Spiritual Quote of the Day (Cindy Perazzo, on ‘A Mary We Can Understand and Relate To’)

“As we begin to be in touch with Mary in the mysteries of the rosary and in Scripture and as we take the time to listen during the quiet times we carve out of our busy lives, we find a Mary we can understand and relate to. We become in touch with her gentle spirit and thoughtful ways. We become amazed at her underlying strength and acceptance. We are able to imagine the beauty in her that captured God’s heart. With this newfound awareness we realize that imitation, even if it is in some small insignificant manner, is the true way to model her many virtues and this in turn will honor Mary.”— Cindy Perazzo, coordinator of Lay Carmelites, “Hail Mary!”, Carmelite Review, Fall 2013-Winter 2014 issue

Quote of the Day (Thomas Cahill, on History as ‘Narratives of Grace’)

“We normally think of history as one catastrophe after another, war followed by war, outrage by outrage—almost as if history were nothing more than all the narratives of human pain, assembled in sequence. And surely this is, often enough, an adequate description. But history is also the narratives of grace, the recountings of those blessed and inexplicable moments when someone did something for someone else, saved a life, bestowed a gift, gave something beyond what was required by circumstance.”—American historian, editor and academic Thomas Cahill (1940-2022), How the Irish Saved Civilization: The Untold Story of Ireland's Heroic Role from the Fall of Rome to the Rise of Medieval Europe (1995)

Movie Quote of the Day (‘GoodFellas,’ on How the Mob Murders One of Its Own)

“If you’re part of a crew, nobody ever tells you that they’re going to kill you, doesn’t happen that way. There weren’t any arguments or curses like in the movies. See, your murderers come with smiles, they come as your friends, the people who’ve cared for you all of your life. And they always seem to come at a time that you’re at your weakest and most in need of their help.”—Longtime mobster-turned-informer Henry Hill (played by Ray Liotta), in GoodFellas, screenplay by Nicholas Pileggi and Martin Scorsese, directed by Martin Scorsese (1990)

The image accompanying this post shows Joe Pesci as Tommy DeVito, thinking he was going to a celebration for himself. Oh, well!

Quote of the Day (William Shakespeare, on Reading ‘The Book of Fate’)

“O God, that one might read the book of fate
And see the revolution of the times
Make mountains level, and the continent,
Weary of solid firmness, melt itself
Into the sea, and other times to see
The beachy girdle of the ocean
Too wide for Neptune’s hips; how chance’s mocks
And changes fill the cup of alteration.” —English playwright-poet William Shakespeare (1564-1616), Henry VI, Part II (1594)

TV Quote of the Day (‘The Honeymooners,’ With Ralph on How ‘The Squeeze Play’ Works in Salary Negotiations)

Ralph Kramden [played by Jackie Gleason]: “I go right over to see Mr. Marshall, my boss. I tell Mr. Marshall that I have this other offer and that it offers me 40, maybe 50 dollars a day. Therefore, I'll have to leave the bus company, otherwise he'll have to give me my promotion and raise. And that's what you call ‘the squeeze play.’ You know he's not gonna get rid of me.”

Alice Kramden [played by Audrey Meadows]: “It's not gonna work, Ralph.”

Ralph: “What do you mean, it's not gonna work? I'm going to squeeze Mr. Marshall. He's in no position to squeeze me.”

Alice: “Of course not. He couldn't even get his arms around you!”—The Honeymooners, Season 1, Episode 35, “Mind Your Own Business,” original air date May 26, 1956, teleplay by Leonard Stern, Sydney Zelinka and Jackie Gleason (uncredited), directed by Frank Satenstein

Spiritual Quote of the Day (Enuma Okoro, on the Gospels’ Visitation Narrative)

“I hope there's a way we can each figure out how to be an Elizabeth to a Mary in our lives, and vice versa. That we can step forward with someone else into that uncertain space of a transforming life mixed with blessing and challenge, to stand alongside another person's journey, trusting that in that act we too are somehow fortified and encouraged on our own walk.”— Nigerian-American writer and speaker Enuma Okoro, on the “Visitation” narrative in the Gospels’ Advent story, in “The Art of Life: A Season for Solidarity,” The Financial Times, Dec. 11-12, 2021 

The image accompanying this post is Visitation (c. 1517), a painting by the Italian Renaissance artist Raphael (1483-1520) that now hangs in the Museo de Prado in Madrid, Spain.

Quote of the Day (Filmmaker John Sayles, on Why ‘Every Movie is a World’)

“Every movie is a world. When you enter that world you should learn very quickly what are the rules of this world. I often use Steven Spielberg, who is very good at tone, as an example. In the opening scene of Raiders of the Lost Ark, Harrison Ford is getting chased. There is comic violence when he pulls out a gun and whacks this guy with a sword. The same filmmaker did Schindler’s List.  There is no comic violence in that film. It’s a wholly different world.  The rules are set right away: this is real and nothing is going to happen here that we’re going to laugh at.” — Indie actor-screenwriter-director-novelist John Sayles interviewed by Antonio D’Ambrosio, “An Interview with John Sayles,” The Believer (Issue 61, March 2009)