It has been a tough start to 2025. There has been dramatic change at both work and politically. Those two things combined with two illnesses I haven’t had much energy or motivation to do much outside of work except read. Therefore, I’m a bit behind on my reading notes having read three other books since this one. Finally, I’m making an effort to catch up.
My favorite books are about life in simple villages pre-Victorian era and this certainly fit the bill. It was interesting to read all the details about cathedral building and although I certainly feel more informed, architecture isn’t as interesting to me as history. This novel is fiction but it gives me a glimpse into the church and cathedral building trade which would have been prevalent from the middle ages onward. In the history books I’ve read, none have gone into details about the amount of effort, of organization, of finance and of manpower to build the glorious churches and cathedrals prevalent around Europe.
In the USA in modern times, we no longer build such glorious edifices. We have skyscrapers yes, and many beautiful, but these are structures that worship capitalism, instead of a divine power and so I suppose it comes as no surprise that cathedrals of Europe are so much more visually striking and where, in many, no expense was spared. You can find these beautiful places in many small villages in Europe but in America you’ll usually just find a Walmart, and a McDonalds. If you’re lucky, the court house or city hall is probably the only building worth seeing. It is a shame we’re such a ‘tear down’ culture with little regard for history.
On to my notes.
You’re thinking, please remember this: excessive pride is a familiar sin, but a man may just as easily frustrate the will of God through excessive humility.”
Tom was one of those people who kept his religion deep in his heart. Sometimes they were the best kind.
I think they are still the best kind. Unfortunately this is lost in modern America. Half the country watches Fox where the gorgeous, big-breasted woman will flaunt a crucifix between her boobs for all to see. On Ash Wednesday politicians will make sure the cross is prevalent on their foreheads, also for all to see. Speaking of Ash Wednesday, it is odd to see such an ancient tradition used on our very modern T.V. screens where politicians want to show those ashes on their foreheads for votes. We’re modern, but we still cling to ancient beliefs and superstitions.
Having faith in God did not mean sitting back and doing nothing. It meant believing that you would find success if you did your best honestly and energetically.
In the USA it means very publicly practicing but doing the opposite of what is taught. Many of the citizens in the USA go to church, then turn around and vote for the person who wants to deport families who don’t look like them. It is very difficult to combine the core tenants of Christianity with Capitalism. The first preaches humbleness, humility, kindness. The second is to gain profit at all costs no matter who or what it hurts.
Being a monk was the strangest and most perverted way of life imaginable. Monks spent half their lives putting themselves through pain and discomfort that they could easily avoid, and the other half muttering meaningless mumbo jumbo in empty churches at all hours of the day and night. They deliberately shunned anything good—girls, sports, feasting and family life.
I grew up calling priests “father,” and respecting religious authorities. As I aged I learned how weird this was, especially after reading and traveling very much. As the quote says, I too find that type of religious lifestyle extremely strange. While I can understand the pull of devotion, of seeking the spiritual, it has occurred to me that most priests ran to the safety of priesthood, escaping from something, or just not up to the task of real life. This explains why so many priests are gay. When I look at them as “men,” I come to the conclusion that most are simply not. There is some sort of defect, something strange about the character of most.
Jack spent Christmas Day with his friend Raschid Alharoun in Toledo.
I had to highlight this as I have a deep love of Toledo, where I studied in college and return to from time to time.
She often made fun of Toledo society manners—the snobbery of the Arabs, the fastidiousness of the Jews, and the bad taste of the newly rich Christians—and she sometimes had Jack in fits of laughter.
A bit of insight into what social life was like in Toledo during the Middle Ages. Although the book is fiction the Arabs would have been a bit uppity since as rulers, they would have been first class citizens and everyone else, lesser.
At home he spoke Castilian, the language of Christian Spain, rather than Mozarabic. His family also all spoke French, the language of the Normans, who were important traders.
Mozarabic, the Christians under Muslim rule. I’ve been to the only Mozarabic Mass in the world which has been held everyday in the Cathedral of Toledo for over 1000 years. I find it absolutely fascinating.
Sermons were becoming more common in churches. They had been rare when Philip was a boy. Abbot Peter had been against them, saying they tempted the priest to indulge himself. The old-fashioned view was that the congregation should be mere spectators, silently witnessing the mysterious holy rites, hearing the Latin words without understanding them, blindly trusting in the efficacy of the priest’s intercession. But ideas had changed. Progressive thinkers nowadays no longer saw the congregation as mute observers of a mystical ceremony. The Church was supposed to be an integral part of their everyday existence. It marked the milestones in their lives, from christening, through marriage and the birth of children, to extreme unction and burial in consecrated ground. It might be their landlord, judge, employer or customer. Increasingly, people were expected to be Christians every day, not just on Sundays. They needed more than just rituals, according to the modern view: they wanted explanations, rulings, encouragement, exhortation.
I didn’t realize that sermons were not always a part of Mass. I assume they were created to explicitly tell their conjugation what and how to think. They are the ‘flock’ after all in need of a ‘shepard.’ I prefer simply witnessing the rite and not being preached to on the church’s current view of things.
He was the worst kind of Christian, Philip realized: he embraced all of the negatives, enforced every proscription, insisted on all forms of denial, and demanded strict punishment for every offense; yet he ignored all the compassion of Christianity, denied its mercy, flagrantly disobeyed its ethic of love, and openly flouted the gentle laws of Jesus. That’s what the Pharisees were like, Philip thought; no wonder the Lord preferred to eat with publicans and sinners.
For Philip, the importance of the whole phenomenon lay in what it demonstrated about the power of the State. The death of Thomas had shown that, in a conflict between the Church and the Crown, the monarch could always prevail by the use of brute force. But the cult of Saint Thomas proved that such a victory would always be a hollow one. The power of a king was not absolute, after all: it could be restrained by the will of the people.
Physical power will always win in the short term. But as Christianity and more recently, Ghandi, have shown, soft power will win in the end. A large stone would certainly crush things as it falls, but it would eventually be warn away by the ocean tides.
