During Lent, all memorials of saints, whether obligatory or optional, are deemed "commemorations" and their celebration is more limited than in other times. In all cases, their celebration is optional even for memorials that would be obligatory outside of Lent.
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| St. Isidore of Seville Painting from the Baroque Period at Seville Cathedral, ca. 1700 |
Today (April 4) is the commemoration of St. Isidore of Seville. There are a couple of saints named Isidore and today we are celebrating the one who was bishop of Seville in Spain around the year 600. He had such a comprehensive knowledge that he has been proposed as patron saint of the internet but besides knowledge he also had wisdom. There’s a difference! While our world has advanced in knowledge and technology, we sometime lack in wisdom. Knowledge has given us all sorts of great things like the internet but wisdom is necessary to know how to use all these things well. Archbishop Chaput of Denver once said, “Fools with tools are still fools.” If I may add, given the kind of tools and technology, we have been very dangerous fools. So where do we get wisdom? Not from scientific experiments but from God. Here something St. Isidore of Seville had to say: “If someone wants to be always in God’s company he must pray regularly and read regularly. When we pray, we talk to God; when we read, God talks to us. All spiritual growth comes from reading and reflections. Reading the Sacred scriptures trains the mind to understand them and turns our attention from the follies of the world and leads us to the love of God. Learning, unsupported by grace, can get into our ears but never reaches the heart.”
Source: Apostleship of Prayers
Source: Apostleship of Prayers
