Universalis
Wednesday 11 October 2023    (other days)
Wednesday of week 27 in Ordinary Time 
 or Saint John XXIII, Pope 

Using calendar: Africa - Southern Africa. 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.

Pope John XXIII (1881 - 1963)

Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli was born in the village of Sotto il Monte, near Bergamo, in 1881. At the age of 11 he entered the seminary at Bergamo and later pursued his studies at the Pontifical Seminary in Rome. He was ordained priest in 1904. He was secretary to the Bishop of Bergamo but from 1921 onwards he served the Holy See directly in various posts, both in Rome and in Bulgaria, Turkey and Greece, culminating as Apostolic Nuncio to France from 1944 until 1953, when he was created cardinal and made the Patriarch of Venice. He was elected Pope in 1958. He convoked the Roman Synod, instituted the revision of Canon Law, and called the Second Vatican Council, which opened on 11 October 1962. He died while the Council was still in session, on the evening of 3 June 1963.

Other saints: Saint Kenneth (515-599)

Ireland: 11 Oct
Argyll & the Isles: 12 Oct
Saint Cainnech of Aghaboe is also known as Saint Canice in Ireland, Saint Kenneth in Scotland, Saint Kenny and in Latin Saint Canicus. He was an Irish abbot, monastic founder, priest and missionary.
  He was born in 515 or 516, at Glengiven, near Dungiven in Ireland. He spent his early years watching his chieftain’s flocks. In 543 he became a pupil at Finian’s monastic school at Clonard. During the sixth century, some of the most significant names in the history of Irish Christianity studied at this monastery. Twelve students who studied under St. Finian became known as the Twelve Apostles of Ireland, Kenneth was one of these. It was at Clonard that he became a friend and companion of St Colmcille (Columba).
  In 544 he studied under St. Mobhi at the school of Glasnevin, with Kieran of Clonmacnoise and St. Comgall of Bangor. When plague scattered that community, he went to Saint Cadoc’s monastery of Llancarfan in Glamorganshire in Wales, where he was ordained priest in 545. He left for Rome to obtain the blessing of the reigning pontiff. In 550 he had returned to Glengiven, where he converted his foster-brother, Geal-Breagach, who afterwards assisted him in founding Drumachose, in nearby Limavady.
  In 565 he joined Columba in Scotland. He built a church in the place now known as Saint Andrew’s. He built monastic cells on the island of Ibdon and Eninis, an oratory called Lagan-Kenny on the shores of Loch Laggan, and a monastery in Fife on the banks of the Eden. His name is still recalled in the ruins of an ancient church, Kil-Chainnech on Tiree Island, in a burial ground, Kil-Chainnech, in Iona and Inch Kenneth off Mull
  He spent a good deal of his time in Ireland, in County Meath and in Ossory in what is now County Laois. In Ossory he had a good repute with the king, Colman son of Feradach, who gave him grants of land including Aghaboe (“the field of the Ox”) which became his principal monastery. Aghaboe grew in importance, and in the 7th century sent St. Fergal as a missionary to the church of Salzburg, Austria. Aghaboe was for a time the site of the bishop’s see until under Norman influence in the twelfth century the see transferred from Aghaboe to Kilkenny.
  He died and was interred at the Abbey of Aghaboe in 599/600.

Other saints: Blessed William Howard (1612-1680)

Birmingham
Blessed William Howard was born in 1612, the second son of the Earl of Arundel. William went to St John’s College, Cambridge, and married on 12 October 1637 Mary, daughter of Lord Stafford. Through her he obtained his title and his Staffordshire estates. William and Mary were devoted parents, who had nine children. They lived in the Low Countries for much of the troubled period during the Civil War and the Commonwealth because of the difficulties which faced Catholics in England. In 1678 Lord Stafford was accused with four other Catholic peers of being involved in the “Popish Plot”, a fabrication by Titus Oates which triggered a widespread persecution of Catholics. At the age of 65, he was impeached by the House of Commons before the House of Lords on a charge of high treason. Stafford was probably picked on because it was considered that he was the most likely to be cowed into acquiescence. In fact he acquitted himself well, steadfastly denied the existence of a plot and discredited witnesses addressed by the prosecution, so that the outcome was shown up as a miscarriage of justice. When the verdict of guilty was brought, Blessed William said with impressive serenity: “I confess I am surprised at it... but God’s will be done and your Lordships’; I will not murmur at it. God forgive those who have falsely sworn against me”. He was beheaded on Tower Hill on 29 December 1680. Pope Pius XI beatified him as a martyr in 1929.
Birmingham Ordo

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

Second Reading: St Ignatius of Antioch (- 107)

He was the second bishop of Antioch after St Peter (the first being Evodius). He was arrested (some writers believe that he must have been denounced by a fellow-Christian), condemned to death, and transported to Rome to be thrown to the wild beasts in the arena. In one of his letters he describes the soldiers who were escorting him as being like “ten leopards, who when they are kindly treated only behave worse.”
  In the course of his journey he wrote seven letters to various churches, in which he dealt wisely and deeply with Christ, the organisation of the Church, and the Christian life. They are important documents for the early history of the Church, and they also reveal a deeply holy man who accepts his fate and begs the Christians in Rome not to try to deprive him of the crown of martyrdom.
  He was martyred in 107.

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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