Saturday, June 2nd, 2012
Daily Archive
2 June 2012
Posted by catholicsensibility under
Astronomy Leave a Comment
Today’s Astronomy Picture of the Day features a pair of celestial objects, the beautiful Whirlpool Galaxy and its rump companion NGC 5195. Whirlpool is something of a man galaxy-eater. One of its spiral arms seems to be stabbing its companion. Note the haze-like streams, especially around NGC 5195. Those are thousands of stars stripped away by the interaction of gravity between two colliding forms.
The Mice Galaxies (Image credit: ACS Science & Engineering Team, NASA) have had a harder time of it:
Not only have stars been scattered, but note the “mouse” on the right. Those brighter blue star-forming regions have also been smeared across intergalactic space. They’ll produce another generation of new stars, but those nurseries will eventually fade and die over the next several million years.
What if Earth and its sun were in one of these streams? Instead of the Milky Way spread across the night skies away from cities, we might see a patch on just one side of the sky. Instead of two thousand stars to wish upon, there might be several dozen. Probably nothing as bright as the planets. Perhaps not evenly distributed as we see it from our perspective within a galaxy. That would change our mythology and our expression of it.
It is thought that our galaxy is on a collision course with the Andromeda Galaxy. If so, it’s still a very long way off into the future.
2 June 2012
Posted by catholicsensibility under
Food,
My Family Leave a Comment
Out of the hospital long enough to look in on 4:45 Mass, hit the grocery store and make dinner for the young miss and myself.
How much of this food will the patient* be able to consume upon her return home? Let’s see …
- Ground pork grilled with paprika, corander, and cumin. (non-red meats are approved)
- Cherry peppers. (probably not–no seeds allowed)
- Basmati rice mix with corn, garlic, turmeric, pepper, and olive oil. (white rice okay)
For years, I’ve been trying to create meals with more fiber for my family. Now I’m told that a low fiber diet will be needed for awhile.
* A family member slightly alarmed that I’ve facebooked about the operation and recovery (and that people around the world are sending good wishes) doesn’t wish to be splashed all over the internet. Said family member shall go unnamed on this blog.
2 June 2012
Posted by catholicsensibility under
Spanish Leave a Comment
One of my new favorite Spanish words, the one for “bee.”
I love the lightness of the “ha” sound, just the right lift to suggest the fluttering of wings and the buzz over flowers.
2 June 2012
The second choice for the first rites of dedication day would be the solemn entrance. RDCA II, 36 gives the standard of judgment:
36. If the procession cannot take place or seems inappropriate, the people assemble at the door of the church to be dedicated, where the relics of the Saints have been placed beforehand.
The ministers certainly will not emerge from the new church.
37. Preceded by the crossbearer, the bishop and the concelebrating priests, the deacons, and the ministers, each in appropriate vestments, approach the church door, where the people are assembled. The door of the church should be closed, and the bishop, concelebrants, deacons, and ministers should approach it from outside.
Most of the rest of the rite is adapted from the first form as follows:
II, 38 gives the same greeting that we studied in II, 30.
Even though there is no procession, the rite instructs that “if it seems appropriate,” Psalm 122 may be sung, as it would be to accompany the procession in II, 31-32.
II, 40-42 is identical to II, 33-35: the presentation by representatives, the procession with music, the entry of the ministers into the sanctuary.
My suggestion would be to focus our discussion on this form, and when and why it might be chosen. Should there be a very strong bias in favor of the procession and adjusted only if the weather is seriously inclement? If the new church property is expansive, does it make sense to start at one corner and move across the land? If the parking lot is so close that most of a “procession” would already have arrived at the church or hadn’t left the starting point, is the purpose of a procession moot?
If the mother church were a few miles away, would it make sense to give people to options? In other words, invite those able to walk a distance to celebrate the procession start, then offer the alternative for others to join the liturgy “in progress” at the new church?
For a “short” procession option, might I suggest a rule of thumb that if the minority of people at the church will be walking and the majority at the first or second station, it might make more sense to opt for form two?
Second form music outside the church is optional. What do you think of that? If you decline to sing outside, which psalm should get priority for the procession into the new building: 122 or 24?
2 June 2012
Posted by catholicsensibility under
2012 Dance,
Liturgical Music 1 Comment
We have two of our four finalists in Catholic Sensibility’s 2012 Liturgical Music Dance. “Jesus Christ Is Risen Today” was an easy winner over a Christmas favorite in the White final. “O Come O Come Emmanuel” locked down another spot yesterday as the Violet bracket representative.
Polling is still open today for the Green final as “Ubi Caritas” has a substantial lead on another Christmas song. The Red bracket winner will be decided by Monday morning in a poll that at this moment is too close to call.
Thanks for being good sports about voting and keeping this series light and fluffy compared to the rough-and-tumble world of theology. I’ve been pondering a new format for polling next time. Unlike a one-on-one athletic contest, polling can be done with any number of contestants. I was fiddling around the other week with a mathematically equitable system for seeding and pairing a series of three-way choices. Working backwards from a final three (trinity? triduum?) we’d have a penultimate round of nine (novena? enneagram?). Before that 27. I could expand the initial field to 81, and field reader input on that.
Or we could poll ourselves on our favorite psalm or saying of Jesus. Or a favorite theologian or saint.
Or maybe not.
Three more posts to come: Monday and Tuesday we’ll start whittling it down to the final contest, which I’ll post Friday morning.
Knowing my readership, the ones who comment, and the locations from which you surf here, I’m not surprised that the NPM Songs That Make A Difference did not fare well as a whole. Middle seeds (7 through 10) were songs I think are popular outside of that listing, and reflect more the totality of the Catholic musical experience. Some songs make a difference for us even though we only sing them once a year. Or because they made a big difference when we were younger. Or because ot the text. Or in spite of it, or despite the tune. These sixty-four songs we polled are all good songs, but they are not perfect songs. We keep striving for the perfect, though. Or the very good, or the much better. Nothing wrong with that.
