Septuagesima Sunday, Apparition of Our Lady to Saint Angela de Foligno (1285), The Translation of the Relics of Saint Mark, the Evangelist and Memorials of the Saints – 31 January

Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time +2020
Septuagesima Sunday (Traditional Calendar): The word Septuagesima is Latin for “seventieth.” It is both the name of the liturgical season and the name of the Sunday. Septuagesima Sunday marks the beginning of the shortest liturgical season. This season is seventeen (17) days long and includes the three Sundays before Ash Wednesday. The length of the season never changes but the start date is dependent on the movable date of Easter, which can fall between 22 March-25 April. Septuagesima Sunday can be as early as 18 January.
The Septuagesima season helps the faithful ease into Lent. It is a gradual preparation for the serious time of penance and sorrow; to remind the sinner of the grievousness of his errors and to exhort him to penance.
Liturgically it looks very much like Lent. The Gloria and Alleluia are omitted, the tone becomes penitential with the Priest wearing purple vestments. The main difference is that there are no fasting requirements.

Apparition of Our Lady to Saint Angela de Foligno (1285) – 31 January:
Angela of Foligno was born in 1248 of a prominent family in Foligno, three leagues from Assisi. As a young woman and also as a wife and mother, she lived only for the world and its vain pleasures. But the grace of God intended to make of her, a vessel of election, for the comfort and salvation of many. A ray of the divine mercy touched her soul and so strongly affected her, as to bring about a conversion.
At the command of her confessor, Angela of Foligno committed to writing the manner of her conversion in eighteen spiritual steps.
“Enlightened by grace,” Blessed Angela of Foligno wrote in this account. “I realised my sinfulness; I was seized with a great fear of being damned and I shed a flood of tears. I went to confession to be relieved of my sins but through shame I concealed the most grievous ones but still I went to Communion. Now my conscience tortured me day and night. I called upon St Francis for help and, moved by an inner impulse, I went into a church where a Franciscan Father was then preaching.” (It is reported that in the year 1285 she had a vision of both the Blessed Virgin Mary and Saint Francis of Assisi, who called her to penance.)
“I gathered courage to confess all my sins to him and I did this immediately after the sermon. With zeal and perseverance, I performed the penance he imposed but my heart continued to be full of bitterness and shame. I recognised that the divine mercy has saved me from hell, hence I resolved to do rigorous penance; nothing seemed too difficult for me because I felt I belonged in hell. I called upon the saints and especially upon the Blessed Virgin, to intercede with God for me.

It appeared to me now as if they had compassion on me and I felt the fire of divine love enkindled within me, so that I could pray as I never prayed before. I had also received a special grace to contemplate the Cross in which Christ had suffered so much for my sins. Sorrow, love and the desire to sacrifice everything for Him filled my soul.”

About this time God harkened to the earnest desire of the penitent – her mother died, then her husband and soon afterwards, all her children. These tragic events were very painful to her but she made the sacrifice with resignation to the will of God. Being freed from these ties, she dispossessed herself of all her temporal goods with the consent of her confessor, a Franciscan friar named Arnoldo, so that being poor herself, she might walk in the footsteps of her poor Saviour. It was to Arnoldo that she dictated her account of her conversion, now known as the ‘Memoriale,’ or the ‘Book of Visions and Instructions.’
She also entered the Third Order of St Francis and presently found herself the superior and guide of other,s who followed in her path. Many women joined her, even to the point of taking the three vows. She encouraged them in works of charity, in nursing the sick and in going personally from door to door to beg for the needs of the poor.
Meanwhile, Angela became still more immersed in the contemplation of the Passion of Christ and she chose the Sorrowful Mother and the faithful disciple John as her patrons. The sight of the wounds which her Lord suffered for her sins, urged her to the practice of still greater austerities. Once Our Lord showed her that His Heart is a safe refuge in all the storms of life. She was soon to be in need of such a refuge. God permitted her to be afflicted with severe temptations. The most horrible and loathsome representations distressed her soul. The fire of concupiscence raged so furiously that she said:
“I would rather have beheld myself surrounded with flames and permitted myself to be continually roasted, than to endure such things.”
Still, she called out to God, “Glory be to Thee, O Lord! Thy cross is my resting place.”
These painful trials lasted over two years but then, the purified and tried servant of the Lord, was filled with great consolation. She obtained a marvellous insight into divine things and was very frequently found in ecstasy. For a time she had the stigmata and for many years Holy Communion was her only food, until at last, completely purified, she entered into the eternal joy of the Supreme Good on 4 January 1310.
Pope Innocent XII approved the continual devotion paid to her at her tomb in Foligno, where many miracles were attributed to her. He Beatified her in 1693. Her Canonisation was an equipollent Canonisation in 2013.
Blessed Angela of Foligno said,
“To know oneself and to know God, that is the perfection of man; without this knowledge, visions and the greatest gifts are of no account.”
St Angela’s Biography here:
https://anastpaul.com/2020/01/04/saint-of-the-day-4-january-saint-angela-of-foligno-tosf-1248-1309/

The Translation of the Relics of Saint Mark, the Evangelist

St John Bosco “Don Bosco” SDB (1815-1888) (Memorial) Founder of the Society of St Francis de Sales now known as the Salesians
All about beautiful Don Bosco: https://anastpaul.wordpress.com/2018/01/31/saint-of-the-day-31-january-st-john-bosco-don-bosco-1815-1888-founder-of-the-salesians-and-the-daughters-of-mary-help-of-christians-and-the-association-of-salesian-cooperators/

AND: https://anastpaul.com/2019/01/31/saint-of-the-day-st-john-bosco-don-bosco-sdb-1815-1888/

St Abraham of Abela
Bl Adamnan of Coldingham
St Aedan of Ferns
St Aiden
St Athanasius of Modon
St Bobinus of Troyes
St Eusebius of Saint Gall
St Francesco Saverio Maria Bianchi/Francis Xavier Bianchi CRSP (1743-1815) “Apostle of Naples”
About St Francesco:
https://anastpaul.com/2020/01/31/saint-of-the-day-31-january-saint-francis-xavier-bianchi-crsp-1743-1815-apostle-of-naples/
St Geminian of Modena
Bl John Angelus
St Julius of Novara
Bl Louise degli Albertoni
Bl Luigi Talamoni
St Madoes
St Marcella
Bl Maria Cristina di Savoia
St Martin Manuel
St Nicetas of Novgorod
St Tryphaena of Cyzicus
St Tysul
St Ulphia of Amiens
St Waldo of Evreux
St Wilgils
—

Martyrs of Corinth – 14 saints: A group of Christians tortured and martyred together in Corinth, Greece in the persecutions of Decius. We know nothing about them except some names – Anectus, Claudius, Codratus, Crescens, Cyprian, Diodorus, Dionysius, Nicephorus, Papias, Paul, Serapion, Theodora, Victor and Victorinus.

Martyrs of Canope:
Athanasia
Cyrus the Physician
Eudoxia
John the Physician
Theoctista
Theodotia
Martyred in Alexandria, Egypt
Cyriacus
Metranus
Saturninus
Tarskius
Thyrsus
Victor
Zoticus

Martyred in Alexandria, Egypt:
Cyriacus
Metranus
Saturninus
Tarskius
Thyrsus
Victor
Zoticus

Martyred in the Spanish Civil War:
José Acosta Alemán
Juan José Martínez Romero
Pedro José Rodríguez Cabrera

Martyrs of Korea: Thousands of people were murdered in the anti-Catholic persecutions in Korea.
• Saint Agatha Kwon Chin-i
• Saint Agatha Yi Kyong-I
• Saint Augustinus Park Chong-Won
• Saint Magdalena Son So-Byok
• Saint Maria Yi In-Dok
• Saint Petrus Hong Pyong-Ju