Tonight I made an interesting discovery while doing research for my thesis. In 1951, Pope Pius XII declared that St. Gabriel the Archangel, "who brought to the human race the long-desired news of man's Redemption," (see the image above where Gabriel tells Mary all about her role in God's plan) to be the patron saint "of those arts by which men can employ electrical forces to transcribe words at very great speed to others at a distance, can hold converse from places widely apart, send messages by wireless, and view pictures of objects and events brought before them as if they were immediate spectators, though they are, in fact, far away."

These quotations were from a later document by Pope Pius XII, entitled Miranda Prorsus. I found the Holy Father's description of electronic communications to be humorous. But I was happy to see I have a patron saint for my thesis project, which I have been working on for quite some time without a great deal of progress. The thesis is all about our use of "modern means of communication," of which, apparently, St. Gabriel is the patron.

So, St. Gabriel, help me out here!

-Jason

P.S.: The image above is a depiction of "The Annunciation" by Botticelli. It was painted in 1490 and is now housed at the Uffizi gallery in Florence, Italy. The digital image was taken from Wikipedia and is public domain.

I've been following the development of this program. It's looking more and more amazing as time goes on. Fr Barron has been doing excellent work at Word On Fire. But this project tops anything he's done before. He exclaims "The Church is going through a dark period. The Church is under fire. ... The Catholic story is being told by the wrong people in the wrong way. We need to tell our own story. ... Catholicism is smart, Catholicism is beautiful, it's textured, it engages the mind and the heart and the body ... it has transformative power."

I could not agree more.

-Jason

Today while I was tinkering with my Microsoft Outlook calendar, I stumbled upon a few days in 2004 when I recorded everything I did during the day in my calendar. Normally, I didn't record everything and my calendar was usually empty aside from one or two meetings. But at that time Rob, my boss back then, asked us be more careful about documenting time for the purposes of billing. There is quite a contrast between my day in 2004 and 2009.

It also appears that 5 years ago this week, I actually had two dates lined up, one a lunch date and the other a Barnes & Noble coffee-shop date. My, how times have changed.

-Jason

From September 23rd until November 1, a nationwide program of prayer, protest, and fasting is going on at 212 locations across the country, all for the sake of ending abortion in our country. Here in Saint Louis, us seminarians participated in the program by covering half of the day at Planned Parenthood, the fortress-like "clinic" pictured above.

Since coming to Saint Louis, I have stood outside abortion clinics on quite a few occasions. I've seen the women go in pregnant, pushed through the door by scared boyfriends, and coming out without their child, obviously ashamed and feeling guilty. And I've learned about the trauma and grief women suffer after an abortion ... suffering and guilt that can torment the woman for decades. I have deep compassion for those who are considering abortions. They are in very difficult and unfortunate situations. We need to help those women, but this is not the way.

If you are near one of these sites, consider getting involved. If you're not near one of these sites, please pray for an end to abortion in our country anyway. For more information, visit 40daysforlife.com. There are sites in Fargo, Minneapolis, and of course here in St Louis.

-Jason