"According to the Catholic liturgical calendar," she explained, "all the days of the year that are not Lent, Easter, Advent, or Christmas are called Ordinary Time. So here we are: Easter is over and Christmas is still a long way off. I guess you could say that this is the time in which we're meant to feel that we have all the time in the world."Are we all snuggling up to our Ordinary Time? That makes it really more special than ordinary, doesn't it?
... Ordinary Time is all those days you do not remember when you look back on your life. Unless, of course, the Virgin Mary came to visit in the middle of it and everything was changed: before and after; then and now; past, present, and future.
Our Lady of the Lost and Foundby Diane Schoemperlen
I guess the question is, how do we prepare for a Time of Preparation?
Why prepare? Why not just jump in, quiet down and let God show us where He wants us to go during this Lent? What if you come up with some Really Great Spiritual Practice on, say, the Second Sunday of Lent? Do you say it's too late to employ it now, because Lent is underway? Or do you embrace the fact that the Holy Spirit just turned on a lightbulb in your soul?
woolgathering\WOOL-gath-uh-ring\ (noun): indulgence in idle daydreaming
In Wales, woolgathering, or gwlana, was a social custom adopted to provide for poorer wives of laborers who did not have access to wool of their own to spin. It involved walking along hedgerows and stone walls and picking off wool that was left behind as the sheep had passed by. Later, after the custom was in little use, woolgathering was considered an unprofitable enterprise. Its practitioners were perceived to wander aimlessly and gained little for their efforts. Hence the association of woolgathering with your mind wandering aimlessly.Merriam-Webster Dictionary
Iraqi, U.S. troops aid flood victims in Iraq
February 6, 2006
TIKRIT, Iraq (Army News Service, Feb. 6, 2006) – Iraqi and U.S. Soldiers rescued dozens of people southeast of Mosul Saturday after powerful storms swept through northern Iraq, causing flooding along a Tigris River tributary.
Soldiers from the 3rd Battalion, 2nd Brigade, 2nd Iraqi Army Division used small boats and braved strong currents to rescue nearly 100 people stranded on small islands in the rain-swollen Great Zab River.
Two UH-60 Blackhawk helicopters from the 542nd Medical Company (Air Ambulance) responded to the Ninevah governor’s request for assistance and transported two men stranded on an island that the boats couldn’t reach because of the current. The MEDEVAC crews also dropped off food and drinking water.
Two OH-58 Kiowa helicopters searched the river’s course for additional victims, but none were found, officials said.
(Editor’s note: Information provided by the 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault) Public Affairs at FOB Speicher.)
The names of five people are hidden in the sentence below. Can you find them? (The letters are in consecutive order.)Answer in invisi-script:
Really, a wanted man fleeing from the police who saw a police car looking for him would run and hide.
Al, Ted, Lee, Carl, Nan (Lya is also acceptable.)
Darwinian evolution is plainly unavailing in this exercise or that era, since Darwinian evolution begins with self-replication, and self-replication is precisely what needs to be explained. But if Darwinian evolution is unavailing, so, too, is chemistry. The fronds comprise "a random ensemble of polynucleotide sequences" (emphasis added); but no principle of organic chemistry suggests that aimless encounters among nucleic acids must lead to a chain capable of self-replication.Just a snippet (that's how long this very long article is) from a Commentary magazine article that I found quite interesting, especially in terms of how difficult, nay impossible, it has been for scientists to pin down the origins of life.
If chemistry is unavailing and Darwin indisposed, what is left as a mechanism? The evolutionary biologist's finest friend: sheer dumb luck.
Was nature lucky? It depends on the payoff and the odds. The payoff is clear: an ancestral form of RNA capable of replication. Without that payoff, there is no life, and obviously, at some point, the payoff paid off. The question is the odds.
For the moment, no one knows how precisely to compute those odds, if only because within the laboratory, no one has conducted an experiment leading to a self-replicating ribozyme. But the minimum length or "sequence" that is needed for a contemporary ribozyme to undertake what the distinguished geochemist Gustaf Arrhenius calls "demonstrated ligase activity" is known. It is roughly 100 nucleotides.
Whereupon, just as one might expect, things blow up very quickly. As Arrhenius notes, there are 4100 or roughly 1060 nucleotide sequences that are 100 nucleotides in length. This is an unfathomably large number. It exceeds the number of atoms contained in the universe, as well as the age of the universe in seconds. If the odds in favor of self-replication are 1 in 1060, no betting man would take them, no matter how attractive the payoff, and neither presumably would nature.
"Solace from the tyranny of nucleotide combinatorials," Arrhenius remarks in discussing this very point, "is sought in the feeling that strict sequence specificity may not be required through all the domains of a functional oligmer, thus making a large number of library items eligible for participation in the construction of the ultimate functional entity." Allow me to translate: why assume that self-replicating sequences are apt to be rare just because they are long? They might have been quite common.
They might well have been. And yet all experience is against it. Why should self-replicating RNA molecules have been common 3.6 billion years ago when they are impossible to discern under laboratory conditions today? No one, for that matter, has ever seen a ribozyme capable of any form of catalytic action that is not very specific in its sequence and thus unlike even closely related sequences. No one has ever seen a ribozyme able to undertake chemical action without a suite of enzymes in attendance. No one has ever seen anything like it.
The odds, then, are daunting; and when considered realistically, they are even worse than this already alarming account might suggest. The discovery of a single molecule with the power to initiate replication would hardly be sufficient to establish replication. What template would it replicate against? We need, in other words, at least two, causing the odds of their joint discovery to increase from 1 to 1060 to 1 in 10120. Those two sequences would have been needed in roughly the same place. And at the same time. And organized in such a way as to favor base pairing. And somehow held in place. And buffered against competing reactions. And productive enough so that their duplicates would not at once vanish in the soundless sea.
In contemplating the discovery by chance of two RNA sequences a mere 40 nucleotides in length, Joyce and Orgel concluded that the requisite "library" would require 1048 possible sequences. Given the weight of RNA, they observed gloomily, the relevant sample space would exceed the mass of the earth. And this is the same Leslie Orgel, it will be remembered, who observed that "it was almost certain that there once was an RNA world."
To the accumulating agenda of assumptions, then, let us add two more: that without enzymes, nucleotides were somehow formed into chains, and that by means we cannot duplicate in the laboratory, a pre-biotic molecule discovered how to reproduce itself.
Manolo says, undoubtedly, the world it would be the much more super fantastic place if the Manolo actually did have the police powers.On another blog someone mentioned that if there are no rules on the dress code, then no one should have taken it upon themselves to make up their own ... because you can't fairly accuse someone for breaking a rule that doesn't exist.
The first law to be strenuously enforced? One must dress appropriately for the occasion.
Under no conceivable circumstance should one wear the slogan-bearing t-shirt to the Statement of the Union Speech. And, if you are silly enough to do this, you deserve to be led out in shame to the Capitol Rotunda where the gay-but-fashion-challenged Fab Five they will publicly make you over into the ridiculous metrosexual. This they should do even if you are the woman.
Trust the Manolo, wearing the political t-shirt to the formal ceremonial event, it does nothing for your cause. Indeed, the trivality of such attire, it perhaps even undermines the seriousness of your position.
P.S. By the way, the Manolo he has already addressed the issue of what is the appropriate feetwear to wear to the ceremonial events.
Do you know any sensible solid good Catholic parishes in the North Dallas area?There is, of course, my own church, St. Thomas Aquinas. I know that St. Anne's in Coppel is also good. Any others to recommend?
Start with the number of Apostles in the Bible, subtract the cube of 2, add the number of Greek Fates, then add the number of the winds, in popular parlance.Answer below in clever, invisi-script (highlight with cursor to read).
What number do you get?
11 (12 - 8 = 4 + 3 = 7 + 4)
Here we find two questions: Can’t the Church leave this service to so many other philanthropic organizations?Really good ... and much easier to read than I found that encyclical, by the way. Go read it.
This is the answer: No, the Church cannot do that. She has to practice love for the neighbor also as a community, otherwise she will announce the God of love in an incomplete and insufficient way...
Reading IOf course, there was the obvious conversation about extreme depression that anyone would be likely to suffer when losing one's home, business, children, health ... and after having your friends come and beat on you for a while.
Jb 7:1-4, 6-7
Job spoke, saying:
Is not man's life on earth a drudgery?
Are not his days those of hirelings?
He is a slave who longs for the shade,
a hireling who waits for his wages.
So I have been assigned months of misery,
and troubled nights have been allotted to me.
If in bed I say, "When shall I arise?"
then the night drags on;
I am filled with restlessness until the dawn.
My days are swifter than a weaver's shuttle;
they come to an end without hope.
Remember that my life is like the wind;
I shall not see happiness again.
GospelA couple of things here. First, is the way this story fits the "miracle story" format (which I had never thought about ever). When Jesus heals someone it is instantaneous and absolute. Simon's MIL doesn't just start feeling a bit better. She hops up and starts working away serving everyone.
Mk 1:29-39
On leaving the synagogue
Jesus entered the house of Simon and Andrew with James and John.
Simon's mother-in-law lay sick with a fever.
They immediately told him about her.
He approached, grasped her hand, and helped her up.
Then the fever left her and she waited on them.
When it was evening, after sunset,
they brought to him all who were ill or possessed by demons.
The whole town was gathered at the door.
He cured many who were sick with various diseases,
and he drove out many demons,
not permitting them to speak because they knew him.
Rising very early before dawn, he left
and went off to a deserted place, where he prayed.
Simon and those who were with him pursued him
and on finding him said, "Everyone is looking for you."
He told them, "Let us go on to the nearby villages
that I may preach there also.
For this purpose have I come."
So he went into their synagogues,
preaching and driving out demons throughout the whole of Galilee.
CHANGES IN PROCEDURES FOR ADMITTANCE TO SCHOOL DANCESIt comes down to the parents y'all ... THE PARENTS! (i can't possibly scream that loud enough!)
The administration and staff of Bishop Lynch are very concerned that some students arrive at school dances under the influence of alcohol, posing a serious safety risk to themselves and to others. In an effort to ensure the safety and well-being of students, the following procedures will be instituted beginning with the upcoming Sadie Hawkins Dance, and will remain in effect for subsequent school sponsored dances:
- Students must arrive to school dances by 9:00 PM in order to be admitted to the dance. Please note that this is a change from the previous time of 10:00. Students arriving after 9:00 pm will not be admitted to the dance.
- Before admission to the dance, all students will be required to breathe into a portable breathalyzer. We do not wish to single out any particular student or group of students, and the only way to be fair to everyone is to test all students. The type of breathalyzer we are using will not require the students to place their mouths on the device; rather they will be breathing in close proximity to the device. Five breathalyzers will be in use at check in, and the time needed to test each student is approximately five seconds.
- If a student tests positive indicating the consumption of alcohol, (1) the parent or guardian will be notified to come to the school and transport the student home; and (2) the student will be subject to consequences pursuant to the Bishop Lynch High School Student Handbook.
We have shared this information with students at school and we encourage you to discuss it with your student at home. We appreciate your support of our efforts to ensure the safety of all students and a positive environment for all at school dances.
Charlie went out to buy some tools. He spent half of the original amount plus $10 for a drill, half of what was left plus $4 for a sander, then half of what was left plus $2, leaving him with $6.I knew they were going to ask that question. I'll be lying down with a cool cloth on my head if anyone needs me...
How much did he start with?
$100 ($50 + $10= $60, leaving $40; $20 = $4 = $24, leaving $16; $8 + $2 = $10, leaving $6)
Mary is a woman of hope: only because she believes in God's promises and awaits the salvation of Israel, can the angel visit her and call her to the decisive service of these promises. Mary is a woman of faith: "Blessed are you who believed", Elizabeth says to her (cf. Lk 1:45). The Magnificat--a portrait, so to speak, of her soul--is entirely woven from threads of Holy Scripture, threads drawn from the Word of God. Here we see how completely at home Mary is with the Word of God, with ease she moves in and out of it. She speaks and thinks with the Word of God; the Word of God becomes her word, and her word issues from the Word of God. Here we see how her thoughts are attuned to the thoughts of God, how her will is one with the will of God. Since Mary is completely imbued with the Word of God, she is able to become the Mother of the Word Incarnate.
