Universalis
Tuesday 7 November 2023    (other days)
Saint Willibrord, Bishop and Missionary 
 on Tuesday of week 31 in Ordinary Time

Using calendar: England - Hexham & Newcastle. You can change this.

Christ is the chief shepherd, the leader of his flock: come, let us adore him.

Year: A(I). Psalm week: 3. Liturgical Colour: White.

St Willibrord (658 - 739)

He was born in Yorkshire and after being a pupil of St Wilfrid, studied for twelve years at Rathmelsige in Ireland, where he was ordained priest. He returned to England but set out again in 690 to evangelize Frisia. He was ordained bishop by Pope Sergius in 695 and founded the metropolitan see of Utrecht in the Netherlands. He preached the Gospel in Denmark and North Germany and founded several dioceses and monasteries in the Netherlands and Luxembourg. He died at Echternach in Luxembourg in 739.
  He was the first of the great Anglo-Saxon missionaries to Europe and is remembered not just for his devotion in preaching the Gospel but also for his joyfulness of character and his holiness of life.

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)Jeremiah 22:3 ©
Practise honesty and integrity; rescue the man who has been wronged from the hands of his oppressor; do not exploit the stranger, the orphan, the widow; do no violence; shed no innocent blood in this place.
Noon reading (Sext)Deuteronomy 15:7-8 ©
Is there a poor man among you, one of your brothers, in any town of yours in the land that the Lord your God is giving you? Do not harden your heart or close your hand against that poor brother of yours, but be open-handed with him and lend him enough for his needs.
Afternoon reading (None)Proverbs 22:22-23 ©
Because a man is poor, do not therefore cheat him, nor, at the city gate, oppress anybody in affliction; for the Lord takes up their cause, and extorts the life of their extortioners.

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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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