“The classical classroom is not a focus group on old books, but a nest, a garden, a forge, a crucible, an ark. The use of the catechism begins to dispel the myth that school is a place for self-actualization, self-discovery, self-improvement, and
self-expression. Rather, a classical education is chiefly concerned with self-denial, self-effacement, and self-rule. No basic truth about classical education is more easily and quickly forgotten, for a great many literature teachers labor under the
delusion that discussion is good for its own sake, and that a lively classroom is necessarily a productive classroom.”
— Joshua Gibbs, Something They Will Not Forget: A Handbook for Classical Teachers
2 CORINTHIANS 5:17-21
17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. 18 All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; 19 that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. 20 Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. 21 For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
A PRAYER OF THANKSGIVING
Almighty God, Father of all mercies, we your unworthy servants give you humble thanks for all your goodness and loving-kindness to us and to all whom you have made. We bless you for our creation, preservation, and all the blessings of this life; but above all for your immeasurable love in the redemption of the world by our Lord Jesus Christ; for the means of grace, and for the hope of glory. And, we pray, give us such an awareness of your mercies, that with truly thankful hearts we may show forth your praise, not only with our lips, but in our lives, by giving up ourselves to your service, and by walking before you in holiness and righteousness all our days; through Jesus Christ our Lord, to whom, with you and the Holy Spirit, be honor and glory throughout all ages. Amen.
ART APPRECIATION
The Three Musicians is a famous example of Picasso’s style of Cubism. The three musicians are transformed into a sequence of two-dimensional planes, lines, and arcs.
1
Pablo Picasso (1811-1973) was born in Malaga, Spain. His name at birth was Pablo Diego Jose Franciso de Paula Juan Nepomunceno Maria de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santisima Trinidad Ruiz y Picasso. His parents gave him many names honoring saints and relatives. His mother claimed Pablo’s first words were “pencil, pencil” (in Spanish, of course). His father was a fine arts teacher at several schools, but legend has it that when he caught his 13-year-old-son finishing one of his paintings, he never painted again. Pablo was enrolled in a prestigious art academy, but soon quit because he didn’t like formal education. Instead, he moved to Paris to learn from the masters there. Picasso was the best-known figure in 20th century art and was more famous for his work during his lifetime than any other artist before him. He was a founder of a new art form called Cubism.
2
MUSIC APPRECIATION
| “O mio babbino caro” from Gianni Schicchi |
Puccini flirted briefly with faintly Wagnerian subjects in his early operas Le villi (1884) and Edgar (1889), though in these operas, the music owes much more to Verdi than to his Teutonic contemporary. Gianni Schicchi is a comparatively late work, comprising the third part of Puccini’s Il trittico (The Triptych), which premiered at the Metropolitan Opera in 1918. The libretto takes an episode from Dante’s Divine Comedy, the damnation of the will-forger Gianni Schicchi, as its starting point. His fraudulent will enriches his clan so that Lauretta, his daughter, can marry Rinuccio. In “O mio babbino caro,” one of Italian opera’s greatest tunes and a number that has become an archetype of late Romanticism’s final flowering in Puccini’s hands, Lauretta begs her father to go with her to buy a ring so she can marry, setting the whole forgery in motion. The tone of the aria is over-the-top in its voluptuousness, almost parodistic, which perfectly fits Lauretta’s melodramatic emotional state.
3
Giacomo Puccini (1858-1924) was an Italian composer, one of the greatest exponents of operatic realism, who virtually brought the history of Italian opera to an end. His mature operas included La Bohème (1896), Tosca (1900), Madama Butterfly (1904), and Turandot (left incomplete). 4
- Lange, Krista, and Leigh Lowe. First Grade Enrichment: Classical Core Curriculum. Teacher Guide. Memoria Press, 2017. ↩︎
- Ibid. ↩︎
- “‘O Mio Babbino Caro’ from Gianni Schicchi, Giacomo Puccini.” LA Phil, http://www.laphil.com/musicdb/pieces/56/o-mio-babbino-caro-from-gianni-schicchi. Accessed 15 Apr. 2025.
↩︎ - “Giuseppe Verdi.” Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, inc., 19 Feb. 2025, http://www.britannica.com/biography/Giuseppe-Verdi.
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Providence School of Tifton 