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Blessed Jakub Strzemię, Bishop 
 on Thursday of week 29 in Ordinary Time

Using calendar: Poland. You can change this.

Christ is the chief shepherd, the leader of his flock: come, let us adore him.

Year: C(I). Psalm week: 1. Liturgical Colour: White.

Other saints: St John of Bridlington (1319 - 1379)

Hallam, Middlesbrough
John of Bridlington was born in about 1319. His family name was Thwing and it is likely that he was born in the village of that name a few miles inland from the east Yorkshire coastal town of Bridlington – or Burlington as it was then called. As a young man he was sent to Oxford to pursue his studies, but after two years he returned home. Soon afterwards, at the age of twenty, he entered the religious life under the rule of the Canons Regular of St Augustine and joined the ancient Priory of the Blessed Virgin Mary at Bridlington.
  Though he held various offices in his community, John was unconcerned about his own advancement being totally preoccupied by public prayer and private devotion. When first elected to the office of prior he persuaded his fellow canons to choose someone else. But in time, when the office fell vacant again, he was obliged to accept this position. He was said to be a good and considerate superior to his brethren and a man of compassion and charity to all those in need. He died in 1379 and was buried in his own priory, but already his reputation had spread far beyond the local area. After his death the fame of the miracles wrought by his intercession spread rapidly through the land, and he was canonized by Pope Boniface IX in 1404. He was the last English saint to be canonized before the Reformation.
  Saint John of Bridlington was a contemplative, a man of prayer, with a particular devotion to the celebration of the Mass. Although called to public office as prior, he always remained a contemplative at heart, and at various times in his life experienced the gift of ecstasies. He was noted for his self-effacing spirit and a great virtue of humility.
Middlesbrough Ordo

Other saints: Blessed Diego Luís de San Vitores, Priest, and Saint Pedro Calungsod (-1672)

21 Oct (where celebrated)
Diego Luis de San Vitores (1627-1672) was born in Burgos Spain. At age thirteen he entered the Society of Jesus. After his ordination to the priesthood in 1651, he taught at the university, and preached retreats and missions. He volunteered for the missions, and was sent to the Philippines. In June 1668, he and five other Jesuits were sent to Guam, to establish the first Jesuit mission among the Chamorro peoples of the Marianas Islands in Micronesia. Pedro Calungsod, a teenager, was among the Catechists chosen to accompany him as sacristan, Catechists and translator. Vitores and Calungsod were brutally killed in April 1672 by the village chief of Tumon, as a result of rumours — begun by opponents of the missionaries — that the water used in infant baptisms was poisoned.
  In the Philippines Saint Pedro Calungsod has his own feast on 2 April.

About the author of the Second Reading in today's Office of Readings:

Second Reading: St Augustine of Hippo (354 - 430)

Augustine was born in Thagaste in Africa of a Berber family. He was brought up a Christian but left the Church early and spent a great deal of time seriously seeking the truth, first in the Manichaean heresy, which he abandoned on seeing how nonsensical it was, and then in Neoplatonism, until at length, through the prayers of his mother and the teaching of St Ambrose of Milan, he was converted back to Christianity and baptized in 387, shortly before his mother’s death.
  Augustine had a brilliant legal and academic career, but after his conversion he returned home to Africa and led an ascetic life. He was elected Bishop of Hippo and spent 34 years looking after his flock, teaching them, strengthening them in the faith and protecting them strenuously against the errors of the time. He wrote an enormous amount and left a permanent mark on both philosophy and theology. His Confessions, as dazzling in style as they are deep in content, are a landmark of world literature. The Second Readings in the Office of Readings contain extracts from many of his sermons and commentaries and also from the Confessions.

Liturgical colour: white

White is the colour of heaven. Liturgically, it is used to celebrate feasts of the Lord; Christmas and Easter, the great seasons of the Lord; and the saints. Not that you will always see white in church, because if something more splendid, such as gold, is available, that can and should be used instead. We are, after all, celebrating.
  In the earliest centuries all vestments were white – the white of baptismal purity and of the robes worn by the armies of the redeemed in the Apocalypse, washed white in the blood of the Lamb. As the Church grew secure enough to be able to plan her liturgy, she began to use colour so that our sense of sight could deepen our experience of the mysteries of salvation, just as incense recruits our sense of smell and music that of hearing. Over the centuries various schemes of colour for feasts and seasons were worked out, and it is only as late as the 19th century that they were harmonized into their present form.

Mid-morning reading (Terce)Amos 4:13 ©
He it was who formed the mountains, created the wind, reveals his mind to man, makes both dawn and dark, and walks on the top of the heights of the world; the Lord, the God of Hosts, is his name.

Noon reading (Sext)Amos 5:8 ©
He made the Pleiades and Orion, who turns the dusk to dawn and day to darkest night. He summons the waters of the sea and pours them over the land. ‘The Lord’ is his name.

Afternoon reading (None)Amos 9:6 ©
He has built his high dwelling place in the heavens and supported his vault on the earth; he summons the waters of the sea and pours them over the land. ‘The Lord’ is his name.

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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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