Tenderness

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 The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  Very gently she readjusted the clothing that had slipped to one side, first the under-blanket then the smart blue rug that was braided in red—red and blue, the old stable colours of Morton. The groom Jim, now a thick-set stalwart young man, stared at her with sorrowful understanding, but he did not speak; he was almost as dumb as the beasts whom his life had been passed in tending—even dumber, perhaps, for his language consisted of words, having no small sounds and small movements such as Raftery used when he spoke with Stephen, and which meant so much more than words. She said: ‘I’m going now to the station to order a horse-box for to-morrow, I’ll let you know the time we start, later. And wrap him up well; put on plenty of clothing for the journey, please, he mustn’t feel cold.’ The man nodded. She had not told him their destination, but he knew it already; it was Morton. Then the great clumsy fellow must pretend to be busy with a truss of fresh straw for the horse’s bedding, because his face had turned a deep crimson, because his coarse lips were actually trembling—and this was not really so very strange, for those who served Raftery loved him. 2 Raftery stepped quietly into his horse-box and Jim with great deftness secured the halter, then he touched his cap and hurried away to his third-class compartment, for Stephen herself would travel with Raftery on this last journey back to the fields of Morton. Sitting down on the seat reserved for a groom she opened the little wooden window into the box, whereupon Raftery’s muzzle came up and his face looked out of the window. She fondled the soft, grey plush of his muzzle. Presently she took a carrot from her pocket, but the carrot was rather hard now for his teeth, so she bit off small pieces and these she gave him in the palm of her hand; then she watched him eat them uncomfortably, slowly, because he was old, and this seemed so strange, for old age and Raftery went very ill together. Her mind slipped back and back over the years until it recaptured the coming of Raftery—grey-coated and slender, and his eyes as soft as an Irish morning, and his courage as bright as an Irish sunrise, and his heart as young as the wild, eternally young heart of Ireland. She remembered what they had said to each other. Raftery had said: ‘I will carry you bravely, I will, serve you all the days of my life.’ She had answered: ‘I will care for you night and day, Raftery—all the days of your life.’ She remembered their first run with hounds together—she a youngster of twelve, he a youngster of five.

• From The Pisces (2018)

  “That’s the dopamine talking,” said Chickenhorse. “You want your high. Is it that you don’t know how to stop or you don’t want to stop?” “It’s that I can’t,” said Diana. Suddenly I felt a wave of compassion for her. I knew what it was like. I thought about what Claire said, about being careful to stay away from the freaks or else you become a freak. Diana was so hot and polished—the wealth pouring out of her Spandex—with her diamond rings, chypre fragrance, and golden highlights. Did she see everyone at the meeting as sad and pathetic? Did I look as sad and pathetic to Diana as the other women looked to me when I came in? But after group she came up to me in the parking lot. “You seem like you’re the only one there who isn’t totally insane,” she said. “I wouldn’t bet on that.” I laughed. “Can I call you? If I have questions about what to do?” “Sure,” I said. “I don’t know that I will have the answers. But I can listen.” I saw the sadness in her eyes and the mess of it all. I saw her delusions and the way that things started between her and the older tennis pro as just friends. It was like Theo: you wanted to believe they liked you as a friend. She pretended that’s what it was, because if she admitted to herself what it really was at first she would have never gotten in his car. And she had needed to get in his car. “I’m just afraid of getting worse,” she said. “My son has a friend. He is sixteen and gorgeous. And I see the way he looks at me. I used to think it wasn’t that, it couldn’t be that.” “You’re so beautiful,” I said. “How could it not be that?” “Thank you,” she said. “But I’m…you should see the young girls at their high school. I thought there could simply be no way. But now that I’ve been with Ryan, the younger tennis pro, well, I realize what it is with my son’s friend. I’m not going to go there. At least, I don’t think I would go there. But it scares me that I feel tempted.” “Wow,” I said. “That’s heavy.” “Yeah,” she said. “I didn’t want to admit that to the group. I didn’t want to say I’ve thought about, you know, having sex with my son’s friend…I didn’t say it, because…it would be very illegal. I don’t know what the group’s policy is on that. If someone is tempted to do something illegal, are they forced to report it?” “I don’t know,” I said. “But your secret is safe with me. Do you feel any better now even just telling me?” “Not really,” she said.

• From History of the Christian Church: The Complete Set of Eight Volumes (1858)

  Among the poets of the earlier part of the period are Peter Damiani, some of whose hymns were received into the Breviaries,2090 Anselm of Canterbury, and Hildebert, archbishop of Tours (d. 1134). Some of Hildebert’s lines were used by Longfellow in his "Golden Legend." Abaelard also wrote hymns, one of which, on the creation, was translated by Trench.2091 Bernard of Clairvaux, according to Abaelard’s pupil, Berengar, cultivated poetic composition from his youth.2092 Five longer religious poems are ascribed to him.2093 From the Rhythmic Song on the name of Christ—Jubilus rhythmicus de nomine Jesu — the Roman Breviary has drawn three hymns, which are used on the festival of the name of Christ. They are:— Jesus, the very thought of thee. Jesus, King most wonderful. O Jesus, thou the beauty art. Jesu, dulcis memoria. Jesu, rex admirabilis. Jesus, decus angelicum. The first of these hymns has been called by Dr. Philip Schaff, "the sweetest and most evangelical hymn of the Middle Ages." The free version of some of the verses by Ray Palmer is the most popular form of Bernard’s poem as used in the American churches. Jesus, thou Joy of loving hearts, Thou Fount of life, thou Light of men, From the best bliss that earth imparts We turn unfilled to thee again. The poem to the Members of Christ’s body on the Cross—Rhythmica oratio ad unum quodlibet membrorum Christi patientis — is a series of devotional poems addressed to the crucified Saviour’s feet, knees, hands, side, breast, heart, and face. From the poem addressed to our Lord’s face—Salve caput cruentatum — John Gerhardt, 1656, took his O Haupt voll Blut und Wunden. O sacred head, now wounded, With grief and shame weighed down. Much as Bernard influenced his own age in other ways, he continues to influence our own effectively and chiefly by his hymns. Bernard of Cluny, d. about 1150, has an enduring name as the author of the most beautiful and widely sung hymn on heaven, "Jerusalem the Golden." He was an inmate of the convent of Cluny when Peter the Venerable was its abbot, 1122–1156. From his probable place of birth, Morlaix, Brittany, he is sometimes called Bernard of Morlaix. Of his career nothing is known. He lives in his poem, "The Contempt of the World"—de contemptu mundi — from which the hymns are taken which go by his name.2094 It contains nearly three thousand lines, and was dedicated to Peter the Venerable. At the side of its glowing descriptions of heaven, which are repetitions, it contains a satire on the follies of the age and the greed of the Roman court.2095 It is written in dactylic hexameters, with leonine and tailed rhyme, and is difficult of translation. The most prolific of the mediaeval Latin poets is Adam of St. Victor, d. about 1180. He was one of the men who made the convent of St. Victor famous.

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  By now she was rather depressed and disgruntled. Supposing that she should not find what she wanted in Bond Street? She had no idea where else to look—her knowledge of London was far from extensive. But apparently the gods were feeling propitious, for a little further on she paused in front of a small, and as she thought, quite humble shop. As a matter of fact it was anything but humble, hence the bars half- way up its unostentatious window. Then she stared, for there on a white velvet cushion lay a pearl that looked like a round gleaming marble, a marble attached to a slender circlet of platinum—some sort of celestial marble! It was just such a ring as Angela had seen in Paris, and had since never ceased to envy. The person behind this counter was imposing. He was old, and wore glasses with tortoiseshell rims: ‘Yes, madam, it’s a very fine specimen indeed. The setting’s French, just a thin band of platinum, there’s nothing to detract from the beauty of the pearl.’ He lifted it tenderly off its cushion, and as tenderly Stephen let it rest on her palm. It shone whiter than white against her skin, which by contrast looked sunburnt and weather-beaten. Then the dignified old gentleman murmured the price, glancing curiously at the girl as he did so, but she seemed to be quite unperturbed, so he said: ‘Will you try the effect of the ring on your finger?’ At this, however, his customer flushed: ‘It wouldn’t go anywhere near my finger!’ ‘I can have it enlarged to any size you wish.’ ‘Thanks, but it’s not for me—it’s for a friend.’ ‘Have you any idea what size your friend takes, say in gloves? Is her hand large or small do you think?’ Stephen answered promptly: ‘It’s a very small hand,’ then immediately looked and felt rather self-conscious. And now the old gentleman was openly staring: ‘Excuse me,’ he murmured, ‘an extraordinary likeness. . . .’ Then more boldly: ‘Do you happen to be related to Sir Philip Gordon of Morton Hall, who died—it must be about two years ago—from some accident? I believe a tree fell—’ ‘Oh, yes, I’m his daughter,’ said Stephen. He nodded and smiled: ‘Of course, of course, you couldn’t be anything but his daughter.’ ‘You knew my father?’ she inquired, in surprise. ‘Very well, Miss Gordon, when your father was young. In those days Sir Philip was a customer of mine. I sold him his first pearl studs while he was at Oxford, and at least four scarf pins—a bit of a dandy Sir Philip was up at Oxford. But what may interest you is the fact that I made your mother’s engagement ring for him; a large half-hoop of very fine diamonds—’ ‘Did you make that ring?’ ‘I did, Miss Gordon. I remember quite well his showing me a miniature of Lady Anna—I remember his words.

• From History of the Christian Church: The Complete Set of Eight Volumes (1858)

  Basil told them that the folly was on their side, and Ephraem was a man full of divine wisdom. Shortly before his death, when the city of Edessa was visited by a severe famine, Ephraem quitted his solitary cell and preached a powerful sermon against the rich for permitting the poor to die around them, and told them that their wealth would ruin their soul, unless they made good use of it. The rich men felt the rebuke, and intrusted him with the distribution of their goods. Ephraem fitted up about three hundred beds, and himself attended to the sufferers, whether they were foreigners or natives, till the calamity was at an end. Then he returned to his cell, and a few days after, about the year 379, he expired, soon following his friend Basil. Ephraem, says Sozomen, attained no higher clerical degree than that of deacon, but his attainments in virtue rendered him equal in reputation to those who

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  Then one night Véronique asked Thérèse to help me, and the next day I could find my way round our room. From then on my fingers saw what they touched, and now I can even make lace quite well because of this sight in my fingers.’ Then turning to the smiling Mademoiselle Duphot: ‘But why do you not show her picture to Stévenne?’ So Mademoiselle Duphot went and fetched the small picture of Thérèse, which Stephen duly examined, and the face that she saw was ridiculously youthful—round with youth it still was, and yet very determined. Sœur Thérèse looked as though if she really intended to become a saint, the devil himself would be hard put to it to stop her. Then Puddle must also examine the picture, while Stephen was shown some relics, a piece of the habit and other things such as collect in the wake of sainthood. When they left, Julie asked them to come again; she said: ‘Come often, it will give us such pleasure.’ Then she thrust on her guests twelve yards of coarse lace which neither of them liked to offer to pay for. Mademoiselle murmured: ‘Our home is so humble for Stévenne; we have very little to offer.’ She was thinking of the house in the Rue Jacob, a grand house, and then too she remembered Morton. But Julie, with the strange insight of the blind, or perhaps because of those eyes in her fingers, answered quickly: ‘She will not care, Véronique, I cannot feel that sort of pride in your Stévenne.’ 5 After their first visit they went very often to Mademoiselle’s modest little apartment. Mademoiselle Duphot and her quiet blind sister were indeed their only friends now in Paris, for Brockett was in America on business, and Stephen had not rung up Valérie Seymour. Sometimes when Stephen was busy with her work, Puddle would make her way there all alone. Then she and Mademoiselle would get talking about Stephen’s childhood, about her future, but guardedly, for Puddle must be careful to give nothing away to the kind, simple woman. As for Mademoiselle, she too must be careful to accept all and ask no questions. Yet in spite of the inevitable gaps and restraints, a real sympathy sprang up between them, for each sensed in the other a valuable ally who would fight a good fight on behalf of Stephen. And now Stephen would quite often send her car to take the blind Julie for a drive beyond Paris. Julie would sniff the air and tell Burton that through smelling their greenness she could see the trees; he would listen to her broken and halting English with a smile—they were a queer lot these French. Or perhaps he would drive the other Mademoiselle up to Montmartre for early Mass on a Sunday.

• From History of the Christian Church: The Complete Set of Eight Volumes (1858)

  All these collections of tales set forth how Mary often met the devil and took upon herself to soundly rebuke and punish him. According to Jacob of Voragine2026 a husband, in return for riches, promised the devil his wife. On their way to the spot, where she was to be delivered up, the wife, suspecting some dark deed, turned aside to a chapel and implored Mary’s aid. Mary put the worshipper to sleep and herself mercifully took the wife’s place at the husband’s side and rode with him, he not noticing the change. When they met the devil, the "mother of God" after some sound words of reprimand sent him back howling to hell. Mary’s compassion and her ability to move her austere Son are brought out in the Miracle Plays. In the play of the Wise and Foolish Virgins, the foolish virgins, after having in vain besought God for mercy, turned to the Virgin with these words:— Since God our suit hath now denied We Mary pray, the gentle maid, The Mother of Compassion, To pity our great agony And for us, sinners poor, to pray Mercy from her beloved Son.2027 The Church never officially put its stamp of commendation upon the popular belief that the Son is austere. Nevertheless, even down to the very eve of the Reformation, the belief prevailed that Christ’s austerity had to be appeased by Mary’s compassion. The Virgin Birth of Christ.—The literary criticism of the Bible of recent years was as much undreamed of in this period of the Middle Ages as were steamboats or telephones. Schoolman and priest seem never to have doubted when they repeated the article of the Creed, "Conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary." Homily and theological treatise lingered over the words of Isa. vii:14: "Behold a virgin shall conceive," and over the words of the angelic annunciation: "Hail, thou that art highly favored. The Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women .... The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee." They discussed the conception and virginal birth in every possible aspect, as to the part the Holy Spirit had in the event and the part of Mary herself. Here are some of the questions propounded by Thomas Aquinas: Was there true matrimony between Joseph and Mary? Was it necessary that the angel should appear in bodily form? Was Christ’s flesh taken from Adam or from David? Was it formed from the purest bloods of Mary? Was the Holy Spirit the primary agent in the conception of Christ? Was Christ’s body animated with a soul at the instant of conception?

• From History of the Christian Church: The Complete Set of Eight Volumes (1858)

  His last words, repeated again and again, were, "O Jesus, have mercy; Lord, deliver me; Lord, make an end; Lord, have mercy upon me!"513 In his will, dated Feb. 12, 1536, he left his valuables to Froben, Rhenanus, and other friends, and the rest to the aged and poor and for the education of young men of promise.514 The funeral was attended by distinguished men of both parties. He lies buried in the Protestant cathedral of Basel, where his memory is cherished. Erasmus was of small stature, but well formed. He had a delicate constitution, an irritable temperament, fair skin, blonde hair, wrinkled forehead, blue eyes, and pleasant voice. His face had an expression of thoughtfulness and quiet studiousness.515 In his behavior he combined dignity and grace. "His manners and conversation," says Beatus Rhenanus, "were polished, affable, and even charming." He talked and wrote in Latin, the universal language of scholars in mediaeval Europe. He handled it as a living language, with ease, elegance, and effect, though not with classical correctness. His style was Ciceronian, but modified by the ecclesiastical vocabulary of Jerome. In his dialogue "Ciceronianus," or on the best mode of speaking (1528), he ridicules those pedantic semi-pagans, chiefly Italians, who worshiped and aped Cicero, and avoided Christian themes, or borrowed names and titles from heathen mythology. He had, however, the greatest respect for Cicero, and hoped that "he is now living peacefully in heaven." He learned neither German nor English nor Italian, and had only an imperfect knowledge of French, and even of his native Dutch. He had a nervous sensibility. The least draught made him feverish. He could not bear the iron stoves of Germany, and required an open fireplace. He could drink no wine but Burgundy. He abhorred intemperance. He could not eat fish on fast days; the mere smell of it made him sick: his heart, he said, was Catholic, but his stomach Lutheran. He never used spectacles either by day or by candle-light, and many wondered that study had not blinded his eyes. He walked firm and erect without a cane. His favorite exercise was horseback-riding.516 He usually traveled on horseback with an attendant, and carried his necessaries, including a shirt, a linen nightcap, and a prayer-book, in a knapsack tied to the saddle. He shrank from the mere mention of death, and frankly confessed that he was not born to be a martyr, but would in the hour of trial be tempted to follow St. Peter. He was fond of children, and charitable to the poor. His Theological Opinions. Erasmus was, like most of the German and English humanists, a sincere and enlightened believer in Christianity, and differed in this respect from the frivolous and infidel humanists of France and Italy.

• From History of the Christian Church: The Complete Set of Eight Volumes (1858)

  God, however, had not given any intimation of disapproval of ascetic discipline, and so Suso, in order further to impress upon his body marks of godliness, bound against his back a wooden cross, to which, in memory of the 30 wounds of Christ, he affixed 30 spikes. On this instrument of torture he stretched himself at night for 8 years. The last year he affixed to it 7 sharp needles. For a long time he went through 2 penitential drills a day, beating with his fist upon the cross as it hung against his back, while the needles and nails penetrated into his flesh, and the blood flowed down to his feet. As if this were not a sufficient imitation of the flagellation inflicted upon Christ, he rubbed vinegar and salt into his wounds to increase his agony. His feet became full of sores, his legs swelled as if he had had the dropsy, his flesh became dry and his hands trembled as if palsied. And all this, as he says, he endured out of the great inner love which he had for God, and our Lord Jesus Christ, whose agonizing pains he wanted to imitate. For 25 years, cold as the winter might be, he entered no room where there was a fire, and for the same period he abstained from all bathing, water baths or sweat baths—Wasserbad und Schweissbad. But even with this list of self-mortifications, Suso said, the whole of the story was not told. In his fortieth year, when his physical organization had been reduced to a wreck, so that nothing remained but to die or to desist from the discipline, God revealed to him that his long-practised austerity was only a good beginning, a breaking up of his untamed humanity,—Ein Durchbrechen seines ungebrochenen Menschen,—and that thereafter he would have to try another way in order to "get right." And so he proceeded to macerations of the inner man, and learned the lessons which asceticisms of the soul can impart. Suso nowhere has words of condemnation for such barbarous self-imposed torture, a method of pleasing God which the Reformation put aside in favor of saner rules of piety. Other sufferings came upon Suso, but not of his own infliction. These he bore with Christian submission, and the evils involved he sought to rectify by services rendered to others. His sister, a nun, gave way to temptation. Overcoming his first feelings of indignation, Suso went far and near in search of her, and had the joy of seeing her rescued to a worthy life, and adorned with all religious virtues. Another cross he had to bear was the charge that he was the father of an unborn child, a charge which for a time alienated Henry of Nördlingen and other close friends. He bore the insinuation without resentment, and even helped to maintain the child after it was born.

• From History of the Christian Church: The Complete Set of Eight Volumes (1858)

  induced Lewis the Pious in 835 to make it general in the Empire. The celebration was fixed on the first of November for the convenience of the people who after harvest had a time of leisure, and were disposed to give thanks to God for all his mercies. The Festival of All Souls526 is a kind of supplement to that of All Saints, and is celebrated on the day following (Nov. 2). Its introduction is traced to Odilo, Abbot of Cluny, in the tenth century. It spread very soon without a special order, and appealed to the sympathies of that age for the sufferings of the souls in purgatory. The worshippers appear in mourning; the mass for the dead is celebrated with the "Dies irae, Dies illa," and the oft-repeated "Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine." In some places (e.g. in Munich) the custom prevails of covering the graves on that day with the last flowers of the season. The festival of Michael the Archangel,527 the leader of the angelic host, was dedicated to the worship of angels,528 on the 29th of September.529 It rests on no doctrine and no fact, but on the sandy foundation of miraculous legends.530 We find it first in the East. Several churches in and near Constantinople were dedicated to St. Michael, and Justinian rebuilt two which had become dilapidated. In the West it is first mentioned by a Council of Mentz in 813, as the "dedicatio S. Michaelis," among the festivals to be observed; and from that time it spread throughout the Church in spite of the apostolic warning against angelolatry (Col. 2:18; Rev. 19:10; 22:8, 9).531 § 100. The Worship of Images. Literature. Different Theories. Comp. Vol. II., chs. vi. (p.266 sqq.) and vii. (p. 285); Vol. III. §§109–111 (p. 560 sqq.). (I.) John of Damascus (chief defender of image-worship, about 750): Lovgoi ajpologhtikoi; pro;" tou;" diabavllonta" ta;" aJgiva" eijkovna" (ed. Le Quien I. 305). Nicephorus (Patriarch of Constantinople, d. 828): Breviarium Hist. (to A.D. 769), ed. Petavius, Paris, 1616. Theophanes (Confessor and almost martyr of image-worship, d. c. 820): Chronographia, cum notis Goari et Combefisii, Par., 1655, Ven. 1729, and in the Bonn ed. of the Byzant. historians, 1839, Tom. I. (reprinted in Migne’s "Patrol. Graeca," Tom. 108). The later Byzantine historians, who notice the controversy, draw chiefly from Theophanes; so also Anastasius (Historia Eccles.) and Paulus Diaconus (Historia miscella and Hist. Longobardorum). The letters of the popes, and the acts of synods, especially the Acta Concilii Nicaeni II. (A.D. 787) in Mansi, Tom. XIII., and Harduin, Tom. IV. M. H. Goldast: Imperialia Decreta de Cultu Imaginum in utroque imperio promulgata. Frankf., 1608. The sources are nearly all on the orthodox side. The seventh oecumenical council (787) ordered in the fifth session that all the books against images should be destroyed. (II.) J. Dalleus (Calvinist): De Imaginibus. Lugd. Bat., 1642. L. Maimbourg (Jesuit): Histoire de l’hérésie des iconoclastes. Paris, 1679 and 1683, 2 vols. (Hefele, III.

• From History of the Christian Church: The Complete Set of Eight Volumes (1858)

  Dei Mater alma Atque semper Virgo, Felix coeli porta. Hail, thou Star-of-Ocean, Portal of the sky, Ever-Virgin Mother Of the Lord Most High! Sumens illud Ave Gabrielis ore, Funda nos in pace, Mutans nomen Evae.505 Oh, by Gabriel’s Ave Uttered long ago Eva’s name reversing, ’Stablish peace below! Solve vincla reis Profer lumen coecis, Mala nostra pelle, Bona cuncta posce. Break the captive’s fetters, Light on blindness pour, All our ills expelling, Every bliss implore. Monstra te esse matrem,506 Sumat per te precem, Qui pro nobis natus Tulit esse tuus. Show thyself a mother, Offer Him our sighs, Who, for us Incarnate, Did not thee despise. Virgo singularis, Inter omnes mitis, Nos culpis solutos Mites facet castos. Virgin of all virgins! To thy shelter take us— Gentlest of the gentle! Chaste and gentle make us. Vitam praesta puram Iter para tutum, Ut videntes Iesum Semper collaetemur. Still as on we journey, Help our weak endeavor, Till with thee and Jesus, We rejoice for ever. Sit laus Deo Patri, Summo Christo decus, Spiritui Sancto Honor trinus et unus. Through the highest heaven To the Almighty Three, Father, Son, and Spirit, One same glory be. The Latin hymnody was only, for priests and monks, and those few who understood the Latin language. The people listened to it as they do to the mass, and responded with the Kyrie eleison, Christe eleison, which passed from the Greek church into the Western litanies. As the modern languages of Europe developed themselves out of the Latin, and out of the Teutonic, a popular poetry arose during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, and afterwards received a powerful impulse from the Reformation. Since that time the Protestant churches, especially in Germany and England, have produced the richest hymnody, which speaks to the heart of the people in their own familiar tongue, and is, next to the Psalter, the chief feeder of public and private devotion. In this body of evangelical hymns the choicest Greek and Latin hymns in various translations, reproductions, and transformations occupy an honored place and serve as connecting links between past and modern times in the worship of the same God and Saviour. § 97. The Seven Sacraments. Mediaeval Christianity was intensely sacramental, sacerdotal and hierarchical. The ideas of priest, sacrifice, and altar are closely connected. The sacraments were regarded as the channels of all grace and the chief food of the soul. They accompanied human life from the cradle to the grave. The child was saluted into this world by the sacrament of baptism; the old man was provided with the viaticum on his journey to the other world. The chief sacraments were baptism and the eucharist. Baptism was regarded as the sacrament of the new birth which opens the door to the kingdom of heaven the eucharist as the sacrament of sanctification which maintains and nourishes the new life. Beyond these two sacraments several other rites were dignified with that name, but there was no agreement as to the number before the scholastic period. The Latin sacramentum, like the Greek mystery (of which it is the translation in the Vulgate), was long used in a loose and indefinite way for sacred and mysterious doctrines and rites. Rabanus Maurus and Paschasius Radbertus count four sacraments, Dionysius Areopagita, six; Damiani, as many as twelve. By the authority chiefly of Peter the Lombard and Thomas Aquinas the sacred number seven was at last determined upon, and justified by various

• From The Pisces (2018)

  Now that I knew he was the one who had brought the darkness I felt that I didn’t have to be as afraid anymore. The gloom wasn’t coming from me. I was still responsible for him but not for the atmosphere. So many times I had tried to fix things, people’s feelings, the shifting moods of men, by adjusting my own behavior. But in this case it was beyond me. He was, after all, supernatural. Did he even exist? I decided that he existed like a mood. In some ways, my moods did and did not exist. People said that you could will a mood into being or will it away. Just think positively. But I never felt that way. My moods were their own entities, even if no one could understand why they were there. That was what made me scared of feelings. I realized now that what I had to do, in spite of what others said, was not try to change a mood but surrender to it. I had to surrender to whatever feelings arrived and in doing so I could maybe ride them, floating on the waves. I decided I was going to surrender. “We could rest a bit,” I said. “I’m tired too.” “Yes, let’s rest,” he said. “I’d like that. Come here, come lie down with me.” I got on the sofa with him and we lay there face-to-face. He closed his eyes and I kissed his eyelids and cheeks. He gathered me in his arms and his upper body was warm. Everything above his tail was soft. I didn’t know what to do with our lower halves. I couldn’t intertwine my legs with his tail as if it was a pair of legs, so I wrapped one leg around him and pressed the other leg straight against his tail. Usually when I cuddled with another body, I would have to separate before falling asleep. I would feel too trapped or get too hot pressed so close against them. But Theo’s tail was cool, almost like a built-in fan or compress, and I was reminded of what my friend’s aunt taught me years ago as a trick for insomnia: keep one leg under the blanket and one leg out. It was as though I had one leg under a towel in the sun and one dipped in the sea. When I thought of it this way I slipped into the waves. His breathing was rhythmic and the slight scent of fish drifted up from him. The sun came in the window and shone on our heads, and we both drifted off with our faces in a glow. —We woke up around noon. Theo stirred and pulled me closer. “Mmmmmm,” he breathed in my ear. I kissed him on the lips. His breath tasted less fresh than usual, a bit like wet leather.

• From History of the Christian Church: The Complete Set of Eight Volumes (1858)

  In few respects are the worship and teaching of the Middle Ages so different from those of the Protestant churches as in the claims made for Mary and the regard paid to her. If we are to judge by the utterances and example of Pius IX. and Leo XIII., the mediaeval cult still goes on in the Roman communion. And more recently Pius X. shows that he follows his predecessors closely. In his encyclical of Jan. 15, 1907, addressed to the French bishops, he says, "In full confidence that the Virgin Immaculate, daughter of our Father, mother of the Word, spouse of the Holy Ghost, will obtain for you from the most holy and adorable Trinity better days, we give you our Apostolic Benediction." It was the misfortune of the mediaeval theologians to fall heir to the eulogies passed upon Mary by Jerome and other early Fathers of the early Church and the veneration in which she was held. They blindly followed having inherited also the allegorical mode of interpretation from the past. In part they were actuated by a sincere purpose to exalt the glory and divinity of Christ when they ascribed to Mary exemption from sin. On the other hand it was a Pagan, though chivalric, superstition to exalt her to a position of a goddess who stands between Christ and the sinner and mitigates by her intercession the austerity which marks his attitude towards them. This was the response the mediaeval Church gave to the exclamation of St. Bernard, "Who is this virgin so worthy of honor as to be saluted by the angel and so lowly as to have been espoused to a carpenter?"2041 The tenderest piety of the Middle Ages went out to her and is expressed in such hymns as the Mater dolorosa and the companion piece, Mater speciosa. But this piety, while it no doubt contributed to the exaltation of womanhood, also involved a relaxation of penitence, for in the worship of Mary tears of sympathy are substituted for resolutions of repentance. § 131. The Worship of Relics. Literature: See Lit., p. 268 sq. Guibert of Nogent, d. 1124: de pignoribus sanctorum, Migne, vol. 156, 607–679.—Guntherus: Hist. Constantinopol., Migne, vol. 212.—Peter the Venerable: de miraculis, Migne, vol. 189.—Caesar of Heisterbach, Jacob of Voragine, Salimbene, etc.—P. Vignon: The Shroud of Christ, Engl. trans., N. Y., 1903.

• From History of the Christian Church: The Complete Set of Eight Volumes (1858)

  repudiating his first wife, an obscure person] "he married a daughter of Desiderius, King of the Lombards, at the instance of his mother" [notwithstanding the protest of the pope]; "but he repudiated her at the end of a year for some reason unknown, and married Hildegard, a woman of high birth, of Swabian origin [d. 783]. He had three sons by her,—Charles, Pepin, and Lewis—and as many daughters,—Hruodrud, Bertha, and Gisela." [Eginhard omits Adelaide and Hildegard.] "He had three other daughters besides these—Theoderada, Hiltrud, and Ruodhaid—two by his third wife, Fastrada, a woman of East Frankish (that is to say of German) origin, and the third by a concubine, whose name for the moment escapes me. At the death of Fastrada, he married Liutgard, an Alemannic woman, who bore him no children. After her death he had three [according to another reading four] concubines—Gerswinda, a Saxon, by whom he had Adaltrud; Regina, who was the mother of Drogo and Hugh; and Ethelind, by whom he had Theodoric. Charles’s mother, Berthrada, passed her old age with him in great honor; he entertained the greatest veneration for her; and there was never any disagreement between them except when he divorced the daughter of King Desiderius, whom he had married to please her. She died soon after Hildegard, after living to see three grandsons and as many grand-daughters in her son’s house, and he buried her with great pomp in the Basilica of St. Denis, where his father lay. He had an only [surviving] sister, Gisela, who had consecrated herself to a religious life from girlhood, and he cherished as much affection for her as for his mother. She also died a few years before him in the nunnery where she had passed her life. The plan which he adopted for his children’s education was, first of all, to have both boys and girls instructed in the liberal arts, to which he also turned his own attention. As soon as their years admitted, in accordance with the custom of the Franks, the boys had to learn horsemanship, and to practise war and the chase, and the girls to familiarize themselves with cloth-making, and to handle distaff and spindle, that they might not grow indolent through idleness, and he fostered in them every virtuous sentiment. He only lost three of all his children before his death, two sons and one daughter .... When his sons and his daughters died, he was not so calm as might have been expected from his remarkably strong mind, for his affections were no less strong, and moved him to tears. Again when he was told of the death of Hadrian, the Roman Pontiff, whom he had loved most of all his friends, he wept as much as if he had lost a brother, or a very dear son.

• From History of the Christian Church: The Complete Set of Eight Volumes (1858)

  These errors greatly stimulated and largely vitiated that virtue, and do it to this day.374 The Latin word caritas, which originally denotes dearness or costliness (from carus, dear), then esteem, affection, assumed in the church the more significant meaning of benevolence and beneficence, or love in active exercise, especially to the poor and suffering among our fellow-men. The sentiment and the deed must not be separated, and the gift of the hand derives its value from the love of the heart. Though the gifts are unequal, the benevolent love should be the same, and the widow’s mite is as much blessed by God as the princely donation of the rich. Ambrose compares benevolence in the intercourse of men with men to the sun in its relation to the earth. "Let the gifts of the wealthy," says another father, "be more abundant, but let not the poor be behind him in love." Very often, however, charity was contracted into mere almsgiving. Praying, fasting, and almsgiving were regarded (as also among the Jews and Mohammedans) as the chief works of piety; the last was put highest. For the sake of charity it is right to break the fast or to interrupt devotion. Pope Gregory the Great best represents the mediaeval charity with its ascetic self-denial, its pious superstitions and utilitarian ingredients. He lived in that miserable transition period when the old Roman civilization was crumbling to pieces and the new civilization was not yet built up on its ruins. "We see nothing but sorrow," he says, "we hear nothing but complaints. Ah, Rome! once the mistress of the world, where is the senate? where the people? The buildings are in ruins, the walls are falling. Everywhere the sword! Everywhere death! I am weary of life! "But charity remained as an angel of comfort. It could not prevent the general collapse, but it dried the tears and soothed the sorrows of individuals. Gregory was a father to the poor. He distributed every month cart-loads of corn, oil, wine, and meat among them. What the Roman emperors did from policy to keep down insurrection, this pope did from love to Christ and the poor. He felt personally guilty when a man died of starvation in Rome. He set careful and conscientious men over the Roman hospitals, and required them to submit regular accounts of the management of funds. He furnished the means for the founding of a Xenodochium in Jerusalem. He was the chief promoter of the custom of dividing the income of the church into four equal parts, one for the bishop, one for the rest of the clergy, one for the church buildings, one for the poor. At the same time he was a strong believer in the meritorious efficacy of almsgiving for the living and the dead. He popularized Augustin’s notion of purgatory, supported it by monkish fables, and introduced masses for the departed (without the so-called thirties, i.e. thirty days after death).

• From History of the Christian Church: The Complete Set of Eight Volumes (1858)

  create ten Doctor Martin Luthers for the old one drowned perhaps in the Saale, or fallen dead by the fireplace, or on Wolf’s fowling floor. Leave me in peace with your cares; I have a better protector than you and all the angels. He—my Protector—lies in the manger and hangs upon a Virgin’s breast, but He sits also at the right hand of God, the Father Almighty. Rest, therefore, in peace. Amen."591 In his will (1542), seventeen years after his marriage, he calls her a "pious, faithful, and devoted wife, full of loving, tender care towards him." At times, however, he felt oppressed by domestic troubles, and said once he would not marry again, not even a queen. Those were passing moods. "Oh, how smoothly things move on, when man and wife sit lovingly at table! Though they have their little bickerings now and then, they must not mind that. Put up with it." "We must have patience with woman, though she be it times sharp and bitter. She presides over the household machinery, and the servants deserve occasionally a good scolding." He put the highest honor of woman on her motherhood. "All men," he said, "are conceived, born, and nursed by women. Thence come the little darlings, the highly prized heirs. This honor ought in fairness to cover up all feminine weakness." Luther had six children,—three daughters, two of whom died young, and three sons, Hans (John), Martin, and Paul. None inherited his genius. Hans gave him much trouble. Paul rose to some eminence as physician of the Elector, and died at Dresden, 1593. The sons accompanied their father on his last journey to Eisleben.592 His wife’s aunt, Magdalen von Bora, who had been a nun and head-nurse in the same cloister, lived with his family, and was esteemed like a grandmother by him and his children. Two orphan nieces, and a tutor for the boys, an amanuensis, and a number of students as boarders, belonged to the household in a portion of the former convent on the banks of the Elbe. The chief sitting-room of the family, his bedroom, and the lecture hall are still shown in "the Lutherhaus." He began the day, after his private devotions, which were frequent and ardent, with reciting in his family the Ten Commandments, the Apostles’ Creed, the Lord’s Prayer, and a Psalm. He went to bed at nine, but rose early, and kept wide awake during the day. Of his private devotions we have an authentic account from his companion, Veit Dietrich, who wrote to Melanchthon during the Diet of Augsburg, 1530, when Luther was at Coburg, feeling the whole weight of that great crisis: — "No day passes that he does not give three hours to prayer, and those the fittest for study. Once I happened to hear him praying. Good God! how great a spirit, how great a faith, was in his very words!

• From History of the Christian Church: The Complete Set of Eight Volumes (1858)

  In the difficulties, which arose soon after Urban’s election, that pontiff looked to Siena and called its distinguished daughter to Rome. They had met in Avignon. Accompanied by her mother and other companions, she reached the holy city in the Autumn of 1378. They occupied a house by themselves and lived upon alms.368 Her summons to Urban "to battle only with the weapons of repentance, prayer, virtue and love" were not heeded. Her presence, however, had a beneficent influence, and on one occasion, when the mob raged and poured into the Vatican, she appeared as a peacemaker, and the sight of her face and her words quieted the tumult. She died lying on boards, April 29, 1380. To her companions standing at her side, she said: "Dear children, let not my death sadden you, rather rejoice to think that I am leaving a place of many sufferings to go to rest in the quiet sea, the eternal God, and to be united forever with my most sweet and loving Bridegroom. And I promise to be with you more and to be more useful to you, since I leave darkness to pass into the true and everlasting light." Again and again she whispered, "I have sinned, O Lord; be merciful to me." She prayed for Urban, for the whole Church and for her companions, and then she departed, repeating the words, "Into thy hands I commit my spirit." At the time of her death Catherine of Siena was not yet thirty-three years old. A magnificent funeral was ordered by Urban. A year after, her head, enclosed in a reliquary, was sent to her native Siena, and in 1461 she was canonized by the city’s famous son, pope Pius II., who uttered the high praise "that none ever approached her without going away better." In 1865 when Santa Maria sopra Minerva in Rome was reopened, her ashes were carried through the streets, the silver urn containing them being borne by four bishops. Lamps are kept ever burning at the altar dedicated to her in the church. In 1866 Pius IX. elevated the dyer’s daughter to the dignity of patron saint and protectress of Rome, a dignity she shares with the prince of the Apostles. With Petrarch she had been the most ardent advocate of its claims as the papal residence, and her zeal was exclusively religious.

• From The Pisces (2018)

  But underwater he was as powerful and graceful as Poseidon, only younger and gorgeous. Maybe he was the son of Poseidon, the wayward son. Maybe he was Aphrodite herself. “Let’s go,” he said. “Let’s get you back to the house. Then I can kiss all your wounds.” 42. Dominic was sprawled flat on the floor of the pantry like a pancake and didn’t stir. I wanted to take Theo upstairs to the bed, but didn’t know how. So I moved the wagon over to the sofa and let him haul himself up again. “I want all of your blood,” he said. I wasn’t sure if he meant from my pussy or from the wound, but I sat on top of him on the sofa and kissed his mouth. He flipped me over, kissed me down my body, then gently kissed around my scraped knee. “I’m so sorry,” he said. “It’s okay,” I said. He went up and down my leg until he was licking the crevice between my pussy and my thigh, then peeling my underpants off and licking my pussy. He flicked his tongue on my pussy, in the front, on my clit. Then he put his finger inside of me. It felt like two fingers were there because of my tampon. “Can I take this out?” he asked. I nodded and he pulled out my tampon and put it on the glass coffee table. The colors were both red and brown with a clump of purple blood on the side. I felt embarrassed. But he just kissed me and slipped two fingers in my pussy. Then he kissed down my belly back to my clit. Looking into his eyes, I thought, I will never forget this. He licked my blood off his fingers. He loves me, I thought. He completely and totally loves me. Soon there was blood on his face. I closed my eyes and rode his face. I came very quickly, for me. He had my blood dried and smeared across his cheek. I put my fingers in my pussy and smeared blood under his eyes like No Glare. It was funny to be dressing him up in my blood. Here he was, a man with a tail, and I was making him look even more bizarre. I was used to the tail by now. To me he was just a man or a boy or a boy-man, and I wanted to paint him with so many of my fluids: sweat, spit, blood. I wanted to brand or mark him. I imagined that in the ocean, blood would never stay in the entrance of a pussy. When I took baths with my period, or went swimming, my blood always stopped. We learned this in junior high school at swim practice: that your blood stops in water.

• From Available: The unfiltered and empowering new memoir for women about sex, dating and divorce after 40 (2021)

  I love the hunt, the flirting, the capturing, the moment when I know feelings are more than friendly, but I don’t think I need to do it again. I’m fully satisfied now. And I did think about you,” I say, putting the phone on the bed and climbing between the sheets. “What did you think about when you thought of me?” he asks. “I thought about how easy it is with you, how I’m comfortable with you even when I’m out of my comfort zone sexually. How new isn’t always better. How you treat me like I’m more than just a receptacle for your pleasure,” I say. “All this while fucking the man of your dreams on a beach in the Caribbean,” he says, laughing. “Make all the jokes you want. I know it’s hard for you to speak openly about your feelings. I’m telling you the truth, I have no incentive to conjure feelings to make you feel better about your manhood,” I say. “Do you think I’m a pervert because I want all the details?” he asks. “Absolutely,” I say. “But now I must sleep. My eyes are closing while I talk to you,” I say, and immediately fall into a deep, blissful slumber. CHAPTER 46WritingParked on lounge chairs next to the pool under the blazing morning sun, Georgia asks me to take her down the beach to get a coconut from Blaze, a request I suggest she take to Michael instead. I watch them walk away, swinging their hands together as they run through the hot sand to get to the edge of the water. I feel anxious, knowing I have something weighing on me that I need to share with Michael. It’s not about my dalliance the night before, as that’s something I get to keep all to myself, it’s about my writing. I’ve been working on it and I like doing it. It has been cathartic, allowing me to sort out my feelings as I put them into words on my computer screen or into the Wonder Woman Moleskine notebook #6 bought me, and my friends who work in publishing have told me they think it could be a book. I want nothing more than to take my heap of messy emotions and even messier dating stories and smooth them out, craft them together into a cohesive narrative, but the thought of revealing myself so publicly and outing Michael’s indiscretion are roadblocks I can’t get past. When they come back a few minutes later, Georgia holds up her coconut for me victoriously and puts the straw into my mouth so I can take a sip. “Look at Mama with her bunny hairdo and big sunglasses and tropical bikini,” Michael says. Georgia eyes me, then shrugs her shoulders. “She looks fine, I guess.” “What do you mean, she looks fine?” he continues. “You should feel proud that you have such a pretty mommy!”

• From The Pisces (2018)

  Jude. “I would strongly suggest setting a boundary with him.” “Do not send the money,” said Chickenhorse. “He’s probably a catfish!” “A what?” asked Brianne. “A catfish. Like, a scammer. Someone who pretends to be someone he isn’t.” “Oh no, he’s not a scammer. I know that he is who he says he is. We’re very close.” “How long have you known him again?” I asked. “About six days,” said Brianne. We all looked at her. “It’s been a rich and rewarding six days.” Sara looked at her quizzically over the pomegranate she was peeling. But she was in no position to judge. Having almost reached her ninety days of no contact with Stan, she had had a slip. A big one. Now not only were they in contact again but they’d been seeing each other. Stan had reached out with an apologetic one-thousand-word email declaring his love. He also sent her a bouquet of carnations. Of course, Sara was allergic to them and gave them to a neighbor, but that wasn’t the point. “He’s been staying with me for the past two days. And I know what you’re thinking! Bad idea, he’s just going to hurt me again. But this time something truly seems different. He still isn’t ready for marriage or an engagement or even to call me his girlfriend or commit to monogamy, but he’s showing up for me in a way that he never has before. He’s truly present.” “I see,” said Dr. Jude. She was wearing what looked like a pair of silk pajamas. “What do you think was the impetus for the change?” “I think he realized I was serious this time. That I wasn’t going to take him back.” “But you did take him back,” said Chickenhorse. “No, I know. I mean before that. I think he realized the gravity of his error,” she said. “Also, he lost his job at the hospital and has nowhere else to go. He’s been living in his car.” “What?” We all balked. I struggled to keep from laughing. Compared to the rest of them I was actually doing well. “I can’t forbid you from seeing him,” said Dr. Jude. “But I want you to remember the state you were in when you came in here, how much you were suffering. In my experience these sorts of relationships only get worse, never better.” “I know.” Sara sniffed. “And I know you’re all going to judge me. And Dr. Jude, I know I broke our deal. But he needs me. At the ‘Opening the Heart’ workshop they said that we can only recover from the past by coming to terms with our core truths. Well, he’s been sleeping on a mat in the resting area of the Korean spa. And I’m a compassionate person. And I want him to be with me. So that’s my core truth.”