Tuesday, June 20, 2006

Sunday was the feast ...

... of Corpus Christi. After Mass I listened to Manuel de Falla's harpsichord concerto, the second movement of which is a gripping musical depiction of how the feast has been celebrated in Spain - with processions of flagellants. Michael Gilleland posted this passage from George Santayana, Persons and Places. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

J.B Priestley - whose daughter, Barbara Wykeham, just died - said of Santayana that he often seemed like someone who would go to church just to smell the incense. And some wit once remarked that "Santayana belives there is no God and that Mary is His mother." To which I respond that it's too bad his profound appreciation of religion's aesthetic component is not shared by more clerics.

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