Easter: May 11th
Thursday of the Fourth Week of Easter
Other Commemorations: St. Francis di Girolamo, Priest (RM)
MASS READINGS
May 11, 2006 (Readings on USCCB website)
COLLECT PRAYER
Father, in this holy season we come to know the full depth of your love. You have freed us from the darkness of error and sin. Help us to cling to your truths with fidelity. We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever. Amen.
Recipes (2)
Activities (5)
Prayers (4)
Library (0)
Blog & Podcasts (0)
» Enjoy our Liturgical Seasons series of e-books!
Jesus said to the crowd: "No one can come to me unless he is drawn by the Father who sent me, and I will raise him up at the last day. It is written in the prophets: They will all be taught by God, and to hear the teaching of the Father, and learn from it, is to come to me. Not that anybody has seen the Father, except the one who comes from God: he has seen the Father. I tell you most solemnly, everybody who believes has eternal life. I am the bread of life (John 6:44-48)."
Before the reform of the General Roman Calendar today was the feast of Sts. Philip and James. Their feast has been transferred to May 3.
St. Francis di Girolamo (also Francis de Geronimo)
St. Francis di Girolamo was the famous Jesuit pulpit orator of Naples: a volume would hardly suffice to record the wonderful effect of his eloquence. "His voice" says Butler "was loud and sonorous, . . . and the style of his preaching simple and impressive. . . . His descriptions forcible and graphic and his pathetic appeals were sure to draw tears while his energy astounded and terrified," yet there must have been much of the magnetism of the popular orator in his manner for whenever he spoke whether in the streets of Naples — a constant habit of his — or in the church great crowds followed him and not a few of the sudden conversion made by him of hardened sinners sound like the records of some modern "Revivalist" preachers.
He was an earnest untiring faithful worker to the very last. Born in 1642, at a very early age he became a prefect in the "College of Nobles of the Society of Jesus" and soon after his novitiate was completed took high rank in the society. It was as a preacher and evangelist that he excelled. He died May 11th, 1716 and was beatified by Pius VII, on the feast of St. Joseph in 1806, and canonized by Gregory XVI, on Trinity Sunday 1839.
—Excerpted from Saints and Festivals of the Christian Church, by H. Pomeroy Brewster
Patronage: Grottaglie, Italy; Naples
Highlights and Things to Do:
- Read more about St. Francis:
