Pensamientos

Reading: Resurrection by Leo Tolstoy

Catedral de la Inmaculada Concepción, Cuenca

Since I have been spending a fair amount of time in mass while at the same time reading Joyce and Tolstoy, both who write a great deal about religion, I figured I’d leave you all with this nice Tolstoy passage from Resurrection. It seems so fitting for Catholicism here.

And none of those present … seemed conscious of the fact that this Jesus, whose name the priest repeated such a great number of times, whom he praised with all these curious expressions, had forbidden the very things that were being done there: that he had not only prohibited this meaningless much speaking and the blasphemous incantation over the bread and wine, but had also, in the clearest words, forbidden men to call other men their masters or to pray in temples; had taught that every one should pray in solitude; had forbidden to erect temples, saying that he had come to destroy them and that one should worships, not in a temple, but in spirit and in truth; and, above all, that not only had he forbidden to judge, to imprison, to torment, to execute men, as was done here, but had even prohibited any kind of violence, saying that he had come to give freedom to the captives.

That is all.