Friday, March 05, 2021

A new image for St. Nunzio Sulprizio



Terry Nelson
2021

 

St. Nunzio, pray for us.

I was attracted to Nunzio Sulprizio many years ago, since he led a difficult life and suffered abuse in his childhood and teen years. I first heard Fr. John Horgan speak of him on Mother Angelica sometime in the 1990's.  His story and example of patience in suffering is remarkable. Go here for an overview of his life.

In this study, I based his looks upon the canonization image and early prints of the saint as to how he looked in life.  This image is so farunvarnished, since I just finished it - the exposure is a bit light saturated.   

He's been my companion all winter, spending a couple hours a day working on the painting.  We have a few things in common, I think.

A mystic worth noting...


Saint Marguerite Bays

This woman's holiness is notable, not due to her mystical gifts, but to her charity and ordinary life.  Saints are never canonized for mystical gifts or phenomenon, but rather their heroic virtue and fidelity.

She is the ideal mystic, since her mystical gifts went unnoticed for a long time, not interfering with her daily duties, nor attracting attention to herself.  She never developed a cult following, nor allowed herself to become a local celebrity and so on.  There was nothing morbid about her spiritual life.  

Her family, a place of holiness

Remaining in the paternal domicile, she made sure to participate well in the household tasks which fell to her. Her sister-in-law Josette did not make her life easy : a severe and rude woman, she humiliated Marguerite and did not spare her. Marguerite did not hold grudges against her. And, when Josette arrived at the end of her life, struck down precociously by an illness, Marguerite took care of her and prepared her for death. She was in fact the only person she accepted near her.

Her sister Marie-Marguerite, called « Mariette », suffered from the dissolution of her marriage, and came back to live at home. Her brother Joseph, who remained a bachelor, with a rather violent character and sometimes loose morals, ended up serving a short prison sentence! And her elder brother Claude had a child outside wedlock, the little François. Marguerite asked him to recognise the child officially. She took charge of his education. On the other hand her brother Jean understood better the mystical life of his sister and sometimes worried about her health.

Faced with her brothers and sisters, victims of difficult situations in their life, Marguerite would never have judged them in a moralist manner. On the contrary, through her testimony of a life filled with love and charity, each in their turn felt attracted by Christ to then undertake through love a true path of conversion. - Biography St, Marguerite


"Each Friday, Marguerite relived the Passion of Christ in her flesh. United with Jesus, she offered up the suffering she endured in the silence and privacy of her bedroom, sheltered from public eyes."


Tuesday, March 02, 2021

Spring is here



I saw a group of 5 robins this morning.  They were on the hill across the street, which faces south and the lawn was exposed.  They were eating or harvesting material for nests.  I've never seen them in groups like that before.

When I went online, FB messaged me that my account was restricted due to a meme I post a long time ago, which they found offensive.  It was a joke.  They also didn't like a gif from 3rd Rock that I posted of Dick choking Mary.  I signed onto MeWe for now.  It's a blessing to be censored from FB, I recently deleted my Tumblr account as well.  I still have Twitter, but do not use it much.  Social media is the Big Brother of our age, so it is better not to allow oneself to be so enslaved to it.  

Cancel culture and censorship is nothing new - it is simply the manner in which it is executed these days, and by whom.  The Church and Christian denominations have always performed this function.  Excommunication, interdict, the index of forbidden books, and so on.  Other denominations have the tradition of shunning and other types of sanction.  Christian communities always had their outcasts whom they marginalized and excluded.  Of course, the same dynamic is seen in parishes, religious groups, and among 'friends' - who will unfriend someone for a simple disagreement.  Today secular entities have assumed that role - in a concerted effort to control behavior, enforce social standards, and achieve a level of thought conformity.