I have posted some pictures I took of Kenrick-Glennon Seminary's St. Joseph Chapel (the main chapel at the seminary, used for our main liturgies) on my Seminary website; you can view them by clicking here. It is a very beautiful chapel, especially since we now have installed pews in the whole chapel, and moved our pipe organ console into the choir loft (it is a beautiful organ as well!).
In addition to taking a short break from studying from exams (resting the ol' brain cells...), I wanted to tell you about an interesting insight I had while studying for my upcoming Social Psychology exam (typically, I'm no great fan of the social sciences, but they aren't all bad...).
I was reading about common traits found in people who rate themselves as being 'chronically lonely.' According to my book, chronically lonely people often think and behave in ways that reduce their likelihood of establishing new, rewarding relationships and lack social skills. This typically causes a spiral into more isolation, and leads to more problems further down the road.
After watching Disney's newest movie Narnia, I thought I'd share a few thoughts:
The movie was as good as I expected, and then some—it definitely beats the old BBC version! The movie was quite faithful to the story, cutting only a few parts of the movie where necessary, but maintaining all the Christian imagery quite well.
I think someone who is either (a) not Christian or (b) not already acquainted with the Narnia story will be utterly confused by the story and the characters, though. The themes of self-sacrifice and surrender are present, and will leave those who don't understand the message of Jesus Christ completely dumbfounded.
Today I found that my blog was mentioned in First Things, a journal of religion, culture and public life, and it seems that there has been a small spike in visitors over the past week. Some parts of the article "God and the Internet" (by Jonathan V. Last) struck me as profound, and I thought I'd share a few thoughts on them.
Last speaks of how Steve Waldman, the founder of online religious supersite Beliefnet says that "distancing of the self from the religious act can be helpful" (speaking of a new form of 'interactive, online faith'). Waldman relates the new exploration of potentially embarrasing religious matters in the privacy of one's home on the Internet to the "same phenomenon that has led to pornography spreading." Last then asks:
Tonight is night three of our annual Christmas Novena at Kenrick-Glennon Seminary. All are welcome to visit us from 7:30-8:30, every night from tonight until next Wednesday night. Our choir sounds wonderful, and the homilists are very inspiring. Pictures, videos, etc. are posted here.
Another note: Our KGB Lions soccer team finished the season with a great game; even though it was a 1-0 loss, we played well (earlier in the season, the same team beat us 5-0!) and had a great season. It was quite cold, but that didn't dampen our spirits, or our enthusiasm for next season.
Interesting News: Viruses are now talking (CNET news)...
In the interests of not posting a ton of blog entries here, I will summarize many different topics in one post: