With books the same. The truest of all men was the Man of Sorrows, and the truest of all books is Solomon’s

Five fav books of all time, some of these never leave, some are newcomers, no order: The Country of the Pointed Firs (Sarah Orne Jewett) David Copperfield (Charles Dickens) To The Lighthouse (Virginia Woolf) Remembrance of Things Past (Marcel Proust) The Towers of Trebizond (Rose Macaulay)

There's something so beautiful—so very fully *June*—about the confluence of the Sacred Heart and Pride.

In the Mystery of God – Father, Son and Holy Spirit – we are at home, just as Nicodemus felt at ease when he was in Jesus’ presence. The life of God is marvelous and captivating. 1/2

Kitchen smells of coffee beans, fresh strawbs, and the hot pavement in the garden. Raised On Radio playing in the corner. Marcella's onion tomato sauce about to take shape and obliterate all other smells. Ah, summer.

Happy feast day to Joan of Arc! I love her and she is the best. Happy feast day of Joan of Arc to all of you. Here’s one of my favorite modern paintings of her, by Donato Giancola. She usually gets action shots, made really feminine, etc. This is different.

"Finitude, when truly accepted, does not diminish us but opens us to recognizing the face of God and others. Indeed, precisely because we experience limits - vulnerability, suffering and failure - we can recognize the inviolable dignity of every person, both our own and that of others."

"Our relationship with life seems to be in crisis today. Everything that appears as a "limit" -incapacity, illness, old age, suffering, vulnerability- tends to be seen primarily as a defect to be corrected, rather than as a reality through which our humanity matures and opens itself to relationship"

This

I know that she knows, in the great cloud of witnesses, but I wish I could see the joy in my late spiritual director's face over Pope Leo. 'Crawford! Did you HEAR him?' she'd say.

Yes, yes, YES.

Full of sweet days and roses...

Have you ever fallen in love with a new bookshop? The quixotic little Barker & Co had me this morning with an almost complete English Livy and ditto of Proust's letters. I shall soon be ruined, but never happier.

Yes, same, especially as Bulgakov came a v close second for me and I'm fairly certain this just means my theology is incoherent.

"The civilization of love will not arise from a single or spectacular gesture, but from the sum total of small and steadfast acts of fidelity that serve as a bulwark against dehumanization." - Magnifica Humanitas

Another year, another Pentecost where I despair of people ever realising that the verb and noun uses of the word 'prophesy' are not homophones. (This is as much as problem in Oxford as in Milwaukee, so I really do despair.)

It has been a good May for the roses, foxgloves, buttercups, thyme, mint and lemon balm.

Let us learn to be rich in a different way: more attentive to relationships, more intent on valuing the common good, more attached to the local area, more grateful in welcoming and integrating those who come to live with us.

"Humanism is great," the Catholic Church says, right when it's out of fashion.

The sound of my English husband boiling the kettle for his 3pm tea, in defiance of its being the zenith of the hottest day of the year so far. I've overcome my American predilection for ice water, but hot tea on a hot day is still... beyond me.

THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION TO THIS MATER ECCLESIÆ

'I not saint yet, lady.' Donna, se' tanto grande e tanto vali, / che qual vuol grazia e a te non ricorre, / sua disïanza vuol volar sanz' ali.....

Any simplification that creates enemies must be corrected, especially in universities, through complexity of thought and wise exercise of memory. 2/2

Very weird to realise I've finally worn out the NEW pyjamas I bought at ,,, the beginning of the pandemic.

Oh, oh, oh

My phone still tries to autofill 'pizza' as 'Pizzaballa'.

Slightly diminish a book Orlando (FL)

Slightly diminish a book Attempted Manslaughter In The Cathedral

Slightly diminish a book The Suburb Of God

Slightly diminish a book The Wings Of The Pigeon

Slightly diminish a book Unto This Penultimate

Slightly diminish a book Bridesmaidhead Revisited

'Gold from the Americas flowed to Seville and that wealth helps explain Zurbarán’s ravishing aestheticism.' I do wonder sometimes if the Guardian's art coverage is deliberately, satirically, bad.

OpEd titled 'I yearned for __, so why didn't I feel anything when __ happened?' and gosh, nobody does read Proust.

Back in the day I updated mine every few months, and when I say that it included instructions such as 'black or violet but on NO account white' and a list of pallbearers to include the men du jour, really you know almost everything you need to know abt me in my 20s.

The bit where Nina Simone declaims 'AND I SAW ANOTHER SIGN IN HEAVEN, &c' in 'New World Coming' is kind of everything.

My husband did not believe me when I told him it was the same Peter O'Toole who played Lawrence of Arabia and voiced Anton Ego in Ratatouille, but it is TRUE.

Siracusa has it all— a whopping great concrete basilica *and* a Doric temple built into the cathedral.

The phrase always reminds me of the nondescript food in some old sci-fi I once saw and otherwise forgot—never some food in particular, merely 'food' of a nutritious and despairing beige.

I wd just remind some of you precious children of the Lord that my friend who buys the Sp_ct_t_r for its puzzles HIDES IT when she walks out of the shop 'so no one thinks I read that horrid rag'.

The new release from *checks notes* Renée Fleming and Dolly Parton is the [something about Venn Diagrams if I understood Venn Diagrams].

'To choose what is difficult all one's days As if it were easy, that is faith. Joseph, praise.'

Auden, contra Guinevere: 'If... there are degrees of beauty and the more beautiful should be loved more, then ... it must be the moral duty of all of us to fall in love with the most beautiful human being known to us. Surely, it is very fortunate for all concerned that we fail to do our duty.'

This morning I trapped & released the big spider in the kitchen & this can only be credited to my admiration for my husband & my desire to be more like him, the better human who does not shriek & kill, & I am very glad today, as every day, to be married to a man I so admire & try to emulate.

One must either love or loathe the fact that Gore quotes from Tennyson's Idylls in his commentary on 1 John. I, of course, love it.

The bummer is both types of establishments are still in their warehouse aesthetics phase. Either the Chipotle rip-off of characterless breweries, or the Scandinavian high minimalism of coffee shops so cookie cutter it could be a shop in LA or in the North Loop And I'm, frankly, over minimalism /

Ecumenical answer is obvs I The Lord Of Sea And Sky

*rummaging in the back of the cupboard to make gravy at the last minute* 'O Bisto, ever ancient, ever new,,,'

Which makes me think: if you could come up with a series of pocket-books, smol, to be carried all about and read to bits, what would your first five be?

If you've ever dithered about getting the pocket ed of Sr Maria's translation of The Confessions, let this be yr sign: it's worth it!