What Does The Prayer Really Say?
W D T P R S

Augustine reflects on waiting for web pages to download… well… sort of. He does reflect at length on the concept of time in the Confessions XI. Have you ever felt like a page takes forever to download?? Here is Augustine, in an old translation which should delight patristibloggers especially (conf. 11.16.21):

And yet, Lord, we perceive intervals of times, and compare them, and say, some are shorter, and others longer. We measure also, how much longer or shorter this time is than that; and we answer, "This is double, or treble; and that, but once, or only just so much as that." But we measure times as they are passing, by perceiving them; but past, which now are not, or the future, which are not yet, who can measure? unless a man shall presume to say, that can be measured, which is not. When then time is passing, it may be perceived and measured; but when it is past, it cannot, because it is not.

"But Father! But Father!" you are no doubt wondering aloud, "What prompted this this little Augustinian riff on time?"

Not that we ever need an excuse to quote Augustine, but with a single and very brief phone call to my DSL providerthis morning, I massively increased both my download and upload rates for a bill increase of $0.04/month. The phone call took just under ten minutes. I was promised an increase within 72 hours. Then I lost my DSL completely for an alarming 15 minutes and, when it returned, I had my new speeds. Not a bad halfhour’s work, I’d say.

Do you suppose the ease of this operation was facilitated by St. Clare of Assisi? She was one of the saints who was proposed by some to be patroness of the Internet, in addition to other figures like St. Isidore of Seville.

"Let there be sung Te Deum and Non nobis."