Carissimi: Today’s Mass; Commemoration of St Paul, Apostle

St Paul, Apostle; Commemoration of St Peter & Commemoration of the Octave of the Nativity of St John the Baptist: Missa “Scio cui crédidi”

Whereas the Greeks on this day are uniting in one solemnity the memory, as they express it, “of the illustrious Saints, the Twelve Apostles, worthy of all praise,” let us follow in spirit the Roman people of former times, who would gather around the Successor of St. Peter and make the splendid Basilica of the Ostian Way—St. Paul outside the Walls—re-echo with songs of victory, while he offered to the Doctor of the Gentiles the grateful homage of the city and of the world.

On the 25th of January we beheld St. Stephen leading to Christ’s Crib Saul, the once ravenous wolf of Benjamin (Gen. 49: 27), tamed at last, but who in the morning of his impetuous youth had filled the Church of God with tears and…