John Pungente, SJ, the editor of igNation, is currently doing research with Monty Williams, SJ for a third book in the series "Finding God in the Dark".
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Christmas is a time of promises - promises to be kept and promises fulfilled. . Throughout the season of Advent, the readings have been about God's promise down the ages to the Jewish people to send them a messiah who would be their king and saviour. Mary is called blessed because she believed that "the promise made her by the Lord would be fulfilled....
On a tombstone in California we can read – "Buffy Anne Summers, 1981 to 2001. Beloved Sister, Devoted Friend. She saved the world – a Lot." Who is this Buffy? For seven seasons on TV Buffy the Vampire Slayer lived the saying - "Into every generation a slayer is born: one girl in all the world, a chosen one.. She is the Slayer." In 1949, Joseph Campbell wrote The Hero With A Thousand Faces in which he showed how thru the ages men and women have been Chosen and sent on quests that will change their lives. This notion of the chosen continues today in our popular culture....
In The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, Bilbo Baggins is chosen by Gandolf to help reclaim the stolen mountain home of a group of Dwarves He asks if Gandolf can promise him that he will come back. Gandolf replies "No, but if you do come back, you will not be the same." In 1949, Joseph Campbell wrote The Hero With A Thousand Faces in which he showed how thru the ages men and women have been Chosen and sent on quests that changed their lives and their worlds. This notion of the chosen plays an important role in our popular culture – especially in movies....
Severus Snape, one of Harry Potter's teachers is neither real hero nor real villain. He's not particular likeable, he's cruel, a bully, riddled with bitterness and insecurity – yet, according to author JK Rowling, he loved, and, ultimately laid down his life because of it. Snape is an example of what we call an anti-hero – a protagonist made popular in movies first in film noir – some one who is neither all good nor all bad – Clint Eastwood's characters in his westerns, or Captain Jack Sparrow in the Pirates of the Caribbean, or even The Dark Knight....
So, what did Oscar winning director Danny Boyle do in his free time while directing the Opening ceremonies of the London 2012 Summer Olympics which had a cast of 10,000 including Queen Elizabeth II as - well – Queen Elizabeth II and was watched by an audience of close to a billion people ?...
An English Jesuit priest, Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844 – 1889) was not widely known as a poet until after he died; his collected poems were first published in 1918 at the instigation of his friend Robert Bridges, who was at the time the Poet Laureate of England. Hopkins was both an observant lover of natural beauty and a deeply faithful man who suffered from depression, themes that reoccur in many of his poems. As a poet, he was also an experimenter, relying on alliteration, innovative meter, and created words, as well as on traditional forms such as the sonnet....
Benjamin Alire Sáenz ( 1954 - ) born 16 August 1954) is an award-winning American poet, novelist and writer of children's books. He was born at Old Picacho, New Mexico, the fourth of seven children. In 1972, he entered St. Thomas Seminary in. He studied Theology at the University of Louvain in Leuven, Belgium. After ordination, he was a priest for a few years in El Paso, Texas before leaving the priesthood. He continues to teach in the Creative Writing Department at the University of Texas at El Paso....
Poet Christina Rossetti (1830 – 1894) grew up in an Italian family in England. With her brother, painter Dante Gabriel Rossetti, she was part of an important Victorian cohort of artists who referred to themselves as the Pre Raphaelites. A devout member of the Anglo Catholic movement within the Church of England, she often wrote about religious themes in her poems...
Dame Edith Sitwell, (1887 – 1964) born into the English aristocracy, attracted some controversy in the 1920s by championing innovative directions in poetry. living in England during the Blitz of World War II, she compares the Nazi bombing of London to the Crucifixion. As befits the historical context, this is a bleak poem about the sinfulness of humanity In addition to her several volumes of poems, she also wrote biographies and one novel about English figures such as Elizabeth I, Alexander Pope, and Jonathan Swift. She converted to Catholicism in 1955....
William Blake (1757 – 1827) was an English poet, painter, and printmaker. Largely unrecognised during his lifetime, Blake is now considered a seminal figure in the history of the poetry and visual arts of the Romantic Age. Holy Thursday is a from his 1789 book of poems Songs of Innocence. The poem is a criticism of the Foundling Hospital. Orphans at the hospital would be cleaned and marched annually to the cathedral to sing. This was seen as a treat for the orphans. The bleak reality of their lives is depicted in Holy Thursday (Songs of Experience)....
