Solemnity of The Blessed Trinity

El Greco. The Holy Trinity. 1577.

Today the Church celebrates the feast of the Blessed Trinity. This, the ineffable mystery of God's intimate life, is the central truth of our faith an dthe source of all gifts and graces. The liturgy of the Mass invites us to loving union with each of the Three Divine Persons: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. This feast was established for the Latin Church by Pope John XXII, to be celebrated on the Sunday after the coming of the Holy Spirit, which is the last of the mysteries of our salvation. Today we can say many times, savouring it, the prayer: Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit...

[St. Teresa] writes: Once when I was reciting the "Quicumque vult," I was shown so clearly how it was possible for there to be one God alone and three Persons that it caused me both amazement and much comfort. It was of the greatest help to me in teaching me to know more of the greatness of God and of his marvels. When I think of the most Holy Trinity, or hear it spoken of, I seem to understand how there can be such a mystery, and it is a great joy to me.

The whole of a Christian's supernatural life is directed towards this knowledge of and intimate conversation with the Trinity, who become eventually the fruit and the end of our whole life (St. Thomas). It is for this end that we have been created and raised to the supernatural order: to know, to talk to and to love God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit, who dwell in the soul in grace.

In Conversation With God Vol 6
Special Feasts: January - June

Tags: Catholicism, Christianity

Animation Versus Animator

Don't miss this ... too, too clever!
Click "watch this movie" next to this symbol on the right side of the page
(please note that the site has some ads that may offend some people ... just click fast and you can move on).

Thanks to Tom for passing this on.

I'm Not So Interested in Cars ...

... though we definitely will be checking out the movie. Tom's been waiting for a year for it. However, I am interested in Paris, fine food, restaurants, and Brad Bird's brilliant humor. This is the Pixar movie I'm waiting for.

Scientific Concept of Beauty, Part III

Continued from yesterday.

Brilliance is the third element in science's view of the beautiful. Augros and Stanciu explain that "a theory with this quality has great clarity in itself and sheds light on many other things, suggesting new experiments. Newton, for example, astounded the world by explaining falling bodies, the tides and the motions of the planets and the comets with three simple laws." George Thomason adds that "in physics, as in mathematics, it is a great beauty if a theory can bring together apparently different phenomena and show that they are closely connected; or even different aspects of the same thing." This is exactly what Einstein did with his theory of general relativity, and it helps to explain his religious attitude toward the universe, and why he marveled at its comprehensibility, namely, that the human intellects can make sense of it and understand it.

Evidential Power Of Beauty by Thomas Dubay

Tags: Catholicism, Christianity

Forecast: Sunny

You Are Storm

Exotic and powerful, Storm descended from a line of African priestesses. Emotions can effect your powers, but you are generally serene. Powers: controlling weather, creating winds that lift you into flight, generating lightning

Which of the X-Men Are You?

Via Discernment Dilemma.

Mad Scientists, Diet Coke, and Mentos

Boys will be boys after all and it don't get much better than this!

Via Steven Riddle, who knows what I love to see!

Scientific Concept of Beauty, Part II

Continued from yesterday.

The second scientific element is harmony. Albert Einstein went so far as to assert that "without belief in the inner harmony of the world there could be no science." This harmony is a satisfying accordance and combination or differing elements making up a whole or found in a whole. There will likewise by symmetry as a solid scientific theory "will harmonize many previously unrelated facts." Werner Heisenberg adds that "the symmetry properties always constitute the most essential features of a theory." We obviously have here what philosophers have through the centuries called proportion: in actuality the two ways of speaking are identical. Science, like metaphysics, sees the universe saturated with beauty.

Evidential Power Of Beauty by Thomas Dubay

Tags: Catholicism, Christianity

Novena of Confidence to the Sacred Heart of Jesus

O Lord Jesus Christ, to your most Sacred Heart I confide this intention. Only look upon me, then do what your love inspires. Let your Sacred Heart decide. I count on you. I trust in you. I throw myself on your mercy. Lord Jesus, you will not fail me.

(Mention your request)

Sacred Heart of Jesus, I trust in you.

Sacred Heart of Jesus, I believe in your love for me.

Sacred Heart of Jesus, your kingdom come.

Sacred Heart of Jesus, I have asked you for many favors, but I earnestly implore this one. Take it, place it in your open heart. When the Eternal Father looks upon it, he will see it covered with your Precious Blood. It will no longer be my prayer, but yours, Jesus. Sacred Heart of Jesus, I place all my trust in you. Let me not be disappointed. Amen.

This is my very favorite novena. There is something about this especially, "When the Eternal Father looks upon it, he will see it covered with your Precious Blood. It will no longer be my prayer, but yours, Jesus" that is such a beautiful thought to me. I began it tonight for a special intention for a friend.

Tags: Catholicism, Christianity

Blogger Status

Wednesday, June 07, 2006

This morning, a hardware problem we had been struggling with over the past several days suddenly worsened. As a result, and to stave off future downtime, we have had to take Blogger down for an extended period of time as we address the problem. We will continue to update this blog and the homepage with more information.

Update: We've brought up new hardware which has allowed us to restore the site. We try hard to avoid downtimes of this length and apologize for the inconvenience.

Blogger Status

I've got news for them ... inconvenient isn't the word and it ain't over yet. Let's see if this gets posted or disappears into the ether.

Tags: Catholicism, Christianity

Scientific Concept of Beauty, Part I

... So we ask: What, according to our best scientific minds, are the traits of this omnipresent splendor in our universe? The most concise and clear answer to this question that I have seen occurs in the study by Robert Augros and George Stanciu, The New Story of Science. We can do no better than to summarize their thought and add a few of our own reflections.

For contemporary science the first trait of beauty is an elegant simplicity. In this context simplicity refers to an essential purity, a freedom from superfluities, useless accretions, and needless complications. Einstein's theory of gravitation possess this grace and proprietary, whereas competing theories do not, and thus "none of them are taken seriously." Astronomer Roger Penrose commented that "no rival theory comes close to general relativity in elegance or simplicity of assumption." For the scientist simplicity implies both completeness and economy: "It must take into account all the facts and must include only what is necessary. Nothing lacking, nothing superfluous." Notable in the field of mathematical physics, Henri Poincare commented that "it is because simplicity and vastness are both beautiful that we seek by preference simple facts and vast facts." We notice in this requirement for valid scientific discoveries, namely that they be elegantly simple and yet vast, the classical philosophical traits of the beautiful: unity and wholeness.

Evidential Power Of Beauty by Thomas Dubay

I came to this book with a great deal of trepidation, knowing Dubay's reputation for high level theological thinking. I was surprised and pleased to find that I had inadvertently prepared myself, at least in part, to follow his train of thought by reading two very different books.

The first was Aristotle for Everybody by Mortimer J. Adler. Although presented in their own beautiful simplicity in mentally "bite-sized" chapters this book was a challenge for me. However, I retained enough that when Dubay began talking about various philosophical concepts, especially that of "form," I was able to follow with relative ease.

The second was The Case for a Creator by Lee Strobel which I reviewed for Spero News. Whether one agrees or not with the beliefs of the scientists interviewed for that book, one can't help but come away with a certain understanding of how they see and define beauty within the discipline of science. Again, I didn't realize that I had absorbed something of that understanding until I encountered it in the pages of this book but it did smooth the way for me somewhat.

I am still working my way through this and may hit the really difficult concepts later on. Also, I don't wish to give the impression that you must have a lot of preparation to even begin reading this book. It is merely interesting to me that I recognized these concepts as building blocks learned from previous reading.

You can go on to Part II here.

Tags: Catholicism, Christianity

Having Christ as Our Cornerstone

A Christian, who will have built his life upon the cornerstone who is Christ, has his own personality, his own way of seeing the world and its happenings. He has a scale of values very different from that of the pagan, who does not live by faith and who has a purely worldly conception of things. A weak and lukewarm Christian faith, however, which exerts very little influence on ordinary life, can provoke in some people that kind of inferiority complex which manifests itself in an immoderate desire to "humanize" Christianity, to "popularize" the Church, to make it somehow seem to conform to the value-judgments prevalent in the world at a given time (J. Orlandis).

That is why, as well as being immersed in our secular activities, as Christians we need to be immersed in God, through prayer, the sacraments and the sanctification of our daily work. We need to be faithful disciples of Jesus in the middle of the world, in our ordinary everyday life, with all the constant effort and hard decisions this entails. In this way we will be able to put into practice the advice Saint Paul gave to the first Christians in Rome when he alerted them to the risks of accommodating themselves to the pagan customs of the day: Do not be conformed to this world (Rom 12:2). Sometimes this refusal to conform will lead us to row against the current and run the risk of being misunderstood by many of our contemporaries. The Christian must not forget that he is leaven (Matt 13:33) hidden in the lump of dough that has to be fermented by him...

Jesus of Nazareth continues to be the cornerstone of every man's life. Any building constructed without Christ is raised in vain. Let us think as we finish our prayer, whether the Faith we profess is coming to bear more and more influence on our existence, on the way we view the world and mankind, and on the way we behave.

In Conversation With God Vol 3

Tags: Catholicism, Christianity

The Mark of the Beast ... 616

Rose filled us in on this recently, thanks to her thorough theology teacher. However, rather than write it all, I will rely on Rick Lugari's post, via Jay Anderson. Suffice it to say that whatever it is the numerology signified Nero and I think we're way past worrying about him.

However, if you really want to get into the spirit of the day, check out these surprising facts about 666. Here are my favorites:

6. The world did end on June 6, 2006, but on that date according to the Julian calendar. So, like 10 days ago. Didn't you notice? There were dragons and fire and everything.

10. If you call the telephone number 666-666-6666, you get Satan's house. His Infernal Majesty becomes particularly irate when contacted by telemarketers during the dinner hour.

11. Speculation that the "mark of the Beast" will take the form of bar codes or computer chips is incorrect. The mark of the Beast is actually conferred by Livestrong bracelets.

Tags: Catholicism, Christianity

Happy Catholic in Your Ears at TWICC

Father Roderick, that priest who must never sleep because he is always podcasting, has a group venture launched ... TWICC: This Week in the Catholic Church. It has an interesting combination of folks including Greg and Jennifer from the Rosary Army Podcast; George Leite from Catholic Rockers and Fr. Bill Holtzinger from St. Anthony’s podcast.

Also, I contributed my first attempt at truly "talking" the talk, a variation of my Surprised by Jesuits post. So if you want to hear what I sound like just hop over and download it or listen on your computer.

Thanks to Father Roderick for this idea. It was really interesting to try the podcasting. For one thing, Tom proved you can podcast using Garage Band and the free podcasting kit that comes with it. It isn't many people who can boast their own techie to edit out the worst of the barking dogs ...

Tags: Catholicism, Christianity

Recognizing Truth

Error is often presented decked out in the noble garments of art, science or freedom ... But faith has to be, indeed is, stronger than error. It is the powerful light that enables us to see, lurking behind what appears to be good, the evil that lies hidden beneath the surface of an otherwise good literary work, of a beauty that conceals ugliness. It is Christ who must be the cornerstone of every building.

Let us ask Our Lord for his grace so that we may live in a way totally compatible and utterly coherent with our Christian faith. In this way we will never think of our faith as a limiting factor -- I can't do this, I can't go there. Rather it will be a light that enables us to recognize the reality of things and events, without ever forgetting that the devil will try to make an ally of human ignorance, (which cannot see the complete reality contained in this ordinary work or in that doctrine) and of the pride and concupiscence that all of us drag along behind us. Christ is the crucible that assays the gold there is in all human things. Anything that does not stand up to the testing clarity of his teaching is a lie and deceptive, even though it may be adorned with the appearance of some attractive good or perfection.

In Conversation With God Vol 3

Tags: Catholicism, Christianity

Tender, Loving Care ... This Doesn't Sound Right

Especially when I read that quote (gag me). However, when I read the actual description ... well, I think it might be me after all. Especially in the routine, routine, routine part.

Your type is:
isfj —The “Tender Loving Care” Mother

“I want my children to feel they have an ally, someone who knows them completely. I want to be a haven for them.”

• Gentle and kind, the ISFJ mother provides her children with generous amounts of tenderness, affection, and the comfort of daily routine. Her aim is to “be there” for her children, physically and emotionally. She is sensitive to their feelings, offering closeness, understanding, and quiet support.


• Loyal and devoted, the ISFJ mother has a strong sense of duty and consistently puts her children’s needs first. She delights in taking care of the little things that matter to a child, making each one feel loved and special.


• To provide her family with security and warmth, the ISFJ mother tends to the practical and domestic, aiming for a smooth-running household and an attractive home. She also observes and conveys the value and importance of family traditions.

Find your mothering style.

Via that "love of learning mother," a.k.a. Mrs. Darwin.

Rose Thought Her Heart Was Going to Stop ...

... last week when they had some extra time in theology and she happened to walk by her teacher's desk where she was reading a ... blog. As Rose whispered to her friend, it was the worst sight possible. Her teacher was reading Happy Catholic! Oh, the horror, the embarrassment!

Luckily, I was able to put her fears to rest by saying that I'd sent the school an email complimenting that teacher and so copied her on it. Whew! She had only followed the link in the email and wasn't reading it independently.

Although I was stoked by the fact that the teacher actually could see the blog at school. Usually it is blocked as all blogs are to keep questionable materials away from young minds. Maybe I've written so many nice emails they unblocked it?

Feast of the Visitation of the Blessed Virgin

El Greco. Visitation. c. 1607-1614.

From the moment when Mary conceived the Son of God, filled with the Holy Spirit, wherever she went, there is also the presence of Jesus and the Spirit. Just look at what Elizabeth immediately experienced as soon as her very young cousin set foot in her house and greeted her. I have no idea of the timbre of Mary's voice, but I know well the efficacy of her presence. And this is not the only first for Elizabeth who has had many others: she is the first who, in the presence of Mary, is filled with the Holy Spirit; she is the first to exalt Mary on account of her maternity: "Blessed are you among women and blessed is the fruit of your womb!"; she is the first to recognize in Mary the Mother of God, calling her "the mother of my Lord"; she is the first to announce an evangelical beatitude: "Blessed is she who has believed."...

About Mary - She is the true and enduring Ark of the Covenant, that is, the dwelling place of God; actually she is more, because it is she from whom god assumed our human nature to live in our midst as our brother. To welcome Mary is the way to receive Jesus and the Holy Spirit. The first beatitude of the Gospel, "Blessed is she who has believed" is the beatitude of faith; to it corresponds well the last beatitude proclaimed by the risen Christ to Thomas: "Because you have seen and yet believed!" (Jn 20:29). Mary is the model of those who believe without having first seen.

About us - Perhaps we have not yet understood who Mary is; the various firsts of Elizabeth are our help and guide. To delude ourselves into thinking we can have Jesus and the Holy Spirit without going through Mary is not in conformity with the way established by God. Faith, not sensibility, tells us that salvation begins by welcoming Mary.

Father Gabriele Amorth, via Magnificat magazine. Father Amorth is the Chief Exorcist of Rome, Italy, and the author of four books about the Blessed Virgin Mary.

I love thinking about this because it is just the way that my friends and I are with each other. Rushing to each other to share joys and sorrows. It is a very "womanly" thing to do and not only does it exemplify all the things in the above excerpt but it shows Mary's and Elizabeth's humanity to me when they rejoice for each other's good fortune in being blessed by God.

Tags: Catholicism, Christianity

Lost Podcast Scoop

A few things from listening to the producers on the finale wrap-up podcast.

• They weren't sure if it came across but it was supposed to be clear that when the magnetic surge was allowed to happen was the only time that the island was visible. Interesting eh?
• They also have been lobbying to remove reruns during the season and show the episodes in blocks. Beginning next September the show will run 6 episodes which will run until the beginning of November and end in a mini-cliffhanger. Then they will go off the air for about twelve weeks and come back in February. After they come back the show will be on straight through with 17 straight episodes to the finale with no repeats.
• For those of us who missed the monster in the last part of the show (and I know that I was one of those people) they give us the enigmatic statement, "There's a good chance that you guys saw the monster this year but just didn't realize that you were looking at the monster...by the end of next year you will realize what that means."
• A fundamental rule on Lost is that they don't introduce anything until they know how it will resolve. (So much for the theories that they are seeing what their fans say and writing the show based on feedback.)

The Power of Advertising

Lest anyone doubt it, consider the reaction of one of Rose's friends upon hearing that Hannah and Rose landed jobs at Target. "Cool! I wish I had a job somewhere great like that!"

Rose was dumbfounded. "Debbie works at an amusement park and gets to go on the rides free after each shift. Now that is a great job!"

Thanks to their truly inspired ad campaign, Target is the "in" place for Hannah's friends to shop. Tom and I admire that campaign. It is endlessly inventive and somehow they manage to keep changing the styles while retaining the overall feel so that it is instantly identifiable. Obviously it is doing a good job at changing public perception. Too bad for Hannah and Rose that we have been teaching them to see through ads since they were tiny ... they know Target is simply a discount store.

I wonder if Debbie would think the mandatory drug test within 24 hours of getting the job was glamorous also. The time limit meant that Tom had to hustle Rose down there promptly when they opened this morning so that she could make it to her last finals this morning on time. An interesting way to end the school year if nothing else ...

Of Knitting and Kings

On January 30, 1649, King Charles I thought so highly of a particular knitted bodice that he wore it to the scaffold on the day of his public execution so that it might be recorded for posterity in the inevitable paintings of the event. London was covered in about six inches of snow on that day, and the king was anxious to keep warm so that he would not shiver in the cold and be thought a coward.

Knit Bits: 2006 day to Day Calendar