This feeling expresses itself.

church, love, quotes, ,

“People who believe in God in their own way, yet do not believe in the Church, often say, ‘Does God really need all this ritual? Why do we have to have all these formalities? We only need love, beauty and humaneness.’

“A man, on his way to the woman he loves, seeing flowers, buys them or picks them and brings them to her, never stopping to think whether this is a formality or not. Yet this is the very concept of church ritual.

“Love for God gives birth to the beauty and humanity of the ritual, which we lay, like flowers, at the feet of God. Faith is love, and the essence of Christianity is to be in love with God and to feel that the Church is His body, which has remained with us and lives with us on earth. This feeling expresses itself in actions which we call ritual.”

-Sergei Fudel, Light in the Darkness

Kursk-root icon visits Russia in 2009.

The revelation of an anti-world.

culture, history, philosophy, reality, , , , , , , , ,

The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self by Carl Trueman is a thorough treatment of the history of Expressive Individualism and what modernity has come to. The author is a good thinker and writer, but he wearied me by incorporating into his thesis every possible thought and phenomenon that might contribute to the conclusion that “We are all expressive individualists now.” It’s a long book. After a hundred pages I jumped to the last fifty pages, and read the end first, to find out if it was worth the slog. I decided it was: I read every word, and underlined thought-provoking passages on every page.

So I’m glad I read it, and I’m much more glad that Anthony Esolen read it, because his writing is not just good, but sublime, and he calls the book a “mountaintop work.” He wrote a great review, which I heartily recommend. Because you probably want to know if you really are an Expressive Individualist, right?

To Strut and Fret an Hour Upon the Stage by Anthony Esolen

Prayer of a Sojourner

poetry, prayer, Psalms, , , , , ,

 

I am a sojourner on the earth,
hide not from me Thy commandments.
My soul hath longed to desire Thy judgments at all times.
…..
Remove from me reproach and contempt,
for after thy testimonies have I sought.
For princes sat and they spake against me,
but Thy servant pondered on Thy statutes.
For Thy testimonies are my meditation,
and Thy statutes are my counsellors.
My soul hath cleaved unto the earth;
quicken me according to Thy word.
…..
My soul hath slumbered from despondency,
strengthen me with Thy words.

-From Psalm 118/119