The Gnostic Gospels
“…[the powers] of the world, [who oppose us].
We now have been put to shame [in the] worlds, but we are not interested in them when they speak ill of us. We ignore them when they curse us. We stare at them in silence when they treat us shamefully, directly to our face.
They go about their business, and we go about in hunger and thirst, looking to our dwelling place, which we perceive through our lifestyle and our conscious. We do not hang on to created things, but we withdraw from them. Our hearts are set on what truly is, and although we are sick, weak, and in pain, there is great strength hidden within us.” (p. 327)
Jehanne d’ Arc
Trial of St. Jehanne translated into English
Jehanne’s signature displaying their preferred spelling
Veneration 30 May
“It has pleased divine Providence that a woman of the name of Jeanne, commonly called The Maid, should be taken and apprehended by famous warriors within the boundaries and limits of our diocese and jurisdiction. The reputation of this woman had already gone forth into many parts: how, wholly forgetful of womanly honestly, and having thrown off the bonds of shame, careless of all the modesty of womankind, she wore with an astonishing and monstrous brazenness, immodest garments belonging to the male sex…” (p. 2)
“Asked if she wished to say that she had no judge on earth and whether our Holy Father the Pope were not her judge, she answered: "I will not say anything more. I have a good master, Our Lord, to whom I refer everything, and to none other." (p. 298)
“In respect of what was said of her dress in Articles III and IV, she answered that as for her dress she would willingly take a long dress and a woman's hood and go to Church and receive the sacrament of the Eucharist, as she had formerly said, provided that immediately after her return she might take it off and wear her present dress. And when it was explained to her that she was in no need of wearing this dress, particularly in prison, she said: "When I have done what God sent me to do I will resume woman's dress."
Asked if she thought she was doing well to wear man's dress, she answered: "I refer me to Our Lord." (p. 299)
Saint Wilgefortis
Veneration 28 Feb.
According to her legend she prayed to be ‘disfigured’ as a woman — to be more in the image of Christ — in order to avoid a forced marriage. God caused her to grow a beard, which made her an unattractive bride.” Her father crucified her. She is the patron saint of abused women, infertile women, and prisoners.
Pan
“Servius tells us...
Pan is a rustic god formed in similitude of nature and so he is called Pan, i.e. All; for he has horns like the rays of the sun and the horns of the moon: his face is ruddy in imitation of the aether: he has a spotted fawn skin on his breast, in likeness of the stars: his lower parts are shaggy, on account of the trees, shrubs, and wild beasts: he has goat’s feet, to denote the stability of the earth: he has a pipe of seven reeds, on account of the harmony of the heavens, in which there are seven sounds: he has a crook, that is a curved staff, on account of the year, which runs backwards on itself, because he is god of all nature. It is fabled by the poets that he struggled with Love (Eros) and was conquered by him because, as we read, love conquers all.”
(p. 28-29 / “Pan: Great God of Nature by Leo Vinci)
Collected Prayers:
“Benedicto: May your trails be crooked, winding, lonesome, dangerous, leading to the most amazing view. May your mountains rise into and above the clouds. May your rivers flow without end, meandering through pastoral valleys tinkling with bells, past temples and castles and poet’s towers into a dark primeval forest where tigers belch and monkeys howl, through miasmal and mysterious swamps and down into a desert of red rock, blue mesas, domes and pinnacles and grottos of endless stone, and down again into a deep vast ancient unknown chasm where bars of sunlight blaze on profiled cliffs, where deer walk across the white sand beaches, where storms come and go as lightning clangs upon the high crags, where something strange and more beautiful and more full of wonder than your deepest dreams waits for you -- beyond that next turning of the canyon walls.”
Edward Abbey
Celtic Blessing
On the day when the weight deadens on your shoulders and you stumble,
May the clay dance to balance you.
And when your eyes freeze behind the grey window, and the ghost of loss gets into you,
May a flock of colors, indigo, red, green, and azure blue come to awaken in you a meadow of delight.
When the canvas phrase and the coroc* of thought and a stain of ocean blackens beneath you,
May there come across the waters a path of yellow moonlight to bring you safely home.
May the nourishment of the earth be yours.
May the clarity of light be yours.
May the fluency of the ocean be yours.
May the protection of the ancestors be yours
And so, may a slow wind work these words of love around you
An invisible cloak to mind your life.
*coroc - a canvas fishing boat used in the west of Ireland
John O’Donohue
“Be merciful to me, Lord, for I am in distress; my eyes grow weak with sorrow, my soul and body with grief” (Psalm 31:9, NIV). My heart is broken, my mind exhausted. I cry out to you and hardly know what to ask. All I can do is tell you how I feel and ask you to “keep track of all my sorrows. . . . [collect] all my tears in your bottle. . . . [and record] each one in your book” as I pour them out to you. Amen. (Psalm 56:8).