‘Eclogue IV': Virgil's Mysterious Prophecy
'The Eclogues,' a term meaning 'selections,' feature mostly herdsmen, speaking to one another and engaging in songs that echo through the countryside. The songs sometimes deal with the confiscation of their land due to the political upheaval of the time.
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New York Post
16 hours ago
- New York Post
My awakening: How Gen Z's relationship with religion is changing
When someone told me it was going to be like the Catholic version of Woodstock, I laughed. But as soon as I got there, I thought: OK, now I get it! As I walked through the 237-acre Tor Vergata grounds just 10 miles east of Rome, around me were hundreds of thousands of young people from all over the world, setting up their tents, blowing up air beds, singing and dancing as Christian music pumped from the speakers. It was a hot Roman day, around 90 degrees, and some of these pilgrims had walked for up to eight hours to get here. But still, the heat was no deterrent to the joy in the air. Advertisement What was extraordinary about this event, the Jubilee of Youth, was that while there were well-known Christian artists performing, the young people hadn't come to see them. They were waiting to pray. Yes — pray! And when, at 7:30 p.m., the roar of a helicopter was heard overhead, the crowd erupted. The white papal chopper had made the short journey from the Vatican and circled the crowd twice. 'Viva Papa,' they cheered. Throwing up clouds of dust, the chopper was glowing in the evening sun as it landed. Then on the large screens, people watched as Pope Leo XIV — the first American pope — emerged and boarded the Mercedes Popemobile. Every morning, the NY POSTcast offers a deep dive into the headlines with the Post's signature mix of politics, business, pop culture, true crime and everything in between. Subscribe here! 'Incredibly moving' Advertisement After weaving through the crowd, going back and forth blessing the sea of people on either side, the pope took to the stage and led a two-hour, deeply spiritual prayer vigil. The moment Pope Leo brought out the Eucharist, what Catholics believe is the real body of Jesus in the bread, 1 million young people suddenly fell silent, many on their knees with their eyes closed. Fr. Vincent Bernhard, the university chaplain at NYU, who was there leading a pilgrimage of young men from across the US, was moved by that moment: 'It was so silent you could hear a pin drop. When I looked around, you could see everyone kneeling and looking in one direction. It was incredibly moving. Only the pope could do that. Make everyone stop and look towards Jesus.' Something is changing in society when it comes to Gen Z and their relationship with religion. Their parents may have drifted from the Church — because of scandals, laziness, shifting priorities, etc. Advertisement But from the young people I spoke to at Tor Vergata, I got a sense they are searching for deeper answers to life's oldest questions. This is something Pope Leo spoke to directly from the stage: 'There is a burning question in our hearts, a need for truth that we cannot ignore, which leads us to ask ourselves: What is true happiness? What is the true meaning of life? . . . Jesus is our hope.' True meaning Indeed, from traveling the world covering the Catholic Church and people's relationship with faith for EWTN, I think young people — especially — have been fed the lie that they'll find fulfillment in fame, fortune and followers. Advertisement They've been encouraged to hang their identity on their career, on their social-media persona, and on their popularity. And while these things might offer instant, short-term gratification, more and more young people seem to be realizing that they don't lead to lasting, meaningful fulfillment. When the three F's disappear — fame, fortune, followers — what gives your life fulfillment and meaning? Young people today are looking for meaning, and many are finding it in the tradition, culture and beauty of the Catholic Church. For years it hasn't been 'cool' to be Catholic, or even easy to say you believe in God. But as with anything pushed aside or suppressed, sometimes the opposite happens — it re-emerges as something unexpected, something different. Something countercultural that intrigues young people and starts to draw them in again. Cue the Jubilee of Youth, and a million young people on their knees in a field outside of Rome. Something profound is drawing them, and with the Catholic Church having a new, relatively young and timely pope who talks about social media, algorithms, and artificial intelligence, young people are engaged. Found a home As darkness fell over Tor Vergata, the choir sang, 'Jesus Christ, you are my life,' as the papal helicopter once again roared into the air and turned back toward Vatican City. One of the most powerful messages the pope left the young people with was, 'Aspire to great things, to holiness, wherever you are. Do not settle for less.' One of the young men with Fr. Vincent on pilgrimage was 19-year-old Marco Terrizzi from Illinois. He recently came into the faith and told me, 'This was sensational. I truly feel changed forever. I feel like I've found my forever home in the Catholic Church.' Colm Flynn is a correspondent for EWTN, global Catholic television.
San Francisco Chronicle
2 days ago
- San Francisco Chronicle
Review: In seductive ‘Pompeii,' pleasure masks impending doom
In a shadowy industrial venue, Detour Productions cofounder Eric Garcia took the stage wearing black sequined lederhosen and laid out ground rules for the immersive theater company's new show, 'Pompeii.' The third floor of the old brick and steel building on 9th Street now known as Storek was for the purposes of the evening, Garcia explained, now the Kit Kat Club. Beneath us was the mezzanine and the Fandango Ballroom, and beneath that, in the basement, was Fernando's Hideaway. We were free to roam these mysterious spaces for the next two and a half hours, but not to touch anyone 'unless there is a crystal-clear invitation.' In 'Pompeii,' which I saw Saturday, Aug. 2, and runs through Aug. 17, we find ourselves not in the buried Roman city, but in the world of choreographer and director Bob Fosse. His iconic style is felt everywhere — with its bump and grind, its slithering seduction, its fishnet garter stocking allure. Most of all, we are in the world of the musical 'Cabaret,' where patrons laugh and drink and carouse in seedy sanctuary as fascism bludgeons the windy real world. But Detour's show adds a prophetic metaphoric overlay, which Garcia announced just before drag performer Mudd the Two Spirit strutted on in lace-up platform heels and a rhinestone-studded codpiece as the Kit Kat Club's emcee. 'We have gathered at the mouth of the volcano,' Garcia said. 'The ground is already rumbling and crackling, which can only mean one thing. Something is coming apart. People don't always realize that things are coming apart. But you do.' Indeed. As I sat at a cocktail table before the show, a fellow patron chatted me up by asking what I thought of the Trump administration's attack on the arts, then told me his friends were talking of fleeing for Europe. A rather privileged response, I commented, before spitting a few epithets at the mention of tech bros and their priorities. Then the dancing and singing (well, lip-synching) began. 'Pompeii' is Detour's third site-specific production, and its largest — 21 performers of glorious physical diversity, ranging from statuesque Quinn Dixon clad in white chiffon as Angelique the angel of death, to the performer known as Glamputee rocking a fringed flapper dress and faux-belting 'When You're Good to Mama' before joining the ensemble on bejeweled crutches. (The artfully flesh-sculpting costumes are by repeat Detour collaborator Abdiel Portalatín Pérez.) Each performer has a distinct charisma, although pencil-mustachioed Melissa Lewis Wong was particularly magnetic in a scarlet-sequined pantsuit fit for Liberace, slinking through 'Pink Panther' inside a circle of red feathered fans, and serving up some impressive tap dance alongside Lisa Frankenstein's Lola in 'Too Darn Hot.' Most of the big ensemble numbers take place in the ballroom, where the action can be viewed from above or up-close, and that's where I spent most of the evening, admiring the fun that Garcia and contributing director Chuck Wilt must have had staging 'Caravan' and a can-can fit for the Moulin Rouge. But I was glad I returned to the top floor for 'Don't Rain on My Parade' as delivered by Beef Cakes, who must have some real ballet training — check out that line of tight chaîné turns. The verdict? 'Very entertaining,' proclaimed my pre-show chatter friend. Whether he quite meant to enhance the immersive irony of the evening, I could not tell. Neither of us said anything about the basement, its wall lined with silver mylar, where music designer re-mixed Kander and Ebb tunes in a low Satanic gurgle, and Anqelique dropped dollar bills that Syd Franz as the 'Chicago' lawyer Billy Flynn lapped up off the concrete floor. I didn't spend much time in that creepy basement, overwhelmed by the horror, I have to admit. What does that choice say about me? I'm not sure. But I do know Garcia is right: 'Choices have consequences.' At the end of 'Pompeii,' there's no rush of lava, no actual coating of ash. Just the choices we make after we leave the theater — and we better make sure they're ones we can live with as we die.
Epoch Times
2 days ago
- Epoch Times
‘Eclogue IV': Virgil's Mysterious Prophecy
The Roman poet Virgil (70 B.C.–19 B.C.) is best known for writing the epic poem 'The Aeneid,' but he also wrote a series of pastoral and political poems called ' The Eclogues ' (sometimes 'The Bucolics'). The poems sing mostly of idyllic rural life among the burnished fields, flower-speckled meadows, and winding orchards, with the occasional intrusion of the political discord that was occurring at the end of the first century B.C. 'The Eclogues,' a term meaning 'selections,' feature mostly herdsmen, speaking to one another and engaging in songs that echo through the countryside. The songs sometimes deal with the confiscation of their land due to the political upheaval of the time.
