Saturday, April 20, 2019

The Riot of the Shrinking Violets

The Riot of the Shrinking Violets

Surely we never planted a single violet anywhere on our extensive lawns here at the Jesuit Center in Wernersville.  But this season they are everywhere popping up amid the grasses and sometimes in riotous clusters.   There are surely more than a million of them and they all bloom at once.    It happened during this last week.   No shrinking violets around this spring season!  They celebrate the abundant gifts of Easter.


THE PHRASE FINDER offers this as the origin of "shrinking violet."

"In a poetry magazine called The Indicator, the poet and essayist Leigh Hunt (1784-1859) drew attention to the modest wood violet:

'There was the buttercup, struggling from a white to a dirty yellow; and a faint-coloured poppy; and here and there by the thorny underwood a shrinking violet.'"

Tuesday, April 16, 2019

Notre Dame Paris


Notre Dame, Paris

Reading about the catastrophic fire at Notre Dame and seeing the heart-rending photos of the place in flame, I recall the blessing I had on June 27, 2011.   I entered the Cathedral and immediately heard choral strains.  Even an American melody: "My Lord, What a Morning."!   A choir of college-age Californians were practicing in the rear of the Cathedral preparing for their concert that evening.

What a wonderful place to perform.   Of course I took just a few photos to seal my memory:




Early reports indicate that these windows are intact.  Praise God!

Thursday, April 11, 2019

Moon watches over the sunset






The crescent moon watches over the sunset, April 9, 2019