Let us adore the Lord, for it is he who made us.
Year: C(I). Psalm week: 3. Liturgical Colour: Green.
Other saints: Bl Archangela Girlani (1460-1495)
29 Jan (where celebrated)
Blessed Archangela Girlani was born Eleanor Girlani in 1460 at Trino, in northern Italy, to a noble family. At age seventeen, she, along with her two sisters, Maria and Frances, took the Carmelite habit in the monastery at Parma. Eleanor took the religious name Archangela. She later become prioress of the monastery at Parma, and then prioress at a new foundation at Mantua in 1492. She died at Mantua in January 1495 in her third year as prioress there. Apart from her role of service to the monasteries in which she was prioress, Archangela’s Carmelite life is remembered as one permeated by strivings in the mystical life of prayer. Her frequent prayer was “Jesus, my Love.”
Other saints: Bl. Villana de' Botti OP (1332 - 1361)
29 Jan (where celebrated)
Lay Dominican and Wife.
Blessed Villana, the daughter of a rich merchant, was born at Florence in 1332. She married the wealthy Pietro Benitendo and together with her husband lived a worldly life which their wealth sustained. Realizing the emptiness of her life, Villana went to the friars of Santa Maria Novella to confess her sins and ask for the habit of the sisters of Penance of St. Dominic. She took up the study of scripture and the contemplation of Christ crucified and drew other women to follow her example. She died on January 29, 1361.
About the author of the Second Reading in today's Office of Readings:
Second Reading: St Bernard of Clairvaux (1090 - 1153)
Bernard was born near Dijon, in France, in 1090, of a noble family. In 1112 he joined the new monastery at Cîteaux. This had been founded fourteen years before, in a bid to reject the laxity and riches of much of the Benedictine Order of the time (as exemplified by the great monasteries such as Cluny) and to return to a primitive poverty and austerity of life.
Bernard arrived at Cîteaux with four of his five brothers and two dozen friends. Within three years he had been sent out to found a new monastery at Clairvaux, in Champagne, where he remained abbot for the rest of his life. By the time of his death, the Cistercian Order (“the Order of Cîteaux”) had grown from one house to 343, of which 68 were daughter houses of Clairvaux itself.
Bernard was a man of great holiness and wisdom, and although he was often in very poor health, he was active in many of the great public debates of the time. He strongly opposed the luxurious lives of some of the clergy, and fought against the persecution of the Jews. He was also a prolific writer, and the Liturgy of the Hours uses extracts from many of his sermons.
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).