Lego Advent Calendar?

Diary of a Wimpy Catholic has the story.

Downsides — Not only is it Lego, it’s Star Wars Lego. So obviously, you’re counting down toward Life Day…. And like a lot of secular Advent calendars, it’s really a December countdown calendar. So obviously you will need more four more Legos than they provide.

Seriously, it’s seriously expensive. Nearly forty bucks. There’s a slightly cheaper “Lego City” Advent calendar at Target, but it seems to be a bit much.

Trader Joe’s and Aldi’s sometimes carry nice little paper Advent calendars. You can get the kind with candy under the doors, also. Or you can make one for your kids, with little stickers. It’s not hard. Just draw pictures on paper, and then fit another piece over it with cutout doors.

Wishing Good Luck to Folks in Alaska

The National Weather Service says, “EXTREMELY DANGEROUS AND LIFE-THREATENING STORM OF AN EPIC MAGNITUDE RARELY EXPERIENCED.”

Hole up and hold on. We’ll be praying for you.

A prayer from the Archdiocese of New Orleans, no stranger to ocean storms:

O God, Master of this passing world, hear the humble voices of your children. The Sea of Galilee obeyed your order and returned to its former quietude; you are still the Master of land and sea. We live in the shadow of a danger over which we have no control… We turn to You, O loving Father… Calm the storms and hurricanes that threaten us and turn our fear of your power into praise of your goodness. Grant this through our Lord Jesus Christ, Your Son, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, forever and ever. Amen.

O Virgin, Star of the Sea, our beloved Mother, we ask you to plead with your Son on our behalf, so that spared from calamities… animated with a true spirit of gratitude, we may walk in the footsteps of your Divine Son to where a stormless eternity awaits us… [in] the heavenly Jerusalem. Our Lady of Prompt Succor, hasten to help us. We ask this through Christ our Lord. Amen.

… Amen.

Via American Digest this morning.

So Did You Vote?

I got up way too early this morning and voted before work. Although I probably should have gotten up even earlier.

Splendor of the Church: Audio Bible Study

Over at the St. Paul Center for Biblical Theology (you know, Scott Hahn’s thing), they’ve been prettying up the place and adding new resources galore.

In their audio section, the series of nine talks on The Splendor of the Church are really remarkably good and useful. (Also, full of new material, even if you’re familiar with Professor Hahn and his friends.) It’s apparently from some kind of 2008 workshop held for priests and seminarians, with talks by Bergsma, Pitre, and Hahn. It may have been up for a while, but I didn’t notice it before, if so.

The basic idea is studying the mystery of the Church as it comes into the Bible: the Body of Christ, the Bride, the Heavenly Temple, and so forth. There are nine talks, covering all sorts of interesting stuff from St. Paul (of course), St. John, the Book of Daniel, Dead Sea Scrolls stuff, Josephus’ histories and Philo’s comments, and so on. It was very rich and beautiful. *

If you’re talking Daniel and John and Paul, naturally there’s also all kinds of eschatological prophecy stuff involved, which has turned out to be a great complement to reading Beatus. It cracked me up no end to come across passages I’d just been working on, in my translation. Synthesis – it’s a good thing.

(* And priest stuff comes into it too, of course.)