Cry 'Woof'
OK, this is simply brilliant…and rather better done than most Youtube videos I’ve seen. Read more
OK, this is simply brilliant…and rather better done than most Youtube videos I’ve seen. Read more
This month’s post at CatholicMom.com is about the Fifth Joyful Mystery: the finding of Jesus in the Temple. You know, it’s odd. Most of the Joyful Mysteries have short, pithy names: the Annunciation. The Visitation. The Nativity. The Presentation. And then there’s “The Finding of Jesus in the Temple”. Here’s a preview: My reflections on the first four Joyful mysteries have all focussed on receiving Christ, and then carrying Him with us wherever we go. In the Annunciation, we accept... Read more
If, somewhere, any possible world can exist, then somewhere there is any letter that could possibly be written. Somewhere, all those checks really were in the mail. — Terry Pratchett, Going Postal Read more
Do not confuse your parish priest with the Almighty. Do not pass go. Do not collect $200. Go straight to adoration. That is all. Read more
There’s a fine old hymn I learned in college: Crown him with many crowns, the Lamb upon his throne, Hark! how the heavenly anthem drowns all music but its own. Awake, my soul, and sing of him who died for thee, and hail him as thy matchless King through all eternity. And it seems clear that we are to do so by living for Him, by leading lives that redound to His glory. (That’s an interesting word, “redound”. I’m not... Read more
I hate memes like the above with a deep and fiery passion. Not because it is untrue, because I have no idea whether its immediate claims are true or not, but because it’s bullshit. The word “bullshit” is a technical term in the philosophical community these days. It means speech used to persuade and manipulate others, with no concern for whether the speech is true or not. A bullshitter doesn’t necessarily lie to you; the essence of bullshitting is that... Read more
We’re blogging through St. Thomas Aquinas’ Compendium Theologiae, sometimes called his Shorter Summa. Find the previous posts here. We’ve established that God is eternal and everlasting and unchanging; and now Thomas himself shows what that means: there is now this, and then this, and then that in God, not in the sense of things happening one after another in time. Clearly, therefore, no succession occurs in God. His entire existence is simultaneous. Succession is not found except in things that are in some... Read more
The first thing that comes to most people’s minds when you say, “The Ten Commandments,” I think (aside from the obligatory nod to Charlton Heston for people of a Certain Age) is “Thou Shalt Not”. The Ten Commandments are all of the things you aren’t allowed to do: Thou Shalt Not Steal, Thou Shalt Not Commit Adultery, Thou Shalt Not Even Covet. We see them as negative, as impinging on our American freedom to do whatever the hell we want... Read more
I’m taking a break from posting about Clojure this week, because a few weeks ago my study of Clojure inspired me to work on a non-Clojure project. That sounds odd, I suppose, but it’s often the way: in studying some programming language I’m not familiar with, I get ideas for work in areas I am familiar with. In this case the inspiration came from the Leiningen build tool, which I gushed about a couple of months ago. To recap, a... Read more
I’ve finally got my Internet access back (at close-of-business on Thursday) and so I’m scrambling to get some posts up. And when I thought of what I should post as a song for Friday, this sprightly tune by Stan Rogers popped into my head: “Watching the Apples Grow”. It makes me happy. Read more
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