"St. Bartholomew: Flay, Pray and Obey."From the website of Fr. John Zuhlsdorf, which looks like it will be fun when we have time.
And a happy St. Bartholomew's Day to our friends who may celebrate it come Sunday.
Those preparing sermons may be entertained to note that August 24 has been a day decorated by vast quantities of human blood. It marks, naturally enough, the start of the eponymous 1572 massacre, in which Catholics all over France served their Lord -- temporal, if not spiritual -- by killing Calvinists. But it was also the day upon which Vesuvius erupted in AD 79, burying the inhabitants of Pompeii and Herculanaeum alive in volcanic ash; upon which Alaric and his Visigoths began to sack Rome in 410; and upon which the good people of Mainz, in 1349, killed 6000 Jews whom they blamed for the Plague. And in 1460, at least according to some records, Vlad "Dracula" Tepes killed 30,000 people, many of them "cut up like cabbage," the rest impaled.)
Compared to this, one guy skinned alive isn't really so bad. Even if he is holding his own skin. And even if he does look like Michelangelo.
No comments:
Post a Comment