When the swallows return to Capistrano

Mission San Juan Capistrano

 A little reading from today's saint and about the mission that bears his name...

 Those who are called to the table of the Lord must glow with the brightness that comes from the good example of a praiseworthy and blameless life. They must completely remove from their lives the filth and uncleanness of vice. Their upright lives must make them like the salt of the earth for themselves and for the rest of mankind...So it must be with the glowing lives of upright and holy clerics. By the brightness of their holiness they must bring light and serenity to all who gaze upon them. They have been placed here to care for others. Their own lives should be an example to others, showing how they must live in the house of the Lord.(
Mirror of the Clergyby Saint John of Capistrano)

There’s a figure in all this...for the condition of American Catholicism. Its long history, certainly, from the Spanish colonial beginnings on. But, most of all, San Juan Capistrano seems an image for recent decades—because sometime around 1970, the leaders of the Catholic Church in America took a stick and knocked down all the swallows’ nests...And it wasn’t until the swallows had been chased away that anyone seemed to realize how much the Church itself needed them, darting around the chapels and flitting through the cathedrals. They provided beauty, and eccentricity, and life. What they did, really, was provide Catholicism to the Catholic Church in America, and none of the multimedia Masses and liturgical extravaganzas in the years since—none of the decoy nests and artificial puddles—has managed to call them home. (Joseph Bottum, First Things)

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I've been reading a book entitled Salt: A World History. I know, it sounds a little odd, but I'm a unit study girl from way back so the idea of pivoting a study of history around this one element common to all cultures seems logical to me.

Anyway, there's one brief section I want to share that speaks to a theme we've talked about here from time to time - the human longing for beauty. From a chapter on mines controlled by the Polish Crown it says that at first, working the mines was basically a death sentence in slave conditions. Men would climb down 50 ladders and use hand tools to dig out the precious mineral. It was so hot that men worked naked. Horses that worked the mines spent their entire lives underground. In spite of all that, miners worked to improve conditions in small ways.

In 1689, the mines began offering miners daily Catholic services at their underground place-of-work. the miners of Wieliczka began carving religious figures out of rock salt. Three hundred feet below the surface, miners carved a chapel out of rock salt with statues and bas-relief scenes along the floor, walls, and ceiling. They even fashioned elaborate chandeliers from salt crystals.

Apparently you can still visit there today. It's really pretty amazing!

Travel plans to Belgium?

I was just over at NLM reading about the Praying with Needle and Thread vestment exhibit at Tongerlo Abbey in Belgium. The title of this exhibit alone is enough to make me want to go! Spend a few minutes there today marveling at the incredible details of these beautiful works. You'll be glad you did!

Coolest pub name EVER

The pub is located in the picturesque Cotswold village of Shutford, five miles west of Banbury. The stone building dates back to the thirteenth century, and is Grade II listed. The bar is quite unique in that when you order a pint you are actually twelve feet underground - the pub is built into the side of a hill, with the historic St. Martins church sitting above it. Legend has it that the pub is haunted by several ghosts, and is linked to the manor house by a secret tunnel built in smuggling days. [More information]
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