Universalis
Thursday 22 August 2024    (other days)
Our Lady, Mother and Queen 
 on Thursday of week 20 in Ordinary Time

Using calendar: Ireland. You can change this.

Christ the King crowned his Mother as Queen of Heaven: come, let us adore him.

Year: B(II). Psalm week: 4. Liturgical Colour: White.

Our Lady, Mother and Queen

The doctrine of the Assumption was promulgated in 1950, with its feast on 15 August. As was normal for the greater feasts, this celebration was echoed for a week afterwards, and today’s memorial of Our Lady, Mother and Queen, marks the conclusion of that period of celebration.
  We remember that the Blessed Virgin reigns in heaven together with her Son. She reigns not because she is in any way equal to God but because she is the mother of Christ the King. Her privileges come from her willingly agreeing to become the Mother of God and make our redemption possible.

Other saints: St John Kemble (1599-1679)

22 Aug (where celebrated)
John Kemble was one of the oldest of the martyrs, being 80 when executed. He was from near Hereford, being born into a Catholic family in 1599. He studied for the priesthood at Douai where he was ordained priest, and worked as a priest in England and Wales for 54 years. He founded several missions, some of which were still functioning well into the 19th century. In 1678 he was caught up in the aftermath of the “gunpowder plot” (this was a fictitious plot invented by Titus Oates and is now known as the “Popish Plot” to distinguish it from Guy Fawkes’ plot of 1605). He was cleared of all involvement of this and was eventually condemned for being a “seminary priest”. Before his execution he said: “I die only for professing the old Catholic religion, which was the religion that first made this kingdom Christian” He was hanged, drawn and when dead quartered at Widemarsh Common on 22 August 1679.
DK

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

Second Reading: St Amadeus of Lausanne (1110 - 1159)

Amadeus was born around 1110 in the castle of Chatte, west of Grenoble. His father was Count Amadeus the Elder of Clermont. After his mother’s early death, he was sent to the Cistercian abbey of Bonnevaux at the early age of 10 to be educated there. His father entered the same monastery as a monk. In order to take advantage of even better educational opportunities, father and son moved to Cluny Abbey in 1121. The son soon moved on to the court of Emperor Henry V in order to learn life as a knight and prepare for an aristocratic career. Unsatisfied with this way of life, he chose to enter a Cistercian monastery in 1125, this time choosing the famous Clairvaux Abbey, then led by Saint Bernard of Clairvaux.
  In 1139 he was sent to Hautecombe Abbey in Savoy to serve as its abbot.
  In 1145, rather against his will, he was made Bishop of Lausanne. His service as a bishop led to a period of spiritual and administrative stability for the region. Amadeus was particularly keen on educating the clergy better and leading them to deeper religious observance. He was often in contact with the greatest ecclesiastical and secular authorities of his day.
  His eight Marian sermons are his most famous writings.

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)1 John 3:23-24
God’s commandments are these:
that we believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ
and that we love one another
as he told us to.
Whoever keeps his commandments
lives in God and God lives in him.
We know that he lives in us
by the Spirit that he has given us.

Noon reading (Sext)Wisdom 1:1-2
Love virtue, you who are judges on earth, let honesty prompt your thinking about the Lord, seek him in simplicity of heart; since he is to be found by those who do not put him to the test, he shows himself to those who do not distrust him.

Afternoon reading (None)Hebrews 12:1-2
We should throw off everything that hinders us, especially the sin that clings so easily, and keep running steadily in the race we have started. Let us not lose sight of Jesus, who leads us in our faith and brings it to perfection: for the sake of the joy which was still in the future, he endured the cross, disregarding the shamefulness of it, and from now on has taken his place at the right of God’s throne.

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