Undusted Texts

 Introduction Jean de La Ceppède (c. 1550-1623) was a French nobleman, judge, and poet, best-known for his sonnet series  Theorems on the Sacred Mystery of Our Redemption , sometimes known as the  Spiritual Theorems  for short.  Below, I have given a translation of one of the best-known of these sonnets. My translation is a poetic one, which matches La Ceppède's rhyme scheme (ABAB BABA CCD EDE); for a more literal translation, see Christopher O. Blum's article on La Ceppède, "A Poet of the Passion of Christ."  To keep a rhythm and to keep the rhyme, I sometimes had to reword some of La Ceppède's lines, or omit phrases.  The last tercet is the oddest in translation, particularly the first line: "Beauty for whom this Beauty dies alove."  A literal translation of the French is "Beautiful woman for whom this beautiful man dies while loving you well."  This is far too wordy for my rhythm, hence my compression.  For the final phrase, and to ma...

At a thrift store recently, I came across a binder labelled "Sketches of Saints."  Intrigued by the find, I decided to bring it home and scan it to share it with others. Unfortunately, the artist's name appears nowhere in the portfolio.   Based on where I found the sketches and on the saints included (particularly St. Isaac Jogues and St. Frances Xavier Cabrini), I assume the artist was American.  Based on the paper's evident age and on the fact that the descriptions accompanying each sketch were prepared on a typewriter, the portfolio cannot be too new; my best guess is that it was prepared in the 1980s.  The  terminus a quo  seems to be 1982, the date of St. Maximilian Kolbe's canonization; his description classifies him as a "saint."  My only hesitation about this date is the fact that, in an accompanying chart of included saints, Maximilian Kolbe's name has an asterisk next to it, and it is printed in smaller font.  This most likely means...

 Introduction Though St. Margaret Mary Alacoque (1647-1690) is often considered the founder of devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, she was not the first to praise the Heart (though she fought to gain the Heart a feast).  Hints of this devotion can be found in earlier writers, such as St. Gertrude (1256-1302), but the best formulator of the devotion was St. John Eudes (1601-1680).  (St. John also wrote the texts of the Offices of the Sacred and Immaculate Hearts, which were celebrated in a few areas; it was St. Margaret Mary's demand that the Feast of the Sacred Heart be a universal feast, set on the first Friday after the Octave of Corpus Christi, as was eventually done.)  Hints of devotion to the Sacred Heart were already arising in France, such as in the writings of Jean de Bernières-Louvigny , but it was St. John who theologically fleshed out the devotion and its rationale.  Among earlier writers he points to is Cardinal Pierre de Bérulle (1575-1629), wit...