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First, congratulations to my friend Jeremy Strong on his Tony win.
(My post on An Enemy of the People here.)
And now for some links for you.
Movie Guy Son’s retrospective essay on Frank Capra.
It’s a Wonderful Life is arguably his best film, and it was the last film he made free of any constraints (Liberty was sold in the middle of filming of State of the Union, so he arguably had full control of that, but selling your company in the middle of filming has to have an effect, right?). He still had it in him to make great films, but he got put into boxes while the film industry changed around him.
If you don’t already subscribe to the Cultural Tutor’s Areopagus, consider doing so. Here’s the latest issue. “Seven short lessons each Friday. A beautiful education every week.”
This week, among other topics, the Cultural Tutor takes a look at a painting of Mary Magdalene, and considers writing in cultural context:
But there may be more than mere workmanship to this. According to the Gospels it was Mary Madgalene who discovered the door of Christ’s tomb rolled away, and there encountered either an angel or the resurrected Christ himself. Is the surface of Savoldo’s satin shimmering in the glow of celestial light? Perhaps! Still, whether Savoldo used this scene as an excuse to experiment with or show off his photorealistic talents, rather than using his skills to illustrate and illuminate the story itself, is another question that demands debate.
We inevitably feel like we write as our true selves, somehow independent of our cultural landscape. Morris’ idea about the unity of the arts — how the way we write is influenced by the architecture around us, and vice versa — challenges that.
Glenn Arbery on Jessica Hooten Wilson’s Why do the Heathen Rage? – an analysis of a Flannery O’Connor work left unfinished at her death. His response is arresting, giving one pause. And at least for me, the subsequent suspicion that he’s ..not wrong.
My great fear is not so much that Flannery O’Connor was racist or that she failed to get beyond her “white supremacist” upbringing (I think she did get beyond it). Rather, I fear she knew she had faltered at her calling. O’Connor was a genius at comic reversals and recognitions that have the spiritual gravity of tragedy, and Wilson has shown us a reversal that O’Connor could not make.
…they call themselves “Extensionistas.” They are the second group of sisters in our U.S.-Latin American Sisters Exchange program, and these 44 trailblazing women religious recently earned their bachelor’s or master’s degrees from St. Mary’s University of Minnesota in May.
The program invites Catholic sisters from religious congregations founded and based in Latin America to pursue a university degree as they create new ministries in Extension dioceses among the poor.
Twenty-eight sisters earned bachelor’s degrees in health care and human services management, and 16 sisters earned master’s degrees in integrated studies with focus areas in human services and pastoral care.
The sisters collectively touched tens of thousands of lives in their ministries across the poorest regions of America over the past five years. The dots in the map below show where the 150 sisters in the program have served since its inception.
On Celtics coach Joe Mazzulla’s faith.
“I’m not a basketball coach,” he responded. “I’m just a person that shows up to work everyday to help people.”
From the Diocese of Knoxville: 30 Days of Humility
The best response is to be humble. To that end, several parishioners, clergy, and seminarians from the Diocese of Knoxville have collaborated to produce a beautiful month-long examination of conscience focused on the lively virtue of humility, to equip us to truly love one another as our Lord commanded us.
The archives of America magazine from 1909-2015 are available via the Internet Archive.
Commonweal is available as well, although the collection is not as extensive.
I’ve been looking in the June-July 1926 issues for reporting on and reactions to the 1926 Eucharistic Congress.
This week’s Visual Commentary on Scripture looks at 3 works centered on Jesus calming the storm:
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The first scene blends fluidly into the second, united by the boat occupying the bulk of the composition. Within the boat (in the second scene) Christ appears again, sleeping in the midst of his disciples. The ship is reminiscent of William the Conqueror’s eleventh-century kingly vessel the Mora (seen in the Bayeux Tapestry), built in the style of Viking longships, with striped sails and lion-like carved figureheads. Christ reclines at the stern surrounded by eight men, three of whom struggle to control the vessel. The large sail strains against the wind, ropes billowing as waves jostle below. Two sailors look towards the storm; the rest look to Jesus for deliverance. Jesus rests with his eyes closed and his arm folded under his head.
Blinded by fear, the disciples consider their Saviour indifferent (Mark 4:38–40). One disciple attempts to wake Jesus. It seems that Jesus slumbers on, but look closely: Christ intervenes, extending his left hand toward the waves below, in a gesture of benediction. The gentle hand of the God-man calms the turbulent seas.