Contrariwise

I should be reading Henry James right now. The CSC’s third annual Eucharistic Congress is tomorrow. Archibishop Pietro Sambi (the papal nuncio to the U.S. from the Vatican!) and Archbishop Wuerl will both be there. The only downside is that I won’t get to do any homework during the afternoon, so I had to make up for it today. I chose to start by finishing the reading I didn’t do for American Lit this week, so really, I’ve done nothing.

So what am I doing now? Blogging.

First, a joke from the CatholiCity Message:

A young man confessed to his priest that he was guilty of the sin of pride. “When I look in the mirror, I think I’m handsome.” The priest gently consoled him, “My son, you are in no spiritual danger. That is not a sin. That is a mistake.”

Then, the Friday Five (via LJ) : Senses Working Overtime
1. If you had to choose being blind or deaf, what would you choose and why? Deaf. I think American Sign Language is really cool, actually; I was in Sign Language Club during my freshman year. I feel like writing or watching could make up for not being able to hear the world around you, but sight is so precious and impossible to recreate any other way. Even if you describe something, your goal is to create a mental picture. If you’ve never seen the thing being described, though, creating that picture is impossible.
2. What is the best smell? I really like the smell of coffee. I don’t drink it, and I don’t really want to, but my roommates’ coffee smells so good as I blitz out the door in the morning.
3. Would you rather be hot or cold? I prefer being cold. I really hate sweating. Cold keeps me alert, which is why I study cold when I’m afraid of dozing off. I’ve thought about it before, and given the choice, I’d rather freeze to death than burn. Freezing would just be like the overwhelming desire to fall asleep. Burning would be agony.
4. What’s the worst feeling in the world? Loneliness. I like being alone, but not lonely. And it’s especially hard during those times when I feel like even God has left me. I know he doesn’t, though; God will not abandon.
5. Would you rather have something hurt or something be itchy? Definitely pain. I can offer up pain for souls in purgatory, or shift my mind away to something that doesn’t hurt, or just grit my teeth and sit it out. Ever since I learned in PSYC 100 freshman year that you can disrupt pain receptors by rubbing hard on a hurt spot, I’ve been doing it. It works every time. Itching is much worse, especially when you’re in public and it’s somewhere awkward to scratch. It is hard to take my mind off itchiness.

I read along with the lectionary every day. I’ve been doing it for almost two years, but it’s been even more important since I became a lector. I like to be prepared.

Today’s first reading is Jeremiah 11:18-20. I decided not to bring my regular Bible home with me for break, to save my dad and me some carrying. I keep the NAB I got for confirmation on my bookshelf anyway, and I brought the RSV I got for Christmas with me to tackle my Bible in a Year plan again. So, when I found the reference for this reading in my Word Among Us just a few minutes ago, I opened up my NAB and looked for the right verses.

I could not find them.

At first I thought I was on the wrong page. That happens to me a lot more than I’d like, actually; I read the wrong intercessions for yesterday’s Morning Prayer and the wrong section completely for today’s Gospel. So I flipped around a bit, but that only confirmed that the NAB ends chapter 11 of Jeremiah after verse 18. Completely bewildered, I pulled out my RSV and read the other two verses from it.

Then, I started my computer back up and looked at the USCCB’s Bible text, and at the daily readings page for today. Lo and behold, the missing verses are on the daily readings page!

So what’s going on here? Why is Jeremiah 11:19-23 (five verses!) missing from the NAB without even an explanatory footnote?

When I first activated this theme, Guy wandered through to check it out. The original design has a complete list of archives in the sidebar. He decided to jump into my very earliest entries, way back in 2002 (yeah, I’ve really been blogging for that long), and discovered one of my first mentions of the Good Ship. That was five years ago.

What can I say? My Harry Potter love runs deep. When the CSC Spring Retreat committee performed our 24-themed skit, I got to leave Charlton as Jack Bauer with an unsolved mystery so I wouldn’t be late for my seminar, “Snape: Good Guy or Very Bad Man?” They wrote that part just for me. xD

Even the Baltimore Sun staff agrees with me (via The Leaky Cauldron). FYI, I think Snape is a good guy with some deep personal issues that makes bad choices. He’s a lot like Eminem in that respect, actually.

I’ve been meaning to get a new WordPress theme for a while. I actually wanted to use a different one, but I don’t think my hostess allows me the storage space I’d need for it, so I went with this one. My goal is to add a bunch of different header images that will randomly fill in for that one up there. I’m still customizing it, so be sure to let me know if you see anything that’s gone awry.

Last Tuesday, FOCUS invited Monsignor Stuart Swetland, host of EWTN’s Catholicism on Campus, to speak at UMD. It was originally scheduled for the night before Valentine’s Day, but we had a lot of snow that night and school closed early, so they had to cancel. I went, despite needing desperately to study for my rhetoric midterm. I’m glad I decided to go. He was a great speaker, and though I didn’t have any major epiphanies, I think I learned something.

I walked over to the Union with Laura M., which was nice because I so rarely get to see her anymore. She’s even busier than I am. The event was scheduled for 8pm, but when we got to the atrium around 7:50, it was basically empty. I was worried at first, but then I got caught up in chatting and seeing more people I’d missed, like Estefanía and Kait B. A lot more people showed up, though, and then they finally began.

In traditional CSC fashion, they started with a skit. Chris S. got a long-named coffeelike drink from Starbucks, then said, “I love Starbucks!” and sipped it lovingly while “Take My Breath Away” played in the background. Then he declared his love for Maryland basketball, facebook, and his “girlfriend” Megan. In stepped FOCUS Dave as Christopher Walken (weird, I know, but his impersonation was spot-on) to comment that he seemed a little confused about love, not realizing that love is “More Than a Feeling.” (Father Bill forgot that was the title of the event, subtitled “Love, Sex, and Freedom.” He took to calling it “Sex, Sex, and More Sex,” then accidentally called it “What’s Love Got to Do with It?” at Mass.)

Msgr. Swetland finally stepped in. He turns out to not only have had a show on EWTN, but also be Dave’s former U of Illinois campus chaplain, currently on the Mt. St. Mary’s staff, a Rhodes scholar, a convert, and a physicist. I love religious scientists almost as much as I love converts, so I could tell I’d like his talk. He even started by reading Scripture!
Read the rest…