Morning Prayer

This is I usually pray during the morning. I'm sharing this because my future self might forget how it was for me when I was 25 and might be curious to know why. 

I usually start when I am already walking the length of Bonifacio Street to Quimpo Boulevard to catch a jeep. I'm a person of habits so my morning prayer always starts with this:

Morning Offering

Oh Jesus, through the immaculate heart of Mary, I offer you all my prayers, works, joys, and sufferings (with the emphasis) of this day in union with the holy sacrifice of the mass throughout the world. I offer them for all the intentions of your Sacred Heart, for the salvation of souls (more specifically mine), reparations for our sins (again, mine), the reunion of all Christians (ahhh... ecumenism. But, honestly, I prefer we don't join under one umbrella. The differences in Christian doctrines across denominations make for a more interesting search for the Truth). I offer them for all the intentions of our bishops, and all the apostles of prayer (Their intentions only? Why not include the rest of the Church?), and in particular, for the intentions of our Holy Father the Pope (Whatever those are. An end to the scandals perhaps) for this month of...(Here's the clincher. This is the part where I get to find out if I'm really paying attention to what I'm doing or not because if I'm just simply parroting the prayer in my mind, I would stop and think what month it was). 

The Lord's Prayer

Our father, who art in heaven (I prefer "who is everywhere". Makes it more personal), holy is your name ("be" sounds like you're wishfully thinking His name is holy as compared to "is" where you're confirming a fact). Your kingdom come. Your Will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us today our daily bread (or money) and forgive us our sins as we try (forgiving is hard, you know) to forgive those who sinned against us (and are better off in hell). Do not bring us to the test (please don't) but deliver us from evil. Amen.

Hail Mary

Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is always with you. Blessed are you among all mankind (because "women" is too exclusive) and blessed is the fruit of your womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, mother of God (Amazing. This phrase "mother of God" transcends all the other adulations, most of them nonsensical, people heave to Mary), pray for us sinners now and at the moment of our death. Amen.

Glory

Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning and now and ever shall be world without end. Amen

After which, I proceed to my more personal and intimate petitions which, of course, I cannot share here. 

Future of Steam Energy

Someone just made water boil without heating.

An article from Popsci:

Today in mind-bendingly cool stuff that nanoparticles can do: A team of researchers at Rice University in Texas has demonstrated a mechanism by which they can create steam in just seconds by focusing sunlight on a mixture of water and nanoparticles. This isn’t just some artificial means of lowering boiling point either; this solar powered “boiler” can produce steam before the water even gets warm to the touch, without ever bringing the aggregate water to a boil.

***

The technology works by mixing a small amount of either carbon or gold-coated silicon dioxide nanoparticles, each just one-tenth the diameter of a single human hair, with water in a glass vessel. Their small diameters--smaller than the wavelength of visible light--means that they can absorb most of a light wave’s energy rather than scattering it. So when sunlight is focused on the vessel with a lens, the particles quickly become quite hot--hot enough to vaporize the water directly surrounding it.

This creates a bubble of steam that envelopes the nanoparticle, which is now insulated from the cooler liquid water by the steam, which allows it to grow hotter still, vaporizing more of the water immediately around it. At some point the nanoparticle and its steam envelope become large enough to grow buoyant, at which point the whole steam bubble--particle and all--floats to the surface. The steam is released into the air, the particle falls back into the cooler water and sinks back down until it begins to absorb sunlight and heat again, at which point the process starts all over.

 That's amazing. Right now, all we have to turn turbines with steam is through nuclear plants and polluting coal plants (on top of hydroelectric dams and so on). This, if it succeeds in progressing to industrial scale, is going to be the game changer of clean energy.

But then again, what if this becomes a weapon instead? Imagine the oceans evaporating themselves at a higher rate than they are evaporating now...(shudder)

TED

I don't know why it was named TED.

Anyway, it is still one of the more worthwhile websites you can visit today.

TED features videos of the presentations  of the many speakers which grace TED conferences. These speakers are often the movers and shakers of their respective industries and, in these presentations, they share something about themselves and their passions.

Some presentations are interesting, some are funny or provocative, while others are simply inspiring.

Here's the link to the site.

Self-Portrait

Here's my new face. With a new bad-ass scar above the eyebrow. Cool.

The Sermon And The Gospel

Once upon a time, I thought of doing a blog post homily every Sunday (based on the Gospel for the Day of course). I thought about it as advance practice if Divine Will should dictate that I become a priest. But, like almost every idea I can think of these days, it never materialized.

Simply put, it is hard. Coming up with a 15-minute sermon based on a 2-3 paragraph Gospel reading is not what it seemed to be.

I guess the blame points back to me. Either I didn't try hard enough or I aimed too high.

I wanted these sermons to be earth-shattering revelations full of intimate reflections and newly-found truths. I didn't want to sound like those priests I criticized way back who were content with rehashed and hackneyed homilies. In the end, I was in a state of paralysis: not wanting to start because the perfect idea for the sermon hadn't come my way just yet.

Looking back, I have a better appreciation for priests in general. It's hard to put out an inspiring message every week, let alone every day. It's doubly hard when the message had to be grounded upon a text (the Gospel) that has been around for quite some time and which has been analyzed, shared, refined, and reflected upon for so many years. Against this backdrop, even a decent homily is a great accomplishment for a priest and a great and novel homily, in turn, is a miracle.