1905 R. C. Bacon Co. Filter: Pure Water for Every Home!

Step back to 1905 with this incredible R. C. Bacon Co. water filter advertisement, promising pure water for only $10! 💧 This filtering outfit was a 'Godsend' for offices, factories, and homes, offering triple the value for a fraction of the cost.

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1905 Zimmerman Automatic Shoe Shiner: Throwback Gallery Pick

Step into the future with the 1905 Zimmerman Automatic Shoe Shiner! This incredible electric marvel promised a dazzling shine in just two minutes, processing hundreds of pairs daily. A true testament to early 20th-century innovation and efficiency! ✨🎩

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1918 International Correspondence Schools: Analog-Era Icon

International Correspondence Schools offers a path to professional advancement through home study, helping families like theirs build a brighter tomorrow. 📚💡

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1918 Public Utility Innovation: Era-Defining Ad Art

This ingenious external meter box eliminated the need for home entry, saving time and hassle for both the meter reader and the 'busy housewife'. A true marvel of early 20th-century convenience! 🏠

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1905's Pioneering Spirit: Popular Mechanics Seeks Manufacturers!

This fascinating glimpse into early 20th-century innovation reveals the diverse needs and burgeoning industries of a rapidly changing world ✨
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Marseille - Fair Colonial 1906 - House of Congo - CPA

https://www.cpaphil.com/en/products/marseille-fair-colonial-1906-house-of-congo-cpa

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Vocation

From the Latin vocatio/vacare, meaning “to call,” “summons.” This is an occupation to which a person is especially drawn or for which they’re suited, trained, or qualified. In modern times, it’s used in non-religious contexts; the meaning(s) of the word came out of Christianity.

There was a period where “vocation” almost exclusively referred to the clergy or the cloistered religious. The Second Vatican Council (1962-1965), specifically the document Lumen Gentium, re-emphasized that every baptized person has a primary vocation: to become a saint. This was a spiritual game changer!

The idea of vocation is central to the Christian belief that God has made each person with gifts & talents towards a specific purpose & way of life. More specifically, in the Eastern Orthodox & Catholic Churches, this idea of vocation is especially associated with a divine call to service to the Church & humanity through particular vocational life commitments such as marriage to a particular person, consecration as a religious dedication, ordination to priestly ministry (in the Church, of course) & even a holy life as a single person.

The Church generally categorizes “secondary” vocations into 4 distinct states. Each is seen as a way of giving oneself away:

• The Priesthood:
  • This is a sacramental vocation. In the United States cultural context, there has been a massive historical shift. In the mid-20th century, “Irish-Catholic” culture often viewed having a son in the priesthood as the ultimate family honor.
• Consecrated Life:
  • This includes monks, nuns, brothers, & sisters. They live according to the Evangelical Councils:
    • Poverty: Owning nothing individually.
    • Chastity: Celibacy for the sake of the “Kingdom of Heaven.”
    • Obedience: Following the will of their superior.
• Married Life:
  • In Catholicism, marriage is a sacrament. The “call” here is for the sanctification of the spouse & the procreation/education of the kids. This was often seen as a “secondary” vocation to the priesthood. But modern theology (especially the “Theology of the Body” by Pope John Paul II) frames marriage as a primary icon of God’s love for the Church.
• The Committed Single Life:
  • While not a “canonical” state in the same way as the others, the Church increasingly recognizes those who remain single to serve others, the Church, or their professions with a level of flexibility & dedication that married people cannot maintain.

The American Catholic experience of vocation is unique. In the late 19th & early 20th century, Catholic vocations helped build the American infrastructure of healthcare & education. The Sisters of Mercy & Daughters of Charity built more hospitals & schools in the United States than almost any other group.

The Sisters of Mercy founded a hospital (St. Rita’s/Mercy Health) in our founder’s hometown. This particular hospital was built in 1918 to combat the Spanish flu pandemic.

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Congregation of the Holy Spirit

Officially known as: the Congregation of the Holy Spirit under the protection of the Immaculate Heart of the Virgin Mary. Or in Latin: Congregatio Beatissimae Virginis Mariae.

This is a religious congregation for men in the Catholic Church. Members are known as Holy Ghost Fathers. Or in continental Europe, & the Anglosphere, as Spiritans. Members use the postnominals: CSSp. Postnominals are letters placed after a person’s name to signify academic degrees, professional qualifications, awards, military decorations, or honorific titles (like PhD).

The order began in Paris on Pentecost Sunday, 1703. Claude Poullart des Places was a wealthy young lawyer who abandoned his social standing to become a priest. He wanted to form a religious institute for young men who wanted to become priests but were too poor to do so.

Unlike orders that focused on the elite, Claude was moved by the plight of “poor scholars.” HIs vision was a “proletariat” clergy. Priests assignments in hospitals, rural parishes, & overseas missions.

Claude was born on February 26, 1679 in the capital city of Brittany, France: Rennes. Claude was tutored at home before being enrolled at the age of 9-10 as a day student in the nearby Jesuit college of St. Thomas. Thus beginning his lifelong association with the Society of Jesus.

Graduating at 16, Claude studied at the University of Caen, Normandy. Before graduating at 22, with a Licentiate in Law from the Law School of Nantes. A licentiate in law is an individual holding an academic degree or professional certification. This is usually below a doctorate but above a bachelor’s, that authorizes them to practice law.

In 1701, Claude Poullart began his studies for the priesthood, as a boarder at the Jesuit College in Paris. His work grew quickly. The Order developed. However, Claude passed away at 29, or 31 depending on the source, of pleurisy after founding the order.

After the founder’s death, the order became fully organized. In 1765, the South American missions, in colonies such as China, Cambodia, Vietnam, Thailand (Siam), & India under the support of the Paris Foreign missionaries arrived in Senegal, Africa.

Those in France served in various dioceses or alongside the de Montfont missionaries. This was due to the close friendship between Poullart & Louis de Montfont. The Order had trained 1,300 priests in the years leading up to 1792, when the seminary was suppressed by the French Revolution. The French Revolution saw the Spiritans have their property seized & many were executed or exiled to England, Italy, & Switzerland.

After the French Revolution only 1 member remained, James Bertout. He survived a series of hardships like being shipwrecked on his way to his destined mission in French Guiana, enslaved by the Moors, & a short stay in Senegal (where he had been sold to the English).

On his return to France, he reestablished the Order & continued its work. But he found it VERY hard to recover sufficiently from the effects caused by the Revolution.

In 1841/1842, Francis Liberman founded the Society of the Holy Heart of Mary (a.k.a. Society of the Immaculate Heart of Mary) This society is/was dedicated to serve mainly the emancipated black slaves in the French colonies. Particularly in Africa & the Caribbean.

In 1848, the Holy See asked Liberman to merge his relatively new society with the struggling Congregation of the Holy Spirit. Lieberman was made the 1st Superior General of the united groups. This effectively saving the Spiritan name & legacy.

Liberman’s approach to missionary work was revolutionary from the time. He instructed his missionaries not to “Europeanize” the people they served. Besides the missions in Africa, the society started missions in Mauritius, Reunion, & the Rodriguez Islands. In the Western Hemisphere, they had missions in Trinidad, Martinique, Guadeloupe, Haiti, & Amazonia.

The Spiritans arrived in the United States in 1972, fleeing the Kulturkampf (persecution of Catholics) in Germany. They found a home in industrial heartlands, particularly Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

The Order is known in the United States for founding Duquesne University in 1878. This university was originally established to provide an education to the kids of poor immigrants working in the steel mills. It grew into a major research institution. The university’s motto (Spiritus est qui vivificat, “It is the Spirit who gives life”) reflects the order’s charism.

By the early 20th century the organization into the following provinces: France, Ireland, Portugal, United States of America, & Germany.

On December 31, 1961, 20 Spiritans: 19 Belgians & 1 Dutch man, were unalived in Kongolo (in what is now the Democratic Republic of the Congo) by government troops during the Katanga Secession Rebellion.

In Rome, on April 24, 1979, Pope John Paul II presided over the beautification ceremony for Jacques-Desire Laval. The 1st member of the Spiritans to be honored.

Today, there are about 3,000 Spiritans serving in over 60 countries. They’re often associated with schools & chaplaincy, & missionary work.

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Fatalism

Fatalism is the philosophical belief that all events are predetermined & inevitable, making human “free will” basically irrelevant to the ultimate outcome.

Determinism, predestination, & fatalism are often used interchangeably. But there are nuances:

• Determinism: The belief that every event is caused by preceding events & the laws of nature. If you knew the position of every atom in the universe, you could predict the future. It’s about cause & effect.
• Predestination: A theological concept (like we saw with the Calvinists) where a sovereign God has decreed the end from the beginning. It’s about divine will.
• Fatalism: The belief that “whatever will be, will be” (Amor Fati), regardless of the causes or divine decrees. It suggests that even if you try to change the path, you’ll still arrive at the pre-set destination.

In the Greco-Roman world, Fatalism wasn’t a theory. It was a cosmic reality. The Greeks envisioned fate as 3 sisters: Clotho (the spinner), Lachesis (the allotter), & Atropos (the unturnable, who cut the thread). Even the gods were subject to the Fates.

This created where heroism wasn’t defined by changing one’s fate. But by facing it with dignity. For example, Oedipus tries everything to avoid the prophecy that he’ll kill his dad & marry his mom. His very attempt to flee is what ultimately fulfills it.

The Stoics (like Seneca & Marcus Aurelius) practiced a form of “rational fatalism.” They compared humans to a dog tied to a moving cart. The dog can either trot happily with the cart (accepting fate) or be dragged kicking & screaming. The destination is the same. The only thing you control is your internal attitude.

The most famous challenge to fatalism is the Lazy Argument: If it’s fated that you’ll recover from an illness, you’ll recover whether you call a doctor or not. Philosophers like Chrysippus countered this by arguing that certain outcomes are “co-fated.”

It may be fated that you recover. But it’s also fated that you recover because you called a doctor. Your action is a link in the chain of fate, not an alternative to it.

In Islam, the concept of Qadar emphasizes a balance between divine sovereignty & human responsibility, folk traditions across the Middle East & South Asia have historically leaned toward a “written” destiny (Maktub – “it is written”). This perspective often provided a psychological cushion against the frequent tragedies of the medieval world, like a plagues or invasions.

American culture is infamously anti-fatalistic. The famous “American Dream” is built on the idea that you can pull yourself up by your own bootstraps & be the architect of your own destiny/fortune. However, fatalism does exist in American conscienceness in 2 specific ways:

• Literary Naturalism
  • In the late 19th & early 20th centuries, American writers like Stephen Crane & Jack London moved away from Romanticism toward Naturalism. They portrayed humans as “small, soft things” at the mercy of indifferent forces (biology, heredity, & environment). In Crane’s The Open Boat, the universe is depicted as a giant machine that doesn’t care if you live or die. This is “Modern Fatalism.”
• “Appalachian Fatalism
  • Often misunderstood as laziness, this fatalism was a cultural adaptation of the Appalachian region, dominated by dangerous coal mines & unpredictable poverty. If your life depends on a mine roof that could at any moment regardless of your skill, or a boom-or-bust economy you can’t control, a fatalistic worldview (“It’s in God’s hands”) becomes a survival mechanism to manage chronic stress.

In modern physics, the Block Universe theory (based on Einstein’s General Relativity) suggests that time is a dimension just like space. If the past, present, & future all exist simultaneously in a “block,” then the future is technically as fixed & unchangeable as the past. If using this view, our perception of “choosing” is just an illusion created by our movement through the time dimension. Essentially this is Scientific Fatalism.

The philosopher Karl Popper once joked that the fatalist is the person who looks both ways before crossing a 1-way street. Deep down, even those who claim the future is a fixed act, though their choices matter.

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