Universalis
Monday 24 July 2023    (other days)
Monday of week 16 in Ordinary Time 
 or Saint Charbel Makhlouf, Priest 

Using calendar: Australia - Rockhampton. You can change this.

Let us rejoice in the Lord, with songs let us praise him.

Year: A(I). Psalm week: 4. Liturgical Colour: Green.

St Charbel Makhlouf (1828 - 1898)

He was born in the Lebanon, the son of a mule-driver, and brought up by his uncle, who did not approve of his devotion to prayer and solitude. He would go secretly to the monastery of St Maron at Annaya, and eventually became a Maronite monk and was ordained priest. After being a monk for many years, he was drawn to a closer imitation of the Desert Fathers and became a hermit.
  At his hermitage he lived a severely ascetic life with much prayer and fasting. He refused to touch money and considered himself the servant of anyone who came to stay in the three other cells that the hermitage possessed. He spent the last 23 years of his life there, and increasing numbers of people would come to receive his counsel or his blessing.

Other saints: Saint Declan

Ireland
He was an early Irish bishop and abbot. He is sometimes said to be one of four bishops to have preceded Saint Patrick in Ireland in the early 5th century (See also Saints Ailbhe, Ciaran, and Ibar), although he is also made a contemporary of Saint David in the mid-6th century. See the article in Wikipedia.

Other saints: St John Boste (c.1544-1594)

24 Jul (where celebrated)
John Boste was born in Westmorland around 1544. He studied at Queen’s College, Oxford where he became a Fellow. He converted to Catholicism in 1576. He left England and was ordained a priest at Reims in 1581. He returned as an active missionary priest to Northern England. He was betrayed to the authorities near Durham in 1593. Following his arrest he was taken to the Tower of London for interrogation. Returned to Durham he was condemned by the Assizes and hanged, drawn and quartered at nearby Dryburn on 24 July 1594. He denied that he was a traitor saying: “My function is to invade souls, not to meddle in temporal invasions”.
DK

Other saints: Blessed Robert Ludlam and Nicholas Garlick (d. 1588)

Hallam
Robert Ludlam was born around 1551, in Derbyshire, the son of a yeoman. After studying at Oxford he went to the English College at Rheims and was ordained priest there in September 1581. At the end of April 1582 he set out for England to pursue his ministry there.
  Nicholas Garlick was born around 1555, also in Derbyshire. He spend several years as a schoolmaster, then went to the English College and was ordained at the end of March 1582. He came to England in January 1583.
  Both Ludlam and Garlick were arrested at the home of a Catholic recusant, convicted of the crime of being priests, and hanged, drawn, and quartered on 24 July 1588 in Derby. According to eyewitnesses Ludlam stood smiling while the execution of Garlick was being carried out, and smiled still when his own turn came.

Other saints: Bl John Soreth (1394-1471)

24 Jul (where celebrated)
John Soreth was born near Caen in Normandy, France in 1394. He entered the Carmelite friars in that city and was ordained a priest about 1417. John later went to Paris for advanced theological studies, earning a Doctorate in 1438. Soon after he was elected Provincial for north-central France and served in that office from 1440 until 1451.
  Recognised for his outstanding spiritual and administrational leadership, he was elected the Prior General of the Carmelites in 1451. As Prior General he was a determined reformer at a time when reform was needed in the entire Church, but not always willingly accepted. John set about a program of reforming legislation and visiting as many Carmelite communities as he could. He travelled widely in an effort to encourage his fellow Carmelites to live Carmelite life more authentically. During his canonical visits, he frequently stayed longer, urging and encouraging friars in formal observance and deeper commitment to a genuinely virtuous life.
  John was also instrumental in encouraging and establishing the first communities of Carmelite nuns, and oversaw the official incorporation of many women’s communities into the Order, following the papal bull “Cum Nulla” of Nicholas V. As a result of the same papal bull, he was instrumental in the development of the Lay Carmelite Third Order. John Soreth died at Angers, France, in 1471, after 20 years of spirited servant leadership. Among those who praised his work, following his death, was fellow Carmelite and poet Baptist Spagnoli of Mantua.
MT

Other saints: Bl Maria Mercedes Prat (1880-1936)

24 Jul (where celebrated)
Mercedes Prat was born on March 6, 1880, in Barcelona, baptized on the following day, and made her First Holy Communion on June 30, 1890. From her childhood she gave herself completely to God, whom she received every day in Communion. She displayed a great love for her neighbour and tried to foster this kind of love in others. During her years in school, she was known for her goodness and her dedication to school work, excelling especially in painting and needlework, which were areas in which she had a natural talent. Entering the novitiate of the Society of Saint Teresa of Jesus in 1904, in Tortosa, she made her temporary profession in 1907. She was a religious according to the heart of God: prudent and truthful, calm and gentle in her reactions, having a natural goodness in all her dealing with others, but firm in character. God was her one love, and her love for God kept growing to the point where she would give her life for Him. In 1920 she was assigned to the motherhouse in Barcelona. From there the path to martyrdom began on July 19, 1936, when the community was forced to give up the school and flee. On July 23, because she was a religious, Sr Mercedes was arrested and shot; she died in the early morning of July 24.
Carmelite Breviary

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)Leviticus 20:26 ©
Be consecrated to me, because I, the Lord, am holy, and I will set you apart from all these peoples so that you may be mine.

Noon reading (Sext)Wisdom 15:1,3 ©
You, our God, are kind, loyal and slow to anger, and you govern all things with mercy. To acknowledge you is indeed the perfect virtue, to know your power is the root of immortality.

Afternoon reading (None)Baruch 4:21-22 ©
Take courage, my children, call on God: he will deliver you from tyranny, from the hands of your enemies; for I look to the Eternal for your rescue, and joy has come to me from the Holy One at the mercy soon to reach you from your saviour, the Eternal.

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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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