There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars; for star differs from star in glory.

So is it with the resurrection of the dead. What is sown is perishable, what is raised is imperishable. It is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness, it is raised in power. It is sown a physical body, it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a physical body, there is also a spiritual body. Thus it is written, “The first man Adam became a living being”; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit. But it is not the spiritual which is first but the physical, and then the spiritual. The first man was from the earth, a man of dust; the second man is from heaven. As was the man of dust, so are those who are of the dust; and as is the man of heaven, so are those who are of heaven. Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the man of heaven. I tell you this, brethren: flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable.

–1 Corinthians 15:41-50

Giovanni Baglione, sketch for the (not lost) altarpiece of the Resurrection for Il Gesu. Criticism of the painting by a.o. Caravaggio and Orazio Gentileschi in 1603 ("it's the worst he's done", "clumsy") caused Bagione to file a suit for libel which he won. pic.twitter.com/MT94uEise4

— Rembrandt's R👀m 🖌 (@RembrandtsRoom) November 5, 2018

Yet, there was one large omission that set all other truth dangerously at risk: the omission of holy rest. The refusal to be silent. The obsessive avoidance of emptiness. The denial of any experience and any people in the least bit suggestive of godforsakenness.

It was far more than an annual ignorance on Holy Saturday; it was religiously fueled, weekly arrogance. Not only was the Good Friday crucifixion bridged to the Easter resurrection by this day furious with energy and lucrative with reward, but all the gospel truths were likewise set as either introductions or conclusions to the human action that displayed our prowess and our virtue every week of the year. God was background to our business. Every gospel truth was maintained intact and all the human energy was wholly admirable, but the rhythms were all wrong, the proportions wildly skewed. Desolation””and with it companionship with the desolate, from first-century Semites to twentieth-century Indians””was all but wiped from consciousness.
But there came a point at which I was convinced that it was critically important to pay more attention to what God does than what I do; to find daily, weekly, yearly rhythms that would get that awareness into my bones. Holy Saturday for a start. And then, times to visit people in despair, and learn their names, and wait for resurrection.

Embedded in my memory now is this most poignant irony: those seven or eight Indians, with the Thunderbird empties lying around, drunk in the alley behind the Pastime Baron Saturday afternoon, while we Scandinavian Christians worked diligently late into the night, oblivious to the holiness of the day. The Indians were in despair, religious despair, something very much like the Holy Saturday despair narrated in the Gospels. Their way of life had come to nothing, the only buffalo left to them engraved on nickels, a couple of which one of their squaws had paid out that morning for four bony ham hocks. The early sacredness of their lives was a wasteland; and they, godforsaken as they supposed, drugged their despair with Thunderbird and buried their dead visions and dreams in the alley behind the Pastime, ignorant of the God at work beneath their emptiness.

Take the time to read it all.

For #HolySaturday, a few hours before the Vigil begins: Christ in the Tomb supported by the Virgin – attributed to Francesco Granacci c. 1490s

(The Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archaeology) pic.twitter.com/tOcg954qGA

— John McCafferty (@jdmccafferty) March 30, 2024

So then, there remains a sabbath rest for the people of God; for whoever enters God’s rest also ceases from his labors as God did from his.

–Hebrews 4:10-11

There's something eery about the Cathedral with no main lights. #HolySaturday pic.twitter.com/O5IvoSWP5L

— OurCofE (@OurCofE) March 26, 2016

Therefore, having this ministry by the mercy of God, we do not lose heart. We have renounced disgraceful, underhanded ways; we refuse to practice cunning or to tamper with God’s word, but by the open statement of the truth we would commend ourselves to every man’s conscience in the sight of God. And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled only to those who are perishing. In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the likeness of God. For what we preach is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, with ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake. For it is the God who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.

But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, to show that the transcendent power belongs to God and not to us. We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies. For while we live we are always being given up to death for Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus may be manifested in our mortal flesh. So death is at work in us, but life in you.

–2 Corinthians 4:1-12

"Pale Morning Light" pic.twitter.com/3hWihXGYVW

— simon c woodley (@simoncwoodley) March 22, 2024

Kali Gaddie was a college senior when the pandemic abruptly upended her life plans—and made her part of a big and deeply unhappy political force that figures to play a huge role in the 2024 election season.

Her graduation was postponed, she was let go from her college job and her summer internship got canceled. She spent the final months of school taking online classes from her parents’ house. “You would think that there’s a plan B or a safety net,” she said. “But there’s actually not.”

Today, Gaddie, 25, works as an office manager in Atlanta earning less than $35,000 a year. In her spare time, she uploads videos to TikTok, where she’s amassed thousands of followers. Now, that’s at risk of being taken away too. All of this has left her dejected and increasingly skeptical of politicians.

Young adults in Generation Z—those born in 1997 or after—have emerged from the pandemic feeling more disillusioned than any living generation before them, according to long-running surveys and interviews with dozens of young people around the country. They worry they’ll never make enough money to attain the security previous generations have achieved, citing their delayed launch into adulthood, an impenetrable housing market and loads of student debt.

Read it all.

Young adult Gen Z voters are more disillusioned and pessimistic than any before. More here, including charts from *Generations*:https://t.co/bU8xNjCd9j

— Jean Twenge (author of GENERATIONS, iGEN) (@jean_twenge) March 15, 2024

They came to the other side of the sea, to the country of the Ger′asenes. And when he had come out of the boat, there met him out of the tombs a man with an unclean spirit, who lived among the tombs; and no one could bind him any more, even with a chain; for he had often been bound with fetters and chains, but the chains he wrenched apart, and the fetters he broke in pieces; and no one had the strength to subdue him. Night and day among the tombs and on the mountains he was always crying out, and bruising himself with stones. And when he saw Jesus from afar, he ran and worshiped him; and crying out with a loud voice, he said, “What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I adjure you by God, do not torment me.” For he had said to him, “Come out of the man, you unclean spirit!” And Jesus asked him, “What is your name?” He replied, “My name is Legion; for we are many.” And he begged him eagerly not to send them out of the country. Now a great herd of swine was feeding there on the hillside; and they begged him, “Send us to the swine, let us enter them.” So he gave them leave. And the unclean spirits came out, and entered the swine; and the herd, numbering about two thousand, rushed down the steep bank into the sea, and were drowned in the sea.

The herdsmen fled, and told it in the city and in the country. And people came to see what it was that had happened. And they came to Jesus, and saw the demoniac sitting there, clothed and in his right mind, the man who had had the legion; and they were afraid. And those who had seen it told what had happened to the demoniac and to the swine. And they began to beg Jesus to depart from their neighborhood. And as he was getting into the boat, the man who had been possessed with demons begged him that he might be with him. But he refused, and said to him, “Go home to your friends, and tell them how much the Lord has done for you, and how he has had mercy on you.” And he went away and began to proclaim in the Decap′olis how much Jesus had done for him; and all men marveled.

–Mark 5:1-20

Exorcism of the Gerasene demoniac, 11th c. Gospel, Constantinople pic.twitter.com/oMrt1IXiz9

— Jon M. Sweeney (@jonmsweeney) December 9, 2020

Christians around the world have marked the death in a remote prison camp of the Russian opposi­tion leader Alexei Navalny. Armed po­­­lice dispersed citizens trying to do so publicly in Russia last Friday.

Speaking in Rome, the Vatican Secretary of State, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, said that news of the death of Mr Navalny, at the age of 47, had caused “astonishment and sadness”. The Cardinal had hoped that the dissident’s plight could be “resolved differently”.

Members of Finland’s Orthodox Church attended a memorial service for Mr Navalny in the Cathedral of the Assumption, Helsinki, led by Archbishop Leo (Makkonen). Dr Markus Dröge, the former Evangelical Bishop of Berlin, where Mr Navalny was treated for Novichok nerve-agent poisoning in August 2020, called for a street or square to be named after him in recognition of his “indomitable and fearless commitment to freedom and democracy”.

Read it all.

Christians worldwide have marked the death in a remote prison camp of the Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny. Armed police in Russia dispersed citizens attempting to do so publicly last Friday https://t.co/N0Z71GuddX

— Church Times (@ChurchTimes) February 21, 2024

Fellow-Citizens of the Senate and House of Representatives:

I embrace with great satisfaction the opportunity which now presents itself of congratulating you on the present favorable prospects of our public affairs. The recent accession of the important state of North Carolina to the Constitution of the United States (of which official information has been received), the rising credit and respectability of our country, the general and increasing good will toward the government of the Union, and the concord, peace, and plenty with which we are blessed are circumstances auspicious in an eminent degree to our national prosperity.

In resuming your consultations for the general good you can not but derive encouragement from the reflection that the measures of the last session have been as satisfactory to your constituents as the novelty and difficulty of the work allowed you to hope. Still further to realize their expectations and to secure the blessings which a gracious Providence has placed within our reach will in the course of the present important session call for the cool and deliberate exertion of your patriotism, firmness, and wisdom.

Read it all.

Although it’s commonly referred to as #PresidentsDay, the third Monday in February is still officially a federal holiday celebrating Washington’s birthday (2/22/1732). https://t.co/gg9SLjMSGZ pic.twitter.com/xOnZ84yK6L

— Presidential Trivia (@triviapotus) February 19, 2024

O God, who hast sown in our hearts the precious seed of thy truth: Grant us to nourish it by meditation, prayer and obedience, that it may not only take root, but also bring forth fruit unto holiness; through Jesus Christ our Lord.

GM! 🙂

This week my #dailyphotos are going high above the world, and we're kicking off with a drone shot of a lovely sunset over the Otter Valley…#thephotohour #Mondaymotivation #thephotohour #stormhour pic.twitter.com/cOBhwJCF4t

— Gary Holpin | Photography (@GaryHolpin) February 5, 2024

The “perfect storm” facing the Church of England Pensions Board as it seeks to fund retirement housing should be addressed by drawing on the Church Commissioners’ assets, two clergy bodies argued this week.

The Pensions Board’s “Enabling Choice” consultation warns that the current provision — the CHARM scheme, which enables clergy to rent a property from the Board — has become unsustainable (News, 17 November 2023, 24 November 2023). Its chair, Clive Mather, has referred to a dramatic rise in costs through inflation and interest rates. Demand was said to be “unprecedented” last year (Features, 28 July 2023, News, 13 October 2023).

In its response to the consultation, which ended on Wednesday, the Retired Clergy Association of the Church of England and the Church of England Employee and Clergy Advocates, part of the Faith Workers Branch of Unite, write that the Board’s proposals “represent a radical break in the covenant of care between the Church of England and its clergy as to how they will be supported in retirement . . . bringing fresh uncertainty and anxiety to those clergy who have no other viable means of securing housing in retirement, and fuelling the broader perception among clergy that their ministry is no longer understood or valued by the institutional Church”.

Read it all.

The “perfect storm” facing the Church of England Pensions Board as it seeks to fund retirement housing should be addressed by drawing on the Church Commissioners’ assets, two clergy bodies argued this week https://t.co/0XqivC2EP6

— Church Times (@ChurchTimes) January 31, 2024

Tumors constantly shed DNA from dying cells, which briefly circulates in the patient’s bloodstream before it is quickly broken down. Many companies have created blood tests that can pick out this tumor DNA, potentially helping doctors diagnose or monitor cancer or choose a treatment.

The amount of tumor DNA circulating at any given time, however, is extremely small, so it has been challenging to develop tests sensitive enough to pick up that tiny signal. A team of researchers from MIT and the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard has now come up with a way to significantly boost that signal, by temporarily slowing the clearance of tumor DNA circulating in the bloodstream.

The researchers developed two different types of injectable molecules that they call “priming agents,” which can transiently interfere with the body’s ability to remove circulating tumor DNA from the bloodstream. In a study of mice, they showed that these agents could boost DNA levels enough that the percentage of detectable early-stage lung metastases leapt from less than 10 percent to above 75 percent.

Read it all.

Researchers improve blood tests’ ability to detect and monitor cancer: The advance makes it easier to detect circulating tumor DNA in blood samples, which could enable earlier cancer diagnosis and help guide treatment. https://t.co/cPA3MJVQ08 pic.twitter.com/CRRIFAFWbQ

— Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) (@MIT) January 19, 2024

Keep us, O Lord, from the vain strife of words, and grant us a constant profession of our faith. Preserve us in the way of truth, so that we may ever hold fast that which we professed when we were baptized into the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, and may give glory to thee, our Creator, Redeemer and Sanctifier, now and for evermore.

Feast of St. Hilary of Poitiers d.368. Called by St. Jerome a “mighty man of eloquence, the Latin Trumpet against the Arians.” Might be time for a few more trumpets in the present orchestra pic.twitter.com/6taE1v65Qr

— Benedict Kiely (@benedict_kiely) January 13, 2024

There is another way as well in which this story points ahead to the climax of the gospel. Jesus will finally come face to face with the representative of the world’s greatest king—Pilate, Caesar’s subordinate. Pilate will have rather different gifts to give him, though he, too, is warned by a dream not to do anything to him (27.19). His soldiers are the first Gentiles since the Magi to call Jesus ‘king of the Jews’ (27.29), but the crown they give him is made of thorns, and his throne is a cross. At that moment, instead of a bright star, there will be an unearthly darkness (27.45), out of which we shall hear a single Gentile voice: yes, he really was God’s son (27.54).

Listen to the whole story, Matthew is saying. Think about what it meant for Jesus to be the true king of the Jews. And then—come to him, by whatever route you can, and with the best gifts you can find.

–N.T. Wright, Matthew for Everyone (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2nd ed. edition,2004), p. 12

The Adoration of the Magi, 1612-1614.

Fray Juan Bautista Maíno – who became a Dominican while working on this painting.

(Museo Nacional del Prado) pic.twitter.com/UZhfdRnFi0

— John McCafferty (@jdmccafferty) February 28, 2021

Happy New Year from Durham Cathedral

We pray you all have a blessed 2024 🌟

Thank you to Simon C Woodley for this wonderful photo📷 pic.twitter.com/ZJbZXhMcwf

— Durham Cathedral (@durhamcathedral) January 1, 2024

Lyrics:

O magnum mysterium, et admirabile sacramentum, ut animalia viderent Dominum natum, jacentem in praesepio! Beata Virgo, cujus viscera meruerunt portare Dominum Christum. Alleluia
O great mystery, and wonderful sacrament, that animals should see the new-born Lord, lying in a manger! Blessed is the Virgin whose womb was worthy to bear Christ the Lord. Alleluia!

Listen to it all.

There is a nice article on this there.

Truly, truly, I say to you, he who receives any one whom I send receives me; and he who receives me receives him who sent me.”

When Jesus had thus spoken, he was troubled in spirit, and testified, “Truly, truly, I say to you, one of you will betray me.” The disciples looked at one another, uncertain of whom he spoke. One of his disciples, whom Jesus loved, was lying close to the breast of Jesus; so Simon Peter beckoned to him and said, “Tell us who it is of whom he speaks.” So lying thus, close to the breast of Jesus, he said to him, “Lord, who is it?” Jesus answered, “It is he to whom I shall give this morsel when I have dipped it.” So when he had dipped the morsel, he gave it to Judas, the son of Simon Iscariot. Then after the morsel, Satan entered into him. Jesus said to him, “What you are going to do, do quickly.” Now no one at the table knew why he said this to him. Some thought that, because Judas had the money box, Jesus was telling him, “Buy what we need for the feast”; or, that he should give something to the poor. So, after receiving the morsel, he immediately went out; and it was night.

When he had gone out, Jesus said, “Now is the Son of man glorified, and in him God is glorified; if God is glorified in him, God will also glorify him in himself, and glorify him at once. Little children, yet a little while I am with you. You will seek me; and as I said to the Jews so now I say to you, ‘Where I am going you cannot come.’ A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; even as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

–John 13:20-35

Winter's Joy (1928)
🎨 Peder Mørk Mønsted pic.twitter.com/maZ5GU0Uho

— Cian McCarthy (@arealmofwonder) December 27, 2023

ALMYGHTYE God, whiche haste geuen us thy onlye begotten sonne to take our nature upon hym, and this daye to bee borne of a pure Vyrgyn; Graunte that we beyng regenerate, and made thy children by adoption and grace, maye dailye be renued by thy holy spirite, through the same our Lorde Jesus Christe who lyueth and reygneth &c.

The story of Christmas, told through masterpieces of painting – a thread 🧵

1. The Cestello Annunciation – Sandro Botticelli (1489) pic.twitter.com/vTRwhlbZzz

— Culture Critic (@Culture_Crit) December 24, 2023

As a Christian, my faith is anchored in the person of Jesus, who won my heart long ago. It would be impossible to understand me without taking that into account. But sometimes my faith dims; God seems distant, his ways confounding. “Faith steals upon you like dew,” the poet Christian Wiman has written. “Some days you wake and it is there. And like dew, it gets burned off in the rising sun of anxiety, ambitions, distractions.” And the rising sun of grief and loss, too. Those things don’t necessarily destroy faith; in some cases, for some people, they can even deepen it. But they always change it.

During times of sorrow and times of tears, when it feels like we’re “being broken on the wheels of living,” in the words of Thornton Wilder, there is great comfort in believing God empathizes with our suffering, having entered into suffering himself. But we also need his emissaries. We need people who see us and know us, who enter our stories. Through their compassion and love, we feel, I feel — even if only partly — God’s compassion and love. That doesn’t eliminate the storms from within or without. But it makes greater room for joy in the journey.

Read it all.

Compassion, on the other hand, is central to the Christian understanding of God. https://t.co/yFBPzcsHvk

— Mike Jopek (@mikejopek) December 24, 2023

“And to the angel of the church in Philadelphia write: ‘The words of the holy one, the true one, who has the key of David, who opens and no one shall shut, who shuts and no one opens.”‘I know your works. Behold, I have set before you an open door, which no one is able to shut; I know that you have but little power, and yet you have kept my word and have not denied my name. Behold, I will make those of the synagogue of Satan who say that they are Jews and are not, but lie–behold, I will make them come and bow down before your feet, and learn that I have loved you. Because you have kept my word of patient endurance, I will keep you from the hour of trial which is coming on the whole world, to try those who dwell upon the earth. I am coming soon; hold fast what you have, so that no one may seize your crown. He who conquers, I will make him a pillar in the temple of my God; never shall he go out of it, and I will write on him the name of my God, and the name of the city of my God, the new Jerusalem which comes down from my God out of heaven, and my own new name. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.’

–Revelation 3:7-13

Lava sky. Taken this morning shortly before sunrise, from Glastonbury Tor. pic.twitter.com/UE8GlWGP7x

— Michelle Cowbourne (@Glastomichelle) December 18, 2023

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband; and I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling of God is with men. He will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself will be with them; he will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning nor crying nor pain any more, for the former things have passed away.” And he who sat upon the throne said, “Behold, I make all things new.” Also he said, “Write this, for these words are trustworthy and true.” And he said to me, “It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. To the thirsty I will give from the fountain of the water of life without payment. He who conquers shall have this heritage, and I will be his God and he shall be my son. But as for the cowardly, the faithless, the polluted, as for murderers, fornicators, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars, their lot shall be in the lake that burns with fire and sulphur, which is the second death.”

–Revelation 21:1-8

Good Morning! This little village in #Swaledale is possibly best known for the surrounding hay meadows in the early summer. It's also pretty in autumn 🍂 Do you recognise it?

We hope you're having a great week 🙌

📸 @AkroydNick#YorkshireDales #Dales #Autumn #PicOfTheDay pic.twitter.com/MfRAa5RKaz

— Yorkshire Dales National Park (@yorkshire_dales) November 23, 2023

For many years, the booze flowed only outside of stadiums. Not anymore: Selling beer and wine inside college football stadiums has become the norm over the past decade, a way for schools to bring in more revenue and attract fans who might otherwise be inclined to stay home.

According to a survey by The Associated Press of Power Five conference schools and Notre Dame, 55 of 69 of them — 80% — now sell alcohol in the public areas of their stadiums on game days. Of the remaining schools, some sell alcoholic drinks in non-public areas of the venue such as suites; others do not sell booze at all.

The University of Wisconsin is one of the institutions that do not sell alcohol to the general public at football games, but it will begin selling booze at basketball and hockey games this season.

Read it all.

There's plenty of booze flowing through college football games — and it's no longer just at tailgates https://t.co/zU7KO8LSDU

— Buzz Knight (@BuzzKnight4) November 6, 2023

The Bishop of London, Dame Sarah Mullally, who has co-chaired the Living in Love and Faith steering group, said: “This twin-track approach means that prayers asking for God’s blessing for same-sex couples will be available for use in church very soon, as Synod has asked. A means of offering special, standalone services for same-sex couples will go forward to be considered for formal authorisation at a later stage.

“While we do not all agree about questions of marriage and sexual intimacy, a long period of discernment has shown that a majority of people would like to see a change in the Church of England’s approach to same-sex relationships. Based on what the Church has told us, no change is not an option.

“There are those who would like to see us go much further, and those who believe we are going too far. Yet we have expressed our heartfelt wish to remain together as one Church. The pastoral provision must protect and value both those who struggle so much with this that they need reassurance, and those who wish to place same-sex relationships before God in prayer.

“In other words, it will be ‘both and’, not ‘either or’. We are implementing what Synod asked us to, prayerfully and with the hope of God’s Grace.”

Read it all.

Reading synod papers on a train journey (old journalistic habits die hard?!).

I'm intrigued that the press release states that in February, the Synod "voted for no change to the doctrine of the Church of England around marriage and sexual intimacy."https://t.co/ybKBQUNLTk

— Christopher Landau (@talkChristianly) October 20, 2023

As recently as a few weeks ago, the Middle East seemed relatively calm. The principal story coming out of the long-troubled region was a positive one, the possible normalization of relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia. At the same time, there looked to be hope that the U.S. and Iran were working to place an informal ceiling on the scale of Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for some limited sanctions relief.

All this and more is now among the many casualties of Oct. 7, when Hamas militants stormed an unprepared Israel, killing more than 1,300 people and taking several hundred hostages. Israel has responded with aerial strikes on Gaza meant to degrade Hamas’s military capability, as well as by cutting off supplies of electricity, food, water and fuel. Israel has called on the Palestinian population to relocate away from the north of Gaza, allowing its military to act against Hamas strongholds with greater freedom and fewer civilian casualties.

The initial U.S. response to the Hamas attack was full-throated support for Israel, both rhetorically and in the provision of military aid. In just a matter of days, however, that support became somewhat more conditional, with President Biden making clear his opposition to a full-scale invasion and occupation of Gaza. During his brief visit to Israel this week, Biden called for Israeli restraint both in allowing humanitarian aid to enter Gaza and in avoiding military operations that would hurt civilians, themes reiterated in his Oct. 19 Oval Office address. The administration is clearly worried that Israel’s plans could otherwise lead to a wider war, one that at a minimum would draw down already-stretched U.S. munitions stockpiles, increase the price of oil, cause the U.S. reputational problems with much of the so-called Global South, and possibly lead to direct U.S. military involvement.

Read it all.

With Mideast dangers rising, the U.S. needs a two-phase diplomatic effort: first a cease-fire in Gaza, then a settlement of core Israeli-Palestinian issues, writes Richard Haass https://t.co/n7ed2G2uSq

— The Wall Street Journal (@WSJ) October 20, 2023

O God, forasmuch as without you
we are not able to please you;
mercifully grant that your Holy Spirit
may in all things direct and rule our hearts;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
Amen.

After the storm #Shetland pic.twitter.com/owri3TdbHn

— Catherine Munro (@CatherineMMunro) October 15, 2023

O Lord Jesu Christ, Son of the living God, grant me, a weak and wretched sinner, to have ever before the eyes of my heart Thy life and character, and as far as in me lies to imitate them. Make me to go forward in them and to grow up into a perfect man and into an holy temple in the Lord. Enlighten, I pray Thee, my heart with the brightness of Thy grace, and let it continually prevent and follow me; that having Thee as my guide in all my ways, I may do such things as please Thee and shun what is displeasing in Thy sight. Direct, I beseech Thee, my thoughts, words, and actions in Thy law and in Thy precepts, O Most High; so that in all things I may do Thy will, and may be accounted worthy to be saved by Thee both here and for ever.

–Frederick B. Macnutt, The prayer manual for private devotions or public use on divers occasions: Compiled from all sources ancient, medieval, and modern (A.R. Mowbray, 1951)

Guten Morgen ☕️🌸🌿 wünsche euch ein gesegnetes und ruhiges Wochenende 🌸 🌿
⭐️ Bewahre das Schöne in deinem Herzen, dann wirst du es nie verlieren ⭐️ Helena von Straten pic.twitter.com/ozJXS1XYRr

— Renate Kleine (@RenateKleine) September 23, 2023

O Lord God, grant your people grace to withstand the temptations of the world, the flesh, and the devil, and with pure hearts and minds to follow you, the only God; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.  Amen.

Today we pay tribute to the brave men and women who lost their lives as a result of the attacks on 9/11. To all of the first responders, servicemen and women, civilians, and impacted families, we will #NeverForget. #911Memorial pic.twitter.com/eMm1vWCZ89

— UCLA Health Operation Mend (@Operation_Mend) September 11, 2022

Howard Strickland tells the story of a young girl of about 8 being approached in her parish by a well-meaning older woman who remarked upon her jewelry.“Honey, don’t you know that the cross Jesus died on wasn’t beautiful like the one you’re wearing? It was an ugly, terrible, wooden thing.”
The little girl smiled and said: “Oh, I know that. But they told me in Sunday school that whatever Jesus touches, He changes.”

–quoted in the Sunday sermon by yours truly

#HolyWeek #HolyWeek2020 #CatholicArt#HrabanusMaurus #AbbeyofFulda "To the Honor of the Holy Cross" 'a multimedia masterpiece that uses paintings, poems, and prose'
"Christ Crucified with Arms Extended" (c. 1170–1180), British Library, Harley Collectionhttps://t.co/78dDKXEAs9 pic.twitter.com/YYFKB4EZ0l

— Matthew Schaefer (@MattRSchaefer) April 5, 2020

‘In the ancient world, adoption was a practice ordinarily confined to the childless well-to-do. Its subjects, as we said earlier, were not normally infants, as today, but young adults who had shown themselves fit and able to carry on a family name in a worthy way. In this case, however, God adopts us out of free love, not because our character and record show us worthy to bear his name, but despite the fact that they show the very opposite. We are not fit for a place in God’s family; the idea of his loving and exalting us sinners as he loves and has exalted the Lord Jesus sounds ludicrous and wild—yet that, and nothing less than that, is what our adoption means.’

–JI Packer, Knowing God

6) Knowing God by JI Packer.
This has recently been my bedtime read on the kindle. I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve read it over the years, but each time it’s helped me draw that bit closer to God & stoked my passion to know him better. I will reread this once again soon! pic.twitter.com/V55IX9Ese4

— Jack Griffiths (@JackLGriffiths) March 21, 2023

In 1920, the Czech writer Karel Čapek wrote “R.U.R. (Rossum’s Universal Robots),” a play set in the year 2000 that follows the evolution of robota, a new class of android worker-slaves that eventually rises up and annihilates its human masters. The play introduced both the word “robot” and a narrative of human-robot conflict that, by now, has become familiar in movies such as “The Terminator,” “RoboCop,” and “Blade Runner.” Will robots fashioned to look like us, and programmed to accede to our wishes, spur people to think of them as friends and co-workers—or to treat them like chattel? Onstage in Telluride, David Hanson said that the purpose of robots like Sophia is to teach people compassion. But it seemed counterintuitive to suggest that a machine that can only mimic human emotions has the ability to inculcate in us something so fundamental to the human experience.

In Hanson’s view, Sophia is no different than a character in a book, and we know that stories can engender empathy. But given the speed at which artificial-intelligence models are being deployed, and their tendency to behave erratically, we would be wise not to wholly abandon the caution inspired by Čapek and his heirs. Matthias Scheutz, the C.E.O. of Thinking Robots, pointed out that unless designers build constraints and ethical guardrails into the A.I. models that will power robots of the future, there is a risk of inadvertently creating machines that could harm us in unforeseen ways. “The situation we need to avoid with these machines is that when we test them, they give us the answers we want to hear, but behind the scenes they’re developing their own agenda,” Scheutz told me. “I’m listening to myself talking right now, and it sounds like sci-fi. Unfortunately, it’s not.”

Read it all.

“There is no doubt that the A.I. revolution we’re witnessing now will animate the robots of the future, giving them skills that match, surpass, or replace our own,” @SueHalpernVT writes. “It is already happening.” https://t.co/VNqhjGvleR

— The New Yorker (@NewYorker) July 26, 2023

An outstanding candidate for the role of UK patron saint is, I believe, Aidan, the 7th-century Christian missionary bishop who embodies both the Celtic and Anglo-Saxon strains in our national identity.

Originally from Ireland, he was a monk in the Scottish monastery that Columba founded on Iona, from where he was called by Oswald, ruler of the English kingdom of Northumbria, to promote Christianity. He established his episcopal see on the island of Lindisfarne, where he also set up a monastery in 635.

Aidan was a person of deep and genuine humility, described by the early church historian Bede as “a man of outstanding gentleness, devotion and moderation”. He upbraided a monk of “much harsher disposition”, who had first been chosen to evangelise the Northumbrians but had no success, for being too hectoring in his approach.

When a subsequent king, Oswin, gave Aidan a fine horse, he gave it away to the first beggar that he met, preferring to go round his extensive diocese on foot. In Bede’s words: “Whenever he met anyone, whether high or low, he spoke to them.”

Read it all (subscription).

August 31st is the feast of Saint Aidan of Lindisfarne, “the Apostle of Northumbria”: Irish monk of Iona, missionary to Bernicia, founder-Bishop of Lindisfarne, adviser to King Saints Oswald and Oswine, wonderworker, and Confessor of the Faith—who died on this day in A.D. 651. pic.twitter.com/wxKsay0wry

— Tradical (@NoTrueScotist) August 31, 2018