Best Listened to with Earphones

Here is an amazing rendition of Spem in Alium a 40-part "motet" that was written in the 1570. The song itself is amazing enough. But once you know it's one person singing all 40 parts, well... take a listen:


Here is the English translation of the Latin text:

I have never put my hope in any other but in you,
O God of Israel
who can show both anger
and graciousness,
and who absolves all the sins of suffering man
Lord God,
Creator of Heaven and Earth
be mindful of our lowliness

According to Wikipedia, the normal method of performing this work is to place the audience at the center of the church and surround them with the performers. The effect "is that of inundation, or of being completely overwhelmed." The work "is not often performed, as it requires at least forty singers capable of meeting its technical demands."

OMG

This picture (from Liz's Facebook) is hilarious! Liz and Sarah in a nutshell!

And this one so sweet... Love you guys! Can't wait til December.

Because of Luis and Maria

I came across a wonderful blog the other day called Why I Am Catholic . Each post has a headline like "Because of Dorothy Day" or "Because of My Friend Ferde". Well, Chris and I just came home from our first Supper Club that we joined at church and I decided to enter a Why I Am Catholic blog.

Everyone who was interested signed up for Supper Club, then we were placed with 3 other couples (or a mix with singles). One of the couples in our group, Luis and Maria, is in their 70's (Luis will be 80 in Nov) and were born in Peru. What a delightful time we had with everyone! But we especially enjoyed Luis and Maria. At one point we asked Luis how he met Maria. He told a story about his "Maria Christina" and when he described the moment he met her, his eyes lit up and he looked upward and said, "It was as if an angel - truly an angel! - had come down from heaven!" And the whole time he told the story, Maria's cheeks were red and she had a beautiful, loving smile on her face. On the way home I said, "If I had a blog like Why I Am Catholic I would say Because of Luis and Maria."

So here it is - a tribute to a couple who has been married close to 60 years, energetic enough to join a Supper Club, proud of each of their five sons, and truly still in love after all these years.

The Fruit of the Culture of Life

A Beautiful Quote for Mothers

A mother is the most important person on earth. She cannot claim the honor of having built Notre Dame Cathedral. She need not. She has built something more magnificent than any Cathedral -- a dwelling for an immortal soul...-- Joseph Cardinal Mindszenty

Labor Day Weekend

I've had a delightful weekend. First of all, I decided that it must only be Americans who take time off to celebrate Labor and then feel guilty if they don't do major house projects all weekend. So, I decided just to relax and not feel pressured, structured, or scheduled.

On Saturday Chris and I drove Mary to Joplin MO to meet a friend (who then drove her to Kansas City to see fellow students before she takes off for a Junior Year Abroad). Chris and I had talked about taking a drive this weekend anyway, so we decided to take the doogies with us, stay at a dog-friendly hotel, and then visit the Precious Moments Chapel.

Good News first - the chapel was really beautiful. We've driven past it now for 17 years as we traveled to Michigan, but never stopped. I pre-judged it and decided it would be expensive and tacky. Well, it was neither. As a matter of fact it was free, and a beautiful, tasteful monument to God, built by a very loving and generous man (Sam Butcher, the man who designed the Prec Mom children).
On the way home we stopped at Grand Lake, looked around a bit, ate lunch, and decided to buy a camper (not yet, but soon doggone it!).
Today we went to see Julie and Julia. I usually only smile ear-to-ear non-stop when I watch really good Disney movies or pretty much every Pixar movie. But this one had me smiling like a kid in a candy store. Meryl Streep was a joy to watch and the marriages depicted were precious.
And now I'm relaxing for yet another evening because I took tomorrow off too!! (Oh, btw, the bad news was the dogs - they were a pain! They couldn't figure out how much of the hotel they needed to protect and thus were antsy and whining until the lights were out and we went to sleep - for THAT I probably should be grateful!).

The Culture of Life

I haven't wanted to blog because I haven't wanted to distract from my previous entry. Is there a more beautiful depiction of love as the picture below, with the tear in the eye of the mother as she protects her tiny, dying child with her body's warmth and the look of tender, ever-committed love on the face of the father?

I wish I was a brilliant philosopher who could put just the right words together to express what is deep in my soul about the critical foundation to society that is being chipped away (and sometimes blasted with dynamite). Pope John Paul II called it the Culture of Life and expounded upon it with grace...

The first and most fundamental step towards...cultural transformation consists in forming consciences with regard to the incomparable and inviolable worth of every human life. It is of the greatest importance to re-establish the essential connection between life and freedom. ... There is no true freedom where life is not welcomed and loved; and there is no fullness of life except in freedom. ... Love, as a sincere gift of self, is what gives the life and freedom of the person their truest meaning.

It goes beyond defending life from conception to natural death to include respecting the dignity of others with a love that is grounded in truth. Remove the truth, as Pope Benedict recently stated, and we have "charity that degenerates into sentimentality. Love becomes an empty shell, to be filled in an arbitrary way. In a culture without truth, this is the fatal risk facing love. It falls prey to contingent subjective emotions and opinions, the word 'love' is abused and distorted, to the point where it comes to mean the opposite."

What I can do is use my simple mind to communicate the little glimpses of truth that I find in the philosophy of the Culture of Life that make my heart sing. Glimpses that I hope are not shallow and trite, but instead are simplicity on the other side of complexity, as Einstein calls it. Like this picture...

Or this quote...

We must know that we have been created for greater things...-we have been created in order to love and be loved. Mother Teresa

Or this family...