Lent: April 9th
Wednesday of the Fifth Week of Lent
Other Commemorations: St. Gaucherius, Hermit (RM); St. Liborius, Bishop (RM); St. Demetrius of Sermium, Martyr (RM)
MASS READINGS
April 09, 2025 (Readings on USCCB website)
PROPERS [Show]
COLLECT PRAYER
Wednesday of the Fifth Week of Lent: Enlighten, O God of compassion, the hearts of your children, sanctified by penance, and in your kindness grant those you stir to a sense of devotion a gracious hearing when they cry out to you. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever.
Recipes (3)
Activities (4)
Prayers (5)
Library (0)
Blog & Podcasts (0)
» Enjoy our Liturgical Seasons series of e-books!
It is one week before the end of Lent, a week from Spy Wednesday. This Mass reminds us that the hatred against Christ was growing, and the plot to kill Him was developing. The three young men in the fiery furnace are a reminder of what Jesus will endure. —The Vatican II Weekday Missal
The Roman Martyrology commemorates:
- St. Gaucherius (1060-1140), also known as Walter. He was the founder and abbot of the Augustinian Canons regular monastery of Saint John at Aureil, Limousin and friend of St. Stephen of Grandmont. He founded St. John's Monastery at Aureil and a convent for women.
- Saint Liborius of Le Mans (d. 396) was born of a noble family of Gaul. He joined the priesthood, and was ordained Bishop of Mans in 348. He was a friend of Saint Martin of Tours. He was a bishop for 45 years, during which he built many churches. He died in 396 of natural causes.
- St. Demetrius of Sirmium (270-c. 306) is also commemorated. He was both soldier and martyr; he suffered in the early 4th century under Maximian. He became immensely popular in the East, where he was called ‘The Great Martyr,’ and subsequently in the West.
Meditation for Wednesday of the Fifth Week of Lent
The debate between Jesus and those participating in the Feast of Tabernacles continues in today’s gospel reading, with the focus now on God’s truth and the breadth of its reach. Jesus declares that those who hold fast to his word “will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.” His listeners—some puzzled, some indignant—respond that, as they are the stock of Abraham, they “have never been in bondage to anyone.” How is it, they demand, “that you say, ‘You will be made free’?” The discussion deteriorates from there, with Jesus’s interlocutors mistakenly imagining that he is calling them bastard children. Yet, in their confusion and misapprehension, they bring us to the heart of the matter, proclaiming, “We have one Father, even God.” To which Jesus responds that, in that case, they ought to esteem him, for “I proceeded and came forth from the Father; I came not of my own accord, but he sent me.”
The Son, the Light of the world, is teaching those in the Temple, and us, that salvation history has entered a new phase: while Israel remains in the truth that belongs by right to the descendants of Abraham (for God does not renege on his covenantal promises), the truth first revealed to Abraham is now being offered universally. And in the Kingdom that is breaking into history in Jesus’s person and mission, abiding in covenantal truth will no longer be a matter of lineage but of faith—an act of faith that, in principle, is open to everyone, thanks to the grace of God offered to all by the Son of God. The power of Trinitarian love and the truth about God’s relationship with his human creation cannot be confined, even if the distinctive role of Israel in witnessing to this truth will remain an essential part of salvation history. Now, however, there will no longer be “Jew or Gentile…slave or free” [Galatians 3:28]. All who adhere to the Son, who reveals the truth about the Father, will be one.
This truth that Jesus offers is not something his disciples possess—as, for example, Peter, Andrew, James, and John “possess” certain “truths” about fishing on the Sea of Galilee. On the contrary, the truth of God in Christ seizes and possesses the disciples, reshaping their lives, reordering their priorities, configuring those who embrace it in the imitation of the Son. This is truth with power, and its power is evangelical: this is a truth that must be offered to others and lavishly expended in mission. For the paradox of the truth that Jesus offers is that his presence within us conforms us more closely to him, and its grasp upon us increases the more we give his truth to those who have not yet received it. There are no zero-sum games in the economy of salvation, which is the expression in time of the ever-giving, ever-receiving truth, goodness and beauty of the Holy Trinity.
—George Weigel, Roman Pilgrimage: The Station Churches
Wednesday of the Fifth Week of Lent
Station with San Marcello al Corso (St. Marcellus at the Corso):
The Station today is at the church of St. Marcellus at the Corso. Legend claims that Pope St. Marcellus (308-309) was sentenced by Emperor Maxentius to look after the horses at the station of the Imperial mail on the Via Lata, where the Via del Corso now lies. He was freed by the people, and hidden in the house of the Roman lady Lucina (see also San Lorenzo in Lucina). He was rearrested, and imprisoned in the stables.
For more on San Marcello al Corso, see:
For further information on the Station Churches, see The Stational Church.
St. Gaucherius
Born in Meulan-sur-Seine to the northwest of Paris, he received a classical education and became a priest. However he felt a deep longing for solitude and a life more radically centered on God. He thereupon devoted his life God as a hermit and began with his friend, Germond, to reside in the area of Limoges. Alone and forgotten by the world, Gaucherius and Germond grew in holiness. Their example attracted others who built hermitages near to theirs. Finally Gaucherius decided to build a monastery at Aureil and to establish two communities, one for men, the other for women, both under the rule of St. Augustine. The passage of an eremitical settlement into the canonical life was one of the principal ways through which the canons regular grew in the 11th and 12th Century. The community of Aureil is typical of these kinds of Ordo Novus canons regular. Thereafter he lived with his companions, being for all a model of sanctity. His companions and disciples include St. Lambert of Angouleme and St. Faucherus as well as the founder of Grandmont monastery, St. Stephen Muret. He died 80 years old in 1140 and was canonized in 1194.
—Excerpted from the Canons Regular of St. Augustine
Patronage: wood cutters
Highlights and Things to Do:
- Read more about St. Gaucherius:
St. Liborius
St. Liborius was bishop of Le Mans (348-397), where he labored with signal success. He is said to have healed sufferers from "gravel and allied complaints," and for this reason his feast was introduced by Pope Clement XI, himself a victim who was cured through the saint's intercession. The earliest historical reference dates to the ninth century when his remains were transferred to Paderborn, Westphalia, to aid in the conversion of the Saxons; they are still there at present.
—The Church's Year of Grace, Pius Parsch
Patronage: abdominal pains; against calculi; against colic; against fever; against gall stones; against gravel; against kidney disease; against kidney stones; Le Mans, France; Archdiocese and city of Paderborn Germany; Cathedral of Paderborn
Symbols and Representation: Book and several small stones; peacock's feather; bishop carrying small stones on a book; bishop with a peacock; peacock (legend is that when his relics were taken to Paderborn, the procession was led by a peacock); pebbles
Highlights and Things to Do:
- Read more about St. Liborius:
- There is a week-long annual festival, Libori, in Paderborn, Germany, that begins on the Saturday after his July 23rd feast day.
- St. Liborius' relics are located in the Paderborn Cathedral. According to CatholicSaints.info, the translation of his relics from Le Mans to Paderborn, Germany led to a sister-city relation that has lasted for over 1,000 years.Tthere is also a legend that when his relics were taken to Paderborn, the procession was led by a peacock.
St. Demetrius
Saint Demetrius was born to a wealthy, noble family and raised Christian. He was a soldier and a Deacon. He was raised to the rank of Duke of Thessaly by the Emperor Maximian. But when he was found to be a Christian he was arrested and imprisoned in a bath-house. He was run through with spears c.306 at Sirmium (in modern Serbia).
St. Demetrius was extremely popular in the Middle Ages and was reported to have appeared during a battle in 586, centuries after his death to help defend Thessalonica.
Over 200 churches in the Balkans are known to have been dedicated to him. His relics were said to emit holy oil.
—Excerpted from Evangelizo.org 2001-2014
Demetrius was probably a deacon who was martyred sometime before the fifth century at Sirmium (Mitrovic in former Yugoslavia). During that century two churches were built in his honor, one at Sirmium and the other at Thessalonica. It may be that the cult of the saint migrated from Sirmium when Leontius, the prefect of Illyricum, moved the seat of civil suthority to Thessalonica–he is reputed to have built both churches. Certainly Demetrius was honored as a saint at Sirmium before the church at Thessalonica was built. Sirmium, however, was destroyed by the invading Huns in 441, and it was the second church that became the principal center for the cult of the martyr and attracted very large numbers of pilgrims. The church was destroyed by fire in 1917 but has since been rebuilt; it was obviously meant to hold a great number of people.
In time Demetrius became known as "the Great Martyr," and a legend grew up about his life. According to this he had been a citizen of Thessalonica who had been arrested for preaching the gospel and executed without trial in the local baths. The church was built over the baths and incorporated part of them as a kind of crypt. At a later date relics of the saint were said to exude a miraculous oil, but the arrangements whereby the pilgrims could collect some of this seem to have been quite fraudulent.
The earliest written account we have dates from the ninth century and says that the order for his execution came from the emperor Maximian himself. Later accounts make out that he was a proconsul (this is how the Roman Martyrology described him) or a warrior-saint similar to St. George and second only to him in popularity. He as one of the saints adopted by the Crusaders as their patrons in battle. None of these later accounts can be trusted, though we can be sure of the existence of a martyr of that name. His feastday is kept with great solemnity throughout the Eastern Church on October 26, and he is named in the preparation of the Byzantine liturgy. The popular Slav name, Dmitry, comes from him. His cult was popular also in Ravenna in Italy, where the earliest chapel was dedicated in his honor.
The original basilica, destroyed in 1917, had important mosaics from the sixth to the ninth century; in these Demetrius was portrayed as a deacon. More often he was depicted as a soldier.
—Excerpted from Butler's Lives of the Saints, Volume 10
Patronage: Crusaders; soldiers; Belgrade, Serbia; Salonica, Greece; Thessaloniki, Greece
Highlights and Things to Do:
- Learn more about St. Demetrius:
