Calendar Class of October 28, 2025

A Carpe Diem Snapshot:

Carpe Vitam Integram! Seize a full life! Every now and then I have to feature Hannah's humorous whiteboard artwork, which highlights not only her skill but also how very full life is here at Villa Magnolia. We aim to provide our 42 students present this semester with an integrated community life, balancing intellectual work with fun, athletic challenges, spiritual practices, and plenty of good food and culture. This semester the plank challenge has been taken up with intensity, to my great benefit. By the end of the evening my winning time was 9 minutes and 34 seconds. I guess some things get better with age!

Liturgical: Feast of Sts. Simon and Jude, Apostles

Ephesians 2:19-22

Brothers and sisters:

You are no longer strangers and sojourners,

but you are fellow citizens with the holy ones

and members of the household of God,

built upon the foundation of the Apostles and prophets,

with Christ Jesus himself as the capstone.

Through him the whole structure is held together

and grows into a temple sacred in the Lord;

in him you also are being built together into a dwelling place of God in the Spirit.

Bishop Barron's Gospel reflections today.

Sanctoral: The Church celebrates the Feast of the Apostles Saints Simon and Jude. Their names occur together in the Canon of the Mass and are also celebrated on the same day. They may be paired together because they both preached the Gospel in Mesopotamia and Persia where it is said they had both been sent, but in actual fact we know nothing for certain about them beyond what is told us of their being called as Apostles in the New Testament. St. Jude is the author of the short Epistle which forms part of the New Testament.

Both of these apostles have struggled with mistaken identities with other apostles. Simon is also the name of Simon Peter, and Jude was often spelled "Judas" and so confused with Judas Iscariot, the traitor. Because of the mixup of names, St. Jude was not invoked for a long time. But through his intercession St. Jude helped several saints in very large or hopeless matters, so his reputation began as the patron of impossible causes.

The churches of St. Peter in Rome and Saint-Sernin at Toulouse dispute the honor of possessing the greater part of their holy remains.

Human: 312 AD – Constantine the Great defeated Maxentius in the Battle of the Milvian Bridge. Maxentius, like many of his soldiers, drowned in the Tiber. After this victory, Constantine became the independent ruler of the Empire in the west.

Birthday of Francis Bacon (painter) – 1909 and Dr. Jonas Salk (discovered polio vaccine) – 1914

Death day of John Locke (philosopher) – 1704 and Abigail Adams (U.S. First Lady) – 1818

Natural: Time to start making Soul Cakes! Traditionally Christians used to begin to prepare food such as bread of the dead and soul cakes for the feast of All Souls beginning on this day. In some areas people would beg for ingredients to make these cakes on this day.

Italian: la sfida= the challenge

Depending on the context, other translations include problema (problem) or difficoltà (difficulty) for a tough task, and verbs like sfidare (to challenge someone to a contest) or contestare (to dispute or question).

Quote: "We are in a blessed time: so many questions! The Church becomes an expert in humanity if it walks with humanity and has the echo of its questions in its heart. To hope is not to know. We do not already have the answers to all the questions. But we have Jesus. We follow Jesus. And so we hope for what we do not yet see.”

--Pope Leo XIV on Oct. 25, 2025

Book of the Day: In light of the Holy Father's quote above, take a look at this review of Peter Harrison's Some New World.