Tuesday 22 October 2013
salve regina
Marian elements and iconography have always played a significant role in religious architecture and are a common appellation, perhaps most famously in Notre Dame de Paris.
A great many places have churches and shires similarly dedicated to Our Lady but I was surprised to find it is not all that uncommon in the Provence to find sites not decorated with spires and steeples but an actual, sometimes colossal figure of Mary (absent from the most noted examples), like these dominating structures in Nyons in the Drรดme, the courtyard of the Papal Palace (the so-called Babylonian Captivity) that transported the seat of popes and anti-popes from Rome to Avignon for a century during the late Middle Ages, or this presiding church on this high natural rocky pillar watching over the Verdon valley in Castellane.
Sometimes these glorious statutes were later additions and certainly not all buildings of worship (even those with the same devotionals) have the personification, so I wonder if there is some impetus, the recollection of a forgotten apparition, a sighting, or a particular miracle behind this statuary.
A great many places have churches and shires similarly dedicated to Our Lady but I was surprised to find it is not all that uncommon in the Provence to find sites not decorated with spires and steeples but an actual, sometimes colossal figure of Mary (absent from the most noted examples), like these dominating structures in Nyons in the Drรดme, the courtyard of the Papal Palace (the so-called Babylonian Captivity) that transported the seat of popes and anti-popes from Rome to Avignon for a century during the late Middle Ages, or this presiding church on this high natural rocky pillar watching over the Verdon valley in Castellane.
Sometimes these glorious statutes were later additions and certainly not all buildings of worship (even those with the same devotionals) have the personification, so I wonder if there is some impetus, the recollection of a forgotten apparition, a sighting, or a particular miracle behind this statuary.
Thursday 10 October 2013
aus dessus des vieux volcans or le grand bleu
Wednesday 9 October 2013
federalist papers or pensions and bounties
Here is a very interesting and engrossing read regarding the imminent debt-ceiling hanging over the US economy and reputation through the lens of legal opining and historical context from economist Bruce Bartlett.
Tuesday 8 October 2013
if you want the thrill of love, i've been through the mill of love
In a surprising move, the diocese of Freiburg, under the leadership of the chairman of the German conference of bishops, has suggested that the Church doctrine of denying sacrament to congregants who divorce and then re-marry should no longer be applied universally, surely to set a precedent though disregarded by many already. Earlier attempts to change this attitude were shot down by none other than the former Pope, Cardinal Ratzinger as head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, and this announcement is not exactly carte-blanche for those whose life-plans change, still importantly subject to counsel and reflection, but the move still represents a significant concession to welcome back into the fold many of whom were shut out
catagories: food and drink, lifestyle, religion
dowager or could you borrow me a dime?
Fiat currency, money, is in essence debt—that is why it bears the instructions “legal tender for all debts public and private,” and the capacity for governments to print, conjure more money is a function of their ability to incur more debt.