Ave, Maria!

Today is the Feast of the Immaculate Conception! This feast day is a holy day of obligation for the Catholic Church. It is the solemnity celebrating the conception of Mary (not Jesus in Mary) because she, by the grace of God, was born without original sin so that she would be worthy of hold Jesus in her womb.

Our Lady of Perpetual Help, pray for us!

Just so we're on the same page: Roman Catholics do not worship Mary. We venerate her and seek her as an intercessor. Per Jesum ad Mariam-- to Jesus through Mary. She is worthy of our praise (not worship, she is not divine) because she is the Mother of God the Son. This is not to say that we cannot go to Jesus directly ourselves, but it is just another way of getting to know him. When you are getting to know a guy (or really, any person), don't you want to meet his family?

This is a really great video explaining the importance of Mary through Scripture:



Today is also the 30th anniversary of John Lennon getting shot and killed. I am not a huge fan of him or Yoko Ono, but The American Conservative ran an article on him today called "Stop Imagining" which is quite good.

First batch of Christmas cards were sent Monday, but the next batch will have to wait: 1031 position paper due asap, article due next Monday, the galley proofs for The Key's winter issue just arrived in my inbox and I am helping my cousin pack up her apartment this weekend. I'm also seeing Narnia with a group Saturday and taking a good friend out for a belated birthday dinner. Is it seriously the middle of the week? (The time has come, the Walrus said, to talk of many things...!)

Oh, and James Taranto e-mailed me back. If you do not know who he is, he runs a section of the WSJ and is fantastic (he writes the best headlines too!). I enjoyed yesterday's "Birther of the Nation" so much that I sent him an e-mail telling him so, because I am a big believer in giving feedback. He e-mailed me back today. BLISS.

A final thought: My friend Joy asked in a FB status what Beowulf would say in a toast. I wrote: Beowulf's wedding toast, as translated by Julie Robison: "May your fate be better than Grendel's, and your bride a better temperment than Grendel's mother's; may your mead always be abundant and your mead hall always merry; and may you have no fear when time demands it, and courage when others need it. Here, here!"

Then that got me thinking-- if you were to give a toast (wedding or otherwise) in the voice of a literary character, whom would you imitate and what would you say? (And if you give me a good one, I'll post it in tomorrow's poem of the week post!)

Happy Wednesday! Stay warm folks!