Little Novena

Please join in praying the "Little Novena" from St. Ignatius (Sunday July 31) through St. Dominic (Monday August 8). Choose your own prayers; I will be doing the usual "Novena to the Holy Spirit". There are plenty of difficulties out there, and we know who our Enemy is... but we have better weapons. Let us join together in prayer, and wage war against the powers of Darkness.

St. Ignatius of Loyola, pray for us.
St. Dominic, pray for us.
St. Joseph, terror of demons, pray for us.
O Mary conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee.

Sacred Heart of Jesus, in Whom are all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge, have mercy on us.

Only Four Times in Two Centuries

Unfortunately I did not get to post this earlier, but perhaps it is a more suitable posting for today, the great Nones of July, which is such an important date in my Saga... Ahem.

As you may have noticed, last week's Solemnity of the Sacred Heart of Jesus fell on July 1. This is quite rare - even more so since no solemnity normally occurs within this seventh month. In fact, it is so rare that this arrangement occurs only four times in the period 1900-2100:

In 2011 and 2095, Easter occurs on April 24, so the Sacred Heart occurs on July 1.
In 1943 and 2038, Easter occurs on April 25 - the latest possible date - and so the Sacred Heart occurs on July 2.

Indeed, that week was a rather busy one this year there were four solemnities within nine days:

Using the old calendar:
June 23 Corpus Christi
June 24 St. John the Baptist
June 29 Sts. Peter and Paul
July 1 Sacred Heart

Using the Vatican II calendar:

June 24 St. John the Baptist
June 26 Corpus Christi
June 29 Sts. Peter and Paul
July 1 Sacred Heart

But that sort of alignment is not quite as rare; I'll leave it for a homework problem for you.

Now, about the Nones. Why is that important? Well, I mustn't say too much, but the seventh is the day between the birthdays of Bernie (July 6) and Marty (July 8), two of the Saga's major characters. There are a few numeric alignments - though not numerological ones - scattered around my Saga, just as there are in the Bible. Some of them matter, some don't, and some are just for fun - Father Ricciotti hinted that is the real fact behind the famous 153 fish - but just like with the Bible you'll have to wait until you get to discuss it with the Author.

Of course this day is important to me for other reasons - it is the day I check off how many times I've ridden around the sun. After doing a rough back-of-envelope calculation, it looks like I've been riding for more than 32 billion miles, which sounds like a long journey, though it is just over a thousandth of the way to the nearest extra-solar star. Oh well, if I wanted to get there, I would have taken something faster. Hmm - as Marty would say, that sounds like a plan - though I was planning to spend some time in Quayment, but now...

So if you want to know where I am later today, you may need a telescope - or expect to pay that nasty extra-system charge if you try calling my cellphone. Hee hee.