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January 8, 2006 The Epiphany of the Lord Psalm: Sunday 5 Reading IIs 60:1-6 Rise up in splendor, Jerusalem! Your light has come,the glory of the Lord shines upon you.See, darkness covers the earth,and thick clouds cover the peoples;but upon you the LORD shines,and over you appears his glory.Nations shall walk by your light,and kings by your shining radiance.Raise your eyes and look about;they all gather and come to you:your sons come from afar,and your daughters in the arms of their nurses. Then you shall be radiant at what you see,your heart shall throb and overflow,for the riches of the...

TARPON SPRINGS -- Amid the sounds of ancient liturgical chants, the spiritual leader of all Eastern Orthodox Christians presided over the largest Epiphany ceremony in North America on Friday. Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I continued his historic visit to the Greek Orthodox community in central Florida, commemorating the centennial of the Epiphany ceremony in Tarpon Springs. More than 50,000 people were present for Friday's services, according to a report from Tarpon Springs police. It was the first time an Ecumenical patriarch visited Central Florida. "It is a great honor. It is something exciting," said Roula Roussos, a member of St. Sophia...

January 6, 2006 Weekday of the Christmas Season Psalm: Friday 4 Reading I1 Jn 5:5-13 Beloved:Who indeed is the victor over the worldbut the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God? This is the one who came through water and Blood, Jesus Christ,not by water alone, but by water and Blood. The Spirit is the one who testifies,and the Spirit is truth. So there are three that testify,the Spirit, the water, and the Blood, and the three are of one accord. If we accept human testimony,the testimony of God is surely greater. Now the testimony of God...

In western Christian tradition, January 6 is celebrated as Epiphany. It goes by other names in various church traditions. In Hispanic and Latin culture, as well as some places in Europe, it is known as Three Kings’ Day ... Because of differences in church calendars, mainly between the Eastern Orthodox and the western Catholic and Protestant traditions, both Christmas and Epiphany have been observed at different times in the past. Today, most of the Eastern Orthodox traditions follow the western church calendar. ... Epiphany is the climax of the Christmas Season and the Twelve Days of Christmas, which are usually...

TARPON SPRINGS - Dress warm, get there early and be prepared for a massive crowd. That's the advice offered by organizers of the 100th annual Epiphany Day celebration, which promises to draw the biggest crowd ever. His All Holiness Bartholomew, the ecumenical patriarch of all Eastern Orthodox churches, will officiate at prayer services that begin at 7:30 a.m. today inside St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Cathedral. The patriarch will throw the cross into Spring Bayou at what for many is the highlight of Epiphany Day activities when more than 50 teenage boys dive into the 70-degree springwater to retrieve the holy...

CLEARWATER - For its 100th anniversary, the Tarpon Springs annual Epiphany Day celebration is going international. And it's doing so in a big way. His All Holiness Bartholomew, the ecumenical patriarch of all Eastern Orthodox churches, will travel from Istanbul, Turkey. High-ranking Orthodox clergy from around the world are expected to attend, as well as ambassadors to the United States from Greece, Turkey, Russia and Cyprus, representatives of the U.S. Senate and House and, possibly, the White House, said Bill Planes, chairman of the Patriarchal Centennial Visitation Committee. And when 53 teens, most of Greek descent, dive into the waters...

Rome, Jan. 05, 2006 (CNA) - This evening at six o’clock, as a tradition started by Pope Paul VI for the eve of the Solemnity of the Epiphany, Pope Benedict visited the garbage collectors of Rome at Porta Cavallegeri. Pope Benedict warned “not being lured by false appeals of what is ephemeral and not lasting. The warning comes from the Pontiff as he visited the nativity scene of garbage collectors at  Porta Cavallegeri. “It is not worth it just to stop and wait that things happen,” he warned.For Benedict XVI, “to visit the nativity scene specially this evening, the vigil...

TARPON SPRINGS -- Here at the end of a beaten brick road, beneath a canopy of live oaks and date palms is Spring Bayou, the center of the annual Orthodox Christian rite that has earned this small seaside town the name "Epiphany City." Year after year, tens of thousands of visitors descend upon Tarpon Springs for Epiphany, which begins today. It's a multiday festival of Greek folk culture and Orthodox ceremonies in honor of the baptism of Jesus Christ and the revelation of the Holy Trinity. Friday morning, onlookers from Tampa, Atlanta, Ontario and New York will funnel into the...

In its December 27, 2005 online edition, "El Vocero" newspaper from Puerto Rico reports that the governor of that U. S. Commonwealth has signed a bill assigning an annual $75,000 grant to help finance the Kings' Day (Epiphany) Festival which has been held every year since 1884 in the southern coastal town of Juana Díaz. The monies will be specifically allocated to the Institute of Puerto Rican Culture which, in turn, will provide them to a local private organization responsible for holding the Festival. To those fellow FReepers who are a little rusty on their Biblical history, the Epiphany is...

I am worn out from Christmas already, but am still looking forward to the "Little Christmas" in 11 days. While looking for a recipe for King's Cake, I came across a website that has a huge section on the customs of the liturgical year -- and the pages on Twelfthnight and the Feast of the Epiphany are too beautiful to not post here. On the Twelfthnight page, the information on the Magi and the Star of Bethlehem is especially interesting (who knew about the Orion symbolism?!). A quote (from the Twelfthnight page) by St. Ephraem on the Star of Bethlehem:...

Popular blogger who reveals exactly why he made the big switch. You don't seem to see any of these types of stories about Republicans switching though.

Change of heart on Iraq war By Ian Greenleigh Daily Texan Columnist As President Bush began to speak of a war in Iraq as if it was inevitable, countless Americans took to the streets in outrage. Hoping against hope, they attempted to sway the resolve of a notoriously stubborn leader - a colossal task that bore no fruit. I was one of these Americans. I was wrong. Amidst the endless reports of U.S. casualties, executive ineptitude and the seemingly slow rate of progress in Iraq, my about-face this late in the game may seem almost unthinkable. Indeed, millions of Americans...

Well fellow republicans, the title says it all. After a huge scuffle with a now ex friend (democrat), I am now a full blooded republican. I won't go into details why I decided to change, but I now see the light. Democrats are liars, deceiving, and very discriminative. I never thought I would consider myself as a republican, but I know believe. It will take some time for me to adjust and to rethink a lot of my positions on social issues, but I think we all know how they’ll change. But for the meantime, I have a lot of...

I find it personally insulting that the media has all but written President Bush's obituary in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. Unfortunately for the media, we have met the enemy and they are us. Many of us recognize that we have been our own worst enemies in our response to this disaster and the preparedness beforehand (the media included). The conduct of left wingers over the past several weeks has erased any lingering doubts in my mind as to why I have been leaning more toward the conservative side as each year passes. Any progressive views that I share with...

On February 18, 1997 I had an experience I've previously described as a "Vulcan Mind Meld with God." It was not the first time I'd been in touch with the Eternal. Forget Oh, God!, Bruce Almighty, and Joan of Arcadia. As delightful as they are, those stories are fiction. These events really happened to me. And for the first time, I'm telling my story in full. Of course you're free to make up your mind whether you think I'm telling the truth or not, and whether you believe I'm in my right mind or not. In over seventeen hours...

I actually felt myself become a republican today. It was around 10am, when I read the latest update of the Cindy Sheehan saga in CNN.com. I then shot over to read some blogs about it, and perused the comments in some of them, which was nothing but a long series of petty (albeit entertaining) partisan bickering. Then it happend. The good little democrat in me tied the little noose around his neck and jumped off the stool. He just couldn’t take it anymore. Take what? The whining. The constant whining by the extreme left about the reasons for war, the...

http://www.solomonia.com/blog/archives/006422.shtml#more Guest Blog: Dude, Who Stole My Party? Guest poster Tom Glennon laments the loss of his Democratic Party. There's a lot of that going around. Dude, Who Stole My Party? by Tom Glennon I have a confession to make. It should be made public now, before Dan Rather and the 60 Minutes Team shows up at my door with documents about my past that, although forged, are still accurate. I admit, now and publicly, that I was a Democrat, for more years than I should have been. I was born just after World War II ended, so I am...

I still fight oppression The liberals who say I have deserted the left should ask themselves where they stand on Islamism Nick Cohen Sunday August 7, 2005 Observer Looking back on how his generation covered up the crimes of communism in the 1930s, WH Auden explained that he and his friends weren't true communists but fellow travellers. At home they defended civil liberties and stood up for freedom of speech. Abroad, they tolerated atrocities precisely because they didn't impinge on them. 'Our great error,' said Auden, 'was not a false admiration for Russia but a snobbish feeling that nothing which...

David Aikman's recent book, A Man of Faith: The Spiritual Journey of George W. Bush, highlights the pivotal role religious faith plays in George W. Bush's life and presidency. The book chronicles Bush's slow ascendancy to his faith, taking note of the key people and seminal events that helped shape his Christian worldview. Aikman, a former senior correspondent for Time magazine, is an open Christian who is sympathetic to Bush's core religious principles. Aikman's work is the second one that touches on Bush's faith. Stephen Mansfield wrote the first, The Faith of George W. Bush, which was released last year,...

It took me a month to answer that question. According to the media, Tubingen is the German university where, in 1968, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger -- the future Pope Benedict XVI -- became a conservative. He did so, according to media accounts, because of left-wing student protests in 1968, when Ratzinger was a professor. Is that true? That a brilliant and deeply reflective theologian and priest simply freaked out over some student protests and became orthodox? Perhaps, but if so the more compelling question the media ignored is, if the protests changed Ratzinger, what exactly about them did it? The New...