Tuesday, 23 October, 2018

The Importance of Attentiveness in Prayer

Posted on Wednesday, 2 October, 2013Sunday, 20 August, 2017 by Zheluo Cai

Reflection: 2 Corinthians 7:14–15; Acts 6:4; 1 Corinthians 14:15; 1 Peter 3:12

God does not give ear to the prayer to which even he who prays gives no attention. This lack of attention but too often occurs with us through the temptation of the evil one. He knows well the utility of prayer; he envies us the privilege of being able to address ourselves to God, and therefore stirs up a tumult of thoughts in those that are at prayer so as to lead the mind off that holy exercise and rob it of its fruit. Against his malice we must practice constancy of will, so that the more he attacks us with troubling thoughts, so much the more stoutly must the soul stand fast in the faithful observance of its whole state of life.

Hugh of St. Victor (1096 – 1141)

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Tajik is a general designation for a wide range of native Persian-speaking people of Iranian origin, with current traditional homelands in present-day Tajikistan, Afghanistan and Uzbekistan. Not all Tajiks speak a variety of modern Persian. They may speak any one of the extant Iranian languages. For example, the Tajiks of China are actually Pamiris and speak the Eastern Iranian Pamiri languages and are distinct from more western Tajiks. They are concentrated in the Oxus Basin, the Farḡāna valley (Tajikistan and parts of Uzbekistan) and on both banks of the upper Oxus, i.e., the Pamir Mountains (Mountain Badaḵšān, in Tajikistan) and northeastern Afghanistan and western Afghanistan (Badaḵšān, Kābol, Herat, Balkh, Mazar-i-Sharif, Ghazni and other urban regions). Historically, the Tajiks were initially agriculturalists but urbanized rather early in ancient times as indicated by their role in the history of what later became Greater Khorasan. Several surviving ancient urban centres of the Tajik people include Herat, Samarkand, Bukhara, Khujand, and Kabul.

Planetary Nebula NGC 2438.
Image Credit & Copyright: Daniel López, IAC. NGC 2438 is a planetary nebula, the gaseous shroud cast off by a dying sunlike star billions of years old whose central reservoir of hydrogen fuel has been exhausted. About 3,000 light-years distant, it lies within the boundaries of the nautical constellation Puppis. This image of NGC 2438 highlights a halo of glowing atomic gas over 4.5 light-years across, extending beyond the nebula's brighter inner ring. Similar haloes have been found in deep images of other planetary nebulae, produced during the earlier active phases of their ageing central stars.

The current flag of Myanmar was adopted on 21 October 2010. The new flag was introduced along with implementing changes to the country's name, which were laid out in the 2008 Constitution. The design of the flag has three horizontal stripes of yellow, green and red with a five-pointed white star in the middle. The three colours of the stripes are meant to symbolise solidarity, peace and tranquility, and courage and decisiveness. The white star that symbolised the Union of Burma.

The Elgin Marbles are a collection of Classical Greek marble sculptures made under the supervision of Phidias and his assistants in c. 447 to 438 BC; originally part of the temple of the Parthenon. From 1801 to 1812, agents of Thomas Bruce, 7th Earl of Elgin removed about half of the surviving sculptures and transported them to Britain. The half not removed is now displayed in the Acropolis Museum. In Britain, the acquisition of the collection was not supported by some, and the Earl's actions was likened to vandalism. Following a public debate in Parliament and its subsequent exoneration of Elgin, he sold the Marbles to the British government in 1816. They were then passed to the British Museum, where they are now on display in the purpose-built Duveen Gallery.