MONTH OF MAY

THIS is the laughing-eyed amongst them all:
My lady's month. A season of young things.
She rules the light with harmony, and brings
The year's first green upon the beeches tall.
How often, where long creepers wind and fall
Through the deep woods in noonday wanderings,
I’ve heard the month, when she to echo sings,
I've heard the month make merry madrigal.

How often, bosomed in the breathing strong
Of mosses and young flowerets, have I lain
And watched the clouds, and caught the sheltered song -
Which it were more than life to hear again -
Of those small birds that pipe it all day long
Not far from Marly by the memoried Seine.

~Hilaire Belloc

Feast of the Rose Garlands, by DÜRER, Albrecht.
Oil on poplar panel, 1506; Národní Galerie, Prague

The Church, Then and Now…

“THE Catholic Church was not an opinion, nor a fashion, nor a philosophy; it was not a theory nor a habit; it was a “clearly delineated body corporate based on numerous exact doctrines,” extremely jealous of its unity and of its precise definitions, and filled, as was no other body of men at that time, with passionate conviction.”

― Europe and the Faith
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“THE Church itself was regarded (and will continue to be regarded by its adherents) as immortal, but its administration is subject to perpetual threat of mortality, that is, of corruption and weakness tending to extinction.”

― The Crisis of Civilization
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~Hilaire Belloc

The Church as the Path to Salvation, by Andrea Da Firenze.
Fresco, 1366-67; Cappellone degli Spagnoli, Santa Maria Novella, Florence