Category: Speaking to the Soul

The choirs of ransomed Israel,

The Red Sea’s passage o’er,

Uprais’d the hymn of triumph

Upon the further shore:

And shouted, as the foeman

Music can change everything. It can take over a room, leaving no one uninvolved or untouched. Even when it is scripted, paired with text, it ultimately leaves words behind and with them, thought.

The cross of Christ is transformative. In the resurrection the worst that humankind can inflict is lifted up, transformed, and made new. Christ’s materiality enables his solidarity with us, and his two-personhood holds the human and the divine together in a cosmic oneness.

They that walked in darkness sang songs in the olden days—Sorrow Songs–for they were weary at heart. And so before each thought that I have written in this book I have set a phrase, a haunting echo of these weird old songs in which the soul of the black slave spoke to men. Ever since I was a child these songs have stirred me strangely.

For Christ is our Bread because Christ is Life, and bread is life. “I am,” says he, “the Bread of life.” And, a little above he says, “The bread of God is that which comes down from heaven.” Then we find, too, that his body is reckoned in bread:

Not one of the Twelve, but perhaps one of the seventy, approached without fear and took charge of Jesus’ funeral. Joseph therefore came and asked the favor from Pilate, which he granted. And why should he not? Nicodemus also assists him and furnishes a costly burial

It was into this realization of the difference between daydreams and God dreams (as we might call them) that the gift of discernment was given to Iñigo. It was there that he discovered what we might call the “inner compass” of his heart, which was able to reveal to him which movements within him were capable of engaging his deepest vital energy

To all the inhabitants of the British Empire, who value the favour of God, or are alive to the interests or honour of their country—to all who have any respect for justice, or any feelings of humanity, I would solemnly address myself.

Taking pity on the tears of Mary and Martha,

Thou has said to them:

“He will be resurrected and he will rise up

Saying, ‘Thou art the Life and Resurrection.’”

The extent to which Anne was venerated in the Middle Ages came as a surprise to me, as did the realization of that I had “always” known, namely that she is nonbiblical, completely legendary, and apocryphal.