A Carpe Diem Snapshot:
Today's Carpe Diem birthday snapshot was made possible by my dear friends John and Ashley Noronha, hosts extraordinaire and founders of the Truth and Beauty Project. Two of their interns arrived just before I did, along with the family (from Michigan!) of one of the girls, and the Noronhas threw me a spontaneous birthday party with these wonderful new people. It's become a tradition for Ashley to serenade me with a birthday song with John accompanying her on the piano; this year's selection was "I'll never find another you," which was more affirming than last year's choice of "Keep young and beautiful if you want to be loved" by Annie Lennox. You can always count on good friends for brutal honesty!
Liturgical: Friday of the Twenty-ninth Week in Ordinary Time
Brothers and sisters:
I, a prisoner for the Lord,
urge you to live in a manner worthy of the call you have received,
with all humility and gentleness, with patience,
bearing with one another through love,
striving to preserve the unity of the spirit
through the bond of peace;
one Body and one Spirit,
as you were also called to the one hope of your call;
one Lord, one faith, one baptism;
one God and Father of all,
who is over all and through all and in all.
Bishop Barron's Gospel reflections today.
Sanctoral: Today in Wales is the feast of the Six Welsh Martyrs and their Companions. The Welsh Martyrs are the priests Philip Evans and John Lloyd, John Jones, David Lewis, John Roberts, and the teacher Richard Gwyn, and 34 English companions who were executed for their Faith during the Catholic persecution in England and Wales from 1535-1679. The former feast of the Forty Holy Martyrs of England and Wales is now celebrated together with all the 284 canonized or beatified martyrs of the English Reformation for the Feast of the English Martyrs on May 4.
The Roman Martyrology commemorates Saints Chrysanthus and Daria (d. 283), a husband and wife who carried on an active apostolate among the noble families of Rome during the third century. They underwent various tortures with great constancy, and were buried alive in a sandpit in the year 283 in the persecutions of Numerian and Carinus.
The martyrs Saints Crispin and Crispinian (d. 286) are also commemorated today. They were brothers, possibly twins, and cobblers. They evangelized Gaul in the middle 3rd century. They preached in the streets by day, made shoes by night. Their charity, piety, and contempt of material things impressed the locals, and many converted in the years of their ministry. Under the persecution of the Emperor Maximian Herculeus, they were denounced as Christians and died in the by the sword. St. Crispin's day has been immortalized by Shakespeare's Henry V speech before the Battle of Agincourt in 1415.
Human: The Dies Natalis of Andrea Seton Teresa Kirk Assaf (author of this blog)-- 1975! As well as Geoffrey Chaucer (poet and author of the Cantebury Tales)--1400, Johann Strauss, the Younger (composer; The Blue Danube) – 1825, Georges Bizet (composer) – 1838, Pablo Picasso (Spanish painter ) – 1881, Karl Polanyi( Austro-Hungarian economic anthropologist --The Great Transformation), born in Vienna, Austria-Hungary
The Writer's Almanac edition today.
Natural: Why We Love Fall So Much, According to Psychology
Italian: Scemo (idiot / silly)
Quote: St Crispin's Day speech
(a part of William Shakespeare's history play Henry V, Act IV Scene iii(3) 18–67)
O that we now had here
But one ten thousand of those men in England
That do no work to-day!
What's he that wishes so?
My cousin, Westmoreland? No, my fair cousin;
If we are mark'd to die, we are enough
To do our country loss; and if to live,
The fewer men, the greater share of honour.
God's will! I pray thee, wish not one man more.
By Jove, I am not covetous for gold,
Nor care I who doth feed upon my cost;
It yearns me not if men my garments wear;
Such outward things dwell not in my desires.
But if it be a sin to covet honour,
I am the most offending soul alive.
No, faith, my coz, wish not a man from England.
God's peace! I would not lose so great an honour
As one man more methinks would share from me
For the best hope I have. O, do not wish one more!
Rather proclaim it, Westmoreland, through my host,
That he which hath no stomach to this fight,
Let him depart; his passport shall be made,
And crowns for convoy put into his purse;
We would not die in that man's company
That fears his fellowship to die with us.
This day is call'd the feast of Crispian.
He that outlives this day, and comes safe home,
Will stand a tip-toe when this day is nam'd,
And rouse him at the name of Crispian.
He that shall live this day, and see old age,
Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbours,
And say "To-morrow is Saint Crispian."
Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars,
And say "These wounds I had on Crispin's day."
Old men forget; yet all shall be forgot,
But he'll remember, with advantages,
What feats he did that day. Then shall our names,
Familiar in his mouth as household words—
Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloucester—
Be in their flowing cups freshly rememb'red.
This story shall the good man teach his son;
And Crispin Crispian shall ne'er go by,
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be rememberèd—
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition;
And gentlemen in England now a-bed
Shall think themselves accurs'd they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin's day.
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