Christ is the chief shepherd, the leader of his flock: come, let us adore him.
Year: C(I). Psalm week: 1. Liturgical Colour: White.
St Methodius (826? - 885)
He was born in Thessalonica. With his brother Cyril he went to Moravia to preach the faith. They translated liturgical texts into the Slavonic language and invented the Glagolithic and possibly also the Cyrillic alphabet. After his brother’s death he went to Pannonia, where he was assiduous in the work of evangelization. In the complicated international politics of the time he suffered much from attacks by his enemies, but he was always supported by the Popes. He died on 6 April 885. See the article on Cyril and Methodius in the
Catholic Encyclopaedia.
St Cyril (827? - 869)
He was born in Thessalonica and was educated in Constantinople. With his brother Methodius he went to Moravia to preach the faith. They translated liturgical texts into the Slavonic language and invented the Glagolithic and possibly also the Cyrillic alphabet. They were called back to Rome, where Cyril died on 14 February 869. See the article in
Wikipedia and the article on Cyril and Methodius in the
Catholic Encyclopaedia.
Other saints: Our Lady of Budslau
Belarus
The multi-ethnic Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth was destroyed by the Prussian, Austrian and Russian Empires in 1793. Budslau (Belarusian: Будслаў, Polish: Budsław) is in the Mińsk district, which was taken over by the Russian Empire. Between the wars it formed part of the restored Poland; after the Second World War it was ethnically cleansed and became part of the Soviet Union until the Soviet Union itself collapsed in 1989. It is now part of the newly independent country of Belarus.
The miracle-working icon of Our Lady of Budslau has been a focus of pilgrimage since the 16th century. A monastery grew up to serve the pilgrims, and was later destroyed in the wars and revolutions that swept the area; but the icon survived wars, revolutions, and even the attempts by the Soviet secret police to destroy it.
Pilgrims have come from all the successor states of the Commonwealth: Belarus, Poland, Lithuania and Ukraine: secretly in the late 20th-century times of oppression and persecution, but openly since 1992.
This feast was traditionally celebrated on 2 July but in 2012 it was moved to the first Saturday of the month, because “Many believers, including students and priests, expressed their wish to celebrate the feast of Lord’s Mother of Budslau on Saturday because they want to do it to the full. Previously that was not possible because the feast often occurred to be on a workday.”
Other saints: Saint Modwen
Birmingham
The memory of St Modwen is strongly established at Burton-on-Trent where she is venerated as a virgin who lived as a hermit on the island-meadow of Andressey on the Trent. Her name is Irish and she seems to have belonged to the group of Irish monks and hermits who worked for the conversion of Anglo-Saxons in the seventh century; Irish women hermits, such as St Dympna, are also known at that period. The medieval parish church at Burton is dedicated to her; she was adopted as patron of the restored Catholic parish when the Catholic Church in Guild Street was built in 1879.
Other saints: Blessed George Nichols, Richard Yaxley, Thomas Belson, Humphrey Pritchard (-1589)
Birmingham
These four men were executed at Oxford on 5 July 1589. Two were priests: George Nichols, born at Oxford, and Richard Yaxley, born at Boston, Lincolnshire, both ordained at the English College at Rheims. Thomas Belson was a gentleman from Oxfordshire who worked as a layman to support the underground work of the priests in Elizabethan England and had previously been imprisoned and deported; he was 26. All three were arrested at the Catherine Wheel at Oxford, together with Humphrey Pritchard, employed by the widow who owned the public house; she was condemned to perpetual imprisonment. After examination and torture in London, the four were tried and executed at Oxford. Blessed Humphrey Pritchard, the barman, was taunted for his ignorance by some of the university men present at the execution. When he said that he died for being a Catholic, one of them shouted that he was unable to explain what being a Catholic meant. Blessed Humphrey replied: “What I cannot say in words, I will seal with my blood”. They were beatified by Pope John Paul II in 1987.
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.