So, I really WAS dusting. But I was also thinking about Richard Crashaw. One thing led to another and somehow I was sitting at the computer I was supposed to be dusting and reading all about him. I am glad I did. He overlapped the life of George Herbert but had a very different way to follow. He was born to one William Crashaw who was a famous Puritan Divine in the time of Charles I. His mother died when he was quite young and not much is known of her. William was always arguing against the Catholic Church - railing up one side and the other about its doctrines, its politics, its Papist ways - in lively caustic language like "besotted Jesuitries" and "Romish falsifications"! But he had one weakness, did the elder Crashaw. He was attracted by Catholic devotion as exhibited by his translation of verse by Catholic poets. Hmmmm. He just couldn't stay away from the beauty.
What a beautiful story. When I was a Protestant I was skeptical of beauty, thinking it to always be superficial. Most of my life was spent in the Church of Christ until a friend asked me to visit her Anglo Catholic leaning Episcopal church. I was enthralled by the reverence and beauty and for the first time was being taught about the rolls of Truth, Goodness, and Beauty. Then another beautiful thing happened. I had never been exposed to The Creed until then and the words of it made me question what is the true Church. Those questions eventually led me to the Catholic Church where the fullness of Truth, Goodness and Beauty reside.
What a beautiful story. When I was a Protestant I was skeptical of beauty, thinking it to always be superficial. Most of my life was spent in the Church of Christ until a friend asked me to visit her Anglo Catholic leaning Episcopal church. I was enthralled by the reverence and beauty and for the first time was being taught about the rolls of Truth, Goodness, and Beauty. Then another beautiful thing happened. I had never been exposed to The Creed until then and the words of it made me question what is the true Church. Those questions eventually led me to the Catholic Church where the fullness of Truth, Goodness and Beauty reside.