We are the people of the Lord, the flock that is led by his hand: come, let us adore him, alleluia.
Year: B(II). Psalm week: 2. Liturgical Colour: Green.
Other saints: Saint Giles (c.650 - c.710)
St Andrews & Edinburgh, Slovenia
Giles was a Greek Christian hermit saint from Athens. He settled in Gaul to escape his high reputation in Greece, and became for many years a hermit in a forest near Nîmes. He spent many years in solitude there but eventually founded a monastery. This monastery, at Saint-Gilles-du-Gard, became a place of pilgrimage and a stop on the road that led from Arles to Santiago de Compostela, the pilgrim Way of St James.
His life and personality became a magnet for pious legends, behind which a coherent biography is sometimes hard to discern. He is the patron saint of Edinburgh.
Other saints: St Teresa Margaret Redi of the Sacred Heart (1747-1770)
1 Sep (where celebrated)
Teresa Margaret was born in Arezzo, Tuscany, in 1747 of the noble Redi family and baptised Anna Maria. At the age of nine, she was sent to a boarding school run by Benedictine nuns, St Apollonia’s in Florence. At the age of sixteen, as her time of schooling came to an end, Anna Maria discerned a call to religious life. During this time, in a quiet experience of prayer it became clear that she was called to the life of Carmel. She entered the Discalced Carmelites in Florence in 1764, taking the name Teresa of the Sacred Heart. Her writings and charity within the community attested to a deep interior life. On one occasion she writes of a special contemplative experience concerning the words of St John, “God is Love.” She worked with care and compassion in the community infirmary. A sudden onset of ill-health, in 1770, ended with her death, aged twenty-three.
About the author of the Second Reading in today's Office of Readings:
Second Reading: St Augustine of Hippo (354 - 430)
Augustine was born in Thagaste in Africa of a Berber family. He was brought up a Christian but left the Church early and spent a great deal of time seriously seeking the truth, first in the Manichaean heresy, which he abandoned on seeing how nonsensical it was, and then in Neoplatonism, until at length, through the prayers of his mother and the teaching of St Ambrose of Milan, he was converted back to Christianity and baptized in 387, shortly before his mother’s death.
Augustine had a brilliant legal and academic career, but after his conversion he returned home to Africa and led an ascetic life. He was elected Bishop of Hippo and spent 34 years looking after his flock, teaching them, strengthening them in the faith and protecting them strenuously against the errors of the time. He wrote an enormous amount and left a permanent mark on both philosophy and theology. His Confessions, as dazzling in style as they are deep in content, are a landmark of world literature. The Second Readings in the Office of Readings contain extracts from many of his sermons and commentaries and also from the Confessions.
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 5:1-2,5 |
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Through our Lord Jesus Christ, by faith we are judged righteous and at peace with God, since it is by faith and through Jesus that we have entered this state of grace in which we can boast about looking forward to God’s glory. This hope is not deceptive, because the love of God has been poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit which has been given us.
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| Noon reading (Sext) | Romans 8:26 |
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The Spirit comes to help us in our weakness. For when we cannot choose words in order to pray properly, the Spirit himself expresses our plea in a way that could never be put into words.
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| Afternoon reading (None) | 2 Corinthians 1:21-22 |
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Remember it is God himself who assures us all, and you, of our standing in Christ, and has anointed us, marking us with his seal and giving us the pledge, the Spirit, that we carry in our hearts.
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