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When you mail a postcard that contains a Personalize Universal/Unique Resource Locator (PURL), when the PostCard recipient enters that the URL, they are taken to a Personal URL that contains their name (which was either created beforehand or on-demand - this if popular with companies that deliver cross-media marketing campaigns so they can tract response.
When I typed in my PURL, the web page said "welcome Ms. Kumber" - which was hella funny because that was not my name !
ayon kay Michael Jahn ika-06 ng Enero, 2008
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Can you define these popular missing words?
Top Definition
to roll a blunt or joint perfectly!! No holes, sticks, seeds, or sloppy tips. Started in Norcross Gwinnett ha
*takes pull, coughs* ... Damn bruh, u purled the blunt, shit smoking like a muffler!!
ayon kay SavvyBono ika-09 ng Mayo, 2015

subset: commoncrawl


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If $\{f_{n}\}_{n\geq 1}$ is a sequence of continuous functions on $\mathbb R$, with $|f_{n}(x)|\leq 1$ for all $x\in \mathbb{R}$, and all $n\geq 1$. Does there exist a subsequence which converges uniformly (or pointwise) to some continuous function $f$?
As I know the Arzelà–Ascoli theorem works for closed intervals $[a,b]$, I don't know if there is something in case of $\mathbb{R}$?
EDIT: If this assumption help we can consider it: the sequence $\{f'_{n}\}$ is uniformly bounded on $\mathbb R$.


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5 Reasons Rats Are Way Scarier Than You Think
#2. You Can't Kill Them
This one's a no-brainer: A monster is only scary if it is somehow harder to kill than a normal person. Maybe it just preys on the defenseless, like the killers from Scream, or maybe it possesses a supernatural constitution, like literally every other, significantly cooler movie monster. Seriously, Scream, your monster was Matthew Lillard? On a scale of "one to lame," that's like eight. Eight lames.
If you haven't seen it or don't know who Lillard is, we've just spoiled it for you. That's a shame.
But wait, how does this apply to rats? They're tiny little rodents. We kill them with a spring and a bit of metal. Rats aren't invincible ... right? Oh God, please tell us that's right, next sentence ...
Ha ha, not even close, pussies! In certain ways, rats are god damn immortal. For instance, what's the most surefire way you can think of to kill a rat? Poison, right? Well, to start with, rats only eat a small amount of any new food source at first, to make sure it doesn't make them ill. That's right: They caught on. They know you're trying to kill them, and are taking measures to correct that ... mistake.
"Well, you eat one poison chocolate, and then suddenly you've eaten the whole box, right?"
On top of which, humanity is starting to come up against an entirely new strain of rat, something scientists are comfortingly calling "genetically mutated super rats," which are immune to almost every type of poison.
Alexey Krasavin
"We must be in a recession. This is the shittiest cyanide I've ever tasted."
Dang! You know shit is getting real when even famously stoic science starts naming their new species like comic book villains.
#1. They Want Your Blood
The most frightening aspect of any movie monster is its insatiable blood lust. Zombies, vampires, wolfmen and even Jaws are all motivated by one simple, horrifying thing: They think we're delicious.
And so do rats.
"Everyone goes to sleep eventually."
Sure, we all know that rats will take a few bites from corpses. (Thanks, CSI! That and "semen on everything." That's all we took away from your show.) But that's just because they're scavengers, right? Rats aren't picky when it comes to their food sources, everybody knows that. But that's not entirely true. There is one thing rats seem to love more than anything else, and given the chance they will risk everything to get it again and again: your blood.
They're basically a bunch of furry little vampires that live in your walls. A 22-year study of urban rat bites found that the most common time to be bitten was between midnight and 8 a.m., while sleeping peacefully in your own bed, unaware that a huge, diseased rodent was chewing on your face. Oh, and that's not hyperbole, either: Rats most commonly go for the face and hands.
This is why you don't teach them to sit on your shoulder. Or gnaw on your ears.
But this is like spiders, right? They might bite you once or twice, but it's either in self-defense or desperation. It's not like they routinely prey on human bei- of fucking course it's like that. Haven't you been paying attention to this article? Once someone is bitten by a rat, their chances of being bitten again dramatically increase.
But ... but why? If it's not defense, and there's plenty of other food, why on earth would they do it?
We actually told you the answer already. It's just that the part of your brain responsible for keeping anxiety in check told you it was a joke. Rats will repeatedly attack the same victim because they seriously and literally want your blood.
In 1945, Professor C.P. Richter did a study to see what exactly attracted rats to humans. He gave a group of rats access to a large quantity of blood, and found that within 24 hours they had consumed it all, even though it was four times as much "food" as they would normally eat in a day. Richter's actual, word for word scientific conclusion: "[Rats can develop] a real craving for fresh human blood."
You think you can pacify them with milk, but when rats have their own temple, you know it's only a matter of time.
And, it bears repeating, these are the things that might be climbing up your toilet right at this very moment. Soooo ... might be time to invest in a good, solid, waterproof safe, eh?
For more animals we need to annihilate, check out The 5 Most Horrifying Bugs in the World and 6 Animals Humanity Accidentally Made Way Scarier.


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U.S. economy barely grew in 4Q, but rebound expected
|In this Tuesday, Dec. 4, 2012, file photo, shipping containers are seen as port operations are halted during a strike at the Port of Los Angeles. The U.S. economy grew at a 0.1 percent annual rate from October through December, the weakest performance in nearly two years. But economists believe a steady housing rebound and solid spending by consumers and businesses are pushing growth higher in the current quarter. (AP Photo/Nick Ut, File)
WASHINGTON -- The weakest quarter for the U.S. economy in nearly two years may end up being a temporary lull. Economists think growth has begun to pick up on the strength of a sustained housing recovery and a better job market.
The economy grew at an annual rate of just 0.1 percent from October from December, a government report Thursday showed. That's only slightly better than the Commerce Department's previous estimate that the economy shrank at a rate of 0.1 percent. And it's down from the 3.1 percent annual growth rate in the July-September quarter.
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O, what a night
OXFORD — It was seven years in the making, seven years of memories and seven long seasons, all pointing toward a major community celebration.
The Oxford High football program created a few more memories to add to the collection Friday night as it christened the new $3.1-million athletic complex and new artificial surface in a big way.
Backed by Steve Persson's four-touchdown performance, the Wolverines cruised to a 47-7 victory over Notre Dame of Fairfield before a boisterous, partisan crowd of just under 1,000.
Persson bolted for 62 yards on the first play of the game to electrify the crowd, then scored on the next play from 3 yards out.
He later scored on runs of 7 and 3 yards and also caught a 19-yard TD pass from quarterback Kyle Chudoba.
"We were all really excited for this game," said Persson. "On the very first play, the offensive line gave me a huge hole to run through. It was a great way to start the game."
Persson finished the game with 156 rushing yards to help the Wolverines (2-1) bounce back from a 46-25 loss to New Fairfield last week.
See OXFORD, Page 6B
"We all knew that we had to work hard in practice to get ready for this game and we all did," said Persson.
Chudoba wasn't surprised by Persson's performance.
"We knew that he would be ready and he definitely stepped up for us," said Chudoba, a senior tri-captain.
"Steve's an amazing athlete to watch," said senior tri-captain Kevin Loschiavo. "He always come through when we need it."
So did Chudoba, who completed eight of 10 passes for 187 yards and tossed three touchdown passes. Two of those scoring passes, of 12 and 57 yards, went to Chris VanKamerik in the first half.
With perennial South-West Conference contender Masuk on the horizon next week, Loschiavo said the win was a big confidence-booster.
Michael Krochko scored a fourth-quarter TD on a 7-yard run to put the finishing touches on the victory for Oxford. An interesting footnote to the game was that the Wolverines beat the Lancers for their first-ever varsity win in 2009.
The Wolverines gained plenty of support from football alumni and members of the first Oxford graduating class of 2010, led by Mike Giordano, Mike Federowicz and Deven Diaz, who were among the ex-players who came back to their alma mater to witness the coronation of the new field.
Also not forgotten was the impact of fallen Oxford teammate Brandon Giordano, who died in a car accident in the spring of 2012. Teammate Justin Hanna proudly wore Giordano's No. 69 jersey Friday night.
"It meant a lot to me to be able to wear Brandon's jersey on a night we christened the new field," said Hanna. "I hope it means a lot to Brandon's family and friends."
Reach Mark Jaffee at email@example.com or on Twitter@TheRealJaffman.
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someone wrote on Sep 28, 2013 12:35 PM:
" look at how far away from the field those bleachers are. they are literally 75 feet from the field.
why is it that in other parts of the country we can have a football stadium without a track but for some reason in this area they just have to put the track out there to push the stands back. THEN they go and put them another 20 or 30 feet away. "
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Christmas on a Sunday? Uh-oh...
In today's Wall Street Journal I have a brief piece about this year's "come to Jesus" moment for Christians faced with the prospect of Christmas on a (heaven forfend!) Sunday.Many Protestant churches won't be open or will have abbreviated services; growing up an evangelical, we wouldn't celebrate Christmas in church. That was a "Catholic thing."But when Christmas falls on a Sunday, as it does every few years, it puts pressure on some believers, at least, to either observe the day as a religious holiday or maybe concede that the faithful themselves aren't doing such a great job of keeping Christ in Christmas -- and maybe we shouldn't insist that stores do it for us by greeting customers with "Merry Christmas" instead of "Happy Holidays."Here is my piece (note a couple debts to Commonweal authors).Some other, better additions to the topic:At First Things, Russell Saltzman makes a good, pointed and interesting argument:
Maybe we Christians ourselves should stop calling Christmas Christmas and revert to an older eleventh century phrase, Cristes MaesseChrists Mass. Best Buy can fend for itself.
In USA Today, Amy Sullivan presaged Saltzman's column, arguing that we should call it "Jesus Day" and let the secular world have Christmas. Since they already do.At EthicsDaily.com, Jim Evans gets to the heart of the matter:
How many among those who have clamored for retail outlets to carry the Christian message will be in church on Christmas Day?......It's time and past time to stop expecting department stores and shopping malls to proclaim our faith. The responsibility for that lies much closer to church and home than many may care to admit.
And for those of us in the Catholic Church who may be tempted to feel a bit superior to our Low Church brethren because we are Christmas churchgoers as a matter of course, Our Sunday Visitor has a feature on the decrease in Christmas Day attendance and the proliferation and popularity of Christmas Eve masses. (And of course there is "Midnight Mass" as a term of art.)I must plead guilty -- or mea maxima culpa, breast-beating and all, as I suppose we say now. Since my daughter was born, it's been Fr. Nonomen's "Jingle Bell Mass" on Christmas Eve for us. I would in an ideal world opt for Midnight Mass. But we could and perhaps should do Christmas morning, certainly. Yet we don't.In any case, I agree with those who suggest that it's hard to see how we can reclaim Christmas as a religious holiday when we don't observe it as such.
About the Author
David Gibson is a national reporter for Religion News Service and author of The Coming Catholic Church (HarperOne) and The Rule of Benedict (HarperOne). He blogs at dotCommonweal.
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A major revelation for many Catholics was the insistence of the liturgical renewal that Easter was more important than Christmas. That redemption is more tied into the Easter liturgy. We are an Easter people. The greatest thing V2 did was to restore the Easter Vigil to make it what it is; The most important liturgy of the year. So your Separated Brethren ancestors, David, had it right. Christmas still is largely a pagan celebration and even the Church's attempt to develop Advent does not help much. Perhaps, rightly so. Because while a birth is promising, the resurrection is decisive and well, redemptive. While all the great songs from Adeste Fidelis to Christus natus hodie help to creative a festive mood they just can't seem to beat Macy's and rightly so. The roots are pagan and is played out more so today. Even Black Friday overshadows advent. But, of course, we have to be wary of the Roman Empire. Just as it made a power move on the new translation. It might go full circle and declare Christmas more important than Easter. Again.
In the not too distant past, most Catholics customarily went to Mass every Sunday and on Christmas morning. Christmas, on Sunday or not, was a special day on which go to Mass, recognizing the occasion for the celebration in church and outside. Today, the underlying devotional practice of going to Mass has faded, whatever the occasion. It is not being observed by most Catholics most of the time in the US in spite of the precept obliging it weekly. It should not be surprising that the Mass part of Christmas Day should have faded away, given its status on the other 364 days a year. It was a custom, not a tradition.
On Verdicts, Jean refers to a persistent pool of resources into which succeeding generations dip as needed. The Church may be such a pool. Some generations may emphasize some aspects and others may find others more appropriate and meaningful. As Jack says, weekly mass seems to have fallen out of favor, and along with it, perhaps, Christmas mass. Customs and traditions, far from being static, are more or less stable only for a time, then they change. Pulling away or even abandoning one custom or tradition doesn't mean that people have abandoned the Church, just certain aspects of it. That's probably a confusing and maybe uncomfortable way to think of a Church that's supposed to be firm in dogma and ceremony, but nothing in our human experience can be firm to the point of rigidity. Try to make it that, and people will simply wander away.
Meanwhile, our parish will be celebrating TEN Masses for Christmas (OK, so that is only three more than our usual seven Masses for any other Sunday (that's two extra vigils, plus Midnight Mass)).
BTW, this Slate piece on the history of Christmas hymns/carols has been making the rounds. Interesting:http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/assessment/2011/11/the_long_strange_h...
Christmas carols have always been the product of hype and invented ritual, nurturing false nostalgia almost from the start. If anything, their legitimacy as tradition has only increased in recent years. Todays carols are one of our few genuine access points to the history of Western pop music, the centuries of mainstream fare buried beneath our own.An air of false exuberance has been the hallmark of Christmas songs as long as Christmas songs have been around. Although there are accounts of birth-of-Christ hymns being sung in second-century Romeby order of Christian authorities, not public preferenceit was not until the fourth century, when Christmas was formalized as a feast and fixed to Dec. 25, that a songbook started to take form. Some of the first contributions were existing, non-Christian carols adapted to the new celebration. The early church did not appreciate these pagan-Christian conversions and answered with hymns of its own. (Veni, redemptor gentium, or Savior of the Nations, Come, attributed to the fourth-century Milanese bishop St. Ambrose, may be the earliest still-extant Christmas carol.) Evidence suggests that people sort of hated these songs. The church-approved carols were in Latin and, in some cases, amounted to arcane doctrinal quibbles set to music. Christmas music swiftly became the yacht rock of the Dark Ages, proliferating in earnest even as it lost all public reputation.The man who freed the Christmas carol from this prison of poor taste was St. Francis of Assisi, one of the churchs gentlest but most crucial reformers. In the 13th century, Francis tried to break the Christmas celebration from its tedious husk, mostly by making the birth of Christ into a live theatrical event. He organized nativity pageants featuring real hay, real animals, and, for the first time, real music: Deviating from tradition, he allowed for narrative songs in audiences native languages, turning Christmas music into an opportunity for mainstream creativity. Drinking songs were given Yuletide lyrics (greatly to the churchs horror) and disseminated by traveling entertainers. Christmas began to take on a life of its own, beyond the exigencies of the sacred feast.
Hmm, sounds somewhat revisionist, David - good guy (the hippie saint) versus evil old grinch (stodgy, probably corrupt churchmen). Why can't these guys see change without turning it into the victory of the rebels over the establishment?Oh, well - takes all kinds. Maybe the writer was just doing what he'd learned in journalism school - getting the reader's emotions involved.
Count me as pro-Christmas (or even pro-Annunciation) in the sense that salvation history actually begins with the Incarnation or Word made flesh. That is the decisive moment when the relationship God has with humanity is decisively and irrevocably changed.I think there is a wise intuition that St. Francis had regarding this feast. Not coincidentally, the medieval debate about whether it was due to the "fall" (as the Dominicans held) or because God so loved the world that He wanted to experience it in the most intimate way (as the Franciscans) still is played out today in the whole Christmas/Easter debate.
Slate is far behind the times -- the term "the Dark Ages" is old hat. I wouldn't trust any "historian" who is still using the term.
"Because while a birth is promising, the resurrection is decisive and well, redemptive."...but our practice of Advent and Christmas each year isn't so much about the Word Becoming Flesh" (i.e., "birth"), rather isn't it about preparing and reminding Catholics about the post-resurrection event we all wait in joyful hope for...that Christ will come again?
Excuse me, "by order of Christian authorities in 2nd century Rome"?Anybody who could write this is clueless about Christian history. And the rest of it is just as bad. What evidence is there that people "hated these songs" of St. Ambrose in the fourth century? Yeah, they hated them so much that we still sing them? And St Francis "freed the Christmas carol from this prison of bad taste"? This is all a tissue of lies. Honestly, how do people get away with making things up like this?
Check out the author. He tweets "This week I wrote on a serious topic: Christmas carols. Where they come from, where they're going, why we sing them", but his field of view is wider. http://www.slate.com/authors.nathan_heller.html
Perhaps it's because I'm a bubble wrapped Catholic, but I'm having trouble understanding the Protestant mindset here. If I'm a Protestant who would normally attend Church on a Sunday, why would I not go to Church on Sunday if it's Christmas?
Wow, that was bad even for Slate.
This i why I love dotCommers! As for the Easter/Christmas issue, it wasn't until I lived in Italy that it suddenly dawned on me that, wow, Easter is as important as Christmas, or actually "more" so, if such a comparison can be made. It was a combination of the greatly lessened Christmas hype over there, and the Catholic (and Vatican) importance given to Easter, and in the celebration of Easter. Still, the Incarnation, as evidenced to the world in the birth of Christ, also strikes me -- shorn of all the commercial or pagan trappings, if you will -- as n event as powerful as Easter. I'm into "both/and" at this point. As for why Protestants don't go on a Sunday because it's Christmas, well, Mark, that seems to be the problem to me too! Victorian/commercial Christmas trumps sacred Christ's Mass. What ya gonna do?
One note: The Easter Vigil was restored in the mid-1950's, under Pope Pius XII, the most important of the liturgical reforms that Pope sponsored.
Thanks, Joseph. Strange that the memory of the Restored Holy Week Liturgy has been lost, folded into Vatican II.A hymnal used in my parish in Kansas City, the Laudate, by the Rev. Joseph Hohe, had been updated in 1942 by Fr. (later Mons.) Herman J. Koch and Fr. Andrew Green, OSB, to include more Gregorian chant. It was again revised in 1956 to include the Restored Holy Week Liturgy. Christmas hymns in the great old book include Angels We Have Heard on High, Angels from the Realms of Glory, Adeste Fideles, Silent Night, Resonet in Laudibus, Jesu Redemptor Omnium, You Dear Little Children, Sleep Holy Babe, Venite in Bethlehem, Heart of the Holy Child.
Interesting that Protestants are still uncomfortable with celebrating Christmas An article about Dickens in this morning's Financial Times mentions how the observance of Christmas had declined by 1843, and how A Christmas Carol revived it for the Victorians.Mormon message boards are full of posts about how ambivalent they are about Christmas (aka Smithmas), and Church of Christ boards make it clear that Christmas, like Halloween, is Catholic/Pagan, therefore to be avoided.
According to Samuel Sewall's (1652-1730) diary, the Congregationalist forbade a December 25 holiday in Boston, and fined any Anglican who observed it. Presumably the Catholics were lying low in those years.
Taking off from Gerelyn's great list of hymns, one of the things I love about Advent/Christmas is the music. I won't insult the midrashic and Talmudic traditions by suggesting that Christmas music rises to their level. On the other hand, in the business of this season, I find the constant Christmas music---in the stores and shopping malls, on the radio, and (most especially) in our house)---to be filled with occasions to meditate and reflect on the mysteries of God's vastness and the Incarnation.We don't have recordings of songs that date back to St. Ambrose, but we do have versions of songs that date back several hundred years...as well as songs written in this century.Although he didn't write it with Christmas in mind, we have a complete recording of Handel's "Messiah": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6_nJ11BgTEAs well as Mervyn Warren's 250th anniversary tribute to Handel, "Handel's Messiah: A Soulful Celebration" which "inculturates" Handel's work to the late 20th century African-American context: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1V51aTh2c0QThere are carols like "In the Bleak Midwinter" which describe a setting Jesus, Mary and Joseph would not recognize...and yet find meaning in the combination of a northern European winter and an eastern Mediterranean birth: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jwStDK2_qpwThere are children's stories that have almost no connection with Jesus' birth...except for their recognition of the inherent dignity and worth of the poor and the outcast: Rudoph the Red-Nosed Reindeer (popularized by Burl Ives, blacklisted in the 1950s for his political associations) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TT4Cbt95P1k(And here's a Ray Charles version (he could find new sounds and rhythms and meaning in almost any song he covered): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5G_owDUij1w"The Little Drummer Boy" has closer ties with the Gospel story: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DT1fA59oH7Q Also, according to the notes with this video, it may have ties to the early 1900s opera "Le Jongleur de Notre Dame", which in turn is based on a 12th century French legend.Ella Fitzgerald's cover of "The Secret of Christmas" is *the* favorite Christmas song of a pastor I know: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=23wclIK7QEw "...the secret of Christmas: It's not the things you do, at Christmas time; But the Christmas things you all year through."Mahalia Jackson's version of "No Room At The Inn": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZiebHV5CoKc "The bus boy and the porter, The waitress and the cook, Will be witness one day in Heaven, To tell the things Mary took; She was driven away, And she had no place to stay, There was no room, Lord, no room at the inn." I could go on.... But probably best if I don't.(However, if anyone else wants to add links to favorite songs and what they mean for you, please do!)
When I was a lad, growing up near Philadelphia, the Prince-Bishop of the Archdiocese (Dennis Cardinal Dougherty) forbade midnight masses (according to my father, not an admirer of His Eminence, it was because he feared drunkeness among his flock). So we would betake ourselves to midnight mass at Rosemont College, where his writ did not run (I wonder whether there was weeping and gnashing of teeth at archdiocesan HQ over this exception). At my present parish, "midnight" mass begins at 9 PM (more suitable to a graying congregation perhaps), but I will go at 9 AM on Sunday.As for the mentions in the Salon article of Christian authorities ordering the singing of hymns in 2nd century Rome, and reference to the Dark Ages, perhaps we should pray that people read more history before they write about it. But what can you do? There are still masses of people who feel the need to cling to the old 19th century superstition that the Middle Ages believed in a flat earth (I bet some of them have even had a brush with the Divine Comedy, which makes no sense if the earth is flat).One comment on the next to last para. in David Gibson's WSJ piece; whatever else it may be to say that people should go to church on Christmas, it's hardly "puritanical," given the Puritans' antipathy to such popish feasts (they also disliked Easter and Whitsuntide). The Lutherans, however, presumably stuck to all these celebrations.
The Boston history to which Margaret refers is illuminating as to how we got to where we are. A piece of it from MDCCCLVI is worth a look today. Theodore Parker, Minister of the 28th Congregational Society of Boston and notorious free thinker, wrote "A Christmas Story for MDCCCLVI", which survives in EBook form as THE TWO CHRISTMAS CELEBRATIONS, A.D. I. and MDCCCLV. http://www.gutenberg.org/files/17006/17006.txt
Thanks, Father Komoncak, for reminding us that is was Venerable Pope Pius XII who restored the Easter Vigil to much of its former glory, and that this was NOT initiated by Vatican II
Maybe Rita can help us out with the details here. I don't have the time to put it all together. But my sense is that the Easter Vigil was proclaimed more by Vatican II and the meaning was made clearer. I think the ritual was revised around that time when the celebration became more intense and attended to. Before Vatican II the attendance was low. Anyway, Rita?
In the Middle Ages, the Franciscans and Dominicans were prominent in the development of Philosophy & Theology, and one of the questions they debated concerned whether Christ took on our human nature on account of our sinfulness (the Dominican position) or whether the coming of Christ was the original plan of God (the Franciscan position). The Franciscans, inspired by the Christological hymns in Ephesians and Colossians, argued that even had we not sinned, Christ would have come.My confrere, Richard Rohr, in his on-line reflection this morning, writes: When God mirrored us through the entrance, invitation, and eyes of Jesus, the certainty of our redemption was once and for all given and accomplished. In Franciscan eyes, we needed no further blood sacrifice to reveal Gods intentions toward us. We were already saved by the gaze from the manger. In my Franciscan heart, there is no surprise that the celebration of Christmas without taking anything away from the importance of the celebration of the Paschal Mystery in Holy Week and on Easter touches the human heart and resonates deep within the human spirit. Who can resist a baby especially when its God-Become-Man God-With-Us?
Below is a link to the decree, dated November 1955, restoring the Triduum and giving the reasons why. A restored Easter Vigil had already been approved, for experimental use, in 1951. I think that it was because this reform was universally welcomed and appreciated that the Council's Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy did not have to urge a reform of Holy Week in its section on the liturgical calendar.http://www.strobertbellarmine.net/forums/viewtopic.php?t=112Opponents of the conciliar liturgical reform say the rot began with these pre-conciliar reforms under Pius XII.
Here is an article by someone who considers the renewal heresy. I refer to it because it indicates how John XXIII furthered the work of Pius XII. http://www.traditionalmass.org/articles/article.php?id=37&catname=6
The Protestants I know (Lutherans, Methodists, UCC, MCC, American Baptists) are far from uncomfortable with celebrating Christmas. I'm exculding Episcopalians because the ones I know do NOT consider themselves to be Protestants, and UUs because they are all over the map, some even possibly being non-Trinitarian Christian. Furthermore, I do not consider the LDS and Church of Christ, SDA, etc. to be mainstream Protestant by any stretch of the imagination.However, when dealing with fundigelicals (and who can decipher most of them?) comfort/discomfort/hatred/ambivalence about anything is up for grabs.
The faux-traddies cited by Bill M above most certainly are an interesting lot.
"The new issue of the Harvard Magazine has an article about the re-evaluation of medieval literature by contemporary scholars. Theyre discovering that the 'Dark Ages', while brutal in some ways sometimes (like us?), were also quite enlightened."This really isn't a new idea. Thirty years ago, the Medieval Conference at Western Michigan University, which attracts scholars worldwide, offered a session on the 7th century "renaissance." England moved from a pagan, illiterate conglomeration of Germanic tribes to a confederation of literate, Christian people. This was largely due to the Irish missionaries in Northumbria and the rise of Northumbrian scriptoria under SS Aidan and Hilda, and under the great abbesses Werburgh in Chester and Etheldreda in Ely. But those damn Danes ...!
"... and UUs because they are all over the map, some even possibly being non-Trinitarian Christian."Of course, that's what "Unitarian" means, non-trinitarian. Christmas was an interesting time as a kid in the UU church. On those rare occasions when we were home and not running to visit many competing sets of relatives, we would go to the UU "service of light." Usually we kids had to sing some carols at the front of the church ("The Friendly Beasts" was popular). Then anyone could get up and read a poem, a prayer, remember someone who had died and then light a small votive. Some people just silently lit a votive if they didn't want to say anything. My brother, who enjoyed lighting matches, always tried to wangle more than one candle ...When all that was done, there was a frugal chili supper to remind us of the poor (many people had helped the Salvation Army set up and serve Christmas dinner that day), and we kids were sent down in the basement where games and punch and cookies were set up. Easy to make fun of, I know, but I still think of those little Unitarian lights leading to the Light of the World.
It is quite correct to say that Pius XII ordered and approved the restoration of the Easter Vigil (1951) and the rest of Holy Week (1955, with some emendations to the Vigil at that time). Joe Komonchak is also surely right to point out that this reform paved the way for acceptance of reform at the Council and following the council. Nevertheless, Bill Mazzella is also quite correct in saying that it was the reforms of Vatican II which changed our perception, making Easter the center of the year, and that the reform of the Vigil after the Council -- for it was revised -- was instrumental in this shift.Two strategic revisions contributed to the change Bill is speaking about. First, the 1951-55 revisions of the Vigil barely mention the celebration of Baptism. It occurs only in a rubric that indicates Baptisms may be celebrated. But in the 1970 Missal there is a large constitutive part of the Vigil given over to the Liturgy of Baptism. It is envisioned and presented as integral to the Vigil. This, combined with the restoration of adult initiation through the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults (1972 in Latin, 1974 in English) which also integrated catechumenal rites into the Lenten season, has had a huge impact on how people experience Easter. The insertion of the renewal of baptismal promises in 1951-55 was a good step, but the post-Conciliar reform indubitably went further.Second, in the revisions of the 1950s Holy Week stands alone. Yes, there was a simplification of the rubrics in 1955, but that was nothing like the thinking-through that went into the post-Conciliar reform. The documents on the revision of the Calendar that followed Vatican II make it crystal clear that the Easter Triduum is the high point of the liturgical year, and that the Vigil is the high point of the Triduum. These directives, which were only issued after the Council, had an enormous effect on our understanding of the relative importance of these feasts. Add to this the priority given to the concept of the Paschal Mystery in the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy--something then-cardinal Ratzinger noted as highly significant in the thinking behind the reform as a whole--and you have the conditions capable of producing a real shift.So yes, the steps forward in the 1950s were important, but it was the Council that changed how we view Easter and the importance of Easter relative to Christmas.
"...perhaps we should pray that people read more history before they write about it. But what can you do?"Dear Nicholas,You are a more generous soul than I am, and I probably benefit from this too so I thank you, but I still would say that Salon is printing egregious misinformation about Christian history from this guy, and that's disgraceful. The status of Christians in second Century Rome is available to anyone who can read an encyclopedia. If someone said "George Washington, who was president during the Civil War" we wouldn't give them a pass, would we? I'm not nailing this guy for buying the Sol Invictus theory, or some other item that is questioned by more recent historians. David Gibson tells us this essay is "making the rounds" as a legitimate summary of the history, and I say, shame on Slate for even publishing it.
. . . but it was the Council that changed how we view Easter and the importance of Easter relative to Christmas.Disagree.As a person who lived through that period and who was acutely aware of liturgical changes made in the 1940s and 1950s, thanks to my Benedictine teachers, I would have to say "we" were made verrry aware of "the importance of Easter relative to Christmas" with the introduction of the Restored Holy Week Liturgy. Perhaps talking to some old people would help younger people appreciate the difference between the mid-50s and the mid-60s. The impact of the liturgical changes made in the 40s and 50s was greater on average Catholics than the impact of the Council's underlining the importance of those changes after they were well in place.
I would agree with Gerolyn on this point. The relative importance of Easter and Christmas was warmly argued before the Council, the arguments on each side being roughly what they are still today. Louis Bouyer's brilliant book The Paschal Mystery was published in French in 1947 and in English in 1951 and was much and widely appreciated. I was an altar boy when the triduum was restored, and a seminarian later. It was a thrill, three or four months after ordination, to be able to lead the Easter Vigil at the Church of Santa Susanna in Rome in 1964. In many respects, the theological introduction to SC confirmed what many of us had already reaped as fruits of the liturgical movement. The post-conciliar developments that Rita correctly outlines built upon foundations well-laid before the Council. Of course, I did have the inestimable good fortune to have had Myles M. Bourke as a mentor in this regard, as in many others.
Gerelyn and Joseph,You were in privileged situations, and the forerunners to the Council were certainly active in paving the way. But I would respectfully suggest that your own good fortune did not extend to the rest of the Church, nor did it have the same force that it did once it was backed not only by the research of scholars and advocacy of religious communities such as the Benedictines, but by the Church's official documents and teachings.It was certainly not the general experience to integrate the baptism of adults (or of children) into the Easter Vigil, and while your teachers and pathfinders may well have argued for the centrality of the paschal mystery (and thus Easter) this was still a debated point. Even at the Council, it was the French who championed it, not so much the Germans, although the early research was theirs. The Society of St Pius X still argues against it as an illegitimate innovation stemming from the Council, though of course with its precursors and advocates long beforehand.Robert Amiet was experimenting with the Vigil as far back as 1939, and Odo Casel as well (he actually died during a Vigil, I seem to recall); but the "we" to which I refer is everybody, and certainly it took the Council to make this insight reach the broadest levels.(I too esteem Bouyer's very fine book, by the way!)
Here is an explanation of both/and, not either/or, about Christmas and Easter -- "In 1223, when Saint Francis of Assisi celebrated Christmas in Greccio with an ox and an ass and a manger full of hay, a new dimension of the mystery of Christmas came to light. Saint Francis of Assisi called Christmas the feast of feasts above all other feasts and he celebrated it with unutterable devotion (2 Celano 199; Fonti Francescane, 787). He kissed images of the Christ-child with great devotion and he stammered tender words such as children say, so Thomas of Celano tells us (ibid.)."For the early Church, the feast of feasts was Easter: in the Resurrection, Christ had flung open the doors of death and in so doing had radically changed the world: He had made a place for man in God himself. Now, Francis neither changed nor intended to change this objective order of precedence among the feasts, the inner structure of the faith centred on the Paschal Mystery. And yet through him and the character of his faith, something new took place: Francis discovered Jesus humanity in an entirely new depth. This human existence of God became most visible to him at the moment when Gods Son, born of the Virgin Mary, was wrapped in swaddling clothes and laid in a manger."The Resurrection presupposes the Incarnation. For Gods Son to take the form of a child, a truly human child, made a profound impression on the heart of the Saint of Assisi, transforming faith into love. The kindness and love of God our Saviour for mankind were revealed this phrase of Saint Paul now acquired an entirely new depth. In the child born in the stable at Bethlehem, we can as it were touch and caress God."And so the liturgical year acquired a second focus in a feast that is above all a feast of the heart. This has nothing to do with sentimentality. It is right here, in this new experience of the reality of Jesus humanity that the great mystery of faith is revealed. Francis loved the child Jesus, because for him it was in this childish estate that Gods humility shone forth. God became poor. His Son was born in the poverty of the stable. In the child Jesus, God made Himself dependent, in need of human love, He put Himself in the position of asking for human love our love."--Benedict XVI, Homily for Midnight Mass, Christmas 2011
Perhaps talking to some old people would help younger people appreciate the difference between the mid-50s and the mid-60s. In response to a comment I made about people playing "angry birds" on their iPhone during homilies, my dad was just telling me about Mass in the 50s: people busily praying the rosary, doing their own thing throughout the Mass, although still standing, sitting, and kneeling at all the right times, thanks to the little bell. In the mid-50's he went to a parish in Paris (France) in which during Mass, while one priest was saying the homily, another priest was continuing the Mass in parallel, so that one was preaching while the other was doing his own thing at the altar at the same time.
The church of Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome seems to have been the site of an important early manger scene, long before the time of St. Francis of Assisi. The same church also displayed a replica of a Bethlehem cave. The neighborhood was known as "Bethlehem in Rome." The church still houses relics related (to use an ambiguous word) to the original manger.http://www.sacredarchitecture.org/articles/a_roman_christmas_ritual_micr... the name of the church suggests, the Catholic celebration of the Nativity has always been associated with the veneration of Mary, which might be another reason for the reluctance of some Protestants to celebrate the feast.
Yes, Claire, very true. In those golden olden days, there was a lot of real devotion. Click http://images.google.com/hosted/life/f?imgurl=7e342e1cadbed82b to see the faces of boys saying the rosary in 1948 at the funeral of Fr. Flanagan of Boys Town. They were not being litufgically correct, of course. They should have been using missals to follow the Requiem Mass.
Rita --The new issue of the Harvard Magazine has an article about the re-evaluation of medieval literature by contemporary scholars. They're discovering that the "Dark Ages", while brutal in some ways sometimes (like us?), were also quite enlightened. The article, by Adam Kirsch, is "Mysteries and Masterpieces". It really is time that the general curricula of American colleges got this point straight. http://harvardmagazine.com/2012/01/mysteries-and-masterpieces
I'm glad that Joe Komonchak had a good experience with the Easter Vigil reforms of Pius XII. I'm afraid they didn't get the memo in my Boston parish. It was held on Saturday morning and I was one of very few people present. Though I was not very liturgically aware as a lad of 15, when the Vatican II inspired reforms were implemented it was clear thatthesewent well beyond what Pius started. The 50's reform said nothing about the historical order of the sacraments of initiation, nor was it even conceivable that ordinary priests could confirm adults just baptized or "converts" from Protestant communities. The rejection of these particular reforms is , in my view, the clearest testament to their brittle attachment to anything old or ancient. Why we devote any energy to their scurrilous reservations is beyond me. But I do wish them and all a Blessed Christmas.
Mr. Foley: Pius XII's 1955 reform of the Easter Vigil was what moved the celebration from the morning to the night."9. The solemn Easter Vigil is to be celebrated at the proper hour, namely, a time which will permit that the solemn Mass of the Vigil begin at about the midnight which falls between Holy Saturday and Easter Sunday. "Nevertheless, where in the judgment of the local Ordinary, the conditions of the faithful and of the place having been considered, it is advantageous to anticipate the hour for the celebration of the Vigil, this may be done, but the Vigil may not begin before twilight, or certainly not before sunset." I remember the morning celebrations and how sparsely attended they were. Did your parish ignore the move to the evening, or are you remembering the period before the Pius XII reform?
It's Sunday.It's Christmas.I'm going to church.So there!
The gaps between theory and practice require attention, as illustrated above. It might start at the top. The Pope was adorned in gleaming full regalia and towering gold-starred headdress today as he told us we should "ask the Lord to help us see through the superficial glitter of this season". He was bedecked in an even more ornate panoply of tapestry and fur earlier when he spoke from his monarchical throne to the world of the call to humility and simplicity. Imagine the immediate impact on the Catholic world and beyond if the man had spoken in a black cassock from the altar steps of the "the superficial glitter" of which he claims he disapproves and the "humility and simplicity" to which he says he believes God's humility calls us.
The new issue of the Harvard Magazine has an article about the re-evaluation of medieval literature by contemporary scholars. Theyre discovering that the Dark Ages, while brutal in some ways sometimes (like us?), were also quite enlightened. The article, by Adam Kirsch, is Mysteries and Masterpieces. It really is time that the general curricula of American colleges got this point straight. Not at all what the article is about. (And the term "Dark Ages" does not appear in the article.) (Click to the right of the first paragraph to hear some passages from the Rule of St. Benedict.)http://harvardmagazine.com/2012/01/mysteries-and-masterpieces
You were in privileged situations, and the forerunners to the Council were certainly active in paving the way. But I would respectfully suggest that your own good fortune did not extend to the rest of the Church, nor did it have the same force that it did once it was backed not only by the research of scholars and advocacy of religious communities such as the Benedictines, but by the Churchs official documents and teachings. The hymnals that came out in the mid-50s with the Restored Holy Week Liturgy were not published for my benefit. I was not exceptional. I understand the need revisionists have to discount the experiences of those with living memory of past events, but as time goes by, new revisionists will dismantle today's certitudes. The leaders of the liturgical movement of the first half of the 20th century were far more than "forerunners to the Council".
"The Pope was adorned in gleaming full regalia and towering gold-starred headdress today as he told us we should ask the Lord to help us see through the superficial glitter of this season. He was bedecked in an even more ornate panoply of tapestry and fur earlier when he spoke from his monarchical throne to the world of the call to humility and simplicity."As long as Rome continues this blatant hypocrisy and we continue to tolerate it, the message will have trouble getting across.
Thanks, Ann, for the Harvard Magazine article. Gerelyn, wouldn't you agree with Ann's thought that American colleges ought to learn that those seven hundred years were far from a wasted time of ignorance and barbarism? That's more or less what the writer's saying, I think.
Ann, thanks for the article from Harvard Magazine. That's very good news about the series on the Middle Ages taking its place alongside the classical library's formidable contributions.I'm afraid people do either dump on the middle ages or idolize them. It would be good to "get it right" in contemporary curricula.Gerelyn, I do appreciate your experience and I'm grateful to you for sharing it. I'm afraid I don't understand your position, howeever. Are you saying that your experience was universal? What then are we to make of the comments of Bill Mazzella and Jack Foley, both of whom have living memory the same period too but evidently their experience was different from your own? Second, are you saying that the Liturgical Movement of the first half of the twentieth century did NOT prepare the way for the reforms of the Second Vatican Council? This position is held by a very small slice of contemporary historians, such as Alcuin Reid, and some upholders of the 1962 edition of the Roman Rite. But I'm not clear that this is actually what you are trying to say. Perhaps Reid's re-evaluation of the Council's liturgical reforms as alien to the Liturgical Movement is what you mean when you speak about "revisionist history"? None of my comments here would qualify as revisionist history.
"Im afraid people do either dump on the middle ages or idolize them. It would be good to get it right in contemporary curricula." Disagree. (Again.) Can you name a college/university whose curriculum does not "get it right"? Harvard's course catalog is online. Hard to see either dumping or idolatry. http://tinyurl.com/8xm5bz8About the other issue: I don't side with those who regard the Council as inconsequential, heretical, invalid, illicit, etc. Nor do I side with those who would agree with you that "it was the Council that changed how we view Easter and the importance of Easter relative to Christmas." (That's revisionist. Ask anyone who was in parochial school in the late 40s, early 50s. There are plenty of us still above ground, and many of us remember how we felt when Sister told us Easter was more important than Christmas: Sure it is. Hard-boiled eggs are waaaay better than toys.)Am I "saying that the Liturgical Movement of the first half of the twentieth century did NOT prepare the way for the reforms of the Second Vatican Council?" A person who remembers the time BEFORE a given historical event obviously has a different viewpoint than a person who only knows that time from documents. Anyone can say anything prepares the way for what comes after. The publisher who put out the Missa Recitata booklets used in my parish in the late 40s did not know that s/he was paving the way for the Second Vatican Council. The scholars and liturgists who prepared the restored Holy Week Liturgy did not know the Council was in the future. They should be respected for what they did and not regarded as mere forerunners to others. To diminish the work and life experiences of those who worked and lived before an important event is like the unfortunate tendency to regard everything in the Hebrew Scriptures as pointing to the New Testament. Prophets, kings, etc., are seen as types of Christ instead of as personalities important in their own right.
"They should be respected for what they did and not regarded as mere forerunners to others."Gerelyn, No one is saying that they were "mere" foreunners. The results gotten by those "forerunners" prompted others to make sure the Council promoted those reforms. Naturally with allowing the vernacular the fruits of the renewal became more dramatic after the Council.
Jean --Have you read Seamus Heaney's translation of Beowulf? It got uniformly splendid reviews. But some of it is too gruesome for me. Heaney makes the point that it is about warriors who were transitioning from being beserkers to being Christians gentlemen with tender feelings. The contrast is overwhelming. (Haney uses only Anglo-Saxon words in the translation, or tries to.)As I see the Middle Ages they're a period of great extremes -- terrible brutality including all of the various invasions and later horrors such as the Albigensian Crusade, but also splendid appreciation of the beauty of the Faith as seen most especially in Chartres. This required efforts to understand these opposites, which resulted in the medieval schools and all their finely-honed rationality which sought to balance those extremes. (Henry VIII has a lot to answer for for destroying those monasteries. Renaissance indeed! Renaissance of berserkers.)
Luke --Do you know Benjamin Britten's "Ceremony of Carols" and Ralph Vaughn Williams "Fantasia of Christmas Carols" or some such title. Both beautiful and lively. Why are English Carols particularly fine?
Ken --Duns Scotus, the greatest of the medieval Franciscan philosopher-theologians, said that the reason Christ was incarnated was because "He wanted to be with us". Wonderful simplicity, and particularly Franciscan, I think :-)
Gerelyn --Of course Harvard has specialized courses which appreciate the medievals. Harvard has specialized courses appreciating all sorts of things. I was talking about core curricula (where schools still have them, sigh). I would be delighted to hear that times have changed in that regard.
Oh, I see. Parochial school memories are the test of truth. Good luck with that!
For myself I think it important to remember that Vatican II was only possible because of the work done in the two or three decades before it met. It and its texts and reforms did not drop down directly from heaven or by unmediated gift of the Holy Spirit. There was a great deal of vitality in various theological and pastoral movements during those decades. The three encyclicals of Pius XII--on the Mystical Body, on the Bible, and on the liturgy--should not be forgotten because of the unfortunate one on the so-called "new theology." (I remember Myles Bourke being furious because Pius XII was being denigrated in favor of his successor John XXIII.) There were some aspects of Church life that were stronger and more vibrant before the Council than after; e.g., what was called "the lay apostolate," the involvement of lay people in bringing the Gospel to bear upon society and culture (Catholic Action, etc.). William A. Purdy, long-time Roman correspondent for the London Tablet, wrote a book that tried to insert some historical perspective. It was entitled The Church on the Move: Pius XII, John XXIII, and Christian Renewal. Here is an obituary for Purdy: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/obituaries--mgr-bill-purdy-1388...
No one is saying that they were mere foreunners. What you said was, "The greatest thing V2 did was to restore the Easter Vigil to make it what it is". I disagree. The Easter Vigil was restored before the Council. If the Council had never taken place, the restored Holy Week liturgy would still have existed.
Of course Harvard has specialized courses which appreciate the medievals. Harvard has specialized courses appreciating all sorts of things. I was talking about core curricula (where schools still have them, sigh). I would be delighted to hear that times have changed in that regard.Since you included your generalization about "American colleges" in a post in which you misrepresented an article in Harvard's alumni magazine, it seemed that you were including the oldest and most renowned American college in your judgment. Perhaps you will name some colleges/universities whose curricula fail to present the "Dark Ages" properly.
Oh, I see. Parochial school memories are the test of truth. Good luck with that!--------Odd to denigrate children's memories. They are the forerunners of adult memories.
Gerelyn --It seems that David Smith and Rita didn't notice my misrepresenting the article. So I don't concede. I'm not an expert on general or core curricula at American college, which is was what I was talking about -- general American college education and not all American higher education. I only know what sort of history books were popular when I was young, and since then the products of American colleges through the years have confirmed my experience. Do is look at the continued popularity of Will Durant's histories. You might see that if his works were accepted as solid history, it must have been because his reader's were so ill prepared they couldn't tell they weren't. Then there were the popular works of Bertrand Russell. Just look at the meanings of the word "medieval". (Ordinary meanings reflect what people think.) Here's from Merriam-Webster:"Definition of MEDIEVAL1: of, relating to, or characteristic of the Middle Ages2: having a quality (as cruelty) associated with the Middle Ages3: extremely outmoded or antiquated medievally adverbYou don't think these definitions reflect some serious ignorance and prejudice?
"England moved from a pagan, illiterate conglomeration of Germanic tribes to a confederation of literate, Christian people."Huh? As late as 1700, only 30% of English men were at least even minimally literate, and this was several hundred years after Gutenberg's invention that vastly increased the supply of books. By 1800, the rates reversed places, and literacy was closer to 70%. Similar rates and rates of improvement were found in France. The "dark" ages were "dark" (I always thought) because of the amount of learning and technology that was lost -- everything from literary works (most lost irretrievably) to communal hygeine. The aqueducts built by the Romans were never duplicated by Europeans until the 17th-18th centuries -- while those built by the Romans continued to be used even into the 20th century in some places (Segovia). The "decline and fall" of Rome resulted in the loss of close to half the population of Europe, over the ensuing two hundred year period, with attendant loss of artistic and cultural and technological patrimony, at least in the West. Of course people continued to try to improve things -- they were still human, after all, but to suggest that there wasn't a loss -- a true darkening, if you will, of a lot of human achievement, seems more like fantasy than revisionism.
Barbara --I was also taught that the "Dark Ages" were when a great deal of Roman knowledge was lost. They were preceded by the collapse of Roman government in Europe. But it wasn't just the fall of Rome that treated "Europe" badly. There was a terrible plague in the 6th century, as I remember. Killed off a big portion of the population. Outside of Italy local fiefdoms of the indigenous people sprung up, and they were over-run by waves of barbarians from the North, who then were assimilated and formed new little kingdoms, with, finally, Charlemagne unifying a major part of Europe. But he left it fractured when he divided it into parts for his sons. He himself couldn't read and write -- his "mark" was a huge, simple cross. But he founded lots of schools because he valued learning. At the time the illiterate Europeans included many of the aristocrats (the local military powers). Maybe that's what is meant when it is said that literacy increased in Europe in the Middle Ages -- the aristocrats learned to read and write (including some of the women!). But being illiterate to start with, I doubt they had many books in the earliest middle ages. Still, as far back as the 6th century there were some cathedral schools some of which ultimately became the universities. The early universities were identifiable as such by the 11th century.. (After the demise of the Roman Empire the old Eastern (Byzantine) Empire and the Christians of the Eastern Church had their own problems, including Islam.)Before Charlemagne, there were the Irish monks who, far from the wars, could cherish their books and copied many of the Roman classics (though the monks too were sometimes subject to marauding Northerners). They were the ones who brought learning to Charlemagne's court, as I learned it. There have been lots of studies of medieval science since the early part of the 20th century. It's roots were in the East -- the medievals were highly influenced by some of the very great Muslim scientists. (I've forgotten the man's name, but one of the doctors wrote a text book that was still being used in Europe in the 1600s!) Unfortunately, the pioneer 20th century European historian of science was a very conservative Catholic physicist (conservative both in his religion and his physics), and it was a while before he was taken very seriously. Now the specialists see clearly now that even experimental science had its roots in the high middle ages. Roger Bacon (13th century) even theorized about scientific method. Aquinas' teacher, Albert the Great, did some proto-empirical investigations. And, of course, their philosophy of science (not always Aristotelian) is still worth a gander. Complexity, complexity.
Ann, experimental science has its roots in Greece not medieval Europe. The fact that Europeans carried forward scientific and literary traditions is indisputable, of course, but such work did not really transform the culture in a way that science did later. The person whose name you forgot is most likely Avicenna or Ibn Sina.
The scholars speak of "rebirths" before the big one: the Carolingian renaissance to which Ann refers above and the "Renaissance of the Twelfth Century," to cite the title of Haskins' famous book, etc. It is the failure of scholars of a certain age to see any light in the centuries they sweep away as "dark" that I think Ann is noting. Histories of philosophy, for example, would often leap from Plotinus to Descartes. But that there was a falling off in many areas, as Barbara notes, I don't think can be denied either.
There is no doubt that many Renaissance scholars had a twofold purpose -- the primary, obvious purpose, was to recover and build on Roman and Greek precedents in science and philosophy -- and the second was to discredit contemporary conditions that they loathed, some of which related to religious hegemony and some of which did not. We don't have to belabor the point, Rome was certainly very harsh for much of its population, but the living conditions of Europeans, in terms of public facilities, were clearly worse than they had been when those cities were Roman. The only truly public facility for hundreds of years were churches and cathedrals. There was very little organized road building or other civil engineering (aqueducts), there were no more public libraries, and certainly no public latrines or bath houses, a staple of both Roman and Arab societies (the Arabs copied the Romans, but generally on a much smaller scale). You can see the ruins of most of these, even the roads, in nearly ever major European city that was under Roman rule once upon a time.
Barbara --I must confess that when I think of the science of the Enlightenment I'm thinking of the sort that is research for its own sake which uses a powerful empirical method of discovery, not the practical sort of science that includes engineering and medicine.. Yes, the ancients had the latter, and so did other peoples such as the Egyptians and Indians to some extent. And many cultures were expert at observing the stars. The notion that "science" in Aristotle's core sense of knowledge that was valued for itself began, at least in the West, with the Greeks, but even Aristotle didn't try to invent an empirical method of scientific exploration for the sake of understanding nature. I don't know if even the Muslim scientists had any sort of scientific method. (The Muslim doctor I was thinking of was Al-Zahrawi, a surgeon whose methods proved practical for 500 years.) So, yes, the Romans had great engineers and architects, and great laws as well. But they really didn't have much in the way of the theoretical knowledge that was characteristic of the Greeks and, later, the medievals and Renaissance, though you might argue that the Renaissance was more a literary renaissance (especially of the Roman writers), than a scientific one.Maybe I should have argued that for the European peasant life had no public amenities, but the monkish culture was highly developed in some ways, and in the monastery culture are found the beginnings of scientific method, which eventually distinguished the great Enlightenment science. The great irony is that the medieval Church was not anti-science as it came to be later. The fascinating case in point is that of Galileo. The Jesuits and at least one of the popes admired his work, and, St. Robert Bellarmine, who led the Inquisition's prosecution of Galileo, was inclined at first to support Galilelo's position. But Galileo was a cantankerous man w ho did not have enough evidence to establish his theory against that of Copernicus. He made the INquisition people angry, and we know how that ended.I suppose my main point is that there have been three major periods in European history when rationalism (trusting reason above other kinds of thinking) was strongest -- during the time of the ancient Greeks, the middle ages, and the Enlightenment. I think the point is of great importance for the status of religion in our culture because the theologians more than any of the other Christian thinkers have been scorned by contemporary scientists. Of course, some Christian theologians *are* anti-rationalists, and, in my opinion, they deserve the scorn. So, while there need not be any great division between science and religion, too often there is. And this is one reason why the mainstream churches are losing members. But that's another complicated story.
It is the failure of scholars of a certain age to see any light in the centuries they sweep away as dark that I think Ann is noting.
I suppose any time judges other times by its own touchstones. To a modern of the twenty-first century, anything leading to and furthering progress in the empirical sciences is bound to be raised onto a pedestal. Modern man is besotted with science and technology and is certain that accumulated knowledge confers moral as well as intellectual superiority. That has the unfortunate effect of rendering people of any past time inferior, in just about all aspects.
"To a modern of the twenty-first century, anything leading to and furthering progress in the empirical sciences is bound to be raised onto a pedestal."David --Finally -- as of this week science is being looked at officially as a mixed blessing. It seems that scientists have actually made some H5N1 viruses from scratch. H5N1 virus is the dread virus whic, if it learned how to spread easily could produce a plague as fatal as the black death of medieval days. The scientists were about to publish how to make it so that other scientists could make some and do the necessary research to (hopefully) develop the sort of vaccine that is still needed.But now they're having second thoughts. What if the information ends up in the wrong hands? This is producing ethical problems for some scientists. (Most scientists see free investigation, acquisition, and sharing of knowledge as intrinsic to science and defining limits becomes highly problematic.) See the Los Angeles Times yesterday athttp://www.latimes.com/health/la-sci-bird-flu-20111227,0,7406435.story
David G - there was an article in our local newspaper a few years ago, in which the pastors of several local churches - particularly those of an Evangelical cast - explained that their churches were going to be closed on Christmas. The reason given was, 'Christmas is a family holiday, and going to church would detract from that.' These pastors saw themselves as making a pro-family statement by not holding services.Perhaps I am reading too much into this, and I'd welcome your thoughts from a formerly-Evangelical point of view, but it seems to highlight a difference between Catholics and Evangelicals. To Catholics, there is, or should be, no tension between being a member of a family and a member of a worshiping community. (I'll qualify this below). In our view, the family itself is a church in miniature - the church of the home - and when we gather for worship, it is the coming together of families at least as much as individuals. A major reason that our churches are packed on Christmas (even more than Easter) is that *family members* who typically would take a pass on mass, go to church with their families on that day.My speculation is that, for the Evangelical, the relationship with Christ is such a *personal* sthing that family is not seen as intrinsic to it. That looks pretty simplistic as I write it, and I'm sure it's not as stark as I speculate. I'd welcome your thoughts.Regarding families and worship: families are not as monoreligious as they once were. Catholics marry non-Catholics pretty frequently. Where to go to church is a delicate, or painful, issue for a lot of families. Perhaps on Christmas, those issues come to the surface even more. Are those Evangelical pastors showing some sensitivity?
A Protestant is one who protests -- Catholicism. The Puritans and others despised Christmas because it was one of the prominent marks of merry olde Catholic England.The surviving anti-Christmas bias in some Protestant churches is really part of the surviving anti-Catholic tradition upon which they were founded and in which they are steeped.I think many Catholics are unaware of how important anti-Catholicism still is to some Protestant groups and to Mormons, Seventh-Day Adventists, some branches of the church of Christ. Reading their message boards, sermons, tracts, etc. can be a little shocking for those who imagine our friendly or neutral feelings about them are reciprocated.
JIm P. --It seems to me that if you believe that Christmas is a family thing -- and you believe that Jesus is our brother -- you'd be sure to attend services with the whole Christian family. I guess the Protestant view of church-on-Sunday is more a matter of preaching, since most do not celebrate the Eucharist in any way.
Gerelyn, A Protestant is one who protests abuses in religious practices such as the sale of indulgences, which was also prohibited by the Council of Trent. I do not know what it was about the Christmas holiday that so turned off the Puritans or what it was about the Pretridentine Mass that so turned off John Calvin, but these people thought that some reform was necessary. I grew up in a Presbyterian Church and I do not recall any anti Christmas bias. I have read, however, that the Presbyterians in North America did not start to observe Christmas until the late nineteenth century. We had a Christmas Eve service and did not feel the need to come back on Christmas morning. This year I attended a Christmas Eve Mass and did not feel the need to come back on Christmas morning. Unfortunately there are still feelings of hostility between some Catholics and Protestants. I had to put some distance between myself and a friend some years ago because she was always telling me that all the problems of sex abuse in the RCC were caused by Satan attacking the Church from both within and without and that Satan did not attack Protestant Churches at all because he already had them in the palm of his hand. At least she was right about Satan being male. BTW, while growing up Presbyterian, I never heard the Pope called the Antichrist. As a matter of fact, I never heard the term antichrist until I was in college. I never heard anyone talk about the Rapture either. Yes, Ann, the Reformers emphasized preaching the Word of God revealed in Scripture, and I saw the old form of the Communion Service morph into something which now looks like a Mass but is not a Mass and includes the elevation of the Host. This is the result of the Ecumenical Movement of the 1960s when serious Christians of good will did try to emphasize what they held in common and retrieve some things that were good, but had been discarded.
Verity --Thanks for the information about your Protestant practices. I've known for a long time that Episcopalians and some Lutherans regularly have a Eucharistic service of one sort or another, and have also heard that some other Protestant churches also had some sort of "remembrance" service. Could you please tell us more about that?I'm very glad to hear that the new ecumenism has borne such great liturgical fruit. Things have really improved in some quarters. Now if only our priests were taught to preach as well as the Protestants :-)
Thanks, Verity, for expressing your opinion. Many interesting notions have been posted in this thread.E.g., "I guess the Protestant view of church-on-Sunday is more a matter of preaching, since most do not celebrate the Eucharist in any way." (I hope Ann will provide a list of Protestant churches who "do not celebrate the Eucharist in any way.")As to your claims about Protestants in general and about Presbyterians and Puritans in particular? There is a wealth of scholarship available that might help. My suggestion would be to look at course catalogs of divinity schools and select books from their reading lists. An even simpler approach would be Google. Maybe start with "what is a protestant". Or try "presbyterian anti-catholic". (I've always enjoyed reading about Henry Ward Beecher, the renowned Presbyterian minister and adulterer who, like his sister, Harriet Beecher Stowe, despised Catholics.) http://tinyurl.com/bqyzx8oOr try "presbyterian anti-catholic ian paisley".As to Puritans and their hatred of Catholics and Catholic celebrations? A wealth of information available. Just one of thousands of possibilities:http://www.amazon.com/Puritans-Play-Leisure-Recreation-Colonial/dp/03121...'s the link to Puritans at Play: Leisure and Recreation in Colonial New England Bruce C. Daniels. Search terms like Catholic, Christmas, etc.
I think that before anyone can definitively declare her/himself to be a Roman Catholic, that person should be required to spend about 3 years investigating at least other mainstream Christian streams (including Orthodoxy) before such a declaration. I find that many cradle Catholics are woefully ignorant about the basics of so much of what many of their neighbors, friends and family members have chosen to be their religious denomination.I specifically exclude searching fundigelicalism because it can be so toxic. I know - I did.
Gerelyn --Check out Wikipedia under "Eucharist". There are many meanings of "Eucharist".
Wikipedia does not say there are "many meanings of 'Eucharist'". Quite the contrary.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EucharistIt does point out the different terms various denominations use, of course. Your claim was:I guess the Protestant view of church-on-Sunday is more a matter of preaching, since most do not celebrate the Eucharist in any way.Misinformation or disinformation?
Most Protestant churches that I have attended -- this would include Lutheran (including Evangelical Lutheran), Episcopalian, Southern Baptist, Presbyterian -- celebrate the Eucharist/Host/Last Supper -- they don't always use the same terminology and they obviously don't all adhere to the doctrine of transubstantiation. They also don't necessarily do it on a weekly much less daily basis (most don't do daily service, actually). It is by and large not the focal point of their worship -- study of scripture is, to one degree or another, whether through preaching or hymns.I had always understood "anti-Christmas" sentiment to arise out of a special subset of Protestant denominations that objected, in particular, to debauchery of all kinds, and never more so than when it was conjoined with what was ostensibly a Christian celebration. Many of these Protestants were among those most likely to emigrate to America -- Pilgrims, Puritans, Presbyterians, and so on, particularly during and after the English Civil War and Restoration periods. They might have also particularly associated the celebration of Christmas with the substantial efforts of post-Cromwell rulers to make England revert to Catholicism, a most unwelcome development for the likes of Andrew Marvell and John Milton. In short, I think that the sentiment that is being spoken of here arises out of a fairly specific historic phenomenon. My impression now is that most Protestant churches have Christmas Eve services but do not demand special services on Christmas Day, though they did not cancel any services on Christmas Day either.Note that not all protestants use the term to refer to themselves. Many just call themselves Christian, or identify themselves denominationally.
An interesting book, imho, is Blessed One: Protestant Perspectives on Mary.It includes a chapter on Mexican Protestant women and how they celebrate Christmas (page 89) and what they think/feel about Our Lady of Guadalupe (90 ff.). The ten commandments of marianismo are interesting.http://www.amazon.com/dp/0664224385/ref=rdr_ext_tmb
"Misinformation or disinformation?"Gerelyn --A semantic problem. Re-read the Wikipedia and you'll see that what many Protestants call "Eucharist" is not what the RRC means by it.
RRC -- ? Restored Roman Church? One can only hope and pray that THAT doesn't happen.
Ann,I am in my late sixties and have had ample opportunity to visit a variety of denominations. I have attended numerous Masses: Catholic, Anglican and Orthodox. However, I did have Methodist grandparents and I was an active Presbyterian. I have a Jewish relative by marriage and frequently attend synagogue services with him because he does not like to go alone. I am always respectful of religious ideas and practices even though I do not always agree with them. If I do not agree with some group, that does not make me anti that group. When I was growing up in the United Presbyterian Church, Communion services were held four times a year. With the advent of the Ecumenical Movement in the mid 1960s, the frequency was changed to once a month, usually the first Sunday of every month. Now, John Calvin is one of the founders of the Reformed version of Christianity, and he thought that Communion should be served every Sunday, and some Presbyterian churches actually do that, but it is decided by the local congregation and not by a policy from the Presbytery. Presbyteries are composed of all the clergy of a specific region and a representative number of ruling elders voting together a few times a year. Presbyteries serve the function of a bishop in this system, the point of which is that no one person should be able to gain a excessive amount of power in the church organization. It takes a long time and a lot of debate to change any rules of governance. Presbyterians do not believe in Transubstantiation, but they do believe in the Real Spiritual Presence of Christ at the Communion Table. When I was young, the warning of St. Paul that we should not take Communion unworthily was read at the beginning of each Communion Service. That disappeared sometime in the 1970s because it was scaring people away from church on those Sundays. I have seen the practice of once a month Communion in both the Baptist and the Methodist churches. A friend's Evangelical Lutheran Church serves Communion every Sunday now, but it did not do so in the 1960s. I do not know when they changed. Lutherans do not believe in the perduring presence of Christ in the Eucharist. The Mennonites serve the Lord's Supper two to four times a year; the Amish once a year. The Amish also fast the Friday before Communion Sunday and do not come to market that day or on Good Friday or Ascension Day. Both High Church Anglicans and Eastern Orthodox believe in Transubstantiation, but I have heard that the Anglicans have a slightly different understanding of It than the Roman Catholic Church teaches. I did not understand that difference when I heard it explained. Perhaps someone else on this blog can enlighten us. Gerelyn,Thank you for the links. I will devote some time to reading them this weekend. It is my memory that Presbyterians and Puritans are not the same group. The Presbyterians formed in Scotland while the Puritans in England wanted to purify the Anglican Church of its non Scriptural practices. As a matter of fact one group of my own ancestors fled the Protectorate of Oliver Cromwell and landed in the colony of Virginia. The descendants of the Puritans worship in Congregationalist Churches, the structure of which I have never studied. As for Rev. Ian Paisley, he is definitely a bigot. In Northern Ireland it is hard to tell what is religion and what is politics. Every religion has bigots. Remember Fr. Charles Coughlin? Do you have any exact sources for what Henry Ward Beecher disliked about Catholicism? The Beechers were good abolitionists; that is to their credit. The Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. did a lot for the Civil Rights Movement, and he was not just an adulterer, but a sexual libertine. Here in Virginia a few years ago a man sued the Archdiocese because one of the parish priests had run off with his wife....so I guess you find clerical sexual misconduct everywhere. I think that the Puritan objection to Christmas was about the drinking and carousing that took place during the holiday parties. This was really targeted at Anglican celebrations. They also objected to sports on Sundays. BTW a few years ago my Catholic friends and I decided to stop going to St. Patrick's Day celebrations at the local pub because we got tired of the crowd of drunks who were cursing and singing raunchy songs. Were we being puritanical?
FWIW - I don't see attending Christmas mass on Christmas Eve as "cheating" any more than attending Sunday Mass on Saturday evening is "cheating". These feasts are viewed as so prominent by the church that, liturgically, their celebration begins the evening before.Granted, a lot of parishes around here really push the envelope as to what constitutes "evening" on Christmas Eve. Our archdiocese has made an effort in recent years to rein that in somewhat; thus, one may no longer attend Christmas Mass at 1 pm on Christmas Eve. (But later in the afternoon? Definitely.)Even though it sucks all the fun out of it to think of it this way, Christmas is, church-legally, a Holy Day of Obligation. There has been a tension for some time in the church in trying to maintain obligatory worship - which is, ultimately, rooted in pastoral care and concern - as a real, living thing while accommodating the changing reality of modern life. So we've started having Sunday mass on Saturday evenings, we've moved a big chunk of holy days of obligation to Sundays (or don't even officially observe them anymore), and we have communal reconciliation once or twice a year. The centuries-long, traditional ideal of a small rural community who gathers at the town church for worship when the church bells ring isn't where most of us are anymore. Our employers and families seem less apt to understand than ever before that we need to clear space on our schedules to go to church.
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Title pretty much says it all. I'm working on a simple 'lets get used to lwjgl' project involving manipulation of a rubik's cube, and I can't figure out how to tell which side/square the user's pointing at.
You'll want to use 3D picking. Here's some code I use in my game.
First I cast a ray from my camera. I'm using the mouse, but if you're just using where the user is looking, you can just use the center of the window. This is that code from my camera class:
Then I follow out the ray until it intersects with an object, you can do this with bounding boxes or something similar, since this is specific to your game, I'll let you handle that. Generally this is done by following the ray out (adding the direction of the ray to it's starting point over and over 'till you bump into something).
Next you want to see which face is being picked, you can do that by iterating over the triangles in your cube to see if the ray intersects them. The following function does that and returns the distance to the picked face, then I just use the intersected face that's closest to the camera (so you're not picking the back face).
The triangle with the shortest distance is the picked triangle. Also, shameless plug for my game, you should check it out, follow it and vote in the polls I put out occasionally. Thanks! http://byte56.com
The technique you're looking for is called "picking" or "3D picking." There are several ways to do it; one of the more common ones is to transform a 2D point on the screen into eye space by using the inverse of the projection transformation. This will allow you to generate a ray in view space, which you can use to test for collision with the physical representation of your various bits of scene geometry to determine which object the user 'hit.'
You can also use a "picking buffer" (or "selection buffer") which GL has support for. This basically involves writing some unique object identifier into a buffer for every pixel and then simply testing that buffer.
The OpenGL FAQ has brief discussions on both (it focuses more on the selection buffer since that's entirely a GL feature; ray picking is API agnostic except perhaps for extracting the active matrices from the pipeline). Here is a more specific example of the ray picking technique (for iOS, but it should translate easily enough). This site has some source code to some of the OpenGL Red Book examples ported to LWJGL, which include a picking demo.
See also this question on SO.


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Dear Editor:
Local debate over gun control seems to be giving an inordinate amount of attention to NRA claims; howls about second amendment rights ignore the fact of long-standing limitations on guns.
We have had prohibitions on machine guns, short-barreled rifles and shotguns, silencer-equipped weapons, etc., since 1934's National Firearms Act.
Sandy Hook and similar egregious episodes highlight the need - as it did in 1934 - to control weapons capable of mass violence. There is no more need for an assault weapon with a thirty round magazine than there was for sawed-off shotguns and machine guns in 1934.
(You probably shouldn't have any weapon if you can't do the job with a five round clip...)
It's past time for Congress to step beyond the NRA's two percent of the population and enact legislation desired by the majority of Americans!
Tom Morgan


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I have a question that seems easy but I can't solve it. I have an equation like:
eqgama = -8.33208*10^56 g1 + 8.18264*10^56 g1^2 == -1.42093*10^56
I use the following statements to find its discriminant:
poly = (eqgama[[1]] - eqgama[[2]]) // Simplify;
Discriminant[poly, g1];
The answer is: 2.29158*10^113
In another program mathematica itself simplifies eqgama to the following equation:
-1.97163*10^54 g1 + 1.93627*10^54 g1 ^2 == -3.36235*10^53
and so the discriminant becomes: 1.28315*10^108.
I have a loop and I want to plot discriminants versus a definite parameter, but in this loop sometimes Mathematica simplifies equations and sometimes not. So the plot fluctuates. What should I do?


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I have many email account on different domains, on gmail, yahoo, hotmail, aol, and my company email account.
I don't like applications that download my emails on my PC such as outlook, i like to manage them through the browser.
What i am doing now that i open a new browser window and open all my email account in its tabs and keep always this window open.
Is there a better way, can you share you experience.
Whats the best way to handle and monitor multiple email accounts without using desktop applications such as outlook?
I have many email account on different domains, on gmail, yahoo, hotmail, aol, and my company email account.
You can use Gmail to manage your emails. Gmail can send & receive emails from other services (like Yahoo,Live or any Pop3 mail). in Gmail just go to settings>Accounts and Imports and start importing your mails.
You can use your original mail to reply emails, also you can tag your emails to organize better
Simply setup each mail service to forward your mail to one primary email address. For example I forward everything to my gmail.
On each mail service, I will try to mark all incoming as read and forward a copy to my main mail services. That way if I ever need to reply from a specific domain I still can.