The Past is Already Written

“There are few people whom I really love and still fewer of whom I think well. The more I see of the world, the more am I dissatisfied with it; and every day confirms my belief of the inconsistency of all human characters and of the little dependence that can be placed on the appearance of merit or sense.” ― Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice (1813)

[thepastisalreadywritten]

Chocolate (JTBC, 2019-2020) 💕

[thepastisalreadywritten]

SAINT OF THE DAY (July 31)

On July 31, the Universal Church marks the feast day of St. Ignatius of Loyola.

The Spanish saint is known for founding the Society of Jesus, also known as the Jesuits, as well as for creating the “Spiritual Exercises” often used today for retreats and individual discernment.

Ignatius was born into a noble family on 23 October 1491 in Guipuzcoa, Spain. He served as a page in the Spanish court of Ferdinand and Isabella.

He then became a soldier in the Spanish army and wounded his leg during the siege of Pamplona in 1521.

During his recuperation, he read “Lives of the Saints.” The experience led him to undergo a profound conversion, and he dedicated himself to the Catholic faith.

After making a general confession in a monastery in Montserrat, Ignatius proceeded to spend almost a year in solitude.

He wrote his famous “Spiritual Exercises” and then made a pilgrimage to Rome and the Holy Land, where he worked to convert Muslims.

Ignatius returned to complete his studies in Spain and then France, where he received his theology degree.

While many held him in contempt because of his holy lifestyle, his wisdom and virtue attracted some followers, and the Society of Jesus was born.

The Society was approved by Pope Paul III in 1540, and it grew rapidly.

Ignatius remained in Rome, where he governed the Society and became friends with St. Philip Neri.

Ignatius died peacefully on 31 July 1556.

He was beatified by Pope Paul V on 27 July 1609 and was canonized by Pope Gregory XV on 12 March 1622.

He is the patron saint of soldiers, spiritual retreats, and the Society of Jesus.

The Jesuits remain numerous today, particularly in several hundred universities and colleges worldwide.

On 22 April 2006, Pope Benedict XVI presided over a Eucharistic concelebration for the Society of Jesus.

He addressed the fathers and brothers of the Society present at the Vatican Basilica, calling to mind the dedication and fidelity of their founder.

“St. Ignatius of Loyola was first and foremost a man of God who in his life put God, his greatest glory and his greatest service, first,” the Pope said.

“He was a profoundly prayerful man for whom the daily celebration of the Eucharist was the heart and crowning point of his day.”

“Precisely because he was a man of God, St Ignatius was a faithful servant of the Church,” Benedict continued, "recalling the saint's special vow of obedience to the Pope, which he himself describes as 'our first and principal foundation.'”

Highlighting the need for “an intense spiritual and cultural training,” Pope Benedict called upon the Society of Jesus to follow in the footsteps of St. Ignatius and continue his work of service to the Church and obedience to the Pope so that its members “may faithfully meet the urgent needs of the Church today.” 

[thepastisalreadywritten]

Paris in Disney

We grew up watching hand-drawn Disney, and now it's gone. We don't talk about this enough.

Most people have no idea what level of work went into these films.

To draw one cathedral, Disney's artists went and spent days inside the real one, climbing through the passageways and towers of Notre-Dame with a historian so that a cartoon would get the stones right.

That was for The Hunchback of Notre Dame in 1996.

The team made more than one trip to Paris, and the film was the first made at Disney's new animation studio in the city, a collaboration between American artists and Parisian ones led by the brothers Paul and Gaëtan Brizzi.

This is the thread that runs through Disney's Paris: the city keeps pulling the studio back.

The Aristocats, in 1970, is a valentine to an older Paris of grand apartments and rooftop cats, though the animators packed the skyline so tightly that Notre-Dame ends up standing almost next to the Eiffel Tower.

It will never cease to amaze me: every single frame of the old Disney movies was put down by a human hand.

Today everything chases realism, and somehow, the more real it looks, the less alive it feels.

[thepastisalreadywritten]

Milan Cathedral

There is a marble quarry in the Italian Alps that has been working since 1387, but in 639 years, it has had only one customer.

The quarry is at Candoglia, at the mouth of the Ossola valley.

On 24 October 1387, Gian Galeazzo Visconti decided that the cathedral going up in his city should be built of marble rather than brick, and handed the quarry over to the Veneranda Fabbrica del Duomo, the body established to build it.

He also granted the stone free passage down the waterways to Milan.

The blocks went by raft from the Toce river into Lake Maggiore, down the Ticino, along the Naviglio Grande, then through a system of locks into a small lake in the centre of the city, a few hundred metres from the site.

The bargemen carried the letters AUF, for "ad usum fabricae," for the use of the works, which cleared the cargo through customs without charge.

People in Lombardy still say "a ufo" for something got for nothing, and the phrase is traditionally traced back to those barges.

Mark Twain came in 1867 and noticed something most visitors walk past:

"We saw a new statue put in its niche yesterday alongside of one which had been standing these four hundred years."

It has never stopped: around a thousand tonnes of Candoglia marble still comes out of the mountain every year, and all of it goes to the same building.

In a workshop in the Certosa district, sculptors cut replacements for whatever the weather has eaten away, from the same stone, for the same institution, founded in 1387.

The cathedral was declared finished in 1965 but the quarry never stopped, because a cathedral like this is not something you complete. It is inherited, kept, and handed on.

As John Ruskin wrote in The Seven Lamps of Architecture:

"When we build, let us think that we build forever. Let it not be for present delight, nor for present use alone.

Let it be such work as our descendants will thank us for; and let us think, as we lay stone on stone, that a time is to come when those stones will be held sacred because our hands have touched them, and that men will say, as they look upon the labour and wrought substance of them:

‘See! This our fathers did for us.’"

—

[thepastisalreadywritten]

Castle Combe

No new house has been built in this English village since the 1600s.

The ones you are looking at are, more or less, the same ones that stood here four hundred years ago.

This place is called Castle Combe, and it lies on the southern edge of the Cotswolds.

It grew rich during the Middle Ages through the wool trade.

The fast water of the By Brook, which carved the narrow valley in which the village sits, powered the mills that cleaned and thickened the cloth, while the weavers lived in the beautiful stone cottages that still line the streets.

It produced a distinctive red and white cloth known simply as Castlecombe, which was sold in Bristol, London and many other places.

When the wool trade faded, so did the money. The village more or less stood still, and what was already there remained.

It was a national newspaper that first called it "the prettiest village in England" in 1962, and visitors have not stopped coming since.

[thepastisalreadywritten]

Portara

This doorway leads nowhere.

What looks like a Stargate has stood on a rock at the edge of the Aegean for 2500 years and the only reason it is still there is that it was too heavy to steal.

It is called the Portara, and it is all that survives of a temple to Apollo on the Greek island of Naxos.

Around 530 BC, the island's tyrant, Lygdamis, set out to build a sanctuary so vast it would humiliate the Temple of Apollo on Delos, the sacred island where the god was said to have been born.

The marble was cut at a quarry ten kilometres inland and hauled to the shore.

He never finished it, and around 524 BC, a Spartan-led alliance drove him from power, and the work simply stopped.

A Christian church was raised inside the ruins and then, under Venetian rule, the temple was taken apart and carried off, block by block, to build the fortress and the houses of the town.

The doorway was the one thing they could not move. Four blocks of Naxian marble, around twenty tons each, standing almost six metres high.

And if you look closely at the stone, you can still see the bosses: the small raised knobs the builders left so ropes could grip them as the cranes lifted the blocks into place.

They were always chiselled off once a temple was complete. On the Portara, they are still there.

It was never finished, yet it has become one of the most beautiful landmarks on the island.

[thepastisalreadywritten]

Caryatids of the Erechtheion

Six women have held a temple roof on their heads for two and a half thousand years.

But the ones you can see there today are fakes, and most people have no idea.

They are the Caryatids of the Erechtheion, the temple facing the Parthenon on the Acropolis.

Instead of columns, the south porch rests on six marble maidens, carved around 420 BC, each bearing the full weight of the roof and made to look as though it costs them nothing.

The illusion is deliberate. The three on the left carry their weight on the right leg, the three on the right on the left, so the group leans faintly inward, the way living people stand.

Then, acid rain and exhaust turned the marble black and began dissolving their faces, so they were taken down and replaced with copies in 1979.

The maidens on the temple now are those copies.

One of the originals is in the British Museum while the other five are in the Acropolis Museum in Athens.

Between 2011 and 2014, conservators cleaned them with a laser built for the task, working in a glass booth in the gallery while the public watched.

Under the black crust, the marble came back almost untouched, down to the tool marks left by the men who carved it.

[thepastisalreadywritten]

SAINT OF THE DAY (July 30)

On July 30, the Catholic Church celebrates Saint Peter Chrysologus, a fifth-century Italian bishop known for testifying courageously to Christ's full humanity and divinity during a period of doctrinal confusion in the Church.

The saint's title, Chrysologus, signifies “golden speech” in Greek.

Named as a Doctor of the Church in 1729, he is distinguished as the “Doctor of Homilies” for the concise but theologically rich reflections he delivered during his time as the Bishop of Ravenna.

His surviving works offer eloquent testimony to the Church's traditional beliefs about Mary's perpetual virginity, the penitential value of Lent, Christ's Eucharistic presence, and the primacy of St. Peter and his successors in the Church.

Few details of St. Peter Chrysologus' biography are known.

He was born in the Italian town of Imola in either the late fourth or early fifth century, but sources differ as to whether this occurred around 380 or as late as 406.

Following his study of theology, Peter was ordained to the diaconate by Imola's local bishop Cornelius, whom he greatly admired and regarded as his spiritual father.

Cornelius not only ordained Peter but taught him the value of humility and self-denial.

The lessons of his mentor inspired Peter to live as a monk for many years, embracing a lifestyle of asceticism, simplicity, and prayer.

His simple monastic life came to an end, however, after the death of Archbishop John of Ravenna in 430.

After John's death, the clergy and people of Ravenna chose a successor and asked Cornelius, still the Bishop of Imola, to journey to Rome and obtain papal approval for the candidate.

Cornelius brought Peter, then still a deacon, along with him on the visit to Pope Sixtus III.

Tradition relates that the Pope had experienced a vision from God on the night before the meeting, commanding him to overrule Ravenna's choice of a new archbishop.

The Pope declared that Peter, instead, was to be ordained as John's successor.

In Ravenna, Peter was received warmly by Western Roman Emperor Valentinian III and his mother Galla Placidia.

She is said to have given him the title of “Chrysologus” because of his preaching skills.

Throughout the archdiocese, however, he encountered the surviving remnants of paganism along with various abuses and distortions of the Catholic faith.

Peter exercised zeal and pastoral care in curbing abuses and evangelizing non-Christians during his leadership of the Church in Ravenna.

One of the major heresies of his age, monophysitism, held that Christ did not possess a distinct human nature in union with his eternal divine nature.

Peter laboured to prevent the westward spread of this error, promoted from Constantinople by the monk Eutyches.

The Archbishop of Ravenna also made improvements to the city's cathedral and built several new churches.

Near the end of his life, he addressed a significant letter to Eutyches, stressing the Pope's authority in the monophysite controversy.

Having returned to Imola in anticipation of his death, St. Peter Chrysologus died in 450, one year before the Church's official condemnation of monophysitism.

He is credited as the author of around 176 surviving homilies, which contributed to his later proclamation as a Doctor of the Church.

[thepastisalreadywritten]

𝗬𝗢𝗨𝗥 𝗗𝗜𝗘𝗧 𝗖𝗢𝗨𝗟𝗗 𝗦𝗛𝗔𝗣𝗘 𝗛𝗢𝗪 𝗠𝗘𝗠𝗢𝗥𝗜𝗘𝗦 𝗔𝗥𝗘 𝗙𝗢𝗥𝗠𝗘𝗗

The phrase "𝙮𝙤𝙪 𝙖𝙧𝙚 𝙬𝙝𝙖𝙩 𝙮𝙤𝙪 𝙚𝙖𝙩" may be more accurate than ever.

Scientists have found that the food you consume may help shape how your brain forms memories, thanks to a powerful communication network that constantly links your gut and your brain.

The study found that nutrients from food activate specialized cells in the digestive system, which send signals to the brain through neural pathways.

These messages appear to affect brain regions responsible for learning and memory, suggesting that diet plays a more direct role in cognition than previously believed.

Scientists say the findings could help explain why certain eating habits are associated with better brain health and may eventually lead to dietary strategies or treatments for memory disorders such as Alzheimer's disease.

The discovery highlights the remarkable influence of the gut-brain connection on everyday mental function.

[thepastisalreadywritten]

𝗛𝗨𝗠𝗔𝗡𝗦 𝗠𝗔𝗬 𝗛𝗔𝗩𝗘 𝗔 𝗡𝗔𝗧𝗨𝗥𝗔𝗟 𝗟𝗜𝗙𝗘𝗦𝗣𝗔𝗡 𝗟𝗜𝗠𝗜𝗧 𝗢𝗙 𝟭𝟱𝟬-𝟭𝟵𝟬 𝗬𝗘𝗔𝗥𝗦

A new study suggests that humans may have an upper biological limit to lifespan, determined not simply by disease but by the body's gradually fading ability to recover from stress and damage.

Researchers analyzed long-term health data and found that resilience, the capacity to bounce back after illness or physical strain, steadily declines with age.

The models indicate that diminishing biological resilience may eventually cap human longevity.

While medical breakthroughs could continue to increase average life expectancy, they are unlikely to push the maximum human lifespan beyond 150 to 190 years, even in an optimistic scenario.

Scientists caution that the findings do not mean longer, healthier lives are impossible.

Exercise, balanced nutrition, quality sleep, and disease prevention remain powerful ways to delay aging and maximize healthy years.

[thepastisalreadywritten]

𝗧𝗛𝗜𝗦 𝗗𝗥𝗢𝗡𝗘 𝗦𝗣𝗜𝗡𝗦 𝗦𝗢 𝗙𝗔𝗦𝗧 𝗜𝗧 𝗗𝗜𝗦𝗔𝗣𝗣𝗘𝗔𝗥𝗦 𝗠𝗜𝗗-𝗔𝗜𝗥

Researchers have unveiled a bizarre drone that seems to disappear while flying, not through cloaking technology but because its wings spin so rapidly they blur into near invisibility.

Instead of traditional propellers, the aircraft generates lift using a rotating ring-like structure that combines the functions of wings and rotor blades.

This unique design makes the drone mechanically simpler, more durable, and potentially safer around people because there are fewer exposed moving parts.

Engineers believe the concept could improve drones used for inspections, search-and-rescue missions, and deliveries in tight spaces.

While still experimental, the futuristic aircraft demonstrates how rethinking conventional flight could unlock entirely new ways for drones to navigate the skies.

[thepastisalreadywritten]

𝗦𝗧𝗥𝗢𝗡𝗚𝗘𝗦𝗧 𝗘𝗩𝗜𝗗𝗘𝗡𝗖𝗘 𝗬𝗘𝗧 𝗢𝗙 𝗕𝗘𝗧𝗘𝗟𝗚𝗘𝗨𝗦𝗘'𝗦 𝗛𝗜𝗗𝗗𝗘𝗡 𝗖𝗢𝗠𝗣𝗔𝗡𝗜𝗢𝗡

One of the night sky's brightest stars may have been hiding a secret companion all along.

Using the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope in Chile, astronomers obtained the clearest image yet of what appears to be Betelgeuse B, a faint star orbiting the red supergiant Betelgeuse in the constellation Orion.

Scientists have long suspected a hidden companion could explain the star's puzzling six-year cycle of brightening and dimming, but direct evidence had remained elusive for more than a century.

The newly detected star is estimated to be around three times the Sun's mass and orbits remarkably close to Betelgeuse.

Researchers say future observations will confirm the discovery, offering fresh insights into how massive stars evolve before eventually exploding as supernovae.

[thepastisalreadywritten]

𝗡𝗘𝗪 𝗦𝗨𝗣𝗣𝗟𝗘𝗠𝗘𝗡𝗧 𝗠𝗔𝗬 𝗛𝗘𝗟𝗣 𝗙𝗟𝗨𝗦𝗛 𝗠𝗜𝗖𝗥𝗢𝗣𝗟𝗔𝗦𝗧𝗜𝗖𝗦 𝗙𝗥𝗢𝗠 𝗧𝗛𝗘 𝗕𝗢𝗗𝗬

Tiny plastic particles have been detected in human blood, lungs, and even the brain, but scientists may have found a promising way to help remove them.

Researchers report that a dietary supplement capable of binding to microplastics inside the digestive tract could prevent the particles from being absorbed and help carry them safely out of the body.

The approach works by trapping plastic fragments before they enter the bloodstream, potentially reducing long-term exposure.

While the findings are encouraging, experts caution that larger human trials are still needed to confirm how effective the supplement is in real-world conditions.

Rather than replacing efforts to reduce plastic pollution, the treatment could become another tool for limiting its effects on human health.

[thepastisalreadywritten]

𝗔𝗥𝗔𝗟 𝗦𝗘𝗔 𝗗𝗥𝗜𝗘𝗦 𝗨𝗣, 𝗡𝗢𝗪 𝗔 𝗧𝗜𝗖𝗞𝗜𝗡𝗚 𝗖𝗔𝗥𝗕𝗢𝗡 𝗕𝗢𝗠𝗕

The Aral Sea, once among the world's largest inland lakes, may now pose an unexpected climate threat.

Scientists warn that its dried-up seabed has accumulated enormous amounts of carbon-rich material that could escape into the atmosphere as dust and soil continue to erode.

Decades of water diversion for irrigation transformed the thriving lake into a vast desert, exposing sediments that are vulnerable to wind and warming temperatures.

If disturbed on a large scale, these carbon stores could amplify global warming while worsening air pollution across Central Asia.

Researchers say restoring vegetation and protecting exposed soils could help keep much of this carbon locked underground, reducing the risk of turning an environmental disaster into a global climate hazard.

[thepastisalreadywritten]

𝗧𝗛𝗘 𝗦𝗜𝗟𝗘𝗡𝗧 𝗦𝗢𝗜𝗟 𝗖𝗥𝗜𝗦𝗜𝗦 𝗜𝗦 𝗦𝗛𝗥𝗜𝗡𝗞𝗜𝗡𝗚 𝗧𝗛𝗘 𝗪𝗢𝗥𝗟𝗗'𝗦 𝗙𝗢𝗢𝗗 𝗦𝗨𝗣𝗣𝗟𝗬

The world's farms are producing far less food than they could, not because of a lack of land but because the soil beneath them is wearing out.

A global study published in Nature Food found that every 10% increase in soil degradation reduces crop yields by about 2%.

Researchers analyzed farmland worldwide using AI and machine learning, linking lower harvests to erosion, compaction, drying soils, carbon loss, and poor vegetation cover.

The findings suggest that restoring just 10% of degraded soils could theoretically produce enough extra food to feed more than 70 million people.

Scientists say the damage is not irreversible.

Smarter farming practices, stronger environmental policies, and soil restoration programs could revive productivity while strengthening global food security amid growing climate pressures.

[thepastisalreadywritten]

𝗛𝗔𝗣𝗣𝗬 𝗕𝗜𝗥𝗧𝗛𝗗𝗔𝗬, 𝗡𝗔𝗦𝗔! 🚀

On this day in 1958, the National Aeronautics and Space Act was signed into law, giving birth to NASA, which pioneered a lot in space exploration and innovations that changed the world!

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) was created mainly in response to the Soviet Union's launch of Sputnik 1, the first artificial satellite.

This event marked the beginning of the space race between the United States and the Soviet Union.

On 29 July 1958, then-US President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed into law the National Aeronautics and Space Act, which gave birth to NASA, but the institution became fully operational almost three months later.

NASA's main mission is to explore space and aeronautics, pushing the boundaries of what humanity knows and can achieve in space.

Over the years, NASA has made significant contributions to science and technology. It landed the first humans on the moon in 1969 during the Apollo 11 mission, inspiring generations.

NASA has launched numerous satellites and space telescopes, like the Hubble Space Telescope, providing insights into the universe's origins and structure.

The agency's Mars rovers have explored the Red Planet, searching for signs of past life.

NASA's research has also led to advancements in various technologies used in everyday life, such as improved weather forecasting, GPS, and medical imaging.

[thepastisalreadywritten]

SAINTS OF THE DAY (July 29)

"Jesus loved Martha, and her sister Mary, and Lazarus" - (John 11:5)

—

Saints Martha, Mary and Lazarus were three siblings living in the town of Bethany outside of Jerusalem during the time of Christ.

Pope Francis added this memorial to the General Roman Calendar on 2 February 2021, giving the three siblings the combined feast day of July 29, previously the memorial of St. Martha.

As an obligatory memorial, it must be observed.

According to the decree of the new memorial from the Congregation for Divine Worship, the Holy Father included the three saints in the General Roman Calendar “considering the important evangelical witness they offered in welcoming the Lord Jesus into their home, in listening to him attentively, in believing that he is the resurrection and the life.”

While the memorial of St. Martha was included in the General Roman Calendar before the Second Vatican Council, that of St. Lazarus and St. Mary had been originally left off due to uncertainty about the identity of Mary Magdalene.

These uncertainties “have been resolved in recent studies and times,” Pope Francis’ Decree indicated, adding that Mary and Lazarus are already commemorated on July 29 in the Roman Martyrology, the Church’s official catalog of martyrs and saints.

The decree that the then Prefect of the Divine Worship congregation, Robert Cardinal Sarah, signed, states:

“In the household of Bethany, the Lord Jesus experienced the family spirit and friendship of Martha, Mary, and Lazarus, and for this reason, the Gospel of John states that he loved them.”

“Martha generously offered him hospitality, Mary listened attentively to his words and Lazarus promptly emerged from the tomb at the command of the One who humiliated death.”

Saint Martha is mentioned in three Gospel passages: Luke 10:38-42, John 11:1-53, and John 12:1-9.

The type of friendship between her and her siblings, Mary and Lazarus, with the Lord Jesus is evident in these passages.

In the Gospel of Luke, Martha receives Jesus into her home and worries herself with serving Him, a worry that her sister Mary, who sat beside the Lord's feet "listening to Him speak," doesn't share.

Her complaint that her sister is not helping her serve draws a reply from the Lord who says to her:

"Martha, Martha, you are anxious and worried about many things. There is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part and it will not be taken from her."

The overanxiousness she displays in serving is put into the right context by Jesus who emphasizes the importance of contemplating Him before all things.

Yet she is seen next in John, outside the tomb of her brother Lazarus who had died four days earlier, as the one who receives the Revelation from the Lord:

"I am the resurrection and the life; whoever believes in me, even if he dies, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die."

When asked by the Lord if she believed this, Martha said to Him, "Yes, Lord. I have come to believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one who is coming into the world," displaying her great faith that is confirmed by Jesus' subsequent raising of her brother Lazarus from the grave.

In the third and last instance, we see Martha, again in John, at a house in Bethany where Jesus was reclining at table with her brother Lazarus after he had raised him from the dead.

During dinner, John's Gospel tells us, "Martha served."

She is revealed here performing the same task as when we first saw her, but her service now is infused with her faith.

The brevity of the description suggests the silence and peace in which she serves as opposed to the nervous anxiety she displayed earlier. 

Martha, whom we have seen serving in Luke, and then believing, earlier in John, is now seen expressing her belief in the action of serving the Lord.

"Martha served," and in doing so, teaches us the way of Christian life.

Lazarus was the one of whom the Jews said, “See how much he loved him.”

In their sight, Jesus raised his friend Lazarus from the dead.

Around the year 390, the pilgrim lady Etheria talks of the procession that took place on the Saturday before Palm Sunday at the tomb where Lazarus had been raised from the dead.

In the West, Passion Sunday was called Dominica de Lazaro, and Augustine tells us that in Africa, the Gospel of the raising of Lazarus was read at the office of Palm Sunday.

St. Martha is the patron of housewives, servants, waiters and cooks.

St. Lazarus, whose name means “God has helped” is the patron of butchers, gravediggers, beggars, and lepers.

The three — Saints Martha, Mary and Lazarus — are the patron of siblings.