Girl with a Pearl Earring

Girl with a Pearl Earring, Johannes Vermeer, c.1665

One of the advantages of the internet is that you can listen to good radio from stations around the world. The Philippines is a wasteland as far as radio is concerned. The FM stations play bland, often tuneless music aimed at people under 35. The AM stations broadcast a diet of 'soaps' in the regional languages and local politicians and their spokesmen holding forth, shouting into the microphone as if they were addressing a crowd in the plaza.

Another advantage is that you can usually listen to programmes anytime during the week after they are broadcast or, in some cases, long after that. One of my favourites is Alan Titchmarsh with Melodies for You,  broadcast on Sunday nights on BBC Radio 2.

Last night he played a piece called Griet's Theme from Girl with the Pearl Earring. I've long been familiar with Vermeer's beautiful painting but didn't know until today that a movie had been made in 2003 with that title, based on a novel by Tracy Chevalier that was inspired by the painting. The music in the film is by Alexandre Desplat.



I took the painting from Web Gallery of Art. This is a quite amazing website that 'is a virtual museum and searchable database of European painting and sculpture from 11th to mid-19th centuries. It was started in 1996 as a topical site of the Renaissance art, originated in the Italian city-states of the 14th century and spread to other countries in the 15th and 16th centuries. Intending to present Renaissance art as comprehensively as possible, the scope of the collection was later extended to show its Medieval roots as well as its evolution to Baroque and Rococo via Mannerism. More recently the periods of Neoclassicism, Romanticism and Realism were also included'. It's where I get most of the paintings I use in Sunday Reflections.

The site has recordingd of music from the 12th to the 20th centuries, much of which you can include if you email any of the paintings in the form of a greeting.

Isn't Vermeer's painting utterly beautiful and alive?

Blessed John Paul II, 'inter-species dialogue', and mangos

Karol Józef Cardinal Wojtyła on a visit to Australia

I came across this delightful photo of Blessed John Paul II this afternoon. I presume it was taken in Australia and not in a zoo. He travelled widely long before he became Pope John Paul II. I think it's a kangaroo he's feeding and not a wallaby. He and the marsupial seem to be enthusiastically engaged in this 'inter-species dialogue'!

As someone living in the Philippines, where mangos are plentiful, I was interested in this little item from Fides, the Vatican-based news agency:

AMERICA / MEXICO - John Paul II an admirer of mango

Mexico City (Agenzia Fides) - Mango, tropical fruit that grows in Latin America, was without doubt one of the favourite fruit of Pope John Paul II, who tasted it for the first time during his trip to Mexico. Considering how much he liked it, in each of his following pastoral visits, those in charge of hospitality always prepared for the Pope fresh and different dishes using this fruit. Fr. Daniel Villalobos, who was one of the people closest to Cardinal Corripio Ahumada, Archbishop Primate of Mexico, witnessed not only how much the Holy Father John Paul II enjoyed this tropical fruit, but the concern of the Archbishop, who periodically sent to Rome, some boxes of mangos so there were always some on the Pope`s table

"Even when the Holy Father was already very sick - Fr. Villalobos said in a statement sent to Fides by the Archdiocese of Mexico on the occasion of the forthcoming beatification of John Paul II - Cardinal Corripio, through a friend, sent him mangos. To check that His Holiness had received them, he asked the present Cardinal Leonardo Sandri for information, who had been nuncio in Mexico, and at that time was Deputy Secretary of State. "In Mexico there are some popular sayings that connect Pope John Paul II with two states of Mexico: Oaxaca and Veracruz, and the mangos produced in their own land were sent to the Pope at the Vatican. (EC) (Agenzia Fides 28/04/2011)

Mangos from Sind, Pakistan, where Columbans work

Filipinos have a great love for Blessed John Paul II. I wonder why they let the Mexicans supply him with this delicious fruit?!  The mango is indigenous to the Indian sub-continent and I presume it reached the Philippines before it did Mexico.

The Church in the Philippines was initially part of the Diocese/Archdiocese of Mexico.