Friday Links
April 3, 2026
The Crucifixion by Jacopo Tintoretto (courtesy Wikicommons)
The Dream of the Rood
Poetry's Austere and Lonely Offices
Mental Sufferings of Our Lord in His Passion
A Life in Poetry: Cambridge, Larkin, and Writing a PhD
Faith in the Furnace of Doubt
The Dream of the Rood
Reading of “The Dream of the Rood”, translated by J.C. Scharl and Tessa Carmen.
Poetry's Austere and Lonely Offices
Ken Gordon: On Ethan Hawke, Poetic Enthusiasm, and Mourning:
I’m done running. I now grab elusive inspiration wherever I can find it… and it is getting increasingly difficult to catch and hold on to. I type this from my mid-50s, and from my somewhat-easy chair, I now admit that Ethan Hawke, who has had a truly admirable career, is certainly entitled to “enthusiast.” Understand that I’ve re-watched his pandemic-era TED Talk: “Give Yourself Permission to Be Creative” and must admit how much I dig that rather corny piece of video. Hawke gives TED a Hollywood makeover that’s one part old-time Texas-style storytelling and two parts aesthetic self-help inspiration.
Mental Sufferings of Our Lord in His Passion
From the writings of St. John Henry Neumann . . .
A Life in Poetry: Cambridge, Larkin, and Writing a PhD
Dr. Clarissa Hard maps the trajectory of her life: growing up in a home filled with words and music; falling in love with poetry; studying at the University of Cambridge; completing a PhD on Philip Larkin, D. H. Lawrence, and Thomas Hardy; teaching; journalism; and aspirations for the future.
Good Friday: Creation Always Exists in Darkness
What does “Crucifix no. 2” say to us about Christ’s mission, and how ought we to think about his mission in reference to this image? The most important thing to note here is the backdrop against which the crucified Christ hangs: darkness, with no defined Cross. There is an ambiguously darker area surrounding his body, but it suggests itself rather as a variation of the ambient abyss than as an individuated entity. The Cross, the instrument of death, has faded either into the dark background or into Christ’s body, and Congdon’s painting leaves no explicit mediation between the crucified Christ and the emptiness surrounding him. There is an immediacy depicted between the emptiness of darkness and the emptiness of death, and the viewer is not given the opportunity to objectify the event in a piece of wood and distinguish it representationally from the divine actor. Rather, we are left with nothing to view but the event itself, which is the utter abasement of the God-Man. Balthasar’s mission-centric Christology thus receives exemplary representation in Congdon’s piece: “Jesus Christ dedicates his whole self to his mission: he is entirely one with it.” In fact, “he is the one who, from before all time, has had the task–indeed, he is the task–of fulfilling this universal design.” Christ is the task: as we contemplate this, we can look at Congdon’s piece and realize that here Christ is the Cross. What is more, the brush strokes, the angle of his arms, and the tailored legs and feet even convey a sense of downward motion, a literal pouring out. Visually, then, the event (the motion of emptying), the instrument (the Cross), and the Person become one.
Faith in the Furnace of Doubt
CUA Press is publishing Joshua Hren’s Faith in the Furnace of Doubt: Dana Gioia’s Visionary Poetics. On their blog, they offer readers the book’s Epilogue and a brief Q&A with Gioia. All very good and well-worth reading this weekend.
