The results of voting in this year's Catholic Blog Awards have been posted. Thanks to everyone for voting. Although I did not win in any of the categories, I am quite happy with the results. This was the first year I have been nominated, and there were many excellent blogs in each competition.
Please go to the Catholic Blog Awards and vote. Blog by-the-Sea has been nominated in several categories. Other terrific blogs are also nominated, so that it is an opportunity to find new great blogs as well as to vote for your favorites.
The nominations for the 2008 Catholic Blog Awards have begun and will continue through February 29. Anyone who would like to do so can create a free account and nominate a blog for any of several categories. Here are the rules for nominations.
Thanks to Elena Maria Vidal at Tea at Trianon, who has honored me and several other bloggers with the "Excellent Blog Award." The rules are that those who receive it must award it to at least 10 other excellent blogs. You can award it to as many people as you like, and it doesn't matter whether they have already received it.
Here is my list of 10 blogs to which I hereby award the Excellent Blog Award:
In the Light of the Law, Carmelite Sisters, Father Adam Gonzales, OCDS,
Coffee and Diapers, The Foothills of Carmel, Carmen's Chatter,
Pause for Prayer, Flos Carmeli, Me Monk. Me Meander., and the recently reactivated Pontifications.
Although Trumba offered me the same rate for coming years as for the past year, I have decided that the time I have put into keeping the calendar in the sidebar could be put to better use given the amount of use the calendar gets.
(The blog will continue the same as it is now, by the way. The only thing that will change is the event calendar that you see as an item in the sidebar.)
I can no longer update the calendar, but it has events posted through December and a few for next year, and can still be read through early January. I am planning to delete it New Year's Day.
When I delete the calendar, I am planning to add a new page with links to the websites of various retreat centers and other websites that show upcoming events that may be of interest to Catholics, including those who live in southern California and those who may be planning a visit to this part of the world.
The amazon.com "aStore" in the sidebar, called "Books by-the-Sea," is finally organized. I'm sure I will continue to add books to it when I think of something I forgot or come across something good.
I have noticed that for some of the out-of-print books, the aStore page will tell you that you cannot buy the book from this store but can click on a link to buy it directly from amazon.com. That just means it is only available used. I don't get my few cents on the purchase of used books. I didn't set up the aStore for the money, and I won't get much anyway, so no worries. I don't care whether anybody buys a book new or used.
For the same reason, feel free to go to the ICS Publications site and buy an ICS Publications book that you saw on Books by-the-Sea. The friars at the Institute of Carmelite Studies will probably get a little bit more money for the sale if you buy it from them directly, and it helps to support their apostolate.
The Church History books are set up more or less in chronological order, or at least more or less by century. As a result, books by the same author will not be together, and the authors' names are not in alphabetical order.
The books in the "Prayer" category are grouped by subject matter, more or less, but there is no overall direction. The books are not in alphabetical order by author, and they don't progress from simple prayer to contemplation either. They are set up with the idea that browsing would be easier if they are grouped loosely by subject matter. So several books on praying the rosary are together, for example.
Anything earned on the book sales will help to cover the costs of the blog. However, the purpose of the aStore is to help people find books on prayer and Church history so that they can know their faith better. Enjoy.
I have started to assemble an amazon.com "astore." A link to the new "Books by-the-Sea" astore is in the sidebar, just below the amazon.com "Recently Mentioned" widget that was already there. If you click on the link, it will take you to the amazon page with books on whatever book is featured at the moment. In the sidebar of that page, you can click on "Church History "Prayer" to go to the pages with books in that category. Don't be surprised at what is missing, as I have not had time to finish either category.
Also, I can't control which books show up in the widget, so I'm going to have to decide whether to delete the books that amazon has no picture for -- or send them a picture of my copy in some cases.
Right now, it is experimental, as it took a while to assemble. If people use it, I may add another category. If not, I may discontinue it.
Meanwhile, in early December, I may discontinue the Trumba calendar ("Blog by-the-Sea Calendar"). When I started the calendar over a year ago, it was free. A year ago, the price went up to nearly $100 per month for a single user. However, people who had had the free blog calendars were offered a very low price for the first year. I do not know yet whether I will still have a low price for the next year. If the calendar goes up to the regular price, it will be cost-prohibitive. Instead, I may add a page that links to various other sites with their own southern California event calendars rather than keep a calendar of my own. As this will fall early in Advent, with Advent and Christmas events on the calendar, I will post another warning before it is deleted if that is what will happen.
The Bride and the Dragon (love the name!) is a new blog for Stephen Hand, who ended his TCR News not too long ago. It looks great and has some interesting, reflective posts to start, including today's The Relation Between the Study of Theology and the Interior Life, an excerpt from The One God by Fr. Reginald Garrigou LaGrange, which begins:
There is often too great a separation between study and the interior life; we do not sufficiently observe that beautiful gradation spoken of by St. Benedict which consists in: reading, cogitation, study, meditation, prayer and contemplation. . . .
About 3 months after his old blog site was hacked and then brought back on line again, and about one month after moving his blog to Wordpress, Fr. Alvin Kimel has announced that he will stop blogging. The very personal message was posted on Pontifications on Wednesday, saying that the decision followed his recent trip to Ireland and describing his own deep feelings of hurt since the situation in the Episcopal Church led to his departure to the Catholic Church 2 years ago. He was ordained a priest in the Catholic Church in December, 2006.
While he was in Ireland, or shortly after his return, the old Pontifications website went down and has never returned. Some of the articles from the old site were salvaged and posted on the new Wordpress site. The posts added to the new site over the past month include photos from Ireland and one remarkable post titled "Renewing the Renewed Liturgy", as well as his touching message of farewell.
It is not the first time he has spoken of ending his blogging. He wrote about the possibility soon after his conversion to Catholicism. Pontifications had been an Anglican blog, on an Anglican hosted site, during the time when he wrote through his struggles over the Episcopal Church's decision to approve Gene Robinson as bishop. He blogged through the decision making over Anglican, Catholic and Orthodox theology. Well before he announced his move, he was prompting blog comments like one I remember: "You have decided which girl you want to dance with, what is stopping you?" or something. He wrote then that the blog would have to change or end, as his decision had been made and it no longer served its original purpose.
Many readers encouraged him to continue, and he has done so for 2 more years (a total blogging time of May 2004 to May 2007 on the old site, according to Kendall Harmon. [Updated July 2: Kendall Harmon's Titusonenine blog now reports that the main problem with the old Pontification site may have been fixed, although the servers are still somewhat unstable. Pontifications (original site) was up for a few minutes today and then down again. If the main problem is solved, I will restore the old link to the original Pontifications site to the blog list in the sidebar here.]
The more recent changes in the blog have been somewhat noticeable, including the loss of the old look of the once Anglican blog, the loss of the archives, and little posted over the past month since his return from Ireland. The end of Pontifications is a significant loss, especially for those like me who remember it from its Anglican days and enjoyed it in its Catholic days as well.
I hope that many will keep Father Kimel in their prayers as he struggles with the pain described in his farewell post, and that we will hear more from him in the future.
Kendall Harmon has a post about Father Kimel's blog and his journey, with links to several other blogs that have posts about it, some with interesting comments. Glory to God for All Things is among those other blogs with comments.
I just learned that Father Al Kimel has moved his Pontifications website to a new Wordpress site. Here is a link to the new Pontifications site, which has a new and impressive look. The old Pontifications site (temporarily down) will still have the older posts, although he moved much of it to the new site.
I am receiving spam comments of a vulgar nature that are getting past the existing authentication software. Unless that stops, all comments will have to be held for approval. The spam is coming in from a variety of IP addresses, although it appears to be all from one source, so hopefully Typepad can find a way to stop the spammer shortly. Meanwhile, if you want to post a comment, please do so, and I will get to it as soon as I can.
Last night, I posted a video kindly sent to me by e-mail by another blogger, which I deleted this morning. I deleted the video because I learned that it is rights protected and was for private viewing only, perhaps also involving issues of French law that may differ in some respects from U.S. law. If you downloaded that video, please do not post it anywhere or pass it on, as I posted it in error. Thank you.
I have updated many of the "Categories" for blog entries shown in the sidebar. Some of them were becoming difficult to open because there were too many posts in one page. A couple of category pages were even freezing.
With the new categories, it is also easier to see what you may find on this blog. For example, what was formerly the "History" category has been divided into "History - General" and into several different "Church History" categories divided according to time frame. The old "Current Affairs" category is now divided into several different subcategories, each devoted to a particular topic.
For people who come to this blog from "Google" searches linked to a category that no longer exists, that will of course cause some difficulty for a while. Similarly, some Google searches may link to an old category that still exists, but the post they are seeking may have been moved to a different category. Hopefully, the list of new categories will help them fiind what they are looking for.
You can always e-mail me if you cannot find a particular post that you really want, and I will either remember where I put it, or can probably find it quickly for you.
Some of the category pages are getting too long. Difficulty opening them seems related to the amount of material stored in the category. I don't think I can create a page 2 for a category, so I am going to start dividing them. Temporarily, the 'History" and "Music" categories now have a "History 2007" and "Music 2007" category, but the names don't make sense. As time permits, I will divide them some other way, such as "Christmas Music," "Gregorian Chant," or "Medieval History", "Early Church", and that sort of thing.
Meanwhile, I have finally finished a very lengthy post on Church history from 741 to 1003, which I will post in a minute. It is a continuation of the work I started a couple of months ago in response to challenges concerning whether Christianity caused the Dark Ages and what Christianity, as a faith, has contributed to science. I have not posted a lot for the last couple of weeks while I was finishing the work on that, so thanks for bearing with me if you check this blog from time to time and didn't see much new. I tried to post some quotations from the era I was writing about that didn't fit the subject matter of the already lengthy history post. I am going to set the medieval history/apologetics issue aside for a while again to focus on other things for a while before I get back to it and finish Part V.
Abbot Joseph, sometimes quoted here, has moved his blog from its former blogspot location to a new location on Wordpress. He is still learning the software at Wordpress, so go over and give him support at the new Word Incarnate.
Nominations are open for the 2007 Catholic Blog Awards. Nominate your favorite blogs.
I am finding some problems with this blog, particularly when viewed in Firefox. Some of them had to do with difficulties loading YouTube videos. I have re-loaded several videos, which appears to have solved that problem, but I have not yet checked every category to be sure there are no remaining YouTube difficulties. Meanwhile, I am also finding that the site sometimes freezes when viewed in Firefox. That may be because of posts written in Word, or some other application, and then pasted into typepad. I am trying to identify the problem posts and correct them. Meanwhile, please e-mail me if you are having problems viewing this blog (grey boxes that cover parts of a post, pages freezing, etc.). That will help me to be sure to idenfity each post that may have a problem.
Lighter posting this week-end has been due to time spent identifying the source of the problem and correcting it.
I have taken some links out of the sidebar temporarily, such as links to various prayer websites. As we are about a week away from Advent, I wanted to update the collection of Advent Calendars from last year and put those back into the sidebar. I also wanted to make it easier for people looking for Mass schedules to find the links for local parish locations and retreat houses. That also let me move the blog calendar closer to the top of the sidebar.
I have also changed the books in the "French Bookstore" feature near the bottom of the sidebar and added a couple of Gregorian Chant CD's to it. One of those (the one from the monks at Solesmes) is actually from amazon.com, and not from French Amazon.
There is actually a 3-CD set of Gregorian chants for Advent and Christmas from the monks at Solesmes available from Amazon France, which I did not see on amazon.com, but the feature that lets me create picture links would not recognize the number. So, if you would like to get someone a 3-CD package of Gregorian Chant music for Advent and Christmas, here is a link for the Monks of Solesmes' collection Le Mystère de Noël
Sister Janet Fearns, FMDM, an Italian to English translator for the Vatican, mentioned in her blog, that she has updated the Pause for Prayer website. The updated page has wonderful resources, including instructions on how to pray the rosary, stations of the cross, links to Vatican Radio, e-cards, and many other resources. The "about us" page for the site mentions Sister Janet, Bishop Valerian D'Souza of Pune, India, and Anglican Clifford Birchall.
She has added a "Prayer Board" to that page, where readers can post their individual prayer requests for others to pray with and for them.
I already had a link to Sister Janet's blog, which is also called "Pause for Prayer", in the "Insightful Blogs" list in the sidebar. I have added a link to the Pause for Prayer website in the list of "More Prayer Websites."
I have also added a couple of new buttons, in addition to the "Library Thing" button that I added a month or so ago. One of the buttons links to the Angelus, in Latin and English, from EWTN. The other is a link to Sister Janet's page on how to pray the rosary. I already had another link for "How to Say the Rosary" under "More Prayer Websites", and the old rosary link still links to the instructions on the St. Charles Borromeo Catholic Church website. As a result, there are now links to 2 different sets of instructions on how to say the rosary: the old link to St. Charles Borromeo Catholic Church's instructions, and the new button linking to the Pause for Prayer instructions.
July 31 is the feast day of St. Ignatius of Loyola, one of the founders of the Society of Jesus ("Jesuits"), and the 450th annniversary of his death. This year is also the 500th anniversary of the birth of another of the order's founders, St. Francis Xavier.
In an interview with Zenit published today, Father Peter Hans Kolvenbach, father general of the Jesuits, said that his hopes for Jesuits in this year of celebration are that "the Jesuits will revive in their lives and in their apostolate the three charisms that they embodied: to encounter God and unite oneself to him through the work to lead everything to its fulfillment, as Ignatius did; to proclaim passionately the Gospel as Xavier; and to deepen one's spiritual life as Faber."
This post is a tribute to the Jesuits whose hard work contributes to the internet, with appreciation for their work although I only know them by their writing, with wishes for a blessed feast day, and with a few quotes of things they have said that I think reflect those charisms:
Father Paul Andrews, S.J., of Sacred Space, the online prayer site of the Irish Jesuits. Father Andrews, whose picture and introduction are in the Latest Space newsletter, has been writing the weekly meditations for the site for some time and now is moving from the Jesuit Center of Spirituality to the Jesuit Communications Center, where he will work more closely with the editor of Sacred Space, according to the newsletter. His thought for this week reflects on the 450th anniversary of the death of St. Ignatius of Loyola and on looking back over the years of our own lives, saying: "The God we serve is a God of surprises; retrospect shows
that it is his plans, not ours, that counted. He does not call us to
help him out of a jam. He calls us because he loves us."
Father James V. Schall, S.J., is a professor of political philosophy at Georgetown University and a frequent author of articles for Ignatius Insight (a publication of Ignatius Press which, of course, was founded by another Jesuit, Father Joseph Fessio, S.J.). His latest article there is a review of Ann Coulter's book, Godless. In Part II of an interview posted there last August, Father Schall offered this observation among others: "Our souls ought not to be
flat, we should be brave. I am suspicious of someone, particularly a Catholic,
or a student, who can get excited about nothing of the important things.
But it has to happen. You cannot force it. Some people will be moved by Augustine, others by Bonaventure, others by Aquinas, some by all three.
And as Chesterton says, it is quite possible just to be moved by the wonder
of things, even by tragedy, and more unsettlingly, by joy."
Mark Mossa, S.J., a Jesuit scholastic nearing the time of his ordination, whose blog You Duped Me Lord was the winner of this year's Catholic Blog Awards "Best Blog by a Seminarian" category. He says his latest article "On the Ministry of Writing" would also include the ministry of blogging. It appears in the summer 2006 issue of Light & Life (Downloadable in .pdf format). About the kind of thing he is writing now, he says, "I'm not just writing academic papers these days. I am writing about people and events that bring me closer to God, or that challenge my relationship with God. I'm addressing larger concerns like war and peace, or describing intimate moments like rubbing a dying woman's feet. I'm trying to capture in words and images how God is made apparent in the messiness of life."
Mike Rogers, S.J., another Jesuit seminarian whose blog, A Prayer for Generosity, was recently mentioned by Mark Mossa, S.J. Mike's blog has posted the first part of a post on St. Ignatius Day, mentioning live Maine lobsters for the feast that will follow that day's Mass at Georgetown University, where he is working as a hospital chaplain, pointing to "the reality of the importance of celebration". He writes, "In celebrating Ignatius, we celebrate the saint of course, but we also celebrate the society of which we are a part, and I think we celebrate being Jesuits, and just what that is. For some of us it is a celebration of having survived the year, for others it is a moment of profound gratitude and joy. . . .
"The feast of Ignatius is not about those live Maine lobsters, and I
have been without them on Ignatius day before, but that extravagant
moment reminds us of the specialness of the occasion which is born out
of the joy of our brotherhood, the grace of our vocation, and the
beauty of the world in which we are called to act as companions of
Christ."
Happy feast day, to Jesuits everywhere -- and for those of you at Georgetown, enjoy the lobster!
I added a new search engine feature to the side bar. Please let me know what you think of it, either good or bad, and whether you think it is helpful enough to keep.
I have some misgivings about it, but felt that the usefulness outweighs the sources of my hesitation. It lets me provide a "search" feature that includes posts in such blogs as Pontifications, Sacramentum Vitae, The Pertinacious Papist, Ressourcement, Apolonio Latar, etc., which I think could be very helpful to people searching for discussions on a specific theological issue. It also brings together some of the best devotional blogs, including Flos Carmeli, Moniales, Word Incarnate, Pause for Prayer, and A Penitent Blogger, whose blogs might not otherwise be as readily searchable together. The concept is one I thought was very good.
There are also disadvantages. Among these, the search website is not Catholic, and I cannot control the advertising or the other links that come up with search terms. Thus, for example, a search for "Anglican" brought up advertisements for Anglican rosaries and other things that I would not advertise if it were up to my choice. Those links are not to items in the various blogs I included in the search engine; they are links to advertisers that apparently pay the company that provides the search feature. Sometimes the ads are funny, such as "Find your chant ancestors now" on a word search for chant -- ah, promises that ancestry.com can solve it all in a 14-day trial!
Another cause for hesitation was the name of the search engine provider itself, "Rollyo" (with the motto "Roll your own search engine"). I didn't like the drug-related motto, and I don't expect my readers to like it either.
Lastly, it does not work as well as I would like. When I tried the word "Anglican", I got a large predominance of posts over the years in Pontifications, and not as many matches to other blogs as I would have liked to have seen on the first 2 or 3 pages of matches. So it may not be as useful as I am hoping it may be.
Give me your thoughts if you try it, either by e-mail or by posting a comment. If I hear that a few people are offended or find it useless, I may drop it. However, I am hoping that it will provide a useful resource for some people.
Bishop Ricardo Blázquez of Bilbao, who is the president of the Spanish Bishops Conference, has set up a blog for Spanish clergy during the World Meeting of Families now ongoing in Valencia. Anyone can leave comments. The blog is in Spanish and is expected to run through July 14. The comments now online, in response to an introductory post, include greetings and words of gratitude, as well as prayer requests from Spain, Mexico, Peru, Columbia, such as this one:
"Gracias Monseñor. Gracias por este blog, es una idea fantástica. Valencia se encuentra a estas horas conmocionada por el accidente del metro. Necesitamos su oración y acompañamiento en estos momentos de tanto dolor. Las familias cristianas estamos muy unidas y necesitamos que nos conforten. Remen con nosotros, mar adentro."
I know only a little Spanish, learned for travel and from Latinos in the office, but here is an effort at translation (corrections will be welcome, along with translations of anything else interesting you find on the Valencia blog):
"Thank you, Monsignor. Thank you for this blog, a fantastic idea. At this time, Valencia is shocked by the metro accident. In this moment, we need your prayer and your support for so much pain. The Christian families are very united and need to be comforted. Row with us out to sea."
As Pope Benedict XVI arrives in Valencia next week-end, there may be some interesting entries there. There were none today, which may possibly reflect the mood in Valencia today in the wake of yesterday's train accident.
Meanwhile, the Pope has sent a message of condolence to the archbishop of Valencia concerning the people who were killed and injured in yesterday's subway train derailment in the city. The train reached twice its normal rate of speed going into a curve according to the Regional Transport Minister, leading to speculation that the driver may have fainted or had some other such problem (CNN article).
An earlier post about the meeting has more links related to the meeting and Valencia. The website of the Archdiocese of Valencia features the day's news stories online.
There are 2 new features in the sidebar now.
First, I added a 32-book collection in Library Thing. For now, at least, it is a collection of books that may be of interest to people who are thinking about becoming Catholic. The books in the list are also good reading for Catholics, including several by Pope Benedict XVI and Louis Bouyer, among other authors. The list was compiled from a combination of sources, including Pontifications' lists of books for people exploring Catholicism and for Episcopalian priests who are becoming Catholic priests, some suggestions from comments on Pontifications that were from authors I respect, the list previously compiled by our Church of the Nativity's Disciples in Mission facilitators for Catholic parishioners who want to broaden their knowledge of their faith, and a few recommendations of my own.
In the Library Thing page, if you click on a book, you will see several options. If you want to buy the book, select "amazon", and you will be taken to the amazon.com page offering the book. If you want to find the book at a library or shop for a used copy, select "social info", and then look at the options in blue at the top left of the page that opens. You can click on "OCLC find at a library" and enter your zip code, and the site will let you know if there is a copy in a library near you. You can also click on "abebooks" or "alibris" to search more sites than amazon for a used copy. Additionally, if you click on the number of members who have listed the same book in their Library things lists, you will see a list of other books similarly tagged.
The other new feature here is an Events Calendar primarily for southern California events of interest to Catholics. In the next week or so, I will also add some events of national and international interest, such as the upcoming papal journey to Spain, perhaps with links to the EWTN page with TV broadcast times. The "Upcoming Events from Blog's Calendar" feature is at the very bottom of the sidebar. The events include such things as retreats at the Mission San Luis Rey, the Coronation Mass at the Mainly Mozart Festival, a Getty Museum exhibit about the Cult of the Saints, a Gregorian Chant Ladymass, and such wholesome family activities as Family Day at the County Fair. You can e-mail me if you have an event that you would like to have me add, or if you see any errors in the calendar (e-mail link in sidebar).
To keep the main column as long as the sidebar, I have increased the number of recent posts that will show up on the main page to 15.
For Episcopalian clergy thinking of becoming Catholic clergy, here are links for sites about the Pastoral Provision for Anglican clergy who want to become Catholic clergy, and for the Anglican Use Society.
For Episcopalian lay people thinking of becoming Catholic, here are links for sites about the process of becoming Catholic and about why Episcopalians should become Catholics.
If you are web surfing looking for the latest news on the General Convention, try Titus One Nine (the regular site), Titus One Nine Plan B (the blogspot site that should work when the regular site crashes due to temporary overuse) Gen Con '06 (the regular page), Gen Con '06 Plan B (the blogspot site when the regular site "wipes out"), and Anglican Mainstream (the U.K. site that usually has the major news stories online quickly without crashing).
If you are new to Catholic blogs and want to try the better ones for the first time, check out the ones in the blogroll in the sidebar. Catholic blogs that mention the Episcopal Church, not all by former Episcopalians, include Pontifications, Canterbury Tales, and Amy Welborn's Open Book.
Try the Category here on "The Church Today" too, and you can e-mail me if you are looking for something specific and don't find it (e-mail link in the sidebar).
Clare Krishan, who has been my one most frequent commenter, and who is also a regular commenter elsewhere, is mentioned today by Amy Welborn's Open Book blog for several contributions, including a linke to the Pause for Prayer website and Pause for Prayer Blog of Sister Janet, who is the main English-speaking voiceover person for papal liturgies on television. The blog is new. I especially liked a posting she had called Digging Up the Past about the archeologists working around Rome, sometimes under difficult conditions. And there is also this tribute to those about to be ordained. I have added it to my "Insightful Blogs" list accordingly.
Also worthy of attention, Justin Nickelsen, who has been on a sort of hiatus from blogging, at Ressourcement: Restoration in Catholic Theology, since March, added a comment to his own March 24 post the other day apologizing for being too busy to blog (no apology necessary), and linking to his wife's blog, Coffee and Diapers. Her blog, shared with 2 other Catholic mothers with young children, is about mothering. While not on the subject matter of my list of links, it is refreshing.
Here is a little information gathered partly from Technorati and Site Meter about Blog by-the-Sea, who reads it, and who links to it in other blogs.
Currently, Site Meter shows the readers are from the following countries:
U.S. 68%
U.K. 7%
Australia 5%
Germany 3%
Norway, Portugal, Phillipines, Argentina and Canada 2% each
Mexico, Italy, Greece, Cote d'Ivoire, France, Austria and Switzerland 1% each
The percentage breakdown by continent is:
North America 71%
Europe 19%
Oceania/Australasia 5%
South America 2%
Asia 2%
Africa 1%
Readers' language preference (apparently gathered from the first choice language selection in browsers):
English 91.67%
Spanish 3.13%
French 2.08%
German 2.08%
Portugese 1.04%
Here are a few of the blogs that have linked to Blog by-the-Sea in posts over the past year:
Ressourcement: Restoration in Catholic Theology
And here are a few more blogs and bloglink pages with links to Blog by-the-Sea in their sidebar:
Best of the Web Blog Directory
Thanks to all!
On Sunday morning, I lit a candle by our beautiful statue of St. Joseph for the Pontificator Al Kimel's father, who died on Saturday, and for Jeremy Hand, who has suffered from brain damage since the evening of St. Patrick's Day, and for their families. Both are people I do not know except through the internet. Others, too, have come to tell them they care, knowing them through their writing on the internet, and praying.
The notice about the Pontificator's father's passing is here on Pontifications, with 47 messages of sympathy and comfort, and with the Pontificator's message of thanks posted this afternoon. An earlier Pontifications posting on April 16 spoke of his father's situation and long suffering from Alzheimer's Disease.
Yesterday, there was an update on the condition of Jeremy Hand on a special page set up for it here. Jeremy is the son of Stephen Hand, who is the editor of TCR News (Traditional Catholic Reflections). Jeremy fell into a coma following St. Patrick's Day. The April 24 update says:
"Jeremy's remarkable and unmistakable kisses in reponse to direct requests (and at no other time; which shows cognitive processing) when he is not too exhausted continue to uplift us. So many have seen it. Maybe Jeremy then is like a two year old so far. Other than that his condition remains the same. Doctors have all---to a man and woman--- suggested in various ways that we pull the plugs, all of them, including feeding tube ("would he want to live that way?") What shocks me is how much of a euthansia mentality exists in the minds of doctors already. It's all utilitarian critera, morals doesn't come into it. God even less. The nurses seem much more understanding. Nurses bring heart to intellect. They see more, touch, feel more. We will not, cannot, remove a feeding tube. The peace in his face, no pain, and the kisses are enough for us.
"Offered up the Mass today and always for him. Thank you for your spiritual gifts---prayers and Masses--- for him also. Please pray for ALL who are in such conditions and for their families everywhere in the world. So many suffer alone."
Sometimes you don't know what kind of comments someone will get when they mention another blogger in a posting. Justin Nickelsen at Ressourcement has had a couple of surprises lately. I have definitely appreciated his mentioning Blog by-the-Sea twice lately here and here. Yesterday, Justin wrote in response to John Lowell's comments on Archbishop Levada's role as Archbishop of San Francisco, as compared to his role as head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith . John is a frequent commenter on Ressourcement. (Update: Justin's post and John's response about his cat later were removed from that blog.)
In responding comments, John wrote a very personal message about his very sick cat suffering kidney
failure last night, asking for prayers.
It brought to mind a posting that Al Kimel wrote last October when he lost his own cat to renal failure and neurological failure. The Pontificator then mused about the question of whether we will see our animals in heaven. Surely there are those more analytically minded who would say we will not, but it is a comforting thought, when a much loved pet is sick, to think we will.
What a wonderful thing it is that, even when we sometimes disagree with each other on these "blogs" we have created over the past few years, we turn to our blogs in times of trouble and reach out to the people we might never have known if not for the internet and the rise of blogdom.
Photo: My two healthy pets.
Voting for the 2006 Catholic Blog Awards is now underway and will continue until noon on February 21.
Nominations for the 2006 Catholic Blog Awards will continue until Friday, February 3, 2006 at 3:00 P.M. Central Standard Time here. You can nominate your favorite Catholic blogs in any of several categories.
| You Are The Stuffing |
 People miss you if you're gone - but they're not sure why. |
This weblog is the future home of Blog by-the-Sea, the continuation of a blog now located at:
Check out the existing website and post a comment if you like. The blog will move to this new site around the beginning of December, depending on how soon everything is set up here.
