Ascending toward the temple of the Lord (with only a few detours along the way)
Has it really been 12 days from my last update? Certainly doesn't feel like it.
Last week we finished up the last major work event of the year (at least, the last one for which I have the slightest shred of responsibility), so all that's left is a reasonably short paper and two portfolio binders before I can kiss CUA goodbye. Well, that, and an absurd amount of time in the office and the halls helping students move out. I'm particularly looking forward to the conversations where we explain to guys that leaving the floor covered in food and stick tack all over the walls will result in charges.
Still, we are officially in Holy Week now, and is my custom I'll be posting links to items of a religious nature. Those allergic to papism, beware.
We'll start with this:Psalm 24, which the Church proposes as the "song of ascent" to accompany our procession in today's liturgy, indicates some concrete elements which are part of our ascent and without which we cannot be lifted upwards: clean hands, a pure heart, the rejection of falsehood, the quest for God's face. The great achievements of technology are liberating and contribute to the progress of mankind only if they are joined to these attitudes - if our hands become clean and our hearts pure, if we seek truth, if we seek God and let ourselves be touched and challenged by his love. All these means of "ascent" are effective only if we humbly acknowledge that we need to be lifted up; if we abandon the pride of wanting to become God. We need God: he draws us upwards; letting ourselves be upheld by his hands - by faith, in other words - sets us aright and gives us the inner strength that raises us on high. We need the humility of a faith which seeks the face of God and trusts in the truth of his love.
The rest is here.
Last week we finished up the last major work event of the year (at least, the last one for which I have the slightest shred of responsibility), so all that's left is a reasonably short paper and two portfolio binders before I can kiss CUA goodbye. Well, that, and an absurd amount of time in the office and the halls helping students move out. I'm particularly looking forward to the conversations where we explain to guys that leaving the floor covered in food and stick tack all over the walls will result in charges.
Still, we are officially in Holy Week now, and is my custom I'll be posting links to items of a religious nature. Those allergic to papism, beware.
We'll start with this:Psalm 24, which the Church proposes as the "song of ascent" to accompany our procession in today's liturgy, indicates some concrete elements which are part of our ascent and without which we cannot be lifted upwards: clean hands, a pure heart, the rejection of falsehood, the quest for God's face. The great achievements of technology are liberating and contribute to the progress of mankind only if they are joined to these attitudes - if our hands become clean and our hearts pure, if we seek truth, if we seek God and let ourselves be touched and challenged by his love. All these means of "ascent" are effective only if we humbly acknowledge that we need to be lifted up; if we abandon the pride of wanting to become God. We need God: he draws us upwards; letting ourselves be upheld by his hands - by faith, in other words - sets us aright and gives us the inner strength that raises us on high. We need the humility of a faith which seeks the face of God and trusts in the truth of his love.
The rest is here.