July

21 Mon             Weekday of Ordinary Time

22 Tue               ST MARY MAGDALENE, Memorial

Mary of Magdala was one of those great women who helped Jesus in his ministry.  Saint John names her as one of the three women who stood by the Cross. Today’s gospel tells us of the meeting between the Risen Lord and Mary Magdalene.  She has been called the ‘apostle of the apostles’, since she was the first to tell them that Jesus had risen from the dead.  She is a witness to the resurrection and a herald of Easter joy.  For all of us she represents the power of ardent, persevering love.

23 Wed             ST BRIGID OF SWEDEN, Religious, Patron of Europe, Feast

Bridget (or Birgitta) is Patron Saint of Sweden.  She was declared a Patron of Europe in 2,000.  She was born in 1304.  When only a child she had a deep spiritual experience, and from that moment her life was entirely devoted to God’s service.  The Passion of Christ was the centre of her devotion.  She married a Swedish prince and became the mother of eight children.  On the death of her husband she founded a convent at Wadstena, and this was the beginning of a new order of nuns – the Bridgettines.  A woman of great courage and energy, a great lover of the Church, she did not fear to reprove kings, princes and even ecclesiastics who neglected their duties.  She died at Rome in 1373.

24 Thu               Weekday of Ordinary Time

25 Fri                ST JAMES, Apostle, Feast

Like his brother John he was a fisherman when called by the Lord to become a ‘fisher of people’.  With John and Peter he was on terms of special intimacy with the Master.  These three are mentioned as privileged witnesses of the Transfiguration on Mount Tabor as well as of the agony in Gethsemani.  James was put to death by Herod Agrippa about the year 44, bring the first of the apostles to die for Christ.

26 Sat    SS JOACHIM & ANNE, Parents of Mary, Memorial

‘Praised be Joachim and Anne for the child they bore.  The Lord gave them the blessings of all nations.’ (Antiphon from the liturgy)  Today we celebrate the family tree of Jesus.  We look back at that long line of ancestors who preceded the birth of the Messiah.  Joachim and Anne were at the end of a long line.  With Mary we sing the praises of our ancestors, remembering the mercy shown to our forbears, to Abraham and his children for ever.

27 SUN  17TH SUNDAY OF THE YEAR (A)

Jesus invites us to discover the wisdom of knowing what is really important:  more important even that everything we posess, wisdom that turns all things to our own benefit through God’s love.

28 Mon             Weekday of Ordinary Time

29 Tue               SS MARTHA, MARY & LAZARUS, Memorial

Jesus raises Lazarus to life.  Martha serves.  Mary listens.  All three point to important dimensions of our own life in Christ. 

30 Wed             Weekday of Ordinary Time

31 Thu               ST IGNATIUS LOYOLA, Priest, Memorial     

Born at Loyola, Spain, in 1591, Ignatius chose a military career and distinguished himself by his valour and power of leadership.  He was seriously injured in battle and, during his long period of convalescence he began to think deeply about the Christian faith.  He decided to abandon his military career and become a soldier of Christ.   He was ordained priest and founded a new religious order, that of the Society of Jesus.  It was his intention that Jesuit priests and brothers should be ready to go anywhere in the world and undertake any kind of work for the benefit of the Church and the spread of the Gospel.  He died in 1556.

August

1 Fri      ST ALPHONSUS LIGUORI, Bishop, Doctor, Memorial

Born in 1696 near Naples.  He practised for a while as a lawyer but abandoned that profession to serve God as a priest.  He was ordained in 1726.  St Alphonsus is the founder of the Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer – whose members are known as Redemptorists.  The preaching of missions and retreats was and continues to be one of the chief works of this Order.  St Alphonsus himself was a great popular preacher:  he could be understood by all and he touched the hearts of all.  Ordained a bishop in 1762, for thirteen years he gave himself wholeheartedly to the welfare of his small diocese.  A great moral theologian, who wrote many books on that subject, he always emphasised the primacy of love in the Christian life.

2 Sat      Saturday Memorial of the Blessed Virgin Mary

3 SUN   18TH SUNDAY OF THE YEAR (A)

Today’s readings point to Jesus as the one who provides true nourishment of the human heart.  We often set our hearts on what fails to satisfy.  He freely offers us a deeper, more satisfying source of fulfilment.

4 Mon               ST JOHN MARY VIANNEY, Priest, Memorial

Born of poor parents near Lyons, France, in 1786, he received very little schooling.  When at the age of twenty he entered the seminary, he almost despaired of learning Latin.  But he persevered in his studies and was ordained in 1815.  Then he was given charge of the obscure, backward parish of Ars-en-Dombe.  In a short while, by his dedicated ministry, he transformed the moral and spiritual life of that small rural community.  His reputation for holiness spread, and people from all parts of France and even from abroad came to confess their sins and to receive counsel from this holy priest.  John Mary Vianney, the Cure d’Ars, died in 1859.  He was canonised in 1925, and has been declared patron saint of parish clergy.

5 Tue     Weekday of Ordinary Time                                   

6 Wed             THE TRANSFIGURATION OF THE LORD, Feast of the Lord

The feast of the Transfiguration is not merely the recalling of a past experience of Jesus on the mountain, of the shining of the light of divine glory – a foretaste of his Easter glory and his last coming.  It reminds us also that only perseverance in the service of God leads to the glory of vision.  The vision of Thabor was only a fleeting glimpse for the disciples; no doubt they kept the memory of it as something to think over in their hearts.  Following the vision of the divine light there came the command, ‘Listen to him’.  In the scriptures ‘listening’ is always a present duty, ‘seeing’ is something for the end of time.   (Glenstal bible Missal, p. 1411)

7 Thu     Weekday of Ordinary Time 

8 Fri      ST DOMINIC, Priest, Religious, Memorial

Priest and founder of the Dominican Order (1170-1221).  St Dominic was a Spaniard who founded the Order of Preachers (Dominicans) to counteract the Albigensian heresy.  He was friendly and approachable to people but also fervent in prayer.  He had a particular love of the scriptures.  He always carried with him a copy of the gospel according to Saint Matthew and the letters of Saint Paul.  He studies these to such an extent that he almost knew them off by heart.

9 Sat     ST TERESA BENEDICTA (EDITH STEIN),

Virgin & Martyr, Patron of Europe, Feast

Born in Breslau, Germany, murdered in the Nazi death camp at Auschwitz, Poland, Edith Stein dedicated her life to a pursuit of truth leading from her roots in Judaism, via adolescent agnosticism to the study of philosophy, to Catholicism and ultimately to life as a Carmelite.  With St Catherine of Siena and St Bridget of Sweden she has been declared one of the women patron saints of Europe.

10 SUN  19TH SUNDAY OF THE YEAR (A)

‘Do not be afraid.’  These words of Jesus occur again and again as a refrain in the bible.  Jesus invites us to have faith in him, and if we do we find peace in him, even if storms rage around and within us. 

11 Mon             ST CLARE, Virgin, Memoria

The names of Clare and Francis of Assisi are forever associated.  They were close friends, equally dedicated to Christ and to the ideal of evangelical poverty.  Clare received the religious habit from Francis, and she founded the first convent of Fransican nuns at San Damiano.  She served the community there for forty years until her death in 1263.  During that time she founded a great number of convents.  Her spirit lives on in the communities of Fransiscan Sisters and Poor Clares throughout the world.

12 Tue   Weekday of Ordinary Time                     

13 Wed             Weekday of Ordinary Time

14 Thu               ST MAXIMILIAN KOLBE, Martyr, Memoria

St Maximilian Kolbe was a Conventual Fransiscan with a special devotion to the Blessed Virgin.  He worked in the apostolate of the press in Poland and Japan.  He died in the death camp at Auschwitz, giving his life to save the life of the father of a family who was due for execution.  The close proximity of his feast to the Solemnity of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary is particularly appropriate.

St Maximilian Kolbe was a Conventual Fransiscan with a special devotion to the Blessed Virgin.  He worked in the apostolate of the press in Poland and Japan.  He died in the death camp at Auschwitz, giving his life to save the life of the father of a family who was due for execution.  The close proximity of his feast to the Solemnity of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary is particularly appropriate.

15 Fri THE ASSUMPTION OF THE BlESSED VIRGIN MARY, Solemnity

In Mary ‘the Church admires and exalts the most excellent fruit of redemption, and joyfully contemplates, as in a faultless image, that which she herself desires and hopes wholly to be’.  (Vatican II, Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy)

16 Sat    Weekday of Ordinary Time  .

17 SUN             20TH SUNDAY OF THE YEAR (A)

It is said that ‘charity begins at home’.  Jesus’ own ministry began among his own people, the ‘lost sheep of the house of Israel’.  The future expansion of Christian faith beyond Judaism is however foreshadowed in today’s gospel, when  Jesus breaks his own boundaries in response to the faith of a foreign woman.  We too are called to have a special concern for our own, as well as being open to the real needs of the stranger and the foreigner. 

18 Mon             Weekday of Ordinary Time 

19 Tue                 Weekday of Ordinary Time

20 Wed             ST BERNARD, Abbot  & Doctor, Memorial

Born in 1090 near Dijon.  At the age of twenty he entered the Cistercian monastery of Clairvaux, bringing with him twenty companions.  A few years later he was chosen as Abbot of the monastery of Clairvaux near Burgundy.  Bernard’s renown for wisdom and holiness spread throughout the whole Christian world.  He was constantly on the move, attending Church councils and making new foundations.  In spite of this ceaseless activity, Bernard led a life of intense prayer.  He was a great contemplative as well as a man of action.  He became a close friend of St Malachy of Armagh, who introduced the first Cistercian monks to Ireland.

21 Thu               ST PIUS X, Pope, Memorial

He lived from 1835 to 1914.  As Cardinal Patriarch of Venice, he showed a keen interest in liturgical reform, which continued when he became Pope in 1903.  As well as undertaking some adjustments to the Roman Breviary, he promoted the singing of plainsong (‘Gregorian Chant’) and also encouraged more frequent reception of Holy Communion, even in the case of young children.

22 Fri                Weekday of Ordinary Time

23 Sat    Saturday Memorial of the Blessed Virgin Mary

24 SUN             21st SUNDAY OF THE YEAR (A)

The depths of God are utterly beyond us, as our second reading tells us.  Yet God deals with us in ordinary down-to-earth ways.  In the gospel Peter is given the ‘keys of the kingdom’.  Today’s first reading helps to explain what the reference to keys is all about:  they are a sign of authority.  Peter, despite his clear inadequacies, is made a kind of ‘prime minister’ among the disciples.  Today let us remember all those in authority in the Christian community and pray for them. 

25 Mon             Weekday of Ordinary Time                                   

26 Tue   Weekday of Ordinary Time 

27 Wed             ST MONICA, Memorial

Monica was born in North Africa in 331.  Gentle, patient and persevering in prayer, she obtained for her husband, Patricius, and her son, Augustine, the grace of conversion to the Christian faith.  The portrait of his mother which St Augustine sketches in his Confessions is beautiful and moving.  Saint Monica exemplifies the ideal of the Christian wife and mother.  She died in 387.

28 Thu               ST AUGUSTINE, Bishop & Doctor, Memorial

He was born at Tagaste, North Africa, in 354.  He studied philosophy and rhetoric.  After years of restlessness and doubt, his final conversion took place at Milan where he was baptised by St Ambrose.  He then returned to Africa where in time he became Bishop of Hippo.  His most famous book, the Confessions, is an account of his journey to the Faith.  He died in 430, and is revered as one of the greatest of the Church Fathers.

29 Fri    BEHEADING OF ST JOHN THE BAPTIST, Martyr, Memorial

Saint John is honoured with two feastdays, that of his birthday on June 24 and today’s commemoration of his martyrdom.  He was the forerunner of Christ, and his greatness is attested by the Lord himself.  His imprisonment and beheading were the result of his denunciation of the evil conduct of King Herod.  John the Baptist is the last of the prophets of the Old Testament and the herald of the New.  Of him it can be truly said:  ‘Happy are those who suffer persecution for the sake of justice.

30 Sat    Saturday Memorial of the Blessed Virgin Mary

31 SUN             22nd  SUNDAY OF THE YEAR (A)

None of us wants to suffer.  When Jesus predicts his own execution Peter protests.  Yet the cross is unavoidable and in the end must be embraced.  Of course we are appalled and protest (and we see and example of this in the outpourings of Jeremiah in today’s first reading), but God can help us to finally accept and to find a life-giving power in union with Christ.