“If God really became incarnate, and if His Incarnation can with justice compel man to change his life, then we have no alternative but to conceive of this Incarnation as something which is still present and which will remain present for all future time.. What happens in the liturgical celebration of the Eucharist is something for which all religions of mankind have expressed longing, dimly sensed was coming, and as a rule even prefigured- the physical presence of the divine Logos made man, and the presence of his sacrificial death, in the midst of the congregation celebrating the mysteries.”
― Josef Pieper
ISAIAH 53
1 Who has believed what he has heard from us?
And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?
2 For he grew up before him like a young plant,
and like a root out of dry ground;
he had no form or majesty that we should look at him,
and no beauty that we should desire him.
3 He was despised and rejected by men,
a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief;
and as one from whom men hide their faces
he was despised, and we esteemed him not.
4 Surely he has borne our griefs
and carried our sorrows;
yet we esteemed him stricken,
smitten by God, and afflicted.
5 But he was pierced for our transgressions;
he was crushed for our iniquities;
upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace,
and with his wounds we are healed.
6 All we like sheep have gone astray;
we have turned—every one—to his own way;
and the Lord has laid on him
the iniquity of us all.
7 He was oppressed, and he was afflicted,
yet he opened not his mouth;
like a lamb that is led to the slaughter,
and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent,
so he opened not his mouth.
8 By oppression and judgment he was taken away;
and as for his generation, who considered
that he was cut off out of the land of the living,
stricken for the transgression of my people?
9 And they made his grave with the wicked
and with a rich man in his death,
although he had done no violence,
and there was no deceit in his mouth.
10 Yet it was the will of the Lord to crush him;
he has put him to grief;
when his soul makes an offering for guilt,
he shall see his offspring; he shall prolong his days;
the will of the Lord shall prosper in his hand.
11 Out of the anguish of his soul he shall see and be satisfied;
by his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant,
make many to be accounted righteous,
and he shall bear their iniquities.
12 Therefore I will divide him a portion with the many,
and he shall divide the spoil with the strong,
because he poured out his soul to death
and was numbered with the transgressors;
yet he bore the sin of many,
and makes intercession for the transgressors.
ST. FRANCIS’S PRAYER OF DESIRE
Therefore, let us desire nothing else, let us want nothing else, let nothing else please us and cause us delight except you our Creator, Redeemer and Savior, the only true God, Who is the fullness of good, all good, every good, the true and
supreme good, Who alone is good, merciful, gentle, delightful, and sweet, Who alone is holy, just, true, holy, and upright, Who alone is kind, innocent, clean, from Whom, through Whom and in Whom is all pardon, all grace, all glory of all
penitents and just ones, of all the blessed rejoicing together in heaven. Amen.
ART APPRECIATION
This painting of Monet’s is different from many of his other paintings. It is a gray, winter day. There is not a lot of natural light in the painting. The subject of the painting is not nature itself but a train. We see the train either arriving at or departing from the station.
1
Claude Monet (1840-1926) was born in Paris, though he later moved to Normandy when he was five to live with an older brother. He did not like being confined to a classroom and preferred being outside. He loved drawing from an early age and would draw caricatures of the people in his town. When he decided to study painting, he moved back to Paris. Monet was one of the most famous painters in art history and one of the founders of the Impressionist style. It was not uncommon for Monet to paint the same view of a subject several times to capture it in different lighting, sometimes lining up canvases and painting as quickly as he could. Some of Monet’s favorite subjects were the gardens around his home. The Waterlily Bridge is one of his most famous of these.
2
MUSIC APPRECIATION
“Boléro” by Maurice Ravel
Boléro, one-movement orchestral work composed by Maurice Ravel and known for beginning softly and ending, according to the composer’s instructions, as loudly as possible. Commissioned by the Russian dancer Ida Rubinstein, Boléro was first performed at the Paris Opéra on November 22, 1928, with a dance choreographed by Bronislava Nijinska. The work has been featured in many films since its creation, but it was an integral part of the plot in Blake Edwards’s film 10 (1979), starring Dudley Moore and Bo Derek.
3
Maurice Ravel (1875-1937) was one of the most sophisticated musicians of the early 20th century. Showing great musical promise as a child, he began his piano studies at the Paris Conservatoire when he was just 14 years old. Ravel remained a Conservatoire student off and on for 14 years, adding composition classes with the renowned Gabriel Fauré.
Ravel enthusiastically sought out experiences with a wide range of music, attending performances, for example, at the 1889 Paris Exhibition, where he heard a Javanese gamelan, Russian music by Rimsky-Korsakov, and more. He also joined Les Apaches, a group of literary, musical, and artistic contemporaries which openly shared and discussed a range of cultural topics and trends.4
- Lange, Krista, and Leigh Lowe. First Grade Enrichment: Classical Core Curriculum. Teacher Guide. Memoria Press, 2017. ↩︎
- Ibid. ↩︎
- “Boléro.” Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, inc., 17 Oct. 2024, http://www.britannica.com/topic/Bolero-by-Ravel.
↩︎ - “Who Was Maurice Ravel? A Brief Introduction.” Who Was Maurice Ravel? A Brief Introduction – Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, http://www.chambermusicsociety.org/news/who-was-maurice-ravel-a-brief-introduction/. Accessed 30 Sept. 2024. ↩︎
Providence School of Tifton 