Tuesday 17 February 2026 (other days)
Blessed William Richardson, Priest, Martyr
Feast
Feast
Using calendar: England - Hallam. You can change this.
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 is the king of martyrs: come, let us adore him.
Year: A(II). Psalm week: 2. Liturgical Colour: Red.
Blessed William Richardson (1572 - 1603)
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.
In other years: 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: The Vietnamese New Year: first day
Vietnam
The Vietnamese calendar is like the ancient Greek, Jewish, and Chinese calendars in that it has real months, not synthetic ones: each month ends when the old moon has died and starts when the new moon first appears. As for the year, the Athenian calendar used to start a new year at the new moon after the summer solstice. The Vietnamese and Chinese calendars start it on the new moon after the new moon after the winter solstice. Differences in astronomical calculations mean that the Vietnamese and Chinese New Years are sometimes on the same day and sometimes a lunar month apart.
Vietnam adopted the Gregorian calendar for official purposes in stages between 1954 and 1975, but the rites, traditions and celebration of the Vietnamese New Year remain on its proper date.
As at our Christmas, there is day after day of celebration and families travel long distances to be together. Some New Year traditions are practically identical in Vietnam, Northumberland and Scotland – such as “first-footing”, the tradition that whoever is the first to enter the house on New Year’s Day will give luck to everyone throughout the year.
The Church has always sought to fulfil pagan traditions rather than abolish them, and the liturgical celebration of the Vietnamese New Year happens across three or four days:
New Year’s Eve is celebrated in the Vigil Mass of New Year’s Day. The readings and celebrate the glory of God and his kindness to his people, and the Gospel reading is of the Beatitudes.
New Year’s Day: the first reading at Mass is of the Creation of heaven and earth; the second reading and the Gospel are reminders that we should not worry about things for ourselves but pray to God because he looks after us always. The Entrance Antiphon rejoices at the coming of Spring:
Behold, the winter has passed,
the cold rains have ceased upon our doorsteps.
The blossoms now rise in radiant array,
spreading their fragrant perfume across the fields.
The season of joy and song returns,
and the voice of the birds is heard throughout the villages.
Occasionally the Vietnamese New Year coincides with the beginning of Lent. In such years Ash Wednesday is postponed to the fourth day of the Vietnamese New Year in order not to interfere with the New Year celebrations.
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.
About the author of the Second Reading in today's Office of Readings:
Second Reading: St Augustine of Hippo (354 - 430)
Augustine was born in Thagaste in Africa of a Berber family. He was brought up a Christian but left the Church early and spent a great deal of time seriously seeking the truth, first in the Manichaean heresy, which he abandoned on seeing how nonsensical it was, and then in Neoplatonism, until at length, through the prayers of his mother and the teaching of St Ambrose of Milan, he was converted back to Christianity and baptized in 387, shortly before his mother’s death.
Augustine had a brilliant legal and academic career, but after his conversion he returned home to Africa and led an ascetic life. He was elected Bishop of Hippo and spent 34 years looking after his flock, teaching them, strengthening them in the faith and protecting them strenuously against the errors of the time. He wrote an enormous amount and left a permanent mark on both philosophy and theology. His Confessions, as dazzling in style as they are deep in content, are a landmark of world literature. The Second Readings in the Office of Readings contain extracts from many of his sermons and commentaries and also from the Confessions.
Liturgical colour: red
Red is the colour of fire and of blood. Liturgically, it is used to celebrate the fire of the Holy Spirit (for instance, at Pentecost) and the blood of the martyrs.
