Personal Note: The Debilitants

I like the word, “debilitant.”  One who is debilitated.  Maybe I should have called a word of interest.  But it’s wrapped in a personal note post given that we are two debilitants here.

We have a house headed with the disabled.  A week and a half ago my wife severely sprained her ankle.  Actually the Emergency Room at the hospital thought it was fractured.  As it turned out, when she went to an orthopedist for a follow up, it turned out that what the ER saw on the x-ray was a previous hair line event that left a mark.  If anyone remembers, I had a similar experience a year and a half ago where the initial assessment on my foot was fracture but upon follow up with an orthopedist determined to be only a sprain.  I had posted here on it.  

My wife’s ankle was more severely sprained than mine.  Her ankle was swollen to almost twice the size and she’s had to wear a boot.  And it was her driving foot, which made driving impossible.  In time the swelling has come down, enough to fit her shoe on and do the necessary car excursions, such as take Matthew to school.  Special thanks to one of Matthew’s schoolmate’s mom, who picked up and drove Matthew to school for a week.

How did this sprain occur?  Well, you remember our dog Rosie? 

She is probably the most hyperactive, annoying dog we’ve ever had.  I can’t even begin to list what she’s done.  I’ll reserve her own post for that.  And to be fair, she is a sweet and affectionate dog.  It’s just that she’s so darn persistent at whatever she sets her mind on.  What happened was that after a morning walk, my wife was stopped in front of the house facing in a particular direction.  Rosie was facing roughly ninety degrees in another direction.  She saw some critter.  Could have been a squirrel or a cat, not sure what.  My wife was not expecting Rosie to pull.  When Rosie saw another animal, her desire is to run to greet it.  She pulled and my wife being off directional was twisted around and down.  She didn’t fall to the ground but I think she said she caught herself on Rosie’s back.  By mid-day her ankle had swelled and was in such pain she needed to go to the ER.  It’s finally at a point where she can walk for a little ore than a few minutes.

What’s my disability?  Well, I have a hernia.  Hernia specialist called it a “left inguinal hernia.”  How did I get it?  I’ll tell you how I think I got, but doctor didn’t think it caused it.  It was last August.  I was walking down the stairs from our upstairs while carrying Tiger’s litter box.  I couldn’t exactly see each step since it’s a little bulky.  But I’ve come down those steps millions of times in the 20-something years of living here.  What I didn’t count on was my son had left some of his notebooks on the steps.  Like a perfect cartoon sketch, my foot slid with the book and I went bouncing down the steps.  I landed on my behind and bounced down about six steps, my behind smacking each step.  With each bounce on a step, I could feel my belly jiggle like a rubber band.  The next day my behind was sore, but three days later I felt a pain in my belly.  And the pain spread to my groin, and it wouldn’t go away. 

It wasn’t excruciating pain, just a nagging ache.  Six months later I went for a physical and doctor thought I had hernia.  He sent me to a hernia specialist, and he confirmed it.  He said it was mild to moderate.  Doctor thought it was more a genetic predisposition.  One of my grandfathers did have a hernia.  Perhaps both are true, a predisposition and the bouncing on my tush which activated it.  Who knows?

Well, on Monday the 23^rd I’ll be going in for a repair surgery.  It’s supposed to be less than an hour procedure: three incisions and placing a mesh that reinforces the abdominal muscles.  I think I’ll be in good hands.  The doctor preforming the procedure is actually quoted in the WebMD article on it.  Look on the second page, my hernia specialist is that Dr. Michael Costellano.

Still no one ever knows when one goes in for an operation.  Look at what happened to Joan Rivers.  So while I don’t usually ask for prayers for me, I could use a few on Monday.

Music Tuesday: Songs from Boëthius’ “Consolation of Philosophy”

For many years now I have been fascinated by and have fallen in love with medieval music.  Back in April, songs reconstructed from a 1000 year old text that had been lost since the middle of the 19^th century was performed at Cambridge.  From the University of Cambridge website: 

‘Songs of Consolation’, to be performed at Pembroke College Chapel, Cambridge on April 23, is reconstructed from neumes (symbols representing musical notation in the Middle Ages) and draws heavily on an 11th century manuscript leaf that was stolen from Cambridge and presumed lost for 142 years.

Saturday’s performance features music set to the poetic portions of Roman philosopher Boethius’ magnum opus The Consolation of Philosophy. One of the most widely-read and important works of the Middle Ages, it was written during Boethius’ sixth century imprisonment, before his execution for treason. Such was its importance, it was translated by many major figures, including King Alfred the Great, Chaucer and Elizabeth I.

Hundreds of Latin songs were recorded in neumes from the 9th through to the 13th century. These included passages from the classics by Horace and Virgil, late antique authors such as Boethius, and medieval texts from laments to love songs.  

Two short excerpts were let out to the public.  Here’s one, titled, “Heu quam praecipiti.”

AniciusManlius Severinus Boëthius was a fifth to sixth century Roman Senator, administrator, and philosopher who had reached the highest office under the current King of Italy, which had fragmented from the western portion of the Roman Empire.  Boëthius was born in 480, just four years from when the Latin half of the Roman Empire had collapsed.  Suddenly in 523 the King impulsively and unjustly suspected his underling had become treasonous, imprisoned him, and executed in in 524.  While in prison awaiting his execution, Boëthius composed his most famous philosophic work, TheConsolation of Philosophy.    

The Consolation of Philosophy deals with life’s uncertainties and that ultimately one has to rest one’s faith not in fame or things of this world, but upon the one true good, God.  It’s one of those works that has been on my reading list for a while, but I never seem to squeeze it into my reading.

The songs were composed several hundred years after Boëthius’s death but based on his text.  From the Cambridge article:

After piecing together an estimated 80-90 per cent of what can be known about the melodies for The Consolation of Philosophy, Barrett enlisted the help of Benjamin Bagby of Sequentia – a three-piece group of experienced performers who have built up their own working memory of medieval song.

Bagby, co-founder of Sequentia, is also a director of the Lost Songs Project which is already credited with bringing back to life repertoires from Beowulf through to the Carmina Burana.

Over the last two years, Bagby and Barrett have experimented by testing scholarly theories against the practical requirements of hand and voice, exploring the possibilities offered by accompaniment on period instruments. Working step-by-step, and joined recently by another member of Sequentia, the harpist-singer Hanna Marti, songs from The Consolation of Philosophy have now been brought back to life.

Oh I love Sequentia.  I have a few of their recordings.  I do hope they eventually record the entire composition and put it out for sale.  Here is the other excerpt put out for the public, titled “Carmina qui quondam.”

Just lovely.

The Interior Castle by St. Theresa of Avila, Part 3

I'm finally getting back to posting on The Interior Castle.  Here were my observations for the fourth and fifth mansions from the Goodreads Catholic Thought book club discussions on St. Theresa of Avila's Interior Castle.

You can read Part 1, here.  

You can read Part 2, here.

You can also read The Interior Castle on line, here.

Fourth Mansion

As couple of people have mentioned already, the fourth mansion starts a different mode in the journey for Theresa.  One of the things I look for when I read is a structure to the work.  The first three mansions as I see it comprise a unit, what I labeled in my book as the human effort mode.  Each mansion in the first three requires an ongoing and increasingly greater effort on the part of the individual to progress.  Each mansion then is an incremental gradation toward spiritual fulfillment.  Once we get to the fourth mansion all human effort has been maximized and further progress requires divine grace.  Progress from here can only be as a result of God’s increasing his grace to the individual.  From mansions four onward I called this unit the supernatural assisted mode, though one might possibly split off the seventh mansion into its own unit.  I need to think a little more on that last point.  Early in the first chapter she says:

“It seems that, in order to reach these Mansions, one must have lived for a long time in the others; as a rule one must have been in those which we have just described, but there is no infallible rule about it, as you must often have heard, for the Lord gives when He wills and as He wills and to whom He wills, and, as the gifts are His own, this is doing no injustice to anyone.”

So in order to get to the fourth mansion, you would have needed to labor through the first three for quite a while.  And at some point it seems God wills you into the fourth. 

“It seems to me that the feelings which come to us from Divine things are as purely natural as these, except that their source is nobler, although these worldly joys are in no way bad. To put it briefly, worldly joys have their source in our own nature and end in God, whereas spiritual consolations have their source in God, but we experience them in a natural way and enjoy them as much as we enjoy those I have already mentioned, and indeed much more. Oh, Jesus! How I wish I could make myself clear about this! For I think I can see a very marked difference between these two things and yet I am not clever enough to make my meaning plain: may the Lord explain it for me!”

She then tells us about when she first reached the fourth mansion:

“My own experience of this state -- I mean of these favours and this sweetness in meditation -- was that, if I began to weep over the Passion, I could not stop until I had a splitting headache; and the same thing happened when I wept for my sins. This was a great grace granted me by Our Lord, and I will not for the moment examine each of these favours and decide which is the better of the two; I wish, however, that I could explain the difference between them. In the state I am now describing, the tears and longings sometimes arise partly from our nature and from the state of preparedness we are in; but nevertheless, as I have said, they eventually lead one to God. And this is an experience to be greatly prized, provided the soul be humble, and can understand that it does not make it any the more virtuous; for it is impossible to be sure that these feelings are effects of love, and, even so, they are a gift of God.”

I can’t say I understand it.  The headache—and later in the chapter she describes the noises in her head as a “brimming river”—and the weeping over the Passion signals a new state.  One reaches it through ”preparedness,” of which I assume are the labors of the first three mansions and through God’s gift.

Now if anyone thinks I’m off here, please correct me.  I don’t want to sound like I’m confident in my reading.  I’m not.

As Kerstin mentioned above, there is a lot of water and river metaphor in this mansion.  In chapter two of the fourth mansion she refers to two fountains, each filling a basin. 

“To understand it better, let us suppose that we are looking at two fountains, the basins of which can be filled with water. There are certain spiritual things which I can find no way of explaining more aptly than by this element of water; for, as I am very ignorant, and my wits give me no help, and I am so fond of this element, I have observed it more attentively than anything else. In all the things that have been created by so great and wise a God there must be many secrets by which we can profit, and those who understand them do profit by them, although I believe that in every little thing created by God there is more than we realize, even in so small a thing as a tiny ant.

These two large basins can be filled with water in different ways: the water in the one comes from a long distance, by means of numerous conduits and through human skill; but the other has been constructed at the very source of the water and fills without making any noise. If the flow of water is abundant, as in the case we are speaking of, a great stream still runs from it after it has been filled; no skill is necessary here, and no conduits have to be made, for the water is flowing all the time. The difference between this and the carrying of the water by means of conduits is, I think, as follows. The latter corresponds to the spiritual sweetness which, as I say, is produced by meditation. It reaches us by way of the thoughts; we meditate upon created things and fatigue the understanding; and when at last, by means of our own efforts, it comes, the satisfaction which it brings to the soul fills the basin, but in doing so makes a noise, as I have said.

To the other fountain the water comes direct from its source, which is God, and, when it is His Majesty's will and He is pleased to grant us some supernatural favour, its coming is accompanied by the greatest peace and quietness and sweetness within ourselves -- I cannot say where it arises or how. And that content and delight are not felt, as earthly delights are felt, in the heart -- I mean not at the outset, for later the basin becomes completely filled, and then this water begins to overflow all the Mansions and faculties, until it reaches the body. It is for that reason that I said it has its source in God and ends in ourselves -- for it is certain, and anyone will know this who has experienced it, that the whole of the outer man enjoys this consolation and sweetness.”

Now let me see if I get this straight, and [lease correct me if you think I’m wrong.  The first fountain, the one where the water comes from aqueducts, that is

Before we ended the fourth mansion I wanted to touch on the last chapter.  Chapter three of the fourth mansion is also important and perhaps we should identify a couple of points.  Here’s the point about seeking God inside oneself:

“I do not think I have ever explained this before as clearly as here. When we are seeking God within ourselves (where He is found more effectively and more profitably than in the creatures, to quote Saint Augustine, who, after having sought Him in many places, found Him within) it is a great help if God grants us this favour. Do not suppose that the understanding can attain to Him, merely by trying to think of Him as within the soul, or the imagination, by picturing Him as there. This is a good habit and an excellent kind of meditation, for it is founded upon a truth -- namely, that God is within us. But it is not the kind of prayer that I have in mind, for anyone (with the help of the Lord, you understand) can practise it for himself. What I am describing is quite different. These people are sometimes in the castle before they have begun to think about God at all. I cannot say where they entered it or how they heard their Shepherd's call: it was certainly not with their ears, for outwardly such a call is not audible. They become markedly conscious that they are gradually retiring within themselves; anyone who experiences this will discover what I mean: I cannot explain it better. I think I have read that they are like a hedgehog or a tortoise withdrawing into itself; and whoever wrote that must have understood it well. These creatures, however, enter within themselves whenever they like; whereas with us it is not a question of our will -- it happens only when God is pleased to grant us this favour. For my own part, I believe that, when His Majesty grants it, He does so to people who are already leaving the things of the world. I do not mean that people who are married must actually leave the world -- they can do so only in desire: His call to them is a special one and aims at making them intent upon interior things. I believe, however, that if we wish to give His Majesty free course, He will grant more than this to those whom He is beginning to call still higher.”

Again she makes it very clear that you can’t get to the God inside you on your own; it has to be granted.  Further she distinguishes between the Prayer of Quiet, which the prayer directly from the source, and the Prayer of Recollection, which is the one that one that comes through aquaducts.

“As I understand it, the soul whom the Lord has been pleased to lead into this Mansion will do best to act as I have said. Let it try, without forcing itself or causing any turmoil, to put a stop to all discursive reasoning, yet not to suspend the understanding, nor to cease from all thought, though it is well for it to remember that it is in God's presence and Who this God is. If feeling this should lead it into a state of absorption, well and good; but it should not try to understand what this state is, because that is a gift bestowed upon the will. The will, then, should be left to enjoy it, and should not labour except for uttering a few loving words, for although in such a case one may not be striving to cease from thought, such cessation often comes, though for a very short time.

I have explained elsewhere the reason why this occurs in this kind of prayer (I am referring to the kind which I began to explain in this Mansion). With it I have included this Prayer of Recollection which ought to have been described first, for it comes far below the consolations of God already mentioned, and is indeed the first step towards attaining them. For in the Prayer of Recollection it is unnecessary to abandon meditation and the activities of the understanding. When, instead of coming through conduits, the water springs directly from its source, the understanding checks its activity, or rather the activity is checked for it when it finds it cannot understand what it desires, and thus it roams about all over the place, like a demented creature, and can settle down to nothing. The will is fixed so firmly upon its God that this disturbed condition of the understanding causes it great distress; but it must not take any notice of this, for if it does so it will lose a great part of what it is enjoying; it must forget about it, and abandon itself into the arms of love, and His Majesty will teach it what to do next; almost its whole work is to realize its unworthiness to receive such great good and to occupy itself in thanksgiving.”

I grant you it is very confusing.  Unfortunately St. Theresa jumps around and refers back to previous works and assumes we know them.  So if I have correctly unwound her logic here, the water, which signifies consolations I think, from the prayer of recollection fills together from that of the Prayer of Quiet, all of which over flows the basin and infuses the soul.  If I have this wrong, someone please correct me.

Fifth Mansion

There are a few sections in the Fifth Mansion that are of note.  In the second paragraph of the first chapter, she says:

“So I must say here that, though all of us who wear this sacred habit of Carmel are called to prayer and contemplation -- because that was the first principle of our Order and because we are descendent upon the line of those holy Fathers of ours from Mount Carmel who sought this treasure, this precious pearl of which we speak, in such great solitude and with such contempt for the world -- few of us prepare ourselves for the Lord to reveal it to us. As far as externals are concerned, we are on the right road to attaining the essential virtues; but we shall need to do a very great deal before we can attain to this higher state and we must on no account be careless. So let us pause here, my sisters, and beg the Lord that, since to some extent it is possible for us to enjoy Heaven upon earth, He will grant us His help so that it will not be our fault if we miss anything may He also show us the road and give strength to our souls so that we may dig until we find this hidden treasure, since it is quite true that we have it within ourselves. This I should like to explain if the Lord is pleased to give me the knowledge.”

So since God graces those to enter beyond the fourth mansion, it still will require a lot of work to go beyond, and there is still the danger that one might regress.  The soul in the fifth mansion goes beyond the dream-like state of the fourth:

“Do not think it is a state, like the last, in which we dream; I say "dream", because the soul seems to be, as it were, drowsy, so that it neither seems asleep nor feels awake. Here we are all asleep, and fast asleep, to the things of the world, and to ourselves (in fact, for the short time that the condition lasts, the soul is without consciousness and has no power to think, even though it may desire to do so). There is no need now for it to devise any method of suspending the thought. Even in loving, if it is able to love, it cannot understand how or what it is that it loves, nor what it would desire; in fact, it has completely died to the world so that it may live more fully in God. This is a delectable death, a snatching of the soul from all the activities which it can perform while it is in the body; a death full of delight, for, in order to come closer to God, the soul appears to have withdrawn so far from the body that I do not know if it has still life enough to be able to breathe. I have just been thinking about this and I believe it has not; or at least, if it still breathes, it does so without realizing it. The mind would like to occupy itself wholly in understanding something of what it feels, and, as it has not the strength to do this, it becomes so dumbfounded that, even if any consciousness remains to it, neither hands nor feet can move; as we commonly say of a person who has fallen into a swoon, it might be taken for dead. Oh, the secrets of God!  I should never weary of trying to describe them to you, if I thought I could do so successfully.”

And then at the end of the chapter she makes one of her most important points of all:

“I recall that, as you have heard, the Bride in the Songs says: "The King brought me" (or "put me", I think the words are) "into the cellar of wine." It does not say that she went. It also says that she was wandering about in all directions seeking her Beloved. This, as I understand it, is the cellar where the Lord is pleased to put us, when He wills and as He wills. But we cannot enter by any efforts of our own; His Majesty must put us right into the centre of our soul, and must enter there Himself; and, in order that He may the better show us His wonders, it is His pleasure that our will, which has entirely surrendered itself to Him, should have no part in this. Nor does He desire the door of the faculties and senses, which are all asleep, to be opened to Him; He will come into the centre of the soul without using a door, as He did when He came in to His disciples, and said Pax vobis, and when He left the sepulchre without removing the stone. Later on you will see how it is His Majesty's will that the soul should have fruition of Him in its very centre, but you will be able to realize that in the last Mansion much better than here.”

So Christ in this state puts one in the center of the soul, and, even more importantly, one finds Christ there.  Christ has entered the center of our soul, and we are there with Him.

Matthew mentioned the silkworm metaphor that's in the fifth mansion.  There is one more thing that should be highlighted here.  In the fourth chapter St. Theresa explains how the Prayer of Union will lead to the spiritual marriage:

"I want to explain to you still further what I think this Prayer of Union is; and I will make a comparison as well as my wit will allow. Afterwards we will say more about this little butterfly, which never rests -- though it is always fruitful in doing good to itself and to other souls -- because it has not yet found true repose. You will often have heard that God betrothes Himself to souls spiritually. Blessed be His mercy, which is pleased so to humble itself! I am only making a rough comparison, but I can find no other which will better explain what I am trying to say than the Sacrament of Matrimony. The two things work differently, for in this matter which we are treating there is nothing that is not spiritual: corporeal union is quite another thing and the spiritual joys and consolations given by the Lord are a thousand leagues removed from those experienced in marriage. It is all a union of love with love, and its operations are entirely pure, and so delicate and gentle that there is no way of describing them; but the Lord can make the soul very deeply conscious of them."

Marriage with God is not original with St. Theresa.  I know St. Catherine of Siena had a spiritual marriage with Christ, and somehow I seem to think I recall other saints claiming similar, though I'm not a hundred percent certain.  It seems to be an extension of allegory of God's love in the Song of Songs, the allegory being the physical love described represents spiritual love.  With St. Catherine it was an actual marriage, with an invisible wedding ring.  Do you think with St. Theresa it's just metaphor?  I can't quite tell.  She continues in the next paragraph to say the betrothal will occur later (I think it will be the seventh mansion)

"It seems to me that this union has not yet reached the point of spiritual betrothal, but is rather like what happens in our earthly life when two people are about to be betrothed. There is a discussion as to whether or no they are suited to each other and are both in love; and then they meet again so that they may learn to appreciate each other better. So it is here. The contract is already drawn up and the soul has been clearly given to understand the happiness of her lot and is determined to do all the will of her Spouse in every way in which she sees that she can give Him pleasure. His Majesty, Who will know quite well if this is the case, is pleased with the soul, so He grants her this mercy, desiring that she shall get to know Him better, and that, as we may say, they shall meet together, and He shall unite her with Himself.  We can compare this kind of union to a short meeting of that nature because it is over in the very shortest time. All giving and taking have now come to an end and in a secret way the soul sees Who this Spouse is that she is to take. By means of the senses and faculties she could not understand in a thousand years what she understands in this way in the briefest space of time."

I find it strange that she says "there is a discussion to see if they are suited for each other."  Who would tell God, I'm not suited for you?  LOL.  Very interesting.

Word of the Day: Scorbutic

I haven’t had a “Word of the Day” post in quite a while.  I never posted them every day to begin with, so it’s not exactly precisely denominated.  I should have called them “Word of Interest” or something like that.  Perhaps I’ll do so in the future.

Why is “scorbutic” a word of interest?  It caught my eye while reading a short story, “A House of Gentlefolks,” by Evelyn Waugh.  I’ve never seen the word before, and one usually runs across words that obscure in non-fiction, not fiction.  Waugh obviously is a very erudite man who loves to challenge readers from his deep well of diction.  Here is the passage with the word.  It comes from the opening paragraphs of the story.

I arrived in Vanburgh at five to one.  It was raining hard by now and the dreary little station yard was empty except for a deserted and draughty-looking taxi.  They might have sent a car for me. 

How far was it to Stayle?  About three miles, the ticket collector told me.  Which part of Stayle might I be wanting?  The Duke’s?  That was a good mile the other side of the village.

They really might have sent a car.

With a little difficulty I found the driver of the taxi, a sulky and scorbutic young man who may well have been the bully of some long-forgotten school story.  It was some consolation to feel that he must be getting wetter than I.  It was a beastly drive.

The only work of Waugh’s I’ve ever read before was his novel, Brideshead Revisited, a truly great English novel of the 20^th century.  This is the first I’ve read of his short stories, and I have to say I’m impressed.  I picked this story at random but with an eye toward an early work.  “A House of Gentlefolks” is listed as having been first published in 1927.  Without getting into a deep analysis—and this is not a highly complicated story with intricate nuances, but just a well written piece—we have a narrator, Ernest Vaughan, who is a young man being hired to tutor the Duke’s mentally underdeveloped grandson with a tour of Europe.  The grandson is a young man himself of eighteen.  The Duke, his wife, and his sister-in-law, all aged, are in reduced terms, despite the aristocratic titles.  The key detail that we learn is that the story is set a good ten years after the war, that is, World War I, of course, which would have started in 1914.  This is a post war story, a story of a declined Britain.  Indeed the town of Stayle is dilapidated, and noticeably puns with the word “stale.”  The story is bracketed with characters who are too young and too old to have served.  The in between, such as the Duke’s footmen, “have been killed in the war.” 

Which brings us to the scorbutic taxi driver.  The taxi driver is a minor character.  The drive in from the station serves only as an entry point for the story.  Once the narrator is dropped off at the Duke’s, the driver disappears.  So why such a distinct detail as being scorbutic, and what exactly does it mean?

It sounded like some sort of disease when I read it and didn’t recognize it, and that’s what it is.  From Dictionary.com

Scorbutic or scorbutical

[skawr-byoo-tik]

adjective, Pathology.

1.

pertaining to, of the nature of, or affected with scurvy.

Word Origin

1645-55; < New Latin scorbūticus, equivalent to Medieval Latin scorbūt (us) scurvy (≪ Middle Low German scorbûk) + -icus –ic

Well, I do know what scurvy is: a disease acquired from the deficiency of vitamin C.  It was prevalent among sailors who went on long sea voyages and did not supplement their diet with foods rich in the vitamin.  What does a scorbutic person look like?  Well, here is a medical sketch:

It effects the gums and teeth most, and laves the person lethargic and weak.  So why is the taxi driver assumed to have this disease?  First, the taxi driver’s disease echoes and foreshadows the mentally diseased grandson on which the story will hinge.  Second, it shows a society that has been reduced to malnutrition.  And third, it’s a detail that can be projected on to the current state of the British Empire, sickened and debilitated.  It’s a wonderfully placed detail, pregnant with meaning.

Music Tuesday: “When Doves Cry” by Prince

I’m sure everyone by now has heard that the pop music star Prince Rogers Nelson, commonly known as simply, Prince, passed away a week and a half ago on April 21.  Actually it was the same day my beloved uncle Val passed away as well, but that’s another story.  I’m not going to do a full blown retrospective post on Prince.  I don’t have the time and frankly I don’t know the depth of his music well.  I have a greatest hits collection, and I do think highly of a number of his songs.  Even though he’s a flashy, over the top showman, he really was very talented, both as a virtuoso and a song composer. 

The Washington Post had a fine obituary:

Born Prince Rogers Nelson in Minneapolis on June 7, 1958, the trailblazing performer sold more than 100 million records over his career, fusing rock, pop, funk and R&B and demonstrating an audacious, idiosyncratic sense of style and a willingness to court controversy. A Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee, he won seven Grammy Awards and an Academy Award for original song score for the 1984 film “Purple Rain.”

Prince married twice, first to his backup singer and dancer Mayte Garcia in 1996, then again to Manuela Testolini in 2001. He had a son with Garcia; the boy died a week after birth. Before, between and after his marriages, he was romantically linked to many celebrities and musical collaborators, including Madonna and Kim Basinger.

A highly prolific and restless artist who blended androgynous sexuality with impeccable pop craftsmanship, Prince released more than three dozen albums over his four-decade career. He scored more than 50 Top 40 hits around the world since 1979, including such songs as “When Doves Cry,” “1999,” “Little Red Corvette” and “Raspberry Beret.”

Drawn to music from a young age, in part as a way to escape a turbulent home life, he wrote his first song on his father's piano when he was just 7 years old.

I do want to highlight this one song because it’s been one of my all-time favorite songs from the day it was released.  Sometimes you get tired of hearing a song after a while, even though it might be a great song, but I never get tired of listening to “When Doves Cry.”  

First listen to the song.

If you read the Wikipedia entry for the song, it says that Spin magazine ranked “When Doves Cry” as the “sixth greatest single of all time.”  Wow, that’s some accolade.  You know what, I don’t know about sixth but it’s up there as the greatest pop-rock song of all time.  Why do I think that?  (1) The layered melody is just outstanding, (2) the instrumentation is excellent, and Prince played all the instruments himself, (3) the lyrics are not only poetic and fascinating but have a psychological depth you just don’t find in a pop song, and (4) the syncopated rhythm just consumes the listener.  And it all works together, the melody and rhythm and instrumentation work into the narrative conflict between the singer and his lover, layered with the psychological transference of his parent’s personalities.    

Here are the first two stanzas of the lyrics to this great song:

Dig if you will the picture

Of you and I engaged in a kiss

The sweat of your body covers me

Can you my darling

Can you picture this?

Dream if you can a courtyard

An ocean of violets in bloom

Animals strike curious poses

They feel the heat

The heat between me and you

How can you just leave me standing?

Alone in a world that's so cold? (So cold)

Maybe I'm just too demanding

Maybe I'm just like my father too bold

Maybe you're just like my mother

She's never satisfied (She's never satisfied)

Why do we scream at each other

This is what it sounds like

When doves cry

Touch if you will my stomach

Feel how it trembles inside

You've got the butterflies all tied up

Don't make me chase you

Even doves have pride

How can you just leave me standing?

Alone in a world so cold? (World so cold)

Maybe I'm just too demanding

Maybe I'm just like my father too bold

Maybe you're just like my mother

She's never satisfied (She's never satisfied)

Why do we scream at each other

This is what it sounds like

When doves cry

Read the rest of the lyrics at| MetroLyrics

Talented, bold, unafraid, it’s a shame Prince died so young.  He wrote and played jazz, pop, gospel, dance, blues, rock.  He wrote music for the great jazz trumpet player, Miles Davis.  He was comfortable and exquisite in all musical forms.  May he rest in peace.  

Poem, “The One Who Calls Us Friends” by St. Catherine of Siena

Today is St. Catherine of Siena’s feast day.  She is the patron saint of this blog.  I came across this poem in the April 2016 edition of the devotional magazine Magnificat, supposedly written by St. Catherine herself.  The poem was translated by Dr. Lisa M. Vitale of Southern Connecticut University and published in 2012. I hope she doesn’t mind me posting it.

I’m not actually sure where St. Catherine wrote this.  It looks like it’s one of her prayers, which you can read in translation by Suzzane Nofke in The Prayers of Catherine of Siena.  Magnificat credits the work in something called Magliabechiano-Strozziana XXXVIII.  I just don’t know what that is. 

Here is the poem:

The One Who Calls Us Friends

Oh transformed love

  Of Lord God servant and Creator created

  Too much of a dark thing it appears

  Seeing God so humbled

Thinking of your greatness oh my Lord

  The heart lowers itself in the body I shake so

  Seeing you mortal man being God

  Enclosed in the womb of a poor young girl

  My faith turns to nothing

  Thinking of your greatness so removed

  If not it appears that ease opposed

  Crying out God, God, you are crazy

And with enflamed desire

  You go searching for who the young woman is

  Who in herself enclosed this true Word

  With the eyes of the mind of a girl

  I see she is closed in a cell

  Alone worthy of having him

  Such a humble daughter

  Who joined the lover to the loved

And I looking at this holy Virgin

  In whom I see no flaw

  Looking at her from her head down to her feet

  So the more I look at her the more she gives me delight

  Pregnant in appearance

  She shows me and is always with eyes lowered

  And I her servant she makes

  And I find myself bound by her love.

I see well what commodity and the cost of you

  The price that cost you when

  The good Jesus was put on the cross for you

  In order that he pay for you the infernal banishment

  To the heart goes sighing

  Looking up at Jesus on the cross and strongly languishing

  She looks at the shed blood

  With which you were repurchased from death.

It’s interesting that St. Catherine sees the young Virgin “closed in a cell” (l. 17).  Catherine herself was closed in a cell for a number of years as a young woman, partly self-imposed but partly because she refused to marry and that is where her parents forced her to live.

Keep St. Catherine of Siena in mind on her feast day.  And do look up some of her wonderful works.  And kudos to Dr. Vitale for this.  It’s not easy to translate poetry.

St. Catherine of Siena on TV

As readers of this blog should know, St. Catherine of Siena has become my personal patron saint and is the patron saint of this blog.  I try to promote this wonderful woman wherever I can.  April 29^th is her feast day, and I’ll hope to post something of her wisdom for that day.

 EWTN, the Catholic TV station, will be airing a special on her Sunday night, with a couple of rebroadcasts throughout the week.  I have not seen it nor could I find a trailer, but it’s only an hour and if you have the interest to learn something about this brilliant woman I urge you to see it.  Scheduled broadcasts are the following:   

ST. CATHERINE OF SIENA

Date                            Time

Sunday, 04/24             10:00 PM

Thursday, 04/28          05:00 AM

Friday, 04/29               10:00 AM

Saturday, 04/30           01:00 AM

Reenactments and dramatized recitations of St. Catherine of Siena’s most influential works and writings. An EWTN original docu-drama, filmed on location in Italy

That’s Sunday night. If you live outside the United States, then it may be on at a different day and time.  

Some of St. Catherine’s honors include, Doctor of the Church, Co-Patron Saint of Rome and Italy and Europe.  One of the earliest female writer to be published, convinced Pope Gregory XI to return to Rome after the Papacy had moved to Avignon for 68 years, received the stigmata, and was a Dominican Tertiary.  She wrote a mystical work on theology called The Dialogue, nearly 400 letters, and a collection of prayers.  She really is one of the giants of Catholicism.