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Designations like HD 63935 b and c don't exactly roll of the tongue. Although with a little work I might pronounce them "trippingly on the tongue," as Hamlet put it. Maybe saying "sixty five ninety three five bee and cee" would do the trick. Then again, maybe not. I thought, briefly, of calling HD 63935, HD 63935 b and HD 63935 c "Sam, Fred and Chuck;" but thought better of it. At any rate, I'd been catching up on 'exoplanet' notes from the last year or so when I read about the HD 63935 planetary system. HD 63935's known planets there, sub-Neptunes, should help scientists learn more about how planets form. Or, rather, observing them and analyzing those observations should.... More at A Catholic Citizen in America .

Christ Healing the Blind (detail) Lucas van Leyden [ Web Gallery of Art ] Behold, I will bring them from the north country   and gather them from the farthest parts of the earth,   among them the blind . . .   (Jeremiah 31:8; First Reading). World Mission Sunday Readings   (Jerusalem Bible: Australia, England & Wales, Ireland, New Zealand, Pakistan, Scotland) Readings   (New American Bible: Philippines, USA) Gospel   Mark 10:46-52   (English Standard Version Anglicised: India) As Jesus was leaving Jericho with his disciples and a great crowd, Bartimaeus, a blind beggar, the son of Timaeus, was sitting by the roadside.   And when he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to cry out and say, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!”   And many rebuked him, telling him to be silent. But he cried out all the more, “Son of David, have mercy on me!”   And Jesus stopped and said,  “Call him.”  And they called the blind man, saying to him, “Take heart. Get up; he is calling you.”   A

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It's barely over two weeks since scientists at the University of Cologne published what they'd learned about a trilobite's unique eye. Their research vindicated an amateur paleontologist's observations, and very likely will raise more questions than it answers. That's par for the course. Answering a few questions and raising many more, I mean. So is discovering something new. New to us, that is. This trilobite's 'hyper-compound' eye last saw the light of day — or dark of the ocean floor — 390,000,000 years ago. I had fun writing this, and hope you enjoy reading it. Who knew trilobite eyes could be so entrancing? More at A Catholic Citizen in America .

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Call of the Sons of Zebedee Marco Basaiti [ Web Gallery of Art ] Readings   (Jerusalem Bible: Australia, England & Wales, Ireland, New Zealand, Pakistan, Scotland) Readings (New American Bible: Philippines, USA) Gospel   Mark 10:35-45 or 10:42-45   (English Standard Version Anglicised: India) [James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came up to Jesus and said to him, “Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you.”   And he said to them,  “What do you want me to do for you?”   And they said to him, “Grant us to sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your glory.”   Jesus said to them,  “You do not know what you are asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I drink, or to be baptized with the baptism with which I am baptized?”   And they said to him, “We are able.” And Jesus said to them,  “The cup that I drink you will drink, and with the baptism with which I am baptized, you will be baptized,   but to sit at my right hand or at my left is not mine to grant, bu

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On this Columbus day, here is a historical, factual video about Christopher Columbus.  In Courage and Conviction you will not find revisionist history, but an honest account of this great explorer. Visit this LINK to learn more. Janet Cassidy janetcassidy.blogspot.com

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Ah! The Golden Age of Athens! "Golden age" arguably sounds classier than "the good old days." But either way, it's a bygone era that nostalgia says was so very much better than today. Folks living in a golden age may or may not know what they've got. Or they do, and don't like it. Take the Athenian Golden Age, for example.... More at A Catholic Citizen in America . Good times in Athens: Pericles, politics, perspectives and an unsolved murder. First in a Golden Ages series, looking back at not-quite-utopias.

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Here's a thought . . . In today's reading from the Gospel of Luke, Chapter 11 (verse14) Jesus drives out a demon that was mute.  As soon as the demon is gone, the mute person begins to speak and "the crowds were amazed."  The bigger discussion is centered around the power that brought out the demon and a house divided, but here's what struck me. Perhaps, when we are silent (mute), we are cooperating with evil.  I'm not talking about someone who has a physical condition that prevents them from speaking, of course, but the rest of us who do not use our voices to speak up against the social issues of our time. When we are silent on the evil of abortion, we are cooperating with evil.  When we are silent on immorality and shake our heads in agreement, we are cooperating with evil. When we hold up individuality as a higher good than the common good, we are cooperating with evil. I could go on and on, but the point is, scripture shows us that it was the mute demon th

Jesus and the Rich Young Man Beijiing, 1879 [ Wikipedia ]  He went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions  (Mark 1o:22). Readings   (Jerusalem Bible: Australia, England & Wales, Ireland, New Zealand, Pakistan, Scotland) Readings   (New American Bible: Philippines, USA) Gospel  Mark 10:17-30   (English Standard Version Anglicised: India) Jesus was setting out on his journey, a man ran up and knelt before him and asked him, “Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?”   And Jesus said to him,  “Why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone.   You know the commandments: ‘Do not murder, Do not commit adultery, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness, Do not defraud, Honour your father and mother.’”   And he said to him, “Teacher, all these I have kept from my youth.”   And Jesus, looking at him, loved him, and said to him,  “You lack one thing: go, sell all that you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.”   Dish

Imagine Jonah, running out of town, sitting under a tent, waiting on God to respond to his complaints.  How could God have asked him to run through the city of Nineveh, telling people that their city was going to be destroyed, and then forgive them and save them once they had repented?  What was God thinking? Jonah wondered. And furthermore, while he was sitting under that tent, steaming about the situation, God sent a big leafy plant to give him shade, which made Jonah very happy because it gave him relief from the sun.  What made Jonah not so happy was the worm that God sent in the morning which attacked that nice plant and caused it to wither. Boy was Jonah mad.  "Kill me now" he seemed to be saying, as he told God he would be better off dead than alive. As I was reading all of this in the last chapter of the Book of Jonah (read it in the Old Testament--the entire book is only two pages long), I started thinking about that nice, leafy gourd plant. How many times in our own

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Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS), a robotic observatory, began 200,000 nearby stars on August 7, 2018. So far, scientists have found more than 2,200 TESS Objects of Interest (TOI). Of these, again so far, 154 have turned out to be exoplanets. They include a few probably-rocky planets around Earth's size, but none are 'Earth 2.0.' And some are like nothing in our Solar System. More at A Catholic Citizen in America .

Servant of God Chiara Corbella Petrillo (9 January 1984 - 13 June 2012) [Photo from  official website ] Readings   (Jerusalem Bible: Australia, England & Wales, Ireland, New Zealand, Pakistan, Scotland) Readings   (New American Bible: Philippines, USA) Gospel  Mark 10:2-16 or 10:2-12   (English Standard Version Anglicised: India) And Pharisees came up and in order to test him asked, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?”   He answered them,  “What did Moses command you?”   They said, “Moses allowed a man to write a certificate of divorce and to send her away.”   And Jesus said to them,  “Because of your hardness of heart he wrote you this commandment.   But from the beginning of creation, ‘God made them male and female.’   ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife,     and the two shall become one flesh.’ So they are no longer two but one flesh.   What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.” And in the house the disciples

In the Gospel of Luke, Chapter 10, we read about Jesus sending out the seventy-two disciples.  He sends them out with none of the usual things one would need for traveling.  We are to understand that he does not want them to be attached to their possessions along the way. Jesus gives them the power to fight off evil, using just his name and the power he has given. When I think about this, I think about the mission each of us shares with the disciples.  We, too, are to "go out" into the world and face evil and bring peace. When you think about it, we are to leave our agendas behind.  Especially for lay ministers who work in the Church, this is a good reminder to go forward, empty-handed, trusting that God will provide what we need.  So often we approach ministry with a certain mindset.  We have to organize this and offer that, in order to bring people on board. But, what if we were to be fully dependent on God to show us the way?  What if the plans we make or the a

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I was watching a clip from an old episode of the Carol Burnett Show where the Mama character starts throwing insults at her daughter, Eunice.  Carol Burnett can hardly keep a straight face.  Reflecting on the relationship between the two characters, Tim Conway later commented that you could go into any small town in America and find those same two "characters" still today. In the episode I was watching, Mama's arrows went something like this: "I think you done sprung a leak in your dingy" "You aren't playing with a full deck" "I think somebody blew your pilot light out." I can appreciate the comedy in those sketches from years-gone-by, but as I watch some of the older television shows, they really make me cringe.  To our sensitivities today, Mama's comments, for instance, about Eunice being "crazy" and that "they are going to lock you up" strike quite the nerve. On other shows I have watched, the implici

  Lala , with Jordan I first wrote this post in October 2008 and used it again in 2011 under the title  Lala and Queen Elizabeth II . I have re-posted it a number of times, with variations, because Lala's story is one that should be told over and over again.  This year I am re-posting what I posted three years ago, with a couple of updates on ages.  Today Lala is celebrating another birthday. No doubt, the occasion is being marked at  Punla, Ang Arko, where Lala lives, the only  L'Arche community  in the Philippines, in Cainta, Rizal, part of the metropolitan sprawl of Manila.  The Pope's Universal Prayer Intention for September 2014 was:   That the mentally disabled may receive the love and help they need for a dignified life . The truth is that persons with mental or learning disabilities can teach the rest of us about the dignity of life, as the photo above of Lala helping Jordan with his meal shows. Let us show our service to the poor, then, with renewed ardour in our h

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  I was having breakfast one morning and I happened to see a car pull into our neighbor's driveway.  I noticed our neighbor come out of her house while the person in the driveway jumped out of their car. The car person passed what looked like a grocery bag to the house person.  Naturally, I have no idea what that was about, but I was left thinking, "I know that move." "That move" being the handoff during covid.  Between covid and sickness, we and our youngest daughter, who lives nearby with little kids, have done the handoff on a number of occasions.  Sometimes it's medicine or masks, and sometimes it's food. In fact, it seems like we are often feeding each other when one of our households is "down for the count." From the time she was old enough to drive, our youngest was always giving rides to people, taking them a gift, or picking up food.  That level of generosity with a willingness to go out of one's way for another isn

The Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris has survived Louis XIV-style redecorating, the French Revolution, Napoleon and 19th-century remodeling. I'm pretty sure it will survive repair and reconstruction, following the April 16, 2021, fire. Notre-Dame de Paris is Burning (From Getty Images, via BBC News, used w/o permission.) Somewhere between 6:50 p.m., Paris time, and 7:18 p.m., April 15, 2019, something caught fire under the roof of Notre-Dame de Paris.... More at A Catholic Citizen in America .

  Pope Francis on  15 September 2021 From the  official English translation  of the Pope’s words in Italian  [emphases added  in quotations below ] : Abortion is more than a problem, abortion is a murder.  Abortion... without mincing words: whoever has an abortion, kills. Take any book on embryology, from those who study students at Faculties of Medicine and see that, in the third week of pregnancy – in the third week, and often before the mother is aware of it – the fetus already has all the organs; all, even the DNA. And wouldn't it be a person? It's a human life… period! And this human life must be respected. This principle is so clear…  To those who cannot understand it, I would ask two questions: Is it fair to kill a human life to solve a problem? Scientifically, it's a human life. Second question: Is it fair to hire a hit man to solve a problem? The first sentence above in the original Italian reads: Il problema dell’aborto. L’aborto è più di un problema, l’aborto è u