Friday, August 13, 1999
Friday August 13:
Nineteenth Friday in Ordinary Time
Feast of Pope Saint Pontian and Saint Hippolytus, Martyrs Green or red vestments
First Reading: Josue 24: 1-13
Psalms: Psalm 136: 1-3, 16-18, 21-22, 24
Gospel Reading: Matthew 19: 3-12
FEAST OF POPE SAINT PONTIAN AND SAINT HIPPOLYTUS, MARTYRS
The eighteenth in the line of Peter was Pope Saint Pontian who was born in Rome and elected to the papacy on August 28, 230. He is known for ordering the chanting of the psalms which many mendicant orders still do today. He also instituted the use of the salutation "Dominus vobiscum" in the liturgy of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass which, of course, in the vernacular means "The Lord be with you" to which the congregation replies "and also with you." Saint Hippolytus, a Roman priest, is recognized as an important theologian to the early Church, considered one of the most learned men of his time. In the Ambrosian rite he is venerated in the canon of the Mass. Both saints were exiled to Sardinia by the Emperor Maximus to a life of hard labor in the mines where Pontian was forced to vacate rule over Holy Mother Church because of his remote and isolated situation. Both saints died of exhaustion in 235, Hippolytus in Sardinia, and Pontian on the tiny isle of Tavolara. It was the twentieth Vicar of Christ Pope Saint Fabian who oversaw the return of both saints' bodies to Rome for a proper burial in 237.
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