Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time

This week the readings come from the prophet Jeremiah 1:4-5, 17-19; Psalm71; Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians 12:31-13:13 and Luke’s Gospel 4:21-30.

In the readings this week it focuses on the prophet call, we hear in Jeremiah that “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I dedicated you, a prophet to the nations I appointed you.” This is not only the call of Jeremiah but also a call for us in our own times, The Lord has singled us all out and before we were born to be prophet to all nations. What we need to bring to the world is made clear by Paul while he talks on and on about the power of love. Then we hear from Jesus in the gospel that a prophet can’t do much in their native place so we need to go out from our communities and bring the message of Love out to the world.

Love is a complicated notion in the world today were we are more apt to relate love to the sexual or the mundane “I love this hamburger”, sure in the past I’ve talked about how society has degraded what it mean to love by making it more akin to like. But there are four types of love (agape, eros, philia, and storge) and as Pope Benedict points out in his Encyclical God is Love. Let us all be willing and able to bring all types of love out into the world. In bringing out love to the world we are working toward building the Kingdom of God

William Carlos Williams

William Carlos Williams has many great poems besides The Red Wheelbarrow. Williams was a doctor who wrote poetry which is unique in its simplicity.  Here are four of his poems that I hope get you interested in exploring more of his works.

This Is Just To Say

I have eaten

the plums

that were in

the icebox

and which

you were probably

saving

for breakfast

Forgive me

they were delicious

so sweet

and so cold

Winter Trees

All the complicated details

of the attiring and

the disattiring are completed!

A liquid moon

moves gently among

the long branches.

Thus having prepared their buds

against a sure winter

the wise trees

stand sleeping in the cold.

Love Song

I lie here thinking of you:—

the stain of love

is upon the world!

Yellow, yellow, yellow

it eats into the leaves,

smears with saffron

the horned branches that lean

heavily

against a smooth purple sky!

There is no light

only a honey-thick stain

that drips from leaf to leaf

and limb to limb

spoiling the colors

of the whole world—

you far off there under

the wine-red selvage of the west!

Danse Russe

If I when my wife is sleeping

and the baby and Kathleen

are sleeping

and the sun is a flame-white disc

in silken mists

above shining trees,—

if I in my north room

dance naked, grotesquely

before my mirror

waving my shirt round my head

and singing softly to myself:

“I am lonely, lonely.

I was born to be lonely,

I am best so!”

If I admire my arms, my face,

my shoulders, flanks, buttocks

against the yellow drawn shades,—

Who shall say I am not

the happy genius of my household?

Mr. Robot

This is the winner of the Golden Globe and Critics’ Choice for Best Drama. Mr. Robot is on USA and is a show about a hacker who is trying to take down one of the largest banking corporations in the world. There is also some confusing things going on with the show since were not really sure what all is real and what isn’t. Back in the early 2000s USA was the place for smart comedies (Monk, Psych) and smart dramas (White Collar, Burn Notice) now it sort of has transitioned away from comedies and towards dramas  they currently have a bunch of dramas and only one decent comedy (Playing House). If you haven’t watched it go and watch before going any further as spoilers are to follow.

Mr. Robot is about Elliot a cybersecurity engineer and a hacker who has social anxiety disorder and depression. Elliot has been recruited by Mr. Robot to join a hacking group fsociety which set out to cancel all debts and take down the largest corporation, E Corp (Evil Corp). That’s about all I can comfortably talk about. It is a unique show and complicated which means that watching multiple times might help clear some things up.

 

News Roundup

X-Files: The miniseries debuted on Sunday on Fox and the ratings were pretty high for that episode and the episode that aired on Monday night also got decent ratings as well. This could bode will for fan of the series as with the enthusiasm for the series Fox, Chris Carter and the cast might be persuaded to make another miniseries type season. I am sure there would be people who want to watch it. The first two episode are a nice addition to the series.

Cursing/Swearing: Over on Reddit there is a memo from back in 1898 about offensive language used in Baseball which was issued to rid the sport of offensive language. Unfortunately not much has changed but the memo is pretty funny to read as although language has changed a great deal since 1898 but the terms and way that we insulted people hasn’t changed much.

Mars Rovers: Opportunity has been on Mars or a dozen years. It is remarkable that the 90 day plan has been surpassed 47 times. It’s been sending back information about Mars ever since and it’s nice that NASA is still relevant although they currently don’t have their own way into space. Hopefully that will change soon with the commercial crew options in 2017.

The Transfiguration

The fruit of this decade is the Desire for Holiness.

Desire for Holiness is a complex topic as sure we all have the basic desire to be holy but it is more nuanced then it looks. We have the basics about the Transfiguration Jesus bring Peter, James and John up a mountain and then Jesus become glowing brighter than the sun while he talks with Moses and Elijah. Peter suggests building tents and selling tickets so more people could witness this miraculous event. Paul later on in his letters talks about living in the Spirit and not in the body. I hope that we can all be like Peter savoring the mountain top experiences and trying to living in the Spirit as Paul later tells us since this is one of the ways to holiness.

Super Bowl matchup

Well it’s that time the NFC and AFC Champions have been crowned and the waiting game begins itis about 14 days until Super Bowl L (50) and Peyton Manning and the Broncos will be facing Cam Newton and the Panthers. Judging from the games this past couple of weekends it will be an interesting game to watch as we have experience Denver against these upstarts from Charlotte. The Broncos have a high powered defense who sacked Tom Brady 4 times and caused 2 interceptions while and the Cardinals defense is also really good they caused 8 turnovers against Arizona.

As of right now it would be nice to see Manning win his second Super Bowl matching his little brother Eli and go out as a Champion, but it would also be nice some one new win the Super Bowl. Since it seems like Cam Newton is the future of the NFL and most likely the MVP of this season.

Third Sunday in Ordinary Time

This week the reading come from the Prophet Nehemiah 8:2-4a, 5-6, 8-10, Psalm 19, Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians 12:12-30 and Luke’s Gospel 1:1-4, 4:14-21.

This week the readings focus on the Word. For many Catholics turning to the Bible doesn’t come as easily as other Christian denominations, where they can quote scripture but as we hear in Nehemiah, Ezra went before the people and read so that the men, women and young could understand. This is what the homily is supposed to be a way for everyone to connect with the readings. The idea is great but how many times do you get basically something that has no bearing on what we just heard. As the readings continue we hear that we are all one body so we need to accept all people as they are since even if we are unconnected with the church we are still one and the same as everyone else. Gay or straight, Catholic or Christian, Muslim or Jew, Hindu or Buddhist we need to remember the Golden Rule and act accordingly. Let’s keep this in mind as we in the United States enter in Black History Month, it is wrong that racial inequality still exists and we as a whole need to change this.

Ant-Man (2015)

The forgotten Marvel movie from last year and the final film in the second Phase of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Ant-Man tells the story of Scott Lang a reformed convict who is tasked to steal the Ant-Man suit by Hank Pym. It also sets up a Superhero from the west coast. Spoilers to follow.

This is the Marvel heist film and it’s got some funny elements in it but those just might be what Edgar Wright would have done if Marvel actually let his direct the film he wanted to make. The film itself begin back in the wild year of 1989 with Pym resigning from SHIELD after he discovers they are trying to find the Pym Particle. There is some great CG work here as it looks like they just picked up Michael Douglas from Wall Street and had him act the scene. The story then begins back in the present as Darren Cross, the guy who tossed Pym out of Pym Technologies is working on his own suit that can do the same thing that the Ant-Man suit can do. When Hank Pym gets Scott Lang (Paul Rudd) to actually wear the suit he lets them into the big plan to destroy the suit that Cross is making. Lang says why not just call the Avengers. Pym has a huge problem with Stark and doesn’t want his suit to get into the hands of SHIELD, but they have to go to get some piece of tech from the Avengers new compound as we saw in Age of Ultron. Scott fights Falcon since it needs to have some cameos to make it a Marvel Cinematic Universe film. After this incident Hank finally tells his daughter Hope what happened to Janet, as if we really all cared.  Then the whole plan happens but there is a hitch in it as Scott is trapped and Cross get’s his Yellowjacket armor to work, there is a huge fight and more stuff happens.

The one problem I had with the film was although it was a interesting film we get the same basic fight as we did in Iron Man and Hulk where the villain is basically the evil version of the hero. Another big problem is soon there’s going to be three Marvel films coming out in the same year as well as a pair or so from DC comic and now the annual Star Wars film around Christmas. Sure I’ll see them all eventually at least up to the end of Phase Three in the MCU, but eventually these films are going to be over bloated just fitting in all the characters, I read that the Russo’s say that in the next Avengers film there are going to be like 67 main characters. Oh and there is a Captain America sequel coming out soon which it seems Ant-Man will make an appearance

 

News Roundup

Space: There is some huge news out in the Universe as astronomers are saying that there is a new 9th Planet in the Solar System. This is pretty cool the Planet is past the Kuiper belt and is said to be a Neptune sized somewhere between 600 and 1200 Astronomical Units away from the Sun. The presence of the planet is suggested by the tilted and elliptical orbits of like Sedna and other Trans-Neptunian objects. While Scientists aren’t sure if a planet actually exists it seems likely something is there and it’s not just a star, They are currently have telescopes trained to the sky to see if they can catch a glimpse of this far out there planet, hopefully they can and we can have a crazy complicated  Solar System.

Football: I found this article about Vince Lombardi coaching the Washington Redskins. Not many people remember or even know that Lombardi icon of football coached in Washington. It’s a cool read as it talks about the season and how Lombardi tried to make the most out of this losing outfit. in his single season with the Redskins they posted their first winning season since 1955.  It changed the culture of the Redskins and to some effect I would say that Lombardi made the team better in the 72 they made it to the Super Bowl and a decade later they would go out and win their first title since 1942.

Student Debt: Student are applying en masse to get student loan debt forgiven saying that colleges had defrauded them. While I agree that College is a expensive undertaking and there is no real way for colleges to line up a job that make a certain salary. The reason that individuals are claiming they have been defrauded is that the college recruiter told them that job opportunities were for them as soon as they got out of school.  These seems like weak claims and sure job exist but they are just not what the students expected they would have some fancy job after graduating. This says a lot about the education system in America and the fact that for some it seem that College has become basically high school and you need college to get a decent job. So you have so many more people going out and racking up debt for going to Graduate School to get a Masters in whatever. Perhaps one day this will change.

Me and Earl and the Dying Girl (2015)

Me and Earl and the Dying Girl is a very clever film it was an indie film that I doubt many people saw. It won best the prize for US Grand Jury film at the 2015 Sundance Film Festival. Spoilers to follow.

It tells the story of Greg a high school senior who has tried to make his way through without ruffling any feathers in any cliques, he’s around but basically invisible. Greg hangs out with his “co-worker” Earl and they make bad parody versions of films (400 Blows becomes 400 Bros, Fellini’s 8 1/2 becomes Ate 1/2 (of my lunch). Greg’s Mom tells him that he should go visit a girl Rachel, his former childhood friend who has been recently diagnosed with Stage 4 Leukemia. Greg and Rachel at first don’t want this friendship to work out, but they eventually decide that they like each other. I liked it since it’s not your typical movie as there is no big romance story line it’s just friendship which we are worrying about. Sure it’s got some sad moments but it’s also got some funny ones as well. If only there were more films like this about high school showing it for what it’s worth for everyone else, sure the athletes get the films made about their magical seasons but what about everyone else in the school. So Greg is convinced by the girl he has a crush on to make a film with Earl for Rachel.

If you went to or going to high school it is a nice film to pick up and watch remembering that we need to be visible in our lives and even if it is in difficult situations. Dealing with people who are dying is a unique aspect of life and isn’t really looked at in film other then the elderly, sure we had this film and The Fault in Our Stars but young people dying isn’t often seen or dealt with in film. If you are a fan of film this is a definite watch as there are several film reference that are so absurd.