Universalis
Wednesday 29 October 2025    (other days)
The Blessed Martyrs of Douai College 
 on Wednesday of week 30 in Ordinary Time

Using calendar: England - Westminster. You can change this.

The Lord is the king of martyrs: come, let us adore him.

Year: C(I). Psalm week: 2. Liturgical Colour: Red.

The Blessed Martyrs of Douai College

The English College at Douai was founded in 1568 to educate English Catholics, and in particular to act as a seminary training priests to enter England covertly, minister to English Catholics, and attempt the re-conversion of England to the faith. Simply being a Catholic priest was high treason in England at this time, with the penalty of hanging, drawing and quartering, and almost 160 of the priests from Douai were thus executed between 1577 and 1680. Each time the news of another execution reached the College, a solemn Mass of thanksgiving was sung.

Other saints: Saint Colman MacDuagh (- 632)

Ireland
He was the son of an Irish chieftain. He was educated at Saint Enda’s monastery in the Aran Islands. Thereafter he was a recluse, living in prayer and fasting. With the King of Connaught he founded the monastery of Kilmacduagh which he governed as abbot-bishop. See the article in Wikipedia.

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

Second Reading: Pope St Clement I

Clement was Bishop of Rome after Peter, Linus and Cletus. He lived towards the end of the first century, but nothing is known for certain about his life. Clement’s letter to the Corinthian church has survived. It is the first known Patristic document, and exhorts them to peace and brotherly harmony.

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.

Mid-morning reading (Terce)Deuteronomy 1:16-17
At that time I told your judges: You must give your brothers a fair hearing and see justice done between a man and his brother or the stranger who lives with him. You must be impartial in judgement and give an equal hearing to small and great alike. Do not be afraid of any man, for the judgement is God’s.

Noon reading (Sext)Isaiah 55:8-9
My thoughts are not your thoughts,
my ways not your ways – it is the Lord who speaks.
Yes, the heavens are as high above earth
as my ways are above your ways,
my thoughts above your thoughts.

Afternoon reading (None)1 Samuel 16:7
God does not see as man sees; man looks at appearances but the Lord looks at the heart.

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