Saints + Scripture

'Tis the festival of Saint James Intercisus, Martyr (died 421; A.K.A. the Mutilated, also Anglicized as Jakob Intercisus), martyred in the reign of the Persian king Bahram V: Martyr-link & Wikipedia-link.

Commentary: Wayback Machine. "Intercisus" is an epithet, meaning "cut into pieces," not a surname. St. James was cut into twenty-eight pieces.

'Tis also the festival of Saint Siffredus of Carpentras, Bishop (died circa 540; also spelt Siffrein, Syffroy), monk an Lérins Abbey: Saint-link & Wikipedia-link; Abbey-link & Wikipedia-link Abbey.

'Tis also the festival of Saint Fergus the Pict, Bishop (died circa 730; in Latin: Fergustus Pictus, also spelt Fergustian, A.K.A. Fergus Cruithneach): Saint-link, Wikipedia-link Fergus, & Wikipedia-link Fergustus Pictus.

'Tis also the festival of Saint Apollinaris of Monte Cassino, Abbot, O.S.B. (died 828), abbot of the Abbey of Monte Cassino: Saint-link & Wikipedia-link (List); Abbey-link & Wikipedia-link Abbey.

Scripture of This Day
Mass Readings—Tuesday of the Thirty-fourth Week in Ordinary Time
The Book of Revelation, chapter fourteen, verses fourteen thru nineteen;
Psalm Ninety-six, verses ten, eleven & twelve, & thirteen;
The Gospel according to Luke, chapter twenty-one, verses five thru eleven.

Commentary: Reflection by Bishop Robert Barron (Word on Fire):

Friends, in today’s Gospel Jesus responds to questions about the end of the world. When will it come? What will happen?

Why were the first Christians interested in these questions? The simplest and deepest answer is that they had experienced the end of the world—precisely in the dying and rising of Jesus.

Jesus came preaching the kingdom of God, and the nations conspired against him. The old world seemed to conquer this new world that Jesus embodied. But then, in the Resurrection, they saw that the old world—the world predicated upon death and the world that had done Jesus in—was now defeated.

So awed were they by the Resurrection—and you can sense it in every book and letter of the New Testament—that they awaited the imminent arrival of the new state of affairs, the return of Jesus and the establishment of God’s kingdom. Though Jesus did not immediately return, the old world was over, broken, compromised, its destruction now just a matter of time.

Video reflection by Father David Muñoz, O.M.I.: United States Conference of Catholic Bishops.

Papal Quote o' This Day

"In bringint about the Redemption through suffering, Christ has also raised human suffering to the level of the Redemption. Thus each man, in his suffering, can also be a sharer in the redemptive suffering of Christ."
—Pope St. John Paul II the Great (1920-2005, feast day: 22 October)

Little Flower Quote o' This Day

"Nothing is sweeter than love; nothing stronger, nothing higher, nothing more generous, nothing more pleasant, nothing fuller or better in heaven or earth: for love proceeds from God, and cannot rest but in God, above all things created."
—St. Thérèse of Lisieux, Doctor of This Church (1873-1897, feast day: 1 October)

Saint Quote o' the Day

"Be firm in rejecting injustice! Be strong in conceiving & accomplishing gestures of equity, humanity, & peace, gestures that will unravel the tangled skin of violence. Humanity expects this service from you: it is your honor & your duty."
—Pope St. Paul VI (1897-1978, feast day: 26 September)