It is St Wenceslas’s Day, the one who looked out on the feast of Stephen. Wenceslas (above, being buried) was the Duke of Bohemia and was murdered by his younger brother, Boleslaus I of Bohemia, in the year 935.
Today is the feast day of Amma Eustochium, one of the Desert Mothers, who died about the year 419. She was the assistant and favourite pupil of St Jerome in Bethlehem. She learned Greek and Hebrew and played an important role in his work of translating and commenting on the Bible.
‘Read often and learn all you can. Let sleep steal upon you with a book in your hand, and let the sacred page catch your drooping head… Be thou the grasshopper of the night… Keep vigil and be like the sparrow alone upon the housetop. Let your spirit be your harp, and let your mind join in the psalm: “Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits.”’ St Jerome, Letter to Amma Eustochium
Today in 1931, CS Lewis started believing in the divinity of Jesus while he was hurtling along the B489 from Aylesbury to Whipsnade Zoo in a motorcycle sidecar. His older brother, Warnie, was on the motorbike. Possibly there was something in Warnie’s driving that caused his passengers to call on the name of the Lord.
‘I know very well when, but not how, the final step was taken. I was driven to Whipsnade one sunny morning. When we set out I did not believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, and when we reached the zoo I did. Yet I had not exactly spent the journey in thought.’ CS Lewis, Surprised by Joy
‘God Save the King’, which went on to become the English national anthem, was performed for the first time today in 1745, at Drury Lane theatre in London. By 2022, when the reign of Queen Elizabeth II ended, the anthem had been sung as ‘God save the King’ 52 per cent of the time, and ‘God save the Queen’ 48 per cent of the time.
Herman Melville, the author of Moby-Dick, died today in 1891.
Image: The Met