Author: Eric Johnson

Time Magazine, verily thou hast outdone thyself

Truly, Time has descended into asinine self-parody:

Time Magazine’s Person of the Year: You

NEW YORK (AP) – Congratulations! You are the Time magazine “Person of the Year.”

The annual honor for 2006 went to each and every one of us, as Time cited the shift from institutions to individuals – citizens of the new digital democracy, as the magazine put it. The winners this year were anyone using or creating content on the World Wide Web.

“If you choose an individual, you have to justify how that person affected millions of people,” said Richard Stengel, who took over as Time’s managing editor earlier this year. “But if you choose millions of people, you don’t have to justify it to anyone.”

Thanks, editor dudes!

Merry Christmas, Governor Blunt

Missouri Governor Matt Blunt has told state employees that it’s okay to use the C-word this month:

To ensure that there is no confusion regarding our state policy I am directing that each of you inform all members of your department that they should feel at ease using traditional holiday phrases, including “Merry Christmas” and they should have no fear of official reprisal.

I will never understand why some people get offended when other people wish them a Merry Christmas. If somebody wished me a Happy Hannukah or a Submissive Ramadan or whatever, I’d just smile and say, “Thanks.” I might not celebrate those holidays, but I’m glad to have people wish me well, whatever the occasion.

Does Mass on a Friday count towards a Sunday obligation?

The answer to the question above is usually “no,” but I think I may have found an exception. I have to travel to the Middle East this week, and because the work week is from Saturday to Wednesday, I will probably be working all day on Sunday. The country where I will be is part of the Vicariate Apostoic of Arabia, which apparently has a dispensation to allow Friday Masses to “count” as the Sunday obligation:

• On Fridays (mornings and evenings) and Saturdays (evenings only) the Holy Mass is that of the following Sunday.

Am I reading this correctly? This isn’t the parish I would attend (I’m not going to Kuwait), but it’s the cathedral parish of the vicariate — can I assume that this dispensation extends beyond Kuwait to the other countries in its territory? I’ll probably end up attending Mass on Sunday — there are plenty of Masses throughout the day in the parish I found — but it might be more convenient to attend on Friday.
This seemed like an interesting question, because I had never heard of such a dispensation. Servicemen deployed during wartime can attend Mass at any time during the week and have it fulfill their Sunday obligation, because they are not always able to attend for obvious reasons. These circumstances are quite different.

Published
Categorized as Catechesis

New Tattoo Revue, Part II

Almost three years to the day after I posted my announcement that I was going to get a new tattoo “soon,” I finally got it. (My definition of “soon” is rather loose, I’ll concede.) The design is based on a cross in our parish church, carved on a pedestal upholding a large statue of Mary:
Mary's Pedestal
Here’s how it turned out:
Cross Tattoo
And here it is in context:
cross_tattoo_front.jpg
The original design drew mixed reviews here on Catholic Light, so I hope this one goes over better. (Not that I’ll change it.)