Universalis: Today

Saturday 22 November 2008
Saint Cecilia, Virgin, Martyr

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Tomorrow: Christ the King
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The Lord’s is the earth and its fulness: come, let us worship.

St Cecilia: Devotion to St Cecilia, in whose honour a basilica was constructed in Rome in the fifth century, has spread far and wide because of the Passion of Saint Cecilia, which holds her up as a perfect example of a Christian woman, who embraced virginity and suffered martyrdom for the love of Christ.
As with early martyrs, nothing much is known about Cecilia except her existence and her name; with the additional complication that so many stories have grown up round her that any remaining historical facts are obscured. No-one knows quite why she should suddenly have become popular in the middle of the sixth century, some 200 years after her death, and her association with music is also a mystery. It may be real, or it may come from the description in the Passion of Cecilia singing to God “in her heart” while the musicians were playing on her wedding day, or it may come from a linguistic confusion: where the Passion describes her being stifled to death candentibus organis, “with the pipes glowing red-hot,” this could have been misread as cantantibus organis, “with the organ playing.”
See the article in the Catholic Encyclopaedia.

Mid-morning reading (Terce)	1 Kings 8:60-61 ©
May all the peoples of the earth come to know that the Lord is God indeed, and that there is no other. May your hearts be wholly with the Lord our God, following his laws and keeping his commandments as at this present day.

Noon reading (Sext)	Jeremiah 17:9-10 ©
The heart is more devious than any other thing, perverse too: who can pierce its secrets? I, the Lord, search to the heart, I probe the loins, to give each man what his conduct and his actions deserve.

Afternoon reading (None)	Wisdom 7:27,8:1 ©
Although she is alone, Wisdom can accomplish everything. She deploys her strength from one end of the earth to the other, ordering all things for good.

November 2008
Fri 21	The Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary
Sat 22	Saint Cecilia, Virgin, Martyr
Sun 23	Christ the King
Mon 24	Saints Andrew Dung-Lac and his Companions, Martyrs
Tue 25	Tuesday of week 34 of the year or Saint Catherine of Alexandria, Virgin, Martyr
Wed 26
Thu 27
Fri 28
Sat 29

Calendar used: Europe - England

Scripture readings taken from the Jerusalem Bible, published and copyright © 1966, 1967 and 1968 by Darton, Longman & Todd, Ltd and Doubleday, a division of Random House, Inc, and used by permission of the publishers. For on-line information about other Random House, Inc. books and authors, see the Internet web site at http://www.randomhouse.com.

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