Calendar Class of July 27, 2025

A Carpe Diem Snapshot:

In yet another "All Roads Lead to Mecosta...and Rome" example, meet my new friend Michael Grace, who lives between California and Rome, and who loves School Section Lake! Raised 30 minutes down the road in Mt. Pleasant, Michael fondly remembers escaping the heat and humidity of "town" and driving out past the cool pastures of Remus to the sandy beach at School Section Lake. Here for the annual Writer's Retreat at the Kirk Center, Mom brought Michael out to the lake yesterday to make my acquaintance, and to share a conversation about all our common allegiances- from Pope Leo XIV to the tiny island we gazed out upon from childhood (caught in the very corner of this photo). It is indeed a small, "Providence laced with Grace" world!

Liturgical: Seventeenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Today is the fifth annual World Day of Grandparents and the Elderly:

"Dear Grandparents and Elderly People, I recommend that you watch over your loved ones with wisdom and compassion with the humility and patience that comes with age."

"If you then, who are wicked, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him?"

Luke 11:1-13

Pope Leo's Sunday Angelus: “We cannot pray to God as “Father” and then be harsh and insensitive towards others” said the Pope, bringing his discourse to a close. Instead, he added, we must “let ourselves be transformed by his goodness, his patience, his mercy, so that his face may be reflected in ours as in a mirror.

Article on this Angelus: "To discover yourself, pray the Our Father."

Bishop Barron's Sunday Sermon: Lord, Teach Us How to Pray.

Fr. Plant's Homily-Scripture Lesson: Teach Us to Pray

Sanctoral: St. Panteleon is the patron saint of bachelors and physicians. +305

Human: Congress established the Department of Foreign Affairs (later renamed Department of State) – 1789

The Atlantic Cable was completed, establishing communication by telegraph between England and the U.S. – 1866

Researchers led by biochemist Frederick Banting announced the discovery of the hormone insulin – 1921

Natural: How to Grow Bougainvilleas: Planting, Pruning, and Year-Round Care Tips (these gorgeous, abundant flowers grow all over Rome in June)

Italian: Pettinare le bambole (to waste time on something pointless)

Book of the Day: The Iliad by Homer, translated by Robert Fagles and with an introduction by Bernard Knox (This is going to sound overly dramatic, but, in the interest of brevity, I have to just say that this introduction is an entire education in itself)

Etc.: Wendell Berry and what it means to love a place

Quote: Jesus instructed His disciples: "When thou shalt pray, enter into thy chamber, and having shut the door, pray to thy Father in secret.... And when you are praying, speak not much as the heathens" (Mt 6:6-7). It is interesting to note that in St. Matthew these prescriptions concerning the exterior and interior dispositions necessary for well-made prayer immediately precede the teaching of the Our Father.

Therefore, in order that our vocal prayer be real prayer, we must first recollect ourselves in the presence of God, approach Him, and make contact with Him. Only when we have such dispositions will the words we pronounce with our lips express our interior devotion and be able to sustain and nourish it. Unfortunately, inclined as we are to grasp the material part of things instead of the spiritual, it is only too easy in our vocal prayer to content ourselves with a mechanical recitation, without taking care to direct our heart to God; hence we should always be vigilant and alert. Vocal prayer made only by the lips dissipates and wearies the soul instead of recollecting it in God; it cannot be said that this is a means of uniting us more closely to Him.

—Divine Intimacy Fr. Gabriel of St. Mary Magdalen, O.C.D