A Carpe Diem Snapshot:
Last night, a "timeless moment" occurred in the Basilica of Santa Cecilia in Trastevere when ordinary, everyday people, albeit well-trained ones, temporarily transformed themselves into a choir of angels. Watch (and listen) to the video above for evidence. They took the words of a prayer recited countless times each day, in this city in particular, and sang it to an arrangement I had not heard before. "Timeless moments" are those in which it seems the clock stops ticking and we find ourselves suspended outside life as we usually know it. As Bishop Barron (who I happened to see lunching down the street today!) says in his Gospel reflections today, all beautiful things here on earth bloom, and then are gone forever. But beauty gives us a glimpse, a terrestrial experience, of something far more sublime than we can ever achieve here below. When the final song was finished, we all shuffled outside into the charming courtyard to chat a bit. I noticed that the soprano, who stood next to me during one of the "surround-sound" pieces, was getting back to reality by smoking a cigarette. Apparently, angelic choristers are somehow immune to the realities of lung damage!
Liturgical: Monday of the Twenty-ninth Week in Ordinary Time
For by grace you have been saved through faith,
and this is not from you; it is the gift of God;
it is not from works, so no one may boast.
For we are his handiwork, created in Christ Jesus for good works
that God has prepared in advance,
that we should live in them.
Bishop Barron's Gospel reflections today.
Sanctoral: —St. Ursula, virgin and martyr and companions (d. 238). In medieval times her legend developed into many versions; but all that may be said with certainty of these martyrs is that they suffered martyrdom at or near Cologne, and were sufficiently well known to have had a church built in their honor during the fourth century.
—St. Hilarion, Abbot (291-371), who was born of pagan parents near Gaza in Palestine toward the close of the third century. He studied at Alexandria and became a Christian at the age of 15. Following the example of St. Anthony in Egypt, Hilarion resolved to become a hermit in the desert, and Anthony himself trained the youth. He gave all his possessions to the poor, and became the father of monasticism in Palestine and Syria, famous for his miracles and sanctity. He lived to be over 80, dying on the island of Cyprus in 371.
Human: Birthday of Samuel Taylor Coleridge (poet) – 1772, Alfred Bernhard Nobel (inventor) – 1833, Ursula K. Le Guin (author) – 1929
The Writer's Almanac today.
Roman history today:
54 BC – the victory of the Gauls over the Romans in the battle of Atuatuca took place. Romans were commanded by the legates Quintus Titurius Sabinus and Lucius Aurunculeius Cotta, and the Gallic army by its commander Ambiorix. Cotta and most of his soldiers died in the clash. A small part of the legionaries managed to get back into the camp, where they resisted the attacks of the Gauls until late night. By morning the situation looked hopeless, and everyone committed suicide. Out of the fifteen cohorts – over 6 000 soldiers who were stationed in Atuatuca – only a few survived. During the bloody struggles in the valley, they managed to escape into the forest and reach the camp of Titus Labienus with information about the defeat.
Natural: Thomas Edison successfully tested for the first time a carbon-filament incandescent light bulb– 1879
One of the effects of the invention of the electric light is that people sleep less than they once did. Before 1910, people slept an average of nine hours a night; since then, it's about seven and a half. Sleep researchers have shown in the laboratory that if people are deprived of electric light, they will go back to the nine-hour-a-night schedule.
Italian: Maledizione (curse)
Quote:
That time of year thou mayst in me behold
When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang
Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,
Bare ruined choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.
In me thou see'st the twilight of such day
As after sunset fadeth in the west;
Which by and by black night doth take away,
Death's second self, that seals up all in rest.
In me thou see'st the glowing of such fire,
That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,
As the death-bed whereon it must expire
Consumed with that which it was nourish'd by.
This thou perceivest, which makes thy love more strong,
To love that well which thou must leave ere long.
"Sonnet 73: That Time of Year Thou Mayst In Me Behold" by William Shakespeare
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