#renunciation of Catholicism

[todaysjewishholiday]

21 Tammuz 5784 (26-27 July 2024)

Shabbat shalom! Sabado bueno! Gut shabbes!

It is once again the most significant holiday in the Jewish calendar. Shabbat begins eighteen minutes before sunset on the twentieth of Tammuz and continues until full nightfall on the twenty second. May it be a day of rest and peace for all of us.

The parashat hashavua is Pinchas in Bamidbar, which contains the second census of the Israelites. It also contains the story of The daughters of Zelophechad, who petition for an adjustment of the laws of inheritance to account for families with no sons. The parsha shows HaShem adjusting the law in accordance with their request. Next, Yehoshua is chosen as Moshe’s successor and presented to the people. The parsha ends with instructions regarding korbanot to be offered on the major holidays, including the high holy days, which are described as being in the seventh month rather than the new year because the calendar is still counting from Nisan.

The twenty-first of Tammuz is also the yahrzeit of the Spanish martyr Don Lope de Vera y Alarcon, known at the end of his life by the self-chosen name Judah the Believer, who died at the hands of the Spanish Inquisition after six years of imprisonment and torture.

The mission of the church and crown to remove all Jews from the Iberian peninsula was doomed from the start for a number of reasons, chief among them that no matter how many Jews the Inquisitors hounded from Spanish and Portuguese shores, the very book on which they based their religion, the Christian Bible, was full of them. This is the flaw at the heart of all Christian antisemitism, for without us, their religion could never have come into being, and anybody who is exposed to Christianity through the Bible is also thereby exposed to the holiest texts of Judaism as well. And though Christian denominations have their own official interpretations of these texts, the words can speak for themselves to readers who decide to look for an understanding of their own.

This is what happened with Lope de Vera. Born into a Spanish noble family, he belonged to the class the Inquisition saw as the truest of all Spaniards. An academic prodigy, he entered the University of Salamanca at the age of fourteen, and due to a great aptitude with languages was soon fluent in Latin, Greek, and Hebrew as well as Spanish. His study of the Tanakh in its original Hebrew led Lope, who had in all likelihood never met a living Jew, to privately reject Catholic teaching and identify with the faith and ritual practices described by the Torah. Lope made the mistake of describing his newfound convictions to his elder brother, who reported him to the Inquisition in a misguided effort to save his soul. For the next six years the young scholar was imprisoned, interrogated, and routinely tortured in an attempt to force him to recant. All these efforts only made him more certain of his decision to adopt the Jewish religion. He had no access to a Jewish community or any rabbi, and certainly was never able to complete halakhic conversion overseen by a beit din. But for simply professing his affection for the Jewish people and conviction that the messiah had not yet come and that the commandments of the Torah remained in effect, he was considered a profound threat to the very basis of Spanish Catholic society which had spent over a century convincing itself that there were no more Jews in Spain.

In prison, Lope performed a bris on himself, and refused all meat since it was not slaughtered in accordance with kosher laws. He took the name Judah the Believer in place of the name of his birth. After six years, his jailers despaired of all hope of persuading Lope to return to Catholic orthodoxy, and because freedom of conscience and religious association was anathema to the mission of the inquisitors, Lope de Vera y Alarcon was burned at the stake on the 21st of Tammuz 5404.

Before his death, Lope had prepared a written explanation of his journey from Catholicism to identification with the Jews of the Tanakh, as part of the meticulous records kept by the Inquisition of the “confessions” of its victims. This document was smuggled out of the Inquisition’s headquarters by a sympathizer with Lope’s persistence, and donated to a synagogue in Livorno. The Inquisition was unable to silence him, even in death.

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Photo by Nurgül Kelebek 

* * *

𝗔𝗹𝗹 𝗠𝘆 𝗙𝗿𝗶𝗲𝗻𝗱𝘀 𝗔𝗿𝗲 𝗙𝗶𝗻𝗱𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗡𝗲𝘄 𝗕𝗲𝗹𝗶𝗲𝗳𝘀

All my friends are finding new beliefs. This one converts to Catholicism and this one to trees. In a highly literary and hitherto religiously-indifferent Jew God whomps on like a genetic generator.

Paleo, Keto, Zone, South Beach, Bourbon. Exercise regimens so extreme she merges with machine. One man marries a woman twenty years younger and twice in one brunch uses the word verdant; another’s brick-fisted belligerence gentles into dementia, and one, after a decade of finical feints and teases like a sandpiper at the edge of the sea, decides to die.

Priesthoods and beasthoods, sombers and glees, high-styled renunciations and avocations of dirt, sobrieties, satieties, pilgrimages to the very bowels of being ...

All my friends are finding new beliefs and I am finding it harder and harder to keep track of the new gods and the new loves, and the old gods and the old loves, and the days have daggers, and the mirrors motives, and the planet’s turning faster and faster in the blackness, and my nights, and my doubts, and my friends, my beautiful, credible friends.

- Christian Wiman -

Source: Poetry (January 2020)

[Thanks to Echoes of Panhala]

[thegreatzombieartisan]

Nope Fuckity Bye: Two Theories on Why Sauron Skipped Seeking Pardon

“Sauron … did obeisance to Eönwë, the herald of Manwë, and abjured all his evil deeds…”

*

Before diving in, some givens and inferences:

Tolkien’s work is fundamentally Catholic work. To understand his POV, use this lens.

Maiar share a similar psychological landscape to Elves and Men. Men and Elves can procreate. Elves and embodied Maiar can too. Do the math.

Ecclesiastical language is telling. So, let’s clear up the oft misuse of “repentant.” Repentant = contrite (sincere sorrow for offense) vs. Penitent = contrite + actively seeking reconciliation.

*

Recognize the Sacrament of Penance reflected throughout legendarium

Per his faith, Tolkien believed redemption was ever an option. Thus, a penitent sinner like Sauron would need to satisfy conditions (sacraments) to absolve offense (sin) and reconcile with Eru Illuvatar (God).

All sin can be absolved, no matter how great.

Contrition or sincere sorrow for one’s offenses

Reconciliation aka “confession” aloud to a “priest” for accountability and absolution of sin

Repentance is assigned reparations for amends.

Theory One. Sauron couldn’t bear facing the Valar, but ecclesiastical language in text strongly suggests pardon meant facing his victims too

*

Sauron put on his fair hue again and did obeisance Eönwë, the herald of Manwë, and abjured all his evil deeds….

Abjure: to solemnly deny, disavow, or renunciate.

Tolkien might’ve chosen: “disavow”, “renounce”, or “repudiate.” But he chose abjure. As ecclesiastical language, it can be interpreted as holding significance.

For in ye olde Roman Catholicism, “abjuring” occurred in an abjuration - or a formal, timely, voluntary, and public ceremony to renunciate heresy

Rather than a civil criminal trial, it’s suggested, that as a heretic, Sauron would have faced judgment in something closer to this.

(How does an abjuration work? A more robust, public version of the private typical reconciliation process. Moreover, in place of a priest, a higher authority like a bishop is required to oversee it.)

*

For Sauron hath done much naughty

You shall have no other gods before me. (Ex. 20:2–3).

Heresy is sin deemed especially egregious. And Sauron committed the greatest sin of all: idolatry. For to follow Morgoth was to place a “god” before Eru Illuvatar (God).

Moreover, as a principal perpetrator or accessory, much of Sauron’s alleged* sins are largely war crimes:

murder, torture, slavery, terrorism, breeding corruption/mutilation, spiritual corruption, conspiracy, theft, attempted sex trafficking, propaganda, etc.

Let’s not forget Sauron’s sick lyrical game.

* Sauron is only known through narrative bias of incomplete history. His actual sins could be more or less.

Applying the Sacrament of Penance to Sauron seeking pardon from Eönwë

*

Sauron = penitent heretic

Eönwë (representative to Manwë) = priest

Manwë (Valar chief + representative to Eru) = bishop

Eru Iluvatar = God

Sauron (penitent sinner) sought out Eönwë (priest) and confessed his evil deeds (sins) to reconcile with Eru (God). But Eönwë realized Sauron’s sun was in fact heresy, thus requiring the higher authority of Manwë (bishop) to reconcile.

Thus, Eönwë commanded Sauron (now penitent heretic) to seek pardon (reconciliation) with Manwë, who would instigate an abjuration (public renunciation of heresy) and determine a sentence (repentance).

Sauron says NOPE, moving from a penitent heretic to a repentant heretic.

*

Then Sauron was ashamed, and he was unwilling to return in humiliation and to receive from the Valar a sentence

And an abjuration would be even more excruciating.

Besides the Valar, also present would be Elves who Sauron/Morgoth had victimized. Plus, other Maiar who once befriended him, sought his wisdom, and praised his talents. All who knew Mairon “the admirable.” Now the abhorred, defeated, disgraced.

Before all, Sauron would renunciate his evil deeds that led to ruin and suffering. Perhaps to be met with jeers, curses, and woeful sobs. But also, silent dismay. Fear. Disappointment.

Ultimately, Sauron chose his pride, peaced out, and the rest is history.

*

He lingers in Middle-earth. Very slowly, beginning with fair motives: the reorganising and rehabilitation of the ruin of Middle-earth

Where exactly? Who benefited? What were the outcomes? Like what, did Sauron open a cat rescue or build playgrounds for disenfranchised youth? It remains unclear. Just another one of Tolkien’s vague passages that deny Readers’ ability to judge for themselves.

Therefore when Eonwe departed he hid himself in Middle-earth; and he fell back into evil, for the bonds that Morgoth had laid upon him were very strong."

That is, Sauron was trauma-bonded to Morgoth. He also had to be low-key terrified of him. Because at some point, it would’ve became clear that Morgoth’s means didn’t further Sauron’s goals. For what other reason would someone who strives for efficiency continue serving a counterproductive cause?

But Sauron was always vulnerable to corruption. It’s even theorized that Even as Mairon, he had paternalistic entitlement to desired outcomes on Middle-Earth. For lack of boldness or pragmatism, it made him susceptible / a target for Melkor’s Vala power, Eru-may-care audacity, and corruption.

Fast-forward. In forsaking pardon yet engaging in “fair” works, Sauron continues his heresy, his idolatry. But instead of Melkor, he now places himself above Eru.

By skipping abjuration, Sauron robbed himself of humility and thus, true reflection on his evil deeds. Not insignificantly, he robs justice for victims.

By skipping reconciliation, Sauron forgoes support and belonging. One can’t heal in an echo chamber. The “bonds of Morgoth” were heavy and he’d need help breaking free of them.

By skipping repentance, Sauron’s self-assigned “fair works” were likely inappropriate. Nope - perpetrators don’t get to fuck up then decide how to make amends. Victims do.

Theory Two. Sauron feared being unfairly judged for the evil deeds of Morgoth’s other servants

*

“Then Sauron was ashamed, and he was unwilling to return in humiliation and to receive from the Valar a sentence, it might be, of long servitude in proof of his good faith; for under Morgoth his power had been great.

Oh, cry Finrod Felagund a river.

But Tolkien overlooked a glaring motive for Sauron fear of a long sentence. Of all of Morgoth’s Maiar servants, Sauron is the only one known to have attempted to seek pardon.

For gravitas, imagine being the only high-ranking member of a fallen fascist regime on public trial. What would you fear? Receiving a sentence disproportionate to your crimes because you’d be the sole focal point of blame and penance. Sauron would be no different.

Sauron’s fear was legit but how likely was it?

Morgoth was hunted down and chained before being thrown unceremoniously into the Void. A fate that certainly would’ve terrified Sauron.

Yet in stark contrast, even after his confession of evil, Eönwë merely commanded Sauron to seek pardon from Manwë. That he wasn’t apprehend or escorted can be interpreted that Eönwë believed his penitence to be true and thus, he’d do as told. Or perhaps Eönwë simply relayed his master’s orders to let Sauron choose to reconcile.

In any event, Eönwë’s response to Sauron reflects Manwë’s benevolence. For the Vala would understand that a servant of evil must first be it’s victim. More likely than not, Sauron would’ve received mercy.

But he instead chose to thro w redemption away with both hands.

Thank you for reading!

Your likesand tagged reblogs are appreciated. Got feedback?

What did you like? Got theories or insights to share?

Disagree? I love good faith debate and sparring!

Spot an inaccuracy? Hey, Tolkien's work is complex. Drop it in comments or DM.

[royalty-nobility]

The Festivities in Honor of Queen Christina of Sweden in the Courtyard of Palazzo Barberini

Artist: Filippo Gagliardi and Filippo Lauri

Date: 1656

Medium: Oil on Canvas

Collection: Museo di Roma, Roma, Italy

The painting represents the Carousel organized in Palazzo Barberini in honor of the Queen Christina from Sweden, who had come to Rome in 1655 after her conversion into Catholicism and the renunciation at the crown. The event is described with extraordinary attention to detail, giving each of the many characters a surprising individuality.

[divinekangaroo]

gonna lose it all anyway - pettiot - Peaky Blinders (TV) [Archive of Our Own]

Shortly after the S4-S6 election, there's both a marriage and a swearing in to get through.

Tommy has some vowing and renouncing and that sort of thing to get through. Simple. Just words. Just process. That's all.

.

Tommy Shelby/Lizzie Stark, Arthur Shelby/Linda Shelby, Polly Gray, Finn Shelby, Charles Shelby, Billy Shelby, Ruby Shelby | Internal Conflict, Moral Conflict, The Lasting Legacy of Catholicism, Unreliable Narrator, Dysfunctional Family, Class Issues, Imperialism, English-Led Eurocentricism, Allusions to European-Wide Ethnic Marriage Traditions, Ghost in the Narrative, Traditional Gender Roles, 1300 Word Flash Fiction

.

In the interests of a micro-meta, given ppl were interested:

The theory behind this one is of those attacks on a sense of self (in other words, Tommy's choices continue to lead to an ongoing and intensifying moral trauma). This ficlet tries to bridge between Tommy's sharp traumatic breakdown at the end of S4, his apparent pulling himself together, and the S5 self destruction. The particular moral traumas I was considering here:

- swearing into parliament as a rejection of class of origin, and (by its essential absence) a forced renunciation of his Romani origin, which has been critical to his surviving and thriving to date

- swearing into parliament even though he knows it's full of hypocrites and how much he doesn't want to think of himself as a hypocrite

- saying marriage vows even though he still feels (irrationally, he knows) married to Grace

- attempting to apply various marriage traditions to overcome that (bride-gifts, blue/borrowed/old/new, wear all your wealth) because he's all about action and symbol, not words, but in that state of conflict, not being able to bring himself to do more like actually have a celebration

- Lizzie purposely picking and memorising a marriage vow which involved the word cherish, ie, cherish him??, striking at him hard because of this self-perception he's not worth that, and he'll let her down - he's off to see Jessie and the Communists that late that night, and while Jessie has no intention of sleeping with him again he doesn't know that yet, so he's almost immediately prepared to break his vows

- family (mostly Polly's) mockery/criticism/misreading of his signalling as scorning the things which are important to family (to Polly) because he's better than that

- his undercurrent ongoing hurt at Polly bringing up anything to do with religion because he's internalised everything about knowing it was her confession that nearly got him killed in S3

- this conflicted lapsed/non practicing/renounced Catholic issue of having grown up with every single milestone and marker carried by a Church ceremony, which, as a rhythm and a familiarity, does carry a sense of community connection and comfort and acknowledgment even if the whole sense of Church and God is one tainted with pain, and now he's consciously going through those milestones and markers with an outright lack of that traditional ceremony and lack of community / connection

- by now, he's acknowledged if not articulated that when he tries to do good things, bad things happen, so even Arthur's naive commentary is cutting him deep

- Polly's engrossed in Michael's issues and never really got over S3's imprisonment and the consequence, is only pushing it all down in a similar way to Tommy is; she is using every opportunity she can to slice at him (if in socially acceptable ways)

- and Linda felt important to include here, in this space between S4 and S5, because she's well into her own downward slide, and let's not forget Linda's mother was "a Catholic slut" and Linda's gone on about her mum's hypocrisy before, and will again (by allusion regarding her own sexual desire) in S5. Tommy feels Linda calling him out for hypocrisy (hypocrisy such a marker of Catholic practice, too) very deeply, because Linda's in the middle of her own hypocrite's crisis. Her insult is basically: you're a bloody Catholic even if you're not swearing under God because everyone knows Catholics say vows they don't mean. It's this thing that sometimes you don't realise someone is drunk unless you're drunk too - Linda and Tommy are broadly in the same space right now regarding collapse of self and weird resurgences of Catholic scars.

- The Bible quote from Tommy is one line of many, many lines in Matthew about the badness of hypocrisy. The allusion being that he threw that quote at his father while his dad was sitting back drinking and telling them they were lazy and slow in unloading, and now that quote's recoiling back at him even though he feels like he's working insanely hard, that work is getting him dirtier not cleaner.

[sailorrose19]

Do you ever look at your calendar and see that February 22nd the day after Mardi Gras is marked as Ash Wednesday, I already did. Countless times to be honest.

If you're eager for the start of Lent then good for you or if not then that is okay as well just make sure to take care of yourself.

If you're in the religiously abused category and see Lent and the whole idea of fasting, giving alms, praying and giving something up for 40 days as a big trigger like I do then let me be the one to help (if that is okay with you)

If you're ex Catholic and no longer identify or associate yourself with Christianity like I am especially after making my faith renunciation loud and clear but are still stuck in a strict religious environment where the family is still stuck in a stage of denial that their child young or grown is no longer in the faith and attempting to reconvert and "bring back to the flock" unaware that their futile attempts will only push the child away instead genuinely accepting things as they are then you came to the right post.

This time of the year can be difficult for all of us and some of us don't have the capability to fast or abstain for 40 days since we need food and drinks to keep up our strength in the physical and mental sense especially in the physical side due to health conditions that make it impossible to do so and Christianity does not see that unfortunately and some don't even have the right to make the choice of not doing Lent at all.

Very unfair if you ask me. So very unfair. I devised a list for Anti-lent to use and feel free to reblog and add your own to the list

Instead of giving something up why not indulge in it. It could be food, a new drink you wanna try but the church says "No way, you're practicing abstinence whether you like it or not!" screw that and do the opposite.

Pick up a new skill. It could be writing, reading that is not biblical scripture, trying a new cooking recipe in the kitchen(please be careful if you do so. No one likes coming home to a kitchen set on fire.)

Question Church teaching and the rules. This may seem like a very hard one and heavily discouraged in Catholicism. I've done a lot of questioning as a child and there were a lot of rules that never sat well with me at all. Blind faith and blind obedience is not a good look on anyone

On Fridays, instead of not eating meat or going to a fish fry, eat meat anyways you need the protein(unless you're vegetarian or a vegan there are other means of getting protien). Treat yourself to hamburger, steak, any meat will do. The same applies for Good Friday instead of one meal have your 3 square meals of the day.

Practice self-care. This one, is a super important one! If some priest in his sermon says to give self-care for lent don't listen and do the opposite instead. Cut your hair, go for a mani-pedi, try a new fragrance, take an extra long bath or shower, meditate, do what makes you happy this goes with the indulgence portion.

Instead of giving alms, use that tithing money on yourself or donate to a more worthy cause because the church does not deserve even a single cent from either of us no matter how much they try to guilt you into dropping your hard earned money in the offering basket. If you have a paycheck splurge some but save a portion for whenever that urge to splurge comes up leave some as a "Don't touch until next payday or future adventure travel fund".

Set boundaries. If folks ask why you aren't giving anything up for Lent, don't answer because you don't owe anyone an answer as to why. That applies to families no matter how hard some don't believe in the concept of boundaries.

Take care of your mental health. As someone who was emotionally and mentally abused by the Catholic Church, this felt like something I should've done a long time ago. Find a good therapist or psychiatrist especially one that specialize in treating folks with religious trauma. I've been seeing a therapist and I'm still in the recovery process since I got mental and emotional scars that won't heal right.

If you're pagan like I am. Look into Easter's origins before Christians came and ruin everything like they always have for milenia. Self-reflect on Ostara and the arrival of spring means to you meditate on that.

You're free to reblog and add more to the list and you can hashtag it as well in your reblogs so be sure to enjoy Mardi Gras, dance, eat, drink(responsibly), catch some beads and maybe engage in as much debauchery possible just don't let the debauchery doesn't land you in jail.

Hey guys, love you guys ❤

[onenakedfarmer]

CHRISTIAN WIMAN "All My Friends Are Finding New Beliefs

All my friends are finding new beliefs. This one converts to Catholicism and this one to trees. In a highly literary and hitherto religiously-indifferent Jew God whomps on like a genetic generator. Paleo, Keto, Zone, South Beach, Bourbon. Exercise regimens so extreme she merges with machine. One man marries a woman twenty years younger and twice in one brunch uses the word verdant; another’s brick-fisted belligerence gentles into dementia, and one, after a decade of finical feints and teases like a sandpiper at the edge of the sea, decides to die. Priesthoods and beasthoods, sombers and glees, high-styled renunciations and avocations of dirt, sobrieties, satieties, pilgrimages to the very bowels of  being … All my friends are finding new beliefs and I am finding it harder and harder to keep track of the new gods and the new loves, and the old gods and the old loves, and the days have daggers, and the mirrors motives, and the planet’s turning faster and faster in the blackness and my nights, and my doubts, and my friends, my beautiful, credible friends.

[it-grrl]

All My Friends Are Finding New Beliefs

BY CHRISTIAN WIMAN

All my friends are finding new beliefs.

This one converts to Catholicism and this one to trees.

In a highly literary and hitherto religiously-indifferent Jew

God whomps on like a genetic generator.

Paleo, Keto, Zone, South Beach, Bourbon.

Exercise regimens so extreme she merges with machine.

One man marries a woman twenty years younger

and twice in one brunch uses the word verdant;

another’s brick-fisted belligerence gentles

into dementia, and one, after a decade of finical feints and teases

like a sandpiper at the edge of the sea,

decides to die.

Priesthoods and beasthoods, sombers and glees,

high-styled renunciations and avocations of dirt,

sobrieties, satieties, pilgrimages to the very bowels of  being ...

All my friends are finding new beliefs

and I am finding it harder and harder to keep track

of the new gods and the new loves,

and the old gods and the old loves,

and the days have daggers, and the mirrors motives,

and the planet’s turning faster and faster in the blackness,

and my nights, and my doubts, and my friends,

my beautiful, credible friends.

[poem-today]

A poem by Christian Wiman

All My Friends Are Finding New Beliefs

All my friends are finding new beliefs. This one converts to Catholicism and this one to trees. In a highly literary and hitherto religiously-indifferent Jew God whomps on like a genetic generator. Paleo, Keto, Zone, South Beach, Bourbon. Exercise regimens so extreme she merges with machine. One man marries a woman twenty years younger and twice in one brunch uses the word verdant; another’s brick-fisted belligerence gentles into dementia, and one, after a decade of finical feints and teases like a sandpiper at the edge of the sea, decides to die. Priesthoods and beasthoods, sombers and glees, high-styled renunciations and avocations of dirt, sobrieties, satieties, pilgrimages to the very bowels of  being ... All my friends are finding new beliefs and I am finding it harder and harder to keep track of the new gods and the new loves, and the old gods and the old loves, and the days have daggers, and the mirrors motives, and the planet’s turning faster and faster in the blackness, and my nights, and my doubts, and my friends, my beautiful, credible friends.

Christian Wiman

Listen to Christian Wiman read his poem

Source: Poetry (January 2020)

More poems by Christian Wiman are available here

[pinkcheescaketurtle]

All my friends are finding new beliefs. This one converts to Catholicism and this one to trees. In a highly literary and hitherto religiously-indifferent Jew  God whomps on like a genetic generator. Paleo, Keto, Zone, South Beach, Bourbon. Exercise regimens so extreme she merges with machine. One man marries a woman twenty years younger and twice in one brunch uses the word verdant; another’s brick-fisted belligerence gentles into dementia, and one, after a decade of finical feints and teases like a sandpiper at the edge of the sea, decides to die. Priesthoods and beasthoods, sombers and glees, high-styled renunciations and avocations of dirt, sobrieties, satieties, pilgrimages to the very bowels of  being ... All my friends are finding new beliefs and I am finding it harder and harder to keep track of the new gods and the new loves, and the old gods and the old loves, and the days have daggers, and the mirrors motives, and the planet’s turning faster and faster in the blackness, and my nights, and my doubts, and my friends, my beautiful, credible friends.

Christian Wiman, “All My Friends Are Finding New Beliefs”

I love my friends so much. They’re kind, hopeful, talented people. But they’re moving through the life stages at a pace that I could never keep up with. We’re just entering our 20s, yet they’re moving in with boyfriends, buying apartments, planning exciting trips to New Zealand and talking about kids. I can’t help but compare myself to them and feeling that they’re so much happier and successful than me. I very much know that the source of these anxieties stem from corroding capitalist, sexist and heteronormative discourses; I know that I need to celebrate my friends’ successes and happinesses (God knows they’re all had their hardships and they deserve all joys and more). Yet, watching them succeed at the heteronormative expectations we all deride makes me feel isolated, makes me feel like I am failing. And, in many ways, I am failing; but this is a failure that I take pride in, the rejection of expectations and standards that promise happiness and stability but that I know deep down would not make me happy. 

Whatever my futures will look like, be it quiet monogamy, defiant spinsterhood or something else, I know that I will have my friends to care for me and that I will be there to care for them. 

[crazycatsiren]

Festivals and holidays I observe as a Buddhist and a Catholic

I have already shared my Hellenic Pagan and witch calendar here. This one is for my other spiritual practices.

Buddhism:

19th of the 2nd Chinese lunar month: Guanyin's birthday

19th of the 6th Chinese lunar month: Guanyin's enlightenment day; the day on which the bodhisattva's enlightenment and pledge of dedicating eternal service to Buddhism is honored.

15th (night) of the 7th Chinese lunar month: Ghost Festival; the 15th day of the 7th month is called Ghost Day, and the 7th month is regarded as Ghost Month, in which ghosts and spirits, including those of deceased ancestors, may come out from the lower realm to roam the mortal world and visit the living. Veneration of the dead and honoring the ancestors are paid special attention to throughout the whole month.

19th of the 9th Chinese lunar month: Guanyin's renunciation day; the day on which the bodhisattva attains nirvana, acquires her divine status, and achieves Buddhist apotheosis.

17th of the 11th Chinese lunar month: Amitābha Buddha's birthday

Catholicism:

Jesus Christ's days: Christmas, Ash Wednesday, Good Friday, Easter Sunday, Ascension Day, all of Lent.

Virgin Mary's days:

March 25: Feast of the Annunciation; commemorating the visit of the archangel Gabriel to Mary, during which he informed her that she would be the mother of Jesus Christ.

August 15: Assumption of Mary; commemorating the ascension of Mary into Heaven to be reunited with her son.

August 22nd: Coronation of Mary; the crowning of Mary as Queen of Heaven after her Assumption.

September 8: Nativity of Mary; Mary's birthday.

December 8: Feast of the Immaculate Conception; celebrates the sinless lifespan and Immaculate Conception of Mary.

Other days:

November 1: All Saints Day

November 2: All Souls Day

November 22: Feast day of St. Cecilia

[hermitthrush]

For Kerouac, there was no real difference between the two religious leaders; the story of Siddhartha, later known as the Buddha, born in India in the fifth century BCE... who leaves the wealth and privilege to which he was born for the ascetic life of a religious wanderer, finally discovering the Four Noble Truths that form the core of Buddhism, paralleled Christ's renunciation of his divinity to take on human form.  But Buddhism did offer Kerouac a literal selflessness, a profound kind of anonymity, that Catholicism could not; Buddhism abolished, in Alan Watt's phrase, the "Good I--Bad Me" dichotomy endemic to Western thought.  If all was really "the Void" upon which men merely project their illusions, all labels are meaningless, all bets off.  "What a horror it would have been if the world was real," Ray reflects in one of the book's most haunting lines, "because if the world was real, it would be immortal."

Jack Kerouac, The Dharma Bums (1958) | Ann Douglas introduction.  A view through the lens of Buddhism complimented (though didn’t supplant) Kerouac’s inherited French Catholic faith.

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Illustration Cloud With Bucket István Orosz (1951) Hungarian graphic artist, illustrator, poster artist and animation filmmaker

* * * *

All my friends are finding new beliefs. This one converts to Catholicism and this one to trees. In a highly literary and hitherto religiously-indifferent Jew God whomps on like a genetic generator.

Paleo, Keto, Zone, South Beach, Bourbon. Exercise regimens so extreme she merges with machine. One man marries a woman twenty years younger and twice in one brunch uses the word verdant; another’s brick-fisted belligerence gentles into dementia, and one, after a decade of finical feints and teases like a sandpiper at the edge of the sea, decides to die.

Priesthoods and beasthoods, sombers and glees, high-styled renunciations and avocations of dirt, sobrieties, satieties, pilgrimages to the very bowels of being ...

All my friends are finding new beliefs and I am finding it harder and harder to keep track of the new gods and the new loves, and the old gods and the old loves, and the days have daggers, and the mirrors motives, and the planet’s turning faster and faster in the blackness, and my nights, and my doubts, and my friends, my beautiful, credible friends.

- Christian Wiman -

Source: Poetry (January 2020)

[tudors1485-1603]

Portrait of Edward VI, King of England by an unknown artist

Edward's supremacy was marked by economic difficulties and social turmoil that in 1549 erupted into an uprising and insurrection. A costly war with Scotland, at first triumphant, ended with military withdrawal from Scotland and Boulogne-sur-Mer in exchange for a truce. The modification of the Church of England into a recognizably Protestant body also arose under King Edward, who took enormous involvement in religious matters. Although his father, King Henry VIII, had severed the link between the Church and Rome. Henry VIII had never authorized the renunciation of Catholic doctrine or rite. It was during Edward's regime that Protestantism was solidified for the first time in England with reforms that included the abolition of clerical celibacy and the Mass, and the imposition of compulsory services in English.

In February 1553, at age 15, Edward fell sickly. When his illness was discovered to be terminal, he and his Council drew up a "Devise for the Succession", to deter the country's return to Catholicism. Edward named his first cousin once removed, Lady Jane Grey, as his heir, excluding his half-sisters, Mary and Elizabeth. This decision was disputed following Edward's death, and Jane was deposed by Mary nine days after becoming queen. During her reign, Mary reversed Edward's Protestant reforms, which nonetheless became the basis of the Elizabethan Religious Settlement of 1559.

[dozenhawks]

All my friends are finding new beliefs. This one converts to Catholicism and this one to trees. In a highly literary and hitherto religiously-indifferent Jew God whomps on like a genetic generator. Paleo, Keto, Zone, South Beach, Bourbon. Exercise regimes so extreme she merges with machine. One man marries a woman twenty years younger and twice in one brunch uses the word verdant; another’s brick-fisted belligerence gentles into dementia, and one, after a decade of finical feints and teases like a sandpiper at the edge of the sea, decides to die. Priesthoods and beasthoods, sombers and glees, high-styled renunciations and avocations of dirt, sobrieties, satieties, pilgrimages to the very bowels of being... All my friends are finding new beliefs and I am finding it harder and harder to keep track of the new gods and the new loves, and the old gods and the old loves, and the days have daggers, and the mirrors motives, and the planet’s turning faster and faster in the blackness, and my nights, and my doubts, and my friends, my beautiful, credible friends.

All My Friends Are Finding New Beliefs, Christian Wiman

[apollonysus]

All My Friends Are Finding New Beliefs

All my friends are finding new beliefs. This one converts to Catholicism and this one to trees. In a highly literary and hitherto religiously-indifferent Jew God whomps on like a genetic generator. Paleo, Keto, Zone, South Beach, Bourbon. Exercise regimens so extreme she merges with machine. One man marries a woman twenty years younger and twice in one brunch uses the word verdant; another’s brick-fisted belligerence gentles into dementia, and one, after a decade of finical feints and teases like a sandpiper at the edge of the sea, decides to die. Priesthoods and beasthoods, sombers and glees, high-styled renunciations and avocations of dirt, sobrieties, satieties, pilgrimages to the very bowels of  being ... All my friends are finding new beliefs and I am finding it harder and harder to keep track of the new gods and the new loves, and the old gods and the old loves, and the days have daggers, and the mirrors motives, and the planet’s turning faster and faster in the blackness, and my nights, and my doubts, and my friends, my beautiful, credible friends.

- Christian Wiman