The Archbishop of Canterbury will be visiting South Sudan with Pope Francis and the Moderator of the Church of Scotland from 3rd to 5th February.

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, has urged people to pray for the people of South Sudan ahead of his historic joint visit to the country with the Pope and the Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland.

The Archbishop said the church leaders are making their Pilgrimage of Peace to South Sudan “as servants” to “amplify the cries of the South Sudanese people” who continue to suffer from conflict, flooding and famine.

The Archbishop will be visiting South Sudan with the Holy Father, Pope Francis, and the Rt Rev Dr Iain Greenshields from 3rd to 5th February. The unprecedented Ecumenical Pilgrimage of Peace is part of the Pope’s Apostolic Journey to the DRC and South Sudan which begins on Tuesday 31st January.

During the South Sudan visit the three church leaders will meet the country’s political leaders, hold an open-air ecumenical prayer vigil for peace and meet with people displaced by the conflict.

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Please pray for the people of #SouthSudan as @Pontifex, @churchmoderator and I prepare to make our historic Pilgrimage of Peace on Friday.

We come as brothers in Christ to amplify the cries of the South Sudanese people and to pray for justice and peace. https://t.co/qBQQOEp7n4

— Archbishop of Canterbury (@JustinWelby) January 29, 2023

As the Lion seemed to have finished, Jill thought she should say something. So she said “Thank you very much. I see.”

“Child,” said Aslan, in a gentler voice than he had yet used, “perhaps you do not see quite as well as you think. But the first step is to
remember. Repeat to me, in order, the four signs.”

Jill tried, and didn’t get them quite right. So the Lion corrected her and made her repeat them again and again till she could say them perfectly. He was very patient over this…

But long before she had got anywhere near the edge, the voice behind her said, “Stand still. In a moment I will blow. But, first, remember, remember, remember the signs. Say them to yourself when you wake in the morning and when you lie down at night, and when you wake in the middle of the night. And whatever strange things may happen to you, let nothing turn your mind from following the signs.

–C S Lewis The Horse and his Boy, cited by yours truly in yesterday’s sermon at the early service (emphasis mine)

One of the drawbacks about adventures is that when you come to the most beautiful places you are often too anxious and hurried to appreciate them.

C.S. Lewis
The Horse and His Boy#BookWormSat pic.twitter.com/tZvX80nFxv

— TWhatley (@whatters1) July 2, 2022

Today's art: The Prophet Micah – Jan van Eyck https://t.co/Lc6MpvSEfh pic.twitter.com/XhmAwhup34

— Art and the Bible (@artbible) March 19, 2021

The U.S. government may have awarded roughly $5.4 billion in coronavirus aid to small businesses with potentially ineligible Social Security numbers, offering the latest indication that Washington’s haste earlier in the pandemic opened the door for widespread waste, fraud and abuse.

The top watchdog overseeing stimulus spending — called the Pandemic Response Accountability Committee, or PRAC — offered the estimate in an alert issued Monday and shared early with The Washington Post. It came as House Republicans prepared to hold their first hearing this week to study the roughly $5 trillion in federal stimulus aid approved since spring 2020.

The suspected wave of grift targeted two of the government’s most generous emergency initiatives: the Paycheck Protection Program, known as PPP, and the Economic Injury Disaster Loan, dubbed EIDL. Started under President Donald Trump — and managed by the beleaguered Small Business Administration — the roughly $1 trillion in loans and grants aimed to help cash-strapped companies stay afloat financially during the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression.

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Some $5.4B in #COVID19 aid may have gone to businesses using fishy Social Security numbers. Nearly 70,000 suspect SSNs, including ones that didn't exist or didn't match name & birth records.
House #Republicans are holding hearings on aid fraud this week.https://t.co/m4Mteizpdr

— Laurie Garrett (@Laurie_Garrett) January 30, 2023

On a dank Friday night in Oxford, an ambassador from the Vatican addresses a gathering of philosophers. The location is St Luke’s Chapel, its walls crisp and whitewashed, its glass windows stained. The father ponders Aristotle’s insights on the good life.

But for the invocation for audience members to tweet about the event, this might be a scene from the 15th century. Yet the subject matter under discussion could not be more contemporary: robots and what to do about them.

Father Paolo Benanti, the speaker, is the Pope’s adviser on artificial intelligence. His urgent message to the assembled boffins, fellows of the newly created Institute for Ethics in AI at Oxford University, is that we are in danger of becoming an “algocracy”, a society ruled by algorithms. “We must recognise how order is made, how power is shifted by these new tools,” Benanti pleads. “What rights do we want to sacrifice in the name of efficiency?”

These questions posed by Benanti are anything but academic. Much of our life, from what books we buy to what news we consume, is already heavily influenced by algorithms. But the past two years have seen a quantum leap in the quality and sophistication of artificial intelligence. We have entered what many experts are now describing as a golden age of AI.

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What does it mean to be human in the age of advanced AI?

I spent some time with the philosophers of Oxford for The Sunday Times Magazine to find out. It involved a lot of wine tasting. https://t.co/znZQTcCOTY

— Josh Glancy (@joshglancy) January 29, 2023

God our creator,
who in the beginning
commanded the light to shine out of darkness:
we pray that the light of the glorious gospel of Christ
may dispel the darkness of ignorance and unbelief,
shine into the hearts of all your people,
and reveal the knowledge of your glory
in the face of 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.

Skye Bridge #Scotland 30/01/23 @StormHour @angie_weather @ThePhotoHour @VisitScotland @BBCScotWeather pic.twitter.com/wBKR7CRcCv

— James MacInnes (@Macinnesplant) January 30, 2023

I mean that the heir, as long as he is a child, is no better than a slave, though he is the owner of all the estate; but he is under guardians and trustees until the date set by the father. So with us; when we were children, we were slaves to the elemental spirits of the universe. But when the time had fully come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!” So through God you are no longer a slave but a son, and if a son then an heir.

Formerly, when you did not know God, you were in bondage to beings that by nature are no gods; but now that you have come to know God, or rather to be known by God, how can you turn back again to the weak and beggarly elemental spirits, whose slaves you want to be once more? You observe days, and months, and seasons, and years! I am afraid I have labored over you in vain.

–Galatians 4:1-11

Hello Monday!
Today’s sunrise was unreal! Cape Cod National Seashore, Eastham. #capecod #sunrise #StormHour pic.twitter.com/eUCxxfC2xK

— Darius Aniunas (@dariusaniunas) January 30, 2023