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Let us rejoice in the Lord, with songs let us praise him.

Year: A(II). Psalm week: 2. Liturgical Colour: Green.

Other saints: Bl. Nicholas of Paglia OP (1197 - 1256)

16 Feb (where celebrated)

Dominican Friar and Priest.

Blessed Nicholas was born at Giovinazzo, near Bari, Italy, in 1197. While pursuing studies at Bologna, he was drawn to the Dominican Order by a sermon of Saint Dominic who personally gave him the habit and made him one of his traveling companions. He was well-known for his preaching throughout the Roman Province and compiled a concordance of sacred scripture. He died at Perugia in 1256.

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

Second Reading: St Bernard of Clairvaux (1090 - 1153)

Bernard was born near Dijon, in France, in 1090, of a noble family. In 1112 he joined the new monastery at Cîteaux. This had been founded fourteen years before, in a bid to reject the laxity and riches of much of the Benedictine Order of the time (as exemplified by the great monasteries such as Cluny) and to return to a primitive poverty and austerity of life.

Bernard arrived at Cîteaux with four of his five brothers and two dozen friends. Within three years he had been sent out to found a new monastery at Clairvaux, in Champagne, where he remained abbot for the rest of his life. By the time of his death, the Cistercian Order (“the Order of Cîteaux”) had grown from one house to 343, of which 68 were daughter houses of Clairvaux itself.

Bernard was a man of great holiness and wisdom, and although he was often in very poor health, he was active in many of the great public debates of the time. He strongly opposed the luxurious lives of some of the clergy, and fought against the persecution of the Jews. He was also a prolific writer, and the Liturgy of the Hours uses extracts from many of his sermons.

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)	Jeremiah 31:33
This is the covenant I will make with the House of Israel when those days arrive – it is the Lord who speaks. Deep within them I will plant my Law, writing it on their hearts. Then I will be their God and they shall be my people.

Noon reading (Sext)	Jeremiah 32:40
I will make an everlasting covenant with them. I will not cease in my efforts for their good, and I will put respect for me into their hearts, so that they turn from me no more.