Today in the year 837, Halley’s Comet passed 5.1 million kilometres (3.2 million miles) from Earth, possibly filling as much as a third of the night sky. Observed in places as far apart as China, Byzantium and Germany, it prompted Louis the Pious, the Holy Roman Emperor, to become extra specially pious, saying: ‘By this token a change in the realm and the death of a prince are made known.’ The comet is seen above in the Bayeux Tapestry, on its 1066 visit to the Sun.
It is the birthday of General William Booth, founder of the Salvation Army. He was born today in Sneinton, Nottinghamshire, in 1829, to a wealthy family that became poor while William was still a child. He was converted in his teens, and by the time he was 20 was preaching evangelistic sermons in the open air on Kennington Common, London.
The Good Friday Agreement was signed in Northern Ireland, today in 1998, bringing peace after 30 years of nationalistic and sectarian violence. Success depended on concessions and co-operation being accepted by zealots on both sides, Protestant and Catholic, but a deal was finally agreed 17 hours after the deadline. The only political party to oppose the agreement was Rev. Ian Paisley’s Democratic Unionist Party.
It is the feast of St Bademus, a wealthy Persian noble who became a monk. He was martyred in 376 by Nersan, a Persian prince who was forced to convert to Zoroastrianism (or face torture) and was told to behead Bademus to prove he had renounced his Christian faith. Nersan made a right mess of the job and it was a long, drawn-out hacking. During this ordeal, Bademus is said to have told Nersan, ‘With joy I run to meet death, but why must you be my executioner?’ His body was thrown to the dogs, but was recovered by his followers and secretly buried.
Pope Gregory XIII died today in 1585. His lasting claim to fame (apart from being Pope) is for giving his name to the Gregorian Calendar, which he introduced in 1582 as a more accurate way of counting time than the Julian Calendar, which the Christian world had been running on ever since the time of Julius Caesar.
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, the French theologian, palaeontologist and evolutionary mystic, died today in 1955. He believed that human history is evolving towards an ‘Omega point’, when all reality will be consummated in Christ.
‘The day will come when, after harnessing the ether, the winds, the tides, gravitation, we shall harness for God the energies of love. And, on that day, for the second time in the history of the world, man will have discovered fire.’ Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
Image: Lucas