So the Republicans are messing it up in style again?

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I am he.

This Sunday's Gospel, John 4: 1-42, is just beautiful.

When Jesus heard that the Pharisees had found out that he was making and baptising more disciples than John - though in fact it was his disciples who baptised, not Jesus himself-he left Judaea and went back to Galilee.

He had to pass through Samaria.

On the way he came to the Samaritan town called Sychar near the land that Jacob gave to his son Joseph.

Jacob's well was there and Jesus, tired by the journey, sat down by the well. It was about the sixth hour.

When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, 'Give me something to drink.'

His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.

The Samaritan woman said to him, 'You are a Jew. How is it that you ask me, a Samaritan, for something to drink?' -- Jews, of course, do not associate with Samaritans.

Jesus replied to her: If you only knew what God is offering and who it is that is saying to you, 'Give me something to drink,' you would have been the one to ask, and he would have given you living water.

'You have no bucket, sir,' she answered, 'and the well is deep: how do you get this living water?

Are you a greater man than our father Jacob, who gave us this well and drank from it himself with his sons and his cattle?'

Jesus replied: Whoever drinks this water will be thirsty again; but no one who drinks the water that I shall give will ever be thirsty again: the water that I shall give will become a spring of water within, welling up for eternal life.

'Sir,' said the woman, 'give me some of that water, so that I may never be thirsty or come here again to draw water.'

'Go and call your husband,' said Jesus to her, 'and come back here.'

The woman answered, 'I have no husband.' Jesus said to her, 'You are right to say, "I have no husband"; for although you have had five, the one you now have is not your husband. You spoke the truth there.'

'I see you are a prophet, sir,' said the woman. 'Our fathers worshipped on this mountain, though you say that Jerusalem is the place where one ought to worship.'

Jesus said: Believe me, woman, the hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know; for salvation comes from the Jews. But the hour is coming -- indeed is already here -- when true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truth: that is the kind of worshipper the Father seeks. God is spirit, and those who worship must worship in spirit and truth.

The woman said to him, 'I know that Messiah -- that is, Christ -- is coming; and when he comes he will explain everything.'

Jesus said, 'That is who I am, I who speak to you.'

At this point his disciples returned and were surprised to find him speaking to a woman, though none of them asked, 'What do you want from her?' or, 'What are you talking to her about?'

The woman put down her water jar and hurried back to the town to tell the people, 'Come and see a man who has told me everything I have done; could this be the Christ?' This brought people out of the town and they made their way towards him.

Meanwhile, the disciples were urging him, 'Rabbi, do have something to eat'; but he said, 'I have food to eat that you do not know about.'
So the disciples said to one another, 'Has someone brought him food?'

But Jesus said: My food is to do the will of the one who sent me, and to complete his work.
Do you not have a saying: Four months and then the harvest? Well, I tell you, look around you, look at the fields; already they are white, ready for harvest!
Already the reaper is being paid his wages, already he is bringing in the grain for eternal life, so that sower and reaper can rejoice together.
For here the proverb holds true: one sows, another reaps;
I sent you to reap a harvest you have not laboured for. Others have laboured for it; and you have come into the rewards of their labour.

Many Samaritans of that town believed in him on the strength of the woman's words of testimony, 'He told me everything I have done.'

So, when the Samaritans came up to him, they begged him to stay with them. He stayed for two days, and many more came to believe on the strength of the words he spoke to them; and they said to the woman, 'Now we believe no longer because of what you told us; we have heard him ourselves and we know that he is indeed the Saviour of the world.'

So dramatic! And so much is contained in these few verses.

What touched me most was Our Lord's declaration, put so beautifully in the New Jerusalem translation:

The woman said to him, 'I know that Messiah -- that is, Christ -- is coming; and when he comes he will explain everything.'

Jesus said, 'That is who I am, I who speak to you.'

And can you feel the urgency and excitement in Our Lord's voice when he says the following lines?

My food is to do the will of the one who sent me, and to complete his work.
Do you not have a saying: Four months and then the harvest? Well, I tell you, look around you, look at the fields; already they are white, ready for harvest!
Already the reaper is being paid his wages, already he is bringing in the grain for eternal life, so that sower and reaper can rejoice together.

The tide is turning

Another great video. O Lord make haste to help us!

There is always a reason to live

What a beautiful video by the Spanish bishops. We need more well-made pro-life videos.

H/T to Fr Finigan.

An interesting debate

Elizabeth Taylor on What's My Line?

Dame Elizabeth Taylor dies

Elizabeth Taylor, DBE. 

1932-2011

Dame Elizabeth Taylor, one of the 20th Century's biggest movie stars, has died in Los Angeles at the age of 79.

The double Oscar-winning actress had a long history of ill health and was being treated for symptoms of congestive heart failure.

Her four children were with her when she died at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, her publicist said.

In a statement, her son Michael Wilding called her "an extraordinary woman who lived life to the fullest".

"We know, quite simply, that the world is a better place for Mom having lived in it," he continued.

"Her legacy will never fade, her spirit will always be with us, and her love will live forever in our hearts."

Dame Elizabeth's most famous films included National Velvet, Cleopatra and Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

Read the rest of this article at BBC News.

Just glorious!

Parthenon Moon
Image Credit & Copyright: Anthony Ayiomamitis (TWAN)

Jesus of Nazareth: What did Jesus bring?

No kingdom of this world is the Kingdom of God, the total condition of mankind's salvation. Earthly kingdoms remain earthly human kingdoms, and anyone who claims to be able to establish the perfect world is the willing dupe of Satan and plays the world right into his hands.

Now, it is true that this leads to the great question that will be with us throughout this entire book: What did Jesus actually bring, if not world peace, universal prosperity, and a better world? What has he brought?

The answer is very simple: God. He has brought God. He has brought the God who formerly unveiled his countenance gradually, first to Abraham, then to Moses and the Prophets, and then in the Wisdom Literature - the God who revealed his face only in Israel, even though he was also honored among the pagans in various shadowy guises. It is this God, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the true God, whom he has brought to the nations of the earth.

He has brought God, and now we know his face, now we can call upon him. Now we know the path that we human beings have to take in this world. Jesus has brought God and with God the truth about our origin and destiny: faith, hope and, love. It is only because of our hardness of heart that we think this is too little. Yes indeed, God's power works quietly in this world, but it is the true and lasting power. Again and again, God's cause seems to be in its death throes. Yet over and over again it proves to be the thing that truly endures and saves. The earthly kingdoms that Satan was able to put before the Lord at the time have all passed away. Their glory, their doxa, has proven to be a mere semblance. But the glory of Christ, the humble, self-sacrificing glory of his love, has not passed away, now will it ever do so.

Jesus has emerged victorious from his battle with Satan. To the tempter’s lying divinization of power and prosperity, to his lying promise of a future that offers all things to all men through power and through wealth - he responds with the fact that God is God, that God is man's true Good. To the invitation to worship power, the Lord answers with a passage from Deuteronomy, the same book that the devil himself has cited: "You shall worship the Lord your God and him only shall you serve" (Mt 4:10; cf. Deut 6:13). The fundamental commandment of Israel is also the fundamental commandment for Christians: God alone is to be worshiped. 

Pp. 43-45.

Jesus of Nazareth: The Third Temptation: what sort of Messiah?

Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain, and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and the glory of them; and he said to him, "All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me."
Then Jesus said to him, "Begone, Satan! for it is written, `You shall worship the Lord your God
and him only shall you serve.'"

Matthew 4: 8-10

The Christian empire attempted at an early stage to use the faith in order to cement political unity. The Kingdom of Christ was now expected to take the form of a political kingdom and its splendor. The powerlessness of faith, the earthly powerlessness of Jesus Christ, was to be given the helping hand of political and military might. This temptation to use power to secure the faith has arisen again and again in varied forms throughout the centuries, and again and again faith has risked being suffocated in the embrace of power. The struggle for the freedom of the Church, the struggle to avoid identifying Jesus' Kingdom with any political structure, is one that has to be fought century after century. For the fusion of faith and political power always comes at a price: faith becomes the servant of power and must bend to its criteria.

The alternative at stake here appears in a dramatic form in the narrative of the Lord's Passion. At the culmination of Jesus' trial, Pilate presents the people with a choice between Jesus and Barabbas....The choice of Jesus versus Barabbas is not accidental; two messiah figures, two forms of messianic belief stand in opposition....So the choice is between a Messiah who leads an armed struggle, promises freedom and a kingdom of one's own, and this mysterious Jesus who proclaims that losing oneself is the way of life. Is it any wonder that the crowds prefer Barabbas?

...If we had to choose today, would Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Mary, the Son of the Father, have a chance? Do we really know Jesus at all? Do we understand hum? Do we not perhaps have to make an effort, today as always, to get to know him all over again? The tempter is not so crude as to suggest to us directly that we should worship the devil. He merely suggests that we opt for the reasonable decision, that we choose to give priority to a planned and thoroughly organized world, where God may have his place as a private concern but must not interfere in our essential purposes.

Pp. 39-41.

Mr O'Reily

This funny episode of Fawlty Towers is unfair towards the Irish. But Irish blogger Mary O'Regan featured it (on St Paddy's day too!) so I thought I would too:





I remember this showing on TV when I was a kid.

Jesus of Nazareth: The Second Temptation, putting God to the test

Then the devil took him to the holy city, and set him on the pinnacle of the temple,
and said to him, "If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down; for it is written, 'He will give his angels charge of you,'and 'On their hands they will bear you up, lest you strike your foot against a stone.'"
Jesus said to him, "Again it is written, 'You shall not tempt the Lord your God.'" 

Matthew 4: 5-7

We are dealing here with the vast question as to how we can and cannot know God, how we are related to God and how we can lose him. The arrogance that would make God an object and impose our laboratory conditions upon him is incapable of finding him. For it already implies that we deny God as God by placing ourselves above hi, by discarding the whole dimension of love, of interior listening; by no longer acknowledging as real anything but what we can experimentally test and grasp. To think like that is to make oneself God. And to do that is to abase not only God, but the world and oneself, too.

From this scene on the pinnacle of the Temple, though, we can look out and see the Cross. Christ did not cast himself down from the pinnacle of the Temple. He did not leap into the abyss. He did not tempt God. But he did descend into the abyss of death, into the night of abandonment, and into the desolation of the defenceless. He ventured this leap as an act of God's love for men. And so he knew that, ultimately, when he leaped he could only fall into the kindly hands of the Father. This brings to light the real meaning of Psalm 91, which has to do with the right to the ultimate and unlimited trust which the Psalm speaks: If you follow the will of God, you know that in spite of all the terrible things that happen to you, you will never lose a final refuge. You know that the foundation of the world is love, so that even when no human being can or will help you, you may go on, trusting in the One who loves you. Yet this trust, which we cultivate on the authority of Scripture and at the invitation of the risen Lord, is something quite different from the reckless defiance of God that would make God our servant.

Pp. 37-38.

St Martin’s Church in Zillis, Canton Graubünden, Switzerland (Source)

which contains the earliest preserved, figuratively painted wooden ceiling in Europe.

Jesus of Nazareth: The First Temptation, by bread alone

And he fasted forty days and forty nights, and afterward he was hungry.
And the tempter came and said to him, "If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread."
But he answered, "It is written, `Man shall not live by bread alone,
but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.'"

Matthew 4: 2-4

He himself has become bread for us, and this multiplication of the loaves endures to the end of time, without ever being depleted. This gives us the background we need if we are to understand what Jesus means when he cites the Old Testament in order to repel the tempter: "Man does not live by bread alone, but...by everything that proceeds out of the mouth of the LORD" (Deut 8:3). The German Jesuit Alfred Delp, who was executed by the Nazis, once wrote: "Bread is important, freedom is more important, but most important of all is unbroken fidelity and faithful adoration."

When this ordering of good is no longer respected, but turned on its head, the result is not justice or concern for human suffering. The result is rather ruin and destruction even of material goods themselves. When God is regarded as a secondary matter that can be set aside temporarily or permanently on account of more important things, it is precisely these supposedly more important things that come to nothing. It is not just the negative outcome of the Marxist experiment that proves this.

The aid offered by the West to developing countries has been purely technically and materially based, and not only has left God out of the picture, but has driven men away from God. And this aid, proudly claiming to "know better," is itself what first turned the "third world" into what we mean today by that term. It has thrust aside indigenous religious, ethical, and social structures and filled the resulting vacuum with its technocratic mind-set. The idea was that we could turn stones into bread; instead our "aid" has only given stones instead of bread. The issue is the primacy of God. The issue is acknowledging that he is a reality, that he is the reality without which nothing else can be good. History cannot be detached from God and then run smoothly on purely material lines. If man's heart is not good, then nothing else can turn out good, either. And the goodness of the human heart can ultimately come only from the One who is goodness, who is the Good itself.

Of course, one can still ask why God did not make a world in which his presence is more evident - why Christ did not leave the world with another sign of his presence so radiant that no one could resist it. This is the mystery of God and man, which we find so inscrutable. We live in this world, where God is not so manifest as tangible things are, but can be sought and found only when the heart sets out on the "exodus" from "Egypt." It is in this world that we are obliged to resist the delusions of false philosophies and to recognize that we do not live on bread alone, but first and foremost by obedience to God's word. Only when this obedience is put into practice does the attitude develop that is also capable of providing bread for all.

Pp. 33-34.

Temptation of Christ Peter Paul Rubens (1620)

Jesus of Nazareth: Temptation

Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. 

Matthew 4:1

 
Matthew and Luke recount three temptations of Jesus that reflect the inner struggle over his own particular mission and, at the same time, address the question as to what truly matters in human life. At the heart of all temptations, as we see here, is the act of pushing God aside because we perceive him as secondary, if not actually superfluous and annoying, in comparison with all the apparently far more urgent matters that fill our lives. Constructing a world by our own lights, without reference to God, building our own foundation; refusing to acknowledge the reality of anything beyond the political and material, while setting God aside as an illusion - that is the temptation that threatens us in many varied forms.

P. 28.

The Tower of Babel, Pieter Bruegel the Elder (c. 1563)

Owned

Sometimes Anne Coulter comes across as crass. Here she's great - and she's giving that vulgar woman Behar a very hard time. Always enjoyable to watch.









Pow! Pow! Pow! At the end of each section you see how pained Behar is. Heheee.

This is quite beautiful

Via Fr Z.



It's beautiful how Ted Gundy, the veteran, says he's so honoured by the young shooters' gestures, while the young ones say that that's just silly because it is they who are honoured. Each outdoing the other in humility and graciousness. And the young ones don't look down on the technological inferiority of the veterans - in facts in their eyes it just increases the impressiveness of the WWII shooter's talent.

What a far cry from this scene, highlighted by CMR. 'Obama buddy Van Jones thinks kids are kinda' like super genius gods who live in a world with little basis to respect their elders.'

Ob-la-di, ob-la-da

Fun! :)

Pray for Japan

I remember similar stark photos of the Sri Lankan coastline in 2004.



Lord, help!

Toddler cancer patient’s vision inspires prayers to Mother Teresa for miracle

Joseph “JoeJoe” Wahlin is the seventh child of Chad and Kim Wahlin, who are stationed at the U.S. naval base in Naples. On March 2 doctors discovered that the toddler has category four cancer.

“Without a miracle, and barring a misdiagnosis, he may not have long to live,” reported Fr. Mark Withoos, a friend of the boy’s parents.

But the parents have seen signs for hope.

Chad Wahlin told Fr. Withoos that one afternoon he was lying in bed with his two-and-a-half year-old son.

“Joe looked past the foot of the bed and told me ‘Mommy's grandma is there’,” the father said. The boy had only seen photos of the woman.

“Kim's grandmother looked exactly like Mother Teresa,” Wahlin wrote.

Joseph also said he saw “angels” at his hospital room in Naples.

His father had been crying at his sleeping son’s bedside when Joseph awoke and asked him why he was crying.

“Don’t you see the two angels standing next to the bed? They are bewdiful,” the boy said.

He told his father the angels said to him they would be back.

Joseph has returned to the United States and has undergone surgery and chemotherapy. He and his parents are presently at Walter Reed Medical Center in Washington, D.C.

Sisters from the Missionaries of Charity have been frequently visiting Joseph and have brought a relic of Bl. Mother Teresa. They placed it on the boy while praying for him.

“Joe was perky and silly while there were there and enjoyed playing with a balloon with them,” reported Fr. Withoos, who is telling Joseph’s story in several e-mails requesting prayers for a miracle.

Read the rest here.
Pray for him! He's the little kiddie in the orange-striped t-shirt. We can ask Mother Teresa's help too.

Jesus, you made Blessed Teresa an inspiring example of firm faith and burning charity, an extraordinary witness to the way of spiritual childhood, and a great and esteemed teacher of the value and dignity of every human life. Grant that she may be venerated and imitated as one of the Church's canonized saints.
Hear the requests of all those who seek her intercession, especially the petition I now implore... (mention here the favour you wish to pray for).


May we follow her example in heeding Your cry of thirst from the Cross and joyfully loving You in the distressing disguise of the poorest of the poor, especially those most unloved and unwanted.


We ask this in Your name and through the intercession of Mary, Your Mother and the Mother of us all.
Amen.

Guilty!

At least Maggie she didn't lie. :D

Shakespearian Baseball Game

I love it!



It's hilarious how they squeeze in actual lines (or variants of actual lines) of Shakespeare!
Here are just a few I caught from towards the end of the clip.
TV or not TV ('To be or not to be', from Hamlet), That foul was fair. The fair was foul ('Fair is foul and foul is fair', from Macbeth), Get thee to an optometrist ('Get thee to a nunnery' from Hamlet), Told by an umpire, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. ('Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing', from Macbeth) and 'O, what a noble mind is here o'erthrown!His noggin has taken a floggin' (The first sentence is from Hamlet, the second is typical American slang.)

Awesome

Man was not designed to fly - and yet he is able to lift tonnes of metal into the air with grace and beauty.

Scathing!

More here.

Your Favorite Children’s Books Translated Into Latin

Winnie Ille Pu

‘Ior mi,’ dixit sollemniter, ‘egomet, Winnie ille Pu, caudam tuam reperiam.’
‘Eeyore,’ he said solemnly, ‘I, Winnie-the-Pooh, will find your tail for you.’

More here (including Harrius Potter)

At the Quirinale

Taken in Rome on the 25th of June 2010.

"Unquestionably to the Roman Pontiffs it is 

that Italy must own herself indebted 

for the substantial glory and majesty 

by which she has been pre-eminent amongst the nations.

The influence and fatherly care of the popes 

have upon many occasions shielded her from hostile attack 

and brought her relief and aid, 

the effect of which is that the Catholic faith 

has been ever maintained inviolate in the hearts of Italians."

-Pope Leo XIII.

(Quote via J.P. Sonnen)

Two political speeches

Sen. Rand Paul points out an interesting bit of hypocrisy. The Deomcrats favour a woman's right to an abortion but they don't favour the right to choose one's appliances. How messed-up is that? For the former, a life (or at least a potential life, if we want to grant them that) is at stake. This is exactly where the government should step in.



And then there's this bit of utter idiocy:



He's more ridiculous than his father. He has no idea what a constitution is, what rights are. The constitution is not a tool you idiot congressmen can use to fix the economy. Every student with a iPod and a laptop. Oh gosshh.

Delightful!

This is such fun, and so impressive too. The kid isn't just moving around to the tune - you can see that he knows the music and is loving it. It's also so nice to see him dissolve into laughter at the end. :) :)



Good music too.

Via CMR

Low Earth Orbit

Discovery in Twilight
Image Credit & Copyright: Tamas Ladanyi (TWAN) Explanation: As evening twilight faded on March 7, sky gazers around planet Earth enjoyed a beautiful pairing of young crescent Moon and brilliant planet Jupiter. Along with stars setting in the west, the two bright celestial beacons, Moon above and Jupiter below, leave short trails in this well-planned time exposure, a composite of 54 individual frames each 4 seconds long. On its final flight, the Space Shuttle Discovery and International Space Station form the second close pairing in the night skyscape. Still glinting in the sunlight in low Earth orbit, they gracefully trace overlapping arcs from lower right to upper left. Moon, Jupiter, Discovery, and ISS are reflected in the calm waters of Lake Bakonybél, Hungary. Want to see the sequence of frames as a short youtube video? Check it out here. In the video, the trails of the ISS and Discovery are seen to separate as the pair passes above the Moon.






Beautiful. Sets the imagination soaring.

Pope Benedict: Lent

n English!


Read his Lenten Message here.

Aside: Somehow, I think Pope Benedict looks like he's ageing recently. Even in this video he looks a bit tired...God grant him strength!

Jesus of Nazareth: Conflicting movements, hopes, and expectations

But a further point comes to light in the fact that Luke lists side by side the emperor and the princes among whom the Holy Land is divined. All these princedoms are dependencies of Rome. The kingdom of David lies broken in pieces, his "hut" in ruins (cf. Amos 9:11f). His descendent, Jesus' legal father, is a carpenter in the half-paganized province of Galilee. Israel is living once more in the darkness of divine absence; God is silent, seemingly forgetful of the promises to Abraham and David. The old lament is heard once more: We no longer have any prophets, God seems to have abandoned his people. For that very reason, though, the land was full of unrest.

Conflicting movements, hopes, and expectations shaped the religious and political climate. At around the time of Jesus' birth Judas the Galilean had called for an uprising, which was put down by the Romans with a great deal of bloodshed. Judas left behind a party, the Zealots, who were prepared to resort to terror and violence in order to restore Israel's freedom. It is even possible that one or two of Jesus' twelve Apostles - Simon the Zealot and perhaps Judas Iscariot as well - had been partisans of this movement. The Pharisees, whom we are constantly meeting in the Gospels, endeavored to live with the greatest possible exactness according to the instructions of the Torah. They also refused conformity to the hegemony of the Hellenistic-Roman culture, which naturally imposed itself throughout the Roman Empire, and was now threatening to force Israel's assimilation to the pagan peoples' way of life. The Sadducees, most of whom belonged to the aristocracy and the priestly class, attempted to practice an enlightened Judaism, intellectually suited to the times, and so also to come to terms with the Roman domination. The Sadducees disappeared after the destruction of Jerusalem (A.D. 70), whereas the pattern of lie practiced by the Pharisees found and enduring form in the sort of Judaism shaped by the Mishnah and the Talmud. Although we observe sharp antagonism between Jesus and the Pharisees in the Gospels, and although his death on the Cross was the very antithesis of the Zealot program, we must not forget that people came to Christ from every background and that the early Christian community included more than a few priests and former Pharisees.

Pp. 12-13.

Jesus of Nazareth: The Christ and the Emperor

Luke picks up this thread again when he introduces the story of the Baptist, which marks the beginning of Jesus' public activity. At this point he tells us both solemnly and precisely that it was "in the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, Pontius Pilate being the governor of Judea, and Herod being the tetrarch of Galilee, and his brother Philip the tetrarch of Ituraea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias tetrarch of Abilene, in the high-priesthood of Anna and Caiaphas" (Lk 3:1-2). Once again the mention of the Roman emperor serves to indicate Jesus' chronological place in world history. We are not meant to regard Jesus' activity as taking place in some sort of mythical "anytime", which can mean always or never. It is a precisely datable historical event having the full weight that real historical happenings have; like them, too, it happens once only; it is contemporary with all times, but not in the way that a timeless myth would be.

But the point is not just the chronology. The emperor and Jesus represent two different orders of reality. They are by no means mutually exclusive, but their encounter does have the potential to spark a conflict that has implications for the basic questions facing humanity and human existence. Jesus will later say "render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's" (Mk 12:17), which is a way of expressing the essential compatibility of the two spheres. But when the imperial power interprets itself as divine, as Augustus' claim to be the bringer of world peace and the savior of humanity already implicitly does, then the Christian has to "obey God more than men" (Acts 5:29). It is then that Christians become "martyrs," witnesses of Christ, who himself was "the faithful witness" who died on the Cross under Pontius Pilate (Rev 1:5). Luke's mention of Pontius Pilate casts the shadow of the Cross over the beginning of Jesus' public activity. The names Herod, Annas, Caiaphas also foreshadow the Cross.

Pp.11-12.

Lenten Reading

Focusing on spiritual reading is a noble Lenten tradition. Here's something from St Benedict, for example:

In the days of Lent let them apply themselves to their reading from the morning until the end of the third hour, and from then until the end of the tenth hour let them per­form the work that is assigned to them. In these days of Lent let them each receive a book from the library, which they shall read through consecutively; let these books be given out at the beginning of Lent. (trans J McCann)

Last year I read a compilation of writings of the Church Fathers, available here. You can also find other great options for your Lenten reading there.

This year I plan to read (and hopefully finish) Pope Benedict's Jesus of Nazareth: From the Baptism in the Jordan to the Transfiguration. I've had the book for several years now and I've read parts of it, but I want to finish the book systematically this time. I'm a rather undisciplined reader sometimes, so this would be a good Lenten discipline too.

The second instalment of Pope Benedict's 'personal search "for the face of the Lord" (cf. Ps 27:8)' (p. xxiii) was released today and focuses on the Holy Week - the passion of our Lord. It sounds awesome, just like the first volume.

I hope to type out an excerpt or two from my daily reading (which should be about 10 pages a day if I want to finish the book by Easter). The only problem is, when it's Pope Benedict's writing, it's very hard to excerpt portions - everything is so profound.

I'll try though!

Brobdingnagian

 Brob·ding·nag·ian    adj

\ bräb-diŋ-ˈna-gē-ən, -dig-ˈna-\

Definition of BROBDINGNAGIAN
: marked by tremendous size

Examples of BROBDINGNAGIAN
A Brobdingnagian billboard stood at the entrance to the theme par


Origin of BROBDINGNAGIAN
Brobdingnag, imaginary land of giants in Gulliver's Travels, by Jonathan Swift
First Known Use: 1728

Farewell, Discovery

Homeward bound

Relative separation:

 

Getty

Getty

 

AP

Landing:

And Discovery's final touchdown:

 

Getty

 

NASA - With its drag chute unfurled, space shuttle Discovery rolls down Runway 15 at the Shuttle Landing Facility at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Landing was at 11:57 a.m. EST, completing the 13-day STS-133 mission to the International Space Station. Main gear touchdown was at 11:57:17 a.m., followed by nose gear touchdown at 11:57:28, and wheelstop at 11:58:14 a.m. On board were Commander Steve Lindsey, Pilot Eric Boe, and Mission Specialists Nicole Stott, Michael Barratt, Alvin Drew and Steve Bowen.

Spacewalk

 

 

NASA: Anchored to a Canadarm2 mobile foot restraint, astronaut Steve Bowen tackled a variety of tasks, including venting into space some remaining ammonia from a failed pump module they moved during the STS-133 mission’s first spacewalk. Fellow astronaut Alvin Drew worked in conjunction with Bowen to complete the day's tasks during this the second spacewalk of the mission.

Approach

 

NASA:
After a very cloudy day at Forest of Dean, Gloucestershire, England, the skies cleared to allow a view of this stunning pass of the ISS and Discovery on Feb. 26, 2011. Photographer Rob Bullen, who captured this breath-taking view of the shuttle Discovery and the space station, said, "I could not believe the timing was so fortuitous to show the shuttle closing in on the station. I captured this, what I guess could potentially be, a once in a lifetime image of these two spaceships travelling as separate craft using Canon EOS 40D using eyepiece projection through a hand guided 8.5 inch Newton."

Image Credit: Rob Bullen

The SSPX claim the Novus Ordo is a Protestant rite. Can they be serious?

The issues involved, however, will be with us for some time, and still have to be faced, since the casual acceptance of some supposedly “traditionalist” views has done considerable damage. One of these was summed up by one participant in the ongoing Herald debate: his view is essentially that the Novus Ordo is an invalid rite:

“The Novus Ordo does not signify the Catholic theology of the holy sacrifice of the Mass. It is ambiguous – deliberately so – and tends toward giving a Protestant understanding of the Lord’s Supper, which gradually will replace the Catholic Mass in the eyes and psyche of whatever remaining “Catholic” attend it. It is simple: no sacrifice = no need for a sacrificing priest = no need for an altar but merely a table for a commemorative meal over which the presbyter presides and in which the people of God exercise their universal priesthood and so they, not any priest, worship God in their way instead of in His.”

This is a grotesque distortion – no, worse, an actual direct untruth – simply asserted as though it were self-evident. The Novus Ordo is very clearly a valid Catholic liturgy, in which the doctrine of the Mass as sacrifice is both assumed and unambiguously stated. Consider the following, from the current English translation of Eucharistic prayer III:

Father, calling to mind the death your Son endured for our salvation, his glorious Resurrection and ascension into heaven, and ready to greet him when he comes again, we offer you in thanksgiving this holy and living sacrifice.

Look with favour on your Church’s offering, and see the victim whose death has reconciled us to yourself. Grant that we, who are nourished by his body and blood, may be filled with his Holy Spirit, and become one body, one spirit in Christ.

May he make us an everlasting gift to you and enable us to share in the inheritance of your saints, with Mary, the virgin Mother of God, with the apostles, the martyrs, and all your saints, on whose constant intercession we rely for help.

Lord, may this sacrifice, which has made our peace with you, advance the peace and salvation of all the world…

That is quite unmistakeable, and clearly, intentionally and unambiguously expressed: what is being offered is a “holy and living” sacrifice, the sacrifice of Calvary.
[...]

Whether you like the new prayers of the Roman Rite or not (personally, I think that Eucharistic prayers III and IV are magnificent, especially in Latin but, though more evidently in the new translation, even in the current English version) it is ludicrous, ludicrous, to claim that they tend towards Protestantism. 

Amen! Read the rest here, at the Catholic Herald.

The 21st-century ‘saint’ you’ve never heard of

In January 2010, Fr John Lee Tae-seok, a Korean priest nicknamed “the Schweitzer of Sudan”, lay dying of cancer. His fellow Salesians surrounded him in his last agony and tried to accept the imminent death of the saintly priest who was only in his 40s. Fr John had worked tirelessly for nine years as part of the Salesian mission in war-ravaged southern Sudan. He had given the mission the full benefit of his talents: as a doctor devoted to the victims of leprosy, as a teacher and as a musician.

A few hours before his death, Fr John awoke and said: “Don’t worry. Everything is going to be all right.” He was referring to Sudan. Perhaps he sensed that the south was on the verge of a historic breakthrough. This January, almost exactly a year after Fr John’s death, the southern Sudanese voted for independence. The Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir, the first sitting head of state ever to be indicted by the International Criminal Court, has accepted the referendum result. Some believe that Fr John may have had an intercessory role in this. At Fr John’s funeral, Fr Farrington Ryan, the Salesian delegate to Sudan, gave a speech asking Fr John to “implore the good Lord to give us peace in the Sudan”.



Read the rest at the Catholic Herald.

Kenosis

Have this mind among yourselves, 

which is yours in Christ Jesus, 

who, though he was in the form of God, 

did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped,
but emptied himself, 

taking the form of a servant, 

being born in the likeness of men.
And being found in human form he humbled himself 

and became obedient unto death, 

even death on a cross. 

- Philippians 2:5-8.

Lent starts tomorrow - let us empty ourselves; let us have in us the mind of Christ Jesus. 

Bookmarking: March

Conceding Good Faith by Justin Paulette

The reason I oppose free food and cheap medicine is not concealed racism, nationalism, or bigotry. Neither is it due to suppressed desires, (trans)gender confusion, or trauma during my infancy. And it’s not because I’m bitter, clingy, or antipathetic. It’s not due to any inferior quality of my politics, religion, or soul. It’s simply that I am convinced the liberal proposition will help less and hurt more than alternative, conservative policies.

Political confrontations don’t, by and large, involve clear contests between pure good and pure evil. On the whole, both sides, even in the most heated debates, believe their end is good, and don’t proceed with evil intent or malice. Politics requires rational, moral, and informed decisions, but prejudiced presumptions of concealed malevolence in political adversaries cripples communication and excludes meaningful debate.

Forget Mandarin. Latin is the key to success by Toby Young

On the face of it, encouraging children to learn Latin doesn’t seem like the solution to our current skills crisis. Why waste valuable curriculum time on a dead language when children could be learning one that’s actually spoken? The prominence of Latin in public schools is a manifestation of the gentleman amateur tradition whereby esoteric subjects are preferred to anything that’s of any practical use. Surely, that’s one of the causes of the crisis in the first place?

But dig a little deeper and you’ll find plenty of evidence that this particular dead language is precisely what today’s young people need if they’re going to excel in the contemporary world.

The Rebuilding Year—A Miraculous True Story by Matthew Archbold

In sports, it’s called a rebuilding year. It’s when everything’s gone wrong, but there’s still hope for the future.

In life it’s called faith.

Everything went wrong a year and a day ago when 15 year old Lenny Martelli fell off his snowboard in Schwenksville Pennsylvania. His friends gathered round him as he lay in the snow and they heard the words nobody wanted to hear.

“I can’t move,” Lenny said.

This is a story about a year when reason allowed no reason to hope. It’s a story about a miracle that culminated on the basketball court at St. Joseph’s University—under the glare of television cameras from news networks and ESPN. Thousands in the stands cheered Lenny’s name, but there was no amazing basket with seconds left on the clock that night. No dunk highlights. This was a different kind of miracle altogether. The kind nobody expected. But maybe that’s exactly when miracles happen—when nobody expects them.

The 10 Oldest Churches in the World
Here are two:
The Dura-Europos church  is the earliest identified Christian house church. It is located in Dura-Europos in Syria and dates from 235 AD. The site of Dura-Europos, a former city and walled fortification, was excavated largely in the 1920s and 1930s by French and American teams. Within the archaeological site, the house church is located by the 17th tower and preserved by the same defensive fill that saved the nearby Dura-Europos synagogue (Wikipedia).



Church of Our Lady Mary of Zion
Church of Our Lady Mary of Zion of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church is the most important church in Ethiopia. The original church is believed to have been built during the reign of Ezana, the first Christian emperor of Ethiopia, during the 4th century AD, and has been rebuilt several times since then. The church is in the town of Axum in the Tigray Province. Its first putative destruction occurred at the hands of Queen Gudit during the 10th century. Its second, confirmed, destruction occurred in the 16th century at the hands of Ahmad ibn Ibrihim al-Ghazi, after which it was rebuilt by the Emperor Gelawdewos, then further rebuilt and enlarged by Fasilides during the 17th century (Wikipedia).

Thomas Peters has a fun Papist Picture:

God was recently asked, “How do you view the pope?” He responded, “Well…”

And take a look at some stunning street art by Edgar Mueller:

John C. Wright has two good articles:

The first one is on a laughable decision by a US court that mental activity falls within Congress' power to regulate.

We, the public, whose lives are ruled by a legal system run by those who think like lawyers, depend for our liberties and even our lives on the promise that our legal system will not be in the hands of those whose skulls are filled with mush.

I was reminded of this quote today.

The United States District Court for the District of Columbia has held, as a matter of law, Congress has the power to regulate, through the Commerce Clause, any action or inaction, including mental activity or inactivity, including any decision or failure to decide by anyone in the jurisdiction of the United States, which may have an affect on reality.

The reason is that actions affect interstate commerce, including the action of deciding not to purchase a good or service in the amount and quality and under the conditions the state commands, and that mental activity, such as thought, affects actions, therefore mental activity falls under the Commerce Clause.

I kid you not.

The second is on women, marriage and the social order, which he explores through the evolution of the ideal woman in popular media:

The unspoken and unquestioned social norm of modern society is that marriage is exploitation and that motherhood is serfdom, and that to expect girls to grow up to be mothers is an insult.[...]

This hatred of womanhood, home-making and marriage is a sinful social norm from the Christian viewpoint, since it is pride, the very sin of Lucifer; from the pagan viewpoint it is hubris, and the immodesty that would offend Artemis, Athena, and Vesta, virgins and patronesses of chastity; and from the Darwinian viewpoint discouraging reproduction and childrearing for an altricial species is an inferior survival strategy for the race.

Our society cannot make the woman more masculine – all that happens when it is attempted is that women become bitchy, selfish, unfeminine, unsupportive, aggressive – so society makes men more feminine, so now men are no longer stoical or expected to bear pain stoically.

Finally, are apes as intelligent or emotional as human beings? Are we 'just another ape'?Helene Guldberg does not think so. 'Yes, we may share 98 per cent of DNA with chimpanzees, but we also share 70 per cent with yeast. Clearly biology does not exhaust our humanity. We are a bit more than our DNA.'

I wonder why

these Omani protesters, in Muscat, are holding a placard in German (which says 'Yes to social equality, no to corruption'.)

  Demotix Images

Sunday with Willie

Great camera work. And excellent cast too ;)

The blue whale

The heart in the picture above is obviously a replica, but a real blue whale heart weighs roughly 1,300 pounds; its heartbeat can be detected from two miles away and a human can fit in its arteries.

(IFAW via Reddit)

I can't imagine what such a heartbeat sounds/feels like.



The heart of a blue whale beats only five times a minute - 'but it drives 10 tonnes of blood through a million miles of blood vessels.'

Amazing.

“A man who loves the world knows that the world is the place where he finds Christ”

You need formation, because you need a profound sense of responsibility, if you are to encourage and direct the activity of Catholics in public life and do so with the respect that everyone's freedom deserves, reminding each and every one that they have to be consistent with their faith. (The Forge, 712)

2000/07/26

A man who knows that the world, and not just the church, is the place where he finds Christ, loves that world. He endeavours to become properly formed, intellectually and professionally. He makes up his own mind with complete freedom about the problems of the environment in which he moves, and then he makes his own decisions. Being the decisions of a Christian, they result from personal reflection, in which he endeavours, in all humility, to grasp the Will of God in both the unimportant and the important events of his life.

But it would never occur to such a Christian to think or to say that he was stepping down from the temple into the world to represent the Church, or that his solutions are ‘ the Catholic solutions’ to problems. That would be completely inadmissible! That would be clericalism, ‘official Catholicism’, or whatever you want to call it. In any case, it means doing violence to the very nature of things. You must foster everywhere a genuine ‘lay outlook’, which will lead to three conclusions: be sufficiently honest, so as to shoulder one’s own personal responsibility; be sufficiently Christian, so as to respect those brothers in the Faith who, in matters of free discussion, propose solutions which differ from those which each one of us maintains; and be sufficiently Catholic so as not to use our Mother the Church, involving her in human factions…

Interpret, then, my words as what they are: a call to exercise your rights every day, and not merely in time of emergency. A call to fulfil honourably your commitments as citizens, in all fields — in politics and in financial affairs, in university life and in your job — accepting with courage all the consequences of your free decisions and the personal independence which corresponds to each one of you. A Christian ‘lay outlook’ of this sort will enable you to flee from all intolerance, from all fanaticism. To put it in a positive way, it will help you to live in peace with all your fellow citizens, and to promote this understanding and harmony in all spheres of social life. (Conversations, 116-117)

From the Opus Dei website.

I am a true labourer

I came across a nice Shakespeare quote via the TV show Frasier. Fr Marin gave us a great talk yesterday about work. Time to implement this (again!). Work well! And encounter God in your work!

Sir, I am a true labourer: I earn that I eat, get
    that I wear, owe no man hate, envy no man's
    happiness, glad of other men's good, content with my
    harm.

~  As You Like It - Act III, Scene 2.

Bananas

My wife is the Charlie Brown of banana pickers. She always picks the sorriest looking bananas. I don’t know if she feels sorry for them or there’s something she just doesn’t understand about bananas but she always picks the craziest looking bananas.

I offered my five year old son a banana this morning when he came downstairs to get ready for school. It was the last one. And there was a reason it was the last one. It looked like every other banana’s great grandfather. I’d tried giving it to the three year old a few minutes earlier and she backed away all wide eyed with her hands up to fend me off like I was brandishing a weapon. I didn’t want the banana to go to waste so when my five year old came down the stairs I practically jumped on him.

“Here’s your banana” I told him as he was approaching the pop tarts.

“No way,” he said, as if he’d prepared for me.

I insisted it was fine but he said it looked “crazy.”

It’s not “crazy” I assured him and unpeeled it, showing a perfectly fine banana. He took an intrigued step forward and then looked at me to make sure that I wasn’t playing a trick on him.

“OK,” he reluctantly said and took the banana.

My eight year old daughter then came down the stairs, still rubbing her eyes.

“Say the Act of Contrition,” I demanded before I even said good morning. Now, before you think I’m a crazy lunatic you must know that tonight was her first reconciliation. A big night. So I’m not a crazy lunatic, just a regular kind of fathery type lunatic who’s been studying the Act of Contrition to the point where at night we all dream about how heartily sorry we all are. “Just say the Act of Contrition,” I said. “One last time and I’ll never ask again.”

The three year old walked into the kitchen saying, “Oh my gosh I am hardly sorry for having upended thee…”

The eight year old just pointed at her as if this were all the evidence she needed that I’d crossed a line somewhere.

Read the rest of this beautifully hilarious episode from the Archbold family here.

Are you typical?

Via Joe Carter at First Thoughts.

Underdogs

Its always great to see a minnow beat a giant in cricket. Tonight it was the brave little Irish - they beat England.


ESPNCricinfo

Exciting match!

Recent Acquisitions

I've been buying quite a lot of books recently.

Over the last couple of weeks there has been a used-books sale at the Central Forum. Here's what I bought during the several visits I made to the stall.



Then last Saturday my sister and I went to the Borders clearance sale. Here are photos of our haul:









Great bargains!

Also, a few of weeks ago I ordered this, based on this recommendation. It looks like a very useful book - not just for dealing with Catechism students, but for being able to listen, understand and empathize with adults too.




And I was gifted  this gorgeous book by Kiang Choon yesterday (a late Christmas present, he said). It's been on my 'Books To Read' list for some months now.Thanks KC!



I need to get better photo of it. Fr Joe and some of the guys at the Opus Dei house were very impressed with it when I showed it to them after Circle yesterday, so I lent it to them for a few days.

Finally, I've ordered two books which I think might be useful for my thesis - C.S. Lewis' God in the Dock and Cardinal Ratzinger's A Turning Point for Europe?.

Looks like I'll have to impose a moratorium on book purchases now.