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Also known as the Greater Advent Antiphons, the O Antiphons are Magnificat antiphons used at Vespers (around sunset) of the last seven days of Advent preceding the vigil of Christmas. Each antiphon is a name of Christ, one of his attributes mentioned in Scripture. They are: DECEMBER 17: O Sapientia (O Wisdom)DECEMBER 18: O Adonai (O Lord)DECEMBER 19: O Radix Jesse (O Root of Jesse)DECEMBER 20: O Clavis David (O Key of David)DECEMBER 21: O Oriens (O Dayspring)DECEMBER 22: O Rex Gentium (O King of the Gentiles)DECEMBER 23: O Emmanuel (O God is with Us) The hymn O come,...

President Barack Obama has an emerging slogan — “greater together” — that he’s using to spur support among younger voters worried about jobs, education and debt. The collectivist slogan is appearing in more places, including fundraisers and in the title of the “Greater Together Student Summit Tour,” which is sending Obama’s deputies to colleges to galvanize students and youth. On Feb. 1, Obama used the slogan to spur support among young and old African-Americans, and especially African-American women. Less than half of younger African-American men are in the workforce, and the average wealth of African-American families was slashed by the...

CHART OF THE DAY: The Market Does Something It Hasn't Done Since The Worst Of The Financial Crisis Joe Weisenthal Aug. 2, 2011, 4:15 PM Today's huge drubbing for stocks makes 8 straight down days for the Dow. The last time this happened? The depths of the financial crisis, in October 2008. Just saying.

In a Wednesday interview on BBC World News America, liberal FCC Commissioner Michael Copps told correspondent Katty Kay: "I think American media has a bad case of substance abuse right now....we are going to be pretty close to denying our citizens the essential news and information that they need to have in order to make intelligent decisions about the future direction of their country." As TVNewser reported on Thursday, after Kay asked about instituting a "Public Value Test" of media outlets, Copps replied: "What we've had in recent years is an aberration where we have had no oversight of the...

In my Parish I work with the men of the Holy Name Society and also the women of the Sodality to ensure that the numerous sick in our parish are visited regularly. I try to visit the sick at least quarterly on a rolling basis to ensure they have had confession and anointing of the Sick. But, since I am without an assistant priest, as a general rule, I depend on them to bring communion regularly.We met as a group this past week and had an interesting discussion about a concern that a number of them expressed, that of reverence....

Christopher Hitchens's rancorous attack against religion, God Is Not Great, is the number-one book in America. Three years ago he and I debated religion in New York City (the debate is available on my Web site). I looked forward to the debate because I had always admired Hitchens's iconoclastic mind and barbed pen. In our debate, he did not disappoint. He began with a typically acerbic attack against religion, saying that Stephen Hawking had more wisdom in his tiny little finger than all the pages of the Bible combined. When my turn came, I responded that the great, wheelchair-bound physicist...

New research has shown that women are more interested in a man’s lunch-box than his face. Oh yes-sireee-bob! Heather Rupp, Ph.D., post-doctoral fellow at the Kinsey Institute has conducted tests in which eye-tracking technology monitored how often men and women peered below the belt when presented with pornographic images. "Men looked at the female face much more than women, and both looked at the genitals comparably,” Dr Rupp said. The research appears to smash, or at the very least dint, certainly scratch the popular notion that men are more visual and women more tactile when it comes to sexual turn-ons....

Arab despots, not Israel, are now under a greater threat Hizbullah's resistance to the region's military superpower will cause tremors in Egypt and Jordan - and even Syria Jonathan Steele in Tyre Friday August 4, 2006 The Guardian (UK) Unlike good children, Israel's drones are heard but not seen. Officially called unmanned aerial vehicles, these "eyes in the sky" circle south Lebanon day and night. Between six and 12 feet long, they are little more than cameras and a motor. They usually fly too high to be spotted, but they make a noise so loud you cannot forget it, like...

Remember back in 200 when George W. Bush was running for President? Even if you didn't support him, you were somewhat anticipating a Presidency with this amusing guy who didn't know the names of foreign leaders and who spoke with the eloquence of a second greater. Remember how after he was elected,Comedy Central even saw his Presidency as being whimsical enough to create a show, "That's my Bush." It was a laugh a minute back in those Bush salad days. Now we have quagmires in Iraq and Afghanistan, a budding world war centered around Israel, $3 a gallon gas, $85...

Station likely to get new home on the dial If all goes as planned, local classical music fans will be able to keep listening to their favorite radio programming on WCRB-FM. But instead of tuning into 102.5 as they now do, they'll turn to another frequency on the FM dial, 99.5. The current WCRB-FM is being sold to Greater Media, which owns 19 radio stations, including five in Boston. Much speculation has surrounded the station's fate -- and its classical format. But it appears the format will live on, if on a station that's more difficult to hear in the...

July 25, 2005Feast of Saint James, Apostle Psalm: Monday 33 Reading I2 Cor 4:7-15 Brothers and sisters:We hold this treasure in earthen vessels,that the surpassing power may be of God and not from us.We are afflicted in every way, but not constrained;perplexed, but not driven to despair;persecuted, but not abandoned;struck down, but not destroyed;always carrying about in the body the dying of Jesus,so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our body.For we who live are constantly being given up to deathfor the sake of Jesus,so that the life of Jesus may be manifested in our mortal...

Throughout the 1990s, Turkish foreign policy analysts had an easy job. After all, Turkish foreign policy was predictable. Ankara cooperated enthusiastically with Washington, whether in the Middle East or in the Balkans. Turkey aligned itself with Israel and kept at arms length from Middle Eastern neighbors such as Syria and Iran. In Europe, Ankara traded heavily with the European Union (EU) but did not allow the EU to dictate foreign policy. The European Union's frequent allegations and criticism of human rights abuses in Turkey, especially with regard to Turkey's fight against Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK, Partiya Karkaren Kurdistan) terrorists, soured...

The purpose of FreeRepublic.com's multiple message boards is to limit the topics for each board to particular topics. Posting the same message on all the boards defeats the purpose of multiple-boards for special topics. It is very annoying to see the same message on every bulletin board. PLEASE! DO THE READERS A FAVOR. STOP CROSS-POSTING YOUR MESSAGES!

This request was made earlier, but it bears posting again. The soldiers and their families need our support. While listening to Lucianne Goldberg on the Laura Ingraham show, a caller requested help for the soldiers again. She specifically mentioned this site. During the call, she said that soldiers that are injured during duty number over 10,000. Also, she said that a number of the families who travel to medical facilities to be with their loved ones are forced to sleep in their cars as they cannot afford lodging anywhere else. Sounded like this site and the post was worth a...

Farmed salmon pose greater risk to wild species than thought PARIS (AFP) - Farmed salmon are a bigger risk to wild species than previously thought, according to a study which says young captive fish that escape their pens beat their native counterparts at the mating game. AFP/File Photo Salmon farms are a thriving industry in Canada, Chile, Ireland, Norway and Scotland but biologists have long feared that the native gene pool could be destroyed if too many penned fish escape their confinement and inter-breed with wild fish. Until now, those fears have been dampened by findings that escapees are less...

Blair warns of greater terrorism threat UK safety from attack 'cannot be guaranteed' Patrick Wintour, chief political correspondent Monday November 11, 2002 The Guardian Tony Blair is to call for heightened vigilance against the growing threat from international terrorism, while arguing that governments cannot be expected to guarantee safety from attack. In his address to the Lord Mayor's banquet in London tonight, Mr Blair is expected to argue that "homeland security" can only be totally guaranteed at the price of paralysing an open society, disrupting daily civilian life and abandoning civil liberties. Such a wholesale reordering of society would amount...