Year of Saint Joseph
Other saints: Blessed Cyprian Michael Iwene Tansi, Cistercian monk (1903-1964); Pope Saint Fabian (-250); Saint Sebastian, early Christian martyr (c. 300)
Week of Prayer for Christian Unity: "Abide in my love and you shall bear much fruit."
Readings of the Day
RB: Ch 4:44-62
Mass: Heb 7:1-3, 15-17; Resp Ps 110; Mk 3:1-6
Yours is princely power in the day of your birth, in holy splendor.
I AM THE TRUE VINE AND YOU ARE THE BRANCHES, SAYS THE LOD.
WHOEVER REMAINS IN ME, AND I IN HIM, BEARS FRUIT IN PLENTY.
(Communion Antiphon, Mass)
During this week of Prayer for Christian Unity, and in today's Wednesday General Audience catechesis, the Holy Father urged the faithful to sow unity in our homes and workplaces with the tools God has given us, namely, "prayer and love". Some practical tools of prayer and love are listed in Saint Benedict's tool for good works. In fact, many are. You read some yesterday, here are some for today:
- Listen readily to holy reading.
- Devote yourself often to prayer.
- Guard your lips from harmful or deceptive speech.
- Prefer moderation in speech.
- Speak no foolish chatter, nothing just to provoke laughter.
- Do not love immoderate or boisterous laughter.
- Do not aspire to be called holy before you really are, but first be holy that you may more truly be called so.
BLESSED CYPRIAN MICHAEL IWENE TANSI,
POPE SAINT FABIAN,
SAINT SEBASTIAN,
SAINT JOSEPH,
PRAY FOR US.
NB. There is an interesting entry in Butler's Lives of the Saints for one of our saints for today, Cistercian Cyprian Michael Iwene Tansi. Michael was Nigerian by birth and his parents, "who practiced the traditional religion of the Ibo people, named him Iwene, short for Iwegbuna, meaning 'Sorrow will not kill you.'" Iwena was baptized in 1912 and given the name Michael. Ordained in 1937, Michael "was one of the first ten Nigerians to be ordained priests" (January, p. 143). Father Michael was a teacher and one of his students is now Cardinal Francis Arinze.
© Gertrude Feick 2021
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