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Reflections
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Wednesday, 25 November 2009 15:17 |
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The world in which we live runs the risk of being altered beyond recognition because of unwise human actions which, instead of cultivating its beauty, unscrupulously exploit its resources for the advantage of a few and not infrequently disfigure the marvels of nature. What is capable of restoring enthusiasm and confidence, what can encourage the human spirit to rediscover its path, to raise its eyes to the horizon, to dream of a life worthy of its vocation — if not beauty?
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Read more... [Pope Benedict XVI to Artists]
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A Letter to Artists by Michael O'Brien |
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Written by Michael D. O'Brien
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Saturday, 02 May 2009 00:00 |
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I have received many letters from young Christian painters, writers, and musicians, and ask those of you who have written to me to pardon my delay in responding to your inquiries. The amount of interest in StudiObrien has been overwhelming, and for that reason I’ve been able to reply to only a fraction of the letters I receive.
This month, I would like to write to you a few thoughts about our calling. This will be a sort of Combat Journal from the Culture Wars, penned by a battle scarred veteran. I hope it will cover most of the questions I am regularly asked.
I began to paint full-time for Christ on May 1st, 1976. Though I had been practicing as an artist since 1970, when I had my first one-man exhibition at a gallery, I had not until then made a commitment to overtly Christian themes, nor was I pursuing my art as a vocation. To a certain extent I was drifting and dabbling with the idea, but rather daunted by the seeming impossibility of it. Then I made a consecration prayer on the Feast of St. Joseph the Worker, 1976, quit my job, and threw myself off a cliff so to speak.
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Read more... [A Letter to Artists by Michael O'Brien]
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Written by Michael D. O'Brien
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Friday, 01 May 2009 04:10 |
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I've been collecting fragments from the writings and sayings of others for nearly forty years. They have always struck me as pieces of a vast mosaic that is being slowly and painstakingly assembled. As in an actual mural mosaic (Byzantine, complex, more than the sum of its parts), if one stands too close to it the image blurs. Focus on a single component and the part becomes the whole, throwing all into misinterpretation. Stand back, find proportion, locate the range of vision, and the portrait emerges. It is my hope that through the passages quoted here a portrait of humanity will emerge, and beyond it the hidden face of Christ become more visible.
The following is a work in progress, to which I will be adding all sorts of fragments from time to time.
Michael D. O'Brien
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Out of the darkness of my life, so much frustrated, I put before you the one great thing to love on earth: the Blessed Sacrament . . . There you will find romance, glory, honour, fidelity, and the true way of all your loves upon earth . . . which every man's heart desires.
J.R.R. Tolkien, The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien
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Read more... [Favorite Quotations]
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The 40th anniversary of Humanae Vitae |
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Written by Michael D. O'Brien
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Thursday, 01 January 2009 13:32 |
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The massive failure to respond in a Christian manner to the exhortation of Humanae Vitae is not so much the result of selfishness or a spirit of rebellion on the part of families, as it is a loss of nerve. The root problem is fear. Anxiety saturates our age, and for a family the generalized angst is multiplied exponentially. It becomes very difficult to maintain a “nuclear” family when the “extended” family disintegrates. And when a society’s economy rolls over in the direction of great benefits to the infertile and relentless troubles for those who are fully open to life, it becomes difficulty squared.
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Read more... [The 40th anniversary of Humanae Vitae]
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from Chesterton's Orthodoxy |
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Written by Michael D. O'Brien
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Monday, 08 December 2008 16:05 |
Not only is the Faith the mother of all worldly energies, but its foes are the fathers of all worldly confusion. The secularists have not wrecked divine things; but the secularists have wrecked secular things, if that is any comfort to them. The Titans did not scale heaven; but they laid waste the world.
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Read more... [from Chesterton's Orthodoxy]
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