Resource Lists - Asia

Mount Everest

Praying for China

The Holy Father has a special prayer intention he shares with all the faithful each month. For the month of April, it is to pray for the persecuted Christians in China. (hat-tip Open Book)

The Vatican has announced that during the month of April, Pope Benedict XVI will focus his prayer specifically on the plight of the much-persecuted Church in China. The text of the Holy Father’s April mission intention, released today, is "That the Church in China may carry out its evangelizing mission serenely and in full freedom."

You can read about special intentions for each month at the Apostleship of Prayer website.

Saint Paul the Apostle

We just read a book called Saint Paul the Apostle by Mary
Fabyan Windeatt. He made a lot of friends, enemies, and converts in Greece, Turkey, and Italy.

Recently we watched a movie called Visions of Greece. It shows some of the places he went to, like: Kavala (Neapolis), Philippi, Thessaloniki, Athens, Corinth and Crete.

When Saint Paul was traveling, he sometimes wrote letters to cities he had been to because they were having problems. The letters helped teach them the truth and encouraged them. You can read these letters today in the New Testament and hear them at Mass on Sundays. They are named for the people who they were written to, for example, The First Letter from St. Paul to the Corinthians was written to the people of Corinth. Here are some more examples:

From Greece:

The Second Letter to the Corinthians - Corinth (still a major city in Greece)
The Letter to the Philippians - Philippi (just ruins today)
Letters to the Thessalonians - Thessalonica (now called Thessaloniki, and still a major city)

Other Countries:

Letter to the Romans (in Italy of course!)
Letter to the Galatians (Galatia is a region of central Turkey - including the city of Iconium, now called Konya)
Letter to the Ephesians (Ephesus - its ruins are on the coast of western Turkey near the Greek Island of Samos)
Letters to the Colossians (Colossae - its ruins are 120 miles east of Ephesus - Saint Paul never actually went to Colossae, but he wrote the letter to help with the Church there)
Letter to the Hebrews (written to the Church in Jerusalem)

Here are Maps of Saint Paul's Missionary Journeys.

Re-orient yourself - Happy New Year!

Nope - not a month late - it is actually the Chinese New Year. The old Chinese calendar is a Lunar (moon)-based calendar. So they celebrate new year based on the new moon. New Years Day was this last Sunday.

The lunar calendar is not 365 days long though. So they get "off" if they don't do something fancy. What they do is to add a month once in a while. Sounds like our leap year doesn't it? We have a solar calendar so it makes sense to add a day (the day IS a solar cycle). They have a lunar calendar so it makes sense to add a month (one cycle of the moon).

Unfortunately, I don't know the math of their leap years - I heard about it from a native chinese woman who I was not very good at understanding. There is a fairly clear description here from someone who seems to have spent some time getting it all straight in his head. But it is a bit much for my weekend-head to wrap around and so he loses me in terms like intercalation.

By the way it is the year 4704 - and a year of the Dog in this calendar !!

Sorry for the oriental jump - a non-linear jump out of the regular flow here. I hope no one minds too much.

Mount Everest

This is a little off-topic, but very beautiful.

Panoramic view from Mount Everest

(hat tip - Left of the Dial)