Saturday of the Fifth week of Easter

Acts of the Apostles

16,1-10.

Paul reached (also) Derbe and Lystra where there was a disciple named Timothy, the son of a Jewish woman who was a believer, but his father was a Greek.
The brothers in Lystra and Iconium spoke highly of him,
and Paul wanted him to come along with him. On account of the Jews of that region, Paul had him circumcised, for they all knew that his father was a Greek.
As they traveled from city to city, they handed on to the people for observance the decisions reached by the apostles and presbyters in Jerusalem.
Day after day the churches grew stronger in faith and increased in number.
They traveled through the Phrygian and Galatian territory because they had been prevented by the holy Spirit from preaching the message in the province of Asia.
When they came to Mysia, they tried to go on into Bithynia, but the Spirit of Jesus did not allow them,
so they crossed through Mysia and came down to Troas.
During (the) night Paul had a vision. A Macedonian stood before him and implored him with these words, "Come over to Macedonia and help us."
When he had seen the vision, we sought passage to Macedonia at once, concluding that God had called us to proclaim the good news to them.

Psalms

100(99),1-2.3.5.

Sing joyfully to the LORD, all you lands;
serve the LORD with gladness;
come before him with joyful song.
Know that the LORD is God;
he made us, his we are;
his people, the flock he tends.
The LORD is good:
his kindness endures forever,
and his faithfulness, to all generations.

Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint John

15,18-21.

Jesus said to his disciples: "If the world hates you, realize that it hated me first.
If you belonged to the world, the world would love its own; but because you do not belong to the world, and I have chosen you out of the world, the world hates you.
Remember the word I spoke to you, 'No slave is greater than his master.' If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you. If they kept my word, they will also keep yours.
And they will do all these things to you on account of my name, because they do not know the one who sent me."

---

Bl. Julian of Norwich()

Julian of NorwichAnchorite (ca 1342 - 1420) It was popular the 14th century for a number of English men and women to withdraw from the world as hermits. They were known as anchorites. Their hermitage was a small room attached to a local church. Each room had two windows. One through the church wall permitting the anchorite to receive communion. Through the second window, the anchorite received food brought to him or her by village people. Thus they at all times had the window of their heart open to Christ and open to the world. As a young woman, Julian, who was born circa 1342, became an anchorite at the Church of St. Edmund and St. Julian in Norwich. When she was thirty, Julian suffered from a severe illness. While apparently on her deathbed, Julian had a series of intense visions of Jesus Christ, which ended by the time she recovered from her illness on May 13, 1373. Julian wrote about her visions immediately after they had happened (although the text may not have been finished for some years), entitled Revelations of Divine Love. It is believed to be the earliest surviving book written in the English language by a woman. Twenty to thirty years later, perhaps in the early 1390s, Julian began to write a theological exploration of the meaning of the visions, known as The Long Text. This work seems to have gone through many revisions before it was finished, perhaps in the first or even second decade of the fifteenth century.Until her passing around 1420 at the age of seventy-eight, Julian stayed in her simple room. Like most anchorites, she prayed, fasted, did penance, studied, sewed clothing for the poor and advised the village people. In Revelations of Divine Love, Julian described her sixteen visions of Jesus. As she wrote this book about God’s great compassion for us, Julian developed a special vocabulary. She called the Creator our mother and our father. She called Jesus the Redeemer our brother. Revelations is a celebrated work in Catholicism and Anglicanism because of the clarity and depth of Julian's visions of God. Julian of Norwich is now recognised as one of England's most important mystics. Julian of Norwich lived in a time of turmoil, but her theology was optimistic and spoke of God's love in terms of joy and compassion, as opposed to law and duty. For Julian, suffering was not a punishment that God inflicted, as was the common understanding. She believed that God loved everyone and wanted to save them all. Popular theology, magnified by catastrophic contemporary events such as the Black Death and a series of peasant revolts, asserted that God punished the wicked. Julian suggested a more merciful theology, she believed that behind the reality of hell is a greater mystery of God's love. In modern times, she has been classified as a proto-universalist, although she did not claim more than hope that all might be saved. At the time of Julian’s death, people from all over Europe traveled to her room or cell to ask her advice. Everyone recognized that she was close to God. The Church never formally declared her a saint, but through the ages, people have called her “Blessed.” Julian of Norwich is quoted saying,“If there is anywhere on earth a lover of God is always kept safe, I know nothing of it, for it was not shown to me. But this was shown: that in falling and rising again we are always kept in that same precious love.”

---

St. John the Silent(Bishop (454 - c. 558))

---

SAINT JOHN THE SILENT Bishop (454 - c. 558) St. John was born in 454 to a patrician family in Nicopolis, Armenia. He received faith from through the teaching, prayers and example of his parents. After their passing, John built a church in honor of the Blessed Virgin, and also a monastery with the help of ten fervent companions; all at the age of eighteen. To protect against egotism and pray by listening, John seldom spoke. When obliged to, he spoke in few words and with discretion. When he was only twenty-eight, the Archbishop of Sebaste obliged John to quit his retreat and consecrated him as bishop of Colonia, Armenia, in 482. In this dignity, John preserved his spirit of recollection and continued his monastic austerities and exercises. While watching one night in prayer, Bp. John saw before him a bright cross, and heard a voice say to him, "If you desire to be saved, follow this light." The seemed to move before him, and at length pointed out to the monastery of St. Sabas. After the vision, Bp. John abdicated the episcopal office and retired to the neighboring monastery of St. Sabas, which at that time contained one hundred and fifty monks. John was then thirty-eight years old. After living there for some years, fetching water, carrying stones and doing other menial work, St. Sabas, judging Fra. John worthy to be elevated to the priesthood, presented him to the Patriarch Elias. John took the patriarch aside, obtained from him a promise of secrecy and said, "Father, I am an ordained bishop, but have fled on account of the multitude of my sins; and am in this desert to await the visit of the Lord." God revealed to St. Sabas the state of the affair, whereupon he summoned John and complained of the latter's unkindness in concealing the matter. Finding himself discovered, John wished to quit the monastery, nor could St. Sabas prevail on him to stay. In the year 503, John withdrew into a neighboring wilderness, but in 510 went back to the monastery, and confined himself for forty years to his cell. Fra. John, by his example and counsels, conducted many fervent souls to God, and continued to emulate, as much as his nature allowed, the employment of the heavenly spirits in uninterrupted exercises of love and praise. Soon after the year 558, he passed from this world and joined the Church Triumphant in heaven. He lived in the desert for seventy-six years, with the exception of nine spent in the episcopal dignity.

misalcatolico.com

---

Category: Mass by Year / Catholic Missal 2023 / Catholic Missal of may 2023