Friday, November 30, 2018
Saint Andrew, Apostle
Red Double of the Second Class This feast is destined each year to terminate with solemnity the cycle which is at its close, or to add luster to the new one which has just begun. It seems, indeed, fitting that the Christian year should begin and end with the cross, which has merited for us […]
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Thursday, November 29, 2018
Vigil of Saint Andrew; Saint Saturninus, Martyr
Violet Simple Christmas begins to glimmer on the horizon. The last Sunday after Pentecost has given us the closing instructions of the moveable Cycle. Beginning with the twenty-seventh of this month, the present days belong in some years to the new Cycle, in others to the one which is ending. The last Lesson from the […]
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Monday, November 26, 2018
Saint Sylvester, Abbot
White Double God often brings the world to those who flee from it, as Sylvester Gozzolini among others experienced. In the thirteenth century, the world, all in admiration at the sanctity and the eloquence of the new Orders, seemed to have forgotten the monks and the desert. God, who never forgets, led his elect silently […]
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Sunday, November 25, 2018
Twenty-Seventh and Last Sunday After Pentecost
Green Semidouble The number of the Sundays after Pentecost may exceed twenty-four, and go up as far as twenty-eight, according as Easter is each Year, more or less near to the vernal equinox. But the Mass here given is always reserved for the last; and the intervening ones, be their number what it may, are […]
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Saint Catharine, Virgin and Martyr
Red Double Gertrude the Great, from her very infancy, felt a special attraction towards the glorious virgin Catharine. As she was desirous of knowing how great were her merits, Our Lord showed her St. Catharine seated on a throne so lofty and so magnificent, that it seemed her glory was sufficient to have filled the […]
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Saturday, November 24, 2018
Saint John of the Cross, Confessor
White Double Let us go with the Church to Mount Carmel, and offer our grateful homage to John of the Cross, who, following in the footsteps of Teresa of Jesus, opened a safe way to souls seeking God. The growing disinclination of the people for social prayer was threatening the irreparable destruction of piety, when […]
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Friday, November 23, 2018
Saint Clement I, Pope and Martyr
Red Double The memory of St. Clement has been surrounded with a peculiar glory from the very beginning of the Roman Church. After the death of the Apostles, he seems to eclipse Linus and Cletus, although these preceded him in the Pontificate. We pass as it were naturally from Peter to Clement; and the East […]
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Thursday, November 22, 2018
Saint Cæcilia, Virgin and Martyr
Red Double Cæcilia united in her veins the blood of kings with that of Rome’s greatest heroes. At the time of the first preaching of the Gospel, more than one ancient patrician family had seen its direct line become extinct. But the adoptions and alliances, which under the Republic had knit more closely the great […]
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Wednesday, November 21, 2018
The Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary
White Greater Double The Presentation is one of the minor solemnities of our Lady, and was inscribed at a comparatively late date on the sacred Cycle; it seems to court the homage of our silent contemplation. The world, unknown to itself, is ruled by the secret prayers of the just; and the Queen of saints, […]
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Tuesday, November 20, 2018
Saint Felix of Valois, Confessor
White Double Felix was called in his youth to dwell in the desert; and he thought to die there, forgotten by the world he had despised. But our Lord had decreed that his old age should yield fruit before men. It was one of those epochs which may be called turning points in history. The […]
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