First, many thanks to you who have voted for WDTPRS in the many categories of the Catholic Media Awards! Please let your friends know about the voting and ask them to help WDTPRS.
Also, I am deeply grateful to the MA of CA for using my amazon.com wish list to send me the copy of Augustine and the Jews: A Christian Defense of Jews and Judaism by Paula Fredriksen. While this is not directly related to my main interests in Augustine, it is good to have this. A trusted colleague told me that the book as merits. People bring up Augustine on Jews once in a while. It is good to have this resource.
Some of you have been so kind as to send donations through the donation button on the left sidebar and on some posts, for example, on the PRAYERCAzT and PODCAzT entries and some of the entries on the Sabine bird feeder. Some also have used the little "cup of coffee" link on the sidebar.
Both the birds and I are grateful. These winged gluttons can really eat. Your donations have helped to keep them going. This was very important during the winter and early spring, especially. There are many more birds here this year and many more varieties than I have seen in the past. Thank you!
Speaking of the feeder….
Here is Mrs. Rose-breasted Grosbeak having a little preen in between feasts.
It seems these finches also like the orange slices I put out for orioles.
This chipmunk is baffled.
I haven’t seen this before. Two male Orioles feeding at the same.
I suppose they haven’t paired up with mates yet and are therefore less territorial.
Just a nice and peaceful view from the window late in the afternoon.
To those of you who have sent things or made donations, please know that I remember you in prayer, as is fitting for benefactors, and from time to time I say Mass for the intention of those who have been so kind. I will do this again on Friday, the Ember Friday of Pentecost.
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The readings of the Second Nocturn for Good Friday (Matins, part of Tenebrae) include excerpts from a work by St. Augustine in which he very pointedly blames Jews for the Crucifixion: “Let not the Jews say, ‘we did not kill Christ’,” etc. This is not merely said by the way. He rather dwells on it.
St. Augustine, however brilliant, is not Holy Scripture. Would it qualify as an “organic development of the Liturgy” to amend this portion of the ancient Office for use today? Personally, I see little reason to refuse this, since the Church has taught for well over a thousand years that the Atonement came freely from God, that He alone is ‘responsible’ for His sacrifice in Christ.
As always, one hesitates to propose changes to so astonishingly powerful and profound a work as the Divine Office. And yet it is not an artifact in a museum, encased in glass, untouchable. If that were so, it would never have developed and grown in the first place.
What is the Fr. Z expert secret for keeping the squirrels out of the bird feeders? Everytime that my four kids fill up the two feeders, fatty the squirrel(s) come and eat all the seeds! We’ve tried the shepherd’s hook poles, no luck there, the critters knock down the feeder and spill it.
Thank you Rev Father.
I pray for you as well.
Michelle: Note in that photo, above, of the chipmunk trying to get up to the feeder. No go. There is no getting around that think just above. It is a bell shaped baffle that rests on a small ring. It will move and swing. It is of a material that the critters can’t get claws into. And since it is high enough, they can’t jump on top of it. Even if they did, it would probably pitch them off.
As a relative newcomer to this site, I wondered if Sabine Farm was a working
farm in terms of animals, crops, etc. I ask this, Father, because I couldn’t
help but notice how neatly the grass is kept. Do you have some four-legged
lawn-mowers to assist you with this?
I keep you in my prayers and appreciate knowing that you do the same.
Father,
For some real fun to keep the four-legged critters from the feeders, just grease the poles with Crisco. In fact, it’s the only legitimate use for Crisco.
The Sabine Farm is not a farm. It is so-called, as I have explained elsewhere, after Horace’s Sabine Farm.
Several of Augustine’s “enarrationes in psalmos” have some cringe-worthy statements regarding the Jews. Whether this is systematic of a larger prejudice against Judaism, or whether its related to his larger project on distinguishing/integrating the “Old Law” from/into the “New Law” of grace (and thus, not so much a condemnation of the Jews as a people, as it is practitioners of Judiasm, or any group that he might associate with that sort of theology…Pelagians, perhaps) is my question. I’ve thought about picking up this book as well, just to see what Paula says, though I was hesitant, since she did wade into the Historical Jesus debates.
You are building quite the library, Father.
Father Z! I rejoice to see that excellent baffle at work, detering those pesky squirrels.
Denise: Yes! It is excellent. I was skeptical at first but now I BELIEVE!
What a clever device, that baffle!
Yep-that really ‘baffles’ the squirrels!
Crisco’s good, too….