The Lord is the king of virgins: come, let us adore him.
Year: A(I). Psalm week: 1. Liturgical Colour: White.
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 Jerome (340 - 420)
Jerome was born in Strido, in Dalmatia. He studied in Rome and was baptized there. He was attracted by the ascetic life and travelled to the East, where he was (unwillingly) ordained a priest. He was recalled to Rome to act as secretary to Pope Damasus, but on the Pope’s death he returned to the East, to Bethlehem, where (with the aid of St Paula and others) he founded a monastery, a hospice, and a school, and settled down to the most important work of his life, the translation of the Bible into Latin, a translation which, with some revisions, is still in use today. He wrote many works of his own, including letters and commentaries on Holy Scripture. When a time of troubles came upon the world, through barbarian invasions, and to the Church, through internal dissension, he helped the refugees and those in need. He died at Bethlehem.
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) | Philippians 2:2-4 © |
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Be united in your convictions and united in your love, with a common purpose and a common mind. There must be no competition among you, no conceit; but everybody is to be self-effacing. Always consider the other person to be better than yourself, so that nobody thinks of his own interests first but everybody thinks of other people’s interests instead.
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| Noon reading (Sext) | 2 Corinthians 13:4 © |
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He was crucified through weakness, but still he lives now through the power of God. So then, we are weak, as he was, but we shall live with him, through the power of God, for your benefit.
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| Afternoon reading (None) | Colossians 3:12-13 © |
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You are God’s chosen race, his saints; he loves you, and you should be clothed in sincere compassion, in kindness and humility, gentleness and patience. Bear with one another; forgive each other as soon as a quarrel begins. The Lord has forgiven you; now you must do the same.
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