Might I offer a slightly reworked version of a prayer for the sick and suffering from the Mozarabic Liturgy; a good Visigothic petition?
O Christ our Lord, who art the Physician of salvation, grant unto David the aid of heavenly healing. Look upon he who is sick and who loves to call upon Thy name, and take his soul into Thy keeping, and vouchsafe to deliver him from all sickness and infirmity; through Jesus Christ. Amen.
I wish you to vanquish your enemies, to chase them before you, to .... Uh, sorry, wrong message. I wish you a painless and successful operation. My humble prayers are with you as always.
I completely understand your decision to mark the tragic beginning of the second Orange Era by turning to the Revolutionary calendar. However, in your place, I would have chosen a system with a somewhat longer and more successful history. We don't want you to share poor Maximilien's fate, after all, and, besides that, the current president and his entourage simply lack the class of the decadent French aristocracy from the end of the 18th century. Perhaps the Chinese calendar if you feel inspired by the famous fake Sun Tzu's quote about the floating cadavers? Or even the Star Wars calendar, if you prefer more vivid images of defeated fascism?
I agree. It is an insult to the memory of Louis XVI to compare him to Trump. Read John Hardman's excellent biography. His heart was in the right place. His biggest sin was his indecisiveness.
I am actually quite fond of constitutional monarchies. Plus, the treatment meted out to the former royal family by the revolutionaries--especially to the dauphin, who was only a child--was atrocious.
I know I shouldn't hate my country. I don't believe it's quite the proper emotional response. Nevertheless, I can't help how I feel and right now I deeply despise my country.
God grant you a successful surgery and speedy recovery, David. And may our Lord be with the masses of migrants, especially children, who are about to suffer the unfettered brutality of the world's most powerful terrorist organization.
As a bit of unrelated good news to lift the spirits, which I haven't seen you mention yet: back in November the Pope officially recognized the sainthood of Isaac of Nineveh, my favorite ascetic writer. Finally. 1500 years late, but it's a very good sign, I think. (And if the Catholic church follows the Orthodox in pairing him with Ephrem the Syrian, his feast day may fall on my birthday.)
It also needs to be said that the photo in this post is too beautiful for words.
Don't give up on the American experiment! The Orange Turd is incompetent, corrupt, and stupid. Just yesterday, a federal judge flayed the executive order purporting to terminate birthright citizenship. And his pardon of the January 6 rioters is not going over well. He is squandering political capital on stupidity, and won't be able to reduce inflation (already back in the normal range), much less bring prices down, as long as he keeps focused on his Precious, the tariffs.
From the foggy, sodden hills of Northern Finistere I pray for a successful operation bringing you relief from your painful condition. In these parts, Royalist and ornery, they stuck with the Gregorian calendar. From one account I read representatives of the Convention went the rounds of local villages to bring folk the good news that they were now citizens, no longer subjects, and were greeted with cheers of "Vive la Révolution! Vive le Roi!" It never did really take, as attested by our current elected monarch's grovelling before the Orange Abomination.
Dear David, prayers from the capital city of Wales, UK - Caerdydd/ Cardiff, to you and your family. (I did post a message earlier, but it seems to have disappeared). Your name shall be prayed at our Sunday Eucharists tomorrow. For all that you share with us, diolch yn fawr
Dear David, your name will be prayed in our little Church in Cardiff, Wales, UK, and I am praying for you too.
Dr Hart you simply must fully recover. Having a mind like yours and living in such interesting times carries with it certain responsibilities - I'm sure you're fully aware of these, so I won't labour the point.
Years ago, I heard a Buddhist-inspired Jesuit (Gerard Hughes) describe intercessory prayer as an action in which God takes love from one heart and channels it to wherever it's needed. That makes sense to me. We send love to you and your family, through our prayers. We love you. Get better.
-I first read your work in a cancer ward in 2012. I'd not had great news from the oncologist and his team, and - contrary to what everyone says - what I most needed, alongside tea, kindness, morphine and huge amounts of praise and flattery, was theology. I know I'm not alone in this. In hard times I need more, not less reflection and wisdom. Anyway, long story short, I somehow got a copy of "The Doors of the Sea". When I read your words about how, in Christian terms, suffering and evil make no sense at all - and that it would be amazingly bad news if they did - I literally laughed out loud for joy and it felt like a huge weight had fallen from my shoulders: in this suffering I'm not being taught a hugely instructive lesson, or being punished, or playing a cog-in-the-machine part in some dubious cosmic drama. I loved the narnia-like image the book gave me of NT cosmology. I'm a happy, naive, fully-enchanted believer, and that primitive, unsophisticated, NT picture of a good creation being distorted and wounded to its core by forces, powers and principalities -all to be overthrown by incarnate invasion - makes more sense to me than anything I've read in Tommy Aquinas or Laurence Krauss.
-All that you wrote/write about Hell has also been of indescribable value to me/us, too.
Byddwn ni’n croesawu chi i Gymru ac i Gaerdydd! - We'd love to welcome you to Cardiff. Cardiff's barely more than a large town, but Rowan and Jane WIlliams now live here, and there's a great revival of the Eldar tongue throughout Wales (which you've already mastered, obvs). The first minister of Wales, Elenud Morgan, is a Church going socialist and married to an anglican priest and we even have a Russian Orthodox priest, one Fr James Siemens, who is a connoisseur of good beer and a great admirer of your work. -Anything else we can offer, just say the word.
Rydych chi'n drugarog iawn. Gweddïwch am fy adferiad buan fel y gallwn gwrdd am goffi yng Nghaerdydd. I assure you that I haven’t mastered the language. As beautiful as the Brythonic tongues are, I have only a dabbler’s appreciation. Rowan would not be impressed.
Haha, I believe that this will be a bridge too far in DBH's roleplay as a Jacobin. He would never stand for the desecration of Notre-Dame de Paris by the Cult of Reason for both religious and aesthetic reasons (which he most likely views as being the same).
Might I offer a slightly reworked version of a prayer for the sick and suffering from the Mozarabic Liturgy; a good Visigothic petition?
O Christ our Lord, who art the Physician of salvation, grant unto David the aid of heavenly healing. Look upon he who is sick and who loves to call upon Thy name, and take his soul into Thy keeping, and vouchsafe to deliver him from all sickness and infirmity; through Jesus Christ. Amen.
Amen.
I wish you to vanquish your enemies, to chase them before you, to .... Uh, sorry, wrong message. I wish you a painless and successful operation. My humble prayers are with you as always.
I completely understand your decision to mark the tragic beginning of the second Orange Era by turning to the Revolutionary calendar. However, in your place, I would have chosen a system with a somewhat longer and more successful history. We don't want you to share poor Maximilien's fate, after all, and, besides that, the current president and his entourage simply lack the class of the decadent French aristocracy from the end of the 18th century. Perhaps the Chinese calendar if you feel inspired by the famous fake Sun Tzu's quote about the floating cadavers? Or even the Star Wars calendar, if you prefer more vivid images of defeated fascism?
I agree. It is an insult to the memory of Louis XVI to compare him to Trump. Read John Hardman's excellent biography. His heart was in the right place. His biggest sin was his indecisiveness.
I would never. Heaven forbid.
You misspelled Citoyen Louis Capet.
Nah.
I am actually quite fond of constitutional monarchies. Plus, the treatment meted out to the former royal family by the revolutionaries--especially to the dauphin, who was only a child--was atrocious.
We should not have lunch.
Dommage !
I know I shouldn't hate my country. I don't believe it's quite the proper emotional response. Nevertheless, I can't help how I feel and right now I deeply despise my country.
God grant you a successful surgery and speedy recovery, David. And may our Lord be with the masses of migrants, especially children, who are about to suffer the unfettered brutality of the world's most powerful terrorist organization.
As a bit of unrelated good news to lift the spirits, which I haven't seen you mention yet: back in November the Pope officially recognized the sainthood of Isaac of Nineveh, my favorite ascetic writer. Finally. 1500 years late, but it's a very good sign, I think. (And if the Catholic church follows the Orthodox in pairing him with Ephrem the Syrian, his feast day may fall on my birthday.)
It also needs to be said that the photo in this post is too beautiful for words.
Don't give up on the American experiment! The Orange Turd is incompetent, corrupt, and stupid. Just yesterday, a federal judge flayed the executive order purporting to terminate birthright citizenship. And his pardon of the January 6 rioters is not going over well. He is squandering political capital on stupidity, and won't be able to reduce inflation (already back in the normal range), much less bring prices down, as long as he keeps focused on his Precious, the tariffs.
The price of eggs won't be coming down anytime soon. Plus, he's kneecapping all the health agencies.
I feel similarly. Take heart from the memory of the courageous Americans who went before you. It is our time to stand for what's right!
It goes without saying that those courageous Americans were hardly loved in their time. I am sure Abolitionists would have been called "woke."
From the foggy, sodden hills of Northern Finistere I pray for a successful operation bringing you relief from your painful condition. In these parts, Royalist and ornery, they stuck with the Gregorian calendar. From one account I read representatives of the Convention went the rounds of local villages to bring folk the good news that they were now citizens, no longer subjects, and were greeted with cheers of "Vive la Révolution! Vive le Roi!" It never did really take, as attested by our current elected monarch's grovelling before the Orange Abomination.
I live in Saint Brevin-les-Pins right at the mouth of the Loire, wrenched from Brittany in the mid-twentieth century.
What a very beautiful place.
Yes, we are quite fortunate. We were living in the Paris metro area before.
There is definitely a magic to the place. The town has nine megaliths.
But hey! La Marseillaise is a great national anthem!
Especially as sung in Casablanca.
Lord Jesus please be with David and his family and all the medical staff. Protect him and help him recover quickly.
I, too, offer prayers for healing—and also for hope.
Wish you well and a speedy recovery. Vive la révolution
Dear David, prayers from the capital city of Wales, UK - Caerdydd/ Cardiff, to you and your family. (I did post a message earlier, but it seems to have disappeared). Your name shall be prayed at our Sunday Eucharists tomorrow. For all that you share with us, diolch yn fawr
See below.
Dear David, your name will be prayed in our little Church in Cardiff, Wales, UK, and I am praying for you too.
Dr Hart you simply must fully recover. Having a mind like yours and living in such interesting times carries with it certain responsibilities - I'm sure you're fully aware of these, so I won't labour the point.
Years ago, I heard a Buddhist-inspired Jesuit (Gerard Hughes) describe intercessory prayer as an action in which God takes love from one heart and channels it to wherever it's needed. That makes sense to me. We send love to you and your family, through our prayers. We love you. Get better.
-I first read your work in a cancer ward in 2012. I'd not had great news from the oncologist and his team, and - contrary to what everyone says - what I most needed, alongside tea, kindness, morphine and huge amounts of praise and flattery, was theology. I know I'm not alone in this. In hard times I need more, not less reflection and wisdom. Anyway, long story short, I somehow got a copy of "The Doors of the Sea". When I read your words about how, in Christian terms, suffering and evil make no sense at all - and that it would be amazingly bad news if they did - I literally laughed out loud for joy and it felt like a huge weight had fallen from my shoulders: in this suffering I'm not being taught a hugely instructive lesson, or being punished, or playing a cog-in-the-machine part in some dubious cosmic drama. I loved the narnia-like image the book gave me of NT cosmology. I'm a happy, naive, fully-enchanted believer, and that primitive, unsophisticated, NT picture of a good creation being distorted and wounded to its core by forces, powers and principalities -all to be overthrown by incarnate invasion - makes more sense to me than anything I've read in Tommy Aquinas or Laurence Krauss.
-All that you wrote/write about Hell has also been of indescribable value to me/us, too.
Diolch yn fawr, David. Jesse, Cardiff, Wales.
Diolch yn fawr iawn hefyd. Mae'n garedig iawn ohonoch chi. Os bydd fy iechyd yn gwella, mae'n bosibl iawn y byddaf i a'm teulu yn symud i Gaerdydd.
Byddwn ni’n croesawu chi i Gymru ac i Gaerdydd! - We'd love to welcome you to Cardiff. Cardiff's barely more than a large town, but Rowan and Jane WIlliams now live here, and there's a great revival of the Eldar tongue throughout Wales (which you've already mastered, obvs). The first minister of Wales, Elenud Morgan, is a Church going socialist and married to an anglican priest and we even have a Russian Orthodox priest, one Fr James Siemens, who is a connoisseur of good beer and a great admirer of your work. -Anything else we can offer, just say the word.
Rydych chi'n drugarog iawn. Gweddïwch am fy adferiad buan fel y gallwn gwrdd am goffi yng Nghaerdydd. I assure you that I haven’t mastered the language. As beautiful as the Brythonic tongues are, I have only a dabbler’s appreciation. Rowan would not be impressed.
Mae eich Cymraeg chi’n well na fy un i!! -I'd love that. -You wouldn't have to buy your own coffee (or tea) in Cardiff.
My best attempt at coherent Welsh.
Christus animarum corporumque nostrorum medicus te sanet.
It is not funny, is it? I will pray. I try to make a habit of it, even for one's enemies.
Praying
Don't let the bastards grind you down! And God bless you in your surgery and recovery.
Sending many prayers. Also looking forward to your return to health so we can celebrate the Festival of Reason together later in the year.
Haha, I believe that this will be a bridge too far in DBH's roleplay as a Jacobin. He would never stand for the desecration of Notre-Dame de Paris by the Cult of Reason for both religious and aesthetic reasons (which he most likely views as being the same).
It’s a big space. We can use a side-chapel.
perhaps we could hold a mini-festival at Notre Dame de South Bend.
Heartfelt prayers for your surgery. May it do what you hope and may you sense the care of those who love you both family and strangers from afar.
Prayers for a successful surgery and a quick recovery.