We’ve been wondering how to get more Sacred Space members, and more members logging in… and one suggestion was to have “subscribers-only” posts available. But what to put in those posts? Over the next couple of months we’ll try out various kinds of content, to see which ones are most popular with our members.
Sunrise in June from the Papal Palace in Castel Gandolfo. This particular sunrise occurred during the Transit of Venus in 2012One genre which I will have here are “Diary” posts – “inside baseball” accounts of what’s happening at the Specola. This is my first attempt at such a post.
The big news this week was getting ourselves ready for the Faith and Astronomy workshop that we’ll be holding from Monday through Friday next week at the Redemptorist Retreat Center. Bob Trembley came to Tucson a few days early to help us set things up, and put together this program:
Also in town is Matteo Galaverni, an Italian diocesan priest (and NOT SJ — now I have found the typo that one always finds after the stuff goes to the printer!) and cosmologist. It’s his first trip to the US, much less Tucson, so we went to the Pima Air and Space Museum yesterday (after a huge lunch at Little Anthony’s Diner, for the authentic 1950s diner experience). Tonight we’re off to a western-themed steak house.
Other things off my diary this week… I had a Skype session with a parish group in Iowa on Friday morning… a doctor’s appointment on Monday (my allergies mean I will be seeing a specialist next Monday); and on Tuesday, Chris Corbally and I drove up to Phoenix for the first-even “Gold Mass” there associated with a scientific conference.
The Gold Mass is an idea of the Society of Catholic Scientists, similar to the Red Mass that lawyers have and the Blue Mass for firemen and policemen. There have been a number of these over the past few years, usually around the feast of St. Albert the Great, patron of scientists. What made this unusual was that they decided to have it in a gorgeous old Franciscan basilica in Phoenix across the street from the Convention Center during the annual meeting of the American Meteorological Society. Not to be confused with Meteoriticists! One of our community members, Fr. Bayu from Indonesia, was at the meeting and concelebrated the Mass. A lovely time, all in all.
Fr. Chris Corbally on the left, Fr. Bayu on the right. The principal celebrant was Fr. Kevin Grimditch, chaplain of Xavier College Prep in PhoenixThe other thing keeping me busy is the start of the term for the Jesuit Virtual Learning Academy (soon to be renamed Arrupe Virtual Learning Academy), a program to provide online classes to students in Catholic high schools across the country. I’ve been teaching this for about five years now; high school students keep you humble!
Let me know if you find this diary interesting!
— Br Guy
