Blessed John Henry Cardinal Newman

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On September 19, 2010, Pope Benedict XVI read aloud the proclamation decreeing Cardinal John Henry Newman as “Blessed”, thus beatifying him. The Pope was celebrating Mass in Birmingham during the four day Papal visit to England.  In 1991, Newman was already proclaimed “Venerable” after a thorough examination of his life and work by the Sacred Congregation for the Cause of Saints.  The Pope presented Newman’s vision of “the vital place of revealed religion in civilized society” as a model for today.

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Angels

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Growing up as a Catholic, the angels were never far from my thoughts.  The belief in one’s own Guardian Angel is always comforting.  How many of us do not know the Guardian Angel Prayer?

Angel of God, my guardian dear,
To whom God’s love commits me here,
Ever this day, be at my side,
To Light and to Guard, to Rule and to Guide. Amen.
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SHANKAR (Keshava Shankar Pillai: Humorist and Friend to Children)

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Malayalees are humorists and the special Malayalee humor is always present when a few get together to shoot the breeze.  Malayalam literature is gifted with several whose humor and wit have enlivened their literary outputs and refreshed our lives. The love of humor that is congenital to a Malayalee also leads to an appreciation of political and social satire, whether written or pictorial.  Satire is never far from a Malayalee psyche. It is no wonder that the creator of India’s Punch was a Malayalee.  He was none other than Keshav Shankar Pillai, the mastermind and artist behind the ever so memorable Shankar’s Weekly.  He was the most celebrated cartoonist of India, before and after the Independence.

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Malayālam

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From the Dravidian stock emerged the versatile and prolific language of Malayālam, one of the two official state languages of Kerala, English being the other one.  The language is a happy blend of  the simplicity of Tamil and the dignity of Sanskrit and, in a flexible and receptive style similar to that of English, enriched itself with a vocabulary culled from numerous languages.  Spoken by thirty-five million people, it is ranked eighth according to the number of speakers and is one of the twenty-two official languages of  modern India.

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The Perfect Prayer

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“Our Father” is a prayer that transcends time and answers all the exigencies of our existence.  The structure of the prayer is perfect.  The first part is an expression of a desire to partake in the Glory of God, which is seen as the ultimate end of existence.  The second consists of  a plea for divine help in obtaining what is needed for sustenance and the removal of all obstacles such as sin, temptation, and temporal evils from the  path directed to reach the sublime goal of beatitude. This perfect prayer is not filled with demands and requests. In the Roman Catholic Liturgy of the Eucharist, immediately after the Consecration and before the breaking up of the Species, the celebrant invokes Our Lord’s Prayer.  All across the globe, palms are held up in supplication and the most memorable of all prayers ascends in heartfelt renditions in a multitude of languages.

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