S. Paschalis Baylon Confessoris ~ Duplex

Scriptura: Sabbato infra Hebdomadam III post Octavam Paschæ

Sat, 5/17/25:

Today is the feast of St. Paschal Baylon, C, under the 1954 (double) and 1962 (III class) rubrics.

Mass: Os justi of a confessor not a bishop with proper collect. White. Gloria. Paschal Alleluia. Omit Credo. Preface of Easter. Ite. No commemorations or additional prayers.

Office: Ordinary office. White. Matins of 3 nocturns of 9 lessons (1954)/1 nocturn of 3 lessons (1962; II = II & III of occurring Scripture combined, III = short hagiography). Te Deum. Psalms of the feria with Paschaltide antiphon. All else from the common of a confessor not a bishop. Proper collect. No commemorations at Lauds. Omit suffrage (1954). (Source: LB236.)

Collect
℣. The Lord be with you.
℟. And with thy spirit.
Let us pray.
O God, Who endowed blessed Paschal, Your Confessor, with a wondrous love for the sacred mysteries of Your Body and Blood, mercifully grant that we may be found worthy to share in the same spiritual abundance he received in this divine banquet.
Who livest and reignest with God the Father, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, world without end.
℟. Amen

From the Holy Gospel according to Luke
Luke 12:35-40
At that time, Jesus said unto His disciples: Let your loins be girded about, and your lights burning. And so on.

Homily by Pope St. Gregory the Great.
13th on the Gospels.
Dearly beloved brethren, the words of the Holy Gospel, which have just been read, lie open before you, and, lest their very plainness should make them seem to some to be hard, we will go through them with such shortness as that neither may they which understand not remain unenlightened, nor they which understand be wearied. The Lord saith Let your loins be girded about. Now, we gird our loins about, when by continency we master the lustful inclination of the flesh. But, forasmuch as it sufficeth not for a man to abstain from evil deeds, if he strive not to join thereto the earnest doing of good works, it is immediately added And your lights burning. Our lights burn when, by good works, we give bright example to our neighbour; concerning which works the Lord saith Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father Which is in heaven. Matth. v. 16.

Post Communion
P. The Lord be with you.
S. And with thy spirit.
Let us pray.
Refreshed with heavenly food and drink, we humbly pray You, our God, that we also may be helped by his prayers in memory of whom we have partaken of these gifts.
Through Jesus Christ, thy Son our Lord, Who liveth and reigneth with thee, in the unity of the Holy Ghost, God, world without end.
℟. Amen.

Paschal Baylon was the son of poor and godly parents, in the town of Torre Hermosa, and Diocese of Sagunta in Aragon, in the year of our Lord 1540. From his childhood he gave indications of a holy life. He was naturally of a good disposition, and very wishful to learn about heavenly things. His boyhood and youth he passed in the occupation of a shepherd. This way of life pleased him well, because he thought it one useful and fitted to nourish lowliness and keep innocency. He ate little, and was instant in prayer. He had great weight and favour with his fellows and neighbours, whose quarrels he healed, corrected their mistakes, enlightened their ignorance, and roused them from idleness. They all greatly honoured and loved him, as though he were their father and teacher, and even then many called him “Beato,” that is “the Blessed.”

In a world which was to him “a dry land, where no water is” the vallies, “planted in the House of the Lord” Ps. xci. 14,whose strange sweetness spread all around. When he took upon him an harder life, by entering the Institute of barefooted Grey Friars, of the strict Observance, “he rejoiced as a strong man to run a race” Ps. xviii. 6, and gave himself up altogether to serve the Lord, thinking by day and by night only how he might attain more and more to have that mind in him which was also in Christ Jesus Phil. ii. 5. And so it came to pass in a little while, that his very elders set him before them for their model, as a pattern of a man seeking to be perfect in the path of the Seraphic Order. Paschal himself held the lowly place of a lay brother, and deemed himself “the off-scouring of all things” 1. Cor. iv. 13. He took most cheerfully, and discharged with the greatest humility and patience, the hardest and meanest work of the house, as though such were his peculiar right. His flesh would sometimes rebel against his spirit, but he broke it under the yoke of mortification, and brought it into subjection. Day by day the spirit of self-denial waxed stronger in him, and “forgetting those things which were behind, he reached forth unto those things which were before” Phil. iii. 13.