Huw has taged me with Six Wierd Things meme, so here they are:
1. I play the clarinette
2. I love bagpipe music
3. I wear a kilt
4. I used to collect elephants
5. My Favorite Author is WEB Giriffin
6. I own 2 trailers
Message of His Eminence Archbishop Nicolae
regarding the tragedy at Virginia Tech University
regarding the tragedy at Virginia Tech University
Most Reverend Fathers,
Beloved Faithful,
Christ is Risen!
This past week we have witnessed the unspeakable tragedy taking place on the campus of Virginia Tech. The peace of this place was suddenly and violently changed forever. We mourn for those who have been taken away from us, and we share our compassion with their families and friends as they are trying to understand why this did happen. We keep in our prayers Professor Liviu Librescu, of Romanian origin, who voluntarily gave up his life for the love and the welfare of his students. During such difficult moments we often turn to God in prayer, and as we do, I ask each one of you to pray for the victims of this tragedy and for all of their families, as this will be a long process of recovery.
Please join me and the entire Archdiocese as we offer our prayer, and as we express our most sincere sympathy to the Virginia Tech Community. We pray during this time of the Resurrection that those whose life was taken away, may rest in a place of light, in a place of green pastures, in a place of rest from where pain, sorrow and sighing have been taken away.
Your brother in prayer to God,
† NICOLAE
Virginia Teach
As reported on Fr. Greg’s Blog, I am off to Virginia on Monday to help with Crisis Counseling. I am being deployed by the International Orthodox Christian Charities (IOCC) as part of a frontline team. Three of us will be in Blackburgh along with the Executive Director of the Orthodox Christian Fellowship (OCF) the Orthodox Church Campus Ministry Program.
The hope is to meet with the students at Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Church in Roanoke, Virginia each evening and then meet on campus with students during the day. I will be on the ground until Friday. I hope to be able to blog while on the road for both information and also to help me process some of the feelings that will come up during my time there.
Please pray for me and the rest of my team as we travel and minister.
Fun with Google Maps
H/T to WardWideWeb
Go to www.googlemaps.com
Click “Directions.
“In “From” type New York.
In “To” type London.
See step #24.
Mass. to observe statewide day of mourning for Va. Tech victims
April 19, 2007
BOSTON –Gov. Deval Patrick declared Friday as a statewide day of mourning for the victims of the Virginia Tech shootings, coordinating with a similar observance in Virginia.
BOSTON –Gov. Deval Patrick declared Friday as a statewide day of mourning for the victims of the Virginia Tech shootings, coordinating with a similar observance in Virginia.
The dead included a student from Massachusetts.
Patrick called for a moment of silence at noon, and asked that bells in churches and public institutions be tolled. He said Virginia Gov. Timothy Kaine asked fellow governors to join the initiative.
Virginia Tech gunman Cho Seung-Hui shot 32 people to death and committed suicide Monday in the deadliest one-man shooting rampage in modern U.S. history. Among those killed was Ross Alameddine, 20, of Saugus, a Virginia Tech sophomore.
“No one wants to get the call that families of the Virginia Tech victims got this week,” Patrick said in a statement accompanying his declaration on Thursday. “What happened on that campus was an unspeakable tragedy and our thoughts and prayers are with all those touched by it.”
from www.Boston.com
Heroes
The stories of heroes are beginning to come out of the tragedy in Virginia. One of those is Romanian Born Dr. Liviu Librescu. This is the Holocaust survivor that put himself between the gunman and his students to give them time to get away. How awesome is that? The thing that strikes me most about this is that he survived the Holocaust and was gunned down at a US University.
May His Memory Be Eternal!
St. Donnan
Several months ago I began postings about Scottish Saints. I feel short and stopped posting them but now I continue with today’s entry St. Donnan. This information comes from the Catholic Encyclopedia.
There were apparently three or four saints of this name who flourished about the seventh century.
(1) ST. DONNAN, ABBOT OF EIGG, and ST. DONNAN OF AUCHTERLESS are regarded by both the Bollandists and Dempster as different personages, but there is so much confusion in their chronology and repetition in what is known of them, that it seems more probable that they were identical. Reeves (Adamnan’s Life of St. Columba), moreover, accepts them as the same without discussion. According to Irish annals St. Donnan was a friend and disciple of St. Columba, who followed him from Ireland to Scotland toward the end of the sixth century. Seeking a solitary retreat, he and his companions settled on the island of Eigg, off the west coast of Scotland, then used only to pasture sheep belonging to the queen of the country. Informed of this invasion, the queen ordered that all should forthwith be slain. Her agents, probably a marauding band of Picts, or pirates according to one account, arrived during the celebration of Mass on Easter eve. Being requested to wait until the Sacrifice was concluded, they did so, and then St. Donnan and his fifty-one companions gave themselves up to the sword. This was in 617. Reeves mentions eleven churches dedicated to St. Donnan; in that at Auchterless his pastoral staff was preserved up to the Reformation and is said to have worked miracles. The island of Eigg was still Catholic in 1703 and St. Donnan’s memory venerated there (Martin, Journey to the Western Islands, London, 1716).
(2) SON OF LIATH, and nephew and disciple of St. Senan, in whose life it is related that by his uncle’s direction he restored to life two boys who had been drowned. This St. Donnan succeeded St. Ciaran of Clonmacnoise as Abbot of Aingin, an island in Lough Ree, on the Shannon (now Hare Island). He flourished about the middle of the sixth century.
(3) ST. DONNAN THE DEACON, son of Beoadh and brother of St. Ciaran. He was a monk in his brother’s monastery at Cluain, or Clonmacnoise, in Ireland, in the sixth century.
Scottish Bishops Urge a Value Vote
GLASGOW, Scotland, APRIL 15, 2007 (Zenit.org).- The Catholic bishops of Scotland are urging their parishioners to vote against legislation and regulations at odds with the insights and values of the Christian faith.
In a strongly worded letter to be read at all Masses in Scotland’s 500 Catholic parishes, the bishops said: “We invite you to look beyond the superficially attractive and fashionable to recognize those policies and values which are most in tune with the dignity of the human person and with the common good of our society.”
The bishops’ deepest concerns are directed at legislation permitting “abortion, embryo experimentation, easy divorce and civil partnerships.” They also fear a future campaign to legalize euthanasia.
Beyond this, the bishops’ letter explained: “We find ourselves having to counter criticism of the very existence of Catholic schools, in large part prompted by an agenda which aims to remove religion from the public sphere.”
“These dubious innovations are detrimental not just to the good of the Catholic community but to the common good of humanity as a whole,” the bishops said. “They deserve to be challenged at the ballot box.”
In a strongly worded letter to be read at all Masses in Scotland’s 500 Catholic parishes, the bishops said: “We invite you to look beyond the superficially attractive and fashionable to recognize those policies and values which are most in tune with the dignity of the human person and with the common good of our society.”
The bishops’ deepest concerns are directed at legislation permitting “abortion, embryo experimentation, easy divorce and civil partnerships.” They also fear a future campaign to legalize euthanasia.
Beyond this, the bishops’ letter explained: “We find ourselves having to counter criticism of the very existence of Catholic schools, in large part prompted by an agenda which aims to remove religion from the public sphere.”
“These dubious innovations are detrimental not just to the good of the Catholic community but to the common good of humanity as a whole,” the bishops said. “They deserve to be challenged at the ballot box.”
Virginia Tech
I have been trying to make some sense of of the events of yesterday and I am having a hard time getting my mind around what happened. What causes someone to do the things that were done yesterday. The simple answer of course is evil but did it start that way or was he some how possessed by events that happened before. Either way we will be thinking and praying about this for a long time to come. As we pray for the victims and their families let us not forget to pray for the one who perpetrated this hellish thing and his family as well.
Padre Rob has posted a beautiful prayer and reflection on his blog I could not do a better job so take a look at it here.
May their memory be eternal!
Sunday of St. Thomas
Acts: 5:12-20
John 20:19-31
A missionary was tortured for preaching Christ in pagan Burma. His fingernails were torn from the roots and he was hung by his fingers until his hands were twisted and scarred. Later when he asked to preach in a certain town, the pagan Prince of that town refused saying: “I would allow a dozen ordinary men to speak, but not you with those scarred hands. My people would never listen to what you say, for they could not help seeing your hands.” The inference was that the missionary’s scarred hands would speak more convincingly of his love for Christ than any words he could say.
Today we are introduced to the scares of Jesus. Thomas says that unless he sees the nail prints and can touch the wounds he will not believe in the Resurrection. When Jesus reveals himself to Thomas, all Thomas needed was to see the scares he did not need to touch them. For Thomas the scares were the greatest proof that Jesus, who had suffered and died, was now risen from the tomb. Jesus is appearing to us today and he is showing us his scares. What do they mean? I would like to suggest three ways.
1. Love – The scares of Jesus show that although we are sinners, Jesus died for us.
A little girl sat on her mother’s knee, and as she looked into her mother’s face she said” “Mummie, you’ve got the prettiest hair and the sweetest eyes I have ever seen. And Mummie, why are your arms so ugly?” The mother then explained to her daughter that when she was a tiny baby the house caught fire. She ran into the house and rescued her our of her crib. In the process her arms and hands were badly burned. When the little girl heard this, tears began streaming down her face. Looking once more into her mother’s face she said, “Mummie, you’ve got the prettiest hair I have ever seen, and yours is the sweetest face, and your eyes are wonderful. But, Mummie, your hands and your arms are the most beautiful of all. I have loved you always, but I love you more than ever now.”
This love of Jesus for us should make us all respond as Thomas did with “my Lord and my God.” This is the true Christian response to the scars of Jesus.
2. Struggle – The scares of Jesus show that life is a struggle. The life of a Christian is not easy. Even God’s own Son had to suffer. But God promises us victory over this suffering
3. Our Scars – The dark hour when we feel that God is not with us in our suffering. The first thing that Jesus does is show us His scars and His sufferings. Jesus came to save us all but also to suffer with us. Look at His hands and his side. He is holding his hands out to you. His scars did not go away with resurrection He carries them with you, and they are your scars.
4. Scars caused by sin – The nail is the preferred symbol for sin. Each sin is a nail that contains to be driven into the body of Jesus. In sin we not only break the commandments but we break God’s heart.
The world is full of footprints of God. Every thing we see is footprint of the maker. But we need not follow Him by His footprints. He has revealed Himself to us through the Gospel. This book tells us who God is and what he has done through His Son. The footprints of the setting sun may tell us that God is. But only the nail prints in the hands of Jesus tell us that God is love. Jesus appears and showed Hos scars. They were proof of His love. They won the final victory over death they speak compassion to our wounds. Scars that we re-open with our sin but can close again with repentance. We have been very hard on Thomas through the years but today he speaks for all of us. The words he spoke should be our words. “My Lord and My God.”