Our Lady of Ashes

A Severe Mercy  by Sheldon Vanauken ( 1977, Harper & Row ) is a memoir of the author Sheldon "Van" Vanauken and his true love Jean "Davy" Davis but is self-described by the author as "the spiritual autobiography of a love rather than the lovers." The book has two essential parts, the first "pagan" and the second after the couple's conversion to Christianity while at Oxford up until tragedy befalls their relationship and its aftermath. It also chronicles the couple's friendship with C.S. Lewis including several letters that include outstanding spiritual advice. In what Van calls the pagan beginnings of their relationship, Van and Davy, agnostics devoted to beauty and truth, meet and from their first date discover their connection, in a moment Van describes using C.S. Lewis's words defining Friendship: "What! You too? I thought that no one but myself ..." From there, their love grows to heights and depths that I recogniz...

src: Bathory When Jesus is asked  “Lord, will only a few people be saved?” He answers “Strive to enter through the narrow door" nicely dodging the question for those who love precision about such things. (Lk 13:23 & 24) John in his vision strives to see how many have been saved while granted a glimpse of heaven, but is likewise thwarted a census when the number is that "which no one could count." (Rev 7:9) Was it a small fraction of the seething multitude of the total human population over time? Was it everybody? No straight answers are offered. Stuck in our desire to be in the know about who and how many will be saved, we're often presented with two viewpoints well illustrated by two early theologians. Origen erred on the side of Universalism, that in the long run EVERYBODY gets saved ( apokatastasis ), even the fallen angels, including Satan. So powerful is God's mercy and the saving power of the Cross that no creature can resist it. This opinion was...