Friday Links
November 24, 2024
Remembering the Martyrs of Vietnam
My Mind, My Enemy: Sarah Clarkson in Plough
Open call for entries: National Sacred Art Exhibit
The Customer’s Regress: Scott Beauchamp
Hopefully, you’ve all had a wonderful Thanksgiving and are now in a sweet, post-prandial slump instead of working or shopping. Here are a few links to get you through the weekend. God bless!
Remembering the Martyrs of Vietnam
“Between 1630 and 1886, it is estimated that somewhere between 130,000 and 300,000 Christians were martyred in Vietnam. According to the Vatican, these martyrs endured some of the most brutal torture in Christian history. In the face of unbelievable suffering, they remained steadfast in their faith, willing to give their lives for the cross. On June 19, 1988, the known holy martyrs were canonized, including 96 Vietnamese, 11 Spanish Dominicans, and 10 French members of the Paris Foreign Missions Society (MEP). The lives and legacies of the Vietnamese martyrs are honored in the Chapel of Our Lady of La Vang, which also recognizes the role the Blessed Mother played in strengthening the faithful during this time.”
My Mind, My Enemy: Sarah Clarkson in Plough
Please read the whole essay. It’s beautiful:
“When I was a child my mind was a gift.
Not the practical sort you’re supposed to use diligently but the magical kind, the sort of gift you’d find in the hands of your fairy godmother. My imagination was my secret companion. She was mighty and she was wild, and my first memories shimmer and burn with the beauty she revealed. The ordinary scenes of my outdoorsy, bookish childhood became the stuff of high fantasy. She made dryads of my backyard trees, filled the sky with talking stars, and made a heroine of sunburned little me on the commonest of days. I might return from an afternoon at play with the wistful air of an orphan or the lofty brow of a princess in search of her lost throne.”
Open call for entries: National Sacred Art Exhibit
“In light of this Great Call for a National Eucharistic Congress and the opportunity for God’s people to draw into a deeper intimacy with our Eucharistic Lord, St. Edmund’s Sacred Art Institute, in collaboration with the National Eucharistic Congress, are assembling what is sure to be one of the most beautiful (traveling) Exhibits of contemporary Sacred Artwork seen in recent times. Artists throughout the USA are invited to enter their best liturgical artwork(s) exemplifying a Eucharistic theme. Accepted works will be exhibited on a regional /National level. The juried artworks will be published in the 2024 catalog, along with a directory of sacred artists, as an ongoing resource for commissions and collectors. Let us not forget the role the visual arts have played in the past and now in the present in furthering our Christian Faith. From all ages, sacred art has been the silent source of tremendous encouragement, furthering the deepening of faith in Jesus and turning hearts towards heaven. Over $3000 in awards. All juried artists will be entered into both online and printed Catalog and Directory.”
The deadline for entry is January 25, 2024
The Customer’s Regress: Scott Beauchamp
From the Archives of Church Life Journal, another reason to hate Black Friday.
“There’s a website called “Black Friday Death Count,” which is exactly what it calls itself. Since 2006, there has been almost one death per year on average in the frenzied rush to acquire discounted electronics and toys. The images of crowds, masses of indistinguishable faces pressing themselves against locked glass double-doors, has become in our imaginations a kind of synecdoche for the wildest excesses of consumerism. But really, it is an outlier. The most efficient forms of consumption do not ask you to raise your blood pressure or plan your attack. In fact, it helps if you almost forget what you are doing. Being a real Black Friday warrior requires planning ahead. Scope sales, arrive early, and at the very least orient yourself well-enough to plan a straight shot sprint towards the items you want. You have to know where you are and where you are going. But the inner nature of the most efficient consumerism works against this frenzy. It helps, in fact, if you are a little lost.”
