Christian F. Casper

Two summers ago we took my parents to Kentucky for their fiftieth wedding anniversary and had family pictures taken at Shaker Village of Pleasant Hill — a place that had grown dear to our hearts over the years.

"I'm not exactly the target audience for a film about chair-making religious extremists."

I, on the other hand, unironically am. 🙋 Especially when they're also pacifists.

This is a beautiful essay.

Yakima Bishop Joseph Tyson: Not all can be martyrs like Pretti and Good. But we can be witnesses. "The Greek word 'martyr' literally means 'witness.' The tragic deaths of witnesses like Alex Pretti and Renee Good reveal the darkness around them," writes Bishop Joseph J. Tyson of Yakima, Washington...

"Though we are not all called to be martyrs, we are all called to be witnesses." -Bishop Joseph Tyson

Thank you Bishop Tyson for calling us to witness to our faith in this moral moment.

1/3

www.ncronline.org/opinion/gues...

YouTube video by DukeChapel Eternal Light (Leo Sowerby)

V Sunday "You are the light of the world"

*****

Eternal Light, shine into our hearts.
Eternal Goodness, deliver us from evil.
Eternal Power, be our support.
Eternal Wisdom, scatter the darkness of our ignorance.
Eternal Pity, have mercy upon us.
Through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Alcuin of York

Our older dog is named for Hilda. Coincidentally, I added an icon of Hilda to the collection in our den just yesterday, a reproduction of this one by an iconographer in Indiana whose work I admire:

www.iconsandechoes.com/2017/12/sain...

She and her widowed mother, Eanflæd, succeeded the great Hilda as co-abbesses of Whitby, with Ælfflæd continuing after Eanflæd's death.

All Saints, Margaret Street, London.

'It is the first piece of architecture I have seen, built in modern days, which is free from all signs of timidity or incapacity. Having done this, we may do anything: there need be no limits to our hope or our confidence.' - John Ruskin, born #OTD 8 Feb 1819.

Isaiah prophesied to the nation.
He was not primarily offering counsel for the improvement of individual piety.
For God to lift our gloom, the charge is for us to be a brightness for those who sit in darkness, under the shadow of death.

I love George Mackay Brown — especially his novel MAGNUS. I had an officemate once who was especially fond of his work and it rubbed off on me.

Speaking of Orcadian poets, do you know George Mackay Brown?

Phillis Wheatley: Faith & Science (re-run) - Vatican Observatory The eighteenth-century African-American poet Phillis Wheatley (who now has a US postage stamp in her honor) wrote about astronomy, and about faith.

The eighteenth-century African-American poet Phillis Wheatley (who now has a US postage stamp in her honor) wrote about astronomy, and about faith.

"Second Hand Booksellers, Spring" by Czech artist T. F. Šimon, 1912. Etching and aquatint.

My idea of Catholic Tradition is a Jesuit in a cassock praying the Divine Office on his coffee break before returning to his academic office to fire off a mimeographed broadside against white supremacists.

Archbishop-elect Golka is a native of Grand Island, Nebraska, just like The Other Doctor Casper. She loved hearing me read out his curriculum vitae to her this morning.

Office of Readings for Saturday of the Fourth Week in Ordinary Time

from GAUDIUM ET SPES para. 35

I too linked to EWTN two days ago against my better instincts. 😂

I love old books too. ❤️‍🔥

The medieval Bible I'd like most to see sometime isn't this one — beautiful though it is — but rather the Codex Amiatinus. It was produced at Monkwearmouth–Jarrow and likely includes, somewhere within, the handwriting of my patron saint, the Venerable Bede.

Hendrick ter Brugghen, DAVID PRAISED BY THE ISRAELITE WOMEN, North Carolina Museum of Art

collection.ncartmuseum.org/objects/53/d...

Friday of the Fourth Week in Ordinary Time

"As a youth he slew the giant / and wiped out the people’s disgrace, / [. . .] / Therefore the women sang his praises, /and ascribed to him tens of thousands / and praised him when they blessed the Lord."

bible.usccb.org/bible/readin...

My baptism anniversary ❤️

Martyrs of Japan, pray for us

February 6, 1977 — forty-nine years

Correction: The translation is from the thirteenth century, before her time.

Sibylla von Bondorf was indeed, though not the translator, both illustrator and scribe for this book. I misinterpreted a source.

Illustration by Sibylla von Bondorf, a Poor Clare, for her own 1478 German translation of St. Bonaventure's LIFE AND MIRACLES OF ST. FRANCIS

Diana de Rosa, called Annella di Massimo, SAINT AGATHA, private collection

www.invaluable.com/auction-lot/...

Between Scylla & Charybdis—Literally A controversial proposal to build a bridge over the Strait of Messina risks extinguishing a story three millennia old.

February 5, St. Agatha of Sicily

A good day to revisit what was probably my favorite magazine essay last year.

www.commonwealmagazine.org/italy-spadar...

Traditionally the deadline for sending New Year's greetings.

Hoping to get our Christmas cards and letter sent out this weekend. Better late than never.

Not all are called to be martyrs like Alex Pretti. But we can be witnesses. (RNS) — People of faith are being called to view politics through the lens of faith, not the other way around.

"I thank God for witnesses. It can be dangerous to shine a light on that which the powerful would hide. ... The tragic deaths of witnesses like Alex Pretti and Renee Good reveal the darkness around them."

— Catholic Diocese of Yakima Bishop Joseph Tyson religionnews.com/2026/02/04/n...

Archbishop Weisenburger: ICE violence, child separations put America’s soul in crisis - Detroit Catholic In the light of recent and tragic immigration enforcement incidents, a great many individuals have asked my opinion of our nation’s immigration procedures. Actually, they are among the issues that kee...

"Increasingly, I find myself asking if our nation is losing its very soul."

Edward J. Weisenburger, archbishop of Detroit

www.detroitcatholic.com/voices/archb...