Category Archives: Look! Up in the sky!

This has the earmarks of the beginning of a great SCI-FI piece…

This has the earmarks of the beginning of a great SCI-FI piece… Voyager 1, we read you! ? A historic first, NASA’s Madrid Deep Space Communications Complex (MDSCC) arrayed all six antennas to receive data from @NASAVoyager earlier this year. … Read More

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Serotinal autumnal nycthemeral parity

Today is the Autumnal Equinox. The Sun crossed the celestial equator on its southerly course at 12:44 UTC (08:44 EST).  The Sun would be directly overhead as seen from a point in the equatorial Atlantic Ocean, 461 miles (743 km) … Read More

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The Tears of St. Lawrence 2024, the Perseid meteors. Wherein Fr. Z rants.

Perseid meteors started in mid-July but they will peak on the mornings of August 11, 12 and 13. Why Perseids? If you trace the meteors backwards, it looks like they are shooting out of the constellation Perseus. Otherwise, we call … Read More

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16 July 1969 – LIFTOFF!

16 July 1969 – 55 years ago Before implementation of the Novus Ordo, btw, although changes were underway.

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23 June – Vigil of St. John – solstices and snails, bonfires and witch burnings

It is nice to have as your Patron the great Baptist, for I get two feasts a year, his Nativity and his Beheading. For the Vigil of St. John (today, as I write even thought it is the 5th Sunday … Read More

Posted in Classic Posts, Linking Back, Liturgy Science Theatre 3000, Look! Up in the sky!, Saints: Stories & Symbols, SESSIUNCULA |
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So very cool that it needs its own post! VOYAGER 1 is TALKING AGAIN!

A while back in 2023, Voyager 1, which set out in 1977 to fly by the outer planets and then head off into the void, stopped sending usable data.   I did a News Of The Church podcast about that.  HERE  … Read More

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Good Friday 3 April AD 33? – Eclipses as Christ died on the Cross

This is definitely worth reposting. The fellow who made the video about the Star of Bethlehem (a compelling argument, I might add), also did some research about what happened in the heavens on Good Friday. Let’s break it down. Passover … Read More

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A BIG CME IS COMING

From SpaceWeather. A BIG CME IS COMING: Two sunspots erupted at once on March 23rd, producing a powerful X1-class solar flare. A bright halo CME is now heading for Earth. Models suggest it could reach our planet during the early hours … Read More

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News of the Church 10 – 10 March 2024

The inaugural edition of this series is HERE, in which I explain a lot more. Some time ago, I saw a movie called News of the World in which after the Civil War a former confederate officer earns a meager … Read More

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DAILY ROME SHOT 943… umm… MOON SHOT

Please remember me when shopping online and use my affiliate links.  US HERE – UK HERE  WHY?  This helps to pay for health insurance (massively hiked for this new year of surprises), utilities, groceries, etc..  At no extra cost, you provide help for which … Read More

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Apollo 8 came in about the worst of all years, 1968.  What a year.

A friend sent a link to The Federalist which has a piece about the passing of Astronaut Frank Borman of the legendary Apollo 8 Moon mission at 95. Their mission was to leave Earth’s orbit, go to the Moon, orbit ten times … Read More

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Did God make the universe so huge in order to give us some idea of what “eternity” is?

It has been a long time since I’ve read St. Gregory of Nyssa, but when I saw this video in an x-tweet, something jumped to mind. If memory serves, Gregory described our experience of the Beatific Vision as a spiral. … Read More

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“The sky is crying…” – The Vigil and the Tears of St. Lawrence

The sky is crying, look at the tears roll down the street. Thanks to flaming comet dust moving at 60km per second. Today is the Vigil of St. Lawrence, in the older, traditional Roman calendar, replete with purple vestments. Before our … Read More

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Summer 2023 etc. Why is so hot? It’s YOUR fault. Or… maybe not.

It has been a hot summer.  CLIMATE CHANGE!  WE ARE ALL GOING TO DROWN IN THE GLACIERS! This was spotted at American Thinker. What NASA and the European Space Agency are admitting but the media are failing to report about … Read More

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16th Anniversary of Summorum Pontificum – Thoughts on how this might end and a fitting song.

Sincerely, I think all this madness will pass one way or another. Today is the anniversary of the release of Summorum Pontificum, the saintly Pope Benedict XVI’s “emancipation proclamation” for those who desired what they ought to have had all along: freedom … Read More

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SUMMER SOLSTICE 2023: “He must increase.  I must decrease.”

Today is the Summer Solstice.  From now, our northern hemispheric days get shorter, as the world’s tilt starts changing our daily/seasonal clocks. I was so aware of how the days were changing while I was in Rome, especially because I … Read More

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Happy AEQUINOCTIUM!

In the North, which is where most of you readers are, it is the first day of Spring, the Vernal Equinox, today.  We are interested in this day in particular because we date Easter as the 1) first Sunday 2) after the first full … Read More

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A peek at the Moon

Last night I watched a great documentary about the Apollo 8 mission.  What days those were!  So, that being fresh in my mind, look at this. The hidden colors of the regolith are revealed in this 81 megapixel shot of … Read More

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SOLAR FLARE AND RADIO BLACKOUT: Possible CME in bound, which means Aurora on 14 February

From Spaceweather.com POSSIBLE EARTH-DIRECTED CME: Yesterday’s X1-class solar flare attracted all the attention, but it did not produce a CME. Another explosion did. Five hours before the X-flare, a filament of magnetism erupted from the sun’s northern hemisphere and hurled … Read More

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Ad repellendas tempestates… Prayers for the repelling of storms.

In the 1962 Missale Romanum there are prayers “in order to repel storms”.  I am using these prayers now in the face of hurricane Ian. The prayers are ancient, to be found in the 5th c. Gelasian Sacramentary (PL 74) in “XLVII. … Read More

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