The last ones seemed to be well received (*insert winking smiley face here*), and I had more pictures to post, so here we go!
Some day, I should really put up a blog roll or something, so the links I use all the time will be permanently on the right side of my blog. That might be handy. I dunno. Anyway. On to the pictures!
There's actually a book by Louis de Wohl based on the life of St. Francis Xavier, who was, of course, one of St. Ignatius of Loyola's first disciples and so one of the first members of the Jesuit Order, the
Societas Jesu. All Jesuits have the initials 'S.J.' after their names. Conveniently, the English translation works, too: 'Society of Jesus'. Our present Holy Father, Pope Francis, is a Jesuit.
Anyway, the name of the book is
Set All Afire and is based off of this quote. In fact, this quote is said to St. Francis Xavier as he leaves for the Orient.
I loved that book. It was my favorite book of all time for the longest. And then I discovered
The Lord of the Rings, and, well...
Louis de Wohl actually wrote many novels about different saints throughout church history.
Set All Afire is one of the better ones, since it doesn't have a parallel main character to contend with. In most of his books, Louis de Wohl has two main chracters: the saint, and another fictional character who moves in the secular/political world, acting both as a foil for the saint and in order to explain the world in which the saint lived.
Now, this can be a good thing or a bad thing. I really, really liked the parallel character in
The Quiet Light, which is about St. Thomas Aquinas. He was an English knight named Sir Piers Rudde and he was all sorts of awesome. He also shared the story equally with St. Thomas.
However, in
The Joyful Beggar and in
The Citadel of God, which are about St. Francis of Assisi (whose feast day is tomorrow, yay!) and about St. Benedict, respectively, the parallel characters overshadowed the saints and sort of dominated the story. And neither one of those parallel characters were nearly as likeable or awesome, while the saints
were awesome. So those two books were a bit of a letdown in that respect.
The Last Crusader, which is about Don Juan of Austria (no connection to the figure of romantic tales), was a return to awesomeness on the other hand. He was his own parallel character, so the undivided focus of the narration on him greatly improved it. That book should really be read with
Lepanto, by G. K. Chesterton. Same story, both retellings wonderful.
This picture cracked me up. It reminds me of the meme in the
Fire Emblem fandom: NUNS WITH AXES. (Long story cut short: the cleric units in that series of games are usually helpless. The most recent game gave them the ability to carry axes. Much awesomeness and hilarity ensued.)
I have never seen a nun with such weaponry, however... Spears, swords, daggers, halberds... is that a warhammer in the background? O.o Please give it back to Dwalin, Sister Mary Whatever. And a morningstar... oh, goodness. They really looted the armory, didn't they?
It's probably from some anime where the Catholics fight zombies or vampires. I find it really amusing that the secular world implicitly acknowledges like this that we are the best equipped to deal with spawn of the netherworld. XD
Okay, not anime. It was on Catholic Gag. But I had to share it anyway! Don't worry, I have another Catholic anime coming up. But it's the best one, so I'm saving it for last. XD In the meanwhile, have this:
I had never realized how much meme potential the Popes have until I found these websites. And it's not even the first Pope pic I've found with this caption, although my other one is in Latin (which, actually, makes it kind of funnier).
Oh, and one other before we return to Catholic anime (but it's funny, I promise):
I had honestly never thought of that before. Now I will think of it every time. XD Gee, thanks, Catholic Gag. That's another Gospel reading where I must try not to crack up inappropriately while Father is at the lectern.
I already have problems maintaining a straight face through the part about being cast into Hell, where there shall be "wailing and gnashing of teeth" (it's a bit of a family joke). Also, any time the psalm where the wife is compared to "a fruitful vine in the recesses of your home" and the children are "like olive plants around your table"... yeah... I lose it. It just provides such hilarious mental imagery...
I think this sums up anyone's reaction to the slow pace of a Takahashi romance. Even I (who am not usually in the shipping camp) was like, "Come ON already!"
But I guess it's worth it and all that.
I still cannot pronounce 'Sesshomaru' for the life of me, though. That reminds me, I need to go watch his whole Bakusaiga kablam. Because that is pure awesome. He gets stabbed in the heart. It just makes him angry. XD
And now, time for my favorite of the Catholic anime memes. Drumroll, please!
*rolls on floor laughing hysterically*
Yami Yugi FOR THE WIN! A combination of
The Exorcist and
Yu-Gi-Oh, combining for a pic that is
definitely being saved. Actually, I think Yami is doing his whole 'Mind Crush' thing here, which makes it even funnier - he's shattering Kaiba's soul and removing the darkness from it. (Don't worry, Kaiba gets better... for a certain value of 'better') So, in a sense, he
is doing an exorcism, or at least his Ancient Egyptian version of it.
That, or he's just finishing a duel with his standard, "Dark Magician, Dark Magic Attack!" It's really cool when Dark Magician attacks. Everything goes all photonegative and the enemy gets blasted away at the speed of light. XD
I like Dark Magician. He's cool.
And kind of cute, but you didn't hear me say that. Actually, I think my last lab notebook somewhere has lots of doodles where I wrote all the permutations of Dark Magician in runes on unused sheets of paper. So that means... yeah... it's been a year and a half since I've discovered Yu-Gi-OH.
Too many fandoms. Too little time. Gah.
In Pace Christi,
Elyse
