AEROPLANE TO AEROPLANO

ADVENT IS ALL IN THIS PAINTING BY BOSCH. by Maria Gloria Riva . (Translated by L. Pavese)      At the time of Advent, the figure of John the Baptist appears on the scene, shouting the urgency to prepare the way. According to the prophet Isaiah, he is yelling from the desert; but also into the desert, according to a plausible translation of the Gospel. And maybe this latter version is more suitable to our times, in which religious life (and monasticism in particular, of which John the Baptist is the symbol and patron saint) is screaming into the wilderness of a world that has no use for a Messiah.     In this Advent season, which marks the beginning of a year dedicated to the consecrated life, I like to remember a painting by Hieronymus Bosch (circa 1450-1516) that offers to us a  representation of John the Baptist completely different from tradition. He is not the ascetic eater of locusts, who wears rough camel hair.  Rather, he is a “...

  Why not?  You can tell me all the reasons in the comments. Thanks,   L. Pavese

     This (above) is a model of a house designed by the Italian architect Cesare Cattaneo. (The furniture was designed by Carlo Mollino. If you don't know who he was, check him out, please). It's located in Cernobbio , Italy. Today it is known as Casa Cattaneo, but it was designed, and built, as a rental property between the years 1938 and 1939, (maybe for people on their way to invisibility, as James Altucher might say). However, it still exists, and it reminds us that a beautiful object of design, even if it's meant to be experienced in a transitory way (like a rental, an automobile, an item of clothing) represents the product of the interaction between human creativity and reality. Therefore when uniquely gifted individuals, like Cattaneo, create something, the result is unique and ever-lasting, and it enriches creation.                Someone might even say that human creativity represents part of a divine pl...

            …Peronists, that is.            Peronists in fact, that is, supporters of Argentine President Juan Domingo Perón, in that tragic year 1955, unleashed their rage against the Catholic Church who, in their view, was trying to subvert the government of the country. It was inevitable that the Peronist ideal of an all-encompassing state, through which individuals realize their full potential, came in conflict with the Christian social doctrine, as it had happened in Italy during Benito Mussolini’s rule. But in Argentina that conflict degenerated into a true war which, as terrible as it was, was only a facet of the larger and bloody conflict, known in Spanish as the Revolución Libertadora, that eventually led to the toppling of Perón’s presidency and to his exile.       This interesting post assumes that the readers know more than an average people know about Argentine President Juan Domingo P...