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greatworldwar2 · 3 years

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• Jean Moulin

Jean Pierre Moulin was a French civil servant who served as the first President of the National Council of the Resistance during World War II.

Jean Moulin was born at 6 Rue d'Alsace in Béziers, Hérault on June 20th, 1899, son of Antoine-Émile Moulin and Blanche Élisabeth Pègue. He was the grandson of an insurgent of 1851. His father was a lay teacher at the Université Populaire and a Freemason at the lodge Action Sociale. Jean Pierre Moulin was baptised on August 6th, 1899 in the church of Saint-Vincentin in Saint-Andiol (Bouches-du-Rhône), the village his parents came from. He spent an uneventful childhood in the company of his sister, Laure, and his brother Joseph. Joseph died after an illness in 1907. At Lycée Henri IV in Béziers, Jean was an average student. In 1917, he enrolled at the Faculty of Law of Montpellier, where he was not a brilliant student. However, thanks to the influence of his father, he was appointed as attaché to the cabinet of the prefect of Hérault. Moulin was mobilised in April 1918 as part of the age class of 1919, the last class to be mobilised in France. He was assigned to the 2nd Engineer Regiment of Montpellier. At the beginning of September, after an accelerated training, he headed with his regiment to the front in the Vosges, where he was posted in the village of Socourt. His regiment was preparing to go to the front lines as part of the attack planned by Foch for November 13th, but the Armistice was signed on November 11th.

Although Moulin did not fight directly on the front lines, he nevertheless was in a position to observe the horrors of war. He saw its aftermath on the battle fields, the devastation of villages and the state of prisoners of war. He helped to bury the war dead in the area around Metz. While still enlisted after the War, he was posted successively to Seine-et-Oise, Verdun and Chalon-sur-Saône. He worked as a carpenter, a digger and later a telephonist for the 7th and 9th Engineer Regiments. He was de-mobilised in November and, on November 4th, 1919, immediately resumed his post as attache at the prefecture of Hérault. After World War I, Moulin resumed his studies of law. His position as attache allowed him to finance his university studies as well as providing a useful apprenticeship in politics and government. He obtained his law degree in July 1921, He then entered the prefectural administration as chief of staff to the deputy of Savoie in 1922 and then sous-préfet of Albertville from 1925 to 1930. After his proposal of marriage was rejected by Jeanette Auran, Moulin, aged 27, married a 19-year-old professional singer, Marguerite Cerruti, in the town of Betton-Bettonet in September 1926. The marriage did not last long. Cerruti quickly became bored with the marriage, and Moulin responded by offering her further singing lessons in Paris, where she disappeared for two days. Moulin was appointed sous-préfet of Châteaulin, Brittany in 1930, but he also drew political cartoons for the newspaper Le Rire under the pseudonym Romanin. In 1932, Pierre Cot, a Radical Socialist politician, named Moulin his second in command or chef adjoint when he was serving as Foreign Minister under Paul Doumer's presidency. In 1933, Moulin was appointed sous-préfet of Thonon-les-Bains, parallel to his function of head of Cot's cabinet of in the Air Ministry under President Albert Lebrun. In 1936, he was once more named chief of cabinet of Cot's Air Ministry of the Popular Front. In that capacity, Moulin was involved in Cot's efforts to assist the Second Spanish Republic by sending it planes and pilots.

He became France's youngest préfet in the Aveyron département, based in the commune of Rodez, in January 1937. It has been claimed that during the Spanish Civil War, Moulin assisted with the shipment of arms from the Soviet Union to Spain. A more commonly-accepted version of events is that he used his position in the French air ministry to deliver planes to the Spanish Republican forces. In January 1939, Moulin was appointed prefect of the Eure-et-Loir department. He was based in Chartres. After war against Germany was declared, he asked multiple times to be demoted because " his place is not at the rear, at the head of a rural departement". Against the opinion of the Minister of the Interior, he asked to be transferred to the military school of Issy-Les-Moulineaux, near Paris. The minister forced him to return to Chartres, where he had trouble ensuring the safety of the population. When the Germans got close to Chartres, he wrote to his parents, "If the Germans who are able to do anything make me say dishonorable words, you already know, it is not the truth". He was arrested by the Germans on June 17th, 1940, as he refused to sign a false declaration that three Senegalese tirailleurs had committed atrocities, killing civilians in La Taye. In fact, those civilians had been killed by German bombings. Beaten and imprisoned because he refused to comply, Moulin attempted suicide by cutting his throat with a piece of broken glass. That left him with a scar he would often hide with a scarf, which is the image of Jean Moulin remembered today. He was found by a guard and taken to hospital for treatment. Because he was a Radical, he was dismissed by the Vichy regime, led by Marshal Philippe Pétain on November 2nd, 1940, along with all other left-wing préfets. He then began writing his diary, First Battle, in which he relates his resistance against the Nazis in Chartres, which was later published at the Liberation and prefaced by de Gaulle.

Having decided not to collaborate, Moulin left Chartres for Saint-Andiol, Bouches-du-Rhône, to study and join the French Resistance, and he decided to negotiate with Free France. He started to use the name Joseph Jean Mercier and went to Marseille, where he met other resistants, including Henri Frenay and Antoine Sachs. Moulin reached London in September 1941 after travelling through Spain and Portugal, and he was received in October by De Gaulle, who wrote about Moulin, "A great man. Great in every way". Moulin summarised the state of the French Resistance to de Gaulle. Part of the Resistance considered him too ambitious, but de Gaulle had confidence in his network and skills. He gave Moulin the assignment of co-ordinating and unifying the various Resistance groups, a hard mission that would take time and effort to accomplish. On January 1st, 1942, Moulin parachuted into the Alpilles and met with the leaders of the resistance groups, under the codenames Rex and Max. He succeeded to the extent that the first three of these resistance leaders and their groups came together to form the United Resistance Movement ( Mouvements Unis de la Résistance, MUR) in January 1943. The next month, Moulin returned to London, accompanied by Charles Delestraint, who led the new Armée secrète, which grouped the MUR's military wings together. Moulin left London on March 21st, 1943, with orders to form the Conseil national de la Résistance (CNR), a difficult task since the five resistance movements involved, besides the three already in the MUR, wanted to retain their independence. The first meeting of the CNR took place in Paris on May 27th, 1943. Some historians consider Moulin one of the most important figures in the French Resistance because of his actions in unifying and organizing the various resistance groups, which had previously been operating in an independent and uncoordinated manner. He was also instrumental in obtaining the cooperation of the Communist resistance groups, who had been reluctant to accept De Gaulle as their leader, because Moulin was known as a left-wing republican.

On June 21st, 1943, he was arrested at a meeting with fellow Resistance leaders in the home of Frédéric Dugoujon in Caluire-et-Cuire, a suburb of Lyon. He was, along with the other Resistance leaders, sent to Montluc Prison in Lyon in which he was detained until the beginning of July. Tortured daily in Lyon by Klaus Barbie, the head of the Gestapo there, and later more briefly in Paris, Moulin never revealed anything to his captors. According to witnesses, Moulin and his men had their fingernails removed using hot needles as spatulas. In addition, his fingers were placed on the door frames and the doors were closed again and again until his knuckles were broken. They then tightened the handcuffs until they penetrated his skin and broke the bones in his wrists. Because he still refused to speak, they beat him until his face was unrecognizable and he fell into a coma. Afterwards, Barbie ordered Moulin to be placed in an office and to be shown to all members of the Resistance not to collaborate with the Nazis. The last time he was seen alive, he was still in a coma and his head was yellow, swollen and wrapped in bandages, according to the description given by Christian Pineau, fellow prisoner and another member of the Resistance. He is believed to have died near Metz on a train headed for Germany. He was reported to have died on July 8th, 1943 at the age of 44. There has been much research, speculation, judicial scrutiny and media coverage of who betrayed Jean Moulin and the circumstances of his death. Klaus Barbie alleged that suicide was the cause, and Moulin biographer Patrick Marnham supports that explanation. René Hardy was caught and released by the Gestapo, who had followed him to the meeting at the doctor's house. There have been many suppositions in the postwar years that Moulin was Communist. No hard evidence has ever backed up that claim.

Ashes that were presumed to be those of Jean Moulin were buried in Le Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris and later transferred to the Pantheon on December 19th, 1964. France's French education curriculum commemorates Moulin as a symbol of the French resistance and a model of civic virtue, moral rectitude and patriotism. As of 2015, Jean Moulin was the fifth most popular name for a French school, and as of 2016 his is the third most popular French street name of which 98 percent are male. In 1967, the Centre national Jean-Moulin de Bordeaux was created in Bordeaux. Its archives contain documents on the Second World War and the Resistance. The Centre provides pedagogical supports and research material on the involvement of Jean Moulin in the Resistance. In 1993, commemorative French 2, 100 and 500 franc coins were issued, showing a partial image of Moulin against the Croix de Lorraine and using a fedora-and-scarf photograph, which is well recognised in France.

#second world war #world war ii #world war 2 #wwii #military history #history #french resistance #french history #french icons #resistance movements #unsung hero #biography #short post

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little-chattes · 3 years

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Ok so I’ve done a complete re-read through and one thing that kept nagging at me was how little Gideon and Harrow’s relationship makes sense given its quite frankly abusive origins. Harrow spends her whole life making Gideon’s a living hell and Gideon just… forgives her. Total and complete forgiveness for an irredeemable girl.

At first I took the sudden shift in their relationship as lazy writing to rush along the end of the story, but that didn't make any sense either. Muir strikes me as an intensely purposeful writer. Then I remembered that Muir is also an intensely Catholic writer and it hit me. Muir isn’t writing a story about a healthy human relationship, oh no, she’s writing a story about Christ’s relationship with The Church… if Christ was a sword toting butch lesbian and The Church was a sardonic bone witch. Call it tender blasphemy.

Now Gideon’s role as a Christ figure is fairly easy to parse out given that her dad is… God. But for the sake of self indulgence (I have to put my 15 year long flirtation with Christianity to use somehow) I’m going to go through all the parallels anyway. There are a LOT of them.

Let’s start at the very beginning (a very good place to start).

Miraculous Conception

Luke 1:34-38

34 But Mary said to the angel, “How will this be, since I [e]am a virgin?” 35 The angel answered and said to her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; for that reason also the [f]holy Child will be called the Son of God.

Gideon is conceived by artificial means when one of God’s own servants (Mercy) delivers a sample of John’s genetic material to Wake, a ‘normal’ human woman who chooses to carry Gideon in her womb. Notably, the sample lives far beyond its point of expected viability, thus making the conception somewhat miraculous (“Only the sample was still active, no idea how considering it was twelve weeks after the fact” HTN 441).

The Cuckold

Matthew 1:18-25

18 Now the birth of Jesus the [a]Messiah was as follows: when His mother Mary had been [b]betrothed to Joseph, before they came together she was found to be pregnant by the Holy Spirit. 19 And her husband Joseph, since he was a righteous man and did not want to disgrace her, planned to [c]send her away secretly.

Gideon the First decides not to kill his lover, Wake, and releases her out the airlock (AND HE TOOK PITY ON ME! HE TOOK PITY ON ME! HE SAW ME AND HE TOOK PITY ON ME” from Harrow’s vision of Wake’s note, HTN 124) just as Joseph took pity on Mary, his betrothed, by deciding to divorce her quietly instead of making her infidelity public which would condemn her to death by public stoning (Deuteronomy 22:21). Gideon the First knew that Wake was pregnant and didn’t tell John because he thought the baby was his. Similarly, Joseph goes on to raise Jesus as his own son.

The Birth

Luke 2:7

And she gave birth to her firstborn son; and she wrapped Him in cloths, and laid Him in a [f]manger, because there was no [g]room for them in the inn.

Neither baby Jesus nor baby Gideon were given a proper cradle, one being laid to rest in a manger where the animals ate and the other stuffed in a transplant bio-container (GTN 23).

The Dead Children

16 When Herod realized that he had been outwitted by the Magi, he was furious, and he gave orders to kill all the boys in Bethlehem and its vicinity who were two years old and under, in accordance with the time he had learned from the Magi.

King Herod intends to kill the prophesied King of the Jews and instead of finding the specific baby, he just has a bunch of them slaughtered. However, Jesus escapes the slaughter of the innocents by Herod when his parents secret him away to Egypt.

When the great aunts gas the nursery and kill the 200, Gideon is meant to die along with them but escapes her fate.

Now this event has a completely different biblical connotation for Harrow.

Firstly, the murder of the 200 children represents Original Sin. In the bible, Adam and Eve disobeyed God in the Garden of Eden, and as their descendants, all of humankind is doomed to also bear the weight of that sin from the moment we are born until the day we die. This is a fact that is drilled into Christians as soon as we’re able to understand it, we are born wretched and unworthy sinners, and there’s nothing we can do ourselves to fix that.

“I have tried to dismantle you, Gideon Nav! The Ninth House poisoned you, we trod you underfoot—I took you to this killing field as my slave—you refuse to die, and you pity me! Strike me down. You’ve won. I’ve lived my whole wretched life at your mercy, yours alone, and God knows I deserve to die at your hand. You are my only friend. I am undone without you.”

Harrow is a multitude, she is 200 children, the entire future of her house. Shes not just one human being,, she’s the whole damn church.

Naz/Nav

he went and lived in a town called Nazareth. So was fulfilled what was said through the prophets, that he would be called a Nazarene.

Although Gideon is not from the Ninth, she is given the Ninth name Nav when she arrives as a baby. Similarly, Jesus is known as Jesus of Nazareth, though that is not where he was born.

The Poor Bondservant

Jesus' role as a servant is emphasized many times in the bible. He was a carpenter's son born in a stable

Philippians 2:5-8

Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross.

Gideon is described as being made “a very small bondswoman” (GTN 24)

The Sword

Matthew 10:34

Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.

The Wretched Sinner

Harrow is wretched, self loathing, and cruel.

She is in thrall of the enemy of god, a figure who was once gods most favoured warrior, cast into hell.

She is like the depiction of the sinner who loves the devil

It's important to note that Harrow isn’t a single person, she is a multitude, the entire future of her people condensed into one body.

The Enemy of God

20 Then I saw an angel coming down from heaven, nholding in his hand the key to othe bottomless pit1 and a great chain. 2 And he seized pthe dragon, that ancient serpent, who is the devil and Satan, and qbound him for a thousand years, 3 and threw him into othe pit, and shut it and rsealed it over him, so that she might not deceive the nations any longer, until the thousand years were ended. After that he must be released for a little while.

Before the fall, Satan was described as a “guardian cherub” who resided in the garden with God (Ezekiel 28:14)

(a funny aside, in the bible the devil is known as the great deceiver but in HTN Muir specifies that Alecto is incapable of lying)

A Life of Abuse

Isaiah 53:3

"He was despised and rejected by mankind,

a man of suffering, and familiar with pain.

Like one from whom people hide their faces

he was despised, and we held him in low esteem”

They got up, drove him out of the town, and took him to the brow of the hill on which the town was built, in order to throw him off the cliff" (Luke 4:28–29).

Gideon lives a life of mockery and is abused by Harrow.

An Unlikely Savior

Despite the fact that Gideon does not fit the expected image of a Cavalier, Harrow chooses Gideon to be her sword and protector.

Despite the many openings Gideon has to make Harrow pay for the pain she caused her, she remains loyal to her

Trust

Harrow realizes that she cannot face the lyctor trials without Gideon, and places her trust in her

Christians are told they must place their trust in jesus in order to reach salvation

Purifying Water

Acts 2:38

Peter replied, "Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.

Harrow confesses her sins to Gideon and puts herself at her mercy

Gideon forgives Harrow totally and completely, she baptises her

One Flesh

Mark 10:8

and the two shall become one flesh; so they are no longer two, but one flesh.

“The imagery and symbolism of marriage is applied to Christ and the body of believers known as the church. The church is comprised of those who have trusted in Jesus Christ as their personal Savior and have received eternal life. Christ, the Bridegroom, has sacrificially and lovingly chosen the church to be His bride” (x)

Ephesians 5:25-26

25 gHusbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and hgave himself up for her, 26 that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by ithe washing of water jwith the word,

They take the vow of necro and cav, one flesh one end

Gideon’s forgiveness of Harrow is reaffirmed

Harrow risks her life to stay and fight with Gideon, even if it means her death and thus the destruction of her death. Her love for Gideon is now greater than her love for the Body.

The Sacrifice

John 19:34

Instead, one of the soldiers pierced Jesus’ side with a spear, bringing a sudden flow of blood and water.

They will look on the one they have pierced'" (John 19:36–37).

Gideon chooses to die for Harrow, death by piercing

and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, “This is my body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of me.” In the same way, after supper he took the cup, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood; do this, whenever you drink it, in remembrance of me.” For whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.

In order to complete the lyctor process, Harrow both physically and spiritually consumes Gideon

Because of Gideon’s sacrifice, Harrow attains eternal life at the right hand of god

The Tomb

The Resurrection

1On the first day of the week, very early in the morning, the women came to the tomb, bringing the spices they had prepared. 2 They found the stone rolled away from the tomb, 3but when they entered, they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus

Harrow turns her body into a tomb for Gideon, a tomb fashioned after that on the Ninth

Resurrection on the Third Day

Thus it is written, and thus it was necessary for the Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead the third day, and that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in His name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. Luke 24:46-47

“So many months had passed: and yet, at the same time, she had only lost Gideon Nav three days ago. It was the morning of the third day in a universe without her cavalier: it was the morning of the third day—and all the back of her brain could say, in exquisite agonies of amazement, was: She is dead. I will never see her again.” (HTN 374)

Just in case you missed this important piece of information, Muir repeats it three times.

Go, and tell them, then, that he that was dead is alive, and lives for evermore, and has the keys of death and the grave,"

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unpack-my-heart · 4 years

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from out of nowhere (you came strong as stone)

This is the first story I’ve written since ... fuck knows when. It’s short, bittersweet, and I hope you enjoy it.

The summer that had taken too long to arrive ended on a sticky, sweat-slow September morning. Richie lay beached on his sea-foam bed covers, counting his breaths,

in and out,

His mother hasn’t seen the inside of his room since mid-April, and since then, the floor had become littered with the remains of food devoured long ago, a graveyard of chip packets and half-eaten candy bars grown furry with neglect. He’d lived the last few months in relative solitude, Diogenes in his barrel, his only reassurance the inevitability that this too shall pass. The days had gelled together into a gelatinous clump of anxiety-infused monotony, a self-imposed isolation that had Richie desperately wishing that he’d tried harder at school from the beginning of his senior year.

Like the stem of a plant locked in darkness, Richie’s skin, blue-veined and sun-parched, twisted and turned on his bones, sunflower seed freckles waiting under his skin, waiting to be called to the surface by Helios himself. He’d spent day after day after night after night with his nose buried deep into various textbooks on subjects he couldn’t pretend to find interesting anymore, until, one afternoon, he was done. It was all rather anti-climactic, the walk from the exam hall to his car, the sun waving frantically at him from behind the thin icing-sugar dusting of cloud in the sky, you’re done, you’re free, your life is your own! Richie had pulled his prescription sunglasses down over his eyes, and climbed into his rust-bucket Ford, leaving the sun hanging bloated and ignored in the sky.

And now, as he lay on his bed, legs stuck in the air, parallel to the wall upon which they rested, all Richie could do was count his breaths and wait for Eddie to arrive.

Most of Richie’s life had passed him by as he waited for Eddie. When they were children, knee high to grasshoppers and twice as bouncy, he’d waited at Eddie’s house, hopping from foot to tiny foot, waiting for Sonia to baptise her son in sun-cream, waiting for the moment that Eddie would finally emerge from the dark, womby house, a thick film of white cream on his face, a sticky-sweet toothy grin. When they were middle-schoolers, Richie would wait for Eddie at the arcade, feeding quarters into the greedy machines as quickly as he could, trying desperately to stall for time, to hog the machines until Eddie would arrive, face crimson and knees knocking awkwardly as he walked, his long overdue growth-spurt still clinging to his bones.

Read the rest under the cut or on AO3

And so, now they’d finished high school, emerged not quite boys but still not men, Richie was still waiting. He spent the summer waiting for Eddie to finish his summer homework so they could go and watch the kingfishers dancing in the reeds at the barrens. He waited for Eddie to finish work at the library, standing in the parking lot, the August air wrapping itself around him, tickling his sunburnt skin. He waited for Eddie to open his window, witching-hour late, so he could clamber through and wrap himself around Eddie, terrified Tetris-pieces clutching at each other after nightmares, hoping that they were each braver than each other.

It's been nearly two hours since Eddie got out of church. The image of Eddie, knelt on the floor of St Benedict’s, hands clasped tight, so tight, eyes screwed shut, set Richie’s stomach alight, a forest-fire, destructive, lethal. The image floated in Richie’s brain for a while, Eddie knelt on the cold, stone floor of the church, Eddie knelt in the shower, rivers of water flowing across the parched plain of his back, Eddie knelt on Richie’s grimy carpet. So fucking dirty.

Richie grabbed his half-interested dick, squeezing it just so, just enough, a whisper of friction. Half-interest turned sailed straight to undevoted attention, and Richie sighed. The air was too hot, stifling, judgemental, and his hands were already damp with sweat. Sliding off the bed with a grunt, Richie slunk into the bathroom, locking the door behind him.

Another hour passed, and Richie was still waiting. The worst of the heat had gone, had sunk into the scorched grass, and the sounds of midsummer started floating back through Richie’s open window as people emerged from their houses. Children, screaming in delight, having wriggled free from the desperate clutches of their parents who stood, sunblock in hand, defeated. He’d run the water in the shower as cold as it would go, but it hadn’t been of much use. He’d come, gasping, face red with embarrassment and the release of a tension that had sat coiled in his abdomen for what felt like forever.

They’d spoken about it once.

They’d been at the library, Richie browsing the fiction shelves blindly, fingers skating over the spines of books he never had any intention of reading. They’d walked home together, an unspoken arrangement, and Eddie followed Richie up past the old well house on Neibolt street, and didn’t turn down the dusty track. They barely spoke as they walked, and Eddie kicked an old glass beer bottle all the way to Richie’s street, before sending it skittering into the undergrowth.

“Have you ever –”

The question died in Richie’s mouth before he’d realised he’d been half way to asking it. Eddie looked up from where he was lying.

“Huh?”

“Aw,” Richie started, throwing the elastic band ball he’d been working on at the wall, “never mind, Eddie Spaghetti.”

“No, come on, you can’t do that. Have I ever what?”

“It really doesn’t matter, Eds.”

thunk, thunk, thunk went the ball against the wall, a rhythmic heartbeat.

“I’ll fucking garotte you, Richie. Have I ever what?”

thunk

“Are you going to let this go?”

thunk

“We both know the answer to that question.”

thunk, thunk –

“Have you ever wondered what it’s like …”

Eddie stared at him, slack-jawed, almost bored.

“What it’s like to what?! Stop being so cryptic, you’re not smart enough to pull it off.”

“What it’s like to suck someone off, like … a dude?”

Richie expected Eddie to react in one of three ways. One, to punch Richie on the nose and flee from the Tozier house never to return again. Two, to admit that yes, he had wondered what it’s like to suck someone off, why, isn’t Richie very perceptive for asking such a question. Three, to shrug his shoulders, all ‘nope, never have, never will, now stop fucking pining after me’.

Instead, Eddie just blinked.

“You’re killing me here, Eds. Are you gonna say something?”

“I’m thinking.”

“What is there to think about?” Richie babbled, motormouth running at full speed, max-fucking-horsepower, “it was a dumb question, just a joke. A classic Richie jest, heh. Don’t sweat your pretty little head about it any longer –”

“I’ve thought about it.”

Blink.

“Do you want to go and see whether Bev’s finished her shift? I fancy getting out of here, s’too fucking cold in your house,” Eddie yawned, standing up and stretching his arms above his head.

And that was that.

After that day, they never sat down and had a conversation about why they look at each other for slightly too long, eyes meeting over shitty diner coffee at two in the morning after an evening of tomfoolery in Mike’s barn. They never acknowledged that, when they walk home together after leaving the diner, six dollars left in a neat pile on the edge of the table, Richie would grab Eddie’s hand, and hold on tight, fingernails digging in, just scarcely, just enough. If Eddie thought it was weird, thought that Richie had a screw-loose and needed tightening, he didn’t mention it, he just rested his hand in Richie’s vice grip, barely holding on himself, but he didn’t need to. Richie had him.

They never acknowledged that when they said goodbye, Richie would duck down, face hovering next to Eddie’s, and he’d kiss the soft spot behind Eddie’s ear, a secret pressed into Eddie’s skin.

Eddie showed up close to midnight, when the sun had been chased across the sky by the moon which shone brilliantly in the sky.

[Eds: 23:42: are you gonna let me in?]

[Eds: 23:42: i brought you something]

[Eds: 23:43: seriously trashmouth this branch doesn’t feel like it’ll hold forever]

[Eds: 23:44: OPEN YOUR FUCKING WINDOW]

The window was barely half open when Eddie tumbled through it, limbs knocking together awkwardly. He’d had a growth spurt last year, shot up several inches in one summer, and Richie often found himself staring at the criss-cross silver slithers across his back when they went swimming at the quarry. Eddie hated them and had spent ages on the internet looking up remedies for stretchmarks, had even gone to the doctor, convinced that he’d need a skin graft, but Richie loved them, wanted to trace them with his tongue.

“I wish you’d let me use your door like a normal fucking person, asshole,” Eddie groaned, rubbing his elbow where it had fought with the sharp edge of Richie’s desk and lost.

“You really think Went would let that slide? Anyway, you’re a fucking liar if you don’t find this way more romantic.”

“Romantic?”

“Yup, romantic.”

“You’re a fucking idiot.”

Eddie was right, of course. Richie was a fucking idiot, with his heart glued messily to his sleeve.

“Here,” Eddie says, thrusting a small, wrapped package at Richie’s chest. His face has gone an odd colour, almost the colour of the marshmallows Richie’s mother decorated her apology hot chocolates with. “Just, don’t say anything until you’ve opened it, okay?”

The package was wrapped in newspaper,

‘the senator staunchly denies the accusations of …’

‘the next few days will be mostly dry, with the occasional …’

‘Mick Jagger, 77, has been caught with …’

“Stop reading the fucking wrapping paper, Jesus Richie,” Eddie snaps, and Richie looks up.

Eddie’s standing in the middle of Richie’s room, and he looks … panicked. Not the sort of panic that Richie is so used to seeing painted on Eddie’s face, panic that his mother will find out he’s snuck out of the house, panic he’s flunked a test, panic he’ll be late for his shift, panic he got some of Richie’s spit on his face when they’ve laughed with heads bowed close together. This panic, this is different.

“Eddie…” Richie warns, voice low, gravelly. “What is it?”

“Just … open it,” Eddie says, and there’s no bite, no sarcastic-witty-‘shut-the-fuck-up-Richie’-Eddieness. Richie doesn’t recognise the look on his face, can’t match it to the bank of Eddie expressions he keeps in his mind.

The paper comes away easily, and Richie’s left clutching a blank CD in a clear case.

“A CD?”

Eddie rubs the back of his neck with his hand, still not looking at Richie straight.

“Yeah, it’s … I thought about just sending you a link to a Spotify playlist but this … it felt more real.”

“Real? Eddie …”

Eddie shakes his head. “Shut up, okay. Just … listen to it. When I’ve gone, listen to it.”

The room feels smaller. The memories of them sitting here, playing video games on Richie’s dads old gamecube when they were seven, of watching horror movies about killer clowns and monstrous body snatchers when they were thirteen and Eddie would shriek loudly into Richie’s shoulder before punching him, of sitting and staring at the walls, a joint balanced precariously between Richie’s lips, Eddie bobbing his head along to Chris Cornell’s voice seeping out of Richie’s shitty speakers, the memories pushed at Richie’s arms, at his legs, squashing him. The room felt smaller, and Eddie, standing there, with his ridiculous determined expression and a set jaw, felt huge.

“Uh..,” Richie stammered, dumbly, staring at the CD in his hands.

“I’m gonna go now, okay? I think … I think it’s best if I go now. Text me, when you’ve listened to it. Text me and … yeah. Listen to it when I’ve gone?”

Before Richie could answer, before he could look at Eddie in the face, the room was empty.

Richie threw the CD on his bed, staring at it as if it might grow legs, arms, a mouth – as if it might speak to him, “this is what you think it is! It can’t be anything but this! Listen to me and find out! It’s what you always wanted!”

Richie stared at it. The insignificant chunk of plastic lying on his bed innocently, provocatively, as if it didn’t contain the secrets of the universe, as if it didn’t have the capacity to change Richie’s life in several short yet monumentally significant minutes. He’s almost sure he won’t’ listen to it. He grabs at it gingerly, holding it between his thumb and forefinger as if it’ll burn him, as if it’s something disgusting. He drops it in his overflowing waste bin, before marching out of the room, and down the stairs. The house is silent, and Richie stands in the sitting room, unsure what to do now.

Half of him wants to throw open the front door, and hot foot it to Eddie’s house, clamber in through the downstairs bathroom window that never shuts properly, tiptoe past Sonia passed out on her La-Z-Boy, pin Eddie against the wall of his immaculate bedroom, and demand that Eddie take it back. He wants to thrust the CD at Eddie, wrapped in the stupid newspaper, and leave. Pretend it never happened. It would be easier this way, nothing would have to change. They could go back to stolen glances across the room, clasped hands on intoxicated walks, dry presses of mouths to secret spots that no one else knew about. Easier.

The other half of him screams at him, begs him, to dig the CD out of the bin, to scrape the pencil shavings and the toenails off of it, and to put it in his Walkman, and to listen to what Eddie had to say. Hell, it might not even be what Richie thinks (hopes, dreams, dreads) it might be, it might be something mundane, a new album Eddie has found online, a new artist he thinks Richie will like, a recording of his new, perhaps ill-advised, stand-up comedy routine, and …

Not an expression of undying love, a token of affection, a symbol of everything Richie means to Eddie …

Wrapped up in a neat little plastic bomb that threatens to detonate and lodge shrapnel in Richie’s, till now, carefully-guarded heart.

Shit.

Most of Richie’s life had passed him by as he waited for Eddie. Only now, on this sweat-sticky summer night, Eddie waits for Richie. Impatiently.

[Eds: 01:54: have you listened to it?]

[Eds: 02:13: this isn’t fucking funny]

[Eds: 02:43: Rich?]

[Eds: 04:20: im sorry]

The sun filters in through the living room window, reborn. Richie’s still sitting on the sofa, head in his hands.

[Eds: 05:12: Richie seriously]

[Eds: 05:45: listen to track 3 again]

Track 3. Richie hasn’t listened to track 1, the CD is still lying in the waste bin, rejected, a grenade with the pin still intact, but waiting, ready, willing. It feels inevitable, really. Richie knows that, eventually, whether today, tomorrow, next year, thirty years from now, he’ll listen to that CD and he’ll run to Eddie. He’ll run, and it’ll all be different, the kind of different that sends electric-shock excitement shooting down Richie’s spine, and anticipation collects in his pores, seeping, oozing, unstoppable. It’ll be different. Richie needs, craves, different.

But, and it’s a huge, omnipresent but, they can’t go back from different. They can’t decide that actually, things were better the way they were, let’s stop being different and go back to what came before. Different is permanent, a deep gash that scars but doesn’t disappear, a tectonic shift, Atlas shifting his grip on the world, never again to place his hands exactly where they were before.

Whether it’s worth it, to take a punt on different, to screw his eyes closed and hope for the best, to jump into the void and hope it catches him with velvet-plush arms, Richie doesn’t know.

His phone buzzes, a long, prolonged clattering against the wooden coffee table.

[incoming call from: Eds]

Richie ignores the phone.

He sleeps the day away, a sleep that doesn’t quench his thirst for oblivion as he dreams vividly, dreams of difference and soft hands and eyes that roll and squint and of premature laughter lines etched on soft, youthful skin.

When Richie wakes up, it’s dark. He has 17 missed calls, and two texts.

[Eds: 14:52: don’t freak out, okay. I made that tape because I can’t bear the thought of you going off to college and of being such a fucking coward that I’d let you go without telling you. I’m sorry if it’s all weird now, but at least I’ve been honest with you. If you don’t feel the same, it’s fine, honestly. It’ll stop being weird eventually.]

[Eds: 17:19: I’m still coming to wave you off tomorrow, just FYI]

Ah. Tomorrow. The day Richie bundles himself into his father’s Subaru and leaves Maine for Chicago, the Windy City, the city that never sleeps, the city that Eddie won’t be in. Ay, there’s the rub.

Leaving Eddie behind as they are now, friends, best friends, best friends who look at each other for too long and hold hands in the dark, feels like a sucker punch that Richie can never recover from. Leaving Eddie behind as something different …

It’s half past eight and the CD is still in the bin, but now, Richie is in his bedroom, staring at it, daring it,

Make it different.

It takes him two hours to pluck up the courage to dig the CD out of the bin and put it in his Walkman. Another thirty to press play. He skips straight to track 3, fingers shaking.

You have always been my safe home I walk, I run, I burn out into you You have always been my safe home My whole world has moved on

Fuck.

Immediately, different settles over Richie like a thick smog. As soon as the song stops, before he’s even spoken to Eddie, it’s different. He can feel it, taste it, touch it in the air. And, as if he knows, as if he’s watching Richie at that very moment, Eddie texts.

[Eds: 11:13: I love you]

#reddie #eddie kaspbrak #eddie kaspbrak x richie tozier #richie tozier #it fandom #it 2017 #it 2019 #fanfic #thefutureisbright #my writing

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lawrenceop · 3 years

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HOMILY for 5th Sun after Pentecost (Dominican rite)

1 Pt 3:8-15; Matt 5:20-24

“Love the brethren”, or “be lovers of the brotherhood”, says St Peter in today’s epistle. Hence the Gospel today condemns anyone who is angry with a brother, calling him raca, meaning someone who is inferior or stupid. Doing so would violate, it seems to me, the fundamental equality of brothers. Indeed, mindful perhaps of the tense history of brothers in the Old Testament, Jesus points out in the Gospel that at the root of such anger between brothers is a hatred of the other that could potentially lead to murder. For it was between the first pair of brothers that the first murder in history was committed; and the sons of Jacob would gang up in an attempt to kill off their brother Joseph, and they eventually sold him as a slave, an inferior, mere chattel. So, the propensity to hate one’s brother, and to dehumanise him, and to even kill him is as old as sin.

Christ, therefore, comes to redeem this fallen and divided world, and to heal with his grace these wounded and fractured relationships. Indeed, Christ wills not only to heal that which nature provides; to heal not only our blood relationships, but he goes beyond that: his supernatural grace elevates our relationships making us, sinful men, to become spiritual brothers to one another, bound together by his Precious Blood which has been shed for us and freed us from sin; making us, indeed, through baptism, to become his ‘blood brothers’, so to speak, through the adoption of grace into the household of God our common Father. Hence St Paul says: “those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the first-born among many brethren.” (Rom 8:29)

So, when St Peter speaks of the brotherhood, and when Our Lord speaks to his disciples and tells them to be reconciled with their brothers, he is speaking of the Christian family, of all who have been baptised into Christ, and who are thus to become conformed to his image – all who, by grace, are to become sons of God in and through and with the Son of God. The effect of holy baptism, therefore, is to make us truly children of God the Father, and therefore, just as truly make us brothers and sisters to one another. And so we are bound to God and to one another, united through charity.

Thus Jesus teaches us, his disciples, to pray to God and to address him with these words: Πάτερ ἡμῶν, it begins. Or Pater noster, our Father. Much attention is paid to the fact that Christ the Son confers upon us the privilege of adopted sonship so that we have the grace to call God Abba, Father, just as he, by his divine nature, being consubstantial with the Father, is entitled to do. However, Benedict XVI rightly observes that we could benefit from paying more attention to the fact that God is our Father because the Fatherhood of God is not communicated to us individually but only through the Body of Christ, which is his Church. So Benedict XVI says: “The Christian prayer to the Father… is bound to the community of our brothers, together with whom we make up the one Christ”. That phrase ‘one Christ’ is redolent of St Augustine’s beautiful term for the Church, which he called the totus Christus, ie., the entire Christ: Jesus the Head together with us the members. So, the Lord’s Prayer opens by reminding us of our communion with one another which is a principal fruit of holy baptism.

For this is what Christ has come to effect: he has come to heal the wounds of sin, to overcome the divisions and suspicions between men, to calm the murderous hatred that would well up between brothers if they were to live without grace. Hence St Peter says: “have unity of spirit, sympathy, love of the brethren, a tender heart and a humble mind.” For these come from the Holy Spirit, and they build up the brotherhood of Christians, humbly united in love to Christ, under God the Father. However, division, arguments, quarrelling, name-calling, and gossip against a brother all comes from the Devil, the Father of Lies, whom Jesus has called a “murderer from the beginning”. (Jn 8:44)

Therefore, Benedict XVI says that “Christian belief in God the Father… necessarily involves the affirmation of our brothers, the brotherhood of all Christians”, for we have been instructed by Scripture to “love the brethren.” Thus St John says: “He who does not love his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen.” (1 Jn 4:20). This connection between our love for our fellow Christians and our love for God is intrinsically connected, such that Our Lord tells us in today’s Gospel: “if you are offering your gift at the altar, and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go; first be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift.” (Mt 5:23-24) Because the Holy Mass, this Eucharistic assembly, is where we gather as brothers and sisters. It is here that our communion with one another is meant to be expressed; here that our love for one another is made manifest to the world, so that non-believers can see that God is our Father. In the 2nd century, Tertullian thus observed that pagans looking at Christians should be able to say: “Look . . . how they love one another (for they themselves [the pagans] hate one another); and how they are ready to die for each other (for they themselves are readier to kill each other).”

My brothers and sisters: Can this be said of us today? Do we actually know one another who come together to this church to gather around God our Father? What more can I do for you to help this Eucharistic assembly become better practitioners of brotherly love? Moreover, I ask: what do people see when they look at our interactions with one another, especially online – on social media when we Christians talk about and with one another? Occasionally I do see the deep care that Catholics have for one another, praying for one another, giving support, encouragement and sound spiritual advice. But very often I see much that saddens me. As Pope Francis says in Fratelli tutti, “Even in Catholic media, limits can be overstepped, defamation and slander can become commonplace, and all ethical standards and respect for the good name of others can be abandoned”. How can this contribute to the fraternity that our common Father asks of us?” (§46)

This year, as you’ll know, the Dominican Order celebrates the 800th anniversary of the heavenly birthday of St Dominic. And one of the things that has been reiterated about St Dominic is that, according to the earliest writings about him, Dominic wished to be known as Brother Dominic. Hence, his Order is called the “Ordo Fratrum Prædicatorum”, an order of preaching brothers, and the earliest stories of the Order are compiled in a book called The Lives of the Brethren. So, you might think that we brothers have something to say to the wider Church about how to live as brothers, how to love the brethren. I don’t say I am an expert in loving my brothers, but I can say from my own experience that we Dominicans suffer as a brotherhood if we don’t talk to one another, if we don’t listen to one another, if we don’t spend time together getting to know and understand our brothers and their viewpoints. If I only talk with those whom I like and whose views I share, then the temptation to call my brother a fool, or even to hate him increases. Now, the Lord has warned us against this.

The current Master of the Order, therefore, reminds us Dominicans that we must make time and space “for mutual listening and learning, as brothers”. And this advice, I think, holds good for all of us as Catholics. Thus the Holy Father Pope Francis warned the Church against “the media’s noisy potpourri of facts and opinions [that] is often an obstacle to dialogue, since it lets everyone cling stubbornly to his or her own ideas, interests and choices, with the excuse that everyone else is wrong. It becomes easier to discredit and insult opponents from the outset than to open a respectful dialogue aimed at achieving agreement on a deeper level.” (Fratelli tutti, 201) This is the way of the world. But Christ has come to redeem the world; his grace elevates Christians so that we can become a light to the nations, showing the pagan world how we can love one another. Thus Pope Francis says: “Together, we can seek the truth in dialogue, in relaxed conversation or in passionate debate. To do so calls for perseverance; it entails moments of silence and suffering, yet it can patiently embrace the broader experience of individuals and peoples.” (Fratelli tutti, 50)

So this is the challenge laid before us today. In a noisy world full of prideful opinions, can we mortify ourselves and keep silent? Can we charitably listen and seek the good in what others say and do? Can we, as St Peter says, have “a tender heart and a humble mind… [And] do not return evil for evil or reviling for reviling; but on the contrary bless”, which means to speak well of the other. (1 Pt 3:8,9)

#charity #brotherhood #Christian brotherhood #solidarity #love #fratelli tutti #Dominican #listening #jubilee

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duchessofvastergotland · 4 years

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Crown Princess Victoria’s life (1977-1987)

In January 1977 it was announced that King Carl XVI Gustaf and Queen Silvia were expecting their first child, eight months after their marriage. By the time the Queen went into labour, the press were in a frenzy and had taken to camping outside Karolinska Hospital to get a glimpse of the family. It was even reported the Queen had to avoid the press by sneaking in to the hospital in a wig! On 14th July at 21:45 - a day before her due date - Queen Silvia gave birth to a baby girl, the first child born to a Swedish reigning couple in over 150 years. The little girl weighed 3250 grams and was 50 cm long. There were a number of witnesses, as per tradition, including the Prime Minister. Within four hours of the birth the new family of three were back home. Shortly afterwards the little baby was named Victoria Ingrid Alice Désirée in honour of several key figures in the history of her family: her great-great grandmother Victoria of Baden; her great-aunt Queen Ingrid; her maternal grandmother Alice de Toledo; and her paternal aunt Princess Désirée.

As is tradition in the Swedish royal family, the King and Queen soon decamped to their summer home Solliden in Öland. This was the beginning of a special, life long relationship between the Crown Princess and the island province. Just a few days after the birth, the family’s holiday home in the area became the setting for the first official images of the adorable new baby.

“She’s a ray of sunshine” The King and Queen talking about then Princess Victoria shortly after her birth

Her baptism was held on 27th September at the Palace Church. Her godparents were her aunt Princess Désirée, her uncle Ralf Sommerlath, Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands (then Princess), and King Harald V of Norway (then Crown Prince). 700 guests congregated for the event. The little princess was dressed in a lace christening dress previously worn by her father and aunts and embroidered with the names of the royal children. In a service conducted by Archbishop Olof Sundby she was baptised in spring water from Öland.

“I remember the first time I saw the Crown Princess. She was baptised and the Queen walked with her on her shoulder through the Eastern Vault at The Royal Palace. Then I came a few yards behind and followed the same way, and I still remember these deep dark eyes just looking at me.” Elisabeth Tarras-Wahlberg, then Press Secretary to the Royal Court of Sweden, about seeing Victoria at her christening in 1977

Victoria lived a relatively quiet life as a child, initially splitting her time between Stockholm Palace and Solliden. Her parents were often abroad and as a result, the Princess was cared for by nannies and communicated with her parents by phone. She was rarely photographed out and about but her parents ensured the public got to see her with low key photo calls and public appearances at major events. In 1978 her first birthday was marked with the release of photographs taken by her father and in 1979 she greeted the press and keen onlookers at Solliden, starting what would become the Victoriadagen celebrations which are carried on to this day.

In 1979, two months before her second birthday, Victoria was joined by a little brother who was named Carl Philip. She joined her family at Carl Philip’s baptism in August.

“Suddenly Carl Philip started to cry. He was in the King’s arms. No one understood why. There was only one person who did and it was Victoria. She was still little at the time, but she jumped up from her little chair, rushed forward and lifted a small pillow that had fallen down.” Queen Silvia recalls Prince Carl Philip’s baptism

At the time of her brother’s birth, women could not legally inherit the throne and Carl Philip became heir. However, the government had been in discussion about changing the law for many years and in November 1979, the Parliament voted through an amendment to the Constitution which made the first born child the heir regardless of sex. Overnight Victoria became the heir to the throne and Crown Princess instead of her little brother. The law came in to effect on 1st January 1980 and on 9th she was awarded the title Duchess of Västergötland. There was substantial interest in this event; Sweden was the first country in the world to introduce equal succession rights and the King sparked headlines when he spoke of his concerns about his daughter having to balance the throne with motherhood.

“Certainly when it happened, dad wondered why you would want to change the law. Everything had worked well so far. Today neither I nor anyone in our family sees it as a problem. On the contrary.” Victoria discusses her family’s views on the change to the line of succession

In 1981, in order to protect the privacy of the children and give them a more normal childhood, the family moved their primary residence to the more secluded Drottningholm Palace. According to those who knew her during this time the little princess was a funny, curious and warm child but could often post a challenge for her nannies with her boundless energy! In June 1982, a month before Victoria’s 5th birthday, the Queen gave birth to her third and final child Princess Madeleine. Once again, the Crown Princess joined the family at her sibling’s baptism which was held in August.

“Dad called on us and asked if we wanted to see our new sibling. Carl Philip got so excited he ran on his tiptoes! There were a lot of people dressed in white and then the little baby” Crown Princess Victoria recalls the birth of her sister Madeleine

The Crown Princess was largely unaware of the role that she would have to take on some day. As a child she hoped to look after animals when she grew up - no doubt encouraged by her bond with her childhood pet, a Cavalier King Charles Spaniel named Sissi. She preferred to spend time with the palace staff than the social elite who often surround monarchies. As the King and Queen were often away, the Crown Princess became close to her siblings and acted as a mother figure. Despite being just a child herself, she was often the one who would comfort her brother and sister when their parents departed for long trips. Seeing the impact of this separation and being forced into taking on a mother role at such a young age no doubt shaping her commitment to being a hands on, present parent to her own children. Although they had disagreements like any siblings, Madeleine and Carl Philip have often spoken of the gratitude they feel towards their big sister for her role in their upbringing:

“Victoria took a lot of responsibility for us and looked after us. She’s also very creative and that makes her such a wonderful sister. She invented fun games, we built the most beautiful tree houses. She always did everything for us.” Princess Madeleine

When her parents were present, the family relished many of the same activities ordinary Swedish families enjoyed. They spent hours together skiing, fishing, and swimming. Victoria particularly enjoyed being out in nature and her personal and professional life as an adult has been profoundly influenced by this idyllic childhood:

“I learned from (my father) to appreciate nature but also to recognise my own responsibility for taking care of it.” Crown Princess Victoria

In August 1984, she started pre-school at Smedslättskolan in Bromma. Photographs of her first day were shared in the media and she was dropped off by the King and Queen, but to her classmates Victoria was just another child. Her peers affectionately called her Oja, a nickname believed to stem from her siblings being unable to pronounce the name Victoria. She then moved on to Ålstensskolan, also in Bromma. Although the Crown Princess was a popular student problems soon manifested in her learning and she would go on to be diagnosed with dyslexia.

“The hard time for me came later, as I started school…That’s when my reading and writing difficulties, my dyslexia, were discovered. That everyone else, who until then seemed like me, was suddenly learning to read and write and not me was extremely frustrating” Crown Princess Victoria

#crown princess victoria #swedish royal family #bio

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frmartinshomiliesandreflections · 3 years

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16th May >> Fr. Martin’s Gospel Reflections / Homilies on Mark 16:15-20 for The Solemnity of the Ascension of The Lord: ‘Proclaim the good news to all creation’.

Solemnity of the Ascension of The Lord

Gospel (Except USA)

Mark 16:15-20

Go out to the whole world; proclaim the Good News.

Jesus showed himself to the Eleven and said to them: ‘Go out to the whole world; proclaim the Good News to all creation. He who believes and is baptised will be saved; he who does not believe will be condemned. These are the signs that will be associated with believers: in my name they will cast out devils; they will have the gift of tongues; they will pick up snakes in their hands, and be unharmed should they drink deadly poison; they will lay their hands on the sick, who will recover.’

And so the Lord Jesus, after he had spoken to them, was taken up into heaven: there at the right hand of God he took his place, while they, going out, preached everywhere, the Lord working with them and confirming the word by the signs that accompanied it.

Gospel (USA)

Mark 16:15–20

The Lord Jesus was taken up into heaven and took his seat at the right hand of God.

Jesus said to his disciples: “Go into the whole world and proclaim the gospel to every creature. Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved; whoever does not believe will be condemned. These signs will accompany those who believe: in my name they will drive out demons, they will speak new languages. They will pick up serpents with their hands, and if they drink any deadly thing, it will not harm them. They will lay hands on the sick, and they will recover.”

So then the Lord Jesus, after he spoke to them, was taken up into heaven and took his seat at the right hand of God. But they went forth and preached everywhere, while the Lord worked with them and confirmed the word through accompanying signs.

Reflections (7)

(i) Solemnity of The Ascension of the Lord

As parents know better than me, children have a way of asking questions that can leave us floundering for an answer. One day a child was in a church with her parent and there was an image of the Ascension of Jesus in the ceiling of the church over the altar. The child looked up at it carefully and asked her parent, ‘What is Jesus doing up in the air?’ The word ‘ascension’ normally means going up. When balloons are released they ascend into the sky. Even though the Acts and the Apostles and the gospels use that kind of spatial language to speak of the ascension of Jesus, we cannot take that language too literally. It is a case of human language struggling with a reality that is too mysterious to be adequately expressed in human language. The language of ‘ascension’ was the inspired writers’ way of referring to the ending of that period during which Jesus appeared in his risen body to his disciples. After the death and resurrection of Jesus, there was a privileged time when the disciples encountered the risen Lord in a very visible and tangible way. All of the gospels refer to the appearances of the risen Lord to his disciples. Saint Paul is the earliest witness to these appearances of Jesus. He says in his first letter to the Corinthians, written about twenty five years after the death and resurrection of Jesus, ‘He appeared to Cephas (Peter), then to the twelve. Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers and sisters at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have died. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me’. Paul considers himself to be the last of that privileged group to whom the risen Lord appeared in a very visible, tangible, bodily, audible way.

After that short period was over, the risen Lord would be present to his disciples in another way, in and through the Holy Spirit. As Jesus says to his disciples in today’s first reading, ‘you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you, and then you will be my witnesses… to the ends of the earth’. This is also the message of Paul in today’s second reading. He says there that when Christ ascended he gave gifts to all, and these various gifts were given so that believers could ‘together make a unity in the work of service, building up the body of Christ’. These gifts were all various manifestations of the Holy Spirit. The word ‘ascension’ can suggest departure. When a balloon ascends to the heavens, we don’t expect to see it again. However, the ascension of Jesus is not primarily his departure. Rather, today’s feast celebrates the many ways that the risen Lord is present to ‘all creation’, in every generation, rather than just to a select number over a very limited period of time. Today’s feast celebrates the good news that the risen Lord was not just present to those privileged witnesses that Saint Paul refers to, but is present to us all today. I am often struck by the ending of today’s gospel reading. Having stated that the Lord was taken up into heaven, the evangelist immediately declares, ‘the Lord was working with them’, with his disciples. What is true of those disciples is true of us today. The risen Lord is always working with us. In one sense, the Lord is beyond us, just as heaven is beyond us, but in another sense the Lord is among us, and, indeed, he is within us. In virtue of our baptism, our faith, we can say with Saint Paul in his letter to the Galatians, ‘it is no longer live but Christ who lives in me’. Through the Holy Spirit, the risen Lord lives within us and among us. That is the good news which this feast celebrates.

No crisis in society, in the world or in the church will ever impede the working of the risen Lord within and among us. The Lord is not hampered by any crisis; he continues to work in the hearts, minds and consciences of his children. He is always creatively at work both within and outside the church. Our calling is to align ourselves with the Lord’s working within and among us, to allow the Lord to work through us for the present and ultimate well-being of all humanity. The risen and ascended Lord is ready to shower his gifts, the gifts on the Holy Spirit, upon us to equip us to share in his work in the world. In today’s first reading, two men in white ask Jesus’ disciples, ‘Why are you men from Galilee standing here looking up into the sky?’ It is as if they were saying to the disciples, ‘This is a time to stand firmly on the earth, to wait for the coming of the Spirit, so that you can continue the Lord’s life-giving work not just in Jerusalem but to the ends of the earth’. The Lord is with us, enabling us to play our own unique part in his work today. In the words of today’s second reading, ‘Each one of us has been given our own share of grace, given as Christ allotted it’.

And/Or

(ii) Solemnity of The Ascension of The Lord

The word ‘process’ has been very much in vogue in recent times. In Ireland we associate the word in particular with the phrase, ‘the peace process’. The word ‘process’ in that connection suggests that the attainment of a lasting peace will only happen in stages, and that one stage needs to finish before another stage can begin. A process that has many stages calls for patience, for perseverance and for a hopeful stance. People who like instant success, who want it all to happen now, will be impatient with talk of a process. Yet, so much of life is the experience of process, of moving from one stage in a project onto another. Our own individual lives can be understood as a process. As we go through life we find ourselves moving through a series of stages or seasons. The transition from one stage to another always involves some element of letting go and moving on. Part of the challenge of life is to address and deal with the various moments of letting go and moving on that the process of living entails.

The life of Jesus was a unique life because he was a unique person, being, as he was, God in human form. Yet, his life, like every human life, was a process that involved a succession of stages. His hidden years in Nazareth might be understood as one stage in his life, his public ministry as another stage. His baptism was the transition moment between these two stages. His death on the cross was another transition moment between his public ministry and the short period during which he appeared in bodily form in his glorified state to his disciples. St. Paul understood himself as having witnessed the very end of that short period, ‘last of all he appeared also to me’. The ascension that we celebrate today is another transition moment between that short period and the much longer period that endures to this day, during which he is no longer present in bodily form to his disciples. Like the time of baptism and crucifixion, the ascension was a moment when Jesus moved on in some way, and when those closest to him had to let him go. The struggle that his disciples had to let him go at that moment is captured very well by St. John in his gospel when, outside the empty tomb, the risen Lord meets with Mary Magdalene and says to her, ‘Do not hold on to me, because I have not yet ascended to the Father’.

Yet, today’s gospel reading makes clear that the moving on of Jesus as a result of his ascension did not entail his absence from his disciples. At the end of today’s gospel reading we read, ‘the Lord Jesus was taken up into heaven’. Yet, the very next sentence states, ‘the Lord was working with the disciples and was confirming the word (they preached) by the signs that accompanied it’. The Lord was taken up, he was taken away, and yet he was working with them. The Lord did not ascend to distance himself from the church, but to be closer to the church. Again, St. Paul understood this very clearly as a result of his meeting with the risen Lord on the road to Damascus. After persecuting the church with great zeal, the risen Lord appeared to him and asked him, ‘Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?’ In persecuting the church, Saul came to realize that he was persecuting the Lord because, as today’s gospel says, the Lord was working with those who were witnessing to him. Today’s feast then is more about presence than about absence. We celebrate the Lord’s presence in the church. His Spirit has been poured into our hearts and, together, we are his body. As the second reading reminds us today, the Lord ascended in order to give gifts to his followers, ‘for building up the body of Christ’. Today’s feast directs our gaze to the body of Christ her on earth in.

That is why the question was put to the disciples in today’s first reading, ‘Why are you men from Galilee standing here looking into the sky?’ We don’t need to look into the sky to see the Lord. We only have to look into the eyes of the person sitting next to us. In these times which have been difficult for the church it is good to renew our faith in the Lord’s presence with the church. We believe that the Lord does not cease to work with us, even though we are not yet all that he is calling us to be. In the words of today’s second reading, the church is not yet ‘fully mature with the fullness of Christ himself’. Those of us who are the church are not yet fully mature in Christ. But that does not make us any less the body of Christ. We, the church, are in process; we are on a journey towards that state of being fully mature with the fullness of Christ himself. That is our goal, and the Lord works with us to reach that gaol. The second reading tells us how to reach that goal. We are to live lives worthy of our vocation, bearing with one another charitably, in complete selflessness, gentleness and patience. In this way we proclaim the good news with our lives. This is the task today’s feast puts before us, and as we engage in that task the Lord will work with us. As that second reading puts it, we have each been given our own share of grace for the doing of that task. We pray on this feast of the Ascension that we would be faithful to the task that the Lord has given us, and that we would come to recognise the ways the Lord is working with us as we seek to do that task.

And/Or

(iii) Solemnity of the Ascension of The Lord

You often hear people say, ‘I don’t like good byes’. Many of us can easily identify with that sentiment. We know from our own experience that good byes can be painful. We go on a journey to visit a family member or a friend. When we first meet up there is great joy all round. You often see such joyful scenes at airports. Yet, when we have to take our leave of each other again, there is often great sadness. We may not like good byes, but we cannot avoid them. The most traumatic good bye is certainly around the death of a loved one. We would do anything to avoid having to face into that particular good bye. When someone we love is moving on from us, we would dearly love to be able to reverse what is happening. Yet, it is so often the case that we are helpless before what is happening, and we have to learn to face into the good bye that we had hoped to put off. Most people manage to do just that; they somehow find it possible to let go, even though it can take time. Eventually they may go on to discover that letting go of someone in death does not mean the end of their relationship with that person. They begin to relate to their loved one in a different way; they may begin to understand the person in a way they had never done so before.

The ascension of Jesus involved for his disciples some element of letting go of him. When Jesus was put to death on a cross, his disciples must have felt that they would never see him again. Then, to their amazement, he began to appear to them, and they realized that he had been raised from the dead. He may have appeared to many of his disciples more than once. The time came when even those very reassuring appearances of the risen Lord came to an end, and he was no longer present to his followers in a visible form. We like people who are significant for us to be visible to us. Seeing the face of someone we love can mean more than all the phone calls and emails put together. That is why at the departure lounges of airports we long to keep our loved ones in view for as long as possible. We stare after our loved ones who are leaving us.

The first reading states that the disciples were staring into the sky. Yet, the question was immediately put to them: ‘Why are you men from Galilee standing here looking into the sky?’ Somehow, such looking skywards was not appropriate. It was not appropriate, because in returning to the Father, the risen Lord had not really left them at all; he was present to them in a new way. That is why today’s feast is much more a celebration of the Lord’s presence than a lament for the Lord’s absence. Today’s gospel reading expresses that very well. While stating that the Lord Jesus was taken up into heaven, it immediately declares that the Lord was working with the disciples as they proclaimed the gospel. He was taken from them and at the same time he was working with them. The emphasis of today’s feast is on the second element, the Lord working with them – with all of us.

We often use the phrase ‘eternal rest’ to refer to that life into which we pass beyond death. The New Testament strongly suggests that when Jesus returned to the Father, he did not enter into eternal rest. On the contrary, as risen Lord he was working with the disciples. He works with us today. The prospect of eternal rest may be more appealing to many of us than the prospect of eternal work. Yet, it is very much at the heart of the church’s faith that the risen Lord is eternally at work. God is at work through the risen Lord, as Jesus states in John’s gospel: ‘My Father is still working, and I also am working’. What is that work? The Lord’s work today is in keeping with his work in Galilee, Judea and Samaria two thousand years ago. The Lord is at work bringing life where there is death, healing where there is brokenness, hope where there is despair. He is working to liberate people from all that diminishes and dehumanizes them. He is working to bring together those who are at enmity with each other. He is at work lifting people beyond the blindness and prejudice that leads to discrimination and much worse.

We need to remind ourselves today more than ever that the Lord is at work, that he returned to his Father precisely to do his work on a scale that was not possible when he walked the hills of Galilee and the streets of Jerusalem. It is reassuring to know that, but it can never leave us complacent, because the Lord looks to all of us to get involved in his work. The gospel reading presents the Lord working with his disciples; he needs disciples today to work with and through as much as he did in the first century. According to our second reading today, the first thing the Lord did when he returned to his Father was to distribute gifts to his followers so that they could involve themselves in his work. We can be sure that he is not sparing with his gifts today. The feast of the Ascension is a good opportunity for each of us to ask ourselves how the Lord might be gifting us, with a view to our sharing in his work.

And/Or

(iv) Solemnity of the Ascension of The Lord

When people take their leave of us, we often look towards them until they are out of sight. This is especially the case when those who are leaving are people we have a very close relationship with, and when such people are going on a long journey and will be away from us for some time. Seeing them and knowing that they see us important to us at such moments of departure. When we no longer see them, when they have passed through the departure doors at the airport and are heading towards the security check, we feel that, yes, they have left us, at least for the time being. Unless we have Skype, we won’t see them until they return; the phone call, the letter, the email, will have to suffice in the meantime.

In the first reading this morning, it is said that the risen Lord was lifted up while the disciples looked on, and after he was lifted up, they were ‘staring into the sky’. It is as if they did not want the visual connection between themselves and the Lord to end. They peered after him, anxious to see him and to know that he saw them. After the crucifixion they thought they would never see him again; then he appeared to them in bodily form, although in a transformed state. Now, that period of his visible risen presence to them was coming to an end, as he took his leave of them again. They looked into the sky, wanting to prolong this time when the risen Lord was visible to them. According to that first reading, while they were staring into the sky, two men in white put the question to them, ‘Why are you men from Galilee standing here looking into the sky?’

The question that the two men ask on our first reading today suggests that the disciples are looking in the wrong direction if they want to see the Lord. They won’t see him by standing there, looking into the sky. They will have to look elsewhere to see the Lord. The Lord remains visibly present to his disciples, although in a different way to how he was visibly present immediately after his resurrection. The second reading suggests where the disciples need to look to continue seeing the Lord. That reading makes reference to the Body of Christ, the church. According to that reading, when the Lord ascended, he gave gifts to his followers. ‘Each of us’ - in the words of Paul - ‘has been given his or her own share of grace, given as Christ has allotted it’. Because of the Lord’s return to God, we have each been greatly graced and gifted through the sending of the Spirit. The sending of the Spirit and the gifts that accompanied the Spirit’s sending brought into being the Body of Christ, of which we are all members through faith and baptism. It is above all in and through his Body, the Church, that the risen Lord is present and visible in the world. Rather than looking up into the sky to see and meet the risen Lord, we are invited to look towards the members of Christ’s body. We, the baptized, are all called to be the sacrament of Christ, the place where Christ is powerfully present in the world.

That is true, even though the church, all of us, can sometimes hide Christ as well as reveal him. The church is both sinful and holy. We are the body of Christ, and, yet, we don’t always live as the body of Christ; we are not yet, in the words of our second reading, ‘fully mature with the fullness of Christ himself’. That is why at the beginning of that reading Paul says, ‘I implore you to lead a life worthy of your vocation’. He was aware that believers do not always live lives worthy of their vocation. We are the body of Christ and our vocation is to live as members of his body. In the words of our second reading, we are to ‘bear with one another charitably, in complete selflessness, gentleness and patience’. In so far as we are faithful to that vocation, we will be fully mature with the fullness of Christ himself, as individuals and as a community of believers, as a church, and Christ will be visible through us.

Even though the church does not always live her vocation to the full, it remains the body of Christ; it remains the place where the risen Lord is powerfully present. It is in and through the church, the community of flawed disciples, that we meet the Lord. The feast of the Ascension invites us to look towards the church with new eyes in the expectation of seeing the Lord there. In the gospel reading, Mark says, in almost the same breath, ‘the Lord Jesus was taken up into heaven’, and ‘the Lord was working with the disciples and confirming the word by the signs that accompanied it’. The moment of the Lord’s ascension was also the moment when he began to work powerfully in and through his disciples. Today’s feast is not a celebration of the Lord’s absence, but a celebration of the Lord’s presence. Like the first disciples to whom the risen Lord appeared, we too can say, ‘I have seen the Lord’. We see him in and through his body, the church.

And/Or

(v) Solemnity of the The Ascension of The Lord

As we go through life there are times when we can be tempted to think that this is as good as it can get. We feel content and at peace, perhaps after a long period when we were very troubled and unsettled. When that happens, it is natural to try and keep things as they are. We don’t really want change; we just want the present to continue. Yet, we know from our experience that change comes along. Something happens that unsettles us again and we have to let go of the way things have been and of the contentment and peace that it brought us. We find ourselves having to make adjustments we might have preferred not to have to make. A new struggle comes ourway; we have to work through some unexpected challenge until eventually we reach a new level of equilibrium and contentment. Life seems to have that pattern to it. It doesn’t allow us to become too comfortable for too long. Just when we reach a certain plateau of calm and peace, we find ourselves being stretched again in some new way. We always seem to be on a journey towards a destination that is beyond us.

When Jesus called his first disciples in Galilee, he was inviting them to set out on a journey with him. The darkest moment on that journey was undoubtedly Jesus’ passion and crucifixion. The disciples had to deal not only with Jesus’ tragic death but with their own failure to be faithful to him. Then to the disciples’ amazement, Jesus’ tomb was discovered to be empty on the third day after his crucifixion and he started appearing to them in his risen state. The disciples must have felt that this was the end of their journey. They were filled with joy, peace and consolation. Their experience of the tangible, bodily, presence of the risen Lord could not be surpassed. Here was all they could possible hope for. They wanted to hold on to these experiences, to hold on to the risen Lord. Yet, this was not the end of their journey. They had to learn to let go of these experiences. There came a time when Jesus was no longer present to them in visible, bodily form. That is what we mean by the Ascension of Jesus. The death of Jesus entailed a painful letting go for the disciples. This was another moment of letting go, but it was not as painful. Before the risen Lord took his leave of his disciples in this tangible, bodily form, he promised to send them the Holy Spirit. Jesus would be powerfully present to his disciples in and through the Holy Spirit. Just as the disciples might have felt that they could finally settle down and enjoy the Lord’s visible presence to them, a new phase in their journey as disciples was opening up. It was a phase of mission, when they were to go out and witness to the Lord in the power of the Spirit. In the words of Jesus in today’s first reading, ‘You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you, and then you will be my witnesses’.

When we try to be open to the Lord’s call, to respond to his invitation to be in a living relationship with him, we will find that the Lord does not let us settle easily. He is always calling us beyond where we are. No sooner had the disciples began to relax in the presence of the risen Lord than he said to them, in the words of today’s gospel reading, ‘go out to the whole world; proclaim the good news to all creation’. Go, and I will be with you in and through the Holy Spirit. There will always be some element of that challenging call to move on, in the way the Lord relates to us. With the challenging call to take some new path in the direction of other people, there is also the Lord’s promise that we will not be travelling that path alone. The Lord will be journeying with us. The end of the gospel reading this morning declares that the Lord ‘was taken up into heaven’, and also that he ‘was working with’ the disciples. In prompting us to take some new path, the Lord equips us for the path he asks us to take. The second reading declares that when the Lord ascended to the heights, he immediately gave gifts to men and women. The Lord continues to gift us for whatever path he calls us to take.

The Lord’s horizon for us is always greater, more adventurous, than the horizon we create for ourselves. That is the mystery and challenge of this feast of the Ascension. No matter how much joy, insight, freedom and delight there is of the Lord in our lives, we must let go and not cling to it, because with the Lord there is always more. The Lord continues to work in the hearts and consciences of us all, no matter where we are on life’s journey, and if we are open to that ongoing work of the Lord we will have to live with a kind of holy unrest, a restlessness that is the restlessness of the Spirit. It is a restlessness that will only be fully resolved when we see the Lord face to face.

And/Or

(vi) Solemnity of The Ascension of The Lord

We have all had the experience of leaving some place that has been very significant for us and moving on to another place. At a certain age, young people feel the need to leave home, a place that has been hugely significant for them, where they have received love and have been nurtured in various ways. Leaving home is often a difficult experience emotionally for young people and, yet, there it also holds the promise of something new. Many of us will also have had the experience of having to let go of those who have been dear to us and who move on from us. In the case of young people moving on from home, it can be more difficult for the parents than for the young person involved. Yet, painful as it is for parents, they too can have a sense that there is something promising about their son or daughter moving on and leaving home. It is a pattern that is deeply rooted in life; those we love move on from us in some way. The pain of moving on for both those doing the moving on and those who struggle to let go can ultimately be very life-giving for everyone involved. The leave-taking can open up a whole new horizon which can be full of promise for all. A young person leaves home, falls in love, gets married and returns to the home of the parents on a regular basis with children in tow. The beginning of a new life for the young person, which leaving made possible, can be the beginning of a new life for parents as well. The experience of loss, with all its heartbreak, can give way to an experience of receiving something new and wonderful that would not have been possible without the initial loss. Our faith teaches us that this is also true of the most traumatic experience of loss of all, the loss involved in death. We are letting go of our loved one to a new and fuller life, which we hope one day to share with them.

We celebrate today the feast of the Ascension of the Lord. The Lord’s ascension marked the end of that period during which the risen Lord was visibly present to his disciples. This entailed an experience of loss for the first disciples. It was not as painful as the loss they had experienced when Jesus was crucified. On the third day after the crucifixion, the risen Lord appeared to them. He spoke to his disciples, as he had spoken to them before his death; he ate with them, as he had eaten with them before his death. Their sorrow gave way to joy, their despair to hope, their fear to courage. Yet, even this wonderful period during which they saw the risen Lord also had to come to an end. They had to learn to let Jesus go again. The struggle to do that is captured in today’s first reading. As the risen Lord takes his leave of them, they were staring into the sky. It calls to mind the experience of people at an airport seeing off their loved ones. They keep their loved ones in view until it becomes impossible to see them any longer. Yet, the disciples’ experience of loss at the time of the ascension of the Lord was very different in quality to their experience of loss at the time of his crucifixion. Jesus was no longer dead; he was alive with a new life, and he promised that he would come back to them in and through the Holy Spirit. In this morning’s first reading he tells them, ‘you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you’. The Lord would be with them in and through the Holy Spirit. Yes, he was leaving them, but it was a leaving that would make possible a new presence. Today’s gospel reading says that after the Lord was taken up from his disciples into heaven, the same Lord was working with the disciples as they proclaimed the gospel.

That is the real meaning of the feast of the Ascension. We celebrate today the many ways that the Lord works with us. It is not so much a feast of the Lord’s departure but a feast of his active and life-giving presence among us. As people of faith, we can get discouraged by the decline in faith today, which finds expression in so many ways. Yet, today’s feast reminds us that the Lord never stops working among us. When it comes to the work that flows from faith, we may get tired and discouraged, but the Lord never tires. As Saint Paul reminds us in today’s second reading, the risen Lord has given us a share in his own grace. He keeps on bestowing his gifts upon us, different gifts to different people, so that, as individuals and as a church, we can become fully mature with his own fullness. Today’s feast calls on us to keep on receiving from the Lord who is always giving to us and is always working among us so that his vision for human living continues to be proclaimed.

And/Or

(vii) Solemnity of the Ascension of The Lord

Today is World Communications Day. It is appropriate that World Communications Day falls on the feast of the Ascension. The Ascension marks the transition from the short time the risen Lord remained visible to his disciples to the era of the church’s mission to communicate the truth of the Easter gospel. After the passion and death of Jesus, his disciples were in no mood to communicate anything. The mood of the disciples after the crucifixion of Jesus is well captured in the story of the two disciples on the road to Emmaus. As they walked along they had no desire to communicate with anyone other than with each other. They reluctantly shared their sad story with the stranger who joined them. When he began to speak to them and tell them another story from the Scriptures their mood began to lift. At table at Emmaus, in the breaking of bread, they recognized the stranger as their Lord, risen from the dead. They now knew they had something really important to communicate to others. They set off immediately to communicate the good news of Easter.

The disciples were so bruised and battered after what happened on Calvary, that the risen Lord needed to spent a little time with them to renew them in heart and spirit, to strengthen them for the task of communicating the good news of God’s unconditional love for all. The primary way the risen Lord strengthened those disciples was by communicating his own Spirit to them, the Holy Spirit. In the first reading, the risen Lord calls on his disciples to wait in Jerusalem for what the Father has promised, the gift of the Holy Spirit. It is in the power of the Spirit that they would be able to respond to the commission of the risen Lord in today’s gospel reading, ‘Go out to the whole world, proclaim the good news to all creation’. From being a dispirited group, the disciples were to be the Lord’s world-wide ambassadors. Such a radical transformation in their lives could not have happened if the risen Lord had not appeared to them, spent time with them and communicated his own Spirit to them.

The word ‘Ascension’ might suggest departure, the opposite of communication. However, this feast celebrates the risen Lord’s communication with his disciples in a very visible, tangible, manner over a short period of time, and, then, his communication of the Holy Spirit to them to empower them to communicate the truth of the Easter gospel to the world. Saint Paul, in the second reading, refers implicitly to the Holy Spirit when he says that after the Lord ascended he gave ‘his own share of grace’ to his followers. Today’s feast reminds us that through the Lord’s Ascension and his sending of the Spirit we have all been given our own share of the Lord’s grace. In the words of that second reading, we have all been gifted ‘for the work of service, building up the body of Christ’. The Lord keeps communicating his Spirit to us so that we can keep communicating the truth of the gospel to our world.

In his message for World Communications Day, Pope Francis says that because we are made in the image and likeness of our Creator, we are able to communicate all that is true, good, and beautiful. The risen Lord and his gospel is the embodiment of all that is true, good and beautiful. He is the one who is ‘fully mature’, in the words of today’s second reading. In his message the Pope also remarks that the capacity to twist the truth is also symptomatic of our condition, both as individuals and communities. This is what has come to be called ‘fake news’. Pope Francis calls for a shared commitment to stemming the spread of fake news and, in particular, to rediscovering the dignity of journalism and the personal responsibility of journalists to communicate the truth. The Pope reminds us that even a seemingly slight distortion of the truth can have dangerous effects. At the end of his message he declares that the best antidotes to falsehoods are not strategies, but people, people who are ready to listen, people who make the effort to engage in sincere dialogue so that the truth can emerge; people who take responsibility for how they use language.

As we approach the vote on whether to repeal the 8th amendment to the Constitution, as Christians, we are all engaged in the search for truth in relation to this crucial issue, and we are trying find ways of communicating our understanding of this truth in a loving, compassionate manner. A fundamental truth of the Christian vision of life is the sacredness of human life from conception until natural death. This truth is the basis of the church’s conviction that the unborn child has the same right to life as every other human being, including, of course the child’s mother. It has always been church teaching that when a seriously ill pregnant woman needs medical treatment which may, as a secondary effect, result in the death of her child, such treatment is always ethically permissible. According to today’s second reading, we are all called to become ‘fully mature with the fullness of Christ himself’. We might pray in the coming weeks for the wisdom to make a decision on Friday week that is in keeping with that baptismal calling.

Fr. Martin Hogan.

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Icon, Saints&Reading: Sat., Oct. 24, 2020

Commemorated on October 11_JuIian calendar

The Monk Theophanes the Confessor, Composer of Canons, Bishop of Nicea (850)

The Monk Theophanes the Confessor, Composer of Canons, Bishop of Nicea, was the younger brother of the Monk Theodore the Lettered-Upon (Comm. 27 December). The brothers received an excellent education, and were particularly involved in philosophy. Striving towards knowledge of God, they settled in the Laura monastery of Saint Sava. Here the Monk Theophanes was tonsured, and after a certain while became a presbyter. The holy brothers were famed as advocates of icon-veneration. They boldly fulfilled the mission entrusted them by the Patriarch of Jerusalem and set off to Constantinople to denounce the iconoclast emperor Leo the Armenian (813-820). And afterwards they denounced also the iconoclast emperors Michael Balbos (820-829) and Theophilos (829-842). The saints had to endure imprisonment, hunger, even tortures. The emperor Theophilos gave orders to inscribe upon their faces with red-hot needles a phrase insulting to the glorious confessors (wherefore they are called "Lettered-Upon"). "Write whatever thou dost wish, but at the Last Judgement thou shalt read thine writing", – said the agonised brothers to the emperor. They dispatched Theodore to prison, where also he died (+ 833), but Theophanes they sent into exile. With the restoration of Icon-veneration the Monk Theophanes was returned from exile and ordained bishop of Nicea. The saint wrote about 150 canons, among which is a beautiful canon in defense of holy icons. The monk died peacefully in about the year 850.

St. Philotheus (Kokkinos) of Mt. Athos, patriarch of Constantinople (1379)

He was born in Thessalonika around 1300; his mother was a convert from Judaism. He entered monastic life, first at Mt Sinai, then at the Great Lavra on Mt Athos. The so-called "Hesychast controversy" was then raging, And St Philotheos became one of the firmest and most effective supporters of St Gregory Palamas (November 14) in his defense of Orthodoxy against western-inspired attacks on the doctrines of uncreated Grace and the possibility of true union with God. It was St Philotheos who drafted the Hagiorite Tome, the manifesto of the monks of Mt Athos setting forth how the Saints partake of the Divine and uncreated Light which the Apostles beheld at Christ's Transfiguration. In 1351, he took part in the "Hesychast Council" in Constantinople, and wrote its Acts. In 1354 he was made Patriarch of Constantinople; he stepped down after one year, but was recalled to the Patriarchal throne in 1364. He continued to be a zealous champion of undiluted Orthodoxy, writing treatises setting forth the theology of the Uncreated Energies of God and refuting the scholastic philosophy that was then infecting the Western church. Despite (or because of?) his uncompromising Orthodoxy, he always sought a true, rather than political, reconciliation with the West, and even worked to convene an Ecumenical Council to resolve the differences between the churches. This holy Patriarch was deposed in 1376 when the Emperor Andronicus IV came to the throne; he died in exile in 1379. St Philotheos composed the Church's services to St Gregory Palamas. He is not listed in the Synaxaria, but is venerated as a Saint in the Greek church.

Remembrance of the Miracle from an Icon of Our Lord Jesus Christ in Beirut

This is not the Icon from the story. This illustrates how the profaners of the icon of Beirut were treated and the priceless spiritual gifts they receive.

Remembrance of the Miracle from an Icon of Our Lord Jesus Christ in Beirut: At the fourth session of the Seventh OEcumenical Council (year 787) Sainted Peter, Bishop of Nicomedia, in evidence of the necessity of icon-veneration, presented an account of Saint Athanasias and about a miracle, which occurred in the city of Berit (now Beirut). In this city lived a Christian near the Jewish synagogue. Having moved off to another place, he left behind at the house an icon of the Lord Jesus Christ. The Jew, who moved into the house, paid no attention to the icon. One time his friend took note of the image of Jesus Christ on the wall, and said to the home-owner: "Why dost thou, a Jew, have in thy house an icon?" He then went to the synagogue and reported about this transgression of Jewish law. The Jews cast out from the synagogue the owner of the house, and they took the icon from the wall and began to scoff over it: "As once our fathers mocked at Him, so we also mock at Him". They spit at the face of the Lord, lashed at the icon, hurling abuses, they thrust thorns about the head, and put a sponge with vinegar to the mouth. Finally, they took a spear, and one of the Jews thrust with it into the side of the Saviour. Suddenly from the opening, pierced by the spear in the icon, flowed blood and water. The Jewish rabbis, seeing the miracle, decided: "The followers of Jesus Christ affirm, that He could heal the sick. We shall take this blood and water into the synagogue and we shall anoint those afflicted with infirmities, and then we shall see, whether this be spoken truly of Him". A vessel with the blood was put in the synagogue. Having learned about the miracle, the inhabitants of Beirut began to bring and to lead into the synagogue those suffering from various illnesses, and they all were healed, having been anointed with the blood from the icon of the Saviour. All the high-priests, priests and Jewish people believed in Christ and exclaimed: "Glory to Thee, O Christ, Whom our fathers crucified, Whom we also crucified in the guise of Thine icon. Glory to Thee, O Son of God, for having worked such a miracle! We believe in Thee, wherefore be Thou merciful to us and receive us!" The Jews went to the bishop of Berit and, having shown him the wonderworking icon, the blood and water having flowed from it, they told about their misdeed. The bishop, seeing their sincere repentance, accepted them, chatechised them for many days and then baptised them, and then consecrated the synagogue into the church of our Saviour Jesus Christ. At the request of the Jews, he consecrated also other synagogues into churches, dedicated to the holy martyrs. And "there became great joy in that city, not only that many people were healed and quickened, but that many souls passed from the kingdom of the dead unto life eternal".

Acts 8:26-39

26 Now an angel of the Lord spoke to Philip, saying, "Arise and go toward the south along the road which goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza." This is desert. 27 So he arose and went. And behold, a man of Ethiopia, a eunuch of great authority under Candace the queen of the Ethiopians, who had charge of all her treasury, and had come to Jerusalem to worship, 28 was returning. And sitting in his chariot, he was reading Isaiah the prophet. 29 Then the Spirit said to Philip, "Go near and overtake this chariot." 30 So Philip ran to him, and heard him reading the prophet Isaiah, and said, "Do you understand what you are reading?" 31 And he said, "How can I, unless someone guides me?" And he asked Philip to come up and sit with him. 32 The place in the Scripture which he read was this: He was led as a sheep to the slaughter; And as a lamb before its shearer is silent, So He opened not His mouth. 33 In His humiliation His justice was taken away, And who will declare His generation? For His life is taken from the earth." 34 So the eunuch answered Philip and said, "I ask you, of whom does the prophet say this, of himself or of some other man?" 35 Then Philip opened his mouth, and beginning at this Scripture, preached Jesus to him. 36 Now as they went down the road, they came to some water. And the eunuch said, "See, here is water. What hinders me from being baptized?"37 Then Philip said, "If you believe with all your heart, you may." And he answered and said, "I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God." 38 So he commanded the chariot to stand still. And both Philip and the eunuch went down into the water, and he baptized him. 39 Now when they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord caught Philip away, so that the eunuch saw him no more; and he went on his way rejoicing.

Corinthians 1:8-11

8For we do not want you to be ignorant, brethren, of our trouble which came to us in Asia: that we were burdened beyond measure, above strength, so that we despaired even of life.9 Yes, we had the sentence of death in ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves but in God who raises the dead,10 who delivered us from so great a death, and does deliver us; in whom we trust that He will still deliver us,11 you also helping together in prayer for us, that thanks may be given by many persons on our behalf for the gift granted to us through many.

#orthodoxy #orthodox christianity #ancientfaith #originofchristianity #holyscripture #gospel #spirituality #wisdom

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kanski03 · 4 years

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THE SIGNIFICANCE OF YELLOW.

There's a duality to yellow; it's a symbolically-rich oxymoron which, with its conflicting associations, fits Lara completely. Particularly in the 19th Century, yellow was associated with sickness, stigma, and cowardice in Western society, whilst adversely being a colour associated with value, spirituality, and heroism in the East. Interestingly, it would come to be associated with p.ornography in both Western and Eastern society.

In addition to its history, yellow’s ambivalent character as both attractive and repulsive is something that appealed to me in regards to Lara’s character, for it is in-tune with my portrayal of her character; whilst certainly beautiful, with a history of idealism and spirit, this beauty constantly is at-odds with the aspects of her personality that evoke repulsion; her violence, her temper, her blood-lust, and her undeniable greed.

To sum, the following are terms associated with the colour;

indecency. eroticism. literature. salome. spectacle. sarah bernhardt. stigma. reclamation. betrayal. repression. obsession. instability. entrapment. war. memorial. dynasty. wealth. knowledge. censorship. death. ancient. toxicity. poison. arsenic. rarity. art. incompatibility. striking. gold. eternal life. murder.

YELLOW IN LITERATURE.

In 1895, when Oscar Wilde was arrested for 'gross indecency', he was seen to be carrying a French novel with a vivid yellow book which, at the time, would denote literature of an i.llicit and e.rotic nature. People misidentified the material to be The Yellow Book (a British quarterly literary periodical of the time that published the work of authors and artists such as Henry James, H.G Wells, William Butler Yeats, John Singer Sargent, and its first art editor, Aubrey Beardsley) and associated the publication with Wilde. The day after Wilde's arrest, people demonstrated in front of the publisher, and a flurry of media reports soon cemented an association between yellow paperbacks and homosexual content. Somewhat amusingly, Wilde had previously referred to The Yellow Book as 'dull' and 'not yellow at all' in an argument with Beardsley, whom he had once collaborated with for his play Salomé, first published in France. Less amusingly, Beardsley’s reputation was for a time so ruined by tabloid journalism after the arrest of Wilde that he and his sister were forced to vacate the house they shared.

On the subject of Salome, a play that rewrote the biblical figure of the New Testament, yellow plays a particular significance; though the colour is only mentioned seemingly in passing in the play in describing her veils, the Dance of the Seven Veils was infamous in its spectacle and, in contrast with recent depictions of Salome* (notably Rita Hayworth’s portrayal), Wilde reportedly stressed the importance of the dance being in monochrome yellow to the production's costume designer, W. Graham Robertson. Yellow’s importance can also be noted in the portrait of Salomé painted by Henri Regnault, Judith II (Salome) by Gustav Klimt, and Hans Makart’s portrait of the esteemed Sarah Bernhardt**, Wilde’s friend for whom the role Salome was written but by whom it would never be performed.

Makart, a Viennese painter, found his portrait of the ‘Divine Sarah’ was met with much criticism, however, due to its yellow appearance, and thus he withdrew it from an exhibition, an action that upset Bernhardt in a time of rife Antisemitism, thus sensitivity surrounding the figure of Salome. She formulated this response in a letter to Makart that showed her initial appreciation for the portrait, her disappointment in its removal and Makart’s shame for the piece: "Yellow on yellow was the colour of Henri Regault, the late master from Paris, when he painted his Salome shouldn’t the famed Sarah not also be permitted to be yellow? [...] Yes, Mr. Makart, even though my statue has been rescued from the Ring Theatre fire, my portrait must now be driven away. And yet my head and arms are so beautifully made up, the gown, the table cloth, the embroidery, the palm fan, everything is so beautifully yellow. Take assurance that I, too, have become truly yellow from gall, because you, whom I held to be my friend, betrayed me, after you painted me in yellow.” Bernhardt knew of the stigmatising reputation of the colour at such a time, but it would seem she was interested in its reclamation and in showcasing the colour for its beauty; when she acquired the Paris theatre, then the Théâtre des Nations, she had the red plush and gilt replaced with yellow velvet and brocade and renamed it ‘Théâtre Sarah Bernhardt’. The theatre kept the name the Occupation of France by the Germans in World War II, when the name was sadly changed to Théâtre de la Cité because of Bernhardt's Jewish ancestry.

* I do use the figure of Salome as an inspiration in itself, though not from her Antisemitic depiction in the New Testament or as the seductress of Wilde’s play, but rather in how her reputation was created in itself; almost all our information about her derives from the writings of Josephus whom relied heavily on the works of Herod’s court historian Nicolaus of Damascus, and our picture of Salome is marred by the latter’s personal feud with her. Herod’s personal life was full of intrigue and violence, and Nicolaus used Salome as a decoy so as to divert the reader’s wrath at these deeds away from her brother. Thus she is described as being the instigator of all the ‘tragedies' that befell Herod, and it is only after Herod’s death that we learn why Nicolaus hated Salome: in the question of Herod’s will and Herod’s apparent heir, she supported the claim of Herod Antipas, while Nicolaus supported the pretensions of Archelaus, thus in a public hearing on the issue in Rome they were found on two opposing sides of the question. When he eventually wrote on Herodian history, he had still not forgiven Salome for this affront and thus made her into a monster. To me, she seems to be another victim of history being written by male victors.

** Sarah Bernhardt was a primary inspiration for both Lara’s grandmother, Lady Margot Peletier, and Lara herself. Ethnically Jewish, Bernhardt was the child of a wealthy Dutch Jewish courtesan, Judith Bernard. Her father payed for her education, under the proviso that she be baptised as Roman Catholic. However, she never forgot her Jewish heritage. When asked by a reporter if she were a Christian, she replied: "No, I'm a Roman Catholic, and a member of the great Jewish race. I'm waiting until Christians become better."

I have briefly mentioned before the significance of Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s The Yellow Wallpaper in my portrayal, though its relevance is primarily in regards to Lara’s mother, Lady Aemilia E. Croft, and her diagnosis of what was then referred to as ‘puerperal insanity’. Gilman’s story is one of repression and obsession, with the narrator so clearly struggling with her role as a woman of the time and her inability to be the mother that was expected of her, in society that advised women to stick to being mothers and wives and resist the temptation to over-exert themselves physically, creatively, and mentally. The Yellow Wallpaper is famous enough that I don’t think I need to write too much on it, but I would argue that the pairing of yellow and specifically female instability and female entrapment is a clear one, particularly in relation to Lara.

YELLOW IN TRADITION.

The famous song ‘She Wore a Yellow Ribbon’, a song that has existed in various forms for at least four centuries and was a popular U.S Army marching song, also bears plenty of relevance to my portrayal of Lara, based on the tradition of a yellow ribbon being associated with those waiting for the return of a loved one or of military troops who are temporarily unable to come home from war. Thus, yellow too is associated with memorial.

Though in China the term 'yellow', in regards to printed materials like books and images, too has more recently denoted p.ornography and an association for prostitution in Hong Kong the term '黃' being a colloquial for something that is 'p.ornographic' or 'l.ewd' *, it was once a colour favoured by Imperial Emperors. The beginning of the Tang dynasty, Emperor Gaozong expressly forbade others from wearing clothing in of 'reddish-yellow' (his purported reasoning being that it was the colour of THE SUN and, just as there cannot be two suns in the sky, there cannot be two emperors in a nation'), and further regulations on wearing the colour yellow would be set by following dynasties, particularly the Qing Dynasty. Royal palaces were also recognised by their yellow roofs.

* I won't pretend to be an expert on this because I definitely am not, but I do remember reading something about forbidden books of the early Mao era being hidden under yellow covers, so I'll conjecture that perhaps as being why (as well as globalisation) as, due to censorship, it remains a difficult topic to research.

In India, the colour is associated with the Hindu deity Krishna who, generally, is depicted wearing a vivid yellow robe to contrast with his blue skin. Additionally, it’s there often associated with knowledge and peace, arguably both similar or opposing to its usage in Ancient Egypt ... ;

YELLOW IN DEATH.

... there, yellow was worn to signify the dead. In contrast, it has been widely purported that Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn wore yellow on receiving the news of Catherine of Aragon's death in a calculated insult to the memory of the woman Anne Boleyn had supplanted.

I based the colouring of my Google Doc and graphics on Orpiment, an inspiration that might be becoming a little more clear in my most recent promotional graphic, which is attested as another one of the reasons for yellow's negative associations. Orpiment was a pigment relied upon by artists from ancient times until the 19th century, in spite of its extreme toxicity and its incompatibility with other common lead- and copper-based pigments, due to clear and bright yellow pigments being in rare supply.

Orpiment had a hand in the infamous case of the Dutch serial killer Maria Swanenburg, once known locally as 'Goeie Mie' or 'Good Mie' when she cared for both children and the sick and elderly in the poor Leiden neighbourhood in which she lived, who murdered an confirmed number of 27 victims (though she is suspected of possibly having killed more than 90), including her own parents, with Orpiment arsenic between 1880-83.

Though commonly a golden colour, the mineral's streak (the colour of its powder when dragged across an un-weathered surface, which tends to be more consistent than a mineral's apparent colour due to various possible trace impurities) is closer to the pale lemon-yellow. It has notably been found on the walls of the Taj Mahal, as well as in the wall decor of Tutankhamen's tomb and ancient Egyptian scrolls.

Because of its visually striking colour, the mineral itself was of wide interest to alchemists throughout Europe and Asia when searching for a way to make gold and in their quest for eternal life perhaps ironic, considering its poisonous nature. In a similar vein, it was used as a medicine for a time, in spite of its toxicity as an arsenic sulphide mineral. Perhaps more suitably, it too was used to tip poison arrows.

#𝟎𝟎𝟐 : 𝐇𝐂. \ ❛ i can't wait to be forgotten . ❜#DON'T REBLOG

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wolfpawn · 5 years

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I Hate You, I Love You, Chapter 11

Chapter Summary - Danielle and Paul have lunch together, leading to their relationship becoming something more.Tom confronts Taylor on her lies and actions leading to him realising how she is able to act as she does and maintain a pristine public image.

Previous Chapter

Rating - Mature (some chapters contain smut)

Triggers - references to Tom Hiddleston’s work with the #MeToo Movement. That chapter will be tagged accordingly.

authors Note - I have been working on this for the last 3 years, it is currently 180+ chapters long. This will be updated daily, so long as I can get time to do so, obviously.

If you wish to be tagged, please let me know.

tags: @sweetkingdomstarlight-blog @jessibelle-nerdy-mum @nonsensicalobsessions @damalseer @hiddlesbitch1

NOTE - Unitentionally left this chapter out, apologies.

“Yep, a legitimate little shit,” Danielle stated in a deadpan voice as she finished chewing.

Paul laughed, covering his mouth with his hand to not spit out some of the salad he was eating. “I am just glad I got enough sleep before he started today.”

“Yeah, yeah, quit bragging.” She tossed half a cherry tomato at him, causing him to laugh again. “You didn’t strike me as a salad man.”

“I’m actually big on fruit and veg, I am a doctor after all; you know, practise what I preach and all that.”

Danielle eyed him suspiciously. “Wait, are you a vegetarian?”

“If I was?” he asked.

“I would probably disgust you, I am a total ‘it’s not dinner unless there is the side of some dead animal on the plate with it’ sort of girl.”

“Good Irish upbringing then I take it.” He smiled back.

“The best.”

“No, I’m not, but I am not a huge fan, fish is what I’d eat mostly.”

“Why imply you were?”

“To see your reaction.”

“It’s a diet choice, what sort of reaction were you expecting?” She laughed. “It’s not like you sacrifice goats to a pagan god.”

“Only at Easter.” She had barely stopped laughing when he set her into another fit. “I don’t want to ruin your good mood, but are you okay, with everything with Diana’s son that is?”

Danielle cleared her throat awkwardly, picking up her fork and playing with another half tomato. “It’s none of my business.”

“But you are being dragged into it, aren’t you?” Danielle gave a small nod, not looking up from the plate. “What is the story there, did you go out with him before or something?”

Danielle scoffed. “No, nothing like that. Honestly Paul, I only know him through his mum, I collected him from the airport once when she couldn’t make it, we talked, we got along well, and since it was an awkward journey for Diana, I offered to do it when he was coming to Suffolk. I’m not even very close to him, he is rarely around, I just find him nice to talk to on the rare occasion I see him, I get on best with Emma, and Sarah I’ve only ever seen a few times.”

“They are his sisters?” she nodded. “So why is all the focus on you?”

“I think it’s to do with I was talking to Diana about everything and he overheard us, so he got mad, and then ranted to his girlfriend about it and I have no idea how the hell it escalated from there.”

“And now you are being accused of selling their family secrets?” she nodded again. “That’s pretty rough.”

“I have no idea how this came about, and I can only imagine that whatever little chance there was of myself and Tom ever talking amiably again, is well and truly decimated, which will put a strain on Diana and Emma, which is completely not fair.”

“And that is why you are ignoring Diana?”

“I’m no ignoring her; I am just trying to make things easier for her. If she doesn’t have people arguing, it makes her life easier.”

“That’s selfless of you. She told me you talk to her about your parents a lot.”

“You spend an awful lot of time talking about me.”

“Contrary to your belief Danielle, people actually care about you, and think you a very worthy topic of conversation.” He smiled. “We are worried about how all of this is affecting you; that’s what people do when they care about someone” Danielle blushed at his words. “I know we’re only getting to know each other personally Danni, but…” The neighbour’s dog began barking hysterically. “That fucking cat.”

“It’s a dog.”

Paul laughed. “No, he sees the apartment over the way’s cat. It sit’s there taunting him all day.”

“Should we get Mac to say hello?”

“I think that’s a great idea.” Paul smiled, walking over to the door. Mac Tíre, who had been reasonably comfortable in his unfamiliar surrounds until the other dog started barking, rose to his feet and went to the patio door. As soon as Paul opened it, he rushed out, giving a deep bark, which was followed by pathetic whimpers, and trotted back inside proudly.

“That’ll teach the little bollix.” Danielle laughed, having gotten out of her chair and stood next to Paul to see what Mac Tíre would do. She looked up at Paul next to her, realising for the first time that there was over six inches difference in their height. When his gaze met hers, she blushed slightly. “I…”

Paul gently placed his hand on her cheek and leant down, his face only centimetres from hers as he studied her eyes, noticing there was no attempt to step back from him, he pressed his lips against hers, relieved when Danielle pressed hers forward into his.

“Are you seriously accusing me of selling that story?” Taylor had tears in her eyes as she spoke. “I was at the table with you; I left my phone with you the only time I left you after that story was said. It had to be that bitch.”

“You said you never spoke to her, and then admit to Ben you did.” Tom retorted. “Don’t you see what they did Taylor, they tricked you. They never told that story to Danielle; they planted it for you to show what you were doing.”

“His wife was gone long enough with her phone, she rang it in.”

“Ben screen shot me a picture of her screen. She was gone about ten minutes from the table, the phone number on the phone was a British number, the prefix was one for Scotland and the call lasted ten minutes forty-two seconds.” Tom argued. “She was talking to her mum.” Tom looked at her, somewhat defeated. “Benedict is a Buddhist, a practising Buddhist, and Sophie does not go to church, and should she ever elect to, Benedict would not think it a suitable place to bring Christopher so young.”

“And you know this as fact do you?”

“Yes, because I was a groomsman at his wedding, so I know his view on church ceremonies, and I was talking to him when they were getting Christopher baptised, both of which he only did to placate their parents.” Tom looked her in the eye as he spoke. “Why have you been lying?”

“I have not, you are just pissed that your friend…”

“Stop dragging Danielle into this, Danielle could not care less about us.”

“She is in love with you.”

“Well if she is, then she is Oscar-worthy in her ability to not show it, because she has a boyfriend, and going by the fact I got a picture sent to me by my sister showing Elle and the doctor walking by the sea with her dog holding hands, she seems to be completely happy with him according to Emma.”

“They did that in front of her to get her to tell you so you would be…”

“Are you listening to yourself?” Tom scoffed. “My sister wasn’t there with them; she was walking along with her own husband and noticed them from afar. You have had it in for Danielle for some reason since the beginning.”

“She is not really your friend, she has been bitching you to your mum.”

“You know, I actually remember the first time I heard them discuss you, she actually defended you, saying you were pretty and at least you had your own money, all you have ever done is belittle her.”

“She said I could not sing for shit and that I was a moaning... well I cannot repeat the word.”

“Yes well, perhaps there’s some truth in that.” Tom hissed angrily. Taylor gasped in horror at his words. “I think we need to call a time-out on this for a while, I need space and you need to grow up.” Tom grabbed his jacket and went to leave. “You know, I actually heard you on the phone to one of your friends, swearing you would get Danielle to pay, I should have realised then it was you. I made an absolute tit of myself to my friends and family, and for what? A girl who is still acting as though she is in school.” He walked out the door leaving an irate Taylor behind him.

Tom Hiddleston ‘Girl Next Door’ ex-lover threatens Taylor Swift?

Sources close to the singer revealed she turned up at a squad member’s home at close to midnight on Thursday night after a close friend of the Hiddleston family sent an email to the singer stating she and the actor had had an affair before the actor was dating the “Bad Blood” songstress, but that the actor dumped her for Ms. Swift, and she swore she would get him back.

The neighbour girl, thought to be living next to his mother Diana Hiddleston in Suffolk, is also the reported source behind the photographs and stories leaked about Hollywood’s most fangirled gentleman. The girl also claimed that Mr. Hiddleston forced her to get an abortion because he never wanted children, a claim Ms. Swift knew to be false because of Tom’s great affection for children, and of course, he has said in many interviews he cannot wait to show his own children the Jungle Book film some day, hardly the words of a man never intending to have children; Tom Hiddleston is also a self-confessed feminist, which helps Ms. Swift know he would never force someone to do such a thing against their will.

The email also implied that if Ms. Swift was not to end things with the Thor and Night Manager star, there would be consequences. The woman is apparently involved in the emergency services, a troubling thought for those in need of assistance in the Suffolk region of Britain.

Tom stared at the article in front of him. He could hardly process it. Danielle could easily lose her job if her superiors figured out that it was supposedly her bring referenced in the article. Tom could not believe what he was reading, Taylor had not only attacked Danielle; she had put everything she had ever worked for at risk. Livid, he pulled out his phone and found Taylor’s number, pressing the call button before he even thought of what he was going to say.

“Calmed down from your tantrum yet?” There was no denying there was a smile on Taylor's face as she answered the phone.

Tom wanted to inform her it was her that had had a tantrum. “What have you done?”

“What are you talking about, I did nothing.” The singer replied sweetly.

“Is this all a sick little game to you, this is a person’s livelihood you are messing with, her job.”

“Boo-hoo, she should not go interfering in other people’s lives if she does not want them to interfere with hers.”

“You have to have that article removed.”

“I have to do nothing; though I’ll make a deal with you, I need to go to the New York fashion show, Gigi will be there with Zayn, so I cannot look utterly pathetic and be alone, so you come with me, smile and look pretty for the camera’s, and when I am asked about that little email, I will laugh and rubbish it off as all lies, I might even say something nice about her, deal?”

“I thought you did not do fancy events with partners?”

“I do not do award shows with them, there’s a difference.” She corrected. “So, will we leave this little spat behind us? I promise I will not reference the lovely Danielle again.”

Tom swallowed, after all, the trouble that he had caused for Danielle, it was the least he could do. “When is the show?”

“I’ll send the plane for you.” She sang back.

#chapter 11 #tom hiddleston #tom hiddleston fic #I hate you I love you

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roseate7 · 5 years

Note

Any words of consolation about what’s probably going to happen tonight? It hurts so much and it hasn’t even happened yet. You seem to have good perspective and I could use some.

I’ll answer this one because it’s very sweet and must’ve come in right before I switched anon off.

I can very easily and confidently say to you that this indeed shall pass, because unlike many a swift rout in which a team and fanbase must cast about in bewilderment for what went wrong, the enemy has shown himself and it is within. For all that the superstars were gassed with overwork by the time the playoffs arrived, and for all that the eventual lineup were too bewildered to pull out a cohesive performance by the end, the man responsible for all of this - and I mean all - is Jim Rutherford.

A lot of folks understandably held out on my level of bolshiness toward him this year, but from day one of this playoffs series the truth of the entire season’s mess and muddle and hasty plastering-over had shown itself in rapidly coming undone beneath playoffs pressure. And he’d done the same botched jobs before in Carolina.

I know most folks don’t agree with me on this point especially but the Hags trade set the tone of Rutherford losing the team’s confidence in him entirely. The bulk of the work was done then. His “point was made” but the point was both a misfire and an eventual backfire. But whatever difficulties the Pens had at the start of the season, we only ever got to see them just beginning to repair the longer the team got to bond and gel… only for trigger-happy-trader Jim to come and throw it all into disarray again.

There’s no way of ever knowing which of the trades were truly any better because there was no time the crucial identity to be formed with any of them. He lucked the fuck out with the Florida trade, but what good are two solid players in isolation on a disjointed team they barely know and may not even stay with past the summer? Where is the hunger and fight for them? To lift a Cup with men they’ve known a matter of months? They’re not Black Aces, they’re key players who felt rushed in and did their best which is honestly a waste of talent in the end. Certainly no way to form that team identity. All it did was help keep the Pens on life support.

That’s the theme of Rutherford losing this season: what good are solid players in isolation? Do they make a defense? Do they create goals? Do they give his superstars space to work while leaving the speed up to the younger and lighter, or even just faster…. oh yeah those are all gone. So, no. No they don’t. They add up to a first round sweep and have done ever since the late fall.

It might seem like strange comfort to know that the season was ultimately jeapordized by a man who we can only see the back of if pressure mounts outside and in, but ironically when you look at all of the good that he has wasted in either neglect or over-work, it is reassurance.

Because it’s very good to know that the Pens have a core on the other side of thirty who are hitting and breaking franchise and league records and are still able to overcome major mid-season injury and reignite the team’s playoffs hopes. They’re not the Hawks or the Kings. Their core leave ample cap space in their salaries and more importantly, the problems aren’t scattered all over the locker room and the coaching and the management. It’s down to one man getting into a job using more talented colleagues and then reverting to type once left to his own devices. Hell, even Sully being out-coached wouldn’t have led to a first round exit if the team had formed the kind of identity and drive that it should have. 87/71 can lead a motley crew of a roster to the second round just fine, so long as they can get to know them before March.

And 87/71 being what they are - an isolated and rare organism - and having veteran status, none of the past two seasons will be allowed to remain when they return to Pittsburgh in the fall. They’ve proven how fearless they are in doing what is right for their team and that they’ll run up against any level of front office to fight for glory again. Hell, just look at Geno’s post-games after tonight! He is already planning on the upturn of all they’ve settled into that doesn’t work. I truly do not think Rutherford has the clout, especially after these past two years on his own, to stand up to what those two want. They’ve got the ear of the owners far more than he has. I doubt he’ll be gotten rid of, but his workload could easily become much ‘lighter’ and the purse strings taken out of his hands.

From my hockey perspective, this exit honestly feels like a logical turn in direction for a team who have needed to be wrestled out of the jaws of victory rather than the other way round for most of one dynasty. The years between 2009 and 2016 were such twists and turns, and they’ve all faded into normal and natural lows and suffering that happen to absolutely every club - especially to ones who have had success so frequently. The past two seasons aren’t at all unusual for a much older club whose legs have largely never bounced back from a gruelling back-to-back and an unbroken succession of playoff appearances.

All of Rutherford’s botched work needs to be either undone or removed. I’m sorry folks, I know it’s extremely unlikely and most don’t agree with me but getting Hags back would restore heart and identity to a team that couldn’t bear to have lost it in the first place. But even if not him, then a team assembled and left to actually find itself next season. I’m also not convinced that dropping Horny makes sense, it feels way too much like the overly-reactionary trades of the entire season and yet more loss of identity. Bringing in youth and speed is doable without disintegrating the core even more. We all love Olli but he’s sadly become disposable (I don’t really know why) and I say it’s far wiser to shift a younger player who is already showing signs of slowing than a teammate who brings much needed heart to the locker room.

Anyway, all of this can be done. There is now time, room and with intelligence there can be money. Geno will rest and clear his head and be Russian and Miamian for a while, Sid will go off with trainers like last summer, and they’ll both return of one mind: to never, ever allow their ship to be steered so wildly off course ever again.

So when it comes to the pain, the bitterness, the feeling of desolation and confusion of tonight I really can promise you this will be a kinder loss in the long run. It didn’t drag on, it was against a team who had the jump and the desperation on the Pens, and there were no cruel twists of the knife to age-old wounds. The Isles were better and wanted the win more and they won. It’s clean, if still gutting.

I can say all of this because I was baptised by fire and blood into hockey. I saw Bloody Wednesday and I had seen the previous season’s lead-up to it, all of which is told best by Kris Draper himself. I saw hatred and cold-bloodedness and rage that transcended ‘just hockey’ between the Avs and Wings of those days. I can safely say that no one will ever experience transcendent agony and ecstasy of the like ever again because the sport is now more about... well, the sport, rather than the spectacle.

And as I soon realised, all that gnashing of teeth from the players represented the most pathetic side of a game that was already on it’s way to losing it’s audience precisely for a lack of substance. It all stopped being satisfying when the enforcers were no longer made invisible in their traumatized retirement and the gladiatorial was proven to be ultimately almost as fatal and cruel as the old coliseums. We all got sick of games halting for the latest wild man to do his bit and to have teams hoarding up talent in ways that even refs could tilt the balance in their favor so well. The rivalries are boring younger fans now that testosterone flare-ups no longer run the show, and instead look like weak distractions - or downright dangerous in ways that are no longer considered acceptable - from letting your hockey speak for itself.

And well, as Draper and Nick Lidstrom proved to me many years later when they both went belly-aching that a 21 year-old Sidney Crosby wasn’t prompt enough to shake Lidstrom’s hand after the 2009 final. I will always respect those guys as players, but hoo boy the irony of their childish sore loser attitude in calling Sid immature and unprofessional still looks terrible for two men who won four Cups in their time. Same with the fans and journalists who saw fit to bemoan this perceived slight from Sid due to nothing but sour grapes over the fair loss of yet another trophy to add to their groaning coffers. Especially targeting a kid charged with rescuing his sport and his franchise, who had returned to the Joe after a bitter disappointment the previous season, and at last gained the achievement that had been expected of him since he was between fourteen and sixteen.

For shame on two men I had witness do battle and perform so valiantly, even after some of the glory of their days had begun to tarnish, to gang up on a boy because their days of domination were fading. I still love those first seasons I watched, but I am glad the days are gone of two men knocking forty launching a PR campaign to damage the image of a kid only just realising the dream they had many times repeated themselves before he was even in the draft combine.

Why did I take that trip down memory lane, you could well ask if you’re still even reading this, anon???

Because while players like the 90s Red Wings represent the last of the old dynasties, the post-2004/5 lockout effects on hockey haven’t been felt in full effect really until the Penguins back-to-backs. You know, the team who won using speed and cohesion? The team who set the standard which all other teams were not-so-secretly rushing to copy? That was a core of existing champs who dictated their own identity and who had two leaders with their eyes wisely on the future-present style of hockey.

The Kings and Hawks days of glory had one foot very much in the past. They are both in different stages of trying to work out the puzzle of a league whose playing style has been flipped even more on it’s head in just the past three drafts. Forget McDavid: how does Mitch Marner weigh what he weighs and do what he does and bounce back up every time old-style defense tries to knock him down? How do you get more of those little nuggets of your own to find gaps and evade muscle and create chances? That’s the question the Pens already know they have to get back to answering as they had before.

But Jim Rutherford has fumbled his two years unsupervised, this is resoundingly true, and his old ‘grit and size’ tendencies are coming up against a Pens core who have far more knowledge of what it takes to return their team to being champions because they have seen the sea changes taking place in their franchise from day one.

Ol’ Jim’s can come and go. But Crosby and Malkin are neither petulant veterans who would moon about over their losses and angrily deflect onto the youngsters who beat them, nor are they superstars existing in a bubble and bemoaning the slow decline of their team after each short or non-existent post-season. Neither of them will mind handing over some depth work to speedier youngsters. Neither of them will mind adjusting their roles to accommodate the next generation of Pens, because it’s what they’ve been doing for a good few years now. No clashing of egos or sense of grudge over age and perceived superiority to stop these two from doing whatever it takes to keep the club on the right path.

The Pens will always have a shot at being champions so long as Sid and Geno are on the thrones in Pittsburgh. And the more they come into their age and embrace their sway over a franchise that knows it owes it’s existence to them both (even if fucking nobody else seems to remember that Geno’s throne sits in every way equal to Sid’s) the more chance there is for more Cups.

At the very least, and it’s still a wonderful least, seasons like this one will stand as nothing but a stark but isolated reminder of how close to disaster their ship has ever sailed.

I have absolutely no doubt that they know what to do in the wake of it, and I have no doubt that they would gladly fly in the face of front office if it meant a more harmonious locker room.

They’re two heroes who won’t complain about the young bucks coming in and the league changing around them, and trust me when I say Pens fans should take endless comfort in that, even in the toughest years. And the natural order of things in hockey absolutely dictates that you’ve gotta at least have some of those.

#inbox #lmao sorry for the fucking epic #wow do I talk a lot when it's late #Anonymous

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anastpaul · 6 years

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20 September - Blessed Memorial of St Eustachius born as Placidas, Wife and Sons – Martyrs (Died c 188) One of the Fourteen Holy Helpers – Patronages – against fire, difficult situations, fire prevention, firefighters, hunters, hunting, huntsmen, Madrid, torture victims, trappers.

The remarkable story of Saint Eustachius, is a lesson given by God Himself on the marvels of His Divine Providence. He was a distinguished and very wealthy officer of the Roman army under the Emperor Trajan, in the beginning of the second century. He practised generous charity to the poor, although he had not yet perceived the errors of idolatry.

One day, while this distinguished officer was vainly pursuing a deer, the animal suddenly stood immobile before him in the light of a hilltop and he perceived between its horns a luminous cross. On the cross was the image of the crucified Saviour and a voice said to him, ‘I am the Christ whom you honour without knowing it; the alms you give to the poor have reached Me.’ Like Saint Paul, he fell from his horse and remained inert for a time. Coming to himself, he said interiorly, What is this voice I have heard? You who speak to me, who are you, that I may believe in you? And the Lord told him interiorly that He was the Creator of the light, of the seasons, of man and all things visible, that He had suffered to save the human race, died and been buried but had risen the third day.

This was sufficient and the officer went home to fulfil the prescription he had received to be baptised with his wife and two young sons. His spouse had received a similar revelation at the same time as himself and they all went to the Christian authority of the region in secret, to be baptised the same night.

In a short time he lost all his possessions through natural catastrophes and robbers. But he had been advised beforehand that the Lord wanted to make of him another Job, that already the ancient enemy had plotted against him and that he was not to allow any thought of blasphemy to arise in his heart amid the sufferings that were awaiting him. He prayed for strength and retired from the region after the calamities, with his wife and children. When by unforeseeable and extraordinary accidents, his wife and children were also taken from him and he believed the children dead, he was close to despair and wished his life might end but the warning of the Lord returned to his mind and he entered into the service of a land-owner of a village called Badyssus, to tend the fields. He remained for fifteen years in this occupation. During this time his loved ones were well and safe, all spared in the perilous circumstances which had removed them from his sight but separated, each one like himself, from the three others.

In those days the empire was suffering greatly from the ravages of barbarians and was sinking under the assaults. The emperor Trajan had Eustachius sought out and when he was found, had him clothed in splendid garments to give him command over the troops he intended to send against the invaders. During the celebration that accompanied his return, he related to the emperor all that had occurred to him. When the troops were being assembled, his own sons were conscripted. Seeing them, he noticed them as young men taller than most and of great nobility of bearing and countenance and kept them near him without yet recognising them. One of the two, while on bivouac near the very house of his own mother, who like Eustachius had taken employment in the garden of a landowner, related the confused memories of his childhood to his companion. Suddenly, the two brothers recognised one another and embraced in an effusion of joy.

Their mother, by a delicate attention of Providence, had chanced to overhear them and reflecting on what she heard, became certain they were her own sons. She went to the captain of the campaign to inquire about them and immediately recognised him. Not wishing to startle him, she began to relate her story, identifying herself as the wife of a certain Placidus and saying she believed she was now in the presence of her two sons from whom she had been separated and whom she had not seen for long years. One must imagine the sentiments of the captain on hearing this narration, the reunion which followed and the prayers of thanksgiving sent up to God by the family and also the troops, who joined them in their joy and prayers.

Returning to Rome victorious, Eustachius was received in triumph and greatly honoured, but when commanded to sacrifice during the celebration to the false gods, refused. The infuriated emperor Adrian — for Trajan had died — ordered him with his wife and children to be exposed to a starved lion. But instead of harming these servants of God, the beast came up to them, lowered its head as if in homage and left the arena. The emperor, more furious still, caused the martyrs to be shut up inside a brazen bull, under which a fire was to be kindled, that they might be roasted to death. Saint Eustachius prayed aloud and thanked God, asking Him who had reunited them to cause that their lives end at the same time, so they might be received together by Him into the happiness of His presence. They expired but neither their bodies nor even their hair was injured. They were found entire the next day and at first it was believed they were still alive. Many believed in Christ through this final miracle, which to us today seems perhaps less miraculous than the story of their existence while alive. A church in honour of the martyrs still exists in Rome: Saint-Eustachius in Thermis.

Eustachius became known as a patron saint of hunters and firefighters and also of anyone facing adversity; he was traditionally included among the Fourteen Holy Helpers. He is one of the patron saints of Madri d, Spain. The island of Sint Eustatius in the Caribbean Netherlands is named after him. The d’Afflitto, one of the oldest princely families in Italy, claim to be direct descendants of Saint Eustachius.

The novels “The Herb of Grace” (US title: Pilgrim’s Inn) (1948) by British author Elizabeth Goudge and Riddley Walker (1980) by American author Russell Hoban, incorporate the legend into their plot. It has also inspired the film Imagination.

The saint’s cross-and-stag symbol is featured on bottles of Jägermeister, a German alcoholic digestif. This is related to his status as patron of hunters; a Jägermeister was a senior foresters and gamekeeper in the German civil service until 1934, prior to the drink’s introduction in 1935. Jägermeister has a round logo of a shining cross between the antlers of a deer/stag referring to two persons who had seen such a vision: Saint Hubertus and Saint Eustachius.

Saint Eustachius has a church dedicated to him in the southern part of India – he is called Saint Esthak in this part of the world and in County Kildare, Ireland. There is a church dedicated to him on the campus of Newbridge College in Newbridge, County Kildare and the schools’ logo and motto is influenced by the vision of Saint Eustachius; a nearby village is named Ballymore Eustace.

Sant’Eustachio is also honoured in Tocco da Casauria, a town in the Province of Pescara in the Abruzzo region of central Italy. The town’s church, built in the twelfth century, was dedicated to Saint Eustachius. It was rebuilt after being partially destroyed by an earthquake in 1706.

About the 14 Holy Helpers here

(via Saint of the Day - 20 September -St Eustachius, Wife and Sons - Martyrs (Died c 188))

#steustachius #september20steustachius #catholic #catholicism

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