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Monday of Holy Week 

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

Christ the Lord was tempted and suffered for us. Come, let us adore him.

Year: C(I). Psalm week: 2. Liturgical Colour: Violet.

In other years: St Aloysius Gonzaga (1568 - 1591)

St Aloysius was the eldest son of a Mantuan nobleman, and was intended by his father to be a soldier. Aloysius, on the other hand, had determined to be a missionary, and even to die for his faith. He renounced his birthright in favour of his brother and at the age of 16 became a Jesuit novice in Rome, living the same life of severe austerity and penance that he had followed even when serving in the courts of dukes and princes. In 1591 an epidemic of plague broke out in Rome, and the Jesuits opened a hospital to care for the sick. Aloysius, still a novice, worked hard in the hospital until he himself caught the plague. He did not recover; but, his determination to die for the faith having been fulfilled, died at midnight on the 20th of June with the name of Jesus on his lips.
  See the article in the Catholic Encyclopaedia.

Other saints: St John Rigby (1570-1600)

21 Jun
Liverpool: 18 Jun
John Rigby was an English Catholic and martyr who was executed during the reign of Elizabeth I. He was born at Harrock Hall, in Chorley, Lancashire in 1570, of Nicholas and Mary Rigby. His father worked for Sir Edmund Huddleston, whose daughter was summoned to the Old Bailey for refusing to conform to the state religion. Because she was ill, Rigby appeared for her. He was compelled to confess his Catholicism, and sent to Newgate. The next day, February 14, 1600, he signed a confession saying that he had been reconciled by John Jones, a Franciscan, and that he had not attended Church of England services. He was chained and sent back to Newgate. Twice he was given the chance to recant; twice he refused. He was executed by hanging at St Thomas Waterings 1600.
DK

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)Ezekiel 33:10,11 ©
Our sins and crimes weigh heavily on us; we are wasting away because of them. How are we to go on living? As I live – it is the Lord who speaks – I take pleasure, not in the death of a wicked man, but in the turning back of a wicked man who changes his ways to win life.

Noon reading (Sext)Jeremiah 18:20 ©
Remember how I stood in your presence to plead on their behalf, to turn your wrath away from them.

Afternoon reading (None)Jeremiah 31:2,3,4 ©
The Lord says this: They have found pardon in the wilderness, those who have survived the sword. Israel is marching to his rest. I have loved you with an everlasting love, so I am constant in my affection for you. I build you once more; you shall be rebuilt, virgin of Israel.

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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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