St Oswald

To-day is a feria, and - since the full Lenten Office begins with Vespers, the days from Ash Wednesday till now still using the usual ferial parts - is one of the only days when the Matins and Lauds hymns Summæ Parens clementiæ and Aurora jam spargit polum for ferial Saturdays are used (for otherwise Our Lady's Office takes precedence), the other occasions being Ember Saturdays.

However, a perusal of the Martyrology informed me that to-day is also the commemoration of St Oswald, Bishop and Confessor; and by coincidence, the local Anglican church is named after him (when there was for a while a Catholic church in the area, it was dedicated to Our Lady's Assumption), so I thought I'd note his yearly memory.  

While the Martyrology terms his first see Vigornia in Anglia, in English it's called Worcester (pronounced "wuster"); he was first a canon, then a monk, established many monasteries obeying the Benedictine Rule, and ended up Archbishop of York: he died, full of faith and good works, while a-washing the feet of the poor on the 29th of February, 992.

May he pray for us!