SAINT OF THE DAY

Thursday of week 29 in Ordinary Time 
 or Saint Paul of the Cross, Priest 


About Today

Year: C(II). Psalm week: 1. Liturgical Colour: Green.

St Paul of the Cross (1694 - 1775)

He was born at Ovada in Liguria. As a young man he helped his father, who was a merchant. He aspired to a perfect life, abandoned all his possessions and started to live in the service of the poor and sick. He gathered companions to help him in the task.
    He became a priest and worked more and more for the salvation of souls. He set up houses for his congregation and devoted himself to apostolic labours. He inflicted harsh penances on himself. He died at Rome on 18 October 1775.
   


Blessed Daudi Okelo (1902 - 1918) and Jildo Irwa (1906 - 1918)


Southern Africa

These two catechists died for their faith on 20 October 1918 at Paimol in Northern Uganda. They were still very young – Daudi was 16, while Jildo was only 12 – and yet they were eager to share their faith with others. The missionaries sent them to Paimol in order to look after the catechumens and to spread the Gospel. In spite of the persecutions of Christians they remained there until, one day, they were dragged outside their hut and killed for the sole reason of teaching the Christian faith.


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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).


Liturgical colour: white

White is the colour of heaven. Liturgically, it is used to celebrate feasts of the Lord; Christmas and Easter, the great seasons of the Lord; and the saints. Not that you will always see white in church, because if something more splendid, such as gold, is available, that can and should be used instead. We are, after all, celebrating.
    In the earliest centuries all vestments were white – the white of baptismal purity and of the robes worn by the armies of the redeemed in the Apocalypse, washed white in the blood of the Lamb. As the Church grew secure enough to be able to plan her liturgy, she began to use colour so that our sense of sight could deepen our experience of the mysteries of salvation, just as incense recruits our sense of smell and music that of hearing. Over the centuries various schemes of colour for feasts and seasons were worked out, and it is only as late as the 19th century that they were harmonized into their present form.