This study contributes to the revival of a more full-blooded Marian teaching and attempts to take the path set by ressourcement theology in recovering the robust voice of witness to Mary. Aidan Nichols, OP, works through the biblical, patristic, and medieval sources and introduces readers to the robust scriptural and theological bases for the Churchs celebration of Mary. He argues for the crucial relevance of Mary in the theological articulation of the gospel, the celebration and practice of the liturgy, and the sacramental life of the Church.
What happens when a former Zen Buddhist monk and his feminist wife experience an apparition of the Virgin Mary? “This book could not have come at a more auspicious time, and the message is mystical perfection, not to mention a courageous one. I adore this book.”—Caroline Myss, author of Anatomy of the Spirit Before a vision of a mysterious “Lady” invited Clark Strand and Perdita Finn to pray the rosary, they were not only uninterested in becoming Catholic but finished with institutional religion altogether. Their main spiritual concerns were the fate of the planet and the future of their children and grandchildren in an age of ecological collapse. But this Lady barely even referred to the Church and its proscriptions. Instead, she spoke of the miraculous power of the rosary to transform lives and heal the planet, and revealed the secrets she had hidden within the rosary’s prayers and mysteries—secrets of a past age when forests were the only cathedrals and people wove rose garlands for a Mother whose loving presence was as close as the ground beneath their feet. She told Strand and Finn: The rosary is My body, and My body is the body of the world. Your body is one with that body. What cause could there be for fear? Weaving together their own remarkable story of how they came to the rosary, their discoveries about the eco-feminist wisdom at the heart of this ancient devotion, and the life-changing revelations of the Lady herself, the authors reveal an ancestral path—available to everyone, religious or not—that returns us to the powerful healing rhythms of the natural world.
p.B. J. Whiting savors proverbial expressions and has devoted much of his lifetime to studying and collecting them; no one knows more about British and American proverbs than he. The present volume, based upon writings in British North America from the earliest settlements to approximately 1820, complements his and Archer Taylor's Dictionary of American Proverbs and Proverbial Phrases, 1820-1880. It differs from that work and from other standard collections, however, in that its sources are primarily not "literary" but instead workaday writings - letters, diaries, histories, travel books, political pamphlets, and the like. The authors represent a wide cross-section of the populace, from scholars and statesmen to farmers, shopkeepers, sailors, and hunters. Mr. Whiting has combed all the obvious sources and hundreds of out-of-the-way publications of local journals and historical societies. This body of material, "because it covers territory that has not been extracted and compiled in a scholarly way before, can justly be said to be the most valuable of all those that Whiting has brought together," according to Albert B. Friedman. "What makes the work important is Whiting's authority: a proverb or proverbial phrase is what BJW thinks is a proverb or proverbial phrase. There is no objective operative definition of any value, no divining rod; his tact, 'feel, ' experience, determine what's the real thing and what is spurious."
Originally published in 1972, Themes and Images in the Medieval English Religious Lyric discusses themes and images in religious lyric poetry in Medieval English poetry. The book looks at the affect that tradition and convention had on the religious poetry of the medieval period. It examines the background of the lyrics, including the Latin tradition which was inherited by medieval vernacular and shows how religious lyric poetry presents, through a rich variety of images, the significant incidents in the scheme of Christ’s redemption, such as the Annunciation, the Nativity, the Passion and the Resurrection. It also considers the lyrics which were designed to assist humanity in the task of living in a Christian life, as well as those which prepared them for death.
Committing theology to poetry is not new, but it's not wildly common. The Sunrise Liturgy aims to do just that. It is a sequence, like liturgy, with a start and a procession and a finish. The sun does the processing, and the play on sun and Son is never far from sight. Sunrise gives the cantus firmus to this theological theme and variations, where the going is by turns easy, by turns thickly polyphonic--take a deep breath! The cantus firmus shifts from voice to voice, disappearing, towards year's end, beyond the audible range of human mortals. But there are other mortals in this procession of the year, "acolytes of the Holy Impotence," and under and beside and through it all flows the St. Lawrence River, le fleuve, winding across the page, a tidal presence at once natural and mystical. As are the snow geese. As is the heron. There is an attempt to wrestle with a credible theodicy, especially environmental. There is a profound penchant for the eremitic, with nods to The Cloud of Unknowing and Gregory of Nyssa. And always there is the priestly sense of "performance," enactment, and Eucharist, for this is a priest speaking.
Smart people don’t have the problem of not having ideas, in fact, they have the problem of too many ideas. Not every idea can or should become a commercial reality. FOUND is an indispensable guide offering a proven, five-part framework to help aspiring and experienced entrepreneurs or intrapreneurs or innovators discover which of their ideas has the best chance of sustainable success. FOUND is a book for Ideation!
A man of huge reputation in his lifetime, the fifteenth century composer Binchois remains for us, at the turn of the twenty-first century, one of the key musical figures of his age. In addressing various facets of his life, music, influences, and the world he inhabited, this volume casts new light not only on this enigmatic composer himself but also on the fascinating culture in which his musical personality was shaped.
The first collection specifically of the WORDS of well-known carols since John Stainer's (shorter) volume a century ago: as good for street singers (we know the tunes already but need the words - here) as for amateur choirs, churches, homes, the family round the piano or the fire - anywhere. And with the lovely advent carols too, my favourites. A comprehensive reasonably priced compendium from across the centuries, with some funny (looney) ones too. Children and even teachers and parents, will love it.
