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Portsmouth Ordo, 26th Week in Ordinary Time
Sunday, September 26: Twenty-Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time
Monday, September 27: Vincent de Paul, priest
Tuesday, September 28: Feria
Wednesday, September 29: Michael and All Angels
Thursday, September 30: Jerome, priest and doctor
Friday, October 1: Therese of the Child Jesus, virgin and doctor
Saturday, October 2: Holy Guardian Angels
Therese of Lisieux famously said that she hoped to spend her heaven doing good on earth. It is then appropriate to find her feast day (Friday, October 1) surrounded by those of the heavenly host. For on Wednesday (September 29) we celebrate the great defender Michael, whose feast has been modified over the centuries and expanded to incorporate all angels. And on Saturday (October 3) we turn more specifically to our guardian angels. These angelic helpers join Therese and two other saints this week, Vincent de Paul (September 27), known for his service to the poor and his strengthening of clerical training, and Jerome (September 30), the great biblical doctor. We may trust that all of these inhabitants of heaven share the inspiration and ambition of Therese, and rejoice to realize they all continue, and help us to continue “doing good on earth.”
Feastday: September 4
St. Cuthbert makes special appeal today as a keenly observant man, interested in the ways of birds and beasts; in his own time he was famed as a worker of miracles in God’s name, on one occasion healing a woman’s dying baby with a kiss. The ample sources for his life and character show a man of extraordinary charm and practical ability, who attracted people deeply by the beauty of holiness; it is not for nothing that Bede so often refers to him as ‘the child of God.’ (Donald Atwater)
(Saint Cuthbert shrine at Durham pictured)
Feastday: September 5
'Her mission to the urban and existential peripheries remains for us today an eloquent witness to God’s closeness to the poorest of the poor. Today, I pass on this emblematic figure of womanhood and of consecrated life to the whole world of volunteers: may she be your model of holiness! I think, perhaps, we may have some difficult in calling her “Saint Teresa”: her holiness is so near to us, so tender and so fruitful that we continual to spontaneously call her “Mother Teresa”. May this tireless worker of mercy help us increasingly to understand that our only criterion for action is gratuitous love, free from every ideology and all obligations, offered freely to everyone without distinction of language, culture, race or religion. Mother Teresa loved to say, “Perhaps I don’t speak their language, but I can smile”. Let us carry her smile in our hearts and give it to those whom we meet along our journey, especially those who suffer. In this way, we will open up opportunities of joy and hope for our many brothers and sisters who are discouraged and who stand in need of understanding and tenderness.' (Pope Francis, homily at Mass of canonization, September 4, 2016)
Feast Day: September 9th
A native of Spain, the young Jesuit Peter Claver left his homeland forever in 1610, arriving in the New World at Cartagena, in the Caribbean. Ordained there in 1615, Claver declared himself “the slave of the Negroes forever.” During the forty years of his ministry, Claver instructed and baptized an estimated 300,000 slaves. (see franciscanmedia.org). Peter Claver has inspired the Knights of Peter Claver, the largest African-American lay organization in the United States, whose mission is “to render service to God and His Holy Church, render aid and assistance to the sick and disabled, and promote social and intellectual association among our members.” (see kofpc.org)
Feast Day: September 13th
John, the great preacher – his name means “golden-mouthed” – was brought to Constantinople from Antioch after a dozen years of priestly service in Syria, being made bishop in 398. Ascetic, unimposing but dignified, and troubled by stomach ailments from his desert days as a monk, John became a bishop under the cloud of imperial politics. If his body was weak, his tongue was powerful. The content of his sermons, his exegesis of Scripture, were never without a point. Sometimes the point stung the high and mighty. Some sermons lasted up to two hours.
(source: franciscanmedia.org)
Feast Day: September 14th
The feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross celebrates two historical events: the discovery of the True Cross by Saint Helena in 320 under the temple of Venus in Jerusalem, and the dedication in 335 of the basilica and shrine. However the feast, more than anything else, is a celebration of God's greatest work: his salvific death on the Cross and His Resurrection
(source: catholicnews agency.com).
Feast Day: September 16
These third century popes presided over a church divided and under persecution. Cornelius sought to end a schism rooted in competing visions of mercy and whether the Church could receive back those who had apostatized in the face of martyrdom. Cyprian similarly steered a middle course between those who refused to accept the lapsed and those diminishing the need for penance. Both ended up martyred under the persecutions.
Feast Day: September 17
This medieval Benedictine mystic was proclaimed a Doctor of the Church by Benedict XVI in 2012: “This great woman truly stands out crystal clear against the horizon of history for her holiness of life and the originality of her teaching… Hildegard asks herself and us the fundamental question, whether it is possible to know God: This is theology’s principal task. Her answer is completely positive: through faith, as through a door, the human person is able to approach this knowledge."
Feast Day: September 20
These martyrs include the first Korean priest, Andrew Kim, as well as Chong Ha Sang, one of the lay leaders of the persecuted 19th century Korean church. Canonizing the group, which includes French missionary priests, in 1984 at a great open-air Mass in Seoul, Pope St. John Paul II quotes them in his homily: “Listen to the last words of Teresa Kwon…: ‘Since the Lord of Heaven is the Father of all mankind and the Lord of all creation, how can you ask me to betray him? Even in this world anyone who betrays his own father or mother will not be forgiven. All the more may I never betray him who is the Father of us all.’ A generation later, Peter Yu’s father Augustine firmly declares: ‘Once having known God, I cannot possibly betray him.’”
Feast Day: September 21
This apostle is commonly known as a self-acknowledged example of Christ’s teaching: “Go and learn the meaning of the words, ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ I did not come to call the righteous but sinners” (Matthew 9:13).
Feast Day: September 23
The Capuchin friar Pio of Pietrelcina died in 1968, and was canonized in 2002 by John Paul II. Paul VI draws us to his simple witness: “Look what fame he had, what a worldwide following gathered around him! But why? Perhaps because he was a philosopher? Because he was wise? Because he had resources at his disposal? Because he said Mass humbly, heard confessions from dawn to dusk and was – it is not easy to say it – one who bore the wounds of our Lord. He was a man of prayer and suffering.” (20 Feb 1971)
Feast Day: September 25
We honor Ceolfrid, a Benedictine abbot today. The Venerable Bede writes in his Lives of the Holy Abbots of this 7th century Northumbrian abbot: “He was a man well skilled in the knowledge of Holy Scripture of most excellent manners, of wonderful continence, and one in whom the virtues of the mind were in no small degree depressed by bodily infirmity, and the innocency of whose heart was tempered with a baneful and incurable affection of the lungs.”
Feast Day: September 26
Cosmos and Damian, whose names are familiar to us from the Canon of the Mass, were twin brothers who suffered martyrdom together with three of their brothers, in the Diocletian persecution of the third century.
Feast Day: September 27
Vincent de Paul (1581-1660), whose name is well-known from the eponymous charitable society, himself established confraternities for the relief of the poor and sick in each parish. This learned and revered saint remained focused on simplicity, and is known for his direct teachings: “Humility is nothing but truth, pride is nothing but lying,” and, “Go to the poor, and you will find God.” The name “Vincentian” now encompasses both an order of priests, brothers and sisters, as well as one of the largest Catholic lay organizations in the world, with over 190,000 members.
Feast Day: September 30
Pope Benedict XVI tells us: “What can we learn from St Jerome? …this above all: to love the Word of God in Sacred Scripture. St Jerome said: ‘Ignorance of the Scriptures is ignorance of Christ’. It is therefore important that every Christian live in contact and in personal dialogue with the Word of God given to us in Sacred Scripture.” (November 11, 2007)