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Saturday of the 2nd week of Advent 
 or Saint Damasus I, Pope 

Using calendar: Asia - Singapore. You can change this.

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

Year: A(II). Psalm week: 2. Liturgical Colour: Violet.

Pope St Damasus I (304 - 384)

A Spaniard, he was born about 305. Joining the Roman clergy, he was elected Pope in 366, in calamitous times. He held many synods against heretics and schismatics. He promoted the cult of the martyrs. He died in 384.
  See the article in the Catholic Encyclopaedia.

Other saints: St Maria Maravillas of Jesus (1891-1974)

11 Dec (where celebrated)
Maria Maravillas was born at Madrid in 1891. She entered the El Escorial Carmel, Madrid on 12th October 1919. In 1924 she was inspired to found a Carmel at Cerro de los Angeles, alongside the monument to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. From this foundation followed nine others in Spain and one in India. She always gave first place to prayer and self-sacrifice. She had a true, passionate zeal for the glory of God and the salvation of souls. Even while living a life of poverty in the cloister she helped those who were in need, initiating apostolic, social and charitable works. In a particular way she helped those of her own order, priests, and other religious congregations. She died in the monastery of La Aldehuela, Madrid, on 11th December 1974. She was canonized on 4th May 2003 in Madrid.
Carmelite Breviary

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

Second Reading: Blessed Isaac of Stella (c.1105 - c.1178)

All that is known for certain about Isaac is that he abandoned his studies at the cathedral schools in about 1140 and became a Cistercian monk, at the time of St Bernard’s reforms. He became abbot of the small monastery at Stella, outside Poitiers, in 1147, from where he was exiled to a remote monastery on the Ile de Ré on the Atlantic coast of Gascony, perhaps in 1167, perhaps because of his support for Archbishop Thomas Becket. Scholars incline to the view that he returned to Stella some time later and died there in about 1178. The date of his birth has been given as anywhere between 1105 and 1120.

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 4:2 ©
That day, the branch of the Lord shall be beauty and glory, and the fruit of the earth shall be the pride and adornment of Israel’s survivors.

Noon reading (Sext)Isaiah 4:3 ©
Those who are left of Zion and remain of Jerusalem shall be called holy and those left in Jerusalem, noted down for survival.

Afternoon reading (None)Isaiah 61:11 ©
As the earth makes fresh things grow, as a garden makes seeds spring up, so will the Lord make both integrity and praise spring up in the sight of the nations.

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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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