DAILY ROME SHOT 944

Posted on 16 February 2024 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

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Meanwhile, white to move and mate in 4.

NB: I’ll hold comments with solutions ’till the next day so there won’t be “spoilers” for others.

Interested in learning?  Try THIS.

CLICK!

I am now a chess.com affiliate.   So, click and join!   Maybe we can build a fun and active Catholic Chess Club within Chess.com.  Priestly chess players, drop me a line. HERE

Dear readers… I am experimenting with a Catholic ad service that inserts ads into my posts. I like to support groups like the Summit Dominicans and the different Benedictines, etc., and I try to keep those things to one daily post. They need help and I like to give it. Those are a joy.  I have ads for while I am an affiliate.  Those are okay: you get things you want and I get a percentage.  Everyone wins.  On the other hand, the ad service sticks ads into my posts.  It’s like this: I have to get my income up. View = payment. This is all part of being “cancelled”, or semi-cancelled, I guess. It’s both affirming and humiliating at the same time. As long as I am where I am, and I don’t have a lot of choice in the matter, I have to get my income up.  So… ads.  I’m sorry.  I am suppose to have a measure of control over them.  I saw one that was sort of political and darn near cancelled the whole thing.  I saw another that had a rotating image, which annoyed me.   Please, if they annoy you, be annoyed along with me rather than with me.

In chessy news, world #1 Carlsen defeated world #2 Caruana in the 2024 Freestyle (aka 960 or Fischer Random) Chess G.O.A.T. Challenge to win the $60,000 top prize. I was so sad about Ding Liren. Not a single win in the entire event.

Another interesting tournament is coming up on 21 February. A 2v2 team match, during which pairs of players can confer with each other about the moves. I see that my guy Wesley So is paired up with young super talent Alice Lee (they are in the same town, my native place). It looks fun. The format is an eight team knockout with two game matches and a bidding armageddon tiebreak if necessary. 10+10 time control. The final will be played over a four game match. Prize pool: $25,000.

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DAILY ROME SHOT 943… umm… MOON SHOT

Posted on 15 February 2024 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Please remember me when shopping online and use my affiliate links.  US HERE – UK HERE  WHY?  This helps to pay for health insurance (massively hiked for this new year of surprises), utilities, groceries, etc..  At no extra cost, you provide help for which I am grateful.

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When I was young I would stay up late or fall asleep on the couch in front of the TV during Gemini and Apollo missions. Of course all of us a certain age have clear memories of the first lunar landing. Tonight I stayed up late hoping I might from distance catch something of the launch of the Intuitive Machines-1 launch to the Moon via SpaceX Falcon Heavy from Cape Canaveral. Weather and clouds cooperated for the most part, though some clouds did obscure a little. Alas, all I had was my iPhone as a dashed from my desktop watching the live feed to see what I could see. I also discovered that there is a delay in the “live” feed. It is good I got out there when I did.  Toward the end you see the Main Engine Cut Off and then the Backburn that brings the Falcon Heavy back to the ground to land.

Video NOT from the World’s Best Sacristan™.

The video of the launch and follow up is HERE.

This is all part of the Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS).  NASA has teamed up with commercial companies to put stuff on the Moon.  This mission is to put a company called Intuitive Machines which built a lander called “Odysseus” with a bunch of instruments on it.  On 22 Feb Odysseus will land on the southern part of the Moon, the South Pole.  There are now 14 companies working with NASA and SpaceX.   Pretty exciting.  It’ll be these USA’s first lunar landing since the Apollo program in 1972, and the 1st commercial lander.

SpaceX… will you please take over the USPS?  Thanks in advance.  How about the DDF, too?

A screen grab of the separation of the IM-1 Lunar Lander – Nova C – separating from Falcon 9’s second stage. Now the Lander – going 10km/second – powers up, slows its spinning, looks at the stars and figures out where it is.  It then communicates with mission control (BIG APPLAUSE). Like Superman Nova C gets some juice from the Sun and then heads off to the Moon.  6 days to get to the Moon.  Then it has to land… softly.

Meanwhile, white to move and mate in 2.

NB: I’ll hold comments with solutions ’till the next day so there won’t be “spoilers” for others.

In chessy news.  Semifinals at the German 960 Spa, the 2024 Freestyle Chess G.O.A.T. Challenge. Fabiano Caruana and Levon Aronian had a war – SEVEN HOURS – SIX GAMES – all the way to Armageddon (very fast chess where you bid on time and the lowest gets black, but a draw is a win for black. Carlsen squished Nodirbek Abdusattorov. The Final will be Magnus and Fabi, back together again. I am rooting for Gukesh to defeat Alireza Puer Firouzja for 5th. I’m still sad about Ding Liren.

Meanwhile, on chess.com – did I mention I am now an affiliate? HERE – Hikaru Nakamura broke 3400 in Blitz with a high of 3408, 28 higher than Magnus. There are different formats of fast, speed chess. Rapid, is longer than 10 minutes per player, like 30/0 (minutes/no addition of seconds for a move) and 15/10 (15 minutes and 10 seconds added to your clock when you move – what FIDE uses for World Rapid Championship. There are custom formats too. Blitz are 3 or 5 minutes per player. On Chess.com there will be over 3.5 million blitz games a DAY. The most popular are 5|0, and 3|0, and FIDE uses 3|2. There is also Bullet, which is insane. Second most used time controls on chess.com, over a million games a day. The most popular time controls for bullet are 1|0 and 2|1. As I watch any of these really fast games I can’t believe how fast they use the mouse to move the pieces. Over the board… you wind up knocking things down in time scrambles.

I am now a chess.com affiliate.   So, click and join!   Maybe we can build a fun and active Catholic Chess Club within Chess.com.  Priestly chess players, drop me a line. HERE

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Question to the readers about an organization: My Catholic Doctor?

Posted on 14 February 2024 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Do any of you have experience with

My Catholic Doctor

?

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Your Ash Wednesday Sermon notes and ASH POLL – Did you get your #ASHTAG?

Posted on 14 February 2024 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Today is NOT a holy day of obligation.

That said, many people try to go to Mass on Ash Wednesday.  Many, however, cannot.

Therefore, let us know about your good experiences of Holy Mass and the good points in the sermon, if there was on.

Was there a GOOD point made in the sermon you heard at your Sunday Mass of obligation?

I wrote “good”.  Let’s make this positive and edifying for the benefit of those who had to work or who were shut in or otherwise not able to go to Mass.

Tell about attendance especially for the Traditional Latin Mass.  I hear that it is growing.  Of COURSE.

Any local changes or (hopefully good) news?

Here are some of my thoughts for Ash Wednesday from the stream.

 

Let’s have a poll.

Anyone can vote. Only registered and approved users can comment. And I hope you do!

When I received ashes for Ash Wednesday 2024 the formula used was...

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And also.

For 2024 Ash Wednesday about reception of ASHES

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“Ash Wednesday” by T.S. Eliot

Posted on 14 February 2024 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Back in 2013, with a remnant of a cold, I read T. S. Eliot’s Ash Wednesday.

It’s interesting to go back to that post and see the comments.  For example, Supertradmum is no longer with us.  Say a prayer for the repose of her soul.  There are names of some commentators we haven’t see around for a while.

HERE

 

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DAILY ROME SHOT 942

Posted on 14 February 2024 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Please remember me when shopping online and use my affiliate links.  US HERE – UK HERE  WHY?  This helps to pay for health insurance (massively hiked for this new year of surprises), utilities, groceries, etc..  At no extra cost, you provide help for which I am grateful.

A couple photos from the close of Forty Hours at my adoptive parish in Rome. FORTY HOURS MUST BE REVIVED.

BISHOPS! PAY ATTENTION! Do you even know what this is? Not just the old stories about the priests’ gatherings afterwards in the old days?

At the close of Forty Hours the Solemn Mass is coram Sanctissimo!  It’s a rara avis now.  I’ve done it a few times.  It was such a powerful experience that it felt like a “first Mass”, or like what some older priests or bishops, such as Most Rev. Joseph Strickland, feel when they say the TLM for the first time.

From The World’s Best Sacristan™

In the “Freestyle” (960) invitational at the fancy German spa, where taste is, apparently, optional but the chess is surreal, Carlsen defeated the dangerous young 19 year old Nodirbek.  The more I see of this young Uzbeki, the more impressed.  He was the youngest male ever to win a World Championship (Rapid).  The youngest ever champ was a woman.  Heh.  A girl.  Heh heh.

The woes of the world continued as the Eumenides plagued poor Ding Liren who lost again.  He did have a single win in this entire enterprise.  I feel terrible for him.  I feel like this for him. Especially because he lost to Puer (aka Alireza).  GAH.  His last game was disaster.  To him…

Dismounted, we drank to bid you farewell.
I asked, “My friend, where are you heading?”
You said, “Oh, nothing is working my way,
So be back to the crags of Nanshan, retiring.”
“Go then! You’ll ask of the world no more!
Ah, days of endless white clouds, unending!”

Wang Wei

YouTube thumbnailYouTube icon

I have to get back to my Chinese.  After my Hungarian and Polish… and now maybe Ukrainian?  Time to look at the Divine Liturgy.  I digress.

Ding.  You have a big one coming up. Pull it together.

Vincent Keymer beat Gukesh.   Fine by me.

This photo below puts me a at ease.   I was glad to see this photo on chess.com… of which I am now an affiliate… sign up with my link and I benefit… let’s get a CATHOLIC thing going…

Magnus needs a hair cut.  He always needs a hair cut.  Something in the Norwegian water?

Remember Magnus! I know you are reading this.  Dating is not for “fun”.  Dating is for your (plural) future life.

Black’s more.  Can you mate in 3?

NB: I’ll hold comments with solutions ’till the next day so there won’t be “spoilers” for others.

Interested in learning?  Try THIS.

Priestly chess players, drop me a line. HERE

 

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14 Feb. 2024 – Ash Wednesday – Fasting, Abstinence, and You (with remarks on coffee) – UPDATED with comments about brushing your teeth

Posted on 13 February 2024 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

According to the 1983 Code of Canon Law for the Latin Church, Latin Church Catholics are bound to observe fasting and abstinence on Ash Wednesday.

Here are some details. I am sure you know them already, but they are good to review.

FASTING: Catholics who are 18 year old and up, until their 59th birthday (when you begin your 60th year), are bound to fast (1 full meal and perhaps some food at a couple points during the day, call it 2 “snacks”, according to local custom or law – call it, two snacks that don’t add up to a full meal) on Ash Wednesday and on Good Friday.

Some choose not to eat at all.  Some choose, in the monastic style, to have something only in the evening.

There is no scientific formula for this.  Figure it out.

ABSTINENCE: Catholics who are 14 years old and older are abound to abstain from meat on Ash Wednesday and on all Fridays of Lent.

In general, when you have a medical condition of some kind, or you are pregnant, etc., these requirements can be relaxed.

For Eastern Catholics there are differences concerning dates and practices. Our Eastern friends can fill us Latins in.

You should by now have a plan for your spiritual life and your physical/material mortifications and penitential practices during Lent.

You would do well to include some works of mercy, both spiritual and corporal.

I also recommend making a good confession close to the beginning of Lent.  Let me put that another way:

GO TO CONFESSION!

“But Father! But Father!”, some of you are saying anxiously, “What about my coffee?  I can drink my coffee, can’t I?  Can’t I?”

You can, of course, have coffee.  No question there.  You can also choose not to.

How about coffee in between meals on Ash Wednesday?

The old axiom, for the Lenten fast, is “Liquidum non frangit ieiunium … liquid does not break the fast”, provided – NB – you are drinking for the sake of thirst, rather than for eating.

Common sense suggests that chocolate banana shakes or “smoothies”, etc., are not permissible, even though they are pretty much liquid in form.  They are not what you would drink because you are thirsty, as you might more commonly do with water, coffee, tea, wine in some cases, lemonade, even some of these sports drinks such as “Gatorade”, etc.

Again, common sense applies, so figure it out.

Drinks such as coffee and tea do not break the Lenten fast even if they have a little milk added, or a bit of sugar, or fruit juice, which in the case of tea might be lemon.

Coffee would break the Eucharistic fast (one hour before Communion), since – pace fallentes  – coffee is no longer water, but it does not break the Lenten fast on Ash Wednesday.

You will be happy to know that chewing tobacco does not break the fast (unless you eat the quid, I guess), nor does using mouthwash (gargarisatio in one manual I checked) or brushing your teeth (pulverisatio – because once people used tooth powder – and you still can!  GETCHYER TOOTH POWDER HERE! There is even one with charcoal.  The ancient Romans at least the ancient Iberians under the Romans, as we know from a poem by Catullus, used chalk and urine. Yes.  They did (cf. Catullus 39 about Egnatius, who apparently grinned to excess).

EVERYONE NB: Never forget the Latin proverb, risus abundant in ore stultorum… laughter/grinning abounds in the mouths of the stupid.  And, in the aforementioned Cat 39, “nam risu inepto res ineptior nulla est… there is nothing more tasteless than a silly laugh”.  Which wasn’t lost on Peter Shaffer!  If you have a risus ineptus you would do well to change your ways.).

Concerning the consumption of alligator and crocodile – HERE

I included notes also on the eating of endothermic moonfish, peptonized beef, and muskrat… just in case.

If you want to drink your coffee and tea with true merit I suggest drinking it from one of my coffee mugs.  I’d like to offer an indulgence for doing so, but that’s above my pay grade.

I just happen to have available a “Liquidum non frangit ieiunium” mug!  HERE

And there’s also this new choice…

3:16 isn’t just in John.

CLICK to see MORE

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DAILY ROME SHOT 941

Posted on 13 February 2024 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Meanwhile, white to move and mate in 3.

NB: I’ll hold comments with solutions ’till the next day so there won’t be “spoilers” for others.

Interested in learning?  Try THIS.

The 8 players Fischer Random 960 invitational – the 2024 Freestyle Chess G.O.A.T. Challenge – is still underway in N. Germany at the spa.  Magnus mopped the floor with Puer (Alireza Firoujza) to get a spot in the semifinal.  Nodirbek drew with poor Ding (who is out), and Caruana bested Gukesh.  Levon beat Vincent in 20 moves!

I am now a chess.com affiliate.   So, click and join!   Maybe we can build a fun and active Catholic Chess Club within Chess.com.  Priestly chess players, drop me a line. HERE

CLICK!

And remember to support the wonderful Benedictines of Norcia, who make excellent beer.

Ceterum censeo Alirezam esse delendum.

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News of the Church 09 – 12 February 2024

Posted on 12 February 2024 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Welcome to the 9th edition of News of the Church.

It’s 12 February 2024 and it is a Monday, the the day after Quinquagesima Sunday and two days before Ash Wednesday. Some time ago, I saw a movie called News of the World in which after the Civil War a former confederate officer ekes out a living wandering from town to town reading to people articles from newspapers he has gathered. People who pay a dime a head which figures to about $2.50. In those days news was scare and many couldn’t read at all, so there was great interest and emotion over the news of the world he brought. The idea of this travelling gazetteer caught my imagination and here I am. The word Gazette came into English through French but it’s origin is Italian, gazzetta, which is the name of the Venetian coin which paid for the first first Venetian newspapers in the 16th century. Here is today’s audio “gazette” of Catholic things.

00:12 Init
01:28 Men’s Club
05:19 St. Agnes, virgin and martyr
13:00 Card. Richelieu
21:10 Swiss Guard
27:26 Exit

This podcast is now provided by my Federated Computer! You can get one too by clicking the link.

Fr. Z’s Podcasts Feed RSS

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Posted on 12 February 2024 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

19 FEB ’24:  UPDATE – 
Right now this BREVIARY project is ON HOLD until we catch up and then recheck how many are left. DO NOT SEND INQUIRIES until I am sure what’s going on.

I still have some beautiful 3 volume Latin/English sets of the traditional “Roman Breviary” by Baronius Press.  They have to go quickly. They are unopened. More HERE  

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