A Carpe Diem Snapshot:
We're not the only ones soaking up some final beach memories before the official start of Fall-- these monarch butterflies seemed to be sunbathing and frolicking all over the beaches of Onekama these last few days. Just like us, they will soon be flying great distances to reach their winter homes, some as far as 3,000 miles. But, unlike us, they will never visit this beach again. Every year, three to four generations of butterflies live their life cycles of about one month each during a Michigan summer. Only the last generation lives long enough to make the precarious trip south, which takes them about two months. Once settled at their sanctuaries in Mexico they take it easy for about six months before laying their eggs. Next year, their descendants will return to within 25 miles of where their ancestors were born. Incredibly (from a human perspective), this all happens by natural instinct.
So I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven; hence, she has shown great love. But the one to whom little is forgiven, loves little.” He said to her, “Your sins are forgiven.” The others at table said to themselves, “Who is this who even forgives sins?” But he said to the woman, “Your faith has saved you; go in peace.”
Bishop Barron's Gospel reflections today.
Sanctoral: Today is the Optional Memorial of St. Januarius (d. 304). Very little is known about this martyr saint. He was Bishop of Benevento in Campania. He died near Naples, about the year 304, martyred under the persecution of Emperor Diocletian. Around the year 400 the relics of St. Januarius were moved to Naples, which honors Januarius as a patron saint. He supposedly protected Naples from a threatened eruption of the volcano Mt. Vesuvius. The "miracle of Januarius" has world-wide fame. At least three times a year—on his feast day, December 16 and the first Sunday of May—the sealed vial with congealed blood of the saint liquifies, froths and bubbles up. This miraculous event has occurred every year, with rare exceptions. Popular tradition holds that the liquefaction is a sign that the year will be preserved from disasters. (In 1939, the beginning of World War II, the blood did not bubble up. But the blood does not always liquefy, and failed to do so September 1939, 1940, 1943, 1973, 1980, and in December 2016 and 2020.)
Human: It was on this day in 1819 that 24-year-old John Keats wrote the ode "To Autumn." It is one of the most anthologized poems in the English language. He wrote to his friend: "Somehow a stubble plain looks warm — in the same way that some pictures look warm — this struck me so much in my Sunday's walk that I composed upon it."
Keats was despairing about that year of his poetic life. In November, he wrote to his brother, "Nothing could have in all its circumstances fallen out worse for me than the last year has done, or could be more damping to my poetical talent."
But these days, Keats scholars call 1819 the "Living Year," the "Great Year," or the "Fertile Year." Keats had written almost all his great poetry during that year, including a series of odes during that spring and summer, among them "Ode to a Nightingale," "Ode to a Grecian Urn," and "Ode to Psyche." "To Autumn" was the last of these odes. Keats died from tuberculosis less than two years later, at age 25.
The Writer's Almanac edition today.
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Italian: Genitore (parent)
Quote: To Autumn
by John Keats
Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eaves run;
To bend with apples the moss’d cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
For Summer has o’erbrimm’d their clammy cells.
Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?
Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find
Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,
Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;
Or on a half-reap’d furrow sound asleep,
Drows’d with the fume of poppies, while thy hook
Spares the next swath and all its twinèd flowers;
And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep
Steady thy laden head across a brook;
Or by a cider-press, with patient look,
Thou watchest the last oozings, hours by hours.
Where are the songs of Spring? Aye, where are they?
Think not of them, — thou hast thy music too,
While barrèd clouds bloom the soft-dying day
,And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;
Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn
Among the river sallows, borne aloft
Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;
And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;
Hedge-crickets sing, and now with treble soft
The redbreast whistles from a garden-croft;
And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.
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