Universalis
    (other days)
Monday of week 15 in Ordinary Time 

Using calendar: England - Liverpool. You can change this.

Let us come before the Lord, giving thanks.

Year: C(I). Psalm week: 3. Liturgical Colour: Green.

Other saints: St John Jones (- 1598)

Wales
He was a novice at the Franciscan convent in Greenwich, but when this was dissolved in 1559 he had to move to France, where he took his final vows. Later he joined the Roman province of the Franciscan Order and in 1592, at his own request, he went on a mission to England. He was arrested on false charges in 1596 and severely tortured. In 1598 he was tried and convicted of being a priest and on 12 July he was executed. Despite the deliberately early hour chosen for the execution, a large crowd gathered, to which he preached before being hanged, drawn and quartered.

Other saints: St John Jones (c.1540-1598)

Wales
John Jones (known also as John Buckley, John Griffith and Godfrey Maurice) was born in Clynnog Fawr in Wales, about 1540, into a Welsh family which had remained true to the Catholic faith. As a young man, he entered the Franciscan house at Greenwich. Eventually he went to Rome and asked to be sent to England. He reached London at the end of 1592, and worked for some years in different parts of the country. His brother Franciscans in England elected him their provincial. In 1596 the ‘priest catcher’ Richard Topcliffe was informed by a spy that Father Jones had visited two Catholics and had said Mass in their house. He was promptly arrested, tortured and scourged. He was then imprisoned for nearly two years. On 3 July 1598 he was tried on the charge of “going over the seas in the first year of Her Majesty’s reign (1558) and there being made a priest by the authority from Rome and then returning to England contrary to statute”. He was convicted of high treason and sentenced to be hanged, drawn, and quartered. By this time people were becoming sympathetic to the Catholic victims of these awful butcheries, so the execution was arranged for an early hour in the morning in order to escape notice. In spite of the earliness of the hour, a large crowd had gathered. John Jones spoke to the crowd, reminding them that he was dying for his faith alone and had no political interest. His dismembered remains were fixed on the poles on the roads to Newington and Lambeth, they were removed by some young Catholic gentlemen, one of whom suffered a long imprisonment for this offence.
DK

Other saints: SS. Louis Martin and Marie Azélie Guérin

12 Jul (where celebrated)
Louis Martin was born in Bordeaux, on August 22, 1823. While he was master-watchmaker in Alençon, he met Marie Azélie (Zélie) Guérin, a lace maker, born in Gandelain (St-Denis-sur-Sarthon), on December 23, 1831. They were married on July 13, 1858,and had nine children, including the future Saint Thérèse of the Infant Jesus. Model spouses, devoted parents, workers, attentive to the poor, always nourishing a missionary spirit, they found their strength and hope in regular attendance at Holy Mass and in a deep devotion to the Blessed Virgin. After a long illness Zélie died in Alençon on August 28, 1877. Louis, in retirement, went to Lisieux near his in-laws to ensure a better future for his five children (the other four having died in infancy). This patriarch of the family, after offering all his children to God, knew suffering and illness. He died near Evreux on July 29, 1894.

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)2 Corinthians 13:11 ©
Brethren, be joyful. Try to grow perfect; help one another. Be united; live in peace, and the God of love and peace will be with you.

Noon reading (Sext)Romans 6:22 ©
Now you have been set free from sin, you have been made slaves of God, and you get a reward leading to your sanctification and ending in eternal life.

Afternoon reading (None)Colossians 1:21-22 ©
Not long ago, you were foreigners and enemies, in the way that you used to think and the evil things that you did; but now he has reconciled you, by his death and in that mortal body. Now you are able to appear before him holy, pure and blameless.

Local calendars

General Calendar

Europe

England

Liverpool

 - Isle of Man


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.
 
This web site © Copyright 1996-2024 Universalis Publishing Ltd · Contact us · Cookies/privacy
(top