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How wonderful is God among his saints: come, let us adore him.

Year: A(II). Psalm week: 3. Liturgical Colour: White.

Other saints: Blessed Peter Snow and Ralph Grimston

Leeds

Peter Snow (c. 1567-1598) was born at or near Ripon and arrived at the English College, Reims in 1589. He was ordained priest two years later in Soissons, France and left for the English mission. He worked for seven years before being arrested in May 1598, when on his way to York. His companion on this journey was Ralph Grimston (?-1598) of Nidd, a married layman who had previously suffered imprisonment for opening his house to Catholic priests. He was arrested for trying to prevent Peter Snow being taken. Both were shortly afterwards tried. Peter Snow was convicted of treason as a Catholic priest and was condemned to being hanged, drawn and quartered. Ralph Grimston was convicted of felony, for having aided and assisted Snow, and was condemned to death by hanging. Both suffered at York. They were beatified in 1987. Their skulls were for many years in the Catholic chapel at Hazlewood Castle and were placed in the main altar at St Anne’s Cathedral, Leeds on 13 November 2006 when this new altar was consecrated.

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

Second Reading: St Cyprian (210 - 258)

Cyprian was born in Carthage and spent most of his life in the practice of the law. He was converted to Christianity, and was made bishop of Carthage in 249. He steered the church through troubled times, including the persecution of the emperor Decius, when he went into hiding so as to be able to continue looking after the church. In 258 the persecution of the emperor Valerian began. Cyprian was first exiled and then, on the 14th of September, executed, after a trial notable for the calm and courtesy shown by both sides.

Cyprian’s many letters and treatises shed much light on a formative period in the Church’s history, and are valuable both for their doctrine and for the picture they paint of a group of people in constant peril of their lives but still determined to keep the faith.

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.