Priestly Vocations
By Fric | July 17, 2010
Over at Fr. Z’s blog, What does the Prayer Really Say?, someone commented that the permanent diaconate should be gotten rid of, at least partially because it has caused or contributed to a decline in the number of priestly vocations.
Well, I obviously couldn’t let that pass, now could I? Go here to read my response to poster Moon1234 over there.
I list 3 main reasons I see for the decline in the number of priestly vocations, though they are by no means the only or probably even the most important. Please let me know here what you think about my reasoning.
Topics: Diaconate | No Comments »
Fric Could Use a Little Help
By Fric | June 16, 2010
This is Fric and I come to you, hat in hand, today to ask if you might be able to make a small donation to me and my family. I lost my job 4 months ago and we have just about run the course of keeping our heads above water. In a couple of months, with the cutbacks we have made and will continue to make, I believe we can keep going with my unemployment compensation.
Until then, however, we could use some help. If you, and anyone else you can tell, could make a smal donation using the PayPal button below, we would be extremely grateful. I am looking to raise about $500 to $1000 as soon as possible. That would go a long way to getting us back on track with the changes we have made to our finances.
Also, I will remember everyone who donates in my prayers daily, before Mass, before the Blessed Sacrament and any time I pray. If you have a specific intention, please let me know.
Topics: Help for Those in Need | No Comments »
Galarraga was Screwed
By Fric | June 3, 2010
Armando Galarraga of the Detroit Tigers took a PERFECT GAME into the 9th inning of tonight’s game against the Indians. Got the first out on a spectactular catch by CF Austin Jackson. Second out was routine. 26 up and 26 down. No hits, no walks. 27th batter hits what appears to be a routine grounder to first. 1B Miguel Cabrera thows to Armando covering first. Looks like the game is in the books. However, the umpire calls the runner safe.
This is a travesty of unimaginal proportions for the pitcher and the team. The runner was CLEARLY out by a full step. MLB has seen 2 official perfect games in May and this would have been the 3rd in 23 days. There hasn’t been more than 1 in a single season since the 1800s. This was history in the making.
While it won’t go in the books as a perfect game, it was. Not only that, it was the only 28 out perfect game in history. Unless the scorer changes the call from a hit to an error of some kind, this will be a 1-hitter. Changing it to an error would not restore the perfect game, but it would at least acknowledge the no hitter.
A travesty of almost Biblical proportions.
Topics: Baseball | No Comments »
Lost Commentary and How It Should Have Ended
By Fric | May 26, 2010
First off, the way it should have ended as seen at The Daily What.
Of course the ending of Lost has the blogosphere all a blogging and the twitterverse all atwitter. What did it mean? Which timeline was real? Was any of it real? What answers did we get and what didn’t we get?
Personally, I was both satisfied and disatisfied with the ending. Early on it was theorized that the island was Purgatory and that all the plane crash survivors were actually dead. It would seem that we had that idea backwards. The new Flash-Sideways scenes where the plane didn’t crash appear to be Purgatory. We can presume that the real world was the island since the people in the Flash-Sideways remembered that reality, not the other way around.
Catholic elements abound of course, from Charlie’s sign of the cross as he died to the church at the end, not to mention the whole Purgatory thing. Many are complaining about the Coexist window behind Jack and his Dad, saying that it means all religions lead to Heaven. That’s open to interpretation, which is true of just about all of the show. I see the window as a sign that all religions have at least SOME truth, but only the Catholic Church has the fullness since the window was a part of the Catholic Church they gathered in. This is a teaching of the Church by the way.
I liked that mostly everyone got a happy ending. Notably absent from the church and outside who we know did die were Michael (apparently doomed to an eternity of muttering on the island), Rousseau, Alex and Anna Lucia. Will they be along later? If the island was the real world, and he’s hanging around there whispering to people… Is he really in Hell or not? Do Rousseau and Alex remain behind because they are the “things” Ben still has to work out? Will they all come along together? What about Anna Lucia? She played a small role in getting Kate and the others sprung, so it would appear she is there in Purgatory along with many others like Charlotte, Whidmore and Daniel’s mother. I presume they will all enter the church later too.
The thing I disliked the most was that all these “Questions” that were setup in the previous episodes weren’t explained. I didn’t need a technical answer to it all, but I would like to have found out the following things:
- Who were the Others and how did they get there? They weren’t the descendents of the people Smokey lived with. His mother killed all of them.
- What is Smokey’s name???? I always thought it should Esau.
- What’s up with the Egyptian style statue? The temple? Why was Smokey not able to go to the temple?
- What was the light? Why did it turn the Man in Black into the smoke monster, but didn’t do that to Desmond and Jack? Was it because they were already (or on the way to being) purified?
- How did Jacob leave the island to touch everyone when the Man in Black couldn’t?
- How could Jacob kill his brother when Mom said it couldn’t happen?
- Time travel and the wheel. Why do the electromagnetic anomalies of the island affect time and space? How or why does the wheel apparently built by the original(?) inhabitants of the island (Man in Black’s people) move the island in space and time?
Seems like #7 and a lot of other things left asquestions were merely plot devices without meaning. To me that is like cheating. It’s saying, “I don’t have a frigging clue to what I am doing, but this sounds cool.”
There’s lots more I would like to know, but these are just off the top of my head.
Topics: Television | No Comments »
Immanentize the Eschaton Watch – Jonah Goldberg
By Fric | March 1, 2010
Immanentize the Eschaton Watch – Jonah Goldberg – The Corner on National Review Online.
Brother HeathenBoy emailed this to Fric and Deke earlier this morning and it was too priceless not to post here. Click, read and enjoy.
Topics: Stupid Utterings | No Comments »
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