Film Review of Emma (2020) If it is true that, as Alison Milbank puts it, film adaptations of the novels of Jane Austen are marked by “careful visual authenticity in details of clothing and furniture with equally anachronistic dialogue,”[1] then Autumn de Wilde’s new version of Emma fits in with the crowd. But it is…
In filtered sunlight footstools even shine.They show in autumn tones their tenebrae,A brown that sparkles—isn’t that so fine!Along with chipper calls, cicadas pray. The peaceful sun’s retirement from this day,This night, leaves nothing lost; days do not die.Instead, night gathers in and up our playIn packets portaged forward, tight and dry. The day’s clear glare…
A friend of mine has the misfortune of owning a number of stone cottages. I say “misfortune” because the cottages are in Scotland, and their rents are fixed at the level of 1914. The cottages were built long before 1914–some of them are eighteenth-century work, with their pantiled roofs and thick rubble walls and irregular…
An Homily or Sermon Concerning Prayer THERE is nothing in all man’s life, well beloved in our Saviour Christ, so needful to be spoken of, and daily to be called upon, as hearty, zealous, and devout prayer; the necessity whereof is so great, that without it nothing may be well obtained at God’s hand. For,…
Book Review The Gospel and the Catholic Church: Recapturing a Biblical Understanding of the Church as the Body of Christ. By Michael Ramsey. Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson (2009; originally pub. 1935). 200 pp. (plus xvi). $19.95 (paper). $9.95 (Kindle). It has been 85 years since Michael Ramsey (1904-1988) wrote his The Gospel and the Catholic Church,…
An Homily Against Excess of Apparel Where ye have heretofore been excited and stirred to use temperance of meats and drinks, and to avoid the excess thereof, in many ways hurtful to the state of the commonwealth, and also odious before Almighty God, being the Author and Giver of such creatures, to comfort and stablish…
A moment in the Communion service has fired my imagination for the past three years. Then shall the Priest say to them that come to receive the holy Communion, Ye that do truly and earnestly repent you of your sins, and are in love and charity with your neighbours, and intend to lead a new…
(657 – 684) Ashamed to be without a song to shareWith men more talented apparently,The herdsman left the monks in revelryAnd went to sleep with creatures in his care. That very night he was commanded inA dream to sing of how the world began;At first he balked and said, “I doubt I can,”But inspiration led…
Take This Cup: How God Transforms Suffering into Glory and Joy. By Charles Erlandson. Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2020. 216 pp. $46 (cloth); $26 (paper). Suffering, as Charles Erlandson observes, is the only universal human experience. Given that suffering is additionally “so heavy, so painful, [and] so destructive” (1), it is unsurprising that so…
When the ink printed on paperfeels rigid, sterile,we can close our eyes,lean in, and empty our breath.That’s when the letters separate, rise,dance in the air like leavesflittering as they fall. We collect what we can,rub them across our skin,swallow them whole and feelthem warm inside of us.The ones we miss formkite strings across the skyas…