Thursday is the Day Before Friday!

And this Friday is the last day of school before we take off next week for Holy Week and Spring break.
So we are all a little giddy.
We have had a lot going on this week actually...
Lets see,
Monday night our Bible Study watched the first video in the "Catholicism" series. It was just excellent.
Tim is hoping to get to some of the evenings, so he will have to watch it to catch up. There is going to be a good bit of study in between!
Tuesday was fun! We had our "Fallacy Detective" group, and so for a change, we all went over to the Fallston Library to see a gentleman impersonate Benjamin Franklin. It was really quite good, I thought, but the kids got a little squirrely in the back. It was packed and all the good seats in front were taken.
I enjoyed it though! Tuesday was also a very productive school day!
Yesterday was a busy day with school, and John had Shakespeare in the afternoon. I got together with some friends and we had a little chat.
I am helping teach our Parish Confirmation class. I think it is coming along very well. The kids seem to be enthusiastic about learning about the Faith, and they seem to be progressing every week.
I am encouraged.
Today was Maggie's day at the groomer. She went in a rather stinky puppy, and came out just beautiful!
She always seems to be very happy with the end result, even if she doesn't really enjoy the process.
I am going to have to vacuum everything again though, because she always sheds twice as bad for a couple of days after she gets back.
Well, it's getting late and I must get to sleep! Tomorrow is Shakespeare, and the boys are mostly done with school for the day already!
Very nice indeed. I have to do all the correcting, but that's fine!
I will have a nice day for another reason which I won't share at this time....
May have some new Spring pictures this weekend!

Mary In The Stars...Happy Feast of the Annunciation!

He gives us everything we need, and even brings the stars into alignment to Honor His Mother!

Happy Feast of the Annunciation!

We saw this tonight in the sky, and it was just amazing.....

Does Mary Appear in the Night Sky this Feast of the Annunciation?

All the following is from my good friend and classmate Br. Joshua at Holy Apostles College & Seminary:

On March 25, 2012, millions of Christians (Catholic and Orthodox) will celebrate the “Annunciation” – which commemorates the conception of Jesus. This March 25, there will be a neat astronomical arrangement in the sky, that seems to mesh nicely. See the description below:

The sky will be spectacular in the west after sunset on March 25, 2012, with the waxing crescent moon and the planet Jupiter very close to each other in the evening twilight sky. Plus Venus is nearby – the sky’s brightest planet. You’ll see Jupiter and the moon below Venus in the west after sunset. The famous Pleiades star cluster is above Venus. 

( Image and text from http://earthsky.org/tonight/moon-and-jupiter-closest-in-west-after-sunset-march-25-2012 )

For centuries Mary has been referred to as the “Morning Star”, the popular name of the Planet Venus. In this configuration, the Morning Star appears with the moon at her feet. The Pleiades (from “peleiades” the Greek word for doves) overshadows the Morning Star. Jupiter, the “King Planet” approaches the configuration.  The symbolism is striking. This is a interesting arrangement for the mystery of the Annunciation which heralds Christ’s coming through Mary.

The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Highest will overshadow you; therefore, also, that Holy One who is to be born will be called the Son of God. (Luke 1:35).

“A great sign appeared in the sky, a woman- clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars” (Revelation 12:1)

Ah...

School went very well today. Everyone seems to be getting everything with a minimum of pain and suffering today. That has not been the case lately.
Good job Guys!!

Brilliant...

Weird Politics

Mark Steyn~ National Review's Happy Warrior
March 20, 2012

Seeking respite from the disappointments of the Republican-primary season, I have been in Australia — where, upon every TV or radio appearance, I get asked about the Republican-primary season. News does not travel well; it gets winnowed to its essence. Rick Santorum is a crazed, stern-faced theocrat who wishes to impose a Christian version of sharia law on America and round up gays and single mothers. "That's certainly why I'm supporting him," I say.
If there's a follow-up question, it tends to be about why he's demonizing Satan, so to speak. "Well, there's a lot of things said in the heat of a primary campaign," I say. "I'm sure by the time of the convention he and Satan will have patched up their differences. Wouldn't rule out Rick offering the prince of darkness the vice-presidential slot in the interests of unity. Dream ticket, and all that."
Even to those Aussies of a conservative bent, the weirdness of Santorum is a given. I've spent maybe 15 minutes in his company, at a GOP county dinner in southern New Hampshire, where we talked mostly about the Habsburg Empire — his grandfather was a bit of imperial cannon fodder on the Russian front who managed to survive the Great War and get on the boat to Pennsylvania. Santorum didn't seem weird to me — or at any rate no weirder than the normal weirdness quotient required of those who decide to run for president of the United States.
On that night in the Granite State, I said something like, "Wow! Two generations from immigrant to presidential candidate," and Rick said something like, "Only in America." But the old cliches don't exert quite the same pull. After all, we live in fast-moving times: In the course of two generations, what doesn't change? The Habsburg Empire for which Grandpa Santorum fought is dust, and, according to the Vienna Institute of Demography, by mid-century a majority of Austrians under the age of 15 will be Muslim. As I wrote here last year: Salzburg, 1938 — singing nuns, Julie Andrews, "How do you solve a problem like Maria?" Salzburg 2038 — How do you solve a problem like sharia?
Old settled societies appear like a frozen river in my part of New Hampshire: On the surface, all is still. Underneath, the icy water is fast-moving. That's where all the business that really engages Santorum is — and he's not wrong on most of it. As Congressman Mike Pence said a year or two back, "To those who say we should simply focus on fiscal issues, I say you would not be able to print enough money in a thousand years to pay for the government you would need if the traditional family collapses."
But Pence's doomsday scenario is already here: What "traditional" family? Seventy percent of black children are born out of wedlock, as are 70 percent of the offspring of poor white women, as are a majority of Hispanic babies. Forty percent of American children are born outside marriage; among women under 30, a majority of children are. Well, so what? It's the same in Scandinavia, isn't it? Well, not quite. Our progeny are fatter, sicker, riddled with childhood diabetes. Dennis Prager wrote a couple of years ago that Obama saw the United States as a large Sweden. A large Sweden is a contradiction in terms, and out there in the Dependistans of America we're better at being large than being Swedish.
Well, okay, say the Santorum detractors, but you guys are supposed to be the small-government crowd. Why is this any business of the state? A fair point, but one that cuts both ways. Single women are the most enthusiastic constituency for big government: A kiss on the hand may be quite continental, but statism is a girl's best friend. One can argue about whether the death of marriage leads to big government or vice versa, but simply raising the topic shouldn't put one beyond the pale, should it?
Let's take it as read that Rick Santorum is weird. After all, he believes in the sanctity of life, the primacy of the family, the traditional socio-religious understanding of a transcendent purpose to human existence. Once upon a time, back in the mists of, ooh, the mid–20th century, all these things were, if not entirely universal, sufficiently mainstream as to be barely worthy of discussion. Now they're not. Isn't the fact that conventional morality is now "weird" itself deeply weird? The instant weirdification of ideas taken for granted for millennia is surely mega-weird — unless you think that our generation is possessed of wisdom unique to human history. In which case, why are we broke?
Look, I get the problem with a Santorum candidacy. And I get why he seems weird to Swedes and Aussies, and even Americans. If you're surfing a news bulletin en route from Glee to Modern Family, Santorum must seem off-the-charts weird, like a monochrome episode that's been implausibly colorized from a show too old even for TV Land reruns. It would be healthier to thrash these questions out in the culture, in the movies and novels and pop songs. But Hollywood has taken sides, and the Right has mostly retreated from the field. And somebody has to talk about these things somewhere or other. Our fiscal crisis is not some unfortunate bookkeeping accident that a bit of recalibration by a savvy technocrat can fix. In the United States as in Greece, it is a reflection of the character of a people. The problem isn't that Rick Santorum's weird, but that a government of record-breaking brokeness already busting through its newest debt-ceiling increase even as it announces bazillions in new spending is entirely normal.

The Best Season...

Spring is definitely my favorite season and we are getting a bonus week!
It is still officially winter, but it is 75 degrees, and the trees and flowers have been lulled into a false sense of security and are blooming all over the place.
I went out and got a few shots around the yard....

The buds on the Flowering Pear Tree

Weeping Cherry starting to blossom

Pinking up!

Lemar's Magnolia in full bloom!

This Is Really Cute...

The Most Precious...

 

This image was painted by the daughter of a friend of ours in our parish.
She wanted to paint a message of comfort for those who have lost children in any way, through miscarriage, still birth, or abortion.

 "But Jesus called them unto him, and said, Suffer little children to come unto me, and forbid them not: for of such is the kingdom of God." ~Luke 18:16

Read the story of this work here....