A bright if fairly colorless Dawn...

Presaging another afternoon in the low 90s. On the other hand, as I was returning from my morning walk, heading west, an immense wave of cold air blew through as a wall of grey and black cloud approached-- and it remains overcast now, an hour later, at 0745. I see, having looked at the mages's page on the iPad (have been using Dark Sky, now Apple's, for several weeks), that today's high temperature has been revised to 80 or 81. Hmm. Good for me, certainly. Still almost zero percent chance of rain for the next week.

It is the feast of Saint Elisabeth, Queen of Portugal and widow (Introibo, CE, Wiki). 




Post Tertiam. Coffee after breakfast and Giacomo Carissimi's Iudicium Salomonis, a splendid jewel of a work for three or four soloists (Solomon, the two women, and then an historicus, narrator, whose 90 seconds of singing may or may not be credited to the singer by name; presumably most often he is a bass of the chorus), chorus, and organ, of approximately 13 minutes' duration. 



 

Post Sextam. Father Hunwicke asked this morning of Pope Urban VIII, famous for his classical erudition and ill-fated 'classicizing' revision of the Office hymns: 

What I want to know is: did Papa Barberini canonise them and then decide to write the hymns... or did he canonise them because he wanted to write the hymns?

'Them' being modern saints with proper hymns (i.e. not taken from the communia of Martyrs or Virgins or Bishops et cetera) in the Office. Saint Elizabeth today has proper hymns-- at Matins and Vespers, Domáre cordis ímpetus Elísabeth, and at Lauds Opes decúsque régium relíqueras). That would be an exceptionally elegant pontifical indulgence, certainly! Still; perhaps better to impose one's own hymns upon the Church than one's poker cronies into the Curia and the episcopal sees of Latium and Italy. Perhaps not. 

It is also the feast of Saint Adrian III (9th century), of Saint Auspicius (5th century), and of Saint Landrada (7th century).

V. Et álibi aliórum plurimórum sanctórum Mártyrum et Confessórum, atque sanctárum Vírginum. R. Deo grátias. 


LDVM


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