Friday of the 3rd Week in Ordinary Time
Optional memorial of St. Peter Damian, bishop and doctor of the Church (1072). He was obliged against his inclinations to leave monastic solitude, upon being appointed bishop and named cardinal to serve the needs of the Pope; but later returned to the contemplative life.
Mass Readings
First Reading – Gen 11:1-9
The whole world spoke the same language, using the same words. While the people were migrating in the east, they came upon a valley in the land of Shinar and settled there. They said to one another, “Come, let us mold bricks and harden them with fire.” They used bricks for stone, and bitumen for mortar. Then they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the sky, and so make a name for ourselves; otherwise we shall be scattered all over the earth.” The LORD came down to see the city and the tower that they had built. Then the LORD said: “If now, while they are one people, all speaking the same language, they have started to do this, nothing will later stop them from doing whatever they presume to do. Let us then go down and there confuse their language, so that one will not understand what another says.” Thus the LORD scattered them from there all over the earth, and they stopped building the city. That is why it was called Babel, because there the LORD confused the speech of all the world. It was from that place that he scattered them all over the earth.
Responsorial Psalm – Psalm 33:10-11, 12-13, 14-15 (R.12)
R. Blessed the people the Lord has chosen to be his own.
The LORD brings to nought the plans of nations;
he foils the designs of peoples.
But the plan of the LORD stands forever;
the design of his heart, through all generations. R.
Blessed the nation whose God is the LORD,
the people he has chosen for his own inheritance.
From heaven the LORD looks down;
he sees all mankind. R.
From his fixed throne he beholds
all who dwell on the earth,
He who fashioned the heart of each,
he who knows all their works. R.
Gospel – Mk 8:34—9:1
Jesus summoned the crowd with his disciples and said to them, “Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and that of the Gospel will save it. What profit is there for one to gain the whole world and forfeit his life? What could one give in exchange for his life? Whoever is ashamed of me and of my words in this faithless and sinful generation, the Son of Man will be ashamed of when he comes in his Father’s glory with the holy angels.” He also said to them, “Amen, I say to you, there are some standing here who will not taste death until they see that the Kingdom of God has come in power.”
Featured Saints
St. Robert Southwell, Priest and martyr (†1595). From a Catholic family, he became a Jesuit priest and secretly served Catholics in the London area until his arrest. He was cruelly tortured, without supplying any information to his tormentors, and finally executed at Tyburn, under Queen Elizabeth I, making the Sign of the Cross while being killed by hanging. His writings are well known.
Blessed Eleanor of Provence, queen consort of England (†1291). Born to noble parents in Aix-en-Provence, France, she was married for 37 years to to Henry III of England, and bore five children. A few years after the king’s death, she retired to the Benedictine abbey of Amesbury as a humble nun, and dedicated the last fifteen years of her life to prayer.
St. Avitus II of Clermont, bishop (†691) He became bishop of the diocese of Clermont in Auvergne, France, in 676, which he governed with holiness until his death.
St. Eustathius, bishop (†circa 338). Bishop of Antioch, exiled to Trajanopolis, present-day Bosnia, by the Emperor Constantius, for defending the Catholic Faith.
St. Germanus, abbot (†c. 667). He was killed by bandits in the monastery of Grandval, Switzerland.
Blessed Noël Pinot, priest and martyr (†1794). Pastor of Le Louroux-Béconnais, near Angers, guillotined during the French Revolution.
Blessed Maria Enrichetta Dominici, virgin (†1894). Religious of the Congregation of the Sisters of St. Anne of Providence, for thirty years she held the offices of mistress of novices and prioress in Turin.
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