Holy Spirit Roman Catholic Church

The Optional Memorial of St. Sharbel Makhlūf (1828-1868) is celebrated today. He was a Lebanese monk, born in a small mountain village and ordained in 1858. Devoted to the Blessed Virgin Mary, he spent the last twenty-three years of his life as a hermit. Despite temptations to wealth and comfort, Saint Sharbel taught the value of poverty, self-sacrifice and prayer by the way he lived his life. This optional memorial is new to the USA liturgical calendar and was inscribed on July 24, 2004.

Today the Church celebrates the Optional Memorial of St. Bridget (1302-1373), patron saint of Sweden. She married a young prince and lived happily with him for 28 years, bearing him eight children. St. Catherine of Sweden was their daughter. After her husband died, Bridget founded the Order of the Most Holy Savior, erecting at Vadstena a double monastery for monks and nuns. Following the guidance of the Holy Spirit, she later went to Rome, where she worked for the return of the Popes from Avignon. She died of natural causes in 1373, at the age of seventy-one. This Scandinavian mystic is famous for her Revelations concerning the sufferings of our Redeemer.

Today is the Feast of St. Mary Magdalene. On June 10, 2016, the liturgical celebration honoring St. Mary Magdalene was raised from a memorial to a feast, commemorating the "Apostle to the Apostles" with a liturgical feast, the same celebration as most of the apostles (except for Peter and Paul). Beginning in 2020 there is a new Preface: Apostle to the Apostles used for her feast.