Calendar Class of July 8, 2025

A Carpe Diem Snapshot:

Once a teacher, always a teacher! Mom has been dedicated to this one room schoolhouse at School Section Lake since I was born- literally. There are newspaper photos of Mom in her third trimester of pregnancy with me in 1975 when she and a local preservation group restored this building and organized programs during the summer. In 2000, I helped re-restore it with another group, and now Mom and I are on the Little River Schoolhouse Committee to continue bringing schoolchildren here for field trips to step back in time and experience education the old-fashioned way. Last Saturday Mom introduced the schoolhouse to this summer's crop of Kirk Center interns, pictured above.

Liturgical: Tuesday of the Fourteenth Week in Ordinary Time

When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore ask the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.”

From Bishop Barron's Gospel reflections today: The Christian life is lived in between these two imperatives: conversion and mission.

Having been seized by the beauty of revelation, our only proper response is a change of life and a commitment to become a missionary on behalf of what we have seen. In the scriptural tradition, no vision or experience of God is ever given simply for the edification of the visionary; rather, it is given for the sake of mission. No biblical figure is ever given an experience of God without receiving a commission.

Moses spies the burning bush, hears the sacred name of Yahweh, and is then told to go back to Egypt to liberate his people; Isaiah enjoys a mystical encounter with God amidst the splendor of the temple liturgy and is then sent to preach; Saul is overwhelmed by the luminosity of the risen Jesus and is subsequently called to apostleship. As theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar says, “The beautiful stops the viewer in his tracks and then plants within him a desire to speak to others of what he has seen.”

Sanctoral: Today the Roman Martyrology commemorates Blessed Peter Vigne (1670-1740), a French priest, was beatified on October 3, 2004 by Pope John Paul II and proposed to the universal Church as an example of a tireless missionary and apostle of the Most Holy Sacrament.

The Church also commemorates Sts. Priscilla and Aquila, a 1st century Jewish couple from Rome who had been exiled to Corinth, were friends of St. Paul in the first century and mentioned in the Acts of the Apostles. They hosted St. Paul on his visit to that city and he was probably instrumental in their conversion.

Gregory Grassi and Companions (February 13, 1823 – July 9, 1900)

Gregory Grassi was born in Italy in 1823, ordained in 1856, and sent to China five years later. Gregory was later ordained bishop of North Shanxi. With 14 other European missionaries and 14 Chinese religious, he was martyred during the short but bloody Boxer Uprising of 1900.

Human: 52 BC – Julius Caesar’ s legions captured a small fishing village Lutetia Parisiorum – the area of future Paris.

Death of King Edgar of England – 975, Percy Bysshe Shelley (poet) – 1822 (it was rather gruesome- watch this), Luther Martin (one of the Founding Fathers of the United States) – 1826

Declaration of Independence proclaimed in Philadelphia – 1776, First public reading of the Declaration of Independence took place in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania – 1776, Vermont became first American colony to abolish slavery – 1777, Francis Maria Barrere received the first American passport – 1796; According to some sources, the Liberty Bell in Independence Hall, Philadelphia, cracked again as it was being rung during the funeral of John Marshall, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court – 1835; Congress authorized trademark registration – 1870

Natural: How to make summer vegetable more appealing through grilling

Italian: Carponi (on all fours)

Quote: O summer day, surpassing fair, 

With hints of heaven in earth and air. 

–Eben Eugene Rexford (1848–1916)