Cry out with joy to God, all the earth: serve the Lord with gladness.
Year: B(II). Psalm week: 4. Liturgical Colour: Green.
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.
Other saints: Saint Stanisław Kostka (1550-1568)
Belarus, Poland: 18 Sep
Slovenia: 13 Nov
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.
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: 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 10:24,31 |
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Nobody should be looking for his own advantage, but everybody for the other man’s. Whatever you eat, whatever you drink, whatever you do at all, do it for the glory of God.
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| Noon reading (Sext) | Colossians 3:17 |
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Never say or do anything except in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.
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| Afternoon reading (None) | Colossians 3:23-24 |
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Whatever your work is, put your heart into it as if it were for the Lord and not for men, knowing that the Lord will repay you by making you his heirs. It is Christ the Lord that you are serving.
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