A Carpe Diem Snapshot:
We are on the cusp of the Spring semester today, and it very much feels like the calm before the storm at the villa. All the books are lined up, waiting for the students to claim them tomorrow. It is always exciting to anticipate the new personalities we will share these walls with for the next three months, and the new bosom buddies the girls will adopt. Each new group brings its own dynamics and adventures, and each new Art and Architecture class allows us to fall in love with Rome all over again. Valentina takes the class with me each semester, and before many more years will be an expert in Rome herself!
Liturgical: Tuesday of the Fourth Week in Ordinary Time
Brothers and sisters:
Since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses,
let us rid ourselves of every burden and sin that clings to us
and persevere in running the race that lies before us
while keeping our eyes fixed on Jesus,
the leader and perfecter of faith.
Bishop Barron's Gospel reflections today.
Sanctoral: The Roman Martyrology commemorates St. Jane (or Joan) de Valois (1464-1505), Queen of France, foundress of the Order of the Most Holy Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary, renowned for her piety and special participation in the sufferings of the Cross. She was canonized by Pope Pius XII in 1950. Born of the blood royal of France, herself a queen, Jane of Valois led a life remarkable for its humiliations even in the annals of the Saints. Her father, Louis XI., who had hoped for a son to succeed him, banished Jane from his palace, and, it is said, even attempted her life. At the age of five, the neglected child offered her whole heart to God and yearned to do some special service in honor of His blessed Mother.
At the king's wish, though against her own inclination, she was married to the Duke of Orleans. Towards an indifferent and unworthy husband, her conduct was ever most patient and dutiful. Her prayers and tears saved him from a traitor's death and shortened the captivity that his rebellion had merited. Still, nothing could win a heart that was already given to another. When her husband ascended the throne as Louis XII, his first act was to repudiate by false representations one who through twenty-two years of cruel neglect had been his true and loyal wife.
At the final sentence of separation, the saintly queen exclaimed, "God be praised Who has allowed this, that I may serve Him better than I have heretofore done." Retiring to Bourges, she there realized her long-formed desire of founding the Order of the Annunciation, in honor of the Mother of God.
Human: It's the birthday of the theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer, born in Breslau, Prussia (1906). He came from a family of Lutheran theologians and pastors and decided when he was 16 that he wanted to study for the ministry. He chose to study at the Union Theological Seminary in New York City. He had a maverick professor there who taught theology by way of the Harlem Renaissance, assigning books by Langston Hughes, W.E.B. Du Bois, and James Weldon Johnson. Bonhoeffer was inspired to start attending a black church in Harlem, where he began to teach Sunday school, and he also witnessed his church's struggle against racism.
In 1931, when Bonhoeffer returned to Berlin, he suddenly saw the anti-Semitism that had been brewing in his county with a new clarity. When Hitler took power in 1933, other pastors and theologians in Germany chose to ignore it, but Bonhoeffer joined a plot to assassinate Hitler. The assassination plot was a failure, and Bonhoeffer was arrested by the Gestapo in 1943.
He spent his last months in prison writing letters to his fiancée, a young woman named Maria von Wedemeyer. The correspondence between the two was collected in the book Love Letters From Cell 92 (1994).
The Writer's Almanac edition today.
Natural: What's blooming now in central and southern Italy-- The Almond Tree and the Avola Almond: History and Tradition
Italian: Piovere (to rain)
Quote: “If you do a good job for others, you heal yourself at the same time, because a dose of joy is a spiritual cure.” --Dietrich Bonhoeffer
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