Only in Canada.

Al Mohler comments.

A few weeks ago a composer contacted us, wanting to know if we would be interested in reviewing his setting of the popular children’s book The Runaway Bunny to music à la “Peter and the Wolf.” It turns out that his concerto for violin, reader, and orchestra is delightful and technically quite interesting. The composer is Glen Roven, who recently conducted the piece’s debut at Carnegie Hall with Brooke Shields narrating and the Israeli violinist Ittai Shapira as the soloist. The piece is also available on CD, should you know a child who might enjoy a good introduction to good classical music. For more information, visit Roven’s website here.

Thirteen years in prison, nine years in solitary confinement. Five loaves and two fish. “Stay with us,” prayed the disciples on the road to Emmaus. So he took bread, blessed it, and gave it to them to eat.

Yesterday, at the 49th International Eucharistic Congress in Quebec City, the sister of the late Cardinal Francis Xavier Nguyen Van Thuan, delivered a moving address on her brother’s life in the communist prison camps of South Vietnam—and the sustenance he found in the Eucharist. Cardinal Thuan, whose cause for canonization was opened last fall, reflected on the source of his strength in a powerful little volume, Five Loaves and Two Fish. Here, his sister recalls the intimate Eucharistic love to which her brother boldly witnessed—even in Communist Vietnam, even in a hidden prison cell:

During an interview with the media after his release, he was asked what his secret strength had been that kept him alive and sane. His answer was always, “The Eucharist.” He explained how when he was arrested, he had to leave immediately, empty-handed. The following day he was allowed to write to his faithful to ask for some personal effects. He wrote: “Please send me a little wine as medicine for my stomach pain.” They understood right away. A few days later, the guards handed him a small container addressed to him, and labeled “Medicine for stomach aliments.” He also received another small container containing small pieces of Holy Host.

With three drops of wine and a drop of water in the palm of his hand, he would celebrate Mass. “Each time I celebrated Mass, I had the opportunity to extend my hands and nail myself to the cross with Jesus, to drink with Him the bitter chalice” (Testimony of Hope). And those were the most beautiful Masses of his life.

. . . He always carried in his shirt pocket the little container holding the Blessed Sacrament. He would repeat “Jesus, You in me and I in You” adoring the Father. Van Thuan reminds us, throughout his writing, that it is not enough to celebrate the Eucharist strictly according to the liturgical rites.

He points out to all of us that Christ offered his sacrifice with immense fervour, as in the hour of His passion and crucifixion, when He obeyed the Father; and this, even to the point of His humiliating death on the cross to bring back to the Father a redeemed humanity and a purified creation. ln prison with the Eucharistic Jesus in their midst, Christian and non-Christian prisoners slowly received the grace to understand that each present moment of their lives in the most inhuman conditions can be united with the supreme sacrifice of Jesus and lifted up as an act of solemn adoration to God the Father. Together each day, Thuan would remind himself and encouraged everyone to pray: Lord, grant that we may offer the Eucharistic sacrifice with love, that we accept to carry the cross, and to be nailed to it to proclaim Your glory, to serve our brothers and sisters.

. . . I would like to end my reflections with those tender thoughts recorded on the Feast of the Holy Rosary, October 7, 1976, in Phu-Khanh prison, during his solitary confinement: “I am happy here, in this cell, where white mushrooms are growing on my sleeping mat, because You are here with me, because You want me to live here with You. I have spoken much in my lifetime: now I speak no more. It’s Your turn to speak to me, Jesus; I am listening to You.”

In 1993 U2 wrote a song called “The Wanderer” for Johnny Cash, which they then recorded with him. The result is a haunting picture of a sinful man looking for God in the modern world, all in Cash’s rich baritone. If you’ve never heard it, watch the movie below.

Our editor in chief has some poignant remarks on Tim Russert’s passing in today’s daily article on the homepage. Read those first. But also take a look at Peggy Noonan’s column.

A taste:

The beautiful thing about the coverage was that it offered extremely important information to those age 15 or 25 or 30 who may not have been told how to operate in the world beyond “Go succeed.” I’m not sure we tell the young as much as we ought, as clearly as we ought, what it is the world admires, and what it is they want to emulate.

In a way, the world is a great liar. It shows you it worships and admires money, but at the end of the day it doesn’t. It says it adores fame and celebrity, but it doesn’t, not really. The world admires, and wants to hold on to, and not lose, goodness. It admires virtue. At the end it gives its greatest tributes to generosity, honesty, courage, mercy, talents well used, talents that, brought into the world, make it better. That’s what it really admires. That’s what we talk about in eulogies, because that’s what’s important. We don’t say, “The thing about Joe was he was rich.” We say, if we can, “The thing about Joe was he took care of people.”

The young are told, “Be true to yourself.” But so many of them have no idea, really, what that means. If they don’t know who they are, what are they being true to? They’re told, “The key is to hold firm to your ideals.” But what if no one bothered, really, to teach them ideals?

After Tim’s death, the entire television media for four days told you the keys to a life well lived, the things you actually need to live life well, and without which it won’t be good. Among them: taking care of those you love and letting them know they’re loved, which involves self-sacrifice; holding firm to God, to your religious faith, no matter how high you rise or low you fall. This involves guts, and self-discipline, and active attention to developing and refining a conscience to whose promptings you can respond. Honoring your calling or profession by trying to do within it honorable work, which takes hard effort, and a willingness to master the ethics of your field. And enjoying life. This can be hard in America, where sometimes people are rather grim in their determination to get and to have. “Enjoy life, it’s ungrateful not to,” said Ronald Reagan.

And ask yourself this:

I’d add it’s not only the young, but the older and the old, who were given a few things to think about. When Tim’s friends started to come forward last Friday to speak on the air of his excellence, they were honestly grieving. They felt loss. So did people who’d never met him. Question: When you die, are people in your profession going to feel like this? Why not? What can you do better? When you leave, are your customers—in Tim’s case it was five million every Sunday morning, in your case it may be the people who come into the shop, or into your office—going to react like this? Why not?