Beaut Mass

It was my privilege to serve Fr's Low Mass today for the feast of the Seven Martyr Brothers and SS Rufina and Secunda, Virgin Martyrs. Apparently the seven were in fact martyred in different times and places, and then had their relics brought to common burial; this, and their being together feasted, led to the legend that they were brothers, all sons of a martyred matron, St Felicity - see here. But of course they truly and indeed have been made brothers by blood, true sons of one Holy Mother, the Church, the Bride of Christ - united in being all baptised into Christ by His Blood, united the more by testifying to Him unto the shedding of their own.

To celebrate these true brothers, and also their two sister-martyrs, who perished for Christ in a different time and place and yet were united to them indeed, their splendid proper Mass was composed: it is in this sense that its Introit, Epistle (taken from the sapiental books, being the account of the Valiant Woman), Gospel and Communion were chosen, all of them celebrating what the Alleluia verse most explicitly says: "This is the true brotherhood, which overcame the wickedness of the world: it followed Christ, attaining the glorious kingdom of Heaven"; or again, quoting the words of Our Lord in the Gospel and Communion, "Whosoever shall do the will of My Father Who is in Heaven, he is My brother, and sister, and mother" (St Matthew xii, 50).