Come, let us adore the Lord, for he is our God.
Year: C(I). Psalm week: 3. Liturgical Colour: Green.
St Bonaventure (1218 - 1274)
Bonaventure was born at Bagnoregio in Etruria in about 1218. He became a Franciscan in 1243 and studied philosophy and theology at the University of Paris. He became a famous teacher and philosopher, part of the extraordinary intellectual flowering of the 13th century. He was a friend and colleague of St Thomas Aquinas.
At this time the friars were still a new and revolutionary force in the Church, and their radical embracing of poverty and rejection of institutional structures raised suspicion and opposition from many quarters. Bonaventure defended the Franciscan Order and, after he was elected general of the order in 1255, he ruled it with wisdom and prudence. He is regarded as the second founder of the Order.
He declined the archbishopric of York in 1265 but was made cardinal bishop of Albano in 1273, dying a year later in 1274 at the Council of Lyons, at which the Greek and Latin churches were (briefly) reconciled.
Bonaventure wrote extensively on philosophy and theology, making a permanent mark on intellectual history; but he always insisted that the simple and uneducated could have a clearer knowledge of God than the wise.
He was declared a Doctor of the Church in 1588 by Pope Sixtus V.
St Swithun (- 862)
Little is known of St Swithun’s life. Born in Wessex, his name is sometimes spelled ‘Swithin’. He died on 2 July 862, though the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle says 861. He left orders that his body was not to be buried within the church but outside in a “vile and unworthy place”.
Egbert, King of Wessex, chose Swithun as his chaplain and entrusted to him the education of his son Æthelwulf, who succeeded to the throne in 839. Æthelwulf appointed Swithun Bishop of Winchester in 852 and during the ten years of his episcopate he became famous for his charitable gifts and for his activity in the building of churches. He is reputed to have accompanied King Alfred to Rome in 856.
His body was moved from its almost unknown grave into the Old Minster at Winchester on 15 July 971, and this day became his feast-day. His transferral was preceded and followed by numerous miracles. His body was probably later split between a number of smaller shrines. His head was certainly detached and taken to Canterbury Cathedral, while one of his arms found a resting place in Peterborough Abbey. His main shrine was transferred to the present (then new) Norman cathedral of Winchester in 1093. His remains were installed on a ‘feretory platform’ above and behind the high altar (the feretory chapel still exists). His shrine became a great focus for pilgrims, and the cathedral’s retrochoir was built in the early 13th century to accommodate the large numbers of people wishing to visit his shrine and enter the ‘holy hole’ beneath him. His shrine was moved into the retrochoir in 1476. It was demolished in 1538 during the ‘English Reformation’, and a modern representation was placed on the site by the Dean and Chapter in 1962.
St Osmund of Salisbury (-1099)
Osmund, bishop of Sarum or Salisbury, was Norman by birth, the son of Henry, count of Seez; he followed William the Conqueror to England. Here he became Royal Chaplain, until he was promoted to be Chancellor in 1072. He wrote royal letters and charters, obtaining useful experience as an administrator. In 1078 he succeeded Herman as Bishop of Salisbury. The see had been formed by uniting those of Sherborne and Ramsbury and making the new centre at Old Sarum, where the cathedral was built in the same enclosure as the royal castle. Osmund completed and consecrated this cathedral, and formed a chapter with its own constitution, which later became a model for other English cathedrals.
Osmund died on 3rd or 4th December 1099 and was buried in his cathedral at Old Sarum. His chasuble and staff were among the treasures there in 1222; but in 1226 his body and its tomb were translated to the new cathedral of Salisbury.
About the author of the Second Reading in today's Office of Readings:
Second Reading: St Ambrose of Milan (340? - 397)
Ambrose was born in Trier (now in Germany) between 337 and 340, to a Roman family: his father was praetorian prefect of Gaul. Ambrose was educated at Rome and embarked on the standard cursus honorum of Roman advocates and administrators, at Sirmium, the capital of Illyria. In about 372 he was made prefect of Liguria and Emilia, whose capital was Milan.
In 374 the bishopric of Milan fell vacant and when Ambrose tried to pacify the conflict between the Catholics and Arians over the appointment of a new bishop, the people turned on him and demanded that he become the bishop himself. He was a layman and not yet baptized (at this time it was common for baptism to be delayed and for people to remain for years as catechumens), but that was no defence. Coerced by the people and by the emperor, he was baptized, ordained, and installed as bishop within a week, on 7 December 374.
He immediately gave his money to the poor and his land to the Church and set about learning theology. He had the advantage of knowing Greek, which few people did at that time, and so he was able to read the Eastern theologians and philosophers as well as those of the West.
He was assiduous in carrying out his office, acting with charity to all: a true shepherd and teacher of the faithful. He was unimpressed by status and when the Emperor Theodosius ordered the massacre of 7,000 people in Thessalonica, Ambrose forced him to do public penance. He defended the rights of the Church and attacked the Arian heresy with learning, firmness and gentleness. He also wrote a number of hymns which are still in use today.
Ambrose was a key figure in the conversion of St Augustine to Catholicism, impressing Augustine (hitherto unimpressed by the Catholics he had met) by his intelligence and scholarship. He died on Holy Saturday, 4 April 397.
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) | Wisdom 19:22 © |
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Lord, in every way you have made your people great and glorious. You have never disdained them, but stood by them always and everywhere.
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| Noon reading (Sext) | Deuteronomy 4:7 © |
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What great nation is there that has its gods so near as the Lord our God is to us whenever we call to him?
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| Afternoon reading (None) | Esther 10:3 © |
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The single nation, mine, is Israel, those who cried out to God and were saved. Yes, the Lord has saved his people, the Lord has delivered us from all these evils, God has worked such signs and great wonders as have never happened among the nations.
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