Universalis: Today

Using calendar: Poland. You can change this.

Pages

About Today · Readings at Mass · Office of Readings · Morning Prayer · Terce · Sext · None · Evening Prayer · Night Prayer · Yearly calendar

Links

· Donate · Tweet · Show QR code

Listen to the podcast!

We are the people of the Lord, the flock that is led by his hand: come, let us adore him, alleluia.

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

In other years: St Wenceslaus (907 - 935)

He was born into the Bohemian royal family, and brought up as a Christian by his aunt. When he became king, he worked hard to promote order in his kingdom and the free exercise of Christianity. This raised considerable opposition, and he was eventually murdered by his brother’s henchmen. He was immediately acclaimed as a martyr and is the patron saint of the Czech republic.

See the article in the Catholic Encyclopaedia.

Other saints: Saint Lioba (c.710-782)

Denmark

Born of a noble Wessex family, she became a nun in the Benedictine double monastery at Wimborne (Wimborne Minster, Dorset, England). Because of her holiness and learning St Boniface asked for her assistance in the evangelisation of Germany, along with Saints Thecla and Walburga. He established a convent at Tauberbischofsheim in Franconia (in the modern German state of Baden-Württemberg) and Lioba was its abbess. She had responsibility over all the convents of the region and played a leading part in its evangelisation.

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

Second Reading: St Polycarp (- 155)

Polycarp was a disciple of the Apostles, bishop of Smyrna, and a friend of St Ignatius of Antioch. He went to Rome to confer with Pope Anicetus about the celebration of Easter. He was martyred at Smyrna in about 155 by being burnt to death in the stadium. Polycarp is an important figure in the history of the Church because he is one of the earliest Christians whose writings still survive. He bears witness to the beliefs of the early Christians and the early stages of the development of doctrine.

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).