#Woke Passover

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

By: Douglas Murray

Published: Jul 15, 2023

Twenty years ago there was a famous marketing campaign featuring a jolly banker named “Howard” dancing and singing about the allegedly great advantages of being with the Halifax building society. Last month the Halifax hit the news for a less happy marketing gimmick. Customers were no longer being invited to answer the question, “Who gives you extra?” Nor was there any other question or invitation. Just an assertion, “Pronouns matter”, followed by the hashtag “It’s a people thing”. Below was a photograph of a name badge of a Halifax staff member called “Gemma” with pronouns listed below. In this case “She/ her/ hers”.

A number of customers responded swiftly to the message. As they pointed out, there is no ambiguity about the name “Gemma”. Gemma is a woman’s name, so adding pronouns to Gemma’s badge was, as one customer said, “pathetic virtue-signalling” by a company hoping to hitch on to the end of the tedious Pride-month bandwagon.

But it was what happened next that was most interesting. Amid criticism from customers, a representative of the Halifax social media team called Andy M said: “We strive for inclusion, equality and quite simply, in doing what’s right. If you disagree with our values, you’re welcome to close your account.”

If the furious responses to this retort are anything to go by then hundreds of Halifax customers have indeed chosen to take their accounts elsewhere. Andy M’s intervention has been described by a number of market-watchers as Halifax’s Gerald Ratner moment.

If it was only Halifax behaving this way, perhaps that might be believable: a single company going off-piste thanks to an inexperienced junior marketing person with plenty of views and little judgment. But what is remarkable about the Halifax case is that it is nothing new.

Indeed the moment there was some customer pushback, another bank — HSBC — decided to speak out in solidarity with Halifax. Retweeting their competitor’s original message, HSBC said: “We stand with and support any bank or organisation that joins us in taking this positive step forward for equality and inclusion. It’s vital that everyone can be themselves in the workplace.”

Of course there was no evidence that “Gemma” was having any trouble being herself in the workplace. But for HSBC the whole contorted issue of pronoun usage (a core tenet of the new trans faith) appeared an important hill to stand on. They are not alone. In recent years nearly every high street bank has made similar statements of politically dogmatic intent. Five years ago Barclays bank celebrated Pride month by decking their branches in the rainbow flag and promoting the advertising line “Love happens here”. As I remarked at the time, it was a strange claim for a bank to make. After all, most of us do not want either sex or love to happen at our bank. We just want there to be an adequate number of staff manning the place and not to be overcharged when we lose our back statements.

Even the Queen’s bank, Coutts, has got in on the act. Last autumn the bank’s headquarters on the Strand in London was bedecked with an image of the footballer Marcus Rashford. An accompanying laudatory blurb on the building front talked of how Rashford was a “shining example” and “political activist” who “leads the way in celebrating and championing difference”. That is as it may be. But what does it have to do with Coutts?

Four years ago I wrote a book called The Madness of Crowds: Gender, Race and Identity about the intrusion of woke identity politics into every facet of our lives. Increasingly, you could not avoid it anywhere. Not even eating. Marks & Spencer started producing an LGBT sandwich (lettuce, guacamole, bacon and tomato), as though sexual preferences are a suitable basis for sandwich fillings.

Back then I tried to describe the nature of the new quasi-religious movement being forced on our societies. Specifically, the intense doubling down on the significance of sex, race and sexuality just when most of us had hoped to have got past the stage of obsessing about these things. There were plenty of reasons why this change had come about. But it required another writer to fill in one of the last remaining pieces of the jigsaw.

Because in the four years that have followed, it has become clear that the movement known as “woke” is not just a grassroots movement. It is a grassroots movement that has gone so far so very fast because it is gigantically fuelled by old-school capital. This is what the entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy described in a superb book published last year as Woke, Inc.

Ramaswamy filled in the blanks that had not previously been able to be filled. Why were “social justice” campaigns no longer about campaigns on the street, protest marches and much more, but about top-down lecturings by highly privileged individuals and corporations? Why had it become the case that we were being urged to “do better” not just by certain princes and duchesses, but by major companies and brands who would once have just taken our money and run? Why were firms like Goldman Sachs and Blackrock boasting about their commitment to such things as “racial equity and social justice”?

The answer starts with the way in which energy companies began to rebrand themselves in recent decades. From the early part of this century oil companies like Shell and BP went out of their way to present their public image as being one of unbelievable green-ness. As it happens, both companies, like most other energy companies, are trying to diversify their energy bases and are hardly any longer reliant solely on the pumping of oil. But even when they were, they presented themselves as though they positively existed to make the world greener and to ensure each field was filled with flowers.

And this in many ways explains the far grander and more comprehensive examples of something similar that is happening today.

What we now know as “woke” is a legacy product of legitimate and indeed venerable human rights campaigns. The campaigns for women’s rights, gay rights and racial minority rights were just and noble enterprises which ended up achieving the overwhelming majority, if not all, of their aims.

[ Shell, the oil company, presents a public image of great greenness ]

But at the point of victory something strange happened. People remained on the barricades long after the battle had been won. Partly because careers and pensions were at stake. But also because a new generation of activists wanted to experience the moral high of fighting for rights which had been honourably fought for before their time. So it was that legacy rights organisations like Stonewall ended up fulfilling the dictum of Eric Hoffer. Which is that every good cause “begins as a movement, becomes a business, and eventually degenerates into a racket”.

When Stonewall started out it was an important movement which did a great deal to improve the lot of gay people in this country. But by the time the fight was essentially won, with the passing of civil partnerships and gay marriage, Stonewall stopped being a good cause. For a brief time it became a business. But it swiftly degenerated into a racket. For the point of victory was of course the exact moment when everybody wanted to be on board. After the battle was won, who didn’t want a piece of the civil rights action? The big banks and corporations may have been nowhere when people were fighting for their rights in the 20th century. But in the 21st century, at the point of victory, everyone wanted a piece of the action. And some were willing to sell it.

As this newspaper has reported, in recent years Stonewall started raking in money from government departments and vast corporations. It came up with the brilliant idea of a “UK Workplace Equality Index”. Through this process Stonewall got paid by companies to approve them and mark their “social justice” and “diversity” homework. Of course the charity used this not just as a money-making scheme but as a way to push their agendas, which in the mid-2010s moved from concentrating on gay rights to trans rights.

As The Times reported last June, documents show that Stonewall used its equality index to force organisations to lobby for their policies. If a company, NHS trust, government department or local council did not lobby aggressively for what Stonewall wanted then the group would mark them down, or drop them off its “Top 100” employers index. Even firms that had bent over backwards to placate Stonewall would find themselves told they had room for improvement. For a healthy further donation of course.

It is quite obvious how this benefited Stonewall. They became richer and more powerful than they had ever been. And now the boot was on the other foot they used it to kick around companies and governments and get whatever they wanted while being exceptionally well paid for doing so.

But what did the companies get out of it? And there lies the answer to much of the corporate wokery of our time. Because it is clear by now that the relationship between woke lobby groups and the corporate world has become symbiotic. One side gets rich. The other gets a camouflage, or wokescreen.

Suddenly companies that certainly do not prioritise radical left-wing causes can present themselves as though they are on top of — even ahead of — all the social issues of their time. In the process they can do a number of things. One is to ask the angel of social media death to pass by their door. If they paint themselves with enough rainbow flags and diversity policies then they can evade notice.

For the benefits for Woke Inc are very great indeed. Even the negative publicity that may come from woke over-reach cannot even slightly approximate the negative attention that corporations might otherwise run into. For instance when the Halifax was in the news for its new pronouns policy, it was almost certainly banking that a sizeable number of people — perhaps especially younger potential clients — would be impressed by their “forward-looking” and inclusive policies. What people will not be focusing on is the fact that Halifax has become yet another one of the high street banks that has decided to retire from the high street.

In recent years the Halifax has continuously closed branches. It is a high street bank that has abandoned the high street. This year alone Halifax has closed 27 branches across the country. In other words, while it witters on about the pronouns of an employee called “Gemma” and people become agitated about either this being a great leap forward for humanity or that Gemma could hardly be anything other than a woman, they fail to notice their chances of ever having any interactions with Gemma or any other physical, actual employee of the Halifax. In reality you won’t need Gemma’s pronouns because a Halifax customer’s chances of ever encountering a Gemma diminish every week.

Other things that end up getting covered over include the Halifax’s simple poor performance as a bank. For example, its appalling mortgage rates. While the internet was tearing into the Gemma issue, you had to search the financial pages to discover that at the same time the Halifax had once again hiked its mortgage rates, with the lender’s 60 per cent LTV remortgage rate rising by almost 300 per cent in a year. Gemma may be better news fodder, but she actually covers over the real stories.

It is the same with corporation after corporation. What did HSBC think it was doing when it joined its rival in planting the pronoun flag as the most important issue of the moment? It doubtless thought it would get good publicity and public acclaim from tweeting about how much it stood for “equality and inclusion” and everyone being able to “be themselves in the workplace”. But these words are cheap. Just as it is comparatively cheap to bung some thousands of pounds each year to Stonewall or cover your branches in rainbow flags for a month, compared to the criticisms you might actually be having to face. Woke is camouflage for these firms.

The reality with HSBC, for instance, is that it has proven itself not just uninterested in equality and inclusion, but brutally, cynically, money-grubbingly uninterested in them. In 2020 when the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) effectively fully subsumed Hong Kong into the communist state, there was a range of options open to individuals and corporations. They could either agree to the new regime, stay silent or leave. That year the CCP brought in new security laws which included making it illegal to criticise in any way the activities of the communist authorities, undermine their power or permit foreign interference in Hong Kong. HSBC could have left and gone to Singapore. It could have made a stand. It could have stayed silent. It did none of these things. HSBC backed the security laws. Because it prioritised access to the Chinese market over human rights. As clearly as anyone could.

When HSBC talks about pronouns, it hopes we won’t know about its complicity with the CCP. In corporation after corporation the same cynical game is played. Four years ago Nike started to run adverts featuring the black NFL player Colin Kaepernick, most famous for taking the knee during the playing of the American national anthem. Through this and other campaigns Nike likes to present itself as wildly on the right side on all racial and other justice issues. It should have come as no surprise two years later when reports revealed that parts of Nike’s products were being made in China’s forced labour camps by Uighur prisoners. The same revelations came out for Apple in due course.

It doesn’t matter where you turn, the cynicism of Woke Inc hits you every time. There is not a political issue that the fattening ice cream Ben & Jerry’s does not try to speak on. Why ice cream should speak in the first place is a question we might park for another day. But among much else, Ben & Jerry’s have in recent years expressed their views on Jewish settlements in the West Bank and Priti Patel’s proposed reforms on illegal migration across the Channel. All of which may well distract from the fact that Ben & Jerry’s parent company, Unilever, has been accused of underpaying £550 million in tax in the UK. Or that the parent company of this oh-so-woke entity still sells skin-lightening creams across Asia.

There was a time when people assumed that corporations were going woke because they wanted to get with the times. As Ramaswamy and others have now shown, nothing could be further from the truth. Corporations go woke because they know it is the best way to get away with worse and more expensive habits. So I would suggest that this should become a new rule in our society. As obvious as the fact that the most outspoken male feminists reliably turn out to be sex pests.

There was a time when people thought Woke Inc was well-meaning at best, naive at worst. But as the saga of Gemma reminds us, when a company advertises its woke credentials, we should assume it is trying to hide something. And then go looking for it.

[ Via: https://archive.is/ziEDT ]

==

when a company advertises its woke credentials, we should assume it is trying to hide something. And then go looking for it.

Repeated for emphasis.

Stop getting taken in by this virtue bullshit.

[the-uss-wossname]

Happy Holidays to all who celebrate! 🎉🎊🥳

Happy first night of Passover! 🐸

Happy first contact day! 🖖

Happy trump got arrested day! 🦀

And last but certainly not least!

Happy Barbie movie trailer drop day!💋

Happy April 5th!!!!!

[displayheartcode]

helloooo its that one genderbend!trio anon author on ao3 lol

if you had a daemon, what name do you think you/your parents/your parents' theoretical daemons would give it?

also maybe what animal you'd think it'd be but canonically that supposed to be surprising, so mainly i'm here for the name.

Hello!!!! Love your latest fic!

According to tradition, my parents attempted to give my siblings and I similar names of dead relatives. I say attempted because they ended up giving me the name of a living cousin…and my brother and I named our sister without telling anyone… And my Hebrew name is just like my English one. (Would the daemon also have a Hebrew name? Would it be Bat Mitzvah’ed? I now have a hundred questions about daemons and Kabbalah and Jewish life.) Okay, it’s 1995, and nothing about the delivery is going to plan… By this, I mean my formerly Catholic mom also had a priest pray over me for extra help during my long NICU visit.

Akiva, which means to protect, shelter.

I don’t know about which animal Akiva would settle as, but maybe something soft for me to hold.

[mariacallous]

My father was a short-order cook, a strictly stovetop kind of guy. Israeli salads and scrambled eggs. I never saw him approach the lower half of the oven, except to clean it within an inch of its life. It would take me until my 30s to realize that he did not grow up with anything like the ovens we had in Canada, and that there wasn’t much in his childhood home to place in a stove. 

He was born in Mandatory Palestine in 1936 to Yemenite parents, who themselves were born in Ottoman Palestine. All four of his grandparents left Yemen in 1881 in what was known as the First Yishuv. 

For my father, an oven was a primus — a portable camping stove that uses kerosene or paraffin oil. As a 12-year-old boy during the 1948 War of Independence, he ate grass and weeds (mostly mallow, known as kubezeh) that he had to forage for himself. So, on balance, his short-order cooking made sense. 

When I grew up and moved to Israel and other new immigrants asked me about my background, my father’s lack of culinary skills became a source of repeated disappointment. 

You must have had tons of jachnun and zhug? 

More like zero. 

I thought you said he was Yemenite. 

My father did put an awful lot of Mexican salsa on everything from spaghetti to chicken, and ate onions like apples for breakfast, but Jewish food for me was Ashkenazi all the way. Well, you can’t go back.

Recently, I introduced a new dialogue project with my EFL (English as a Foreign Language) college students (anything to get them talking). Each student had to film herself discussing her favorite family recipe. I teach in Jerusalem and my students come from a range of backgrounds that include Morocco, Algeria, Syria, Ethiopia, Russia and France. 

Occasionally I have a student with a Yemenite background. This particular student, we’ll call her Shira, introduced her recipe by stressing how often she eats it at home, and how delicious and nutritious it was, particularly for keeping on weight. This made sense as Yemen was (and still is) a very poor country, and many of their recipes are inexpensive and calorie dense, something important in an undernourished population. 

Then, to my amazement, Shira described my father’s “hot cereal” recipe, as I had always called it. He used to mention that his mother made it for him year-round, including on Passover, but I took that to mean it was a family recipe, not a Yemenite Jewish one. 

My father made this for me on the rare winter mornings when he was not off to work before I woke up. I remember the satisfied look on his face as he stirred and stirred groats, tossing out tidbits about his mother and his life in pre-state Israel like rare coins while he watched butter melt into the milk. He wasn’t much of a talker when it came to his past, but perhaps the familiar smell loosened his tongue. 

For a few minutes, I would be drawn into his world of a mother who sold her own saluf (Yemenite flatbread) and zhug to passersby for extra money and chatted in both Arabic and Yiddish, rather than my usual stance, which was “Why can’t he be like all of the other fathers in my Jewish school and pull out the AlphaBits and Fruit Loops?” Nowadays, this recipe is a family favorite, particularly on Passover and if we are having sleepover guests on Shabbat. 

I remember Shira’s surprise when I told her I was familiar with this recipe and thanked her for choosing it as her assignment. Turns out my birthright wasn’t entirely lost to me, it just took me longer than most to realize it. Better late than never. 

Cooking notes 

This recipe is endlessly adaptable:

My kids prefer it with half a cup less water and half a cup more milk. Some people omit the milk, just as they would for oatmeal. 

I’ve seen recipes that add a teaspoon of sugar and margarine instead of butter, though I’ve never tried it. 

On Passover, we substitute crushed matzah for groats or wheat. 

On Shabbat, we bake this mix in a jachnun pot on a low heat (225°F or 100°C) overnight in the oven for cold Saturday mornings, which yields a very soft mixture.

[jewish-culture-is]

Jewish culture in college is finding out that another Jewish person from down the hall in your dorm snuck Manischevitz into his room and shared it with his Roman Catholic roommate to “celebrate Passover” after coming back from Hillel Seder….and the Catholic roommate is the one that woke up with a hangover. /Drinking copious amounts of Manischevitz./

(I couldn’t stop laughing when I was told this).

.

[mybeautifulchristianjourney]

James Killed, Peter Imprisoned

1 Now about that time, King Herod stretched out his hands to oppress some of the assembly. 2 He killed James, the brother of John, with the sword. 3 When he saw that it pleased the Jews, he proceeded to seize Peter also. This was during the days of unleavened bread. 4 When he had arrested him, he put him in prison and delivered him to four squads of four soldiers each to guard him, intending to bring him out to the people after the Passover.

Peter Rescued

5 Peter therefore was kept in the prison, but constant prayer was made by the assembly to God for him.

6 The same night when Herod was about to bring him out, Peter was sleeping between two soldiers, bound with two chains. Guards in front of the door kept the prison. 7 And behold, an angel of the Lord stood by him, and a light shone in the cell. He struck Peter on the side and woke him up, saying, “Stand up quickly!” His chains fell off his hands. 8 The angel said to him, “Get dressed and put on your sandals.” He did so. He said to him, “Put on your cloak and follow me.” 9 And he went out and followed him. He didn’t know that what was being done by the angel was real, but thought he saw a vision. 10 When they were past the first and the second guard, they came to the iron gate that leads into the city, which opened to them by itself. They went out and went down one street, and immediately the angel departed from him. 11 When Peter had come to himself, he said, “Now I truly know that the Lord has sent out his angel and delivered me out of the hand of Herod, and from everything the Jewish people were expecting.” 12 Thinking about that, he came to the house of Mary, the mother of John who was called Mark, where many were gathered together and were praying. — Acts 12:1-12 | World English Bible (WEB) The World English Bible is in the public domain Cross References: Exodus 12:1; Exodus 12:15; Exodus 23:15; Psalm 33:19; Psalm 68:6; Psalm 107:14; Psalm 126:1; Psalm 125:3; Jeremiah 40:1; Daniel 3:28; Matthew 3:11; Matthew 4:21; Matthew 14:1; Matthew 20:23; Mark 14:1; Acts 5:19; Acts 9:10; Acts 12:25; Acts 13:5; Acts 13:13; Acts 16:26; Acts 21:33; Colossians 4:10

Read full chapter

Christ of Every Crisis (sermon outline)

[eretzyisrael]

by Jonathan S. Tobin

Also featured in the Times Magazine article is Nicole Carty, one of Borgwardt’s black allies, a BLM activist who helped train IfNotNow members in radical tactics. Despite her ties to Jews who share her visceral hate for Israel, she bristles with contempt for Judaism, even complaining about the fact that Passover seders are about the Exodus of Jewish slaves from Egypt and not equally interested in the black experience. Just as repellent is the way she views the efforts of some Jews on the left to mourn the Oct. 7 victims equally with Palestinians who have been killed as wrongheaded and evidence of Jewish “trauma myopia.” For her, Jewish victims had it coming, so they deserve no mourning.

But it is the comments of Rabbi Susan Talve, the spiritual leader of the Reform synagogue where Borgwardt’s family belonged when she was a teenager, that illustrate the tragedy of liberal American Jewish institutions. Talve, a devout political liberal who marched in the Ferguson protests, was dismayed by the BLM rhetoric about Israel. She foolishly thinks that the Jewish community lost people like Borgwardt by not giving them a more even-handed education about the Middle East, although it’s clear that the IfNotNow leader seems to know little, if anything, of the arguments for the justice of the Zionist cause or even basic facts about the conflict. It is precisely Jews like Talve that Borgwardt regards with special animosity because they want to support African-Americans as well as Israel’s right to exist.

It is telling that Borgwardt claims that when she sees “Fiddler on the Roof,” all she can do is weep about the nakba—the Palestinian term for the birth of Israel that means “disaster” or “catastrophe.” For such people, Jewish experiences are not simply unimportant but deserve to be erased altogether, including the lives of the 7 million Jews of Israel threatened by her Palestinian allies.

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Her journey from a typical liberal Jewish background to activism for Israel’s destruction makes for a disturbing tale. It matters because it demonstrates that woke progressives aren’t so much interested in saving Palestinian lives as they want to erase Jewish life. For them, the only acceptable expression of Jewish identity is in support of other peoples—never their own interests or rights—even when it is a matter of life or death. They seem to be saying that Jews are the one people on the planet for whom self-determination must be forbidden. The ideas that helped transform Eva Borgwardt into a willing accomplice to Hamas’s genocidal campaign have not just turned some Jews against their own but have made antisemitism fashionable on campus and in the pages of The New York Times Sunday Magazine.

[myriadeyed]

"Average alcoholic drinks per day is 1" actualy just statistical error. Average drinks per day actually 0. Passovers Georg, on which I had four or five glasses of cough syrup sweet Manischewitz in less than two hours and woke up feeling like I was being lobotomized with no anesthetic, is an outlier adn should not be counted

[allsadnshit]

Woke up from some crazy full moon dreams that were just really vivid and intense but I slept so hard from working out and then was like alright time to poop and right when I was done my brother called me to update me on stuff at home I was unaware of like that my nai nai has been secretly not taking her medicine for the last year that I didn't even know she was taking...and that they think it's time for her to live not by herself and in care (I've been saying that) because she can't take care of herself anymore...and that my dad had his first bad relapse since addressing his alcoholism probably on my moms death anniversary on sunday...and that he showed up and passed out at Passover last night....and my brother is home trying to deal with all of this....and they were supposed to come visit this month and now that's probably not happening

I am just bursting to be honest with you

[chicago-geniza]

>at Seder with friend's parents

>have promised not to cause problems on purpose

>start table-wide discussion about the utility of human rights as a legal framework, a rights-based approach to moral justice, what constitutes justice, how this can be mediated outside the kinds of governing bodies in which nominal neutrality is often a fig leaf for both political power (among other things, influence in the UN, the ultimate arbiter), who is governor and governed on an axis of greater or lesser recognition by those in power of meeting a standard set BY powerful national representatives on terms that serve their interests; how this is inextricable from postwar spheres of influence, economic as well. absolutely brought up the "US can invade the hague" thing

>segue into a rant about navalny's (ethno)nationalism and this strange turn among members of the engaged politically active old school russian left who have begun to adopt the language and frameworks of anti-idpol, "post-woke" american grifter contrarians like greenwald, saying focus on gender, race, etc. are imports from the zagnivayushchii zapad and inapplicable in russia and We, True Historical Materialists, Must Appeal 2 The White Working Class (which. lol. lmao. who is doing the most working-class labor in moscow & piter, & why did russian import the term for them wholesale, because of when and how it entered the language, from ~conscripted & coerced & prison labor in german-occupied territories)

>ended by talking about how israel was bombing gaza and mounting attacks on al-aqsa during ramadan services and it was worth reflecting not only on the acts themselves but historically speaking on the deliberate symbolic inversion of easter-adjacent christian-led passover progroms and their pride of place in jewish martyrology, and thinking about how recitation and rigual and aggada--haggadah--can retain the medium while discarding the message, the law.

>do NOT invite me to your seder

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2024/02/20/corporate-diversity-job-cuts/

As DEI gets more divisive, companies are ditching their teams

Zoom and Snap are among companies that have cut roles in recent weeks

By: Taylor Telford

Published: Feb 18, 2024

After George Floyd’s murder in 2020, companies made big pledges about racial equity, hiring teams dedicated to diversity, equity and inclusion. Now corporate America is pulling back — cutting DEI jobs and outsourcing the work to consultants.

DEI jobs peaked in early 2023 before falling 5 percent that year and shrinking by 8 percent so far in 2024, according to Revelio Labs data shared with The Washington Post. The attrition rate for DEI roles has been about double that of non-DEI jobs, says Revelio, which tracks workforce dynamics.

In recent weeks, Zoom axed its internal DEI team amid broader layoffs, and Snap cut workers who worked on retention and engagement efforts for employees from underrepresented groups. Meta, Tesla, DoorDash, Lyft, Home Depot, Wayfair and X were among major corporations making steep cuts in 2023, slashing the size of their DEI teams by 50 percent or more, Revelio’s data shows.

“The overall number of DEI officers has decreased,” said Lisa Simon, Revelio’s senior economist, “but it’s not enough to destroy all the strides that happened after 2020.”

At Zoom, chief operating officer Aparna Bawa told employees that the company would replace its internal DEI team with DEI consultants who would “champion inclusion by embedding our values … directly into our people programs rather than as a separate initiative,” according to a Jan. 29 memo seen by The Post.

Colleen Rodriguez, the company’s head of global corporate communications, said Zoom “remains committed” to DEI work.

Snap made a similar decision in February, according to reporting from Business Insider. Snap did not respond to a request for comment.

Corporate America’s retreat from DEI has coincided with increased legal risk and political animosity toward systemic efforts to boost racial equity. State legislators have introduced at least 65 anti-DEI bills since 2023, according to the Chronicle of Higher Education. The resignation of Claudine Gay, Harvard University’s first Black president, amid plagiarism allegations in January was billed as “the beginning of the end for DEI in America’s institutions” by the conservative activist who led the campaign to oust her. Mentions of DEI on corporate earnings calls have plunged in the past year, according to the Wall Street Journal.

For companies that were never really committed, “this is the perfect air cover for backing off diversity,” said Joelle Emerson, CEO of DEI consultancy Paradigm.

Not all companies downsizing teams are giving up on the work, Emerson said, noting that some employers overhired when they established their DEI teams.

“I don’t know that it ever made sense to have a 25-person diversity team sitting to the side of a core business function,” Emerson said. “Companies should be able to say, ‘We’ve tried this, it didn’t have an impact, we’re going to try something different.’”

The recalibration is happening under serious legal pressure. Last year, when the Supreme Court struck down affirmative action in college admissions, the decision didn’t apply directly to employers. But the ruling kicked off an effort, driven largely by conservative activists, to dismantle race-conscious policies in other domains of American life.

In July, 13 Republican attorneys general sent a letter urging Microsoft and other Fortune 100 companies to reexamine their DEI policies in response to the ruling. America First Legal, a group backed by former Trump adviser Stephen Miller, has filed legal complaints over diversity practices at scores of companies, including United Airlines, Kellogg’s, Nike, and organizations such as the FBI, National Football League and Major League Baseball.

Edward Blum, the conservative activist behind the lawsuits that toppled affirmative action in college admissions, is suing venture capital firm Fearless Fund over its grant program for early-stage businesses owned by Black women. Blum’s group has also found success targeting major law firms over their diversity fellowships: Three big law firms — Perkins Coie, Morrison Foerster and Winston & Strawn — opened their fellowships for students of color to applicants of all races and backgrounds after being sued. A fourth law firm, Adams and Reese, ended its diversity fellowship after receiving an Oct. 9 letter threatening litigation.

Even before the tide turned last summer, DEI work was an uphill battle. As companies’ commitments have wavered, DEI professionals have had their work challenged.

“Any time I’d raise something with the word ‘equity’ … I was told it scares people away,” said a former head of DEI for a gaming start-up, who was laid off in January. He spoke on the condition of anonymity to avoid violating his separation agreement.

After stepping into the role in 2020, he said he was disheartened by resistance from executives to pay-transparency policies and employee resource groups. The DEI budget kept facing cuts, he said, and he was constantly under pressure to show a “return on investment.”

When it comes to DEI, businesses are “interested until they’re not,” he said. “These positions are going away every day.”

Some groups have been imploring companies to maintain their DEI focus. On Monday, the executive board of the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus sent a letter to CEOs of Fortune 100 companies, inquiring about efforts to improve Asian American diversity and encouraging them to stay the course amid growing attacks on DEI. The group noted that Asian Americans remain “severely underrepresented at the senior-most levels of the largest U.S. corporations.”

“Without executive leadership representation at Fortune 100 companies, AANHPI employees have fewer role models and fewer internal champions to guide and mentor them,” the letter reads. “Corporate leaders also have fewer internal resources to guide them in fully understanding the needs and aspirations of AANHPI consumers.”

Members of the Congressional Black Caucus sent a similar letter in December to acting labor secretary Julie Su, inquiring about tech layoffs that were disproportionately affecting Black workers.

“Tech companies who previously agreed to address bias and discrimination and create greater opportunities in the workforce are now quietly defunding diversity pledges,” the letter reads, according to TheGrio.

Some companies are bucking the trend. J.M. Smucker, Victoria’s Secret, Michaels, Moderna, Prudential and ConocoPhillips were among big corporations that expanded their DEI teams by 50 percent or more in 2023, according to Revelio’s data. Packaged-food giant Conagra Brands and NASA both doubled the size oftheir DEI teams.

With 30 years’ experience in diversity work, Cristina Jimenez, head of DEI at RHR International, a leadership consulting firm, says she has “watched the pendulum swing back and forth” between support and resistance. But this moment seems particularly fraught, she said. Her clients feel like “they’re in a battle zone all the time.”

“They’re not sure what to do next,” Jimenez said, “but they understand if they don’t do something, their talent strategies, their culture, their ability to succeed is all at risk.”

==

Many of the organizations that took on DEI ideology did so as True Believers. Disney is infested with it from top to bottom, resulting in billions lost at both the box-office and in stock price, and vandalized franchises such as Star Wars and Marvel where fans have gone from annoyed to no longer caring. Your paying customers no longer caring is worse than them being angry.

But many more took it on either as a "wokescreen" - to cover and distract from their far greater sins, such as Disney thanking a concentration camp in the credits for Mulan. Or as a form of Woke Passover, painting DEI blood over the door and hoping the activist plagues will pass over them and attack someone else.

[chvoswxtch]

I almost forgot to post this week’s schedule aldjsjjs pls forgive me I just woke up from a nap

also, happy ramadan/easter/passover to all who celebrate! (i’m not religious, so I don’t know if these are all happening today or not, and if I forgot one, I hope you’re having a lovely time celebrating whatever you’re celebrating!) 🫶🏻

monday: matt x sick reader (lil angst/mainly fluff)

wednesday: frank x black widow reader (lots of angst, but nice ending!!!)

friday: matt x neighbor reader that finds out his dd secret (pure fluff)

[jessica-marie-baumgartner]

Instead of making everything divisive I just wish everyone a happy everything:

Blessed Ostara

Happy Easter

Blessed Passover

Wonderous Spring

Happy bird singing

I'm glad you woke up today

Life is beautiful so go chase a butterfly

[frmartinshomiliesandreflections]

19th March >> Fr. Martin's Reflections / Homilies on Today's Mass Readings (Inc. Matthew 1:16, 18, 21-24/Luke 2:41–51a) for the Feast of Saint Joseph, Husband of the Blessed Virgin Mary: ‘He did what the angel of the Lord had told him to do’.

Feast of Saint Joseph, Husband of the Blessed Virgin Mary

Gospel (Except USA) Matthew 1:16,18-21,24 How Jesus Christ came to be born.

Jacob was the father of Joseph the husband of Mary; of her was born Jesus who is called Christ.

This is how Jesus Christ came to be born. His mother Mary was betrothed to Joseph; but before they came to live together she was found to be with child through the Holy Spirit. Her husband Joseph; being a man of honour and wanting to spare her publicity, decided to divorce her informally. He had made up his mind to do this when the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, ‘Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because she has conceived what is in her by the Holy Spirit. She will give birth to a son and you must name him Jesus, because he is the one who is to save his people from their sins.’ When Joseph woke up he did what the angel of the Lord had told him to do.

Or

Gospel (Except USA) Luke 2:41-51a Mary stored up all these things in her heart.

Every year the parents of Jesus used to go to Jerusalem for the feast of the Passover. When he was twelve years old, they went up for the feast as usual. When they were on their way home after the feast, the boy Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem without his parents knowing it. They assumed he was with the caravan, and it was only after a day’s journey that they went to look for him among their relations and acquaintances. When they failed to find him they went back to Jerusalem looking for him everywhere.

Three days later, they found him in the Temple, sitting among the doctors, listening to them, and asking them questions; and all those who heard him were astounded at his intelligence and his replies. They were overcome when they saw him, and his mother said to him, ‘My child, why have, you done this to us? See how worried your father and I have been, looking for you.’

‘Why were you looking for me?’ he replied. ‘Did you not know that I must be busy with my Father’s affairs?’ But they did not understand what he meant.

He then went down with them and came to Nazareth and lived under their authority.

Gospel (USA) Matthew 1:16, 18–21, 24a Joseph did as the angel of the Lord had commanded him.

Jacob was the father of Joseph, the husband of Mary. Of her was born Jesus who is called the Christ.

Now this is how the birth of Jesus Christ came about. When his mother Mary was betrothed to Joseph, but before they lived together, she was found with child through the Holy Spirit. Joseph her husband, since he was a righteous man, yet unwilling to expose her to shame, decided to divorce her quietly. Such was his intention when, behold, the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, “Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary your wife into your home. For it is through the Holy Spirit that this child has been conceived in her. She will bear a son and you are to name him Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.” When Joseph awoke, he did as the angel of the Lord had commanded him and took his wife into his home.

Or

Gospel (USA) Luke 2:41–51a Your father and I have been looking for you with great anxiety.

Each year Jesus’ parents went to Jerusalem for the feast of Passover, and when he was twelve years old, they went up according to festival custom. After they had completed its days, as they were returning, the boy Jesus remained behind in Jerusalem, but his parents did not know it. Thinking that he was in the caravan, they journeyed for a day and looked for him among their relatives and acquaintances, but not finding him, they returned to Jerusalem to look for him. After three days they found him in the temple, sitting in the midst of the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions, and all who heard him were astounded at his understanding and his answers. When his parents saw him, they were astonished, and his mother said to him, “Son, why have you done this to us? Your father and I have been looking for you with great anxiety.” And he said to them, “Why were you looking for me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?” But they did not understand what he said to them. He went down with them and came to Nazareth, and was obedient to them.

Reflections (11)

(i) Feast of Saint Joseph, Husband of the Blessed Virgin Mary

The gospel reading for the feast of Saint Joseph is the story of the birth of Jesus, according to Matthew. It is a little less familiar to us than the story of the birth of Jesus as we find it in Luke’s gospel and which we read on Christmas night. The gospel reading portrays Joseph at a moment of crisis. It could be termed a crisis of intimacy. Joseph tends to be depicted in religious art as an elderly man, more like Jesus’ grandfather than father. In reality, at the time of Jesus’ birth, he must have been a vigorous young man, perhaps still in his teens. The gospel reading describes him as betrothed to Mary. Betrothal is more than what we refer to as an ‘engagement’. As betrothed, he and Mary were legally husband and wife, but they would only live together as husband and wife after their marriage ceremony. The future happiness of this young man is suddenly clouded by an event of which he can make little sense, Mary’s pregnancy. What is he to do in this unexpected and confusing situation? The Jewish Law would have required him to take a course of action that went against all his natural feelings for Mary. In that moment of personal crisis, according to the gospel reading, Joseph experienced God as Emmanuel, God with him. God communicated with Joseph at this difficult time in his life and Joseph was open to hearing God’s word to him, a word that directed him beyond what the Law required, prompting him to marry his betrothed, to take her home as his wife. The story of Joseph reminds us that God continues to communicate with us in the challenging situations of our own lives, including crises of intimacy. There is no personal dilemma that need cut us off from God. God speaks a word of love and wisdom to us even in the most unpromising moments of our life’s journey. Jesus reveals God to be Emmanuel, God with us, and God is with us, guiding us and supporting us, especially in our own difficult family experiences. The gospel reading also suggests that Joseph was not only open to God’s presence but revealed God’s presence to Mary, showing her great care and sensitivity in a disturbing and unsettling moment. Joseph inspires us not only to be open to God’s presence in difficult family moments, but to reveal God’s loving and tender presence to each other, to look out for one another, when events come along that are disruptive and disturbing. Joseph’s care the vulnerable, for the pregnant Mary, and later for Mary and his young son when faced with exile, might prompt us to ask his intercession for all who have been rendered vulnerable today by war.

And/Or

(ii) Feast of Saint Joseph

It is strange how Christian art has tended to portray Joseph as an old man, more like Jesus’ grandfather, than his father. One striking exception to this is a painting of Joseph by the Spanish artist, El Greco. He depicts Joseph as a vigorous young man, with Jesus clinging to his legs. In that painting Joseph is portrayed as a strong figure, trustworthy and protective. This is much closer to the portrayal of Joseph in the gospels than the usual elderly depiction of him. The gospel reading this morning suggests that although Joseph, the young father, was protective of his young son, he also struggled to understand him at times. Having anxiously searched for Jesus with Mary, Joseph finally finds him in temple, only to be told that by Jesus that he must be busy with his Father’s affairs. Joseph was beginning to learn that there was someone else in his young son’s life whom he called ‘Father’, and to whom he had a stronger allegiance that he had to his earthly parents. Joseph discovered early on that he would have to let his son go to a greater purpose than what he wanted for him. As such, Joseph could serve as an inspiration, a reference point, for all parents who have to work through that difficult task of learning to let go of their offspring.

And/Or

(iii) Feast of Saint Joseph

This morning’s gospel reading gives us a mini portrait of Joseph. We are told that every year Joseph and Mary used to go to Jerusalem for the feast of Passover. Joseph, along with Mary, was a devout Jew. The Temple in Jerusalem had an important place in his life. It was the place where God was believed to be present in a special way. Like many faithful Jews, Jesus went up to the Temple in Jerusalem for the great Jewish feasts, such as the Feast of Passover. On this occasion when Jesus was twelve years old, little did Joseph know that Jesus would be crucified by the Romans on the feast of Passover about twenty years into the future.  In bringing his son with him to Jerusalem for the great feasts, Joseph was initiating his son into his own Jewish faith, passing on to his son his own religious traditions, beliefs and practices. Joseph was called by God to be a human father to Jesus, to be the best father possible for Jesus. This was a great privilege, but the gospel reading suggests that it was also a very particular challenge, one that made great demands on him. That challenge for Joseph is captured in the exchange between Mary and Jesus. Mary says to her son, ‘see how worried your father and I have been, looking for you’. Jesus replies to her, ‘Did you not know that I must be busy with my Father’s affairs?’ Jesus spoke as one who had another Father than Joseph, a heavenly Father and it was the affairs of his heavenly Father that had to take priority over the concerns of his earthly father. This must have been very difficult for Joseph to come to terms with. He had the responsibility of overseeing the upbringing of Jesus and, yet, he had to learn that his son did not belong to himself or to Mary but was subject to a higher authority than theirs. The gospel reading said, ‘they did not understand what he meant’. Joseph is portrayed in the gospel reading as faithful to his calling to care for Jesus, without fully understanding what was going on in the life of his son. Joseph can be an inspiration to all of us, who are also called to be faithful to the Lord without always fully understanding the Lord to whom we seek to be faithful. Like Joseph we are called to give our heart to the Lord, even though our reason may never fully understand him. 

And/Or

(iv) Feast of Saint Joseph

Today we celebrate the feast of Saint Joseph. We know relatively little about Joseph. In the gospel of Matthew, when Jesus preached for the first time in his home town of Nazareth, those who knew him asked, ‘Is not this the carpenter’s son?’ Jesus was known to them as the son of the carpenter, the son of Joseph. Joseph had a skill which not everybody in Nazareth had; he could make useful things from wood. He used his skill to provide for his family, including his son Jesus. Jesus would go on to provide for many people in the course of his public ministry. He gave everything he had, including his very life, for God’s people, for all of us. Yet, before Jesus could provide for others, he needed to be provided for, and Joseph played a key role in providing for him. With Mary, Joseph made it possible for Jesus to get to the point where he could leave home a fully formed adult and begin in earnest the work that God gave him to do. Jesus was able to do his work in Galilee and Judea because Joseph did his work in Nazareth. Joseph’s work might seem insignificant compared to the work Jesus went on to do and still does as risen Lord. Yet, Joseph’s work was just as important because without Joseph’s work, Jesus would not have gone on to do the work of God. Joseph teaches us the importance of doing what we have to do as well as possible, even if what we are doing seems of little significance in the greater scheme of things. We are all interdependent. If we do what we have to do as well as we can, we make it easier for everyone else to do what they are called to do. Everything we do has greater significance that we realize. We all have vital roles to play within God’s greater purpose. We are all called to do God’s work, at every stage of our lives, each of us in our own particular way.

And/Or

(v) Feast of Saint Joseph

Joseph does not appear in the gospels during the public ministry of Jesus. His presence in the gospels is confined to the first two chapters of Matthew and of Luke which concern the birth and early childhood of Jesus. Yet Joseph is referred to during Jesus’ public ministry in relation to Jesus. Later on in Matthew’s gospel the people of Nazareth ask of Joseph, ‘is not this the carpenter’s son?’ Apart from that detail about Jesus being a carpenter we know very little else about him. However, this morning’s gospel reading from Matthew describes Joseph as a ‘man of honour’, or a ‘just or righteous man’. He is just in that he lives as God commands him to live; he does the will of God and, so, is a good and compassionate man. When he hears God call him to take Mary home with his wife, he does so, in spite of his earlier confusion as to how best to deal with Mary’s expected pregnancy. He is portrayed as someone who seeks God’s will in the complex situations of life. He does not always know how best to act but he leaves himself open to God’s guidance and direction and faithfully responds to God’s promptings. He lives that call of Jesus that is to be found later in Matthew’s gospel, ‘Strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness’.

And/Or

(vi) Feast of Saint Joseph

There is a wonderful painting of Saint Joseph by the Spanish artist El Greco. In it Joseph is a vibrant young man and the child Jesus is holding on to one of his legs. The sense we get from that painting is of Joseph as a strong, warm, noble presence in the life of the child Jesus. He had a very important role to play in the life of his young son. He may well have died before Jesus began his public ministry because he only appears as a character in the gospels in the opening chapters of Matthew and Luke, when Jesus is a child. Joseph reminds us that the Lord often asks us to play some important role in the life of another for a period of time. Jesus moved on from Joseph because he had to be busy with his Father’s affairs, his heavenly Father’s affairs. Having played his vital role in the life of his son, Joseph had to let him go. When we have played the role in the life of another that only we can play, very often we too are then asked to let them go, and that can be painful as it must have been for Joseph. It is very often there that love meets the cross.

And/Or

(vii) Feast of Saint Joseph

Joseph is often depicted as an old man in Christian art and sculpture. Yet, he was obviously a very young man at the time of Jesus’ birth, as young as Jesus’ mother Mary, the woman to whom Joseph was married. It can’t have been easy being the father of such a special child. This morning’s gospel reading portrays something of the struggle that being the parent of Jesus entailed. When Jesus’ parents eventually found him in the Temple after much anxious searching, Mary said to her young son, ‘See how worried your father and I have been?’ In reply Jesus said, ‘Did you not know that I must be busy with my Father’s affairs’. When Mary referred to ‘your father’ she meant Joseph; when Jesus said ‘my Father’ he meant God. Luke suggests that because Jesus belonged to God from an early age, his parents had to learn to let him go much sooner than would have been the norm. Joseph had to learn that his son had another Father, a heavenly Father, to whom he was totally dedicated. Yet, Joseph remained a full father to his son in the earthly sense, fulfilling all the roles that would be expected of a father in that culture. Very early into his son’s life, Joseph had to learn to love his son while leaving him free for whatever God was asking of him. In that sense, we can all look to Joseph as someone who embodies a love that is generous without being possessive, faithful without being controlling.

And/Or

(viii) Solemnity of Saint Joseph

Saint Joseph has a somewhat low profile in the gospel story. He doesn’t feature at all during the public ministry of Jesus. He is present in the gospel story only in the context of the childhood of Jesus. This may suggest that Joseph had died before Jesus began his public ministry at the age of thirty or so. Yet, Joseph must have been a hugely significant figure in the early years of Jesus. In the Jewish culture of Jesus’ time, it was the father who passed on the religious traditions to the children. It was the father who taught the children how to live in accordance with God’s will as revealed in the Scriptures. This role of the father is reflected in the earliest document of the New Testament, the first letter of Paul to the Thessalonians. There Paul compares his role in the church of Thessalonica to that of a father in a family, ‘we dealt with each of you like a father with his children, urging and encouraging you and pleading that you lead a life worthy of God’. It was above all from Joseph that Jesus would have received instruction in his Jewish faith. Through Joseph, he came to know the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Jesus, of course, was no ordinary child. He had a unique relationship with the God of Israel; he understood himself to be the son of Israel’s God. This must have complicated Joseph’s task of bringing up his son in the practice of the Jewish faith. This is evident in today’s gospel reading from Luke. When his parents eventually find the boy Jesus in the Temple, his mother says to him, ‘See how worried your father and I have been, looking for you’. Jesus replied, ‘Did you not know that I must be busy with my Father’s affairs?’ By ‘your father’ Mary meant Joseph. By ‘my Father’ Jesus meant God. The gospel reading suggests that from an early age Jesus’ heavenly Father had a greater influence on him than his earthly father. This must have left Joseph confused and disturbed at times. According to today’s gospel reading, Jesus’ parents ‘did not understand what he meant’ when he spoke about being busy with his Father’s affairs. Joseph struggled to discern God’s will for his son. He came to see that what he wanted for his son was not necessarily what God wanted for him. He had to learn to let go of his son to God’s greater purpose for him. We can all identify with Joseph’s struggle in this regard. We too sometimes struggle to surrender to God’s purpose for our lives and for the lives of those who are close to us. God’s way of working in our own lives and in the lives of others can seem a mystery to us and, sometimes, like Joseph, we have to learn to let go to a mystery we do not fully understand.

And/Or

(ix) Feast of Saint Joseph

The image of the twelve-year old Jesus sitting among the doctors of the law in the Temple, which we find in today’s gospel reading, is a striking one. It doesn’t say that Jesus was teaching these doctors of the law. Rather, he was listening to them and asking they questions. He was receptive to what they were saying. No doubt Jesus was also receptive to what Joseph said to him. In the Jewish family, the father was the one responsible for passing on the religious tradition to the children. Joseph may not have been a doctor of the law, but he was a teacher within his own home. Yet, the gospel reading suggests that at twelve years of age, Jesus was moving on from receiving the wisdom of his superiors to taking his own path in life. Having travelled with his family from Nazareth to Jerusalem, for the feast of Passover, he decided not to travel back with them, apparently without informing any member of his extended family. Mary and Joseph ended up searching for him everywhere. Eventually, they decided to head back to Jerusalem where they did eventually find him in the Temple. Their disappointment in Jesus and the distress he caused them is very evident in the question Mary put to him. Yet, his answer to their question caused them a different kind of distress. ‘Did you not know that I must be busy with my Father’s affairs?’ They didn’t understand what he meant. By, ‘my Father’s affairs’, the boy Jesus was not referring to his father Joseph, but to his heavenly Father, God. If Jesus was learning from the doctors of the law, Joseph had his own lesson to learn from his young son. He was beginning to realize that his influence on his son would have to take second place to God’s influence. He and his wife, Mary would have to learn to let Jesus go to God’s purpose for his life. We can learn from Joseph that gentle art of letting go, of surrendering those we cherish to God’s purpose for their lives, even though it may leave us with a great sense of loss. Joseph learnt to allow God to be God in his own life and in the life of his Son. We pray for something of that same generosity of spirit that Joseph clearly had.

And/Or

(x) Feast of Saint Joseph

In the first reading, Saint Paul refers to Abraham as ‘the father of all of us’. For Paul, Abraham was the father of all believers because he was a man of faith who trusted in God’s word of promise. Just as the Jewish people look back to Abraham as their father in faith, so too can we who believe in Jesus. Today, we celebrate the feast of Saint Joseph. As a man of faith, deeply rooted in the Jewish tradition, he certainly would have looked to Abraham as his father in faith. Joseph was unique among the spiritual children of Abraham in being the father of Jesus whose relationship with God was of a different order to Abraham’s relationship with God. According to the gospels, Jesus was known as ‘the carpenter’s son’. There are many titles for Jesus in the gospels and in the rest of the New Testament, but the title, ‘the carpenter’s son’, is, perhaps, the most human. Joseph provided for Mary and his son Jesus by working as a carpenter. He helped to provide a stable home for Jesus where Jesus could grow in ‘wisdom and in stature and in favour with God and people’, according to the gospels. Joseph seems to have died before Jesus began his public ministry because he never features in the story of Jesus’ public, adult, life in the gospels. By the time Jesus began his public ministry, Joseph’s work was done. Mary, we know, lived on at least until the feast of Pentecost at which the Holy Spirit came down upon her and the disciples. Joseph reminds us that the Lord has some work for all of us to do. Very often, our work, like Joseph’s, consists in creating a space for God to work in the life of someone else. That work will often involve a letting go of others, a letting be. That is what we find Joseph being called to do in today’s gospel reading. He had to let Jesus go to God the Father’s work in the life of his young son. ‘I must be busy with my Father’s affairs’, Jesus said, meaning God, not Joseph.

And/Or

(xi) Feast of Saint Joseph

On the 8th December, Pope Francis issued an Apostolic Letter called “With a Father’s Heart”, in which he recalls the 150th anniversary of the declaration of Saint Joseph as Patron of the Universal Church. To mark the occasion of this Apostolic Letter, Pope Francis proclaimed a “Year of Saint Joseph” from 8th December 2020, to 8 December 2021. In his Apostolic Letter, the Pope describes Saint Joseph in a number of very striking ways - as a beloved father, a tender and loving father, an obedient father, an accepting father; a father who is creatively courageous, a working father, a father in the shadows. He wrote the letter against the backdrop of the Covid-19 pandemic, which, he says, has helped us see more clearly the importance of “ordinary” people who, although far from the limelight, exercise patience and offer hope every day. In this, the Pope says, they resemble Saint Joseph, whom he describes as “the man who goes unnoticed, a daily, discreet and hidden presence,” and, yet, played “an incomparable role in the history of salvation.” It is true that Joseph is a discreet presence in the gospel story. He doesn’t feature at all during the public ministry of Jesus, suggesting that he may have died before Jesus began his public ministry. However, he was there during the crucial formation years of Jesus’ life. Like any parent, he worried about his young son growing up. In today’s gospel reading, we find Joseph and Mary worried when they discovered their son was lost. When they finally found him, the young Jesus said to them, ‘Did you not know that I must be busy with my Father’s affairs?’ When Jesus said, ‘my Father’, he was referring to God not Joseph. Joseph had to learn to let go of his son Jesus to God his heavenly Father’s plan for his life, even though that often left him confused, as in today’s gospel reading, ‘they did not understand what he meant’. Joseph had an important role to play in Jesus’ life, but he had to let him go to God from Jesus’ early years. Joseph’s life reminds us that we all have some role to play in God’s greater purpose. There is something we can do, no one else can do. We are often called to be a Joseph figure for others, being there for them but knowing when to let them go to God’s purpose for their lives.

Fr. Martin Hogan.

[pepprs]

ok hi. not to be stupid about this publicly once again but it’s 5:34 am [update it is now 5:53 am] and i have gotten absolutely HORRIBLE sleep tonight. first bc i was so stressed that i couldn’t fall asleep until 1:30am. then because my sister is sleeping in our room again (long story) which is good for her bc she’s making progress w her ocd but it means that she comes in with h the flashlight on after 2am and has to check the room and she leaves the bedroom door wide open which distorts the white noise from the sojnd machine which is right in front of my bed. and she’s like laughing at stuff on her phone too so all the subtleties of sound and light disrupt me and wake me up and throw me off. and also it’s freakishly hot so i woke up a couple times bc of that. and now im awake at 5:30ish after barely sleeping for 4 hours bc im stressed bc it’s Passover and my moms bday and im leaving work early today and tomorrow for the “””””Seder””””” (which again literally is not a seder it’s just dinner w my grandpa) and barely have time to get anything done at work and haven’t done anything for my mom and have to clean the house for my grandpa to come over and we literally don’t even have a dinner table yet likr idkw aht the fuck we’re going to do.. and also im fucking STARVING. because guess what!!!! we have to stop eating bread!!!! and i usually have 4 slices with avocado / guac on them before i go to sleep but there were only 4 slices left in the whole house so i had 2 so my brother will get to have the other 2 during the day. and my stomach is howling rn. and we have other things to eat like fruit and stuff but nothing that’s not going to throw me off.. like im not about to eat an orange at 5:30am it’s going to set my throat on fire with the acid this early in the morning. and we don’t have any snack foods in this house or like anything that can be made without having to prepare it for a while bc of our diet (lol). and we don’t have any flatbread or tortillas or whatever yet. so im going fucking crazy and feeling resentful abt passover again and wondering what the hell im going to do going into work and not being able to eat bagels for breakfast after not being able to eat my bedtime snack and being this hungry and stressed and miserable for a week on top of everything else. lol

[roman-catholic-mass-readings]

29th June >> Mass Readings (Except USA)

Feast of Saints Peter and Paul, Apostles

(Liturgical Colour: Red: A (1))

First Reading Acts of the Apostles 12:1-11 'Now I know the Lord really did save me from Herod'.

King Herod started persecuting certain members of the Church. He beheaded James the brother of John, and when he saw that this pleased the Jews he decided to arrest Peter as well. This was during the days of Unleavened Bread, and he put Peter in prison, assigning four squads of four soldiers each to guard him in turns. Herod meant to try Peter in public after the end of Passover week. All the time Peter was under guard the Church prayed to God for him unremittingly.

On the night before Herod was to try him, Peter was sleeping between two soldiers, fastened with double chains, while guards kept watch at the main entrance to the prison. Then suddenly the angel of the Lord stood there, and the cell was filled with light. He tapped Peter on the side and woke him. ‘Get up!’ he said ‘Hurry!’ – and the chains fell from his hands. The angel then said, ‘Put on your belt and sandals.’ After he had done this, the angel next said, ‘Wrap your cloak round you and follow me.’ Peter followed him, but had no idea that what the angel did was all happening in reality; he thought he was seeing a vision. They passed through two guard posts one after the other, and reached the iron gate leading to the city. This opened of its own accord; they went through it and had walked the whole length of one street when suddenly the angel left him. It was only then that Peter came to himself. ‘Now I know it is all true’ he said. ‘The Lord really did send his angel and has saved me from Herod and from all that the Jewish people were so certain would happen to me.’

The Word of the Lord

R/ Thanks be to God.

Responsorial Psalm Psalm 33(34):2-9

R/ From all my terrors the Lord set me free. or R/ The angel of the Lord rescues those who revere him.

I will bless the Lord at all times, his praise always on my lips; in the Lord my soul shall make its boast. The humble shall hear and be glad.

R/ From all my terrors the Lord set me free. or R/ The angel of the Lord rescues those who revere him.

Glorify the Lord with me. Together let us praise his name. I sought the Lord and he answered me; from all my terrors he set me free.

R/ From all my terrors the Lord set me free. or R/ The angel of the Lord rescues those who revere him.

Look towards him and be radiant; let your faces not be abashed. This poor man called, the Lord heard him and rescued him from all his distress.

R/ From all my terrors the Lord set me free. or R/ The angel of the Lord rescues those who revere him.

The angel of the Lord is encamped around those who revere him, to rescue them. Taste and see that the Lord is good. He is happy who seeks refuge in him.

R/ From all my terrors the Lord set me free. or R/ The angel of the Lord rescues those who revere him.

Second Reading 2 Timothy 4:6-8,17-18 All there is to come now is the crown of righteousness reserved for me.

My life is already being poured away as a libation, and the time has come for me to be gone. I have fought the good fight to the end; I have run the race to the finish; I have kept the faith; all there is to come now is the crown of righteousness reserved for me, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will give to me on that Day; and not only to me but to all those who have longed for his Appearing.

The Lord stood by me and gave me power, so that through me the whole message might be proclaimed for all the pagans to hear; and so I was rescued from the lion’s mouth. The Lord will rescue me from all evil attempts on me, and bring me safely to his heavenly kingdom. To him be glory for ever and ever. Amen.

The Word of the Lord

R/ Thanks be to God.

Gospel Acclamation Matthew 16:18

Alleluia, alleluia! You are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church. And the gates of the underworld can never hold out against it. Alleluia!

Gospel Matthew 16:13-19 You are Peter and on this rock I will build my Church.

When Jesus came to the region of Caesarea Philippi he put this question to his disciples, ‘Who do people say the Son of Man is?’ And they said, ‘Some say he is John the Baptist, some Elijah, and others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.’ ‘But you,’ he said ‘who do you say I am?’ Then Simon Peter spoke up, ‘You are the Christ,’ he said ‘the Son of the living God.’ Jesus replied, ‘Simon son of Jonah, you are a happy man! Because it was not flesh and blood that revealed this to you but my Father in heaven. So I now say to you: You are Peter and on this rock I will build my Church. And the gates of the underworld can never hold out against it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven: whatever you bind on earth shall be considered bound in heaven; whatever you loose on earth shall be considered loosed in heaven.’

The Gospel of the Lord

R/ Praise to you, Lord Jesus Christ.