"The tomb and death were not able to hold in sleep the Mother of God"

[A Coptic icon]

                    
The Assumption is the oldest feast of Our Lady:

"For a time, the ‘Memory of Mary’ was marked only in Palestine, but then it was extended by the emperor to all the churches of the East. In the seventh century, it began to be celebrated in Rome under the title of the ‘Falling Asleep’ (Dormitio) of the Mother of God.

"Soon the name was changed to the ‘Assumption of Mary,’ since there was more to the feast than her dying. It also proclaimed that she had been taken up, body and soul, into heaven."

'Come, let us worship the King of kings, for today his Virgin Mother was taken up to heaven.'


[The Assumption was infallibly defined by the pope in 1950.  In this sermon, Monsignor Knox referred to the action as "a gesture against materialism."

It was a century earlier that the Church dogmatically stated Mary's Immaculate Conception -- that from the first moment of life in Anna's womb, she "was never subject to original sin."]

Between Casablanca and the deep blue sea

One of the ten largest Islamic mosques in the world is named after the longtime king of Morocco, Hassan II.  It was completed several years before his death in 1999.

Its minaret is taller than any other (at 689 feet it would dwarf the Washington Monument's 555).

[The largest mosque is in Mecca.  Muhammad -- who died in 632 -- is buried a couple hundred miles north in the one at Medina].

Kids jumping into the Atlantic off the Casablanca mosque’s patio:

The 33 most populous nations, and their cities (part 1 of 3)

The two giants over a billion are, of course, China and India.  The U.S. comes in at 316 million… and the last country on our list is Poland (39 million).


China’s largest cities: Shanghai, Beijing, Tianjin (75 miles SE of the capital), Guangzhou and Shenzhen. 
[The two latter are near Hong Kong].

India: Mumbai (on NW coast), Delhi, Bangalore, and Hyderabad.

The five largest in U.S. -- New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Dallas, and Houston.

Indonesia (which, in a decade or two, will be passed by Pakistan as largest Islamic nation): Jakarta, Surabaya, and Bandung – all of which are on island of Java.

5. Brazil: Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Salvador, and Brasilia.

Pakistan: Karachi (on the Arabian Sea), Lahore, Faisalabad, and Rawalpindi.

Nigeria: Lagos, Kano (in the northern Islamic region), and Ibadan.

Bangladesh (153 million): Dhaka, Chittagong, and Narayanganj.

Russia: Moscow, Saint Petersburg, Novosibirsk (more than two thousand miles from Moscow in SW Siberia), and Yekaterinburg (where last Tsar was executed).

10. Japan's largest cities: Tokyo, Yokohama, and Osaka.

Mexico (112 million): Mexico City, Ecatepec de Morelos (on northern fringe of capital, and part of its subway system), Tijuana, Puebla, and Guadalajara.

Most magnificent of Jerusalem’s gates

“O Jerusalem, glorify the Lord
 who gives you your fill of finest wheat.”

The Damascus Gate – on the north wall between the Christian and Muslim Quarters – is the principal entrance into the Old City.

                    

The present structure was built in the 16th century by the Ottoman sultan, Suleiman the Magnificent.

[The bottom photo was taken around the time of Kaiser Wilhelm’s visit to Jerusalem in 1898].

"The great evil at the center of our culture is monotheism"

Years ago I remember watching an interview with Gloria Steinem.  She was asked which noxious philosophies she battles against.  Among the list was monotheism.

Albert Mohler describes a Harvard lecture delivered by Gore Vidal in 1992, in which he rallied the secular troops for an all-out war against the three great "sky-god religions": Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.

Feminist and homosexual activists – in their march to the Promised Land – are hell-bent to vanquish any notion of the One True God.