SPIRITUALITY
About Today
Let us adore the Lord, for it is he who made us.
Year: C(I). Psalm week: 1. Liturgical Colour: Green.
Other saints: Saint Edmund (d.869)
East Anglia, Hallam, Hexham & Newcastle
He was king of the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of East Anglia, covering modern Suffolk, Norfolk, and part of Lincolnshire. Very little documentary evidence for the details of his life exists, but it is known that Edmund was captured and killed by the Danish Great Heathen Army, which invaded England in 869, and the tradition is that he died the death of a Christian martyr.
Edmund’s body was buried in a wooden chapel near to where he was killed, but was later transferred to Beadoriceworth, where in 925 Athelstan founded a community devoted to the new cult. Thirty years after Edmund’s death, he was venerated by the Vikings of East Anglia, who produced a coinage to commemorate him.
In the 11th century a stone church was built at Bury, and Edmund’s remains were translated to it. The shrine at Bury St Edmunds became one of the greatest pilgrimage locations in England and the town retains St Edmund’s name to this day.
About the author of the Second Reading in today's Office of Readings:
Second Reading: St Augustine of Hippo (354 - 430)
Augustine was born in Thagaste in Africa of a Berber family. He was brought up a Christian but left the Church early and spent a great deal of time seriously seeking the truth, first in the Manichaean heresy, which he abandoned on seeing how nonsensical it was, and then in Neoplatonism, until at length, through the prayers of his mother and the teaching of St Ambrose of Milan, he was converted back to Christianity and baptized in 387, shortly before his mother’s death.
Augustine had a brilliant legal and academic career, but after his conversion he returned home to Africa and led an ascetic life. He was elected Bishop of Hippo and spent 34 years looking after his flock, teaching them, strengthening them in the faith and protecting them strenuously against the errors of the time. He wrote an enormous amount and left a permanent mark on both philosophy and theology. His Confessions, as dazzling in style as they are deep in content, are a landmark of world literature. The Second Readings in the Office of Readings contain extracts from many of his sermons and commentaries and also from the Confessions.
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 season in which we are being neither especially penitent (in purple) nor overwhelmingly joyful (in white).
| Mid-morning reading (Terce) | 1 Peter 1:13-14 © |
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Free your minds, then, of encumbrances; control them, and put your trust in nothing but the grace that will be given you when Jesus Christ is revealed. Do not behave in the way that you liked to before you learnt the truth, but make a habit of obedience.
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| Noon reading (Sext) | 1 Peter 1:15-16 © |
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Be holy in all you do, since it is the Holy One who has called you, and scripture says: Be holy, for I am holy.
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| Afternoon reading (None) | James 4:7-8,10 © |
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Give in to God: resist the devil, and he will run away from you. The nearer you go to God, the nearer he will come to you. Humble yourselves before the Lord and he will lift you up.
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Office of Readings for Wednesday of week 33
Morning Prayer for Wednesday of week 33
Evening Prayer for Wednesday of week 33
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Copyright © 1996-2015 Universalis Publishing Limited: see www.universalis.com. Scripture readings from the Jerusalem Bible are published and copyright © 1966, 1967 and 1968 by Darton, Longman & Todd, Ltd and Doubleday, a division of Random House, Inc, and used by permission of the publishers.