beautiful summer day

 Such a beautiful day! The haze from fires in Canada has been enough to make your eyes burn, but not today! Dry air and a breeze.

Our plants are giving us so many tomatoes - I don't mind eating them. I did cook some down last week, but they're very juicy and not really suitable for sauce - too watery. Try this: cut up a few fresh tomatoes from the garden. Add a splash of water, some olive oil, lots of oregano and plenty of salt - probably more than is good for you. It's the oregano, it makes it all kind of vinegary. You may add some onion powder, if you wish.

I have four yards of a cotton check fabric, and am trying to decide on a pattern, looking at pinterest photos and dresses online. I keep changing my mind; meanwhile, the summer is moving along. 

In Magnificat this morning I read, in 258, St. Cyprian wrote that the Roman emperor Valerian issued an edict to the Senate. Bishops, presbyters and deacons were to suffer the death penalty without delay. One of the first to be apprehended was Pope Sixtus II and four of his deacons as he said Mass along the Appian Way. All were beheaded. 

"Let all people fix their minds not on death but rather on immortality; let them commit themselves to the Lord in complete faith with joy rather than in fear, knowing that in this contest the soldiers of God and Christ are not slain but rather win their crowns."

                                             -  St. Cyprian

sic transit gloria mundi

 Last week an old gentleman came into the library; he was looking for another book by a favorite author. I told him where to find it, but when he didn't come right back, I went over. It was in the wrong place, but not far off (thankfully), but he lamented his inability to locate it, telling me he was eighty nine years old.

This often happens to patrons: they can't find their book, and we go over and there it is. It has nothing to do with their age. But on his way out, I heard him say something aloud, but to himself, in Latin, and I wrote down what I heard, knowing that Google would most likely fill in the blanks for me. What he had said was, "Sic transit gloria mundi"; "Thus passes the glory of the world." 

What he was really talking about was his own "glory," his youth and supposed ability to find library books! 

Today, a frequent patron was called by one of our staff about an overdue, and she insisted she'd returned it. I went over to where it should have been, and didn't see it. Two more of us looked, but we didn't find it. After puzzling over it, a fourth staff member went over and there it was - where it was supposed to be.

This last employee is the youngest of us, at - well, I think he's nineteen. I told him his brain is young and fresh. Meanwhile, like this old fellow, I can also say, "Sic transit gloria mundi." 

the cross

 "So, go forth, O generous apostles of Jesus Christ, go wherever he calls you. I know you will run into great labors, serious difficulties, many tribulations, never-ending struggles and sacrifices. But fear not: the cross accompanies you, the cross which is the memorial of past victories, pledge of future ones. .. The cross is the protection of the meek, the humiliation of the proud, the victory of Christ, the defeat of hell, the death of infidelity, the life of the just, the fulness of all virtues. The cross is the hope of Christians, the resurrection of the dead, the consolation of the poor, the wood of eternal life, the power of God...."

                                                     -  Blessed John Baptist Scalabrini