A Carpe Diem Snapshot:
Another pre-dawn memory was created with early bird Cordelia today. I read The House on the Top of the Hill by Diane Grubert to her (now Diane Black). I can't provide a product link for you since this book is one-of-a-kind, made exclusively for my parents by the author as part her children's literature course at Central Michigan University. The story is based closely on my own family and home (Piety Hill), complete with cats, and the warm and funny illustrations are spot on. Diane lived with us while attending that course when I was about Cordelia's age, and we shared a passion for illustrated children's books that continues to this day. One of my goals for this Christmas break is to read one of these treasures each day with the girls, and hopefully this new habit will continue on into the new year, which is right around the corner.
Liturgical: Feast of Saint John, Apostle and evangelist
Then the other disciple also went in,
the one who had arrived at the tomb first,
and he saw and believed.
Jn 20:1a and 2-8
Bishop Barron's Gospel reflections today.
Sanctoral: Today is the Third day in the Octave of Christmas. The Church celebrates the Feast of St. John, Apostle and Evangelist (d. 101). Born in Bethsaida, he was called while mending his nets to follow Jesus. He became the beloved disciple of Jesus. He wrote the fourth Gospel, three Epistles and the Apocalypse. His passages on the pre-existence of the Word, who by His Incarnation became the light of the world and the life of our souls, are among the finest of the New Testament. He is the evangelist of the divinity of Christ and His fraternal love. With James, his brother, and Simon Peter, he was one of the witnesses of the Transfiguration. At the Last Supper, he leans on the Master's breast. At the foot of the cross, Jesus entrusts His Mother to his care. John's pure life kept him very close to Jesus and Mary in years to come. John was exiled to the island of Patmos under Emperor Domitian.
Human: 1801 After conquering Italy, Napoleon established the Republic of Lucca.
1831 Charles Darwin set sail on the HMS Beagle, beginning the voyage on which he would formulate his theory of evolution.
1932 The internal passport system, previously denounced by Vladimir Lenin as one of the worst stigmas of tsarist backwardness and despotism, was reinstated in the Soviet Union by Joseph Stalin.
The Writer's Almanac edition today.
Natural: 1571 German astronomer Johannes Kepler, who discovered three major laws of planetary motion, was born.
It's the birthday of the man credited with proving that disease is caused by germs: Louis Pasteur born in Dole, France (1822). He was a scientist who specialized in the properties of acids. One day, a local distillery owner asked him to figure out why the fermentation of beet sugar into alcohol sometimes failed. At the time, people knew about the existence of microbes, but most scientists thought they were insignificant oddities. By studying the process of fermentation under a microscope, Pasteur discovered that the process is a result of microbes digesting their food. And he found that fermentation failed when another type of microorganism interfered with the process.
Pasteur became one of the first scientists to grow cultures of bacteria and study their effects on nature. He began to theorize that microbes might be responsible for all kinds of things, from spoiled wine and milk to the decomposition of dead animals.
Italian: Brindisi (toast)
Quote: Beloved, let us love one another; for love is of God, and he who loves is born of God and knows God. He who does not love does not know God; for God is love. In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the expiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No man has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us.
1 John 4: 7-12
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