Undusted Texts

This is a digitized VHS copy of a short 1992 educational video produced by the Eparchy of Parma's Office of Religious Education, with the help of Gemini Productions.      

In doing research on my parish's history, I have been looking through the archives of Horizons , the official newspaper/magazine of the Eparchy of Parma.  Alongside important documentation of history, there are many articles that serve as wonderful time capsules of culture.  One article reviewing the recent film The Lion King wondered if the movie was too authoritarian, too fascist, too royalist: after all, isn't the message of the film that a good, strong, rightful king can bring a decaying land back to life?   I have a mix of nostalgia and historical interest in earlier computing, from the days of mainframes like PLATO, through the early PCs like the Altair and through the BBS days, to the burgeoning Internet, and even to the days of Flash and demotivational posters.  Some of the Horizons articles play right in to that interest.  The following is an article by John Thavis from the February 11, 1996 issue of Horizons , discussing the opening of the Vatica...

It is a strange thing in the Byzantine Rite that our services for the holiest days of the year are often so liturgically ordinary .  In so many ways, they resemble the same service—Vespers, Matins, a Liturgy—that we might hold on any day of the year.  Holy Thursday has its propers and its long Gospel, but, otherwise, it is like a Vespers and Liturgy we might hold on any feast.  Holy Friday is, again, simply Vespers with an extra Gospel reading, until the unique and beautiful procession with the Shroud and the rite of entombment.  And the Paschal Liturgy is just a Liturgy, though with every possible hymn replaced with "Christ is risen!" This is not the case with every service: Holy Wednesday adds an anointing service in the middle of the Pre-Sanctified Liturgy.  The Matins services stretch their structure to the breaking point, with the Twelve Gospels of Holy Friday, the Lamentations of Holy Saturday, and the unique and glorious remix of Resurrection Matins. The ...

I've been digitizing some old Catholic (and other) VHS tapes, and I found this interesting little documentary about iconography in Macedonia: Icons: The Eyes of God (1988), produced by Sampaolo Films and published by St. Paul Video.  As it seems to be no longer available for sale, I have uploaded it to YouTube to make it available for others to view. Below is the description from the back of the case:   "Icons are among the most intricate and rich artworks in the Church. The beauty of these sacred images has awakened in people of both East and West a sense of faith and awe.  'Icons: The Eyes of God' brings you to Macedonia, the southernmost republic of Yugoslavia, a centuries-old cross-roads between East and West. From here come the Terracotta icons of first century Christianity; the resplendent colorful images of the Middle Ages—Byzantine in style; and frescoes of various churches—precursors to Giotto's style—which miraculously survived the period of Moslem dom...

 Introduction The Byzantine Rite's Vespers for Great and Holy Friday ends with a beautiful and solemn procession with the shroud, with has an image of the dead Jesus lying in the tomb; the procession ends by placing the shroud in a replica tomb.  The faithful then approach the tomb—traditionally, on their knees—to venerate the shroud.    Below is a description of this procession, which I wrote in 2015.  At the time, my parish was housed in the basement of a former convent; as we walked through the darkened halls with the shroud, we would pass an old mural of a deer in the forest ("As the hart panteth after the fountains of water, so my soul panteth after thee, O God" (Ps 42:1, Douay-Rheims)).  This is my literary recollection of this experience. Great and Holy Friday  For that night, we were outside the gates of Jerusalem, accompanying a bloodied corpse. That Missouri basement faded away as the penumbra enwrapped us and angels’ wings carried us to that...

  On the Passion of Christ Selected Texts and Excerpts from Cardinal Pierre de Bérulle Buy the Kindle Edition Here    Just in time for Holy Week, I have released a selection of writings from Cardinal Pierre de Bérulle (1575-1629) on the Passion of Christ.  This collection includes selections from his Works of Piety ( one of the included texts can be found here ), as well as two excepts from his Discourses on the State and on the Grandeurs of Jesus . To celebrate the release, I have also temporarily lowered the eBook price for my other translations from Bérulle: Life of Jesus and Elevation to Jesus Christ Regarding Saint Mary Magdalene .  Both these longer texts are currently only $1.99 for the Kindle version, instead of the usual $2.99 price; "On the Passion of Christ" is $0.99, just like my other short eBook-only releases.  As with my other eBooks, it can be read for free by subscribers to Kindle Unlimited.

  I have written much about and translated much from Cardinal Pierre de Bérulle (1575-1629).  The text below is one of his Works of Piety ; it is fitting for Lazarus Saturday and the preamble to Holy Week.  It is part of a series of texts by Bérulle on the Passion, which I hope to publish as an ebook in the next few days. EDIT: This ebook, "On the Passion of Christ," has been released , and is available here . OP LXII The Death and Resurrection of Lazarus Are the Occasion of the Death of Jesus Cardinal Pierre de Bérulle If life must die, it ought to be as an effect of life.  Jesus, then, leaves the desert of Ephraim, comes to Judea, seeks out the dead Lazarus, in order that life might battle death on a closed field, as it were, and wages, in Bethany and at the gates of Jerusalem, a particular combat, which vividly represents that grand combat that would took place a few days later, on the mount of Calvary, between life and universal death; in which the death, not of...