Friends at Court

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XLIX, Issue 45, 16 November 1922, Page 3

Friends at Court

" GLEANINGS FOR NEXT WEEK'S CALENDAR. November; 19, Sunday.—Twenty-fourth Sunday 'after Pen- *'' :■". •".' ' : ;;' tecost. „ * ••■ v, „ 20, Monday—St. Felix of Valois, Confessor. >• ~ 21, Tuesday.—Presentation of the Blessed Vir- • ; /;.'■. ' . - gin Mary. : „ 22, Wednesday. Cecilia, Virgin and- Mar* V ; • \ • •■- •" • tyr. .--'. ; - ; _ „ 23, Thursday.—St. Clement, Pope and Martyr. .;' „ 24, Friday.—St. John of the Cross, Confessor. .".'• Sr '[ ~ ■ 25, Saturday.—St." Catherine, Virgin and !.:'■■ Martyr. V Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary. According to a pious tradition dating from the earliest times, the Blessed Virgin, when a child, was taken by her parents to the temple of Jerusalem, where she was carefully instructed and trained by pious matrons in the practice of virtue. The feast we celebrate to-day eorru memorates the generous enthusiasm with which the Blessed Virgin dedicated her life to the service., of her Creator an offering which she never recalled, by the slightest sinful act. ■ '-■- ,* \ " ~.,.. ,„,; . St. Cecilia, Virgin and Martyr. St. Cecilia was a member of a noble Roman family. Betrothed \by -her parents, against her own wishes, to Valerian, a pagan, she succeeded in converting him and his brother to the Christian religion. On this coming to the ears of. the Prefect of the city, the two brothers were beheaded. The samo sentence was passed on St. Cecilia, but owing to tho clumsy manner in which tho executioner performed his task tho holy virgin lingered for three days in great agony, A.D. 230. St. John of tho Cross, Confessor. St. John was a Spaniard.. He received his surname from his special devotion to the Passion of Christ. Ho was associated with St. Teresa in reforming the Carmelite Order, of which he was a member. At the time of his death, in 1591, St. John was in his fiftieth year. '■■'.-, - St. Catherine, Virgin and Martyr. St. Catherine, a native of Alexandria, and illustrious for her brilliant talents and profound learning, was, after suffering many cruel torments, beheaded by order of the Emperor Maximin 11., in the beginning of the fourth century.