It’s the feast of St. Joseph Opifex… the Worker. On 19 March 1937 (the Feast of Saint Joseph), Pius XI placed “the vast campaign of the Church against world Communism under the standard of Saint Joseph, her mighty protector.” In 1955, Pius XII established the Feast of Saint Joseph the Worker on 1 May. He said that he was instituting the new feast “so that the dignity of human labor might sink more deeply into souls”. This is an explicit anti-Communist, anti-Socialist day for the Church favoring the dignity of the human person who works. As Pius IX wrote, no one can be both a Socialist and a Catholic.
The Roman sun rose at 6:07 on this feast, a civic holiday in Italy – Labor Day – probably because it is a special day for Communists. That’s how things are, I’m afraid. It was chosen by Marxists to be International Workers’ Day to commemorate the 1886 Haymarket affair in Chicago. The sun will set on Rome at 20:09.
The Ave Maria Bell is supposed to ring at 20:30.
It is the Feast of the Old Testament Prophet Jeremiah. He figures in a newish book by Michael O’Brien, By The Waters Of Babylon which follows the youth and exile of Ezekiel with the Jews. O’Brien is a pleasure to read. US HERE UK HERE
It is a 1st Friday.
I was out with a friend tonight. An aperitif at a usual spot, then to a place he remembered we have been to before and he liked.
The caponata is terrific.
He has a pistacchio crusted salmon with cabbage.
I, some pasta with tuna, artichoke and mentuccia. While good, it was not something that I will get again.
It was one of the dailies. Here are the others. Maybe too many?
Full moon tonight.
CLICK
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White can mate in 4.
NB: I’ll hold comments with solutions ’till the next day so there won’t be “spoilers” for others.
Priestly chess players, drop me a line. HERE
Interested in learning? Try THIS.
That salmon looks delicious.
Do ‘we’ know why ‘opifex’ (which I cannot find in my – admittedly not exhaustive – Vulgate concordance) rather than the ‘faber’ of St. Matthew 13:55 (checking Lewis and Short for ‘opifex’ I do find “cf. faber, artifex, operarius” – the last two of which are also used in the Vulgate!)?
Off topic, but too good not to share! Just discovered a You Tube channel that does cover versions of popular songs… in classical Latin. Here’s “A Horse With No Name” by America, done in “Bardcore/Medieval” style:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8PdfrfPC5NY&list=RD8PdfrfPC5NY&start_radio=1
[Thanks. A good try, but it was hard for me to get past the accentuation That song by America has a flow that goes against what Latin does. Latin poetry exploits certain conflicts of syllabic emphasis and length of vowels with what are called heterodyne and homodyne feet.]
1. R×h7+ . . B×h7
2. R×h7+ . . K×h7 or K-g8
3. Q×g6× . . K-h8
4. Q-h7#