Did you know?

[Stella]

Teresita Barajuen (16 September 1907 – 12 June 2013) was a Spanish Catholic nun and member of the Order of Cistercians. Barajuen is believed to hold the world record for the longest service in cloister.

Barajuen entered the Monastery of Santa María de Buenafuente del Sistal on 16 April 1927, when she was nineteen years old. She remained as a cloistered nun at the monastery for 86 years. In an interview with Portal de tu Ciudad Barajuen said that she did not originally intend to become a nun, but entered into religious life at the monastery due to family pressures. She and her fellow nuns were forced to flee the monastery during the Spanish Civil War due to fighting in the region. In August 2011, Barajuen left the monastery for the first time in forty years to meet with Pope Benedict XVI, who was visiting Madrid for World Youth Day 2011. Barajuen had entered the cloistered monastery on 16 April 1927, the same day that Benedict XVI was born.

Barajuean was one of ten Spanish nuns featured in a 2013 book, What is a Girl Like You Doing In A Place Like This?, by Jesús García, a journalist with El Mundo. Barajuen died during the night of 12 June 2013, at the age of 105.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teresita_Barajuen

[Stella]

"...at 5pm on any given Sunday, you can attend Mass at the little church of Christ the King in Nuuk. You won’t struggle to find a seat. Greenland has a population just shy of 60,000: this includes only 50 or so Catholics."

Greenland Church.png

[Stella]

14th century cunning medical advice for a successful Crusade.

"..the 14th-century anatomist and royal physician Guido da Vigevano offered slug soup as antidote to aconite poisoning. In 1335 da Vigevano produced a text (Texaurus Regis Francie) urging the French king Philip VI to launch a new crusade. The text includes technical plans, drawings for siege engines and a wind-propelled chariot, as well as medical advice, including the above-mentioned solution to aconite poisoning – which despite sounding unpleasant, is actually very ingenious.

Aconite, commonly known as monkshood and still found in cottage gardens, is a highly poisonous plant and during the crusader period it was used by the Muslims against the crusaders. Why slugs, though? On noticing some slugs that were feeding on aconite leaves, da Vigevano seems to have experienced a light-bulb moment. He collected and boiled the slugs, concocting a soup out of them, which he first tested on animals. After achieving satisfactory results he took some aconite and tried the antidote himself.

Da Vigevano proudly reported that while the first two doses made him vomit, by the third dose he was free of the poison. Sadly, he never found out whether it was worth going through this nasty trial, as Philip VI's crusade failed to materialise."

https://www.historyextra.com/period/med ... -crusades/

[Obi-Wan Kenobi]

Mmmmmm … slugs.

[peregrinator]

There may well have been. They bred them tough in the golden days of Hollywood.

... or kept them up and running with pharmaceutical assistance

[Stella]

There may well have been. They bred them tough in the golden days of Hollywood.

... or kept them up and running with pharmaceutical assistance

Another possibility.

[Stella]

Did you know that Catholic Answers is trying out an AI Priest called Fr Justin to answer people questions?

https://wvw.catholic.com/ai

[Doom]

There may well have been. They bred them tough in the golden days of Hollywood.

... or kept them up and running with pharmaceutical assistance

Mickey Rooney claimed that both he and Judy Garland were forced to take methamphetamines while under contract at MGM, and of course Judy Garland later died of a drug overdose, so her addiction probably started in her youth when she was forced to take meth.

[Stella]

A Catholic religious, Sr. Mary Kenneth Keller, was one of the first two people in the US to receive a doctorate in Computer Science (1965) and helped implement the BASIC program in schools.

https://www.vaticanobservatory.org/sacr ... r-science/

[Stella]

Did you know that running was invented in 1748 when Thomas Running tried walking twice at the same time?

[Stella]

Born in 1813, it's Soren Kierkegaard's birthday today! He writes on Twitter "I have just now come from a party where I was its life and soul; witticisms streamed from my lips, everyone laughed and admired me, but I went away — yes, the dash should be as long as the radii of the earth's orbit ——————————— and wanted to shoot myself."

[Doom]

Did you know that running was invented in 1748 when Thomas Running tried walking twice at the same time?

I assume this is an attempt at a pun?

[Stella]

The board was so quiet I was wondering if anyone was still reading it.....

[Doom]

That and saying Kierkegaard posted on Twitter on his birthday?

[Stella]

Doesn't a little silliness amuse you sometimes, Doom?

[Stella]

This is a true story.

After getting all of Pope Benedict's luggage loaded into the limo (and he doesn't travel lightly), the limo driver notices that the Pope is still standing on the curb.

"Excuse me, Your Eminence," says the driver, "but would you please take your seat so we may leave?" "Well, to tell you the truth," says the Pope, "they never let me drive at the Vatican, so I'd like to do the driving today."

"I'm sorry, but I cannot let you do that -- I'd lose my job! And what if something should happen?" protests the driver, wishing he'd never come in to work that morning. "There might be something extra in it for you," says the Pope.

Reluctantly, the driver gets in the back as the Pope climbs in behind the wheel. The driver quickly regrets his decision when, after exiting the airport, the Supreme Pontiff floors it, accelerating the limo to 105 MPH.

"Please slow down, Your Holiness!!!" pleads the worried driver, but the Pope keeps the pedal to the metal until they hear sirens. "Oh, dear God, I'm gonna lose my license," moans the limo driver.

The Pope pulls over and rolls down the window as the cop approaches. The cop takes one look at him, goes back to his motorcycle, and gets on his radio.

"I need to talk to the Chief," he says to the dispatcher. The Chief gets on the radio and the cop tells him that he's stopped a limo going a hundred and five. "So bust him!" said the Chief.

"I don't think we want to do that; he's really important," said the cop. The Chief exclaimed, "All the more reason!"

"No, I mean REALLY important!" said the cop.

The Chief then asked, "Who ya got there, the Mayor?"

Cop: "Bigger."

Chief: "Governor?"

Cop: "Bigger."

"Well," says the Chief, "then who is it?"

Cop: "I think it's God!"

Chief: "Now what makes you think it's
God Himself?"

Cop: "He's got the Pope for a limo driver."

Note for Doom.... IT'S A JOKE!!!!!

[Stella]

Until promulgation of the papal bull, In nomine Domini, in the year 1059 AD which gave the job of electing the Pope to the College of Cardinals, it was either the Roman Emperor, secular leaders of the previous Pope who chose the next Pope. Not really a recipe for success but the role of the Seat of Peter continued throughout that first millennium to be the first source of teaching and final decision for the universal Church. Amazing history.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_nomine_Domini

[Obi-Wan Kenobi]

Don't believe everything you read on Wikipedia. https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/12270a.htm

[Doom]

Until promulgation of the papal bull, In nomine Domini, in the year 1059 AD which gave the job of electing the Pope to the College of Cardinals, it was either the Roman Emperor, secular leaders of the previous Pope who chose the next Pope. Not really a recipe for success but the role of the Seat of Peter continued throughout that first millennium to be the first source of teaching and final decision for the universal Church. Amazing history.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_nomine_Domini

That is an oversimplification, the Pope was elected by the clergy of Rome and he then had to travel to Constantinople to have his election ratified by the emperor. Only in very rare circumstances did the emperor ever try to directly appoint the Pope.

[Stella]

https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/11456a.htm

New Advent gives examples of the processes used here.