Did You Know? The Roman Emperor Nero, after being declared an enemy of the state by the Roman Senate, was forced to commit suicide June 9, A.D. 68. He had high regard for himself as an actor and a musician. Among his last words were the famous phrase, “Qualis artifex pereo,” or, “What an artist dies in me!” Nero had previously put St. Peter and St. Paul to death, and–by an interesting not-so-coincidence–“Nero Caesar” adds up to 666 in Hebrew and Aramaic. Good riddance to this guy. LEARN MORE.
Still Time to Find Out What Heaven Is Like!
I’ve now uploaded the next Secret Information Club secret communique for broadcast tomorrow morning!
Still time to get in on all the secret information action!
To find out what Bl. John Paul II says about heaven, signup Friday and you’ll get the special email in your inbox Saturday morning!
You should sign up using this here handy, dandy signup form:
(If you have any trouble, just email me at Jimmy@SecretInfoClub.com.)
The Church Year: June 8, 2012
Today is Friday of the 9th week of Ordinary Time. The liturgical color is green.
In the Extraordinary Form, this is the season after Pentecost.
Saints & Celebrations:
On June 8, there is no special fixed liturgical day in the Ordinary Form.
There is no special fixed liturgical day in the Extraordinary Form.
For information about other saints, blesseds, and feasts celebrated today, you can click here.
Readings:
To see today’s readings in the Ordinary Form, you can click here.
Or you can click play to listen to them:
Devotional Information:
According to the Holy See’s Directory on Popular Piety:
161. Eucharistic devotion, which is so deeply rooted in the Christian faithful, must integrate two basic principles:
- the supreme reference point for Eucharistic devotion is the Lord’s Passover; the Pasch as understood by the Fathers, is the feast of Easter, while the Eucharist is before all else the celebration of Paschal Mystery or of the Passion, Death and Resurrection of Christ;
- all forms of Eucharistic devotion must have an intrinsic reference to the Eucharistic Sacrifice, or dispose the faithful for its celebration, or prolong the worship which is essential to that Sacrifice.
Hence, the Rituale Romanum states “The faithful, when worshipping Christ present in the Sacrament of the Altar, should recall that this presence comes from the Sacrifice of the Eucharist, and tends towards sacramental and spiritual communion.”
How the Mighty Are Fallen
Did You Know? During the French Revolution, arch-terrorizer Maximillian Robespierre inaugurated France’s new state religion, the Cult of the Supreme Being, with large festivals all across France, on June 8, 1794. It didn’t last, but this was one in a series of events that did enormous damage to French Catholicism. LEARN MORE.
The Church Year: June 7, 2012
Today is Thursday of the 9th week of Ordinary Time. The liturgical color is green.
In some parts of the world (but not the United States), this is a holyday of obligation (Body and Blood of Christ). If it is a holyday of obligation in your area, be sure to go to Mass if you didn’t go yesterday evening. (In the U.S. we celebrate the Body and Blood of Christ this Sunday.)
In the Extraordinary Form, this is the season after Pentecost, and the liturgical color for today is white.
In the Extraordinary Form, it is Corpus Christi.
Saints & Celebrations:
On June 7, there is no special fixed liturgical day in the Ordinary Form.
There is no special fixed liturgical day in the Extraordinary Form.
For information about other saints, blesseds, and feasts celebrated today, you can click here.
Readings:
To see today’s readings in the Ordinary Form, you can click here.
Or you can click play to listen to them:
Devotional Information:
According to the Holy See’s Directory on Popular Piety:
Solemnity of the Body and Blood of Christ
160. The Solemnity of the Body and Blood of Christ is observed on the Thursday following on the solemnity of the Most Blessed Trinity. This feast is both a doctrinal and [ritual] response to heretical teaching on the mystery of the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist, and the apogee of an ardent devotional movement concentrated on the Sacrament of the Altar. It was extended to the entire Latin Church by Urban IV in 1264.
Popular piety encouraged the process that led to the institution of the feast of Corpus Christi, which reciprocally inspired the development of new forms of Eucharistic piety among the people of God.
For centuries, the celebration of Corpus Christi remained the principal point of popular piety’s concentration on the Eucharist. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, faith, in reaction to various forms of Protestantism, and culture (art, folklore and literature) coalesced in developing lively and significant expressions Eucharistic devotion in popular piety.
Something Wondrous This Way Comes
Author Ray Bradbury has died in Los Angeles at the age of 91.
Bradbury is often referred to as a science fiction author, though he wrote much more broadly than that, including works of fantasy, mystery, and horror.
His titles include some of the best-known in the history of speculative fiction, including:
- The Martian Chronicles
- Fahrenheit 451
- Something Wicked This Way Comes
- Dandelion Wine
- I Sing the Body Electric
- The Illustrated Man
He worked in both short story and novel form. Many of his stories ended up in film or television form, including episodes of the Twilight Zone and his own Ray Bradbury Theater anthology series.
He is credited by some for having helped bring speculative fiction new literary respect due to his evocative, lyrical writing style that brings out the emotion of a situation rather than just focusing on technology or common fantasy tropes.
One of the things that stands out in Bradbury’s fiction is the way he juxtaposes the normal and the fantastastic. This happens across genres in his works.
The Church Year: June 6, 2012
Today is Wednesday of the 9th week of Ordinary Time. The liturgical color is green.
Note: Tomorrow, in some parts of the world (but not the United States), is a holyday of obligation (Body and Blood of Christ). If it is a holyday of obligation in your area, be sure to go to Mass either this evening or tomorrow. (In the U.S. we celebrate the Body and Blood of Christ this Sunday.)
In the Extraordinary Form, this is the season after Pentecost, and the liturgical color for today is white.
Saints & Celebrations:
On June 6, in both the Ordinary and the Extraordinary Form, we celebrate St. Norbert, bishop of Magdeburg, founder of the Premonstratensians, and confessor, who died in A.D. 1134. In the Ordinary Form, it is an optional memorial, and in the Extraordinary Form, it is a Class III day.
If you’d like to learn more about St. Norbert, you can click here.
For information about other saints, blesseds, and feasts celebrated today, you can click here.
Readings:
To see today’s readings in the Ordinary Form, you can click here.
Or you can click play to listen to them:
Devotional Information:
According to the Holy See’s Letter on Some Aspects of Christian Meditation:
17. In the later non-Christian classical period, there was a convenient distinction made between three stages in the life of perfection: the purgative way, the illuminative way and the unitive way. This teaching has served as a model for many schools of Christian spirituality. While in itself valid, this analysis nevertheless requires several clarifications so as to be interpreted in a correct Christian manner which avoids dangerous misunderstandings.
The Long Lost Golden Era of Drive-In Movies
Did You Know? The first drive-in theater opened in Camden, NJ on Jun 6, 1933. They had to do experiments to figure out how to make motion pictures work outdoors, and a big audience in cars. The ad slogan for the first theater was,”The whole family is welcome, regardless of how noisy the children are,” and the first film shown was the Adolphe Menjou film Wife Beware. Many drive-ins devised very elaborate and sometimes quirky modes of comfort. Some drive-ins provided small propane heaters, attempting to entice their patrons to come in colder months. Some drive-ins provided a heating or air-conditioning system via underground ducts to heat or cool patrons. During their height, some drive-ins used attention-grabbing gimmicks to boost attendance. They ranged from small airplane runways, unusual attractions such as a small petting zoo or cage of monkeys, actors to open their movies, or musical groups to play before the show. I remember being taken to drive-ins quite a bit as a boy, including one that had a playground for kids in front of the screen (for use before the movie began). I have fond memories of going, except for that time I got sick as a dog with food poisoning and had to lay in the back, wanting to just go home and die, while everyone else watched the show. LEARN MORE.
Don’t Miss the Transit of Venus!
The transit of Venus is an eclipse of the Sun by the planet Venus (only it’s not a total eclipse because the distances are wrong).
The transit of Venus is a rare event. This won’t happen again until 2117! So, last chance to see it (probably)!
This is only the 7th time humans have seen the transit of Venus.
Watch continuous, live coverage at http://events.slooh.com/!
As always, DO NOT STARE AT THE SUN WITH YOUR NAKED EYES (OR EVEN WITH REGULAR SUNGLASSES).
Here’s a current shot (at time of posting):
The Church Year: June 5, 2012
Today is Tuesday of the 9th week of Ordinary Time. The liturgical color is red.
In the Extraordinary Form, this is the season after Pentecost.
Saints & Celebrations:
On June 5, in both the Ordinary and the Extraordinary Form, we celebrate St. Boniface, apostle of Germany, bishop and martyr, who died in A.D. 755. In the Ordinary Form, it is a memorial, and in the Extraordinary Form, it is a Class III day.
If you’d like to learn more about St. Boniface, you can click here.
For information about other saints, blesseds, and feasts celebrated today, you can click here.
Readings:
To see today’s readings in the Ordinary Form, you can click here.
Or you can click play to listen to them:
Devotional Information:
According to the Holy See’s Letter on Some Aspects of Christian Meditation:
16. The majority of the great religions which have sought union with God in prayer have also pointed out ways to achieve it. Just as “the Catholic Church rejects nothing of what is true and holy in these religions,”18 neither should these ways be rejected out of hand simply because they are not Christian. On the contrary, one can take from them what is useful so long as the Christian conception of prayer, its logic and requirements are never obscured. It is within the context of all of this that these bits and pieces should be taken up and expressed anew. Among these one might mention first of all that of the humble acceptance of a master who is an expert in the life of prayer, and of the counsels he gives. Christian experience has known of this practice from earliest times, from the epoch of the desert Fathers. Such a master, being an expert in “sentire cum Ecclesia,” must not only direct and warn of certain dangers; as a “spiritual father,” he has to also lead his pupil in a dynamic way, heart to heart, into the life of prayer, which is the gift of the Holy Spirit.