Year: B(II). Psalm week: 2. Liturgical Colour: Green.
Other saints: Blessed Bernard Francis de Hoyos (1711-1735)
29 Nov (where celebrated)
Bernard Francis de Hoyos (1711-1735) was born in Torrelobatón, Spain. He entered the Jesuit novitiate at Villagarcia in 1726 and, just three months later, had his first mystical experience. Then, in early May 1733, during his theology studies, he received his decisive mission from Christ: “I wish for you to spread the devotion to my Sacred Heart throughout all of Spain.” Days later he obtained the “Great Promise”: “I will reign in Spain with more veneration than in other places.” Through his efforts, devotion to the Sacred Heart became popular throughout Spain. He is acclaimed as the first apostle of the Sacred Heart in Spain.
Other saints: Bls Denis and Redemptus (d. 1638)
29 Nov (where celebrated)
Pierre Berthelot was born in Honfleur, France, in 1600. He was a cartographer and naval commander for the kings of Portugal and France before he joined the Discalced Carmelites in Goa in 1635. Entering religious life, Pierre took the name Denis of the Nativity and was ordained a priest.
ÂÂ ÂÂ It was also at Goa that the Portuguese lay brother, Thomas Rodriguez da Cunha, born in 1598, had made his profession in 1615, taking the name Redemptus of the Cross. Both Denis and Redemptus were sent to the island of Sumatra, where, in the town of Achén, they were imprisoned and executed because of their faith, dying as martyrs on the 29th November 1638.
About the author of the Second Reading in today's Office of Readings:
Second Reading: St Cyprian (210 - 258)
Cyprian was born in Carthage and spent most of his life in the practice of the law. He was converted to Christianity, and was made bishop of Carthage in 249. He steered the church through troubled times, including the persecution of the emperor Decius, when he went into hiding so as to be able to continue looking after the church. In 258 the persecution of the emperor Valerian began. Cyprian was first exiled and then, on the 14th of September, executed, after a trial notable for the calm and courtesy shown by both sides.
ÂÂ ÂÂ Cyprian’s many letters and treatises shed much light on a formative period in the Church’s history, and are valuable both for their doctrine and for the picture they paint of a group of people in constant peril of their lives but still determined to keep the faith.
Liturgical colour: green
The theological virtue of hope is symbolized by the colour green, just as the burning fire of love is symbolized by red. Green is the colour of growing things, and hope, like them, is always new and always fresh. Liturgically, green is the colour of Ordinary Time, the orderly sequence of weeks through the year, a season in which we are being neither single-mindedly penitent (in purple) nor overwhelmingly joyful (in white).
| Mid-morning reading |
Deuteronomy 1:31 |
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The Lord carried you, as a man carries his child, all along the road you travelled.
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| Noon reading |
Baruch 4:28-29 |
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As by your will you first strayed away from God, so now turn back and search for him ten times as hard; for as he brought down those disasters on you, so will he rescue you and give you eternal joy.
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| Afternoon reading |
Wisdom 1:13-15 |
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Death was not God’s doing, he takes no pleasure in the extinction of the living. To be – for this he created all; the world’s created things have health in them, in them no fatal poison can be found, and Hades holds no power on earth; for virtue is undying.
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