This has to be the weirdest thing I have seen all week. I came across an institution touting its “online chapel.” I thought to myself–what the heck is that?! Isn’t a chapel a place to pray and worship. How on earth could such a place exist in the cyberspace environement?

So then, following the path of any avid internet user (and yes, I do mean that with all the negative connotations), I Googled “online chapel.” And as could be expected, I found many online chapels. Most of them seem to be only lists of prayers or Bible readings. But rather than advertising their prayer lists as prayer lists, these websites label themselves “online chapels.” Some of them have icon pictures and what not. A few are blogs.

So, I must ask, what is a chapel?

A chapel is a building for prayer. The architecture of a chapel is designed (under good circumstances) not only to provide covering but to actually elevate worshippers hearts to God in prayer. It is a place characterized by silence, beauty, stillness and peace. It is a place where the senses can be quieted to listen for the still, small voice of the Holy Spirit.

A chapel is not an LCD screen with prayers listed on it.

Posted in: Prayer by catholicbiblestudent / Tags: Internet

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You may know from viewing the persons in my blog’s sidebar that I am a fan of the Seraphic Doctor, St. Bonaventure. You may not know that his complete works (his opera omnia, if you will) has been scanned by Google and placed online in Google books and on the new Hathi Trust Digital Library where you can download PDF’s of the full Quaracchi Latin edition of his works. These books are very expensive and hard to find and it is an absolute joy to me that they are now online and freely available to all. Of course, if you don’t read Latin, you’ll still have to buy a translation, but perhaps, Google translate will come out with a Latin-English function. We can all hope.

Bonaventure published several commentaries on Scripture. Recently, the very diligent friars at St. Bonaventure College in Pennsylvania, have been translating Bonaventure’s scripture commentaries and his other works into English. They are up to 14 volumes now!

Posted in: Random by catholicbiblestudent / Tags: Bonaventure, Internet

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Well, I’ve been using various instant messaging programs for a few years, but I just realized something I never thought of: We have no Christian instant messaging greetings. At least, there are no standard, traditional ones that go back a long ways because well, instant messaging has only been out there for very short time.

Perhaps however, a few traditional Christian greetings can be modified for the IM world. I mean, we like to say things like “God bless you!” or “Godspeed!” (archaic, I know) or even “He is risen!” In writing letters and now emails, Christians often use a complimentary close like “Yours in Christ,” or even “Faithfully Yours.”

But how are you supposed to convey God’s blessing to a fellow Christian through instant messaging of all things? Perhaps there is a way. If you figure it out, let me know.

I suppose we could borrow from speech and letter writing, but it seems a little odd to end an IM session with “Faithfully Yours.”

Posted in: Random by catholicbiblestudent / Tags: Internet

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The World Youth Day events are going strong this week. They opened on Monday with Mass with Cardinal Pell of the Sydney Archdiocese on Tuesday, July 15. They close with the finale events: vigil with Pope Benedict XVI on Saturday and mass with him on Sunday. But if you’re thousands of miles away from Australia and would like to see some of the action, there’s a few places to view the television coverage.

First, take a look at:
The Official World Youth Day Video Site
You can find video of all the major events with little or no commentary (a relief), but it’s not live.

Then, see
the EWTN coverage.
EWTN has live coverage of the major events.

Third, see
the Vatican Radio website for live TV coverage.

I’m sure that there are other sites broadcasting video in other languages. If I find them I’ll let you know. Of course, you can get video snippets from the major news sources like the AP and Reuters, but they’re not going to be bringing huge amounts of coverage.

Also, take a look at the Pope’s first address to the youth today where he speaks about the evils of modern culture. You can find the text of all the Pope’s WYD speeches here.

UPDATE: You can get the audio of the Pope’s speeches at World Youth Day through one of the podcasts I mentioned below: http://www.radiovaticana.org/rss/rss.xml

Thanks to a reader’s comment, you can also find TV coverage of World Youth Day at popeinaustralia.com.

Posted in: News by catholicbiblestudent / Tags: Internet

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