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I can't claim Abraham as an ancestor. My ancestors very likely hadn't even heard of Abraham and Isaac until missionaries arrived, and I've mentioned that before. I have, however, learned a bit about our Lord's family history. That brings me to the Elijah cup my wife and I bought, some years back. Make that decades. My wife and I got it while in Minnesota's Twin Cities, for a brother-in-law's wedding, which puts it in the 1990s. Elijah's Cup in Context "Remember This Day...." Moses, Pharaoh — — The Late Bronze Age Collapse, George Washington, and Me Overheard While Getting Our Elijah's Cup Taking Traditions Seriously (More at A Catholic Citizen in America .) (How and why the Passover Seder began, What I think about Moses, academic fashions, and buying either a properly-prepared item or a cheap imitation.) (I know: this topic is related to Lent, not Advent. But it's what I came up with this week.)

Last Sunday's Gospel reading was about Jesus healing a man who couldn't hear or speak. 1 So that's what Fr. Greg talked about: along with how it ties in how we're living today. A tip of the hat to Fr. Greg, for letting me make a transcript of his homily: Healing the Deaf Mute of Decapolis (1) One-On-One Healing (2) Touching His Ears (3) "Unusual to Us" — Jesus Spits (4) A Second Touch (5) Jesus Looks Up to Heaven (6) He Groans (7) Ephphatha! The Purpose of the Messiah Sidon, the Decapolis, and a World of Gentiles Deafness as a Cultural Preference Babies, Birth Rates, Families: and Statistics The Greatest Blessings on Earth Valuing Children Looking Ahead Planning Ahead, and Praying Video: Gospel Reading and Homily at St. Paul's, Sauk Centre, MN; September 8, 2024 More at A Catholic Citizen in America . (A guest post by Fr. Greg Paffel: showing how healing the deaf mute of Decapolis applies to how we should live today. Valuing...

My interest in the Olympics is mild at best. This year, I’m glad that I lack a deep emotional connection to what’s happening in Paris. Mainly because of the remarkable “Festivité” show. I don't think this year's performance art at the big sporting event's opening ceremony will affect its popularity. Too many folks get too excited about other folks showing what they can do for that. And a drag show — that we're told was not made to look like Leonardo da Vinci's "Last Supper" — apparently doesn't clash with the Olympic Charter's high ideals. 1 Even so, I think this communiqué/bulletin from the Vatican makes sense.... More at A Catholic Citizen in America . (The Festivite part of the 2024 Summer Olympics opening ceremony is still in the news. I look at why French bishops, the Vatican, and I, do not approve.)

Folks have a great many ways of dealing with grief and loss. For example, folks at the hospital took a photo of our youngest daughter. She died shortly before birth. That photo's on an 'in loving memory of' memorial card — I think that's what it's called — that's tucked into the corner of our wedding picture.... More at A Catholic Citizen in America . (Mimicking dead people with an AI avatar / chatbot could help folks deal with grief and loss. My quick glance at this new wrinkle on old practices.)

Text characters, the ones used online at any rate, include symbols that aren't letters of the alphabet, punctuation, or numbers. So far, so obvious. I was replying to comments this afternoon, and figured I'd use the emoji/dingbat/whatever "okay" hand sign. It seemed like a good idea at the time. But I also figured that, since folks who don't live in my part of the world read this, I'd better do a little research.... More at A Catholic Citizen in America . (An unexpectedly naughty gesture &mdash or &mdash why I used a snowflake symbol.)

I've decided to list this post in the "Science News" category, although it doesn’t feature a current news item. That's because some of the tarantula-and-frog research has been news, and current spiders-have-pet-frogs videos remind me of human interest stories, back when print-format newspapers were more common. It's been an interesting week. “ Update: Air Conditioner Fixed 🙂 ” (August 3, 2023) “ Power Failure Last Week, Now Equipment Failure ” (August 2, 2023) That may, or may not, explain why this week's post is a mix of science and creature features of days gone by: Picking This Week’s Topic Big Spider, Little Frog: Helping Each Other Names, Senses and (Maybe) Mutualism Tarantula Research “SCIENCE’S DEADLIEST ACCIDENT”: “Tarantula!” (1955) “Vox Populi…” One Phrase, Two or more Viewpoints Special Effects and Speculation Harmony, Understanding and Medieval Bestiaries And the Moral of this Spider is — More at A Catholic Citizen in ...

Here in central Minnesota, palm fronds are part of our Palm Sunday Mass. We generally take them home, fold them into the shape of a cross while they're still green and pliable, and put them somewhere in the home where they'll be visible. Before next year's Lent, we'll return them to the parish church, where they're burned to make ashes for Ash Wednesday. That's the idea, at any rate. Some years, including this one, I forget about bringing last year's back. Letting that upset me is an option. But not, I think, a reasonable one. And that's another topic. Last weekend, my now-grown son asked my wife about the palm fronds he'd brought home from Mass. That reminded me that it's been 11 years since I made a short video, and 10 since I've shared it online. It's a short (4:26) how-2, showing how we fold our fronds. More at A Catholic Citizen in America . (How my family folds palm fronds into a Saint Andrews cross, using a lanyard weave....

I'll be sharing some very odd 19th century Christmas cards today. And rambling a bit about holidays, history and whatever else comes to mind. Briefly, for me. Christmas and New Year's Eve: a Double-Header Solstice Celebration Many if not all folks who experience non-equatorial seasons where they live have some sort of winter solstice celebration. My native culture has two: Christmas and New Year's Eve. More at A Catholic Citizen in America . (My winter solstice celebrations, holiday greetings from the ISS, strange Victorian greeting cards and the first Christmas card.)

My culture's Christmas season begins with Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade. Our traditionally-frenzied holiday shopping season does, at any rate. That's not a particularly good thing, considering what stress can do to folks. On the other hand, America's shopping frenzy inspired "I Yust Go Nuts at Christmas." I'll be talking about that, more-or-less-recent news, and events we're still celebrating, two millennia later.... More at A Catholic Citizen in America . (Recent news, holiday stress and a hipster nativity. Yogi Yorgesson and C. S. Lewis: views regarding Christmas. Joseph, Mary and decisions.)

(From Giovanni Paolo Panini, via Staatsgalerie, Stutgard/Wikimedia Commons, used w/o permission.) (Giovanni Paolo Panini's "Ancient Rome" — an 18th century view. (1754-1757)) "...Naiad airs have brought me home To the glory that was Greece, And the grandeur that was Rome...." (" To Helen ," Edgar Allen Poe (1845) via Wikipedia) I've split this week's post into three sections: History 101 and Humanity's Continuing Story About History: Definitions, Documents, and Narratives Will the Real Ancient Rome Please Stand Up? More at A Catholic Citizen in America . Impressions of ancient Rome: morals, Cicero, Sallust and Gibbon. An almost-forgotten King, a president and a thought experiment. Historical narratives.

Easter Sunday is a very big deal. It's "the greatest of all Sundays," since it's when we celebrate our Lord's resurrection. Begin celebrating, actually. The Easter season lasts until Pentecost Sunday: not quite two months from now. Maybe "our Lord's resurrection" sounds routine, familiar, two millennia after that post-Passover surprise. But let's remember that the 12 Apostles, make that 11 after Judas Iscariot killed himself, and everyone else close to Jesus expected him to stay dead. More at A Catholic Citizen in America .

"Doctor Faustus..." starts with a 194-word soliloquy. Sort of. It's delivered by Chorus, named last in Marlowe's "Dramatis Personae." Ancient Greek tragedies had a chorus, acting like today's narrators. Again, sort of. Aristotle said that chorus was a character, so maybe Marlowe saw it that way, too. Make that probably did, since his "Dramtis Personae" lists Chorus. Anyway, here's Marlowe's first whacking great chunk of soliloquy, whittled down considerably, in "Dr. Faustus." Assuming that what Chorus says is soliloquy.... More at A Catholic Citizen in America .

Seeing Jesus as a charismatic wannabe revolutionary is possible. So is assuming that he was politically inept or stark raving mad. Maybe both. Another option is seeing Jesus as a great teacher, one of the world's best: in the same league as Socrates, Kapila and Confucius. The 'up' side of the 'great teacher' view is that it acknowledges our Lord as someone who talked about ethics and made sense. The 'down' side, and it's a big one, is that Jesus of Nazareth said this.... (More, at A Catholic Citizen in America> )

For two dozen centuries, at least, a few folks have said that peace is a good idea. Many others have agreed. Making peace a practical reality has remained an elusive goal. But I think we're closer to it than when Chu won the Battle of Bi, or Sparta lost the Battle of Leuctra. 1 I'm quite certain that finding an alternative to war is a good idea. No matter how long it takes us to get there. More at World Day of Peace, 2019 ; brendans-island.com/catholic-citizen/world-day-peace/ . (More at A Catholic Citizen in America )

Yesterday’s celebration of Christ the King is such a perfect way to end out the liturgical year. It’s one of the better changes made in the new missal; I think it seems out of place in the Old Rite, stuck in October. So here we are, at the end of the year, and we get to meditate on the Kingship of Christ. The homily I heard mentioned that God isn’t a genie that we can call up when we need Him, He is a King that we owe our allegiance to. Father also mentioned that we Americans tend to take issue with the idea of being subject to anyone and specifically to a King, but that there is no better monarch to swear our fealty to. Pretty basic thoughts, but I want to go a little more in depth on them. A genie is a fairly simple creature. Rub the lamp, get your wish, genie goes back  in the bottle. Notwithstanding an evil sorcerer and a deranged parrot, you could carry the lamp around with you and call up phenomenal cosmic power every time you get in a pinch. That’s all there is to ...

It ain’t easy being male. Not that I would know, but lately being a wife and a boy-mom, I’ve had a lot of sympathy for the less-fair sex. Feminism ran rampant, going so far beyond its noble beginnings with woman’s suffrage and ended up shaping our entire culture into a place where genuine masculinity is no longer welcome. It starts when they are so young. Boys are forbidden to play “cowboys and Indians” because that is racist. They can’t play with sticks and toy guns because that is training them to be violent. When a little boy can’t sit still for six hours straight in a classroom, he is put on Ritalin because he must be disordered. He probably isn’t disordered, he is probably just a boy! They don’t sit very well and they like to pretend to shoot things. Surprise, surprise! By the time they reach adulthood, the male species as a whole has been socially castrated, forced to take his God-given natural aptitudes for manly pursuits and competitiveness, and trade them in for avoc...

Sister Lucia, the oldest of the Fatima visionaries prophesied that the final fight between Our Lord and Satan will be over marriage and the family. Being the one good thing that remains from Paradise, it is easy to see why the devil would attack it so harshly. With sex scandals upon scandals, the acceptance of same-sex “marriages”, the  normalization of incest , the epidemic of contraceptive use, and a million other violations of the natural order, it’s not terribly crazy to speculate that we are nearing that final battle. Faithful Catholics easily recognize the dangers of the big lies society is pushing, and we seem to frame our understanding of this final battle as being against these  big  issues, but that is only the surface of the fight. .... Those of us in faithful, sacramental marriages, I really think we are going to be attacked more than anyone else. You only have to do a quick read through of the Book of Job to see how much the devil delights in bringin...

Tomorrow is Halloween. I hope you have a good one. I mentioned St. Wolfgang of Regensberg, All Hallows' and All Souls' Day, and the autumnal equinox, last year. Also Gaelic and Welsh traditions, jack-o'-lanterns, and Easter eggs. Enjoying my culture's traditions, within reason, makes sense. To me. It's arguably better than bitter bewailing stuff I can't change: and don't want to.... More at A Catholic Citizen in America .

I picked a mix from 'science news' this week: tardigrade genes, fertility fears, and what is probably the world's oldest living culture. Folks in Western civilization have known about our neighbors in Australia for about four centuries. Understanding their beliefs became easier, I think, when some of us realized that respecting them makes sense. More at A Catholic Citizen in America .

One my favorite bits from the Bible is in this morning's readings.... ...A "noise like a strong driving wind" in the sky had gotten their attention. Maybe they'd also seen the "tongues as of fire," too. Or maybe that was visible only to the disciples inside. Now that I think of it, a loud 'whooshing' sound in the sky and descending fire might easily have started a stampede. Anyway, folks outside were puzzled, since they had been hearing what the folks inside were saying. That's not the puzzling part. I gather that Jerusalem in those days didn't provide nearly as much acoustic privacy as we're accustomed to. The decidedly odd part was that each person "heard them speaking in his own language." Hence the roll call of nationalities.... More at A Catholic Citizen in America .