Calendar Class of May 22, 2025

A Carpe Diem Snapshot:

At the last possible minute to catch the light of the setting sun last night I finally left the villa after several days at home with the flu and was rewarded for my efforts by more than this view. While I am not a city girl by nature and escape to the park as often as I can, one of the aspects of city life I most enjoy is meeting new and interesting people nearly every day and having the opportunity to share my love of Rome with them. This is exactly what happened when I ventured out yesterday evening as I hiked up to the Piazza Garibaldi. Beneath the piazza runs a rustic path through the "tulgey wood" that would not be sensible to explore after dark, for fear of the Jabberwock. As I swiftly strolled past the entrance to the dark woods, I noticed a young woman, obviously unfamiliar with the terrain, looking uncertain about proceeding ahead down the path. I walked by, thought better of it, then turned around and went down the path after her, because two are safer than one. As I passed by, I gave her a small wave hello to let her know there was someone else on the path besides her, and we exchanged a "buonasera." Ending at the spot of the noonday cannon, where I captured this view, my adventurous companion caught up with me, and we struck up a conversation. It turns out this is not only her very first trip to Rome, but her first solo trip anywhere in the world! We had lots to discuss about the benefits and drawbacks of solo travel, something I enjoyed doing in my youth, and I safely accompanied her back to the stairs leading to Trastevere, her next destination. As it turns out, she missed out on a ticket to the scavi tour beneath St. Peter's Basilica (which she had booked a month ago!) because no one in the Vatican piazza could tell her where to go for the scavi office and she ended up standing in line for the basilica for two hours, thereby missing her tour. To make up for the neglect or ignorance of those strangers, I took the opportunity to show her the opposite, the kindness of strangers, and got her a place in a scavi tour with a guide for tomorrow. The lesson of this whole experience, the split-second decisions we make to help that have unforeseen positive consequences, is echoed in Bishop Barron's homily for today's Gospel. God's love is gratuitous and uncalculating, but we only really experience it dwelling within us when we choose to give it away to others. "Here is how it works: God’s love can truly dwell in us and become our “possession” only in the measure that we give it away. If we resist it or try to cling to it, it will never work its way into our own hearts, bodies, and minds. But if we give it away as an act of love, then we get more of it, entering into a delightful stream of grace. If you give away the divine love, then it “remains” in you."

Liturgical: Thursday of the Fifth Week of Easter

John 15:9-11

As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love. I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete.

Sanctoral: Rita of Cascia (1381 – May 22, 1457)

Like Elizabeth Ann Seton, Rita of Cascia was a wife, mother, widow, and member of a religious community. Her holiness was reflected in each phase of her life.

Saint Rita of Cascia is the Patron Saint of: Difficult Marriages, Impossible Causes, Infertility, Parenthood

Human: 337 AD – Emperor Constantine the Great died in Nicomedia. The corpse was brought to Constantinople and placed in a sarcophagus in the Church of the Holy Apostles. Here is a documentary on the reign and legacy of Constantine.

Birthday of Richard Wagner (composer) – 1813, Mary Cassatt (painter) – 1844, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (author most noted for his stories about the detective Sherlock Holmes) – 1859

Natural: How to create an instant garden using containers-- tips for doing it right

Italian: Rompiscatole: (pain in the neck)

Quote: "When we, Constantine and Licinius, emperors, had an interview at Milan, and conferred together with respect to the good and security of the commonweal, it seemed to us that, amongst those things that are profitable to mankind in general, the reverence paid to the Divinity merited our first and chief attention, and that it was proper that the Christians and all others should have liberty to follow that mode of religion which to each of them appeared best; so that that God, who is seated in heaven, might be benign and propitious to us, and to every one under our government.

And therefore we judged it a salutary measure, and one highly consonant to right reason, that no man should be denied leave of attaching himself to the rites of the Christians, or to whatever other religion his mind directed him, that thus the supreme Divinity, to whose worship we freely devote ourselves, might continue to vouchsafe His favour and beneficence to us.

And accordingly we give you to know that, without regard to any provisos in our former orders to you concerning the Christians, all who choose that religion are to be permitted, freely and absolutely, to remain in it, and not to be disturbed any ways, or molested. And we thought fit to be thus special in the things committed to your charge, that you might understand that the indulgence which we have granted in matters of religion to the Christians is ample and unconditional; and perceive at the same time that the open and free exercise of their respective religions is granted to all others, as well as to the Christians. For it befits the well-ordered state and the tranquillity of our times that each individual be allowed, according to his own choice, to worship the Divinity; and we mean not to derogate aught from the honour due to any religion or its votaries."

--An excerpt from the Edict of Milan, as translated in The Ante-Nicene Fathers (1886) edited by Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson