Thursday of week 23 in Ordinary TimeOffice of Readings | Morning Prayer | Evening Prayer | Night Prayer | Mass(St Deiniol (- 584)) He was the first Bishop of Bangor. He may have been consecrated in 545 by St David.(Bl Mary of Jesus (1560-1640)) Born in 1560 at Tartanedo (Spain) she took the Discalced Carmelite habit at Toledo in 1577 and made her profession the following year. She spent the rest of her life serving God in that Carmel, except for a brief period in 1585 when she helped with a foundation at Cuerva. She died at Toledo on September 13, 1640. Saint Teresa of Jesus thought extremely highly of her. She was a great contemplative, intensely devoted to our Lord, and often drawing inspiration from the liturgy.Carmelite Breviary

Saint Gregory the Great, Pope, DoctorOffice of Readings | Morning Prayer | Evening Prayer | Night Prayer | MassPope St Gregory the Great (540 - 604) He was born in Rome and followed the career of public service that was usual for the son of an aristocratic family, finally becoming Prefect of the City of Rome, a post he held for some years.He founded a monastery in Rome and some others in Sicily, then became a monk himself. He was ordained deacon and sent as an envoy to Constantinople, on a mission that lasted five years.He was elected Pope on 3 September 590, the first monk to be elected to this office. He reformed the administration of the Church’s estates and devoted the resulting surplus to the assistance of the poor and the ransoming of prisoners. He negotiated treaties with the Lombard tribes who were ravaging northern Italy, and by cultivating good relations with these and other barbarians he was able to keep the Church’s position secure in areas where Roman rule had broken down. His works for the propagation of the faith include the sending of Augustine and his monks as missionaries to England in 596, providing them with continuing advice and support and (in 601) sending reinforcements. He wrote extensively on pastoral care, spirituality, and morals, and designated himself “servant of the servants of God.”He died on 12 March 604, but as this date always falls within Lent, his feast is celebrated on the date of his election as Pope.See the article in the Catholic Encyclopaedia.

Wednesday of week 23 in Ordinary TimeOffice of Readings | Morning Prayer | Evening Prayer | Night Prayer | Mass(St Ambrose Barlow OSB (1585-1641)) Ambrose was born at Barlow Hall, Chorlton-cum-Hardy, near Manchester in 1585. He was the fourth son of the nobleman Sir Alexander Barlow and his wife Mary. Ambrose’s grandfather died in 1584 whilst imprisoned for his beliefs and Sir Alexander Barlow had two thirds of his estate confiscated as a result of his refusing to conform to the new established religion. In 1597, Ambrose was taken into the stewardship of a relative who would care for him whilst he served out his apprenticeship as a page. However, upon completing this service, Barlow realised that his true vocation was for the Catholic priesthood, so he travelled to Douai in France to study at the English College there before attending the College of St Alban in Valladolid, Spain. In 1615, he returned to Douai where he became a member of the Order of Saint Benedict and was ordained as a priest in 1617. He then returned to Morley’s Hall, Astley. From there he looked after the local Catholics, celebrating daily Mass and reciting his Office and Rosary. He would often visit his cousins, the Downes, at their residence of Wardley Hall (now the residence of the Bishop of Salford) and celebrate Mass for the gathered congregation. He was arrested several times during his travels. His parishioners implored him to flee or at least go into hiding but he refused. Their fears were compounded by a recent stroke which had resulted in the 56-year-old priest being partially paralysed. “Let them fear that have anything to lose which they are unwilling to part with” he told them. On 25 April 1641, Easter Sunday, Ambrose and his congregation of around 100 people, were surrounded at Morley’s Hall, Astley by the Vicar of Leigh and his large (and armed) congregation. Ambrose surrendered, and his parishioners were released after their names had been recorded. The priest was then taken on horseback with a man behind him to prevent his falling, and escorted by a band of some sixty people to the Justice of the Peace at Winwick, before being transported to Lancaster Castle. Ambrose appeared before the presiding judge, Sir Robert Heath, on the 7 September when he professed his adherence to the Catholic faith and defended his actions. On the following day, the feast of the Nativity of Mary, Sir Robert Heath found Ambrose guilty, and sentenced him to be executed. Two days later, he was taken from Lancaster Castle, drawn on a hurdle to the place of execution, hanged, dismembered, quartered, and boiled in oil. His head was afterwards exposed on a pike. When the news of his death and martyrdom reached his Benedictine brothers at Douai Abbey, a Mass of Thanksgiving and the Te Deum were ordered to be sung.DK (Saint Egwin, Bishop) The foundation of the abbey dedicated to Our Lady at Evesham is attributed to an early eighth-century Bishop of Worcester called Egwin. Very little is known about him, since the earliest account of his life, written in Latin c. 1020, is almost entirely composed of fables. However it does contain some local material which may reflect older traditions; among these is the account of the appearance of Our Lady to a swineherd at a place on the Avon where Egwin built the Church in her honour. This would be the earliest record of the appearance the Blessed Virgin Mary in England. Since 1952 Evesham has become the place of an annual pilgrimage to Our Lady; the Catholic Church there is dedicated to St Mary and St Egwin. In the Middle Ages St Egwin was commemorated on 30 December: September 10 is the day of the translation of his relics in 1039.Birmingham Ordo (Blessed Agnellus of Pisa, Priest) Agnellus was born at Pisa in northern Italy and was received into the Order of Friars in 1211, probably by St Francis himself. In 1224, S. Francis sent him and eight other friars to England where they made a great impression by their penury and simplicity. Agnellus was the first Minister Provincial in this country and founded friaries at Canterbury, London and Oxford. At Oxford, then in the period of the university’s first development, he established a school for the friars which rapidly grew into a major centre of theology, combining apostolic poverty with study based on scriptures. Agnellus died on 7 May 1236, aged 41, and was buried at Oxford. The cult of Blessed Agnellus of Pisa was approved in 1892; September 10 is the date of the arrival of the first Franciscans in Dover in 1224.Birmingham Ordo (Blessed Francis Gárate (1857-1929)) Francis Gárate (1857-1929) was born in a farmhouse just a hundred yards from the Loyola Castle in Spain. After some elementary education, at the age of fourteen he began work as a domestic servant at the Jesuit College in Orduna, Spain. In 1874, he joined the Society as a Brother. From 1877 to 1888 he served as infirmarian and sacristan at the Jesuit College in La Guardian, near the Portuguese border. He went about his duty most meticulously, caring for the sick, often spending whole nights by their bedside. The strain was too much for him and he was transferred to the University college at Deusto, in Bilbao, Spain, as doorkeeper, remaining there for the next forty-one years. He was known for his holiness, piety, kindness and courtesy.

Tuesday of week 23 in Ordinary Time, or Saint Peter Claver Office of Readings | Morning Prayer | Evening Prayer | Night Prayer | Mass(St Peter Claver (1581 - 1654)) He was born in Catalonia and studied at the University of Barcelona. He became a Jesuit; and while he was studying philosophy in Mallorca, the door-keeper of the college, Alfonso Rodríguez, saw that his true vocation was to evangelize the New World, and encouraged him to fulfil that vocation.. He arrived in Cartagena, in what is now Colombia, in 1610, and after his ordination six years later he became ‘the slave of the Negroes forever’, labouring on their behalf for 43 years, attending to both their spiritual and material needs. The slave trade was repeatedly condemned by the Popes; but it was too profitable to be stopped and on the whole the local church hierarchy kept quiet about it, much as they did in North America in the 19th century.He brought fresh food to the slave-ships as they arrived, instructed the slaves and baptized them in the faith, followed their progress and kept track of them even when they were sent to the mines and plantations, defending them as well as he could from oppressive slave-owners. He organized teams of catechists who spoke the many languages spoken by the slaves. He worked in hospitals also, looking after lepers among others, and in prisons. Naturally he made himself unpopular by his work: as his superior said, ‘unfortunately for himself he is a Catalan, pig-headed and difficult’. Opposition came from both within the Church and outside it, but there were always exceptions. For instance, while many fashionable ladies refused to enter his city churches because they had been profaned by the presence of the blacks, a few, such as Doña Isabel de Urbina, became his strong and lifelong supporters.At the end of his life he fell ill with a degenerative disease and for four years he was treated neglectfully and brutally by the servant whose task it was to look after him. He did not complain but accepted his sufferings as a penance for his sins.See also this web page, and also the articles in the Catholic Encyclopaedia and Wikipedia.(Saint Ciarán of Clonmacnoise (516 - 546)) He was born in 516 in County Roscommon, Connacht, in Ireland. He studied under St Finian and later under St Enda. On Enda’s advice he founded the monastery of Clonmacnoise in 545. He was a teacher of St Carthage. See the article in Wikipedia.(Blessed Aniela Salawa, Virgin) (Saint Osburg (-1018)) Saint Osburg was the first Abbess of a monastery founded at Coventry by King Canute at the beginning of the eleventh century. She died around 1018. Although nothing else is known about her, there was a strong cult to St Osburg in the City of Coventry during the Middle Ages. In the nineteenth-century revival of Catholicism, Bishop Ullathorne dedicated the first Catholic Church in the city to her. September 9 is the date when Bishop Wiseman consecrated the new Church of St Osburg in Coventry in 1845.Birmingham Ordo

The Birthday of the Blessed Virgin MaryOffice of Readings | Morning Prayer | Evening Prayer | Night Prayer | Mass8/9 The Birthday of the Blessed Virgin Mary

23rd Sunday in Ordinary TimeOffice of Readings | Morning Prayer | Evening Prayer | Night Prayer | Mass(Saint Melchior Grodziecki, Priest, Martyr)

Saturday of week 22 in Ordinary Time, or Saturday memorial of the Blessed Virgin Mary Office of Readings | Morning Prayer | Evening Prayer | Night Prayer | Mass(Saturday memorials of the Blessed Virgin Mary) ‘On Saturdays in Ordinary Time when there is no obligatory memorial, an optional memorial of the Blessed Virgin Mary is allowed.‘Saturdays stand out among those days dedicated to the Virgin Mary. These are designated as memorials of the Blessed Virgin Mary. This memorial derives from Carolingian times (9th century), but the reasons for having chosen Saturday for its observance are unknown. While many explanations of this choice have been advanced, none is completely satisfactory from the point of view of the history of popular piety.‘Whatever its historical origins may be, today the memorial rightly emphasizes certain values to which contemporary spirituality is more sensitive. It is a remembrance of the maternal example and discipleship of the Blessed Virgin Mary who, strengthened by faith and hope, on that “great Saturday” on which Our Lord lay in the tomb, was the only one of the disciples to hold vigil in expectation of the Lord’s resurrection. It is a prelude and introduction to the celebration of Sunday, the weekly memorial of the Resurrection of Christ. It is a sign that the Virgin Mary is continuously present and operative in the life of the Church.’Directory on Popular Piety and the Liturgy (2001), §188

Friday of week 22 in Ordinary Time, or Saint Teresa of Calcutta (Mother Teresa) Office of Readings | Morning Prayer | Evening Prayer | Night Prayer | Mass(Mother Teresa of Calcutta (1910 - 1997)) Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu was born on 26 August 1910 at Skopje in Macedonia. She left home at the age of 18 to join the Sisters of Loreto in Ireland, where she received the name Sister Mary Teresa, after St Thérèse of Lisieux. In 1931 she was assigned to the order’s Calcutta house and taught at their school there, where she eventually became headmistress. She received a new vocation to help the poor and destitute, and in 1948, obeying this call, she left the convent and took up a new life caring for them wherever they might be: lying sick in the street or even dying in dustbins. Some of her former pupils joined her, one by one, and the new congregation of the Missionaries of Charity was established in the Diocese of Calcutta in 1950, spreading across India and eventually onto every continent, even behind the Iron Curtain. Many related orders followed, involving men and women, clergy and laity, and both the active and the contemplative life. Mother Teresa died on 5 September 1997 and was beatified by Pope John Paul II on 19 October 2003 and canonized by Pope Francis on 4 September 2016.Mother Teresa’s widespread appeal comes from the directness of her inspiration, and her direct response to it. She went out and did things where they were needed. When we think of big problems we inevitably think that they can only be solved by a big campaign. Perhaps that is true, perhaps not; but while the campaign is getting going, why not go out and help one person in the name of Mother Teresa? If there are 1,000 hungry people in your city, why not make it 999? If each of us did that – well, in most countries where this is being read, there are more Catholics than there are people in need.As Monsignor Ronald Knox has said: “I am not advocating world-movements or public meetings... my appeal is rather to the individual conscience than to the public ear; my hope is rather to see the emergence of a Saint, than that of an organization...“There is no harm in besieging heaven for the canonization of such and such holy persons now dead. But should we not do well to vary these petitions of ours by asking for more Saints to canonize?”(Saint Herbert) St. Herbert (died 687) was a disciple and friend of St. Cuthbert. He lived the life of a hermit on the island in Derwentwater which bears his name. A Mass is celebrated there in his memory each year.The witness he gives is the witness to the life of prayer, whose power gives strength to the whole Church and sustains its mission.(Blessed William Brown, Martyr)

Thursday of week 22 in Ordinary TimeOffice of Readings | Morning Prayer | Evening Prayer | Night Prayer | Mass(St Cuthbert (634? - 687)) According to tradition, he was a shepherd boy. Certainly he became a monk, and later prior, at Melrose. After the Synod of Whitby in 664 he became prior of Lindisfarne and gradually won over the community to Roman ecclesiastical customs. He was zealous in preaching the Gospel but most attracted to living the life of a hermit, and in 676 he left the monastery and lived in solitude on the nearby island of Inner Farne. For the last two years of his life he served as bishop of Lindisfarne, but he returned to his island to die, on 20 March 687. His remains were removed from their resting place at Lindisfarne to escape Viking raiders and were eventually enshrined at Durham Cathedral. Because the anniversary of his death always falls within Lent, his feast is celebrated on the anniversary of the enshrinement of his remains at Durham.(Saint Mac Nissi) He founded the diocese of Connor in Ireland in 480, and is patron saint of the diocese, which is now part of the diocese of Down and Connor.(Blessed Maria Stella and her companions, Virgins, Martyrs) (Blessed Dina Bélanger (1897 - 1929)) She was born on 30 April 1897 in Québec and at the recommendation of her parish priest she went to New York to study at the Institute of Musical Art, with the intention of becoming a concert pianist. On her return home, she decided to enter the religious life in the Congregation of Jésus-Marie at Sillery, where the nuns had their mother house. She entered the convent on 11 August 1921, at the age of 24, and, as Sister Marie Sainte-Cécile of Rome, took her final vows on 15 August 1928. She went to teach music at the Couvent Jésus-Marie at Saint-Michel, near Québec, but soon caught scarlet fever after caring for a sick pupil. She returned to Sillery where, her constitution weakened by the illness, she developed tuberculosis.For the rest of her life she taught whenever she was not too ill to do so. She died on 4 September 1929, at the age of 32.She wrote an autobiography at the request of her superiors, and this was published in 1934 under the title Une vie dans le Christ (a life in Christ). The book revealed her hidden life as a mystic, entering into the mystery of love at the heart of the Trinity. It was a worldwide success, being translated into five languages, fulfilling the promise made by Christ before she entered the convent, that ‘You will do good above all by your writing’. She was beatified in Rome by Pope John Paul II on 20 March 1993.See also the article in the Dictionary of Canadian Biography.

Pope Francis' top diplomats met with U.S. Vice President JD Vance on April 19, where the two sides discussed migrants and refugees following months of clashes between U.S. church leaders and the Trump administration over immigration policy and foreign aid.