Merriment

"Wherever the Catholic sun doth shine,
there's always laughter and good red wine,
At least I've always found it so,
Benedicamus Domino! [Let us Bless the Lord!] "
Hilaire Belloc
Once upon a stormy summer, an earnest handful of aspiring scholars, a diverse half-dozen hailing from divergent points in the northern continent of the New World -- and unbeknownst to each other -- assembled in a small, remnant outpost of Christendom hidden in the mists of the Shenandoah Mountains. They were each, in his or her own way, on a common quest for goodness and beauty and truth; and as they met and mingled and mixed, it seemed to them, at some undefineable, grace-filled moment amidst the frequent rains they experienced, that a streak of lightning had been captured in a bottle (an empty wine bottle from an excursion to Rappahannock Cellars), a bolt of illumination and inspiration from above, creating in them a camaraderie and a synergy that they wanted to share with any passers-by in the cosmos of cyberspace. We humbly hope, though we are only apprentices in the school of the Lord, that you may find at this site a small but significant vestige of a once-magnificent but long-forgotten land, a flawed but flourishing civilization of light and warmth, blessed with knowledge and wisdom, mysticism and mirth, owing to the beneficent rain and benevolent sun of its most majestic King -- Jesus -- who came to us as a servant, a victorious victim, to save us from ourselves and to show us a new heaven and a new earth. It is the lost land of Christendom, and we are graduate theology students of Christendom College. We welcome you to join us, in one way or another, as we strive to contribute to the recollection and rehabilitation of this homeland to its former glory. This home is not of earthly domain, but a transcendent culture and a congenial climate, a place of surrender and fulfillment, of sacrifice and joy, inviting to one and all, made incarnate in this fallen world to provide us with a generous measure of real merriment in the here-and-now, and with a boundless abundance of eternal bliss in the hereafter. Please, pour yourself a glass of wine, or a cup of hot chocolate, blog on, and make yourself at home.