#Moments BEfore Mass

[momentsbeforemass]

The summons of Lent

Next Wednesday is Ash Wednesday. The beginning of Lent.

One of the great mistakes of my life has been to waste far too many Lents.

In years past, I wasted it by ignoring it entirely. More recently, I’ve wasted Lent with meaningless abstinences and half-hearted devotions. Or by using it for self-improvement.

All of which miss the point of Lent entirely.

I want so badly for this year to be different. I’ve been reading, praying, preparing. So I don’t waste this Lent.

To make sure that this time, I get the point of Lent – repentance.

The thing that’s done me the most good? “Mere Christianity” by C.S. Lewis.

It’s really helped me to get clear about the point of Lent. Especially this,

“Fallen man is not simply an imperfect creature who needs improvement: he is a rebel who must lay down his arms.

Laying down your arms, surrendering, saying you are sorry, realizing that you have been on the wrong track and getting ready to start life over again from the ground floor—that is the only way out of the "hole."

This process of surrender—this movement full speed astern—is what Christians call repentance. Now repentance is no fun at all.

It is something much harder than merely eating humble pie. It means unlearning all the self-conceit and self-will that we have been training ourselves into for thousands of years. It means killing part of yourself, undergoing a kind of death.”

This is something we cannot do on our own. This is something we can only do with Him.

This is the summons of Lent.

Today’s Readings

[supercool-here]

HELP I JUST REALIZED MOMENTSBEFOREMASS IS A PRIEST!!!!!!???????M

[itadooori]

yea i rewatched the s1 finale. did a lil doodle about it

[ef-1]

That gif of Daniel leaning away from DC’s kiss, coward! Kiss the old man like nature intended!

pls he’s come so far, the performance of being #Daniel Ricciardo distracts people from his shy roots, but my boy literally went from visibly fidgety, nervous and burrowing into his own collar

to this ->

and we've only climbed the gay ladder since then 💪

[cavesalamander]

Hey that one post you made in 2013 is almost at 10k notes

OH TRUST ME I AM WELL AWARE LMAO

My phone has been blowing up for this past week I swear kejfkebfbjdjdkfj

Way back 10 years ago when I said I'd do it, I was still in college and it had jumped to the 5 or 7k or so it was back then, I actually got started working on the damn thing because it looked like it was going to happen.

Then the notes dried up and I was like oh phew, I'm good, I'm fine, I won't have to.

BUT THEN.

This goddamn renaissance of notes has been orchestrated by @composeregg because I've just started playing Mass Effect for them and some other friends and of course my beloved Mako is right there, and I tell them about it.

And hey, what do you know, it turns out I actually do still have that canvas board I started painting it on?? It somehow survived college and like 5 moves.

So like, I guess if yall can do it, at least I won't have to start from scratch?

[waspgrave]

Thinking on it and I'm so tired of apocalypse storylines. I just want games to stop sending me into hell scenarios that I know writers are gonna struggle to follow-up on later - so much so they have to nuke half their setting later on bc of it.

No more of this 'owoghgh the world is gonna end in two hours' stuff. Enough.

[doortotomorrow]

rebecca shepard / kaidan alenko - finding a moment of peace

[winepresswrath]

i am going to wind up on team #justiceforarmand but it's going to be so situational. justice for armand specifically during the period of time louis is all "oooh who needs labels." a very different kind of justice for armand on matters pertaining to claudia.

[batsplat]

do you have a favorite moment of casey and vale’s rivalry? or a top 5 favorite moments?

can't just give my favourite moment because my favourite moment is the obvious favourite moment - laguna 2008, which is a boring pick, but also going for anything else would be dishonest. the top two picks are the ones everyone knows about!! so we'll start with the normie ones and get a little less normie by the end. and obviously the inherent problem with this list is that by now I HAVE talked about everything on here before, probably at quite some length, but. this is a fun exercise anyway because it lets me condense the whole narrative to the highlight reel. let's go

1. LAGUNA SECA 2008 - race of all timeeeeeeeeee. is it not cool that you have an actual RACE that so fundamentally changes the relationship between its protagonists with virtually zero forewarning?? casey might hate the press games, might think valentino isn't friendly enough to him - but NONE of it ends up mattering as much as a single race where valentino caught him completely unawares. the talking was very much done on the track. casey thinks valentino makes enemies deliberately to motivate himself... but valentino literally isn't even doing that here. he's just doing this to win the title. this is him at his most cold-blooded... he knows exactly how dangerous casey is, he is painfully aware of how his usual tactics haven't cracked casey and he NEEDS to do something to change the momentum. this is him intimidating casey, wresting control of this rivalry away from casey - doing whatever he can to get into casey's head. taking risks he usually wouldn't be willing to take!! it works as this culmination of their rivalry thus far, this dramatic climax of a season where valentino had dedicated himself so thoroughly towards figuring out casey. and it hits so good because it's... premeditated ruthlessness, this shock on casey's side - everyone startled and off-balance except for valentino who has already made the choice that he is willing to do whatever it takes to beat casey. it makes the fight feels so much more viscerally thrilling... valentino's daring meeting casey's bubbling rage. valentino's cunning barely holding off casey's unmatched speed. it's testing, testing, testing casey how far he's willing to go - and it's so clear how badly they need to beat each other here. casey rising, rising, rising to the challenge - until he loses his temper and loses his chance for victory in the gravel. and then he needs to pick it up and ride home to an embarrassing second... has to endure valentino's post-race theatrics, perfectly judged to twist in the knife. casey's initial barely restrained anger giving way to the humiliation of having to apologise to valentino for his post-race comments a few weeks later... brutal. there's nothing better in a rivalry than when you can tell the tale of a relationship through the fabric of the sport itself - and this is a race that tells us plenty about the two riders and their dynamic, inexorably changing one of its protagonists. it's a turning point, it's a reckoning, it's emotionally devastating. how can you fail to be compelled

2. ambition outweighing talent - one of the rivalry's most infamous moments also acting as a thesis statement!! a fitting bit of theatre for this time period where their rivalry became confined to off-track wrangling - sure, it might have been a collision in a race... but nobody remembers motegi 2005 (definitely a worse error) for a reason, right. it's all about casey taking advantage of the moment. this schadenfreude and desire for delayed retribution that has been simmering with him... he so dearly wants to twist in the knife over valentino's failures at ducati and an opportunity falls into his lap. and he's furious - because it's another confrontation with valentino that plays so neatly into his larger grievances with the sport, the stewards prioritising valentino over him as he's left unable to continue and opts to sarcastically clap valentino on the following lap. there's valentino's perceived lack of respect in not removing his helmet, of course - which casey somehow manages to link back to europeans' insincerity, while valentino jokes he was worried casey might punch him. it's so very them, isn't it. and y'know, casey's always talking about learning from valentino, including in how valentino deals with the press... he's learned valentino's tricks and is prepared to suck up to the media and is so, so determined to get his revenge. this is his graduation moment, and it's one that repeatedly echoes laguna 2008. back then, valentino interrupts casey in his tv interview to get casey's ungracious response recorded for posterity - and now casey takes full advantage of the cameras valentino brought to immortalise his insults. first, casey inquires about valentino's shoulder, which like. god, he's so WEIRD about his rivals' injuries and he CLAPS VALENTINO'S SHOULDER while he's asking, which he KNOWS valentino has recently gotten surgery on. almost as if he's trying to test if the injury is real. and then he delivers his pithy line... in some ways, casey really is one of valentino's best students, matching him in a war of words like none of valentino's other rivals ever really did. and the line itself directly echoes what he said after laguna 2008: "let his ambition to win take control over his technique" becomes "ambition outweighed your talent". there's something deeply satisfying about the thematic coherency of that rivalry, how this infamous moment sums up its central competitive tension. willpower versus ability, cunning versus technique, ambition versus talent. it's such a perfect bit of theatre that feels so very valentino - except it's casey who plays the valentino role, as he has a tendency to do in this rivalry... and he really did learn ever so well from valentino, which is of course also why he still publicly bangs on about a racing incident from 2011 so much. he RELISHES it to the fullest, using the comment to slander valentino's entire career in the autobiography, suggesting maybe valentino shouldn't have raced a title contender like that (it was round two lol), talking about it again and again and again to get his side of the rivalry out there. because he understands the symbolic weight of this moment, just as valentino once kissed the corkscrew. something so satisfying about a rivalry where the boundaries between the two become just a little blurred at times... something fun about a rivalry so challenging it forces its participants to change and adapt in response. and casey shows what a good student he is

3. riding like a god - catalunya 2007 my belovedddd..... ignore the rest of this paragraph and just go watch this race. to me this is THE valentino feud circuit. starts with the biaggi fistfight in 2001 and then valentino just will not stop having dramatic duels there with his major rivals. sete in 2004 and 2005, casey in 2007 and 2008, jorge in 2009, marc in 2016... and look, I don't think it's a coincidence that valentino wins quite so many duels against spaniards there of all places - BUT it also just feels right that the only one he ever loses is to casey. this is such an important moment in the big picture of the rivalry because it's not just a great valentino duel circuit - it's a strong yamaha circuit, a strong michelin circuit... casey is as dominant as he is that year partly because of a bike/tyre advantage, but there's no denying he beats valentino 100% on merit at that track. it's an exhilarating race, one that establishes just how dramatic a challenge casey poses - and it's one that valentino learns some lessons from. first off, he tests out that last corner overtake that will come ever so handy two years later against jorge on the final lap. and secondly, he learns that casey is not a rider who will simply buckle under the pressure valentino applies from behind. what happens at laguna 2008 is the consequence of that lesson. there, it is valentino who rides ferociously unaffected out front while casey snaps ineffectually at his heels from behind... again, it's how they're both forced to react to each other, how they step onto each other's turf and take on attributes from the other to adapt to the challenge. valentino gets beaten at his number one feud circuit, then decides to play frontrunner for a change a year later. it's the ability they have to surprise each other!! AND it's valentino's complimenting of casey after the race. "riding like a god"... what a thing for valentino to say about someone!! it's just so symbolically rich to have casey, who is essentially attempting to slay a god in this rivalry, be ushered into the pantheon like this. in a way, valentino truly loved this rivalry... casey is the perfect challenge, the perfect little puzzle, perfect mr perfect. fighting casey is uniquely thrilling for valentino. which makes it even better that casey doesn't feel like it was one of his better victories, contrarian to the last. and yes, he's enough of a perfectionist to find fault with a win like that... but casey's always taken more pleasure in beating his rivals than he cares to admit. I know he liked that

4. arm around the shoulder - brave to put a moment in my top five that really depends entirely on my own interpretation. but, well, I reckon I'm onto something here. this post gives the details - it's a moment where valentino puts his arm around casey on the donington 2008 podium, seemingly to quieten the boos of the crowd, and casey looks happy enough to reciprocate. valentino does generally treat fan unpleasantness as part of the game, joking after jerez 2005 that he'd lost 30-40% of his spanish fans and offering jorge qualified support in 2011 when jorge was being booed by italian fans while also essentially telling him to ignore them. it's just another way of applying pressure on rivals, right, and you might as well use every tool available. sometimes, he sidesteps responsibility entirely - as with casey in this instance, pointing to anglo hostilities and casey's repeated rudeness towards donington as causes for the brits' animosity. sometimes, he might even encourage the hostility, with suggestions from some quarters he sicced the british crowd first on dani in 2006 and then on casey in 2007. which makes it interesting when he goes the other way... like he did with jorge at misano 2009, just taking that little step to deescalate the tensions in the rivalry. like at donington 2008 with casey. the willingness to make the gesture is revealing... it shows you that valentino is looking for basically a neutral relationship with casey, the way he shies away from escalating things off-track in the years in which they're actually competing for titles. casey says he lost respect for valentino after laguna 2008 and also that he's faster than valentino and valentino can't handle it - and valentino accepts his apology with minimal fuss! he wants the relationship to remain cordial! no real desire for mess... he just wants to win the title. he won't mind if the brits make life rough for casey, but then he'll extend an arm to help keep things reasonably civil. and casey's reaction, man. casey is so all over the place with valentino,, like he's so jaded and so cynical and the persecution complex is never far from the surface - but then you also get moments like this, where casey looks earnestly pleased at the gesture. as previously discussed, casey has shown that he sometimes tries to explain away even valentino's small acts of civility towards him, as if valentino must have an ulterior motive for congratulating casey politely. which makes this moment even better, because it makes it extremely likely casey has put some serious thought into valentino's actions here (and presumably come to some rather ungenerous conclusions). and of course, there's one last thing that really makes this moment... it's only three races before laguna 2008. don't smile too brightly at him, casey

5. qatar 2007/le mans 2012 - it just wouldn't be right if I didn't try to cheat the requirements a little bit, but there is a reason to take these two moments together. here is my case:

the first and the last podium they share, and they just happen to produce these pleasingly similar photos. casey with his helmet off, valentino with his helmet on, and valentino's hand in the general proximity of casey's cheek. there's just being something fun and evocative about how valentino is quite literally hiding something of himself as he faces casey - which is actually a nice little motif that crops up a few times for these two, including of course at jerez 2011. in the post-race press conference at le mans, they are asked explicitly about that race at jerez - whether they'd been thinking back to the incident given the similar conditions that day (clip here). and they confirm that they'd both done so, with valentino saying it had made him cautious the first time he had a go at casey and casey saying he'd known valentino was thinking about it, which... isn't it fun that he knew that! and isn't it even more fun that casey knew valentino wouldn't hesitate when he tried to overtake again at the very end of the race! idk, it's a sweet little moment that showcases the history they've built up between each other, for better or for worse... fittingly, this was also the weekend where casey had announced his retirement. it makes for a good bookend to that rivalry - even at its foulest and most toxic, you sometimes still get these moments where they are able to joke with each other in-person, right before going back to insulting each other in the press. casey really HAS learnt a lot from valentino. been a long journey from the first photo, right, taken at casey's first victory at qatar 2007. as discussed here, casey pays close enough attention to how valentino congratulates him to remark on the interaction not once but twice in his autobiography, including to note how valentino had rubbed his cheek. and of course casey writes it off as valentino simply not thinking he was a threat, failing to take casey seriously and thus dismissing him. again, it's how the interpersonal warmth coexists with all the unpleasantness - how casey is willing to be friendly with valentino even at the height of the feud while simultaneously unpicking valentino's motives. how valentino can't reconcile valentino the character with valentino the person. the former he hates, the latter he has more complicated feelings towards. but it's that complexity, the uncertainty, the contradiction of it all, that really elevates the rivalry... and it's there from the first podium to the last. perfect

[momentsbeforemass]

Good Friday

The more you think about it, the worse it gets.

No part of the Passion Gospel, the Gospel for Good Friday, has any hope.

Even the tender moments – Jesus asking John to take care of his mother, Joseph and Nicodemus making sure that Jesus has a proper burial – they’re just people dealing with the fallout from death.

You know what Joseph and Nicodemus are thinking about while they’re wrapping Jesus’ body up for burial? How much this sucks.

And whether the Romans will stop at killing Jesus. Or will they, and other followers of Jesus, be next?

The more you think about it, the worse it gets.

You know what Joseph and Nicodemus aren’t thinking about? How anything good can come from this.

Much less how God is already using all of it to do more good than either of them, or anyone on Good Friday, could ever imagine.

And yet, you and I know, that’s exactly what’s happening. Because you and I know something that Joseph and Nicodemus don’t know. Not on that worst of Friday’s.

They don’t know that Sunday is coming.

But that’s how it is, when you’re where they are. When you are right in the middle of the very worst.

When you and I are right in the middle of the very worst, there is nothing that human eyes can see to tell us that it’s ever going to get any better.

When that’s where you are, the only open question is whether it’s going to get worse.

In the middle of everything that you are dealing with right now – whether it’s death or illness, divorce or the end of a friendship, job loss or financial problems – while you’re waiting to see whether you’ve hit bottom or if it’s going to get worse. You get Joseph and Nicodemus. You are right there with them.

The more you think about what you’re dealing with, the worse it gets.

There’s nothing that our human eyes can see to tell us that anything good can come from what you’re going through.

And yet, you and I know, that’s not true.

Because you and I know something. Something that’s easy to lose sight of when you’re in the middle. Something that’s hard to hold onto when you’re scared.

But it doesn’t matter. It’s okay if we lose sight of it. Because it’s still true. Even if we’re scared. 

Today is Good Friday. And Good Friday shows us that none of it, not even the very worst, can hold down our God.

Because Sunday is coming.

Today’s Readings

[awkward-teabag]

Sometimes I can't recognize an actor's face/voice despite having seen multiple things they've been in recently (and they may have even played a favourite character)

Other times I think a voice is super familiar and they must have been in multiple shows I've watched only to find out they voiced one character in a show I watched years ago.

It's like that thing where you can't remember someone's birthday no matter what but you can definitely remember what they said one time years ago how they like/don't like this one mundane thing that has never come up since and has never been a factor.

[whispence]

just thinking about that time a few years ago when i (kinda) fell out of the yokai watch fandom for a little while (ofc not completely because i can never leave) and when i came back (i think around 2 years ago) i was looking at my old stuff to try to get back into it and wondered why i was so enamoured with whisper. for context i had made an entire cult with like 7 people in it where we just obsessed over whisper and did stuff like spam images of him and just obsessively draw him and other stuff in that vein.

then i watched like one episode and it all came flooding back to me like that bloody scene at the beginning of yokai watch 2 where they regain their memories and i was once again reduced to the state we see me in today.

i have literally no idea why i’m confessing this

[garygoldenbignaturals]

the first time i bought & installed bloodlines i actually didn't understand the game like how how does anything work here in this fuckass game (i was a fool who skipped the tutorial). but the main theme was so good i put it in my vgm playlist anyway and listened to it for months without even knowing what the game was really about

[famewolf]

STOP. I'm getting choked up

[momentsbeforemass]

Waiting

Take everything to God. Everything.

Whether it’s your hopes and dreams, or your fears and worries – take it all to God.

God answers every prayer. Sometimes God’s answer is “yes.” Sometimes it’s “no, I’ve got something better for you.” Sometimes it’s “wait.”

That last one, where God’s answer is “wait,” is the hardest one for most of us. I know it is for me.

When you’ve been praying for something for a long time, you can lose hope. Because of the way that waiting can weigh on your heart.

Waiting can lead you to doubt. It makes you wonder whether it will ever happen. It makes you ask whether it’s been too long.

We see it in today’s Gospel. Zechariah and Elizabeth have been believing and praying for a child. For years. Elizabeth is still believing for a child. But not Zechariah. They’ve been waiting for so long that Zechariah has lost hope.

Elizabeth has to be heartbroken. Not only is she struggling with waiting on God, but Zechariah – the person who should have been her strongest support – isn’t there for her. Elizabeth has to carry on alone, because Zechariah has given up.

We see it in his response to the angel telling him that their prayers are being answered. Zechariah doesn’t buy it.

The beautiful thing about it? The angel doesn’t turn to Elizabeth and say, “I’m sorry, God would have given you a child, if Zechariah hadn’t given up.”

Instead, Elizabeth (who would have been overjoyed with any child) gets more than she asked for – a child who would become the greatest of the prophets.

Zechariah’s doubts have no impact on God. Or on God’s answer to Elizabeth’s prayers.

The only person Zechariah’s doubts have any impact on is Zechariah. Who gets struck mute by the angel.

I’ve often wondered whether the angel’s swipe at Zechariah didn’t have more to do with him emotionally bailing on Elizabeth than it did with doubting God.

Each of us knows an Elizabeth or two. Someone who’s believing and praying. Someone who’s waiting on the Lord. Maybe for a long time.

Today, reach out to the Elizabeths in your life. Pray for them. Support them as they wait on the Lord. Let them know that you’re there for them.

Don’t be a Zechariah.

Today’s Readings

[eyepatchdate]

Jon Kent is so cute! Such a good boy...

I do love Jon Kent, especially in the Supersons era. Modern Jon is a little lackluster to me--he is too much like Clark. And. I am primarily a Clark fan, and it sucks to be trying to read about his son and to just be like 'i wish clark was here actually'. I WANT to like Jon desperately but post the age-up it's just not felt good to read stories about him.