Scott Hahn · 276 pages
Rating: (1K votes)
“If we do not fill our mind with prayer, it will fill itself with anxieties, worries, temptations, resentments, and unwelcome memories.”
― Scott Hahn, quote from Signs of Life: 40 Catholic Customs and Their Biblical Roots
“The first Christians were eucharistic by nature: they gathered for “the breaking of the bread and the prayers.” They were formed by the Word of God, the “apostles’ teaching.” When they met as a Church, their worship culminated in “fellowship”—the Greek word is koinonia, communion. The Mass was the center of life for the disciples of Jesus, and so it has ever been. Even today, the Mass is where we experience the apostolic teaching and communion, the breaking of the bread and the prayers.”
― Scott Hahn, quote from Signs of Life: 40 Catholic Customs and Their Biblical Roots
“St. Thomas Aquinas taught that water has been a natural sacrament since the dawn of creation. In the age of nature—from Adam through the patriarchs—water refreshed and cleansed humankind.”
― Scott Hahn, quote from Signs of Life: 40 Catholic Customs and Their Biblical Roots
“As Catholics, we are free to cultivate a rich life of piety, drawing from the treasures of many lands and many ages.”
― Scott Hahn, quote from Signs of Life: 40 Catholic Customs and Their Biblical Roots
“Sometimes suffering is what’s best for us, if only because it keeps us from sinning or tempting others to sin.”
― Scott Hahn, quote from Signs of Life: 40 Catholic Customs and Their Biblical Roots
“The Catholic life—the great Christian tradition—is a tremendous inheritance from two millennia of saints in many lands and circumstances.”
― Scott Hahn, quote from Signs of Life: 40 Catholic Customs and Their Biblical Roots
“The No filled the whole air of the house. Every time she breathed in she breathed in that No.”
― Cynthia Voigt, quote from Homecoming
“Two men enter the room, one old and mustached and the other young and tawny-headed, wearing sweats and a worn T-shirt. He looks like Silas, actually—god, what am I, obsessed? But there really is something of the woodsman in the younger man’s face, with his full lips, his slightly curled hair that turns like tendrils around his ears . . . I look away before studying him too closely.
“All right, ladies, are we ready?” the older man says enthusiastically. There’s a loud rustling of paper as well flip the enormous sketchbooks on our easels until we find blank sheets. I draw a few soft lines on my page, unsure what—
Non-Silas rips off his T-shirt, revealing lightly defined muscles on his pale chest. I raise an eyebrow just as he tugs at the waist of the sweatpants. They drop to the floor in a fluid, sweeping motion.
There’s nothing underneath them. At all.
My charcoal slips through my suddenly sweaty fingers.
Non-Silas steps out of the puddle of his clothes and moves to the center of the room, fluorescent lights reflecting off his slick abdomen. He’s smiling as though he isn’t naked, smiling as though I didn’t somehow manage to get the seat closest to him. As if I can’t see . . . um . . . everything only a few feet from my face, making my mind clumsily spiral. I squeeze my eyes shut for a moment; he looks like Silas in the face, and because of that I keep wondering if he looks akin to Silas everywhere else.
“All right, ladies, this will be a seven-minute pose. Ready?” the older man says, positioning himself behind the other empty easel. The roomful of housewives nod in one hungry motion. I quiver. “Go!” the older man says, starting the stopwatch. Non-Silas poses, something reminiscent of Michelangelo’s David, only instead of marble eyes looking into nothingness, non-Silas is staring almost straight at me.
Draw. I’m supposed to be drawing. I grab a new piece of charcoal from the bottom of the easel and begin hastily making lines in my sketchbook. I can’t not look at him, or he’ll think I’m not drawing him. I glance hurriedly, trying to avoid the region my eyes continuously return to. I start to feel fluttery.
How long has it been? Surely it’s been seven minutes. I try to add some tone to my drawing’s chest. I wonder what Silas’s chest looks like . . . Stop! Stop stop stop stop stop—”
“Right, then!” the older man says as his stopwatch beeps loudly and the scratchy sound of charcoal on paper ends. Thank you, sir, thank you—”
“Annnnd next pose!”
Non-Silas turns his head away, till all I can see is his wren-colored hair and his side, including a side view of . . . how many times am I going to have to draw this man’s area? What’s worse is that he looks even more like Silas now that I can’t see his eyes. Just like Silas, I bet. My eyes linger longer than necessary now that non-Silas isn’t staring straight at me.
By the end of class, I’ve drawn eight mediocre pictures of him, each one with a large white void in the crotch area. The housewives compare drawings with ravenous looks in their eyes as non-Silas tugs his pants back on and leaves the room, nodding politely. I picture him naked again.
I sprint from the class, abandoning my sketches—how could I explain them to Scarlett or Silas? Stop thinking of Silas, stop thinking of Silas.”
― Jackson Pearce, quote from Sisters Red
“One thing' Erak said. 'Tell your men to keep their noses clean while they're in Hallasholm. I don't want any trouble.'
Zavac nodded and smiled. 'I understand. This is a quiet town and you don't want the peace disturbed.'
Erak smiled back, but it was like a smile on the face of a shark. 'No. This is a very violent town and if your men cause trouble, my people will break their heads a for them. I don't want to be paying any blood money for damage done to your crew. Understand?'
Zavac's smile faded. He looked for some sign that the Oberjarl was joking, but he saw none. He nodded again, slowly this time.”
― John Flanagan, quote from The Outcasts
“Pain? He could handle that, no problem; it was the idea that the female he loved was suffering that made him want to either punch something or vomit in the corner.”
― Lara Adrian, quote from Deeper Than Midnight
“Hope and courage and risk dwell inside of us on an uncharted island and if we learn to look for it and tap into it, our possibilities are endless.”
― Katie Kacvinsky, quote from Awaken
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