Tuesday, August 22, 2017
The Octave of the Assumption (The Immaculate Heart of Mary); Comm. of Saints Timothy, Hippolytus, and Symphorian, Martyrs
White Double of the Second Class He alone who could understand Mary’s holiness could appreciate her glory. But Wisdom, who presided over the formation of the abyss, has not revealed to us the depth of that ocean, beside which all the virtues of the just and all the graces lavished upon them are but streamlets. […]
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Monday, August 21, 2017
St. Jane Frances Frémiot de Chantal, Widow
White Double Although Mary’s glory is within her, beauty appears also in the garment wherewith she is clad: a mysterious robe woven of the virtues of the Saints, who owe to her both their justice and their reward. As every grace comes to us through our Mother, so all the glory of heaven converges towards […]
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Sunday, August 20, 2017
The Eleventh Sunday After Pentecost
Green Semidouble With the Greeks, this Sunday—their eleventh of Saint Matthew—is called The Kings Parable, who calls his servants to account. In the Western Church, it has gone under the name of Sunday of the deaf and dumb, ever since the Gospel of the Pharisee and Publican has been assigned to the tenth. Today’s Mass, […]
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Saint Bernard, Abbot and Doctor of the Church
White Double The valley of wormwood has lost its bitterness; having become Clairvaux, or the bright valley, its light shines over the world; from every point of the horizon vigilant bees are attracted to it by the honey from the rock which abounds in its solitude. Mary turns her glance upon its wild hills, and […]
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Saturday, August 19, 2017
Saint Jean Eudes, Confessor
White Double Saint Jean Eudes, forerunner of devotion both to the Sacred Heart and the Immaculate Heart of Mary, was born in 1601, some time after France had been torn apart by the revolt of the Huguenots. The rebels were calmed but relegated to western France by King Henry IV, after he himself returned to […]
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Fifth Day Within the Octave of the Assumption
“It is a great thing for a saint to have as much grace as would suffice for many; but if he had sufficient for all men in the world, that would be fullness of measure: and this is the case with Jesus Christ and the Blessed Virgin.” So speaks the prince of theologians with regard […]
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Friday, August 18, 2017
Fourth Day Within the Octave of the Assumption
White Semidouble In the eternal decrees Mary was never separated from Jesus; together with him, she was the type of all created beauty. When the Almighty Father prepared the heavens and the earth, his Son, who is his Wisdom, played before him in his future humanity as the first exemplar, as measure and number, as […]
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Thursday, August 17, 2017
Saint Hyacinth, Confessor
White Double One of the loveliest lilies from the Dominican field today unfurls its petals at the foot of Mary’s throne. Hyacinth represents on the sacred cycle that intrepid band of missionaries who, in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, faced the barbarism of the Tartars and Mussulmans which was threatening the West. From the Alps […]
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Octave of Saint Laurence
Red At Christmas Stephen watched beside the crib, where the Infant God attracted our hearts; Laurence today escorts the Queen whose beauty outshines the heavens. It was fitting that a deacon should be present at both triumphs of love, shown at Bethlehem in the weakness of the Babe, and in heaven in the glory […]
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Wednesday, August 16, 2017
Within the Octave of the Assumption; Saint Joachim, Confessor, Father of the Blessed Virgin Mary
White Double of the Second Class From time immemorial the Greeks have celebrated the feast of St. Joachim on the day following our Lady’s birthday. The Maronites kept it on the day after the Presentation in November, and the Armenians on the Tuesday after the Octave of the Assumption of the Mother of God. The […]
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