An Elliptical Glory: Blessing of the Backpacks

Sunday, September 13, 2015

Blessing of the Backpacks

Prayer for Re-entry into School
September 13, 2015

Lord Jesus Christ, as a boy, you studied and learned, and astounded your teachers in the Temple.

Bless these school materials and the backpacks to carry them. Help them be for these students symbols of the wonders of the world they are to learn about.

Bless these students with sharp minds, good memories, and industrious habits, and help them do their best in their studies and their common life with their fellow students and teachers.

Protect them from laziness, distraction, and bullying or being bullied.

Keep alive their joy in your creation, and make them prosper in all their good undertakings.

In your gracious name we pray, AMEN.

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This web log is intended to share homilies, some liturgical materials I have prepared or adapted (prayers, litanies, etc.), and occasional journal entries.

"Elliptical" can mean "fragmentary, with words missing," or "in the shape of a flattened circle." While "glory" refers to the brilliance surrounding the Deity, it can also refer to the grace that reflects such radiance in life. In Christian iconography, a "glory" is the whole body halo around the Christ or the Blessed Virgin in paintings and statuary.

According to Kepler’s First Law of Planetary Motion, an object in orbit follows an ellipse, with the center of mass as one of the foci. The ellipse was called “imperfect” by theologians who originally objected to its use by Kepler to refine Copernicus’ heliocentric model of the solar system, as opposed to the “perfect” circles of Aristotelian geocentric cosmology. "Elliptical" can thus also imply the 'imperfect' path between two centers, or falling toward the true center, but moving forward fast enough to avoid collision, but slowly enough to prevent escape.