Monday, 31 December, 2007
7th DAY IN THE OCTAVE OF CHRISTMAS (II)

Collect (from The Third Mass of Christmas): Grant, we beseech Thee, almighty God, that the new birth of Thine only-begotten Don in the flesh may set us free, who are held by the bondage under the yoke of sin. Through the same Lord Jesus Christ, Who livest and reignest with God the Father in the unity of the Holy Ghost, world without end.
(Epistle and Gospel from The Second Mass of Christmas)
Epistle: Bl. Paul the Apostle to Titus, 2:11-15.
Gospel: Continuation of the holy Gospel according to St. Luke, 2:15-20.

ST. SYLVESTER I, Pope and Confessor (Comm.)
“Under the pontificate of this holy Pope – Saint Sylvester (314-335) – the Church, after three hundred years of persecution, begins to enjoy liberty, and spreads in the Roman Empire; and the Council of Nicaea (325) established against the heretic Arius the doctrine of the eternal Divinity of the Saviour.”

Remarks are abstracted from The Daily Missal and Liturgical Manual, from Editio Typica of the Roman Missal and Breviary, 1962
(Baronius Press Limited, London, 2004, in conjunction with the Fraternal Society of St. Peter, www.baroniuspress.com)