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Wednesday of week 25 in Ordinary Time 

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

Let us adore the Lord, for it is he who made us.

Year: C(I). Psalm week: 1. Liturgical Colour: Green.

Other saints: St Maurice and the Theban Legion (d. 287)

Kenya, Southern Africa
Maurice (a name which means ‘black’) was a native of Thebes in Upper Egypt. When he was young, he was conscripted into the Roman army together with many youths of his area, and sent, for military service, to Switzerland. Before battle, the emperor ordered his soldiers to offer sacrifice to the Roman gods but the Theban Legion, headed by Maurice, refused. They remained steadfast even after being asked several times to apostatize, in loyalty to the emperor. Their allegiance to Christ earned them the crown of martyrdom in the year 287.

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: 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)1 Peter 1:13-14 ©
Free your minds, then, of encumbrances; control them, and put your trust in nothing but the grace that will be given you when Jesus Christ is revealed. Do not behave in the way that you liked to before you learnt the truth, but make a habit of obedience.

Noon reading (Sext)1 Peter 1:15-16 ©
Be holy in all you do, since it is the Holy One who has called you, and scripture says: Be holy, for I am holy.

Afternoon reading (None)James 4:7-8,10 ©
Give in to God: resist the devil, and he will run away from you. The nearer you go to God, the nearer he will come to you. Humble yourselves before the Lord and he will lift you up.

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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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