Rick compilation

Digital Photo Unit Assignment

Marian junior Abby H draws on fellow junior and Academic Decathalon teammate Cheslea F's forehead at a study group at Abby's's house as they prepared for the Academic Decatholon Regional Tournament at Westside High School the following day. Teammates Kiah H and Anne G also drew letters on their forehead to show support for the team; each girl had a letter of M-A-D on their foreheads, the abbreviation of Marian Academic Decathalon, with Chelsea finishing with an exclamation point.


Chelsea F, junior, laughs in her religion class on January 23. Her friend and project partner, Kate V (not pictured) had made a remark that sent Chelsea into peals of laughter.


Kate V, junior, laughs as she finds herself caught between two chairs in her religion class on January 23. While backing up to take a photo, she accidentally fell backward off her chair; luckily, she was not injured.


Marian junior Chelsea F throws a frisbee to a friend on a sunny Friday afternoon. To close the week while taking advantage of the nice weather, she and her friends tossed a frisbee around out on Marian's spacious campus.


Title: Candle light
A candle losses none of its light when lighting another.


Browning Roses, close.


Browning Roses


She's got everything she needs/she's an artist/She don't look back - Bob Dylan, "She's an Artist"


On the Outside, From the inside.


Dentist Appointment

On Closed Communion

With the grace of Peter and from his historical chair, I, Abbethus Maximus I, do hereby greet you with my divinity and supreme superiourity in holiness, of which I will attempt to impart upon you in the following message. My Excellency wishes to defer criticism from recent attention given to the refusal of the Church to distribute the Most Holy Eucharist to non-Catholics and addresses the topic per request of the Lutheran advisor to Papal Council.
The sacrament of the Eucharist is traditionally a gathering of the Church community that is a celebration of the Church's unity in the miracle of the death and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. This celebration of this liturgical meal is an exact and historically accurate remembrance of the Last Supper of the Lord. Diligent and concentrated scrutinization of the Catechism of the Catholic Church has found, however, no indication of Papal involvement in the Eucharal celebration. It has been acknowledged that the separation of the Catholic Church and several Protestant faiths was the sole result of disillusionment with the Papal authorities of the time, who were believed to be in some cases corrupt, inept, and abusive of the minimal Papal authority given them. In light of this acknowledgement, it has become clear that the division of the Church in its early days should not necessarily prohibit the reception of communion in the Church by non-Catholics if they accept the Church's teaching on the presence of Christ in the Eucharist. Truth is found in the declaration of the purpose of the Eucharist as a sharing in Christ's ministry of manifesting a community of faith and rejection of exclusionary methods.
While the Church recognizes the heretical qualities of the majority of non-Catholics, it hereby wishes to extend the sacrament of the Holy Eucharist through communication in sacris to select members of the Presbyterian, Methodist, and Hedonite faiths. The status necessary to achieve full communion with the Church community can be acquired through the completion of a screening process conducted by My Holiness. Any persons of aforementioned faiths wishing to participate intercommunically should present to My Holiness a form of intent.
All things to the contrary notwithstanding.
This instruction was mandated through the supreme pontificacy of My Holiness Abbethus Maximus I and should henceforth be observed immediately by all concerned.

Love from,
*personalized signature*
Abbethus Maximus I

Papal Notice of Vatican Relocation

Greetings and peace to you, my flock, from My Holiness Abbethus Maximus I. My Excellency would like to announce the relocation of the central powers of the Church from Rome to a location west of Boston, Massachusetts, USA. This location, which, by papal authority, My Holiness has requisitioned for the Church, shall become the new site of the holy papal states. This by dictate of My Excellency the Pope. All operations of the Church shall henceforth be carried out from this new location, including daily Mass in fifty-six languages and weekly public appearances by My Holiness. In order to ease the relocation process, the papal apartments and St. Peter's Basilica will be transported by barge from Rome to the United States, making several stops in heathen countries to spread the word of God to the unpriveledged foreigners.

This necessary relocation serves a dual purpose in the divine ministry of the Church, which is to effectively spread the word of God and to maintain the integrity and financial well-being of the Church. My Excellency and advisers have found that a significant representation by the Church in the United States will promote the general holiness of the local populace therein, and thus observing have decided to relocate the Vatican and Papal States to a more universal location. My Excellency has also found it taxing to have to constantly fly transAtlantica in order to supervise Vatican affairs and feels that the matter would be simplified greatly if the Vatican were on the same contninent as the Papal residences.

In peace,

Abbethus Maximus I





InterOffice Memo

To:

The Holy Chancellor

From: Pope Abbethus Maximus I
Date: November 27, 2005
Subject:Relocation of Papal States

Rick--

I think the announcement about relocation of the Vatican went over fairly well. Any suggestions for wardrobe? I rather think the black shoes are a bit frumpy and convey the message that I'm not connecting with the American people. Cowboy boots, perhaps? Also, upon reflection and public reception, I think it might be advantageous to tilt the cowboy hat back slightly. Please alert the costumer. Perhaps instead of the traditional Pope staff, I think we could redesign it to have a removable section to accomodate each individual nationality. Let me know what you think.
Also, the Popemobile remains in Rome despite my numerous requests to have it shipped. I will have to resort to alternative methods if it does not arrive shortly. Thank you.
Hopefully this move will continue to go smoothly. Do consider those questions about the wardrobe. I want to convey the message that I am very involved and commited to making change.

Abbethus Maximus I

CC: Head of Vatican Affairs

Encyclical on the Gender of the Supreme Deity

With the grace of Peter and from his historical chair, I, Abbethus Maximus I, do hereby greet you with my divinity and supreme superiourity in holiness, of which I will attempt to impart upon you in the following message. My Holiness's doctrine concerning the moral implications of the recent misidentification of the transcendant deity, God, as a female must hereby be reiterated and examined more thoroughly. Though females have in the period since the intrinsically flawed Vatican II Council [i] gained significant influence in the most holy and exceedingly munificent Church, sometimes even serving as under-secretaries to local priests and clergy members, some radical effeminately inclined members of the Church insist upon portraying God as a woman. These radicals, I assure you, my faithful and androcentristic flock, are being investigated by a special task force that will inevitably find all of these infidelic and heretical seditionists and persecute them to the full extent of the papal authority. In order to expedite this necessary process, My Holiness has designated and heads a council to revise the official doctrine of the Church concerning the punishment of heretics. This council has reviewed the effectiveness of punishments dating to the traditional period of the Crusades and the Inquisition and have found several of the methods of our venerable forefathers to be acceptable to promote the interests of the modern Church.

As an adressal of the debate over the gender of the supreme entity, God, the text of the Bible, which has been proven countless times by Biblical scholars under the employ of the Church to be flawless and written by God, answers and expires all debate to the contrary of the position of the Church. The Church, through years of indisputable research and tradition, has come to the conclusion that God the Father is most assuredly male. This conclusion is based upon the undisputed premise that males are sovereign over females and upon evidence found in the Holy Scripture of the Bible [ii].
All things to the contrary notwithstanding.
This instruction was mandated through the supreme pontificacy of My Holiness Abbethus Maximus I and should henceforth be observed immediately by all concerned.

Love from,
*personalized signature*
Abbethus Maximus I

[i] My Holiness Abbethus Maximus I's views concerning the Vatican II Council will be examined more thoroughly in a subsequent encyclical.
[ii]Gen. 1:27 Note the very purposeful use of the words "man" and "mankind" in the Vatican approved editions of the Bible. Some seditious and blasphemous persons have revised this passage to read "woman" and "woman or Human kind"

Volunteering: Second to Everything

A/N: Read and review
Word count: 1122 words

Many girls excuse themselves from a once-a-week commitment of volunteer work but can somehow squeeze a musical into their schedule. The handicapped lose out to basketball season or soccer conditioning. While no one will admit it, we frequently pass over what we might feel obligated to do for what interests us or that we enjoy doing. It's so easy to justify the hour we would volunteer with the tests and projects we must complete. It's all too convenient to write off someone's needs as someone else's job. It's habit-forming how often we say, "I don't have time," or "I'm too busy" - leaving the unspoken "For you" or "For this" out of the sentence and out of our minds.
And then disaster strikes and Marian's heart bleeds. We're horrified and sickened and, all of a sudden, we're convicted. We quickly set up forms of relief and volunteer work, drives and donations. We help and we feel good.
And then we stop.

But poverty, homelessness, and hunger did not disappear when Hurricane Katrina dissipated, nor when Thanksgiving ended. The loneliness that the elderly feel doesn’t cease when the Marian Juniors who visited them on their retreat left. A child's learning difficulties aren't suddenly resolved after a weekend of tutoring. The smiles fade off of the children's faces once the volunteers have left, the vacuuming and clothes pile up at non-profit places of help and refuge.
The need for volunteers is ever-present, even if the volunteers aren't. Then why would we stop volunteering after the worst of the storms has passed?

Each person that attends Marian has 24 hours, and with all four grades, that amounts to 68,000 hours a day. And I'm sure we're not scholars or athletes 100% of those 68,000 hours.
Oh sure, we need sleep, food, time to study, a movie, a new dress and shoes. We need time to laugh, hang out, and relax. We need to be young and play, practice our sports, go to work, be daughters, sisters, girlfriends, not to mention ourselves.
But I think that as a community, we might have our priorities a little messed up. It seems that we, as individuals, have placed more of an emphasis on our own self-improvement and self-interests than the interests of those who hunger, starve for attention, are overwhelmed in work, or need our intellect and time to better their abilities. Not only is this behavior selfish, but it’s dangerous and harmful to the future.
It's habit-forming. Pass over volunteering long enough and sooner or later, it becomes natural. We have school, sports, work, clubs, and loads and loads of homework, not to mention the time we waste watching TV, hanging out, or going online. Volunteering is pushed aside, maybe because we don't think it's very important or because we don't think it is as important as our own interests.
Someone's interests - someone's well-being - come second to our own interests and passions. Huh.
Normally, we call this behavior ‘selfish’. We tisk the rabbi, shame the Pharisee, and praise the Good Samariantin for his selflessness and compassion. But as a community, we walk to the other side of the road, saying "I have practice!", "I have a test!", "I have to work!" We shrug them off, as if a test is more important than a hungry stomach; like a movie is more important than the elderly.
Is it really so? Are these inanimate objects - mere things - more important than hurting people? So what if a kid will struggle through the rest of his school years because no one took the time to help him read? He'll live, but he'll live substandard. So what if a mentally-handicap person has never had someone who is not paid to hang out with? He'll come to know himself as a second-class citizen.
So what if we grow up thinking that what we want comes first? We learn to be selfish.
Volunteering isn't a matter of feeling good, doing what we're good at, or what we think is important. Volunteering is a matter of social justice; a quiet way of achieving it, not through legislation or marches, but through seeing something that could be made better and making it so. It's about making the future brighter and better, all because we have helped.
Eventually, we as a Marian community will join The Future. We will leave Marian (*tear*), we will go into and out of college, we will enter a career, marriage, parenting. We will become what others and we have made ourselves to be.
But everyone else will also. There will be more elderly people, sitting in the nursing homes, alone and forgotten, pushed aside by a generation that has taught itself to be selfish. There will be the poor who never had a tutor who cared about their future or a role model who cared about their choices. There will be the mentally-handicap who feel like they will never fit in, ostracized by disorders they have no control over. There will be those people who must choose between clothing and food, and for whom there is simply no time for education.
They will exist in their present circumstance for as long as their problems exist. And their problems won't away until we as a community make them go away.
We do this by taking the time now to make their problems an issue of social justice that the Marian community gives high priority to. This isn't accomplished by doing a drive for two weeks and calling it solved, but rather a constant drive to eradicate hunger and nakedness. We do this by establishing relationships with the elderly and mentally handicap, visiting them every week, not once or twice a year. We do this by constantly donating, and when money is tight, by sacrificing. We do this by tutoring students and fostering their potential and touching their dreams and inspirations every single week for an hour.
Slowly, we will begin to change the world. Quietly, we will impact the future. We will learn to see and think beyond ourselves and our shortsighted circumstances to see ripple effects, improved lifestyles, hope.

The future doesn't solely belong to us, though we may play a part in its formation. The future is all-inclusive and will bring into it those, that as a community, we did not have the time for. The future resides in the potential of all of the world's citizens, whether it is realized and developed or not. To not volunteer, to not give freely of our resources and talents hinders the future that will one day be the present - and not only the present, but our reality as we have so fashioned it.

Waiting for Their Moment in the Worst Place on Earth to Be a Woman

By HELENE COOPER
Published: November 16, 2005, NYT

You can't get to Bukavu, Congo, from Monrovia, Liberia. Like just about everywhere else in Africa, the two places are separated by dense rain forests, interminable wars and impassable dirt roads that don't go anywhere.

Yet they might as well be the same place. "Oh, finally, now I'm home," I thought as I crawled out of the tiny single-engine plane and jumped onto the landing strip of what passes for Bukavu's airport. It was about six months ago, and I was on a reporting trip throughout Africa. It was a weird trip for me because I was there to write about poverty and development, yet everywhere I went, from Accra, Ghana, to Mekele, Ethiopia and Kisumu, Kenya, I kept thinking that none of those places, for all of their endemic poverty or corruption, seemed as bad off as my own home country, Liberia.

Until, that is, I got to Bukavu. After the semidesert of Ethiopia and the savannas of Kenya, Bukavu was otherworldly lush, with that tropical just-rained smell that often greets me when I go home to Liberia. Leafy, green mountains and valleys surrounded the teeming city, with rich banana trees and tea plantations dotting the countryside: the same luxuriant, verdant landscape we have around Monrovia.

And the same inexplicable sense of abandonment that comes from having a population ravaged by years of pointless civil wars. Thousands upon thousands of young boys troll fetid, trash-strewn streets, with nowhere to go. Downtown buildings, long devoid of any commerce, are marked with holes from rockets, grenades and the various other projectiles common to all of the continent's numerous wars. A few private cars - mufflers dragging, crammed with 10, 15, even 20 people - travel the crater-filled streets, but mostly just the white United Nations S.U.V.'s.

What struck me most, though, in Bukavu were the women. As I drove into the city, I passed women I have known all of my life. There were old women - old in Africa means 35 or so - with huge bundles of bamboo sticks on their back. In most cases, the burdens were larger than the backs carrying them as they trudged up one hill after another. There were market women in their colorful dresses - in Liberia we would call them lapas - huddled together on the side of the road selling oranges, hard-boiled eggs and nuts.

There were young women and girls, sitting in front of village huts bathing their sons, daughters, brothers and sisters in rubber buckets. No electricity or running water was anywhere close, but one 10-year-old girl had dragged a bucket of dirty creek water up the hill to her house so she could wash her 4-year-old sister.

These were the women I grew up with in Liberia, the women all across Africa - the worst place there is to be a woman - who somehow manage to carry that entire continent on their backs.

In Liberia, when their sons were kidnapped and drugged to fight for rebel factions, and when their husbands came home from brothels and infected them with H.I.V., and when government soldiers invaded their houses and raped them in front of their teenage sons, these were the women who picked themselves up and kept going. They kept selling fish, cassava and kola nuts so they could feed their families. They gave birth to the children of their rapists in the forests and carried the children on their backs as they balanced jugs of water on their heads.

These are the women who went to the polls in Liberia last week. They ignored the threats of the young men who vowed more war if their chosen presidential candidate, a former soccer player named George Weah, didn't win. "No Weah, no peace," the boys yelled, chanting in the streets and around the polling stations.

The women in Liberia, by and large, ignored those boys and made Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, who is 67, the first woman to be elected to lead an African country. I wasn't surprised that Mr. Weah immediately said the vote had been rigged, although international observers said it had not been. In the half-century since the Europeans left Africa, its men have proved remarkably adept at self-delusion.

No one can be sure what kind of president Mrs. Johnson-Sirleaf, a Harvard-educated banker who was imprisoned by one of the many men who ran Liberia into the ground over the last few decades, will be. There are plenty of African women who have brought us shame, like Winnie Madikizela-Mandela. But after 25 years of war, genocide and anarchy, it's a good bet that Mrs. Johnson-Sirleaf will smoke the men who preceded her in running the country. It's not going to be that hard to do; she is following Charles Taylor and Samuel Doe, both butchers of the first degree.

Ever since the voting results started coming in a few days ago, showing what the Liberian women had done, I've been unable to get one image from Bukavu out of my mind. It is of an old woman, in her 30's. It was almost twilight when I saw her, walking up the hill out of the city as I drove in.

She carried so many logs that her chest almost seemed to touch the ground, so stooped was her back. Still, she trudged on, up the hill toward her home. Her husband was walking just in front of her. He carried nothing. Nothing in his hand, nothing on his shoulder, nothing on his back. He kept looking back at her, telling her to hurry up.

I want to go back to Bukavu to find that woman, and to tell her what just happened in Liberia. I want to tell her this: Your time will come, too.

Encyclical on the Ethical Treatment of Poison Dart Frogs

With the grace of Peter and from his historical chair, I, Abbethus Maximus I, do hereby greet you with my divinity and supreme superiority in holiness, of which I will attempt to impart upon you, my flock.
My Holiness wishes to address the complex moral issue of the ethical treatment of poison dart frogs and their intrinsic value to our most holy and rigid institution. In this modern society, an air of threatening animosity towards the poison dart frogs has developed, an air that represses the innate freedoms of these magnificently useful creatures and frowns upon and even inhibits the free use of them in religious ceremony. This limitation on their use is a topic of concern for those of us in the traditionally superior religion of Catholicism as we consider the many useful qualities of these animals.
I will commence with a detailed history of the affiliation and liaison of and between the Church and the poison dart frog. In the early days of the Church, the disciples used the poison dart frogs (also called tree frogs by locals) as finger warmers during church services, because the stone buildings in which they worshiped were very cold, as they were unheated. These early followers of Christ simply attached several genetically engineered frogs onto their fingers and used them as miniature space heaters. However, in the Middle Ages, the papacy considered the frogs to be evil and intrinsically connected with the Beezlebub himself. So the practice of shooting the frogs developed from a religious devotion to rid the world of evil in the form of frogs. In the time of the Renaissance, frogs were banned altogether from religious ceremony, as they were seen to be idols, but then
Martin Luther banned idols, and so the Church began a sort of closet frog-worshipping. However, this practice was stopped during the time of the Reformation by Pope Pius XLI, who introduced other, less temperamental idols to the followers of the Church. Today, many people still shoot frogs, and this disturbing act should be stopped immediately. My Excellency Abbethus Maximus I feels that a more practical, economical use of these precious animals would be to skin them and use them as purified finger slippers for the priests during the divine service of the Mass.
All things to the contrary notwithstanding.
This instruction was mandated through the supreme pontificacy of My Holiness Abbethus Maximus I and should henceforth be observed immediately by all concerned.
Love from,
*personalized signature*
Abbethus Maximus I

Encyclical on Transvestitism in the Church

With the grace of Peter and from his historical chair, I, Abbethus Maximus I, do hereby greet you with my divinity and supreme superiourity in holiness, of which I will attempt to impart upon you.
My holiness's doctrine on the complex moral issue of transvestitism must be hereby reiterated and examined more thoroughly in light of the recent media storm surrounding the apparent cross-dressing tendencies of several of the College of Cardinals and Archbishops, as well as their chancellors(formerly known as underlings). It has long been the tradition of the Catholic Church to scorn and frown upon, even stone, cross-dressers, however, since it is our own clergy who is accused of transvestite tendencies, we might refrain and attempt to shield them from any legal proceedings and other such embarrassing affairs. Henceforth, I call you, my flock, to accept into your loving arms any clergy member you see who is wearing robes that flow and allow for the passage of air to necessary though disparaged anatomical body parts. The vestments of the clergy are not feminine in nature, because an admittance of the female gender would undermine the traditional values and institution of this holy Roman Church that was founded on the basis of acceptance and other such Christian values that we now cherish in the traditional mass. The vestments, or robes worn by the clergy are sacred in nature and are accurate, historical replicas of that which Jesus Himself and his apostles wore in the first century anno domini. I now, as Supreme Pontiff, now encourage all clergy
members and the parishioners and etc. of their communities take into full account and create a model of acceptance of this porting of dress-like garb. My Holiness feels that dresses are very clearly the most affordable and practical alternatives to the modern pantsuits and suit jackets commonly sported by heathen men and even young boys. The row of 500 buttons down the front, symbolic of one-quarter of the time since Jesus Christ our Lord has been departed from us, is, of course, necessary in the face of modernity and other such threats to the Holy Church.
All things to the contrary notwithstanding.
This instruction was mandated through the supreme pontificacy of My Holiness Abbethus Maximus I and should henceforth be observed immediately by all concerned.
Love from,
*personalized signature*
Abbethus Maximus I

A Complete History of the use of Poison Dart Frogs in the Roman Catholic Tradition

Poison Dart Frogs, or tree frogs, were introduced to the early Christians by my predecessor, the Most Holy Saint Peter of Rome as a necessary accessory to the traditional Mass that was celebrated in remembrance of the most sacred covenant with God the Father through His son, Jesus Christ of Nazareth. The frogs served as an exceedingly necessary tool in the Mass, as they allowed the parishioners and priests to concentrate their complete consideration upon the sacrament transpiring on the high altar by heating the hands of the flock during the ceremony. Obviously, in such a time of antiquity as in the time of Peter the Wise of the Key during which the ideas of modern heating and cooling systems were not yet conceived, the frogs proved to be inordinately advantageous and functional. However, it is to be duly noted that the frog's sharp teeth sometimes punctured the skin of the people, creating a dull, but perpetual pain which reliably produced an unfortunate loss of life. Despite this minor inconvenience, the clergy nevertheless encouraged the use of the frogs in the mass for several reasons, one being that the Church regulated the use of the frogs and typically leased the creatures out to the parishioners for nominal fees. The Church in its current status of omnipotency would consider the collection of fees for aids to the liturgy unethical and therefore unacceptable, however in its genesis, the Church of Christ, which included all Christians and not solely Catholics, was entrenched in poverty and therefore found it necessary to collect small stipends from its followers.

In the time of Pope Urbain XVLLQIV, however, the use of poison dart frogs in the Mass was prohibited and condemned as being a diabolic practice that was contrary to the integral beliefs of the true followers of Christ. Poison dart frogs, because of their ability to kill through tricky genetics and divinely inspired intelligent design, were banned from all Church structures and were not allowed to reside within a five-thousand meter radius of any of those structures. The Church was prepared to deal with any disturbances or violations of this code through the use of armed monks, summoners, and clergy members. These enforcers were trained in the defense of their faith with the use of catapults, slingshots, and spears, and were carefully instructed to recognize and kill any tree frogs that defied the orders of the Pope.

However, Martin Luther was instrumental in the reintroduction of poison dart frogs into the liturgy. His defiance of the sacred Church doctrine at the Council of Worms and his instruction to his followers to rid their worship of God of all idols created a renewed fervor towards sacred idolatry in the Catholic Church. Popes Paul the Incorrigible and Sextus the Venerable encouraged their flocks to renew any abandoned idols and halt the discrimination against tree frogs. Thus began a time in the history of the Catholic Church of tree frog worship as a response to the recognition by the Chosen People of the helpful and useful qualities of the frogs.

In recent years, a disturbing trend has been noticed by the Vatican Council of the consistent introduction of heating systems into newly constructed Church buildings, thus abolishing the need for frogs in the liturgy, however the perpetual omniscience of the Council deems that to maintain a sense of tradition in our Church, it should refrain from such modernistic practices and revert to the use of frogs. To avoid investigation by international authorities, however, the Council suggests a genetic modification be performed on the frogs to eliminate their ability to induce death. The Vatican Council also proposes the use of skinned frogs as purified finger slippers for the celebrants of the sacred ceremony.

This history was mandated through the supreme pontificacy of My Holiness Abbethus Maximus I and should henceforth be considered the sole valid source of this information.

Love from,
*personalized signature*

Abbethus Maximus I