Colon Cancer Awareness Month

March

World TB Day

Colon Cancer Awareness Month

Kick Butts Day

Seasonal

Purim

Purim

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Significance: Remembers the defeat of a plot to exterminate the JewsObservances: Public reading of the book of Esther while "blotting out" the villain's nameLength: 1 dayCustoms: Costume parties; drinking; eating fruit-filled triangular cookies

In the twelfth month, which is the month of Adar, on its thirteenth day ... on the day that the enemies of the Jews were expected to prevail over them, it was turned about: the Jews prevailed over their adversaries. - Esther 9:1

And they gained relief on the fourteenth, making it a day of feasting and gladness. - Esther 9:17

[Mordecai instructed them] to observe them as days of feasting and gladness, and sending delicacies to one another, and gifts to the poor. - Esther 9:22

Purim is one of the most joyous and fun holidays on the Jewish calendar. It commemorates a time when the Jewish people living in Persia were saved from extermination.

Purim in 2014 will start on Sunday, the 16th of March and will continue for 2 days until Monday, the 17th of March.

Note that in the Jewish calendar, a holiday begins on the sunset of the previous day, so observing Jews will celebrate Purim on the sunset of Saturday, the 15th of March.

The Story

by Rabbi Daniel Rose

The basic story of Purim is quite simple. The wicked Haman had a plan to destroy the Jewish people completely. Through a variety of coincidences, God thwarted his plans, and instead of being destroyed, the Jews turned the tables on their enemies. The Jews were not only threatened by Haman; they had every reason to think that God Himself had abandoned them.

When Haman came to power, the Jews were 60 years removed from the worst disaster in their history. The first Temple in Jerusalem had been destroyed and the land of Israel had been completely laid waste. It was the first time since the days of Egypt—almost a thousand years earlier—that they had experienced a national tragedy like this, and they were still exiled in Persia, wondering what history had in store for them. They wondered, in fact, if God still cared for them at all.

The common feeling, in the words of the Sages, was: “Do a husband and wife who have divorced have any relationship with each other anymore?” God, as they saw it, had divorced them, expelled them from the Temple where they used to visit and connect with Him. What was done was done. All their glory was behind them.

We can imagine how this sneaking suspicion must have been confirmed in their minds by Haman’s ascendancy. Here was proof of their rejection: God was allowing them to be doomed, placing them under the grip of an enemy who was obsessed with their utter annihilation. They must have been ready to throw up their hands and surrender. And it was just at that moment of great darkness that God turned everything on its head.

It was just then that God showed them that He had been there the whole time, orchestrating events to bring about their salvation. He showed them that bygones were not bygones, that His love for His people was not restricted to their better days and was not some treasured relic of their past. He showed them that they had forgotten how to remember.

St. Patrick’s Day

Dear Lord,
Give me a few friends
who will love me for what I am,
and keep ever burning
before my vagrant steps
the kindly light of hope...
And though I come not within sight
of the castle of my dreams,
teach me to be thankful for life,
and for time's olden memories
that are good and sweet.
And may the evening's twilight
find me gentle still. Amen

Patrick was the patron saint and national apostle of Ireland who is credited with bringing Christianity to Ireland. Most of what is known about him comes from his two works, the Confessio, a spiritual autobiography, and his Epistola, a denunciation of British mistreatment of Irish Christians. Saint Patrick described himself as a "most humble-minded man, pouring forth a continuous paean of thanks to his Maker for having chosen him as the instrument whereby multitudes who had worshipped idols and unclean things had become the people of God." Howstuffworks.com

May flowers always line your path and sunshine light your day.
May songbirds serenade you every step along the way.
May a rainbow run beside you in a sky that's always blue.
And may happiness fill your heart each day your whole life through.
- Traditional Irish Blessing
~*~
May love and laughter light your days, and warm your heart and home.
May good and faithful friends be yours, wherever you may roam.
May peace and plenty bless your world with joy that long endures.
May all life's passing seasons bring the best to you and yours.
- Irish Blessing
~*~
May the road rise up to meet you, may the wind be ever at your back.
May the sun shine warm upon your face and the rain fall softly on your fields.
And until we meet again, May God hold you in the hollow of his hand.
- Irish Blessing
~*~
May God grant you always...
A sunbeam to warm you,
a moonbeam to charm you,
a sheltering Angel so nothing can harm you.
Laughter to you.
Faithful friends near you.
And whenever you pray,
Heaven to hear you.
- Irish Blessing

Women’s History Month

Sojourner Truth
Given the name Isabella at birth, Sojourner Truth was born in the year 1797, in Hurley, New York. She was enslaved for approximately twenty-eight years of her life. As "property" of several slave owners, when she was ten-years old, Isabella was sold for $100 and some sheep. Dutch was her first language, and it was said that she spoke with a Dutch accent for the reminder of her life. Although she was unable to read, Truth knew parts of the Bible by heart.

As an abolitionist and traveling preacher, Isabella understood the importance of fighting for freedom. After her conversion to Christianity, she took the name Sojourner Truth: "Sojourner because I was to travel up and down the land showing people their sins and being a sign to them, and Truth because I was to declare the truth unto the people." This new name reflected a new mission to spread the word of God and speak out against slavery. As a women's rights activist, Truth faced additional burdens that white women did not have, plus the challenge of combating a suffrage movement which did not want to be linked to anti-slavery causes, believing it might hurt their cause. Yet, Truth prevailed, traveling thousands of miles making powerful speeches against slavery, and for women's suffrage (even though it was considered improper for a women to speak publicly). In a speech given at the Women's Rights Convention in Akron, Ohio, in 1851, Truth proclaimed that "If the first woman God ever made was strong enough to turn the world upside down all alone, these women together ought to be able to turn it back and get it right-side up again." It was here, too, that Truth gave her most famous speech, entitled, "Ain't I a Woman." This speech sternly chastises those who feel women and blacks are inferior. The speech, like her preaching, is eloquent and passionate.

Sojourner Truth has the distinction of being the first African American woman to win a lawsuit in the United States; the first was when she fought for her son's freedom after he had been illegally sold. Later, when she was accused by a newspaper of being a "witch" who poisoned a leader in a religious group that she had been a part of, she sued the newspaper for slander and won a $125 judgement. Truth died at the age of 84, with several thousand mourners in attendance. In December of 1883, just after her death, The New York Globe published an obituary which read in part: "Sojourner Truth stands preeminently as the only colored woman who gained a national reputation on the lecture platform in the days before the [Civil] War."

A Look Back in History

The star spangled banner!

John Stafford Smith and Francis Scott Key

. Arranged by Henry Tucker. New York, Firth, Pond and Co., 1861.

March 3rd

On this date in 1931, President Herbert Hoover signed the Act establishing “The Star Spangled Banner” as the National Anthem of the United States of America. The Library of Congress has in its collections a treasure trove of sheet music (including a Spanish-language edition), song sheets (including two in German), and recordings of “The Star Spangled Banner.” Read more about our National Anthem, and its roots in the “Anacreaontic Song” – which is not exactly, as legend has it, a drinking song – in the Patriotic Melodies presentation in the Performing Arts Encyclopedia.

The Star-Spangled Banner is a poem written in 1814 by Francis Scott Key, after witnessing the bombardment of Fort McHenry in Baltimore, Maryland, by British ships in the War of 1812.

The Constitution was adopted on September 17, 1787, by the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and ratified by conventions in eleven States. It went into effect on March 4, 1789.[2]

Teach Our History

The Constitution: Drafting a More Perfect Union

This lesson focuses on the drafting of the United States Constitution in 1787 in Philadelphia. George Washington's annotated copy of an early draft of the Constitution lets students analyze changes to the draft and explore the evolution of the final document.

Grade Level: 9-12

Explore »

Riches I heed not, nor vain, empty praise,

Thou mine inheritance, now and always:

Thou and thou only, first in my heart,

Great God of heaven, my treasure thou art.

Irish song (8th cenury); tr. Mary E. Byrne

Preparing for Easter

Lent begins the 5th of March

Lent A Time

For Healing

“Lent begins in ourselves when we come to be aware of our need for healing. Healing is not just physical, spiritual, emotional and psychological; it is also a healing of memories and self-image. It is a total restoration of our being through God's love. Jesus shares this first Lent with us. He asks us to partake with Him a journey to healing, one of forty days.

The number forty and the desert journey is very significant to Jesus and our Jewish brothers and sisters: It took forty days to heal the earth through flood in Genesis 7: 1-24. It took Israel forty years of wandering in the desert the Book of Exodus to be healed from their slavery to Egypt and to find their freedom in God. Our journey relives all of this with Jesus in Lent.

What we need to do in our Lenten journey is very simple as we are told in Matthew 6: 1-6:

These things tell us of the heart of Lent, it is a relationship of love between ourselves and God, between ourselves and our neighbor, between ourselves and our environment, the earth upon which we live. But in all of this, it is our heart speaking directly to the heart of our God. Thus, it is truly private, pure and intentional; there are no ulterior motives to our activities in Lent.

Final Lenten Thoughts

Lent is not just forty days,
Lent takes us to a place of greater growth,
It is a place of new beginnings,
A place where hope springs anew,
And that which was dead
Returns again to life.”

Catholic Campus Ministries College of New Jersey

Breakthrough in Medical Science

March 24, 1882: Koch Pinpoints the TB Bacillus

1882:German physician Robert Koch announces his discovery of the tuberculosis bacillus, isolating the cause of a scourge responsible for one in seven deaths during the mid-19th century.

Koch turned to the study of infectious diseases while still in medical school at the University of Gottingen. There, he was influenced by anatomist Jakob Henle, an advocate of the germ theory, which posited that communicable disease was transmitted through microorganisms.

Despite the work of other prominent microbiologists, including Joseph Lister and Louis Pasteur, the prevailing view for much of the 19th century was that diseases arose spontaneously within an individual. Koch, piggybacking on the work of his predecessors and making huge contributions of his own, played a key role in finally debunking that theory.

Besides discovering the TB germ, Robert Koch also isolated the infectious bacillus for both anthrax and cholera.

St. Patrick’s Day Meal

Corned Beef and Cabbage

Corned beef and cabbage is the traditional meal enjoyed by many on St. Patrick's Day, but only half of it is truly Irish. Cabbage has long been a staple of the Irish diet, but it was traditionally served with Irish bacon, not corned beef. The corned beef was substituted for bacon by Irish immigrants to the Americas around the turn of the century who could not afford the real thing. They learned about the cheaper alternative from their Jewish neighbors.

Healthy Eating Tips

What's New and Beneficial About Cabbage

• Cabbage can provide you with some special cholesterol-lowering benefits if you will cook it by steaming. The fiber-related components in cabbage do a better job of binding together with bile acids in your digestive tract when they've been steamed. When this binding process takes place, it's easier for bile acids to be excreted, and the result is a lowering of your cholesterol levels. Raw cabbage still has cholesterol-lowering ability, just not as much as steamed cabbage.

Spinach and Swiss Chard

Both spinach and Swiss chard are among the most nutrient-rich foods I know. Nutrient richness refers to the quality by which a food provides a concentration of nutrients for the calories that it contains. If a food is nutrient-rich, it means that you'll get a lot of nutrients but you won't have to "spend" a lot of calories on them.

In our World's Healthiest Foods ranking system, both spinach and chard offer an amazing total of 22 nutrients in excellent, very good, or good concentrations. Spinach contains a few more nutrients than chard in excellent or very good concentrations, but both are outstanding examples of highly nourishing foods.

But the real answer to your question involves your individual nutrient needs. If you're not getting enough folate in your diet, you may want to choose spinach over chard, since you'll be getting over 15 times the folate in spinach! However, if you're already getting plenty of folate but too little vitamin E, you may want to reverse your decision and select chard over spinach. Compared with spinach, chard will provide you with almost double the vitamin E.

Spinach

Swiss chard

ResearchAdvancement

Ability to Grow Skin Grown in a Lab
WebMD News
from HealthDay

By Steven Reinberg
HealthDay Reporter
WEDNESDAY, Jan. 29, 2014 (HealthDay News) –
People who need skin grafts because of burns or other injuries might someday get lab-grown, bioengineered skin that works much like real human skin, Swiss researchers report.
This new skin not only has its own blood vessels but also -- and just as important -- its own lymphatic vessels. The lymph vessels are needed to prevent the accumulation of fluids that can kill the graft before it has time to become part of the patient's own skin, the researchers said.
The discovery that lymph vessels can be grown in a laboratory also opens up "a broad spectrum of possibilities in the field of tissue engineering, since all organs in the human body -- with the exception of the brain and inner ear -- contain lymph vessels," said lead researcher Daniela Marino, from the Tissue Biology Research Unit at University Children's Hospital Zurich.
"These data strongly suggest that if an engineered skin graft containing both blood and lymph vessels would be transplanted on human patients, fluid formation would be hindered, wound healing would be improved and regeneration of a near natural skin would be greatly promoted," Marino said.

In or Out of the Classroom

• Note: Each resource is labeled with a level and subject area to make it easier to use.

Levels: E: Elementary; M: Middle;H: High; G: General, all levels; SN: Special Needs; T: Teachers

Subject Areas: LA: Language Arts, English, Reading, Writing; M: Math; S: Science; Health; SS: Social Studies, Current Events; FA: Fine Arts; Music, Art, Drama; FL: Foreign Language; PE: Physical Ed; C: Career; A: All