PODCAzT 129: Of the solstice, and The Baptist, and summer poems

Posted on 20 June 2012 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Here is a little PODCAzT after a long hiatus. Today, the Summer Solstice, I talk about the Summer Solstice, but in light of St. Augustine and St. John the Baptist. I mentioned this in another post, but I spin it out here.

Then we have some summer poetry, from John Clare, William Blake, Carl Sandburg, Emily Bronte, Emily Dickenson, Robert Louis Stevenson, and Richard Wilbur.

Just for fun and for reflection on our mortality as sumer is icumen in.

Play

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PS: I want to like making these, but today I had every obstacle in the world, including lawn mowers and weedwhackers and doors and phones ringing and then snarky software. So, pardon a couple bumps along the way. I will now drink some iced-tea.

About Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Fr. Z is the guy who runs this blog. o{]:¬)
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5 Comments

  1. Matt R says:
    20 June 2012 at 8:02 PM

    But Father, but Father!! Is it Mystic Monk tea?? Can we purchase it somewhere?? :)

    [But of course! And since this has, so far, been a devastatingly bad donation month, the more tea you buy the better! Click HERE.]

  2. Rich says:
    20 June 2012 at 8:37 PM

    I just finished some homemade iced tea with my dinner of Spanish rice. My one-year-old son sometimes like me to share the glass of iced tea with him, especially when I’ve mixed a tablespoon of sugar into it. [Get ’em started young. Who knows? Maybe one day he will be a Wyoming Carmelite!]

  3. John Nelson says:
    20 June 2012 at 8:45 PM

    Oh heck! Father, I think you deserve a nice IPA.

  4. irishgirl says:
    21 June 2012 at 8:40 AM

    Very ‘cool ‘podcast, Father Z! The poems were interesting, as well as the sermon by St. Augustine about St. John the Baptist.
    I always remember St. John’s words, ‘He [meaning Our Lord] must increase, while I must decrease’ when the change of seasons come around…..
    Also like the music choices-began with Frank Sinatra, and ended with James Taylor. Had to grin when I heard these….
    Summer came with a ‘bang’ here in the Northeast: hot and sticky! Was very hard to sleep overnight, even with the fan on and my screen door wide open on my ‘new’ balcony.
    Fortunately it’s going to break in a day or so with rain and thunderstorms.
    The heat and humidity are the things I don’t like about summer. I suffer terribly when it gets hot.

  5. Venerator Sti Lot says:
    21 June 2012 at 5:45 PM

    I have not listened yet, but at the risk of duplication note that the Venerable Bede considered summer as beginning on the seventh of the Ides of May (9 May), though he was aware that St. Isidore of Seville (De Temporum Ratione, xxxiii) noted it as beginning on 24 May: some mediaeval calendars recoreded both, but in the later Middle Ages the Isidorian prevailed, though with a one day adjustment to the Feast of St. Urban (25 May). Or so at least Reginald Poole informs us in Medieval Reckonings of Time (1921 rpt. of 1918 ed.). Though a Fellow of Magdalen College, as well as Keeper of the Archives of the University of Oxford, he does not mention why they choristers sing “Sumer is icumen in” on the top of Magdalen Tower on May Morning, however.

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