In the 2008 film, Birdsong, Catalan filmmaker Albert Serra portrays the three kings’ trek toward the Holy Family. The black and white film unfolds like a dream, capturing the internal journey of the kings as they stumble through a bleak landscape, accompanied only by the song of birds. Other than their crowns and robes, they lack regal trappings. By stripping away the opulence ordinarily associated with the Magi, Serra allows their essential humanity—at times clumsy, comic, or serious—to emerge. The kings are led by a vision: “We’re awestruck with the beauty of things,” one remarks. After nearly an hour of cinematic wandering, they reach the Holy Family and prostrate themselves before the newborn and his parents. Eventually, they trudge off, saying, “We won’t be coming back—we’ve had enough of this sand.” It’s a funny line, but also a poignant reminder of the singular nature of the kings’ journey and their willingness to take it.
Medieval pilgrims often slept in churches, finding respite there during their arduous journeys. But locals, too, had a wonderful familiarity with their churches, treating them as homes away from home. They bathed and did laundry with water drawn from holy wells and ate the food that merchants sold in the aisles. The smoke billowing from the enormous censer at the cathedral of Santiago de Compostela in Spain, for example, blessed not only the highly fragrant pilgrims crowded inside but also local Christians. Read More »
Congratulations to Karen, Linda, Michelle, Ralph and Rose, who won copies of Full of Grace! Thanks, everyone, for participating. I loved doing this, and will have another giveaway soon.
In honor of Our Lady of Guadalupe’s feast day on December 12th, I’m giving away 5 inscribed copies of Full of Grace: Encountering Mary in Faith, Art and Life!
Full of Grace takes the reader inside the Virgin Mary’s world in ancient Palestine while showing how thoroughly she inhabits the 21st century. The book touches on Mary’s Jewish roots, veneration by Muslims, and powerful presence in Hispanic communities. The joys of friendship, nature of surrender, and dignity of work are explored through a Marian lens in 59 illustrated essays.
* 2011 Catholic Press Association awards: Best Book on Spirituality and Best Design.
To win a copy:
“Like” Full of Grace’s Facebook page and share a few lines about the Virgin Mary’s influence on your life. Or, if you’re not on Facebook, share your comments here. Send entries by December 11th. Winners announced on December 12th.
In the days following Sept. 11, 2001, Michael Diaz constructed an impromptu memorial in Manhattan for his missing brother Matthew. It consisted of a Payless shoebox holding a pair of worn black shoes, neatly tied. The top of the box, propped up, served as a kind of headstone. A verse from the Gospel of Mark (9:3) was scrawled on it in magic marker: “His clothes became shining, exceedingly white, like snow, such as no launderer on earth can whiten them.” This spontaneous outpouring tugs at the heart, yet its message is hard to decode. Why that particular verse? Why those shoes? We may never know. Read More »
As I left the theater, having just seen The Tree of Life, a woman waiting in line to see it asked, “How was it?” Awesome! I said, just as another patron declared, Awful! And that pretty much sums up how Terrence Malick’s provocative new movie has been received. Read More »
Are some books Kindle-proof, as this article suggests? Then let me wave my literary freak flag high: My books are illustrated with hundreds of color photographs (and illustrations, maps, floor plans, handwriting samples, etc.), incorporate fragmented page designs, and can be read front to back (or vice versa, and every way in between). The designers and I have sweated blood over typography and white space (an overlooked casualty of electronic formats). Copious end matter (and front matter, for that matter) includes charts, glyphs, timelines and other running texts, indexes, and colophons. Bindings are 3 feet wide or split down the center or have hand-glued covers (thank you, Random House). According to this story, my books are batting 6 out of 7. Perhaps a few zeroes should be added to their cover price and, in time (say, 2 years), they can be marketed as rare antiquities. That said, it was a thrill seeing Full of Grace on iPad!
Soon enough, official photographs of the dead Bin Laden will be released into cyber perpetuity. Phony documents have already shown up online. Given our “chronic voyeuristic relation to the world,” as Sontag described it, not looking at the postmortem imagery will be nearly impossible. I wonder how they will be received, since no one believes photographs tell the absolute truth anymore. More likely, the burden of proof will fall to Bin Laden’s DNA tests. Read More »
On the last Sunday of every month, Father John Jamnicky gets on a scale. Within moments his weight loss is posted on a big chart in the fellowship room of his church. “At 65, I have probably lost and gained more weight than the whole parish combined!” says Jamnicky, laughing.
So far, he’s lost 36 of the 100 pounds he’s promised to shed for the “Building a Church, Pound by Pound” capital campaign for the new St. Raphael the Archangel Church in Old Mill City, Illinois. Parishioners have pledged money for every pound their pastor loses. Some have begun dieting themselves and collecting additional pledges. With that money, matched by a donor, St. Raphael’s stands to raise at least $110,000 and get healthier, too. Read More »
