A Cattle Water Trough

A Cattle Water Trough

Citrus scent of summer; quintessentially rural Sussex: briar rose, wild honeysuckle, elderflower mock orange, surround the majesty of cattle quenching their thirst at the water trough, their vast frames radiating heat like steam locomotives taking on water; the buzzard crying, ready to glean small mammal exposed as the herd leave their day pasture.

When driven twice a day to milking, the herd make a ritual defiant diversion to the old galvanised water trough to contemplate the gift of water. In pensive, mysterious silence, they imbibe long, thoughtful draughts, as express locomotives once did at speed, then, resuming their familiar worn cattle track, they trudge to the milking parlour, dripping rivulets of water, jostling one another to assert their hierarchical order in the milking train.

Saint Paulinus of Nola (n.355 m.431), that fine Bishop poet, in a letter, remarked:

..auræ vitalis hausisse

nec ita olim in aratro manum..

LH III:1295

..to drink the breath of life,

[and have] only just set

my hand to the plough..

(after LH III 1478, ICEL)

With these reflections fresh in my mind, Saint Cyprian, Bishop Martyr, on The Lord's Prayer declared:

..cum magna

et divina brevitate

complexus est..

LH III:329

..an interlacing connection

of things with noble and

prophetic conciseness

Such a model to aspire to!

And today, The Nativity of Saint John the Baptist, 

..possuit me

quasi sagittam electam..

Graduale Triplex Antiphona ad Introitum p.570

..he held me as an intelligent arrow..

In Portsmouth Cathedral David Wynne's Saint John the Baptist as a Young Man, not without a resonant overtone of the Colchester Mercury, hints at this imagery, in the way The Baptist wields a staff.

Last week I collected my two volumes of The Oxford Dictionary of Latin (March 2012 Second Edition), and discovered they were printed and bound in Croydon, Surrey.

Acknowledgements

Liturgia Horarum Latin and ICEL texts

Collins Latin English Dictionary Professor D A Kidd, General Editor G F Maine 1957

Graduale Triplex

Oxford Latin Dictionary Two Volumes Second Edition March 2012

My photographs taken with a Fuji Finepix X 100

..auræ vitalis hausisse

nec ita olim in aratro manum..

LH III:1295

..to drink the breath of life,

[and have] only just set

my hand to the plough..

(after LH III 1478, ICEL)

Nourishing Crafter

Sacratissimi Cordis Iesu

Ille amor, almus artifex terræ marisque et siderum

Liber Hymnarius

..that love, nourishing Crafter of earth sea and stars..

This sentiment in verse three of the Vespers' Hymn ascribed to Philippus Bruni m.1771 adorned the Solemnity of The Most Sacred Heart, celebrated today.

My Liturgy Reflection today came from the Introit (Graduale Triplex p 384) Cogitationes Cordis eos:

..et alat eos in fame..

fames, is more than famine or hunger, for it has the figurative sense of greed, and, rhetorically: poverty of expression. Perhaps, a working interpretation might be:

..and lift them from

their drabness..

Love that animates.

The Communion Antiphon Gustate et Videte (Graduale Triplex p 303):

Taste, enjoy

be aware..

shares the amazing Liturgical Canvas of the Feast.

As a child, and young boy, I had no idea of this Liturgical Science when I would gaze spellbound before the domestic altar in Anglo Indian homes, whether in Calcutta, or in Jharsaguda Railway Colony. The framed print of the Sacred Heart, lit by a diode lamp, whose metal cathode cross beamed a curious, soft, salmon light. The humble, and loving devotion of the grandmother of the house tended this domestic altar.

The tradition of devotion to the Sacred Heart in Anglo Indian religiosity is a great Mystery. The very title of this Liturgical Solemnity conjures up images of vast crowds emptying from the cathedrals and lesser churches, convent girls in their finery, rickshaws, shopping in that grand emporium: The SS Hogg New Market, and Anglo Indian feasts. All shockingly cosmopolitan; vibrant.

I think this special piety, however declining now in its zeal, still echos what HE Cardinal Gianfranco Ravassi, President of the Pontifical Council for Culture observed yesterday, (Sport and Culture: contributing to a new humanism) Cultural Analysis:

Culture does not evangelise externally,

but from the heart.

Vatican Radio News

Acknowledgements

Liber Hymnarius

Graduale Triplex

Collins Latin English Dictionary Professor D A Kidd, General Editor G F Maine 1957

Vatican Radio News

My photographs taken with a Fuji Finepix X 100, Vespers' Hymn and S T Dupont Olympio Vertige Fountain Pen; Holme Gaard Glass Collection Denmark

et alat eos in fame..

Gustate et videte.

Ink and Faithfulness

Ink and Faithfulness

Dear Damian

Thank you for your phone call at the end of your long day. It was a great pleasure to receive your encouragement with its stimulus to identify space for personal enrichment; a faithfulness to my own recreation and renewal.

Ink and Faithfulness: At school there was an elderly janitor called Sushil. He was a slight, wiry man, dressed in khaki, and, on occasion, he wore a Kashmiri felt black hat. He smelt of books and paper. Many generations of students, even Phyllis, knew this faithful servant of the school in Kalimpong. Sushil was a multi-tasker: he arranged the school playing fields, rang the school gong at thirty-five minute intervals to mark the class periods, he wound the clock and chimes of the school tower by climbing two hundred feet through the body of the great tower, between its bells with a total weight of half a dozen tons, he set out the school assembly boards for the Art Master to write the assembly hymn on Mondays. He distributed post throughout the school, and countless other essential duties.

But, a wonder of Sushil's tasks was the weekly decanting of hundreds of black ceramic inkwells, and refilling them with fresh school ink. This school ink, prepared in a glory hole (an untidy cupboard or store room Collins English Dictionary and Thesaurus 2006) beneath the staircase to the Headmaster's office, was made from tablets to produce a deep, mysterious indigo fluid like mercury, that had the most gallo-tannic scent ever. The brew was left to stand several days before Sushil would fill stone flagons to then replenish the hundreds of scholars' inkwells.

Over the generations from 1900 to 1960s, when ink all but disappeared, Sushil's school ink never varied in its consistency, colour, and corrosiveness on steel! It had faithfulness!

On Monday this week, HH Pope Benedict XVI delivered his customary address to the Pontifical Ecclesiastical Academy, at the close of the academical term. This gifted thinker made the remark:

..faithfulness is linked to the gift of Faith;

a natural "idem sentire"

expressed by the word Faithfulness..

idem, the same, likewise, also

sentire, feel, see, perceive, experience, observe, understand, think, judge, decide

Collins Latin English Dictionary 1957

natural, genuine, spontaneous

I was struck by the phrase ..a natural idem sentire..

Fondest greetings.

Acknowledgements

Vatican Radio News

Collins  Latin English Dictionary  1957 Professor D A Kidd, General Editor G F Maine

Collins English Dictionary and Thesaurus 2006

My photographs Fuji Finepix X 100

S T Dupont Black Ink and Fidelio Fountain Pen

OMAS 360 Fountain Pen

Harvesting Silage

Harvesting Silage

The Oxford English Dictionary describes Agriculture : agri cultura, Latin tillage of the land; the science and art of cultivating the soil; including the allied pursuits of gathering in the crops and rearing livestock; tillage, husbandry, farming (in the widest sense). The Dictionary notes usage of the term from 1603, and embellishes the entry with Samuel Johnson's (The Rambler Tuesday 17 March 1750): If we estimate dignity by immediate usefulness, agriculture is undoubtedly the first and noblest science.

Today, in blustery sunshine, I joined the silage harvest. My task was to pilot giant tractors and trailers across a busy railway line with guidance and permission from the nearest signal staff. There were almost two dozen crossings performed with meticulous safety, and my grateful admiration for the signal staff's help, and expertise.

The technical aspects of the harvest are a wonder. My thoughts dwelt on the science and art of cultivating. Great flocks of birds took part in the drama: a rare sociology, an ordered hierarchy of avian gleaner: kites, gulls, rooks, raven, swallow, blackbird. How many harvests have perfected this lyrical choreography of Nature?

The wind and bright sun soon turned the denuded pasture a gold ochre. High rain clouds, leaden and billowing, were blown speedily above and beyond the harvesters.

The Way of Scent is to experience the world directly, without words. So observed Sudo, PT in Zen Sex 2000.

Harvested silage cut, briskly turned, gathered, chopped and sprayed into the vast trailers: a stream of deepest malachite, the shorn and exposed pasture, all exuded a medley of scent indescribable!

And gulls wheeled hypnotically in the Sussex sky, like Dervish Sufi...

Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, in his Lectio Magistralis, observed Faith is transmitted through Culture.

Acknowledgements

Oxford English Dictionary (Thanks to West Sussex Libraries' Access for Readers)
Network Rail Signal Staff for their expertise and help, and Network Rail for its commendable safety and infrastructure at the rural railway crossing

Sudo, PT Zen Sex 2000 p 101

Vatican News Honoris Causa for HE Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone

Beauty: A Vocation

Beauty: A Vocation

An intellectual giant who bridges the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, I think, is Blessed John Paul II. In 1999 John Paul II wrote a Letter to Artists. In this reflection, I liked two things from among his many rich thoughts.

This is my study copy of Blessed John Paul II's Letter to Artists, with details of the Polish Poet Cyprian Norwid's (1821-1883) translated poems. And yes, a favourite Lamy fountain pen.

The first thought I liked was "Beauty is a vocation". Creators in glass inspire me to think about this. The glass object in this picture comes from the Holme Gaard collection Denmark.

The second thought I valued in Blessed John Paul II's letter, was an introduction to the Polish Poet Cyprian Norwid (1821-1883), and a quotation from the Poet's works: "Beauty is to enthuse us for work, and work is to raise us up".

This picture: a cattle bell in an English Cherry, offers my visual interpretation of the austere and resilient personality of Blessed John Paul II, especially so, toward the close of this great Cultural Life, and stimulus for the Arts.

Postscript

I have a wise friend to thank for coaching my selecting the X-100, and the Professionals in the Fuji X-100 in Action from whose narratives and pictures I enjoyed learning many fresh subtleties.

Grateful acknowledgement to the Santa Sede Documents' Resource

This reflective journal was first inserted in the Fuji Finepix Group Gallery

I used my Fuji X 100 for the photographs

Beauty is to enthuse us for work, and work is to raise us up. Cyprian Norwid (1821-1883).

Interior Personality

Dear Rory
Thank you for your card and letter with its remark on Monastic Tradition.

Agriculture: helping to forge a strong interior personality.. to witness and accomplish good, even at a cost..It is also good to promote manual labour and to promote an agriculture that is first of all at the service of the inhabitants. (HH Pope Benedict XVI addressing Ambassadors May 5, 2012, Vatican News)

The association of Monasticism and Agriculture has endowed European Culture with a special patrimony. My new circumstances on a family dairy farm in West Sussex, England have encouraged my thinking about this cultural patrimony.

Steering through the settings and rhythms of my day, I enjoy manual agricultural labour - The Liturgy of the Hours, study, reading, personal space, silence, pleasure, social encounter with the farming family, growth.

Saint Augustine richly depicts: Duas vitas..una in opere actionis, altera in mercede contemplationis.. (LH II:784) Two kinds of life..one is active involving labor, the other contemplative, the reward of labor. (LH II 947, 948 ICEL).

Qualities for a man to aspire to, most so, in self-presentation, can be gleaned from Saint Basil the Great, in a seasonal lection, as he writes: simplex in essentia, varius inpotentiis. (LH II:806) Natural in essence, versatile in accomplishment.

Musically expressed in M. Charles Tournemire's commentary on the Whitsun Liturgical Hymn Veni Creator (L'orgue Mystique), in monumental art of the Parisian Organists' improvisation, and recalling, for me, my Saint Dominic's years.

Your late father was a great commentator on liturgical prayer. In his craft, he prayed with his hands, as all his liturgical iron work bear testimony in Saint Dominic's.

This weekend, in Milan, HH Pope Benedict XVI at the Media Hora shared in his homily:

Le nostre labbra, i nostri cuori

e le nostre menti, nella preghiera

ecclesiale, si fanno interpreti 

delle necessità e degli aneliti

dell'intera umanità.

Lips, hearts, minds are,

in the Divine Office,

interpreters of needs

and aspirations..

The theme of a recent World Communications' Day was Silence and Word (HH Pope Benedict XVI, Vatican News)

..Helping to forge a strong

interior personality.. to witness

and accomplish good, even at

a cost.  HH Pope Benedict XVI

Acknowledgements

Liturgia Horarum and ICEL Texts

Vatican Radio News and Broadcasts

Santa Sede Documents

The Family who have afforded me my Agricultural encounter

My Photographs with Fuji Finepix X 100

My watercolour

Cordially, ΨΔ