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Wednesday of the 1st week of Lent 
 (optional commemoration of The Seven Holy Founders of the Servite Order)

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Christ the Lord was tempted and suffered for us. Come, let us adore him.
Or: O that today you would listen to his voice: harden not your hearts.

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

The Seven Holy Founders of the Servite Order

In the early thirteenth century seven young Florentines formed a confraternity of laymen devoted to the praise of Mary. In 1233, after a vision on the feast of the Assumption, they took up the life of hermits on Monte Senario outside Florence. They went preaching through the whole of Tuscany and founded the order of the Servants of the Blessed Virgin Mary, known as the Servites, whose foundation was approved by the Pope in 1304. Their feast is celebrated today because one of the seven founders, Saint Alexius Falconieri, died on 17 February 1310. See the articles on the Servites in the Catholic Encyclopaedia and Wikipedia.

Other saints: Saint Fintan of Clonenagh

Ireland, Argyll & the Isles
Saint Fintan was born in Leinster. He received his religious formation in Terryglass, Co. Tipperary under the abbot Colum, and was deeply influenced by his penitential practices and the severity of the Rule. Fintan made his own foundation in Clonenagh, Co. Laois. He died in 603. See the article in Wikipedia.

Other saints: Blessed William Richardson (1572 - 1603)

Hallam
He was born in Yorkshire and studied for the priesthood at seminaries in Valladolid and then Seville. He was ordained priest at some time between 1594 and 1600. He was then sent back to England, where he used the alias William Anderson, but he was quickly betrayed, arrested and imprisoned. He was tried and convicted within a week and hanged, drawn, and quartered.

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

Second Reading: Aphraates (c.280 - c.345)

Aphraates or Aphrahat was a Syriac Christian writer of the early fourth century. He lived through the Persian persecutions which followed the adoption of Christianity by the Roman Empire. His “Demonstrations” are a collection of twenty-three sermons, each expounding an aspect of Christian life or doctrine. They are solid and straightforward, not straying far from biblical sources, and they are valuable not only in themselves but also as a witness to Syriac Christian belief before the outbreak of the Arian heresy. Demonstration 11, which is used in the Office of Readings, is one of a set of four which examine Judaism, perhaps because some members of the Persian Church wanted to incorporate more Jewish elements into Christianity.

Liturgical colour: violet

Violet is a dark colour, ‘the gloomy cast of the mortified, denoting affliction and melancholy’. Liturgically, it is the colour of Advent and Lent, the seasons of penance and preparation.

Mid-morning reading (Terce)Ezekiel 18:30-32 ©
Repent, renounce all your sins, avoid all occasions of sin! Shake off all the sins you have committed against me, and make yourselves a new heart and a new spirit! Why are you so anxious to die, House of Israel? I take no pleasure in the death of anyone – it is the Lord who speaks. Repent and live!

Noon reading (Sext)Zechariah 1:3-4 ©
Return to me, says the Lord of Hosts, and I will return to you. Do not be like your ancestors, to whom the prophets in the past cried ‘Turn back from your evil ways and evil deeds’ but they would not listen.

Afternoon reading (None)Daniel 4:24 ©
By virtuous actions break with your sins, break with your crimes by showing mercy to the poor, and so live long and peacefully.

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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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