The triumph of spelling "Karol Wojtyla" correctly

Two items.

1. About 90 percent of my articles these days have been about the double canonizations of Popes John Paul II and John XXIII this Sunday, April 27. Fun stuff. One of the things I have been trying to ask everyone I interview is, "how have these soon-to-be saints, and their upcoming canonizations, influenced your life?" Most of peoples' responses are quite inspiring.

Today I realized how this canonization stuff has influenced *my* life for the better. For the first time, I can now spell (and pronounce) "Karol Wojtyla" correctly without resorting to Google or a nearby prayer card or a stylebook.

Spring again

Pauline Baynes' illustration of Susan, Aslan & Lucy

Crying toddlers on a Good Friday afternoon

The child Jesus of "The Passion of the Christ"

Today I attended my church's Stations of the Cross performed by the youth group, prior to the regular Good Friday service.

There was a family sitting in front of me with two small children - the little boy seemed maybe two or three. The boy was fidgety, as small children often are during long church occasions, but his mom pointed out the scenes taking place in the Stations, and he began paying attention.

When we reached the crucifixion, the little boy had become so taken by the performance that he became visibly upset. When we reached the 12th Station, "Jesus Dies on the Cross" - in which the teenager playing Jesus let out an enormous, jarring breath and convincingly "died" - the little guy was wailing and asking to "go bye-bye." The mom took the weeping child out of church.

Now. This was no Mel Gibson's Passion of the Christ. This was your typical church production, played with varying levels of talent and costume authenticity, more for spiritual edification than for critics' acclaim.

Holy Week: the king still has a crown

The flowers crown the fallen king. 

"The brief glow fell upon a huge sitting figure, still and solemn as the great stone kings of Argonath.The years had gnawed it, and violent hands had maimed it. Its head was gone, and in its place was set in mockery a round rough-hewn stone, rudely painted by savage hands in the likeness of a grinning face with one large red eye in the midst of its forehead. Upon its knees and mighty chair, and all about the pedestal, were idle scrawls mixed with the foul symbols that the maggot-folk of Mordor used. 

Suddenly. caught by the level beams, Frodo saw the old king's head: it had rolled away by the roadside. "Look Sam!" he cried, startled into speech. "Look! The king has got a crown again!" 

The eyes were hollow and the carven beard was broken, but about the high stern forehead there was a coronal of silver and gold. A trailing plant with flowers like small white stars had bound itself across the brows as if in reverence for the fallen king, and in the crevasses of his stony hair yellow stonecrop gleamed. 

"They cannot conquer forever!" said Frodo. And then suddenly the brief glimpse was gone. The Sun dipped and vanished, and as if at the shuttering of a lamp, black night fell."

- "The Two Towers," by J. R.R. Tolkien

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