Last Last Week in Life 2023 # 52

THE NATIVITY OF THE LORD (Christmas)

Day 359: John’s Apocalypse — The Bible in a Year (with Fr. Mike Schmitz) – YouTube
Day 359: The Seven Petitions — The Catechism in a Year (with Fr. Mike Schmitz) (youtube.com)

Daily Defense Podcast With Jimmy Akin Keeping the Sabbath | Catholic Answers Podcasts

Here’s What Happen  Last Week and Year in Life.

1492 – The carrack Santa María, commanded by Christopher Columbus, runs onto a reef off Haiti due to an improper watch.

1559 – Pope Pius IV is elected.

1621– Governor William Bradford of Plymouth Colony (now in Massachusetts) forbids game playing on Christmas.

1642 Sir Isaac Newton is born.

1717 – Pope Pius VI is born (d. 1799)

1758 – Halley’s Comet is sighted by Johann Georg Palitzsch, confirming Edmund Halley’s prediction of its passage. This was the first passage of a comet predicted ahead of time.

1775– Pope Pius VI promulgates the Encyclical INSCRUTABILE (On The Problems Of The Pontificate)

For the same reason you should undoubtedly always give special attention to the beauty of the house of God and the splendor and dignity of objects dedicated to the divine service. Such beauty and splendor often greatly inspire the faithful, and draw them to the veneration of sacred realities. It would be very improper for the bishop’s house to be cleaner and furnished more tastefully than the abode of holiness, the palace of the living God. It would make no sense to see holy vestments, adornments for the altar and all the furniture in the church worn out with age and torn or dirty, while the bishop’s table is well laden, the priest’s clothing very clean and finely coordinated

1776 – George Washington and the Continental Army cross the Delaware River at night to attack Hessian forces serving Great Britain at Trenton, New Jersey, the next day.

1809 – Dr. Ephraim McDowell performs the first ovariotomy, removing a 22-pound tumor.

1814 – Rev. Samuel Marsden holds the first Christian service on land in New Zealand at Rangihoua Bay.

1818 Handel’s Messiah, premieres in the US in Boston.

1821 – Clara Barton, American nurse and humanitarian, founder of the American Red Cross is born (d. 1912)

1831 – The Great Jamaican Slave Revolt begins; up to 20% of Jamaica’s slaves mobilize in an ultimately unsuccessful fight for freedom.

1831 Louisiana & Arkansas are first states to observe Christmas as holiday.

1862 40,000 watch Union army men play baseball at Hilton Head, South Carolina

1868 – Pardons for ex-Confederates: United States President Andrew Johnson grants an unconditional pardon to all Confederate veterans.

1890 – Robert Ripley, American anthropologist and publisher (d. 1949)

1899 – Humphrey Bogart, American actor (d. 1957)

1902 Pope Leo XIII, at his annual Christmas reception, endorses the Christian Democratic movement now emerging in Europe as an attempt to offer an alternative to more radical movements

1914 – A series of unofficial truces occur across the Western Front to celebrate Christmas.

1924 – Rod Serling, American screenwriter and producer, who created The Twilight Zone is born. (d. 1975)

A word to the wise to all the children of the twentieth century, whether their concern be pediatrics or geriatrics, whether they crawl on hands and knees and wear diapers or walk with a cane and comb their beards. There’s a wondrous magic to Christmas, and there’s a special power reserved for little people. In short, there’s nothing mightier than the meek, and a merry Christmas to each and all.
– Rod Serling

1938 George Cukor announces Vivien Leigh will play Scarlett O’Hara in “Gone with the Wind”

1941 – World War II: Battle of Hong Kong ends, beginning the Japanese occupation of Hong Kong.

1946 – Jimmy Buffett, American singer-songwriter, guitarist, producer, and actor.

1946 – W. C. Fields, American actor, comedian, juggler, and screenwriter (b. 1880)

1955 Pope Pius XII writes MUSICAE SACRAE an encyclical on sacred music & popular music.

 Music is among the many and great gifts of nature with which God, in Whom is the harmony of the most perfect concord and the most perfect order, has enriched men, whom He has created in His image and likeness. Together with the other liberal arts, music contributes to spiritual joy and the delight of the soul.

On this subject St. Augustine has accurately written: “Music, that is the science or the sense of proper modulation, is likewise given by God’s generosity to mortals having rational souls in order to lead them to higher things.”

1957 Richard Starkey (later better known as Ringo Starr) receives his first drum set.

1962 USSR performs nuclear test at Novaya Zemlya USSR.

1962 “To Kill a Mockingbird”, a film adaptation of the novel by Harper Lee, directed by Robert Mulligan and starring Gregory Peck, is released (Gregory Peck – Best Actor Academy Awards 1963)

1963 Walt Disney’s “The Sword in the Stone” is released.

1964 George Harrison’s girlfriend Patti Boyd attacked by female Beatle fans.

1967 Singer Paul McCartney & actress Jane Asher get engaged.

1968 Frank Borman’s Christmas reading while orbiting the Moon.

1971 The Kansas City Chiefs hosted the Miami Dolphins in the AFC Divisional Game which the Dolphins won, 27-24, in double overtime after 82 minutes and 40 seconds of play.  Over four decades later, that game remains the longest NFL game ever played.

1977 – Silent slapstick king of comedy Charlie Chaplin dies. (b. 1889)

1983 1st live telecast of Christmas Parade at the EPCOT Centre, Disney World Florida.

1988- Terrorists take over  Nakatomi Plaza but are therted by undercover cop John McClane.

1991 – Mikhail Gorbachev resigns as President of the Soviet Union (the union itself is
dissolved the next day). Ukraine’s referendum is finalized and Ukraine officially leaves the Soviet Union.

1992–  Chaplin starring Iron Man’s Robert Downey Jr. premiers.

1995 – Dean Martin, American singer and actor dies. (b. 1917) He was born in Steubenville Ohio, home of Franciscan University.

1996 1,500-year anniversary of Catholicism in France commemorating the baptism of Clovis I in Rheims.

1997 For 1st time US movie box office receipts pass $6 billion.

1999 Opening of doors of St. John Lateran by Pope John Paul II.

2003 The ill-fated Beagle 2 probe which was released from the Mars Express Spacecraft on December 19, disappears shortly before its scheduled landing.

2006 – James Brown, American singer-songwriter (b. 1933).

2008– The Tom Cruise film Valkyrie premieres. It is about a failed attempt to assassinate Adolf Hitler.

2020- Due to the closure of most cinemas, Wonder Woman 1984 premieres on HBO Max and Pixar’s Soul on Disney +.

A suicide bomber detonated a recreational vehicle (RV) bomb in downtown Nashville, Tennessee, United States, injuring eight people and damaging dozens of buildings. It took place at 166 Second Avenue North between Church Street and Commerce Street at 6:30 am, adjacent to an AT&T network hub, resulting in days-long communication service outages.

People near the RV heard gunshots, and loudspeakers on the RV warned them to evacuate before the explosion, which was felt miles away. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) determined the bomber was 63-year-old Anthony Quinn Warner, a Nashville resident believed to have acted alone.

2023

Midnight Mass in Bethlehem: Patriarch addresses Gazan Christians, calls for end to war

Pope Francis on Christmas: Saying ‘yes’ to the Prince of Peace means saying ‘no’ to war 

Jesuit astronomer remembers the first Christmas in space

O Little Town of Bethlehem… Pennsylvania? The story of ‘Christmas City USA’

Full text: Pope Francis’ homily for Christmas 2023

Brothers and sisters, tonight we might ask ourselves: Which God do we believe in? In the God of incarnation or the god of achievement? Because there is always a risk that we can celebrate Christmas while thinking of God in pagan terms, as a powerful potentate in the sky; a god linked to power, worldly success, and the idolatry of consumerism. With the false image of a distant and petulant deity who treats the good well and the bad poorly; a deity made in our own image and likeness, handy for resolving our problems and removing our ills. God, on the other hand, waves no magic wand; he is no god of commerce who promises “everything all at once”. He does not save us by pushing a button, but draws near us, in order to change our world from within. Yet how deeply ingrained is the worldly notion of a distant, domineering, unbending, and powerful deity who helps his own to prevail against others! So many times this image is ingrained in us. But that is not the case: our God was born for all, during a census of the whole earth.

•  Quote of the Day

  Pope Francis@Pontifex (December 25, 2023) The message of Bethlehem is indeed “good news of great joy”. What kind of joy? Not the passing happiness of this world, but the joy that consoles hearts, renews hope and bestows peace. It is the joy of the Holy Spirit: the joy born of being God’s beloved sons and daughters.