Because This Makes Me Speechless

And to whom have ye likened me, or made me equal, saith the Holy One? Lift up your eyes on high, and see who hath created these things: who bringeth out their host by number, and calleth them all by their names: by the greatness of his might, and strength, and power, not one of them was missing. (Isaiah 40:24-25)

The awesomeness of the above photograph cannot be denied. That's the latest shot taken by the Cassini probe to Saturn (and her moons). I just saw it on Yahoo! and had to share it with you.

Check Out This Balloon Ride (Because Catholics Can Dig Science)

My wife knows my interests. She sent me this little clip this morning and I just had to share it with you. Suppose you were given the opportunity to help test the atmosphere for radiation drifting our way from the melted down nuclear reactor in Fukushima, Japan. Suppose you mounted some cameras on that balloon. What would you see?

To Introduce Blaise Pascal to Stephen Hawking? Why Not!

—Feast of Pope St. John I 

All over the news we read (and hear) that Stephen Hawking says Heaven is "a fairy tale story for people that are afraid of the dark." The darkness of death that is. By the way, this isn't some new stance of his, in case you missed the interview he did with Charlie Rose back in 2008.

It's ironic that in that clip he mentions there not being much room for miracles because the first time I mentioned Hawking in a post, it was the one I wrote about St. Joseph of Cupertino. I reckon he figures all the miracles documented by the Church are just fairy stories though. No matter.

Because Catholics Can Dig Science

I enjoy stories like this one about experiments on Einstein's theories. Gravity Probe- B, launched into space in 2004? You don't remember that either?

Faith and reason are compatible, see. Thankfully there are rocket-scientists that get the funding to study warping of space and time. Neat! Especially when you consider that the idea to do these types of experiments came about 40 years ago, you know, when computers were still the size of large rooms.

Here's an excerpt from the BBC story below,

Because Christ Is Still Living Among Us

What follows is from Giovanni Papini's introduction to his Life of Christ. Published in 1921, you would think that these words were written just yesterday. John C.H. Wu tipped me off to this book and I found a used copy of it on Alibris.

It's 408 pages long and is filled with great passages. Written in his native Italian, it was translated in 1923 by Dorothy Canfield Fisher. Papini had been an ardent atheist, anarchist and was one of the literary giants of Italy. 

Because Sexually, You Aren't a "Black Box"

Feast of St. Alexis Falconieri 

This is Joe Six-pack here. I haven't received much hate mail in a while so I must be doing something wrong. Therefore, I will explain sex to everyone who stumbles in here today.

After all, for some strange reason the modern world believes the wacky idea that sex is a "black box" that simply cannot be understood.

Because the "Father of Empiricism" Believed in God

—Feast of St. Edmund Rich 

Remember my affection for the Harvard Classics, the Five Foot Shelf of Books? Admittedly, I haven't looked them over much since I became a Catholic. Not because I've outgrown them, but because there have been far too many other books to occupy my time since the spring of 2008. Mostly stuff from authors whose names begin with "S",  as St. Philip Neri suggested when he counseled that reading the works of the saints is profitable.

The Wonders of Space (Music for Mondays)

—Feast of St. Luke, the Evangelist

Friday evening, the sky was clear and my daughter and I headed over to the university in our town to look at the stars. For her science class, see, extra credit is available and this was one way to take advantage of that opportunity.

The sky was clear, the night air was crisp and the moon was waxing just past half. So my daughter and I jumped in the car and headed to college. Sort of like a father - daughter date night under the stars.