GLEANINGS FOR NEXT WEEK'S CALENDAR.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXX, Issue 8, 20 February 1902, Page 7

GLEANINGS FOR NEXT WEEK'S CALENDAR.

February 23, Sunday.— Second Sunday in Lent. „ 24, Monday.— St. Mathias, Apostle. „ V 5, Tuesday. — St. Felix II F., Pope and Confessor. „ 26, Wednesday.— St. Murgaret of Cortona, Penitent. „ 27, Thursday.— St. Marcellus, Pope and Martyr. „ 2S, Friday.— The Winding Sheet of Our Lord. March 1, Saturday.— St. Hyginus, Pope and Martyr,

ST. MATHIAS, APOSTLE. Aft En the Ascension of our Lord, St. Mathias was chosen by lot to fill the place which the treachery and suicide of Judas had left vacant. Tradition assigns as the scene of his labors and martyrdom Cappadocia and the countries bordering on the Black and Caspian Seas. ST. FELIX 111., POPE AND CONFESSOR. The pontificate of St. Felix, who was a native of Rome, lasted from 483 to 492. During the whole of this time the affairs of the East engaged his attention. Through the intrigues of ambitious, unscrupulous men, the sees of Alexandria, Antioch, and other cities had been deprived of their lawful pastors, and given into the hands of heretical usurpers. In remedying these evils St. Felix displayed the most uncompromising firmness where questions of faith were concerned, and at the came time showed himself to be gifted with extraordinary prudence and unwearying patience. ST. MARGARET OF CORTONA. St. Margaret of Cortona was born at Alviano, in the diocese of Chiusi, in Tuscany, about the middle of the thirteenth century. At the age of 16 she fell away from God, and for nine or ten years Margaret led a life of shame. She was Btill in the bonds of sin when one day she saw the body of her partner in guilt, who had been murdered, covered with worms. She then entered into herself and resolved to do penance for her evil life. She returned to her father's house, and he received the prodigal child. Margaret spent night and day in bewailing her past guilt, and with a rope round her neck begged pardon publicly in the parish church for the scandal she had given. Her stepmother objected that her penance compromised the respectability of the family, and persuaded her father to send her away. Margaret thereupon went to Cortona and put herself under the care of the Friars of St. Francis, who, after a long trial to test the sincerity of her coversion, admitted her to the Third Order, called of Penance. She who had once lived in luxury, pampering her body, lived henceforth a life of heroic patience and mortification in a narrow cell, but perfectly obedient in all things to her confessors, growing in holiness, in mastery over self, and in perfect detachment from the world. She died February 22, 1297, and her incorrupt body still testifies to the efficacy of her penance and to the recovered purity of her soul. ST. MARCELLTJb, POPE AND "MARTYR. St. Marcellus succeeded Pope St. Marcellinus in 308. After a pontificate of 19 months, he succumbed to the tortures inflicted on him by the tyrant Maxentius. THE WINDING SHEET OF OUR LORD. St. Matthew, after describing the Crucifixion, continues : ' When it was evening there came a certain rich man of Arimathea, named Joseph, who also wan himself a disciple of Jesus. He went to Pilate and asked 'the body of Jtsus. And Pilate commanded that the body should be delivered, and Joseph, taking the body wrapped it up in a clean linen cloth, and laid it in his own monument, which he had hewed out in a rock.' ST. HYGIMTS, POPE AND MARTYR. Pt. Hyginns, who was Pope from 137 to 141, was successor to St. Telespborus. He combated the heresies of Valentinus and Cerdo, and ordained that there should be only one godfather and godmother at baptism. Ho received the crown of martyrdom under the Emperor Antoniuus.