#'she becomes the saint par excellence' | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

bopinion · 2 years

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2022 / 20

Aperçu of the Week:

"In every man there is something of a murdered Mozart."

(Antoine de Saint-Exupery - I have no idea what he was trying to say with that, either)

Bad News of the Week:

The largest minority in the world is actually the majority: women. Actually, it's unbelievable that I was already born when married women in Germany could neither open a bank account nor terminate an employment contract without the consent of their husband. Because for me it has actually always felt like equal rights. And yet, for example, there are still salary gender gaps in virtually all "developed societies." And the current US Republican campaign against abortion rights is nothing but misogynistic either. But that's nothing compared to the rest of the world.

In China, people still celebrate only when the child becomes a boy. In India, infanticide still occurs simply because it is a girl. And with rapes and murders the society hardly concerns itself. And this is often the case in the animal kingdom: in birds, the males celebrate the most beautiful courtship dances and the females hatch the eggs. And with lions, the male becomes king while the female does the work, vulgo goes hunting. What the fuck!?!

Speaking of "What the fuck!?!": the Taliban. I remember it clearly, how after they took power in Afghanistan, they announced they would support a more open society. Women's rights would be recognized. It would not be like it used to be. And? Fiddlesticks. First, women lost their jobs in public administration. Then their freedom of movement was restricted. Then they lost their access to education. And now it's back, the symbol par excellence of the social oppression of women: the burqa. Women are now only allowed to go out in public with the full veil. The official reason given by the "Ministry for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice" (no joke!): if anything were to be seen of them, it would "only provoke men unnecessarily". And besides, their place is at home anyway. With the kitchen and the children.

Where does that come from? I've never understood it. Every man on the planet - and virtually every animal except seahorses - was carried by a woman. It is the mother who gives us life, takes care of us, raises us. She is the primary fixed person in our earliest memories. And yet, to many boys who have grown up, it seems perfectly normal to later patronize this wonderful person. And all of their peers. To then marry one of them to give him boys. Pfff...

I am the father of a daughter. Who sometimes gets on my nerves terribly and causes many sleepless nights, who has and makes mistakes, doesn't get everything together or in order, is at least as much of a smartass and a pain in the ass as I am, sometimes misses the mark and still has a lot to learn - and above all is just perfect. Should anyone ever dare to treat her disparagingly merely because of her gender, I will come down on him (yes, because it will be a man!) like the wrath of God. Because she doesn't deserve that any more than any other woman. Not with me. And this is how all of us men should think.

Good News of the Week:

Initial energy policy measures to counter dependence on Russia seemed less than forward-looking, see the begging trips to the Arab world and the creation of LNG ("liquid natural gas") terminals in German ports. But now Putin's war may actually prove to be a catalyst for renewable energy sources. As a wake-up call to finally counteract the climate crisis with appropriate vigor and speed. Fossil fuels are a dead end - it's as simple as that.

On a small scale, the Bavarian state government laid out its plans in this regard at the end of the week: a doubling of renewable energy by 2030 - a plan that is revolutionary by local standards, as it envisages 800 new wind turbines in addition to more hydroelectric and solar energy. Which are anything but popular here: people like to talk about the "asparagus shock", which objectively detracts from the objectively beautiful landscape. But you can't make an omelet without breaking eggs.

On a much larger scale, things are also moving forward on the European stage. For one thing, Denmark, the Netherlands, Belgium and Germany have joined forces to build a massive wind farm in the North Sea. For another, European Union Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has announced a new 300 billion euro package to act as a turbo for the 2019 Green Deal. This is because the targets already set will be increased once again: the EU energy savings target for 2030 will be raised from the previous nine percent to 13. And by that time, 45 percent of energy is to be generated from renewable sources, rather than the current 40. With the pleasant side effect of also achieving energy independence from Russia more quickly.

So the Russian war of aggression will fall on the country's feet in this respect as well: it will irrevocably lose the best customers for its most important export goods, fossil fuels. If China and India then resist the temptation to give preference to dirty energy at low prices over sustainable sources, all will be well. Only for the Russian people will it take its toll that the leaders in politics and business have criminally failed to develop a viable economic model for the future. I recommend taking a look at Norway, ready to learn.

Personal happy moment of the week:

Premiere: the first time I knew in advance what my happy moment of the week would be. Because for the first time since the beginning of the pandemic we went to a concert - almost a premiere. The concert had already been postponed twice. Yesterday was the day: Jamie Cullum in the Isarphilharmonie in Munich. An artist I have known and appreciated for ages, but had never seen live. Unlike my wife, who discovered him at the same time on the other side of the world and constantly raves to me about what an excellent performer he is on stage. And guess what? She was right!

So, here's what I haven't written in advance: Guess what? She was right! This guy is really synonymous with versatility: whether alone at the piano, in a classic three piece ensemble or with the whole band. Whether jazz classics, ballads or rocking party bangers. It didn't keep anyone in their seats for long. Speaking of seats, friends and we sat in a beer garden before the concert and in a bar afterwards. A typical Saturday night on the town. Back to normal life. Nice.

I couldn't care less...

...about the monkeypox infections now emerging in Europe, in view of which the WHO warns today that a strategy against it is "urgently needed". Two simple facts are included: those who received a smallpox vaccination as a child are also well protected against this variant. And who uses Corona protective measures, is just as well protected. So again for the record: Vaccination and mask are effective means against any infection.

As I write this...

...come the results of the election in Australia. And apparently the conservative (he is only liberal on record) head of government Scott Morrison was punished for understanding his job more as a lobbyist for fossil energy - Australia is the world leader in coal-fired power generation with more than 70 % and did not want to change this so far - than to set up his country in a future-proof and sustainable way. Now the social democrat Anthony Albanese will probably take over the office. And he had promised more environmental protection in the election campaign. Let's see.

Post Scriptum:

The war in Ukraine is anything but over. And yet its legal processing is already beginning. Last Wednesday, the first Russian soldier stood trial in Kiev, a 21-year-old young man who went to war to support his family financially. The charge is war crimes, he shot a 62-year-old civilian - who happened to be passing by on a bicycle and saw him stealing a car. And he admitted it, on the first day of trial. A life sentence for murder now awaits him. And another 11,000 (!) cases are already on file. It is to be hoped that this information will also make it to the front. And reminds the Russian soldiers, most of whom are, after all, just following orders: even in a war, there are rules.

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daimonclub · 5 months

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Blessed Virgin Mary and Rosa Mystica

The Holy Virgin by Michelangelo Blessed Virgin Mary and Rosa Mystica, an article with some quotes and a personal story on the Holy Virgin, divine symbol of motherhood, love, life and sorrow, with reference to Rosa Mystica apparitions. Close to December 8th, the day on which the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary is celebrated, and preparations for Holy Christmas begin, I want to dedicate this article to my mother, Innocenza Laffranchi, who recently passed away, to her godmother Lina Bonazza, to her sister Lucia, and her brothers, Don Enrico and Arturo, all people with good and generous hearts, very religious and above all devoted to the Holy Vergin Mary. A memory also to Sister Iginia, choir teacher of the parish of Leno (Brescia), where my mother sang as a child. At the time my mother was very young and happy, she wasn't married yet, I wasn't born, and she had not yet suffered the difficulties and the pains of life, above all due to her illnesses in the old age. She died at 90 years old, and when she physically disappeared I felt to have lost not only a mother, but also a child and what's more, a person who always loved and took care of me, even in the most difficult moments. That's the reasons why I like to associate her and also all the women of this earth to the Blessed Holy Virgin Maria. Only after losing your mother forever you can understand the essence of true love and the excruciating pain of life passing away. Carl William Brown O Virgin Mother, daughter of your own Son (of Christ-God), the most humble and the highest of all creatures, fixed term of divine wisdom, you are the one who has ennobled human nature to such an extent that its Creator did not disdain becoming his creature (with the Incarnation). Dante Alighieri: The invocation to the Virgin (Paradiso, XXXIII, 1-39)

Innocenza and Lina Mompiano Brescia 1952 The three great mother divinities of the oriental peoples seem to have been both generative and annihilating; goddesses of life and fertility at the same time as goddesses of death. Sigmund Freud The Madonna is the essence of woman, she is the divine symbol of the mother par excellence, she is the spirit of life and love who endures and resists pain, suffering and death, to make the memory of her children immortal. Carl William Brown From now on I want to imagine death as a tender and affectionate mother who with extreme love, holding me smiling at her breast for all eternity, instead of giving me life will take it away from me. Carl William Brown In fact, complete happiness cannot silence the pain. Less than ever can the art that consoles, the technique that produces, the virtue that administers. Salvatore Natoli The maternal feeling is more directly satisfied than real motherhood, but it can find outlet in every child who needs a mother, in every creature who needs tenderness, care and an altruistic devotion driven to sacrifice in order to survive and grow. H. Deutsch Every man, without knowing it, seeks in a woman above all the memory of the time in which his mother hugged him. Marguerite Yourcenar

Blessed Holy Virgin I have never thought of anything other than doing my duty, praying and trusting in Our Lady. Don Bosco We have an infinite desire for love, for understanding, for trust, for beauty, for joy, for peace. We are so tired of this world which from every side, with its wickedness, assails us and disturbs us. Enrico Medi In every danger invoke Mary and I assure you that you will be heard. Don Bosco Holy Mary, Mother of God, preserve for me a child's heart, pure and transparent like a spring. Father Leonzio de Grandmaison If the winds of temptation arise, if you go against the rocks of tribulations, look at the star, invoke Mary! Saint Bernard The Mother of God is our Mother. The Mother of the one in whom we hope is our Mother. the Mother of the one who alone can save is our Mother. Saint Anselm of Aosta Jesus, Son of God, I beg you: for the infinite love you bring to your mother, allow me to love her as you love her and want her to be loved. Saint Anselm of Aosta

The Holy Virgin and Jesus The Madonna is the sacred character most "seen" or "heard" by ordinary people, more than God and Jesus. She is therefore a somewhat cumbersome figure for the Church, and which according to many anthropologists reflects the need to reaffirm a religiosity feminine, like those linked to fertility and the land which were on the scene in Europe for thousands of years before Christianity. Ave Maria. With more than a thousand shrines in Italy alone, Mary is the most popular female figure in the world: there is no country today that does not have an institute or association dedicated to her. After having gone from the status of a simple Palestinian girl from Galilee, in the zero year of our era, to the icon of the supreme mother in the Divine Comedy, from Michelangelo's Pietà, to the coat of arms of Pope John Paul II, where her initial stands out, "M". Here's the story. The Hero is nothing more than a special character born from the union of a god or goddess with a human being. He/She is an ingenious intermediate being between gods and men appointed to intervene in the world with exceptional deeds. The hero knows how to struggle with extreme courage and generosity, and for reasons or ideals deemed extremely valid and righteous he can even lead to the sacrifice of himself, because he is aware that his deeds will continue to feed the myth, the story, and the narrative literature in the future. The origin of this story dates back from a few years ago, but perhaps we could better say that it begins at the dawn of Christianity and maybe also a lot of time before. However we are in 1992 when a strange woman contacts an even more mysterious character. The two did not know each other and the reason for their meeting is a language consultancy that the unusual and curious lady requires to the young and odd scholar whose name is not even known to her. Everything is resolved in a week and gives rise to some translations in various languages of a small booklet of prayers that relate to a poor country seer who has witnessed several times to the Holy Virgin Mary's apparitions.

The Holy Virgin Rosa Mystica So our atheist translator does the indirect knowledge of Mrs. Pierina Gilli, the Holy Virgin Rosa Mystica and a place about twenty kilometers from his home, the Fontanelle in Montichiari, on the outskirts of Brescia. Eight years later in a July temperate day our hero finally finds himself with his mother in the attractive resort and he is inexplicably so deeply impressed that he can also have a short conversation with the Blessed Virgin Mary in person, who, however, does not say even a word. It may seem absurd at all to everyone, but not to our strange and surreal writer who has ever since been reborn more than once, and now he makes himself call Mr. Carl William Brown, that is the founder of the Daimon Club! The text of the communication is short, sharp, terse, concise, evocative. The receiver does hear nothing but these words: "Dear friend, you are an atheist, but you're more religious than a mystic and that's why I want you to criticize the power of stupidity in this world." Then she continued: "I am the mother of mankind, which becomes more and more absurd and selfish and always forgets more often to follow the Christian message. Now I want you to communicate my verb and in return I will help you in your struggle against the power and authority of banality. Our voices will rise up high in the sky, in the myth, in the story, both in joy and in suffering. You know perfectly well that religion is nothing but literature and life is nothing but art, that's why everyone must be able to communicate, and everybody should be able to know the truth against any kind of intolerance. So considering that you have always studied and read the sacred works, you may have the right, even if you do not believe, to be able to have your say. Therefore go and reveal my words and they will be stupid, selfish and intolerant those who do not divulge yours ideas, thoughts and criticisms ... "

Innocenza at the Fontanelle Sanctuary As a matter of fact our hero was a bit dazzled by the brilliant intuition but he also felt himself invested with a secular mission and seized by a strange and subdued excitement, after this visit to the charming good place he went away almost pleased. The fascinating story ends here for the time being, because its protagonists do not want to go further. Their paths are split and their adventures are becoming increasingly more strange, but there remain several and different things they have in common, and they are the myth, the story, the mystery, the visions, the suffering, the pain, the meditation, the reflection, the peace, the struggle and the desire for a happier life. In this our actors are not so different and that's why our hero is preparing to make his most complete, devoted and sincere tribute to Our Lady Rosa Mystica of Fontanelle and to his beloved clairvoyant, Pierina Gilli from Montichiari. For more information, any clarification and guidance material you are advised to contact the official website of the Sanctuary of Our Lady Rosa Mystica in Montichiari, since on 7 December 2019, the Roman Catholic Diocese of Brescia inaugurated a shrine to the Blessed Virgin under the title Rosa Mystica – Mother of the Church. The sanctuary is a response to the claims of Pierina Gilli who reported Marian apparitions in Montichiari and neighbouring Fontanelle, Italy, in 1947 and 1966. Whether or not the source was a genuine apparition of the Virgin Mary, Pierina actively promoted a devotion to Our Lady with three roses upon her breast and a way of practicing devotion to Mary under the title "Rosa Mystica". Rosa Mystica (or Mystical Rose) is a poetic title of Mary. One form of Marian devotion is invoking Virgin Mary's prayers by calling upon her using a litany of diverse titles, and the title 'Mystical Rose' is found in the Litany of Loreto. It is also a Catholic title of Our Lady based on the Marian apparitions reported between 1947 and 1966 by Pierina Gilli at Montichiari and Fontanelle, in Italy.

Pierina Gilli Italian visionary The Biblical source of the title is Song of Songs 2:1, often translated, "I am the Rose of Sharon". Bishop Robert C. Morlino draws a connection to Isaiah 11:1, "But a shoot shall sprout from the stump of Jesse, and from his roots a bud shall blossom. This is also reflected in the German Advent hymn Es ist ein Ros entsprungen, known in English as ""Lo, how a rose e'er blooming", which makes reference to the Old Testament prophecies of Isaiah which in Christian interpretation foretell the Incarnation of Christ, and to the Tree of Jesse, a traditional symbol of the lineage of Jesus. The statue of Virgin Mary under the title of Mystical Rose enshrined within the chapel of Montichiari-Fontanelle (Italy) apparitions Location Montichiari and Fontanelle (Italy) Date 1947–1966 Witness Pierina Gilli Type Marian apparition Shrine Sanctuary of Mystical Rose – Mother of the Church Attributes The Blessed Virgin Mary featuring three swords, or three roses in red, white and yellow. Feast day July 13 (feast day) December 8 (at noon, the so-called "Hour of Universal Grace") THE GREAT MESSAGE As at Fatima, after the vision of Hell, She has taught: "Oh Jesus, forgive our sins, preserve us... etc." and She wanted to establish The Devotion to His Immaculate Heart, in the same way now, on 13th of every month She is recalled so that She may be lived and consacrated for the Mystical Body, Christ's limbs, of whom Maria Rosa Mistica is the Mother. In the morning, at half past five, on 13th July The Holy Vergin appeared among a very shining light: a very beautiful Lady, dressed in a white satin dress with silver reflections: She had a white mantle as well fixed under the chin coming down till her feet, allowing to see some small light brown forlock. The mantle's border was finely embroidered in Gold. The Holy Virgin opened her arms and with them the mantle: instead of the three swords she showed on Her chest three Roses: WHITE - RED - GOLDEN-JELLOW.

The Blessed Holy Virgin Mystic Rose At her right arm She had a beautiful Rosary ending with a stupendous medal. Meanwhile Pierina Gilli was down on her knees in ecstasy, near the nuns with whom She had prayed, and the Celestial Lady with a sweet smile like this spoke: I am the Mother of all of you. Our God send me in order to bring a NEW MARIAN VOCATION in all the Institutes and Religious Congragations and also to the Secular Priests. I promise to all these Institutes and Congregations that most honour me that they will be protected: they will have many more Vocations, less souls that offend the Lord with mortal sins, less Vocations betrayed and sanctity in the Ministers of God. I wish the 13th day of the month to become a MARIAN DAY, to which 12 days of special prayers must be preceded. Such a day must be of REPARATION and must be for all the wrongs did against Our Lord. Such day is to be sanctified with particular prayers, among which the HOLY MASS, The St. ROSARY, the HOUR OF ADORATION. I would like the 13 July of every year to be celebrated in honour of Maria Rosa Mystica, especially inside the Institutes. In such a day, She continued with a joyful expression, I am going to make descend upon the Institutes and Religious Congragations, that would have honoured me, abundance of Graces and Sanctity of Vocations. On 22th October 1947 - after the miracle of blood, issued forth from the Crucifix upon the St. Purificator - she added: "I'm acting as a Mediatress among the human kind and most of all for the Religious Souls, since my Holy Son, tired of receiving continuous offences, wanted to exercise His Justice. I ensure my Protection for a living awakening of Faith and to let the selected Souls come back to the original spirit of their Holy Founders." You can also visit: Sanctuary of Our Lady Rosa Mystica Mamma, morte e memoria Halloween e la festa dei morti Madonne, madri e letterati Letteratura, religione, morti e psicologia Read the full article

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feuillesmortes · 2 years

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— Jean-Luc Nancy, Noli me tangere: On the Raising of the Body (tr. Sarah Clift, Pascale-Anne Brault, and Michael Naas)

#having feelings about mary magdalene #.....as usual #saint mary madgalene #noli me tangere #essays and criticism #jean-luc nancy #'she becomes the saint par excellence'

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creepingsharia · 3 years

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“There Was Blood All Over”: Muslim Persecution of Christians, January 2021

by Raymond Ibrahim

The following are among the abuses inflicted on Christians by Muslims throughout the month of January, 2021:

Attacks on Churches

USA: Arsonists torched an Armenian church in San Francisco in a spike of anti-Armenian hate crimes believed to have been inspired by Armenia’s recent clash with its Muslim neighbors, Azerbaijan and its Turkish supporter. According to the Jan. 6 report,

In the San Francisco Bay Area alone, there have been four hate crimes committed against the Armenian community over the last six months including a local Armenian School being vandalized with hateful and racist graffiti, which was followed by an arson attack on St. Gregory Armenian Apostolic Church. There are about 2,500 Armenian-Americans living in the San Francisco Bay Area, so these crimes per capita is a very high number given how small the community is. For a region of the country that prides itself on its progressivism, diversity and acceptance of all cultures, these latest attacks should be a warning sign that hate and violence can rear their ugly heads irrespective of where you may live…. The vandals at the Armenian School in San Francisco spray-painted the colors of the Azerbaijan flag and used threatening language in Azerbaijani. In many ways, these latest hate crimes, coupled with the resurgence of hostilities in the South Caucasus, are a continuation of the Armenian Genocide that is now finding its way to the San Francisco Bay Area. It is often said that those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it. We are clearly seeing these prophetic words come to life for Armenians in the San Francisco Bay Area who have fought for decades for recognition of the Armenian Genocide. As victims of oppression, Armenians see these latest attacks as an extension of Turkey and Azerbaijan’s denial of the 1915 Armenian Genocide and a threat to their very existence.

Sweden: Twice over the course of four days, an 800-year-old church in Stockholm was firebombed. First, on Sunday, Jan. 24, 2021, several Molotov cocktails were hurled at the twelfth century Spånga church, which is located in a Muslim majority area. According to the church’s pastor, “the alarm was triggered when a window was smashed and flammable liquid thrown at the front gate and one of the windows. However, the fire was quickly put out by the police, who used a powder extinguisher.” The same church had been fire-bombed just four days earlier, on Jan. 20, 2021: two explosives were hurled at and smashed through the church windows, and another was lobbed at the church gate. Moreover, according to one report,

Spånga parish has been subjected to attacks on several previous occasions. In December 2018, an explosive device was detonated in the same parish. No one was convicted for the blast.

Hailing from the 12th century, the Spånga Church is one of the oldest in the Swedish capital. It is located on the outskirts of Tensta and is flanked by Rinkeby, both notorious for their heavy presence of immigrants (about 90 percent of the population)… Both areas are dominated by immigrants from Muslim countries and are formally classified as “particularly vulnerable” (which many consider to be a palatable euphemism for a “no-go zone”) due to failed integration and major problems including unemployment, rampant crime and Islamic extremism.

Attacks against churches have become a familiar sight in Sweden. Last year alone, a number of churches, mostly those in troubled suburban [i.e., heavily Muslim migrant] areas, were subjected to various types of attacks and vandalism, including those in Gottsunda, Uppsala and Rosengård, Malmö.

Philippines: An Islamic group consisting primarily of teenage Muslims opened fire on a church. According to the Jan. 8 report,

the Islamic State-linked Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters [BIFF], a terrorist group based in the southern Philippines, attacked a parish church after conducting a raid on the town’s military and police outposts. After a 15-minute firefight, both the church building and a statue of the patron saint bore bullet holes. Police and military authorities said the BIFF had also plotted to set ablaze Sta. Teresita parish church and the church-run Notre Dame of Dulawan high school in the area. However, their attempt to burn the two church facilities was foiled by policemen and soldiers.

BIFF is an Islamic separatist organization operating in the Philippines; it swore allegiance to the Islamic State in 2014. Right before the church attack, dozens of gunmen from the Islamic group attacked the local police station and burned a police vehicle parked outside. The police attack came after two men connected with the group were arrested and is seen as a reprisal attack against police. Muslim terrorism has been on the rise in the Philippines, the population of which is 86% Christian. According to the report,

In August [2020], pro-ISIS terrorists blew themselves up in attacks that killed at least 15 people … and injured 80 others in the city of Jolo … in the far south of the country, whose population is majority Roman Catholic.

In 2019, terrorists set off two explosive devices at the Our Lady of Mount Carmel Cathedral, also known as the Jolo Cathedral, in the Mindanao region. The attack resulted in approximately 100 injuries and about 20 dead.

In August 2019, pastor Ernesto Javier Estrella of the United Church of Christ in Antipas, Cotabato Province, was shot and killed on the Island of Mindanao.

In June 2018, Catholic priest Richmond Nilo was gunned down in a chapel in Zaragoza town in Nueva Ecija province, at the altar where he was preparing to celebrate mass.

Slaughter of Christians

Pakistan: The bloated bodies of two Christian sisters, who had long rebuffed the advances of their Muslim employers, were found in a sewer in January 2021. Earlier, on November 26, the sisters, Sajida (28) and Abida (26), who were both married and had children, were reported as missing. The two Muslim men for whom they worked had regularly pressured them to convert to Islam and marry them. Even though the young women “made it clear that they were Christian and married, the men threatened them and kept harassing the sisters.” Forty days after they were reported missing, on January 4, 2021, their decomposed bodies were discovered. Their Muslim supervisors, during their interrogation, “confessed that they had abducted the sisters,” said Sadija’s husband; “and after keeping them hostage for a few days for satisfying their lust, had slit their throats and thrown their bodies into the drain.” The widower described the families’ ordeal:

When police informed us that they had identified the two bodies as those of our loved ones, it seemed that our entire world had come crumbling down…. I still cannot fathom the site [sic] of seeing my wife’s decomposed body.

Discussing this case, Nasir Saeed, Director of the Centre for Legal Aid Assistance and Settlement in the UK, said,

The killing of Abida and Sajida in such a merciless way is not an isolated case, but the killing, rape and forced conversion of Christian girls have become an everyday matter and the government has denied this and therefore is doing nothing to stop the ongoing persecution of Christians. Unfortunately, such cases happen very often in the country, and nobody pays any attention – even the national media – as Christians are considered inferior and their lives worthless.

Nigeria: On Jan. 16, Muslim Fulani herdsmen opened fire on and killed Dr. Amos Arijesuyo, pastor of Christ Apostolic Church and a highly respected professor at the Federal University of Technology. “The university condemns in the strongest terms this senseless attack that has led to the untimely death of an erudite university administrator and counselor par excellence,” the university said in a statement. “Dr. Arijesuyo’s death is a big loss to FUTA, the academic community in Nigeria and beyond. It is a death that should not have happened in the first place…. Our prayers and thoughts are with the wife, children and family members of our departed colleague at this difficult period of unquantifiable grief.”

In the two weeks before this murder, Muslim Fulani herdsmen killed 26 more people and wounded three in Christian majority regions. A separate report appearing in mid-January revealed that “More Christians are murdered for their faith in Nigeria than in any other country.”

Finally, in a speech released in January, Abubakar Shekau, the leader of the Islamic terror group Boko Haram, made clear that, despite Western claims that his organization is motivated by secular interests, religion colors everything. According to the Jan. 28 report, Shekau called on the new Chief of Defense Staff, Lt. General Lucky Irabor, a Christian, to “repent and convert to Islam.” He also told the new Chief of Army staff, Major General Ibrahim Attahiru, that, by going against Boko Haram, his behavior is “un-Islamic” and “he is no longer regarded as a Muslim.”

Attacks on Apostates and Evangelists

Uganda: A Muslim man beat his 13-week-pregnant wife, causing her to miscarriage, after he learned that she had converted to Christianity. On Jan. 13, Mansitula Buliro, the 45-year-old woman in question and mother of seven, was preparing for Muslim evening prayers with her husband when she began to have Christian visions. On the following day she secretly visited a Christian neighbor, prayed with her, and put her faith in Christ. Right before she left, a Muslim man knocked on the Christian neighbor’s door and said, “Mansitula, I thought you were a Muslim—how come I heard prayers mentioning the name of Issa [Jesus]?” Then, when Mansitula returned home her husband informed her that he had been told that she had become Christian. “I kept quiet,” Mansitula later explained in an interview:

My husband started slapping and kicking me indiscriminately. I then fell down. He went inside the house and came back with a knife and started cutting my mouth, saying, ‘Allahu akbar, Allahu akbar, Allahu akbar [jihadist slogan “Allah is greater”], I am punishing you to not speak about Yeshua [Jesus] in my house. This is a Muslim home.’

Her screaming caused her two youngest children (six and eight) also to start screaming, prompting neighbors to rush and stop the attack. “There was blood all over from my mouth,” Mansitula said. “My in-laws arrived, and in their presence my husband pronounced divorce: ‘Today you are no longer my wife. I have divorced you. Leave my house, or I will kill you.’” A neighbor took her by motorcycle to a nearby hospital. “I was examined, and they found that my fetus had been affected, and after four days I had a miscarriage…. It is now very difficult to reunite with my family. I am now Christian, and I have decided for Issa’s cause.”

Separately, on Dec. 27, around 7 pm, eight Muslims ambushed and beat Pastor Moses Nabwana and his wife, a mother of eight, as they were walking home from a church function: “They began by beating my husband, hitting him with sticks and blunt objects on the head, the back, his belly and chest,” Naura, his wife, said. “I made a loud alarm, and one of the attackers hit me with blows and a stick that affected my chest, back and broke my hand.” Christian neighbors rushed to their cries, prompting the assailants to flee. Due to the severe injuries they sustained, the wife was hospitalized for five days and her husband, Pastor Moses, was hospitalized for several more days. The assault came after area Muslims learned that an imam had converted to Christianity and joined their church; mosque leaders incited the attack. On that same night, “area Muslims demolished the roof, windows, doors and other parts of the[ir] church building that has a capacity for 500 people, leaving a heap of broken debris… Chairs, benches, musical instruments, amplifiers and other items were destroyed.”

Then, around 4:30 am on Sunday, Jan. 24, while the pastor was still recovering at the hospital, three Muslims broke into their home, again beating his wife, Naura—who was still recovering from her first beating—as well as two of their eight children. “I heard loud noises and plates being broken,” Naura recalled. “The children and I woke up. The attackers had broken the door and entered in. One started strangling me, while another threw one of my daughters outside through the window and broke the skin on her leg.” The Muslims fled before inflicting more damage once they learned that her brother-in-law and his family were rushing over: “The assailants left behind a Somali sword,” she said, “which I think they possibly had planned to use to rape and then kill me.” Naura’s 10 year-old daughter suffered a deep cut on her knee, and her 12-year-old daughter suffered an eye injury. Atop all the injuries she suffered from her first beating, Naura’s neck was injured: “I am still in great pain, and the doctor has recommended that my uterus, which is seriously damaged, needs to be removed,” she said. “This will need a big amount of money.” According to a church leader who visited Naura and her family in their thatched-roof dwelling the day after the attack, “She is still in pain and needs basic assistance in the absence of the husband, the bread-winner.”

Iran: On Jan. 18, the Islamic Republic’s “morality police” arrested Fatemeh (Mary) Mohammadi, a 22-year-old convert to Christianity and human rights activist, on the accusation that “her trousers were too tight, her headscarf was not correctly adjusted, and [that] she should not be wearing an unbuttoned coat.” This is the third time officials arrest Mary. She did six months of prison time, after her first arrest, for being a member of a house church—which the regime recently labeled as “enemy groups” belonging to a “Zionist” cult; she also spent a brief time in jail after participating in a peaceful protest in April 2020. Officials have also pressured her employer, whom she always had a good relationship with, to prevent her from returning to work as a gymnastics instructor; and she was kicked out of her university on the eve of her exams. Reflecting on her travails, Mary wrote that:

Everything is affected… Your work, income, social status, identity, mental health, satisfaction with yourself, your life, your place in society, your independence…. And as a woman it’s even harder to remain patient and endure, in a society so opposed to women and femininity, though crying out for them both.

Attacks on Christian ‘Blasphemers’ in Pakistan

Pakistan: On Jan. 28, hospital employees slapped and beat a Christian nurse who had worked there for nine years, after a Muslim nurse told them that she had said “only Jesus is the true Savior and that Muhammad has no relevance.” A hospital member recorded and loaded a video of the attack on Tabeeta Nazir Gill, a 42-year-old Catholic gospel singer. It shows the woman surrounded by a throng of angry Muslims who slap her and demand she “confess your crime in writing.” “I swear to God I haven’t said anything against the prophet [Muhammad],” the Christian woman insists in the video. “They are trying to trap me in a fake charge.” “Fortunately, someone called the police, and they promptly arrived on the scene and saved her life,” Pastor Eric Sahotra later explained. After questioning the accused, police concluded, based also on the testimony of other co-workers, that “A Muslim colleague made the false accusation due to a personal grudge,” continued the pastor:

Other hospital employees were misled into believing the allegation, so they also attacked Tabeeta…. News of the incident spread quickly through the social media, raising fears of mob violence outside the hospital and other areas.

A Muslim mob later descended on and besieged the police station; this prompted police to register a First Information Report against Gill under Section 295-C of Pakistan’s blasphemy statues—which calls for the maximum death penalty for anyone who verbally insults Islam’s prophet, Muhammad. Last reported, the woman’s two young children were “in a state of shock since the time they saw the graphic video of their mother’s beating,” said the pastor. No legal action was taken against the Muslim nurse who fabricated the blasphemy accusation to instigate her coreligionists. The report adds that,

In Pakistan, false accusations of blasphemy are common and often motivated by personal vendettas or religious hatred. Accusations are highly inflammatory and have the potential to spark mob lynchings, vigilante murders and mass protests. Many of those accused of blasphemy never reach the courtroom; violence has killed 62 accused people since 1990, with few prosecutions.

Separately, hundreds of Muslims descended on the village of a 25-year-old Christian man, and threatened to behead him and torch his and adjoining homes, soon after it became known that he had shared a Facebook post critical of Muhammad. According to the Jan. 5 report, on first learning that Muslims were angry, Raja Warris apologized, pointing out that he had only shared the post “for academic understanding between Christians and Muslims and did not mean to offend any Muslims.” The matter seemed to be closed after that; but then, and in the words of Rev. Ayub Gujjar, vice moderator of the Raiwind Diocese of the Church of Pakistan,

[W]e were informed by our congregation members in Charar that a huge mob had gathered in the locality on the call of a cleric affiliated with the extremist religio-political outfit, Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan [TLP], and were demanding the beheading of the catechist. Fearing violence, hundreds of Christian residents fled their homes while around 400 anti-riot policemen were deployed in the area to thwart violence.

Rev. Gujjar and other Christian leaders rushed to the police station, which was quickly surrounded by Muslims who “chanted slogans against Christians,” prompting police to insist that Warris be handed over. Police then registered a First Information Report under Section 295-A and Section 298-A of Pakistan’s blasphemy laws, which call for up to 10 years imprisonment for blasphemers, and then showed it to the mob leaders, at which point they called off the siege and dispersed. Discussing this incident, Bishop of Raiwind Diocese Azad Marshall said that “Warris is an educated youth who loves to serve God.” Even so,

Christians especially need to be more careful in sharing content, because any faith-based post could be used to instigate violence against the community… We need to understand that Islamic religious sentiments run high in our country, therefore it’s important to carefully analyze the content before posting it online.

General Hostility for Christians and Christianity

Pakistan: On Jan. 5, a Muslim man severely beat his Christian employee because he had taken leave to attend a Christmas Day prayer service. Even though Ansar Masih had compensated for the missed day of work by working on the following Sunday, his manager was abusive. “When I argued with him, he called four other staffers to teach me a lesson for going to church and arguing with him,” Masih later explained. “They abused Christians for their religious practices and said derogatory words when they came to know that I was busy praying at the church.” The Christian man sustained several injuries during the assault and was taken to a local hospital. According to the report, as often happens in such cases,

Police officials and the men that assaulted Masih are now putting pressure on his family to settle the matter out of court. Masih has submitted an application to police regarding the incident, but not action has been taken by officers against Masih’s assailants.

Austria: According to a Jan. 5 report, approximately 40 Muslim migrants rioted and burned down a Christmas tree in Favoriten. On coming to extinguish the large tree, the fire brigade heard one of the migrants yelling: “A Christmas tree has no place in a Muslim district,” even as the raging mob pelted the emergency service officials with projectiles to screams of “Allahu Akbar.”

Raymond Ibrahim, author of Crucified Again and Sword and Scimitar, is a Distinguished Senior Fellow at the Gatestone Institute, a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center, and a Judith Rosen Friedman Fellow at the Middle East Forum.

About this Series

The persecution of Christians in the Islamic world has become endemic. Accordingly, “Muslim Persecution of Christians” was developed in 2011 to collate some—by no means all—of the instances of persecution that occur or are reported each month. It serves two purposes:

1) To document that which the mainstream media does not: the habitual, if not chronic, persecution of Christians.

2) To show that such persecution is not “random,” but systematic and interrelated—that it is rooted in a worldview inspired by Islamic Sharia.

Watch video below as Ibrahim describes his monthly report.

youtube

#Islam #Muslim #Sharia #Jihad #Immigration #Legal #Law #News #Media #Politics #Mosque #persecution #Terror #Travel #Religion

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thehollowprince · 4 years

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CONTEXT IS EVERYTHING

I got a reblog from one of the people that really dislike Scott McCall on one of my asks today. Like, an actual reblog and not just another anon chasing their tail in circles trying to convince me, themselves and the rest of the world that Scott was truly just Bad™. I was super surprised because that usually doesn't happen until after their leaders Athena and Cole give them the signal, but in the same breath I wasnt surprised because they had me blocked so that I couldn't reply. Par for the course, I guess, but I managed to snag screencaps of the reply and I'm here to just... go through them.

My favorite part of this is that they seemed to have been under the impression that my answer to that anon was a challenge of some kind.

For anyone interested, this was all in response to this ask that I answered yesterday. I went through and debunked all of their points and that's what I'm going to do again with this.

1: are we referring to the first season when they broke up after Night School because Scott "abandoned" them to save their lives from Peter? Because, yes, Scott did send her texts and a picture of them when they were together, and she got upset, and after explaining things, guess what, he did, in fact, leave her alone!

2: I've already talked about Scott's interaction with Isaac in Anchors ad nauseam, which can be read here and here. If anyone doesn't want to read the second one (I admit, I can get a little long-winded), what I said was that I didn't like that scene because of how out-of-character it was for Scott. As for Jackson, with the way he treated people, Scott in particular, I'm honestly surprised that no one beat him before that. Scott has the patience of a saint to deal with that for as long as he did without snapping.

3: what's really weird about this is how these people who really dislike Scott (and just by how that was phrased I think I finally found the anon) always fixate on that time Scott shoved Isaac. Just that one moment, and you know why, because their were no moments after that. Scott had no objections to Allison and Isaac hooking up (they never got around to actually dating).

4: this is one of those moments where I want to shake people and say "please watch the damn show!", because what this dingus left out, like everything else in their reply, was context (more on that in a minute). In that scene where Scott yells at Allison (Raving), its after their plan starts to fall apart. That's one of Scott's legitimate flaws in the show (conveniently overlooked in favor of fictional flaws). When things don't go according to plan, he gets frazzled and upset. It's why he and Stiles work so well together, because Stiles excelled at the spur-of-the-moment stuff. Their plan to capture Jackson (to save his life) and discover who his master was wasnt going according to plan. As a matter of fact, it went completely belly up, and a lot of people were in danger. Forgive me if I give a scared sixteen-year-old some leeway in that situation.

6: this is another instance where you just know that they either haven't watched the show, or they've seen the episode once (probably when it aired) and have never gone back to watch it again, relying solely on their Tumblr community to reaffirm their stance on the situation. What this person failed to include, was that the hunters were already hunting Isaac and Erica and Boyd. They were after Derek's pack since the moment Gerard came to town and declared war on all werewolves, whether they were involved in Kate's death or not (Omega). No thought as t all is given to why Isaac, Erica and Boyd were even in that situation to begin with. Why did Derek involve children in his issues?

What this person is also leaving out is that Scott and Allison didn't get to talk about what happened to her mother at the rave until season three. After she killed herself, she was manipulated by Gerard into actively hunting Derek's pack, and basically told Scott to leave her alone while she contemplated murder.

But once again, we have that double standard rearing its ugly head. Why is Scott supposed to tell everyone everything, but the same doesn't apply to characters like Derek or Stiles? Why didn't Derek tell Scott about his history with the Argents and why he hated them so much? Why didn't Stiles tell Scott about Donovan's or Josh's deaths or Theo's involvement? Why is that the fandom allows themselves to empathize with how these characters are feeling, with allowing them to be emotional in their decisions, but not the lead?

This is where context becomes incredibly important, because without context, we get people making blanket statements about a character in order to paint them in a bad light. Without context, I could make statements like "Stiles is a murderer for killing Donovan" or "Stiles nearly killed a police station full of people" or "Lydia was in league with Peter to bring him back from the dead". Those statements by themselves don't put those characters in a good light, do they? But once you add the context to those situations, it changes the entire perspective of things.

With context, I know that Stiles didn't murder Donovan, but that it was an accident that happened in a life-or-death situation. With context, I know that it wasnt Stiles that planted those explosives, but the Nogitsune possessing him. With context, I know that it was Peter's hijacking of Lydia's mind and untapped power that allowed him to rise from the dead. We're allowed to remember the context of these situations, but why not ever when it concerns Scott and his hardships? Another good example is painting Scott as an idiot because he had bad grades, while completely ignoring the circumstances around his life that led to his grades slipping, namely the werewolf shenanigans he was getting dragged into. The double-standard comes in when a legion of fans come to Stiles' defense for writing an essay on the history of circumcision for an Economics class, because "he has ADD/ADHD" all over one throwaway line about him taking Adderall.

Context is everything, and it's amazing how often it's completely ignored when it comes to Scott.

Two more points.

Sadly, this isn't just something specific to the Teen Wolf fandom. Fandom in general seem to think that romance is the final evolution of any kind of relationship. It says something about them that that's where they're putting the emphasis on Scott's and Allison's relationship, and not the fact that they found their way back to being friends after everything that happened between them in season two.

And then there's this gem.

Wait... what?

I am so confused by this, because I'm not talking about a character I hate, but rather defending one I actually live against a campaign of misinformation. They use the word irony, but I don't think it means what they think it does (this isn't the Alanis Morrisette song).

Final thoughts: I often find myself wondering why I even humor these people anymore because it doesn't matter what I say, or what evidence I produce, they're just going to go out of their way to twist everything into making it sound like I think Coolsville sucks. But I'm like a cockroach, I persist. It's going to take more than they can throw at me to make me stop calling out the racism and double-standards that permeate this fandom.

#scott mccall defense squad #teen wolf fandom problems #teen wolf meta #fandom racism #context is everything

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border-spam · 4 years

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AU Troy Character Timeline

Right, so I saw an incredible breakdown of Troy’s mental journey/state of ego last night ( that I’ll see if I can get permission to post at some point ) that really kicked my confidence into overdrive for writing out a definitive timeline for the version of him I write about in drabbles/fics etc as it was so amazingly similar. This isn’t complete, it couldn’t be because man I have a lot of stuff for this guy, but I hope it’s interesting for people maybe looking for a somewhat logical bunch of HC content that works well with the info we were given ingame.

Writing this was like doing a jigsaw puzzle. Except ten pieces are missing, and you have 2 dominos and a Mrs Cupcake card instead. If you like any of this, feel free to use it. I’ll eventually expand on it in my own works.

Pre Pandora Era - 28 years pre BL3

Severe self esteem / image issues from very early childhood. Leda’s death left Typhon both terrified of Tyreen and desperately paranoid about her safety, leaving Troy to feel far less valued and loved as he found himself constantly failing to compete for attention from his remaining parent.

Typhon never outright called Troy a freak, but he overheard plenty of discussions with his mother and with Tyreen explaining why he was so sick all the time, why he looked the way he did, why he was broken. He never discussed these, they festered in the back of his mind for the rest of his life.

Strived from an early age to be useful, being useful gave him the belief he was valued, and a “Great job kid!” from his father felt good enough that it could almost replace feeling loved.

Misses his mother intensely from the day she died, for the rest of his life. Had no one else to have platonic intimacy with bar his sister, which never felt as freely given as with his mother.

Developed an extremely crippled sense of social behavior and rules. The only people the Twins could interact with till they landed on Pandora ( which I HC was between 18 -19 ) were each other, and their Father.

Left alone on a giant empty planet with no one to tell them no, or instill an understanding of social rules to them regarding others, left them with only a feeling of personal value for each other. This is an extremely dangerous state of mind for any person who will need to function in a social structure, especially a person in power.

Had it hammered into them over and over by their father that the galaxy outside their home was filled with murderers. Animals. Bandit filth. Not like them, not like their parents, horrible, vicious things that would kill them the second they could.

Internalised that to the point where it was a crucial part of their development of self as children. The twins would genuinely struggle to comprehend any other human they met was a person, because they were told their whole developing lives that no one they would meet bar their father would be.

Pre COV - 8 years pre BL3

Lands on Pandora with Tyreen. Woefully underprepared and worried sick, didn’t want to leave Nekro but had no other choice but to go with his sister or die. Misses his father immediately, but avoids talking about it, knowing it will cause an argument.

Disliked that their father had kept them on Nekro intensely, but not enough to hate him the way Tyreen did. This never changed and the regret for leaving him only rotted inside him over the years.

Very excited to finally meet new people, but his social skills are learned through watching old echos and while he can mimic them, he doesn’t understand social intricacies as well as he’d hoped. This sabotages their first few attempts to communicate with Pandoran non bandit natives.

Comes across as weird. Stutters, not good with eye contact, awkward in body language and very unnatural in appearance. Extremely tall (6″7), very thin and sickly looking with sallow skin and dark under eyes. His missing arm and quarter of his shoulder draw far more attention than he had ever expected and he becomes instantly self conscious of the damage to his right side, strongly disliking how it’s pointed out every time they try and interact with one of these idiots.

The twins only had the clothes they had travelled in and at this point they are pretty much rags patched together over nearly 2 decades. Didn’t understand how much appearances were going to matter, Troy had been sure he’d be able to “Mingle with the locals no problem.”, and now feels like he’s letting his sister down by failing to perform the way he’d been so sure of. They move onto the bandit clans once they get laughed out of the first small town they try to impress.

Their first few interactions with bandits have very bad results. They both get mocked a lot, Troy gets insulted even more. This is the first time in his life he’s met other men bar his father and the harsh reality that he is not like other men is really starting to hit hard. He’s monstrously tall, he has no muscle, he’s bony and sick and the bandits make very clear to him that he’s a freak.

Unable to defend himself verbally to people that don’t seem to speak a coherent language, he feels impotent and emasculated. Troy’s gift with words has always been his strong point, something he was proud of, and the bandits barely even understand what he’s saying. Any interest he’d had towards them as other people gets quashed. They clearly aren’t the same as he and Ty, they are beneath them. Savages. They aren’t people after all. His dad was right.

This is the point where he fully switches to seeing almost all others as non-persons. They aren’t people, they aren’t what he and Tyreen are, or they wouldn’t act like this in response to the twins. Any possible empathy he could have developed over time is aborted at this point, and he begins to craft the God King persona he understands he will need to disguise his shortcomings under if he’s going to be in the public’s eye.

Begins to create it piece by piece. Designs their outfits, designs his tattoos and mods, his monstrous arm, their name.

The Calypso twins are born, and the COV with them.

Early COV Era - 7 years pre BL3

As he learns how to communicate with bandits and craft a persona for Tyreen that they will be drawn to, the COV starts to form. While the huge majority of their followers are people they see as not even being the same species as them, they do also begin to fill the higher ranks with people they are meeting over time that they see as having value.

People with skills in categories they don’t, engineers, media experts, accountants, are drawn to the COV for the same reasons as the bandits. Opportunity, just a different sort.

Joining in the early days means having the twin’s ears, and those who have excellent ideas, or bring talent to the upper echelon that the twin's don’t have themselves, eventually end up as high priests and Saints. Department leaders (eg: Mouthpiece ). These are the kind of people he sees as people, though still not on par with himself or his sister in value. These are the few he would be capable of having functional conversations with, building simple relationships.

He has found value in his ability to be very useful within the COV. Leading the Media and Propaganda department has given him a huge amount of power, even if he still physically feels extremely frail.

He’s settled into living in Tyreen’s shadow, she’s the star, but he’s the puppeteer, and he’s happy for it to be that way for the most part. While she can sometimes step out of line or treat him like he’s not equal, he’s quick to remind her of her place during these outbursts, and their relationship is relatively stable.

Troy is fiercely loyal and surprisingly gentle with people he has a bond with. Despite his desperation to have meaningful connections, to be cared for and liked as himself, they don’t stay around him long.

No matter how hard he tries to give them what he thinks they want, they eventually leave, and he doesn’t understand that they are distancing themself because of how he treats other people, not them.

Troy’s complete inability to view the vast majority of people as people means he has a total lack of empathy towards almost everyone else, and this is a terrifying thing to experience first hand. He doesn’t understand this is why his “friends” leave, why they stop being friendly with him, or request to be transferred to another district.

“Why did you do that to them..?” - “Huh? Ohhhh, relax haha, it’s just a bandit.” - “What do you mean, just a bandit, they felt that Troy, what’s wrong with you?’ - "The hell? No, it’s a b.a.n.d.i.t. It’s not like us, it’s not like you, it’s just.. you know, a bandit! Doesn’t matter what I do to em.” -shrug- - “-horrified silence-”

He blames himself each time this happens and damages his already fractured self esteem further. He can’t comprehend that his actions are the problem, because he simply has no way to understand his actions are bad.

Each time someone close to him leaves, it’s another hit to his already crumbling self worth. He has absolutely no strong bonds with anyone bar his sister, who at times seems to barely like him, and he is genuinely desperate for validation and care from someone who likes Troy, not Calypso, not the God he pretends to be.

Every time another one of his “friends” vanishes, another of his little connections to his own humanity breaks. He gets angrier, and sadder, the God King a little more snarling and quicker to snap. It’s a sore point Tyreen tends to dig in during arguments too.

She doesn’t need anyone else, but she’s seen the near manic excitement and happiness he has when he connects with another person over a shared interest or they show actual genuine kindness towards him and not his title. If that person then becomes upset with his lack of empathy, or scared of it and abandons him, it’s another open wound on the already dying soul inside him that’s barely still breathing.

He has a complete and defined understanding of right and wrong, but those rules only apply to people, and his social development from infant to adult left his comprehension of other people so stunted, he cannot fathom that the vast majority of others are people.

God King Calypso is a fucking nightmare to anyone bar the select view he sees as “people like him”. A feral, cackling monster, as likely to airdrop a million dollars onto a tiny village and record the reaction, as he is to rip a bandits arms off during a raid and live steam them bleeding out. All the same to him. Just background NPCs in his game. Placeholder actors in his life. They don’t matter. All that does matter is how they make him feel, or how they further his sister’s goals.

Every year that passes by leaves the God King more polished and defined, more in control a persona, while inside its impenetrable shell Troy DeLeon is slowly being suffocated by the weight of his own sins, without having the ability to understand he had been sinning at all.

God King Era - 4 years pre Bl3

By this point, Troy’s isolation is now deadly. He is a deity, worshipped by billions, with absolutely no points of human contact in his life to anchor himself to reality. No one to help him understand how to apply his sense of right and wrong to his followers, only his sister, who is even more toxic and vicious than he is.

Every day since starting the COV, he’s distanced himself further from the worshippers, the bandits, the acolytes. They are screaming war meat now, they are chips to barter with, numbers on a viewer count, flesh to tear into when he wants to feel something.

His relationship with Tyreen is crumbling. She’s quicker now to imply he’s not as important, he’s not the Siren. She’s called him a parasite in front of a merger board, a burden during a discussion with department heads. Each new crack at his inner ego only strengthens the persona further. Makes it more attention seeking, more willing to lash out at others, more vicious.

His “friends"are long gone, either fled from the behemoth the COV now is, or far away in other districts, planets, cities. The people he is close with now in working relationships are held at arms length. He doesn’t let anyone near him anymore, he’s afraid they will leave too if he does.

The isolation pushes him further into the God King persona every day. If he’s Troy Calypso, he doesn’t NEED anyone else. The further he sinks into it, the more aggressive, the more twisted his actions become, but he doesn't see it that way. This is what his followers want, so it must be fine. Why wouldn’t it be fine to ravenously tear into heretics on livestream if 8 billion people are tuning in to watch?

He’s becoming cruel, he’s becoming vicious, but the man he was before he reached Pandora is still whispering that Tyreen is treating him wrong. That this isn’t how it was meant to be, that he’s not weak or a burden.

But listening to that voice means also having to listen to the one telling him he’s warped into something disgusting that his mother would be so let down by, that his father was right about him being a broken monstrosity. He continues to ignore it, and he loses himself further every day.

The deeper he recedes into the God King, the more he starts having nightmares, the more those whispers in the back of his mind get louder. He does what he can to ignore them, but sometimes something will set him off.

An argument with Tyreen, a momentary feeling of regret for leaving his home, a pang of loneliness. He often can’t sleep, and he knows if he starts to wonder why, clarity for the horrors he’s done could crush him.

Drugs, sex, bloodlust, he tries anything to take his mind off the intrusive thoughts that grow day by day. That he’s a failure. He’s a freak. He’s a cold blooded murder, but every now and then he’ll wake up in a cold sweat and hate himself so much that he wishes he’d never been born.

The feeling passes very quickly as the God King shifts back into place and swallows it down, but while it’s there it’s horrific. He see’s himself from other people’s eyes for just a moment and god what has he turned into. What has he done. He’s a fucking monster.

The man he had been is so damaged under the mantle of this vicious God he’s wearing as a skin that it’s barely alive anymore, and it’s what begs him to kill it in those fleeting moments where he sees past his own facade, where he just for a second realises how many people he has hurt.

He tore his throat out a couple of years before the start of the game story in a moment of lucidity after being sleep deprived for days on end. Tyreen reached him in time when his implanted vitals tracker each twin keeps for the other alerted her to his condition, but it was close enough that he was bedridden for days after her energy transfer closed the wound.

She had been furious with him and made sure it was was kept hushed, the rest of the clergy believing he was on reprieve. Only the twins know the truth of what happened.

He never takes the collars off anymore now, the scars are still there. Convincing Tyreen that it had had happened during a nightmare when he’d left his prosthetic on by mistake was easy. Convincing himself to try and forget he’d been lucid and how it still feels like the right thing to do, is not.

By the point the story begins, Troy is in a constant state of exhaustion, and knows deep down everything he has been through and done to others was for nothing. Tyreen doesn’t care about him the way he does her. She may never have, or she changed, he doesn’t know anymore.

What he does know, is that he won't ever be a real God, and that the only reason he’s still alive is because he is useful.

Maybe he should never have tried so hard to be useful.

Phew.

I guess in a nutshell, my Troy’s greatest downfall is the God King persona.

As long as that shit is active, as long as it’s being worshipped, he’s never going to snap into reality. The reality that other people are there, that he’s been hurt so badly as a person, it’s all impossible long as he is being treated as, and believes, he is a God.

The manic moments of clarity he has in the later stages of the COV rule are few and far between, but they eat him alive as he can’t understand why he suddenly feels so terrible, why he’s filled with such consuming remorse.

Peel the God King off the broken man underneath it and you leave him bare, confused, scared. You make him have to deal with reality, with people, with himself. That’s when you get him to show regret, and understand what he’s done, and understand what Ty has done to him.

That’s the redemption.

When he realises the game he was playing was real for billions, and suffers for it. It ends where it ends as my Troy ain’t dyin’ :P I’ll get to my rewrite eventually. I hope to keep exploring these ideas in the future. Just desperately wish I’d as much to work with for Tyreen as I do Troy. GB YOU HEAR THAT? YOU HEAR THATTTT??

#troy calypso #tyreen calypso #borderlands #borderlands3 #borderlands 3 #bl3 #my hcs #my writing #calypso twins #leech lord

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qqueenofhades · 5 years

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Women and “medieval cruelty and ignorance”

Okay. So. We could probably have guessed that this tweet was like waving a red flag in front of a bull, but here we are anyway.

(Tagging @artielu because I know she enjoys my history smackdowns and this is right in her wheelhouse of interest.)

First: nobody denies that the Alabama bill and similar efforts are absolutely heinous, are designed to be test cases to get Roe v. Wade overturned, and are deliberately gratuitous in their constitutional overreach and general horrible Handmaid’s Tale nature. But for well-meaning liberals, such as above, calling them representative of “medieval cruelty and ignorance” is a) not accurate and b) counterproductive. If we insist on using “the medieval” as a conceptual category inferior to “the modern,” these recent bills bear a complicated, at best, resemblance to medieval canon law and social practice. And there was never, I promise you, any law that prescribed a 99-year jail term for abortionists. So if we want to point out how the modern Republican party is actually much worse than their medieval counterparts, we can do that, but also: trust me, this is thoroughly modern cruelty and ignorance, and we should insist on that distinction.

First, obviously, women’s bodies have always been subject to a social discourse of power, control, gendered anxiety, and attendant responses. This was certainly the case in the medieval era, but our modern interpretations of that discourse can be... iffy, at best. In discussing the feminization of witchcraft in the late 15th century, M.D. Bailey critiques how scholars have tended to take the Malleus Maleficarum, the famous witch-hunting handbook, as representative of a self-evident and endemic medieval and clerical misogyny. In fact, the Malleus was the equivalent of the extreme right wing today, was relatively quickly condemned even by the church itself, and was largely reworked from earlier ecclesiastical anti-sodomy polemics, because the idea of “disordered gender” was certainly one that occupied medieval moralists and theorists. I have discussed the Malleus in other posts, but while it certainly is virulently and systematically misogynist, it also was a work of rhetoric rather than a reflection of historical reality. Medieval misogyny absolutely and obviously existed, and it impacted women’s lives, but we also really need to get rid of The Medieval Era Was Bad For Women, (tm), Therefore Everything Was Worse Back Then.

The possibility of magic being used to cause impotence/loss of fertility was another concern, and one of the main anxieties about the practice of witchcraft was that it would bring “sterility” and irregular sexual activity (usually with the devil). However, an extensive corpus of contraceptive and abortifacient knowledge has existed since antiquity, and in tracing the representation of unborn children in medieval theological thought, Danuta Shanzer notes:

My findings suggest that it is overstatement to claim that from the start Christianity considered the fetus a living being from conception. Augustine is a major agonized and agnostic counter-example.

Hence, contrary to right-wing claims that the church has “always” thought that life began at conception (spoiler alert: the church has never once “always” thought the same thing on anything), it was almost never the case in medieval legal or theoretical practice. Thomas Aquinas and other medieval theologians argued that “ensoulment” or the separation of the fetus into a living being happened at quickening, when the baby could move on its own (which medieval medical treatises had various standards for measuring, but it would be the equivalent of about 20 weeks of pregnancy). Monica Green, a leading medieval medical and gender historian, has examined a vast corpus of obstetric and gynecological Middle English texts, and in “Making Motherhood,” argues:

Texts on women’s medicine might also be concerned to “unmake” or prevent motherhood, either by preventing conception in the first place or expelling a dead foetus that would not emerge spontaneously. Abortion per se was almost never mentioned.

In other words: abortion was not paid attention to in nearly the same way we do today, and while canon law, in theory, prescribed penalties for contraception and abortion, historians have consistently (surprise!) discovered a disconnect between this and secular law and everyday practice. And while some twelfth-century (male) jurists did attempt to equate miscarriage with homicide, and to install it in canon law, these laws were almost never practically used or prosecuted. In Divisions of Labor: Gender, Power, and Later Medieval Childbirth, c. 1200-1500, Rebecca Wynne Jones surveys the extant literature and notes:

In his 2012 book The Criminalization of Abortion in the West, Wolfgang Müller documents how 12th‐century jurists' increasing tendency to equate violence resulting in miscarriage with homicide was institutionalized in canon law. Though this development led to the widespread criminalization of abortion in ecclesiastical jurisdictions, Müller has little to say about gender relations on the ground. Rather, by highlighting local communities' reluctance to prosecute, he presents laws that might once have been seen as proof of a medieval “war on women” as legislative enactments whose practical power remained limited.

Once again: medieval ecclesiastical proscriptions against abortion were, at best, sporadically enforced, communities were reluctant to actually prosecute women or to criminalize early-term pregnancy loss, and church law was not identical with secular law, which was the standard ordinary people used and were subject to. This concords with what Fiona Harris-Stoertz has found in her survey of pregnancy and childbirth in twelfth and thirteenth-century French and English law:

It is striking that in these thirteenth-century English texts, no penalty was assigned for the loss of less developed fetuses. This absence flew in the face of high medieval church legislation, which, in theory at least, took all contraception and abortion seriously. John Riddle finds that the idea that early-term abortion is less serious than late-term abortion occurred in the work of Aristotle and appeared occasionally throughout the early Middle Ages, particularly in church penitentials, although it also appeared in the early medieval Visigothic code.

While late-term abortion of potentially viable fetuses was still a crime, secular law still essentially held to quickening as the moment at which a pregnancy could not be terminated. Before that, however -- anywhere in the first 4-5 months of pregnancy -- it could often be dealt with, if desired, without any penalty. Anne L. McClanan has investigated the material culture of abortion and contraception in the early Byzantine period. And Ireland, which as recently as last year remained one of the last European countries to outlaw abortion, had a medieval hagiography that actively canonized abortionist saints:

Medieval hagiographers told of Irish Catholics par excellence, the saints themselves, performing abortions as well as of “bastards” becoming bishops and saints. In hagiography and the penitentials, virginal status depended more on a woman’s relationship with the church than with a man. To my knowledge, no other country in Christendom, medieval or modern, produced abortionist saints or restored virgins, apart from the nun of Watton. Why Ireland is among the few European countries to maintain severely restrictive policies on reproduction remains an unanswered question, but it clearly cannot be attributed to its medieval Catholicism.

Last part bolded because important. Modern bans on abortion don’t relate to how these notions were conceptualized or used in the past, and they are not holdovers from The Medieval Era (tm). They don’t represent medieval concerns or medieval ideas of gender, or at least certainly not in a direct genealogy. Even as late as the seventeenth century, when ideas of childbirth, marriage, and reproduction were more strictly controlled, the period prior to quickening, or the movement of the baby, was still generally not penalized or subject to legal control or coercion. So in sum: while religious moralists and canonical lawyers absolutely did object to abortion (aka right-wing men, the same ones who object to it today, funnily enough), in secular law and daily practice, a pregnancy that was terminated prior to quickening was not subject to practical prosecution or legal punishment, and medieval women had access to a vast corpus of gynecological texts, medical practices, herbal recipes, rituals, and charms intended to accomplish a wide range of fertility goals: conception, contraception, abortion, a healthy pregnancy and delivery, and so forth. I also answered an ask a while ago that discussed all this in detail.

Also: abortion was explicitly mobilized as a wedge issue in the 1970s and 1980s with the rise of the religious right in American politics, and that happened not because of abortion, but in resistance to the IRS penalizing them for refusing to racially integrate evangelical schools and colleges. Randall Balmer has written about the history of the “abortion myth”; do yourself a favor and read it. The Southern Baptist Convention campaigned in 1971 for the liberalization of American abortion laws, and hailed the 1973 Roe decision as a win for the rights of the mother. (Oh how the mighty have fallen?) The right wing came together as a political force to resist racial integration, exemplified by their loss in the 1983 Supreme Court case Bob Jones University v. United States. But since it was not a winning political strategy (yet, at least) to fly the flag of “let us be racist in peace,” they, as Balmer discusses, created the “abortion myth” to make themselves look better and to present a narrative of holy/moral concern for the lives of the unborn. The reason abortion is as huge as it is in the present American political landscape owes to modern religious conservatism and extremism, resistance to racial equality, ideological control over women, and other bigotry, and (again) not to medievalism or medieval practices.

So, yes. Let us call the Alabama bill and other heinousness exactly what it is: a modern effort by a lot of terrible modern people to do terrible things to modern women. We don’t need to qualify it by fallacious equivalences to so-called “medieval cruelty” -- especially, again, when medieval practice and perspective on these issues was nowhere near the stereotype, and certainly nowhere near this “99 years in prison for performing an abortion” dystopian nightmare. If we want to shame the GOP, by all means, do so. But we should not resort to distorting and simplifying history to do it, and using the imagined “bad medieval” as a straw man to club them with. There’s plenty on its own. The modern world needs to take responsibility for its own misogyny, and stop trying to frame it as a historical issue that only existed in the past, and that any manifestations of it must be medieval in nature. Because it’s not.

#history #medieval history #women in history #history of sexuality #history of medicine #cw abortion #long post

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rockislandadultreads · 4 years

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Titles with beautiful covers, non-fiction edition, from the bottom shelves of our library.

Summaries and Ratings from goodreads.com

Casa Nostra: A Home in Sicily by Caroline Seller Manzo

3.66/5 stars

In this enchanting memoir about food, family, culture, and culture shock, an Englishwoman shares the unpredictable adventures of her Sicilian family and the renovation of their villa At a mid-seventies Halloween party in London, Caroline Seller stumbled across a man in a lion mask. Although she spoke little Italian and he practically no English, both were undeniably smitten. After only a few more meetings, Caroline was invited to stay with Marcello's family in Mazara del Vallo, Sicily, where she was introduced to the eccentric Manzo clan—including Marcello's larger-than-life mother Maria—who lived in a magnificent but crumbling villa, Santa Maria. Soon afterward Caroline and Marcello married, set out on an expatriate life together around the world, and started their own family, but Santa Maria was never far from their thoughts. After much debate over the fate of the deteriorating villa, Marcello and his brothers united to save it. Determined in their mission—but not entirely prepared for what they were getting into!—Marcello and Caroline embarked on a restoration process full of disconcerting setbacks, demoralizing mishaps, and ultimately breathtaking results. Through amusing anecdotes, stunning photography, and inspired observations of Sicilian culture, Casa Nostra shows not only the renovation of the villa, but also the unique beauty and history of western Sicily and its people, as seen through the eyes of Caroline Seller Manzo—an outsider who is often surprised, and always delighted, by her family and adopted hometown.

Joan of Arc: A Life Transfigured by Kathryn Harrison

3.44/5 stars

The profoundly inspiring and fully documented saga of Joan of Arc, the young peasant girl whose "voices" moved her to rally the French nation and a reluctant king against British invaders in 1428, has fascinated artistic figures as diverse as William Shakespeare, Mark Twain, Voltaire, George Bernard Shaw, Bertolt Brecht, Carl Dreyer, and Robert Bresson. Was she a divinely inspired saint? A schizophrenic? A demonically possessed heretic, as her persecutors and captors tried to prove?

Every era must retell and reimagine the Maid of Orleans's extraordinary story in its own way, and in Joan of Arc: A Life Transfigured, the superb novelist and memoirist Kathryn Harrison gives us a Joan for our time—a shining exemplar of unshakable faith, extraordinary courage, and self-confidence during a brutally rigged ecclesiastical inquisition and in the face of her death by burning. Deftly weaving historical fact, myth, folklore, artistic representations, and centuries of scholarly and critical interpretation into a compelling narrative, she restores Joan of Arc to her rightful position as one of the greatest heroines in all of human history.

The First Muslim: The Story of Muhammad by Lesley Hazleton

3.92/5 stars

Muhammad’s was a life of almost unparalleled historical importance; yet for all the iconic power of his name, the intensely dramatic story of the prophet of Islam is not well known. In The First Muslim, Lesley Hazleton brings him vibrantly to life. Drawing on early eyewitness sources and on history, politics, religion, and psychology, she renders him as a man in full, in all his complexity and vitality. Hazleton’s account follows the arc of Muhammad’s rise from powerlessness to power, from anonymity to renown, from insignificance to lasting significance. How did a child shunted to the margins end up revolutionizing his world? How did a merchant come to challenge the established order with a new vision of social justice? How did the pariah hounded out of Mecca turn exile into a new and victorious beginning? How did the outsider become the ultimate insider? Impeccably researched and thrillingly readable, Hazleton’s narrative creates vivid insight into a man navigating between idealism and pragmatism, faith and politics, nonviolence and violence, rejection and acclaim. The First Muslim illuminates not only an immensely significant figure but his lastingly relevant legacy.

The Apparitionists: A Tale of Phantoms, Fraud, Photography, and the Man Who Captured Lincoln's Ghost by Peter Manseau

3.42/5 stars

A story of faith and fraud in post–Civil War America, told through the lens of a photographer who claimed he could capture images of the dead. In the early days of photography, in the death-strewn wake of the Civil War, one man seized America’s imagination. A “spirit photographer,” William Mumler took portrait photographs that featured the ghostly presence of a lost loved one alongside the living subject. Mumler was a sensation: The affluent and influential came calling, including Mary Todd Lincoln, who arrived at his studio in disguise amidst rumors of séances in the White House. Peter Manseau brilliantly captures a nation wracked with grief and hungry for proof of the existence of ghosts and for contact with their dead husbands and sons. It took a circus-like trial of Mumler on fraud charges, starring P. T. Barnum for the prosecution, to expose a fault line of doubt and manipulation. And even then, the judge sided with the defense — nobody ever solved the mystery of his spirit photography. This forgotten puzzle offers a vivid snapshot of America at a crossroads in its history, a nation in thrall to new technology while clinging desperately to belief.

The Rose of Martinique: A Life of Napoleon's Josephine by Andrea Stuart

4.11/5 stars

One of the most remarkable women of the modern era, Josephine Bonaparte was born Rose de Tasher on her family's sugar plantation in Martinique. She embodied all the characteristics of a true Creole-sensuality, vivacity, and willfulness. Using diaries and letters, Andrea Stuart expertly re-creates Josephine's whirlwind of a life, which began with an isolated Caribbean childhood and led to a marriage that would usher her onto the world stage and crown her empress of France. Josephine managed to be in the forefront of every important episode of her era's turbulent history: from the rise of the West Indian slave plantations that bankrolled Europe's rapid economic development, to the decaying of the ancien régime, to the French Revolution itself, from which she barely escaped the guillotine. Rescued from near starvation, she grew to epitomize the wild decadence of post-revolutionary Paris. It was there that Josephine first caught the eye of Napoleon Bonaparte. A true partner to Napoleon, she was equal parts political adviser, hostess par excellence, confidante, and passionate lover. In this captivating biography, Stuart brings her so utterly to life that we finally understand why Napoleon's last word before dying was the name he had given her: Josephine.

Wise Men and Their Tales: Portraits of Biblical, Talmudic, and Hasidic Masters by Elie Wiesel

4.21/5 stars

In Wise Men and Their Tales, a master teacher gives us his fascinating insights into the lives of a wide range of biblical figures, Talmudic scholars, and Hasidic rabbis.

The matriarch Sarah, fiercely guarding her son, Isaac, against the negative influence of his half-brother Ishmael; Samson, the solitary hero and protector of his people, whose singular weakness brought about his tragic end; Isaiah, caught in the middle of the struggle between God and man, his messages of anger and sorrow counterbalanced by his timeless, eloquent vision of a world at peace; the saintly Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi, who by virtue of a lifetime of good deeds was permitted to enter heaven while still alive and who tried to ensure a similar fate for all humanity by stealing the sword of the Angel of Death.

Elie Wiesel tells the stories of these and other men and women who have been sent by God to help us find the godliness within our own lives. And what interests him most about these people is their humanity, in all its glorious complexity. They get angry—at God for demanding so much, and at people, for doing so little. They make mistakes. They get frustrated. But through it all one constant remains—their love for the people they have been charged to teach and their devotion to the Supreme Being who has sent them. In these tales of battles won and lost, of exile and redemption, of despair and renewal, we learn not only by listening to what they have come to tell us, but by watching as they live lives that are both grounded in earthly reality and that soar upward to the heavens.

#nonfiction #non fiction #reading recommendations #reading recss #Book Recommendations #book recs #currently reading #beautiful books #book covers #pretty books #library #public library #booklist #recommendations #booklr #books to read

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langwrites · 5 years

Text

Lang Plays Fire Emblem: Three Houses

So a while ago I said I was planning on playing the story routes in this order: Blue Lions, Black Eagles, Church of Seiros, and then Golden Deer.

The Golden Deer made a liar out of me.

So, here’s an approximation of What Happened During Verdant Wind.

So many spoilers below the cut, you guys. I do a lot of route comparisons.

Okay, I’ve been staring at the “which house do you want” selection screen for an embarrassing amount of time.

This shouldn’t be hard. I had a plan.

But no.

I clicked the Golden Deer, just like that. What the fuck, Claude. I blame you.

Immediately upon talking to this rop of students again, I can feel the difference in the social group from what the Lions were like. The latter were really a bunch of noble kids around their prince, and they felt really tight-knit. Classic Fire Emblem starter crew.

The Golden Deer is the fucking Scooby Gang.

First impressions of individuals:

Raphael, thank goodness, is the one character who absolutely has his shit in order. Sure, he’s bad at book work and thinks everything comes down to MUSCLES, but all of his emotional issues are handled by the time he arrives at Garreg Mach. He’s the brightest of sunshines.

Ignatz needs some more confidence in his art, and also I want to see his painting of Seiros. Now, if only both of his offensive stats and growths weren’t incredibly bad.

I was so close to making him my dancer. Just because he sure as hell wasn’t gonna be useful anywhere else.

Lorenz! I don’t like him. His haircut is a monstrosity.

Leonie! We are going. To be. Besties. Even though the timing of your support conversations are incredibly bad.

Marianne no please don’t be sad everyone loves you

Hilda is the greatest enabler I have ever seen. By which I mean she enables other people to do all her work for her.

Lysithea is going to have the last word with God. And especially he Death Knight.

And finally Claude! Teamwork makes the dream work, so obviously meme work does the same.

I’m sorry.

PRE-TIMESKIP

Mock battle! Marianne’s great and I love her and also the only healer oh god.

OKAY. I have access to New Game+ bonuses. What do I do first?

Immediately crank the Professor Level stat to max to avoid ever having to run short of activity points again.

Next, raise all skills I can’t easily get to at least Rank D+. HEAVY ARMOR IN PARTICULAR.

Third: Boost supports with people whose support ranks are an absolute pain in the ass to earn. Lookin’ at you, Rhea.

Also, put glasses on Byleth (named “Yuri” for this playthrough). Glasses are the bomb. I am the evil genius.

LEVEL GRINDING TIME.

It’s a lot harder with Blacksmith access being story-locked, but I can do this!

As a direct result, every single battle after this point is a complete curbstomp in my favor. Because the grind don’t stop.

I broke a lot more weapons than last time, though.

I will befriend Leonie and Ferdinand if it’s the last fucking thing I do. I will befriend everyone, and I will not get timeskip-locked out of supports! >:(

Ferdinand was my first recruit. Oh dear.

Okay, there are like five born cavaliers in this game. Leonie, Ferdinand, Lorenz, Sylvain, and I guess Dimitri if you’re on the right route.

Last time, Sylvain was a great paladin and a decent Dark Knight before he started getting one- or two-stat level ups for like thirty levels. Similarly, Dimitri was great until all his ultra-secret-awesome promotions didn’t use a fucking horse.

Contrast Leonie who, despite sitting out 99% of the game out of spite from me getting locked out of her support chain, went to endgame with a ten-level deficit and still rocked.

Ferdinand didn’t count since I failed to recruit him last time and he died. These two facts are directly related.

I didn’t use Lorenz at all; I recruited him to keep from having to kill him later.

This time, Lorenz straight-up sucks, Sylvain did the terrible level dance for like the entire game, and Dimitri’s not recruitable.

Contrast, again, Leonie. Her support chain with the player character is hot garbage, but she plowed through most of the game as a mainstay of my team and made it to Bow Knight first out of anyone.

Bernadetta and Ashe as Bow Knights don’t even come close to being as durable as she is, except for Ashe’s absolutely bananas Resistance. 29?! WHY?!

And Ferdinand is also awesome. His only real weak point is Resistance, but he doesn’t need it. He dodge-tanks everything, is faster than Leonie, and has two Saints’ relics he unknowingly stole from Seteth.

He still talks in MLA format, though.

I started putting off recruiting people so I wouldn’t have to level-grind them up to par with the rest of my team.

But if these people wanna join, of course I’m saying yes.

Lord Lonato’s rebellion and Miklan yoinking the Lance of Ruin feel way less relevant on a Golden Deer playthrough than on a Blue Lions one. None of the Herd really know who the hell these people are.

I say that despite having already recruited Sylvain for this playthrough and deploying him in the relevant level. He wasn’t treated as there by the game’s preamble cutscenes.

At least the Holy Mausoleum stuff feels more...handled? Claude actually asks questions about rebellion and about the “assassination plot,” where Dimitri didn’t really.

OKAY SO there’s this whole plot thing where Flayn goes missing for a month. With the Blue Lions, this is handled like a manhunt. Dimitri’s seriousness about the issue rubs off on everyone except Sylvain, and Felix actually correctly identifies the culprit almost instantly. He doesn’t know he’s done it, though, because basically everyone is just throwing out accusations. Manuela is the real MVP.

CONTRAST THE DEER. The very first meeting reads like a Scooby Doo episode, when they’re piling up clues and throwing out suggestions like the gang of goofball teenagers they are. Claude’s got this group running like Persona 4′s Investigation Team. None of them are jaded or frantic, they’re just doing this.

Why did Rhea entrust the investigation to a herd of teenagers.

Anyway, the rest proceeds as usual.

I don’t know why the game tries to drop the same set of hints for each route. “OoooowoooooOOOOoooo, your house leader might be the FLAME EMPEROR.”

The Flame Emperor wears heels. And is still too short to be either Claude or Dimitri. Especially Dimitri. Who the fuck let this kid get so tall.

The only real result of all this bullshit is that my wyvern-riding sniper of doom is not available during the first map where Yuri personally beat the Death Knight into the ground.

Which, by the by, was hilariously cathartic.

It doesn’t exactly matter, since the only unit who can make real use of the Dark Mage and Dark Bishop classes is unrecruitable, but bragging rights.

Remire Village’s drama is about as bad while playing as the Golden Deer. One of the foreshadowing cutscenes, though is excellent:

Claude actually finds a book that depicts The Immaculate One before its debut, only to have it confiscated by Seteth and learn that it wasn’t a library book at all; it belonged to “Tomas.” Like, all of his suspicions--which he shares with the player--start lining up. Censorship! Monsters! Sword of the Creator! What the hell is going on here??

Dimitri’s version of the cutscene involves him being caught investigating Lord Arundel by the player and Sothis. Which--since his route doesn’t meaningfully deal with the Morlocks faction aside from steamrolling them as incidental opponents--seems kinda useless.

Kicked the Death Knight into submission again out of spite.

Sylvain was useful! Mostly because I had him sit there and distract the incidentals while Claude and Lysithea cleaned house, but still!

Claude is the only lord character who seems to understand that the transforming Morlock faction probably needs to be taken more seriously. For the remainder of Part One, no one does so.

Rhea you’ve got some ‘splainin to do.

Marianne’s my team’s dancer this time. She’s a sweetheart. She seemed happy to be asked and to pursue the lessons, and being able to use Physic is a good trait in someone who’s nearly always going to be waaaaay behind the rest of the group.

Dad-stabbing happened.

Again.

Boop boop Solon’s dead.

Again.

Dear diary: I learned the definition of irony and set the Flame Emperor on fire.

I kid.

But Claude took her out in one completely overpowered shot, because crits are a thing, Flame Emperor class skills don’t reduce damage enough to survive it, and his Dex stat is through the fucking roof. And he was on a wyvern at the time because fuck it, why not.

Claude’s reaction to all of this is a minor letdown compared to the fully-rendered cutscene in the last route.

This would become something of a trend--taking out OP bosses with unexpected critical hits.

I didn’t expect to like Lorenz and now I do. How.

This is hilarious simply because he seems to be the only character that Mercedes hates. What the fuck, man.

Once again, Edelgard invades! Once again, I drop someone unexpected on her head!

Not really. It was Yuri.

Yuri does the timeskip shuffle and we’ll see everyone again after a nap.

FIVE YEARS LATER.

Aw, Claude was waiting for Yuri to show up. Adorable.

The post-meetup fight is actually harder than it was in the BL route, despite excessive level-grinding. This is due to three factors:

Claude is automatically on a wyvern, meaning that he has inherent class vulnerability to archers on a map with at least five of them. And less range than they did, for some fucking reason.

Lorenz and Ignatz started out on the same corner of the map and both of them are shitty offensive units who could barely kill a mage between them. (Neither of Ignatz’s offensive stats cracked 20 for another thirteen levels.)

I don’t have Ashe and his personal skill Locktouch, and nobody started with a Chest Key or Door Key, which meant I had to keep various enemies alive long enough to steal all of their stuff. And the enemy item drops came up one short of the number of chests on the map. I want my stuff, dammit.

LET’S MAKE A SCENE.

Randolph, as a boss in Verdant Wind, did not get any better at figuring out when he’s outmatched. Therefore, I killed him with Raphael again.

At least he straight-up died this time.

Claude didn’t even get to set the damn place on fire.

Ingrid is turning out to be way better of a unit this time than she was last time. She’s a little slower, but a lot stronger.

FELIX, WHERE THE FUCK WAS ALL THIS STRENGTH HIDING LAST TIME. YOU’RE TEN POINTS AHEAD OF THE GUY WHO HAS STORY-BASED SUPER STRENGTH.

AND SPEED.

Iiiiiiiiit’s JUDITH!

She only shows up on one map in the entire Azure Moon route, and that’s a damn shame. She’s so cool in Verdant Wind.

A lord-class character who isn’t also a Lord! WOO!

Also her spies are better than anybody’s apparently.

I am choosing to believe that because Ingrid’s family is related to Judith’s, her badassery in this route is the direct result of meeting her distant cousin and absorbing badass radiation.

There’s something funny about having to pull one over on Lorenz’s dad to get anything done. The Great Bridge falls not to power, but Claude baiting Count Gloucester’s entire army to be somewhere else. (FEAR THE DEER.)

As a result, Ladislava dies alone. (As opposed to taking Ferdinand with her due to plot shenanigans.)

Lysithea and Ferdinand’s paralogue was really quite sad, for all that the only named guy who died was deeply unsympathetic. Ferdinand’s dad was an asshole, but he wasn’t the asshole for this particular scenario, and now both of his parents are gone. :(

Felix...hasn’t heard from his dad in a while. Worrying.

Oh, and Caspar’s uncle is still dead, in case we were keeping track of that.

Dorothea’s happier with Ferdinand alive. She did an impression of the Gatekeeper. :3

Gronder Field! FUCK.

I delayed playing this chapter for two solid days because I already knew what was gonna happen. Specifically: Edelgard gets injured and evacuated, and Dimitri drops of exhaustion just in time to get run through like ten times by the Emperor’s rearguard.

I eventually got my shit together enough to do the thing.

Marianne, Raphael, and Ferdinand went after the Kingdom army first. Leonie and Felix hung back and then reinforced them after taking out the archer on the central hill.

Claude killed everyone in the center of the map, which meant Edelgard set the entire hill on fire and if Bernadetta had not been recruited she would’ve burned to death there on the spot.

Ahem.

I sent Yuri to clear the entire left side of the map by herself.

She succeeded.

Raphael KO’d Dimitri with a luck Gauntlet crit, got blasted down to half health by a Warlock, then plunked ineffectually at Dedue until Marianne used her Levin Sword to sort him out.

Ferdinand killed everyone else on that side of the map.

Claude once again got the kill on Edelgard with a lucky crit, after Yuri had killed everyone else (up to and including the Demonic Beasts) single-handedly.

And then the plot moved on. Hilda’s account of Dimitri’s death was awful, Dedue’s reaction was worse, and off we go to punch Edelgard’s teeth in.

Again.

Annette’s dad is probably dead now.

Felix’s, too.

(I THOUGHT WE WERE DONE WITH THE DAD-STABBING.)

FOOOOOORT MERCEUS.

No matter how many times I think about it, Claude’s Almyran army reinforcements only make so much sense. How the hell and fuck did he manage to sneak an entire foreign army across a whole country to help with one battle?

But hey, they’re here, and Claude almost admitted the reason why he could do that. And the arrow greeting between him and Nader was cool.

(Spoiler: On top of being the Alliance’s leader, he’s also the crown prince of Almyra!)

The Death Knight had the gall to run from my army.

Yuri punched his ticket for the third time, which was not the charm.

And then Fort Merceus took an intercontinental ballistic missile and suddenly defeating the fort’s garrison feels a lot less triumphant.

Spot the miscolored eyes in this cutscene!

Welp. Fuck it, we’re off to Enbarr. Time to also punch Hubert this time! What a change of pace.

Eyyy, it’s the Enbarr map. I totally forgot to bring Seteth and Flayn along to check out the opera house, despite a whole bunch of characters talking about how they totally wanted to check that place out at some point. No room for deadweights in a map that has SO MANY ARCHERS.

Managed to get the special dialogue between Ferdinand and Hubert, and now I’m sad again.

Killed Hubert with Claude.

And because this is a two-part map, we immediately run off to chase down Edelgard. Due to the player army not doing a really weird 180 in the middle of the plot to kick Cornelia out of Fhirdiad, she didn’t have time to turn into a giant demonic thing! She just has WAY TOO MANY MAGES.

Strategy: Forget what Door Keys are, split the team by Avoid rating, and go to town.

Claude nearly died thanks to a critical mass of Gremories and Mortal Savants (and still, what the fuck is that name), but Dedue-as-guest-character didn’t, so I count that as a win! His defense was so high that the Giant Demonic Beast couldn’t even scratch him.

Claude, Petra, and Ingrid all having Alert Stance as a skill means dodge-tanking is hilariously easy.

Also, Ingrid was supposed to just take a chunk out of Edelgard’s HP bar for the final assault and ended up crit-killing her on the first attack. With a bog-standard silver lance.

Weird as the situation turned out, I guess that means one of Dimitri’s friends really did avenge him after saying they would. Even if Dedue was the only one who had a special cutscene about it.

We rescued Rhea! And the characters being happy about it doesn’t mean I’m happy about it. I want answers, same as Claude, and being forced to RP Yuri being oh so worried about Rhea’s safety felt incredibly disingenuous.

Claude actually yells at her over the “...” she seems to think is an explanation. THE TIME FOR SECRETS IS PAST.

WHY DID ALL THIS SHIT HAPPEN.

WE’VE BEEN AT WAR FOR FIVE YEARS.

A WHOLE BUNCH OF PEOPLE DIED HORRIBLY FOR BASICALLY NOTHING.

Incidentally, this is why I didn’t end up playing Edelgard’s route as planned. Her logic for kicking two other sovereign countries in the balls felt incredibly self-centered.

At least Catherine’s happy. Same with Alois and the rest of the Church crew.

They are soon going to be not as happy.

I’m filling out the ENTIRE support log before endgame. I have absolutely no idea what characters are going to end up together as a direct result.

The last conversation? Seteth and Manuela’s A+ support!

Because so many of the support conversations are romantic at A/A+ level, I guess we’ve managed to turn this ragtag army into a polyarmory.

Oh boy, Thales sure is a sore loser.

I say, as though I didn’t kill EVERYONE he knew over the course of an hour and also split his skull open under Seteth’s axe. His racism would have keeled his ass over before death set in.

That sure is a ICBM.

GOD DAMMIT RHEA, THERE WAS SUPPOSED TO BE A Q&A SESSION AFTER THIS.

WHY DOES EVERYONE WHOSE JOB IS EXPOSITION UP AND DIE.

Meanwhile: THE UBER-DEAD PEOPLE.

Claude, your route is batshit. What is this genre anymore?!

I wanna point out that, despite seeing Rhea/Seiros do the dragon thing, the player character never told Claude what the fuck that was about. I feel like one of the first things I would have done after the class reunion would be going, “By the by, did anyone else notice the fucking dragon?!” WHO IS ALSO THE POPE???

Bah.

ANYWAY. Looooong-overdue exposition time!

I notice that Rhea didn’t out Seteth or Flayn, which was nice of her.

Claude, she can turn into a fucking dragon. I don’t think immortality is that far from being plausible.

GOD DAMMIT NEMESIS, CAN YOU FUCK OFF FOR TEN MORE MINUTES.

Uuuuuuugh fine, fuck everything, I’m putting your head on a pike.

CLAUDE, THE SWORD OF THE CREATOR LOOKS LIKE A SPINE.

OF COURSE IT’S MADE OF BONES. A BUNCH OF THE HEROES’ RELICS MOVE ON THEIR OWN!

The frantic music is not helping.

Time to kill a bandit king.

“My flabber is completely gasted by now.” Okay, that made me laugh.

Nemesis’s boss mechanic is pretty neat. To kill him at all, you need to kill all of the minibosses in the level and take down his friendship-based-plot-armor.

Or it would be, if I didn’t already make a habit of steamrolling everyone else on the field before tackling the boss at the end.

CUTSCENE.

Cutscene lesson: “Fuck honor duels.” It’s time for CHAIN SWORD LIMBO.

Claude, your bow shoots LASERS. SINCE WHEN.

Also getting kicked across the field by a dude twice his size didn’t seem to actually affect his mood much.

Awww, Yuri smiles now. Adorable. :D

AND THAT’S A WRAP.

Pairings: Yuri/Sothis (mostly to get them out of the way and see what everyone else would do), Claude/Petra, Raphael/Marianne, Catherine/Shamir, Lorenz/Mercedes, Ashe/Annette, Felix/Sylvain (bad end; the former straight up disappears), Seteth & Flayn wander off, Manuela/Dorothea, Lysithea/Linhardt (again), Leonie/Ignatz, Ferdinand/Bernadetta, Caspar/Hilda, and a couple of people are alone. Cyril gets to actually be a student after the story’s done, though!

Whew, that was fun. Gonna mix up the pairs a bit next time I play through the endgame and see what happens.

#fire emblem three houses #Lang plays Fire Emblem: Three Houses #Lang Plays #spoilers #long post #fire emblem

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babylon-crashing · 5 years

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SANTA MUERTE'S BLACK CANDLE

While the Lady of the Shadows is the saint of the margins par excellence, her strong appeal to one particular group, which has suffered persecution throughout the ages, is unparalleled. LGBT Santa Muertistas constitute an inordinately large sector of devotees in North and Central America and beyond. I had noticed her special attraction to those who aren't heterosexual from the outset of my research eight years ago, but in the rush to publish I wasn't able to go beyond a passing reference. From the most prominent devotional leaders to anonymous believers, the disproportionate number devotees to death can't be ignored.

The majority of top Saint Death leaders in the United States, Britain, and the Philippines are LGBT, with gay men predominating. In Mexico the trend isn't as pronounced, as the three most prominent devotional authorities there are straight. However, Dona Queta appears to be grooming a gay devotee as the successor to her Tepito throne. Among rank-and-file Santa Muertistas in Mexico, images of the Powerful Lady have become commonplace at gay pride parades in Mexico City, where rainbow-colored death saints process alongside their festive owners. On the other side of the border the strong presence of LGBT devotees is particularly noticeable on social media where they seem to compose the majority of Euro-American Santa Muertistas on Twitter and Facebook groups dedicated to the Bony Lady.

Without doubt the skeleton saint's zero-tolerance policy on discrimination is one of the most important appeals to LGBT devotees. While great strides have been made in both Mexico and the United States over the past few decades in terms of gaining equal rights and creating greater social acceptance, lesbians, gays, bisexuals, and especially transgender individuals still suffer from discrimination, homophobia and persecution.

It's the enduring discrimination in rural and small-town Mexico that set the stage for Arely Vazquez, who has appeared in numerous media reports and documentaries, to become the pioneering Santa Muertista in New York City. Raised in a small town outside of Acapulco, Arely started to feel uncomfortable with her natal male sexuality in her preteens. She quickly realized her attraction to other boys wasn't acceptable with the rigid social and religious confines of her hometown. In fact, when Arely confessed her sexual orientation to the parish priest, he instructed her to pray for conversion, which, of course, is still popular in some Evangelical and Catholic churches. Realizing life would be difficult for her in her hometown, Arely moved to Mexico City in her late teens, and it was there that she discovered the skeleton saint through her aunt and quickly became devoted to death.

Arelys new devotion to Saint Death helped her to move again, this time to the "other side" (as Mexicans often refer to the United States). She already had some relatives in New York City, which, by late 1980s, was experiencing a boom in Mexican immigration. Queens neighborhood of working-class Latin American immigrants, Arely believes the Powerful Lady has empowered her to deal with the challenges of being a transgender immigrant who doesn't speak English. Most significantly, the Bony Lady gave Arely the strength and courage to change her gender to female, which has entailed several surgeries and hormone therapy. It s one particular surgery that Arely views as one of the great gifts of her matron saint. Several years ago I asked her what had been the most important miracle that the Pretty Girl had granted. She immediately clutched her bosom and exclaimed "these!" The breast implants had cost her thousands of dollars. Arelys transgender friends and fellow devotees appear to have asked the White Girl for the same miracle.

As a sign of her fervent devotion and gratitude to her matron saint for empowering her to overcome all kinds of obstacles, Arely has promulgated devotion to the Skinny Lady like nobody else in New York City. A few years ago she started a weekly Sunday prayer service, which is usually held at her Queens apartment and attended by some ten to twenty devotees. In a bid to increase her following, Arely recently affiliated with Enriqueta Vargas, currently the top devotional leader in Mexico, who, from her home temple in Tultitlan, Mexico, presides over a network of some twelve temples and shrines throughout Mexico, called Santa Muerte Internacional, and is attempting to expand into the United Kingdom and Colombia. Enriqueta has attended Arelys annual August fiesta in Queens for the past three years in a row. Attendance at Arelys 2016 fiesta was markedlyless than previous years, possibly due to concerns over the threat of violence. A rival Santa Muertista, headquartered in Kansas, had allegedly made threats against both Arely and Vargas shortly before the 2015 anniversary celebration, which led the transgender diva to hire extra security.

The protection of the Powerful Lady figures as another compelling draw to LGBT devotees. Enduring discrimination and even persecution at times makes the fierce, female skeleton saint especially attractive to those who've been ostracized, taunted, or even subjected to physical violence because of their sexual orientation. This is especially the case for the small group of Filipino devotees in Manila, all of whom are gay men. A devotional leader, Yashagaro Hasegawa, told me, "Santa Muerte does not discriminate. I feel discriminated in Filipino society. There is the idea of making fun of the gay here in the Philippines. There are rules in the Asian culture so I have to be careful because of jobs, and I have to be respectful, to be on the safe side. Also when I'm out at night with the boys I feel her black robe protecting us from dangers in the street." And since Rodrigo Duterte became president in 2016, death squads targeting alleged narcos have made Manila's streets even meaner.

(R. Andrew Chestnut, Devoted to Death, pages 126-132)

#santa muerte #andrew chestnut #devoted to death #black candle #arely vazquez #lgbt #LGBT santa muertistas

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pope-francis-quotes · 6 years

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8th August >> (@vaticannews) Pope Francis at Audience: Christians turn our gaze to Christ crucified

At his General Audience, Pope Francis continues his catechesis on the Ten Commandments, this week once again reflecting on the topic of idolatry.

(By Christopher Wells @vaticannews)

Pope Francis continued his meditation on the Ten Commandments at Wednesday’s General Audience, focusing on the theme of idolatry. He took his cue from the episode of the golden calf, the idol par excellence.

The story of the golden calf, found in the book of Exodus, takes place in the desert, “a place where instability and insecurity reign, where water, food, and shelter are lacking.” The desert, the Pope said, “is an image of human life,” which is filled with uncertainty that can lead to idolatry. Like the Jewish people in the desert, men and women of every age seek security in visible “gods,” gods of their own making, “a do-it-yourself religion.” “When God does not show Himself,” the Pope said, “we fashion a god to suit us.”

The golden calf made by Aaron represented fertility and abundance, but also energy and strength, the Pope said. It was made of gold to symbolize riches. “Success, power, and money” will always be temptations; the golden calf is “the symbol of all the desires that give us the illusion of freedom,” but actually end up enslaving us.

Pope Francis said all this comes from an inability to trust completely in God, “which allows us to endure even weakness, uncertainty, and instability.” When our confidence in God fails, “it is easy to fall into idolatry, and become content with meagre assurances.”

It is only when we look to Christ, who became poor for our sake, “that we discover that recognizing our own weakness is not the misfortune of human life, but rather the condition” that allows us “to open ourselves to Him who is truly strong.” The salvation that comes from God “enters through the gate of weakness.”

We Christians, the Pope said, “turn our gaze to Christ crucified, who is weak, despised, and stripped of everything He possesses.” But Jesus crucified shows us the true face of God. “He comes to reveal the paternity of God: In Christ, our fragility is no longer a curse, but a place of encounter with the Father, and a source of new strength from on high.”

At the conclusion of the Audience, Pope Francis had special greetings for all those named for the Saint of the day, St Dominic Guzman. "His example as a faithful servant of Christ and of His Church should be an encouragement and an incentive for all of us." And he recalled that Thursday is the feast of St Teresa Benedicta of the Cross, (Edith Stein), whom he described as "a martyr, a woman of coherent witness, a woman who sought God with sincerity, with love; a woman martyr of her Jewish and Christian people." "May she, a Patron of Europe, pray and preserve Europe from coldness [of heart].

Topics

GENERAL AUDIENCE

POPE FRANCIS

IDOLATRY

08 August 2018, 10:05

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royallypsychotic · 6 years

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genderassignment · 6 years

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Borderland Creatures: Lise Haller Baggesen & Iris Bernblum at Goldfinch

Installation view of I am the horse, Goldfinch, Chicago. Photo credit: Daniel Hojnacki. Left: Iris Bernblum. Pretty baby 3, 2018, spray paint on photo. Right: Iris Bernblum. Pour, 2018, paint on wall, dimensions variable.

Gender Assignment Guest Blogger, Matt Morris

This is a story of biopower and biosociality…those bitches insisted on the history of companion species, a very mundane and ongoing sort of tale, one full of misunderstandings, achievements, crimes, and renewable hopes. (1)

To begin, rest assured that in my epigraph above, Donna Haraway writes ‘bitches’ in reference to dogs designed to service breeding and the interests of humans. However, it occurs to me how language demonstrates its potential to transmigrate across species (a system that is itself, language), and marks out a contentious zone in which femininity is denigrated, and the fact of our animal-ness is charged with a capacity for social abuse and enforced disparities across gender and race. Language is appropriated, and then reappropriated in common parlance, how one might clap back, confirming, ‘Yes, I’m that bitch.’ One wonders, and the wondering is overwhelming, at the intricacies of how language and organism and the institution of gender have been made to conspire in obfuscating life’s interdependencies. Haraway goes on to remind readers that to consider companion species is not only to account for pets, but also the plant- and animal-based foods we consume, cellular genetic modifications, products with less obvious origins among the living (horses, glue, etc.), and techno-hybrid aspects of contemporary life. The challenge to grasp either the particulars or scope of this paradigm is certainly an (intentional) effect of power. That artists Lise Haller Baggesen and Iris Bernblum succeed at finding starting points to contemplate these entanglements by revisiting the much-maligned genre of ‘horse art’ mostly relegated to the sphere of female adolescence is both novel and moving. In the years I’ve known both artists’ practices, I’ve come to trust that neither are squeamish around topics that are often avoided as much because of how easily they are dismissed as for how problematic they prove to be in their deconstruction. Motherhood, passé disco, unicorns, bucolic landscapes: both artists brave themes that even many other feminists avoid. Their exhibition I Am the Horse now on view at Goldfinch in Garfield Park proves to be écriture feminine (2) équestre par excellence.

If we reside in an oft-unacknowledged natureculture system, Baggesen and Bernblum’s art manifests naturecultureculture, at turns instinctively poetic, strategically conceptual, activist, collaborative, whimsical, and stark. Through paintings (on canvas, on photographs), photographic documentation of playful activations of sculptures (objects that are themselves also on view elsewhere in the space), projected video, drawing, and two audio soundtracks, both artists weave Borromean knots through Lacan’s imaginary and real.

(Why would I invoke such an old model of describing experience and consciousness as Lacan, when Baudrillard’s postulations decades ago of a madness of simulations detached from the real seem to be reaching new climaxes of surreal if not unbearable proportions in our present day? I’ll admit, I’m desperate to find means of surviving even thriving, and it’s in my personal bias that I find Lacan useful. It’s certainly a mere mirage of organization, but as with the ‘horse art’ I’m pondering here, it offers me some manageability with which to encounter immense entanglements with which I am otherwise inundated. I am struggling with being in the world, sometimes struggling to even face exhibition openings like this one about which I write. I’m searching for how to be—ethically, aesthetically, politically.)

Lise Haller Baggesen. Refusenik on the beach, 2018, Photographic transparency, lightbox. Image courtesy of the artist

It’s in this present state that I feel such affinity for Baggesen’s Refuseniks, a series of costumes that propose hybridity for their wearers (across individuals, across species), by combining structural aspects of jockey shirts and horse blankets, often with multiplied arm holes and equine-shaped hoods. Refusenik (double wearable), 2017, is a melancholic confection draped in the gallery space, possessing all the pluralism of Rei Kawakubo and the lightly floral palette of Dirk Van Saene. In the accompanying photographs, we see these garments not only worn by people and horses alike, but also behaving architectonically, pitched into tents redolent of the Snoezelen-room-inspired immersive installations of Baggesen’s earlier work.

Make. Believe. Dress. Up. Pause to consider these words and phrases while observing Baggesen’s photographs of Refuseniks in the wild. The lightbox Refusenik on the Beach, 2018, shows a figure swimming offshore like an island-bound pony or a mermaid. These scenarios are acted out as conscious performative disengagements from dominant narratives that taxonomize and restrict across gender, age, and species. These works are efforts in conscious play, what psychoanalyst Ernst Kris termed ‘regression in the service of the ego,’ following on the pronouncement of becoming that names the exhibition. I am the horse.

Installation view of I am the horse, Goldfinch, Chicago. Photo credit: Daniel Hojnacki

What’s regrettable and even misguided within the literature that expounds on the bonds between women and horses—and by this, I’m speaking of a body of discourse inclusive not only of psychoanalysis and other modern modes of theory production, but also more expansive treatments of mythology and lore—is that these relationships are nearly always supposed as a substitution for women oriented toward men. The method of using a virgin to attract a unicorn so it may be caught and its horn severed and used for its healing properties is all misdirection: it seems clear to me that this narrative mostly prepares young women to be penetrated by virile conquests. The unfounded rumors of Catherine the Great’s lust for equine copulation follows on her wresting control of the Russian empire from her mentally ill husband. In her case, her strength of will that surpassed the men with whom she was attached and surrounded had to be distorted into bestial proportions in order to maintain a culture organized around male domination. A nebula of dildonic hobby horses, penis envy, the introduction of women riding side-saddle as early as the 14th century as a means of protecting their virginity if not also their decency—horses gallop through all sorts of conceptualizations that would portray women’s sexuality as vulnerable and in need of protection, and also a site of lack, a cavity designed to be filled. It would seem that across the literature that characterizes women’s relationships to horses, men can’t help but recast these attachments as metaphoric pussy grabbing of a most intimate order, territorializing the horse’s body as a prosthetic extension of their own desire and dread and anger (read: misogyny) to control women and their object choices, erotic or otherwise. This is a consuming violence further materialized by the litany of ways that the unchecked, unexamined, privileged marker of ‘men’ is scripted with an entitlement to possess whatever the holder of that sign wishes to possess, to possess and then destroy, and the absolute conviction held within that position that any alternative narratives produced within the culture is metaphoric to them.

It is against this violence and the symbolic order that reifies it that Bernblum and Baggesen act. Upon entering the exhibition, Baggesen’s audio piece, Stallion, 2018, is played on white headphones beneath one of several lightbox photographs in the exhibition that show her piecework Refusenik garments used in tropical landscapes. The sound piece is a sort of audio guide, as if a didactic for a museum collection—a format for working that recurs across Baggesen’s oeuvre and shows how her research operates across writing and studio production. The audio speaks to The Lady and the Unicorn tapestries in Paris’ Musée de Cluny, noting possible symbols for virginity, chastity, and maternity within the textiles’ imagery, with frequent departures into lullaby-like singing and theoretical proposals such as: “’Our selves’ are not located within ‘ourselves’…but are a function of it and vice versa, and personhood is acquired, along with ‘soul,’ gradually and suddenly….” From the start, the logic of this exhibition proceeds counter to any linear theory of development in which a monolithic subject is constituted.

Iris Bernblum. Pretty baby 2, 2018, spray paint on photo. Image courtesy of the artist and Aspect/Ratio Gallery, Chicago

Also from the start, the titular horse in both artists’ projects is haunted by a spectral unicorn. In Bernblum’s Pretty baby 3, 2018, a mottled horse is photographed in black and white. Where a unicorn’s horn might emerge from its head, the artist has sprayed the print with a hazy, glowing pink paint. Is this the body from which her ten-foot-tall unicorn horn-cum-lightning rod Struck, 2016, was removed? While the image conjures fantasies both telepathic and amputating, the action of it as an object—the spray of paint that Bernblum repeats across numerous works—belongs to a nouveau réaliste mode of painting that recalls Niki de Saint Phalle’s Shooting Pictures of the 1960s. The pigment dispersions and drips in Bernblum’s paintings—on photographs, paper, and for Pour, 2018, down the gallery wall itself—are jouissance gestures held at an ambiguous point of rupture, appearing to spill forth, but understood as applied onto the bodies (of horses, of gallery-institution) depicted. This, I have come to feel, is the zone in which Bernblum and her audiences are held—threshold spaces, subtle but provocatively suspenseful, with all the erotic, energetic potential of bodies together pressing into the moment of her artwork. She commands an art herstory that swells from Benglis’ ejaculated spills and Judy Chicago’s spray-painted ‘flesh gates,’ ‘cunts,’ and ‘Great Ladies’ works. Here is one of the linkages between artistic praxis and the horse bodies that roam through the exhibition: these painterly forerunners pushed past pictorial illusionism into the expressive potential of material itself, understood simultaneously through being looked upon (imaginary) and acted with (real). So too, it would seem, do horses. History of science scholar Laurel Braitman notes in her research of how animals are thought about within human culture, "Horses and…unicorns—these are all borderland creatures; gateway animals to other worlds," she says. "They help us imagine wonderful other ways of being in the world,” of harnessing one’s own power and potential for transformation. (3)

Lise Haller Baggesen. Grown up Refusenik, Copenhagen, October 2017, 2017. Photographic transparency, lightbox. Image courtesy of the artist

The efforts of these two artists sensitize their audiences to the means by which such transformative tools are restricted from use by their situation into early periods of development that are made difficult to access, through stigmas of some sort of arrested adolescence and the assigned roles and responsibilities of adulthood. The assembled artworks, the excursions they document, and the desires they manifest act against capitalist time, the work shift of the laborer, the demands on the time of mothers and working mothers, the imposition of a before and after of sexual awakening. Baggesen’s Grown-up Refusenik, Copenhagen, October 2017, 2017, shows an upright figure standing beside a clear-eyed horse named Nellie. One sees a graying beard along the jawline of the figure, whose head is otherwise masked by a pink horse hood. If not for this fanciful headpiece, this image might recall the other tradition in horse art, the status-symbol equestrian portrait that came to prominence in the 16th–18th centuries of European painting. As it is, one is left to quietly rethink the conceptual divisions upon which our political, economic, and ideological systems depend. What if the hierarchies of speciesism are toppled, and with them, the metaphors that would organize all women’s attachments as preludes or parallels to their being dominated by men? What it the right-wing accelerationism’s tenuous reliance on regulated, linear time might be disrupted in order to gain access to modes of play and being that have been restricted to childhood? What if we breathe, as Bernblum’s two-channel video work breathes, or we make space to catch our breath amidst what feels like a world on fire? What if we explore unbridled, libidinal release that transgresses borderlands? Because, interestingly, Baggesen and Bernblum work into and from facets of écriture féminine that are not essentialist in defining a category of womanhood, but even, as Wittig proposes would “destroy the sexes as a sociological reality if we want to start to exist.” Optimistically, she invites forms of becoming beyond a binary: “To refuse to be a woman, however, does not mean that one has to become a man.” What if, in refusal, we become unicorns?

End Note: I’ve decided that for my series of contributions to Gender Assignment, I want to attach to each essay a selected perfume that I’ve worn through most or all of the drafting of these texts. This can be traced back to my use of perfume in my own art practice, as well as conversations around sensitivity and wellness related to scent that I’ve shared with my host and editor here, Mel Potter, as well as the artists and subjects of this and other forthcoming texts. For this first essay, I have written within a cloud of Mon Musc a Moi, released in 2015 by A Lab on Fire, designed by Dominique Ropion. This scent opens with quick bursts of bergamot and peach blossom before wrapping a sugary heliotrope-vanilla in wet-fur musks. The perfume house recently renamed the scent Messy SexyTM Just Rolled Out of Bed, and it strikes me that the former name possesses an introspection and reticence that is perhaps in keeping with this exhibition, while its updated moniker casts the scent into a narrative tinged with male-gazey sexual-objecthood that may be more salable, but belies some of the poetry of the scent.

Matt Morris is an artist, writer, and sometimes curator based in Chicago. He analyzes forms of attachment and intimacy through painting, perfume, photography, and institutional critique. He has presented artwork at Adds Donna, The Bike Room, Gallery 400, The Franklin, peregrineprogram, Queer Thoughts, Sector 2337, and Shane Campbell Gallery in Chicago, IL; The Mary + Leigh Block Museum of Art in Evanston, IL; The Elmhurst Art Museum in Elmhurst, IL; Fjord and Vox Populi in Philadelphia, PA; The Contemporary Arts Center, U·turn Art Space, Aisle, and semantics in Cincinnati, OH; Clough-Hanson Gallery and Beige in Memphis, TN; Permanent.Collection in Austin, TX; Cherry + Lucic in Portland, OR; The Poor Farm in Manawa, WI; with additional projects in Reims, France; Greencastle, IN; Lincoln, NE; and Baton Rouge, LA. Morris is a transplant from southern Louisiana who holds a BFA from the Art Academy of Cincinnati, and earned an MFA in Art Theory + Practice from Northwestern University, as well as a Certificate in Gender + Sexuality Studies. In Summer 2017 he earned a Certification in Fairyology from Doreen Virtue, PhD. He is a lecturer at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and a contributor to Artforum.com, ARTnews, Art Papers, Flash Art, Pelican Bomb, and Sculpture; and his writing appears in numerous exhibition catalogues and artist monographs.

1. Haraway, Donna. The Companion Species Manifesto: Dogs, People, and Significant Otherness. Chicago: Prickly Paradigm Press, 2007. Print, p. 5.

2. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Écriture_féminine>

3. Quoted in Davia Nelson and Niiki Silva’s “Why Do Girls Love Horses, Unicorns and Dolphins?” All Things Considered. National Public Radio, February 9, 2011. <https://www.npr.org/2011/02/09/133600424/why-do-girls-love-horses-unicorns-and-dolphins>

#matt morris #iris bernblum #Lise Haller Baggesen #goldfinch gallery #gender #lacan #haraway #i am the horse #gender assignment #wittig #baudrillard #unicorns

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seekfirstme · 3 years

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"Jesus said to them [Simon Peter and Andrew], “Come after me, and I will make you fishers of men.” (Matthew 4: 19).

Monday 30th November 2020, First Week of Advent is the feast of St Andrew the Apostle, brother of Simon Peter. (+ 60). Martyred in Greece circa 60 AD. Patron saint of Greece, Russia and Scotland.

Andrew is my Evangelist par excellence. He hears the Gospel. He believes in it. Immediately he goes to share this treasure with the first person he meets who happens to be his brother Simon Peter. How do we respond like Andrew and become committed and enthusiastic evangelists? There are two necessary steps:

#1. Formation or Training: Spending time with Jesus in prayer and His word. This enables you to become like Jesus. Before you can start acting like Jesus, you must spend time listening to Him and watching His every move.

#2. Practicum: The student teacher or nurse needs to ground the theory she learned in the classroom in the real world. This is the Practicum.

The core mission of the Church is to evangelize. Pope St Paul VI writes that the Church exists in order to evangelize. This is a profound statement. Where is your place in this scheme? In the first Reading we hear:

"For “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”

But how can they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how can they believe in him of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone to preach? And how can people preach unless they are sent? (Romans 10: 13 - 15).

How can people hear of a new product unless there is a salesman or advertising? Friend, Jesus invites you to be the sales person. You can do this through word of mouth, text messaging, emails and sharing social media Catholic Blogs.

Daily Bible Verse @ SeekFirstcommunity.com

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gospelmusic · 4 years

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Catholic Daily Mass Readings: Today, Sunday 17 May 2020 - I Will Not Leave You Desolate

Sunday May 17, 2020 Sixth Sunday of Easter (A) Vestment: White Today’s Rosary: Glorious Mystery Theme of the Sunday: The Promise of the Spirit. The main theme of today’s readings is Jesus’ promise to send the Paraclete, the Spirit of truth. The Spirit’s coming will be celebrated on the feast of Pentecost. Today’s gospel spells out how we should prepare to receive the Spirit. The second reading is a practical application of this teaching in the lives of persecuted Christians who know that the Paraclete will always be with them. The first reading shows the apostles calling down the Spirit in the imposition of hands.

Entrance Antiphon cr. 1s 48:20 (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); Proclaim a joyful sound and let it be heard; proclaim to the ends of the earth: the Lord has freed his people, alleluia.

The Gloria in excelsis (Glory to God in the highest) is said.

Collect Grant, almighty God, that we may celebrate with heartfelt devotion these days of joy, which we keep in honour of the risen Lord, and that what we relive in remembrance we may always hold to in what we do. Through our Lord. .

FIRST READING “They laid hands on them, and they received the Holy Spirit.” A reading from the Acts of the Apostles (Acts 8:5-8.14-17)

In those days: Philip went down to a city of Samaria, and proclaimed to them the Christ. And the multitudes with one accord gave heed to what was said by Philip, when they heard him and saw the signs which he did. For unclean spirits came out of many who were possessed, crying with a loud voice; and many who were paralysed or lame were healed. So there was much joy in that city. Now when the apostles at Jerusalem heard that Samaria had received the word of God, they sent to them Peter and John, who came down and prayed for them that they might receive the Holy Spirit; for the Spirit had not yet fallen on any of them, but they had only been baptised in the name of the Lord Jesus. Then they laid their hands on them and they received the Holy Spirit.

The word of the Lord.

RESPONSORIAL PSALM Ps 65: 1-3a.4-5.6-7a.16 and 20 (R. I) R/. Cry out with joy to God, all the earth. Or: Alleluia. Cry out with joy to God, all the earth; O sing to the glory of his name. O render him glorious praise. Say to God, “How awesome your deeds!” R/. “Before you all the earth shall bow down, shall sing to you, sing to your name!” Come and see the works of God: awesome his deeds among the children of men. R/. He turned the sea into dry land; they passed through the river on foot. Let our joy, then, be in him; he rules forever by his might. R/.

Come and hear, all who fear God; I will tell what he did for my soul. Blest be God, who did not reject my prayer, nor withhold from me his merciful love. R/.

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SECOND READING “Put to death in the flesh, he was made alive in the Spirit. ” A reading from the first Letter of Saint Peter (1 Peter 3 :15-18)

Beloved: In your hearts reverence Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to make a defence to any one who calls you to account for the hope that is in you, yet do it with gentleness and reverence; and keep your conscience clear, so that, when you are abused, those who revile your good behaviour in Christ may be put to shame. For it is better to suffer for doing right, if that should be God’s will, than for doing wrong. For Christ also died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the Spirit.

The word of the Lord.

ALLELUIA John 14:23 Alleluia. If a man loves me, he will keep my word, says the Lord; and my Father will love him, and we will come to him. Alleluia.

GOSPEL “I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counsellor. ” A reading from the holy Gospel according to John (John l4: 15-21)

At that time: Jesus said to his disciples, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counsellor, to be with you for ever, even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him; you know him, for he dwells with you, and will be in you. “I will not leave you desolate; I will come to you. Yet a little while, and the world will see me no more, but you will see me; because I live, you will live also. In that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you. He who has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me; and he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him.”

The Gospel of the Lord.

(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); PRAYER OF THE FAITHFUL The Holy Spirit restores us to life.

PRIEST: My brothers and sisters one of the fruits of Easter is the coming of the Holy Spirit into our world. We ask God our Father to help us to be open to the Spirit, as we make our prayers to him.

READER: For the leaders of the Church, (pause) may they always be open to the promptings of the Holy Spirit, and so, through him, grow in the fullness of wisdom and truth. (pause) Lord, hear our prayer; and send your Spirit upon us we pray Oh Lord.

For the world in which we live, (pause) may all Christians realize that the world is changing for better or worse, and that it will only be for the better if, by being open to the Holy Spirit, everyone make a positive Christian contribution to the society around us. (pause) Lord, hear our prayer; and send your Spirit upon us we pray Oh Lord.

For those whose faith has become weak, (pause) may they come alive again to God’s Holy Spirit and may the dying embers of their love of God be fanned into a flame. (pause) Lord, hear our prayer; and send your Spirit upon us we pray Oh Lord.

For a spirit of Christian unity, (pause) may all Christians ask the Lord to send his Holy Spirit upon us to heal the wounds of our division and strengthen our common faith. (pause) Lord, hear our prayer; and send your Spirit upon us we pray Oh Lord.

We pray in silence to our heavenly Father for our own private intentions.

PRIEST: Father, you have not left us orphans but sent us the Holy Spirit in whose power we make our prayer to you. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.

Today's Reflection In today’s first reading we see how the people of Samaria, experience the joy of receiving the good news through the ministry of Philip. They rejoiced that they came to know the true saviour. James and John strengthen them in their faith by laying hands and obtaining for them the power of the Holy Spirit. In today’s gospel Jesus promises the same Holy Spirit, the counsellor, to be with them for ever. The Counsellor is the spirit of truth. The Holy Spirit is the promise of the Lord as he departs from this world after fulfilling his mission. So a Christian is never left abandoned by God, but always lives in the Holy Triune God. St Peter, in the second reading advises the people to be ready to answer their adversaries with a defence of gentleness and reverence. This is the consequence of receiving the Holy Spirit. Lord, fill me with your Spirit of courage and joy.

Personal Devotional: Day 17 May Devotion

Determination to continue to witness for Jesus no matter the circumstances should be the priority of anyone who truly wish to be a disciple after the mind of Christ.

Our Mother Mary was a witness par excellence. She witnessed with her life and example. She spoke less but acted more and she never gave up even in the most difficult and challenging times of her life. This should be our attitude always. Never give up, but stay strong and continue to profess Jesus Christ in good times and in bad and you will definitely see the face of God.*

Meditation: Acts 22:30;23:6-11

Prayer: Lord Jesus Christ, the journey of following you and witnessing for you could be tough, but I believe in your grace to see me through. May I remain steadfast until the end. Amen. *And May the Almighty God bless you: the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.*_

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You may also like our gospel worship songs page which contains, the best, coolest and hottest Nigerian Gospel Songs, and Foreign Gospel Songs. Whatsoever is the mood, we've got you covered. Do you feel like dancing, rejoicing, shouting, screaming, or you're filled with jubilation because of the Mighty things the Lord has done? Then look no further, cos our gospel praise songs page, containing the hottest Nigerian and foreign praise songs collection, was prepared specifically for you. Peradventure you need the lyrics of the songs you are downloading now, just downloaded, or have downloaded before, our lyrics page is the best place to look. What more could be more helpful and entertaining than seeing the lyrics of your most favourite song before you, as the music unfolds unto the climax. Hey we've been there before, and still encounter it from time to time when the vocals get lost in the cloud of heavy orchestration.

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Are You a Classical Music lover, our classical music page, contains the best of classical songs, composed and written by composers like G. F Handel, Bach, Joseph Haydn, etc. As you listen to your best gospel song, you may also want to get some more insight and knowledge about the word of God, from eBooks written by God's servants, or you may want to learn something new or build yourself up in some way. Then our eBook Page is the right place to look. (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); You may be in need of entertainment, and probably want to watch a video too. We understand that as well. You can get entertaining video downloads from our video downloads page.

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#Music #Lyrics

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anastpaul · 7 years

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Saint of the Day – 10 October – St Francis Borgia S.J. (1510-1572) Priest, Advisor, Missionary, Evangelist, Administrator par excelleance. Born – Francisco de Borja y Aragon was the 4th Duke of Gandía, was a Grandee of Spain, a Spanish Jesuit and third Superior General of the Society of Jesus – (28 October 1510 at Gandia, Valencia, Spain – 30 September 1572 at Ferrara, Italy). His relics were translated to the Jesuit church in Madrid, Spain in 1901. He was Beatified on 23 November 1624 at Madrid by Pope Urban VIII and Canonised on 20 June 1670 by Pope Clement X in Rome, Italy. Patronages – against earthquakes, Portugal, Rota, Marianas. Attributes – Skull crowned with an emperor’s diadem.

St Francis was born in Duchy of Gandía, Valencia, on 28 October 1510. His father was Juan Borgia, 3rd Duke of Gandía, the son of Giovanni Borgia, the son of Pope Alexander VI (Rodrigo Borgia). His mother was Juana, daughter of Alonso de Aragón, Archbishop of Zaragoza, who, in turn, was the illegitimate son of King Ferdinand II of Aragon. His brother, Tomás de Borja y Castro, also became a clergyman, becoming the Bishop of Málaga and later the Archbishop of Zaragoza.

As a relative of Pope Alexander VI, King Ferdinand of Aragon and Emperor Charles V, joined Spain’s imperial court at age eighteen, although as a child he was very pious and wished to become a monk, his family sent him instead to court. He distinguished himself there, accompanying the Emperor on several campaigns. The next year he married Eleanor de Castro, who bore him eight children. In 1539, shortly after experiencing a religious conversion, Francis left the court but continued in public life as viceroy of Catalonia. At this time under the influence of St Peter of Alcántara O.F.M. and St Peter Favre S.J, he progressed in prayer and the spiritual life.

In 1543, Francis succeeded his father as duke of Gandia. He was much opposed to gaming and did not allow his servants to indulge in it. He used to say: “Gaming is accompanied by great losses; loss of money, loss of time, loss of devotion and loss of conscience.” The same aversion he had for the reading of frivolous books, even if they were not immoral. He found his greatest delight in reading devout books and said: “The reading of devout books is the first step towards a better life.” At the period in which he lived the principal enjoyments of the higher classes were music and hawking; and, as he could not abstain from them entirely, he took care, at such times, to raise his thoughts to the Almighty and to mortify himself. Thus, when he went hawking, he closed his eyes at the very moment when the hawk swooped; the sight of which, they say, was the chief pleasure of this kind of hunting.

The Almighty, to draw His servant entirely away from the world, sent him several severe maladies, which made him recognise the instability of all that is earthly. He became more fully aware of this after the death of the Empress, whose wondrous beauty was everywhere extolled. By the order of the Emperor, it became the duty of Francis to escort the remains to the royal vault at Granada. There the coffin was opened before the burial took place, and the sight that greeted the beholders was most awful. Nothing was left of the beautiful Empress but a corpse, so disfigured, that all averted their eyes, whilst the odour it exhaled was so offensive that most of the spectators were driven away.

St Francis was most deeply touched, and when, after the burial, he went into his room, prostrated himself before the crucifix and having given vent to his feelings, he exclaimed: “No, no, my God! in future I will have no master whom death can take from me.” He then made a vow that he would enter a religious order, should he survive his consort. He often used to say afterwards: “The death of the Empress awakened me to life.” When Francis returned from Granada the Emperor created him Viceroy of Catalonia and in this new dignity the holy Duke continued to lead rather a religious than a worldly life. He had a fatherly care for his subjects and every one had at all hours admittance to him. Towards the poor he manifested great kindness. He daily gave four or five hours to prayer. He fasted almost daily and scourged himself to blood. He assisted at Mass and received Holy Communion every day. When he heard that disputes had arisen among the theologians at the universities, in regard to the frequent use of Holy Communion, he wrote to St. Ignatius, at Rome and asked his opinion on the subject. St. Ignatius wrote back to him, approving of the frequent use of Holy Communion and strengthening him in his thoughts about it.

Meanwhile, the death of his father brought upon him the administration of his vast estates, without, however, in the least changing his pious manner of living. Soon after his pious consort, who was his equal in virtue, became sick. Francis prayed most fervently to God for her recovery. One day, while he was thus praying, he heard an interior voice, which said these words: “If thou desirest that thy consort should recover, thy wish shall be fulfilled but it will not benefit thee.” Frightened at these words, he immediately conformed his own will in all things to the Divine will. From that moment the condition of the Duchess grew worse and she died, as she had lived, piously and peacefully. St Francis, remembering his vow, determined to execute it without delay. Taking counsel of God and of his confessor, he chose the Society of Jesus, which had recently been instituted. Writing to St. Ignatius, he asked for admittance, which was cheerfully granted. But, to settle his affairs satisfactorily, he was obliged to remain four years longer in his offices. Having at length, by the permission of the Emperor, resigned his possessions to his eldest son, he took the religious habit and proceeded to Rome. Scarcely four months had elapsed since his arrival, when he was informed that the Pope wished to make him a cardinal; and, to avoid this dignity, he returned to Spain. Being ordained priest, he said his first Mass in the chapel of the Castle of Loyola, where St Ignatius had been born; and then spent a few years in preaching and instructing the people. It would take more space than is allowed to us to relate how many sinners he converted, and how much he laboured for the honour of God and the salvation of souls.

While he preferred a quiet life of solitude, the Jesuits felt differently and promoted him so that he could use his great administrative talents for the church. In 1554, St Ignatius appointed Francis commissary for Spain, where he founded twelve colleges and a novitiate. The Jesuits chose Francis as their general in 1565. His consolidation of the society and expansion of its ministry has caused him to be recognised as the second founder of the order. He established disciplined novitiates in every Jesuit province, writing regulations and books of spiritual instruction for them.

Francis created a new Jesuit base in Poland and strengthened the community’s work in Germany and France. Between 1566 and 1572 he launched the Jesuit mission to Spanish colonies in Florida, Mexico and Peru. He maintained contact with the missioners by letter, advising them about their own spiritual lives and counseling them on strategy. Following is an excerpt from his correspondence:

“We must perform all our works in God and refer them to His glory so that they will be permanent and stable. Everyone—whether kings, nobles, tradesmen or peasants—must do all things for the glory of God and under the inspiration of Christ’s example. . . . When you pray, hear Mass, sit at table, engage in business and when at bedtime you remove your clothes—at all times crave that by the pain which He felt when He was stripped just before His crucifixion, He may strip us of our evil habits of mind. Thus, naked of earthly things, we may also embrace the cross.

Wherever our brethren may be, let their first care be for those already converted. Their first aim must be to strengthen these in the faith and to help them save their souls. After this they may convert others not yet baptised. But let them proceed prudently and not undertake more than they can carry through. It is not desirable for them to hurry here and there to convert heathen with whom they cannot afterwards keep in touch. It is better to advance step by step and consolidate conquests already made. . . . They are not to risk their lives unnecessarily in excursions among unconquered people. The swift loss of life in God’s service may be advantageous for them. However, it is not for the greater good of the many for there are only a few labourers for the vineyard and it is difficult to replace them.”

His successes during the period 1565-1572 have caused historians to describe Francis as the greatest General after Saint Ignatius. He founded the Collegium Romanum, which was to become the Gregorian University in Rome, advised kings and popes and closely supervised all the affairs of the rapidly expanding order. Yet, despite the great power of his office, Francis led a humble life and was widely regarded in his own lifetime as a saint.

In 1571 the pope sent Francis to Spain and Portugal to help build an alliance against the Turks. He grew increasingly ill on this ambassadorial trip and died after returning to Rome in 1572.

(via AnaStpaul – Breathing Catholic)

#stfrancisborgia #october10stfrancisborgia #catholic #catholicism #jesuit

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