A Carpe Diem Snapshot:
Liturgical: Optional Memorial of Our Lady of Lourdes
R. (15:9) You are the highest honor of our race.
Blessed are you, daughter, by the Most High God,
above all the women on earth;
and blessed be the LORD God,
the creator of heaven and earth.
Bishop Barron's Gospel reflections today.
Sanctoral: The Church celebrates the Optional Memorial of Our Lady of Lourdes today, marking the first apparition of the Blessed Virgin Mary in 1858 to fourteen-year-old Marie Bernade (St. Bernadette) Soubirous. Between February 11 and July 16, 1858, the Blessed Virgin appeared eighteen times, and showed herself to St. Bernadette in the hollow of the rock at Lourdes. On March 25 she said to the little shepherdess who was only fourteen years of age: "I am the Immaculate Conception." Since then Lourdes has become a place of pilgrimage and many cures and conversions have taken place. The message of Lourdes is a call to personal conversion, prayer, and charity.
Human: This day in Roman history
55 AD – the son of emperor Claudius and Messalina, Britannicus, died under not entirely clear circumstances. Tacitus claims that he was poisoned at Nero’s order during a feast in full view of the feasters by the poisoner Lucusta on the day before his fourteenth birthday, when he was to put on a man’s toga. Nero and his mother Agrippina wanted to get rid of the last possible rival to the throne. Britannicus was buried in the Mausoleum of Augustus.
244 AD – Gordian III died. He was proclaimed emperor in the summer of 238 AD, at the age of 13 after the deaths of Gordian I’s successors – Balbinus and Pupienus, whom the Roman people had earlier forced to appoint the rulers. The cause of his death is not certain. He died either killed by the prefect of Philip the Arab (later ruler) or in a battle or as a result of a plague.
435 AD – an agreement was made with the Vandal leader – Gaiseric – in Hippo. The Roman Empire was represented by Trigetius. The vandals recognized themselves and were recognized as (foederati) Rome’s allies, and as such they received from the Empire the territories where they were to live and manage. As Procopius of Caesarea claimed, Gaiseric agreed to pay the emperor an annual tribute and handed him the son of Huneric as a hostage (whom the emperor soon graciously released as a sign of “great friendship”). In practice, Gaiseric has become the actual master of the greater part of the African provinces and did not refrain from looting Sicily.
Natural: First use of anthracite coal as a household fuel – 1808
Italian: Collina (hill)
Quote: “I also promise to make you happy, not in this world, but in the next.”
-Our Lady of Lourdes to St. Bernadette
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