Ugly Vestments
Today I would like to share with you the rather snarky and humourous blog Bad Vestments, where you will get to see lovely vestments such as this…
Category: Catholicism
Saints and Sense Of Humour
I spent the last few days in Vegas on vacation so I’ve been catching up with my blog reading and found that, a couple of days ago, Joe Heschmeyer from Shameless Popery wrote a great post entitled Preparing Ourselves as Tabernacles For The Lord. This is a subject related to my post below. I began writing this entry about a month ago and scheduled it for publishing today – I’m not copying you Joe, honest!
A couple of weeks ago it was the feast day of St. Philip Neri.
Philip was born in Florence in 1515. At about the age of eighteen he experienced a deep conversion of heart and moved to Rome with no money or plan, but simply trusted in God’s providence. He worked for two years as a live-in tutor, but otherwise led a simple life of solitude and prayer.
He studied Philosophy and Theology for about three years but then brought his studies to an abrupt close. He launched a mission to the people of Rome, which was fortunate since, at that time, both the people and the Church of Rome were in a particularly shabby spiritual state.
There are many praiseworthy aspects of Philip’s life which are worth sharing, but the episode I would like to recount here is one which demonstrates his rather cheeky sense of humour…
Lila Rose’s Story
I’m sure a lot of you have heard of Lila Rose, the young lady who has caused some real waves in the abortion debate and has become, I’m sure, a real thorn in the side of Planned Parenthood. However, not all of you may be aware of the story of her conversion. To hear it, please click on the link below…
Byzantine Music
If you’ve listened to my recordings of the writings of the Early Church Fathers (an area of this website I plan to soon organize properly), you will recognise the first few seconds of singing from the video below:
This video is a bit of computer trickery to make it appear as though these men are singing in Hagia Sophia (“holy wisdom”), the former cathedral of Istanbul, widely acknowledged as one of the most beautiful churches in history. After spending 500 years as a mosque after the Ottoman conquest, today it functions as a Museum.
This is my King
I was going to wait until the Feast of Christ the King to post this, but it’s just too good to sit on until November! So, to celebrate the Feast of the Ascension…
My thoughts on quantum gravity
Last month I read an article about Professor Steven Hawking in which he was quoted as saying:
“I regard the brain as a computer which will stop working when its components fail. There is no heaven or afterlife for broken down computers; that is a fairy story for people afraid of the dark”
Well, that’s nice… As intelligent and qualified as you are to answer questions about black holes and quantum gravity, I’m afraid Professor Hawking, this is a philosophical question. It was for this reason, after reading the article, my Facebook status quickly became:
“Hey Stephen, do want to hear my thoughts on String Theory?”
Professor Hawking has recently been increasingly vocal over the question of God. I was originally going to write a longer post about Professor Hawking’s recent assertions, but then I remembered that Fr. Barron had produced a superb video where he addressed some of these issues:
25 Random Facts
One of my friends commented that there’s not a whole lot of “me” on this blog, so today I’m cheating and rehashing something which I posted on Facebook two years ago…
It was a craze that went around Facebook where you wrote twenty-five random facts about yourself in a Note and then tagged a load of friends who then had to do the same. Rinse and repeat.
The content of my Facebook Note was as follows:
Man, this was difficult! It was particularly hard coming up with things that people may not know about me but that I’m also comfortable with putting into the public domain!
I think this “25 Random Facts” thing has been the best thing in Facebook to date – I’ve really enjoyed reading everyone else’s, so here goes…
1. I was a bit of a handful in Primary School – I became very familiar with the Headmaster’s office, having usually been sent there for getting into fights. I wasn’t at all academic then either.
2. I hated school up until the age of 16. After that, it just got better and better…
3. I was a very arty child (drawing, poetry etc) until about the age of twelve when I swapped my soul for an Amiga 600 with 1MB of RAM…
4. I have a scar by my right elbow from a moped accident in France when I was fifteen. I’m really proud of it. Chicks dig scars.
5. I’ve been a Christian all my life, but at the age of twenty I had a major renewal in my faith. I couldn’t imagine life otherwise.
6. I love chick-flicks. There, I said it.
UPDATE: If you know me, this really isn’t news… 😉