Category Archives: religion

All Souls Day

November 3, 2024 – 2:24 pm

My older brother and I were altar boys in the early 1960s Pre-Vatican II. We were taught to say the Mass in Latin by the diocesan priest assigned to the local church on the edge of the Blue Hills south of Boston. We understood nothing other mea culpa mea culpa mea maxima culpa or ‘forgive […]

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All Saints Day

November 2, 2024 – 7:29 pm

Yesterday was the Catholic Church’s All Saint’s Day celebrating the over ten thousand saints acknowledged by the Vatican since the festival came into being in the Fourth Century post Jesus’ birth. This liturgical holiday commemorates thousands of known only to the Bearded All-Knowing Deity. Later in that millenia according to Wikipedia on 13 May 609 […]

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A Day Of No Atonement

October 11, 2024 – 3:46 am

Yom Kippur has long been the holiest holiday for Jews around the world. The period of fasting lasts twenty-five hours and eating and drinking, anointing the body with moisturizer or oil, bathing, sexual relations, and wearing leather shoes number the prime rules for atonement for the year’s sins, however Israeli will never atone for the […]

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Yom Kippur Squirrels

October 11, 2024 – 1:20 am

Yom Kippur 1972. Syrian and Egyptian tanks swarmed over Israeli defenses on the Golan Heights and the Suez Canal. The Arab Forces initial successes were reversed by strategic blunders and Israeli air cover, however the losses to the IDF were catastrophic for the small nation. If a country the size of the USA had suffered […]

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ROSH A HOMA by Peter Nolan Smith

October 2, 2024 – 7:14 am

Eight years ago I sat in Frank’s Lounge with Vince. The owner’s nephew and I discussed a teaching position as a creative writer. The offer sounded good and the Fort Greene native said, “Hell, I have a four day weekend thanks to Rush a homa.” “You mean Rosh Hashanah?” My boss from the Diamond District […]

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