Well, it doesn't seem appropriate to wish you a "happy" Good Friday, and I certainly don't need to tell you anything about what today means for us as Christians. So maybe I will just wish you a "reflective" Good Friday, in the hope that you are able to take some time to stop your regular routine and spend some extra time in prayer.
For me, in the last few years I've become committed to the Divine Mercy devotion. I highly recommend it, and if you don't know about it, I encourage you to look it up. I'm not going to throw a bunch of resources at you and give you homework, but to whatever extent the Spirit leads you to look into it, or just be open to it when you run across it. But one of the aspects of the Divine Mercy devotion is the so-called Divine Mercy Chaplet (a chaplet is a series of prayers prayed on rosary beads, but it's not the traditional rosary). The Divine Mercy Chaplet is prayed as a Novena (nine days of prayer), from Good Friday to Divine Mercy Sunday, which is the Sunday a week after Easter. So today I began the Divine Mercy novena. If you're looking for something to do for this Triduum and to jump start your prayer life after Easter, this might be the thing.
Here is just one of many websites that walk you through the Divine Mercy Chaplet and the Novena:
I'm back, up and running, and ready to go - I should have a new JOURNEY episode within the next week or so - and because you are my loyal peeps, here is an exclusive, just-for-you, behind the scenes SNEAK PEEK into my new office:
This was for March 24th, recorded for the Ascension App
Thanks for your patience - here is our next installment of The Journey - it's session # 96, but I'm also calling it PART 1 of a "miniseries" on John chapter 6.
Whoever watches it first, please let me know if it looks good or if there are any problems with it - I get through the first two sections of the text on the feeding of the 5,000.
Enjoy!
I mentioned in The Journey that I wrote a song based on Isaiah 2, which is one of my favorite OT passages:
In days to come, the mountain of the Lord’s house
shall be established as the highest mountain, and raised above the hills.
All nations shall stream toward it. Many peoples shall come and say:
“Come, let us go up to the Lord’s mountain, to the house of the God of Jacob, That he may instruct us in his ways, and we may walk in his paths.” For from Zion shall go forth instruction, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.
He shall judge between the nations, and set terms for many peoples.
They shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; One nation shall not raise the sword against another, nor shall they train for war again. House of Jacob, come, let us walk in the light of the Lord!
I hope you like the song!
So begins a song I wrote back in the day, to commemorate the martyrs of Rome - which was the point of the name of the band I had for about 20 years - the band was called Remember Rome. The song was called Midnight Light. At about midnight on the night between July 18th and 19th, in the year 64 AD, the emperor Nero's men started the great fire in Rome, which would be blamed on the Christians, starting the long trajectory of Roman persecution of the Church. Here's a video of Remember Rome playing the song - do I look younger? This was recorded right around the turn of Y2K, about 25 years ago.
I highly recommend this podcast in general, but this concept of "Transhumanism" is really important to understand, and in my opinion is not unrelated with the whole AI thing - check this out:
