October 11 across 2,026 years of Catholic history

event · VATICAN CITY, October 11, 1962 AD

Pope John XXIII tells torchlit crowd to give their children his caress

That morning the eighty-year-old Pope opened the Second Vatican Council before about two thousand bishops, telling them the Church would now use the medicine of mercy rather than severity.

Pope John XXIII gives the Easter blessing *urbi et orbi* (*to the city and the world*) from the Vatican, April 2, 1961 AD.

Pope John XXIII opened the Second Vatican Council in St. Peter's Basilica on October 11, 1962 AD, and told the bishops the Church would meet error with mercy rather than severity. That night he came to his window over a torchlit St. Peter's Square, spoke without a text, and told the crowd to give their children a caress from the Pope.

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A painting of a bare convent cell lit by a small high window: a nun in a black veil and white linen collar sits up in a narrow wooden bed while a man in a brown coat on a chair beside her rests his hand on her arm, and a second nun stands at the foot of the bed holding a bowl. — About this picture
AI-generated image, in the manner of a French seventeenth-century religious oil painting, from the paper's reference portrait based on Marguerite-Marie Alacoque (Unknown artist, 19th century, Monastery of the Visitation, Paray-le-Monial) View source artwork.

feature · PARAY-LE-MONIAL, Burgundy, October 8, 1690 AD

Told she will not die, St. Margaret Mary teases her doctor

On the first day of the autumn retreat at the Visitation convent in Paray-le-Monial, Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque cannot get out of bed and says she is dying. Doctor Billet, who has treated her for years, finds nothing serious, and her Superior refuses her Viaticum, the Communion given to those in danger of death. St. Margaret Mary keeps asking for it.

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In a flat icon-style painting, a young Egyptian man in an ochre tunic and cream cloak steps out of a mud-brick church where villagers listen to a reader, while to the right two men work irrigated fields lined with palms at the edge of the desert. — About this picture
AI-generated image, in the manner of a Byzantine and Coptic narrative icon in egg tempera, from the paper's reference portrait based on St. Anthony (Theodoros Apsevdis, wall painting, December 1192 AD, Church of the Panagia tou Arakos, Lagoudera, Cyprus) View source artwork.

profile · COMA, Middle Egypt, 271 AD

St. Anthony gives away even the money he kept for his sister

Saint Anthony of Egypt, about twenty and recently orphaned, heard the Gospel of the rich young man read in the church at Coma and gave the three hundred acres his parents had left him to the people of the village. He sold the family's goods for the poor, then gave away the share he had kept for his small sister and placed her with a community of women who had given their lives to God.

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A Byzantine-style mosaic of a thin, dark-bearded man in a dark cloak bending towards a white-haired old man propped up in a wooden bed, while a young servant holds a bowl and a snow-capped mountain shows through a round window behind them. — About this picture
AI-generated image, in the manner of a Byzantine wall mosaic, from the paper's reference portrait based on Parete palinsesto: Basilio e Giovanni Crisostomo (post 649) and Gregorio Nazianzeno e Basilio (705-707) (Anonymous, post 649 AD and 705-707 AD, Santa Maria Antiqua, Roman Forum, Rome) View source artwork.

column · CAESAREA, Cappadocia, 362 AD

Estranged bishop who baptised St. Basil dies in his arms

Saint Basil the Great refused to share the sacraments with Bishop Dianius of Caesarea, who had baptised him, after the bishop signed a creed sent from Constantinople in 360 AD. This year the dying bishop sent for him and swore he had never meant to reject the faith of the Council of Nicaea, and St. Basil took him back before Dianius died in his arms. Years later, accused of having solemnly excommunicated Dianius, St. Basil answered the charge in a letter.

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A hand-coloured print of an old woman in a grey mantle and white veil reading from loose pages before a crowned boy on a red throne, a bearded man with folded arms and a sword, a crowned woman and a crowd of courtiers, with a ship and a sea wall seen through the arches behind. — About this picture
AI-generated image, in the manner of a hand-coloured woodcut of the Revelationes printed at Lübeck in 1492 AD, from the paper's reference portrait based on Revelationes caelestes, fol. 16v: St. Bridget enthroned between the clergy and the princes (unknown Lübeck woodcut designer, printed by Bartholomaeus Ghotan, 1492 AD, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Munich, BSB Ink B-530) View source artwork.

writings · FAMAGUSTA, Cyprus, October 8, 1372 AD

St. Bridget warns the king of Cyprus his people must amend or perish

Saint Bridget of Sweden, sick after a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, proclaimed a revelation for the kingdom of Cyprus at Famagusta before the boy king, the queen mother, the king's uncle and the royal council. In it Christ charged the people of Cyprus with driving him out and threatened to wipe out their generation, but offered to carry home anyone who returned. Famagusta fell to the Genoese two years later.

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Today in the Church

Twenty-eighth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Saint John XXIII, popeOptional Memorial

Saint of the day

Saint John XXIII

Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli, a farmer's son from Sotto il Monte near Bergamo, served as a papal diplomat and Patriarch of Venice before his election as Pope in 1958 AD at seventy-six. He called and opened the Second Vatican Council, and died in 1963 AD.

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On this day in the Church

1954 Pope Pius XII proclaimed the Queenship of Mary in the encyclical Ad Caeli Reginam, teaching that her royal dignity rests above all on her Divine Motherhood.Our Lady of the Rosary Source
1962 Bishop Karol Wojtyła of Kraków, the future St. John Paul II, was in Rome for the first session of the Second Vatican Council, which opened this day.Saint John XXIII Source
2012 Fifty years after St. John XXIII opened the Council, Pope Benedict XVI opened the Year of Faith in St. Peter's Square and quoted him in his homily.Saint John XXIII Source

Quote of the day

“But at the present time the Spouse of Christ is pleased to apply the medicine of mercy, rather than take up the weapons of severity.”

— Pope St. John XXIII, opening the Second Vatican Council, Gaudet Mater Ecclesia, address at the solemn opening of the Second Vatican Council, 11 October 1962