Blog

Tonight many of the Seminarians watched the moon turn red as it was eclipsed by the earth. Supposedly, the rays from the sun on the outer parts of the globe are bent by the atmosphere towards the moon, lighting it with red wavelengths. I took a few pictures of the event, and I thought I'd share some observations on photographing the moon, especially in these special circumstances...

First, a picture of the setup I was using:

It's a Nikon D40 with a 70-300mm VR lens attached, along with a hood to block out stray light from the area (I was taking pictures outside, with the seminary's bright exterior lights shining everywhere). It's all mounted on a Bogen tripod and ball head.

Here's the first shot I took of the moon:

This weekend is eventful for those of us at Kenrick-Glennon Seminary. In the midst of our annual 40 Hours of Adoration (from tonight to Sunday morning), we are also hosting many retreatants for the annual Archbishop's Retreat. On top of that, we'll be hosting anyone wishing to visit our Open House on Sunday afternoon (from 1-4 p.m.). If you'd like to come by, I'm sure you'll have a great time getting to know your seminarians and the wonderful Kenrick-Glennon Seminary!

Here's a picture from tonight's 40 hours devotion (I'm going to get a few more once I've slept!):

This one's not quite as universally appealing as the infamous "Duel of the Seminarians" video I helped make a few years ago, but it has it's humor... it's mostly an inside joke, though. The video was made by the first year seminarians to show at our Mardi Gras gaud. It's meant to display some of the things we've learned this year.

A few days ago, we had the first 8"+ winter storm in St. Louis in a few years, and, surprisingly, it was easier for the DOT to handle this time around than the past few winter storms. In this storm, all the precipitation was snow—the last few major storms were mostly ice, which is much harder to deal with.

Jason Signalness also provides some of his own pictures of the Seminary grounds (I didn't have the courage to strap on my boots and trodge through the snow to grab pictures of the Seminary; I was lazy and took the picture above out of my window!).

(Archbishop Burke with Seminarians at the 2008 March for Life)

As I'm sitting on a charter bus on the way back to St. Louis, I can't help but think that our nation is heading in a direction of finally eradicating the evil of abortion. Whether this will take ten of fifty years, I don't know, but I noticed so many people on the march, and most of them youth, that I don't know how our society could still tolerate this sad reality. A priest on the trip mentioned that the 'pro-choice' mentality is self-defeating; if you abort your children, you're cutting off possible future support for your cause. On the other hand, if you're pro-life, and helping our nation maintain its replacement birth rate, you're supporting your cause doubly!

The march was packed, and I'm sure the media will report there having been 'tens of thousands' (if that) of people at the march, when in reality the number is likely over a hundred thousand: