Calendar Class of November 21, 2025

A Carpe Diem Snapshot:

Carpe Angelum! Crossing Bernini's "Angel Bridge" the other day, I was only slightly surprised to find this angel posing against a backdrop of the setting sun. In these days of elaborate social media photo shoots by "normal people", it is not uncommon to happen upon all kinds of costumed individuals taking selfies or being followed by their own hired paparazzi at scenic sites in Rome. It's like Halloween or Carnival every day around here! While dressing up for a photo shoot is relatively harmless (though perhaps not so harmless for one's vanity), the amount of tourists who come to Rome in their everyday costumes is rather disturbing. Yesterday while exiting St. Peter's square, I ran into a Japanese anime character brought to life, which was an unnerving experience. Nevertheless, we can still find a silver lining on that dark cloud of fashion victimhood in the fact that these costumed creatures are still flocking to Rome- to Bernini's bridge, to St. Peter's Basilica- to be inspired (and hopefully transformed by) the beauty of art and architecture that reflects an ordered cosmos. "Beauty will save the world," said Prince Myskin in Fdyor Dostoevsky's novel The Idiot. Ordered beauty that lifts our vision up towards something ennobling and greater than ourselves so that we are able to ultimately forget ourselves, yes. Disordered beauty that drags us deeper down into the jaws of the ravenous ego, I think not.

Liturgical: Friday of the 33rd Week in Ordinary Time

Then Judas and his brothers and all the assembly of Israel determined that every year at that season the days of dedication of the altar should be observed with joy and gladness for eight days, beginning with the twenty-fifth day of the month of Chislev.

1 Maccabees 4:36-37, 52-59

Sanctoral: The Story of the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary

Mary’s presentation was celebrated in Jerusalem in the sixth century. A church was built there in honor of this mystery. The Eastern Church was more interested in the feast, but it does appear in the West in the 11th century. Although the feast at times disappeared from the calendar, in the 16th century it became a feast of the universal Church.

As with Mary’s birth, we read of Mary’s presentation in the temple only in apocryphal literature. In what is recognized as an unhistorical account, the Protoevangelium of James tells us that Anna and Joachim offered Mary to God in the Temple when she was 3 years old. This was to carry out a promise made to God when Anna was still childless.

Though it cannot be proven historically, Mary’s presentation has an important theological purpose. It continues the impact of the feasts of the Immaculate Conception and of the birth of Mary. It emphasizes that the holiness conferred on Mary from the beginning of her life on earth continued through her early childhood and beyond.

Human: 164 BC Judas Maccabeus recaptures Jerusalem and rededicates the Second Temple during the Maccabean Revolt, commemorated since as the Jewish festival of Hanukkah

​1906 China prohibits the opium trade

1916 Death of Franz Joseph I, Austro-Hungarian Emperor

1953 On this day the Piltdown Man skull, which had been hailed as the missing link proving an evolutionary relationship between man and apes, was revealed as a hoax.

​1970 General Hafez al-Assad becomes Prime Minister of Syria following a military coup

​1971 Battle of Garibpur: Indian troops aided by the Mukti Bahini, Bengali guerrillas, defeat the army of Pakistan

2017 Robert Mugabe's resignation after 37 years in power is read out in Zimbabwe's parliament during impeachment proceedings

Natural: Gross motor skills- why they are important, and some fun exercises

Italian: Idoneo (fit / suitable / adequate)

The word idoneo in Italian is used to describe someone or something that is suitable, fit, appropriate or qualified for a given purpose. It derives from the Latin idonĕus of the same meaning.

Quote: "Mary's greatness consists in the fact that she wants to magnify God, not herself." --Pope Benedict XVI