Friday, October 12
We have long since agreed that if our prayers are granted at all they are granted from the foundation of the world. God and His acts are not in time. Intercourse between God and man occurs at particular moments for the man, but not for God. If there is—as the very concept of prayer presupposes—an adaptation between the free actions of men in prayer and the course of events, this adaptation is from the beginning inherent in the great single creative act. Our prayers are heard –don’t say “have been heard” or you are putting god into time—not only before we make them but before we are made ourselves.
Letters to Malcolm: Chiefly on Prayer.
In terms of books, I have Prove It: Prayer to finish in the next few weeks, sidebars for a coffee-table book on Catholicism, then the beginnings of projects on: a) the Parables of Jesus, b) a sequel to the Loyola Kids' Book of Saints, and an Advent family devotional for Creative Communications for the Parish.
As a result, most of my reading these days is work-oriented. Reading about prayer and parables, reading about heroes.
Read about Mary for an OSV piece: Scott Hahn's latest,(which was okay in using a typological approach to demonstrating the logic and truth of Catholic Marian doctrines, but in the process leaves the human Mary behind, the Mary whom we look to because she is the first disciple, a most powerful model of faith. The strange thing about the book is that it uses the exact same cover art and almost the identical design as Meditations on Mary by Kathleen Norris, published two years ago ) plus a couple of coffee-table books, one awfully pretty, but achingly PC, full of earth mother/goddess commentary along with the Botticellis,) the other a very nice book on Marian shrines in Europe.. I did check out a novel called Quakertown from the library. I've read the first page.
Actually, the juxtaposition of the Nobel Literature winner, V.S. Naipul, and this award, are rather interesting, considering that the UN has become a center of West-hating states and movements, and Naipul made many nasty waves recently by stating, among other things, that Islam had a "calamitous effect on converted peoples".
As always, for thorough coverage of literary news, go to Moby Lives
Ann Coulterasks:
If Islam is not responsible for terrorism, why is [an average, modern day white guy named] Vinnie responsible for slavery? I'm just trying to get the rules straight on collective guilt.
One could add - then why is Catholicism in general condemned for the Crusades or the Inquisition?
Jay Nordling tells this joke in today's National Review:
Two liberals are walking down the road, when they come upon a man in a ditch, who has been severely beaten, who is bleeding, broken, moaning, left for dead. The one liberal turns to the other and says, “We must find the people who did this. They need help.”