Last night at sunset began Yom HaShoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day. Today is the first of three Minor Rogation Days in the Catholic Church and the Remembrance of Servant of God Demetrius Augustine Gallitzin, Priest (died 1840). Today is the second day of the two-day Eta Aquarid Meteor Shower.
On Yom HaShoah most Jewish communities hold a solemn ceremony, but there is no institutionalized ritual accepted by all Jews for this day. Lighting memorial candles and reciting the Kaddish (the prayer for the departed) are common. Ceremonies and services are held at schools, military bases and by other public and community organizations. At 10:00 am on Yom HaShoah, sirens are sounded throughout Israel for two minutes. During this time people cease from action and stand at attention; cars stop and drivers emerge from them, even on the highways; and the whole country comes to a standstill as people pay silent tribute to the dead. This Monday is the first of three Minor Rogation Days (the three days before the traditional date of the Feast of the Ascension), and is a day when we ask for the blessings of God upon our crops and our undertakings. The Minor Rogations were introduced by Saint Mamertus, Bishop of Vienne (died c. 475), and were afterwards ordered by the Fifth Council of Orléans (511), and then approved by Leo III (795-816). They were removed from the General Calendar in 1969, but I note them in this weblog. Servant of God Demetrius Augustine Gallitzin, Priest (died 1840) was born in 1770 in The Hague, Netherlands. His father was the Russian Ambassador to the Netherlands, and his mother was a Prussian countess. At the age of two Empress Catherine the Great held him in her arms and appointed the young Prince as an officer of the guard. He was raised as a member of the Russian Orthodox Church, and spoke French at home. His mother would take him and his sister to Germany each summer; after her return to Catholicism in 1786, he was greatly influenced by her circle of intellectuals, priests, and aristocrats. At the age of seventeen, Prince Dimitri was formally received into the Roman Catholic church. To please his mother, whose birth (1748), and marriage (1768), occurred on August 28th, the feast of Saint Augustine, he assumed at confirmation that name, and thereafter wrote his name Demetrius Augustine. His father, who had been planning a military career for him, was quite unhappy with the change and was barely dissuaded from sending his son to Saint Petersburg, where he hoped a stint in a Russian Guards Regiment would force his son back into Orthodoxy. In 1792, his son was appointed aide-de-camp to General von Lillien, the commander of the Austrian troops in the Duchy of Brabant; but, after the death of Leopold II of Austria and the murder of King Gustav III of Sweden, Prince Dimitri, like all other foreigners, was dismissed from Austrian Service. As was the custom among young aristocrats at the time, he then set out to complete his education by travel. As the French Revolution had made European tours unsafe, his parents resolved that he should spend two years in traveling through America, the West Indies, and other foreign lands. His mother provided him with letters of introduction from the prince-bishops of Hildesheim and Paderborn to Bishop John Carroll of Baltimore, and with his tutor, Father Brosius, afterwards a prominent missionary in the United States, he embarked from Rotterdam on August 18th, 1792 and landed in Baltimore, October 28th. To avoid the inconvenience and expense of travelling as a Russian prince, he assumed the name of Augustine Schmettau. This name then became Schmet or Smith, and he was known as Augustine Smith for many years after. Not long after his arrival, he became interested in the needs of the Church in the United States. To the shock and horror of his father, Prince Dimitri decided to join the priesthood and offered to forgo his inheritance. The Ambassador subsequently persuaded Catherine the Great to award his son a commission in one of the Palace Guards Regiments, and formally summoned him to active duty in St. Petersburg, but his son ignored the summons. Demetrius Augustine Gallitzin entered the newly established Seminary of St. Sulpice in Baltimore on November 5th, 1792. Father Gallitzin was ordained on March 18th, 1795, by Archbishop Carroll. Gallitzin was the first to make all his theological studies in the United States. Gallitzin then was sent to work in a church mission at Port Tobacco, Maryland, whence he was soon transferred to the Conewago district where he served at Conewago Chapel until 1799. His missionary territory extended from Taneytown, Maryland to Martinsburg, then in Virginia, and Chambersburg, Pennsylvania. In 1794, Gallitzin traveled to Middleway, WV, near Martinsburg to accompany Father Dennis Cahill in the investigation of an apparently haunted house, known locally as the Wizard Clip. Gallitzin wrote of this experience much later, around 1839. In the Allegheny Mountains, Captain Michael McGuire in 1788 had, upon his death in 1793, bequeathed four hundred acres in trust to Bishop Caroll for the eventual establishment of a full Catholic community with resident clergy. In 1799 Gallitzen arrived at the McGuire Settlement and, using his military engineering expertise, marked out the community of Loretto, in what is now Cambria County, Pennsylvania. With Gallitzin in the lead, Loretto became the first English-speaking Catholic settlement in the United States west of the Allegheny Front. Gallitzin dedicated Loretto’s parish church to the honor of St. Michael the Archangel, both as a nod to Gallitzin’s Russian roots and, indirectly, to Michael McGuire. For several years St. Michael’s Church was the only Catholic Church between Lancaster, Pennsylvania and St. Louis, Missouri. The church today is known as the Basilica of St. Michael the Archangel. In 1802 Gallitzin became a naturalized citizen of the United States under the name Augustine Smith. Seven years after he was naturalized and became a citizen of the United States, an Act passed by the General Assembly of Pennsylvania authorized him to establish his name, Demetrius Augustine Gallitzin, and to enjoy all of the benefits accruing to him under the name Augustine Smith. Meanwhile, in Loretto, he bought land with his own funds to attract more Catholic families. Travelling from one valley to the next, he was often away for over a week, sleeping on bare floors. For most of his time in the mountains, he worked alone and was relatively isolated. Upon his father’s death, as a Catholic priest he was not allowed to inherit. His sister had pledged to see that he received his fair share of the inheritance, but her finances eventually absorbed most of the estate. Gallitzin was often encouraged to return to Europe to claim his rights, but as he was reluctant to abandon his flock, he left the matter in the hands of his representatives, who were sometimes less than assiduous. He fell into debt helping his parishioners; this told against him when he was suggested for the position of Bishop of Philadelphia in 1814, as Bishop Carroll feared that Gallitzin did not have the financial acumen to run a large diocese. In 1815, Gallitzin was suggested for the bishopric of Bardstown, Kentucky, and in 1827 for the proposed see of Pittsburgh. Gallitzin resisted proposals to nominate him first bishop of Cincinnati, and first bishop of Detroit, but he did accept appointment as Vicar-General for Western Pennsylvania. By the end of his life, he had eradicated the debts incurred in building the community. Notwithstanding his various duties, Father Gallitzin found time to publish several tracts in defense of Catholicism. He was provoked to respond to a sermon delivered on Thanksgiving Day 1814, in Huntingdon, Pennsylvania, by a certain minister who went out of his way to attack what he called “popery”. (My family’s roots on both sides are deep in Huntingdon, but all of my people arrived in the 1840’s.) Father Gallitzin first published his Defense of Catholic Principles, which ran through several editions. This was followed by A Letter on the Holy Scriptures and An Appeal to the Protestant Public. For forty-one years, Gallitzin traveled the Allegheny Mountains, often in very difficult conditions, preaching, teaching, serving, praying and offering the sacraments. A doctor had recommended bedrest and warmth for the exhausted priest, but he was reluctant to curtail any of the Lenten or Holy Week services. Father Gallitzin ministered faithfully until the very end of his life, and after a brief illness, died at Loretto on May 6th, 1840, shortly after Easter. He was buried near St. Michael’s church in Loretto. Gallatin’s part in building up the Roman Catholic church in western Pennsylvania cannot be overestimated; it is said that at his death there were ten thousand Roman Catholics in the district where forty years before he had found a scant dozen. Loretto today is in the Roman Catholic Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown. In 1899-1901, the steel industrialist Charles M. Schwab funded the construction of a large stone church, which is the current basilica, at Gallitzin’s tomb. Schwab also provided funds for a bronze statue of Gallitzin. The nearby town of Gallitzin, Pennsylvania, is named for western Pennsylvania’s first English-speaking Roman Catholic priest. It is in this town that the Pennsylvania Railroad would tunnel through the summit of the Allegheny Mountains. Eventually, the railroad would operate three tunnels through the ridge into Gallitzin. The Gallitzin Tunnel was closed as part of Conrail’s massive double-stack clearance project in the 1990s. In the mid-1960s, Pennsylvania christened a new nearby state park in honor of Prince Gallitzin, as he is called locally. In 1990, the Most Rev. Joseph V. Adamec, Bishop-Emeritus of the Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown, established the Prince Gallitzin Cross Award, which is given annually to Catholics in the Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown who exemplify the evangelizing spirit of the Prince-Priest, Demetrius Gallitzin. On June 6th, 2005, it was announced that Gallitzin had been named a Servant of God by the Congregation for the Causes of Saints, the first step on the path toward possible future sainthood. If you know of any miracles that can be attributed to him, please contact the Vatican. Today is the second day of the two-day Eta Aquarid Meteor Shower, best seen in the predawn hours to the southeast. The meteors we currently see as members of the Eta Aquariid shower separated from Halley’s Comet hundreds of years ago. The current orbit of Halley’s Comet does not pass close enough to the Earth to be a source of meteoric activity. The Eta Aquariids are best viewed in the pre-dawn hours away from the glow of city lights. For northern observers, the radiant of the shower is only above the horizon for the few hours before dawn, and early-rising observers are often rewarded with rates that climb as the radiant rises before sunrise. The shower is best viewed from the equator to 30 degrees south latitude. (Here in SouthWestCentral Louisiana I am at 30.4944°.)
Last night I finished reading The Cat Who Talked Turkey by Lilian Jackson Braun (Ebook).
Richard fed the cats (Kiki is not feeling well), and I woke up at 9:00 am. I posted to Facebook that today was the Second Day of the two-day Eta Aquarid Meteor Shower. Richard called a place in Lafayette re getting a new garage door opener, and they will be here on Wednesday afternoon to consult with us. My monies from my retirement account were deposited into our checking account. Richard went to Rosemary’s house, and I did my Book Devotional Reading. Richard came home, I did my Book Review for this weblog and for my Goodreads account for The Cat Who Talked Turkey by Lilian Jackson Braun (Ebook) (the Goodreads link to post on Facebook has not been working for the last several days). I replaced the ink in the printer, and then I ate my breakfast toast and read the Acadiana Advocate out on the porch; I then did my Internet Devotional Reading, and said the Fourth Day of my Ascension Novena. Richard and I then went to Tractor Supply, and got stuff to put up bird feeders. When we arrived home (at 1:00 pm), Richard put up the bird feeders in front of the bay window, .
within a perfect sightline of his chair. I then addressed, signed (by Richard and me), and put out in the mail Mother’s Day Cards for Callie and for Michelle, printed out signed (by Richard and me) our Louisiana Income Tax return with the check we owed them, and prepared the package of wrapped books and a card for my Kitten for her birthday; I also got a $50.00 Amazon Gift Card for her, which I mailed to Callie (and I sent Callie a text about doing so). I left the house at 2:15 pm, mailed the package for my Kitten at the Post Office, and came back home. I continued reading The Library Book by Susan Orlean. The service for Greg will be at the church on Tuesday, March 14th, with visitation at the funeral home from 8:00 am until 1:30 pm. We also heard that Lisa’s mother (and Callie’s grandmother) died today, but services have not been set yet. We watched Jeopardy!, and I finished reading The Library Book by Susan Orlean. I then did my Book Review for the book for this weblog and for my Goodreads account. I then showered the porch plants. We watched Jeopardy!, Richard gathered up the trash and wheeled the trash bin to the curb, talked to his sisters about Greg’s services Tuesday next week, and for dinner we had ravioli with spaghetti sauce (and with two of my porch tomatoes), with garlic bread for me, and watched Jeopardy! Masters. And I will now finish this Daily Update, do some reading, and go to bed.
Tomorrow is the second of the three Minor Rogation Days and the Optional Memorial of Saint Agathius, Martyr (died 304). Tomorrow is the three hundred and sixth Anniversary of the founding of the City of New Orleans by Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne, Sieur de Bienville in 1718. Finally, tomorrow is the anniversary of when my mother died (1985). I will get up early and water and shower all the plants. I will pay bills, then I will go down to Lafayette to return library books and pick up library books. Our LSU Tigers (31-18, 9-15) will be playing a Home College Baseball game with the Northwestern State Demons (19-28, 10-11). And the New Moon will arrive at 10:21 pm.
Our Parting Quote on this Monday evening comes to us from Denise McCluggage, American journalist, author, photographer, and race car driver (died 2015). Born in 1927 in El Dorado, Kansas, she graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Mills College in Oakland, California, and began her career as a journalist at the San Francisco Chronicle. In San Francisco in the early 1950s, while covering a yacht race, she met Briggs Cunningham, who built the first American cars to race at Le Mans. She bought her first sports car, an MG TC Midget, and began racing at small club events. In 1954 she moved to New York to work at the New York Herald Tribune as a sports journalist. She married actor Michael Conrad in 1955, but they divorced the next year. In the mid-1950s, after a failed lobbying attempt to get the State of New York to develop a new ski area on Hunter Mountain, the original investor group contacted McCluggage. They told her they had a mountain to give away to any developer who would build a ski area called “Hunter Mountain”. McCluggage wrote an article that attracted the interest of a group of Broadway show-business people. This group created the Hunter Mountain Development Corporation, and the Hunter Mountain Ski Area opened up in 1960. Meanwhile, McCluggage’s MG TC Midget was replaced with a Jaguar XK140; she began to race professionally, and earned the respect of her male counterparts. Her trademark was a white helmet with pink dots. She helped launch a bi-weekly motorsports newsletter, Competition Press, in 1958. She wrote many columns for the newsletter, which morphed into the magazine Autoweek, and was a Senior Contributing Editor there all her life. Her racing achievements included winning the grand touring category at Sebring in a Ferrari 250 GT in 1961, and a class win in the Monte Carlo Rally in a Ford Falcon in 1964. She also participated in the 1000-km race at the Nürburgring. She drove Porsches, Maseratis, and other racing cars of many makes, often with another woman driver, Pinkie Rollo. In 1966 she and Henry Wolf wrote Are You a ‘Woman Driver’?. She ended her racing career in the late 1960s. In 1977 McCluggage authored the book The Centered Skier, published by Vermont Crossroads Press owned by Constance Cappel and R. A. Montgomery. It mixed elements of sports psychology and Zen Buddhism, highlighted by calligraphy by Al Huang. It became the foundation of approaches taken by the likes of the Sugarbush Ski School, and was on the Professional Ski Instructors of America reading list, The book had a resurgence when parabolic shaped skis were invented in the mid-1990s, putting carved turns, rather than skidded turns, within reach for recreational skiers. In 1994 she published By Brooks Too Broad for Leaping / Selections from Autoweek. McCluggage won the Ken W. Purdy Award for Excellence in Automotive Journalism in 1995. She wrote the text to accompany Tom Burnside’s photographs for American Racing: Road Racing in the 50s and 60s (1996). She received the Dean Batchelor Lifetime Achievement Award from the Motor Press Guild in 1998. In 2000 she received the International Automotive Media Conference’s IAMA Recognition of Lifetime Achievement Award. McCluggage was inducted into the Automotive Hall of Fame in 2001 (the only journalist to receive that honor) and in 2006 into the Sports Car Club of America Hall Of Fame. Her weekly syndicated column called “Drive, She Said” appeared in some ninety newspapers across the United States and Canada. She was inducted into the Sebring Hall of Fame in 2012 (died 2015): “Change is the only constant. Hanging on is the only sin.”
From The Recamier 