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Thursday, 17 December 2015

'Making Dogma out of Unsettled Science'

Grateful acknowledgement to Fr. George W. Rutler, for the following article published on December 14 in Crisis Magazine.

'In the Broadway production of Pygmalion, Professor Higgins regretted how proper English is considered freakish, and “in America, they haven’t used it for years.” The problem glares in the speech of television commentators, for whom coiffures are more important than diction, while grammar is banished from the social media, our urban landscape has become a jungle of incomplete sentences and dangling participles. By the time one reaches California, the subjunctive has completely disappeared. To have been reared speaking English is a blessing, for it is a language hard to learn by adoption and even native speakers can find its subtleties daunting. Consider, for instance, the differences between affect and effect, whether and if, since and because, which and that, nauseous and nauseated, farther and further, continual and continuous, disinterested and uninterested; and that is just for starters. Many English speakers think that the Greek derivative parameter means perimeter; and that leads to all sorts of problems.

A perimeter is a border, and a parameter — besides its technical mathematical meaning — is a physical property that determines the character of something. It is a measurable factor in the sense of a criterion or framework, a part of a whole. I mention this only because I want to speak of a matter of religion and science, and their parameters complement and serve each other, but are not to be confused. This was well expressed by Galileo’s friend Cardinal Baronio, or at least we may infer that Baronio was the one Galileo was quoting when he said: “The Bible teaches us how to go to heaven, not how the heavens go.”

Pope Benedict XVI spoke of not a few scientists who — following in the footsteps of Galileo — renounce neither reason nor faith. On the contrary, in the end they find value in both, in their reciprocal inventiveness. Christian thought compares the cosmos to a ‘book’ — Galileo also said the same — and considers it to be the work of an Author who is expressing himself by means of the ‘symphony’ of creation. Contrary to received histories, Giorgio de Santillana, no propagandist for Christianity by any means, said in his 'The Crime of Galileo', which has remained with me since I first read it when I was sixteen: “We must, if anything, admire the cautiousness and legal scruples of the Roman authorities.“ Most of the big ecclesiastical players knew their parameters: “…like Galileo, Copernicus had foreseen resistance not at all from the Church authorities but from vested academic interests.”

In 1576 Gregory XIII licensed a chair  of “Controversies” in the Roman College. The Religious orders and societies tended to line up according to their preferred philosophical systems, the Dominicans being Aristotelian and more disposed to geocentricism. The Jesuits and the Oratorians (of whom Baronio was one) leaned more toward the Augustinian tradition. Saint Augustine warned against resolving difficult questions such as those posited in astronomy by appeal to divine revelation: “We do not read in the Gospel that the Lord said, ‘I will send the Paraclete to teach you the course of the sun and the moon’; in fact, he wanted to create Christians not mathematicians.

                                                                         Pope Sylvester II

The first French Pope, Sylvester II, who reigned during the turn of the second millennium (and upbraided the superstitious Romans who read dire portents in the number 1000) saw harmony and not fracture in his life as Supreme Pastor and his avocation as scientist. (He invented the hydraulic pipe organ, introduced Hindu and Arabic numerals and the decimal system to Europe along with an improved abacus and an astrolabe, and transformed cartography by his use of the armillary sphere.) Copernicus had the same balance, and it is important to remember that he was first of all a priest, and dedicated his prime text “On the Revolution of the Celestial Orbs” to Pope Paul III.

                                                      'Nikolas Copernicus' by Matejko

Here the Church nursed science when the Protestant leaders were condemning anything that did not accord with their reading of Scripture. Martin Luther had called Copernicus “that madman [who] wants to throw the art of astronomy into confusion” by denying that Joshua told the sun, and not the earth, to stand still. The Spanish theologians Diego De Zúñiga and Melchior Cano invoked against Protestant literalists the Augustinian exegetical principle that excluded the human language of Scripture from scientific proof texts. Though a pious Lutheran, the heliocentrist Johannes Kepler, shunned by his co-religionists, found friends among the Jesuits and had the honor of being plagiarized by the Catholic Galileo. Pope Urban VIII, somewhat offended when he sensed that his protégé Galileo had satirized him as “Simplicio” in his 'Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems', patiently urged Galileo to stay on the right track of speculation, and not to declare theory a fact.

                              'Galileo Galelei, 1636.'  by Justus Sustermans

 It may reasonably be said that Galileo was right and wrong, and so were some of his opponents, among whom St. Robert Bellarmine did not distinguish himself. Right in asserting the motion of the earth, which opponents denied, Galileo was wrong about the “solar stasis,” or immobility of the sun, which his opponents accepted. Both succumbed to error when they paraded theory as fact and scorned opponents as “deniers.” That alchemy of pride turns science into a false cult of scientism, which is unscientific science, while clerics abusing their authority descend to a false cult of clericalism, which is irreligious religion. A salutary example of how to order things rightly by humility was Christopher Clavius, the German Jesuit astronomer and mathematician, one of the commissioners for the Gregorian calendar, revered throughout Europe, who was a firm geocentrist. Telescopic observations with Galileo changed his mind, albeit with reservations, and he remained aloof from polemics.

There is a caution here relevant to the current debates, or refusal to debate, about global warming, previously global cooling and now preached as climate change. Its details are proper to physical science, but its moral imperative is rooted in revelation, just as is the very fact of creation in contradistinction to infinity. The human race was given authority to name all living creatures. Stewardship of creation is evidence of human dignity. “Ecology” is the understanding of all things animate and inanimate as part of God’s “household” just as economics is the ordering of that domain. Theories about climate change impose serious moral responsibilities, and require that the parameters of religion and science be identified, lest saving souls be overshadowed by saving the planet, which is an ambiguous concept anyway.

This point is lost on those who acknowledge no creator of creation and consequently make ecology a new theology. In that case, creation is perceived as its own creator with a system of dogmas and heresies, propaganda and censures, and its own secular liturgy, as when a crowd recently prostrated themselves on the floor of a chapel in Paris, chanting and praying for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change to save Planet Earth. That salvation was called the most important challenge facing the human race, as though the terrorists who had murdered over a hundred Parisians just days before were regrettable irritants.

Jesus loved the lilies of the field, more beautiful than Solomon in all his glory, but he beautified this world incomparably by passing through it with a reminder of its natural impermanence: “Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away” (Matt. 24:35). The Church has dogmas and properly so, but they do not include making a dogma of unsettled science, just as in religion “private revelations” are not binding on the faithful. Science, by its nature is unsettled and today’s certitudes may be disproved tomorrow, and the anthropogenic theories held by even a majority of climatologists may fade like the geocentric theories of astronomers in the days of Clavius.

There are legitimate ways to consider the significance of carbon emissions in relation to variations in solar activity, changes in the terrestrial orbit and axis, fluctuations in gamma ray activity, and tectonic shifts, and the solid fact that Earth has been warmer than it is now in 7,000 of the last 10,000 years, but hypotheses should not be pronounced as conclusions. And if the Church’s “voice crying in the desert” is to be prophetic, it should not cry wolf. Nor should the Church allow herself to be appropriated by political elites and business interests and what Santillana in the instance of the Renaissance called “vested academic interests,” whose tendency is to exploit benevolent, if emotive, environmentalists.

 So it was perplexing that on the recent Feast of the Immaculate Conception, the feast itself was upstaged by an unprecedented light show cast on the facade of St. Peter’s Basilica, sponsored by the World Bank Group, an environmental foundation called Okeanos, and Vulcan, Inc., a Seattle-based private company dedicated to exposing “sins against the climate.” Sins? These interests may have good intentions, but the parameters of banking, business and academe do not include imputing sin. There may be offenses and even crimes against the balance of the ecosystem, but not sins, unless science really has become a religion. The irony is that many who impute sins to those who disrupt the balance of nature, also defend and promote unnatural acts among humans. Although the Immaculate Conception was neglected by the New Age light show with its flying birds and leaping porpoises, it is consoling to remember that the Virgin Mary was completely free of sins against the climate, and departed this world without leaving any carbon footprint.

In the saga of environmentalism, the eleventh century Anglo-Scandinavian King Canute is often mistakenly evoked as a symbol of arrogance for setting up his throne on an English beach, possibly at Westminster or West Sussex or Southampton, and ordering the tides to roll back. The details are vague but the real point of the story is that Canute actually choreographed that drama to instruct his flattering courtiers in the limits of earthly power against the seas and skies. The tides did not withdraw, the king and his court got wet, and Canute pronounced: “Let all men know how empty and worthless is the power of kings, for there is none worthy of the name, but he whom heaven, earth, and sea obey by eternal laws.” That was better than any gigantic light show, and better still, King Canute then placed his crown on the great crucifix in Winchester Cathedral and never wore it again. In matters of unsettled science, it would be edifying to see the members of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and the directors of the World Bank Group, corporate executives, and academics, do the same.
(Acknowledgement:  Fr. George W. Rutler and 'Crisis' magazine).

                            'The Nativity of Christ' by Vladimir Borovikosky

"Come, ye monarchs and emperors, come, all ye princes of the world, come and adore your highest King, who for love of you is now born, and born in such poverty in a cave.  But who appears?  No one.  The Son of God has indeed come into the world; but the world will not acknowledge him."
                                                      'Thoughts from St Alphonsus'

'Wishing all a joyful and happy Christmas and New Year'

Wednesday, 18 November 2015

'ADVENT' by Caryll Houselander

                                                        'Annunciation' by El Greco

Caryll Houselander,  (1901 - 1954) was an English lay Roman Catholic ecclesiastical artist, mystic, popular religious writer and poet. 'The Reed of God' was one of many books she wrote, and in this she included the following article on Advent.I find her views deeply spiritual but always practical, simple but profound.

                                                                        Caryll Houselander

'ADVENT'  by Caryll Houselander

Advent is the season of the seed:  Christ loved this symbol of the seed.

The seed he said, is the word of God sown in the human heart.

“The Kingdom of Heaven is like to a grain of mustard seed.”

“So is the Kingdom of God as if a man should cast seed into the earth.”

Even His own life blood:  “Unless the seed falling into the earth die, how shall the earth be sown?”

The Advent, the seed of the world’s life, was hidden in Our Lady.

Like the wheat seed in the earth, the seed of the Bread of Life was in her.

Like the golden harvest in the darkness of the earth, the Glory of God was shrined in her darkness.

Advent is the season of the secret, the secret of the growth of Christ, of Divine Love growing in silence.

It is the season of humility, silence, and growth.

For nine months Christ grew in His Mother’s body. By His own will she formed Him from herself, from the simplicity of her daily life.

She had nothing to give Him but herself.

He asked for nothing else.

Working, eating, sleeping, she was forming His body from hers. His flesh and blood.  From her humanity she gave Him His humanity,

Walking in the streets of Nazareth to do her shopping, to visit her friends, she set His feet on the path of Jerusalem.

Washing, weaving, kneading, sweeping, her hands prepared His hands for the nails.

Every beat of her heart gave Him His heart to love with, His heart to be broken by love.

All her experience of the world about her was gathered to Christ growing in her.

Looking upon the flowers, she gave Him human sight.  Talking with her neighbours she gave Him a human voice. The voice we still hear in the silence of souls saying: “Consider the lilies of the field.”

                           'Our Lady of the Magnificat' by Sandro Botticelli

Sleeping in her still room she gave Him the sleep of the child in the cradle, the sleep of the young man rocked in the storm-tossed boat.

Breaking and eating the bread, drinking the wine of the country, she gave Him His flesh and blood; she prepared the Host for the Mass.

This time of Advent is absolutely essential to our contemplation too.

If we have truly given our humanity to be changed into Christ, it is essential to us that we do not disturb this time of growth.

It is a time of darkness, of faith. We shall not see Christ’s radiance in our lives yet; it is still hidden in our darkness; nevertheless, we must believe that He is growing in our lives; we must believe it so firmly that we cannot help relating everything, literally everything, to this almost incredible reality.

This attitude it is which makes every moment of every day and night a prayer.

In itself it is a purification, but without the tense resolution and anxiety of self-conscious aim.

How could it be possible that anyone who was conscious that Christ desired to see the world with his eyes would look willingly on anything evil? Or knowing that He wished to work with his hands, do any work that was shoddy, any work that was not as near perfection as human nature can achieve?

Who, knowing that his ears must listen for Christ, could listen to blasphemy or to the dreary dirtiness of so much of our conversation, or could fail to listen to the voice of a world like ours with compassion?

Above all, who, knowing that Christ asked for his heart to love with, for his heart to bear the burden of the love of God, could fail to discover that in every pulsation of his own life there is prayer?

This Advent awareness does not lead to a selfish preoccupation with self; it does not exclude outgoing love to others – far from it. It leads to them inevitably, but it prevents such acts and words of love from becoming distractions. It makes the very doing of them reminders of the presence of Christ in us.

It is through them that we can preserve the secrecy of Advent without failing to offer the loveliness of Christ in us to others.

           Everyone knows how terrible it is to come into contact with those people who have an undisciplined missionary urge, who, having received some grace, are continually trying to force the same grace on others, to compel them not only to be converted but to be converted in the same way and with precisely the same results as themselves.

            Such people seem to wish to dictate to the Holy Ghost. God is to inspire their neighbour to see things just as they do, to join the same societies, to plunge into the same activities. They go about like the scriptural monster, seeking whom they may devour. They insist that their victims have obvious vocations to assist in, or even to be completely sacrificed to, their own interests. Very often they unwittingly tear out the tender little shoot of Christ-life that was pushing up against the dark, heavy clay, and when the poor victim has been devoured, he is handed over, spiritless and broken, as a pre-digested morsel for the next one-hundred-per-cent zealot who comes along.

            Our Lady’s example is very different to this.

            When a woman is carrying a child, she develops a certain instinct of self-defence. It is not selfishness; it is not egoism. It is an absorption into the life within, a folding of self like a little tent around the child’s frailty, a God-like instinct to cherish, and some day to bring forth, the life. A closing upon it like the petals of a flower closing upon the dew that shines in its heart.

            This is precisely the attitude we must have to Christ, the Life within us, in the Advent of our contemplation.

            We could scrub the floor for a tired friend, or dress a wound for a patient in a hospital, or lay the table and wash up for the family; but we shall not do it in a martyr spirit or with that worse spirit of self-congratulation, of feeling that we are making ourselves more perfect, more unselfish, more positively kind.

            We shall do it just for one thing, that our hands make Christ’s hands in our life, that our service may let Christ serve through us, that our patience may bring Christ’s patience back to the world.

            By His own will Christ was dependent on Mary during Advent; He was absolutely helpless; He could go nowhere but where she chose to take Him; He could not speak; Her breathing was His breath; His heart beat in the beating of her heart.

            Today Christ is dependent upon men. In the Host, He is literally put into a man’s hands. A man must carry Him to the dying, must take Him to the prisons, workhouses, and hospitals, must carry Him in a tiny pyx over the heart onto the field of battle, must give Him to little children and ‘lay Him by” in His ‘leaflight’ house of gold.

            The modern world’s feverish struggle for unbridled, often unlicensed freedom, is answered by the bound, enclosed helplessness and dependence of Christ – Christ in the womb, Christ in the Host, Christ in the tomb.

            This dependence of Christ lays a great trust upon us. During this tender time of Advent we must carry Him in our hearts to wherever He wants to go, and there are many places to which He may never go unless we take Him to them.

            None of us know when the loveliest hour of our life is striking. It may be when we take Christ for the first time to that grey office in the city where we work, to the wretched lodging of that poor man who is an outcast, to the nursery of that pampered child, to the battleship, airfield, or camp.

                                                            Blessed Charles de Foucauld

 Charles de Foucauld, a young French soldier of our own day, became a priest and a hermit in the desert, where he was murdered by some of the Arabs whom he had come to serve. His life as a missionary hermit seemed no more than a quixotic spiritual adventure, a tilting at windmills, on the desert sands, but he knew and said that it was worth while for just one thing; because he was there, the Sacred Host was there.

            It mattered nothing if the heroic priest could not utter the wonder that was in his heart; the Blessed Sacrament was there in the desert; Christ was there, silent, helpless, dependent on a creature; that which His servant could not utter in words, Christ would utter, in His own time, in silence.

            Sometimes it may seem to us that there is no purpose in our lives, that going day after day for years to this office or that school or factory is nothing else but waste and weariness.  But it may be that God has sent us there because but for us Christ would not be there. If our being there means that Christ is there, that alone makes it worth while.

                                                    'Visitation' by Frans Francken II
There is one exquisite incident in Our Lady’s Advent in which this is clearly seen: the Visitation.

            “And Mary rising up in those days went into the hill country with haste, into a city of Juda.”

            How lyrical that is, the opening sentence of St Luke’s description of the Visitation. We can feel the rush of warmth and kindness, the sudden urgency of love that sent that girl hurrying over the hills. “Those days” in which she rose on that impulse were the days in which Christ was being formed in her, the impulse was His impulse.

            Many women, if they were expecting a child, would refuse to hurry over the hills on a visit of pure kindness. They would say they had a duty to themselves and to their unborn child which came before anything or anyone else.

            The Mother of God considered no such thing. Elizabeth was going to have a child, too, and although Mary’s own child was God, she could not forget Elizabeth’s need – almost incredible to us, but characteristic of her.

            She greeted her cousin Elizabeth, and at the sound of her voice, John quickened in his mother’s womb and leapt for joy.

            “I am come” said Christ, “that they may have life, and may have it more abundantly.” Even before He was born His presence gave life.

            With what piercing shoots of joy does this story of Christ unfold! First the conception of a child in a child’s heart, and then this first salutation, an infant leaping for joy in his mother’s womb, knowing the hidden Christ and leaping into life.

            How did Elizabeth herself know what had happened to Our Lady? What made her realise that this little cousin who was so familiar to her, was the mother of her God?

            She knew it by the child within herself, by the quickening into life which was a leap of joy.

                                                               'El buen Pastor' by Murillo

If we practise this contemplation taught and shown to us by Our Lady, we will find that our experience is like hers.

            If Christ is growing in us, if we are at peace, recollected, because we know that however insignificant our life seems to be, from it He is forming Himself; if we go with eager wills, “in haste”, to wherever our circumstances compel us, because we believe that He desires to be in that place, we shall find that we are driven more and more to act on the impulse of His love.

            And the answer we shall get from others to those impulses will be an awakening into life, or the leap into joy of the already wakened life within them.

            It is not necessary at this stage of our contemplation to speak to others of the mystery of life growing in us. It is only necessary to give ourselves to that life, all that we are, to pray without ceasing, not by a continual effort to concentrate our minds but by a growing awareness that Christ is being formed in our lives from what we are. We must trust Him for this, because it is not a time to see His face, we must possess Him secretly and in darkness, as the earth possesses the seed. We must not try to force Christ’s growth in us, but with a deep gratitude for the light burning secretly in our darkness, we must fold our concentrated love upon Him like earth, surrounding, holding, and nourishing the seed.

We must be swift to obey the winged impulses of His Love, carrying Him to wherever He longs to be; and those who recognise His presence will be stirred, like Elizabeth, with new life. They will know His presence, not by any special beauty of power shown by us, but in the way that the bud knows the presence of the light, by an unfolding in themselves, a putting forth of their own beauty.

                                               'The Road to Emmaus'  by Altobello Melone

 It seems that this is Christ’s favourite way of being  recognised, that he prefers to be known, not by His own human features, but by the quickening of His own life in the heart, which is the response to His coming.

When John recognised Him, He was hidden in His mother’s womb. After the Resurrection He was known, not by His familiar features, but by the love in Magdalene’s heart, the fire in the heart of the travellers to Emmaus, and the wound in His own heart handled by Thomas.

"Whoever would become a saint, must during this life resemble the lily among thorns, which, however much it may be pricked by them, never ceases to be a lily; that is, it is always equally sweet and serene. The soul that loves God maintains an imperturbable peace of heart."
                                  ack. Thoughts from St Alphonsus.

e was hidden in His mother’s wombimHim

Monday, 5 October 2015

The Desert Fathers - 'Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven'.

               In these agitated days I think it time for another extract from 'The Desert Fathers', translated from the Latin by Helen Waddell.

             "That part of the 'Historia Monachorum' dealing with the 'History of the Monks of Egypt', translated originally by Rufinus in Greek, was the story of a pilgrimage made through Egypt in AD 394, by a brother, possibly Timotheus, from Rufinus' own monastery on the Mount of Olives. He himself had made the same journey twenty years earlier, and Jerome had no doubts that 'translation' or not, Rufinus himself was responsible for the authorship, allowing his imagination a certain licence". Be that as it may, these stories - certainly founded on truth, convey a spirit of humility, simplicity, and trust in God, truly 'therapeutic' in our confused and materialistic world.

'We saw also the cell of the holy Paphnutius, the man of God, that was the most famous of all the anchorites in these parts, and that had lived the most remote inhabitant of the desert round about Heracleos, that shining city of the Thebaid.'

                        St Paphnutius of Thebes - etching 16/17th c.

                 Of him we had a most warrantable account from the Fathers, how at one time, after living an angelic life, he had prayed to God that He would show him which of the saints he was thought to be like. And an angel stood by him and answered that he was like a certain singing man, that earned his bread by singing in the village. Dumbfounded at the strangeness of the answer, he made his way with all haste to the village, and sought for the man. And when he had found him, he questioned him closely as to what works of piety and religion he had ever done, and narrowly enquired into all his deeds. But the man answered that the truth was that he was a sinful man of degraded life, and that not long before, from being a robber he had sunk to the squalid craft which he was now seen to exercise.

                                            Musicians - Simone Martini (14th c)

           But for this Paphnutius was the more insistent, asking if perchance some good thing might have cropped up amidst his thieving."I can think of nothing good about me,” said he: “but this I know, that once when I was among the robbers we captured a virgin consecrated to God: and when the rest of my company were for deflowering her, I threw myself in the midst and snatched her from their staining, and brought her by night as far as the town, and restored her untouched to her house.
           Another time too, I found a comely woman wandering in the desert. And when I asked her why and how she had come into these parts, ‘Ask me nothing,’ said she, ‘nor question me for reasons, that am the wretchedest of women, but if it pleases thee to have a handmaid, take me where thou wilt. I have a husband that for arrears of tax hath often been hung up and scourged, and is kept in prison and tortured, nor ever brought out unless to suffer torment.We had three sons also that were taken for the same debt. And because they seek me also to suffer the same pains, I flee in my misery from place to place, worn out with grief and hunger, and I have been in hiding, wandering through these parts, and for three days have had no food.’
            And when I heard this, I had pity for her, and took her to the cave and restored her soul that was faint with hunger and gave her the three hundred solidi for which she and her husband and their three sons were liable, she said, not only to slavery but to torture; and she returned to the city and paid the money and freed them all.”

            Then said Paphnutius, “I have done naught like that, yet I think it may have come to thine ears that the name of Paphnutius is famous among the monks. For it was with no small pains that I sought to fashion my life in this kind of discipline. Wherefore God has shown me this concerning thee, that thou hast no less merit before Him than I. And so, brother, seeing that thou hast not the lowest room with God, neglect not thy soul.”
          And straightway he flung away the pipes that he carried in his hand, and followed him to the desert, and transforming his skill in music into a spiritual harmony of life and mind, he gave himself for three whole years to the strictest abstinence, busying himself day and night in psalms and prayer, and taking the heavenly road with the powers of the soul, gave up his spirit amid the angelic host  of the saints.

                                                Crucifixion - Parri Spinelli (c 1445)

……… And again Paphnutius entreated the Lord that He would show him his like upon earth. And again the voice of the Lord came to him saying, “Know that thou art like the headman of the village close by.” And on hearing this, Paphnutius made haste to go to him, and knocked at the door of his house. And he, whose habit it was to entertain strangers, ran to meet him and brought him into his house and bathed his feet and set a table before him and made a feast. And as they feasted, Paphnutius began to question his host as to his doings, what was his desire, and what his exercises in good living. But he spoke humbly of himself, liking better to hide in his good deeds than be made a talk of, and Paphnutius urged him,  saying that it had been revealed to him by the Lord that he was worthy of the monastic fellowship.
                   But at that he thought still more humbly of himself, and he said, indeed I know of no good in aught that is in me: but because God’s word has been said to thee, I can conceal naught from Him to whom nothing is hidden. So then I shall speak of those things that I am wont to do, set as I am in the midst of many men. It is now thirty years since a bond of continence was agreed between me and my wife and no man knows of it. I have had by her, three sons: for them only have I known my wife, nor have I known any other but her, nor herself now at all. I have never ceased to entertain  strangers and in such fashion that I let no one go to meet the coming guest before myself. I have never sent a guest from my house without provision for his journey: I have despised no man that was poor, but have supplied him with what things he needed. If I sat in judgement, I have not respected
the person of my own son, in detriment of justice.

        'Christ in the house of Simon the Pharisee' by Philippe de Champaigne (c.1656)

           The fruit of another man’s toil has never come into my house. If I saw a quarrel, I have never passed by till I brought them that were at odds to peace. No one ever caught my servants in a fault: never have my herbs injured another man’s crops: never did I forbid any man to sow in my fields, nor did I choose the richer fallow for myself, and leave the more barren to another. As much as in me lay, I never suffered the stronger to oppress the weak. Ever in my life I sought that no one should be sad because of me. If I were judge in a suit, I condemned no one, but sought to bring the dissidents to peace. And this, as God gave it, has been my way of living until now.”
            And hearing him, the blessed Paphnutius kissed his head and blessed him saying, "The Lord bless thee out of Zion and mayst thou behold the good things that are in Jerusalem. But as thou hast well and wisely performed all these, one thing thou lackest, which is the  highest of all good, that leaving all, thou should'st follow the very wisdom of God, and seek the more hidden treasure, whereto thou mayst not come unless thou deny thyself and take up thy cross, and follow Christ.”

                        Annunciation (detail) - Jacopo Pontormo (c1527)

              And when he had heard this, he delayed for naught, nor sought to set his house in order, but followed the man of God taking the road to the desert ……And when some time had gone by, and he had been led to that perfection of  knowledge who was already made perfect in deed, on a certain day Paphnutius sitting in his cell saw his soul taken up into heaven amid a host of angels that were saying, “Blessed is the man whom Thou choosest and causest to approach unto Thee: he shall abide in Thy tabernacle.”
          And hearing this, he knew that the man had been taken from this world. But Paphnutius persisted in fasting and prayer, reaching out to things greater and more perfect.

          ............ And again he prayed to God, that He would show him his fellow among men. And again a divine voice answered him saying: “Thou art like this merchant, whom thou shalt see coming towards thee: but rise up quickly and run to meet him, for the man who is thy fellow is nigh.” And going down without delay Paphnutius met a certain merchant of Alexandria, that was bringing goods worth twenty thousand pieces of gold in three ships from the Thebaid. And being a religious man and zealous after good, he had laden his young men with ten sacks of vegetables, and was bringing them to the monastery of the man of God: and this was the reason for his coming to Paphnutius. And straightway as he saw him , “What dost thou,” he said, “O soul most precious, and worthy of God?

   'St Augustine of Hippo' by Philippe de Champaigne (1645-50)    "You never go away from us, yet we have difficulty in returning to You. Come, Lord, stir us up and call us back. Kindle and seize us. Be our fire and our sweetness. Let us love. Let us run.” ― Augustine of Hippo, Confessions

                      What toil is this with things of earth, when thy lot and fellowship are in heaven? Leave these to such as are of earth, and think of earth; but do thou be a tradesman of the Kingdom of God, to which thou art called, and follow the Saviour, who will soon hereafter take thee to Himself.”
                    And he with no least hesitation bade his young men give all that remained of his goods to the poor (for he had already himself given much away). And following the holy Paphnutius to the desert, he was set by him in that place from which his predecessors had been taken up to God. And in like fashion, instructed by him in all things, he abode in the exercises of the spirit and in studies of the divine wisdom, and in a little while, he also was translated to the assembly of the just.

                     And not long after, whilst Paphnutius himself was ordering his life in these same exercises of supreme  austerity and travail, the angel stood by him, saying to him .”Come thou blessed, and enter those everlasting mansions that are prepared for thee. For behold the Prophets are at hand who shall receive thee into their company. This at first I did not reveal to thee lest perchance thou shouldst be puffed up and thy labour be lost.”

                                                 'St Jerome'- Lionello Spada (c1610)

                        And after these things, for one day he lived his life in the body, and when certain priests came to visit him, he made known to them all that the Lord had revealed to him, saying to them that no one in this world ought to be despised, let him be a thief, or an actor on the stage, or one that tilled the ground, and was bound to a wife, or was a merchant and served a trade; for in every condition of human life there are souls that please God and have their hidden deeds wherein He takes delight: whence is it plain that it is not so much profession or habit that is pleasing to God, as the sincerity and affection of the soul and honesty of deed. And when he had spoken thus about each in turn, he gave up his spirit.'

                       St Anthony the Abbot and St Paul the first hermit
 'He had reached the age of one hundred and thirteen years when Anthony, then ninety years old, came to visit him. Paul received him warmly. After they had spent the night in conversing about holy things, Paul said that his death was at hand and asked Anthony to go and get the cloak given him by Athanasius to use as a winding sheet. Anthony went to do this and, as he was on his way back he saw Paul’s soul going up to heaven. His body he found in his cell, still in the attitude of prayer. When he had chanted the customary hymns, he wrapped the body in the cloak, but had nothing to dig a grave with. Thereupon two lions came from deep in the desert and hollowed out a place large enough to hold a men’s body. Anthony buried the body arranged the grave and went away taking with him the tunic which Paul had woven for himself from palm-leaves. Thereafter he always wore this cloak on the great feasts of Easter and Pentecost.' 1914 Catholic Encyclopedia
  "There is no devotion so generally practised by the faithful of all classes as that of the Rosary.  The immense good that this noble devotion has done to the world is well known. How many, by its means, have been delivered from sin! how many led to a holy life! how many to a good death and to heaven!"
ack. 'Thoughts from St. Alphonsus'.

Tuesday, 1 September 2015

Time for a Smile - Courtesy of W.S.Gilbert

Time, I think, for a smile, and what better than a look at 'Bab Ballads', a collection of light verse, written by W.S.Gilbert, and illustrated with his own comic drawings, prior to his professional association with Arthur Sullivan.  In writing these, Gilbert developed his unique "topsy-turvy" style, where the humour was derived by setting up a ridiculous premise and working out its logical consequences, however absurd. The Ballads also reveal Gilbert's cynical and satirical approach to humour. They became famous in their own right, as well as being a source for plot elements, characters and songs often recycled later in the Gilbert and Sullivan operas.  The Ballads were read aloud at private dinner-parties, public banquets and even in the House of Lords.  (Wikipedia)
From 'Fifty Bab Ballads' published in 1884 by George Routledge & Sons, I have taken two which I hope you will enjoy, namely 'Annie Protheroe - a legend of Stratford-le-Bow';  and 'My Dream', both of which were performed as short operettas.

Annie Protheroe    -   a legend of Stratford-le-Bow  (1868)

Oh! Listen to the tale of little Annie Protheroe.
She kept a small post-office in the neighbourhood of Bow;
She loved a skilled mechanic, who was famous in his day –
A gentle executioner whose name was Gilbert Clay.

I think I hear you say, “A dreadful subject for your rhymes!”
O reader, do not shrink – he didn’t live in modern times!
He lived so long ago (the sketch will show it at a glance)
That all his actions glitter with the lime-light of Romance.

In busy times he laboured at his gentle craft all day –
“No doubt you mean his Cal-craft,” you amusingly will say –
But, no – he didn’t operate with common bits of string,
He was a Public Headsman, which is quite another thing.

And when his work was over, they would ramble o’er the lea,
And sit beneath the frondage of an elderberry tree,
And Annie’s simple prattle entertained him on his walk,
For public executions formed the subject of her talk.

And sometimes he’d explain to her, which charmed her very much,
How famous operators vary very much in touch,
And then, perhaps, he’d show how he himself performed the trick,
And illustrate his meaning with a poppy and a stick.

Or, if it rained, the little maid would stop at home, and look
At his favourable notices, all posted in a book,
And then her cheek would flush – her swimming eyes would dance with joy
In a glow of admiration at the prowess of her boy.

One summer eve, at supper time, the gentle Gilbert said
(As he helped his pretty Annie to a slice of collared head),
“This reminds me I must settle on the next ensuing day
The hash of that unmitigated villain, Peter Gray.”

He saw his Annie tremble and he saw his Annie start,
Her changing colour trumpeted the flutter at her heart;
Young Gilbert’s manly bosom rose and sank with jealous fear,
And he said, “O gentle Annie, what’s the meaning of this here?”

And Annie answered, blushing in an interesting way,
“You think, no doubt, I’m sighing for that felon Peter Gray:
That I was his young woman is unquestionably true,
But not since I began a-keeping company with you.”

Then Gilbert, who was irritable, rose and loudly swore
He’d know the reason why, if she refused to tell him more;
And she answered (all the woman in her flashing from her eyes),
“You mustn’t ask no questions, and you won’t be told no lies!

“Few lovers have the privilege enjoyed, my dear, by you,
Of chopping off a rival’s head and quartering him too!
Of vengeance, dear, tomorrow you will surely take your fill!”
And Gilbert ground his molars as he answered her, “I will!”

Young Gilbert rose from table with a stern determined look,
And, frowning, took an inexpensive hatchet from its hook;
And Annie watched his movements with an interested air –
For the morrow – for the morrow he was going to prepare!

He chipped it with a hammer and he chopped it with a bill,
He poured sulphuric acid on the edge of it, until
This terrible Avenger of the Majesty of Law
Was far less like a hatchet than a dissipated saw.

And Annie said, “O Gilbert, dear, I do not understand
Why ever you are injuring that hatchet in your hand?”
He said, “It is intended for to lacerate and flay
The neck of that unmitigated villain, Peter Gray!”

“Now, Gilbert,” Annie answered, “wicked headsman, just beware –
I won’t have Peter tortured with that horrible affair;
If you appear with that, you may depend you’ll rue the day.”
But Gilbert said, “Oh, shall I?” which was just his nasty way.

He saw a look of anger from her eyes distinctly dart,
For Annie was a woman, and had pity in her heart!
She wished him a good evening – he answered with a glare;
She only said, “Remember, for your Annie will be there!”

                                                     * * * *

The morrow Gilbert boldly on the scaffold took his stand,
With a vizor on his face and with a hatchet in his hand,
And all the people noticed that the Engine of the Law
Was far less like a hatchet than a dissipated saw.

The felon very coolly loosed his collar and his stock,
And placed his wicked head upon the handy little block.
The hatchet was uplifted for to settle Peter Gray,
When Gilbert plainly heard a woman’s voice exclaiming, “Stay!”

T’was Annie, gentle Annie, as you’ll easily believe.
“O Gilbert, you must spare him, for I bring him a reprieve,
It came from our Home Secretary many weeks ago,
And passed through that post-office which I used to keep at Bow.

“I loved you, loved you madly, and you know it, Gilbert Clay,
And as I’d quite surrendered all idea of Peter Gray,
I quietly suppressed it, as you’ll clearly understand,
For I thought it might be awkward if he came and claimed my hand.

“In anger at my secret (which I could not tell before),
To lacerate poor Peter Gray vindictively you swore;
I told you if you used that blunted axe you’d rue the day,
And so you will, young Gilbert, for I’ll marry Peter Gray!”
                                                                                [ And so she did.

NB. Cal-craft (v3) --- William Calcraft (1800 - 1879), English Hangman  for 45 years, performing 450 executions. Of dubious fame.

My Dream  (1870)

The other night, from Care exempt,
I slept – and what d’you think I dreamt?
I dreamt that somehow I had come
To dwell in Topsy-Turveydom –

Where vice is virtue – virtue, vice;
Where nice is nasty – nasty, nice;
Where right is wrong and wrong is right –
Where white is black and black is white.

Where babies, much to their surprise,
Are born astonishingly wise;
With every Science on their lips,
And Art at all their finger-tips.

For, as their nurses dandle them
They crow binomial theorem,
With views (it seems absurd to us)
On differential calculus.

But though a babe, as I have said,
Is born with learning in his head,
He must forget it, if he can,
Before he calls himself a man.

For that which we call folly here,
Is wisdom in that favoured sphere;
The wisdom we so highly prize
Is blatant folly in their eyes.

A boy, if he would push his way,
Must learn some nonsense every day;
And cut, to carry out this view,
His wisdom teeth and wisdom too.

Historians burn their midnight oils,
Intent on giant-killer’s toils;
And sages close their aged eyes
To other sages’ lullabies.

Our magistrates, in duty bound,
Commit all robbers who are found;
But there the Beaks (so people said)
Commit all robberies instead.

Our Judges, pure and wise in tone,
Know crime from theory alone,
And glean the motives of a thief
From books and popular belief.

But there, a Judge who wants to prime
His mind with true ideas of crime,
Derives them from the common sense
Of practical experience.

Policemen march all folks away
Who practise virtue every day –
Of course, I mean to say, you know,
What we call virtue here below.

For only scoundrels dare to do
What we consider just and true,
And only good men do, in fact,
What we should think a dirty act.

But strangest of these social twirls,
The girls are boys – the boys are girls!
The men are women, too – but then,
Per contra, women are all men.

To one who to tradition clings
This seems an awkward state of things,
But if to think it out you try,
It doesn’t really signify.

With them, as surely as can be,
A sailor should be sick at sea,
And not a passenger may sail
Who cannot smoke right through a gale.

A soldier (save by rarest luck)
Is always shot for showing pluck
(That is, if others can be found
With pluck enough to fire a round).

“How strange!” I said to one I saw;
“You quite upset our every law.
However can you get along
So systematically wrong?”

“Dear me!” my mad informant said,
“Have you no eyes within your head?
You sneer when you your hat should doff:
Why, we begin where you leave off!

Your wisest men are very far
Less learned than our babies are!”
I mused awhile – and then, oh me!
I framed this brilliant repartee:

“Although your babes are wiser far
Than our most valued sages are,
Your sages, with their toys and cots,
Are duller than our idiots!”

But this remark, I grieve to state,
Came just a little bit too late;
For as I framed it in my head,
I woke and found myself in bed.

Still I could wish that, ‘stead of here,
My lot were in that favoured sphere! –
Where greatest fools bear off the bell
I ought to do extremely well.

To wisdom belongs the intellectual apprehension of things eternal; to knowledge, the rational apprehension of things temporal. (St. Augustine of Hippo)


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Pirate Patch

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PostPosted: Sat Jul 19, 2003 8:17 pm    Post subject: Pirate Patch Reply with quote

-Eliminated possibility that a special Transport mission cargo item can be stolen using a Burglar.
-Adjusted insurance payouts for pilots wearing Pirate tags killed by a Trap to make Pirate tags more favorable in this situation. Pirates will now receive insurance for their equipped-equipment only.

Thumbs up for both counts. One could say that it's a violation of OOC & IC for both, but i don't. why? Well, what it boils down to is that the concept of OOC/IC is about a game. It's all about 'willing suspension of disbelief' - anything that detracts from the enjoyment of such a game, the participants in that game are WILLING to suspend their disbelief.

That's the whole point, and the reason we have OOC/IC (a priori)
    as for the specifics?
  • Well, for the transport mission we can say that TRI anti-piracy tech is just one step behind the SOTA of the piracy hacker innovations (just like the RIAA against music piracy, irl)...they can secure very few things of important to them. but, on the whole, there's probably nothing they'll be able to do to prevent the valuable commods from being burgled
  • for the insurance? Well, let's assume that legitimate civilian/honorguard insurance actually costs us money, but it's a hidden cost (just like why we don't see system suns, see who's helping inject those commods into market) - extrapolate that to piracy tags and the costs for paying a secret banking organization for insurance makes sense (hell, it's not like pirate funds are frozen right? why is that?)
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New Pirate Registry and other things in next patch

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Joined: 25 Oct 2001
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Location: The sticks!

PostPosted: Sun May 25, 2003 2:24 pm    Post subject: New Pirate Registry and other things in next patch Reply with quote

Hello Everyone,

As we approach the end of the week we are wrapping up a series of fixes into a patch that is planned to go live on Monday the 26th. Included in this next patch are bug fixes to player station docking permissions functions (mostly related to squad mode), fixes related to bounty problems (will be documented in fixes.txt), some armor related bugs have been fixed, and other miscellaneous fixes related to the radar as well as many minor fixes I can't recall of the top of my head.

Along with these fixes we have added a couple new features/changes:

*A slash command for player station owners which will return a list of all of your custom prices and how many free price slots you have. Along with that a bug which causes multiple entries of the same type of item into your custom price list has been fixed with this next patch.
*Market modules will be upgraded to be worth 500 units of floor space instead of the current limit of 200. (I can't comment on any storage changes yet, we're still discussing this amongst ourselves).
*Some minor improvements to the rendering code which will very slightly improve rendering speed. While this step will be subtle, framerate increase and graphics enhancements are an ongoing priority for us.
*Squadmates will be allowed to 'steal' cargo from squadmates without incurring any penalties.

*Cargo traps will strip almost all of the armor and shields from a ship instead of instantly destroying the ship completly.After discussing this some more with players we have decided to put off going with this change indefinately.

Now for what we at the office here are so excited about right now, a new pirate registry. Between the 26-30th of this month we are planning on having the pirate registry go live. This will basicly allow players who wish to play as pirates the ability to steal cargo without incurring a PR hit below 0 (but you lose all of your PR points down to 0 when you switch to pirate registry), however non-pirate players will be able to freely attack players using the pirate registry. Along with that ability, we have plans to add a handful of other special pirating features, some which will be 'secrets' for players to find and others which we will announce as they near completion.
You can expect to see additional information regarding the pirate registry posted here next week as we begin to roll some of these features out.

I'm being rushed out the door as I write this so I'll have to wrap it up, but I will be updating you all on these and other upcoming plans as frequently as I can.

See you in the game!

And Istvan's reply:
Although Josh posted above our intention to patch on Monday, Scorch just reminded us that Monday is a federal holiday in the U.S. and that the Netdevil office will be closed.

I will ask Josh if he still intends for us to come into the office to test and build the current (1.0071) patch, which is close to completion. However, it might be prudent to expect this next patch late on Tuesday, and push back slightly the relevant dates for the upcoming "Pirate Patch".

Thanks for playing!
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PostPosted: Sun May 25, 2003 4:31 pm    Post subject: Re: New Pirate Registry and other things in next patch Reply with quote

market modules giving 500 space. oh thank god for sanity! But, i nearly had a coronary while reading that cargo traps "rethink"...pirate registry? Blink blink. someone pinch me because we still have no "self-defense" and we still have /give...

NOW FOR SOMETHING COMPLETELY DIFFERENT was good for monty python, but is this the gong show? no. I'm not excited about this - i'm downright skeptical.

Personally, if it was me, pirate would be the only ones capable of USING the burglar (not to mention bombs would be never nerfed and /give would be history)
    but enough of this crap; where the flying fuck is squad war tools?!!?!? excuse me for living, but piracy played 2nd fiddle to squad battles any day of the week...
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Sunday, 1 February 2009

First Proper update of 2009

Right, January is now but a memory, and we're beginning February waiting for a heavy snowfall to begin any time today & all day tomorrow, with the temperature suitably chilly and dropping rapidly, I think it's time to stay in and get some painting done.

Most of January I spent faffing about painting a little bit, building a little bit, planning a little bit & basically getting absolutely nothing completed whilst I was waiting for Richard to put together the Thousand Sons models he wants me to paint for him.

He got them, (or at least the bulk of them), to me last Tuesday & today is the day I start the prep-work.

Here's what I've got to work with so far:

From top to bottom: 1 unit Chaos Space Marines; 1 unit Thousand Sons (6 to come); 1 unit CSM (4 to come); 1 Havok unit (3 to come + 1 l. arm for Las Gunner); 1 unit CSM; 3 units Chaos Terminators. Currently missing the above mentioned minis, plus 1 more 9-man unit, (another Havok unit I think).

As you can see most have had some kind of paint on them, (from the look of some of them, quite a few coats of paint, the detail on a few is almost nonexistent), so a few will need stripping before I can get ant paint on them, but I'm hoping to get that all sorted this week, then next week I start the painting proper.

Right, so the first project of the year is now officially underway, so hopefully regular updates will now follow.

Oh, and here comes the snow I mentioned earlier...oh joy, time to wrap up warm folks :)

More soon.


text:
February 13, 1542: Katheryn Howard's Bloody Valentine

Seven or eight thousand people crowded the Tower green on a cold February morning. It was the day before Valentine's Day, 1542, and the people were gathering to see a rare spectacle, the execution of a Queen of England.

When Anne Boleyn was awaiting the executioner, her jailers fretted that she would declare her innocence before the crowd. To try to keep the audience small - and limit those who might be exposed to her words - they attempted some confusing tactics. This time, they had no such concerns. The young woman lodged in the royal apartments was resigned to her fate.

Katheryn and Jane Parker had been condemned by an Act of Attainder on Saturday and brought to the Tower that afternoon for execution. The stories say Katheryn struggled and cried when the council came to escort her to the Tower, and the weeping young girl had to be physically forced onto the barge.

But the following day was Sunday, a day on which an execution could not take place. They would have to wait until Monday morning. Considering the anguish she had been in since her arrest, one wonders if Katheryn was grateful for one more day of life, or if it merely added to her torment.

The curious people flooded through the gates of the Tower to watch her die. This was no innocent martyr to Henry's desires, as the people saw it. Katheryn Howard had sinned, and now she would pay for it with her life. It was the kind of execution parents loved to bring their children to, illustrating the wages of sin to impressionable young minds.

The doors to the royal apartments opened and Katheryn stepped out into the cold morning air. She was a tiny girl, plump and pretty, possibly only sixteen or seventeen years old. That morning, she wore a black velvet gown, chosen from among the six she had been allowed. Its fabric suited her rank; its color suited the solemn occasion to which she wore it.

Katheryn had been shamed before all of England. The salacious details of her pre-marital affairs had been aired to the public, all of her secrets known. They had never proved adultery, only managing to wrest a confession from Thomas Culpepper that he would sleep with the young queen if given the opportunity.

That intent was enough to condemn them.

Henry VIII alternated fits of weeping and rage at the "betrayal" of his teenaged bride, that "rose among women" whose petals had been caressed by others. When Anne had languished in the Tower, Henry had partied like a frat boy, cheerfully indifferent to his cuckold's horns, claiming openly that Anne Boleyn had slept with a hundred men.

Now, learning that Katheryn had intercourse with one man, and had been intimately touched by another before she married Henry was enough to send him screaming for a sword to kill her himself and mourning so bitterly that his council feared for him. Chapuys writes that Henry blamed his council his lamentable fate of marrying such "ill-conditioned wives." Their response to that is not recorded, but perhaps it's best left to the imagination.

In the end, Henry couldn't even bring himself to sign Katheryn's death warrant. The council had done it for him, adding The king wills it at the bottom, dubiously legal, but no one was arguing that particular point.

The men accused with her were dead already. Francis Dereham - whose only crime had been to sleep with an unmarried girl before she came to the king's attention - had suffered a horrid traitor's death of disemboweling. Thomas Culpepper, once one of Henry's favorites, was given the more merciful death of beheading. His crime had been to meet with the queen for whispered conversations and furtive exchanges of gifts.

Behind Katheryn walked Jane Parker, Lady Rochford, who had arranged these secret meetings. Both Katheryn and Culpepper had tried to put the blame squarely on her shoulders, insisting Lady Rochford had goaded them into meeting. Lady Rochford had broken down under the stress and appeared to have gone insane, but she had apparently found peace, because she walked with quiet dignity behind Katheryn as they headed to the scaffold.

They likely followed the same route as Anne Boleyn, moving from the royal apartments (marked in red) around the Jewel House and through the Coldharbour Gate (marked in green), until they reached the north corner of the White Tower. The scaffold was erected where the black X is marked on the map. The Chapel of St. Peter-ad-Vincula is indicated in blue. Today, the spot of the scaffold is where visitors to the Tower gather to see the Crown Jewels.

Katheryn had to be terrified. She was not to be granted the elegant, swift death delivered by a swordsman as her cousin had before her. No, Katheryn would bow her head to the block under the brutal blade of an axe.

Frightened she might be, but Katheryn remembered she was a Howard, and she was determined to die with dignity. The night before, she had asked her jailer, Sir John Gage, to bring the block to her chambers so she could practice laying her head on it and not fumble before the crowd. Reportedly, she asked the ladies serving her which position made for a better presentation. She may have had the hideously botched execution of Margaret Pole in mind.

She climbed the few steps of the scaffold now. It was likely the same one used for Anne Boleyn - stored away and reassembled when needed - but this time, the niceties hadn't been observed. There's no mention of the yards of expensive black velvet that had adorned the scaffold like a macabre parade float when Anne died. Anne had been an anointed Queen; Katheryn had been stripped of the rank that had been a courtesy title due to her marriage to the king and was now "merely Katheryn Howard." She had been granted her last request for a "private death" inside the walls of the Tower, but that was all.

Katheryn walked across the raw boards covered with a thick layer of straw meant to absorb her blood and faced the crowd.

She had not been raised as a courtier, and taught from birth how deal gracefully with public scrutiny as Anne Boleyn had. Katheryn was just a simple gentlewoman with scant education, and little adult supervision in her formative years. She'd only reigned as queen for one year, a position she had to learn "on the job" as it were, completely unprepared for court etiquette. Certainly, nothing in Katheryn's short life had prepared her for this. But in her last moments, Katheryn comported herself like a queen.

Some accounts say Katheryn looked pale and frightened - one says she seemed so weak that she could barely speak. The French Ambassador had written that Katheryn spent her last days in constant tears, but now she stood solemn and composed, though she could not completely conceal her fear. God knows how hard it was for her, but she did her duty, and she did it with grace and dignity.

A witness wrote of her last moments in a tone of pride, saying that Katheryn

[...] made the most godly and Christian end that ever was heard tell of (I think) since the world's creation [...]

We don't have an exact record of her words, but Katheryn said the things that were expected of a condemned traitor. They were so ordinary that no one bothered recording the exact wording, just the gist of it. She would have thought long and hard about what she would say, knowing it would be publicized far and wide, and her words could have repercussions on her family if the king was displeased by them. Katheryn praised the king for his goodness to her, confessing that she deserved death, and exhorting the people to take example from what happened to her, and amend any sin in their own lives.

When she finished speaking, Katheryn disrobed, stripping off her outer gown and sleeves. She had no jewelry to remove, it having been seized as soon as the investigation into her affairs began. But the fabric was costly and the French hood she wore had valuable gold trim. The garments would be laid aside for the executioner as part of his payment.

Unlike Anne Boleyn, there's no mention of the council buying the clothing back from the executioner, or redeeming the items Katheryn had left behind in her rooms in the royal apartments, which now belonged to John Gage. The council let both men keep their prerogatives, apparently having no concern souvenirs would be made.

Wearing only her kirtle, petticoat, and chemise in the February chill, Katheryn prayed as knelt down in the pile of straw in front of the block. Her auburn hair would have been tucked up into a white linen cap to leave her little neck bare. She laid her throat on the bare wood as she had practiced. Tradition was that the condemned would thrust out their arms as a signal that they were ready. Sometimes, a friend would take their hands and hold them stretched forward, but Katheryn's friends had been taken from her when she was brought to the Tower.

The axe rose and fell. The executioner was good - it took only one blow before Katheryn's head was severed. Anne Boleyn's ladies had rushed forward to throw a cloth over her head as soon as it left her shoulders to protect her dignity. There's no mention this was done for Katheryn.

Chapuys records that Katheryn's torso was covered by a black cloak and pulled aside for the next occupant of the block. Lady Rochford stepped forward.

Chapuys had written she had periods of lucidity during her spell of madness. The legislation passed to make it legal to execute the insane had implied Lady Rochford was faking. Either way, she was calm and dignified now, and she made a speech similar to Katheryn's before she knelt down in the bloody straw and laid her neck on the dripping block.

The witnesses all reported both women made a "goodly end." Katheryn had done her name proud in this last, as had the much maligned Lady Rochford. Later, a legend would arise that Katheryn had declared she died a queen but would rather have died as Culpepper's wife, and that Lady Rochford had said she deserved to die for lying about her husband and Anne Boleyn. Fanciful nonsense, and nothing more.

It was over. The crowd wandered away, leaving behind the two bodies which lay on the scaffold while their blood drained out through the boards, dripping onto the grass below.

Sometime later - how long the records do not say - Katheryn and Lady Rochford's bodies were  were carried to the chapel of St. Peter-ad-Vincula where Anne and George had been buried. There is no mention of them being wrapped in cerecloth - the heavy white, waxed cloth used for burial shrouds - only the black cloak with which Katheryn had been covered after death. Since the cloak was valuable and would not have been buried with her, the implication is that the bodies were put directly in the earth. I hope it is simply an omission and both Katheryn and Lady Rochford were given at least the scant courtesy of a shroud.

A few feet beneath the paving stones to the right of the altar, hasty graves were scratched out for both of them and they were buried with no marker above them.

But someone wanted nothing of Katheryn Howard to remain. Her grave was filled with lime, meant to hasten decomposition. This was - by no means - an ordinary part of the burial process. It raises the question of who gave the order and why. It seems we'll never know for certain, but there was one person who wanted to erase the "rose without a thorn" from memory.

Three hundred years passed, and the little chapel fell into a pitiful state of disrepair. Thomas Babington Macaulay, in his History of England wrote in 1848:

In truth there is no sadder spot on the earth than that little cemetery. Death is there associated, not, as in Westminster Abbey and Saint Paul's, with genius and virtue, with public veneration and with imperishable renown; not, as in our humblest churches and churchyards, with everything that is most endearing in social and domestic charities; but with whatever is darkest in human nature and in human destiny, with the savage triumph of implacable enemies, with the inconstancy, the ingratitude, the cowardice of friends, with all the miseries of fallen greatness and of blighted fame. Thither have been carried, through successive ages, by the rude hands of gaolers, without one mourner following, the bleeding relics of men who had been the captains of armies, the leaders of parties, the oracles of senates, and the ornaments of courts.

Thither was borne, before the window where Jane Grey was praying, the mangled corpse of Guilford Dudley. Edward Seymour, duke of Somerset, and protector of the realm, reposes there by the brother whom he murdered. There has mouldered away the headless trunk of John Fisher, bishop of Rochester and Cardinal of Saint Vitalis, a man worthy to have lived in a better age, and to have died in a better cause. There are laid John Dudley, duke of Northumberland, Lord High Admiral, and Thomas Cromwell, earl of Essex, Lord High Treasurer. There, too, is another Essex, on whom nature and fortune had lavished all their bounties in vain, and whom valour, grace, genius, royal favour, popular applause, conducted to an early and ignominious doom. Not far off sleep two chiefs of the great house of Howard, Thomas, fourth Duke of Norfolk, and Philip, eleventh Earl of Arundel. Here and there, among the thick graves of unquiet and aspiring statesmen, lie more delicate sufferers; Margaret of Salisbury, the last of the proud name of Plantagenet, and those two fair queens who perished by the jealous rage of Henry. Such was the dust with which the dust of Monmouth mingled.

His words helped bring the sad condition of the chapel to public attention, and soon Queen Victoria gave her permission for a restoration. She ordered that an attempt be made to identify the famous persons buried in the chapel, a task which proved more difficult than anticipated, because the tiny chapel had been in continuous use as a parish church, and there were over a thousand within its walls. The bones of a grave's prior occupant would be pushed aside to make room for another.

The bones believed to be Anne Boleyn's had been pushed aside for a lead coffin occupied by a woman who had died in 1760. In other places, the bones of unknown persons mingled with older burials.

Close by, somewhat in a south-east direction, and nearer to the wall of the chancel, gathered together in two distinct groups, were found the bones of two females; these were examined and carefully sorted, they appeared to belong to a person of about thirty to forty years of age, and to another who must have been considerably advanced in years. It is worthy of note that these latter remains were a little to the south-east of the younger female.
These groups had been much disturbed, and many bones are missing: the younger female had been of rather delicate proportions, the elder had been tall, and certainly of above average height.
These remains are believed to be those of Lady Rochford and Margaret of Clarence, Countess of Salisbury: and, as was subsequently discovered, they had been removed somewhat to the east of their original resting places, in order to make room for two unknown persons, who had been buried close to the step of the chancel, probably about one hundred years ago.

Search though they might, they found no trace of Katheryn Howard. They speculated that the lime had dissolved her young bones to dust.

No remains which could be identified as those of Queen Katharine Howard were found; it should, however, be borne in mind that lime has been most extensively used in these interments, and as Katharine Howard was only twenty years old when she was beheaded (at which age the bones have not become hard and consolidated), it is very possible that even when Judge Jeffreys was interred in the chancel, her remains had already become dust. It was at first supposed, as she had been buried on this spot, that her remains had been discovered, when the group of female bones were found lying near the Duke of Northumberland; but a closer examination showed that the age and size of the bones (Katharine Howard is said to have been very small in stature) would not support that supposition, and these are now believed to be the remains of Lady Rochford.

Only Katheryn Howard's memory remains.

History has tended to judge her harshly, and even today, she is thought of as the queen who deserved her execution, a foolish little adulteress that had the misfortune of getting caught. Even those who accept she may not have been "technically" guilty charge her with terminal stupidity in putting herself into the situation with Culpepper.

But we don't know why Katheryn chose to meet with him. Some have suggested she might have been being blackmailed to keep her past hidden. Or it could be as simple as Katheryn being a teenage girl in the throes of love who never imagined talking with a man in secrecy could get her in such dire straights.

In the end, Katheryn Howard died because she had premarital sexual experience. The king passed a law that made it treason for a woman to conceal her sexual history if the king showed interest in marrying her. The meetings with Culpepper were just icing on the proverbial cake. She died because Henry could not stand the thought of her being touched by others, and she broke his heart.

Despite her paltry education, there is evidence Katheryn tried to be a good queen to her people. She pleaded with the king for mercy towards convicted criminals. And despite her image as a silly girl only interested in fashion, one of the largest expenses on her privy purse accounts was purchasing warm clothing for the elderly Margaret Pole.

In recent years, the legacy of Anne Boleyn has begun to be re-examined. Even Lady Rochford has been the subject of new scholarship, sweeping away the layers of myth that have clung to her memory. Perhaps it's time we do the same with Katheryn Howard.

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Friday, February 25, 2011

MSI introduces their next-gen flagship motherboard, the Big Bang-Marshal (B3)

Gamers and extreme users have been waiting for a mainboard that can provide them all the tools they need to get the most out of their new Sandy Bridge CPUs it's finally arrived. World-renowned mainboard manufacturer Micro-Star Int'l Co., Ltd. (MSI) has unleashed the Big Bang-Marshal (B3). Defining total quality standards, the Big Bang Marshal (B3) wields the second generation Military Class components for the best build quality. Highlights of the board are an industry leading eight (8) sets of PCI-E 2.0 x 16 slots for a staggering combination of GPUs. Combined with Creative's top-class X-Fi MB2 sound technology, it can simultaneously take care of the three major elements that gamers care about the most: stability, performance and sound effects.

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via HotHardware

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