Friday of the Twenty-Fourth Week in Ordinary Time

Year of Saint Joseph

Year of the Family "Amoris Laetitia The Joy of Love"

Saints: Saint Hildegard of Bingen, Virgin, Doctor (1098-1179); Saint Robert Bellarmine, Bishop, Doctor (1542-1621); Saint Albert of Jerusalem (c.1150-1214)

Readings of the Day

RB: Ch 3:7-13 Summoning the Brothers for Counsel

Mass: 1 Tim 6:2c-12; Resp Ps 49; Lk 8:1-3

Blessed are the poor in spirit.

Today we commemorate two great Doctors of the Church. First, we have Saint Hildegard of Bingen, the most recent addition to the small and illustrious group of other women Doctors, Saint Teresa of Avila, Saint Catherine of Siena, and Saint Therese of Lisieux. Second, we have Saint Robert Bellarmine, a 16th-17th Italian Jesuit who wrote, among other things, "two catechisms and some devotional commentaries on the Psalms and on the Seven Last Words." An excerpt from his treatise On the Ascent of the Mind to God is included in today's Office of Readings. May these two great saints, along with another great, Saint Albert of Jerusalem, intercede for us and help us, as they certainly did, listen to and live out the words Saint Paul wrote to Timothy: "Pursue righteousness, devotion, faith, love, patience, and gentleness" (1 Tim 6:11).

Here is something from Saint Hildegard of Bingen, from her Scivias, Vision Thirteen, Symphony of the Blessed, 1, Songs to Holy Mary:

    O splendid jewel, serenely infused with the Sun!

The Sun is in you as a fount from the heart of the Father;

It is His sole Word, by Whom He created the world,

The primary matter, which Eve threw into disorder.

He formed the Word in you as a human being,

And therefore you are the jewel that shines most brightly,

Through whom the Word breathed out the whole of the virtues,

As once from primary matter He made all creatures.

    O sweet green branch that flowers from the stem of Jesse!

O glorious thing, that God on His fairest daughter

Looked as the eagle looks on the face of the sun!

The Most High Father sought for a Virgin's candor,

And willed that His Word should take in her His body.

    For the Virgin's mind was by His mystery illumined,

And from her virginity sprang the glorious Flower.

And from Saint Robert Bellarmine:

The school of Christ is the school of charity. In the last day, when the general examination takes place, there will be no question at all on the text of Aristotle, the aphorisms of Hippocrates, or the Paragraphs of Justinian. Charity will be the whole syllabus.

SAINT HILDEGARD OF BINGEN,

SAINT ROBERT BELLARMINE,

SAINT ALBERT OF JERUSALEM,

SAINT JOSEPH,

PRAY FOR US.

Today's photo: I took this some time ago. It is here for you for the first time and fitting for the Responsorial Psalm. Good things come in small packages. 

© Gertrude Feick 2021