Association Of Catholic Bloggers

      Por: Lourdes Domenzain 

      Here's a question:  If God put our first parents--Adam & Eve--in a paradise that was perfect, then how would Eve have known what evil was and that the snake was bad?  I mean, if she hadn't been exposed to evil until she met the snake, is it possible she didn't recognize him as evil ?  Sure she was disobedient, since God had warned her not to eat of the fruit in the middle of the garden, or even touch it, but at that point, could she actually identify evil as evil? Figuring that out is above my pay grade, but I'm starting to wonder if it is possible that Eve has gotten a bad rap all these years. What we do know is that the Bible is the inspired Word of God.  It is God's self-revelation to us.  In these early chapters of Genesis we have before us some good lessons we would be wise to pay attention to.  In these, our Father in heaven has given us a word of warning. And, admittedly, it looks like human nature has not change...

  DO YOU FEAR GOD? WHY? HOW? CLICK HERE

...The Webb data had already been used in 21 research papers, back in February. I'd prefer looking up a few of them, picking out one that sounded interesting, and talking about it. But I've had a distracted week. So today I'll focus on some really cool pictures from the JWST/Webb telescope. Mostly. NGC 1433: Hubble Space Telescope's View Abell 2744, 'Pandora's Cluster': Closer Look, New Details of Distant Galaxies Galaxies, Gravity and More Galaxies Lensed Galaxies: Showing How Gravity Lenses Work Earth-Size, But Not Earth 2.0 LHS 475 b: Methane, No; Carbon Dioxide, Maybe; Or Maybe No Atmosphere At All Terrestrial, Telluric, Solid, or Rocky: There's No Place Like Home More at A Catholic Citizen in America . (A closer look at NGC 1433, Abell 2744: and distant galaxies. LHS 475 b, Earth-size but not Earth-like. Defining terrestrial planets.)

HAVE YOU FOUND PEACE? WHERE? HOW? CLICK HERE    

Landscape with the Temptation of Christ Joos de Momper [ Web Gallery of Art ] Readings   (Jerusalem Bible: Australia, England & Wales, Ireland, New Zealand, Pakistan, Scotland, South Africa) Readings   (New American Bible: Philippines, USA)   Gospel   Matthew 4:1-11  ( English Standard Version Anglicised: India)     Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. And after fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry. And the tempter came and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread.” But he answered, “It is written, “‘Man shall not live by bread alone,     but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.’” Then the devil took him to the holy city and set him on the pinnacle of the temple   and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down, for it is written, “‘He ...

 22nd Feb 2023 Ash Wednesday always comes as a bit of a surprise to me. And here we are again.  Yesterday, I found a Christmas bauble from the tree, under the units in the hallway. A remnant of the celebrations and the beautiful season that seem to be only just finished. Is it my age?  Now, today we start the journey of lent . I'll go to Holy Mass as I do most days. But there will be some differences. All the statues will be draped in purple and the priests will be dressed in the same colour. There will be no Alleluia and we'll ask the Lord, "A pure heart create for me O God..." Yes, we'll be reminded that we are sinners.  Of course, we'll also get the ashes: "Remember man that thou are dust ,  and unto dust thou shalt return." Later,  hubby and I will decided together how to approach the fasting and abstaining that's required of us. And boy, will that be difficult with visitors coming, who we'll try and host without them knowing what we are ...

This post should be online just after midnight, on the morning of Ash Wednesday Meanwhile, New Orleans will have almost six hours of their Mardi Gras left. There's a reason for that, and it's not that New Orleans Mardi Gras folks are ignoring Lent. A Catholic Citizen in America is on UTC time, Greenwich Mean Time's successor. Midnight, UTC, is 6:00 p.m. in New Orleans, Louisiana. 1 Mardi Gras, Fat Tuesday: Meat, Cheese and New Orleans Lent: Pointing Myself Towards God Original Sin: Living With Consequences Wounded, But Still Basically Good The Bible, Very Briefly Goals: Short- and Long-Term Simple, Yes; Easy, No Looking Back at Lent 2022 More at A Catholic Citizen in America . (Mardi Gras, very briefly. The purpose of Lent. Original sin and consequences. The Bible, briefly. Goals, short and long term.)

  MY BOOK IN MY HANDS The book is published. My memoir. To say I’m thrilled sounds like a thank you to a supermarket till worker, in comparison to how I really feel. As the boxes were brought into the house, I ran to find an implement to open them with. Why on earth were they wrapped so tightly. OK. Yes, I am grateful they were, seeing as they came from Poland. “Calm down,” hubby stood solid, sharp knife in hand, “let me do it.” “I’m nearly in,” I try and poke the edge of the scissors into the celophane wrapping the box. When we get inside this box, we find two more boxes, smaller, also wrapped. I am just so impatient, I rush at it, with thumping in my chest and tummy doing somersaults. Eventually we have one of the boxes open. It takes me a minute to ease one of the books away from it’s tightly packed companions. I held the book to my heart, rubbed it, turned it , and screamed, “Oh my word, it’s a real book!” No words can describe the emotion that coursed through my body as I crie...

...[A BBC News article] reminded me that it’s been some time since I talked about evolution and how Age of Enlightenment aristocrats viewed different species. And why I don't see a point in complaining about how this universe works.... More at A Catholic Citizen in America . (Some of the oldest stone tools made by humans, assuming Paranthropus is human. Looking at the human family tree, changing assumptions, and accepting what we are learning.)

  Christ the Saviour El Greco [ Web Gallery of Art ] Readings   (Jerusalem Bible: Australia, England & Wales, Ireland, New Zealand, Pakistan, Scotland, South Africa) Readings   (New American Bible: Philippines, USA) Gospel   Matthew 5:38-48  ( English Standard Version Anglicised: India)     Jesus said to his disciples: “You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’   But I say to you, Do not resist the one who is evil. But if anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also.   And if anyone would sue you and take your tunic, [ a ]  let him have your cloak as well.   And if anyone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles.   Give to the one who begs from you, and do not refuse the one who would borrow from you. “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbour and hate your enemy.’   But I say to you, Love y...

It's been a little over 10 years since scientists spotted Kepler-22 b. It was the first time we'd spotted a transiting exoplanet that's in its sun's habitable zone. That may or may not mean that Kepler-22 b is habitable. The odds are good that the exoplanet is a water world: covered with an ocean far deeper than Earth's Since then we've discovered quite a few water worlds. And, possibly because there's a 1995 action film called "Waterworld", they're often called ocean worlds. 1 This week I'll talk about two (probably) ocean worlds, Kepler-138 c and d; discovered in 2014, they're far to hot for life as we know it. But scientists recently published a new analysis of those two worlds. And that gave me something to talk about. So did a proposed change in when taxpayer-funded research projects release data. It's good news or bad news, depending on who's talking. That's this week's first item. I'll also look at...

  The Sermon on the Mount Carl Heinrich Bloch [ Web Gallery of Art ] Readings   (Jerusalem Bible: Australia, England & Wales, Ireland, New Zealand, Pakistan, Scotland, South Africa) Readings   (New American Bible: Philippines, USA) Gospel  Matthew 5:17-37  ( English Standard Version Anglicised: India)     Jesus said to his disciples: “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfil them.   For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished.   Therefore whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven.   For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, y...

  Shrine of St Valentine Church of Our Lady of Mount Carmel Whitefriar St, Dublin [ Source ] This post includes material I used on 12 February 2009. The core of the stories about St Valentine is that this young Roman priest, who was what we would now call a diocesan priest, was martyred for officiating at weddings when Emperor Claudius II, ‘the Cruel’, forbade them because he was engaged in so many wars and needed the young men to fight in them. Please continue at Bangor to Bobbio .

  In case you didn't know it, our cars have a little arrow next to the gas pump icon on our dashboard to tell us which side of the car to pump our gas from.  This handy little arrow is helpful for all of you who pull into a gas station, in an unfamiliar car, and have to drive yourself around to the proper side.  This is also handy if you rent a car, borrow someone's car, or just plain can't remember how you gassed up the last time in your own car. I mention this because it got me to thinking about God.  I don't suppose most people would make this connection, but you know me, I see an arrow pointing and it naturally makes me think about how nice it would be if we had a giant arrow directing us through life.  Go this way.  Turn around.  Wrong way. If we did have an arrow, it would point us to God.  It would come in handy especially for those times when we forget which direction we should be going.  For those times we get off track...

We've found two new worlds, GJ 1002 b and c, that could be habitable. They're the right size and most likely around the right temperature. Actually, make that three new worlds. Another one, Wolf 1069 b, showed up in my news feed as I was writing this. 1 But Wolf 1069 b will wait for another time. What with one thing and another — including an unexpected visit from a daughter, son-in-law and granddaughter — I didn't ramble on as much as usual this week. So I'll take a brief, for me, look at GJ 1002 b and c. And I'll talk about literally cool data from the JWST: a look at ingredients for "the building blocks of life" in the Chamaeleon I dark molecular cloud. More at A Catholic Citizen in America . (GJ 1002 b and c may be habitable worlds orbiting a nearby red dwarf. JWST gives us new data about CHONS: key elements in the building blocks of life.)

  Sophie Scholl in 1942  (9 May 1921 - 22 February 1943)  [ Wikipedia ;  photo ] For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified (I Cor 2:2; Second Reading). Reading   (Jerusalem Bible: Australia, England & Wales, Ireland, New Zealand, Pakistan, Scotland, South Africa) Readings   (New American Bible: Philippines, USA) Gospel   Matthew 5:13-16  ( English Standard Version Anglicised: India)     Jesus said to his disciples: “You are the salt of the earth, but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled under people's feet. “You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and...

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    We can go through life--and many do--without thinking about God.  Your life is running relatively smoothly, you have what you want out of life--fun, prosperity, health, freedom--so why, you wonder, would you even need to give any thought to God?  That religion stuff is for other people.  I'm doing fine just the way things are.  I'm not so sure I even believe what all of those church-going people believe anyway. This thought trail, while popular, especially among Millennials, can be a trap that is very limiting.  They would be wise to open their minds, just a bit, to entertain the possibility that Boomers, who run just ahead of them, might have learned something along the way that is worth listening to. Of course, this is true at any age. I have always tried to listen carefully to those who are older and wiser than me.  I appreciate that someone who is 70+ has a perspective that I don't have.  If you are 90 years old, I can l...