Russia Is Being Swallowed Alive!!

The Russian city being 'eaten alive': Cars, buses, and trucks disappear beneath the earth as they are swallowed by giant sinkholes

Citizens of Samara live in daily fear of the ground disappearing beneath them

Dozens of holes have sprung up across the city in recent weeks

The sinkholes have left a trail of devastation and reportedly claimed one life

9 April 2013 

They may look like stills from an apocalyptic horror film, but these images have become a daily reality for residents in a Russian city.
Citizens of Samara, in south east Russia, live in fear of the ground literally disappearing beneath them after huge sinkholes have started to appear all over their city, leaving devastation in their wake.
The yawning underground caverns are all believed to have sprung up in recent weeks swallowing cars, buses and claiming at least one life. 

 The city of Samara in Russia appears to be sinking into the earth, as massive sinkholes open up swallowing cars and wreaking havoc.

 The sinkholes, some large enough to swallow an entire truck, are believed to have opened up as the Russian winter subsides.

There has reportedly been at least one fatality as a result of the sinkholes in the city, Russia's sixth largest.

The sinkholes, some large enough to swallow an entire truck, are believed to have been caused by ground subsidence.
It is thought the holes have been caused as ice thaws and melts into the ground, with the excess water causing soil decay underneath Samara's roads.
The massive craters have appeared in car parks, busy intersections, by the sides of roads, and on major and minor thoroughfares. 

It is believed at least one person has lost their life as a result of one of the crashes caused by the sinkholes. 
The citizens of the city have now signed a petition urging authorities to find a solution.
Sinkholes are common hazards in mining regions, plaguing areas where miners have burrowed into layers of soluble minerals and accidental floods have followed.

 

The gaping craters have baffled residents who now live in daily fear of the ground literally swallowing them

   

 

Sinkholes around the world

Pope's First Easter Mass Sends Messages Of Peace

31/03/2013

Pope Francis celebrated his first Easter Sunday Mass praying for world peace and urging a diplomatic solution to the standoff on the Korean peninsula.

Only two weeks after his election, the first pope from the developing world continues to make his mark on the Catholic Church.

St. Peter's Square was bedecked with flowers and packed with joyous pilgrims and tourists as Pope Francis celebrated Easter Mass.

In his first message to the city and to the world, Francis urged peace for the Middle East and for Israelis and Palestinians to resume negotiations to end a conflict that has lasted too long.

"Peace in Iraq," Francis said, "that every act of violence may end, and above all, for dear Syria. ... How much suffering must there still be before a political solution can be found?"

The Argentine-born pope also decried terrorism in the war-torn countries of Africa: Mali, Nigeria, Democratic Republic of Congo and the Central African Republic. He appealed for peace in Asia, especially on the Korean Peninsula. May disagreements be overcome, he said, and a renewed spirit of reconciliation grow.

Francis' most intense appeal was for what he called a world divided by greed, looking for easy gain, wounded by selfishness. He singled out human trafficking, calling it the most extensive form of slavery in this 21st century. He urged peace for a world torn apart by violence linked to drug trafficking and by the iniquitous exploitation of natural resources.

In keeping with his humble image, Francis wore simple unadorned vestments and celebrated the Mass alone, without his cardinals. In another contrast with his predecessor, the rituals this holy week have been shorter than in past years.

The new pope has struck a chord with his direct language and by referring to himself as the bishop of Rome rather than supreme pontiff.

One of Francis' most surprising acts was at the holy Thursday ritual last week, when, in an unprecedented move, he washed the feet of two women. This raised eyebrows among traditionalists, who say that only men can partake of the rite since Jesus' apostles were all male.

Vatican analysts say it's too early to say whether Francis is ushering in a Catholic Church spring; up to now the changes have been in tone and symbolism, but they've already galvanized the hopes of many Catholics that the church will soon embrace needed and substantial reforms.

Pope Francis washes prisoners' feet on Maundy Thursday

28/03/2013

Pope Francis washes the feet of prisoners in a youth detention centre.

Pope Francis has washed the feet of prisoners in a youth detention centre near Rome as part of the Maundy Thursday service.

The Christian ritual takes place on the Thursday before Easter to commemorate Christ's Last Supper.
Thousands of pilgrims and tourists are arriving in Rome to attend ceremonies during the holy week ahead of Easter.

In a homily, the Pope earlier urged priests to do less "soul-searching" and engage more with parishioners.

"It is not in soul-searching... that we encounter the Lord," he told hundreds of cardinals, priests and bishops in St Peter's Basilica.

"We need to go out... to the outskirts where there is suffering, bloodshed, blindness that longs for sight and prisoners in thrall to many evil masters."

Worshippers should "leave Mass looking as if they had heard good news", he added.
Gesture of humility
 
During Thursday's intimate service at Casal del Marmo, the Pope washed and kissed the feet of 12 young detainees to replicate the Bible's account of Jesus Christ's gesture of humility towards his 12 apostles on the night before he was crucified.

The 12 inmates included two girls, one Italian Catholic and one of Serbian Muslim origin, local prison ombudsman Angiolo Marroni said ahead of the ceremony.

Some of the prisoners volunteered to have their feet washed, while others were given an invitation to help them overcome their embarrassment, the Catholic News Agency quoted the prison chaplain as saying.

The pontiff told inmates that Jesus had washed the feet of his disciples in a gesture of service, Vatican Radio reported.

Pope Francis new coat of arms.

28/03/2013

The five-pointed star has been replaced with an eight-pointed star, while the spikenard flower has now been made to look more like a flower rather than a bunch of grapes, as it did in its original form. The Vatican published the new coat of arms on its website on March 27.

Italian Cardinal Andrea Cordero Lanza di Montezemolo, an expert on heraldry said that changing the star was “better” because the five-pointed star often carries with it “military significance,” while the eight-pointed star “has always symbolised Mary” in Catholic Church tradition.

The new papal blazon contains the same symbols that Pope Francis had on his episcopal coat of arms. The dark blue shield is divided into three sections, each with its own symbol. On the top is the official seal of the Society of Jesus, representing Jesus and the religious order in which the Pope was ordained as a priest in 1969.

The symbol shows a blazing yellow sun with inside the red letters, IHS, the sign for the name of Jesus. A red cross rises up from the letter H and three black nails rest below.

The bottom part of the shield depicts a gold star and a gold spikenard flower, which represent respectively Mary and St Joseph, demonstrating the Pope’s “particular devotion to the Holy Virgin and St. Joseph,” the Vatican said.

The shield is surrounded by the papal insignia, a miter and the keys of St. Peter. The miter was something Pope Benedict XVI established in 2005, putting an end to the beehive-shaped three-tiered tiara that, for centuries, had appeared at the top of each Pope’s coat of arms.

The silver miter has three gold stripes to mirror order, jurisdiction and magisterium, and a vertical gold band connects the three stripes in the middle to indicate their unity in the same person. The two crossed keys have been part of papal emblems for centuries and symbolise the powers Christ gave to the apostle Peter and his successors.

The papal emblem uses a gold key to represent the power in heaven and a silver key to indicate the spiritual authority of the papacy on earth. The red cord that unites the two keys alludes to the bond between the two powers.

One detail Pope Francis changed in the papal insignia is removing the pallium from the elements surrounding the shield. The pallium, the woolen stole symbolising a bishop’s authority, was added to Pope Benedict’s coat of arms in 2005.

Another change made to Pope Francis’ insignia is that his motto is now inscribed on a white, red-edged banner underneath the shield; earlier, the motto was just a line of text running under the shield.

Pope Francis’ motto, which is the same as his episcopal motto, is based on the Gospel account of The Call of St. Matthew, the tax collector, in a homily given by the English eighth-century Christian writer and doctor of the church, St Bede the Venerable.

The homily “pays homage to divine mercy” and marks a significant moment in the pope’s spiritual discernment toward religious life, the Vatican said in a press release.

It was after confession on the feast of St Matthew in 1953 that a 17-year-old Jorge Mario Bergoglio strongly felt “the loving presence of God in his life,” the Vatican explained. It was that experience of God’s mercy and his “gaze of tender love” that called the young man to religious life, following the example of St. Ignatius of Loyola, it said.

The motto is the Latin phrase “Miserando atque eligendo,” which means “having mercy, he called him.” The phrase refers to a line in St Bede’s homily: “Because he saw him through the eyes of mercy and chose him.”

St. Bede’s homily looks at Mt 9:9-13 in which Jesus saw the tax collector, Matthew, sitting at a customs post and said to him, “Follow me.” St. Bede explained in his homily, “Jesus saw Matthew, not merely in the usual sense, but more significantly with his merciful understanding of men.”
“He saw the tax collector and, because he saw him through the eyes of mercy and chose him, he said to him: ‘Follow me.’ This following meant imitating the pattern of his life, not just walking after him. St. John tells us: ‘Whoever says he abides in Christ ought to walk in the same way in which he walked.’”

St Bede continued: “This conversion of one tax collector gave many men, those from his own profession and other sinners, an example of repentance and pardon. Notice also the happy and true anticipation of his future status as apostle and teacher of the nations. No sooner was he converted than Matthew drew after him a whole crowd of sinners along the same road to salvation.”