The intentions I wish to mention specifically are Friday's (Mgr. Hargreaves(+)), Sunday's (Mick Prendergast(+) and Paul Bridges (+)), an today's (Michael Prendergast(+)). May eternal rest be granted unto them, and life eternal.
I have now implemented default intentions for every day of the week, which give some indication of my personal prayer intentions during the course of the week. They are as follows, and are subject to change in the future. Every intention requested by a parishioner or parishioners for a specific day replaces the default intention below:
- Sunday: the people of the Parish
- Monday: the Holy Father and the Bishop
- Tuesday: the Faithful departed of the Parish, specifically (they are remembered on Sundays, too)
- Wednesday: those sick or otherwise suffering, remembering especially the dying
- Thursday: Vocations to the priesthood and the Religious life
- Friday: Persecuted Christians (at the moment, various African and the Pakistani communities)
- Saturday: All who work in the Health Service, in particular doctors and nurses
Today is the feast day of the holy Apostle Saint Bartholomew, aka. Saint Nathaniel/Nathanael, a personal favourite. During my brief stay at the English College in Rome, I often passed by the church that contains his relics; it stands on the Tiber island, a short walk from the College. His martyrdom was memorably different from the other Apostles, for he was flayed alive and then crucified in Armenia. Before that, he was the Apostle to India, until he was joined (probably) by the Apostle Saint Thomas, who has left a more lasting memorial of his presence in south India in the Thomaschristian churches of south India. Bartholomew is known to have carried a copy of the Hebrew-language Gospel of Saint Matthew with him to India. When the philosopher Saint Pantaenus later visited India in the third century to debate the Brahmans, a community of Christians showed this to him. Because of the horrible manner of his torture before he died, Bartholomew is often presented to us in Latin iconography as without his skin and either holding his skin out or wearing it as a type of toga. Two pictures will demonstrate this.
Quite gruesome depictions of his Martyrdom really. Despite the difficulties of our time we really are very fortunate to be able to practice our Christian faith without such persecution here in the west.
ReplyDeleteIndeed we are. I think such horrible stories of torture remind us not only of how fortunate we are to not be tried in this way, but also how fortunate the martyr Saints knew they were in being able to suffer with Christ. It gives us a theology of suffering.
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