Salt and Light

Erin Gannon passed away today. My prayers are with her and her family and friends. Though I did not know her personally, she still touched my life. Erin, may you know peace in the arms of your Heavenly Father.

Having been raised Catholic, it seems totally natural to me to take different postures during the course of the Mass. Standing for the Gospel and prayers of the faithful, sitting for the homily and readings, kneeling for the cool parts.

From my experience, kneeling during the consecration just makes sense, when you think about it. Heaven is touching earth at this moment of time, that which is timeless enters time. Jesus comes present among us under the appearance of bread. In the Catholic church, unlike the Orthodox, kneeling is a sign of humility, of reverence (In the Orthodox, kneeling is a sign of penance, so I understand why they would not want to kneel at that moment) So does it not makes sense to greet your savior with reverence and humility?

A few weeks ago I had a discussion with a friend about the practices of the Churches in the diocese of Calgary; apparently there the bishop has instructed that the faithful stand for the consecration. I was confused as to why a bishop would instruct this, and boldly pronounced that I'd kneel anyways. But my friend reminded me that obedience to the bishop is more importance than rubrics. I saw his point.

But let me tell you: I was relieved that was Calgary, not here. No such luck; last night the priest instructed us to remain standing during the consecration. I felt like crying. I kid you not. Does a priest have the right to do that? I'm not sure, but I obeyed anyways. I was in the front row where my disobedience would have been obvious; next time I attend this particular Mass, with this particular priest (looks like I will have to next week) shall I sit at the back? I don't really want to be disobedient, I just want to follow the dictates of my conscience. After all, if it's appropriate for Canadians to do so for more controversial issues, why not for a simple posture?

This is the strangest thing I've ever seen: A chicken that just want to make you happy

My personal favourites: pray, fly, dance, roll over, sing. (though there's no sound)

Weird weird weird.

I've been thinking a lot about this recently. I've currently changed my MSN name to include a fairly well-known Bible verse, 1 Corinthians 13:4-8

Love is patient, love is kind. It is not jealous, (love) is not pompous, it is not inflated,
it is not rude, it does not seek its own interests, it is not quick-tempered, it does not brood over injury,
it does not rejoice over wrongdoing but rejoices with the truth.
It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

Many people read this at weddings, and while the passage can be read to indicate romantic love, it also means more than that. In Greek there are three words they use for love: agape (unconditional love; God's love for us), eros (romantic love) and philia (brotherly love) so while the romantic interpretation makes for beautiful wedding readings, there is really so much more to this passage.

But this passage talks (mostly) about what love is not (not rude, jealous, etc), and what it does (rejoices with truth, bears, believes, hopes endures) But what IS love?

We give a lot of lip service to love. Christians talk about just loving others, especially our enemies ... but how do you love your enemies? Love isn't thinking nice thoughts about a person and hoping stuff goes well for them ... it involves action. How do you love someone? What is love?

There will be a peaceful rally held on Parliament Hill this Saturday. Due to a brilliant move on my part (signed up for an hour of prayer from 2-3pm), I will not be able to attend the majority of it. I am unsure if my support would be better made by coming to the rally later, or simply extending my hour of prayer for the duration of the rally.

Green Olives are back.

update 2:29pm Sadly, the celebrations were premature. This was purely a local phenomenon, attributed to a lone jar of olives that employees discovered and decided to use up.

However, this does quash any hypotheses about the reason for their removal being attributed to the lack of space on the counters. There was plently of space for a small container ... clearly this is evidence of unjust green olive discrimination. Further action may need to be taken. I hear Mr. Sub still carries them ...

Amazon.com has launched their own search engine, based on Google's technology. (Article is free to view, just has to sit through an ad on the free day pass)

The part I find interesting:
Some filtering does appear to be taking place. A search of the word "porn" on A9.com, for instance, returned links to articles on the war against pornography, documentaries and anti-porn groups. A Google search on the same term returned actual porn sites.

Now I'm curious to see what other keywords it will filter on ... though I think perhaps I'll wait until I'm not at work to conduct such an experiment ...

Christ is Risen Alleluia! Truly He is Risen Alleluia!

What a beautiful Easter morn, and a wonderful Easter Day. I'm about to sit down for dinner, so this must be brief.

On a totally unrelated note, please check this out. It will take 11:02 minutes of you time. It will change your life. It will change the way you look at the world. And maybe it will change the way you play Super Mario Brothers :P

Have a great Easter everyone!

Good to see some serious stories being reported today

Woo-hoo! I've been (conditionally) accepted to the University of Ottawa Teacher's Education program! I logged in at 12:01 am and the results were there ... I was impressed. Must have had some sort of time trigger, rather than having staff manually enter the information starting today.

Of course, it's conditional upon proof of a degree conferred before August 1st ... I have a question for anyone out there that completed their studies in December and filled out that "Request for a degree" form ... have you received an acknowledgment from the univeristy? I'm pretty sure that I filled it out but i haven't received any word yet ... methinks it's time for a trip to the telephone queue at Infoservice ... sigh.