Easter: April 15th
Friday of the Third Week of Easter
Other Commemorations: St. Paternus, Bishop (RM)
MASS READINGS
April 15, 2016 (Readings on USCCB website)
COLLECT PRAYER
Grant, we pray, almighty God, that we, who have come to know the grace of the Lord's Resurrection, may, through the love of the Spirit, ourselves rise to newness of life. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever.
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Historically today is the feast of Sts. Basilissa and Anastasia, two noble women who were disciples of the apostles Sts. Peter and Paul at Rome, and were beheaded by order of Nero, as the Roman and Greek Martyrologies testify.
St. Paternus
St. Paternus was born at Poitiers, about the year 482. His father, Patranus, with the consent of his wife, went into Ireland, where he ended his days in holy solitude. Paternus, fired by his example, embraced a monastic life in the abbey of Marnes. After some time, burning with a desire of attaining to the perfection of Christian virtue, he passed over to Wales, and in Cardiganshire founded a monastery called Llan-patern-vaur, or the church of the great Paternus.
He made a visit to his father in Ireland, but being called back to his monastery of Marnes, he soon after retired with St. Scubilion, a monk of that house, and embraced an austere anchoretical life in the forests of Scicy, in the diocese of Coutances, near the sea, having first obtained leave of the bishop and of the lord of the place. This desert, which was then of great extent, but which has been since gradually gained upon by the sea, was anciently in great request among the Druids. St. Paternus converted to the faith the idolaters of that and many neighboring parts, as far as Bayeux, and prevailed upon them to demolish a pagan temple in this desert, which was held in great veneration by the ancient Gauls.
In his old age he was consecrated Bishop of Avranches by Germanus, Bishop of Rouen. Some false brethren having created a division of opinion among the bishops of the province with respect to St. Paternus, he preferred retiring rather than to afford any ground for dissension, and, after governing his diocese for thirteen years, he withdrew to a solitude in France, and there ended his days about the year 550.
—Excerpted from Lives of the Saints, by Alban Butler, Benziger Bros. ed. [1894]
Highlights and Things to Do:
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