essays

[from The Lost Gospel of Mary, Paraclete Press, 2007;
translation and footnotes by Frederica Mathewes-Green]

The Akathist [Annunciation] Hymn

of St Romanos the Melodist 

Oikos 1

An Archangel was sent from heaven to cry “Rejoice!” to the Theotokos; [1]

and, O Lord, as he saw you taking bodily form

at the sound of his bodiless voice,

he stood still in amazement [2]

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[ChristianityTodayMovies.com; March 7, 2008] 

Stars: 2

Cast: Frances McDormand (Guinevere Pettigrew), Amy Adams (Delysia LaFosse), Ciaran Hinds (Joe), Lee Pace (Michael), Shirley Henderson (Edythe Dubarry)

*** 

Miss Guinevere Pettigrew does have quite a day. It begins on a blustery London morning in 1939, as Miss Pettigrew awakens on a bench in a London train station. She had lost her job as a governess the day before, and no job prospects are in sight. She gets a meal in a soup-line but it is knocked out of her hands; she collides with a stranger, and her suitcase spills across the sidewalk. With nothing left to lose, Miss Pettigrew forms the bold plan of trying to pass herself off as the applicant sent by an employment agency to be social secretary to nightclub singer and social luminary Delysia LaFosse. (The film is based on a 1938 novel which was reissued in England in 2000, making the author, Winifred Watson, a minor celebrity at 94.)

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[Books & Culture, March/April 2008]

On the road, shuttling between airports and motels, I sent my daughter an email: “I’m on my way to Branson, Missouri. They say it’s like Las Vegas, but for Christians over fifty.” She wrote back, “I can’t even begin to imagine what that means.”

I could; I imagined it would be laughable and hokey. (You could point out that I am a Christian over fifty and should get off my high horse, but I would only blink at you.) This little town of 6,000

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