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Saturday of week 5 in Ordinary Time 
 or Saturday memorial of the Blessed Virgin Mary 

Using calendar: Eastern Mediterranean. You can choose a country.

The Lord’s is the earth and its fullness: come, let us adore him.

Year: C(I). Psalm week: 1. 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: Bl. Jordan of Saxony OP (c.1185 - 1237)

13 Feb (where celebrated)
Dominican Friar, Priest and Master of the Dominican Order.
  Blessed Jordan was born at Burgberg, Westphalia, around the year 1185. While studying in Paris he was attracted to the Dominican Order by Blessed Reginald and received the habit from him in 1220. On the death of Saint Dominic the friars elected him Master of the Order. For fifteen years he ministered to his brothers and sisters by his preaching, his letters, his edition of the Constitutions, his frequent visitations and the example of his life. More than one thousand novices were attracted to the Order during the tenure of his office. He directed Blessed Diana and her community in the way of perfection and governed all his subjects with gentleness and kindness. His love for Mary, the Mother of God, expressed itself by his decree that the Salve Regina was to be sung after compline. Blessed Jordan was shipwrecked and drowned on February 13, 1237.

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

Second Reading: Blessed Isaac of Stella (c.1105 - c.1178)

All that is known for certain about Isaac is that he abandoned his studies at the cathedral schools in about 1140 and became a Cistercian monk, at the time of St Bernard’s reforms. He became abbot of the small monastery at Stella, outside Poitiers, in 1147, from where he was exiled to a remote monastery on the Ile de Ré on the Atlantic coast of Gascony, perhaps in 1167, perhaps because of his support for Archbishop Thomas Becket. Scholars incline to the view that he returned to Stella some time later and died there in about 1178. The date of his birth has been given as anywhere between 1105 and 1120.

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)1 Kings 8:60-61 ©
May all the peoples of the earth come to know that the Lord is God indeed, and that there is no other. May your hearts be wholly with the Lord our God, following his laws and keeping his commandments as at this present day.

Noon reading (Sext)Jeremiah 17:9-10 ©
The heart is more devious than any other thing, perverse too: who can pierce its secrets? I, the Lord, search to the heart, I probe the loins, to give each man what his conduct and his actions deserve.

Afternoon reading (None)Wisdom 7:27,8:1 ©
Although she is alone, Wisdom can accomplish everything. She deploys her strength from one end of the earth to the other, ordering all things for good.

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Scripture readings taken from The Jerusalem Bible, published and copyright © 1966, 1967 and 1968 by Darton, Longman & Todd, Ltd and Doubleday, a division of Random House, Inc, and used by permission of the publishers. For on-line information about other Random House, Inc. books and authors, see the Internet web site at http://www.randomhouse.com.
 
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