Friday of the 2nd Week in Ordinary Time
Optional Memorials: St. Fabian, Pope and martyr. According to the historian Eusebius, he was elected Pope by divine inspiration when he was but a simple layman. It is said that a dove descended over his head during the conclave assembled to elect the successor of Pope Anterus. He died as a victim of the persecution of Decius, in 250; and St. Sebastian, martyr († fourth century). As a Praetorian guard in the Imperial palace and friend of Emperor Maximian, he made use of his position to aid Christians and to evangelize among the other soldiers, aiding in their conversion. Accused before the emperor, he was condemned to being bound to a tree trunk and shot with arrows.
Mass Readings
First Reading – Heb 8:6-13
Brothers and sisters: Now our high priest has obtained so much more excellent a ministry as He is mediator of a better covenant, enacted on better promises. For if that first covenant had been faultless, no place would have been sought for a second one. But He finds fault with them and says: Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will conclude a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. It will not be like the covenant I made with their fathers the day I took them by the hand to lead them forth from the land of Egypt; for they did not stand by My covenant and I ignored them, says the Lord. But this is the covenant I will establish with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put My laws in their minds and I will write them upon their hearts. I will be their God, and they shall be My people. And they shall not teach, each one his fellow citizen and kin, saying, “Know the Lord,” for all shall know Me, from least to greatest. For I will forgive their evildoing and remember their sins no more. When He speaks of a “new” covenant, He declares the first one obsolete. And what has become obsolete and has grown old is close to disappearing.
Responsorial Psalm – Ps 85:8 and 10, 11-12, 13-14 (R. 11a)
R. Kindness and truth shall meet.
Show us, O LORD, Your mercy,
and grant us Your salvation.
Near indeed is His salvation to those who fear Him,
glory dwelling in our land. R.
Kindness and truth shall meet;
justice and peace shall kiss.
Truth shall spring out of the earth,
and justice shall look down from heaven. R.
The LORD Himself will give His benefits;
our land shall yield its increase.
Justice shall walk before Him,
and salvation, along the way of His steps. R.
Gospel – Mk 3:13-19
Jesus went up the mountain and summoned those whom He wanted and they came to Him. He appointed Twelve, whom he also named Apostles, that they might be with Him and He might send them forth to preach and to have authority to drive out demons: He appointed the Twelve: Simon, whom He named Peter; James, son of Zebedee, and John the brother of James, whom He named Boanerges, that is, sons of thunder; Andrew, Philip, Bartholomew, Matthew, Thomas, James the son of Alphaeus; Thaddeus, Simon the Cananean, and Judas Iscariot who betrayed Him.
Featured Saints
St. Wulfstan , Bishop (†1095). Benedictine religious appointed as Bishop of Worcester by recommendation of King St. Edward III. He opposed the trafficking of slaves and supported the Gregorian reforms.
St. Henry of Uppsala, bishop and martyr (†c. 1157). Of English origin, he was appointed Bishop of Uppsala, Sweden. He was cruelly assassinated in Finland by a man whom he had reproached.
St. Asclas, martyr (†fourth century). He was subjected to cruel tortures and finally thrown into the Nile River in Antinoopolis,Egypt.
St. Stephen Min Kuk-ka, martyr (†1840). Catechist beheaded in prison in Seoul, Korea, for defending the Catholic Faith.
St. Eustochia Calafato, abbess (†1485). Daughter of a wealthy merchant from Messina (Italy), she entered the Clarist Order and founded the Monastery of Montevergine, where she worked at restoring the primitive discipline of regular life.
St. Maria Cristina of the Immaculate Conception, virgin (†1906). She dedicated her life to the Christian formation of children in Casoria, Italy, and founded the Congregation of Sisters, Expiatory Victims of Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament, dedicated to Perpetual Adoration and to teaching children.
Blessed Cyprian Michael Tansi, presbítero (†1964). Cistercian religious born in the region of Onitsha, Nigeria. Once baptized as a schoolboy, he dedicated himself to the catechizing others. He became a priest and then a Trappist monk, and was later sent to Mount St. Bernard in England where he lived for the last 14 years of his life.
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