Today, October 6
Feast of the Day
No feast of the day
Saint of the Day
Bruno, founder of the Carthusian Order, was born in Cologne, Germany, about the year 1030. He studied at Rheims and was invited back as Professor of Theology and Grammar. During his 18 years at Rheims he taught many eminent scholars, and was chancellor of the diocese. When the archbishop died in 1068, his replacement was highly unsuitable and the objections of Bruno and other canons were met with persecution which forced them to flee the city. Eventually that archbishop was deposed.
Clerical corruption left Bruno with the desire to live a contemplative life. In 1080 he gave up his riches and with six companions began to live as a hermit. In 1084, a bishop, once a student of his, granted them land high in the Chartreuse mountains. This was the beginning of the Carthusian Order and of the great abbey which is its motherhouse.
In recognition of his great learning, Bruno was called to Rome in 1090 to assist the pope, another former pupil. It was soon obvious that Bruno was not suited to court life and he was permitted to found a second monastery in Calabria, close enough to be available to the Holy See. He died there in 1101, leaving no rule, but a spirit of prayerful simplicity which lives on.
Blessed Marie-Rose Durocher
Marie-Rose (christened Eulalie) Durocher is the foundress of the congregation of the Sisters of the Holy Names of Jesus and Mary. Born in 1811 in St-Antoine, Quebec, Eulalie went to school in Montreal. Soon after her mother's death in 1829, Eulalie moved to Beloeil where her brother, the pastor, put her in charge of his household where she worked for 13 years.
The Oblates of Mary Immaculate had just arrived from France and, with their assistance, Eulalie established the first Canadian sodality for young women. She became the first Canadian postulant of the Sisters of the Holy Names of Marseilles. When the Oblates failed to recruit religious teachers from Marseilles, Bishop Bourget of Montreal invited Eulalie to found a new congregation dedicated to religious education, and in 1843 a small community of novices settled in Longueuil. In 1844 they were professed by the bishop, taking the name, habit and constitutions from the Marseilles community, with Marie-Rose as superior. Although their foundress died just six years later, the community had already begun to grow despite poverty and hardship and several schools had been established. Today the outreach of the congregation is world-wide and in 1982 Marie-Rose Durocher was beatified.
©2011 Living with Christ, Novalis - Bayard Press Canada Inc., http://www.livingwithchrist.ca/. Reprinted with permission.
Readings of the Day
Letter to the Galatians 1,13-24.
Brothers and sisters: You heard of my former way of life in Judaism, how I persecuted the Church of God beyond measure and tried to destroy it, and progressed in Judaism beyond many of my contemporaries among my race, since I was even more a zealot for my ancestral traditions. But when (God), who from my mother's womb had set me apart and called me through his grace, was pleased to reveal his Son to me, so that I might proclaim him to the Gentiles, I did not immediately consult flesh and blood, nor did I go up to Jerusalem to those who were apostles before me; rather, I went into Arabia and then returned to Damascus. Then after three years I went up to Jerusalem to confer with Kephas and remained with him for fifteen days. But I did not see any other of the apostles, only James the brother of the Lord. (As to what I am writing to you, behold, before God, I am not lying.) Then I went into the regions of Syria and Cilicia. And I was unknown personally to the churches of Judea that are in Christ; they only kept hearing that "the one who once was persecuting us is now preaching the faith he once tried to destroy." So they glorified God because of me.
Psalms 139(138),1-3.13-14ab.14c-15.
O LORD, you have probed me and you know me; you know when I sit and when I stand; you understand my thoughts from afar. My journeys and my rest you scrutinize, with all my ways you are familiar. Truly you have formed my inmost being; you knit me in my mother's womb. I give you thanks that I am fearfully, wonderfully made; wonderful are your works. My soul also you knew full well; nor was my frame unknown to you when I was made in secret, when I was fashioned in the depths of the earth.
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint Luke 10,38-42.
Jesus entered a village where a woman whose name was Martha welcomed him. She had a sister named Mary who sat beside the Lord at his feet listening to him speak. Martha, burdened with much serving, came to him and said, "Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me by myself to do the serving? Tell her to help me." The Lord said to her in reply, "Martha, Martha, you are anxious and worried about many things. There is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part and it will not be taken from her."
Daily Reflection
We shall be seated at table in eternity. I would not dare to say this if it had not been the Lord who promised it. He promises a great reward to his servants, for her says: “he will have them recline at table and proceed to wait on them,” (Lk 12,37)... Great is this promise, then, and happy its fulfilment. Let us act in such a way as to be worthy of it; may we be so helped as to come to the place where the Lord will serve us at table. What will that meal be if not a rest? And what does “He will serve us” mean if not that he will satisfy us? With what food and drink? To be sure, with truth itself... Do you doubt that God is able to feed you in this way when already your eyes are being filled with light in the same way? If many see the light, yet it shines abundantly; if few see it, yet it shines with the same brightness. It spreads comfort abroad but cannot fall short; we use it without causing its diminishment... Why do you still not understand? Because you are preoccupied with many things. Martha's work preoccupies you. Even more: it preoccupies us all. For who is free from this work of serving?... And so, my beloved, I beg and exhort you...: let us long for this life together. Let us run together towards it so that, when we arrive, we may dwell there. The time is coming and will have no end when the Lord will seat us at table to serve us. With what will he serve us if not himself? Why ask what you will be eating? It is the Lord himself... “One thing I ask of the Lord; this I seek: to dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, that I may gaze on the loveliness of the Lord,” (Ps 27,4)... So let us not have any taste for fleshly food...: it will come to an end. If you want to carry out Martha's task by busying yourself with it, let it be with moderation and compassion... Work comes to an end, rest will come, yet one doesn't attain to rest except by working. The boat passes on, one reaches one's homeland, yet the homeland is reached only by means of the boat. But I am certain that we will not suffer shipwreck because we are carried on the wood of the cross.