“What faith in her Son’s vocation would be demanded of her! What baffling things she would have to face! The slaughter of the innocents and Christ the innocent cause of it, the flight from Herod, the life in exile, and the Child being hunted all his life long; his fasting, so much against the grain for a mother; his choice to be homeless, after all the years that she had longed for and waited for their home together.”
–Caryll Houselander, of the Blessed Virgin Mary
Just a note from NYC–the main thing is the absolute heaven in being in a place with tons of Catholic churches, all beautiful, that are OPEN ALL DAY. Mass morning, noon, and evening, Adoration, Compline here and there: you are never far from a sanctuary.
I’m especially not far from a sanctuary as I’m across the back courtyard from St. Vincent Ferrer. Yesterday was the Feast of St. Dominic so they celebrated a pull-out-all-the-stops 6 pm Mass with a procession, schola, Veneration of Relics etc., plus “light refreshments” after which not to put too fine a point on it were pretty spectacular.
I may write a column about some facet or destination of my trip so won’t go into too much detail. I had a lovely day in Washington Heights Tuesday that included a walk through (and rest in) Tryon Park and a stop at the Met Cloisters.
Another high point: the American Folk Art Museum exhibit “Francesc Tosquelles: Avant-Garde Psychiatry and the Birth of Art Brut.” Tosquelles was all for eliminating hierarchies and special uniforms for doctors, patients helping to cure patients (really the model for AA), walks in the fresh air, and art.
Marguerite Sirvins (1890-1955) was a French textile artist who developed symptoms of schizophrenia and, as a mental patient, crocheted an entire wedding dress (never used) out of thread from unraveled bedsheets.
Myrllen (pronounced Merlin), Tennessee Eastern State Psychiatric Hospital, made among other things a fantastic blue coat embroidered with panels and text (also from unraveled thread). After being subjected to a battery of grotesque treatments, she was finally given Thorazine–and quit embroidering forever. Something deep there about how psychotropic meds shut down the bad parts but the good parts, too. Maybe she just needed love, and could have continued with her fantastic sewing.
I think these are Etruscan, from a random Met gallery I ducked into to get away from the crowds.
I mean come on–this is what people created before they started frittering away their lifeblood on the internet.
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