Give thanks to the Lord, for his great love is without end.
Year: B(II). Psalm week: 3. Liturgical Colour: Green.
St Stephen of Hungary (969 - 1038)
He was the son of a pagan father and a Christian mother. He worked hard for the conversion of his country to Christianity, setting up both episcopal sees and monasteries. He was crowned the first King of Hungary in 1001.
He is the patron saint of Hungary, where his feast day, a public holiday, is celebrated on 20 August.
Other saints: St Rock (- 1378)
Slovenia, Philippines
He was the son of the governor of Montpellier in France. At the age of 20 he went on a pilgrimage to Rome. When a plague broke out in Italy he took care of the infected and cured many. He himself caught the disease, but not wishing to be a burden to others, he went to the woods to die. There a dog brought him food and licked his sores. Later its owner found Rock and looked after him. He died around the year 1378. He is a model of those who carry out works of mercy, and is invoked in time of pestilence.
Other saints: Bl Maria Sagrario of St Aloysius Gonzaga (1881-1936)
16 Aug (where celebrated)
Maria Sagrario was born at Lillo (Toledo) on 8th January 1881. A pharmacist by trade, she was one of the first women in Spain to be admitted to this qualification. In 1915 she entered the Carmel of St Anne and St Joseph in Madrid. Through her spirit of prayer and her love for the Eucharist she was a perfect embodiment of the contemplative and ecclesial ideal of the Teresian Carmel. She was Prioress of her community when she was martyred on 15th August 1936. It was a grace she longed for and accepted in perfection of faith and ardent love for Christ.
About the author of the Second Reading in today's Office of Readings:
Second Reading: St Pacian (c. 310–391)
Saint Pacian (Pacianus) was bishop of Barcelona from about 365 to 391. He is Jerome’s De viris illustribus, in which Jerome praises his eloquence, learning, chastity, and holiness of life.
His writings are extant only in part in three letters and a short treatise, Paraenesis ad Poenitentiam. He discusses ecclesiastical discipline, baptism and papal primacy. He also opposes the rigorous doctrines of Novatianism, which maintained that Christians who had once given in to their persecutors could never be forgiven or re-admitted to communion.
Liturgical colour: green
The theological virtue of hope is symbolized by the colour green, just as the burning fire of love is symbolized by red. Green is the colour of growing things, and hope, like them, is always new and always fresh. Liturgically, green is the colour of Ordinary Time, the orderly sequence of weeks through the year, a season in which we are being neither single-mindedly penitent (in purple) nor overwhelmingly joyful (in white).
| Mid-morning reading (Terce) | Romans 1:16-17 |
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The power of God saves all who have faith – Jews first, but Greeks as well – since this is what reveals the justice of God to us: it shows how faith leads to faith, or as scripture says: The upright man finds life through faith.
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| Noon reading (Sext) | Romans 3:21-22 |
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God’s justice that was made known through the Law and the Prophets has now been revealed outside the Law, since it is the same justice of God that comes through faith to everyone who believes.
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| Afternoon reading (None) | Ephesians 2:8-9 |
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It is by grace that you have been saved, through faith; not by anything of your own, but by a gift from God; not by anything that you have done, so that nobody can claim the credit.
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