Ad Astra et ad Terram

The Spei Satelles (Guardian of Hope) mission recently launched with the goal to have a message of hope encircle the earth.

The satellite, promoted by the Vatican Dicastery for Communication, was coordinated by the Italian Space Agency and the Polytechnic University of Turin. It launched aboard a SpaceX rocket which released it in space. Only about a foot long and weighing about six pounds, the tiny satellite has been placed in Low Earth Orbit (525 km).

The Dicastery for Communication noted that this was a continuation of the Vatican’s interest in science and space exploration. The satellite carries a recording of Pope Francis’ Statio Orbis, the urbi et orbi blessing he gave on March 27, 2020 at the height of COVID. It also has a nano-book (about 2mm) of a collection of images and fragments from the Statio Orbis.

A copy of the book has also been deposited at the world seed bank in the Svalbard Seed Vault.

St. John Francis Regis

St. Jean-François Régis, or John Francis Regis, was born into a noble family on January 31, 1597 in southern France. In 1616 he entered the Jesuits. He taught grammar and rhetoric while studying philosophy and theology. He was ordained a priest in 1630. He was known for his zeal of sharing the faith through teaching and preaching. He particularly wanted to reach the marginalized. He desired to go to the New World, where many Jesuits were sent at the time.

Shortly after he was ordained, he tended to victims of the bubonic plague in Toulouse. He then spent several years in Montpellier where he worked to convert the Huguenots, preached to children and the poor, and visited the sick. There he became known for his work with at-risk women and children. He established several children’s homes and safe houses for former prostitutes where they learned a trade, often lace-making.

At the invitation of the bishop of Vivers, he travelled and preached, often converting many throughout the heavily-Protestant areas of southern France. His missions took him to the rural mountains of France and areas apathetic or out-right hostile to the faith. His preaching style was said to be direct and appealing to commoners. His mission field was not far from the place of his birth, but it was still a mission field, a place that needed his care and preaching, with marginalized people who needed him.

St. John Francis Regis died of pneumonia on Dec. 31, 1640. He is the patron of lacemakers, medical social workers, and illegitimate children.

Though he never made it to the missions of the New World, a Mohawk reservation in New York is named the St. Regis Mohawk Reservation after him, in honor of his desire to serve there.

Hallowed 50th

In my last post, I mentioned that the Hebrew jubilee was celebrated every 50 years because it followed seven cycles of sabbatical years (seven times seven). Another Jewish feast was calculated similarly: Leviticus describes the Festival of Weeks (Shavuot) as celebrated on the “day after the seventh Sabbath” (Leviticus 23:16). The “counting of the omer” would ritually count the days from Passover to Shavuot. An omer is a measure of unthreashed stalks of grain—the amount that was used in an offering at the temple. But the ritual of “counting of the omer” would count the days, often with a congregation after evening prayer.

Shavuot celebrates Moses receiving of the Torah on Mount Sinai. It is considered a time of covenant between God and humanity. Traditionally, Noah made his covenant with God on Shavuot. It is also the season of grain harvest, starting with barley around Passover and ending with wheat seven weeks later. When they had the temple, people would offer two loaves of leavened bread from the wheat harvest. It was also the beginning of the fruit harvest, and people would begin to bring their first fruits to the temple.