I am happily unmarried and I live singly in Heidelberg VIC Australia. I took a BA in Spanish and Theatre–Drama from La Trobe University.
In a 2007 Theatre–Drama unit called Persuasion and Public Speech, the lecturer, an academic named John Jenkins, commented on my good essay: ‘You are a genuine writer.’ The aim of that essay was to analyse a speech of my own choosing. I wrote on a speech of Mark Twain.
I have been willing to link my name with this website.
Discover some interesting artefacts (documents and images) that I have prepared and which are dear to me: https://bvmary.com/.
Below I will spotlight some of my favourite fragments of sacred Scripture or pious works:
‘Holy love and holy fear are like the two eyes of the dove in the Canticle, for the dove is of all birds the most timorous and the most loving.’ Hélinand of Froidmont, Liber de cognitione sui.
‘The voice of this little bird [that is, the turtle-dove] is more of a moan than a song, and thus reminds us that we are but pilgrims on the earth and have here no continuing city. So when a holy soul sighs for the presence of Christ, grieving that the coming of the Kingdom is so long delayed, and hailing from afar its longed-for fatherland with plaints and sighs, do you not think that such a soul is like the turtle-dove, that chaste and mournful bird? The turtle-dove has something else to recommend it, besides its plaintive voice. It is a chaste bird, content with one mate and living in solitary widowhood, if that mate dies; therefore its voice may be regarded as enjoining chastity.’ Saint Bernard, On the Song of Songs.
‘To him the gatekeeper opens; the sheep hear his voice, and he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. When he has brought out all his own, he goes before them, and the sheep follow him, for they know his voice. A stranger they will not follow, but they will flee from him, for they do not know the voice of strangers.’ Saint John 10:3–5 (RSVCE).
‘For a thousand years in thy sight / are but as yesterday when it is past, / or as a watch in the night.’ Psalm 90[89]:4 (RSVCE).
A Prefigurement of Christ Jesus in Psalm 31[30]:11–12[12–13] (Grail)
‘In the face of all my foes / I am a reproach, / an object of scorn to my neighbours / and of fear to my friends. // Those who see me in the street / run far away from me. / I am like a dead man, forgotten in men’s hearts, / like a thing thrown away.’