Universalis
Saturday 11 November 2023    (other days)
Saint Martin of Tours, Bishop 
 on Saturday of week 31 in Ordinary Time

Using calendar: United States - Hartford. You can change this.

Today we are honouring St Martin: come, let us adore the Lord our God.

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

St Martin of Tours (c.316 - 397)

He was born in the Roman province of Pannonia (approximating to the western half of modern Hungary) in about 316 and was educated at Pavia in Italy. He was baptized, left the army and after spending some time as a hermit on an island off the Ligurian coast, founded a monastery at Ligugé in western France, where he lived a monastic life guided by St Hilary. Later he was ordained priest and became bishop of Tours. In his actions he gave an example of what a good shepherd should be. He founded other monasteries, educated the clergy, and preached the Gospel to the poor. He died in 397.
  The famous story about St Martin is that while a soldier in Amiens he gave half of his military cloak to a beggar and later had a dream in which the beggar revealed himself as Christ.
  See the articles in Wikipedia and the Catholic Encyclopaedia.

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

Second Reading: Sulpicius Severus (c. 363 - c.425)

Sulpicius Severus was a Christian writer of the early fifth century. He came from a noble family in the province of Aquitaine (now part of France) and was a respected lawyer. Widowed early, and coming under the influence of St Martin of Tours, he devoted his wealth to the poor. He became a priest but nothing is known of his priestly activity. He wrote a chronicle of sacred history from the beginning of the world to his own time – omitting, out of respect, the events narrated more fittingly in the Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles. He also wrote a Life of St Martin, and an extract from this is used in the Liturgy of the Hours.

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.

Mid-morning reading (Terce)1 Samuel 15:22 ©
Is the pleasure of the Lord in holocausts and sacrifices or in obedience to the voice of the Lord? Obedience is better than sacrifice, submissiveness better than the fat of rams.

Noon reading (Sext)Galatians 5:26,6:2 ©
We must stop being conceited, provocative and envious. You should carry each other’s troubles and fulfil the law of Christ.

Afternoon reading (None)Micah 6:8 ©
What is good has been explained to you, man; this is what the Lord asks of you: only this, to act justly, to love tenderly and to walk humbly with your God.

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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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