Universalis: Today

Friday 25 April 2025 (other days)

Easter Friday

Universalis podcast: The week ahead – from 27 April to 3 May

The glorious events of Easter week this year. Changing attitudes to the Papacy over the last 50 years. Our part in the election of the next Pope. A warning against politics, and three prayer intentions. (16 minutes)
Episode notes.

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The Lord has truly risen, alleluia.

Year: C(I). Liturgical Colour: White.

In other years: St Mark the Evangelist

He was a cousin of Barnabas and accompanied the apostle Paul on his first missionary journey; later he followed him to Rome. He was a disciple of Peter, and his gospel is told from Peter’s point of view. He is credited with founding the Church in Alexandria. His body was stolen from Alexandria in 828 (though some say that the wrong bones were stolen) and taken to Venice, which adopted him as its patron saint. See the article in the Catholic Encyclopaedia.

About the author of the Second Reading in today's Office of Readings:

Second Reading: St Cyril of Jerusalem (315 - 386)

Cyril was born in 315 of Christian parents and succeeded Maximus as bishop of Jerusalem in 348. He was active in the Arian controversy and was exiled more than once as a result. His pastoral zeal is especially shown in his Catecheses, in which he expounded orthodox doctrine, holy Scripture and the traditions of the faith. They are still read today, and several of the Second Readings of the Office of Readings are taken from them. He died in 386. He is held in high esteem by both the Catholics and the Orthodox, and he was declared a Doctor of the Church by the Pope in 1883.

Liturgical colour: white

White is the colour of heaven. Liturgically, it is used to celebrate feasts of the Lord; Christmas and Easter, the great seasons of the Lord; and the saints. Not that you will always see white in church, because if something more splendid, such as gold, is available, that can and should be used instead. We are, after all, celebrating.

In the earliest centuries all vestments were white – the white of baptismal purity and of the robes worn by the armies of the redeemed in the Apocalypse, washed white in the blood of the Lamb. As the Church grew secure enough to be able to plan her liturgy, she began to use colour so that our sense of sight could deepen our experience of the mysteries of salvation, just as incense recruits our sense of smell and music that of hearing. Over the centuries various schemes of colour for feasts and seasons were worked out, and it is only as late as the 19th century that they were harmonized into their present form.

Mid-morning reading (Terce)	Acts 2:32,36
God raised this man Jesus to life, and all of us are witnesses to that. For this reason the whole House of Israel can be certain that God has made this Jesus whom you crucified both Lord and Christ.

Noon reading (Sext)	Galatians 3:27-28
All baptised in Christ, you have all clothed yourselves in Christ, and there are no more distinctions between Jew and Greek, slave and free, male and female, but all of you are one in Christ Jesus.

Afternoon reading (None)	1 Corinthians 5:7-8
Get rid of all the old yeast, and make yourselves into a completely new batch of bread, unleavened as you are meant to be. Christ, our passover, has been sacrificed; let us celebrate the feast, then, by getting rid of all the old yeast of evil and wickedness, having only the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.