The Chalice of Magdalene: April 2020

The Eucharistic Miracle that occurred in Rome in 595 is alluded to in some of the most important works, among them the Life of the Blessed Pope Gregory written by the Deacon Paul in 787. At that time the bread for the Eucharist was usually made by parish members. Pope St. Gregory the Great is a direct witness of this miracle. One Sunday while celebrating Holy Mass in an ancient church dedicated to St. Peter, the Pope was distributing Communion and saw among the lines of believers lined up there was a woman who had helped to make bread for consecration and she was laughing out loud. Feeling disturbed, the Pope put him aside and asked him to explain his behavior. He defended himself by saying that he could not believe that the bread he made himself could be the body and blood of Christ at the time of consecration. St. Gregory then decided not to give her Communion and asked God to enlighten her. Just after praying, the Pope saw the piece of bread the woman had made into flesh and blood. The woman repented, knelt on the floor and began to cry. To this day, part of this miracle relic is stored in the town of Anechs, Germany near the local Benedictine Order monastery.

In Fields, Factories and Workshops, Kropotkin talked about his vision of a technological and scientific utopia, where people would be freed from toil, poverty, and struggle by the development of machinery and tools that would do at least some of the work for them, and cut down on the time it takes to do the work. For Kropotkin, tools and techniques were a means to an end. He would probably view the emergence of mobile cooperation as a natural extension of the evolution of mutual aid - just another technology allowing us to come together for common causes in an independent and dynamic fashion to aid each other. Cooperation has always been at the heart of the creation of human society. As technology progresses, so do the ways and means that people have to help others for the well being of the species.

http://www.moyak.com/papers/peter-kropotkin.html