Mystical yet Political: A Liberative Encounter with God through Popular Piety

Today, an increasing number of Catholics can be found in the countries of the Global South. This coincides with the pontificate of the first pope who comes from that region of the world where the prevalent expression of the Catholic faith is popular piety. Popular piety may be considered as an indispensable phenomenon in Global Catholicism. In his Apostolic Exhortation, Evangelii Gaudium, Pope Francis refers to popular piety as ‘the people’s mysticism’ and calls it a ‘locus theologicus’ which demands attention especially in the contemporary Church’s mission of evangelization. This paper examines popular piety as a probable point of encounter with the liberating grace of God by numerous people in the world. It employs the soteriology of Edward Schillebeeckx, particularly his notion of the interrelationship of mysticism and politics, as a framework for discerning how the liberating grace of God manifests in and through popular piety. This discernment involves identifying liberative qualities of popular piety without the neglect of its oppressive tendencies. It is carefully considered with the awareness that God’s revelation takes place within the finite and broken history of humanity where both grace and sin are interwoven. Thus, it is argued that despite the contrasting presence of liberative and oppressive potentials of popular piety, it can nevertheless be understood as a revelatory sign of God’s saving activity in the here and now. In sum, it is proposed that popular piety has interrelated mystical and political aspects. This model of understanding popular piety does not abandon nor absolutize politics but rather transforms it by strengthening its link to ‘the people’s mysticism’

Rethinking the Panata to the Nazareno of Quiapo

Filipino Catholicism’s hallmark is its festive and colorful celebrations of popular piety; which exhibit the Catholic faith’s embeddedness in people’s lives and culture. One of the most renowned Filipino devotions is rendered to Nuestro Padre Jesus Nazareno of Quiapo; Manila. The devotion of making a pledge to the Nazareno; known as panata; is commonly understood as a sacred promise that must be kept in return for a request that is granted. In this paper; I propose a theological reading of panata performance that unites devotion to the Nazareno and commitment to the wellbeing of others. This interpretation aims to orient panata as a form of lived Filipino Catholicism that converges popular spirituality and socio-political responsibility. I flesh out this constructive proposal using three steps. I begin by tracing the historical roots of the Nazareno devotion. Then; I consider narratives of Nazareno devotees about the confluence of their devotion and their socio-political engagement. Finally; based on these narratives; I theologically reframe the panata to the Nazareno as a catalyst for mystical-political praxis. Through this fresh outlook; the panata’s theological significance is reconsidered beyond popular piety towards becoming a vehicle for Christ’s saving work amid the Philippine society

People\u27s Mysticism And Political Engagement: The Prophetic Character Of The Nazareno Image

Millions of Filipino Catholics consider themselves as devotees of the Nazareno. It is a unique cultural facet of Filipino Catholicism being one of the deeply ingrained folk devotions in the country. It is, therefore, one of the most important loci for doing theology in the Filipino context being a concrete expression of the faith of many Filipino Catholics. This paper attempts to contribute one approach in strengthening the theological significance of the devotion to the Nazareno in order to see how the Gospel of Christ could further permeate the lives of the people. Here, the author contends that the devotion to the Nazareno has the potential of leading them into transformative praxes. Most of the adherents of the Nazareno belong to the civil society group. Since civil society is a crucial element in the development of any nation, it is imperative that the devotees be actively involved in nation building. Thus, in harnessing the Nazareno devotion\u27s theological significance, it is indispensable to involve the public dimension of this faith expression

Science And Christian Hope: A Dialogue And Integration Of Their End-Time Narratives

Ruminations about how the world will end continuously stir the curiosity and imagination of a lot of people. These thoughts mostly deal with the possible end-story of history. Science, on one hand, surmises history’s tragic end in its theories about cosmic death. On the other hand, Christianity believes in existence that transcends personal and cosmic death. On surface, the two seem to contradict each other. For some, this confirms the notion that science and Christianity cannot go hand and hand or, worse, that they are adversarial to each other. This paper argues that while the scientific and the Christian end-time narratives are not identical, still they do not essentially contradict each other. Science and Christian hope must respect their given distinctions, i.e. their fundamental epistemological and methodological differences. But, nonetheless, the two could dialogue and mutually enrich each other’s understanding of reality. Therefore, one does not have a limited choice of believing only either the scientific or the Christian-hope narrative. A Christian may opt to acknowledge what science validly says while remaining faithful to one’s conviction and hope for an eschatological future

Discrete-Event Simulation of the Establishment of a Bare Beachhead for Long-Term Joint Logistics over the Shore (JLOTS) Operations

The United States military uses Joint Logistics Over-the-Shore (JLOTS) operations to move soldiers, vehicles, and equipment across the globe for military and humanitarian missions. These logistics operations can only be accomplished through cooperation between commanders in all services.  The U.S. Army Engineer Research and Development Center is developing a tool to analyze a set of early entry alternatives to optimize mission effectives and efficiencies in order to facilitate assured mobility and freedom of movement. This program is currently being developed under the name Planning Logistics Analysis Network System (PLANS). PLANS comprehensively covers air, land, and sea transportation infrastructure, regions of avoidance, and more. This research addresses a gap in strategic and operational planning by modeling the establishment of JLOTS operations on bare beach environments. The West Point developed discrete event simulation will determine the amount of time it takes to prepare a beach to sustain JLOTS operations under varying environmental and operational conditions

Mating Behavior of the African Weaver Ant, Oecophylla longinoda(Latreille) (Hymenoptera: Formicidae)

Mating in most species of ants occurs during nuptial flights. In the African weaver ant, Oecophylla longinoda Latreille, mating has previously been hypothesized to take place within the nest before the nuptial flight. However, several researchers disagree with this supposition particularly with reference to the closely related species Oecopylla smaragdina (Fabricius) whose mating occur during nuptial flights. Understanding the mating strategy of O. longinoda is of importance for its successful application in biological control programs. We conducted field and screen house experiments during two mating seasons to determine whether the mating occur prior to the dispersal flight. We examined winged O. longinoda queens on the nest surface before taking flight, immediately after leaving the nest, up to twelve hours (12h) after leaving the nest and after settling naturally following the dispersal flights. Mating in captivity between different number of males and queens were also assessed. Only eggs produced by queens (N=65) collected after their natural settling hatched into larvae. No eggs hatched from any of the 527 winged queens that were collected prior to their dispersal flights and no mating attempts in captivity lead to viable offspring. Findings from the current study suggest that mating of O. longinoda queens take place during a nuptial flight and does not take place within the nest, as previously suggested

A Process for Improving Course Quality based on Mid-Semester Feedback

Proceedings of: First International Conference on Reforming Education, Quality of Teaching and Technology-Enhanced Learning: Learning Technologies, Quality of Education, Educational Systems, Evaluation, Pedagogies (TECH-EDUCATION 2010). Athens, Greece, May 19-21, 2010.Quality control mechanisms are becoming more important in higher educational institutions. Student evaluation of teaching is typically used to obtain feedback from students about a learning experience but its effect in the course may take too long. Fast feedback mechanisms, in exchange, look at obtaining feedback in order to apply corrective measures quickly. In this paper a process is described to obtain feedback from the students about a course, analyze the received results, and identify the most significant aspects. The process has been applied to a course and led to some adjustments that had immediate impact on the course.The authors are truly indebted to Miguel Valero for his guidance during the design of this process. Work partially funded by the Learn3 project, “Plan Nacional de I+D+I TIN2008-05163/TSI”, the Best Practice Network ICOPER (Grant No. ECP-2007-EDU-417007), the Flexo Project “Plan Nacional de Investigación Científica, Desarrollo e Innovación Tecnológica” (Ref. TSI-020301-2008-19), and the “Emadrid: Investigación y desarrollo de tecnologías para el e-learning en la Comunidad de Madrid” project (S2009/TIC-1650).Publicad

Desarrollo de un sistema de predicción con redes neuronales artificiales para determinar la demanda de energía eléctrica en una central hidroeléctrica

The prediction of events has been since ancient times, a phenomenon capable of generating curiosity in human beings, however, to achieve a projection of a future event, a detailed data analysis is required to predict subsequent events, with this idea, the The objective of the research was to develop a prediction system applying artificial neural networks to determine the forecast demand for electrical energy at the ILLUCHI 2 HYDROELECTRIC POWER PLANT. The data used for this study were collected by ELEPCO S.A operators who are based between 2 years 010 to the year 2 019. The input variables that were date and energy consumed were considered to elaborate different cases with different conditions with the purpose of reaching a successful recurrent neural network model (Long Short Term Memory) possible. Once the model variables were understood, the data was divided into two groups: training 80% and validation 20% respectively. For the relevant training, the RMSprop algorithm and the libraries offered by Python 3.8.6 were used. From the data of the demand for electrical energy from the last period of the month of January of the year 2019 to the following week of the month of February of the same year, which correspond to 8 days, it can be affirmed that the proposed model presents the greater adjustment to the behavior of the data series with a mean absolute error (MAE) of 0.0352 and mean absolute percentage error (MAPE) is 3%, thus validating and using the results to predict the demand for electrical energy for the year 2020 and 2021. For future studies it is recommended to carry out the same study applying other computer programs used for data analysis.La predicción de eventos ha sido desde la antigüedad, un fenómeno capaz de generar curiosidad en los seres humanos, sin embargo, para lograr una proyección de un suceso futuro se requiere un detallado análisis de datos para lograr predecir eventos posteriores, con esta idea, el objetivo de la investigación fue desarrollar un sistema de predicción aplicando redes neuronales artificiales para determinar la demanda de energía eléctrica pronosticada en la CENTRAL HIDROELÉCTRICA ILLUCHI 2. Los datos utilizados para este estudio fueron recopilados por los operarios de ELEPCO S.A que están basados entre los años 2 010 hasta el año 2 019. Se plantearon las variables de entradas que fueron fecha y energía consumida para elaborar diferentes casos con diversas condiciones con el propósito de alcanzar un acertado modelo de red neuronal recurrente (Long Short Term Memory) posible. Una vez comprendidas las variables del modelo, los datos se dividieron en dos grupos: entrenamiento 80 % y validación 20 % respectivamente. Para los pertinentes entrenamientos se utilizó el algoritmo de RMSprop y las librerías que ofrece Python 3.8.6. A partir de los datos de la demanda de energía eléctrica del último periodo del mes de enero del año 2 019 a la semana siguiente del mes de febrero del mismo año, que corresponden a 8 días, se puede afirmar que el modelo planteado, presenta el mayor ajuste al comportamiento de la serie de datos con un error medio absoluto (MAE) del 0,0352 y error porcentual absoluto medio (MAPE) es de 3 % de esta forma validando y utilizando los resultados para predecir la demanda de energía eléctrica para el año 2 020 y 2 021. Para futuros estudios se recomienda realizar el mismo estudio aplicando otros programas computacionales utilizados para el análisis de datos