Christ the Lord was tempted and suffered for us. Come, let us adore him.
Or: O that today you would listen to his voice: harden not your hearts.
Year: C(I). Psalm week: 1. Liturgical Colour: Violet.
Other saints: St Simon Stock (c.1212-c.1265)
Southwark
Simon is likely to have been one of the first Carmelites in England in the 1240s. An accurate factual history is difficult to piece together amidst the many stories and legends that arise about him from that time. What the many legends tell us is that he was a memorable and significant figure in the foundations of the Carmelites in England and the Order during a time of great change. Historians would agree that Simon was an Englishman, who spent his early life as a hermit. During this time he is said to have lived in the trunk or ‘stock’ of a tree, thereafter being named Simon Stock. It is also likely that he would have participated in the important chapter of 1247 at Aylesford in Kent, that worked to adapt the lifestyle of the hermits from the Mount Carmel to a more acceptable way of life in medieval Europe. Simon would later serve as the Carmelite Prior General sometime between 1254 to 1265. He died around 1265 whilst visiting monasteries in Bordeaux, France.
Simon’s devotion to Our Lady of Mount Carmel is captured in the tale of the ‘scapular vision,’ the first written account of which is found recorded about 150 years after his death. The clothing of Simon with the scapular by Mary is best understood in the context of the medieval times of feudal Europe. Simon, as a devotee of Mary (who was known as patroness and protector of Carmelites), was clothed by her as a sign of the exchange of promises of service offered by the Carmelite and Mary’s promise of spiritual protection. Later in the 14th century the Carmelite brown scapular became for many this outward sign of a reciprocal agreement of dedicated service and protection between the wearer and Mary whose protection pointed the way to Christ.
Other saints: Saint Brendan (486 - 578)
Ireland
He was born in Munster, in south-west Ireland, and became a monk and a priest. He founded a number of monasteries and travelled to Wales, to Iona, and on a three-year missionary journey to Britain.
He is famous for his voyage to the New World, which has become so accreted with traditional and legendary elements that it is impossible to discern what truth there is in it (rather the way that the life of Alexander the Great attracted mythical elements that made him, among other things, the son of the last Pharaoh of Egypt). That there is some truth in the story of the voyage is likely. Ireland at this time was the centre of a high Christian culture at a time when much of Europe had collapsed into chaos and paganism, and Irishmen regularly went on missionary journeys to bring the Gospel to distant lands. It would have been natural to expand this to the far West, where lands might well exist, and where, if they did exist, they were waiting to hear the Gospel. Whether Brendan ever reached the New World may be doubted, and his journey is unlikely to have lasted seven years; but the story is evidence of a tradition of voyaging that involved many more people than Brendan. Certain aspects of Aztec mythology, for example, can be most easily interpreted as a way of preserving teaching of an actual shipwrecked priest by encoding it as myth.
Other saints: St John Stone (?-1539)
16 May (where celebrated)
John Stone was a Doctor of Theology, living in the Augustinian friary at Canterbury. The place where the Augustinian friary once stood on St George’s Street is still called Whitefriars. During the time of the Reformation Parliament, Stone publicly denounced the behaviour of King Henry VIII from the pulpit of the Austin Friars and stated his approval of the status of monarch’s first marriage — clearly opposing the monarch’s wish to gain a divorce. The Act of Supremacy of 1534 declared the king to be the only supreme head of the Church in England. This was followed by the Treasons Act which enjoined the penalty of high treason on anyone who might maliciously desire to deprive the king of his title of supreme head of the Church. All bishops, priests and religious were required to acknowledge his title. On 14 December 1538 the Bishop of Dover Richard Ingworth visited Canterbury and called on the Augustinian friary with an order to close it down as part of the dissolution of monasteries in England. Every friar was forced to sign a formal document agreeing to the Act of Supremacy; Stone refused to sign. After being held in the Tower of London for some time he was sent back to Canterbury to be tried under the Treasons Act. He was found guilty and sentenced to death. Before his execution at the Dane John (Dungeon Hill), Canterbury he said: “I close my apostolate in my blood. In my death I shall find life, for I die for a holy cause, the defence of the Church of God, infallible and immaculate”. Stone was hanged, drawn and quartered; his head and body were placed on display to dishonour his corpse as a traitor.
About the author of the Second Reading in today's Office of Readings:
Second Reading: St Augustine of Hippo (354 - 430)
Augustine was born in Thagaste in Africa of a Berber family. He was brought up a Christian but left the Church early and spent a great deal of time seriously seeking the truth, first in the Manichaean heresy, which he abandoned on seeing how nonsensical it was, and then in Neoplatonism, until at length, through the prayers of his mother and the teaching of St Ambrose of Milan, he was converted back to Christianity and baptized in 387, shortly before his mother’s death.
Augustine had a brilliant legal and academic career, but after his conversion he returned home to Africa and led an ascetic life. He was elected Bishop of Hippo and spent 34 years looking after his flock, teaching them, strengthening them in the faith and protecting them strenuously against the errors of the time. He wrote an enormous amount and left a permanent mark on both philosophy and theology. His Confessions, as dazzling in style as they are deep in content, are a landmark of world literature. The Second Readings in the Office of Readings contain extracts from many of his sermons and commentaries and also from the Confessions.
Liturgical colour: violet
Violet is a dark colour, ‘the gloomy cast of the mortified, denoting affliction and melancholy’. Liturgically, it is the colour of Advent and Lent, the seasons of penance and preparation.
| Mid-morning reading (Terce) | 1 Thessalonians 4:1,7 © |
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My brethren, we urge you and appeal to you in the Lord Jesus to make more and more progress in the kind of life that you are meant to live: the life that God wants, as you learnt from us, and as you are already living it. We have been called by God to be holy, not to be immoral.
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| Noon reading (Sext) | Isaiah 30:15,18 © |
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For thus says the Lord, the Holy One of Israel: ‘Your salvation lies in conversion and tranquillity, your strength will come from complete trust.’ The Lord is waiting to be gracious to you, to rise and take pity on you, for the Lord is a just God. Happy are all who hope in him.
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| Afternoon reading (None) | Deuteronomy 4:29-31 © |
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You will seek the Lord your God, and if you seek him with all your heart and with all your soul, you shall find him. In your distress, all that I have said will overtake you, but at the end of days you will return to the Lord your God and listen to his voice. For the Lord your God is a merciful God and will not desert or destroy you or forget the covenant he made on oath with your fathers.
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