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Friday of the 5th week of Eastertide 
 or Saint Peter Chrysologus, Bishop, Doctor 

Using calendar: Eastern Mediterranean. You can choose a country.

The Lord has truly risen, alleluia.

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

St Peter Chrysologus (380 - 450)

He was born and died in Imola in northern Italy. He was made bishop of Ravenna, the new capital of the Roman Empire, and was responsible for many of the building works there. The name “Chrysologus” means “golden speech”, and was given to Peter because he was such a gifted preacher; unfortunately, most of his writings have perished, and only a collection of short sermons remains.

Other saints: St Justin de Jacobis (1800 - 1860)

Kenya, Southern Africa
Justin was born in Italy in 1800. He joined the Vincentians (Lazarists) and later was sent to Abyssinia (Ethiopia-Eritrea) as a missionary. He studied the local language and culture and slowly developed a special love for the Abyssinian traditions which he used in his missionary ministry. Made bishop in 1849, De Jacobis worked hard for the formation of the Catholic Church, establishing a seminary together with Blessed Ghebre Michael, and ordaining several priests. He died in Eritrea on 31 July 1860. His missionary methodology, rooted in inculturation, is both a legacy and a challenge for missionaries today.

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: 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)Acts 2:32,36 ©
God raised this man Jesus to life, and all of us are witnesses to that. For this reason the whole House of Israel can be certain that God has made this Jesus whom you crucified both Lord and Christ.
Noon reading (Sext)Galatians 3:27-28 ©
All baptised in Christ, you have all clothed yourselves in Christ, and there are no more distinctions between Jew and Greek, slave and free, male and female, but all of you are one in Christ Jesus.
Afternoon reading (None)1 Corinthians 5:7-8 ©
Get rid of all the old yeast, and make yourselves into a completely new batch of bread, unleavened as you are meant to be. Christ, our passover, has been sacrificed; let us celebrate the feast, then, by getting rid of all the old yeast of evil and wickedness, having only the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.

Local calendars

Africa:  Kenya · Madagascar · Nigeria · Southern Africa

Latin America:  Brazil

Asia:  India · Malaysia · Singapore

Australia

Canada

Europe:  Belarus · Denmark · England · Estonia · Finland · France · Ireland · Italy · Malta · Netherlands · Poland · Scotland · Slovakia · Slovenia · Sweden · Wales

Middle East:  Southern Arabia

New Zealand

Philippines

United States

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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