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Wednesday of the 5th week of Eastertide 
 or Saint Peter Chanel, Priest, Martyr 
 or Saint Louis Marie Grignion de Montfort, Priest 

Using calendar: Slovenia. You can change this.

The Lord has truly risen, alleluia.

Year: C(I). Psalm week: 1. Liturgical Colour: White.

St Peter Chanel (1803 - 1841)

He was born in France, at Cuet (near Belley), in 1803. He had been a priest for three years when he was accepted by the Marists, a missionary order. He was sent out to evangelize the island of Futuna in the Pacific, where cannibalism had only recently been banned by the local ruler, Niuliki. At first all went well, and Father Chanel and his lay assistants made many converts; but as he learned the local language and gained the confidence of the people, Niuliki became jealous and fearful; and the baptism of his son and his son’s friends was the last straw. While Father Chanel’s companions were away, Niuliki sent men who set upon him and clubbed him to death. His mission had lasted only three years: he is the first martyr of the South Seas. See the article in Wikipedia.

St Louis Mary Grignion de Montfort (1673 - 1716)

He was born to a poor family in 1673, at Montfort-La-Cane in Brittany, and was ordained at the age of 27. He had a deep devotion to the Blessed Virgin, and wrote a book, The Secret of the Rosary, which is the first work to describe the method by which the Rosary is prayed today. He founded the Company of Mary, a missionary band of men, and the Congregation of the Daughters of Divine Wisdom, a religious institute of women devoted to the poor. See the articles in the Catholic Encyclopaedia and Wikipedia.

Other saints: Blessed María Guggiari Echeverría (1925-1959)

28 Apr (where celebrated)
She was born in 1925 in the Guairá province of Paraguay, the first of seven children. She was baptized on 28 February 1929
  In 1941 she became a member of the Catholic Action movement – despite her parents’ opposition to it – and she dedicated herself to the movement and the care of the poor and the suffering, while also serving as a catechist for children. It was during her time with Catholic Action that she met and fell in love with the medical student Saua Angel and she began to wonder if God wanted her to marry, like the parents of Thérèse of Lisieux, who made vows to remain chaste in the married life. She waited for the Lord’s will to manifest itself. In May 1951 Angel told her that he felt called to the priesthood. She decided to offer whatever assistance he needed, and helped him to hide his plans from his father, who was a Muslim.
  In April 1952 she bade farewell to Angel, who departed for Madrid for further studies and to continue to discern his vocation. In November he took the decision to study for the priesthood, and this prompted Maria to discern her own call to the religious life. Her parents were strongly opposed, but she entered the Discalced Carmelite Order on 2 February 1955 and received the habit six months later. She took her initial vows on 15 August 1956 along with her new religious name. During her life as a religious she wrote around 48 letters to Angel, now Father Angel.
  On 7 January 1959 she became ill with infectious hepatitis and was forced to move into a sanatorium to recover. On 28 April 1959, as she was dying, propped on cushions and surrounded by her siblings and parents, she sat up and spoke her final words at 4:10 am: “Jesus, I love you! What a sweet encounter! O Virgin Mary!” She had asked the prioress to read a poem of Teresa of Ávila before she died.
  She was beatified on 23 June 2018.

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

Second Reading: The Letter to Diognetus

A 13th-century manuscript of the Letter from the Disciple to Diognetus was discovered in Constantinople in 1436, where it was being used as wrapping-paper in a fishmonger’s shop. It found its way to the abbey of Munster, and the first edition of it was published in 1592. The suppression of religious communities by the French Revolution in 1793 led to it being deposited in the municipal library at Strasbourg, where it was destroyed in 1870 by a fire started by German artillery. Two copies of the manuscript survive which were made in the 16th century.
  The Letter to Diognetus is a Christian apologetic work dating from the 2nd century, probably from late in that century. It was initially attributed to Justin Martyr but is now agreed to be by an unknown author. Whoever it was by, the letter seems to have passed out of general knowledge very early, since none of the standard authorities such as Eusebius mention it. The identity of the recipient is equally unknown. It is valuable as showing the nature of Christian belief in those very early days, and it is different from other Christian apologies in that it seems not to be a spontaneous work of explanation or justification, but a detailed response to a detailed series of questions.

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.

Mid-morning reading (Terce)(Romans 4:24-25) ©
We believe in him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead, Jesus who was put to death for our sins and raised to life to justify us.

Noon reading (Sext)1 John 5:5-6 ©
Who can overcome the world? Only the man who believes that Jesus is the Son of God. Jesus Christ came by water and blood: not with water only, but with water and blood.

Afternoon reading (None)(Ephesians 4:23-24) ©
Let your spirits be renewed so that you can put on the new self that has been created in God’s way, in the goodness and holiness of the truth.

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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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