The Lord’s is the earth and its fullness: come, let us adore him.
Year: A(I). Psalm week: 3. Liturgical Colour: Green.
Saturday memorials of the Blessed Virgin Mary
‘On Saturdays in Ordinary Time when there is no obligatory memorial, an optional memorial of the Blessed Virgin Mary is allowed.
‘Saturdays stand out among those days dedicated to the Virgin Mary. These are designated as memorials of the Blessed Virgin Mary. This memorial derives from Carolingian times (9th century), but the reasons for having chosen Saturday for its observance are unknown. While many explanations of this choice have been advanced, none is completely satisfactory from the point of view of the history of popular piety.
‘Whatever its historical origins may be, today the memorial rightly emphasizes certain values to which contemporary spirituality is more sensitive. It is a remembrance of the maternal example and discipleship of the Blessed Virgin Mary who, strengthened by faith and hope, on that “great Saturday” on which Our Lord lay in the tomb, was the only one of the disciples to hold vigil in expectation of the Lord’s resurrection. It is a prelude and introduction to the celebration of Sunday, the weekly memorial of the Resurrection of Christ. It is a sign that the Virgin Mary is continuously present and operative in the life of the Church.’
Directory on Popular Piety and the Liturgy (2001), §188
Other saints: St Ethelbert (c.560 - 616)
Hallam, Southwark
Ethelbert, or Aethelberht, was King of Kent from about 580 or 590 until his death. He was the first king in England to convert to Christianity: according to Bede, this happened shortly after St Augustine arrived on his mission to the English. He helped the Church to establish itself by making it a gift of land at Canterbury.
Other saints: Bl. Maria Adeodata Pisani (1806 - 1855)
Malta
She was the daughter of noble Maltese parents, who separated while she was still a small child. She renounced her wealth and position and became a nun at the age of 21 despite her mother’s disapproval. She was beatified by Pope John Paul II in 2001.
Other saints: St Walburga (- 776)
Plymouth
Walburga was the daughter of the saintly Saxon prince Richard of Wessex. At the invitation of St Boniface, she accompanied her brothers SS. Willibald and Winebald to Germany, where she founded monasteries. She died on May 11th 776, as Abbess of Heidenheim, and her body was placed in a rocky niche in Eichstadt. It was said that there began to exude from this place a miraculously therapeutic oil, which drew many pilgrims.
About the author of the Second Reading in today's Office of Readings:
Second Reading: St Gregory of Agrigentum (late 6th century)
Gregory was born near Agrigentum (Girgenti) in Sicily. He was ordained deacon while on a pilgrimage to Palestine, by the Patriarch of Jerusalem, and was ordained Bishop of Agrigentum while on a visit to Rome. Pope St Gregory the Great addressed several letters to him.
There is a long biography of him, written some years after his death, but it is short on the kind of dry biographical detail that is valued in the modern West and long on the stories of personalities, feuds, injustice, divine assistance and eventual vindication which may well be true (there is no reason for them not to be) but which do not accord well with our current ideas of what history ought to be. Even the date of Gregory’s death is uncertain. By 594 he was no longer Bishop, but whether this was due to death, dismissal or retirement, nobody knows.
On the other hand, the “Gregory of Agrigentum” who wrote the exposition on Ecclesiastes which appears among the Second Readings may be another Gregory of Agrigentum from the late seventh, and not the late sixth, century. Or he may even be someone else altogether, from later still.
Faced with such rich material for controversy among scholars, this is one of those cases when it is better not to worry too much about the exact authorship, instead absorbing and deriving spiritual benefit from the rich line of interpretation which this work provides. It is the quality of the Exposition on Ecclesiastes, not the identity of its author, which has secured it its place in the Liturgy of the Hours.
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).
Other notes: Stanisław Leon Kochanski (1923 - 1999)
On this day in 1999 died Staszek Kochanski, father of Martin Kochanski, the founder of Universalis. Please pray for the repose of his soul; and for his son and daughter, who survive him.
If you would like to follow the funeral service, you can do so
here.
| Mid-morning reading (Terce) | 1 Samuel 15:22 © |
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Is the pleasure of the Lord in holocausts and sacrifices or in obedience to the voice of the Lord? Obedience is better than sacrifice, submissiveness better than the fat of rams.
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| Noon reading (Sext) | Galatians 5:26,6:2 © |
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We must stop being conceited, provocative and envious. You should carry each other’s troubles and fulfil the law of Christ.
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| Afternoon reading (None) | Micah 6:8 © |
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What is good has been explained to you, man; this is what the Lord asks of you: only this, to act justly, to love tenderly and to walk humbly with your God.
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