I'm writing this post from my beloved linux workstation... I think this may be one of the last few ever made from this machine :(
It's been awhile since this machine worked smoothly; it's now having problem just booting up & showing anything on the monitor. It could be the video card (earlier I thought it was the monitor I have at home—that was also dying!), it could be the AGP port on the motherboard... Whatever it is, I shall miss it when it finally dies.
Today, precipitated by a mini family crisis, the rare occasion of my sisters and I being in the same place for a short time span made it possible for us to say our very first "family rosary"!!!! Deo gratias!
What a gift it is to be able to share with my sisters the beautiful prayer and to say the rosary together! May it be the first amongst many to come!
Lunchtime reading reveals how science reveals simple solutions to combat infection:
This article (from one year ago) described how ion-imbalanced salt solution can help kill bacteria in the most chronic wounds. Interesting chemistry there!
A more recent article on how honey (yes, that's honey!) may combat increasingly antibiotic-resistant bacteria in infections found on chronic wounds and burns. While honey may have been part of "homeopathy" for many centuries, it is only now that the "scientific" circle begin to acknowledge its effectiveness.
I realized today, after finding out that it is the feastday of St Teresa d'Avila, one of my newly acquainted favorite saints, that THIRTEEN years ago, I landed in Singapore. Today onwards I am entering my FOURTEENTH year in Singapore. How time flies!
Happy 13th Anniversary to me.. and St Teresa, ora pro me ;)
Lennart Nilsson took amazing pictures of a baby in the womb in its earliest days. Too beautiful not to link!
Technically it's been slightly more than one year since the World Youth Day '05 in Cologne. It's also been more than one year since I intended to start a project about the WYD.
It was an ambitious project (upon hindsight...) that I could no way pull off given my current work. (Especially not after board meetings when the board of directors came down hard on us!) So over these past few months, after stolen half-hour sessions (and slightly longer sessions over the weekend), I decided to focus on compiling just a SURVEY and put it together; a survey whose aim is to study the participants of the WYD and its effects, if any, on vocation.
It was inspired by stories I heard from the testimonies of those who attended the WYD '93 in Denver. Many priests & nuns and other consecrated persons I encountered online mention that they went to the WYD '93, and for some, it was a turning point. I'd like to know how far this assertion goes.
So please, anyone who's been to the WYD or who knows anyone who's gone to Cologne for WYD last year, please help me by participating in this (short & sweet!) survey. I hope to run this for one month or two and publish whatever result that may be garnered after analysis, on this site.
Any feedback or technical glitch, please write to me at catholiclinuxmonkey AT gmail DOT com. THANK YOU!
Hectic two weeks. More to come. Can barely write short coherent sentences. Here's a nerd test. Can't believe I took this test. And scored this.
.... and here's another one!
I notice I had not posted anything to this blog on the month of October for the last two years. I'd like to think that I must've been praying the rosary!!! ;)
The rosary is a dear prayer for me. I too, owe the rosary for my conversion. When I was a child, my parents went for a tour around Europe and bought us some rosaries from their stop at the Vatican. That was my first rosary; other than a crucifix and an image of Our Lady, there's nothing accompanying it to suggest it was to be used for prayer!
Many years later in high school, in Singapore, I met a group of Catholic friends and a Catholic teacher (who later became my godmother). We used to pray the rosary in an empty classroom everyday before class started. In the first few weeks, they used to 'skip' me because I didn't know the mysteries nor the 'accompanying' prayers outside the repeated Pater and ten Aves. Through this humble daily prayer meeting, Our Lady works to bring us ever closer to her Son. That teacher of mine had assisted many of her students to find their religious vocations, and I came to know and love the Church more after those two years. She became my godmother when I received the Sacrament of Confirmation at the end of those two years.
The two links below reflect on the rosary:
1. A story by a priest in China, baptized in secret and raised in persecution, about how the rosary kept their faith alive.
2. A short reflection by a Dominican, defending the rosary whom some had derided as being "the illiterate's substitute for reading the Gospel." (courtesy of "A moment with Mary")
The simplicity of the RosaryIt may seem strange that a prayer as simple as the Rosary is particularly associated with the Dominicans. One seldom thinks of Dominicans as simple people. We have the reputation to write long and complex works on theology. However, we fought to preserve the Rosary. It is our sacred heritage. (...)
But why is this simple prayer so dear to the Dominicans? Perhaps it is because at the heart of our theological tradition there is an aspiration towards simplicity. Saint Thomas Aquinas once said that we were unable to understand God because God is so perfectly simple. (...)
There is a false simplicity, of which we must rid ourselves: that is the way of simplifying everything, from those who always have an easy answer to everything, those who know all things in advance. They are either too lazy or too incompetent to think. There is also a true simplicity that comes from the heart, the simplicity that can be seen in the eyes of the beholder. One can only reach that point by proceeding slowing, with God’s grace.
The Rosary is simple indeed, very simple. But we can aspire to its wise and deep simplicity and therefore find peace.
Br. Timothy Radcliffe, o.p.
From his “Pray the Rosary Seminar” given in Lourdes, October 1998
3. And lastly, (how can I forget!) here's a link on How to pray the Rosary
There are so many people and intentions to remember that we can bring up in our Rosary prayers!
O Mary conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee!
