Universalis
Sunday 3 December 2023    (other days)
1st Sunday of Advent 

Using calendar: Africa - Southern Africa. You can change this.

Let us adore the Lord, the King who is to come.

Year: B(II). Psalm week: 1. Liturgical Colour: Violet.

In other years: St Francis Xavier (1506 - 1552)

He was born in the Basque country of Spain in 1506. He met Ignatius Loyola when he was a student in Paris, and he was ordained priest in 1537. In 1541 the Pope sent him as part of a mission to India, and he spent the rest of his life in the East, preaching the Gospel in Goa and Malacca. He made many converts and fought against the exploitation of the native population by the Europeans. He spent two years on a successful mission to Japan, laying the foundations of many Christian communities; and in 1552, after entering China secretly to preach the Gospel there, he died of fever and exhaustion on the Chinese island of Shangchwan.
  See the article in the Catholic Encyclopaedia.

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: violet

Violet is a dark colour, ‘the gloomy cast of the mortified, denoting affliction and melancholy’. Liturgically, it is the colour of Advent and Lent, the seasons of penance and preparation.

Mid-morning reading (Terce)Romans 13:13-14 ©
Let us live decently as people do in the daytime: no drunken orgies, no promiscuity or licentiousness, and no wrangling or jealousy. Let your armour be the Lord Jesus Christ.

Noon reading (Sext)1 Thessalonians 3:12-13 ©
May the Lord be generous in increasing your love and make you love one another and the whole human race as much as we love you. And may he so confirm your hearts in holiness that you may be blameless in the sight of our God and Father when our Lord Jesus Christ comes with all his saints.

Afternoon reading (None)(2 Thessalonians 1:6-10) ©
God will very rightly reward you, who are suffering now, with the same peace as he will give us, when the Lord Jesus appears from heaven with the angels of his power, when he comes to be glorified among his saints and seen in his glory by all who believe in him.

Local calendars

Africa:  Kenya · Madagascar · Nigeria · Southern Africa

Latin America:  Brazil

Asia:  India · Malaysia · Singapore

Australia

Canada

Europe:  Belarus · Denmark · England · Estonia · Finland · France · Ireland · Italy · Malta · Netherlands · Poland · Scotland · Slovakia · Slovenia · Sweden · Wales

Middle East:  Southern Arabia

New Zealand

Philippines

United States


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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