In his indispensable study of T.S. Eliot’s life and work, Eliot and His Age, Russell Kirk contends that Eliot’s oeuvre parallels the principal work of Eliot’s favorite poet, Dante: at one end, The Waste Land (1922), Eliot’s Inferno; at the opposite end, Four Quartets (1943), Eliot’s Paradiso. Between those two works—both large, complex, heavily allusive, symphonic—is a curious poem, of equal, if not greater, beauty, less a symphony than a chamber piece: Ash-Wednesday (1930), Eliot’s Purgatorio.
(Ian Tuttle, These Bones Shall Live)
The Victorian poet Christina Rossetti (1830–1894) is most celebrated for her popular Christmas carols, but her most prolific liturgical season was Lent. A fervent Anglican, Rossetti expressed in her poems a deeper understanding of suffering than pieces like “Love Came Down At Christmas” might lead you to suspect. In her Lenten poetry, she focuses not only on her own sins, but highlights how her intense brokenness united her to God.
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Lent is a season of preparation, and it takes two forms: penitent examination of self and communal observance of fasting and liturgy. But a season of preparation is also a season of hope. Rossetti’s poetry, filled as it is by her suffering, can help us to understand what this season means. Though Rossetti’s Lenten life has ended, her example can still help us join our suffering to that of others through the transformative power of the cross.
(Catherine Addington, Christina Rossetti’s Lenten Life)
It sounds too vulgar to be true, but I have a report that Huffington Post is seeking Ash Wednesday “selfies.”
HuffPost Religion @HuffPostRelig 1h Will you be observing Ash Wednesday? Tweet your selfies to @HuffPostRelig with the hashtag #MyAshes or #Ashtag and we may share!
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“The remarks made in this essay do not represent scholarly research. They are intended as topical stimulations for conversation among intelligent and informed people.” (Gerhart Niemeyer)
Tipsy Teetotaler ن 