Random Acts of Culture

by , posted in Inspiration

If you haven’t heard of Random Acts of Culture, it is a program which is striving to have 1,000 performances of culture and art randomly, throughout the country. They have done 379 to date. I’m waiting to see one of these some day.

103 Year-Old Nun To Leave Convent For First Time in 84 Years To Meet Pope

by , posted in Shared Stories

She has spent every day of the past 84 years inside the walls of her convent in central Spain.

Now, however, 103-year-old nun Sister Teresita will finally emerge into the outside world on Friday for a very special occasion.

The nun will meet Pope Benedict XVI during his visit to the Spanish capital of Madrid to celebrate World Youth Day.

Sister Teresita is a member of the Buenafuente del Sistal Convent, which is located around 60miles north of Madrid.

She has been a resident at the convent since April 16, 1927. This, by coincidence, is the same day that Joesph Ratzinger – now Pope Benedict XVI – was born.

Great story, continue reading.

The Feast of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary

by , posted in Saints

Ferragosto (in Italy)
Ferragosto (in Italy)
Today we celebrate The Assumption of the Virgin Mary which reflects the honor that Christ accorded to His Mother, an honor so great that He did not allow her body to suffer decay after her death. But it also provides us with a foretaste of our own bodily resurrection at the end of time and, thus, confirms our faith and gives us hope. Mary wasn’t assumed into Heaven because she was somehow more than human; her Assumption is actually a sign of what it means to be truly human–a condition that is possible only through the grace that comes through our faith in Christ.

On the Eve of the Greatest Marian Feast: Vespers w/ Litya–Dormition St. Elias Church

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On August 15, we celebrate the Feast of the Assumption of Mary (also known as the Dormition among Eastern Catholics and Eastern Orthodox), a Holy Day of Obligation for all Catholics. On November 1, 1950, Pope Pius XII, exercising papal infallibility, declared that it is a dogma of the Church “that the Immaculate Mother of God, the ever Virgin Mary, having completed the course of her earthly life, was assumed body and soul into heavenly glory.”

Dormition literally means “the falling asleep.” It is the original name for the Feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and Eastern Christians, both Catholic and Orthodox, continue to use it today.

Conclusion to Vespers on the eve of the Feast of the Dormition of the Holy Theotokos (Mother of God)