Monday 20 April 2026 (other days)
Monday of the 3rd week of Eastertide
or Saint Beuno, Abbot
or Saint Beuno, Abbot
Using calendar: Wales. You can pick a diocese or region.
Pages
About Today · Readings at Mass · Office of Readings · Morning Prayer · Terce · Sext · None · Evening Prayer · Night Prayer · Yearly calendarLinks
· Donate · Tweet · Show QR codeThe Lord has truly risen, alleluia.
Year: A(II). Psalm week: 3. Liturgical Colour: White.
St Beuno (- 640)
He was a holy man and Abbot of Clynnog Fawr in Gwynedd, on the Llyn peninsula. See also the articles in Wikipedia and Early British Kingdoms.
Other saints: Saints Marcellinus, Vincent and Domninus (- 374)
Kenya, Southern Africa
Marcellinus with two fellow missionaries, Vincent and Domninus, left their native Africa in order to bring the faith to Gaul (now France). So many people welcomed their preaching that soon it became necessary to establish a diocese in order to coordinate the missionary ministry. Marcellinus was named the first bishop of the Diocese of Embrun on account of his missionary zeal and holiness. Later on he suffered verbal and physical persecution from the Arians. He died in 374.
Other saints: St. Agnes of Montepulciano OP (1268 - 1317)
20 Apr (where celebrated)
Dominican Nun and Virgin.
Saint Agnes was born at Gracciano, Italy, in 1268 and entered a monastery at Montepulciano at the age of nine. At the age of fifteen by indult of the Holy See she was appointed superior of a monastery of nuns at Viterbo. In response to the entreaties of the people of Montepulciano she returned there in 1306 to take charge of a newly-founded monastery which followed the Rule of Saint Augustine. A few years later she placed this monastery under the direction of the Order of Preachers, and sought evangelical perfection according to the way of Saint Dominic. Agnes was devoted to the Infant Jesus and the Virgin Mary, manifested the gifts of the Holy Spirit, and was a model of prayer and charity. She worked for civil peace and unity. Saint Catherine of Siena regarded her as her “glorious mother.” She died on April 20, 1317.
About the author of the Second Reading in today's Office of Readings:
Second Reading: St Bede the Venerable (673 - 735)
Bede was born in the north of England, near the monastery of Wearmouth. He joined that monastery, and spent all his life there or at Jarrow, teaching and writing. He was the outstanding ecclesiastical author of his time. He wrote commentaries on Scripture; an ecclesiastical history of the English people, which is a unique and irreplaceable resource for much of early English history; and the first martyrology (collection of saints’ lives) to be compiled on historical principles. He was also the first known writer of English prose, though this has not survived. He died at Jarrow on 25 May 735, teaching and working until the last moments of his life. He is venerated as the “light of the Church” in the Dark Ages, and as a forerunner of the 8th and 9th century renaissance of the Western Church.
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.
