QOTD - God Attracts Us

On this day of rest, rest in this:

It is only because God, in His love, attracts us that we find the strength in our turn to join him. - Blaise Arminjon, SJ

Visiting the poor, illustration from 'Le Magasin Pittoresque', Paris, 1844 by Karl Girardet

Evernote Smart Notebook, Where New and Old Media Unify

As you might have found in another post, I am a great believer in handwriting. Handwriting is a much more intellect intensive activity than typing. It challenges and extends the brain more. I requires greater manual dexterity, and, when done well, is much more beautiful than typing.

For my ordination registry (yes, they exist thanks to Aquinas and More), I asked for many notebooks with which to take down those things that I thought important, whether it be blog ideas, notes from meetings, homily preparation, or notes for other projects I have going on. I love notebooks as much as I do pens. It might be because you need one for the other.

With notebooks, we run into a problem, with which people have suffered since their inception, their searchability. Notebooks, even well organized ones, take awhile to be searched. You have to flip page by page to complete your search. Many people, being jaded by such an ancient form of searching, have given up on notebooks and turn to word processors or to programs such as Evernote.

I love Evernote. It is a cloud notebook with, if your willing to pay, an infinite amount of storage. I keep many notes within my synced apps on phone, iPad, and desktop that allow me, at anytime, to return to them. For awhile the app replaced the Moleskine that had been in my back pocket. There was just one difficulty. I couldn't write on it. Eventually there was an update that allowed for that, but writing on a screen and writing in a notebook are vastly different in experience. One is novel and therefore, for a short while, holds the attention of this person, but the other is cathartic and retains at least a great perceived permanence to the words being written.

(via blog.evernote.com )

I few weeks ago I heard rumblings about Moleskine and Evernote teaming up for a special kind of notebook that would sync to Evernote. Well it is here, and guys and girls I must tell you. I'm excited. It provides the best of both words the permanence of ink on paper with the searchability of the digital type.

Moleskine has designed the notebook to be read via Evernote programing through a photograph in the iOS app (soon for Android users). These photographs become whole Evernotes and enter into the fully searchable data system of Evernote.

This is where new media and old media collide and inform each other.

Once I get one hopefully I can post some of my writing and thought on here like I've seen one blogger do.

QOTD - Common Good and the Character of Citizens

John Wanamaker Citizen
taken by Smallbones

 The common good must include concern for the character of citizens. - J. Brian Benestad

Relativism has so ingrained itself in our government that this seems contrary to the American government's understanding of itself.

QOTD - Baptism, God's Most Beautiful Gift

Just in case you haven't thought about your baptism in awhile.

Baptism is God's most beautiful and magnificent gift ... We call it gift, grace, anointing, enlightenment, garment of immortality, bath of rebirth, seal, and most precious gift. It is called gift because it is conferred on those who bring nothing of their own; grace since it is given even to the guilty; Baptism because sin is buried in the water; anointing for it is priestly and royal as are those who are anointed; enlightenment because it radiates light; clothing since it veils our shame; bath because it washes; and seal as it is our guard and the sign of God's Lordship. - St. Gregory of Nazianzus

QOTD - Continuity and Renewal, Conservative and Progressive

In effect, continuity and renewal are a proof of the perennial value of the teaching of the Church. - Bl. John Paul II

People often speak within the Church about conservative and progressive. The Church is both, but without the political connotations. It remains perennially in continuity with the Apostles and their successors both in government and in teaching. However, it is forever renewing and progressing in its evangelical mission, which requires reaching people in their own situation. This allows for a deepening of understanding of the teaching of the Church which Bl. John Henry Newman called the development of doctrine, but it also pushes forward those who proclaim the good news of the saving mystery of Jesus Christ.

QOTD - The Paschal Mystery Can Only Be Received

We cannot bring about the Paschal Mystery for ourselves; as the mystery of death and resurrection, by it's very nature it can only be received. - Josef Cardinal Ratzinger

Lord, help us to receive from you the cross you will for us. That through that reception we my rise to newness of life.

QOTD - Rest in the Lord

Some might already be looking back to this past summer's vacations. Well:

To rest in the Lord and to see his joy is like a banquet, and full of gladness and tranquility. - St Ambrose