Imperfect vessels.

Elden ring ocs.

I absolutely love your lore theories for LoP! Very new to the fandom :). Stayed up all night reading your posts abt it whahaha please keep making them!

Just wanted to ask what you think, if Camille was the recorded first puppet with an awakened ego and was Carlo's mom... does that mean Geppetto let his wife be experimented on by the alchemists upon her death or???

Another thought, do you think Sophia knew Geppetto's plans? Given that she reached out to P at the very beginning and called him by name ((geppettos puppet)) She knew Simon's plans yeah. But what abt Geppettos?

Thank you so much for your kind ask!!!

I panicked briefly because I thought I lost this ask somewhere. I have a LOT of thoughts surrounding Camille and parts of the game that I struggle to put together really cohesively, so on certain topics, i'm just going to ramble.

So, there is this image from the opening cutscene.

Maybe it isn't literally Camille and Carlo, but it may be alluding to them. [And what are they shown playing here? dundundun]

There is a particular affinity and focus the game has on the Piano as well.

Music is so linked to humanity in this game, i think it's very sweet.

There was also this really interesting post about the blue fairy (in the og collodi novel) that I don't think I can dig up anymore, but I remember it was something like this. It was pointing out that, realistically, the blue fairy really isn't a good parent. She lets a seven year old child be hanged on a tree, she watches by as he is enslaved; she makes him "work" for the right to be a real boy instead of reasonably granting him it, etc. The blue fairy also appears omniscient or goddess-like, appearing as a child, a young woman, a goat, and a mother (in perhaps her most adapted incarnation).

if Sophia's knowledge is endless, couldn't she have warned us about geppetto? wouldn't she know about carlo (someone she knew as a child) being tortured in a box? was it her discretion to let us suffer, because he needs to be able to suffer to be strong? Does that make her a moral or ethical person? Can any personhood with omniscience, who, in a sense, allows evil to happen, be moral or just? Perhaps, herein lies the philosophical, inherent flaw, in any relationship with an omniscient being, but I digress.

However, I think Sophia's endless knowledge that Arlecchino [sadly I write his name wrong every time] refers to is spiritual, or emotional, in a sense: that because she could manipulate time, all of it was at her disposal. When we wake up in the train car, her words are: "There you are, I've been looking all over for you!" She could not have known where we were, if she was searching for us (possibly through the blue butterfly figure we see). Also, I think she could've warned us about Geppetto.. but maybe then we wouldn't have gone to save her, and her goals are to get us to save her from Simon, which I believe she either says or suggests are "selfish" intentions (although I think she is very well within her right to have tbh). I don't think she is all-knowing in the way that Simon's world of truth would be. Maybe it's just a plot hole, perhaps it's just a "flaw" innate in writing any story with an omniscient character, but I don't think she was omniscient in that fashion.

And then coming back to Camille: One of my absolute favourite things about the game is the Saintess of Mercy Statue/Pieta Motif that we see in the Grand Exhibition. And Camille, who is inferred to have been the mother of Carlo, is said to have engineered the statue. She is directly connected to the game's central visual motif of death and rebirth. And then the statue also being diegetically[not a word apparently?] associated with rebirth and renewal ("Bring new life to puppets") in that you are "re-setting" and re-spec your character's stats there??? Equal parts beautiful and spectacular and touching.

[I feel SO sad that apparently, not every gamer got to see the statue. Opening those doors after the phone call riddle and then the camera panning up to the statue is such an amazing and special moment to me, and then the fact that it's also raining (another symbol of birth) too]

I don't know if the Camille puppet was literally the same Camille (who may have been the wife of Giuseppe), though. We know that she seems to have saved a baby from falling, on which afterwards she says "bring me back to my child". Not only is the Camille puppet a devoted mother character, she's also the first puppet to awaken (in other words, being associated with the idea of birth). "Camille" is so tied to the idea of motherhood and birth, that I think the Camille puppet is another connection here, and may not literally be the same Camille who was a technician. Although, I don't put it past Geppetto to be doing nefarious experiments with puppets, even if it were his wife. It might be a little ominous in regards to his attitude to P, that he doesn't see puppets as "people", but he does see people as puppets.

: : “ready for another round?” ( from panda @inugamimochi )

crimson-hued  eyes  peaked  from  underneath  a  patterned  tenugui,  resting  on  the  fourth-years'  forehead  (  providing  some  temporary  relief  from  the  summer  heat.  )  pandas'  enthusiasm  was  well-contrasted  by  yasuko's  pieta-esque  posture,  sprawled  out  on  the  stone  stairwell  with  eyes  pointed  towards  heaven.  she'd  give  a  cursory  glance  over  to  the  shinai  at  her  feet,  two  out  of  four  of  the  bamboo  slats  were  shattered  on  their  last  go  around  (  100  yen  was  no  big  expense,  however  she  had  hoped  it'd  have  at  least  lasted  them  to  the  end  of  the  week  )  -  if  anything  she  was  beginning  to  realize  what  sort  of  combat  ability  signified  a  half-step  grading.   100  yen  was  a  small  price  for  that  insight. 

after  several  seconds  spent  staring  blankly  off  into  space,  she'd  spring  upward  -  exhaling  sharply  as  she  came  back  to  her  feet.  from  a  sun-bleached  carrying  bag  she'd  retrieve  a  bokken;  constructed  of  sand-toned  buna  wood.  eyes  would  turn  back  to  panda,  subtle  grin  would  form  -  indicative  of  the  return  of  yasuko's  spirit  of  friendly  competition. 

"  sure  -  but  since  this  is  all  i've  got  left  with  me  ...  i'll  try  and  be  gentle  "  this,  of  course  referring  to  the  instrument  of  solid  wood  -  which  if  wielded  with  intent  could  be  hazardous  to  the  average  human.  fortunately,  the  average  human  was  not  enrolled  at  tokyo  jujutsu  high.  "  but  feel  free  to  tap  out  if  it  hurts  "  another  friendly  smirk,  sparring  with  panda  brought  out  a  sort  of  expressionism  in  yasuko  that  not  many  were  witness  to.  few  were  aware  of  her  competitive  side,  but  those  that  were  knew  never  to  spar  unless  they  were  willing  to  commit  to  an  all-day  affair  (  best  of  3,  best  of  5,  and  so  on  and  so  on  )

feet  would  shift  positions,  one  placed  in  front  of  the  other  hovering  just  above  the  ground  -  poised  to  lunge.  arms  would  bring  the  wooden  blade  into  chudan,  sharp  edge  tracing  the  center-line  of  her  opponent.

Requesting your art historian skills for recommendations for more dark or strange paintings? Or artists to look into. If you have time obviously!

Of course!! I'm assuming you're referring Fall of the Rebel Angels that I reblogged, so definitely Pieter Bruegel the Elder. Other Dutch and Flemish artists of the Northern Renaissance like Bosch (of The Garden of Earthly Delights fame) often had a selection of very surreal, unsettling, and fantastical works, but it'll be hit or miss.

I would urge you to look at some of the Romantic painters as well, specifically Géricault for all your corpse study needs and Goya, for his Black Paintings in particular.

El Greco and Pontormo were Mannerists, and while not the intention of the style, I personally find Mannerism to be very uncanny and almost liminal in its strange colors and distortions of perspective and anatomy. It's especially prominent in those two artists.

Also not intentionally "creepy" but sometimes giving that unsettling, uncanny vibe is a LOT of late medieval art, particularly French and German. Cathedral facades depicting Hell and Judgement, medieval pieta sculpture, the Man of Sorrows (there's some excellent Renaissance art of this subject too), and even some manuscripts like the Codex Gigas/Devil’s Bible.

I'm far from well-versed on contemporary art, but Giovanni Gasparro has some very graphic, almost body horror-esque takes on Biblical subject matter in a sort of neo-Baroque style as well.

Some of my favorite weird paintings under the cut (mostly Catholics being creepy):

The Röttgen Pietà

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Anatomical Pieces and Head of a Guillotined Man by Theodore Géricault

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Portrait of the Devil (Codex Gigas)

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The Man of Sorrows by Aelbrecht Bouts

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The Witches' Sabbath and The Witches' Flight by Francisco Goya

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Dante and Virgil by William-Adolphe Bouguereau

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Hell by Hieronymous Bosch

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Jesus and Barrabas by Giovanni Gasparro

Director's commentary for D&D!!!

Thanks for the ask anon :D

I really enjoyed writing the Ritz scene at the end of chapter two. Below, I will pick out key-lines and add my commentary.

"He nodded a greeting at the liveried waiter standing beside the ornate oak doors of the dining room. The man cast him a brief assessing look, before springing to open the door and beckon Sirius inside. "

So I wrote this bit to show how despite his estrangement from his family, Sirius still carries himself with the hallmarks of his privileged upbringing. He presents as a good-looking, well-spoken, expensively dressed white man (and in a muggle space this alone affords him privilege that he isn't aware of). His social capital means he can move within these muggle spaces without anyone questioning him. Hence the waiter, springing to open the door for him instead of asking why he was there in the first place.

‘I trust you’ve been well?’ Sirius asked the banal question, which was the by-product of eight years of etiquette training. He knew it was a pointless thing to ask because the dark smudges under her eyes told him the answer to his question.

Once again, Sirius demonstrates his social capital and also how observant he is. My intention was to also show how Sirius chafes against manners and false politeness calling it ‘banal’ (in canon he’s very blunt).

‘So, you’ll be reporting him missing?’ Sirius asked, as he fought the powerful compulsion to comfort her. An urge which stemmed from the ineffable feeling that he had known her in another place or another time and was unable to access the memory.

A few keen-eyed readers have already picked up on Sirius feeling like he knew her as a reference to Pietas. But it also stems from the fact that he admires loyalty and is empathetic with Aeliana’s desire to find her brother. They will also later bond over this.

‘I had not realised the full-extent of things,’ she stated, her cheeks flushing as unreadable emotions flickered in the depths of her dark-eyes. ‘And as your report so astutely concludes, the vultures will rip the Marcellus’ name to pieces if this information becomes ministry property and not under confidentiality clauses.’

I wanted to demonstrate how well Sirius understands Pureblood society and the political machinations of the ministry. Afterall he was born at the apex of this society and probably groomed for power from a very young age. I also added his observations about her emotions, as I interpret Sirius at being very aware of the emotions of others

"Aeliana responded, cutting across him while clicking her fingers at a nearby waiter and pointing to her empty Martini glass."

Throughout this scene, Aeliana is drinking and smoking a fair bit and this is her attempt at taking the edge of her emotions. Also her clicking her fingers is such entitled behaviour and despite the scene being told from Sirius’s POV he doesn’t admonish or judge her for it (once again demonstrating how at ease he is with it despite his protestations about his family).

“Snapping her gaze back to Sirius, she went on while arching her brow sardonically. ‘I can read between the lines, Mr Black.’

As I mentioned in a previous director’s cut ask, Aeliana is as intelligent as Sirius and also knows how their world operates. They are also both using very formal ways of addressing each other and I chose this because it feels OTT and is their way of holding distance with the other ( and suppressing attraction).

“He puffed on his cigarette, coughing as the smoke hit the back of his throat, and realised that he had essentially provided a sales pitch for why she should extend their contract. Despite himself, his sense of pride prickled at the idea of seeking work in such a forward manner. “

Throughout this scene, I’m establishing how much his upbringing has shaped him into the man he is. Despite having rejected his family’s values, there are certain things he can’t shake, like thinking it’s gauche to pitch for work. Also at a subconscious level, part of the intrigue of the case is Aeliana herself and that adds to the prickling.

"She lit her fourth cigarette and inhaled deeply. ‘Then I will extend your contract, but with the proviso that I accompany you during your investigation. "

Here Aeliana is motivated by a desire to not sit on the sidelines when someone she loves is in danger. Despite, being disappointed in her brother she still loves him very deeply and wants to do something active.

‘You’re not my type, Mrs Lestrange,’ he said, emphasising her title with as much bite as he could manage, while remaining within the bounds of what James deemed to be professional.

Sirius doth protest too much. In this instant, he is interpreting her movements as a seduction attempt, whereas an outside observer (watching from the next table) would have just seen her lean back in her chair.

At this point, Sirius is unaware that he only saw a seduction attempt, because he wanted a seduction attempt. Also Sirius usually lashes out/can’t control his tongue when he’s feeling strong emotions.

Furthermore he uses the formal ‘Mrs Lestrange’ to emphasize the business nature of their relationship.

"To his surprise, his words were immediately met with a mirthless, derisive laugh.

‘Blood traitor isn’t mine, Mr Black,’ she retorted, her eyes roaming over him appraisingly "

I added this response to demonstrate several things. Firstly, she is aware of his standing in pureblood society and when coupled with the subsequent dialogue shows that she’s done her homework on him. Secondly, she can match his cutting tongue and isn’t afraid of going for a low blow (especially when her pride is wounded). Additionally her laughter was at his audacity and arrogance and to mask that his comment stung slightly.

‘Even your partner’s gold cannot buy certain privileges that come with blood-ties and an ancient name,’ she said as a silent understanding passed between them. "

I like the idea that there is nuance amongst the wizarding elite. That while James has money, he lacks access to the upper echelons of society because he’s not from a Sacred 28 family. I also think that in canon Voldemort capitalised on issues that were already festering rather than creating it from scratch. So in this AU issues of blood-status and privilege still exist.

‘I leave for Scotland tomorrow; you will meet me in the lobby of the Inverlochy castle hotel at noon either to conclude our current contract or begin our amended one.’

And with that, she swept away, leaving Sirius to stare at her retreating back. "

This is a power move on Aeliana’s part, she is well aware that he will be there to extend the contract and so she cuts the conversation short and walks away.

I can’t get over the whedonian take on Michelangelo’s pieta in The Gift. How Giles is closest to her dead body, father near daughter, a sort of inverse of Mary and Christ.

oh man, you really nerd-sniped me with this one. apologies in advance for how long this is, but that ending scene from “the gift” is actually really interesting to me from an art perspective! 

cut for length.

first off, for reference. here’s michelangelo’s pietà and then the shot from “the gift”:

clearly, they’re pretty similar. both feature a parental figure mourning the dead body of a foregrounded martyr. though i also think the differences highlight how the show breaks with traditional christian symbolism. like you pointed out, the genders are inverted, for one. and the visual emphasis on buffy rather than giles means that the scene is as much about buffy’s heroism as it is about parental grief. she’s much further in the foreground and her face is tilted towards the camera. whereas the pietà is very much about mary to me--mary looks almost larger than jesus, and his face is tilted away where hers is straight on. (related, there’s something to the fact that buffy is both a parent and a child in season five...so it wouldn’t make sense for her to be the centerpiece of an image that is purely about a parent mourning a child; perhaps that duality is reflected in the fact that buffy’s expression looks like mary’s). the distance between buffy and her friends also, to me, suggests that slayer isolation that dogs buffy the whole show. she isn’t wrapped in anyone’s arms. more on this in a bit.

but overall, the scene actually reminds more strongly of another, similar genre: the deposition of christ. also known as “the descent from the cross”. instead of focusing on the relationship between jesus and mary, deposition scenes feature the reactions of everyone around jesus as his body is taken off of the cross. do i think that the show was deliberately referencing this genre? no idea. it’s probably more likely that if the show was referencing anything, it was referencing the pietà, since that’s a much more famous image--and the triangular composition of both scenes echo each other. though i wouldn’t say 100% no, since the deposition is famous in its own right. if you know anything about christian art history you’ll have encountered deposition scenes (rogier van der weyden’s deposition in particular is incredibly famous and important in the context of art history. if you take any western art history class from that period, you will most likely learn about it.). and if you looked up pictures of jesus in a reference book, there’s a good chance they’d show up. but regardless of intent the similarity is nonetheless interesting to me.

to see what i mean, here’s are some examples of deposition scenes from three different countries and eras: rogier van der weyden (flemish, 1425), jusepe de ribera, (spanish, 1637), and jean beraud (french, 1892).

again just composition-wise, you can probably see the similarities for yourself. but content-wise, there are really interesting comparisons too. you see the figure behind christ in the first one, that’s taking him off of the cross? that’s nicodemus, who was a pharisee, ie a member of the sanhedrin, a council of jewish leaders. the story goes that the sanhedrin were responsible for arresting jesus, accusing him of various forms of heresy. they handed him over to pontius pilate, who eventually condemned him to death. nicodemus, however, was inclined to believe in jesus and secretly went to visit him at night and ask him about his teachings. you might see where i’m going with this. again, no idea what degree of intent was involved on the part of the writers, but the similarities between giles and nicodemus interest me. like nicodemus, giles is a member of a council of elders who pronounces judgement on buffy. he both goes against that council, and still to some extent belongs to it. and like nicodemus, giles has a central position behind buffy. i like the idea of the deposition being relevant here, because it means that giles has both parental and patriarchal connotations. which fits his role in the show in general.

spike is also interesting to me in light of the deposition genre, because he’s the only character who is shown broken down in tears. and usually, that’s the role of the female subjects in these scenes. i like it because of how it fits with the other ways in which the show sometimes has spike play a conventionally female narrative role relative to buffy. (if i went really crazy, i might say something about how mary’s collapsed posture in the first one echoes jesus’ posture and how spike falls from the tower just like buffy. as in, both jesus/mary and buffy/spike are shown in postures of descent, or deposition, in both works.)

lastly, this genre is interesting to me for how it often portrays jesus as a highlight in a field of mourners. you can see this in the beraud most strongly. in general, any buffy-as-jesus comparisons are difficult to get an exact hold on, given that--and as i discuss in this post--the writers tended to use their martyr imagery subversively. which makes sense, given whedon’s atheism. but the main way in which i think a buffy-jesus comparison is interesting in season five, is if you think of them as examples of having dual natures. jesus is famously both human and divine, just as buffy in season five is both human and heroic. both natural and supernatural. so the thing about jesus’s death, just like buffy’s death, is that it is a kind of triumph of both of his selves. he dies--which is about the most human thing you can do (literally an act of mortality), but he does so for the sake of humanity.

point is, if you see you see buffy and jesus both as figures of duality, then their isolated relationship to the people around them gains some layers. because on the one hand, both of them have been brought to earth, which emphasizes their human mortality. they are of the earth. but they are also apart from it. there’s also the way that they are now apart just by virtue of being dead. this apartness is particularly pronounced in “the gift”, given again, that no one is even touching buffy (just like dawn never quite touched joyce at the end of “the body”). there might be some foreshadowing of the aimlessness of season six, in that all of these characters are cut off from their purpose with buffy’s death.

there’s something also possibly to say, in terms of the buffy-jesus relationship to mortality, about how buffy actively flings herself from the tower to the mortal plane, whereas jesus passively accepts his death and is lowered to earth by others.

at any rate, these are all very much half-thoughts, and like i said i’m unsure whether the comparisons i’m making were deliberate. but at the very least they interest me from the perspective of “two different works with similar subjects converged on similar imagery.” i think in both cases, the point of showing a whole group of people is to show the wider impact of a sacrifice. if “the gift” is playing with the pietà, it might also be doing something with the idea that all of these people are buffy’s “family”, and so it’s necessary for all of them to play roles in the mourning scene, rather than a single mother. regardless, however you cut things, the blurring of the conventional symbolism--while still using the basic sacrifice imagery--definitely seems very in-character for the way that btvs uses tropes.

The Five People Who Missed Peter Parker the Most, May and Peter's last scene together 💔

You’re just going right for the jugular huh. That scene (that whole chapter) broke me. @momentofmemory also made reference to the Pieta as an allegory which was 1) 100% intentional 2) still messed me up to see someone else so clearly get it. Just one more hug. Just one more. Just—

What’s the most memorable scene from my fics?

It still baffles me...

...that the writers of a kid's show who were willing to blatantly address various heavy topics on-screen such as revenge, war, torture, racism, famine, sexism, ableism, child abuse, abandonment, and fucking GENOCIDE, with gravity and aplomb...

...still somehow thought that "literal 12-year-old doesn't end up with his first crush" would be a deal-breaker.  Like...?

Okay.  First, a disclaimer.  I am a die-hard Zutara shipper. I'm also really fond of MaiLee and Taang, independent of that, and really don't care for Maiko, but that's topic for a different post.  None of the points I’m going to go over have anything to do with those pairings.

But EVEN IF I didn't feel that there were far better canon characters for Katara and Aang to end up with respectively...

Kataang, as it is written in canon, is sad and weird and uncomfortable to me, and here's why:

The Dynamic

Maybe if the characters had been, say, 16 and 18 when they first met, this wouldn't be a problem.  But Aang is 12 and Katara's 14.  And their maturity gap is far larger than a mere two years.

Aang, despite being well traveled and the burden of Avatarhood on his shoulders, is also a very *young* 12.  Remember, up until the iceberg, he's lived a pretty idyllic, mostly responsibilty free life.  He's only known he was the Avatar for like, a month, tops, before that.  Sure, the other monk children don't play with him after this reveal, but it's well established he has friends all over the globe; he's a prodigy, yes, with all the pressure that can bring, but it doesn't appear he was pushed to master air so fast?  He just very much enjoys airbending.  And Gyatso is a loving guardian.

Which is why he runs away at the first sign of something difficult in his life--the possibility of losing Gyatso.

Compare this to Katara, who was born in a hostile landscape amongst a struggling people.  She is, as far as she knows, the last of her kind, with no teacher to guide her.  She suffers a traumatic loss young, and it is *explicitly stated in the show* that she stepped up to fill her mother's shoes at what, 7? 8? While her family grieved.  Her father leaves, possibly to never return, when she is 11.  She is laden with responsibility beyond her years.  Her time and energy are not for her to spend on herself--she has too much to do.  *She is not a child*

So of *course* she starts mothering this wide-eyed cheerful boy, who got taken away by the same people who murdered her mother within a day of meeting him.  He's the Avatar but he's also an innocent kid in need of protection and care.

Now, does that mean she never acts immature?  No--she *is* still a teenager, and prone to occasional bouts of typical teenager dumbassery. (see: waterbending scroll).  But she does most of the chores and nags the others about their misbehavior and tries to console them when when they're down. She literally poses as Aang's mother at a PTA meeting.  For fucks sake, at the end of Season 2, when she's holding a dead Aang sprawled in her arms and looking pleadingly at the sky, there is NO WAY you can convince me all those art students storyboarding that scene WEREN'T making an intentional reference to *La Pieta*--You know, that super famous statue where Mary is cradling her dead Savior son (before he gets resurrected) and that is widely considered one of the most poignant examples of MOTHERLY LOVE AND GRIEF in the whole WORLD.

And I don't know about you... but it's really, really creepy to me for a *romantic* relationship to result from something with that much mother/son energy deliberately coded into the show.

The Lack Of Development

At what point does Katara reciprocate the crush? It's very well established that Aang has a crush, of course.  But we've got 61 episodes and basically no definitive evidence that Katara feels anything for Aang beyond platonic affection.  There's the time a fortune teller says she'll marry a powerful bender and she's like, 'huh' (let's ignore the fact that Aang at the time is like the only powerful bender she really knows).  There's the time she (almost?) kisses Aang in a cave because, you know, she thinks they might stay lost forever and starve to death if she doesn't (romantic!)  

The other two times Aang kisses her--she's just kind of shocked after the first one, and gets mad after the second one because she *had just expressed a desire to not do so seconds before*  And the fourth kiss is in the literal last 30 seconds of the show, with no dialogue, no lead-up, just a fade to black "welp this is happening, aaaand, SCENE."  It very, very much has the feeling of "hero gets the prize/girl" instead of "two people who have been mutually longing for each other come together", and that's really, really gross to me.  It does such a disservice to both their characters, but Katara's especially.  It feels like she had no agency in this result, that they got together because Aang wanted it so much, but it matters so little what she wanted that we don’t even need to bother showing her wanting it.

The Stunting/Regression of Character Growth

What does Aang sacrifice? The answer?  Nothing.  'Now, wait a minute', I can hear you say, 'he lost his entire people and culture!  How can you say he's lost nothing!'  I didn't say he's never suffered *loss*.  But having something taken away from you and giving something up for another's sake are two entirely different things.  Aang, in the end, gets everything he wanted--the girl he wanted, his pacifist morals intact and unchallenged, his culture eventually restored.  Hell, he even somehow gets the Avatar State, despite never explaining how he manages it when it was EXPLICITLY STATED he couldn't do so without letting go of certain attachments.  Wow, guess it turns out he never needed to sort out all of his emotional trauma to acheive inner peace and enlightenment after all--just needed a good acupressure session to get those chakras flowin'! One quick magic whack to the back!

I don't think 'the hero is always right' is a good message.  The theme of 'just because you want something doesn't necessarily mean it's what's good for you, or others' is a pretty recurring theme throughout the rest of the show, and having the universe warp itself to accomodate the beliefs of the protagonist  (lookin' at you, deus-ex-machina turtle) so he is always right, no matter what, means that he never has to reevaluate his beliefs, never really has to *grow* as a character.  

Kya, Ursa, Yue, Iroh, Hakoda, Katara, Sokka, Zuko--hell, even Toph, who makes the decision to let Appa get taken so she can save her friends...

Over and over it's shown that Love is Sacrifice, and I think Aang should have been shown making some personal sacrifices for the sake of the world, instead of showing that the power of clinging to his absolutist morals is enough to solve all his problems.

I understand why the writers, despite showing many characters die off-screen, hesitated to show Aang killing someone, even someone unredeemably evil, because there would be no way to do it OFF screen, and it IS still a kid's show.  (On that note:  couldn’t they have just somehow...idk, trapped Ozai in the Spirit World or something?  Have him literally sent to not-hell?)  

BUT, that doesn't mean they couldn't have shown Aang doing something that made him realize that, as the Avatar, even if a necessary action went against his personal beliefs or wasn't what he wanted, his needs are superceded by the needs of the world he claims to love.  He ignores this in S2 and nearly pays the ultimate price... but it's never properly addressed again. And thus, because that never happens, I honestly don't consider 13-yr-old Aang all that much more mature than 12-yr-old Aang, and I think that's a waste of potential.  

And as for character regression...

Katara? Master Waterbender and war-hero?  Who grabbed onto the first opportunity to explore the world beyond her tiny home, who fought for every scrap of skill and recognition she had--against a world determined to see her as lesser because of her race, her gender, her age?  Who never backed down from what she thought was right, even when her own family and friends didn't support her?  You're telling me that, according to canon, *that same Katara* was perfectly content to retreat to the South Pole and do nothing of note for the next 70 years except for being a good little housewife and healer?  Get the fuck out of here with that misogynistic horseshit.

IN CONCLUSION

I could go on.  I could talk about the unequal division of emotional labor between the two--with Katara constantly having to be mindful of not upsetting Aang too much lest he fly away and/or have an Avatar State tantrum.  With Katara constantly reassuring Aang, but Aang, for instance, offering unsolicited advice about revenge instead of trying to understand what she needed, or kissing her without asking--twice!--and expecting them to be together without him ever even asking if that's what she wanted.  I could talk about Katara not taking Aang to task for things he does wrong and Aang not being willing to see that Katara isn't perfect--how he puts her on a pedastal and Katara is afraid to leave it and break his illusions by being her real self.

But ultimately, what it boils down to, it that the most unrealistic thing about AtLA was not the magic, or the spirits, or the hybrid animals.

No, the most unbelievable thing about this show is that the ending was ruined just because more than creating a consistent thematic and emotional throughline, a couple of white dudes wanted to vicariously live out all of their "hot-for-babysitter" childhood fantasies.

And that's all I have to say about that.

Karadox in the Bronze Age Part 4

It’s Not as Bad as it Sounds... Really

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Of all the super-powered teens called legionnnaires, he was the brightest -- and more level-headed than worldly men twice his age! The other members could always count on Brainiac 5 for sound advice and good sense! But no one is infallible - - as you’re about to find out when you met . . .  “Brainiac 5′s Secret Weakness!”

Title: Brainiac 5′s Secret Weakness Issue: Superboy Starring the Legion of Super-Heroes #204 Date: October 1974 Placement: Backup story   Writer: Cary Bates Pencils: Mike Grell Inker: Mike Grell

In 1974 DC comics had learned the power of the 100 page Super Spectacular. Which meant instead of printing individual monthly 20 cent books for what they considered secondary characters they could toss them into one giant 60 sent book along with some money saving reprints of old stories. This meant that Supergirl, Jimmy Olsen, Lois Lane, Krypto, Superbaby, etc. All moved to “The Superman Family.” Some months Kara didn’t appear at all and other months she might only have  a reprint of a silver age story. Kids were still reading about Supergirl, but her long term character development stagnated. 

Meanwhile the Legion of Super-Heroes had taken over Superboy’s book. Sure Kal was still there, but as a member of an ensemble with about the same weight as other characters. That meant that the Legion characters developed at a much faster rate. Even though they still sometimes called themselves teens, they had hit that phase in their lives when couples were solidifying and even marrying. But Brainiac 5′s true love was no longer able to cross over so easily. 

It had been nearly 4 years between Kara’s choice to stay with Brainy and her next appearance at The wedding of Duo Damsel and Bouncing boy and it seemed to be time to finally address Brainy’s growing loneliness. This issue appears 4 months after that meeting and it seems it triggered feelings in Brainy he had long suppressed. 

So Brainy had been increasing exhausted to the point where it became obvious he needed a break. (I am going to move right past he part where Imra tells Querl he’s only human because she skipped the Legion’s annual sensitivity training that year) Brainy himself is curious as to why he has been so tired lately. 

So to get some things out of the way. For a 12 level intellect Brainy is a bit dense when it comes to love. 1. They made out a lot 2. Kara told Brainy several times how she felt about him This is just one big emo pity party from a guy who has a sprocking TIME MACHINE. I mean she grabbed his buttocks 4 issues ago! 

While Thom and Brainy are arriving at their Spa weekend a mysterious woman with an all too familiar power pose shows up at Legion headquarters to demand what readers had been screaming for for about 4 years... an explanation!

Brainy goes to check in and is then shocked to find the same figure in the same power pose! 

Note that editorial had to remind you Supergirl’s Kryptonian name was Kara. At that time her Secret Identity was Linda Danvers and only those who knew her really well called her Kara. I will chalk it up to shock, but this is one of the sloppiest kisses I have seen in a Legion book. 

Brainy’s like "You had me at Hello” and immediately resigns from the legion even tossing his ring to Star Boy in a rather dramatically. Thom is thinking “Well nass, there goes my ride?” 

Starboy calls Legion headquarters kinda freaked because the legion has let Brainy do most of the thinking for years and the survival rate of the team just dropped pretty significantly. He has to borrow a phone because apparantly his was on the cruiser? 

This part actually really disturbs and saddens me but we will talk about that in a moment. 

Wait! What Wait What! and android! What? This ends up being Brainy’s 2nd most embarrassing moment after Computo. People would continue to bring it up even after they Supergirl’s death. 

A couple of things I have come to realize about this horrific business. (feel free to challenge me on these as I have changed my mind often about it)

1. You have to accept the fact this was Brainy’s a subconscious filling a desperate need. There is absolutely no hit anywhere that he is lying about not consciously knowing that this Kara was an Android. 

2. The android was not an attempt for Brainy objectify Kara, if that were the case they would have stayed at the spa and never left their quarters

3. The real intent seems to have been suicide. Brainy is a 12th level intellect surrounded by technology yet the android takes him right into a deadly radiation field neither of them could survive (where did he think she was taking her or did he even ask) 

 4. It is a crazy odd coincidence that Kara came to the future at exactly this time. 

Brainy’s compassion for the dying android is heart breaking. He acknoledges her self awareness and is perplexed why a self aware android would choose to be with him. It would be really easy here for her to ignore her and focus on minimizing his embarrassment in front of Kara, but his guilt over the death of the android and his moral failure become his focus. 

The picture also references the Pieta which Anj talks about over on Supergirl Comic Box Commentary   

It might also be important to note that Kara never makes him feel bad about this and the fact that he made an android of her really didn’t seem to bother her at all.  The healthy thing to do here, Kara, seeing Brainy is suicidal and in extreme emotional duress is probably not to ask him wait for you to get your life sorted for who knows how long?  She should probably get him counseling and help him move on with his life. But she just can’t break up with him so they hold hands and make-out.  

This should have either been closure or a reconciliation but we got neither.  The only positive here is she is eventually good on her word. 

Next post:

When the Past is Still the Present

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RADWIMPS on How to Weather the Storm of Popularity!

  Following their work on Makoto Shinkai’s Your Name, RADWIMPS found themselves on a rocket to popularity. As the film reached global acclaim, the group discovered that their newfound reputation led to a tour and numerous records, culminating in yet another partnership with the famed director on his new film, Weathering With You, and a global tour of their own that will include North America and Europe. We sat down with the band to talk about everything from how movie music is different than other types of music, what the band would do on their day off, who their musical influences are, and more!

    Thank you for taking the time to speak with us! Could you please introduce yourselves for our readers?

Takeda: The name of our band, RADWIMPS, is a combination of two contrasting words: “Rad,” which means “cool” or “awesome,” and “wimp,” which refers to someone who is cowardly and timid. The vocalist Noda and guitarist Kuwahara started the band with three friends from their hometown during high school, and then I, Takeda, joined as the bassist, and Yamaguchi joined as the drummer, bringing the band to where it is today.

    So, back again with Makoto Shinkai! How has it been to work with him again on a new project?

Noda: We were able to further hone our skills in writing movie soundtracks. I think we were successful in making music that fulfills its role behind the scenes. I also think we were able to utilize our experience from having done this once before. Thanks to our prior experience, our work and discussions went very smoothly.

  More than anything, we’re overjoyed to have worked so closely with Mr. Shinkai over the past few years to create this film together. It feels like we were able to connect with him on a higher level than we did when working on Your Name, and that we came to love him even more. We still meet for drinks occasionally now that everything has wrapped up, and there’s a unique closeness there. I doubt that we’ll ever have such an incredible creative partner again.

    What were your initial thoughts on the huge popular reaction to Your Name? Were you surprised by how successful it was?

Noda: During the first week after the movie was released Shinkai-san and I were exchanging emails, and he expressed that he was thrilled that our intentions had reached the audience. But, as we began entering the third and fourth weeks after release, we started to talk about how the movie might have become bigger than us. By the time it had become a worldwide hit, it almost felt like it wasn’t even happening. I think things turned out the way they did thanks to the movie’s quality and integrity, as well as several miracles that tied everything together along the way. 

    Are any of you anime or manga fans yourselves? What do you read or watch?

Takeda: Lately I’ve been watching That Time I Got Reincarnated As A Slime. I also like sci-fi anime like Gundam. Gundam UC is my favorite. 

  Since working on Your Name, you have been pretty busy, and that doesn't seem to be slowing down! How do you keep yourselves psyched up to perform?

Noda: Other than Your Name, I think that performing in Pieta in the Toilet was actually a big turning point for me. Up until now we hadn’t done anything outside of performing as a band, and working on movies has taught us how wonderful it is to create a single work of art together with other creators. After that, people have been reaching out to us about projects in a variety of genres. That includes creating the soundtrack for Your Name, appearing in television shows and dramas, and voice acting in Wes Anderson’s Isle of Dogs. Of course, we’re still producing original albums as well.

  I don’t know how long we can keep this up, but my personal wish is to be able to leave this world having contributed everything I can with what I have. For me right now, I’m working under the belief that this is the main way I can connect to the world.

  So even though it’s important to take a break sometimes, I’d always like to be creating something.

    For Weathering With You, what were your thoughts on producing this album and the sound you wanted to create for it?

Noda: I received the Weathering With You script from Mr. Shinkai about a year after Your Name was released, in the August of 2017. After reading the script, the first song I composed was “Is There Still Anything That Love Can Do?” and “Daijobu.” These two songs became the beacon in working on this film for the next two years.

  The other three songs came about by lengthy discussions with the director in addition to understanding the story better. Two of the songs were composed to match the scenes, so I prioritized expressing the psychology of the characters. I completed all five songs at the end of 2018. I then shifted to working on the OST of the film. I worked so hard every day, talking with the director and stayed in the studio, that I almost forgot that my main job is the band!

    What differences do you see when producing an album for a movie, like Weathering With You or Your Name, and your own albums?

Noda: A film score has to embody a specific world, which makes it a slightly different experience from producing an original album because we have to challenge ourselves to come up with music that best matches that specific scene. Also, when making music for film, we can use any instruments we like, and it’s our job to choose the most appropriate ones to make the most suitable music. That completely removes the “band” framework and allows us to create music in a much more open field.

  Standing out isn’t always the most crucial thing when it comes to movie music. In fact, the ideal might be for the music to melt together seamlessly with the scene’s characters, lines, and scenery and reach the audience as a single experience. When writing music as a band, the equivalent of a movie’s scenery and characters and lines are all part of the music itself, so the creative process naturally differs. It shows more of the creator’s ego.

  Kuwahara: We can put sounds together as we please when creating an original album, but when writing a film score, we can’t just push our own preferences. There’s something novel and interesting about that. We have to match the music to the timing and the images, meaning it’s not just music you experience with your ears. That’s the biggest difference.

    Picture this: You've got a day off to relax, no performances upcoming, no projects to finish. What do you do?

Noda: Honestly I’d probably write music, since music is basically a hobby for me. But if I had to choose something else, I’d like to go to a hot spring and spend all day sleeping.

  Kuwahara: I like eating good food, so I think I’d spend the day trying different delicious dishes.

  Takeda: I recently started participating in triathlons, so I’d like to do that.

    Do you have any particular musical influences or artists that you turn to for inspiration?

Noda: If I had to give one it would be the Red Hot Chili Peppers. A while ago we had the opportunity to perform before the Red Hot Chili Peppers at a Japanese music festival called Summer Sonic, and seeing them on stage again reminded us of how important an influence they’ve been for our band.

  Kuwahara: For bands, I like the Red Hot Chili Peppers and Oasis. I’m also a fan of the Japanese bands GLAY and L’Arc~en~ciel. I used to listen to and copy their music all the time. There are times when I realize how much they’ve influenced my own playing.

  Takeda: The bassist Marcus Miller. I like the bass technique known as “slapping” the bass, and I learned a lot of that from watching his performances.

    We can't wait to hear more about your upcoming tour around the world in the new year! Before we finish up, is there anything else you'd like to say to our readers?

Takeda: I would be happy if this film could entice emotions that provide energy in the audiences’ everyday lives. Please check the movie out. Thank you!

    We really want to extend a huge thank you to RADWIMPS for answering our questions. Performing with the Red Hot Chili Peppers sounds like a pretty amazing time, and it seems like this band is really enjoying the opportunities anime is delivering to them! Weathering With You will be in theaters January 17th, with some special Fan Previews going on January 15th and 16th. You won't want to miss Shinkai's latest masterpiece, so get your tickets today!

  Are you a RADWIMPS fan? What are your thoughts on their work on Weathering With You or Your Name? Let us know in the comments!

    ----

Nicole is a features writer and editor for Crunchyroll. Known for punching dudes in Yakuza games on her Twitch channel while professing her love for Majima. She also has a blog, Figuratively Speaking. Follow her on Twitter: @ellyberries

Do you love writing? Do you love anime? If you have an idea for a features story, pitch it to Crunchyroll Features!

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Making Histories: 10 artist in my exhibition task

  Tilted Arc - Richard Serra, 1981

Tilted Arc was a metal wall installed by Richard Serra in a Manhattan plaza in 1981, it was eventually taken down because the public hated it and thought it was nothing more than a stupid, nonsense piece of architecture. What had angered people most is the “notion of deskilling” that people are making money out of nothing. Serra said, "there is this big anxiety against a certain type of conceptualism that seems totally based on an artistic idea, and whose execution as an artwork does not require any of the traditional artistic skills and techniques.” There is so much truth to this in that people are so quick to dismiss and actually hate the things they don't like or understand because maybe they have been conditioned to think superficially and not to look at the message behind a piece or even just appreciating it for what it is.  

  Judy Chicago

I would put Judy Chicago’s pieces in my exhibition because I admire her versatility, she creates a really diverse range of artworks that incorporate a variety of artistic skills. Whether Chicago is painting, using needlework, using ceramics or creating installations there is always a powerful, meaningful message or intent behind the piece. I love her ability to captivate the audience with how all-encompassing her art is, even if the viewer/critic does or does not like her work they're still paying attention to it.

   Guerilla Girls, Do Women have to be naked to get into the Met. Museum? 1989

The Guerilla Girls are a collective of feminist artists and activists, who expose the gender and ethnic inequality in art, pop culture, and society. I chose this piece to be in my exhibition because I like how they use controversial imagery to pull focus to the facts they are presenting about the unjust, male-privileged world we are in. In 1989, they exhibited a print for the Public Art Fund in New York, looking at how the museum objectifies women as well as grossly under-represents female artists, ironically the PAF rejected this piece, deeming it “too provocative” so the Guerilla Girls rented advertising space on NYC buses and ran the ad themselves.

  Hiroshi Yoshida

Hiroshi Yoshida is known as one of the most important figures of the Shin-Hanga style. I’m have always been a massive fan of Yoshida’s artwork as well as the whole Shin-Hanga period, the reason I would put all and any of Yoshida’s prints into my exhibition is because not only are the prints extremely beautiful, delicate and fine but the effort put in the process of making a woodblock print is very tedious and takes a lot of precision and patience and I feel like you can really feel the emotion and care put into any of the prints and as usual, the prints are of a place or scene important to the artist it feels special.

   Andres Serrano, Piss Christ, 1987

Piss Christ is a 1987 photograph by Andres Serrano, it depicts a small plastic crucifix submerged in a glass tank of the artist, Serrano’s urine; the piece had received massive backlash and there was national outrage as Serrano actually had taxpayer support from the National Endowment for the Arts and because obviously it was seen as such a disrespectful, blasphemous thing to do even if it was in the name of art Serrano had death threats and hate mail. The reason I love this piece and would have it in my exhibition is because it’s such a controversial piece and offended so many, I admire that he could provoke such a reaction and respect that especially as he was touching on religion, which is such a dangerous area to explore as people can't separate the art and concept to the subject matter. An obvious example of that is in 2011, a print of the piece was vandalized during an exhibition in France all those years later.

   Sir Peter Blake

I would put a collection of Peter Blake’s artworks in my exhibition, I would have both his paintings and collages, I love his paintings his style seems to be quite delicate and soft but still keeps real attention to detail. Blake’s collages are so iconic and continue to keep relevance by using popular culture as his main source of inspiration and reference, he can continually adapt with his work as he has to keep up with what is relevant and happening in today's society. I love his marriage of both collage and painting, I always find it interesting seeing an overlap of both media, it really adds something unique to either piece.

   Origin of the World – Gustave Courbet, 1866

I would put this painting in my exhibition because it was a revolutionary depiction of the female body, one that had never been seen before. In the 19th century it would have already been quite controversial and groundbreaking to do a painting of a nude anyway, let alone a nude done in such a realistic, detailed way, as well as the fact Courbet chose to do such an up-close painting focusing on her vagina and thighs, so I respect him for not shying away from detailing something important and natural because of the mindset of his peers and because of the time he was in. I also love that he name the painting Origin of the World, I find that to be quite innocent and beautiful in a way. There was still controversy surrounding this painting decades later, in 1994 French police removed books which had the painting on the cover from a bookstall. In 2011, Facebook censored The Origin of the World, disabling accounts that put up a picture of the painting.

Michelangelo

I would have all and any of Michelangelo’s artworks in my exhibition just because to me he is one of the all-time greatest artist, the intense detail and effort he put into his paintings are breathtaking; not only that but he also was an amazing sculpture, creating one of if not the most recognizable sculptures ‘David - 1504’ and ‘Pieta - 1499’. I respect that everything he did was done to the highest level, nothing he ever did was on a small scale. Michelangelo’s artistic versatility was of such a high quality he is often considered a contender for the title of the archetypal Renaissance man.

    The Trench Warfare - Otto Dix

I would put this painting by German artist Otto Dix in my exhibition, it depicts the deep, dark horrors of war; I chose this because of the heavy emotion in the painting and how it reminds us of n important tragedy we should pay respect to. At the time in pro-war Nazi Germany this was labeled as too controversial and anti Hitler, the Nazis burned this and many many other anti-war imagery created by the great German painter as well as destroying thousands of other important artworks who had anything that didn't meet with the Nazis’ guidelines of what art is allowed to convey. Dix was also declared to be a “degenerate” artist as were many others who stood against the government. I would have Dix in my exhibition not only for his talent but his bravery in standing for what he believed in.

     Henri Matisse

Henri Matisse is widely regarded as the greatest colourist of the 20th century, he was known as a Post-Impressionist, and first gained attention as the leader of the French movement Fauvism; even though Matisse was interested in Cubism he rejected it and looked to use and experiment with colour. I would put any of Matisse's’ artworks in my exhibition because his use of colour is so bold and all-encompassing that it instantly connects you to a feeling, he once said he sought to create art that would be "a soothing, calming influence on the mind, rather like a good armchair.” The beauty of his work is the simplicity of it, his artworks aren’t extremely complicated and aren’t needed to be intensely directed and analysed, they are just what they are.

29th January >> Fr. Martin’s Reflection on Today’s Gospel Reading (Matthew 5:1-12) for the Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle A: ‘Blessed are the poor in spirit.’

Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle A Gospel (Europe, New Zealand, Australia, Canada & South Africa) Matthew 5:1-12 Seeing the crowds, Jesus went up the hill. There he sat down and was joined by his disciples. Then he began to speak. This is what he taught them: ‘How happy are the poor in spirit; theirs is the kingdom of heaven.Happy the gentle: they shall have the earth for their heritage.Happy those who mourn: they shall be comforted.Happy those who hunger and thirst for what is right: they shall be satisfied.Happy the merciful: they shall have mercy shown them.Happy the pure in heart: they shall see God.Happy the peacemakers: they shall be called sons of God.Happy those who are persecuted in the cause of right: theirs is the kingdom of heaven. ‘Happy are you when people abuse you and persecute you and speak all kinds of calumny against you on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward will be great in heaven.’ Gospel (USA) Matthew 5:1–12a Blessed are the poor in spirit. When Jesus saw the crowds, he went up the mountain, and after he had sat down, his disciples came to him. He began to teach them, saying: “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.Blessed are they who mourn, for they will be comforted.Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the land.Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be satisfied.Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy.Blessed are the clean of heart, for they will see God.Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.Blessed are they who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.Blessed are you when they insult you and persecute you and utter every kind of evil against you falsely because of me.Rejoice and be glad, for your reward will be great in heaven.” Reflections (4) (i) Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time When you come across a marvellous piece of sculpture, you really need to walk around it and see it from different angles to appreciate its true quality. One of the greatest pieces of sculpture is Michelangelo’s Pieta. It is not possible to walk around that marvellous work. It is behind glass for protection and you can only view it from the front. There are other pieces of sculpture by great artists where you do have the freedom to walk around them and get to really appreciate them from every angle. These wonderful portraits in stone or in some other material are open to being viewed from various perspectives. I often think of the Beatitudes as a portrait in words. In this finely chiselled text, Jesus is portraying the human person as God had always intended. In some ways, Jesus is portraying himself because he is uniquely the human person as God intended. He is the perfect image of God. Yet, Jesus was not simply talking to his disciples and the crowds about himself. He was also giving them a portrait of his disciple. He was portraying the way of life that was to characterize his followers and disciples. There are eight brief statements, followed by a longer ninth statement that is essentially an elaboration of the eight one. Jesus is not portraying eight different kinds of people. Rather, he is portraying one person from eight different perspectives. As Jesus walks around this person, he speaks of him or her in these eight different ways. He is portraying one way of life, but there is such a richness to this way of life that it lends itself to being described in at least these eight different ways. This vision of life which Jesus is offering is one, he claims, that opens us up to the blessings of God. That is why the more traditional translation, ‘blessed’, seems more appropriate than ‘happy’. When we hear the word ‘happy’ we think primarily of an emotion, whereas ‘blessed’ suggests being favoured by God, being in God’s favour. Jesus is describing a way of life that leaves a person ‘blessed’ in that sense, while also leading them to the fullness of joy in eternity. When we look at these eight perspectives on what it means to be a follower of Jesus, there is a mixture of both underlying attitudes and ways of behaving. The poor in spirit are those who recognize their poverty before God and, therefore, their need of God and their dependence on God. Such people are gentle in the sense that they know how to let be; they respect the otherness of people. They ‘mourn’ because they are sensitive to the fact that the world is not as God intended it to be; they are very aware of the presence of sin in their own lives and in the lives of others and in the structures within which we all live. Out of this unease at the way things are, they have a deep hunger and thirst for what is right; they passionately want God’s kingdom to come on earth as it is in heaven. This passion for God’s justice makes them merciful. They engage in those works of mercy on behalf of the broken which so characterized the life of Jesus. They engage in these works of mercy with a purity of heart, a purity of intention, dedicated to God and to God’s cause rather than to furthering their own cause. They engage in the work of peace making. They are not simply lovers of peace but makers of peace; they build bridges rather than walls and seek to reconcile people among themselves and with God. They remained committed to this peace-making work, even at great personal loss to themselves, even when it leads to persecution and the way of the cross. Jesus implies in that last beatitude that living according to these values will often leave us vulnerable and suffering loss in the here and now. There is a unified vision here of what we might call a life well lived, a life imbibed with a love of God and a life of neighbour. I think of such a life as life in the Spirit. This is a portrait of the Spirit filled person. This is what Christian spirituality looks like. Jesus immediately goes on to say that those who embody these attitudes and values, this way of life, are the light of the world and the salt of the earth. We rarely refer to anyone as light of the world, but we sometimes speak of others as the salt of the earth. When we use that expression of people, it is likely that they correspond in some way to the portrait that Jesus gives us in the Beatitudes. Even though Jesus is offering us a unified way of life, it is not a case of all or nothing. We might recognize ourselves in some of the beatitudes rather than others. Perhaps we should allow ourselves to be drawn to the beatitude where we feel most at home, where we recognize something of ourselves, at least some of the time. The Spirit is at work in all our lives. We can all find a place for ourselves somewhere in that rich tapestry. From that place of blessing, we invite the Spirit to help us to grow more and more into that complete person that Jesus portrays for us. And/Or (ii) Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time I think it is true to say that most of us desire to be better than we are. We sense that there is more we could do than we are doing. We feel a longing for a completion that we do not yet experience. We sense a tension in us between who we are and who we could be. That is why, at the beginning of Mass, we call to mind our sins. It is why we go to confession every so often. We are people on a journey, rather than people who have arrived. On this journey we need something to aim at, some ideal that we strive to reach. We need something to work towards, some calling that will challenge us and keep us straining forward. This will create a certain tension in us, but we sense that it is a healthy tension. If it wasn’t there we would be less alive. In that sense, the fact that we are not completely satisfied with ourselves is probably a good thing. It indicates that we are still very much on the way. For us as Christians, the something towards which we are striving is the person of Jesus. Our calling is to grow more fully into him. St Paul expresses this very well when in his letter to the Romans he states that our destiny is ‘to be conformed to the image of God’s Son’. That is quite a calling when you think about it. God’s Son was the perfect image of God, and since as humans we were made in the image of God, the perfect image of God is also the perfect human being. Jesus was fully human as well as fully divine; he shows us what it means to be human as well as showing us who God is like. Our calling is to be conformed to his image, to be as fully human as he was, to reveal God as much as he did. When Paul states that our destiny is to be conformed to the image of God’s Son, he was aware that this destiny of ours will never be fully realized in this life. It is only beyond this life, beyond death, that we will become fully Christ-like. Yet, here and now we are called to grow towards being more Christ like. He is our present goal as well as our ultimate one. If we are to grow towards Christ, to grow into him, we need to have a picture of him in our minds and hearts, and it is in the gospels that we find that picture. It is there that we meet the person we are called to become. Today’s gospel reading, the beatitudes, gives us a very focused picture of Christ. We sometimes read the beatitudes as if they were speaking about different kinds of people, the poor in spirit, the gentle and so on. In reality, all of these terms are different ways of describing one person, and the one person that the beatitudes portray is primarily Jesus himself. In the beatitudes he was giving his disciples a kind of a self-portrait. Self-portraits are not always reliable. Our own description of who we are may be quite different from other people’s description of us. The real truth of who we are is probably a combination of both. In the case of Jesus, however, we can be sure that a self-portrait is an accurate one. He is poor in spirit, trusting in God before all else; he is gentle, in that he is firmly committed to God’s purpose, yet without any trace of arrogance; he is the one who mourns because people are not living according to God’s will; he himself hungers and thirsts to do God’s will; he is merciful to all who are broken in body and or in spirit; he is pure in heart in that his heart is not divided but is totally given over to God’s purpose; he is the peacemaker who seeks, by his life and his death, to reconcile all people to God and to each other; he is prepared to be persecuted in the doing God’s will and in the carrying out of God’s purpose. This portrait that Jesus gives of himself is also intended as a portrait of those who would be his disciples. It is a portrait of the person we are all called to be. Each one of the beatitudes puts before us a different facet of that very complete person we are destined to become. In a sense, the beatitudes stand or fall together; we cannot take one and ignore the others, because as soon as we ignore any one of them, the others are weakened. If there is one beatitude that is more fundamental than the others it is the one that Jesus has placed first, ‘Blessed are the poor in spirit; theirs is the kingdom of heaven’. The poor in spirit are those who know their need of God. They are those who recognize their dependence on God for everything that is good, who realize that, without God’s help, they cannot become fully alive, fully human. We need God’s grace, God’s Spirit, if we are to become the person that the beatitudes are calling us to become. Lent begins this Wednesday. We might take the beatitudes as our companion for Lent, and keep them before our eyes as a goal to strive for on our journey towards Easter. And/Or (iii) Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time We all make choices in the course of our lives. We make several choices in the course of a day, many of them not of any great significance. We choose to go shopping in the morning rather than the afternoon; we choose to have coffee with a friend rather than go for a walk. There are other far more significant choices that we make. We choose to take one particular career path rather than another. We choose this person as a friend or as a life-partner, rather than another. These are fundamental choices which don’t simply affect how we spend our day but influence how we live our lives. Unlike the many smaller choices we make every day, we don’t make these fundamental choices once and then forget about them. We renew them every day of our lives in our effort to be faithful to them. It is true that people’s capacity for making choices is strongly influenced by their social background; some have much greater scope for making choices than others. Yet we all have some capacity to make those fundamental choices that express and shape who we are. In this morning’s second reading from the first letter to the Corinthians, Saint Paul speaks about God’s fundamental choices, in particular, the kinds of people that God tends to choose over others. The list of those who are the objects of God’s preferential choice seems strange to our ears. According to Paul, ‘God chose what is foolish by human reckoning… what is weak by human reckoning… those whom the world thinks common and contemptible… those who are nothing at all’. God’s choices are clearly not in line with ours. If we had a choice we would tend to favour the strong over the weak, the wise over the foolish, and we might add to that list, the educated over the uneducated, those with good prospects over those with little or no prospects, the beautiful over the ugly, the well regarded over the poorly regarded. What we tend to devalue, according to Paul, God highly values. The one whom God chose above all others was Jesus; he was the chosen one of God. Yet, many of Jesus’ contemporaries, looking at his life and, more especially, at his death, would have considered him to be foolish, weak, common and contemptible. The one on whom God placed the greatest value was perceived to have no value in the eyes of many. The prophet Isaiah writing many hundreds of years before Paul declared that God’s ways are not our ways and God’s thoughts are not our thoughts. The way things look to us is not necessarily how they look to God. There are times in our own lives when, because of certain painful experiences we have had, we might consider ourselves to be foolish, weak, and even contemptible. This morning’s second reading suggests that this perception we have of ourselves is not God’s perception of us. At the moment when we are most prone to reject ourselves, God can be choosing us and actively working in and through us. Times of brokenness can be grace-filled moments when God touches our lives in a very powerful way and fills us with his Spirit. It has been said that cracks often let the light in, and the cracks in our own lives, our weaknesses, our foolish ways, can be openings for the Lord’s light to come flooding into our lives. In the course of the second letter he wrote to the Corinthians, Paul tells them that at a moment in his life when he felt broken, weak and foolish, he heard the Lord say to him, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness’. When all is going well in our lives, when we appear in our own eyes and in the eyes of others to be successful, to be wise, to be in control, we can sometimes make it difficult for God to choose us in any meaningful way. God may come knocking on the door of our lives but we are not really disposed to hearing that knock because we have no sense of our need of the one who is knocking. In the gospels it was precisely those who thought of themselves as wise and powerful who dismissed Jesus as weak and foolish. The message of the beatitudes in today’s gospel reading is in many ways similar to the message of Paul in today’s second reading. In the beatitudes Jesus is revealing to us God’s choices, God’s preferences. The nine beatitudes put before us not nine different kinds of people but one kind of person seen from nine different perspectives. The person described in the beatitudes would not be considered particularly fortunate from a merely human perspective, from the perspective of the culture in which we live. The beatitudes describe those who in their heart of hearts are aware of their poverty, who are fundamentally unsatisfied with the way things are and who, as a consequence, mourn deeply, who are ready to be persecuted in their pursuit of God’s justice. By the standards of the age this would not necessarily be seen as a desirable life. Yet, Jesus declares that this is the life that God has chosen for us and those who aspire to such a life are truly blessed and happy here and now and will also come to experience God’s blessings to the full beyond this life. And/Or (iv) Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time There is a wonderful portrait gallery in London, just around the corner from the National gallery. There you find portraits of all kinds of people going back over several centuries. The art of portraying someone well on canvas is a very special one. If we happen to be familiar with the person who is being portrayed, we instinctively know by looking at the portrait whether or not it is a good one. There is more involved in portraying someone well than representing accurately the physical features of the person. A good portrait artist will always capture something of the spirit of the person. The beatitudes in today’s gospel reading could be understood as a portrait of a disciple of Jesus. There, Jesus paints a picture of what it means to be his disciple. More fundamentally, the beatitudes are a portrait of Jesus himself, a kind of self-portrait. The beatitudes describe his core attitudes and values. He more than anyone one else is poor in spirit, trusting in God before all else; he is gentle, in that he is firmly committed to God’s purpose, yet without any trace of arrogance; he is the one who mourns because people are not doing what God wants, and who, himself, hungers and thirsts to do God’s will; he is merciful to all who are broken in body and spirit; he is pure in heart in that his heart is not divided but is totally given over to the love of God and the service of all God’s children; he is the peacemaker who seeks by his life and his death to reconcile all people to God and to each other. He is the one who was prepared to be persecuted in the doing God’s will and in the carrying out of God’s purpose. If the beatitudes are a portrait of Jesus, they are also a portrait of what we are called to become as followers of Jesus. The beatitudes announce that those who live by these attitudes and values of Jesus are blessed because of the future that God has in store for them. When we hear the beatitudes we might be slow to recognize ourselves in the portrait that they present. It would be a pity to look upon the beatitudes as a lofty ideal that Jesus lived to the full but that is far beyond us. When Jesus spoke these beatitudes he was looking at men and women like ourselves, and he was declaring them blessed because, to some extent at least, they fitted the portrait that he was presenting. We should all be able to find a niche for ourselves somewhere among the beatitudes. In the fourth beatitude, for example, Jesus declares blessed those who hunger and thirst for what is right. This beatitude does not declare blessed those who are doing what is right, what God wills as Jesus reveals it. It declares blest those who keep on striving to do what God wants, those who hunger and thirst for it. This beatitude acknowledges that doing what God wants is a goal that always lies ahead of us. What matters is that we never cease to strive forward towards that goal, that we do not allow ourselves to become complacent. We do not give up the struggle to reach for what God is calling us towards. In the words of St. Paul’s letter to the Philippians, we ‘strain forward to what lies ahead’, we ‘press on towards the goal’. Even though we repeatedly fall short, as long as we earnestly seek to do what God is asking of us, and keep alive our desire to respond to God’s call as it comes to us through God’s Son, we are declared blessed, we are congratulated. The previous beatitude, the third one, refers to those who mourn. Those who hunger and thirst for what is right will invariably be people who mourn, in the sense that they will be aware how far they have yet to go, and that will sadden them. Commentators on the beatitudes say that ‘those who mourn’ are best understood as those who are painfully aware that God’s kingdom has not yet come in their own lives or in the society that they inhabit. In other words, they mourn over the presence of sin and evil in themselves and in others. ‘Mourning’ in that sense is the evitable accompaniment of hungering and thirsting for what is right, while knowing that our hunger and thirst is far from being satisfied. The ‘mourning’ mentioned in the beatitudes is akin to the weeping of Jesus because the people of Jerusalem did not recognize Jesus’ ministry as the time when God was visiting them. The difference between the mourning of Jesus and our mourning is that he wept over the sins of others, whereas we need to weep over our own sins as well as those of others. Those who hunger and thirst for what is right will be all too aware of the journey that is yet to be travelled. Many of us can at least find a niche for ourselves in those two beatitudes. In so far as we belong there, Jesus declares us blessed. In that sense, the beatitudes are a word of encouragement. They can also be a challenging word. To hunger and thirst for what is right is one thing; to be persecuted for what is right is another. That particular beatitude, the eight one, challenges us to be true to the values of the gospel even if we suffer loss as a result. Sometimes, faithfulness to the Lord will mean taking the road less travelled, going against the tide. We will need the Lord’s help if we are to do that, which brings us to the first beatitude, ‘blessed are the poor in spirit’. Blessed, in other words, are those who recognize their need of God, their dependence on God’s help. Fr Martin Hogan, Saint John the Baptist Parish, Clontarf, Dublin, Ireland. Parish Website: www.stjohnsclontarf.ieJoin us via our webcam. Twitter: @SJtBClontarfRC. Facebook: St John the Baptist RC Parish, Clontarf. Tumblr: Saint John the Baptist Parish, Clontarf, Dublin.

29th January >> Fr. Martin's Reflection on Today's Gospel Reading (Matthew 5:1-12) for the Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle A:  ‘Blessed are the poor in spirit.’

Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle A

Gospel (Europe, New Zealand, Australia, Canada & South Africa)

Matthew 5:1-12

Seeing the crowds, Jesus went up the hill. There he sat down and was joined by his disciples. Then he began to speak. This is what he taught them:

‘How happy are the poor in spirit;    theirs is the kingdom of heaven.Happy the gentle:    they shall have the earth for their heritage.Happy those who mourn:    they shall be comforted.Happy those who hunger and thirst for what is right:    they shall be satisfied.Happy the merciful:    they shall have mercy shown them.Happy the pure in heart:    they shall see God.Happy the peacemakers:    they shall be called sons of God.Happy those who are persecuted in the cause of right:    theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

‘Happy are you when people abuse you and persecute you and speak all kinds of calumny against you on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward will be great in heaven.’

Gospel (USA)

Matthew 5:1–12a

Blessed are the poor in spirit.

When Jesus saw the crowds, he went up the mountain, and after he had sat down, his disciples came to him. He began to teach them, saying:

“Blessed are the poor in spirit,    for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.Blessed are they who mourn,    for they will be comforted.Blessed are the meek,    for they will inherit the land.Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for righteousness,    for they will be satisfied.Blessed are the merciful,    for they will be shown mercy.Blessed are the clean of heart,    for they will see God.Blessed are the peacemakers,    for they will be called children of God.Blessed are they who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness,    for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.Blessed are you when they insult you and persecute you    and utter every kind of evil against you falsely because of me.Rejoice and be glad,    for your reward will be great in heaven.”

Reflections (4)

(i) Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time

When you come across a marvellous piece of sculpture, you really need to walk around it and see it from different angles to appreciate its true quality. One of the greatest pieces of sculpture is Michelangelo’s Pieta. It is not possible to walk around that marvellous work. It is behind glass for protection and you can only view it from the front. There are other pieces of sculpture by great artists where you do have the freedom to walk around them and get to really appreciate them from every angle.  These wonderful portraits in stone or in some other material are open to being viewed from various perspectives.

I often think of the Beatitudes as a portrait in words. In this finely chiselled text, Jesus is portraying the human person as God had always intended. In some ways, Jesus is portraying himself because he is uniquely the human person as God intended. He is the perfect image of God. Yet, Jesus was not simply talking to his disciples and the crowds about himself. He was also giving them a portrait of his disciple. He was portraying the way of life that was to characterize his followers and disciples. There are eight brief statements, followed by a longer ninth statement that is essentially an elaboration of the eight one. Jesus is not portraying eight different kinds of people. Rather, he is portraying one person from eight different perspectives. As Jesus walks around this person, he speaks of him or her in these eight different ways. He is portraying one way of life, but there is such a richness to this way of life that it lends itself to being described in at least these eight different ways. This vision of life which Jesus is offering is one, he claims, that opens us up to the blessings of God. That is why the more traditional translation, ‘blessed’, seems more appropriate than ‘happy’. When we hear the word ‘happy’ we think primarily of an emotion, whereas ‘blessed’ suggests being favoured by God, being in God’s favour. Jesus is describing a way of life that leaves a person ‘blessed’ in that sense, while also leading them to the fullness of joy in eternity.

When we look at these eight perspectives on what it means to be a follower of Jesus, there is a mixture of both underlying attitudes and ways of behaving. The poor in spirit are those who recognize their poverty before God and, therefore, their need of God and their dependence on God. Such people are gentle in the sense that they know how to let be; they respect the otherness of people. They ‘mourn’ because they are sensitive to the fact that the world is not as God intended it to be; they are very aware of the presence of sin in their own lives and in the lives of others and in the structures within which we all live. Out of this unease at the way things are, they have a deep hunger and thirst for what is right; they passionately want God’s kingdom to come on earth as it is in heaven. This passion for God’s justice makes them merciful. They engage in those works of mercy on behalf of the broken which so characterized the life of Jesus. They engage in these works of mercy with a purity of heart, a purity of intention, dedicated to God and to God’s cause rather than to furthering their own cause. They engage in the work of peace making. They are not simply lovers of peace but makers of peace; they build bridges rather than walls and seek to reconcile people among themselves and with God. They remained committed to this peace-making work, even at great personal loss to themselves, even when it leads to persecution and the way of the cross. Jesus implies in that last beatitude that living according to these values will often leave us vulnerable and suffering loss in the here and now.

There is a unified vision here of what we might call a life well lived, a life imbibed with a love of God and a life of neighbour. I think of such a life as life in the Spirit. This is a portrait of the Spirit filled person. This is what Christian spirituality looks like. Jesus immediately goes on to say that those who embody these attitudes and values, this way of life, are the light of the world and the salt of the earth. We rarely refer to anyone as light of the world, but we sometimes speak of others as the salt of the earth. When we use that expression of people, it is likely that they correspond in some way to the portrait that Jesus gives us in the Beatitudes. Even though Jesus is offering us a unified way of life, it is not a case of all or nothing. We might recognize ourselves in some of the beatitudes rather than others. Perhaps we should allow ourselves to be drawn to the beatitude where we feel most at home, where we recognize something of ourselves, at least some of the time. The Spirit is at work in all our lives. We can all find a place for ourselves somewhere in that rich tapestry. From that place of blessing, we invite the Spirit to help us to grow more and more into that complete person that Jesus portrays for us.

And/Or

(ii) Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time

I think it is true to say that most of us desire to be better than we are. We sense that there is more we could do than we are doing. We feel a longing for a completion that we do not yet experience. We sense a tension in us between who we are and who we could be. That is why, at the beginning of Mass, we call to mind our sins. It is why we go to confession every so often. We are people on a journey, rather than people who have arrived. On this journey we need something to aim at, some ideal that we strive to reach. We need something to work towards, some calling that will challenge us and keep us straining forward. This will create a certain tension in us, but we sense that it is a healthy tension. If it wasn’t there we would be less alive. In that sense, the fact that we are not completely satisfied with ourselves is probably a good thing. It indicates that we are still very much on the way.

For us as Christians, the something towards which we are striving is the person of Jesus. Our calling is to grow more fully into him. St Paul expresses this very well when in his letter to the Romans he states that our destiny is ‘to be conformed to the image of God’s Son’. That is quite a calling when you think about it. God’s Son was the perfect image of God, and since as humans we were made in the image of God, the perfect image of God is also the perfect human being. Jesus was fully human as well as fully divine; he shows us what it means to be human as well as showing us who God is like. Our calling is to be conformed to his image, to be as fully human as he was, to reveal God as much as he did. When Paul states that our destiny is to be conformed to the image of God’s Son, he was aware that this destiny of ours will never be fully realized in this life. It is only beyond this life, beyond death, that we will become fully Christ-like. Yet, here and now we are called to grow towards being more Christ like. He is our present goal as well as our ultimate one.

If we are to grow towards Christ, to grow into him, we need to have a picture of him in our minds and hearts, and it is in the gospels that we find that picture. It is there that we meet the person we are called to become. Today’s gospel reading, the beatitudes, gives us a very focused picture of Christ. We sometimes read the beatitudes as if they were speaking about different kinds of people, the poor in spirit, the gentle and so on. In reality, all of these terms are different ways of describing one person, and the one person that the beatitudes portray is primarily Jesus himself. In the beatitudes he was giving his disciples a kind of a self-portrait. Self-portraits are not always reliable. Our own description of who we are may be quite different from other people’s description of us. The real truth of who we are is probably a combination of both. In the case of Jesus, however, we can be sure that a self-portrait is an accurate one. He is poor in spirit, trusting in God before all else; he is gentle, in that he is firmly committed to God’s purpose, yet without any trace of arrogance; he is the one who mourns because people are not living according to God’s will; he himself hungers and thirsts to do God’s will; he is merciful to all who are broken in body and or in spirit; he is pure in heart in that his heart is not divided but is totally given over to God’s purpose; he is the peacemaker who seeks, by his life and his death, to reconcile all people to God and to each other; he is prepared to be persecuted in the doing God’s will and in the carrying out of God’s purpose.

This portrait that Jesus gives of himself is also intended as a portrait of those who would be his disciples. It is a portrait of the person we are all called to be. Each one of the beatitudes puts before us a different facet of that very complete person we are destined to become. In a sense, the beatitudes stand or fall together; we cannot take one and ignore the others, because as soon as we ignore any one of them, the others are weakened. If there is one beatitude that is more fundamental than the others it is the one that Jesus has placed first, ‘Blessed are the poor in spirit; theirs is the kingdom of heaven’. The poor in spirit are those who know their need of God. They are those who recognize their dependence on God for everything that is good, who realize that, without God’s help, they cannot become fully alive, fully human. We need God’s grace, God’s Spirit, if we are to become the person that the beatitudes are calling us to become. Lent begins this Wednesday. We might take the beatitudes as our companion for Lent, and keep them before our eyes as a goal to strive for on our journey towards Easter.

And/Or

(iii) Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time

We all make choices in the course of our lives. We make several choices in the course of a day, many of them not of any great significance. We choose to go shopping in the morning rather than the afternoon; we choose to have coffee with a friend rather than go for a walk. There are other far more significant choices that we make. We choose to take one particular career path rather than another. We choose this person as a friend or as a life-partner, rather than another. These are fundamental choices which don’t simply affect how we spend our day but influence how we live our lives. Unlike the many smaller choices we make every day, we don’t make these fundamental choices once and then forget about them. We renew them every day of our lives in our effort to be faithful to them. It is true that people’s capacity for making choices is strongly influenced by their social background; some have much greater scope for making choices than others. Yet we all have some capacity to make those fundamental choices that express and shape who we are.

In this morning’s second reading from the first letter to the Corinthians, Saint Paul speaks about God’s fundamental choices, in particular, the kinds of people that God tends to choose over others. The list of those who are the objects of God’s preferential choice seems strange to our ears. According to Paul, ‘God chose what is foolish by human reckoning... what is weak by human reckoning... those whom the world thinks common and contemptible... those who are nothing at all’. God’s choices are clearly not in line with ours. If we had a choice we would tend to favour the strong over the weak, the wise over the foolish, and we might add to that list, the educated over the uneducated, those with good prospects over those with little or no prospects, the beautiful over the ugly, the well regarded over the poorly regarded. What we tend to devalue, according to Paul, God highly values. The one whom God chose above all others was Jesus; he was the chosen one of God. Yet, many of Jesus’ contemporaries, looking at his life and, more especially, at his death, would have considered him to be foolish, weak, common and contemptible. The one on whom God placed the greatest value was perceived to have no value in the eyes of many. The prophet Isaiah writing many hundreds of years before Paul declared that God’s ways are not our ways and God’s thoughts are not our thoughts. The way things look to us is not necessarily how they look to God.

There are times in our own lives when, because of certain painful experiences we have had, we might consider ourselves to be foolish, weak, and even contemptible. This morning’s second reading suggests that this perception we have of ourselves is not God’s perception of us. At the moment when we are most prone to reject ourselves, God can be choosing us and actively working in and through us. Times of brokenness can be grace-filled moments when God touches our lives in a very powerful way and fills us with his Spirit. It has been said that cracks often let the light in, and the cracks in our own lives, our weaknesses, our foolish ways, can be openings for the Lord’s light to come flooding into our lives. In the course of the second letter he wrote to the Corinthians, Paul tells them that at a moment in his life when he felt broken, weak and foolish, he heard the Lord say to him, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness’. When all is going well in our lives, when we appear in our own eyes and in the eyes of others to be successful, to be wise, to be in control, we can sometimes make it difficult for God to choose us in any meaningful way. God may come knocking on the door of our lives but we are not really disposed to hearing that knock because we have no sense of our need of the one who is knocking. In the gospels it was precisely those who thought of themselves as wise and powerful who dismissed Jesus as weak and foolish.

The message of the beatitudes in today’s gospel reading is in many ways similar to the message of Paul in today’s second reading. In the beatitudes Jesus is revealing to us God’s choices, God’s preferences. The nine beatitudes put before us not nine different kinds of people but one kind of person seen from nine different perspectives. The person described in the beatitudes would not be considered particularly fortunate from a merely human perspective, from the perspective of the culture in which we live. The beatitudes describe those who in their heart of hearts are aware of their poverty, who are fundamentally unsatisfied with the way things are and who, as a consequence, mourn deeply, who are ready to be persecuted in their pursuit of God’s justice. By the standards of the age this would not necessarily be seen as a desirable life. Yet, Jesus declares that this is the life that God has chosen for us and those who aspire to such a life are truly blessed and happy here and now and will also come to experience God’s blessings to the full beyond this life.

And/Or

(iv) Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time

There is a wonderful portrait gallery in London, just around the corner from the National gallery. There you find portraits of all kinds of people going back over several centuries. The art of portraying someone well on canvas is a very special one. If we happen to be familiar with the person who is being portrayed, we instinctively know by looking at the portrait whether or not it is a good one. There is more involved in portraying someone well than representing accurately the physical features of the person. A good portrait artist will always capture something of the spirit of the person.

The beatitudes in today’s gospel reading could be understood as a portrait of a disciple of Jesus. There, Jesus paints a picture of what it means to be his disciple. More fundamentally, the beatitudes are a portrait of Jesus himself, a kind of self-portrait. The beatitudes describe his core attitudes and values. He more than anyone one else is poor in spirit, trusting in God before all else; he is gentle, in that he is firmly committed to God’s purpose, yet without any trace of arrogance; he is the one who mourns because people are not doing what God wants, and who, himself, hungers and thirsts to do God’s will; he is merciful to all who are broken in body and spirit; he is pure in heart in that his heart is not divided but is totally given over to the love of God and the service of all God’s children; he is the peacemaker who seeks by his life and his death to reconcile all people to God and to each other. He is the one who was prepared to be persecuted in the doing God’s will and in the carrying out of God’s purpose.

If the beatitudes are a portrait of Jesus, they are also a portrait of what we are called to become as followers of Jesus. The beatitudes announce that those who live by these attitudes and values of Jesus are blessed because of the future that God has in store for them. When we hear the beatitudes we might be slow to recognize ourselves in the portrait that they present. It would be a pity to look upon the beatitudes as a lofty ideal that Jesus lived to the full but that is far beyond us. When Jesus spoke these beatitudes he was looking at men and women like ourselves, and he was declaring them blessed because, to some extent at least, they fitted the portrait that he was presenting. We should all be able to find a niche for ourselves somewhere among the beatitudes. In the fourth beatitude, for example, Jesus declares blessed those who hunger and thirst for what is right. This beatitude does not declare blessed those who are doing what is right, what God wills as Jesus reveals it. It declares blest those who keep on striving to do what God wants, those who hunger and thirst for it. This beatitude acknowledges that doing what God wants is a goal that always lies ahead of us. What matters is that we never cease to strive forward towards that goal, that we do not allow ourselves to become complacent. We do not give up the struggle to reach for what God is calling us towards. In the words of St. Paul’s letter to the Philippians, we ‘strain forward to what lies ahead’, we ‘press on towards the goal’. Even though we repeatedly fall short, as long as we earnestly seek to do what God is asking of us, and keep alive our desire to respond to God’s call as it comes to us through God’s Son, we are declared blessed, we are congratulated.

The previous beatitude, the third one, refers to those who mourn. Those who hunger and thirst for what is right will invariably be people who mourn, in the sense that they will be aware how far they have yet to go, and that will sadden them. Commentators on the beatitudes say that ‘those who mourn’ are best understood as those who are painfully aware that God’s kingdom has not yet come in their own lives or in the society that they inhabit. In other words, they mourn over the presence of sin and evil in themselves and in others. ‘Mourning’ in that sense is the evitable accompaniment of hungering and thirsting for what is right, while knowing that our hunger and thirst is far from being satisfied. The ‘mourning’ mentioned in the beatitudes is akin to the weeping of Jesus because the people of Jerusalem did not recognize Jesus’ ministry as the time when God was visiting them. The difference between the mourning of Jesus and our mourning is that he wept over the sins of others, whereas we need to weep over our own sins as well as those of others. Those who hunger and thirst for what is right will be all too aware of the journey that is yet to be travelled.

Many of us can at least find a niche for ourselves in those two beatitudes. In so far as we belong there, Jesus declares us blessed. In that sense, the beatitudes are a word of encouragement. They can also be a challenging word. To hunger and thirst for what is right is one thing; to be persecuted for what is right is another. That particular beatitude, the eight one, challenges us to be true to the values of the gospel even if we suffer loss as a result. Sometimes, faithfulness to the Lord will mean taking the road less travelled, going against the tide. We will need the Lord’s help if we are to do that, which brings us to the first beatitude, ‘blessed are the poor in spirit’. Blessed, in other words, are those who recognize their need of God, their dependence on God’s help.

Fr Martin Hogan, Saint John the Baptist Parish, Clontarf, Dublin, Ireland.

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29th January - 'Blessed are the poor in spirit', Reflection on today's gospel reading (Mt. 5:1-12)

Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time When you come across a marvellous piece of sculpture, you really need to walk around it and see it from different angles to appreciate its true quality. One of the greatest pieces of sculpture is Michelangelo’s Pieta. It is not possible to walk around that marvellous work. It is behind glass for protection and you can only view it from the front. There are other pieces of sculpture by great artists where you do have the freedom to walk around them and really appreciate them from every angle. These wonderful portraits in stone or in some other material are open to being viewed from various perspectives. I often think of the Beatitudes as a portrait in words. In this finely chiselled text, Jesus is portraying the human person as God had always intended. In some ways, Jesus is portraying himself because he is uniquely the human person as God intended. He is the perfect image of God. Yet, Jesus is also giving a portrait of his disciple. He was portraying the way of life that was to characterize his followers and disciples. There are eight brief statements, followed by a longer ninth statement that is essentially an elaboration of the eight one. Jesus is not portraying eight different kinds of people. Rather, he is portraying one person from eight different perspectives. As Jesus walks around this person, he speaks of him or her in these eight different ways. He is portraying one way of life, but there is such a richness to this way of life that it lends itself to being described in at least these eight different ways. Jesus claims that this vision of life which he is offering is one that opens us up to the blessings of God. That is why the more traditional translation, ‘blessed’, seems more appropriate than ‘happy’. When we hear the word ‘happy’ we think primarily of an emotion, whereas ‘blessed’ suggests being favoured by God. Jesus is describing a way of life that leaves a person ‘blessed’ by God in the present, while also leading them to the fullness of joy in eternity. When we look at these eight perspectives on what it means to be a follower of Jesus, there is a mixture of both underlying attitudes and ways of behaving. The poor in spirit are those who recognize their poverty before God and, therefore, their need of God and dependence on God. Such people are gentle in the sense that they know how to let be; they respect the otherness of people. They ‘mourn’ because they are sensitive to the fact that the world is not as God intended it to be; they are very aware of the presence of sin in their own lives and in the lives of others and in the structures within which we all live. Out of this unease at the way things are, they have a deep hunger and thirst for what is right; they passionately want God’s kingdom to come on earth as it is in heaven. This passion for God’s justice makes them merciful. They engage in those works of mercy on behalf of the broken which so characterized the life of Jesus. They engage in these works with a purity of heart, a purity of intention, dedicated to God and to God’s cause rather than to furthering their own cause. They engage in the work of peace making. They are not simply lovers of peace but makers of peace; they build bridges rather than walls and seek to reconcile people among themselves and with God. They remain committed to this peace-making work, even at great personal loss to themselves, even when it leads to persecution. Jesus implies in that last beatitude that living according to these values will often leave us vulnerable and suffering loss in the here and now. There is a unified vision here of what we might call a life well lived, a life imbibed with a love of God and a life of neighbour. I think of such a life as life in the Spirit. This is a portrait of the Spirit filled person. This is what Christian spirituality looks like. Jesus will immediately goes on to say that those who embody these attitudes and values, this way of life, are the light of the world and the salt of the earth. We rarely refer to anyone as light of the world, but we sometimes speak of others as the salt of the earth. When we use that expression of people, it is likely that they correspond in some way to the portrait that Jesus gives us in the Beatitudes. Even though Jesus is offering us a unified way of life, it is not a case of all or nothing. We might recognize ourselves in some of the beatitudes rather than others. Perhaps we should allow ourselves to be drawn to the beatitude where we feel most at home, where we recognize something of ourselves, at least some of the time. The Spirit is at work in all our lives. We can all find a place for ourselves somewhere in that rich tapestry. From that place of blessing, we invite the Spirit to help us to grow more and more into that complete person Jesus portrays for us. Saint John the Baptist Parish, Clontarf, Dublin, Ireland Parish Website: www.stjohnsclontarf.ie Join us via our webcam Twitter: @SJtBClontarfRC Facebook: St John the Baptist RC Parish, Clontarf Tumblr: Saint John the Baptist Parish, Clontarf, Dublin

     When I initially watched the trailer for “Children of Men” I thought I wasn’t going to be too big on it. I hated what appeared to be the film’s apocalyptic and dystopian setting. I thought it was going to be another unrealistic “what if” type movie that, in my opinion, serves no purpose to me as an audience member seen as how none of the events in the film could possibly relate to reality or have meaningful purpose behind it. However, watching the film completely changed my perspective and overall opinion on the movie. The movie is so much more than what I thought it was and furthermore contradicts my original thoughts and ideas of it being meaningless and incapable of relating to reality, which is why I believe the movie is so incredibly magnificent. Along with showcasing action-packed adventure, Director Alfonso Cuarón decided to incorporate and explore the very unique and compelling themes of hope and faith, as well as religion, and cultural, historical and modern referencing. The multitude of different themes effectively provides an additional dimension to the film, giving it a higher quality in depth and profundity, thus giving the film an element of superiority.

    In a dystopian world filled with chaos and infertility, England stands as the only country left with a functional government and established order. This causes an enormous immigrant and refugee problem for England, and thus showcases the English government in the film to be incredibly totalitarian and fascist, and genuinely against immigration. As a result, the government hunts down all illegal immigrants and sends them to refugees camps for deportation.

Nominated for three Academy Awards, “Children of Men” follows the POV of A-List actor Clive Owen as Theo Faron. After escaping a terrorist bombing and being kidnapped by a terrorist organization led by his ex-wife, he is asked to get transit papers for a client of the organization. It is later revealed that the papers are for a pregnant woman. After escaping the terrorist compound with Kee (the pregnant woman) and Miriam, the three flee to Jasper’s house and from there embark on their adventure to find and board the ship, “Tomorrow” by “The Human Project” (a group of scientists committed to ending infertility).

    Hope and faith is one of the central themes of the film, in that hope depends on the future generations of mankind. In this case, Kee’s baby is the world’s hope for recovery and rehabilitation. At the sight of the baby in the refugee camp, hundreds of refugees and soldiers (on both the military and terrorist side) praise and hail the baby. The baby is an effective tool in instilling the idea of hope into the world, and has the power to stop all the chaos that has erupted throughout it (like when the soldiers stopped the gunfight in the refugee camp at when they saw the baby). Furthermore, hope has an incredible impact on the character development of Theo Faron, which furthermore supports the idea of hope and faith as a theme in the film. In the beginning, the pessimistic, dispassionate, government bureaucrat shows little to no concern regarding the events unfolding around him. He claims

“even if they discover the cure for infertility, it doesn’t matter… too late… world went to shit.”

As his character develops, he becomes more and more concerned and hopeful. Towards the end of the film, his actions display hope as seen through him breaking into a refugee camp with Kee in order to board the “Tomorrow”. I found this example to be highly paradoxical, in that his hope causes him to be in an atmosphere full of pessimism and despair. This piece suggests that perhaps there is a greater, more profound significance to it. I personally interpreted the piece as a message, in that hope will always lead you to positivity in life, you just have to find and hold on to it. If you let go, life will be filled with despair and pessimism. Had Theo, for whatever reason, lost hope at Bexhill, he would’ve failed to reach “Tomorrow” and furthermore deny humanity’s chance of curing infertility, thus causing everyone around the world to live in despair. Instead, his character fully changes from being hopeless to having hope and faith for events to come, so much so that he willingly puts himself in an environment filled with despair and misery in hopes for a better future. In the last scene of the film, there is a small flash of hope, when the “Tomorrow” appears out of the fog.  This scene successfully brought out the theme of hope, in that there was hope for the future and that perhaps the scientists could help potentially find a cure to infertility. However, there is no sufficient evidence in the film to justify or prove that any of this is actually real. Maybe the ship was just a fishing boat, or maybe “The Human Project” was just a hoax in order to bring hope and faith to the people. Regardless of whether the ship can or can’t help their cause, it’s nonetheless a symbol of hope. Director Alfonso Cuarón noted that the intention of the final scene is to instill a different outlook on the outcome of events for each individual member of the audience.

“I tried to make an observation rather than to give a statement. Ideally, I want audiences to come out with their own conclusions.”

He furthermore stated in response to the cliff-hanger that, “It pretty much depends on your own sense of hope. What we wanted to do at the end was to give a little glimpse of a possibility of hope. A very small glimpse. So you invest your own sense of hope in the story. After you go through this journey of what I consider to be the state of things, outside our green zones, then at the end is the question: Do we have a possibility of hope? I personally believe yes. Hopefully, people believe that the movie is a very hopeful movie.” Those who tend to have an optimistic perspective on things and on life in general, seem to see the outcome of the cliff-hanger as successful, whereas those who have a pessimistic view on things might perceive the outcome to be negative and a complete failure. Regardless of whichever outcome you see, or whichever one occurs, the message behind the scene and its impact on the film is incredible.

    I find the beauty and intricacy of the film to lie within the theme of cultural reference. The theme is effectively instilled through the use of art in the film. Art effectively portrays not only the cultural references but in that, the themes of religion and historical references.  The film then connects these themes to the theme of modern reference (reality). However, in a movie with so much going on, it is very difficult for people to notice and thoroughly analyze all the minor details of art, which is why I found the theme and its interconnections to other themes to be extremely impressive. I personally think the intricacy of the themes and the profundity beyond them is absolutely brilliant and pure genius on behalf of the director.

In order for the small details of art to be captured, very specific narrative elements were used. In most cases, art is usually displayed through shot composition, as well as through medium and long shots. In the scene where Kee reveals her pregnancy through a medium-shot, she stands in a posture that accurately resembles Botticelli’s The Birth of Venus”. The painting incorporates the idea of maternity, perhaps hinting or foreshadowing the commencement of the end of infertility. 

This is just one of the many hints and clues made towards maternity in the film. Later on in the film, after Jasper finds out about the pregnancy, both he and Miriam say “Shantih Shantih Shantih”.  This statement quotes and recites Author T.S Eliot’s “The Wasteland”, as well as the Upanishads. These two historical and cultural references provide a great source of hope and motivation to a world filled with chaos and misery. Furthermore, as Theo visits his cousin in the Arch of Arts, the two hold a discussion, while in the background there appears to be a pig floating in the sky, right beside what also appears to be the Battersea power station. While watching the movie I noticed the pig in the sky and thought it was relatively odd. However, the thought dwelled on me that there must’ve been some cultural reference or general significance as to why the very specific scenery of a pig was floating in the sky. After research, I realized the scenery (effectively captured by the narrative element, “focal distance and definition”) is of cultural reference to Pink Floyd’s 1977 album “Animals”. 

What’s interesting about this particular cultural reference is that the album revolves around George Orwell's “Animal Farm”, an allegorical novella based off of the events prior to and after the Russian Revolution in 1917. The book primarily explores Stalinism, which is significant to the film seen as how Stalinism and its era correlates to the totalitarian government of England and accurately resembles the dystopian setting and time era of the film. This piece of cultural reference also connects to the theme of historical reference, seen as how Stalinism is an ideology that originated almost a century ago and is more or less present in the film’s futuristic time era.

In addition to the album, Michelangelo’s “David” and Pablo Picasso’s “Guernica” are also present in the Arch of Arts scene, which add further depth to the theme of cultural reference. 

Lastly, during the uprising at Bexhill, a very specific narrative element was used in order to capture and bring out a certain piece. A single-shot sequence was used to reveal a mother cradling her dead son. This sequence accurately resembles Michelangelo’s “La Pieta”, the sculpture showing Mary cradling Jesus’s crucified body. This resemblance effectively showcases the misery and tragedy of the scene’s atmosphere but more importantly contributes to the overall mood and atmosphere of the film (the mood and atmosphere being grey and genuinely miserable). The sequence furthermore connects to the theme of modern reference. The sculpture and shot also resemble an image of a mother cradling her dead son in the Balkan War.

    The film touched on the theme of religion in a way that connects it to several of the aforementioned themes in the film (the same way all other themes connect to one another). The incorporation of religion as a theme in the film provides additional depth and quality to it. Religion, much like artwork, is sometimes hidden in the minor details of things, almost like an Easter egg in comic books or video games. The terrorist organization known as “The Fishes” use a logo that is exactly the same as the ancient Greek word “ichthys” (meaning fish). It just so happens that Christians in the first century made an acrostic of the word, “Iesous Christos Theou Yios Soter”. The acrostic depicts Jesus Christ as a saviour. This acrostic connects to the organization in that the organization is viewed by immigrants as their saviour. As a result, this religious piece provides a unique sociological perspective on Bad vs. Good and Evil vs. Good. It successfully proposes questions to the audience that are essential in the development and enhancement of individual morality. “What is bad and what is good? Is the organization evil or well-intentioned?”

Morality is definitely a prominent issue in the film with regards to the English government and their anti-immigration stance. While some viewers believe the government is morally obligated to welcome the refugees, and others argue that welcoming the refugees will result in the deterioration of England, both sides completely miss the point. The significance of the morality in regards to the English government is in its connection between religion and the theme of modern referencing. Morality in whether or not refugees should be allowed into the country accurately references the modern day struggle Muslims, especially Syrians, have in immigrating to European countries. This was a very clever and witty way of instilling the idea of the controversial refugee crisis into the Easter-egg of a film.

Other examples of religious themes in the film include the resemblance between Kee and Theo and Joseph and Mary.

Moreover, Cuarón stated that the title of the film’s book (bearing the same name) comes from Psalm 90:3 of the Bible.

“Thou turnest man to destruction; and sayest , Return , ye children of men.”

    The biggest historical reference portrayed throughout the film is without a doubt the film’s reference to the refugee camps and their resemblance to the concentration camps in Nazi Germany. When Kee and Theo arrive at the refugee camp, they have all of their personal belongs taken from them and thrown into large piles that resemble the large piles of articles belonging to the Jewish people during their entry to the concentration camps. The physical appearances of the camps are also incredibly similar, such as the gates and signs.

This resemblance effectively provides the audience with the powerful emotion, mood and general atmosphere of the scene in the film. The scene allows the audience to realize and comprehend the severity of events that are going on in the film.

    The magnificence in the film is without a doubt the multitude of different themes, and how they’re all interconnected with one another. In order to achieve such excellence, several narrative elements were incorporated in the pieces that relates to the themes. Standard narrative examples included focal distance and definition (used for the pig in the sky), size of shot (primarily medium and close), real colours (such as grey and blue to depict the miserable, dystopian mood and atmosphere) weather (for mood and atmosphere) and the list goes on. However, there was one distinguishable narrative element that contributed to the overall success of the film’s themes. The single-shot sequence is a type of camera movement that doesn’t incorporate any cuts or different shots. It’s one, giant, long take that intensifies the action and adrenaline in scenes and adds a realistic texture to it (a perfect example being the car chase scene). However, the sequence provides the scenes with deeper significance. Throughout the film, the sequence tends to roam off of the focal point of the scene and focuses on things that appear to be irrelevant to what is actually going on. This action is what provides the film with its Easter-eggs and hidden mementos that contribute to the themes of the film and their connection with one another. An example being when the sequence focuses on the mother cradling her dead son during the uprising in the refugee camp.

The single-shot sequence, along with real colours and weather effectively portray the mood and atmosphere of the film. Although the themes and events of the film establish a general foundation of a dystopian setting, these narrative elements furthermore enhance the mood and atmosphere of the film with great effectiveness. The grey, miserable weather that seems to be constant throughout the film excellently instills the atmosphere and mood of the film to be tragic and miserable. Furthermore, real colours such as grey and blue are used to depict the refugee camp Kee and Theo are staying at. The colours of the walls and surroundings of the refugee camp are effective in portraying the miserable mood and atmosphere of the film. The single-shot sequence in one scene focuses on a sobbing mother, and as a result, depicts the aforesaid qualities of the mood and atmosphere. The narrative elements genuinely do a great job in bringing out this type of general environment, which I found really compliments the dystopian setting of the movie. The cinematographer, Emmanuel Lubezki, did an absolutely fantastic job with the elements and camera work. I feel a great deal of the film’s success is a result of Lubezki’s talent. Without his creative setting and narrative elements the film wouldn’t have been as successful in showcasing its beauty, intricacy and genuine perfection. 

     “Children of Men” is beyond what it appears to be on the surface. Using innovative narrative elements to explore the intricacy in the multitude of different interconnected themes, and enhance the overall mood and atmosphere of the film, which compliments its dystopian setting, “Children of Men” deserves a rating of 5/5 stars. As a result of its given qualities, along with my appreciation for the film,  I’d highly recommend this movie to everyone, regardless of their preference and opinion on the film’s genre.