August 6th is probably the most common date of secular significance put to homiletic use. Preachers for that day’s feast of the Transfiguration are apt to compare the light of Christ, which transfigures unto glory, with the light seen in Hiroshima on 6th August 1945, when for the first time came that light which disfigures unto death.
August 6th this year united two other anniversaries of import in recent Catholic history: the death of Blessed Paul VI in 1978, and the publication of Veritatis Splendor by St John Paul II in 1993. Veritatis Splendor marked the half-way point between Humanae Vitae (1968) and today, and so provides a reference point for the ministry of the Roman pontiff over these last 50 years.
