Apologia Pro Vita Sua

Good news! Good news!

I was in College when I read John Henry Newman's Apologia Pro Vita Sua -- in defense of my life, that is, if my latin still serves me well.The opus, first published in 1864, was Newman's thoughts on Orthodoxy and the Catholic faith. He was responding to the attacks made by Charles Kingsley. Kingsley wrote, "Truth, for its own sake had never been a virtue with the Roman clergy. Father Newman informs us that it need not, and on the whole ought not to be." Remember that Kingsley was an Anglican; and Newman was an Anglican priest who converted to Catholicism.

The Apologia was my first encounter with his thoughts. I followed his mind in the Grammar of Assent, the Idea of a University. After college, I lost interest in his works -- for I was more preoccupied with the mundane, the secular. I got back to him only during the second half of my novitiate years. It was a good five years after graduation from College. When Jody, a fellow Jesuit, left for the next stage of our formation program, he gifted me with the Newman Reader. It was almost three years ago. I have not yet finished reading it. But just this morning, I read from John Allen of NCR that Newman is a step closer to sainthood.

And, that is good news, at least for me. Probably I have an extra reason to re-read his work.

tolle, lege

The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion

It was about four in the afternoon when I started leafing through the pages of Joan Didion's The Year of Magical Thinking. I was riding on the Victory Liner, headed for Pampanga. I recall an old woman sitting at my side with her grandchild on her lap. But that is what I could only remember on that day. The faces of the old woman, of the child were hazy for my memory. But not this book, not for this book. I was just too absorbed at the sadness that haunted me as I read through its pages. This was memory, a memory of melancholy, of melancholies.

The night was cold. It was Christmas of 2003 when John, Joan's husband and partner of forty years, died. At the same time, Quintana, Joan's daughter was gravely ill.

The Year of Magical Thinking penned a very vivid, intimate account of Joan's grief. It was mourning incarnate.

In the book, Quintana seemed to recover. However, she died of complications from acute pancreatitis on August 26, 2005, in New York City at age 39. The New York Times reported that Didion would not change the book to reflect her daughter's death.

"It's finished," Joan said.


Life changes fast.
Life changes in the instant.
You sit down to dinner and life as you know it ends.

saglit lang

Lit
Grotto
Baguio