"Melvin!" by Harvey Kurtzman (in English)

art by John Severin - Mad vol.1 #2 - December-January 1953.

Untitled Poem by José Thiesen (in Portuguese)

Naquela noite de verão, cheia de luar,
quando pensei que me amavas, foste
pra longe, deixando-me só em negros
dias de verão, trevosos, tão longos.

Na chuvosa noite de primavera,
quando de longe chegavam a mim
os suspiros compridos de teus amantes
te chegastes a mim, d'esperanças cheio.

Na cálida manhã de outono,
quando vazios d'esperanças tantas
fechamos a cortina de nosso amo,
fugimos para escuros dias de solidão.

Nesta fria manhã d'inverno,
fria como nossos corações partidos,
vimos nossos ossos secos,
vimos nossas almas mortas.

“In Flanders Fields” by Lieutenant-Colonel John McCrae (in English)

In Flanders fields the poppies blow

Between the crosses, row on row,

That mark our place; and in the sky

The larks, still bravely singing, fly

Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago

We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,

Loved and were loved, and now we lie

In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:

To you from failing hands we throw

The torch; be yours to hold it high.

If ye break faith with us who die

We shall not sleep, though poppies grow

In Flanders fields.

Catéchèse a Propos de la Famille (9.1): "Homme et Femme" par François I (translated into French)(translated into French)

Place Saint-Pierre, Mercredi 15 avril 2015

Chers frères et sœurs, bonjour!

            La catéchèse d’aujourd’hui est consacrée à un aspect central du thème de la famille: celui du grand don que Dieu a fait à l’humanité avec la création de l’homme et de la femme et avec le sacrement du mariage. Cette catéchèse et la prochaine concernent la différence et la complémentarité entre l’homme et la femme, qui sont au sommet de la création divine; les deux autres qui suivront ensuite porteront sur d’autres thèmes du mariage.

            Commençons par un bref commentaire au premier récit de la création, dans le Livre de la Genèse. Ici, nous lisons que Dieu, après avoir créé l’univers et tous les êtres vivants, créa le chef d’œuvre, c’est-à-dire l’être humain, qu’il fit à son image: «à l'image de Dieu il le créa, homme et femme il les créa» (Gn 1, 27), ainsi dit le Livre de la Genèse.

            Et comme nous le savons tous, la différence sexuelle est présente sous tant de formes de vie, dans les différentes formes d’espèces vivantes. Mais ce n’est que dans l’homme et la femme qu’elle porte en elle l’image et la ressemblance de Dieu: le texte biblique le répète au moins trois fois dans deux versets (26-27); l’homme et la femme sont à l’image et à la ressemblance de Dieu. Cela nous dit que non seulement l’homme pris en soi est à l’image de Dieu, non seulement la femme prise en soi est l’image de Dieu, mais aussi que l’homme et la femme, comme couple, sont l’image de Dieu. La différence entre l’homme et la femme ne vise pas l’opposition, ou la subordination, mais la communion, l’engendrement, toujours à l’image et ressemblance de Dieu.

            L’expérience nous l’enseigne: pour bien nous connaître et croître harmonieusement, l’être humain a besoin de la réciprocité entre homme et femme. Lorsque cela n’est pas le cas, on en voit les conséquences. Nous sommes faits pour nous écouter et nous aider réciproquement. Nous pouvons dire que sans l’enrichissement réciproque dans cette relation — dans la pensée et dans l’action, dans les attaches familiales et dans le travail, et également dans la foi — tous deux ne peuvent même pas comprendre pleinement ce que signifie être homme et femme.

            La culture moderne et contemporaine a ouvert de nouveaux espaces, de nouvelles libertés et de nouvelles profondeurs pour l’enrichissement de la compréhension de cette différence. Mais elle a introduit également de nombreux doutes et beaucoup de scepticisme. Par exemple, je me demande si ce que l’on appelle la théorie du gender n’est pas également l’expression d’une frustration et d’une résignation, qui vise à effacer la différence sexuelle parce qu’elle ne sait plus s’y confronter. Oui, nous risquons de faire un pas en arrière. L’annulation de la différence, en effet, est le problème, pas la solution. Pour résoudre leurs problèmes de relation, l’homme et la femme doivent au contraire se parler davantage, s’écouter davantage, se connaître davantage, s’aimer davantage. Ils doivent se traiter avec respect et coopérer avec amitié. Avec ces deux bases humaines, soutenues par la grâce de Dieu, il est possible de projeter l’union matrimoniale et familiale pour toute la vie. Le lien matrimonial et familial est une chose sérieuse, il l’est pour tous, pas seulement pour les croyants. Je voudrais exhorter les intellectuels à ne pas déserter ce thème, comme s’il était devenu secondaire pour l’engagement en faveur d’une société plus libre et plus juste.

            Dieu a confié la terre à l’alliance de l’homme et de la femme: son échec rend aride le monde des attaches familiales et obscurcit le ciel de l’espérance. Les signaux sont déjà préoccupants et nous les voyons. Je voudrais indiquer, parmi beaucoup d’autres, deux points qui doivent selon moi nous engager avec plus d’urgence.

            Le premier. Il ne fait aucun doute que nous devons faire beaucoup plus en faveur de la femme, si nous voulons redonner plus de force à la réciprocité entre hommes et femmes. Il est nécessaire, en effet, que la femme non seulement soit plus écoutée, mais que sa voix ait un poids réel, une autorité reconnue, dans la société et dans l’Eglise. La façon même dont Jésus a considéré la femme dans un contexte moins favorable que le nôtre, parce qu’à cette époque, la femme était vraiment placée au second plan, et Jésus l’a considérée d’une façon qui émet une lumière puissante, qui illumine une route qui conduit loin, dont nous avons parcouru uniquement un petit bout. Nous n’avons pas encore compris en profondeur quelles sont les choses que peuvent nous apporter le génie féminin, les choses que la femme peut apporter à la société et à nous aussi: la femme sait voir les choses avec d’autres yeux qui complètent la pensée des hommes. C’est une voie à parcourir avec plus de créativité et d’audace.

            Une deuxième réflexion concerne le thème de l’homme et de la femme créés à l’image de Dieu. Je me demande si la crise de confiance collective en Dieu, qui nous fait tant de mal, qui nous rend malades de résignation face à l’incrédulité et le cynisme, n’est pas liée elle aussi à la crise de l’alliance entre homme et femme. En effet, le récit biblique, avec la grande fresque symbolique sur le paradis terrestre et le péché originel, nous dit précisément que la communion avec Dieu se reflète dans la communion du couple humain et la perte de la confiance dans le Père céleste engendre la division et le conflit entre l’homme et la femme.

            D’où la grande responsabilité de l’Eglise, de tous les croyants, et surtout des familles de croyants, pour redécouvrir la beauté du dessein créateur qui inscrit l’image de Dieu également dans l’alliance entre l’homme et la femme. La terre se remplit d’harmonie et de confiance lorsque l’alliance entre l’homme et la femme est vécue dans le bien. Et si l’homme et la femme la recherchent ensemble entre eux et avec Dieu, ils la trouvent sans aucun doute. Jésus nous encourage de façon explicite au témoignage de cette beauté qui est l’image de Dieu.

            Je salue cordialement les pèlerins venus de Suisse, de Belgique, de Turquie, du Canada et de France, en particulier un groupe de prêtres du diocèse de Fréjus-Toulon avec Monseigneur Dominique Rey et le Séminaire Saint Irénée de Lyon.

            Je souhaite à tous un bon pèlerinage dans la joie du Seigneur ressuscité, vous invitant à entrer dans le mystère de sa miséricorde infinie. Que Dieu vous bénisse.

“The Other Lodgers” by Ambrose Bierce (in English)

            "In order to take that train," said Colonel Levering, sitting in the Waldorf-Astoria hotel, "you will have to remain nearly all night in Atlanta. That is a fine city, but I advise you not to put up at the Breathitt House, one of the principal hotels. It is an old wooden building in urgent need of repairs. There are breaches in the walls that you could throw a cat through. The bedrooms have no locks on the doors, no furniture but a single chair in each, and a bedstead without bedding--just a mattress. Even these meager accommodations you cannot be sure that you will have in monopoly; you must take your chance of being stowed in with a lot of others. Sir, it is a most abominable hotel.

            "The night that I passed in it was an uncomfortable night. I got in late and was shown to my room on the ground floor by an apologetic night-clerk with a tallow candle, which he considerately left with me. I was worn out by two days and a night of hard railway travel and had not entirely recovered from a gunshot wound in the head, received in an altercation. Rather than look for better quarters I lay down on the mattress without removing my clothing and fell asleep.

            "Along toward morning I awoke. The moon had risen and was shining in at the uncurtained window, illuminating the room with a soft, bluish light which seemed, somehow, a bit spooky, though I dare say it had no uncommon quality; all moonlight is that way if you will observe it. Imagine my surprise and indignation when I saw the floor occupied by at least a dozen other lodgers! I sat up, earnestly damning the management of that unthinkable hotel, and was about to spring from the bed to go and make trouble for the night- clerk--him of the apologetic manner and the tallow candle--when something in the situation affected me with a strange indisposition to move. I suppose I was what a story-writer might call 'frozen with terror.' For those men were obviously all dead!

            "They lay on their backs, disposed orderly along three sides of the room, their feet to the walls--against the other wall, farthest from the door, stood my bed and the chair. All the faces were covered, but under their white cloths the features of the two bodies that lay in the square patch of moonlight near the window showed in sharp profile as to nose and chin.

            "I thought this a bad dream and tried to cry out, as one does in a nightmare, but could make no sound. At last, with a desperate effort I threw my feet to the floor and passing between the two rows of clouted faces and the two bodies that lay nearest the door, I escaped from the infernal place and ran to the office. The night- clerk was there, behind the desk, sitting in the dim light of another tallow candle--just sitting and staring. He did not rise: my abrupt entrance produced no effect upon him, though I must have looked a veritable corpse myself. It occurred to me then that I had not before really observed the fellow. He was a little chap, with a colorless face and the whitest, blankest eyes I ever saw. He had no more expression than the back of my hand. His clothing was a dirty gray.

            "'Damn you!' I said; 'what do you mean?'

            "Just the same, I was shaking like a leaf in the wind and did not recognize my own voice.

            "The night-clerk rose, bowed (apologetically) and--well, he was no longer there, and at that moment I felt a hand laid upon my shoulder from behind. Just fancy that if you can! Unspeakably frightened, I turned and saw a portly, kind-faced gentleman, who asked:

            "'What is the matter, my friend?'

            "I was not long in telling him, but before I made an end of it he went pale himself. 'See here,' he said, 'are you telling the truth?'

            "I had now got myself in hand and terror had given place to indignation. 'If you dare to doubt it,' I said, 'I'll hammer the life out of you!'

            "'No,' he replied, 'don't do that; just sit down till I tell you. This is not a hotel. It used to be; afterward it was a hospital. Now it is unoccupied, awaiting a tenant. The room that you mention was the dead-room--there were always plenty of dead. The fellow that you call the night-clerk used to be that, but later he booked the patients as they were brought in. I don't understand his being here. He has been dead a few weeks.'

            "'And who are you?' I blurted out.

            "'Oh, I look after the premises. I happened to be passing just now, and seeing a light in here came in to investigate. Let us have a look into that room,' he added, lifting the sputtering candle from the desk.

            "'I'll see you at the devil first!' said I, bolting out of the door into the street.

            "Sir, that Breathitt House, in Atlanta, is a beastly place! Don't you stop there."

            "God forbid! Your account of it certainly does not suggest comfort. By the way, Colonel, when did all that occur?"

"In September, 1864--shortly after the siege."

Letter from J. R. R. Tolkien to Michael Tolkien (in English) - III

9 June 1941 20 Northmoor Road, Oxford

My dearest Michael,

            

    I was so glad to hear from you. I would have written earlier to-day, only Mummy carried your letter off to Birmingham, before I had time to do more than glance at it. I am afraid that I show up badly as a letter writer: but really I get sick of the pen. Lectures ended on Thursday, and I hoped to get a little while (a) to rest, and (b) to put some order into the garden before 'Schools' begin on Thursday (Corpus Christi). But the everlasting rain has prevented my outdoor work, and lots of extra business prevented any rest. I sympathize with Govt. officials! I have spent most of my time of late drafting rules and regulations, only to find all kinds of loopholes as soon as they are in print, and only to be cursed and criticized by those who have not done the work, and won't try to understand the aims and objects!....

                One War is enough for any man. I hope you will be spared a second. Either the bitterness of youth or that of middle-age is enough for a life-time: both is too much. I suffered once what you are going through, if rather differently: because I was very inefficient and unmilitary (and we are alike only in sharing a deep sympathy and feeling for the 'tommy', especially the plain soldier from the agricultural counties). I did not then believe that the 'old folk' suffered much. Now I know. I tell you I feel like a lame canary in a cage. To carry on the old pre-war job – it is just poison. If only I could do something active! But there it is: I am 'permanently reserved', and as such I have my hands too full even to be a Home Guard. And I cannot even get out o'nights to have a crack with a crony.

                Still you are my flesh and blood, and carry on the name. It is something to be the father of a good young soldier. Can't you see why I care so much about you, and why all that you do concerns me so closely? Still, let us both take heart of hope and faith. The link between father and son is not only of the perishable flesh: it must have something of aeternitas about it. There is a place called 'heaven' where the good here unfinished is completed; and where the stories unwritten, and the hopes unfulfilled, are continued. We may laugh together yet...

                Did you see Maxwell (the 'tobacco-controller's') account of what the wholesale dealers were doing! They ought to be in quod. .... Commercialism is a swine at heart. But I suppose the major English vice is sloth. And it is to sloth, as much or as more than to natural virtue, that we owe our escape from the oven violences of other countries. In the fierce modern world, indeed, sloth does begin almost to look like a virtue. But it is rather terrifying to see so much of it about, when we are grappling with the Furor Teutonicus.

                People in this land seem not even yet to realize that in the Germans we have enemies whose virtues (and they are virtues) of obedience and patriotism are greater than ours in the mass. Whose brave men are just about as brave as ours. Whose industry is about 10 times greater. And who are – under the curse of God – now led by a man inspired by a mad, whirlwind, devil: a typhoon, a passion: that makes the poor old Kaiser look like an old woman knitting.

                I have spent most of my life, since I was your age, studying Germanic matters (in the general sense that includes England and Scandinavia). There is a great deal more force (and truth) than ignorant people imagine in the 'Germanic' ideal. I was much attracted by it as an undergraduate (when Hitler was, I suppose, dabbling in paint, and had not heard of it), in reaction against the 'Classics'. You have to understand the good in things, to detect the real evil. But no one ever calls on me to 'broadcast', or do a postscript! Yet I suppose I know better than most what is the truth about this 'Nordic' nonsense. Anyway, I have in this War a burning private grudge – which would probably make me a better soldier at 49 than I was at 22: against that ruddy little ignoramus Adolf Hitler (for the odd thing about demonic inspiration and impetus is that it in no way enhances the purely intellectual stature: it chiefly affects the mere will). Ruining, perverting, misapplying, and making for ever accursed, that noble northern spirit, a supreme contribution to Europe, which I have ever loved, and tried to present in its true light. Nowhere, incidentally, was it nobler than in England, nor more early sanctified and Christianized. ....

                Pray for me. I need it, sorely. I love you.

                                Your own Father.