Calendar Class of September 28, 2025

A Carpe Diem Snapshot:

Carpe Lacus! We seized the moment of warmer than usual temperatures and went out on the water yesterday evening. It was the first time since last year that we took the water bicycle out, which we immediately regretted not doing every day, because biking on the water is even more enjoyable- and safer- than biking on the road. Each time we have to leave the water, for the school year or even for the day, it feels like we are forcibly wrenching ourselves away from a life source. It's not just a sentimental feeling, it's a biological fact. Read all about it here.

Liturgical: Twenty-Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Gospel Excerpt, Cycle C, Lk 16:19-31: There was a rich man who dressed in purple garments and fine linen and dined sumptuously each day. And lying at his door was a poor man named Lazarus, covered with sores, who would gladly have eaten his fill of the scraps that fell from the rich man's table.

Pope Leo XIV's Sunday Angelus: Jubilee of Catechists

Excerpt from the homily: We have all been taught to believe through the witness of those who believed before us.  From childhood, adolescence, youth, adulthood, and even old age, catechists accompany us in our faith, sharing in this lifelong journey, similar to what you have done in these days on this Jubilee pilgrimage.  This dynamic involves the whole Church.  As the People of God brings men and women to faith, “the understanding of the realities and the words which have been handed down [grows]. This happens through the contemplation and study made by believers, who treasure these things in their hearts (see Luke, 2:19, 51) through a penetrating understanding of the spiritual realities which they experience, and through the preaching of those who have received through Episcopal succession the sure gift of truth” (Dei Verbum, 18 November 1965, 8).  In this communion, the Catechism is the “travel guidebook” that protects us from individualism and discord, because it attests to the faith of the entire Catholic Church.  Every believer cooperates in her pastoral work by listening to questions, sharing in struggles, and serving the desire for justice and truth that dwells in the human conscience.

This is how catechists teach – literally in Italian, by “leaving a mark.”  When we teach the faith, we do not merely give instructions, but we place the word of life in hearts, so that it may bear the fruits of a good life.  To Deacon Deogratias, who asked him how to be a good catechist, Saint Augustine replied: “Explain everything in such a way that the one who listens to you, by listening may believe; by believing may hope; and by hoping may love” (Instructing Beginners in Faith, 4, 8).

Dear brothers and sisters, let us take this invitation to heart!  Let us remember that no one can give what they do not have. 

Bishop Barron's Sunday Sermon: Love for the Poor

Fr Plant's Homily-Scripture Lesson: Lazarus at the Gate

Sanctoral: St. Wenceslaus (907–935 A.D.) was the son of the Duke of Bohemia. His grandfather was converted to Christianity by the missionaries Sts. Cyril and Methodius. His mother, Dragomir, was the daughter of a pagan tribal chief who was baptized at her marriage. After the death of his father, Wenceslaus received a Christian upbringing from his grandmother, St. Ludmila, while his mother reverted to her pagan ways. Dragomir reigned as regent, had St. Ludmila killed, and worked to oppose the spread of Christianity in Bohemia. When St. Wenceslaus was 18 he took control of the government and exiled his mother. St. Wenceslaus was described as a pious, humble, and intelligent ruler who worked to established Christianity in the land that would become part of the Holy Roman Empire. He was known for his vow of virginity, his many virtues, and his life of prayer and good works. After a political dispute arose, his mother and his younger brother, called Boleslaus the Cruel, plotted his murder along with a group of disaffected nobles. Boleslaus invited his brother to celebrate the feast of Sts. Cosmas and Damian, and arranged to have him assassinated on his way to Mass. St. Wenceslaus muttered words of forgiveness as he died, and his body was buried at the murder site. His brother succeeded him as Duke of Bohemia. Three years later Boleslaus repented of his crime, and had his brother's remains transferred to the Church of St. Vitus in Prague. Wenceslaus was considered a saint by the people at the time of his death.

Human: 48 BC – Pompey was murdered by the command of Egypt’s ruler Ptolemy XIII. Ptolemy, sent back Pompey’s head to Caesar. Apparently Caesar, who finally arrived in Egypt and visited the scarred remains of the rival, cried and gave honor to the deceased, then ordering to build him a proper monument. Pompey’s personal estate after his death hovered seven hundred million sesterces.

351 AD – Roman Emperor Constantius II defeated Magnentius in the battle of Mursa. Apparently 50 000 were killed there. Magnentius retreated to Aquileia.

365 AD – usurper Procopius, cousin of the emperor Julian the Apostate, proclaimed himself as the Roman emperor during the riots in Constantinople. Procopius succeeded in bribing a part of senior officers, whom he promised money. He also received a lot of support from the Goths.

935 Saint Wenceslas is murdered by his brother Boleslaus I of Bohemia

1066 William the Conqueror, Duke of Normandy, lands at Pevensey Bay in Sussex, beginning the Norman Conquest of England

1781 9,000 American and 7,000 French troops begin the Siege of Yorktown

1887 Yellow River or Huáng Hé floods in China, killing between 900,000 and 2 million people, one of the deadliest natural disasters in history

1939 German–Soviet Boundary and Friendship Treaty is signed by Joachim von Ribbentrop and Vyacheslav Molotov; redraws German and Soviet spheres of influence in central Europe and transfers most of Lithuania to the USSR

Natural: How to Plant Fall Bulbs for a Beautiful Spring Garden

Italian: Non ci piove! (No doubt about it!)

A useful idiomatic expression for indicating something is absolutely certain or blatantly obvious is Non ci piove.

Quote: "No one can see their reflection in running water. It is only in still water that we can see." – Taoist Proverb