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It's been a year since I wrote about the Mars 2020 mission. This seemed like a good time to catch up on what the Perseverance rover and Ingenuity helicopter have been up to in Jezero Crater. The Ingenuity helicopter has been scouting ahead, giving folks back on Earth up-close aerial views of places the Perseverance rover will be visiting. It was a test vehicle for powered flight on Mars, so it wasn't loaded with a great many sensors.... More at A Catholic Citizen in America . Studying Mars: Ancient Egypt, Schiaparelli and Lowell. Perseverance in Jezero Crater. Martian weather and climate: and maybe ice ages.

  Year C   Crowning a baby after baptism George Cardinal Alencherry,  Major Archbishop of Ernakulam-Angamaly  (Syro-Malabar), India  [ Wikipedia ;  photo ] Readings   (Jerusalem Bible: Australia, England & Wales, India [optional], Ireland, New Zealand, Pakistan, Scotland, South Africa) Readings   (New American Bible: Philippines, USA) Gospel   Luke 13:22-30 ( English Standard Version Anglicised: India) . Jesus went on his way through towns and villages, teaching and journeying towards Jerusalem.   And someone said to him, “Lord, will those who are saved be few?” And he said to them,   “Strive to enter through the narrow door. For many, I tell you, will seek to enter and will not be able.   When once the master of the house has risen and shut the door, and you begin to stand outside and to knock at the door, saying, ‘Lord, open to us’, then he will answer you, ‘I do not know where you come from.’   Then you will begin to say, ‘We ate and drank in your presence, and you taught in our

I'm back!  I know it's been a few weeks since I have written, but hopefully I can get back on track! I hope you will find today's post worth your time. I'm not sure where to begin to write about today's reading from the Gospel of Matthew, because reflecting on it has caused a multitude of thoughts to go swimming around in my head.  Please be patient, as I try to get this out. In the 20th chapter of Matthew, we read a quite familiar account of a landowner who decided to hire laborers to work in his vineyard.  To make a long story short, at the end of the day, the workers who had been hired last and worked a shorter time were paid the same as those who had worked all day.  The landowner, i.e., God, pointed out that the early arrivals were originally happy with their wages, until they compared them to the others' wages. I've read this scripture a thousand times, but as many of you know, depending on where you are when you read scripture, different

(From Farragutful, via Wikipedia, used w/o permission.) (Interior of St. Jude the Apostle Cathedral, St. Petersburg, Florida.) One thing's certain. Well, actually, quite a few things are certain. Something that's certain about Saint Jude the Apostle is that he's not Judas Iscariot. Which may take some explaining. Then again, maybe not. In any case, "Jude" and "Judas" look like two different names in English translations of the Bible. But they're two ways of transliterating the same name, יְהוּדָה, Y'hudah, into my language's version of the Latin alphabet.... More at A Catholic Citizen in America . (Jude, Saints, a letter, dead emperors and how Nero handled a public relations problem. Plus Elizabethan playwrights, chorizo and making sense.)

Blessed Margaret Ball and Blessed Francis Taylor St Mary's Pro-Cathedral, Dublin [ Wikipedia ;  photo ] Readings   (Jerusalem Bible: Australia, England & Wales, India [optional], Ireland, New Zealand, Pakistan, Scotland, South Africa) Readings   (New American Bible: Philippines, USA) Gospel   Luke 12:49-53 ( English Standard Version Anglicised: India) . Jesus said to his disciples: “I came to cast fire on the earth, and would that it were already kindled!   I have a baptism to be baptized with, and how great is my distress until it is accomplished!   Do you think that I have come to give peace on earth? No, I tell you, but rather division.   For from now on in one house there will be five divided, three against two and two against three.   They will be divided, father against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother, mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law.”   Léachtaí i nGaeilge  Jeremiah Lament

  I Know I'll Never Find Another You Sung by The Seekers in 2013 (L to R: Keith Potger, Bruce Woodley, Judith Durham, Athol Guy)  Song written for them in 1964 by Tom Springfield in who also produced their  original recording  of the song that year. I was very saddened by the news of the death of Judith Durham (3 July 1943 - 5 August 2022). She was less than three months younger than me - 1943 was a vintage year! - and the youngest of The Seekers, all of them from Melbourne, Australia. Judith was from Essendon, the Melbourne suburb where the Columbans have been for 100 years. This song became the anthem of Worldwide Marriage Encounter ( Philippines ,  Ireland ). Morningtown Ride Written by Malvina Reynolds This is one of my favourite songs by The Seekers. According to a comment below the video from a man who was a child in it, the boys were from St Vincent de Paul Boys' Home, South Melbourne, and the two girls with Judith from St Vincent's Children's Home, Black Rock. T

(From NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI; used w/o permission.) (The Cartwheel galaxy group, 500,000 light-years out, in the constellation Scorpius. (James Webb Space Telescope image released by NASA (August 2, 2022)) I'll be looking at some of the first pictures sent back from the James Webb Space Telescope, starting with the Cartwheel Galaxy. More at A Catholic Citizen in America . New views of the Cartwheel Galaxy, Carina Nebula and the first compact galaxy group discovered. Infrared images and the value of color astrophotography.

  St Francis and Brother Leo Meditating on Death El Greco [ Web Gallery of Art ] Readings   (Jerusalem Bible: Australia, England & Wales, India [optional], Ireland, New Zealand, Pakistan, Scotland, South Africa) Readings   (New American Bible: Philippines, USA) Gospel   Luke 12:32-48 ( English Standard Version Anglicised: India) . Shorter form, Luke 12:35-40. Omit  [text in square brackets] .  Jesus said to his disciples: [“Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom.   Sell your possessions, and give to the needy. Provide yourselves with money bags that do not grow old, with a treasure in the heavens that does not fail, where no thief approaches and no moth destroys.   For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. ] “Stay dressed for action and keep your lamps burning,   and be like men who are waiting for their master to come home from the wedding feast, so that they may open the door to him at once when he comes and knoc

  Fr Otto Imholte 3 January 1937 - 25 July 2022 This obituary was posted originally  here . I have made some minor editorial changes. Father Otto passed away due to several health complications in Hope Health Hulitar Hospice, in Providence, Rhode Island, on July 25, 2022. Mass of Christian Burial will be held at 10:30 a.m. on Monday, August 1, 2022 at St Mary’s Catholic Church in Leigh, Nebraska with Fr Steve Emanuel celebrating. Burial will take place in St Mary’s Catholic Cemetery with lunch following in the church social hall. Visitation will be on Sunday, from 4 until 5 p.m. with a parish rosary recited at 5 p.m. Memorials can be directed towards the Columban Fathers or the Leigh Legacy Fund. Svoboda Funeral Home is assisting the family with arrangements. Father Otto’s family would like to offer a sincere thank you to Columban Fathers for all of their care and assistance as well as thank the doctors and nurses at Rhode Island Hospital and the Hospice House. A special thank you to P

Glancing at my news feed this month, I've noticed that Europe is burning, California is ablaze, and Alaska has caught fire. All because of climate change.... ...Blazing California suburbs have been routine summer news for decades. European and Alaskan wildfires, not so much. I'll grant that this has been an unusually fire-prone year. On the other hand, I won't "trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries" over the doom and gloom presumably facing us all. Trying to pretend that Earth’s climate doesn't change — or shouldn't, at any rate — doesn't make any more sense than jumping on the gloom wagon. Not to me. Neither does believing that we're in the secular equivalent of End Times. More at A Catholic Citizen in America . Climate change happens. So does sound and fury. Headlines, a good idea or two, the Little Ice Age and a crisis at the dawn of civilization: maybe.

Altar of St Ignatius of Loyola, Il Gesù, Rome Andrea Pozzo SJ [ Web Gallery of Art ] Very rightly the fine arts are considered to rank among the noblest activities of man's genius, and this applies especially to religious art and to its highest achievement, which is sacred art. These arts, by their very nature, are oriented toward the infinite beauty of God which they attempt in some way to portray by the work of human hands; they achieve their purpose of redounding to God's praise and glory in proportion as they are directed the more exclusively to the single aim of turning men's minds devoutly toward God  (Vatican II,  Sacrosanctum Concilium , No 122). Readings   (Jerusalem Bible: Australia, England & Wales, India [optional], Ireland, New Zealand, Pakistan, Scotland, South Africa) Readings   (New American Bible: Philippines, USA) Gospel   Luke 12:13-21 ( English Standard Version Anglicised: India)    Someone in the crowd said to Jesus, “Teacher, tell my brother to div

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If you don't follow pro-life/pro-choice stuff, you may have never heard of Rebecca Kiessling, but you should.  I hope you will listen to someone who is living a life that began in rape and was nearly taken by abortion.  She has a very powerful story that everyone should know, regardless of your position. She says, "One of the greatest things I’ve learned is that the rapist is NOT my creator, as some people would have me believe.  My value and identity are not established as a 'product of rape,' but as a child of God." Being conceived by a serial rapist who attacked her 18 year old birth mother at knife point could have been the end of her story.  Having her mother set up to have her aborted--twice--could have been the end.  But today, you hear her speak honestly about her life: " Please understand that whenever you identify yourself as being “pro-choice,” or whenever you make that exception for rape, what that really translates into is you being a

I'll be talking about today's Pakistan: particularly what it's like being a Pakistani Christian, Hindu or Sikh. Or, for that matter, the 'wrong' sort of Pakistani Muslim. The list of at-risk Pakistanis depends partly on who's talking. A few weeks ago, someone asked me to write about what Pakistani Christians are enduring. Finding more-or-less current news or information on that general topic wasn't nearly as easy as I'd hoped. What I did find told me that what's happening now has very deep roots. More at A Catholic Citizen in America . The story so far, from before the Indus Valley civilization and Vedic period to the East India Company, independence and blasphemy laws.

  Man Praying Vincent van Gogh [ Web Gallery of Art ] Readings   (Jerusalem Bible: Australia, England & Wales, India [optional], Ireland, New Zealand, Pakistan, Scotland, South Africa) Readings   (New American Bible: Philippines, USA) Gospel   Luke 11:1-13 ( English Standard Version Anglicised: India)    Now Jesus was praying in a certain place, and when he finished, one of his disciples said to him, “Lord, teach us to pray, as John taught his disciples.”   And he said to them,  “When you pray, say: “Father, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come. Give us each day our daily bread, and forgive us our sins,      for we ourselves forgive everyone who is indebted to us. And lead us not into temptation.” And he said to them,  “Which of you who has a friend will go to him at midnight and say to him, ‘Friend, lend me three loaves,   for a friend of mine has arrived on a journey, and I have nothing to set before him’;   and he will answer from within, ‘Do not bother me; the door is now s

So here are two interesting questions that God asks each of us in the Book of Jeremiah, Chapter 2 (Verses 5 & 11): He wants to know what fault we have found in him that would cause us to walk away from him and go after things that leave us empty. And, he wants to know why we have exchanged our greatness in having been made in his image to go after useless things. Wow.  How will you answer these questions? God tells us through Jeremiah that the "empty idols" we chase after every day will simply leave us empty.  In other words, if we expect to find peace in our lives, the things of this world are not going to supply it.  Ultimately, our separation from God will leave us anxious, worldly, angry, immoral and isolated in a wasteland of drought and darkness! Since none of that sounds good, we might want to rethink where we are spiritually.  Do we really believe that God exists?  Do we turn to him everyday and count on him walking with us through our decisions, commit

 I would like to invite you to my Week of Prayer series which can be found at St. Pius Catholic Church (Flint) on Facebook. In this series, which started on Monday of this week, I discuss some of the challenges to prayer.  I hope you will check it out and find it helpful. Janet Cassidy janetcassidy.com  

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