Saturday, February 14, 2009

Happy St Cyril & St Methodius Day


I love those sainted brothers dearly but wishing young lovers Happy St Cyril & St Methodius Day doesn't quite work.

Of course in the Extra-Ordinary Form St Valentine is still a commemoration but the "Holy Brothers" are a feast in the Ordinary Form. What a loss of a great pastoral opportunity to celebrate marriage and chaste love.
Anyone know if Professor Dawkin's sends a St Valentine Day card to anyone? Bet not, atheism is so boring isn't it?

6 comments:

Joe of St. Thérèse said...

Be my Methodius doesn't quite have the same ring as be my Valentine, but it works.

gemoftheocean said...

Here in the US on Thanksgiving Day I always wonder to whom the atheists give thanks!

JARay said...

The thing that commends both St. Cyril and St. Methodius to me is the fact that they stepped out of their religious aim (or even used their religious aim) and invented the Cyrillic script so that people of Slavonic origin could communicate in their own language by writing as well as by the spoken word. Until a language can be written down it is only half a language because it can only be spoken.
This is perhaps a diversion (and I don't care if it is either!) the language of mathematics (yes, it has a language), was hampered by the fact that the number zero had not been discovered. This did not happen until the 15th Century and was discovered by the Indians...the real Indians, not the Red Indians!
Without the number zero there was no difference between the number 10 and the number 1000000! Just think about that! One had to deduce what a person was talking about from the context of what they were saying, prior to the discovery of the number zero!
Try reading a history of Mathematics.
I can't read Cyrillic script, by the way!

JARay

JARay said...

I suppose that not only was the number zero invented but also the value of a number according to its shape and to its position within columns.
120 is not the same as 102. The three digits (0,1,2) take different positions in the three columns.

JARay

Anonymous said...

Father, you got me scared that I somehow missed their feast. However, they are still on July 5th in Croatia.

PeterHWright said...

Well, all right, St.Valentine survives only as a commemoration, but he gets no mention at all in the novus ordo calendar.

One more reason to stick to the old calendar.

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