A mighty God is the Lord: come, let us adore him.
Year: C(II). Psalm week: 4. Liturgical Colour: Green.
St Stephen of Hungary (969 - 1038)
He was the son of a pagan father and a Christian mother. He worked hard for the conversion of his country to Christianity, setting up both episcopal sees and monasteries. He was crowned the first King of Hungary in 1001.
He is the patron saint of Hungary, where his feast day, a public holiday, is celebrated on 20 August.
Other saints: St Rock (- 1378)
Slovenia, Philippines
He was the son of the governor of Montpellier in France. At the age of 20 he went on a pilgrimage to Rome. When a plague broke out in Italy he took care of the infected and cured many. He himself caught the disease, but not wishing to be a burden to others, he went to the woods to die. There a dog brought him food and licked his sores. Later its owner found Rock and looked after him. He died around the year 1378. He is a model of those who carry out works of mercy, and is invoked in time of pestilence.
Other saints: Bl Maria Sagrario of St Aloysius Gonzaga (1881-1936)
16 Aug (where celebrated)
Maria Sagrario was born at Lillo (Toledo) on 8th January 1881. A pharmacist by trade, she was one of the first women in Spain to be admitted to this qualification. In 1915 she entered the Carmel of St Anne and St Joseph in Madrid. Through her spirit of prayer and her love for the Eucharist she was a perfect embodiment of the contemplative and ecclesial ideal of the Teresian Carmel. She was Prioress of her community when she was martyred on 15th August 1936. It was a grace she longed for and accepted in perfection of faith and ardent love for Christ.
About the author of the Second Reading in today's Office of Readings:
Second Reading: St Bernard of Clairvaux (1090 - 1153)
Bernard was born near Dijon, in France, in 1090, of a noble family. In 1112 he joined the new monastery at Cîteaux. This had been founded fourteen years before, in a bid to reject the laxity and riches of much of the Benedictine Order of the time (as exemplified by the great monasteries such as Cluny) and to return to a primitive poverty and austerity of life.
Bernard arrived at Cîteaux with four of his five brothers and two dozen friends. Within three years he had been sent out to found a new monastery at Clairvaux, in Champagne, where he remained abbot for the rest of his life. By the time of his death, the Cistercian Order (“the Order of Cîteaux”) had grown from one house to 343, of which 68 were daughter houses of Clairvaux itself.
Bernard was a man of great holiness and wisdom, and although he was often in very poor health, he was active in many of the great public debates of the time. He strongly opposed the luxurious lives of some of the clergy, and fought against the persecution of the Jews. He was also a prolific writer, and the Liturgy of the Hours uses extracts from many of his sermons.
Liturgical colour: green
The theological virtue of hope is symbolized by the colour green, just as the burning fire of love is symbolized by red. Green is the colour of growing things, and hope, like them, is always new and always fresh. Liturgically, green is the colour of Ordinary Time, the orderly sequence of weeks through the year, a season in which we are being neither single-mindedly penitent (in purple) nor overwhelmingly joyful (in white).
| Mid-morning reading (Terce) | 1 John 3:17-18 © |
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If a man who was rich enough in this world’s goods saw that one of his brothers was in need, but closed his heart to him, how could the love of God be living in him? My children, our love is not to be just words or mere talk, but something real and active.
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| Noon reading (Sext) | Deuteronomy 30:11,14 © |
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This Law that I enjoin on you today is not beyond your strength or beyond your reach. No, the Word is very near to you, it is in your mouth and in your heart for your observance.
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| Afternoon reading (None) | Isaiah 55:10-11 © |
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| The word that goes out from my mouth does not return to me empty |
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Thus says the Lord: ‘As the rain and the snow come down from the heavens and do not return without watering the earth, making it yield and giving growth to provide seed for the sower and bread for the eating, so the word that goes from my mouth does not return to me empty, without carrying out my will and succeeding in what it was sent to do.’
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Office of Readings for Tuesday of week 20
Morning Prayer for Tuesday of week 20
Evening Prayer for Tuesday of week 20
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