards becoming who they were truly created to be.The word 'Purgatory' may notUnknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-200177861013445343.post-3843658488466719832021-11-02T11:35:00.003+00:002021-11-02T11:41:15.254+00:00Helping those who've gone before usToday is the feast of All Souls, or The Commemoration of All the Faithful Departed, as my missal has it. It's a special day in the Church calendar dedicated to trying to help those we've loved, and even those we've conspicuously failed to love, and so many who we've never known, to make their way towards God and towards becoming who they were truly created to be.The word 'Purgatory' may not Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-200177861013445343.post-72632687627994531452021-03-09T19:16:00.008+00:002023-03-23T14:21:59.860+00:00Biggar, but far from betterA frustrating article in The Irish Times by Nigel Biggar has driven me back to my files and something I'd written about three, three-and-a-half years ago; I attach it below.The latest piece is sheer sophistry, and historically dodgy sophistry at that. It takes real disingenuity — or laziness — to dismiss this speech as an example of President Higgins having drunk too deeply at the wells of Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-200177861013445343.post-74840071882779331472020-12-31T22:38:00.001+00:002021-01-01T02:57:28.857+00:00Farewell to a wonderful mother: a funeral tribute A long time ago, Mam said that she
wanted me to speak at her funeral, when the time came. ‘I want you to talk,’
she said, ‘and to make everyone laugh.’ I don’t think I can promise that, and
with most people joining us today doing so remotely I’ll probably never know,
but here goes.
Veronica – or Vera – Hynes was born
in Liverpool in April 1939, just a few months before war broke out, the Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-200177861013445343.post-82620776906804986732020-11-02T12:18:00.007+00:002020-11-09T10:44:27.281+00:00Helping each other up the mountain of hopeIt being November, today is the feast of All Souls, or The Commemoration of All the Faithful Departed, as my missal has it. Back in the day, when I was a Dominican, I wrote a blogpost in my private diary blog in which I mapped out some thoughts on purgatory, on All Souls, and most importantly on those I keep in my prayers. Sometimes I can forget people, so I thought it as well to call them Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-200177861013445343.post-89185187171735630902017-07-08T15:52:00.000+01:002017-12-06T15:54:22.532+00:00Dubious dubia, or, when you make smoke and claim fire...
So, I’ve been thinking a lot about the dubia again, not least following Stephen Walford’s most recent article — which I’ve liked a lot, and I thought I’d get some thoughts down. I might be wildly wrong here, of course.
Looking at the dubia letter, the quartet starts with what they deem ‘A Necessary Foreword’:
‘The great Tradition of the Church teaches us that the way out of situations Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-200177861013445343.post-44305264394261431432016-12-14T18:07:00.003+00:002016-12-14T18:07:52.471+00:00On applications of Amoris Laetitia, and dubious reporting about said...
It increasingly seems to me that there are few more poisonous elements in the modern Catholic Church than the nest of vipers that is churchmilitant.com – there are reasons, after all, while Philadelphia’s Archbishop Charles Chaput has said it and another site are ‘destructive’, tending to ‘sow division wherever they tread’. Indeed, Archbishop Chaput’s diocesan office is said the site is ‘Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-200177861013445343.post-78166376461111763142016-07-14T09:23:00.000+01:002016-07-14T10:09:41.754+01:00Brexit aftermath: an advisory referendum?
There seems to be some debate over whether or not the Brexit referendum was always intended to be advisory rather than binding. Yesterday, for instance, a friend told me on Twitter, "And that 'advisory' caveat has only emerged since folk have wanted to reverse/ignore [the poll result] -- we heard no talk of it before the referendum, or when Remain were strong favourites."
He's not been aloneUnknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-200177861013445343.post-2152025568511491372016-06-24T19:13:00.002+01:002016-06-24T19:26:28.243+01:00After Brexit, what now for the North?
I was troubled last night to read people expressing delight at
the huge queues at polling booths across the UK. Such a massive turnout,
seemingly, was a triumph for democracy. I wasn't so sure. There's far more to
democracy than just casting votes, and those who act as though democracy is
something that happens but on rare occasions and purely in the privacy of the
polling booth do a Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0