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M87* One Year Later: Proof of a Persistent Black Hole Shadow

The Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) Collaboration has released new images of M87*, the supermassive black hole at the center of the galaxy Messier 87, using data from observations taken in April 2018.  With the participation of the newly commissioned Greenland Telescope and a dramatically improved recording rate across the array, the 2018 observations give us a view of the source...

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Pray Always, Give Thanks Always, Rejoice Always: St. Paul’s Advice in a Dark Season

Every year around this time, I remind those patiently listening to my homilies at weekend Masses that while Advent can and should be a quiet time, blessed with hope in patient waiting for Christ born among us yet again, we also have to work at getting into the right mindset, attuned to what is needed today as watch and wait. On the Third Sunday of Advent (December 10), I pointed particularly to the second reading, from St. Paul’s I Thessalonians, Chapter 5. I said that Paul offers us a valuable even...

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Empty Lamps, Wiser Bridesmaids

Then the kingdom of heaven will be like this. Ten bridesmaids took their lamps and went to meet the bridegroom. Five of them were foolish, and five were wise. When the foolish took their lamps, they took no oil with them; but the wise took flasks of oil with their lamps. As the bridegroom was delayed, all of them became drowsy and slept. But at midnight there was a shout, ‘Look! Here is the bridegroom! Come out to meet him.’ Then all those bridesmaids got up and trimmed their lamps. The foolish said to the wise, ‘Give us some of your oil, for...

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A supermassive black hole’s strong magnetic fields are revealed in a new light

The Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) collaboration has published new results that describe for the first time how light from the edge of the supermassive black hole M87* spirals as it escapes the black hole’s intense gravity, a signature known as circular polarization. The way light’s electric field prefers to rotate clockwise or...

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These Weeks at Harvard Divinity School: Teaching, Studying, Praying in a Violent Moment

The past three weeks have been terrible for many reasons, from the ongoing destruction in the Ukraine to another mass murder in this country, this time in Lewiston, Maine, We are especially aware of the suffering people in Israel and Palestine, those severely wounded, and those grieving the loss of loved ones. From afar, so many are living in a state of great anxiety, worrying helplessly about family and friends at risk. But the rest of us too live in an altered state, burdened by gloom and worry agitated further by the static...

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“Inconvenience Today For Better Tomorrow:” Thoughts on a Summer Trip to India

During July and August I spent five weeks in India. I visited New Delhi, Varanasi, Chennai, Madurai, and Mumbai, none unfamiliar to me, though I’d not been to Varanasi (Banares, the holy city) in forty years. There was no single compelling reason for the trip, neither a major conference nor a commitment to teach, nor urgent research related to current work. I did in fact pick up some books — about fifteen — and in the course of the five weeks accepted kind invitations to give no fewer than seventeen lectures and...

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On First Visiting South Asia, 50 Years Later (I)

This week marks fifty years since my first visit to South Asia and the beginning of my lifelong learning from Hindu traditions. On July 4, 1973, I flew from Kennedy Airport, New York, to Nepal. The flight was terribly delayed leaving New York, but my ever-patient parents and sisters waited with me all those extra hours until finally my plane took off. It was Pan Am 1, a West-East flight around the world, lengthened and blessed by a series of refueling stops: New York – London – Paris – Rome –...

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