Sermon on the Feast of the Nativity of Christ (Galatians 4:4-7; Matthew 2:1-12)

Sermon on the Sunday After the Theophany (Ephesians 4:7-13; Matthew 4:12-17)

Sixth Sunday after Pentecost (Originally given July 27, 2008)

Forgiveness is at the heart of the gospel message and Christian experience. As Christians living in the community of faith, we are called to share all things in common. Fr Tom explains that this includes sharing the mercy and compassion with one another that we first received from Christ. (Eleventh Sunday after Pentecost)

Faith is initiated in us by the gift of God in Christ being given to us in baptism. Fr Tom reminds us that it is our responsibility to live a life in light of that gift. (Twenty-third Sunday after Pentecost)

The parable of the talents can sometimes seem unfair. Why have some been given more than others? Fr Thomas relates this parable to the contemporary decline in religious faith and reminds us that, today, our cross is to take up the gift of faith and grow it. (Sunday after the Elevation of the Precious Cross)

Fr Thomas challenges us to recognize that our task as Christians is not simply to come to church to be fed for our own purposes, but to be sent out to build up the body of Christ.

The greatest gift, the Gift beyond all gifts, is the Gift of God Himself in our Lord Jesus Christ. In the Divine Liturgy, that gift of Himself becomes something as basic as food and drink.

Fr. Gregory suggests that perhaps it is time to take stock of our own service, to consider what talents God has given us, and to take care that we use them fully.

Fr. Gregory Hallam gives the sermon on the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy and Life-Giving Cross.

Fr. Emmanuel Kahn teaches that the challenge which the Father gave to Christ and to his disciples and to us is to learn and to achieve the work on earth that the Father wishes each of us to accomplish.

Fr. Gregory says that each one of us has a gift and talent from God no matter how modest we might think it may be.

Fr. Gregory Hallam gives the sermon on the feast of the Exaltation of the Cross.

Fr. Emmanuel Kahn preaches on the life of St. Maximus the Confessor and concludes that once we have learned how to respect and love ourselves as we are, with our very own strengths and weaknesses, we are on the launching pad for a life with purpose.

On this week's Ex Libris, the podcast of Ancient Faith Publishing, host Bobby Maddex interviews Nick Muzekari, the author of the new AFP children's book A Gift for Matthew.

It’s 2024, and chances are you know at least one person who works remotely in some fashion. While the WFH life has its perks — nobody likes a long commute — it certainly comes with its own set of challenges, from lacking pro-level equipment to dealing with household disturbances. If you’re looking to give a gift to someone who spends much of their time in their home office, we’ve rounded up a few techy gift ideas that should make their days a little more delightful, or at least easier to manage.

Check out the rest of our gift ideas here.

Dr. Rossi talks with iconographer Khouria Erin Kimmett about the icon most associated with the resurrection.

Dr. Albert Rossi considers how the wounds that we experience in life can actually be gifts which offer us opportunities to draw closer to God.

Dr. Albert Rossi shares a story about the power of resilience in some of the most challenging circumstances in life.

Dr. Albert Rossi reflects on the many ordinary tasks that we do each day.

Fr. John Parker, Chair of the Department of Evangelization of the Orthodox Church in America, encourages us to replace any impulse we might have to either see Fifty Shades of Grey or read the book with charitable acts done in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Bobby Maddex interviews Joel J. Miller, the author of a brand new book from Thomas Nelson publishers titled Lifted by Angels: The Presence and Power of Our Heavenly Guides and Guardians.

Fr. Pat discusses the three things we ask for in the prayer before the Gospel in Matins that mirror the three gifts of the Holy Spirit as expressed by the Prophet Isaiah.

Fr. Pat speaks on the Gospel of the Final Judgment, and what it teaches us about Christ.

In the opening verses of Romans 5, Paul says we "rejoice in hope of the glory of God.” Fr. Pat examines the characteristics of Christian hope.

On the Feast of Pentecost, Fr. Pat compares events in the book of Genesis with the events in Acts 2.

On the Sunday of All Saints Fr. Pat looks at three aspects of Christian holiness.

Why is gift-giving such an important part of Christmas? What does it have to do with our lives as Christians?

The Holy Spirit distributes gifts to the members of the Church to equip us all for the task the Lord has set us.

For whom are the Gifts of the Holy Spirit?

St. Paul tells us to make use of the Gifts of the Holy Spirit and in the Gospel we see an example of this in action. It is obvious though that there gifts are NOT for you! Matthew 9:1-8, Romans 12: 6-14

Watch highlights as Joe Gormley scores a hat-trick in Cliftonville's 4-1 win over Dungannon Swifts at Stangmore Park.

Jez Daniels is accused of shoplifting but says staff at the Newport store racially profiled him.

Rob Guest raises more than £3,000 by lifting 450,000kg over his 24-hour challenge.

Books, booze and unique stocking fillers.

This paper describes a new approach to document classification based on visual features alone. Text-based retrieval systems perform poorly on noisy text. We have conducted series of experiments using cosine distance as our similarity measure, selecting varying numbers local interest points per page, and varying numbers of nearest neighbour points in the similarity calculations. We have found that a distance-based measure of similarity outperforms a rank-based measure except when there are few interest points. We show that using visual features substantially outperforms textbased approaches for noisy text, giving average precision in the range 0.4-0.43 in several experiments retrieving scientific papers.

1. Your ultimate guide to Taylor Swift's The Eras Tour stops in Toronto  CP24
2. A Taylor Swift glossary to keep up with the Eras Tour fever gripping Canada this week  The Globe and Mail
3. IN PHOTOS | See Swiftmania sweep Toronto  CBC.ca
4. Is Taylor Swift the key to solving traffic in Toronto?  Canada NewsWire

Technology skills are assumed to be a necessity for college and career success, but technology is constantly evolving. Thus, development of students’ technology skills is an on-going and persistent issue. Standards from the Partnership for 21st Century Skills and the International Society for Technology in Education encourage educators to teach skills that help students adapt to changing working environments. These skills resemble the National Association for Gifted Children’s program and teacher preparation standards. Descriptive research about what is already occurring in classrooms has been done, but the information is frequently limited to a list of activities. A qualitative multi-case phenomenological study of six Alabama teachers of the gifted examined how they use and shape technology experiences with students, and promote student learning of 21st century skills. The teachers were chosen for the case study due to their reputation as teachers skilled in using technology with students. Lesson plans, interviews, and observations were used to discover themes between the teachers. Findings from the research indicate that educational technology use with students is shaped by factors such as teacher attitudes and expertise, available equipment and support, pedagogical decisions related to working with technology, and the particular student group participating in the technology use.

One of the key attempts towards a collective African vision is the New Economic Partnership for African Development (NEPAD). Barnard and Vonk (2003) report that “53 countries have been urged to implement ICTs in three crucial development arenas: education, health and trade”. While NEPAD and other initiatives have contributed to the provision of ICT infrastructure with positive results as seen in the growth of Internet uses, the disparities in development across Africa are enormous. The challenge to Higher Education Institutions in Africa has been summarised by Colle (2005): “central to creating digital resources and academic infrastructure is the question of universities’ relevance to the world around them, and especially to the challenge of being an active player – ‘an anchor of a broad-based poverty alleviation strategy’ in an increasingly knowledge-based economy”. It can be inferred from Colle that the activities of HEIs in Africa ought to be geared towards contributing to the realisation of the Millennium development goals.

Can questions sent to Open-Educational-Resource (OER) websites such as Ask-An-Expert serve as indicators for students’ interest in science? This issue was examined using an online questionnaire which included an equal number of questions about the topics “space” and “nutrition” randomly selected from three different sources: a 5th-grade science textbook, the “Ask-An-Expert” website, and questions collected from other students in the same age group. A sample of 113 5th-graders from two elementary schools were asked to rate their interest level in finding out the answer to these questions without knowledge of their source. Significant differences in students’ interest level were found between questions: textbook questions were ranked lowest for both subjects, and questions from the open-resource were ranked high. This finding suggests that questions sent to an open-resource could be used as an indicator of students’ interest in science. In addition, the high correlation of interests expressed by students from the two schools may point to a potential generalization of the findings. This study contributes by highlighting OER as a new and promising indicator of student interest, which may help bring “student voices” into mainstream science teaching to increase student interest in science.

Aim/Purpose: This paper explores the implications of machine-mediated communication on human interaction in cross-disciplinary teams. The authors explore the relationships between Open Science Theory, its contributions to team science, and the opportunities and challenges associated with adopting open science principles. Background: Open Science Theory impacts many aspects of human interaction throughout the scholarly life cycle and can be seen in action through various technologies, which each typically touch only one such aspect. By serving multiple aspects of Open Science Theory at once, the Open Science Framework (OSF) serves as an exemplar technology. As such it illustrates how Open Science Theory can inform and expand cognitive and behavioral dynamics in teams at multiple levels in a single tool. Methodology: This concept paper provides a theoretical rationale for recommendations for exploring the connections between an open science paradigm and the dynamics of team communication. As such theory and evidence have been culled to initiate a synthesis of the nascent literature, current practice and theory. Contribution: This paper aims to illuminate the shared goals between open science and the study of teams by focusing on science team activities (data management, methods, algorithms, and outputs) as focal objects for further combined study. Findings: Team dynamics and characteristics that will affect successful human/machine assisted interactions through mediators of workflow culture, attitudes about ownership of knowledge, readiness to share openly, shifts from group-driven to user-driven functionality, group-organizing to self-organizing structures, and the development of trust as teams regulate between traditional and open science dissemination. Recommendations for Practitioners: Participation in open science practices through machine-assisted technologies in team projects/scholarship should be encouraged. Recommendation for Researchers: The information provided highlights areas in need of further study in team science as well as new primary sources of material in the study of teams utilizing machine-assisted methods in their work. Impact on Society: As researchers take on more complex social problems, new technology and open science practices can complement the work of diverse stakeholders while also providing opportunities to broaden impact and intensify scholarly contributions. Future Research: Future investigation into the cognitive and behavioral research conducted with teams that employ machine-assisted technologies in their workflows would offer researchers the opportunity to understand better the relationships between intelligent machines and science teams’ impacts on their communities as well as the necessary paradigmatic shifts inherent when utilizing these technologies.

Aim/Purpose: As traditional Knowledge Management (KM) struggles to support the personal needs of knowledge workers in a new era of accelerating information abundance, we examine the shortcomings and put forward alternative scenarios and architectures for developing a novel Personal KM System (PKMS). Background: While prior publications focused on the complementing features compared to conventional dynamic KM models, our emphasis shifts to instantiating a flourishing PKMS community supported by a Digital Platform Ecosystem. Methodology: Design science research focusing on conceptual analysis and prototyping. Contribution: The PKMS concept advances the understanding of how digital platform communities may serve members with highly diverse skills and ambitions better to gainfully utilize the platform’s resources and generative potential in their personal and local settings. Findings: We demonstrate how the needs to tackle attention-consuming rising entropy and to benefit from generative innovation potentials can be addressed. Future Research: As this article has iteratively co-evolved with the preparing of a PKMS implementation, business, and roll-out plan, the prototype’s testing, completion, and subsequent migration to a viable system is of primary concern.