Universalis
Sunday 16 July 2023    (other days)
15th Sunday in Ordinary Time 

Using calendar: Australia - Melbourne. You can change this.

Come, ring out our joy to the Lord; hail the God who saves us, alleluia.

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

In other years: The Feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel

Mount Carmel is commemorated in Scripture for its beauty, and it was there that the prophet Elijah defended the purity of Israel’s faith in the living God. Towards the end of the twelfth century AD, near a spring called after Elijah, a group of hermits established themselves on Mount Carmel and built an oratory in honour of Our Lady, whom they chose as their titular and patroness. They became known as ‘the Brothers of Saint Mary of Mount Carmel’. They regarded the Blessed Virgin as their Mother, and their model first of all in leading the contemplative life, and later in sharing the fruits of their contemplation with others. The Solemn Commemoration of Our Lady of Mount Carmel was first celebrated in England in the fourteenth century, but was gradually adopted throughout the Carmelite Order as an occasion of thanksgiving for the countless blessings which Our Lady had bestowed on the Carmelite family.

Other saints: St Helier (-555)

Jersey
St Helier was a 6th-century ascetic and hermit. He was born to pagan parents in Tongeren in what is now Belgium. His wanderings led him across Normandy to the monastic community of St Marculf at Nantus (now Nanteuil, St-Marcouf-de-l’Isle). However, the contemplative life did not bring him the peace that he sought, and he was sent with St Romard to Jersey where he settled on a tidal island, today known as the Hermitage Rock, next to L’Islet. He was killed on the beach there by robbers or infidel barbarians, traditionally in AD 555.
  While he is known in Jersey as the saint who brought Christianity to the Island, in Normandy and Brittany he is better known as a healing saint. Today he is invoked for diseases of the skin and eyes.
Portsmouth Ordo

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)Romans 8:15-16 ©
The spirit you received is not the spirit of slaves bringing fear into your lives again; it is the spirit of sons, and it makes us cry out, ‘Abba, Father!’ The Spirit himself and our spirit bear united witness that we are children of God.

Noon reading (Sext)Romans 8:22-23 ©
From the beginning until now the entire creation, as we know, has been groaning in one great act of giving birth; and not only creation, but all of us who possess the first-fruits of the Spirit, we too groan inwardly as we wait for our bodies to be set free.

Afternoon reading (None)2 Timothy 1:9 ©
God has saved us and called us to be holy, not because of anything we ourselves have done but for his own purpose and by his own grace. This grace had already been granted to us, in Christ Jesus, before the beginning of time.

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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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