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Wednesday 8 November 2023    (other days)
Wednesday of week 31 in Ordinary Time 

Using calendar: England - Portsmouth - Hampshire - Bishop's Waltham. You can change this.

Let us adore the Lord, for it is he who made us.

Year: A(I). Psalm week: 3. Liturgical Colour: Green.

Other saints: All Saints of Wales

Wales
This feast commemorates the hundreds of Welsh saints recognised by the Church across the ages, as well as those known only to God. Many of them date from the so-called ‘Age of the Saints’ in the fifth and sixth centuries, and often have connections with the Christian communities in Cornwall, Ireland, Scotland and Brittany.

Other saints: Blessed George Napier (-1610)

Birmingham
Blessed George Napier was born at Holywell Manor in Oxford and studied at Corpus Christi College. He later went to Douai and was ordained priest in 1596. He returned to England secretly in 1603 and worked as a priest in Oxfordshire. He was arrested at Kirtlington on 19 July 1610 after he had brought the sacraments to a sick Catholic woman; the possession of the holy oils and a breviary was considered sufficient evidence of priesthood and he was condemned to death at the Oxford assizes. While imprisoned in Oxford Castle, he reconciled a condemned criminal to the Church and prepared him for a Christian death. This was reported to the judges, who angrily brought forward the date of George Napier’s execution, lest he should influence other prisoners in the same way. When the martyr was told, he said that he would be glad to do the same for the judges if ever they required it “for he came into the county to execute his functions and to save men’s souls.” He was hanged, drawn and quartered at Oxford on 8 November 1610. He was beatified by Pope Pius XI in 1929.
Birmingham Ordo

Other saints: St Elizabeth of the Trinity (1880-1906)

8 Nov (where celebrated)
Elizabeth Catez was born in 1880 in Cher, France. In 1901, she entered the Discalced Carmelite monastery of Dijon. There she made her profession of vows in 1903. A faithful adorer in spirit and in truth, her life was a “praise of glory” of the Most Blessed Trinity present in her soul and loved amidst interior darkness and excruciating illness. In the mystery of divine inhabitation she found her “heaven on earth,” her special charism and her mission for the Church. Elizabeth died on 9th November 1906, speaking her last words, “I am going to Light, to Love, to Life!”
Carmelite Breviary

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

Second Reading: St Cyril of Jerusalem (315 - 386)

Cyril was born in 315 of Christian parents and succeeded Maximus as bishop of Jerusalem in 348. He was active in the Arian controversy and was exiled more than once as a result. His pastoral zeal is especially shown in his Catecheses, in which he expounded orthodox doctrine, holy Scripture and the traditions of the faith. They are still read today, and several of the Second Readings of the Office of Readings are taken from them. He died in 386. He is held in high esteem by both the Catholics and the Orthodox, and he was declared a Doctor of the Church by the Pope in 1883.

Liturgical colour: green

The theological virtue of hope is symbolized by the colour green, just as the burning fire of love is symbolized by red. Green is the colour of growing things, and hope, like them, is always new and always fresh. Liturgically, green is the colour of Ordinary Time, the orderly sequence of weeks through the year, a season in which we are being neither single-mindedly penitent (in purple) nor overwhelmingly joyful (in white).

Mid-morning reading (Terce)1 Corinthians 13:4-7 ©
Love is always patient and kind; it is never jealous; love is never boastful or conceited; it is never rude or selfish; it does not take offence, and is not resentful. Love takes no pleasure in other people’s sins but delights in the truth; it is always ready to excuse, to trust, to hope, and to endure whatever comes.

Noon reading (Sext)1 Corinthians 13:8-9,13 ©
Love does not come to an end. But if there are gifts of prophecy, the time will come when they must fail; or the gift of languages, it will not continue for ever; and knowledge – for this, too, the time will come when it must fail. For our knowledge is imperfect and our prophesying is imperfect. In short, there are three things that last: faith, hope and love; and the greatest of these is love.

Afternoon reading (None)Colossians 3:14-15 ©
Over all these clothes, to keep them together and complete them, put on love. And may the peace of Christ reign in your hearts, because it is for this that you were called together as parts of one body. Always be thankful.

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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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