We consider it peculiar that Muslims stop five times a day to offer prayers to Allah, yet we stop what we do five times an hour to pay homage to our e-mail.Joe Carter at First Things, Unplugging the Info-Tech God
==============
Me? I like my Science Fiction hard and I like my SCIENCE easy.Jesse Willis, SFFaudio
==========
Back in the summer — it already seems like a hundred years ago — my teenager went to one of those college programs which promise the motivated high-school student an entire liberal-arts education distilled to a two-week elixir. She had a great time and came back talking about Flannery O’Connor, which I’d been trying to get her to do for, oh, ever or so.
One night over dinner with her twenty-six new best friends, the talk turned to the subject of what everyone wanted to be when he or she grew up. The girls, one by one, announced that they wanted to be lawyers. One girl said she wanted to go into politics, maybe. A few other girls thought they’d like to do some corporate kind of job.
At last my daughter’s turn came. “Well,” she said, “I want to be a mom.”
There was a silence. Finally someone asked, “Then why are you here?”
“Because I think the basic unit of society ought to be educated,” my daughter said.Sally Thomas, blogging for The Anchoress
==========
At Mass today, for example, the gospel reading is from Luke and begins like this,
Jesus came to Nazareth, where he had grown up, and went according to his custom into the synagogue on the sabbath day. He stood up to read and was handed a scroll of the prophet Isaiah.(Luke 4:16-17)
What the passage doesn't say, of course, is that He could possibly, on a different day of the week, or on a different day of the liturgical calendar, have been handed a scroll from Tobit, Judith, Sirach, Wisdom, Baruch, or 1 & 2 Maccabees. These books were in the scrolls too, when God walked upon the earth. I don't know for sure, but like I said, I'm not a biblical scholar. Which is why I rely, again, on the authority of the Church.
So the mechanic in me was left with only one question to consider. As a Christian, did I want to go along with a stripped version of the motor, the one missing a few parts, with all of the pitfalls associated with that, or go along with the original version of the motor; the one that has all of the original parts, all in the proper place.Frank at Why I Am Catholic, Because I Love the Bible
I've read the Koran; email is much nicer.
ReplyDeleteLOL. Funny stuff. Thanks for sharing.
ReplyDeleteI like Joe Carter but he's off the mark here -- *I* don't consider it peculiar that Muslims pray five times a day. Even THAT is derivative-- cf Lauds, Vespers, Compline, etc. See also "Seven times a day I praise you for your righteous laws." -Psalm 119:164
ReplyDeleteBut Patrick, how many of the regular Catholics do that? You might, but I don't. And most people I know don't even know what that means. Whereas, the average Muslim? Right. They know about it and do it.
ReplyDeleteThat's what he means. The practical application. Let's not go past what he means. :-)