Popee The Performer Quotes

If in my life I fail completely to heed others, solely out of a desire to be 'devout' and to perform my 'religious duties', then my relationship with God will also grow arid. It becomes merely 'proper', but loveless.

However we may pity the mother whose health and even life is imperiled by the performance of her natural duty, there yet remains no sufficient reason for condoning the direct murder of the innocent.

He had used only a drop of his perfume for his performance in Grasse. There was enough left to enslave the whole world. If he wanted, he could be feted in Paris, not by tens of thousands, but by hundreds of thousands of people; or could walk out to Versailles and have the King kiss his feet; write the Pope a perfumed letter and reveal himself as the new Messiah; be anointed in Notre-Dame as Supreme Emperor before kings, or even as God come to earth.

and if a rainy morning deprived them of other enjoyments, they were still resolute in meeting in defiance of wet and dirt, and shut themselves up, to read novels together. Yes, novels; for I will not adopt that ungenerous and impolitic custom so common with novel–writers, of degrading by their contemptuous censure the very performances, to the number of which they are themselves adding — joining with their greatest enemies in bestowing the harshest epithets on such works, and scarcely ever permitting them to be read by their own heroine, who, if she accidentally take up a novel, is sure to turn over its insipid pages with disgust. Alas! If the heroine of one novel be not patronized by the heroine of another, from whom can she expect protection and regard? I cannot approve of it. Let us leave it to the reviewers to abuse such effusions of fancy at their leisure, and over every new novel to talk in threadbare strains of the trash with which the press now groans. Let us not desert one another; we are an injured body. Although our productions have afforded more extensive and unaffected pleasure than those of any other literary corporation in the world, no species of composition has been so much decried. From pride, ignorance, or fashion, our foes are almost as many as our readers. And while the abilities of the nine–hundredth abridger of the History of England, or of the man who collects and publishes in a volume some dozen lines of Milton, Pope, and Prior, with a paper from the Spectator, and a chapter from Sterne, are eulogized by a thousand pens — there seems almost a general wish of decrying the capacity and undervaluing the labour of the novelist, and of slighting the performances which have only genius, wit, and taste to recommend them. “I am no novel–reader — I seldom look into novels — Do not imagine that I often read novels — It is really very well for a novel.” Such is the common cant. “And what are you reading, Miss — ?” “Oh! It is only a novel!” replies the young lady, while she lays down her book with affected indifference, or momentary shame. “It is only Cecilia, or Camilla, or Belinda”; or, in short, only some work in which the greatest powers of the mind are displayed, in which the most thorough knowledge of human nature, the happiest delineation of its varieties, the liveliest effusions of wit and humour, are conveyed to the world in the best–chosen language. Now, had the same young lady been engaged with a volume of the Spectator, instead of such a work, how proudly would she have produced the book, and told its name; though the chances must be against her being occupied by any part of that voluminous publication, of which either the matter or manner would not disgust a young person of taste: the substance of its papers so often consisting in the statement of improbable circumstances, unnatural characters, and topics of conversation which no longer concern anyone living; and their language, too, frequently so coarse as to give no very favourable idea of the age that could endure it.

Mercy will always be greater than any sin, no one can put a limit on the love of the all-forgiving God. Just by looking at him, just raising our eyes from ourselves and our wounds, we leave an opening for the action of his grace. Jesus performs miracles with our sins, with what we are, with our nothingness, with our wretchedness.

There are no situations we cannot get out of, we are not condemned to sink into quicksand, in which the more we move the deeper we sink. Jesus is there, his hand extended, ready to reach out to us and pull us out of the mud, out of sin, out of the abyss of evil into which we have fallen. We need only be conscious of our state, be honest with ourselves, and not lick our wounds. We need to ask for the grace to recognize ourselves as sinners. The more we acknowledge that we are in need, the more shame and humility we feel, the sooner we will feel his embrace of grace. Jesus waits for us, he goes ahead of us, he extends his hand to us, he is patient with us. God is faithful. Mercy will always be greater than any sin, no one can put a limit on the love of the all-forgiving God. Just by looking at him, just by raising our eyes from our selves and our wounds, we leave an opening for the action of his grace. Jesus performs miracles with our sins, with what we are, with our nothingness, with our wretchedness.

And while the abilities of the nine–hundredth abridger of the History of England, or of the man who collects and publishes in a volume some dozen lines of Milton, Pope, and Prior, with a paper from the Spectator, and a chapter from Sterne, are eulogized by a thousand pens — there seems almost a general wish of decrying the capacity and undervaluing the labour of the novelist, and of slighting the performances which have only genius, wit, and taste to recommend them.

A crowd of men stood in front of them. Of all ages, with expressions of sex-wonder in their eyes, gazing curiously as men who cannot solve a mystery that populates graveyards and through the ages has sent poets, popes, kings and fools to the junk heap.

The distance is commonly very great between actual performances and speculative possibility. It is natural to suppose, that as much as has been done to-day may be done to-morrow; but on the morrow some difficulty emerges or some external impediment obstructs. Indolence, interruption, business, and pleasure; all take their turns of retardation; and every long work is lengthened by a thousand causes that can, and ten thousand that cannot, be recounted. Perhaps no extensive and multifarious performance was ever effected within the term originally fixed in the undertaker's mind. He that runs against Time, has an antagonist not subject to casualties. From Samuel Johnson's Lives of the Poets series, published in 3 volumes between 1779 and 1781, on Alexander Pope

For his son-in-law the Pope suffered no further spasms of morality. Rather, judging from Burchard’s diary, the last inhibitions, if any, dropped away. Two months after Alfonso’s death, the Pope presided over a banquet given by Cesare in the Vatican, famous in the annals of pornography as the Ballet of the Chestnuts. Soberly recorded by Burchard, fifty courtesans danced after dinner with the guests, “at first clothed, then naked.” Chestnuts were then scattered among candelabra placed on the floor, “which the courtesans, crawling on hands and knees among the candelabra, picked up, while the Pope, Cesare and his sister Lucrezia looked on.” Coupling of guests and courtesans followed, with prizes in the form of fine silken tunics and cloaks offered “for those who could perform the act most often with the courtesans.” A month later Burchard records a scene in which mares and stallions were driven into a courtyard of the Vatican and equine coupling encouraged while from a balcony the Pope and Lucrezia “watched with loud laughter and much pleasure.” Later they watched again while Cesare shot down a mass of unarmed criminals driven like the horses into the same courtyard.

Charlemagne, however, was predictably furious. He had grown up with the filioque; if the East refused to accept it, the East was wrong. And who cared about the East anyway? He was the emperor now; the pope should nail his colors firmly to the Western mast and leave the heretics in Constantinople to their own devices. When Leo ordered him to remove the word from his liturgies, he took no action and sent no reply; and when, in 813, he decided to make his son Louis co-emperor, he pointedly failed to invite the pope to perform the ceremony.

Here are some people who have written books, telling what they did and why they did those things: John Dean. Henry Kissinger. Adolf Hitler. Caryl Chessman. Jeb Magruder. Napoleon. Talleyrand. Disraeli. Robert Zimmerman, also known as Bob Dylan. Locke. Charlton Heston. Errol Flynn. The Ayatollah Khomeini. Gandhi. Charles Olson. Charles Colson. A Victorian Gentleman. Dr. X. Most people also believe that God has written a Book, or Books, telling what He did and why—at least to a degree—He did those things, and since most of these people also believe that humans were made in the image of God, then He also may be regarded as a person… or, more properly, as a Person. Here are some people who have not written books, telling what they did… and what they saw: The man who buried Hitler. The man who performed the autopsy on John Wilkes Booth. The man who embalmed Elvis Presley. The man who embalmed—badly, most undertakers say—Pope John XXIII. The twoscore undertakers who cleaned up Jonestown, carrying body bags, spearing paper cups with those spikes custodians carry in city parks, waving away the flies.

The places of pilgrimage have marked a kind of geography of faith in our country, that is, they make visible, almost tangible, how our forefathers encountered the living God, how HE did not withdraw after creation or after the time of Jesus Christ, but is always present and works in them so that they were able to experience HIM, follow in his footsteps, and see him in the works HE performed. Yes, HE is there, and HE is still there today. It is from this inner encounter with the Lord that there originated the places and images of pilgrimage in which we, so to speak, can participate in what they saw, in what their faith provided for them.

But as all pre-Christian cults were based on the idea of substitution, of representation, and tried to replace the irreplaceable, this worship was bound to remain vain. In the light of faith in Christ, the Letter to the Hebrews can dare to draw up this devastating balance sheet of the history of religion, although to express this view in a world seething with sacrifices must have seemed a tremendous outrage. It can dare to make this unqualified assertion that religions have run aground because it knows that in Christ the idea of the substitute, of the proxy, has acquired a new meaning. Christ, who in terms of the Law was a layman and held no office in Israel’s worship services, was—so the text says—the one true priest in the world. His death, which from a purely historical angle represented a completely profane event—the execution of a man condemned to death as a political offender—was in reality the one and only liturgy of the world, a cosmic liturgy, in which Jesus stepped, not in the limited arena of the liturgical performance, the Temple, but publicly, before the eyes of the world, through the curtain of death into the real temple, that is, before the face of God himself, in order to offer, not things, the blood of animals, or anything like that, but himself (Heb 9:11ff.). Let

Montaigne also had an audience with the current octogenarian Pope, Gregory XIII. The secretary described the ritual in detail. First Montaigne and one of his young traveling companions entered the room where the Pope was seated, and knelt to receive a benediction. They sidled along the wall, then cut across towards him; halfway there, they stopped for another benediction. Then they knelt on a velvet carpet at the Pope’s feet, beside the French ambassador, who was presenting them. The ambassador knelt too, and pulled back the Pope’s robe to expose his right foot, shod in a red slipper with a white cross. The visitors each bent towards this foot and kissed it; Montaigne noted that the Pope lifted his toes a little to make the kiss easier. After this almost erotic performance, the ambassador covered the papal foot again, and rose to deliver a speech about the visitors.

Whereas Jesus demanded of the Jews the rejection of the tribalist Jahweh whom they identified with Israel, the race, the community the political state as object of worship and desire, the Sufis, born in an atmosphere of pure monotheism, demanded what Jesus of the first century A.D. would demand if he were to relive his early life again in present-day monotheistic Christendom. This does not mean that Jesus did not demand, like the Sufis, the cleansing of the soul from the personal deities it may worship besides God, but it does mean that the main weight of his teaching centered around the Jewish preoccupation with the tribe as God." "The object and deal of Sufism is, therefore, identically the same as that of the radical self-transformation of Jesus. Both aimed at the state of consciousness in which God is the sole subject, the sole determiner and the sole object of love and devotion. The tradition of both later influenced each other and succeeded in developing the same kind of preparatory disciplines leading towards the end. Finally, both referred to the final end of these processes as 'oneness' and their reference was in each case exposed to the same dangers of misunderstanding, indeed to the same misunderstanding. The oneness of Jesus was misunderstood as unity and fusion of being, and thus gave rise to the greatest materialization of an essentially spiritual union history has ever seen. The oneness of the highest Sufi state was likewise misunderstood and gave rise to the worst crime perpetrated on account of a supremely conscious misunderstanding...The destinies of the two misunderstandings, however, were far apart. The Christian misunderstanding came to dominate the Christendom; the Muslim misunderstanding performed its bloody deed and sank away in front of the Sufi tide which overwhelmed the Muslim world. The success of Sufism in Islam was therefore the success of the Jesus' ethic, but devoid of the theological superstructures which this Christian misunderstanding had constructed concerning the oneness of Christ with God, or of men with Christ. In the Middle Ages, the intellectual disciples of Jesus were the sufis of Islam, rather than the theologians of the Council or Pope-monarchs of Christendom.

Here are some people who have written books, telling what they did and why they did those things: John Dean. Henry Kissinger. Adolf Hitler. Caryl Chessman. Jeb Magruder. Napoleon. Talleyrand. Disraeli. Robert Zimmerman, also known as Bob Dylan. Locke. Charlton Heston. Errol Flynn. The Ayatollah Khomeini. Gandhi. Charles Olson. Charles Colson. A Victorian Gentleman. Dr. X. Most people also believe that God has written a Book, or Books, telling what He did and why—at least to a degree—He did those things, and since most of these people also believe that humans were made in the image of God, then He also may be regarded as a person… or, more properly, as a Person. Here are some people who have not written books, telling what they did… and what they saw: The man who buried Hitler. The man who performed the autopsy on John Wilkes Booth. The man who embalmed Elvis Presley. The man who embalmed—badly, most undertakers say—Pope John XXIII. The twoscore undertakers who cleaned up Jonestown, carrying body bags, spearing paper cups with those spikes custodians carry in city parks, waving away the flies. The man who cremated William Holden. The man who encased the body of Alexander the Great in gold so it would not rot. The men who mummified the Pharaohs. Death is a mystery, and burial is a secret.

Here are some people who have written books, telling what they did and why they did those things: John Dean. Henry Kissinger. Adolph Hitler. Caryl Chessman. Jeb Magruder. Napoleon. Talleyrand. Disraeli. Robert Zimmerman, also known as Bob Dylan. Locke. Charlton Heston. Errol Flynn. The Ayatollah Khomeini. Gandhi. Charles Olson. Charles Colson. A Victorian Gentleman. Dr. X. Most people also believe that God has written a Book, or Books, telling what He did and why—at least to a degree—He did those things, and since most of these people also believe that humans were made in the image of God, then He also may be regarded as a person . . . or, more properly, as a Person. Here are some people who have not written books, telling what they did . . . and what they saw: The man who buried Hitler. The man who performed the autopsy on John Wilkes Booth. The man who embalmed Elvis Presley. The man who embalmed—badly, most undertakers say—Pope John XXIII. The twoscore undertakers who cleaned up Jonestown, carrying body bags, spearing paper cups with those spikes custodians carry in city parks, waving away the flies. The man who cremated William Holden. The man who encased the body of Alexander the Great in gold so it would not rot. The men who mummified the Pharaohs. Death is a mystery, and burial is a secret.

From pride, ignorance, or fashion, our foes are almost as many as our readers. And while the abilities of the nine-hundredth abridger of the History of England, or of the man who collects and publishes in a volume some dozen lines of Milton, Pope, and Prior, with a paper from the Spectator, and a chapter from Sterne, are eulogized by a thousand pens—there seems almost a general wish of decrying the capacity and undervaluing the labour of the novelist, and of slighting the performances which have only genius, wit, and taste to recommend them. “I am no novel-reader—I seldom look into novels—Do not imagine that I often read novels—It is really very well for a novel.” Such is the common cant. “And what are you reading, Miss—?” “Oh! It is only a novel!” replies the young lady, while she lays down her book with affected indifference, or momentary shame. “It is only Cecilia, or Camilla, or Belinda”; or, in short, only some work in which the greatest powers of the mind are displayed, in which the most thorough knowledge of human nature, the happiest delineation of its varieties, the liveliest effusions of wit and humour, are conveyed to the world in the best-chosen language. Now, had the same young lady been engaged with a volume of the Spectator, instead of such a work, how proudly would she have produced the book, and told its name; though the chances must be against her being occupied by any part of that voluminous publication, of which either the matter or manner would not disgust a young person of taste: the substance of its papers so often consisting in the statement of improbable circumstances, unnatural characters, and topics of conversation which no longer concern anyone living; and their language, too, frequently so coarse as to give no very favourable idea of the age that could endure it.

In the light of the evidence it is hard to believe that most crusaders were motivated by crude materialism. Given their knowledge and expectations and the economic climate in which they lived, the disposal of assets to invest in the fairly remote possibility of settlement in the East would have been a stupid gamble. It makes much more sense to suppose, in so far as one can generalize about them, that they were moved by an idealism which must have inspired not only them but their families. Parents, brothers and sisters, wives and children had to face a long absence and must have worried about them: in 1098 Countess Ida of Boulogne made an endowment to the abbey of St Bertin 'for the safety of her sons, Godfrey and Baldwin, who have gone to Jerusalem'.83 And they and more distant relatives — cousins, uncles and nephews - were prepared to endow them out of the patrimonial lands. I have already stressed that no one can treat the phenomenal growth of monasticism in this period without taking into account not only those who entered the communities to be professed, but also the lay men and women who were prepared to endow new religious houses with lands and rents. The same is true of the crusading movement. Behind many crusaders stood a large body of men and women who were prepared to sacrifice interest to help them go. It is hard to avoid concluding that they were fired by the opportunity presented to a relative not only of making a penitential pilgrimage to Jerusalem but also of fighting in a holy cause. For almost a century great lords, castellans and knights had been subjected to abuse by the Church. Wilting under the torrent of invective and responding to the attempts of churchmen to reform their way of life in terms they could understand, they had become perceptibly more pious. Now they were presented by a pope who knew them intimately with the chance of performing a meritorious act which exactly fitted their upbringing and devotional needs and they seized it eagerly. But they responded, of course, in their own way. They were not theologians and were bound to react in ways consonant with their own ideas of right and wrong, ideas that did not always respond to those of senior churchmen. The emphasis that Urban had put on charity - love of Christian brothers under the heel of Islam, love of Christ whose land was subject to the Muslim yoke - could not but arouse in their minds analogies with their own kin and their own lords' patrimonies, and remind them of their obligations to avenge injuries to their relatives and lords. And that put the crusade on the level of a vendetta. Their leaders, writing to Urban in September 1098, informed him that 'The Turks, who inflicted much dishonour on Our Lord Jesus Christ, have been taken and killed and we Jerusalemites have avenged the injury to the supreme God Jesus Christ.

Crossing the threshold of faith means that we keep our eyes filled with wonder and do not let our hearts grow accustomed to laziness. It means that we are able to recognize that each time a woman gives birth to a child it is yet another bet placed for life and for the future; that, when we show concern for the innocence of children, we guarantee the truth of tomorrow; and that, when we esteem an unselfish elderly person, we are performing an act of justice and embracing our own roots.

The Church remains something “outside” the state, for only thus can both Church and state be what they are meant to be. Like the state, the Church too must remain in its own proper place and within its boundaries. It must respect its own being and its own freedom, precisely in order to be able to perform for the state the service that the latter requires. The Church must exert itself with all its vigor so that in it there may shine forth the moral truth that it offers to the state and that ought to become evident to the citizens of the state. This truth must be vigorous within the Church, and it must form men, for only then it will have the power to convince others and to be a force working like a leaven for all of society.

Think of the soldiers who serve under our generals, and with what order, obedience, and submissiveness they perform the things which are commanded them. Not all are prefects, nor commanders of a thousand, nor of a hundred, nor of fifty, nor the like, but each one in his own rank performs the things commanded by the king and the generals. The great cannot subsist without the small, nor the small without the great. There is a kind of mixture in all things, and thence arises mutual advantage.

This missive, the first time the Pope had spoken on the Irish question, was highly unwelcome to the British. Curzon thought it ‘just the sort of casuistic performance that might have been expected from the Vatican

I’m not a priest,” Cletus stood up, indignant. “I follow no Pope. I am a Reverend in the Universal Life Church. We don’t perform last rites.” Jasper snorted. “Universal Life my ass. You are a Reverend in the church of send in your ten dollars and a coupon.” “Amounts to the same, in the eyes of the Lord,” Cletus replied with a wink. “Folks don’t really mind who saves them, as long as they can go on sinning until their cards are punched.

Vision of August 24, 1850, September, 1852 [I] Washington, New Hampshire SAID THE ANGEL, Can ye stand in the battle in the day of the Lord? Ye need to be washed, and live in nearness of life to God. Then I saw those whose hands are engaged in making up the breach and are standing in the gap, that have formerly since 1844 broken the commandments, and have so far followed the pope as to keep the first day instead of the seventh, and who have since the light shone out of the Most Holy Place, changed their course, given up the institution of the pope, and are keeping God’s Sabbath, would have to go down into the water, and be baptized in the faith of the sanctuary, and keeping the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus. I saw those who have been baptized as a door into the churches, {4} would have to be baptized again as a door into the faith. Those who have not been baptized since 1844 will have to be before Jesus comes. And some I saw would not make progress till the duty was performed. The angel said, some tried too hard to believe. Faith is so simple they look above it. Satan has deceived some, and got them to looking at their own unworthiness. I saw they must look away from self to the worthiness of Jesus, and throw themselves just as they are, needy, dependent upon His mercy, and draw by faith strength and nourishment from Him. Said the angel, The desolations of Zion are accomplished — the scattering time is past. Should the living go to the dead for knowledge? The dead know not anything. They have departed from the living God to converse with the dead. I saw that our minds must be stayed upon God, and we must not fear the fear of the wicked. Evil angels are around us trying to invent a new way to destroy us. The Lord would lift up a standard against him (the devil). We must take the shield of faith. You are getting the coming of the Lord too far off. I saw the latter rain was coming as [suddenly as] the midnight cry, and with ten times the power. {5}

Let us note the fundamental reversal involved in the central idea of this letter; what from the earthly point of view was a secular happening is the true worship for mankind, for he who performed it broke through the confines of the liturgical act and made truth: he gave himself. He took from man’s hands the sacrificial offerings and put in their place his sacrificed personality, his own “I”. When our text says that Jesus accomplished the expiation through his blood (9:12), this blood is again not to be understood as a material gift, a quantitatively measurable means of expiation; it is simply the concrete expression of a love of which it is said that it extends “to the end” (Jn 13:1). It is the expression of the totality of his surrender and of his service; an embodiment of the fact that he offers no more and no less than himself. The gesture of the love that gives all—this, and this alone, according to the Letter to the Hebrews, was the real means by which the world was reconciled; therefore the hour of the Cross is the cosmic day of reconciliation, the true and definitive feast of reconciliation. There is no other kind of worship and no other priest but he who accomplished it: Jesus Christ. c.

All are but parts of one stupendous whole. —ALEXANDER POPE

us to take our place within the crowd, to hear Jesus preach and see him perform mighty deeds, when we open up the Gospels for ourselves. While no one today would say that Jesus is John the Baptist, Elijah, or Jeremiah, we will see for ourselves if we agree with our own contemporaries that Jesus of Nazareth was simply a great man, a noble teacher, a religious founder, and an unfortunate martyr. Or perhaps we agree with the sour-faced scholars who tell us that Jesus of Nazareth was a failed messiah who never intended to found a religion and that the religion bearing his name has done little to further the material progress of the world.   Pope Benedict XVI reflects in Jesus of Nazareth, “What did Jesus actually bring, if not world peace, universal prosperity, and a better world? What has he brought? The answer is very simple: God. He has brought God. He has brought the God who formerly unveiled his countenance gradually, first to Abraham, then to Moses and the Prophets…. He has brought God, and now we know his face, now we can call upon him. Now we know the path that we human beings have to take in this world. Jesus has brought God and with God the truth about our origin and destiny: faith, hope, and love.” The Story of a People Open to the beginning of the New Testament and the genealogy of Jesus is what you will find. Most skip over it while others bravely plough their way through it. But much like Matthew, the writer of the first Gospel, I too feel the need to express before anything else that the story of Jesus does not begin with Jesus of Nazareth. A great history is presupposed – a history that his fellow countrymen would have known as well as we know the names of our own grandparents. The only question is: how far back should we go? For Matthew, the answer was to go back to Abraham, the ancient father of the Jewish people, whom God had called out of the city of Ur in Mesopotamia in a journey of faith to the land of Canaan, later called Palestine. For Luke the Evangelist, the answer was Adam, the father of the human race, emphasizing that Jesus came for all peoples.   Very basically, the history presupposed is that of God’s intervention in human affairs, particularly those of the Chosen People, the Children of Israel. The Bible tells us that God spoke to Abraham, bringing him into a covenant with God alone as God, as opposed to the many false gods of his ancestors. As God promised, he made Abraham into a vast people, and that people was later liberated from slavery in Egypt by Moses. The Bible tells us that God spoke to Moses and made a covenant with Moses. And through Moses, God made the people a nation, replete with laws to govern them. Then there was David, the greatest king of Israel, a man “after God’s own heart.” And the Bible tells us that God spoke to David and made a covenant with him, promising that his kingdom

In addition to being dubbed the most “liberal” pontiff, Pope Francis has long been suspected of supporting exorcism. In may 2013, the pope reportedly exorcized a wheelchair bound man who was allegedly posessed by the devil. The Vatican insisted the pope “didn't intend to perform any exorcism,” and it released a statement that said “he simply intended to pray for someone who was suffering who was presented to him.

If I have no contact whatsoever with God in my life, then I cannot see in the other anything more than the other, and I am incapable of seeing in him the image of God. But if in my life I fail completely to heed others, solely out of a desire to be “devout” and to perform my “religious duties”, then my relationship with God will also grow arid. It becomes merely “proper”, but loveless. Only my readiness to encounter my neighbour and to show him love makes me sensitive to God as well. Only if I serve my neighbour can my eyes be opened to what God does for me and how much he loves me.

forehead while we recited the prayers to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, adding, by his desire, three times the Gloria Patri in honor of Blessed Margaret Mary. The novena ended on the First Friday of March.” The time had arrived when Gemma’s great patience was to be rewarded. She was not to die; God intended to glorify her by the fullness of His most extraordinary gifts before taking her to Himself. But in order that she might be delivered from her frightful sufferings, a great miracle was required. This miracle Our Lord in His mercy and goodness was pleased to perform. At the close of the novena to the Sacred Heart, Gemma sent for her confessor and made her Confession. After Holy Communion, Jesus said to her, “Gemma, wilt thou be cured?” Overcome with emotion, she answered only with her heart: “As Thou wilt, my Jesus.” Gemma was restored to health: her cure was as complete as it was instantaneous. Scarcely had two hours passed when she arose. The relatives and members of the household wept with joy. She now received Holy Communion again daily, for she had a consuming desire for this heavenly Food. Three months after her cure, she received the sacred stigmata. During the four years that she still lived, wonderful mysteries were imparted to her, such as have been imparted only to the greatest saints. Since her death God has glorified her through miracles. She was canonized by Pope Pius XII on May 2, 1940. Aid through the Sacred Heart of Jesus

For the Broadway production, playwright Douglas Carter Beane was brought in to rework the script and Menken and Slater made a few changes in the score. The gangster was now called Curtis Jackson and he owns the Philadelphia nightclub where Deloris sings. The plot doesn’t change much until the second act when Deloris, knowing that Jackson is on to her disguise, tries to leave town but the other nuns say they will protect her. The climax is the same and the musical ends with the nuns performing for the Pope. Beane beefed up the comedy in the script, turning Jackson’s henchmen into comic buffoons, and Jerry Zaks directed Sister Act as a farce, tightening up the pace and broadening some of the characters. Patina Miller was again Deloris and Victoria Clark brought a warmth to Mother Superior that played off of Miller’s brashness nicely.

The night before flying to New York, I watched Bowie's brief performance as a serene, pragmatic Pontius Pilate in Martin Scorsese's The Last Temptation of Christ. 'That's a strange movie to watch before going on a plane flight,' Bowie laughs. 'It's like, shall we find out—is there a God?' Then, as if moving on to the next logical topic, Bowie says, 'I can't wait to see the other 10 percent of the Dead Sea Scrolls. They're in fragments, of course, kind of a Bill Burroughs effect...' and he recounts for me a certain conspiracy theory ('a '70s thing') about a secret section of the Dead Sea Scrolls supposedly written by a Jesus who'd escaped from the cross and ended up dying a revolutionary at Masada. This secret stuff is, according to the theory, held in the Vatican and shown only to each new Pope on the day of election. But what on earth, I ask, could the big secret be anyway? 'Oh,' laughs Bowie, 'that there really was a Brian.

But once holy religion is rejected, once the Divine Majesty, establishing what is good and evil, is ignored, it is plain that laws and public authority have little or no value. Then again, once hope and expectation of eternal reward are lost through these fallacious doctrines, men will greedily and without restraint seek things of earth, vehemently covet their neighbor's goods and even take them by force as often as occasion or opportunity is given. Hence hatred, envy, discord, and rivalries arise among men; hence public and private life is perturbed; hence the very foundations of society which can scarcely be held together and maintained by the authority of government are gradually undermined; hence, deformation of morals by evil theatrical performances, books, periodicals, and actual crime.

But the pope stares down at the bed, and his pious face witnesses whatever varieties of pot-inspired, acrobatic sex George and Martha may enjoy. I thought of the theme of the parents witnessing and approving sexual intercourse – a theme very common in pornography and risque jokes. (“What you and Marie doing in the living room, Benito?” “We’re fuckin’, Ma!” “That’s-a nice, don’t fight.”) Freudians tell us that this theme is so popular because the desire to perform sexually in front of these authority figures is actually quite widespread, but on a subconscious level.

Cardinal Wojtyła and one of his auxiliary bishops, Juliusz Groblicki, clandestinely ordained priests for service in Czechoslovakia, in spite of (or perhaps because of) the fact that the Holy See had forbidden underground bishops in that country to perform such ordinations. The clandestine ordinations in Kraków were always conducted with the explicit permission of the candidate’s superior—his bishop or, in the case of members of religious orders, his provincial. Security systems had to be devised. In the case of the Salesian Fathers, a torn-card system was used. The certificate authorizing the ordination was torn in half. The candidate, who had to be smuggled across the border, brought one half with him to Kraków, while the other half was sent by underground courier to the Salesian superior in Kraków. The two halves were then matched, and the ordination could proceed in the archbishop’s chapel at Franciszkańska, 3. Cardinal Wojtyła did not inform the Holy See of these ordinations. He did not regard them as acts in defiance of Vatican policy, but as a duty to suffering fellow believers. And he presumably did not wish to raise an issue that could not be resolved without pain on all sides. He may also have believed that the Holy See and the Pope knew that such things were going on in Kraków, trusted his judgment and discretion, and may have welcomed a kind of safety valve in what was becoming an increasingly desperate situation.

The church is called 'the pillar and ground of the truth' (1 Tim. 3:15) not because she supports and gives authority to the truth (since the truth is rather the foundation upon which the church is built, Eph. 2:20), but because it stands before the church as a pillar and makes itself conspicuous to all. Therefore it is called a pillar, not in an architectural sense (as pillars are used for the support of buildings), but in a forensic and political sense (as the edicts of the emperor and the decrees and laws of the magistrates were usually posted against pillars before the court houses and praetoria and before the gates of the basilica so that all might be informed of them, as noted by Pliny, Natural History, lib. 6, c. 28+ and Josephus,? AJ 1.70–71 [Loeb, 4:32–33]). So the church is the pillar of the truth both by reason of promulgating and making it known (because she is bound to promulgate the law of God, and heavenly truth is attached to it so that it may become known to all) and by reason of guarding it. For she ought not only to set it forth, but also to vindicate and defend it. Therefore she is called not only a pillar, but also a stay by which the truth when known may be vindicated and preserved pure and entire against all corruptions. But she is not called a foundation, in the sense of giving to the truth itself its own substructure and firmness. (2) Whatever is called the pillar and stay of the truth is not therefore infallible; for so the ancients called those who, either in the splendor of their doctrine or in the holiness of their lives or in unshaken constancy, excelled others and confirmed the doctrines of the gospel and the Christian faith by precept and example; as Eusebius says the believers in Lyons call Attalus the Martyr (Ecclesiastical History 5.1 [FC 19:276]); Basil distinguishes the orthodox bishops who opposed the Arian heresy by this name (Letter 243; and Gregory Nazianzus so calls Athanasius. In the same sense, judges in a pure and uncorrupted republic are called the pillars and stays of the laws. (3) This passage teaches the duty of the church, but not its infallible prerogative (i.e., what she is bound to do in the promulgation and defending of the truth against the corruptions of its enemies, but not what she can always do). In Mal. 2:7, the 'priest’s lips' are said to 'keep knowledge' because he is bound to do it (although he does not always do it as v. 8 shows). (4) Whatever is here ascribed to the church belongs to the particular church at Ephesus to which, however, the papists are not willing to give the prerogative of infallibility. Again, it treats of the collective church of believers in which Timothy was to labor and exercise his ministry, not as the church representative of the pastors, much less of the pope (in whom alone they think infallibility resides). (5) Paul alludes here both to the use of pillars in the temples of the Gentiles (to which were attached either images of the gods or the laws and moral precepts; yea, even oracles, as Pausanius and Athenaeus testify) that he may oppose these pillars of falsehood and error (on which nothing but fictions and the images of false gods were exhibited) to that mystical pillar of truth on which the true image of the invisible God is set forth (Col. 1:15) and the heavenly oracles of God made to appear; and to that remarkable pillar which Solomon caused to be erected in the temple (2 Ch. 6:13; 2 K. 11:14; 23:3) which kings ascended like a scaffold as often as they either addressed the people or performed any solemn service, and was therefore called by the Jews the 'royal pillar.' Thus truth sits like a queen upon the church; not that she may derive her authority from it (as Solomon did not get his from that pillar), but that on her, truth may be set forth and preserved.

The church is called 'the pillar and ground of the truth' (1 Tim. 3:15) not because she supports and gives authority to the truth (since the truth is rather the foundation upon which the church is built, Eph. 2:20), but because it stands before the church as a pillar and makes itself conspicuous to all. Therefore it is called a pillar, not in an architectural sense (as pillars are used for the support of buildings), but in a forensic and political sense (as the edicts of the emperor and the decrees and laws of the magistrates were usually posted against pillars before the court houses and praetoria and before the gates of the basilica so that all might be informed of them, as noted by Pliny, Natural History, lib. 6, c. 28+ and Josephus,? AJ 1.70–71 [Loeb, 4:32–33]). So the church is the pillar of the truth both by reason of promulgating and making it known (because she is bound to promulgate the law of God, and heavenly truth is attached to it so that it may become known to all) and by reason of guarding it. For she ought not only to set it forth, but also to vindicate and defend it. Therefore she is called not only a pillar, but also a stay by which the truth when known may be vindicated and preserved pure and entire against all corruptions. But she is not called a foundation, in the sense of giving to the truth itself its own substructure and firmness. (2) Whatever is called the pillar and stay of the truth is not therefore infallible; for so the ancients called those who, either in the splendor of their doctrine or in the holiness of their lives or in unshaken constancy, excelled others and confirmed the doctrines of the gospel and the Christian faith by precept and example; as Eusebius says the believers in Lyons call Attalus the Martyr (Ecclesiastical History 5.1 [FC 19:276]); Basil distinguishes the orthodox bishops who opposed the Arian heresy by this name (hoi styloi kai to hedraiōma tēs alētheias, Letter 243 [70] [FC 28:188; PG 32.908]); and Gregory Nazianzus so calls Athanasius. In the same sense, judges in a pure and uncorrupted republic are called the pillars and stays of the laws. (3) This passage teaches the duty of the church, but not its infallible prerogative (i.e., what she is bound to do in the promulgation and defending of the truth against the corruptions of its enemies, but not what she can always do). In Mal. 2:7, the 'priest’s lips' are said to 'keep knowledge' because he is bound to do it (although he does not always do it as v. 8 shows). (4) Whatever is here ascribed to the church belongs to the particular church at Ephesus to which, however, the papists are not willing to give the prerogative of infallibility. Again, it treats of the collective church of believers in which Timothy was to labor and exercise his ministry, not as the church representative of the pastors, much less of the pope (in whom alone they think infallibility resides). (5) Paul alludes here both to the use of pillars in the temples of the Gentiles (to which were attached either images of the gods or the laws and moral precepts; yea, even oracles, as Pausanius and Athenaeus testify) that he may oppose these pillars of falsehood and error (on which nothing but fictions and the images of false gods were exhibited) to that mystical pillar of truth on which the true image of the invisible God is set forth (Col. 1:15) and the heavenly oracles of God made to appear; and to that remarkable pillar which Solomon caused to be erected in the temple (2 Ch. 6:13; 2 K. 11:14; 23:3) which kings ascended like a scaffold as often as they either addressed the people or performed any solemn service, and was therefore called by the Jews the 'royal pillar.' Thus truth sits like a queen upon the church; not that she may derive her authority from it (as Solomon did not get his from that pillar), but that on her, truth may be set forth and preserved.

The church is called 'the pillar and ground of the truth' (1 Tim. 3:15) not because she supports and gives authority to the truth (since the truth is rather the foundation upon which the church is built, Eph. 2:20), but because it stands before the church as a pillar and makes itself conspicuous to all. Therefore it is called a pillar, not in an architectural sense (as pillars are used for the support of buildings), but in a forensic and political sense (as the edicts of the emperor and the decrees and laws of the magistrates were usually posted against pillars before the court houses and praetoria and before the gates of the basilica so that all might be informed of them, as noted by Pliny, Natural History, lib. 6, c. 28+ and Josephus,? AJ 1.70–71 [Loeb, 4:32–33]). So the church is the pillar of the truth both by reason of promulgating and making it known (because she is bound to promulgate the law of God, and heavenly truth is attached to it so that it may become known to all) and by reason of guarding it. For she ought not only to set it forth, but also to vindicate and defend it. Therefore she is called not only a pillar, but also a stay by which the truth when known may be vindicated and preserved pure and entire against all corruptions. But she is not called a foundation, in the sense of giving to the truth itself its own substructure and firmness. (2) Whatever is called the pillar and stay of the truth is not therefore infallible; for so the ancients called those who, either in the splendor of their doctrine or in the holiness of their lives or in unshaken constancy, excelled others and confirmed the doctrines of the gospel and the Christian faith by precept and example; as Eusebius says the believers in Lyons call Attalus the Martyr (Ecclesiastical History 5.1 [FC 19:276]); Basil distinguishes the orthodox bishops who opposed the Arian heresy by this name (Letter 243 [70] [FC 28:188; PG 32.908]); and Gregory Nazianzus so calls Athanasius. In the same sense, judges in a pure and uncorrupted republic are called the pillars and stays of the laws. (3) This passage teaches the duty of the church, but not its infallible prerogative (i.e., what she is bound to do in the promulgation and defending of the truth against the corruptions of its enemies, but not what she can always do). In Mal. 2:7, the 'priest’s lips' are said to 'keep knowledge' because he is bound to do it (although he does not always do it as v. 8 shows). (4) Whatever is here ascribed to the church belongs to the particular church at Ephesus to which, however, the papists are not willing to give the prerogative of infallibility. Again, it treats of the collective church of believers in which Timothy was to labor and exercise his ministry, not as the church representative of the pastors, much less of the pope (in whom alone they think infallibility resides). (5) Paul alludes here both to the use of pillars in the temples of the Gentiles (to which were attached either images of the gods or the laws and moral precepts; yea, even oracles, as Pausanius and Athenaeus testify) that he may oppose these pillars of falsehood and error (on which nothing but fictions and the images of false gods were exhibited) to that mystical pillar of truth on which the true image of the invisible God is set forth (Col. 1:15) and the heavenly oracles of God made to appear; and to that remarkable pillar which Solomon caused to be erected in the temple (2 Ch. 6:13; 2 K. 11:14; 23:3) which kings ascended like a scaffold as often as they either addressed the people or performed any solemn service, and was therefore called by the Jews the 'royal pillar.' Thus truth sits like a queen upon the church; not that she may derive her authority from it (as Solomon did not get his from that pillar), but that on her, truth may be set forth and preserved.

In the annual Feast of Fools at Christmastime, every rite and article of the Church no matter how sacred was celebrated in mockery. A dominus festi, or lord of the revels, was elected from the inferior clergy—the curés, subdeacons, vicars, and choir clerks, mostly ill-educated, ill-paid, and ill-disciplined—whose day it was to turn everything topsy-turvy. They installed their lord as Pope or Bishop or Abbot of Fools in a ceremony of head-shaving accompanied by bawdy talk and lewd acts; dressed him in vestments turned inside out; played dice on the altar and ate black puddings and sausages while mass was celebrated in nonsensical gibberish; swung censers made of old shoes emitting “stinking smoke”; officiated in the various offices of the priest wearing beast masks and dressed as women or minstrels; sang obscene songs in the choir; howled and hooted and jangled bells while the “Pope” recited a doggerel benediction. At his call to follow him on pain of having their breeches split, all rush violently from the church to parade through the town, drawing the dominus in a cart from which he issues mock indulgences while his followers hiss, cackle, jeer, and gesticulate. They rouse the bystanders to laughter with “infamous performances” and parody preachers in scurrilous sermons. Naked men haul carts of manure which they throw at the populace. Drinking bouts and dances accompany the procession. The whole was a burlesque of the too-familiar, tedious, and often meaningless rituals; a release of “the natural lout beneath the cassock.

It's like a bunch of hookers advertising their cellulite/ stretch- mark infested bodies to the highest bidder, and then claiming they deserve respect. Crawling on their hands and knees, pupils dilated on the high of greed, licking their lips almost tasting their next job of self- whoredom, and nothing is more tempting than the idea of Mr. Ellison. He could pay for tricks perform by the Pope, chandler-swinging strip-tease nuns.. No one has ever said "NO" to the idea of money and therefore no one has ever said "No" to Mr. Ellison and actually meant it... and then you have to wonder why he has no respect for people?