GLEANINGS FOR NEXT WEEK'S CALENDAR

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXVII, Issue 3, 21 January 1909, Page 83

GLEANINGS FOR NEXT WEEK'S CALENDAR

January 24, Sunday.— Third Sunday after the Epiphany. • , St. Timothy, Bishop and Martyr! „ 25, Monday. — The Conversion of St. Paul. „ 26, Tuesday.— St. Polycarp, Bishop and Martyr. „ 27, "Wednesday. — St. ,Vitalian, Pope and " Confessor. „ 28, Thursday.— St. John. Chrysostom, Bishop, Confessor, and Doctor. „ 29, Friday.-^St. Francis of Sales, Bishop, Confessor, and Doctor. „ 30, Saturday.— St. Felix IV., Pope and Confessor.

The Conversion of St. Paul.

St. Paul was at first a violent persecutor of the Church. In fact, at the very moment when the grace of God touched his heart he was on his way to Damascus, with authority to seize any persons whom he might find professing the new faith, and send them . in "chains to Jerusalem. After his conversion, St. PauL devoted all his energies to the propagation of the Christian religion^ and spent his life in carrying the glad tidings of redemption to the nations that till then had sat ' in darkness and in the shadow of death.'

St. Polycarp, Bishop and Martyr.

St. Polycarp, a disciple of St. John the Evangelist, governed the important See of Smyrna for seventy years. He is believed to have been the Angel or Bishop of Smyrna commended by Our Blessed Lord in the Apocalypse (chap, ii.). He was martyred in 169, being then about 100 years of age. g> ; ... _. -