THE CONVERT
After one moment when I bowed my head
And the whole world turned over and came upright,
And I came out where the old road shone white,
I walked the ways and heard what all men said,
Forests of tongues, like autumn leaves unshed,
Being not unlovable but strange and light;
Old riddles and new creeds, not in despite
But softly, as men smile about the dead.
The sages have a hundred maps to give
That trace their crawling cosmos like a tree,
They rattle reason out through many a sieve
That stores the sand and lets the gold go free:
And all these things are less than dust to me
Because my name is Lazarus and I live.
~G. K. Chesterton
May 31, 2002
May 30, 2002
May 27, 2002
"There are certain eternal accomplishments that make even happiness look like trash"
--Dorothy Sayers
"God's speech is the effect He produces in the soul."
~ John of the Cross
"Too much of a good thing is still a good thing."
~G.K. Chesterton
"Anything worth doing is worth doing badly."
~G.K. Chesterton
"It is so easy for someone ...to make a reckless assertion; and away it goes round the world in seven-league boots, and one can only plod slowly after it with a lot of heavy clumping facts and etymologies and dates and references, wearisome to assemble and still more wearisome to read."
~Dorothy Sayers
Quoted in , Literary Converts, Joseph Pearce p.288.
Footnote 21 on p. 291 says: "Letter from Dorothy L. Sayers to Hugh Ross Williams, 21 May 1948, courtesy of Julia Ross Williamson.
"There are no 'ordinary' people. You have never talked to a mere mortal.
Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations -- these are mortal, and their life
is to ours as the life of a gnat. ...Next to the Blessed Sacrament itself,
your neighbour is the holiest object presented to your senses."
- C.S. Lewis, "The Weight of Glory"
We witness conversions for which we cannot account. Grace often works very slowly. We may trace the successive stages in a soul's progress toward truth, but there is always a starting point that we cannot grasp, a sudden movement of grace before which there is apparently nothing.
~Louis Veuillot
From St. John of the Cross
These three streams flow their eternal course,
Unrivalling and mutual in their force
Even now in the night's hush.
The eternal tide flows hid in living bread
That with its heavenly life we too be fed
Even now in the night's hush.
And here it calls to all, and here we will
Our craving voids mysteriously fill,
Even now in the night's hush.
This living stream for which I thirst and long,
Provides my sup, my surety and my song
Even now in the night's hush.
~St John of the Cross
YOUR voice (the Church) speaks:
Great God of my life,
I will praise Thee on the three shores of Thy one light.
I will plunge with my song into the sea of Thy glory:
with rejoicing into the waves of Thy power.
Golden God of thy stars,
loud God of Thy storms,
flaming God of Thy fire-spewing mountains,
God of Thy streams and of thy seas,
God of all beasts,
God of all the cornfields and of wild roses,
I thank Thee for having awakened us,
Lord, I thank Thee to the choirs of Thine angels.
Be praised for all that lives.
God of thy Son,
great God of Thine eternal compassion,
great God of thine erring humanity,
God of all them who suffer,
God of all them who die,
brotherly God on our dark spoor:
I thank Thee that Thou hast delivered us,
I thank Thee to the choirs of thine angels.
Be praised for our blessedness!
God of Thine own Spirit,
flooding in Thy depths from love to love,
Seething down into my soul,
Rushing through all my chambers,
bringing fire to every heart,
Holy Creator of thy new earth:
I thank Thee that I may thank Thee,
Lord, I thank Thee to the choirs of Thine angels.
God of my psalms,
God of my harps,
God of my organs,
and of my mighty music,
I will sing Thy praises on the three shores to Thy One Light.
I will plunge with my song into the sea of Thy glory:
with shouts of joy into the waves of Thy power.
~Gertrude von le Fort, Hymns to the Church
