Monday of week 25 in Ordinary TimeOffice of Readings | Morning Prayer | Evening Prayer | Night Prayer | Mass(St Maurice and the Theban Legion (d. 287))

Maurice (a name which means ‘black’) was a native of Thebes in Upper Egypt. When he was young, he was conscripted into the Roman army together with many youths of his area, and sent, for military service, to Switzerland. Before battle, the emperor ordered his soldiers to offer sacrifice to the Roman gods but the Theban Legion, headed by Maurice, refused. They remained steadfast even after being asked several times to apostatize, in loyalty to the emperor. Their allegiance to Christ earned them the crown of martyrdom in the year 287.

25th Sunday in Ordinary TimeOffice of Readings | Morning Prayer | Evening Prayer | Night Prayer | Mass(St Matthew, Apostle and Evangelist)

He was born in Capernaum, and was working as a tax-collector when Jesus called him. He is thought by some scholars to have written an early version of his gospel in Aramaic, a precursor to the Greek version we now have. He is also said to have preached in the East.See the article in the Catholic Encyclopaedia.

The Exaltation of the Holy CrossOffice of Readings | Morning Prayer | Evening Prayer | Night Prayer | MassDante Alighieri (1265 - 1321)

Dante, who died on this day in 1321, is probably the greatest Catholic poet ever. “The Divine Comedy” is a massive poem narrating a journey through Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise – it is simultaneously a vision, an imaginative poem, a spiritual journey, a commentary on life and politics, a deep work of psychology, and a synthesis of the then still revolutionary theology of St Thomas Aquinas.Too many people think of “grim Dante” of the Inferno (Hell), the inventor of grotesque punishments, and that is all they know of and read. Fools! The horrors of Hell are the horrors of sin itself, nothing more, nothing less: sin stripped of the false romanticism we give it. It is where the poem starts from, not where it is going. The most human of the three books is the Purgatorio (Purgatory), where you see ordinary, fallible men and women – people like you and me – no longer able to sin, or wanting to, but still bearing the stain and being purged of it. Suffering there is, but there is also joy.Incidentally, Dante was the first Italian to use a language other than Latin for serious work, and he is, more or less, the creator of Italian as a literary language.Read him, and pray for him. He wrote of the vision of God; may he be experiencing it.The Exaltation of the Cross