A prayer.
#seeking
New Stars in the Darkness — Silvio José Báez, ocd
Dear brothers and sisters,
Today we celebrate that Jesus is the Messiah and Savior of all humanity. That’s why today’s Gospel presents us with “magi from the East”—wise men who studied the stars, searching for some light to guide their lives. They were seekers of God—models for all of us who want to journey toward him. One day, when they saw a star, they sensed that something new had happened. They realized that this star announced “the birth of the king of the Jews” (cf. Mt 2:2). Faced with this sign, they didn’t remain still; they set out on a long and risky journey.
The magi teach us that life is a constant search. Only by seeking do we find meaning in existence, and only then are we able to change the course of history. Life isn’t an immense museum meant to be observed, nor is history an old book that only needs to be reprinted again and again. Life is an ongoing interior pilgrimage that calls for creativity and hope. We can’t resign ourselves to letting everything remain as it always has been.
The magi began their journey without knowing the exact route in advance. In life, uncertainty often discourages us, but we can’t wait to understand everything before moving forward. When an ideal is burning in our hearts, we don’t need all the details. Small signs are enough to show the way. The magi journeyed through the night guided only by a faint star; the dark sky became for them a kind of great map. In the same way, God lights up our nights with his light—sometimes discreet, but always trustworthy and consoling. With God’s light, there’s no darkness that can truly disorient or frighten us.
The magi’s journey was full of mistakes. They lost sight of the star, went to Jerusalem instead of Bethlehem, asked a child-killer about a child, and looked in a palace instead of a manger. And yet, despite so many errors, they didn’t stop; they kept going. People and societies make mistakes.
Making mistakes isn’t the tragedy; the tragedy is refusing to recognize them and remaining fallen. Our falls can teach us; life involves course corrections.
Our history as a people has known dark times and painful errors, but it’s always possible to begin again. The Lord is always kindling new stars to invite us to move forward. Let’s lift up our hearts to God with trust and humility.
The magi traveled in a caravan. They didn’t try to go faster than their strength allowed, they weren’t distracted by secondary things, and they didn’t let weariness defeat them. As a society, let’s learn to walk without obsessive haste. Great social changes are slow and require historical patience. Let’s not give up or diminish the intensity of the struggle. Let’s begin, even now, to live as the society we long for: freeing our hearts from petty ambitions, overcoming indifference, opportunism, and the messianic cult of leaders, and trusting in God who guides and sustains us.
The magi’s journey to Bethlehem wasn’t an individualistic one. Tradition speaks of “three” magi; the Gospel says “some.” They were a small group walking together. Each one didn’t go off on his own. The human journey is made with others—or else it drifts into selfishness, discouragement, or despair. The magi looked at the star, but they also looked at those journeying beside them. They teach us the value of solidarity, the need to slow our pace so no one is left behind, and the nobility of reaching out to those for whom the road is growing heavier.
When we walk together, God walks with us. Let’s journey as brothers and sisters, avoiding traps and fruitless rivalries. Legitimate differences aren’t the same as political cannibalism. Let’s journey together, looking one another in the eye, dialoguing, offering a hand, and giving the best of ourselves.
When the magi arrived in Jerusalem and asked about the newborn king of the Jews, “King Herod was deeply disturbed, and all Jerusalem with him” (cf. Mt 2:3). Tyrants put on a show of bravery and present themselves as arrogant and aggressive, but they live under threat, driven by fear. They turn others—even those in their inner circle—into rivals or enemies to be eliminated. Herod and his court embody the dark world of power where everything is justified, and anything goes: calculation, cynicism, lies, cruelty, and contempt for life. Still, ancient and recent history teach us that all tyrants eventually fall and stand condemned by God and history.
Although Herod tried to deceive them, the magi—reoriented by Scripture—saw the star again and reached the Child in Bethlehem: “They saw the child with Mary his mother, and falling down they worshiped him” (Mt 2:11). They didn’t find a palace or signs of luxury worthy of a prince’s birth, but a child and his mother. They found the true God in that which is little; they recognized true kingship in the absence of power, and the Almighty in the fragility of a newborn.
God reveals himself in the humility of his love. He asks us to welcome him so that we may be transformed by him, who is Love. Finding God in Bethlehem also reminds us of the missionary dimension of life: enlightened by his love, we are called to bring the light and love of Jesus to those who live in darkness and to rekindle hope in those who feel disillusioned or powerless.
In the end, the magi fall down and adore the Child. To adore is to marvel at God’s unfathomable greatness and, at the same time, to savor his close and loving presence that embraces our whole being. To adore God, we must recognize that we are creatures—infinitely small before him, yet infinitely loved by him.
Adoration is wonder. It is love and self-giving. It is placing our very being in God’s hands and remaining in grateful, joyful silence before him, contemplating his mystery from our own littleness. Adoration gives us the strength not to kneel before any idol or power of this world.
Warned in a dream not to return to Herod, the magi “went back by another way” (Mt 2:12). They returned to ordinary life, transformed—enlightened by truth and changed by love. In the same way, when we encounter Jesus, we too begin to journey “by another way.” We keep seeking the Lord tirelessly in simplicity and tenderness, alongside victims and the poor, struggling for freedom and justice, never giving in to despair and never resigning ourselves (cf. Francis, Epiphany Homily, January 6, 2016).
May the example of the magi move us to keep seeking, to persevere, to journey in solidarity, and to adore with humility, trusting that God’s light always leads us toward truth and the fullness of life.
Silvio José Báez, o.c.d.
Auxiliary Bishop of Managua,
Homily for the Epiphany of the Lord
4 January 2026
Translation from the Spanish text is the blogger’s own work product and may not be reproduced without permission.
Featured image: Galaxy NGC 6946, nicknamed the Fireworks Galaxy. Image credit: NASA, Marshall Space Flight Center / Flickr (Some rights reserved).
#BishopSilvioJoséBáez #darkness #Epiphany #journey #light #seeking
Auckland Grammar seeking over $1800 in voluntary donations from parents
Thirty-seven Auckland state high schools don’t ask parents for voluntary donations, while 21 do. Parents don’t have to…
#NewsBeep #News #Headlines #1800 #amounts #auckland #aucklands #donation #donations #from #grammar #herald #high #in #lists #NewZealand #NZ #over #parents #requested #Schools #seeking #state #voluntary
https://www.newsbeep.com/292087/
The #U.S. #DepartmentofJustice is #seeking a #NewYork #federal #court's #permission to publicly #release the #files related to the #investigation of late sex offender Jeffrey #Epstein, clarifying Wednesday that it wants to release #search #warrant results, travel and #financial records, #police reports, and other materials. [Law360]
The #harmony of #truth and the truth of harmony should be the #intent of #intention…as well as (maybe/perhaps) the #seeking of #creating and the creating of seeking. #philosophy #ethics #science
McDonald’s lodges fresh bid for Wānaka restaurant, this time without public input
If approved, it would be Wānaka’s first McDonald’s. The site is owned by Willowridge Developments, positioned be…
#NewsBeep #News #Headlines #after #another #being #bid #Community #for #fresh #input #Local #lodges #mcdonalds #months #NewZealand #NZ #opening #opposition #overwhelming #Public #rebuffed #restaurant #seeking #shot #skirt #submissions #taking #this #time #without #wnaka
https://www.newsbeep.com/205126/
Kaipara election result challenged as Snow Tane lodges court recount bid
Newly-voted-in Larsen will be knocked out of Kaipara District Council (KDC) if Tane’s mayoral vote challenge is successful,…
#NewsBeep #News #Headlines #as #bid #challenged #court #Election #kaipara #lodges #mayor #NewZealand #NZ #recount #result #seeking #snow #tane #vote #wouldbe
https://www.newsbeep.com/196940/
Ex-Casketeers star Fiona Bakulich appeals prison term over funeral fraud
“Her experience in prison is very different from that of other prisoners,” Gray argued, expla…
#NewsBeep #News #Headlines #Appeals #bakulich #bars #before #behind #Celebrity #cited #director #disgraced #doover #excasketeers #featuring #fiona #former #Fraud #from #funeral #inmate #judge #Life #NewZealand #NZ #over #prison #programme #reality #reasons #seeking #star #status #tania #term #went
https://www.newsbeep.com/154590/
Woman seeking $350k in damages from Taranaki health provider after pregnancy ended in stillbirth
Failures in the woman’s care Shortly afterwards the woman, who can not be named, raised a complaint with…
#NewsBeep #News #Headlines #350k #after #damages #ended #from #Health #in #NewZealand #NZ #pregnancy #provider #seeking #stillbirth #taranaki #woman
https://www.newsbeep.com/150554/
Supply chain audit tool
I'm dispensing with the thorns for this post.
BLUF
I know of no static code analysis tools which audit for malicious code. I'm aware of gosec, but it seems focused on preventing footguns rather than searching for malicious code injection. What I need is a tool which is focused on the security of a project's dependencies, and specifically looking for obfuscated, intentionally malicious code.
The problem I want to address is: as a developer, I want to ensure any dependencies I import are free of malicious, potentially obfuscated, supply chain attacks.
Background
I am not a security expert, but I do have both substantial development experience and time to work on a project; I'm looking for either someone to say, "this tool already exists, here's the URL", or someone who's a security expert who has time and interest to collaborate on development of such a tool. "Collaborate" could be as limited as exchanging emails in a mailing list with guidance for the sorts of things to look for.
As a developer, I seem to have three choices regarding supply chain attacks: ignore them; manually audit every dependency I use, re-auditing every new version bump of each dependency, recursively; or never depend on any other libraries. The last is fine for tightly constrained projects, but is restricting. The first is irresponsible, and since most FOSS projects are scratching an itch, scary. The middle option drastically increases the amount of effort needed to develop, and especially maintain, a project, since a project might need updating simply because of a dependency version bump.
As a lay security person, I imagine that it's not possible to build a tool which provides automatic assurance of security, so I suspect the best that can be done is identifying potentially suspicious code. This isolation (identification?) of code blocks would reduce the amount of effort required to audit dependencies: it wouldn't provide a guarantee, but would be better than cold-auditing every dependency. If I had to do this with my current knowledge, I'd start by reporting out any code block that uses os, net, or io. That's my imagination of a bare-minimum, but I suspect a tool could eliminate (mark as clean) some uses, and also identify particularly suspicious patterns -- for example, calling Exec or mucking around with hard-coded arrays of bytes, or hard-coded or calculating network addresses (k := 0xC0A800 ; xyz := strings.ReplaceAll(fmt.Sprintf("%d %d 0 1", k >> 16, (k&0xffff)>>8), " ", ".") + ":80"; net.Dial("tcp", xyz) or some such. Although the "Dial" alone might be sufficient as a flag.).
I keep waiting to see a tool like this pop up, and it keeps not popping up, so I'm seeking collaboration to scratch the itch. The threat of supply chain attacks in dependency libraries has really put a damper on my enthusiasm for working on projects: I'd rather not spend all of my time auditing every version of every dependency in the entire dependency tree -- and neither am I competent to. I want a tool which makes it easier to sincerely claim: "I'm pretty sure, to the best of my ability, that I'm not shipping hostile code to my users."
Hey fellow Geese! We are going to have another indie art market at Wildfires Bookshop in New Westminster next month, and we are looking for a few more vendors to table with us! We are asking for $73CAD for a full table, $36.50 for a half table.
Please write to us if interested! geesegoosecoop@proton.me.
Much solidarity to all.
(Poster made by Owen Twaites)
#vancouver #newwestminster #bc #indie #artmarket #geesegoose #honkhonk #seeking #vendors
Renwick woman Shanelle missing, police and family concerned
By Natasha Gordon Live News Reporter·NZ Herald· 6 Aug, 2025 07:28 AMQuick Read Subscribe to listenAccess to Herald…
#NewsBeep #News #Headlines #and #concerned #concerns #family #from #have #her #marlborough #missing #NewZealand #NZ #police #renwick #seeking #serious #shanelle #sightings #town #urgently #Welfare #woman
https://www.newsbeep.com/42824/
Caramel playing hide and seek with her mommy Duchess.
YCH Commission by UniaMoon
Caramel Chinchilla Kitty belongs to ME
#Caramel #Chinchilla #Kitty #Cat #Kitten #Hybrid #Duchess #Mother #Mom #Daughter #Girl #Baby #Cute #Diaper #Nappy #Babyfur #Diaperfur #Dress #HideandSeek #Hiding #Curtains #Seek #Seeking #Playing #Play #Paci
UPDATE FROM THE FARM.
Today, we have received our #harvest of pumpkins and some #bananas from our garden which has put a smile on people's faces.
We're still in a #seeking funds to buy our own #land . Your #support is really needed and appreciated because makes a very #significant impact.
“God will generously give you wisdom, if thy will ask.”
― Lailah Gifty Akita
#Bot #Quote #Ambition #Ask #Asking #Desires #Destiny #Education #Fate #Favour #Give #Glory #God #GodSGrace #GodsPower #Greatness #Inspiration #Inspiring #Journey #Life #LifeLessons #Path #Seeking #SelfHelp #SelfMotivation #Wisdom #WiseWords #Wishes
#Seeking, #why seeking?, #what do we seek?
I have no idea in the end, even if all of us seek the same thing. Everything that I have seen inclines me to believe that some people seek nothing at all. What are they? And is it even true? Is it true, or not that we seek something, all of us? That we seek to know ourselves? Whatever that self is. Then comes the question, why do we seek something, why do we seek to know ourselves? Because we want fulfillment, a sort of contentment in our own inner being. What's that being? I do not know how to answer to that. Surely, for this search to even begin, we must assume that we have a self, no? Else, what it is that we seek? I do not know what being is. I would like to know honestly. Some people chase after external things: fame, status, power, recognition by a community or group, they want to belong, they want to be known, they want to be accepted, they want to be loved, they want to be admired. There are people who have a contrary instinct, and, I liked to believe, that I am of this latter kind—they want solitude, they have a need for it, they try to know themselves in other ways, by musing, by thinking, by reflecting. Maybe a mix is required, a mix between the two, not simply standing and thinking all the time, and isolating yourself from your fellows, but not being with them that much either. To reduce a bit the venom of our inner loneliness, that is why we seek others, but why do we seek our own solitude? Who knows. It is still to know ourselves. Why are those people going away from the human world? Due to too much disenchantment? Maybe, possible, that is possible indeed.
The problem is, I already assumed that people seek themselves, how do I know? How do I know that this is so? Some may not seek themselves at all, or,they don't think they have a self, this feeling would be unconscious, and that is why they seek those external things, that is the reason for validation, let us say.
If we were to sit in a room, with only the four walls surrounding us, simply sit down, think, muse meditate, not only of our choices, besides this question, what we should be asking is: what is the self I have? What are its properties? Do those properties define the self completely? How much do they define this illusory construct? This self? We could assume a lot of things? But already there are many unknowns, those unknowns will be encountered eventually, no matter which path one chooses to walk. Don't we all face this question, but in different forms? What is this Self? Those forms are: where am I going? What do I want? What are my aims? Those questions don't strike at the root; .they do not go further in addressing it. The root is another question: what is this self?
If the road, as some spiritual teachers claim, is important, not the destination. – To that aphorism someone could reply with, "If I don't know where I am going? If I don't know who or what I am, if I don't know what I'm doing? Then, this saying crumbles down. All that remains is for me to spin around in circles, which look this moment as circles, the next as squares, and who knows as what else the next moment." In other words, we need more than this to finally get to whatever, or wherever, we wish to arrive.
We all have assumptions. Let's question these, and see where it takes us. I have no idea what else can be done.
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