Podcasts about roman senator

In this episode of The Post-Christian Podcast, Dr. Eric Bryant is joined by Dr. Joey Dodson, an expert on the intersection of Greek philosophy and early Christianity. Joey dives deep into the parallels between ancient philosophers like Plato and biblical figures, drawing fascinating connections that enlighten our understanding of the New Testament. Joey further explores how Paul's teachings provide a response to Platonic thought, challenging modern misconceptions about sin and transformation. The episode emphasizes the profound difference between merely coping with sin and experiencing true, transformative power through Christ.

Would you believe that George William Frederick, the future King George III, was an actor in a play that focused on independent liberty -vs- tyranny?  Joseph Addison wrote a play in 1712 about the mortal enemy of Julius Caesar entitled “Cato, A Tragedy”.  Cato was a Roman Senator.  The play focused on independent liberty -vs- government, tyranny, and other things that would heavily influence our Founding Fathers.  This weeks episode of Revolutionary War Rarities reveals to our listeners the impact that “Cato, A Tragedy” had on some of the big names of our revolution.  So, make sure and watch this episode and thank you for being a part of Revolutionary War Rarities, the Podcast from The Sons of the American Revolution.

A lot more God talk in this one people, which you may or may not be into.  A lot of Philosophical and theological perspectives on God, with a capital G.  We continue our conversation with a very interesting Seminarian who has been studying not only theology but philosophy as well so he use big words, make brain thing hurtey.  This recording dates back to August of 2022 and I'm just now getting to it… my friend the Seminarian was in a summer program of Chaplaincy at the hospital where I do some volunteer work, we've had some interesting conversations and I finally connected with him to be on this show.   We start out with a simple question, that being: If God is all loving, how can there be so much hatred among us?  If you are looking for an answer to that question, you'll need to visit another podcast, but inevitably, the answer to all questions can be found in a podcast. A few glossary items referred to in this episode: The Eternal Now - It feels to me like I'm hearing more and more about this referred to as Mindfulness and mindfulness meditations, but to a Catholic Seminarian it is much more.  It is his desire to be as present to God as he is present to us.  This also sent me down a crazy rabbit hole that led me to a site called “faithhub.net”.  Faithhub!  Doesn't that sound tasty?  Like GrubHub only they deliver faith!  Right to your door! There is a post titled, “God's Eternal Now” it reads, “God, is present, here, and NOW. In each moment.  It is our greatest desire to be present to God as he is present to us.  It is we who are often missing from the moment and, therefore, are often out of touch with God.”  Even if you take God out of the equation, and please do if you have a negative association with that word for now.  Take God out of the equation, and most reasonable and thoughtful people would see the value of being in the moment and that, regardless of faith, we spend way too much time regretting or reliving the past and fretting about the future.  I know I do and there really isn't much value to it.  Other than the satisfaction I get out of having a winning drop the mic argument with a fictitious person I've never met in a situation that will never occur. Back to the article on Faithhub… and get ready for a rabbit hole because it led me to a previous rabbit hole, that being author C.S Lewis.  Remember I told you I thought he wrote Alice in Wonderland but it was actually Lewis Carroll?  Well, this time it IS C.S. Lewis I am interested in.  Lewis was an author of novels filled with Christian metaphor and before he wrote the Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe, he wrote a novel called “The Screwtape Letters” which was dedicated to his friend J.R.R. Tolkien.  “The Screwtape Letters” was published as a list of letters from a senior demon or devil, named Screwtape, to a lower level Devil, named Wormwood… sounds like JK Rowling snatched and changed a couple of names there doesn't it?  Wormwood is actually the nephew of Screwtape, and Screwtape advises Wormwood on how to treat his patient, which is an earthly being, so as to get him over to the dark side.  Wormwood tells Screwtape, “Our business is to get them (meaning mortals) away from the eternal and from the present.” He also tells Wormwood that if the human “concerns himself with the Present because there, and there alone, all duty, all grace, all knowledge, and all pleasure dwell, his state is very undesirable and should be attacked at once.”  - Your affectionate uncle, SCREWTAPE.“ This all gets back to the Eternal Now our Seminarian tells us about in this episode.  Next glossary term...  Boethius - He was a Roman Senator and Christian Scholar in the Early Middle Ages, when Rome was embracing Christianity and wrote and translated a bunch of texts.  There's your moron definition.  next…. We talk about How to pray for someone and give them their money's worth. We learn the origin of the term scapegoat!  You guys probably know already but I haven't a clue.  He also tells us who THE all time scapegoat is.  Here's a hint… the GOAT is not Tom Brady. Also, a note: There is a graphic description of death and dying in this episode that you may not feel comfortable hearing, specifically involving a patient dying from cancer. With that same patient there is a discussion about the power of forgiveness, which leads me to bring up a professor I have mentioned before on the is podcast, Dr. Fred Luskin from Stanford University.  He has done extensive research on the training and measurement of forgiveness therapy. His research demonstrates that learning forgiveness leads to increased physical vitality, hope, enhanced optimism and conflict resolution skills. It also shows that forgiveness lessens the physical and emotional toll of stress, and decreases hurt, anger, depression and blood pressure. There is a link at the bottom of the description to a short talk by Dr. Luskin. We pick up our conversation right where we left off last time, in fact there's a slight overlap as our guest is talking about the literal versus figurative when trying to interpret the Bible.  It's my conversation with a seminarian and his chaplaincy work in a hospital and thank you for listening to The Modern Moron… CLOSE - I hope you enjoyed that conversation with my friend from the seminary and I will try to keep in touch with him and hopefully have him back. Since I have a couple of minutes I'd like to tell you about a recent visit I made to a patient.  I was on the floor walk along and came to the door that was closed and had a sign posted that before anyone entered they should check with the attending nurse.  I did and found out that it would be okay and that he seemed to be in a good mood that day, as he had been doing Elmo impressions earlier.  Not knowing exactly what that meant, I walk in and find a young man, probably in his 20's to early 30's, long hair with a gauze mesh over his entire left leg due to a burn, and not much clothing other than that.  His blanket was covering his kibbles and bits, and he had an incarceration geo-tracker on his left ankle.   Not much of a traditional conversation.  Even though I'm a moron, I'm feeling like not only am I observing someone who could possibly be a meth addict to the point of permanent damage, I also have the very unprofessional feeling that I'm observing someone who could be schizophrenic.  Also, he looked to be fairly healthy physically and lacked the gaunt look with accompanying sores and missing teeth.  He seemed to have all his teeth.  Yay!  They certainly were not dentures… and if they were, he got ripped off.   So which is it? Meth of schizophrenia?  I looked it up and gosh darn if there isn't some overlap between methamphetamine-Induced Psychosis and Schizophrenia.  How about that.  There is a link to a study of just that at the bottom of the description if you're interested. It can be difficult, with out the proper educational background, to make the distinction between someone who is suffering from addiction to Chrystal Meth and someone who is schizophrenic.  I was speaking with a new friend who is in one of my exclusive social clubs that has recovered from addiction to meth and heroin, and he told me based on his experience and not medical data or trials or anything professional, that someone on meth will hallucinate, see and interact with hallucinations, partially because the stimulant effect has kept them up for 4, 5 or even 6 days and they are literally trying to sleep while awake and it results in these hallucinations.  Again, that is the experience of one person, not a science based or clinically based conclusion.  He also said that in his experience, the withdrawal from heroine was more physical with an actual craving for the drug, while the withdrawal from meth was additionally psychological.  Again, his experience.   Also, I noticed he had rather long fingernails, which I was slightly concerned that if he got squirrely on me, I would not care to get scratched by this… um… person.  He did seem to respect that I was a Chaplain, he did have a bible with him and at one point asked me what was my favorite quote from the Bible.  I am not that familiar with the bible and you wanna know what this moron's answer was?  I said, “you know, the gospel of Matthew is the first thing that comes to mind.”  I mean, why limit myself to a favorite verse?  I'll take the whole book, thank you.   This patient was pretty cagey.  In fact that's a pretty good word to describe him.  Every couple seconds his eyes would shift as could his mood.  So I tried to wrap up my talk with him in some prayer.  He asked me to pray for him and just like our seminarian recommended, I asked him, “what would you like me to pray for?” His response was, “I would like you to pray that I will be back with my wives and that I never test positive for Chrystal Meth again.”  Not my wife, my wives and not to be released from the grips of Meth and it's addiction, just don't let me get caught.  And you know what?  That's exactly what I prayed for… “Heavenly Father, please let Bob heal from his injuries so he  can be reunited with his wives, and may he never test positive for Chrystal meth again.  And also God, please release him from the grips of it's addiction.”  I threw that last part in there so I would have a clean conscious.  He told me that prayer was very powerful, I bid him goodbye and as I left the room he continued a conversation with his imaginary friends.  Out of curiosity, if you have ever prayed for either of those things, to be reunited with your wives or to never test positive for meth again, would you please… PLEASE contact the Modern Moron because we would LOVE to hear your story… provided you can string two sentences together. You might think you yourself, “how can you be a chaplain and not know the bible?”  My answer is that so far, the patients I have sat with mostly want some one to just listen.  Listen to them, listen to their story, listen to their suffering and just be present.  Not to come up with my own fish story or my tall tale that one up's your story.  And, so far that has been acceptable… but I do have a lot to learn.  Thank you for listening to these last two episodes that have been a bit different than what we've had previously.  Hit like, and subscribe and write a glowing review and all the things people don't want to do when they listen to a podcast.  If fact, you know what?  Skip it, I wouldn't do it either.  We'll see you next time…  A Comparison of Methamphetamine-Induced Psychosis and Schizophrenia: A Review of Positive, Negative, and Cognitive Symptomatology - National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI)  What Is Forgiveness? | Fred Luskin, PhD - YouTube   God's Eternal Now | FaithHub - Faithhub.net  

Ryan Holiday's best-selling trilogy - The Obstacle Is the Way, Ego is the Enemy, and Stillness is the Key - captivated professional athletes, CEOs, politicians, and entrepreneurs and helped bring Stoicism to millions of readers. Now, in the first book of an exciting new series on the cardinal virtues of ancient philosophy, Holiday explores the most foundational virtue of all: Courage. Almost every religion, spiritual practice, philosophy, and person grapples with fear. The most repeated phrase in the Bible is “Be not afraid.” The ancient Greeks spoke of Phobos, panic and terror. It is natural to feel fear, the Stoics believed, but it cannot rule you. Courage, then, is the ability to rise above fear, to do what's right, to do what's needed, to do what is true. And so it rests at the heart of the works of Marcus Aurelius, Aristotle, and CS Lewis, alongside temperance, justice, and wisdom. In Courage Is Calling, Ryan Holiday breaks down the elements of fear, an expression of cowardice, the elements of courage, an expression of bravery, and lastly, the elements of heroism, an expression of valor. Through engaging stories about historic and contemporary leaders, including Charles De Gaulle, You'll also delve deep into the moral dilemmas and courageous acts of lesser-known, but equally as important, figures from ancient and modern history, such as Helvidius Priscus, a Roman Senator who stood his ground against emperor Vespasian, even in the face of death. We discussed his own personal journey to developing courage, from dropping out of UC Riverside to his decision to quit working in a toxic environment, to starting businesses, and touring the world...all while being an actrive, involved father of two and husband to one! Subscribe to Ryan's channel for

Scott and Steve discuss the origin and their personal history with the worst word (You mean, that one?  Maybe.) and several other words that are awful. Special guest, comedian Adrienne Iapalucci (Netflix’s The Degenerates, Late Night with David Letterman, Vadge podcast, Reader’s Digest), returns to the show to share her worst words and, as always, some great entrepreneurial advice on how to make money with your mouth. In addition, the English words most hated by Germans, how cakes were marketed in the 1980s, what an Eskimo and pretend Roman Senator have in common, and Speakcies Squirrel Covers.  Adrienne Iapalucci Listen to Adrienne Iapalucci’s full album “Baby Skeletons”   - FOR FREE  - at https://youtu.be/ca07ZBPbtXY.   Support Adrienne directly at http://venmo.com/adrienne-iapalucci​- or - http://Paypal.me/BabySkeletons Twitter - twitter.com/aiapalucci Instagram - instagram.com/adrienneiapalucci Origin of Speakcies Become a Speakcies Supporter! As a Speakcies Supporter, you receive great benefits including exclusive podcasts like True Facts with Robert Banquette, Personal Records, and the Postgame Show. Also, full uncensored video interviews with special guests like Adrienne Iapalucci.  Your cost? Whatever you want to pay. Any contribution unlocks all content & benefits. Become a Speakcies Supporter today at patreon.com/speakcies.   Twitter - twitter.com/speakcies Instagram - instagram.com/speakcies  

An in-depth overview and critical analysis of Procopius of Caesarea: A Byzantine Historian and primary source for Late Antiquity in the Roman Empire during the Age of Justinian when the New Rome centered at Constantinople became once again for one last time the undisputed geopolitical superpower of the Mediterranean. - Watch the video-friendly edition on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QBpeAzhZ1ds - Living in a period of fundamental transition for not just the Roman Empire itself, but the broader world during the autumn of classical antiquity from the Occident to the Orient --the Eastern Roman / Byzantine Historian Procopius of Caesarea is to this day in the early 21st century considered to be by both casual Greco-Roman history buffs to professional scholars alike as one of the paramount guides for the turbulent age of the Emperor Justinian I. During his tenure as a Roman Senator and Historiographer within the Court of Justinian (and Theodora), he served as the legal advisor (adsessor / symboulos) for the General Flavius Belisarius who would spearhead as the chief commander of the Late Roman Army a successful series of military campaigns that (albeit being partially completed and still debated regarding their cost and legacy) restored many of the formerly lost Western Provinces back into the Roman Empire. Accompanying Belisarius during his many expeditions in the name of the Empire, his documentation of the Wars of Justinian from the easternmost frontiers against the Persians / Iranians to the reconquest of Carthage + the former province of Roman Africa (modern-day Libya, Tunisia, and parts of Morocco + Algeria), and even through the Gates of the Eternal City of Rome itself are all vividly narrated into three key primary sources due to his eyewitness testimony and aim to structure his writing in the classical tradition of Herodotus and Thucydides. As someone who is commonly classified as the last major historian of the ancient Western world, Procopius' life and times are shadows in which still to this day loom large over the imagination of modern readers and all who have come before and will come after. His works also include brief, but insightful summaries of the extreme weather events of 535–536 and the Plague of Justinian (541–549) as they were understood by himself and his contemporaries (I also expand and connect them to the Late Antique Little Ice Age along with juxtaposing these variables with those of today in the United States of America). Despite the mentioned caveats on this episode of the Podcast, the literary works of Procopius are essential reading if one seeks to have a nuanced understanding of the complex and radically shifting world of the Roman Empire in Late Antiquity as well as the gradual but definitive divergence of the Latin-West and Greek-East as increasingly distinct cultural spheres with conflicting trajectories in the aftermath which are future subjects that shall be discussed in-depth on #GetNuanced with TJC. - PLEASE NOTE: This segment is ultimately an extended introduction to a person and subject which truly requires assessing the firsthand accounts which are his surviving literary works: "History of the Wars" - https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/History_of_the_Wars "The Buildings" - http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Procopius/Buildings/home.html "The Secret History" - https://sacred-texts.com/cla/proc/shp/index.htm - CONNECT with GetNuanced: YouTube Channel: http://www.youtube.com/GetNuanced Official Website: http://www.GetNuanced.com/ Shop at #TeamPeachi: http://www.PeachiLabs.com/ Follow @TJC on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/TJC Follow @GetNuanced Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/GetNuanced - -TJC --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/getnuanced/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/getnuanced/support

Imagine, one day you’re king and the next day you’re not. Literally. That's the story of Joseph Bonaparte, brother of Napoleon, who was made King of Naples and Spain, only to be forced to flee in exile after the reversal of his family’s destiny. Napoleon was sent to an island prison, but Joseph had to move to New Jersey, where suddenly he was just another regular person—rich, sure, but far from royalty. The same went for Achille Murat, the son of Napoleon’s brother-in-law. Once the heir-in-waiting for the kingdom of Napoli, he ended up living in the swampland of Florida, lording only over some property he called Lipona, an anagram of the kingdom he had lost. He dreamed of leading armies in Italy, but ended up, as one legend has it, the postmaster of Tallahassee. Banished to New Jersey and Florida. Someone in the 19th century knew how to levy punishment. All kidding aside, these stories are almost real-life versions of the lyrics to the Coldplay hit, Viva La Vida:I used to rule the worldSeas would rise when I gave the wordNow in the morning, I sleep aloneSweep the streets I used to ownAnd in turn, all of this is probably the most persistent theme in Stoicism, both philosophically and biographically. Zeno was a wealthy merchant from a prominent family with a fleet of ships, until a storm dashed them all to pieces. He ended up in Athens with nothing in his pockets. Cato was a towering Roman Senator, only to suddenly find himself on the wrong side of a vicious civil war. He was powerful one day, disemboweled the next. The same was true of his rival cum ally Pompey, the general who loved the lectures of the Stoic philosopher Posidonius. A lifetime of victories evaporated in a single hour at the Battle of Pharsalus. Shortly thereafter, he was decapitated by pirates as he tried to go into exile. Seneca was the man behind the throne with Nero...until Nero turned on him. All of our fates and fortunes rest on pillars of sand. Today we are on high, tomorrow can bring us down low...and the day after, lower than we even believed possible. That’s life. It humbles us. It surprises us. It is not inclined to show mercy—or care about our precious dreams.That’s why we must be prepared: premeditatio malorum (an anticipation of the twists and turns of fate) and amor fati (ready to love whatever that fate is) are not just principles to abide, they are tools to deploy in the forging of our inner citadel, in the smithing of an iron spine. They allow us to endure and survive anything. The vagaries of life are why we must be careful of ego (it is the enemy, after all); careful of anything that makes us think what we have right now is actually ours, or that it says anything about us as people. Because if we allow the presence of the things we have and hold dear to define us, their untimely a

You know sometimes you hear a quote or an aphorism and you think, That’s it. That’s me. That’s my philosophy for life. Well it turns out that is a pretty common and timeless thing. At the very least, we know it goes back to the time of George Washington. Washington’s favorite play was the play Cato, about the Roman Senator and Stoic philosopher by Joseph Addison. This play, which was written in 1712, was hugely famous in its time, and, with some irony, it might be called the “Hamilton” of the day. It was so familiar to the people in the late 18th century that it could be quoted without attribution and everyone knew exactly where the line came from. And Washington in particular liked to quote one line that must have spoken to him the way those quotes speak to us now—where you just know that nothing will capture what you think and feel about life better than that. “Free,” he said in a letter to a friend after the Revolution about his return to private life, “from the bustle of a camp and the intrigues of court, I shall view the busy world ‘in the calm light of mild philosophy,’ and with that serenity of mind, which the Soldier in his pursuit of glory, and the Statesman of fame have not time to enjoy.” In fact, in the book The Political Philosophy of George Washington, the author Jeffry H. Morrison notes that in a single two week period in 1797, Washington quoted that same line in three different letters. And later, in Washington’s greatest but probably least known moment, when he talked down the mutinous troops who were plotting to overthrow the U.S government at Newburgh, he quoted the same line again, as he urged them away from acting on their anger and frustration. In the calm lights of mild philosophy. That’s Stoicism. That’s using Reason to temper our impulses and our emotions. As Epictetus said, it’s about putting our impressions up to the test. It’s what Marcus Aurelius talked about when he said that our life is what our thoughts make it. That what we choose to see determines how we will feel. We must follow this advice today and every day. It served Cato well and Washington even better. All that we see must be illuminated by the calm lights of mild philosophy. So we can see what it really is. So we don’t do anything we regret. So we can enjoy this wonderful gift of life we possess, whatever our station.

A slave-turned-gladiator finds himself in a race against time to save his true love, who has been betrothed to a corrupt Roman Senator. As Mount Vesuvius erupts, he must fight to save his beloved as Pompeii crumbles around him.

Welcome to the first episode of the History Unplugged podcast. We are kicking things off by exploring the US Army’s failed experiment of using camels as the military’s main pack animal in the American Southwest. Camels are more than a zoo curiosity that spits on you in front of a field trip of first-graders. They are more than the mascot of your favorite cigarette brand. Camels were the long haul-truck of the ancient world. They created the global economy and the spice road. Were you a Roman Senator you want cinnamon from Sri Lanka or nutmeg from Indonesia? It came to you by camel. Were you a Chinese emperor who wanted gold, henna, storax, frankincense, asbestos, cloth, silk gauze, silk damask, glass, and silver from Arabia? A camel brought it to you. But did you know that America almost chose the camel as its preferred method of long-distance travel in the early nineteenth century? Before railroads or long-distance trucks, some Americans dreamed of millions of camels flooding the Southwest to make desert crossings easy and safe. A Secretary of War named Jefferson Davis thought the plan would work. He dispatched an Army Officer to the Middle East to purchase several dozen dromedaries and hire a few cameleers. Thus the U.S. Camel Corps was born. RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE To listen to a country song inspired by one of the cameleers, Hi Jolly, click here. MORE INFORMATION ABOUT THE HISTORY UNPLUGGED PODCAST This is the first episode of History Unplugged. It celebrates unsung heroes, mythbusts historical lies, and rediscovers the forgotten stories that changed our world. There are two sorts of episodes that we feature on the History Unplugged podcast: the call-in show and author interviews. For history lovers who listen to podcasts, it is the most comprehensive show of its kind because it's the only one that dedicates episodes to both interviewing experts and answering questions from its audience. It features a call-in show where you can ask our resident historian (Scott Rank, PhD) absolutely anything (What was it like to be a Turkish sultan with 4 wives and 12 concubines? If you were sent back in time, how would you kill Hitler?) and long form interviews with historians who have written about everything—and I mean everything—including gruff World War II generals who flew with airmen on bombing raids, a war horse who gained the rank of sergeant, and presidents who gave their best speeches while drunk. For the call-in show it features an actual history question submitted from a listener just like you. I (Scott) will answer your question in 5-10 minutes. You can submit your questions to me by going here. You can ask me anything. What did the Vikings eat? What was it like to be a Turkish sultan with 4 wives and multiple concubines? If you were sent back in time with your current knowledge, how would you conquer the Roman Empire? What would be the best way to assassinate Hitler? The second sort of episode on our podcast is the long form interview (40 minutes - 1 hour) with top history book authors. These authors have written about everything—and I mean everything—including gruff World War II generals who flew with airmen on bombing raids, a war horse who gained the rank of sergeant, and presidents who gave their best speeches while drunk. I sit down with them and go in-depth on their topics. So far I've been blown away by the stories I've heard. Here are some of our guests lined up in the next few days. Robin Hutton, author of Sgt. Reckless, America's War Horse Mark Will-Weber, author of Mint Juleps with Teddy Roosevelt: The Complete History of Presidential Drinking Prof. Richard Weikart, author of Hitler’s Relgion: The Twisted Beliefs that Drove the Third Reich TO HELP OUT THE SHOW Leave an honest review on iTunes. Your ratings and reviews really help and I read each one. Subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher  

As we continue our advent journey anticipating the birth of Jesus focusing on different characters of the Jesse Tree, today being Nehemiah (read Nehemiah 8-9: http://usccb.org/bible/nehemiah/8), we we are shifting that focus a bit as we begin a special period in our Advent preparation known as the Octave before Christmas. During this time we recite or chant the O Antiphons following the "Magnificat" during Vespers from December 17 through December 23. They are called the O Antiphons because each begins with the interjection, “O,” followed by a title for the Messiah given in the prophecies of Isaiah. You may be more familiar with the metrical paraphrase version of the O antiphons that make up the very familiar Advent hymn “O Come, O Come Emmanuel,” but if we are not familiar with the actual texts of the antiphons we are missing a great deal of their meaning. While we do not have time in this brief reflection to read the Antiphons in their entirety, I encourage you to do so in your personal prayer time. The exact origins of the O antiphons are unknown but there is reference to their use by Roman Senator and Philosopher Boethius around 500 AD. The O Antiphons were especially revered by the monks at the Benedictine Abbey of Fleury which was founded in 640. They were used in liturgical celebrations in Rome by the eighth century. The seven titles for the Messiah given in the antiphons are: O Sapientia or O Wisdom O Adonai or O sacred Lord O Radix Jesse, O Flower of Jesse’s Stem O Clavis David, O Key of David O Oriens, O Radiant Dawn O Rex Gentium, O King of the Gentiles And O Emmanuel or O God with us Professor Robert Greenberg of the San Francisco Music Conservatory noted that the Benedictine monks arranged the antiphons in a particular order. If one starts with the last title and takes the first letter of each one - Emmanuel, Rex, Oriens, Clavis, Radix, Adonai, Sapientia - the Latin words ero cras are formed, which means, Tomorrow, I will come. Therefore, the Messiah, whose coming we have been anticipating during this Advent season and whom we have named in these seven Messianic titles, speaks to us, Tomorrow, I will come. So the O Antiphons bring intensity to our Advent preparation and bring it to a joyful conclusion with the birth of the Jesus. Musical credit: "O Holy Night" · Christine Westhoff · Timothy Allen Hark ℗ 2014 Christine Westhoff

This week, I have been reading a fascinating book of historical fiction entitled, The Robe, by Lloyd C. Douglas. As you will hear in this PODCAST, in the book Douglas records a conversation between Marcellus, son of a Roman Senator who has fallen out of favor with Emperor Tiberias, and Marcellus’ slave, Demetrius. The conversation goes like this: 'Demetrius'—Marcellus swept the sky with an all-inclusive arm—'do you ever believe in the gods?' 'If it is my master's wish, I do,' replied Demetrius, perfunctorily. 'No, no,' said Marcellus, testily, 'be honest. Never mind what I believe. Tell me what you think about the gods. Do you ever pray to them?' 'When I was a small boy, sir,' complied Demetrius, 'my mother taught us to invoke the gods. She was quite religious. There was a pretty statue of Priapus in our flower garden. I can still remember my mother kneeling there, on a fine spring day, with a little trowel in one hand and a basket of plants in the other. She believed that Priapus made things grow.... And my mother prayed to Athene every morning when my brothers and I followed the teacher into our schoolroom.' He was silent for a while; and then, prodded by an encouraging nod from Marcellus, he continued: 'My father offered libations to the gods on their feast-days, but I think that was to please my mother.' 'This is most interesting—and touching, too,' observed Marcellus. 'But you haven't quite answered my question, Demetrius. Do you believe in the gods—now?' 'No, sir.' 'Do you mean that you don't believe they render any service to men? Or do you doubt that the gods exist, at all?' 'I think it better for the mind, sir, to disbelieve in their existence. The last time I prayed—it was on the day that our home was broken up. As my father was led away in chains, I knelt by my mother and we prayed to Zeus—the Father of gods and men—to protect his life. But Zeus either did not hear us; or, hearing us, had no power to aid us; or, having power to aid us, refused to do so. It is better, I think, to believe that he did not hear us than to believe that he was unable or unwilling to give aid. ... That afternoon my mother went away—upon her own invitation—because she could bear no more sorrow.... I have not prayed to the gods since that day, sir. I have cursed and reviled them, on occasions; but with very little hope that they might resent my blasphemies. Cursing the gods is foolish and futile, I think.' Well, you could reason, of course Zeus did not hear Demetrius’ prayers. There was no Zeus to hear him. And of course, you could also argue, there was no answer to his prayer because there was no Zeus who promised Demetrius what Jesus promised to us: "So I say to you, ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened." Yet, how many of us have had a crisis of faith equal to that of Demetrius precisely because we prayed to our God in a time of crisis, in Jesus’ name, the same Jesus who did indeed make to us this promise: "So I say to you, ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened…" ...and yet, nothing happened. What exactly did Jesus mean by those words, His prayer promise to us? Please remember that depending upon your web browser and connection speed, it may take up to 60 seconds for this podcast to begin to play. God bless you richly as you listen.

Lucius Sergius Catilina, known in English as Catiline, was a Roman Senator of the 1st century BCE who is best known for the Second Catilinarian Conspiracy, a supposed attempt to overthrow the Roman Republic, and in particular the power of the aristocratic Senate. Caesar played a significant role in this episode – and it might […] The post Julius Caesar #7 – The Catilinarian Conspiracy appeared first on Life Of The Caesars.