There’s an urban legend that the machine depicted in this video is (a) real and (b) made largely of John Deere tractor parts and (c) now donated to the Smithsonian Institution. That’s not true. In reality, it’s a clip of a CGI vid that has been relabeled as part of the hoax. I just think it’s neat, though–and the building of this thing even virtually is pretty amazing in itself.
Month: December 2006
Who’s This?
It’s obviously of a couple at their wedding, but who?
Hard to guess, ain’t it?
Well, here’s a clue–a photo taken last month with the grandkids . . .
If that ain’t enought, I’ll just tell you who it is: It’s Janet and Steve Ray.
Today–Monday–is their 30th anniversary.
HAPPY ANNIVERSARY, GUYS! MANY HAPPY RETURNS!
No New B5 Today. New B5 Tomorrow.
Or soon, anyway.
As folks may know, Babylon 5: The Lost Tales is now being produced as a series of direct-to-DVD mini-movies. The footage for the first pair is in the can. JMS writes:
As I write this, we have finished principal photography on "Babylon 5: The Lost Tales," coming in under budget and finishing a full day ahead of schedule.
This first DVD, entitled "Voices in the Dark," covers the same 72 hour period of time as Sheridan travels on board a Presidential Cruiser en route to Babylon 5 from Minbar for a celebration marking the 10th anniversary of the founding of the Interstellar Alliance. One part of the story follows Sheridan as he picks up an unexpected visitor on the edge of Centauri space, Prince Regent Dius Vintari, and a warning about what will come afterward delivered by the techno-mage, Galen. The other part of the story is set aboard Babylon 5, as Colonel Lochley summons a priest from Earth space to deal with a problem that may have dark supernatural overtones. The two parts of the greater story intersect at certain key plot and thematic points, so that they overlap and complement each other while telling separate, but simultaneous, stories.
READ MORE ABOUT WHAT’S GOING ON AND LOOK AT THE FIRST-RELEASED PRODUCTION PHOTOS.
All Is Forgiven!
Advent, Pre-16 and The Nativity Story
SDG here, inspired by Jimmy’s fascinating post about purple in Advent to offer a few brief thoughts about Advent, including some 30-year-old observations about Christmas commercialism from Pre-16, and a plug for The Nativity Story — as well as (ahem) my coverage of it at Decent Films.
Every year at this time, of course, countless Christian families struggle with the annual pre-Christmas hype, which now seems to begin shortly after Halloween, and is in full swing by Thanksgiving. The notion of Advent as a distinct season of preparation, of recapitulating Israel’s long anticipation of her Messiah, seems lost amid a hectic welter of consumerism and commercialism.
As a result, lots of people are "Christmased out" long before the 25th. Forget about the Octave of Christmas — let alone the traditional 12 days — let’s just bring on New Year’s and get the whole "holiday season" over and done with for another year.
Of course there’s also the annual anti-commercialism backlash (for all the good it does), and the "Keep Christ is Christmas" campaign. At the same time, it may be worth noting that the evils of Christmas consumerism may have been slightly exaggerated.
For a couple of years now, a 1977 essay by then-Cardinal Ratzinger on Christmas commercialism has been getting some attention, probably because of his ascension to the Chair of Peter. Last year it was cited here, then this year it cropped up in the paper I write for, the National Catholic Register ("Have a B16 Christmas"). The official Yankee cap tip, though, goes to Wheat and Weeds for printing the following excerpt in full:
Nowadays a theologian or preacher is all but expected to heap more or less sarcastic criticism on our popular way of celebrating Christmas and, thus, to contrast impressively the sentimentality of our celebration with the reality of the first Christmas. Christmas, we are told, has been commercialized irredeemably and has degenerated into a senseless marketing frenzy; its religiosity has become tacky.
Of course, such criticism is largely justified, even though it might too readily forget that, behind the facade of business and sentimentality, the yearning for something purer and greater is not entirely extinguished; indeed, that the sentimental framework often provides the protecting shield behind which hides a noble and genuine sentiment that is simply reluctant to expose itself to the gaze of the other.
The hectic commercialism is repugnant to us, and rightly so: for it is indeed utterly out of place as a commemoration of the hushed mystery of Bethlehem, of the mystery of the God who for us made himself a beggar (2 Corinthians 8:9). And yet, underneath it all, does it not originate in the notion of giving and thus the inner urgency of love, with its compulsion to share, to give of oneself to the other? And does not the notion of giving transport us directly into the core of the mystery that is Christmas?
In the offertory prayer of the Christmas Vigil liturgy, we ask God for the grace to receive with joy his everlasting gifts that come to us in the celebration of Christ’s birth. Thus the concept of gift-giving is squarely anchored in this liturgy of the Church and, at the same time, we are made aware of the primal mode of all giving at Christmas: that God, on this holy night, desired to make himself into a gift to mankind, that he turned himself over to us.
The one genuine Christmas gift to mankind, to history, to each one of us, is none other than Jesus Christ himself. Even those who do not believe him to be God incarnate will have to admit that he has enriched and gifted the inner existence of generations upon generations.
So there you have it. Maybe you don’t have to feel guilty every time you set your foot in a mall or order another package from Amazon.com. OTOH, there are probably better things you can be doing as well, so…
With five kids, Suzanne and I are always looking for ways to make Advent more special and, well, more Adventy. I’m definitely looking forward to checking out the book Jimmy mentioned, The Catholic Home, to see how we might expand or enhance our family practices.
FWIW, here are a few quick notes about Advent in our house. If you have any suggestions you’d like to share, by all means note ’em in the combox!
As part of our effort to minimize the pre-Christmas hype and accent the distinctive nature of Advent, we wait until the third week of Advent — the week of the pink candle on the Advent wreath, the week of special joy at reaching the halfway mark — to trim the tree and hang lights on the house. (Actually, depending on the weather, we might hang lights earlier, but we don’t light them until the third week.)
We do an annual Jesse tree with OT and NT readings for every day of Advent. (Not the one in this example, but it gives you the idea.)
While it doesn’t directly relate to the meaning of the season, of course as Christmas approaches we watch It’s a Wonderful Life. Last year we watched The March of the Wooden Soldiers, and probably will again. Perhaps this year we’ll watch some version of A Christmas Carol too (I like ’em all).
And, starting this year, I believe we’ll have a new Advent tradition: watching THE NATIVITY STORY (opening in theaters today), the first major Hollywood movie that focuses on the real real meaning of Christmas since, well, practically ever. Hopefully we’ll catch in in theaters this weekend; next year we’ll watch it on DVD.
Jimmy Akin’s Store
Back in the early days of the blog, I tried keeping a page of recommended resources for folks, and I meant to add to it whenever I recommended a new one. That way if someone had a question, for example, about what Bible translation or Greek study tool I recommend, they could look on the recommendations page and find out.
This proved to be impractical. Blogging software is not set up to make maintaining this kind of page easy, and it proved too difficult and cumbersome to fish the page out of the archives and add to it (and remember to do this), and so the page fell into desuetude.
Things change fast on the Internet, though, and Amazon.com has now come up with a tool that allows me to do this kind of thing much more easily. They call the tool an "aStore," and they introduced it in a beta version a few months ago, asking people to test it out and give them feedback. I tested it out, and knew immediately that it wasn’t anywhere near flexible enough to be very useful, but they’ve now added new functionality that allows me to use it for the kind of standing recommendations page that I’d wanted early on.
In other words, I don’t have to fight the software any more, trying to press it into a purpose it’s not designed for. With the aStore, I can quickly and easily add products that I recommend or that I think readers may be interested in.
So this weekend I reorganized and expanded the store to include a variety of categories and products. Over time, I’ll add more, as well as adding reviews for products I feel particularly strongly about.
There is one category in particular, I’d like to call attention to. This category is called In The Mail, and I’m using it for products that publishers have sent me review copies of. To try to get the word out about their books, DVDs, CDs, or what have you, publishers generally send out review copies to media outlets–magazines, newspapers, TV and radio shows, and now blogs.
So every so often I get an unexpected book or DVD in the mail with a note from the publisher saying, "We thought that your readers might be interested in this, and we hope that you’ll enjoy this review copy and perhaps let your readers know about it."
And most of the time (not all of the time), the publishers are right and it is something I think readers would be interested in. I might not be interested in it myself, but I can see how others would be. A good example would be The Catholic Home by Meredith Gould. This is a book about Catholic traditions and activities for things that your family can do at different times in the liturgical year and when a family member is preparing to receive a particular sacrament. Since I don’t have a family at the moment, this kind of book isn’t of much use to me, but since most folks are more fortunate than I am family-wise, I can see how it would be of interest to a lot of readers.
And so, as long as I think that the product would be interesting to people and as long as a quick look at it suggests that it is "Mostly Harmless," I’m happy to go ahead and let folks know about it. So that’s what I’m putting in the "In The Mail" category on the store.
As I add new items to this category, I’ll also put a notice on the blog so that people will know that they are there and, in some cases, I’ll add a brief (or not so brief) review of the product. If you look at the category at the moment, you’ll see that I have several products there that I haven’t yet put up notices for or reviewed. I plan to do that, but I’ll have to do it over time because I am always concerned about maintaining the right mix of topics on the blog so that it stays interesting to people. I don’t want it to be a blog about reviews of Catholic books and videos, though letting people know about Catholic (or other) resources that they may be interested in is something that I’m not opposed to.
I thought I’d explain all this so that folks would understand how this works and what purposes I’m intending to use the aStore for.
In the interest of full disclosure, I do get a (tiny) cut of the proceeds on the products sold through the aStore, which I figure will help defray the costs of maintaining the blog, which I pay for out of my own pocket. The amount of money I get from the store is not great, though I was shocked when I checked my quarter-to-date earnings report and found out that the blog may have actually paid for itself this quarter.
I know some blogs try to maintain themselves by using advertisements, and that’s fine, though I’ve always resisted that–even when people have asked if they could advertise on JA.O. I don’t like it when a blog is cluttered up with advertising–usually for products or services that the blogmasters have little or no control over. JA.O is not a commercial venture for me, and if I were in it for the money I could make a lot more by devoting my blog writing time to paying projects. The blog is something I do for fun, and it’s great if it pays for itself (at least the costs I pay TypePad), but I’d rather have that happen through recommending products I think readers will actually enjoy and benefit from rather than ads from an Internet ad service.
Hope that explains matters and, if you’d like to browse some books, DVDs, or CDs that you might find of interest,
CHECK OUT THE STORE.
B16 In Ephesus
Here’s some video from the Mass that Pope Benedict celebrated at Mary’s House in Ephesus (the Vatican guidebook for the trip notes that there is no archaeological evidence for Mary having lived there, but it is a traditional site of Marian veneration, including for Muslims).
The video covers the presentation of the gifts, and the song being sung at this point is reportedly Nearer, My God, To Thee, though my German isn’t good enough to tell (the tune sounds right, though).
I’m interested in this Mass because of the peaceful, open-air setting and the fact that there were apparently only three hundred or so people there due to the remote area and the low population of Christians in Turkey, making this a far more intimate papal celebration of the Mass than ususally occurs on an apostolic voyage.
I would have loved to be there.
What’s With All The Purple?
I’ve recently got a couple of e-mails on similar themes. First, a reader writes:
There seems to be some confusion as to the mind of the Church on what
exactly our approach to Advent to be. History seems to attribute to it a
penitential character similar to Lent. The purple vestments, the biblical
sense of preparring for something very important with fasting, the
"interruption" of the season with a note of a special Sunday–Gaudete
Sunday for Advent–to remind the faithful of the ultimate goal and to
lighten the burden, so to speak, these all seem to point the way for the
exhortation to the faithful to go beyond their normal course of dailly
taking up their crosses and takin gon more fasting, prayer and almsgiving.However, I am not aware of any such documented canon, encyclical, precept
or the like such as we have with Lent that calls for this. We, of course,
as Catholics are not just peple of the book or written word, but in the
modern world, documentation is generally the way the Church communicates
her mind. She certainly does so regarding Lent and this exhortation
trickles down quite clearly via your local parish in many–I would
speculate–if not most or all places, at least in the United States.So, do you have any sources to which we can turn in addition to what
comments you have to offer about the season of Advent and penance?I would venture to say that many Catholics have no idea Advent is
penitential in nature and they have to treat it as such by their
practices.
Then another reader writes:
I had a question which has been bugging me and I can’t seem to get a good answer except that it seems like "things have changed." Whenever I read something pre-Vatican II it seems like Advent is considered a penitential season. Not as solemn or penitential as Lent, but nonetheless, penitential.
Yet, I am confronted with Msgr. Peter Elliot’s rather emphatic statement of "The season with which the liturgical year begins is not penitential." – p. 34, #42, "Ceremonies of the Liturgical Year"
This seems to be at a difference to the actual practices of wearing violet, not singing the Gloria, not using the organ as much, or not decorating the altar with flowers as much. Even the Saints (I believe Saint Francis in his Rule) have referred to Advent as the "little Lent."I was curious if you knew.
From the little I have read, there is not as much of a penitential nature to Advent as in the East, but I would think that if this is a time of preparation for the Coming of Christ (especially the 2nd Coming) that penance would be an intrinsic part of that preparation (for final judgement).
Given that Advent starts this Sunday, it seems timely to answer these questions, so here goes.
First, it seems that Advent has at least some penitential involvement in its origin. The Catholic Encyclopedia notes:
A synod held (581) at Mâcon, in Gaul, by its ninth canon orders that
from the eleventh of November to the Nativity the Sacrifice be offered
according to the Lenten rite on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday of the week.
And the Lenten practices, such as wearing purple, etc., are also strongly suggestive of a penitential season.
I don’t have verification that St. Francis referred to it as the "little Lent." I am aware, though, that that phrase is used in Eastern Orthodoxy.
So there’s certainly a penitential cloud swirling around Advent. Whether that actually solidified in the West such that Lent became a formal penitential season, I can’t say.
If it ever was formally a penitential season, it seems to have lost this character some time ago. The 1907 article in the Catholic Encyclopedia (linked above) does not mention it being penitential.
A check of the 1917 Code of Canon Law also reveals nothing of this sort. The 1917 Code doesn’t use the concept "penitential days." Instead, it uses "days of fast and abstinence" in its place, but when it’s setting forth the days of fast and abstinence, it doesn’t mention Advent (it does mention Lent).
When the General norms for the Liturgical Year and the calendar came out after Vatican II, it had this to say:
V. Advent
39. Advent has a twofold character: as a season to prepare for Christmas when Christ’s first coming to us is remembered; as a season when that remembrance directs the mind and heart to await Christ’s Second Coming at the end of time. Advent is thus a period for devout and joyful expectation.
40. Advent begins with evening prayer I of the Sunday falling on or closest to 30 November and ends before evening prayer I of Christmas.
41. The Sundays of this season are named the First, Second, Third, and Fourth Sundays of Advent.
The weekdays from 17 December to 24 December inclusive serve to prepare more directly for the Lord’s birth.
So no mention of it being a penitential season–unlike Lent, concerning which the General Norms state:
27. Lent is a preparation for the celebration of Easter. For the Lenten liturgy disposes both catechumens and the faithful to celebrate the paschal mystery: catechumens, through the several stages of Christian initiation; the faithful, through reminders of their own baptism and through penitential practices.
And when we look in the 1983 Code of Canon Law–which does use the concept of penitential days–we find:
Can. 1250 The penitential days and times in the universal Church are every Friday of the whole year and the season of Lent.
Bam.
So Advent is not a penitential season, at least in the universal law of the Latin Church.
Ya coulda fooled me!
I mean, what’s with all the purple?
One clue may be found in Wikipedia:
In the Roman Church the liturgical color of purple or violet is used in the liturgy. Often times the purple used is a darker purple (sometimes called "Royal Purple") whereas in Lent the color is often a reddish purple ("Roman Purple).
So maybe . . . just maybe . . . the purple in Advent is supposed to be a signification of the birth of a coming King rather than a sign of penance.
In any event, it ain’t a penitental season, so don’t beat yourself up. Do focus on preparing joyfully for getting ready for the commemoration of the birth and the anticipation of the return of the King.
As to how to do that in the concrete, you might want to check out The Catholic Home.