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Let us adore the Lord, the King who is to come.

Year: C(I). Psalm week: 3. Liturgical Colour: Violet.

Other saints: Bl Mary of the Angels (1661-1717)

16 Dec (where celebrated)

Born in Turin, Italy, in 1661, she died, after spending her whole life there, in 1717. In 1675 she entered the Discalced Carmelite Convent of St Christina, and several times filled the offices of Prioress and Novice Mistress. She underwent continual spiritual trials, but was constant in her ardent love of God. She was outstandingly faithful to prayer and particularly devoted to St Joseph, in whose honour a convent was founded through her good offices at Moncalieri.

Carmelite Breviary

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

Second Reading: William of St Thierry (c.1080 - 1148)

William was born in Liège (in modern Belgium) around 1080. Together with his brother, Simon, he became a Benedictine monk, and he was elected Abbot of the monastery of St Thierry, overlooking Rheims (now in France) in 1119. By then he has already met the great contemplative and reformer St Bernard of Clairvaux, and he longed to become a Cistercian like him and devote himself to the contemplative life; but Bernard told him to keep to his responsibility as an abbot and take care of his community.

He was instrumental in organizing the General Chapters of 1131-32, at which the Benedictines of his diocese adopted many of the Cistercian reforms. (The tension between ‘too comfortable’ and ‘too tough’ is a thread that runs all the way through the history of monasticism).

Finally, in 1135, William got his wish and, resigning his abbacy, became a monk of the newly-founded Cistercian house at Signy, also in the diocese of Rheims. There he prayed, studied, and wrote. He died on 8 September 1148.

William wrote on the contemplation of God and on the nature of love. He made a special study of the Song of Songs.

Liturgical colour: violet

Violet is a dark colour, ‘the gloomy cast of the mortified, denoting affliction and melancholy’. Liturgically, it is the colour of Advent and Lent, the seasons of penance and preparation.

Mid-morning reading (Terce)	(Isaiah 10:20-21)
That day, the remnant of Israel and the survivors of the House of Jacob will truly rely on the Lord, the Holy One of Israel. A remnant will return, the remnant of Jacob, to the mighty God.

Noon reading (Sext)	(Isaiah 10:24,27)
The Lord of Hosts says this: My people who live in Zion, do not be afraid. On that day the burden will fall from your shoulder and the yoke will cease to weigh on your neck.