If you’re interested in reading a short slice-of-life story about a seminarian and his unlikely roommate, check out A Gryphon at St John’s?

I found this in Notitiae today (Not. 1 (1965) p. 190):

In << Ordinario Missae >> sicut in tota liturgia, inveniuntur aliquando formualae mixtae in persona plurali et in persona singulari. Haec varietas explicatur sive ex rationibus historicis, sive ex eo quod formulae sunt textus biblici, qui nequeunt mutari. Cum tales textus momentum habeant pro tota Ecclesia, et non tantum pro una alterave regione, instauratio generalis statuet an mutandi, substituendi vel omittendi sint, vel quaenam et quonam modo mutationes sint faciendae. Pro momento textus receptus fideliter tenendus et in linguas vernaculareas vertendus est. Ita, exempli gratia, textus biblici: << Ad Deum qui laetificat iuventutem meam >>, et << Domine, exaudi orationem meam >> haud verti possunt quasi dicerent: << iuventutem nostram, orationem nostram >>.

Idem dicendum de verbo Credo, quod nullo modo lingua vulgari reddi potest, quasi legeretur Credimus: esset mutatio conceptualis de qua iudicare et statuere debet << Consilium >>.

My translation:

In “The Ordinary of the Mass,” just as in the whole liturgy, formulae are sometimes found to be mixted in the plural and in the singular. This variety can be explained either by historical reasons or by the fact that the formulae are biblical texts, which cannot be changed. Since such texts are important for the whole Church and not only for one or another region, the general restoration should determine whether they should be changed, substituted, or omitted, and which changes should be made and in what way. For the moment, the received text must be faithfully retained and translated into the vernacular languages. So, for example the biblical texts, “To God who gives joy to my youth,” and “O Lord, hear my prayer” can scarcely be rendered as if they said: “our youth, our prayer.”

The same must be said of the word I believe, which in no way can be rendered in a common language, as if it read We believe: This would be a conceptual change about which the Consilium shoud decide and stipulate.

July 6 was the memorial of St Maria Goretti, a young girl who died because of injuries sustained defending herself against a rapist. She prayed for his conversion and appeared to him in prison after her death. He later converted and became very devout.

I noticed in the elogia in the Liturgia horarum on her day the following line:

Die 6 iulii 1902, ad castitatem tutandam contra aggressorem, mori maluit quam foedari et pugionis ictibus confossa est.

My translation:

On 6 July 1902, for the sake of protecting her chastity against an aggresor, she preferred to die rather than to be defiled and was struck with blows from a dagger.

The phrase mori maluit quam foedari is drawn from an old axiom. Interestingly, the ermine was considered in the middle ages to be a symbol of purity because it was believed that it would rather die than suffer its white coat to be stained. This is a reason that prelates in the Church and also other nobles, kings, etc. would wear ermine.

Sorry I didn’t get around to posting this until now.

I finally got my new license plates.

Who (not my brother) can guess what it means?

I nearly had a wreck when I drove past the Rolla Technical Institute this morning. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw this sign and seriously considered applying.

Without truth, charity degenerates into sentimentality. (C in V, #3)

Seems similar to a post of Father Powell’s, in which he said:

Charity without Truth is not love; it’s merely lazy toleration.

All birds and beasts that day know well,
Though scarce a creature could foretell,
When from afar there came the Hind
Forever in the wood to dwell.

The sweetest breeze across their breast,
And rousing from a mournful rest,
The faintest glimmer they beheld
Of unspoken hope, that hour blest.

Then shaky legs forgot their fear
Amid the silence, strong and clear;
He turned to earth his kindly eyes
To draw the timid creatures near.

It seemed that he had come so late
To weary spirits who must wait,
And yet the secrets whispered there
Would serve to make that darkness sweet.

From forest waters rushing through
He drank and made their currents new,
But then he paused and raised his head.

In latter days it pleased him so
To make the trees and flowers grow,
And thus his heart immersed their roots.

At every place upon the earth
The newer blossoms came to birth
Where he had lain his blessed hooves.

All days and hours, uncounted time
Say little of that gift sublime,
But grateful creatures know him well.

No, not a post about complex wave physics.

When you have to microwave something for a minute and a half, do you hit 90 instead of 1:30? I do. It’s more efficient. What I noticed this morning, however, was that I opted to heat something for only a minute and a half as opposed to two minutes or a minute forty-five in order to save a keystroke. So, my food was slightly cooler than it would have been, but I didn’t have to press an extra button. I realized today that I do this often such that I don’t really deliberate about it.

So, I was reading the Aeneid last night, and I came across these lines in Book IV (ll. 515-516):

quaeritur et nascentis equi de fronte revulsus
et matri praereptus amor …

My translation:

The love [charm] also sought that was plucked away from the forehead of a foal before the mother could seize it first.

Wait a minute, I thought. This idea that horses are born with something on their foreheads that their mothers eat or lick away sounded familiar. Did I read that in the Etymologies the other day? Hmmm… A quick check in the Medieval Bestiary online indicates that I had recently read it in Pliny the Elder’s Naturalis historia:

in hoc genere gravida stans parit praeterque ceteras fetum diligit. et sane equis amoris innasci veneficium, hippomanes appellatum, in fronte, caricae magnitudine, colore nigro, quod statim edito partu devorat feta aut partum ad ubera non admittit.

My translation:

The pregnant [mare] gives birth, in general, standing and above others loves her child. For it is characteristic of horses, also, to be born with a love potion, called hippomanes, on their forehead, the size of a fig and black in color, that the mother immediately devours after giving birth or else she does not allow her offspring to approach her breasts.

At Macaroni Grill the other day, I drew a dragon: