Book Review: Parsifal by Richard Wagner as Retold by Oliver Huckel
“If thy heart be pure / The Grail will be to thee as food and drink!” – Gurnemanz
Tag: Europe
Book Review: History of the Byzantine State by George Ostrogorsky
“Honour all men. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honour the king.”
– 1 Peter 2:17
Book Review of Paideia: The Ideals of Greek Culture: Volume I. Archaic Greece: The Mind of Athens by Werner Jaeger
“But Paul standing in the midst of the Areopagus, said: Ye men of Athens, I perceive that in all things you are too superstitious. For passing by, and seeing your idols, I found an altar also, on which was written: To the unknown God.”
– Acts 17:22-23
Prester John
“Put not your trust in princes: in the children of men, in whom there is no salvation.”
– Psalms 145:2-3
Book Download: History of the German People at the Close of the Middle Ages by Fr. Johannes Janssen (Vol. I)
The wonderful development of spiritual and intellectual life that characterized this period was only possible in view of the fact that all minds were still influenced by the Church doctrine of ‘salvation by good works.’ This teaching resulted, on one hand, in innumerable charitable bequests, in the founding of hospitals, asylums, and orphanages, as well as in the building of churches and cathedrals adorned with all that was most beautiful in art; while it also prompted the establishment of higher and lower education institutions, and the liberal endowment of them.
Book Review: Stalin’s War of Extermination 1941-1945 by Joachim Hoffmann
“If my requests are granted, Russia will be converted and there will be peace. If not, she will scatter her errors throughout the world, provoking wars and the persecution of the Church. The good will be martyred, the Holy Father will have much to suffer, and various nations will be destroyed…But in the end, my Immaculate Heart will triumph, the Holy Father will consecrate Russia to me, Russia will be converted, and a certain period of peace will be granted to the world.” – Our Lady of Fatima
Book Review: History of the German People at the Close of the Middle Ages by Fr. Johannes Janssen (Vol. I)
“It is an oft-repeated tale,
A century old and more,
Who ne’er in sorrow hath wept,
Never in love hath smiled.”
– A Medieval German poem
Book Review: The Northern Crusades by Eric Christiansen
“Blessed be the Lord my God, who teacheth my hands to fight, and my fingers to war.”
– Psalms 143:1
Book Review: Dante Alighieri: Citizen of Christendom by Fr. Gerald G. Walsh, S.J.
“For We admire in him not only supreme height of genius but also the immensity of the subject which holy religion put to his hand. If his genius was refined by meditation and long study of the great classics it was tempered even more gloriously, as We have said, by the writings of the Doctors and the Fathers which gave him the wings on which to rise to a higher atmosphere than that of restricted nature. And thus it comes that, though he is separated from us by centuries, he has still the freshness of a poet of our times: certainly more modern than some of those of recent days who have exhumed the Paganism banished forever by Christ’s triumph on the Cross.” – Pope Benedict XV