Pictures have been posted from some of my wanderings around Washington, D.C. on my Seminary Website, and I will be uploading more pictures tonight or tomorrow, along with a couple of entries with information about the Vigil Mass tonight and the March tomorrow (which, I've learned, will be about half the length it usually is, starting at 7th street instead of 14th (where the Washington Monument is located).
I've been playing around with iWeb, one of the included applications in Apple's iLife '06 suite of digital media and content creation programs, and I am working on some ideas for 'modernizing' my blog, my homepage, etc. (and possibly consolidating a lot of info into a smaller space). Click here to see those ideas (I especially like the new blog logo and notebook...).
I've encountered a few usability issues with iWeb; I've found it to be an amazingly simple way to create simple, yet beautiful-looking websites, but it lacks a few features that I really need to make it part of my web development kit (right now I use Adobe GoLive for everything but my blog, which I maintain using Thingamablog). I create my graphics in Photoshop (and sometimes Illustrator or something of the like), and iWeb doesn't play nice with them.
I have just learned that Archbishop Raymond Burke will be a guest on EWTN Live this Wednesday (Jan. 18) at 7:00 p.m. This show will be hosted by Fr. Mitch Pacwa.
On an interesting note, I and my brother college seminarians met Fr. Pacwa this past Sunday at St. Raymond Maronite Co-Cathedral in downtown St. Louis (we were there to experience the Maronite liturgical rite of the Catholic Church, and he was a concelebrant). He gave a very inspiring homily on vocations, and I look forward to viewing his interview with Archbishop Burke!
Today I finally had a little time to post a paper I wrote during one of my philosophy courses during my previous semester at Saint Louis University:
In this paper I originally wrote for my Philosophy of God class at Saint Louis University, I outlined major Empiricist philosophers' ideas and conceptions of God. The main philosophies I explored were those of Augustine, St. Thomas Aquinas, David Hume and John Locke.
The main purpose of the paper was to explore how the Empiricist thought of God has developed historically, and what impact this thought has had on modern conceptions of who or what God is, as well as the question that exists today (in some people's minds) of whether God exists at all.
Today I received the following in an email:
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Members of the new lay Catholic group Defenders of Archbishop Burke will be attending the installation Mass of the new Polish pastor at St. Agatha Catholic Church on Sunday at 10 A.M.
The group’s spokesman, Bill McKenzie, will be available before and after Mass for statements to the press.
For information or statements call Bill McKenzie at (314) 962-6304 or email at [email protected].
Let us pray for our Archbishop today as he celebrates his feast day. We pray for the intercession of St. Raymond of Peñafort, a priest who produced a collection of canon law and was general of the Order of Preachers (Dominicans). Let us always remember that, when we pray for someone to make the right decisions or to do what is right, we ask for God's Will, not ours, to be done.
I return to the Seminary on Monday, and I am hoping this will be a great semester. Our main Chapel (the St. Joseph's Chapel) has been rennovated, with pews in the whole chapel, two new confessionals, and a re-worked choir loft. The Priestie Boyz are about halfway through recording their first album, Lost in Ecstasy, and the annual Seminary variety show is only a couple months away. There is much to be excited about!