Today is the Twentieth Sunday of Ordinary Time; we also honor Venerable Michael J.McGivney, Priest (died 1890) and Saint Maximillian Mary Kolbe, Priest and Martyr (died 1941).The Perseid Meteor Shower continues, and today is also the birthday of my Internet friend Bobby in California (1936).
Born in 1852 in Waterbury, Connecticut, the son of Irish immigrants, the future Venerable Michael J.McGivney entered SГ©minaire de Saint-Hyacinthe in Saint-Hyacinthe, Quebec, Canada in 1868.He continued his studies at Niagara University (1871-1872) and at St.Mary’s Seminary in Baltimore, Maryland in 1873, but had to leave the seminary and return home to help finish raising his siblings due to the death of his father.He later returned to the seminary and was ordained a priest on December 22, 1877 by Archbishop James Gibbons at the Baltimore Cathedral.В On February 2, 1882, while an a*sistant pastor at Saint Mary’s Church in New Haven, Connecticut, McGivney founded the Knights of Columbus with a small group of parishioners.В The order now has over 1.8 million member families and fourteen thousand councils.During the 2008-2009 fraternal year, $150 million and 70 million man-hours were donated to charity by the order.In 2008 Father McGivney was declared Venerable; if you know of any miracles that can be attributed to his intercession, please contact the Vatican.Today we also honor Saint Maximillian Mary Kolbe, Priest and Martyr (died 1941).В Born in 1894 at Zdunska Wola, Poland as Raymond Kolbe, his parents were bothВ Franciscan lay tertiaries and worked as weavers.His father later ran a religious book store, then enlisted in the army of Pilsudski, fought for Polish independence from Russia, and was hanged by the Russians as a traitor in 1914; his mother later became a Benedictine nun.In 1906, at the age of twelve, the self-willed boy had a vision of Mary that reformed his life.В He entered the Franciscan junior seminary in Lwow, Poland in 1907 where he excelled in mathematics and physics.For a while he wanted to abandon the priesthood for the military, but eventually relented to the call to religious life, andВ in 1910 he became a novice in the Conventual Franciscan Order at age 16.He took the name Maximilian, made his first vows in1911, and made his final vowsВ in 1914.He studied philosophy at the Jesuit Gregorian College in Rome from 1912 to 1915, and theology at the Franciscan Collegio Serafico in Rome from 1915 to 1919.В In 1917, while still in seminary, he and six friends founded the Immaculata Movement (Militia Immaculatae, Crusade of Mary Immaculate) devoted to the conversion of sinners, opposition to freemasonry (which was extremely anti-Catholic at the time), spread of the Miraculous Medal (which they wore as their habit), and devotion to Our Lady and the path to Christ.He was stricken with tuberculosis which nearly killed him, and left him in frail in health the rest of his life.Ordained in1918 in Rome at age 24, he received his Doctor of Theology in 1922.Maximilian returned to Poland in1919 to teach history in the Krakow seminary, but had to take a medical leave from 1920 toВ 1921 to be treated for tuberculosis at the hospital at Zakpane in the Tatra Mountains.In January 1922 he began publication of the magazine Knight of the Immaculate to fight religious apathy; by 1927 the magazine had a press run of 70,000 issues.He was forced to take another medical leave fromВ 1926 toВ 1927, but the work continued.The friaries from which he had worked were not large enough for his work, and in 1927 Polish Prince Jan Drucko-Lubecki gave him land at Teresin near Warsaw.There he founded a new monastery of Niepokalanow, the City of the Immaculate which was consecratedВ in 1927.At its peak the Knight of the Immaculate had a press run of 750,000 copies a month.A junior seminary was started on the grounds in 1929.Not content with his work in Poland, Maximilian and four brothers left for Japan in 1930.Within a month of their arrival, penniless and knowing no Japanese, Maximilian was printing a Japanese version of the Knight; the magazine, Seibo no Kishi, grew to a circulation of 65,000 by 1936.In 1931 he founded a monastery in Nagasaki, Japan comparable to Niepokalanow.It survived the war, including the nuclear bombing, and serves today as a center of Franciscan work in Japan.In mid-1932 he left Japan for Malabar, India where he founded a third Niepokalanow house.However, due to a lack of manpower, it did not survive.Poor health forced him to curtail his missionary work and return to Poland in 1936.In 1938 the monastery started its own radio station.By 1939 the monastery housed a religious community of nearly 800 men, the largest in the world in its day, and was completely self-sufficient including medical facilities and a fire brigade staffed by the religious brothers.He was arrested with several of his brothersВ in 1939 following the Nazi invasion of Poland; others at the monastery were briefly exiled, but the prisoners were released three months later, and the men returned to their work.Back at Niepokalanow he continued his priestly ministry, The brothers housed 3,000 Polish refugees, two-thirds of whom were Jewish, and continued their publication work, including materials considered anti-Nazi.For this work the presses were shut down, the congregation suppressed, the brothers dispersed, and Maximilian was imprisoned in Pawiak prison, Warsaw, PolandВ in February 1941.InВ May 1941 he was transferred to Auschwitz and branded as prisoner 16670.He was a*signed to a special work group staffed by priests and supervised by especially vicious and abusive guards.His calm dedication to the faith brought him the worst jobs available, and more beatings than anyone else.At one point he was beaten, lashed, and left for dead.The prisoners managed to smuggle him into the camp hospital where he spent his recovery time hearing confessions.When he returned to the camp, Maximilian ministered to other prisoners, including conducting Ma*s and delivering communion using smuggled bread and wine.In July 1941 there was an escape from the camp.Camp protocol, designed to make the prisoners guard each other, required that ten men be slaughtered in retribution for each escaped prisoner.Francis Gajowniczek, a married man with young children was chosen to die for the escape.Maximilian volunteered to take his place, and died as he had always wished, in service.Canonized in 1982 by Pope John Paul II and declared a Martyr of Charity, he is the Patron Saint of prisoners, political prisoners, drug addicts, and journalists.Also today, the Perseid Meteor Shower continues, and today is also the birthday of my Internet friend Bobby in California (1936).
Michelle was not home when we got up for work; Tropical Storm Franklin had turned into a Remnant Low, and Tropical Depression Seven was now active.We headed off to work, with my saying the Eighth and Last Day of my Assumption Novena.I had just logged in to my Blackjack table, and had not yet dealt a hand, when my floor supervisor said, «The pit boss says to keep facing your game, and not to turn away from it.».I figured this was due to someone noticing me turning away from my (dead) Mini-Baccarat game yesterday to call the floor, but I still was not happy at being reprimanded before I had even dealt a hand.I spent the rest of my day on the floor feeling old and worn-out; considering my family genetics, if I work for the next 18 years at the casino, by the time I retire I will have been five years dead.At 9:00 am they took me off my Blackjack game and used me to open up another Pai-Gow table.On my breaks I continued reading Let the Great World Spin by Colum McCann.Our last possible break of the day is what we call the Early OutВ Wait because one goes to break at 10:40 am and does not have to go back out on the floor before clocking out; Richard was due to get it (he was on the other Pai-Gow table), but he gave it to me, which I very much appreciated.
After we clocked out, Richard asked me why I was down; I told him about being reprimanded, and he observed that it was probably not personal, but something told to all the dealers (although he was not told anything, nor were any other dealers on the floor), and that he had thought I had a real problem, which was why he let me have the Early Out Wait.When we got home, with me reading my book on the way home, Michelle was still not in evidence.I ate my lunch salad and read the Sunday papers, then got a text message from Michelle that she had gone to the river with some friends.With a thunderstorm rumbling overhead I took a nap from 1:00 pm to 3:45 pm; when I woke up, after having weird disjointed dreams, I found that Tropical Depression Seven had turned into Tropical Storm Gert.I started the Weekly Computer Maintenance, freshened up my Casino Shirts for tomorrow and Tuesday in the dryer, made my lunch salads for tomorrow and Tuesday, and finished the Weekly Computer Maintenance; and I am doing tonight’s Daily Update as I eat dinner (spaghetti and meat sauce with garlic bread).Also, Michelle has returned from her trip to the river, but I doubt I can talk to her before she leaves for Baton Rogue.Once I am done with today’s Daily Update and with my dinner, I will set the Weekly Virus Scan going and then go to 6:00 pm Ma*s.
In the Tropics, Tropical Storm Gert is now 225 miles south south-east of Bermuda, with sustained winds of 45 miles per hour, and moving north north-west at 8 miles per hour.The center of Tropical Storm Gert is expected to pa*s near of just east of Bermuda by Monday afternoon.A weather system someВ 425 miles north north-east of the northern Leeward Islands , moving west north-west, has a 30 percent chance of developing into a Tropical Cyclone within the next 48 hours.
Tomorrow is Monday; on my breaks at work, or after work, I hope to finish my reading of Let the Great World Spin by Colum McCann so that I can do my Book Review on the book comfortably before our Third Tuesday Book Club Meeting.Otherwise, I have nothing else scheduled for tomorrow afternoon.
Our Parting Quote on this Twentieth Sunday of Ordinary Time comes from В Herman Leonard, American photographer.Born in 1923 in Allentown, Pennsylvania his parents were Romanian Jewish immigrants who emigrated from Ya*si, Romania, to the United States.He earnedВ a BFA degree in photography in 1947 from Ohio University, although his college career was interrupted by a tour of duty in the U.S.Army during World War II.In the military he served as a medical technician in Burma, while attached to Chiang Kai Shek’s Chinese troops fighting the Japanese.After graduation he apprenticed with portraitist Yousuf Karsh for one year.Karsh gave him valuable experience photographing celebrities and public personalities such as Albert Einstein, Harry Truman and Martha Graham.In 1948 Leonard opened his first studio in New York’s Greenwich Village.Working free-lance for various magazines, he spent his evenings at the Royal Roost and then Birdland, where he photographed the ongoing roster of jazz musicians such as Dexter Gordon, Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Billie Holiday, Duke Ellington, Miles Davis and others.The number of shots possible at a time was limited; using gla*s negatives at this time, Leonard increased the sensitivity of the plates by exposing them to mercury vapor.After working for jazz record producer Norman Granz, who used his work on album jackets, Leonard was employed in 1956 by Marlon Brando as his personal photographer to document an extensive research trip in the Far East.Following his return Leonard moved to Paris, photographing a*signments in the fashion and advertising business and as European correspondent for Playboy Magazine.His last flurry of photographing jazz musicians dates from this period.In 1980 Leonard, with his wife and two children, moved from Paris to the island of Ibiza, where he remained until 1988, when he relocated to London with his children.It was here that Leonard had his first exhibition of his work at the Special Photographers Company in Notting Hill.The exhibition was visited by over ten thousand people, including singers Sade and Bono of U2.The show toured the United States in 1989, and Leonard briefly moved to San Francisco.After an exhibition at A Gallery for Fine Photography in New Orleans, he fell in love with the city and made it his home for the next fourteen years, immersing himself in the city’s lively jazz and blues scene.Louisiana Public Broadcasting, under president Beth Courtney, produced the documentary Frame after Frame: The Images of Herman Leonard in 1998.In August 2005 Hurricane Katrina destroyed Leonard’s home and studio when the 17th Canal Levee broke near his home.The photographer and his family lost much property, including 8,000 prints, but his negatives were protected in the vault of the Ogden Museum in New Orleans.Following Hurricane Katrina Leonard moved to Studio City, California, and re-established his business there, working with music and film companies and magazines.Leonard’s jazz photographs, now collector’s items, are a unique record of the jazz scene of the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s, and his collection is now in the permanent archives of American Musical History in the Smithsonian Museum in Washington, D.C.In 2008 long-time friend Tony Bennett presented Leonard with the coveted Lucie Award at a ceremony at Lincoln Center in New York City.In June 2009 Leonard was the commencement speaker for the 2009 graduating cla*s of Ohio University, at which time he also received an honorary doctorate.He worked with musician Lenny Kravitz on a project in the Bahamas during January 2010.Shortly before his death he was able to see the first copies of the limited edition book entitled Listen: Herman Leonard and His World of Jazz (2010), signed and with an introduction by Quincy Jones (died 2010): «I saw photographing jazz artists as a visual diary of what I was hearing.I wanted to preserve the mood and atmosphere as much as possible.My goal was to capture these artists at the height of their finest creative moments.»
Corey Taylor takes over Q101.1!
