Book Review: The Lusíads by Luís Vaz de Camões Translated by Landeg White
“There will be no lack of Christian daring / In this little house of Portugal.”
– The Lusíads VII. 14.
Tag: Christendom
Book Review: Religion and the Rise of Western Culture by Christopher Dawson
“The importance of these centuries…is not to be found in the external order they attempted to create, but in the internal change they brought about in the soul of Western man—a change which can never be entirely undone expect by the total negation or destruction of Western man himself.”
– Christopher Dawson
Book Review: The Making of Europe by Christopher Dawson
“For heroes have the whole earth for their tomb; and in lands far from their own, where the column with its epitaph declares it, there is enshrined in every breast a record unwritten with no tablet to preserve it, except that of the heart.”
– Pericles, “Funeral Oration”
Book Review: The Gothic Cathedral: Origins of Gothic Architecture and the Medieval Concept of Order by Otto Von Simson
“Against the darkness of the interior, the windows are in effect grey or black, and one must go inside the church and turn round in order to see the fire of the glass catch alight; the outside is here sacrificed to the inside. Why?
Perhaps, Durtal answered himself, it’s a symbol of the soul illuminated in its innermost places, an allegory of the spiritual life…”
– J.K. Huysmans, The Cathedral
Book Review: The Love of Learning and the Desire for God by Jean Leclercq, O.S.B.
“The love of God is honourable wisdom.”
– Ecclesiasticus 1:14
Book Review of A General History of the Christian Era: Vol. I The Papacy and The Empire by Fr. Antony Guggenberger, S.J.
“Let not the discourse of the ancients escape thee, for they have learned of their fathers: For of them thou shalt learn understanding, and to give an answer in time of need.”
– Ecclesiasticus 8:11-12
Book Download: The Greek Fathers by Father Adrian Fortescue
What they defended was the Catholic faith that we profess. We, who are the heirs of so great a tradition, ought to know at least something about the story of the long chain that joins us back to the first Whitsunday.
Book Review: The Song of Roland Translated by Frederick Goldin
“No day will pass that I feel no pain for you.”
– Charlemagne
(Laisse 207. 2901)
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: 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