Posts

C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien & Mythology

Image
 by Mr Brownlo Alister McGrath's [recent] biography of Lewis sheds interesting information on various aspects of the life of the “creator” of Narnia, and also on his relationship with JRR Tolkien. It seems that Lewis encouraged Tolkien to keep going when the latter was thinking of giving up writing, being unconvinced of the literary value of his efforts.  For his part, Tolkien played an important role in the long process that eventually led Lewis to the Christian faith. Lewis, Tolkien and the concept of mythology. Tolkien argued that Lewis should approach the New Testament with the same imagination and expectation that he brought to the reading of pagan myths in his professional studies. But, as Tolkien emphasized, there was a decisive difference. As Lewis himself stated in [a] letter, “The story of Christ is nothing but a true myth: a myth that works on us in the same way as the others, but with the great difference that it really happened.” The reader should understand that the w
Post a Comment
Read more

The mystery of music

Image
Was du geschlagen, Zu Gott wird es dich tragen! I was moved a few months ago by the story of Erik Varden's conversion in his book " La explosión de la soledad " [The Explosion of Solitude] (Monte Carmelo, Fonte, Burgos, 2021).  by Jaime Nubiola What brought him closer to God was the burst of beauty and truth he perceived in Mahler's Symphony No. 2 . Varden explains: "Hearing these words " Have faith: You were not born in vain / You have not suffered in vain ", something burst forth. The pounding insistence, 'not in vain, not in vain,' was irresistible. It wasn't just that I wanted to believe it. I knew it was true. It sounds trite, but at that moment, my consciousness shifted. With a certainty born neither of startled emotion nor cold analysis, I knew I carried something inside me that reached beyond my limits. I was aware of not being alone. There was no special enthusiasm or ecstatic inner movement. There were no tears. But I could no more
Post a Comment
Read more

A stellar gift to humanity; a story worth telling

Image
"Georg Friedrich Händel's Messiah, a glorious oratorio that hides a story that deserves to be told. by  Alejandro Sada Every time Christmas time approaches, thousands of people around the world listen once again to the magnificent arias and choruses that make up the most celebrated work of sacred music of all time: Georg Friedrich Handel's Messiah . Underneath this glorious oratorio lies a story that deserves to be told. The great writer Stefan Zweig even considered it to be one of the highlights of human history, one of those moments that set a new course for the world. On 13 April 1737, Händel , exhausted, ill and overburdened with debts, collapsed from an attack of cerebral palsy that caused a stroke on the right side of his body. His condition is so pitiful that the doctor says: "Perhaps we can keep the man. The musician we have lost. However, with the strength of an irrepressible spirit, the composer travels to the hot baths of Aachen, where after six weeks he is
Read more

Why are there still Christian universities?

Image
Christian faith is a great yes to reason at its various levels. In university life, this translates in the first place into a yes to reason as a legitimate human faculty. by Alejandro Sada Laurentius de voltina Does it make sense that confessional universities such as these continue to exist in the 21st century? In order to outline an answer to this question, it is necessary to look at the way in which faith and reason are related. In fact, it was precisely this relationship that led to the development of universities in the Middle Ages. Recently, the great theologian Joseph Ratzinger reminded us that "the university was born because faith considered the search for truth possible and impelled this search in such a way that it subsequently required the extension of its scope to all fields of human knowledge." That is, at the core of Christianity was the conviction that faith can and must be thought and take root in human rationality. It was this conviction that prompted the cr
Post a Comment
Read more

Where God weeps with hope: the story freezer

Image
 "During the last few months, my work has taken me to the Amazon in Brazil and Lake Turkana in Kenya, seeking to portray the human condition with my camera, beyond race, religion or beliefs. First and foremost, the people," says photojournalist Ismael Martínez. Una chica recibe clases particulares en Abidjan (Costa de Marfil). Harambee Africa International. I am a photojournalist. I look for a story behind every shot, a person behind the story and a hope behind life. I try to photographically portray the human condition in Brazil, Spain or Kenya. For 80 percent of humanity, life is a lottery where God seems to have distributed the tickets among the winners themselves? Faced with such a panorama, the question can be quite simple: what would have happened if I (Andalusian) had been born fifteen kilometres down the Strait of Gibraltar in a different religion and culture? How and to what extent does a country and a family influence us? Ismael, author of the report and photojourna
Post a Comment
Read more

When is considered a musical work a true Art Work piece?

Image
by Cesar Munoz   Music is not an art and believe me, when we clarify this, many controversies will end. Music is not an art, music is a language and with that language we can make works of art, but we can also make things that are not art or things that are artistically irrelevant even though they are still music. What can be called art? We enter into another controversy that is important to define. Obviously this is something very subjective and that anyone who wants or needs to call themselves an "artist" will accommodate it to their convenience. But I think there are certain fundamental things that we could all agree on. When is music considered a true work of art? Let's start a bit by strengthening this idea that music is a language and that not necessarily anything that is done with that language has to be considered a work of art. What is a language? A language is a system by which the human being communicates. There is written language, body language, spoken la
Post a Comment
Read more

La teología de Chesterton y Tolkien: En entrevista con Alison Milbank

Image
 por  Carlos Perona Calvete "Tolkien entiende la creatividad como el hecho de que Dios nos da las cosas a partir de las cuales crear. La arcilla, las hojas, las palabras, incluso el lenguaje. Y nosotros las utilizamos para crear cosas ordenándolas en nuevas combinaciones. Pero en cierto sentido, todas esas combinaciones son posibilidades ya presentes en la mente de Dios. Y Tolkien creía que seguiríamos haciéndolo en el Cielo."—Alison Milbank J.R.R. Tolkien y G.K. Chesterton, dos grandes defensores del género fantástico moderno, entendían la creación literaria, y el arte en general, como expresión de algún modo de la creatividad de Dios en el mundo. Alison Milbank ha escrito el libro Chesterton and Tolkien as Theologians (Chesterton y Tolkien como teólogos), en el que explora la obra de estas figuras elevadas. En esta entrevista, ahondamos en cómo el arte bello, y en concreto las grandes obras de ficción, pueden despertar en nosotros el sentido del misterio de la belleza, ha
Post a Comment
Read more