Glamorisation of the Mask

This piece of advertising caught my eye at the side of a new office block in Warsaw, because a budding artist has added two black face masks to the young female faces. With poetic license, the artist has made the masks look better and more interesting than what they are in reality.

David Icke refers to face masks as "nappies for the face" and views them as a form of ritual humiliation, as American and European states increase their 1984-type control over compliant populations. In my imagination, I can't help but think of the face masks that lepers wore in the Old Testament, especially when seeing leftist agitators demonstrating en masse in the West.

A Welcome Guest

Sometimes another Ginger Tom visits our place in eastern Poland.

He can only usually be photographed from a distance, because he's shy of people.

Below, he can be faintly seen leaping through the air like a hare:

Everything Thrown In

This meal from yesterday was a case of everything thrown in: broccoli dumplings; pea burger; potatoes; carrots; aubergine; courgette; beetroot; cheese; and a small courgette/carrot salad.

The great thing about healthy food, of course, is that both body and soul feel uplifted after eating.

Lord of the World: Justifying Catholicism

After several stops and starts, I've eventually finished reading Robert Hugh Benson's dystopian novel, Lord of the World:

Absolutely loved reading this, but it was a haunting experience especially when considering the leftist totalitarianism that the Western world is now nosediving towards. The novel encapsulates just what it means to hold the embattled position of being an orthodox-minded Catholic when everything is being destroyed by a secularist world without God, grace, forgiveness, and redemption.

My favourite lines in the novel are from page 242, near the start of part III of Chapter I of Book III: The Victory, when Father Percy Franklin, now Pope Silvester, discloses something of his "inner life":

      "He acted rather than indulged in reflex thought. But the centre of His position was simple faith.
       The Catholic Religion ... gave the only adequate explanation of the universe; it did not unlock all
       mysteries, but it unlocked more than any other key known to man ... it was the only system of
       thought that satisfied man as a whole and accounted for him in his essential nature".

In my life, I've explored all kinds of materialist ideologies and other religions, but none have given me a greater sense of truth than (pre-Vatican II type) Catholicism, especially concerning man's body-soul nature.

The only thing that disappointed me in Lord of the World is that poor Mabel Brand misses the signs/ opportunities to convert to Catholicism, and instead chooses to end her life in a euthanasia clinic in Manchester after she has observed the bloodthirsty nature of secular 'humanism' in action.

And what about the closing scenes of the novel in Nazareth? Well, Cardinal Dolgorovski is obviously a Judas figure. Moreover, the final pages remind me of TS Eliot's Murder in a Cathedral, as, like St. Thomas Becket, Pope Silvester's whole soul accepts, embraces, and welcomes the inevitability of martyrdom:

      "Then this world passed, and the glory of it".

This is, of course, an ironic reference to the passing of an earthly world with a baseline secularist 'glory' without God.

During a recent Taylor Marshall (brilliant Catholic convert/apologist) Youtube piece, he said something like: the leftist revolutionaries who are currently wrecking the Western world as we know it, can smash things to pieces, destroy our churches, and maybe even come to kill us, but they can't take away our faith or eternal destiny. For me, it was more than just coincidence that I heard this immediately after finishing Lord of the World, it was like a final explanation of the meaning behind Benson's truly great Catholic novel.

Pierogi with Feta Cheese

To spruce the quickly-cooked broccoli and spinach pierogi above, I topped them with feta cheese, giving them a nice salty taste, of course.

Below, one of my staple vegetarian meals contains feta, again to boost the taste:

Mruczek in the Gazebo

My wife got a nice surprise when she went into the gazebo one morning and our old friend, Mruczek, was there, probably relaxing after a night of hunting.

Unfortunately, one of Mruczek's ears isn't in good condition, probably the result of fighting with other cats:

Mruczek is next door's cat but he regularly visits us.

Canterbury: The Fallen Cross

Was very sad to see that this wonderful, old wooden Celtic cross, from a grave inside St. Martin's church grounds, had fallen over. Can still remember doing a tour for foreign students  at an EFL school in Canterbury, and the students always marvelling at this cross when it was still standing.

Saw the fallen cross last summer and looking at this picture now, it seems highly symbolic of the chaos that is currently happening in the USA and Britain, with young, mainly middle-class leftists/ nihilists trying to topple any statues that they happen to come across.

Old churches like St. Martin's just remind me of brighter, more metaphysical times.

A Sunday Afternoon Walk

Some shots from walking to the old Latin Mass in Warsaw the past two Sundays. The one below shows that early summer is starting to bloom:

Was pleased to see that the building below is still standing despite being derelict for some years:

For me, this building has genuine aesthetic merit, and I always enjoy zooming in to catch closer details:
 

The insignia from the entrance to the Jewish cemetery, the latter is worth a visit for the beautiful gravestones, but these days, I find myself without enough time:

I would guess that the cross below may be a memorial to a traffic accident victim or Poles massacred during the 2nd World War:

The Shopping Centre Cat

Think it's obvious that I love cats.

That's why it was great to see the return of the cat on the revolving adverts at the Arkadia shopping centre in Warsaw.

When the lockdown started, he sadly disappeared, but when it was lifted, he happily reappeared.

Chatting with Kotek on the Phone

Nice shot of my chat with Kotek by i-phone. Kotek was too dosey to say much on this occasion.

Herne Village Revisited

This was the first time I'd seen Herne Village in about 12 years. The first two shots here are from the Anglican church grounds.  The one below reminded me of old gravestones from Hardy's Wessex (Dorset):

I have a soft spot for Herne because I used to attend the Old Latin Mass at the small SSPX chapel in the village:

Can recall attending low Mass mid-summer and listening to birds singing as the sacred consecration was taking place.

Sometimes, after Mass, I used to go wandering round the village, especially if I had a long time to wait for the bus back to Canterbury. Think that the mansion house below is an old people's home where outside theatre is shown during summer:

Warsaw: Snow in Early April

Had to capture the atmosphere of this brief snow storm in early April.

For most of winter, Warsaw had seen next to no snow, but in early April, during the early days of the lockdown, it suddenly came.

Unfortunately, it all melted within 15-20 minutes.

Returning to Mass

What a relief it was to physically attend the old Latin Mass again last Sunday.

For over two months, I had had to watch the old Latin Mass streamlined on Youtube, which I did from an SSPX church in Florida. I think that watching Mass online is definitely better than doing nothing, but I can only view it as kind of half-attending Mass

On Ascension Thursday, I was lucky. After tuning in too late to catch the old Latin Mass from the SSPX church in Florida, I still managed to catch it from an ICKSP (Institute of Christ the King Sovereign Priest) church in Wausau, Wisconsin:
 

A Great Concoction

This concoction of pierogi and tomato soup worked a treat.

The pierogi was filled with broccoli and tomato soup made from aubergine, carrot, vegan sausage and a tin of tomatoes.