Calendar Class of November 15, 2025

A Carpe Diem Snapshot:

"...and night in its swift course was now half gone..." The end is drawing near, good reader. With an early end to the liturgical year in 2025, on November 29, and the new liturgical year beginning on the feast of St. Andrew the Apostle on November 30, Mother Church is drawing us home. Quite literally, as we approach the Winter Solstice next month, we lose a minute of daylight each day, which gives us long, dark, chilly evenings spent at home. It's no coincidence that the liturgical calendar corresponds so well with the natural changes in this part of the world, for it was here in Rome that the Roman rite and its liturgical calendar were created. Both the Church's liturgical calendar and the Gregorian calendar that the whole world now uses have a fascinating and complicated history. Both are true palimpsests, full of meaning and power to shape culture. The students and I were reflecting on that the other day when we explored the floor sundial at the Basilica of Santa Maria degli Angeli e dei Martiri. Time-keeping may be a construct based on necessity, but it is also a human cultural response to the reality of natural cycles that govern our lives, from our senses to our religious traditions. As a note to my regular readers, on the first Sunday of Advent (new year's day in the liturgical calendar!), Calendar Class will be presented in a new way. The truth is, I don't yet know what that new way will be! Advent is an appropriate season in which to simplify and become more introspective. I may try my hand at pen and paper and create a physical Book of Days to share with you. Or I may transfer this blog to Substack. Or both. Providence will lead the way, as always.

Liturgical: Saturday of the 32nd Week in Ordinary Time

Wisdom 18:14-16; 19:6-9

For while gentle silence enveloped all things, and night in its swift course was now half gone, your all-powerful word leaped from heaven, from the royal throne, into the midst of the land that was doomed, a stern warrior carrying the sharp sword of your authentic command, and stood and filled all things with death, and touched heaven while standing on the earth. For the whole creation in its nature was fashioned anew, complying with your commands, so that your children might be kept unharmed.

Sanctoral: St. Albert the Great (1206-1280) was born in Bavaria, Germany, the eldest son of a powerful military count. As a youth he was sent to study at the University of Padua where he encountered and entered the newly-founded Dominican order as a mendicant friar, forsaking his inheritance against his family's wishes. He was the first Dominican to earn a Master of Theology degree and was sent as a lecturer to the University of Paris (which at that time was the intellectual center of Europe) before launching a Dominican house of studies in Cologne. He introduced the works of Aristotle to western thought which allowed his most brilliant student, St. Thomas Aquinas, to synthesize the Catholic faith with human reason, that is, the truths established through philosophy. St. Albert the Great was a renowned scholar and a pioneer in the field of natural science, keeping his own laboratory for scientific experiments. He is known as one of the greatest thinkers of his day, called by his contemporaries "the teacher of everything there is to know" for writing an encyclopedia of all human knowledge up to that point in history. St. Albert the Great was also one of the most famous preachers of his day and served as the papal theologian in Rome. He was declared a Doctor of the Church in 1931 by Pope Pius XI. St. Albert the Great is the patron saint of scientists and philosophers.

Human: 1492 Christopher Columbus notes in his journal the first recorded reference to tobacco

​1884 European colonization and trade in Africa are officially regulated at the international Berlin Conference, formalizing the "Scramble for Africa" among European powers

1918 The "Spanish Flu" kills 75 out of 80 residents in an Alaskan settlement

2017 Leonardo da Vinci's painting "Salvator Mundi" sells for $450.3 million at auction in New York, a record price for any artwork

Natural: How to Grow Lemon Balm: A Bee-Loving Herb That Soothes the Soul

Try planting this herb around the border of any garden bed to attract pollinators and repel pests. With its spreading ability, it’s also a good ground cover, especially in rock gardens, and works well in a small pot or patio planter.

Italian: How to Use “Chi vs Che” in Italian

Etc.: 20 Smart Ways to Reuse Old Socks, Tights, and Pantyhose (Household & Garden Hacks)

Quote: “He who enters into the secret place of his own soul passes beyond himself, and does in very truth ascend to God. Banish, therefore, from thy heart the distractions of earth and turn thine eyes to spiritual joys, that thou mayest learn at last to repose in the light of the contemplation of God.”-St. Albert the Great

"Now there's no one who approaches God with a true and upright heart who isn't tested by hardships and temptations. So in all these temptations see to it that even if you feel them, you don't consent to them. Instead, bear them patiently and calmly with humility and long suffering." —St. Albert the Great