Thursday of the 29th Week in Ordinary Time
Optional memorial of St. John of Capistrano, priest (†1456). Franciscan disciple of St. Bernardine of Siena. He was apostolic nuncio to Sicily, papal legate to France and missionary in Germany, Austria, Poland and Hungary.
Mass Readings
First Reading – Rom 6:19-23
Brothers and sisters: I am speaking in human terms because of the weakness of your nature. For just as you presented the parts of your bodies as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness for lawlessness, so now present them as slaves to righteousness for sanctification. For when you were slaves of sin, you were free from righteousness. But what profit did you get then from the things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death. But now that you have been freed from sin and have become slaves of God, the benefit that you have leads to sanctification, and its end is eternal life. For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Responsorial Psalm – Ps 1:1-2, 3, 4 and 6 (R. PS 405)
R. Blessed are they who hope in the Lord.
Blessed the man who follows not
the counsel of the wicked
Nor walks in the way of sinners,
nor sits in the company of the insolent,
But delights in the law of the LORD
and meditates on his law day and night. R.
He is like a tree
planted near running water,
That yields its fruit in due season,
and whose leaves never fade.
Whatever he does, prospers. R.
Not so the wicked, not so;
they are like chaff which the wind drives away.
For the LORD watches over the way of the just,
but the way of the wicked vanishes. R.
Gospel – Lk 12:49-53
Jesus said to his disciples: “I have come to set the earth on fire, and how I wish it were already blazing! There is a baptism with which I must be baptized, and how great is my anguish until it is accomplished! Do you think that I have come to establish peace on the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division. From now on a household of five will be divided, three against two and two against three; a father will be divided against his son and a son against his father, a mother against her daughter and a daughter against her mother, a mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law.”
Featured Saints
St. Ignatius, bishop (†877). Persecuted and exiled for admonishing the Emperor Bardas for repudiating his legitimate wife, he was returned to his patriarchal See of Constantinople through the intervention of Pope Nicholas I.
St. Severinus Boethius, martyr (†524). Senator and Roman consul, famous for his extensive philosophical and theological works. He was martyred by the Ostrogothic king Theodoric, in Pavia (Italy).
St. Ethelfleda, abbess (†tenth century). While still an adolescent, she consecrated herself to God in the monastery founded by her father Ethelwold, in Ramsey, England. She was the abbess there for many years until her death.
St. Theodore of Antioch, priest and martyr (†c. 362). Killed by order of Julian the Apostate, for refusing to deny the Faith.
Blessed John Angelo Porro, priest (†1506). Prior of the Servite monastery in Chianti, Italy. He strove to cultivate the contemplative life and was dedicated to the catechesis of the young.
Blessed John the Good, hermit (†1249). In his youth he travelled throughout Italy as a court jestor. At age forty he converted and left the world to give himself entirely to Christ and the Church.
Blessed Arnold, religious (†1890). Religious from the Congregation of Brothers of the Christian Schools; he died in Rheims, France.
Blesseds Marie Clotilde Angele Paillot and companions, martyrs (†1794). Ursuline, Clarist and Brigidine sisters, guillotined during the French Revolution in Valenciennes.
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