Joy

Passages

Every passage tagged with this emotion in the Vela corpus. Search the body text, narrow by source or register, click through to a book’s profile to see how the passage sits with the rest of the work.

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• From Chasing Beauty

  Isabella was out of plaster by early spring, just in time to host a party of a thousand guests at Green Hill. The aim was to raise money for the Carney Hospital in South Boston, the city’s first Catholic hospital, and the Industrial School for Crippled Children (renamed the Cotting School), causes she continued to support. The party also gave her a chance to show off her gardens. Musicians serenaded the crowd, and a profusion of blooming lilacs perfumed the air. The papers particularly praised the Italian garden; one called it the afternoon’s “pièce de résistance.” Also in May she welcomed four young artists in residence to Green Hill. Isabella had long supported young artists, among others the musicians Charles Loeffler and George Proctor and the painters Dennis Bunker and Joseph Lindon Smith. But this was new: until now she had not dedicated a specific time and place to her sponsorship. Perhaps she was styling herself after the Renaissance patronesses of art. Isabella’s first group included Andreas Andersen, a young painter from Norway; Howard Cushing, a former Groton student who studied five years at the Académie Julian in Paris; John Briggs Potter, also an Académie Julian student, soon to be keeper of paintings at the Museum of Fine Arts; and Edmund C. Tarbell, the most talented of the four, a popular teacher at the Museum School and part of a newly formed group called the Ten American Painters, which included John Henry Twachtman and Childe Hassam. In the new scheme, the four artists would spend their days at Green Hill and paint in Isabella’s gardens for the entire month. (There is no record as to whether they stayed overnight.) They “chose what they want to do,” as she explained to Berenson. The artists might use her statuary as models and her gardens to spur ideas for their landscapes. She loved being with young people—young men especially—and reveled in how this group found inspiration in the verdant settings she had designed. Their accomplishments became her pleasures. “Green Hill is now American Villa Medici: the prix de Brookline instead of the prix de Rome,” she told Berenson. She set the scene or tableau and then elevated the romance of the moment. “They paint, they paint,” she wrote to Lapsley, while she worked “always in the garden, so it only needs nightingales to make it perfect.” Her commitment to this sort of formal patronage would continue on, in many forms; it would be woven into her museum’s mission, where up-and-coming artists could commune with her collection for inspiration.

• From Chasing Beauty

  But spin around is what she did best, as she began to assemble her court. Gathering in the Barbaro’s cool rooms those summer evenings were the Apthorps from Boston; the Count and Countessa Pisani, who had owned the Barbaro before selling it to the Curtises; Cardinal Agostini in his red robes as Catholic patriarch for Venice; and Isabella’s admiring friend Mrs. Bronson, whom Jack treated with a case of the very best wines he’d chosen on their travels. The musician Clayton Johns played the grand piano in the sala to everyone’s delight, especially Mrs. Jack’s. Johns, a thirty-three-year-old bachelor, had trained in Berlin in piano and composition; he was now staying at the Barbaro, after joining up with the Gardners earlier in the summer. He was indebted to Mrs. Jack for her patronage of his burgeoning career, and if that obligation colored some part of their friendship, he also found her endlessly interesting, unlike anyone he’d met before. She told him at one point, rather grandly, that instead of “building hospitals, I am going to try to make the world more beautiful.” He in turn felt enlisted in Mrs. Jack’s project. As he remembered later: “She had the power of getting the best out of each thing and person.” Otherwise, the hot August weather emptied out the city’s squares of most other travelers, and Belle was at liberty to do what she loved best—take long excursions on the water, look at art, and shop. Her purchases in Venice were recorded in the back pages of Jack’s diary. The list is long: two red velvet strips; four mirrors with candelabra; two stone statuettes; two bronze candelabra; brass gondola lanterns; a pair of small brass lions; a small bronze dog’s head; pieces of silk; blue velvet; eighty-four meters of red damask; two small picture frames; and “4 gilt wood things.” If Jack didn’t quite know how to describe that last purchase, he at least needed a record. The “4 gilt wood things” cost twenty lire. *** WHEN THE GARDNERS RETURNED HOME IN MID-OCTOBER 1890, THEY settled at Green Hill in Brookline. The glories of Belle’s gardens had faded by then, but she loved the autumn light in the tall trees. Jack left on a trip out west, to return by Thanksgiving. The mood in the city was glum. The Panic of 1890 had frightened Boston businessmen, though the losses were but a foretaste of what was to come a few years later. Other changes were afoot. Elevated train lines were being built. The city since the war had become increasingly crowded with immigrants, mostly from Ireland, but now also from Italy and Russia. The tight command exerted by the Brahmin class, which had so thoroughly dominated Boston’s various institutions, now had to compete with a far more diverse population. Boston’s first Irish mayor, Hugh O’Brien, elected in 1884, was also its first Catholic leader.

• From Open (2009)

  When I’m so hydrated that I’m pissing pure cottony white, he lets me go to sleep. The next day I come out tight. Down 1–2 in the fourth, serving, I fall behind two break points. No, no, no. I fight back to deuce. I hold. The set is now tied. Having averted disaster, I’m suddenly loose, happy. It’s so typical in sports. You hang by a thread above a bottomless pit. You stare death in the face. Then your opponent, or life, spares you, and you feel so blessed that you play with abandon. I win the fourth set and the match. I’m in the final. My first look is to Brad, who’s excitedly pointing to his watch and the digital play clock on the court. Twenty-eight minutes. On the dot. · · · MY OPPONENT IN THE FINAL is Andrei Medvedev, from Ukraine, which is not possible. It’s simply not possible. Just months ago, in Monte Carlo, Brad and I bumped into Medvedev in a nightclub. He’d suffered a heartbreaking loss that day and was drinking to numb the pain. We invited him to join us. He threw himself into a chair at our table and announced that he was quitting tennis. I can’t play this fucking game anymore, he said. I’m old. The game has passed me by. I talked him out of it. How dare you, I said. Here I am, twenty-nine, injured, divorced, and you’re bitching about being washed up at twenty-four? Your future is bright. My game is shit. So? Fix it. He asked me for tips, pointers. He asked me to analyze his game, just as I’d once asked Brad to analyze mine. And I was Brad-esque. I was brutally honest. I told Medvedev he had a huge serve, a big return, and a world-class backhand. His forehand was not his best shot, of course, that was no secret, but he could hide it, because he was big enough to push opponents around. You’re a good mover! I shouted. Get back to the basics. Keep moving, slam your first serve, and rip the backhand up the line. Ever since that night he’s followed my advice to the letter and he’s been on fire. He’s been winning consistently on the tour and dominating guys in this tournament. Each time we’ve bumped into each other in the locker room, or around Roland Garros, we’ve exchanged sly winks and waves. I never once dreamed we were on a collision course. So Gil was wrong. I haven’t been on a collision course with destiny, but with a fire-breathing dragon that I helped to build.

• From Chasing Beauty

  Whether Coolidge gave El Jaleo on the spot is impossible to confirm but not improbable. Maybe Coolidge realized that this way, El Jaleo would stay within the larger family circle, and she certainly had a very convincing way—she had given the painting an unrivaled setting. [image file=image_rsrc7AS.jpg] View of El Jaleo, Spanish Cloister, Fenway Court, Album: 152 Beacon Street and Fenway Court, 1900–1922, Thomas E. Marr and Son, 1915, gelatin silver prints on paper. She arranged a row of ten electric footlights along the floor so that the painting was lit from below, amplifying the raking light in the painting itself. She also put a large mirror on one end of the alcove, which seemed to double the space. Colorful ceramic jars, which reference Islamic Spain, were placed on the floor nearby. The whole effect was magnificent—as if the actual movement and sound, the exuberant joy of performance, spilled out into the space. The singer Nellie Melba would remember how she and Isabella would often go to the Spanish Cloister to “sit and watch” the painting as “we drank our coffee after dinner.” The other side of the Spanish Cloister evoked a quiet, almost mournful mood—life’s other side. There, a small Spanish Chapel housed a painting of the Madonna and child, The Virgin of Mercy, by Zurbarán, which had hung in Gardner’s Beacon Street boudoir. On the floor under the outside window, an effigy of a Spanish knight was laid out in eternal repose. “In Memoriam” was lettered in black paint on an inside wall, a little out of view of casual viewers. Directly across from El Jaleo, above a doorway, Isabella hung three twelfth-century stone sculptures from a French church in Parthenay, near Nantes: two figures witnessing the apocalypse and a depiction of Christ riding a donkey into Jerusalem. From temporal pleasures to eternal things—she joined the joy of the dance to the loss of her little boy and then to the promise of salvation. All through this season of rebuilding and rearranging, Isabella corresponded with Berenson about myriad things, including the Parthenay sculptures from France, miniature Persian prints, and a pair of astonishingly lifelike bear figures, approximately seven inches in height, made during China’s ancient Han imperial dynasty. Mary Berenson wrote on her husband’s behalf that the bears were really “top notch.” “Can I have them,” Isabella asked Berenson in her next letter. She could not afford the asking price of $30,000 right off, so she inquired if she could pay “à la Morgan,” referring to J. P. Morgan, or two years after the purchase agreement. When the bears arrived in March, she called them “darlings—to live with, and delight in.”

• From Chasing Beauty

  Though she announced to John Jay Chapman, with the usual glint in her eye, that she intended to live to 150 years of age, there was more letting go ahead. In April 1919, she prepared to sell Green Hill to her great nephew George Peabody Gardner Jr. and his wife, Rose Grosvenor Gardner. Isabella had transformed the property since she had first stayed there as a young bride in the 1860s, most especially its many and expansive gardens. As Hildegarde Hawthorne had observed in a 1910 article on Green Hill, “It is not as easy as it looks. An idea lies behind it.” The young couple marveled at their good fortune a year after moving in: “Rose and I love Green Hill better than we ever dreamed we could love any place and we are extremely grateful to you for giving us the opportunity of living here.” Even so, Isabella admitted to Joseph Lindon Smith that it had been “a hard year—a turning point with me.” She set her sights even more on legacy. She had suggested to the Society of Saint John the Evangelist that land in Cambridge, along the Charles River on Memorial Drive, was available, and on April 14, 1916, her seventy-sixth birthday, she gave $25,000 toward its purchase. Now, in 1919, she supplemented this gift with another $50,000 to enable the society to build Saint Francis House, a place for guests on the grounds of the monastery. On the occasion of this second gift, Father Spence Burton promised to say Mass in her honor on her birthday at Fenway Court, to express the society’s gratitude. She afterward sent him handwritten instructions for a plan for an annual service, still carried out today: “. . . in the Chapel at the end of the Long Gallery on the 14th of April each year a memorial service shall be conducted . . .” The community would call her its angel of its first fifty years—no other individual had been as generous. In Isabella’s 1919 letter to Joseph Lindon Smith, she wrote that she had long cherished the idea he would eventually direct her museum, though she realized soon enough he had other plans. Instead, she hired Morris Carter away from the Museum of Fine Arts to work with her at Fenway Court, a full-time position he began on the first of June. Though Carter was her second choice, he proved a fortuitous one. An experienced librarian, he had several different roles at the Museum of Fine Arts until his last, as assistant director. Denman Ross, a trustee at the time, was full of praise for his “intelligence, good judgement and ability.” Carter also knew Isabella very well. His first task in the summer 1919 was to catalog her enormous book collection.

• From New Testament Words (1964)

  (vi) They proclaimed a gospel It was the gospel which the preacher preached; it was good news (I Cor. 9.14). Any preaching which ultimately depresses a man is wrong, for preaching may begin by cutting a man to the heart with the sight and the realization of his sins; but it must end by leading him to the love, the forgiveness and the grace of God. The very word which is so often used for preaching shows that in the early preaching there was nothing apologetic, nothing diffident, nothing clouded with doubts and misted with uncertainties. It was preaching with authority; and the things it preached with authority are still the basis of the message of the preacher today. KATALLASSEINTHE WORD OF RECONCILIATIONThere is in the writings of Paul a group of words which are of extreme importance, because he uses them to express the central experience of the Christian faith. All these words are compound forms made from the simple verb allassein which means to change. In classical Greek allassein itself can be used to express changing shape, or colour, or appearance. It can also be used in the sense of to exchange or to barter, and it can frequently be used of taking one thing in exchange for another. It is, for instance, used of one who in misfortune exchanges one sorrow for another. This simple verb allassein is not uncommon in the NT. Stephen is charged with teaching that Jesus will change the accepted customs of the Jews (Acts 6.14). The heathen have changed the glory of God for lifeless, corrupted and polluted images (Rom. 1.23). Paul tells the people of Corinth that we shall all be changed (I Cor. 15.51). When Paul realizes the danger of perversion of the faith among the Galatians, he wishes to change his voice, and to adopt the accent of sternness and rebuke (Gal. 4.20). The word is used of changing a garment in Heb. 1.12. Allassein then can be used of almost any kind of change. This word allassein acquires certain compound forms. In ordinary classical Greek the commonest of the compound forms is the form katallassein, and katallassein is one of the great Pauline words also. But we must go on with the examination of this group of words in ordinary secular Greek before we come to their use in the NT. Katallassein in ordinary secular Greek acquires the almost technical sense of changing money, or changing into money. Plutarch tells how four Syrian brothers stole the king’s gold vessels in Corinth and how bit by bit they changed them into money (Plutarch, Aratus 18). The corresponding noun katallagē has the same sense of exchange, especially the exchange of money. Katallassein then begins to acquire a wider sense of exchanging any one thing for another. Aristotle, for instance, speaks of professional and mercenary soldiers who are willing to barter their lives for trifling gain (Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics 1117b 20).

• From Little Women (1868)

  Bhaer stood by, watching her blush and blunder, and as he watched, his own bewilderment seemed to subside, for he was beginning to see that on some occasions, women, like dreams, go by contraries. When they came out, he put the parcel under his arm with a more cheerful aspect, and splashed through the puddles as if he rather enjoyed it on the whole. "Should we no do a little what you call shopping for the babies, and haf a farewell feast tonight if I go for my last call at your so pleasant home?" he asked, stopping before a window full of fruit and flowers. "What will we buy?" asked Jo, ignoring the latter part of his speech, and sniffing the mingled odors with an affectation of delight as they went in. "May they haf oranges and figs?" asked Mr. Bhaer, with a paternal air. "They eat them when they can get them." "Do you care for nuts?" "Like a squirrel." "Hamburg grapes. Yes, we shall drink to the Fatherland in those?" Jo frowned upon that piece of extravagance, and asked why he didn't buy a frail of dates, a cask of raisins, and a bag of almonds, and be done with it? Whereat Mr. Bhaer confiscated her purse, produced his own, and finished the marketing by buying several pounds of grapes, a pot of rosy daisies, and a pretty jar of honey, to be regarded in the light of a demijohn. Then distorting his pockets with knobby bundles, and giving her the flowers to hold, he put up the old umbrella, and they traveled on again. "Miss Marsch, I haf a great favor to ask of you," began the Professor, after a moist promenade of half a block. "Yes, sir?" and Jo's heart began to beat so hard she was afraid he would hear it. "I am bold to say it in spite of the rain, because so short a time remains to me." "Yes, sir," and Jo nearly crushed the small flowerpot with the sudden squeeze she gave it. "I wish to get a little dress for my Tina, and I am too stupid to go alone. Will you kindly gif me a word of taste and help?" "Yes, sir," and Jo felt as calm and cool all of a sudden as if she had stepped into a refrigerator. "Perhaps also a shawl for Tina's mother, she is so poor and sick, and the husband is such a care. Yes, yes, a thick, warm shawl would be a friendly thing to take the little mother." "I'll do it with pleasure, Mr. Bhaer." "I'm going very fast, and he's getting dearer every minute," added Jo to herself, then with a mental shake she entered into the business with an energy that was pleasant to behold. Mr.

• From Saint Thomas Aquinas Collection (22 Books) (2016)

  Accordingly, just as the soul that enjoys the sight of God will be filled with spiritual brightness, so by a kind of overflow from the soul to the body, the latter will be, in its own way, clothed with the brightness of glory. Hence the Apostle says (1 Cor. 15:18): It is sown, namely the body, in dishonour, it shall rise in glory: because now this body of ours is impervious to light, whereas then it will be full of light, according to Matth. 13:43, Then shall the just shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. Again, the soul which, united to its last end, will enjoy the sight of God, will find its every desire fulfilled: and since the body moves in obedience to the soul’s desire, the result will be that the body’s movements will be in perfect obedience to the spirit. Hence the bodies of the blessed, after the resurrection, will be agile: and this is indicated by the Apostle (1 Cor. 15:43): It is sown in weakness, it shall rise in power. For we feel the body’s weakness, when we find it unable to satisfy the soul’s desire, in the movements and actions commanded by the soul. This weakness will then be wholly removed, because the body will receive an overflow of power from the soul united to God: wherefore again is it said of the just (Wis. 3:7) that they shall run to and fro, like sparks among the reeds. Their movements, however, will not be occasioned by need, since those who possess God need nothing, but they will be exhibitions of power. Moreover, just as the soul that enjoys God will have its desire fulfilled, through having obtained possession of all good, so also will its desire be fulfilled as to the removal of all evil, since there can be no evil where the sovereign good is. Accordingly, the body that is perfected by that soul will, in conformity with it, be free from all evil, both in act and in potentiality. In act, since in it there will be neither corruption, nor deformity, nor defect of any kind: in potentiality, because nothing will be able to do it any harm; so that it will be impassible. This impassibility, however, does not imply insensibility: for they will use their senses for such pleasures as are not incompatible with a state of incorruption. The Apostle indicates this state of impassibility, when he says (1 Cor. 15:42): It is sown in corruption, it shall rise in incorruption.

• From Little Women (1868)

  Some are naughty through mismanagment or neglect, and some lose their mothers. Besides, the best have to get through the hobbledehoy age, and that's the very time they need most patience and kindness. People laugh at them, and hustle them about, try to keep them out of sight, and expect them to turn all at once from pretty children into fine young men. They don't complain much—plucky little souls—but they feel it. I've been through something of it, and I know all about it. I've a special interest in such young bears, and like to show them that I see the warm, honest, well-meaning boys' hearts, in spite of the clumsy arms and legs and the topsy-turvy heads. I've had experience, too, for haven't I brought up one boy to be a pride and honor to his family?" "I'll testify that you tried to do it," said Laurie with a grateful look. "And I've succeeded beyond my hopes, for here you are, a steady, sensible businessman, doing heaps of good with your money, and laying up the blessings of the poor, instead of dollars. But you are not merely a businessman, you love good and beautiful things, enjoy them yourself, and let others go halves, as you always did in the old times. I am proud of you, Teddy, for you get better every year, and everyone feels it, though you won't let them say so. Yes, and when I have my flock, I'll just point to you, and say 'There's your model, my lads'." Poor Laurie didn't know where to look, for, man though he was, something of the old bashfulness came over him as this burst of praise made all faces turn approvingly upon him. "I say, Jo, that's rather too much," he began, just in his old boyish way. "You have all done more for me than I can ever thank you for, except by doing my best not to disappoint you. You have rather cast me off lately, Jo, but I've had the best of help, nevertheless. So, if I've got on at all, you may thank these two for it," and he laid one hand gently on his grandfather's head, and the other on Amy's golden one, for the three were never far apart. "I do think that families are the most beautiful things in all the world!" burst out Jo, who was in an unusually up-lifted frame of mind just then. "When I have one of my own, I hope it will be as happy as the three I know and love the best. If John and my Fritz were only here, it would be quite a little heaven on earth," she added more quietly.

• From Saint Thomas Aquinas Collection (22 Books) (2016)

  29. But Peter said unto him, Although all shall be offended, yet will not I. 30. And Jesus saith unto him, Verily I say unto thee, That this day, even in this night, before the cock crow twice, thou shalt deny me thrice. 31. But he spake the more vehemently, If I should die with thee, I will not deny thee in any wise. Likewise also said they all. THEOPHYLACT. As they returned thanks, before they drank, so they return thanks after drinking; wherefore it is said, And when they had sung an hymn, they went out into the mount of Olives, to teach us to return thanks both before and after our food. PSEUDO-JEROME. For by a hymn he means the praise of the Lord, as is said in the Psalms, The poor shall eat and be satisfied; they that seek after the Lord shall praise him. (Ps. 22:26, 29) And again, All such as be fat upon earth have eaten and worshipped. THEOPHYLACT. He also shews by this that He was glad to die for us, because when about to be betrayed, He deigned to praise God. He also teaches us when we fall into troubles for the sake of the salvation of many, not to be sad, but to give thanks to God, who through our distress works the salvation of many. BEDE. (ubi sup.) That hymn in the Gospel of John (John 17.) may also be meant, which the Lord sang, returning thanks to the Father, in which also He prayed, raising His eyes to heaven, for Himself and His disciples, and those who were to believe, through their word. THEOPHYLACT. Again, He went out into a mountain, that they might come to Him in a lonely place, and take Him without tumult. For if they had come to Him, whilst He was abiding in the city, the multitude of the people would have been in an uproar, and then His enemies, who took occasion against Him, should seem to have slain Him justly, because He stirred up the people. BEDE. (ubi sup.) Beautifully also does the Lord lead out His disciples, when they had tasted His Sacraments, into the mount of Olives, to shew typically that we ought through the reception of the Sacraments to rise up to higher gifts of virtue, and graces of the Holy Ghost, that we may be anointed in heart. PSEUDO-JEROME. Jesus also is held captive on the mount of Olives, whence He ascended to heaven, that we may know, that we ascend into heaven from that place in which we watch and pray; there we are bound and do not tend back again to earth.

• From Saint Thomas Aquinas Collection (22 Books) (2016)

  Whether the blessed in heaven will see the sufferings of the damned? Whether the blessed pity the unhappiness of the damned? Whether the blessed rejoice in the punishment of the wicked? OF THE GIFTS* OF THE BLESSED (FIVE ARTICLES) Whether any gifts should be assigned as dowry to the blessed? Whether the dowry is the same as beatitude*? [*Cf. FP, Q[12], A[7], ad 1; FS, Q[4], A[3]] Whether it is fitting that Christ should receive a dowry? Whether the angels receive the dowries? Whether three dowries of the soul are suitably assigned? OF THE AUREOLES (THIRTEEN ARTICLES) Whether the aureole is the same as the essential reward which is called the aurea? Whether the aureole differs from the fruit? Whether a fruit is due to the virtue of continence alone? Whether three fruits are fittingly assigned to the three parts of continence? Whether an aureole is due on account of virginity? Whether an aureole is due to martyrs? Whether an aureole is due to doctors? Whether an aureole is due to Christ? Whether an aureole is due to the angels? Whether an aureole is also due to the body? Whether three aureoles are fittingly assigned, those of virgins, of martyrs, and of doctors? Whether the virgin’s aureole is the greatest of all? Whether one person has an aureole more excellently than another person? OF THE PUNISHMENT OF THE DAMNED (SEVEN ARTICLES) Whether in hell the damned are tormented by the sole punishment of fire? Whether the worm of the damned is corporeal? Whether the weeping of the damned will be corporeal? Whether the damned are in material darkness? Whether the fire of hell will be corporeal? Whether the fire of hell is of the same species as ours? Whether the fire of hell is beneath the earth? OF THE WILL AND INTELLECT OF THE DAMNED (NINE ARTICLES) Whether every act of will in the damned is evil? Whether the damned repent of the evil they have done? Whether the damned by right and deliberate reason would wish not to be? Whether in hell the damned would wish others were damned who are not damned? Whether the damned hate God? Whether the damned demerit? Whether the damned can make use of the knowledge they had in this world? [*Cf. FP, Q[89]] Whether the damned will ever think of God? Whether the damned see the glory of the blessed? OF GOD’S MERCY AND JUSTICE TOWARDS THE DAMNED (FIVE ARTICLES) Whether by Divine justice an eternal punishment is inflicted on sinners? [*Cf. FS, Q[87], AA[3],4] Whether by God’s mercy all punishment of the damned, both men and demons, comes to an end? Whether God’s mercy suffers at least men to be punished eternally? Whether the punishment of Christians is brought to an end by the mercy of God? Whether all those who perform works of mercy will be punished eternally? APPENDIX 1 OF THE QUALITY OF THOSE SOULS WHO DEPART THIS LIFE WITH ORIGINAL SIN ONLY (TWO ARTICLES)

• From Saint Thomas Aquinas Collection (22 Books) (2016)

  BEDE. (Hom. inter Hyem. de Sanctis v.) No where in the whole course of the Old Testament do we find that the Angels who so constantly appear to the Patriarchs, came with light. This privilege was rightly kept for this time when there arose in the darkness a light to them that were true of heart. Hence it follows, and the glory of God shone round about them. (Ps. 112:4.) He is sent forth from the womb, but He shines from heaven. He lies in a common inn, but He lives in celestial light. GREEK EXPOSITOR. (Geometer.) They were alarmed at the miracle, as it follows, And they were afraid, &c. But the Angel dispels their rising fears. He not only soothes their terrors, but pours gladness into their hearts; for it follows, For, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, &c. not to the Jewish people only, but to all. The cause of their joy is declared; the new and wonderful birth is made manifest by the very names. It follows, For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord. The first of these, i. e. the Saviour, has reference to the action, the third, i. e. the Lord, to the dignity of the person. CYRIL OF ALEXANDRIA. But that which is in the middle, namely, Christ, has reference to the adoration, and signifies not the nature, but the compound substance of two natures. For on Christ our Saviour we confess the anointing to have been performed, not however figuratively, (as formerly on kings by the oil,) and as if by prophetic grace, nor for the accomplishment of any work, as it is said in Isaiah, Thus saith the Lord to his anointed, to Cyrus; (Isa. 45.) who although he was an idolater was said to be anointed, that he might by the decree of Heaven take possession of the whole province of Babylon; but the Saviour as man in the form of a servant, was anointed by the Holy Spirit, as God He Himself by His Holy Spirit anoints those that believe on Him. GREEK EXPOSITOR. (Geometer) He marks the time of our Lord’s nativity, when he says, To-day, and the place when he adds, In the city of David; and the signs thereof when it follows, And there shall be a sign, &c. Now the Angels bring tidings to the shepherds of the Chief Shepherd, as of a lamb discovered and brought up in a cave. BEDE. The infancy of the Saviour was impressed upon us, both by frequent heraldings of Angels and testimonies of Evangelists, that we might be the more deeply penetrated in our hearts by what has been done for us. And we may observe, that the sign given us of the newborn Saviour was, that He would be found not clothed in Tyrian purple, but wrapped in poor swaddling clothes, not laying on gilded couches, but in a manger.

• From Love 2.0: Finding Happiness and Health in Moments of Connection (2013)

  In our most recent experiment, we obtained blood samples from study volunteers before they tried out meditation for the first time. By the flip of a coin, they tried either LKM or a different style of mediation, one that does not aim to cultivate loving feelings. Before and immediately after their assigned guided meditation, we asked them to rate the extent of their positive feelings. We then processed the blood samples in my collaborator Karen Grewen’s lab at Carolina, and later shipped them to my newest collaborator, Steve Cole, the director of UCLA’s Social Genomics Core Laboratory. Using sophisticated computational techniques, Cole analyzed each person’s RNA to determine whether any differences in gene expression uniquely predicted whether people had especially positive reactions to LKM. A compelling pattern of differences emerged. While it’s too soon to say exactly what this pattern of differences means, it is consistent with the more general hypothesis that my team has been testing: that certain biomarkers, like cardiac vagal tone, inflammation, gene expression patterns, and perhaps even body mass index, can either amplify or muffle the good feelings you get when you try to cultivate love. To the extent that love in turn reshapes these biomarkers—a prediction we’re poised to test in the coming year—upward spiral dynamics ensue, in which love and health dynamically cocreate each other. How, then, your DNA gets translated into your cells next season may to some degree be up to you. By practicing healthy patterns of emotional expression, you may be able to sculpt healthy patterns of gene expression. Countless times in this book I’ve suggested that your body was designed for love’s positivity resonance and indeed cries out for it. My team is currently homing in on ever more precise statements about which of your genes, differentially expressed in your cells, contribute to this cry the loudest. Pilot Yourself How can you tune in to your body’s cravings and hear its subtle cries for love? It hardly sounds possible. Actually, becoming attuned to these cellular messages may be easier than you think. By nature’s design, you come equipped with a ready indicator of whether or not you’re meeting your body’s basic needs. Feeling good is that indicator. What’s more, the biochemistry of your brain has been carefully orchestrated by natural selection to keep close track of the contexts in which your good feelings arise, even when you’re busy thinking of other things. That’s because good feelings trigger a cascade of neurochemicals that makes you like whatever caused it. It’s as if feeling good sets off a localized firework that comes to cover the people and objects in its radius with enduring glitter dust. The new sparkle draws your eye and pulls you back toward them, impulses that operate even outside your conscious awareness. Think of this as your innate and automatic positivity-fueled navigation system. If you follow it, you’ll find yourself enticed back, time and again, to circumstances that enliven you most, including those life-giving micro-moments of positivity resonance.

• From Chasing Beauty

  The Gardners lodged: All these details come from JLG Jr. 1892 Diary, JLGJr-P. together that spring: During a four-week span, the Gardners and Whistlers dined together five times, sometimes as a foursome and sometimes as part of a larger group. JLG Jr. 1892 Diary, JLGJr-P. an impromptu lunch: For an account of this luncheon, see Nancy Whipple Grinnell, Carrying the Torch: Maud Howe Elliott and the American Renaissance (Hanover: UP of New England, 2014), 52–53. the “apostle of the”: Boston Globe, January 25, 1882. called him “fatuous”: HJ to ISG, January 23, 1882, HJ/Zorzi, 77. For Wilde’s 1882 American tour and the intersection of aestheticism and Gilded Age culture, see Mary Warner Blanchard, Oscar Wilde’s America: Counterculture in the Gilded Age (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1998). It was discovered: Carter, 126. Christie, Manson & Woods, Catalogue of the Very Valuable Collection of Ancient and Modern Pictures of Frederick Richards Leyland, Esq. (London, May 28, 1892), lot 60, 14. “fierce familiarity” with: Henry James, Italian Hours (New York: Penguin Books, 1995; first published in 1909), 208. Jack’s word—“enchanting”: JLG Jr. to GPG, August 13, 1892, GFP. a music aficionado: Fanny Peabody Mason was the only daughter of William Powell Mason and Fanny Peabody Mason, sister of George Augustus Gardner’s wife, Eliza Peabody Gardner. he’d “growled about”: JLG Jr. to Theodore Dwight, July 5, 1892, ISG Papers, ISGM. the “ancient world”: HJ to ISG, April 15, 1892, HJ/Zorzi, 173. “charming open door”: HJ to ISG, April 19, 1892, HJ/Zorzi, 176. Henry James had spent time in these Barbaro rooms before, during an extended stay in 1886, but never at the same time as the Gardners. and “gazed upward”: HJ to Ariana Curtis, July 10, 1892, Letters from the Palazzo Barbaro, ed. Rosella Mamoli Zorzi (London: Pushkin Press, 1998), 121. hair “not quite ‘up’”: HJ to ISG, September 3, 1892, HJ/Zorzi, 190. “the little lady”: HJ to Ariana Curtis, July 10, 1892, Letters from the Palazzo Barbaro, 121. Jack’s 1892 diary is littered with the names of friends, many from Boston, whom they walk with, dine with, or ride with in gondolas or the faster vaporetto boats that he favored. They include Mr. and Mrs. George Howe, Theodore Dwight, Fanny Mason, and the young artist who would become a close friend—Joseph Lindon Smith. the Gardners’ itinerary: The majority of the furniture Isabella placed in Fenway Court was purchased in Venice. Jack had a stronger interest in furniture than in paintings. For related details, see Fausto Calderai and Alan Chong, Furnishing a Museum: Isabella Stewart Gardner’s Collection of Italian Furniture (Boston: ISGM, 2011). “I want to know”: HJ to ISG, July 29, 1892, HJ/Zorzi, 186. the fiery disaster: For the siege of Paris and its aftermath, see Colin Jones, Paris: The Biography of a City (New York: Penguin Books, 2004), 323–28; see also Alistair Horne, Seven Ages of Paris (New York: Vintage Books, 2002), 279–83, 296–300.

• From Sources of the Self: The Making of the Modern Identity (1989)

  This specious deterrent must be set aside, and that is why we have to convince people that sel f-love is not opposed to benefiting others. We have to get "this noble Disposit ion"-"our natural Prop ensity to Benevolenc e"-"loose from thes e Bond s of Ignorance, and false Views of Interest". 69 This is purely an external deterrent, so to speak, and has nothing to do with what I am calling moral so urces. But Hutcheson also holds that not believing in our own moral inclinations dampens them, and recognizing them gives them strength . In acknowledging the mainsprings of good in us, we rejoice in them, and this joy makes them flow the stro nger. This is why it is crucial to establish his doctrine of the moral sense, and this is why the misa nthropic extrinsic theory has to be combated. In the Preface to his Essay on the Nature and Conduct of the Passions and Affections, Hutcheson justifies inquiring into the passions, which some might think as "too subtile for common Apprehension , and consequently not Moral Sentiments • 2 6 J necessary for the Instruction of Men in Mor als, which are the common busin ess of Manki nd" . But in fact certain notions are already current about the passions (the extrinsic theory), "to the great Detriment of many a Natural Temper; since many have been discouraged from all Attempts of cultiva ting kind generous Affections in themselves, by a previous Notion that there are no such Affections in Nature, and that all Pretence to them was only Diss imulat ion, Affectation, or at best some unnatural Enthusiasm,,. 70 To be good, it is important to identify our own sources of goodness. And not only in ourselves but in our fellow humans and, of course, in the God who designed all this. We have to believe in the goodness of human nature. Or else, when upon any small Inj ury's, or sudden Resentment, or any weak superstitious Suggestions, our Benevolence is so faint, as to let us run into any odious Conceptions of Mankind .. . as if they were wholly Evil, or Malicious, or as if they were a worse Sort of Beings than they really are; these Conceptions must lead us into malevolent Affections, or at least weaken our good ones, and make us really Vitious.

• From Saint Thomas Aquinas Collection (22 Books) (2016)

  BEDE. Having announced that the Lord, according to the declaration of the Prophet, would be born of the house of David, he now says, that the same Lord to fulfil the covenant He made with Abraham will deliver us, because chiefly to these patriarchs of Abraham’s seed was promised the gathering of the Gentiles, or the incarnation of Christ. But David is put first, because to Abraham was promised the holy assembly of the Church; whereas to David it was told that from him Christ was to be born. And therefore after what was said of David, he adds concerning Abraham the words, To perform the mercy promised to our fathers, &c. ORIGEN. I think that at the coming of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, both Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, were partakers of His mercy. For it is not to be believed, that they who had before seen His day, and were glad, should afterwards derive no advantage from His coming, since it is written, Having made peace through the blood of his Cross, whether in earth or in heaven. (Coloss. 1:20.) THEOPHYLACT. The grace of Christ extends even to those who are dead, because through Him we shall rise again, not only we, but they also who have been dead before us. He performed His mercy also to our forefathers in fulfilling all their hopes and desires. Hence it follows, And to remember his holy covenant, that covenant, namely, wherein he said, Blessing, I will bless thee, and multiplying, I will multiply thee. (Gen. 22:17.) For Abraham was multiplied in all nations, who became his children by adoption, through following the example of his faith. But the fathers also, seeing their children enjoy these blessings, rejoice together with them, just as if they received the mercy in themselves. Hence it follows, The oath which he sware to our father Abraham, that he would grant unto us. BASIL. (Hom. in Ps. 29. et in Ps. 14. App. op.) But let no one, hearing that the Lord had sworn to Abraham, be tempted to swear. For as when the wrath of God is spoken of, it does not signify passion but punishment; so neither dos God swear as man, but His word is in very truth expressed to us in place of an oath, confirming by an unchangeable sentence what He promised. 1:7474. That we, being delivered out of the hands of our enemies, might serve him without fear.

• From Saint Thomas Aquinas Collection (22 Books) (2016)

  Accordingly the soul that is beatified by the vision of God is made one with Him in understanding. The knower and the known must somehow be one. And so, when God reigns in the saints, they too reign along with God. In their person are uttered the words of the Apocalypse 5: 10: “(You) hast made us to our God a kingdom and priests, and we shall reign on the earth.” This kingdom, in which God reigns in the saints and the saints reign with God, is called the kingdom of heaven, according to Matthew 3:2: “Do penance, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” This is the same manner of speaking as that whereby presence in heaven is ascribed to God, not in the sense that He is housed in the material heavens, but to show forth the eminence of God over every creature, in the way that heaven towers high above every other material creature, as is indicated in Psalm 112:4: “The Lord is high above all nations, and His glory above the heavens.” The beatitude of the saints is called the kingdom of heaven, therefore, not because their reward is situated in the material heavens, but because it consists in the contemplation of super-celestial nature. This is also the reason for the statement about the angels in Matthew 18:10: “Their angels in heaven always see the face of My Father who is in heaven.” Hence Augustine, in his explanation of the passage in Matthew 5:12, “Your reward is very great in heaven,” says in his book, De sermone Domini in monte: “I do not think that heaven here means the loftier regions of this visible world. For our reward... is not to be in evanescent things. I think that the expression, ‘in heaven,’ refers rather to the spiritual firmament, where eternal justice dwells” [I, 5]. This ultimate good, which consists in God, is also called eternal life. The word is used in the sense in which the action of the animating soul is called life. Hence we distinguish as many kinds of life as there are kinds of action performed by the soul, among which the action of the intellect is supreme; and, according to the Philosopher, the action of the intellect is life [Metaphysics, XII, 7, 1072 b 27]. Furthermore, since an act receives species from its object, the vision of the divinity is called eternal life, as we read in John 17:3: “This is eternal life: that they may know You, the only true God.”

• From Love 2.0: Finding Happiness and Health in Moments of Connection (2013)

  Barrett’s answer to the question, what is an emotion?, equally compatible with the premise that you inherited your basic emotional architecture from a long line of human ancestors, is that your experiences of anger, fear, and joy are not, in fact, biological givens, handed to you, preformed, by specific hardwired locations or circuits in your brain. Instead, she argues for considerably more flexibility in what makes for an emotion. Posing an assumption-shaking challenge to the field we share, Barrett contends that your brain comes preset only with the capacity to represent what she calls core affect, the more amorphous pleasure or displeasure of your bodily states, along with some degree of arousal. What makes for a specific experience of anger, fear, or joy, then, is your ability to weave together your appreciation of your body’s current state of pleasure or displeasure with your conceptual understanding of what’s happening to you in that very moment. In other words, higher-order mental processes—like memory, learning, knowledge, and language—are the more basic “ingredients of mind” that combine together with “core affect” to create the various recipes for states like anger, fear, or joy. Although aspects of Barrett and colleagues’ “constructionist” view of emotions can be traced back to earlier scientists, theirs is the first to be backed by modern neuroscientific evidence. What does this mean for love? What does it mean for you? Plenty. For millennia, your ancestors felt energized by markedly good feelings when they interacted and connected with others. Those were the moments that made them feel part of something much larger than themselves, more energized, alert, and alive than they felt in other, more ordinary moments. Piecing together the commonalities across the many and varied situations that gave rise to such powerfully energizing good feelings led your ancestors to come up with words, rituals—and indeed whole religions—fashioned to represent and cultivate those longed-for feelings, in themselves and in others. Having such words and rituals makes a big difference. Research coming out of Barrett’s lab and other labs, including my own, demonstrates that even the particulars of people’s bodily experiences hinge on the labels and ideas each person holds about emotions. For instance, inspired by Barrett’s work, Lindsay Kennedy and Bethany Kok, working in my PEP Lab, were drawn to test whether the bodily effects of anger depend on whether the person experiencing it believes anger to be an emotion, as is typically the case, or whether he or she is led to believe that anger is not an emotion, but instead “an instinctual response to an imbalance of resources.” Fitting with Barrett’s view, people’s understandings of the unpleasant state that they were just then experiencing shaped their bodily response: Those who took anger to be an emotion showed the typical jumps in heart rate and blood pressure, whereas those for whom the idea that anger is an emotion was debunked had an appreciably more muted cardiovascular response.

• From Jesus and the Disinherited (1949)

  What I sensed in their deeply reflective anthology was a level of integrity, self-examination, and social concern that would have brought one of those characteristically broad and deep smiles to the face of our father in the faith. (And when I noted that Testimony was also published by Beacon it seemed very likely that our dear mentor was up to one of his familiar creative tricks.) Surely some of the gifted and committed young people of Testimony could find a vital connection with Jesus and the Disinherited, even if their walls are different from the ones Thurman and his grandmother knew. That is a cause for real joy, but much more has changed in this country than the character of the walls and the number of people who now escape their harsh pressures. So any serious reflection on the possible future of this landmark work from the past must take at least two of those essential changes into consideration. First, we need to recall the fact that in the years when Thurman was most actively wrestling with the issues and spirits that emerged in Jesus and the Disinherited, the Black people who provided his major points of reference in this country often gathered in and around places and events where Jesus of Nazareth was celebrated and at least nominally recognized and followed. Today, at the close of Thurman’s century, those people who live most obviously with their backs against the wall—for instance, the homeless, the working and jobless poor, the substance abused and abusers, the alienated, misguided, and essentially abandoned young people—are rarely within hearing or seeing range of the company of Jesus’ proclaimed followers. The keepers of the faith of the master often find it very difficult, and very dangerous, to follow him into the hard places inhabited by the disinherited of America. And those wall-bruised people find no space for their presence in the places where the official followers are comfortably at worship, unless they happen to find themselves among such exceptions as the young, downwardly mobile worker-believers of the Azuza church fellowship in Dorchester, Massachusetts, or the interracial community of hope in Washington, D.C., the Abyssinian Sojourners.

• From Saint Thomas Aquinas Collection (22 Books) (2016)

  CHRYSOSTOM. And for that reason the Lord kept back the delivery of Elisabeth, that her joy might be increased, and her fame the greater. Hence it follows, And her neighbours and cousins heard, &c. For they who had known her barrenness were made the witnesses of the Divine grace, and no one seeing the child departed in silence, but gave praise to God, Who had vouchsafed him beyond their expectation. AMBROSE. For the bringing forth of saints causes the rejoicing of many; it is a common blessing; for justice is a public virtue, and therefore at the birth of a just man a sign of his future life is sent beforehand, and the grace of the virtue which is to follow is represented, being foreshadowed by the rejoicing of the neighbours. 1:59–6459. And it came to pass, that on the eighth day they came to circumcise the child; and they called him Zacharias, after the name of his father. 60. And his mother answered and said, Not so; but he shall be called John. 61. And they said unto her, There is none of thy kindred that is called by this name. 62. And they made signs to his father, how he would have him called. 63. And he asked for a writing table, and wrote, saying, His name is John. And they marvelled all. 64. And his mouth was opened immediately, and his tongue loosed, and he spake, and praised God. CHRYSOSTOM. (in Gen. Hom. 39.) The rite of circumcision was first delivered to Abraham as a sign of distinction, that the race of the Patriarch might be preserved in unmixed purity, and so might be able to obtain the promises. But now that the promise of the covenant is fulfilled, the sign attached to it is removed. So then through Christ circumcision ceased, and baptism came in its place; but first it was right that John should be circumcised; as it is said, And it came to pass, that on the eighth day, &c. For the Lord had said, Let the child of eight days be circumcised among you. (Gen. 17:13.) But this measurement of time I conceive was ordered by Divine mercy for two reasons. First, because in its most tender years the child the more easily bears the cutting of the flesh. Secondly, that from the very operation itself we might be reminded that it was done for a sign; for the young child scarcely distinguishes any of the things that are around him. But after the circumcision, the name was conferred, as it follows, And they called him. But this was done because we must first receive the seal of the Lord, then the name of man. Or, because no man except he first cast aside his fleshly lusts, which circumcision signifies, is worthy to have his name written in the book of life.