Disinterested service and personal responsibility

 I recently finished The Judgment of the Nations, by Christopher Dawson, "the greatest English-speaking Catholic historian of the twentieth century" (according to his Wikipedia page).  In this book, he wrote about how England can survive as a nation of free people:

It is only by strengthening the element of vocation both in the State and in society generally that these evils can be avoided.  ... It is remarkable that when in the first half of the nineteenth century a great French writer set out to portray the principle of duty and disinterested service against the motive of power and ambition and military glory he chose an English admiral who was his country's enemy as the embodiment of his ideal. ... It is easier for the English to accept the idea of social duty and disinterested service with a sense of personal responsibility.  If this spirit can be applied to the new conditions of mass society, it is conceivable that a planned society might be created without the destruction of freedom either by impersonal bureaucracy or by inhuman tyranny.

Saint Ignatius Church at Port Tobacco

St. Thomas Manor (left) and St. Ignatius Church (right)

Saint Ignatius Church (and Saint Thomas Manor) at Port Tobacco is a notable site in American Catholic history, founded soon after the first Catholic settlers arrived in Maryland on the Ark and Dove.  The parish is "the oldest continuously active Catholic parish in what is now the United States" (according to a guide available from the parish website).  Saint Thomas Manor was the farm run by the Jesuits there; the two-story manor house was built around 1741.  The church was built in 1798.  In the 1990s, parishioners and others created needlework to adorn the kneelers in 56 pews.  Near the church is a historical marker that lists the local Knights of Columbus councils; in the parking lot across the street is a sign explaining the different parts of the building.  The view from the ground between the church and its historic cemetery overlooks Port Tobacco and the Potomac River.

Rose and Joe's Road Trip: Pennsylvania

This 24-day itinerary, planned and tested personally by Joe & Rose Herrmann, is a driving tour of the mid-Atlantic, including nine nights near Hershey, Pennsylvania.  This trip begins and ends in San Antonio, Florida.  (All quotes from Joe Herrmann's correspondence.  Facilities open in 1970 may be unavailable today.)

Day 1 (526 miles): North on I-75 past Gainesville and on I-85 past Atlanta to Tugaloo State Park "on the shores of Lake Hartwell" where "everything is peaceful and quiet" and there are "no gnats, mosquitoes, or flies."    [Taking U.S. 129 and U.S. 441 through Athens (and bypassing Atlanta) saves 29 miles but adds 4 minutes.]

Day 2 (365 miles): North on I-85 through Charlotte and Durham to South Hill, Virginia.  Stay at the KOA Campground at Lake Gibson, where the campground has a swimming pool, although "the lake is clear as crystal and should be a good place to swim."

Day 3 (311 miles): North on I-85, I-95, and I-83 through Richmond, Arlington, Washington, Baltimore, York, and Harrisburg to Hershey ("Chocolate Town, U.S.A."), which is part of Derry Township.

Day 4: Visit Hershey, including the Hershey Hospital, and the surrounding countryside. 

Day 5: Visit Hummelstown, the Hershey Motel, and Cocoa Avenue, "where all the street lamps are made in the shape of chocolate drops."

Day 6: Ride the Hershey Monorail, visit the Hershey Chocolate Factory, which "is a quite interesting trip, showing the highlights of chocolate and cocoa making and the packaging and canning of the many products put up in this plant."  Have lunch at the Cocoa Hotel Restaurant and visit the Hershey Community Theatre, the Hershey Department Store, and the Hershey Museum.

Day 7: Visit the Airstream Rally talent show and hobby show.

Day 8: Driving tour of the countryside, with "wild flowers of every type, color, and description all along the roadways."  Visit the Hershey rose gardens, the Hershey Hotel, the Hershey Homestead, and Catherine Hall.  Attend concert at Hershey Park.

Day 9.  Visit the Dutch Country Store in Middletown and tour Indian Echo Cave, which is "a cool 52 degrees." Attend ball at the Arena.

Day 10.  Watch parade, attend photo, painting, and flower arrangement displays.  Visit Hershey Park and ride the roller coaster.

Day 11.  Visit Saint Joan of Arc Catholic Church.  Attend the amateur skit program.

Day 12 (148 miles): West on the Pennsylvania Turnpike, lunch at the top of Blue Knob Mountain, then north to Altoona, "a rather large town" where "the streets are mostly narrow and lined with duplex houses."

Day 13: Visit Horseshoe Bend, "where the engine almost meets the caboose, and trains are going both north & south at the same time."  Drive up the mountain to Gallitzin.

Day 14: Hike up the trail and admire "many gorgeous wildflowers of every size and color" and pick some blueberries.

Day 15 (173 miles): North to Tyrone and then south "thru miles and miles of coal strip mines" to Shartlesville.

Day 16 (20 miles):   Visit Roadside America ("It is truly fantastic what one man and his family can do, when they set out to do something worthwhile").  South to Reading. 

Day 17: Visit the Bavarian Summer Festival at the Lakewood dance hall in Barnesville, the "theme being BEER, B E E R, B E E R, and more BEER, as long as it is Bavarian beer." 

Day 18: Visit Stony Creek Mills.

Day 19: Visit the Caloric factory in Topton, where they make "150 to 180 gas ranges each hour."  Drive through Pottstown, "where Mrs. Smith has the largest Pie Factory in the country," have lunch in Phoenixville, and visit the Linette Candy Factory in Reading, where "tender loving care goes into every part of the process."   Have supper at Zinn's Diner, with Pennsylvania Dutch home cooking.

Day 20: Rest.

Day 21 (74 miles): South to Bel Air, Maryland.  Visit Ephrata Cloisters.  Have lunch at the Pennsylvania Farm Museum.

Day 22 (419 miles): South "thru the Tobacco Belt of Maryland and Virginia," with "a great many unpainted tobacco barns," to York Hill, North Carolina.

Day 23 (226 miles):  South on I-85.  Visit the South Carolina Tricentennial Exposition in Greenville.  Spend the night in Commerce, Georgia.

Day 24 (495 miles): South on I-85 and I-75 to San Antonio, Florida.

The Ascension of the Lord

John S. Copley, Ascension, 1775 (Image: Wikipedia).

From Acts 1:9-11:

When Jesus had said this, the apostles saw him lifted up, and a cloud caught him away from their sight. And as they strained their eyes towards heaven, to watch his journey, all at once two men in white garments were standing at their side. Men of Galilee, they said, why do you stand here looking heavenwards? He who has been taken from you into heaven, this same Jesus, will come back in the same fashion, just as you have watched him going into heaven.

The Last Supper

Leonardo da Vinci, The Last Supper, 1497-1498 (from Web Gallery of Art)

Leonardo da Vinci's masterpiece, The Last Supper, is on the wall in the refectory (dining room) of Santa Maria delle Grazie in Milan.  According to the Web Gallery of Art,

The real dining room appears to be continued in the perspectivally painted one, but on a higher level: the prior's table is upstaged by that of Christ and the apostles above. Christ and the apostles seem to have taken their place in the monk's dining hall in Milan, as it were. The emphatic gestures of the larger-than-life-size, heroic figures would have contrasted once with the quiet, controlled meal of the monks. A sublime, sacred drama overshadowed the worldly meal and focused the brothers' attention religious meditation. Leonardo depicted a specific moment of the Last Supper: Christ has just announced that he will be betrayed by one of the disciples, and the community of apostles reacts with agitation and questioning.

That is a coincidence: my mother's parents had a copy of this in their kitchen, above their kitchen table. 

Sea at Ogunquit

Edward Hopper, Sea at Ogunquit, 1914 (from https://whitney.org/collection/works/6077)

To celebrate Maine's bicentennial (Maine's secession from Massachusetts was part of the Missouri Compromise), the USPS has issued a stamp that features Edward Hopper's 1914 painting Sea at Ogunquit.  Hopper expressed his views on art in the following Statement ("Statements by Four Artists," Reality, Volume 1, Number 1, Spring 1953, via Wikipedia):

Great art is the outward expression of an inner life in the artist, and this inner life will result in his personal vision of the world. No amount of skillful invention can replace the essential element of imagination. One of the weaknesses of much abstract painting is the attempt to substitute the inventions of the human intellect for a private imaginative conception.
The inner life of a human being is a vast and varied realm and does not concern itself alone with stimulating arrangements of color, form and design.
The term life used in art is something not to be held in contempt, for it implies all of existence and the province of art is to react to it and not to shun it.
Painting will have to deal more fully and less obliquely with life and nature's phenomena before it can again become great.

Doubting Thomas

Caravaggio, The Incredulity of Saint Thomas, 1602 (Wikipedia)

Today is Divine Mercy Sunday, and the Gospel is from Chapter 20 of the Gospel of John.  The painting here shows the moment at which Jesus confronts Thomas:

Jesus said to Thomas, "Let me have thy finger; see, here are my hands. Let me have thy hand; put it into my side. Cease thy doubting, and believe." Thomas answered, "Thou art my Lord and my God."

According to Edwin Aponte:

Known for his gritty realism, Caravaggio has Jesus grasping the hand of the apostle Thomas and thrusting it deep within the wound at his side, powerfully aligning Jesus' and St. Thomas' hands to form a lance. St. Thomas' face expresses profound surprise as his finger thrusts deep into Jesus' wound. Perhaps, the surprise has to do with his unbelief. It could also be surprise at the realization that he, too, is also pierced. Indeed, St. Thomas appears to clutch his side as if he becomes aware of a wound at his side as well. And we who wince at this gritty depiction feel a wound at our side as well.

Christ Appearing to Mary Magdalene

Jacob Cornelisz van Oostsanen, Christ Appearing to Mary Magdalen as a Gardener
(Image: Web Gallery of Art)

This 1507 painting of Mary Magdalene's encounter with Jesus Christ on Easter morning also depicts (in its background) other scenes from that day: the two Marys visiting the empty tomb, Jesus meeting the three Marys, Jesus meeting the pilgrims on the road to Emmaus, and Jesus eating with the pilgrims in Emmaus.  Note also the painting's blocks of primary colors: green and blue and yellow and red.

Jean Tisserand's "O Sons and Daughters" (translated by John M. Neale) is a classic hymn about Easter morning; this video has a beautiful rendition by the Benedictines of Mary, Queen of Apostles.

The Resurrection by Piero

The Resurrection, by Piero della Francesco (image: Wikipedia)

This image of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ is in San Sepolcro, Italy.  Around 1465, Piero della Francesco created this fresco, which Aldous Huxley called "the greatest picture in the world" because of its "natural, spontaneous, and unpretentious grandeur." 

According to the Web Gallery of Art:

The composition is divided into two separate perspective zones. The lower area, where the artist has placed the sleeping guards, has a very low vanishing point. Alberti, in his theoretical writings, suggests that the vanishing point should be at the same level as the figures' eyes. By placing it on a lower level, Piero foreshortens his figures, thus making them more imposing in their monumental solidity. Above the figures of the sleeping sentries, Piero has placed the watchful Christ, no longer seen from below, but perfectly frontally. The resurrected Christ, portrayed with solid peasant features, is nonetheless a perfect representative of Piero's human ideal: concrete, restrained and hieratic as well. The splendid landscape also belongs to the repertory of popular sacred images: Piero has symbolically depicted it as half still immersed in the barrenness of winter, and half already brought back to life - resurrected - by springtime.

Michelangelo's Pieta

Pieta, Michelangelo (image: Web Gallery of Art)

Michelangelo's Pieta is in St. Peter's Basilica.  It was completed around 1499.  The marble sculpture depicts the Blessed Virgin Mary holding the body of her son, Jesus Christ, after his crucifixion. 

According to Fordham Art History:

The theme of the Pietà, “pity” or “piety” in Latin, depicts a moment immediately after the crucifixion, similar to The Lamentation or The Deposition. However, the Pietà is unique in its focus on the Virgin Mary holding her dead son. This image originated in Germany and moved down to France during the Middle Ages, a time when devotion to the Madonna was particularly intense.

... Christ’s placement on Mary’s lap emulates the tender image of baby Jesus on his mother’s lap. Triggering a pure and natural moment between mother and son, with an image of suffering and sadness, fills the viewer with sorrow and compassion -- with pity. In turn, that pity becomes piety -- reverently accepting the sacrifice Christ made, and the sorrow of his mother as she holds her son’s corpse.

Pope Francis on the Feast of St. Stephen

From Pope Francis’ Angelus address for the Feast of Saint Stephen, 26 December 2014:

To truly welcome Jesus in our existence, and to prolong the joy of the Holy Night, the path is precisely the one indicated in this Gospel: that is, to bear witness in humility, in silent service, without fear of going against the current, able to pay in person. And if not all are called, as Saint Stephen was, to shed their own blood, nonetheless, every Christian is called in every circumstance to live a life that is coherent with the faith he or she professes.

The Pretense of Knowledge

Friedrich Hayek won the 1974 Nobel Prize in economics. This is from his acceptance speech:

To act on the belief that we possess the knowledge and the power which enable us to shape the processes of society entirely to our liking, knowledge which in fact we do not possess, is likely to make us do much harm. In the physical sciences there may be little objection to trying to do the impossible; one might even feel that one ought not to discourage the over-confident because their experiments may after all produce some new insights. But in the social field the erroneous belief that the exercise of some power would have beneficial consequences is likely to lead to a new power to coerce other men being conferred on some authority.

Later in the same speech:

The recognition of the insuperable limits to his knowledge ought indeed to teach the student of society a lesson of humility which should guard him against becoming an accomplice in men's fatal striving to control society - a striving which makes him not only a tyrant over his fellows, but which may well make him the destroyer of a civilization which no brain has designed but which has grown from the free efforts of millions of individuals.

HT: The Wall Street Journal.

Christopher Columbus, the missionary

According to Robert Royal,

Columbus believed that the Church urgently needed to travel to and evangelize all nations so that Christ could return in triumph.

Hat tip: First Thoughts.

Aquinas amongst the analytics

An interview with John Haldane, a Thomist analytic philosopher who talks about the link between metaphysics and religious faith and the perspective of St. Thomas Aquinas. HT: First Thoughts.

Burke and Hobbes

George Weigel's article on Thomas Hobbes and Edmund Burke. His take:

In a Hobbesian world, the only actors of consequence are the state and the individual. In a Burkean world, the institutions of civil society—family, religious congregation, voluntary association, business, trade union and so forth—“mediate” between the individual and the state, and the just state takes care to provide an appropriate legal framework in which those civil-society institutions can flourish.

Religious Liberty: The Origins

George Weigel on the Catholic origins of religious liberty, especially in the United States.

From Thomas Aquinas to Robert Bellarmine to the Anglican divine Richard Hooker; then from Hooker to John Locke to Thomas Jefferson: That’s one plausible intellectual roadmap to the Declaration and the First Amendment.

Joe Herrmann day (1982)

December 3, 1982, was officially Joe Herrmann Day in Dade City and San Antonio, Florida. For the rest of the story, see this copy of the article in the Pasco News.

Types of capitalism

Steven Pearlstein's article on capitalism highlights the following forms:

• robber barons
• corporate (managerial) capitalism
• state capitalism
• entrepreneurial capitalism
• worker capitalism
• shareholder capitalism
• financial capitalism

Typewriter history

From the ASME announcement:

The Sholes & Glidden typewriter, the first commercially successful mechanical writing machine, will be recognized by the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) for historic significance and contribution to the progress of mechanical engineering.

See also the typewriter's Wikipedia entry.

National Thanksgiving Proclamation

George Washington's National Thanksgiving Proclamation, 1789.