Expression

Sir Isaac Newton (1643-1727) was perhaps the most influential scientist who ever lived. Born in England the year Galileo died, he grew up a solitary, intensely curious boy. During 1665-66, when plague closed his university, the young Newton retreated to his family farm and, in an astonishing burst of genius later called his 'miracle year,' laid the foundations of calculus, optics (showing white light is made of all colors), and his theory of gravity - the famous (if probably embellished) falling apple prompting him to ask whether the same force that pulls an apple to earth holds the moon in its orbit. Decades later, in his masterwork the Principia Mathematica (1687), Newton united the heavens and the earth under three laws of motion and one law of universal gravitation - showing that the same mathematics governs a falling stone and a wheeling planet. It was the crowning achievement of the Scientific Revolution, and it convinced Europe that the universe runs on discoverable, rational laws. Newton himself saw no conflict between this and faith - quite the reverse. He was deeply (if heterodox-ly) religious, wrote more about theology and the Bible than about physics, and declared that the elegant order of the cosmos pointed to an intelligent Creator: 'This most beautiful system... could only proceed from the counsel and dominion of an intelligent and powerful Being.' For Newton, to study nature was to read the mind of God.

The same dramatic Baroque spirit that filled Caravaggio's canvases poured into music. Around 1600 in Italy, composers seeking to move the emotions invented a brand-new form: opera - drama sung from beginning to end. Claudio Monteverdi (1567-1643) wrote the first operatic masterpiece, Orfeo (1607), pioneering the expressive, emotional new style. The Baroque also saw the triumph of tonality - music organized around major and minor keys with a clear 'home' note (the tonic), the system still underlying most Western music today - and the rise of instrumental forms like the concerto. The era's later giants are household names. Antonio Vivaldi (1678-1741), a red-haired Venetian priest nicknamed 'the Red Priest,' wrote hundreds of concertos, most famously The Four Seasons, painting spring, summer, autumn, and winter in sound. George Frideric Handel (1685-1759), a German who triumphed in England, wrote dazzling operas and oratorios - above all Messiah (1741), whose 'Hallelujah Chorus' still raises audiences to their feet. And towering over all stood Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750), a devout Lutheran organist and choirmaster whose music - the Brandenburg Concertos, the St. Matthew Passion, the Mass in B Minor - fused unmatched intellectual depth with profound faith. Bach signed his works 'Soli Deo Gloria' - 'to God alone be the glory.' In him, the Baroque reached its summit and Western music its first great peak.

Today you finish the research project you launched in Week 22 and drafted in Week 23. Revision is not just fixing typos - it is RE-SEEING the whole paper. Work through three passes. PASS 1 - STRUCTURE: Does the introduction state a clear thesis? Does each body section make one point and support it with cited evidence? Does the conclusion answer the question and show why it matters? Reorder or rewrite as needed. PASS 2 - STYLE: Apply today's grammar lesson. Hunt down weak 'to be' verbs and passive voice; replace them with strong, active verbs. Cut wordiness and empty intensifiers. Read a paragraph aloud - if you run out of breath or lose the thread, tighten it. PASS 3 - CORRECTNESS AND CITATION: Confirm every borrowed fact or quotation has an in-text citation. Build a complete Works Cited / bibliography listing all four-plus sources in a consistent format. Proofread for every error from the past weeks: homophones (their/there, its/it's), pronoun agreement, who/whom, run-ons, comma splices, and fragments. Then produce a clean final copy. You have just completed a real piece of researched, documented writing - a milestone skill.

Return to St. Vincent de Paul. This week we saw human genius soar - in Newton's science, in Bernini's marble, in Bach's music - and human power concentrated in the dazzling courts of kings. Against that backdrop, Vincent de Paul kneels beside the poor and reminds us where God is truly found: not only in palaces and discoveries, but in 'the least of these.' As Lent deepens toward Holy Week, ask St. Vincent's intercession for a compassionate heart that, like Christ's, suffers with others and acts. Then revisit your compassion resolution from Day 2 - did you complete your corporal work of mercy this week?