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A mighty God is the Lord: come, let us adore him.

Year: A(II). Psalm week: 2. Liturgical Colour: Green.

The Seven Holy Founders of the Servite Order

In the early thirteenth century seven young Florentines formed a confraternity of laymen devoted to the praise of Mary. In 1233, after a vision on the feast of the Assumption, they took up the life of hermits on Monte Senario outside Florence. They went preaching through the whole of Tuscany and founded the order of the Servants of the Blessed Virgin Mary, known as the Servites, whose foundation was approved by the Pope in 1304. Their feast is celebrated today because one of the seven founders, Saint Alexius Falconieri, died on 17 February 1310. See the articles on the Servites in the Catholic Encyclopaedia and Wikipedia.

Other saints: The Vietnamese New Year: first day

Vietnam

The Vietnamese calendar is like the ancient Greek, Jewish, and Chinese calendars in that it has real months, not synthetic ones: each month ends when the old moon has died and starts when the new moon first appears. As for the year, the Athenian calendar used to start a new year at the new moon after the summer solstice. The Vietnamese and Chinese calendars start it on the new moon after the new moon after the winter solstice. Differences in astronomical calculations mean that the Vietnamese and Chinese New Years are sometimes on the same day and sometimes a lunar month apart.

Vietnam adopted the Gregorian calendar for official purposes in stages between 1954 and 1975, but the rites, traditions and celebration of the Vietnamese New Year remain on its proper date.

As at our Christmas, there is day after day of celebration and families travel long distances to be together. Some New Year traditions are practically identical in Vietnam, Northumberland and Scotland – such as “first-footing”, the tradition that whoever is the first to enter the house on New Year’s Day will give luck to everyone throughout the year.

The Church has always sought to fulfil pagan traditions rather than abolish them, and the liturgical celebration of the Vietnamese New Year happens across three or four days:

New Year’s Eve is celebrated in the Vigil Mass of New Year’s Day. The readings and celebrate the glory of God and his kindness to his people, and the Gospel reading is of the Beatitudes.

New Year’s Day: the first reading at Mass is of the Creation of heaven and earth; the second reading and the Gospel are reminders that we should not worry about things for ourselves but pray to God because he looks after us always. The Entrance Antiphon rejoices at the coming of Spring:

Behold, the winter has passed,

the cold rains have ceased upon our doorsteps.

The blossoms now rise in radiant array,

spreading their fragrant perfume across the fields.

The season of joy and song returns,

and the voice of the birds is heard throughout the villages.

Occasionally the Vietnamese New Year coincides with the beginning of Lent. In such years Ash Wednesday is postponed to the fourth day of the Vietnamese New Year in order not to interfere with the New Year celebrations.

Other saints: Saint Fintan of Clonenagh

Ireland, Argyll & the Isles

Saint Fintan was born in Leinster. He received his religious formation in Terryglass, Co. Tipperary under the abbot Colum, and was deeply influenced by his penitential practices and the severity of the Rule. Fintan made his own foundation in Clonenagh, Co. Laois. He died in 603. See the article in Wikipedia.

Other saints: Blessed William Richardson (1572 - 1603)

Hallam

He was born in Yorkshire and studied for the priesthood at seminaries in Valladolid and then Seville. He was ordained priest at some time between 1594 and 1600. He was then sent back to England, where he used the alias William Anderson, but he was quickly betrayed, arrested and imprisoned. He was tried and convicted within a week and hanged, drawn, and quartered.

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

Second Reading: Saint Athanasius (295 - 373)

Athanasius was born in Alexandria. He assisted Bishop Alexander at the Council of Nicaea, and later succeeded him as bishop. He fought hard against Arianism all his life, undergoing many sufferings and spending a total of 17 years in exile. He wrote outstanding works to explain and defend orthodoxy.

The matters in dispute with the Arians were vital to the very nature of Christianity; and, as Cardinal Newman put it, the trouble was that at that time the laity tended to be champions of orthodoxy while their bishops (seduced by closeness to imperial power) tended not to be. The further trouble (adds Henry Chadwick) is that the whole thing became tangled up with matters of power, organization and authority, and with cultural differences between East and West. Athanasius was accused of treason and murder, embezzlement and sacrilege. In the fight against him, any weapon would do.

Arianism taught that the Son was created by the Father and in no way equal to him. This was in many ways a “purer” and more “spiritual” approach to religion, since it did not force God to undergo the undignified experience of being made of meat. Islam is essentially Arian. But Arianism leaves an infinite gap between God and man, and ultimately destroys the Gospel, leaving it either as a fake or as a cruel parody. Only by being orthodox and insisting on the identity of the divine natures of the Father and the Son and the Spirit can we truly understand the goodness of creation and the love of God, and live according to them. For this reason many extracts from the works of St Athanasius have been adopted as Second Readings in the Office of Readings.

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 12:4-6
There is a variety of gifts but always the same Spirit; there are all sorts of service to be done, but always to the same Lord; working in all sorts of different ways in different people, it is the same God who is working in all of them.

Noon reading (Sext)	1 Corinthians 12:12-13
Just as a human body, though it is made up of many parts, is a single unit because all these parts, though many, make one body, so it is with Christ. In the one Spirit we were all baptised, Jews as well as Greeks, slaves as well as citizens, and one Spirit was given to us all to drink.

Afternoon reading (None)	1 Corinthians 12:24,25-26
God has arranged the body and that there may not be disagreements inside the body, but that each part may be equally concerned for all the others. If one part is hurt, all parts are hurt with it. If one part is given special honour, all parts enjoy it.