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How wonderful is God among his saints: come, let us adore him.

Year: A(II). Psalm week: 4. Liturgical Colour: White.

Saint Stanisław Kostka (1550-1568)

Stanisław Kostka (1550-1568) was born into a noble family in Poland. In 1567 he was sent to the Jesuit college in Vienna to complete his studies. Soon after, he expressed the desire to enter the Society of Jesus. The local Jesuit authorities, fearing the negative reaction of his father, hesitated to receive him. Stanisław, quickly grasping the difficulty raised by the opposition of his family, walked the 500 miles to Germany, from where with the encouragement and blessing of Saint Peter Canisius, the provincial superior, he went on to Rome. He was admitted to the Society of Jesus there. In the novitiate, Stanisław was blessed with mystical experiences. He died of illness on August 15, 1568.

Other saints: St Edith of Kemsing (961 - 984)

Southwark: 18 Sep

Clifton: 17 Sep

She is also known as Edith of Wilton.

She was the daughter of King Edgar, who abducted Wulfthryth, her mother, from her convent at Wilton, in Wiltshire. (For this act St Dunstan imposed on him the penance of not wearing his crown for seven years). Wulfthryth returned to her cell as soon as she could escape, and Edith was born there. She became a nun with Edgar’s consent, and refused his offers of the abbacy of three different communities, remaining in the cloister under her mother, now Abbess of Wilton.

In 978, after the murder of her half-brother, Edward the Martyr, certain magnates wished her to become Queen, but she refused. She was conspicuous for her personal service of the poor and fondness for wild animals. She had a church of St Denis built at Wilton, and died, at the age of 23, three weeks after its dedication.

See also the articles in the Catholic Encyclopaedia and Wikipedia.

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

Second Reading: St Augustine of Hippo (354 - 430)

Augustine was born in Thagaste in Africa of a Berber family. He was brought up a Christian but left the Church early and spent a great deal of time seriously seeking the truth, first in the Manichaean heresy, which he abandoned on seeing how nonsensical it was, and then in Neoplatonism, until at length, through the prayers of his mother and the teaching of St Ambrose of Milan, he was converted back to Christianity and baptized in 387, shortly before his mother’s death.

Augustine had a brilliant legal and academic career, but after his conversion he returned home to Africa and led an ascetic life. He was elected Bishop of Hippo and spent 34 years looking after his flock, teaching them, strengthening them in the faith and protecting them strenuously against the errors of the time. He wrote an enormous amount and left a permanent mark on both philosophy and theology. His Confessions, as dazzling in style as they are deep in content, are a landmark of world literature. The Second Readings in the Office of Readings contain extracts from many of his sermons and commentaries and also from the Confessions.

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.