Universalis: Today

Wednesday 5 November 2025 (other days)

Wednesday of week 31 in Ordinary Time
or Saint Martin de Porres, Religious

Using calendar: Ireland. You can change this.

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Let us adore the Lord, for it is he who made us.

Year: C(I). Psalm week: 3. Liturgical Colour: Green.

Saint Martin de Porres (1579 - 1639)

He was born in Lima in Peru, the illegitimate son of a Spanish nobleman and a black ex-slave. His mother gave him a Christian education and he became a pharmacist and a nurse. Despite his father’s opposition he entered the Dominican Order as a lay brother in 1603 and spent his life working for the sick and the poor. Many people of all ranks would come to him for advice. He had a great devotion to the Holy Eucharist. He has been named as a patron saint of those of mixed race.

Other saints: Bl Frances d'Amboise (1427-1485)

5 Nov (where celebrated)

Frances was born in 1427, in Thouars, France. She was the wife of Peter II, Duke of Brittany. After his death, and with the direction of Blessed John Soreth, the Carmelite Prior General at the time, she took the habit of the Carmelite Order in the monastery she had previously founded in Bondon. Afterwards she transferred to another foundation in Nantes, also erected by her, where she held the office of prioress and nourished the sisters with wise teaching. She is considered the foundress of the Carmelite nuns in France. She died in 1485, and with her last words she encouraged her sisters: “In everything, do that which will make God loved the more!”

Carmelite Breviary

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

Second Reading: St Cyril of Jerusalem (315 - 386)

Cyril was born in 315 of Christian parents and succeeded Maximus as bishop of Jerusalem in 348. He was active in the Arian controversy and was exiled more than once as a result. His pastoral zeal is especially shown in his Catecheses, in which he expounded orthodox doctrine, holy Scripture and the traditions of the faith. They are still read today, and several of the Second Readings of the Office of Readings are taken from them. He died in 386. He is held in high esteem by both the Catholics and the Orthodox, and he was declared a Doctor of the Church by the Pope in 1883.

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).