“Peter the Liar Got Hit by a Bus”: Concerning the Morality of the Story

RC’s comment on my analysis (a pretty fancy word for what I wrote, but let that be) of Raphael’s two paintings of St. George and the Dragon got me thinking.  He brought up the review I wrote for StAR of Baron de la Motte Fouque’s The Magic Ring—a book that he enjoyed very much but which I, to borrow one of my favorite phrases from Sayers, praised with faint damns.  My reply to RC’s comment, explaining what I thought made for a good work of literature (or a great one) as opposed to one that is merely fair, started to get out of hand as I worked it out in my mind; and in the end I offered a simple formula to explain my views.

St. George's Day

Hopefully you will have noticed the picture on the top left side of this blog.  It's the earlier, more dramatic of Raphael's two stabs (pardon the pun) at painting St. George and the Dragon.  The latter one, the one that more commonly shows up on postcards and people's walls, looks like this:

I Didn't Sign Up for This

I know, I know ... I posted yesterday and two days before that too.  But some weeks are like ... this one.

Humor, Madness; Man and Beast

Every spring my peaceful early-morning commuter train is transformed by the presence of The Tourists.  Usually these are families with kids; and usually the kids are pretty well-behaved (the other kind ride Metro), so I don't mind too much.  It does break the morning stillness though, having half-a-dozen people jabbering behind you about what they're going to have for breakfast, while you're trying to figure out why JPII said "dynamism" (or the Italian equivalent) when "power" is a more intelligible and traditional translation of St. Paul.

Happy Birthday, Papa

Peter on the Sea

It's nice when the author of a book ties things together at the end—and as the priest pointed out in his homily on the gospel today, St. John is such an author.  In the final chapter of John's gospel, the apostles go fishing: fishermen before Christ came, they are fishermen afterwards; and so it goes.

Real Men > X

And I was thinking it would be hard to find inspiration to write this week.  I write most easily (I won't say best, although that also may be true) when annoyed.  Not frothing-at-the-mouth furious, but just ever so slightly ticked off.  But no, I thought.  It's Easter Week.  All the news (that I read) will be happy Catholic trivia and inspirational gurgles on how the celebration does borrow from paganism, but that's actually OK.  Maybe there'll be something about vestment colors or dating Passover.  Possibly a piece or two about how it's wicked to lie to your kids about the Easter Bunny.  That'll be about the most abrasive it gets.

Love and Necessity

"And if Christ be not risen again, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain." (1 Corinthians, 15:14)
"It behooved Christ to rise again ... for our instruction in the faith, since our belief in Christ's Godhead is confirmed by His rising again."  (Summa III.53.1)
"The Resurrection of the crucified one shows that he was truly "I AM", the Son of God and God himself." (Catechism, 653)