ADZU JHS Campus Ministry Office

12/06/2026

Memorial of St. Anthony of Padua, Priest and Doctor of the Church

Today is the Memorial of St. Anthony of Padua (1195-1231), who was born at Lisbon, Portugal. He bacame a canon regular and then a Franciscan preaching the Gospel everywhere in Portugal and Italy. Both as a theologian and as a popular preacher he fought vigorously against heresy. His preaching was inspired by the love of God and of souls and had an extraordinary power of conviction; it was filled with the penetrating power of the Bible. Pope Gregory IX, who heard him preach, called him during his lifetime the Arca Testamenti, meaning "the living repository of the Holy Scriptures" and Pope Pius XII, when he proclaimed him a Doctor of the Church, declared that he based all that he said on the texts of the Gospels, and could justly be called the Evangelical Doctor. St. Anthony lived for a time in France, but chiefly in Italy, and died at Padua in 1231 at age 36, with the reputation of great sanctity. From the day of his death innumerable miracles caused the faithful to invoke him as a wonderworker of untiring benevolence.

12/06/2026

Memorial of the Immaculate Heart of Mary

In the midst of the World War II, Pope Pius XII put the whole world under the special protection of our Savior's Mother by consecrating it to her Immaculate Heart, and in 1944 he decreed that in the future the whole Church should celebrate the Memorial of the Immaculate Heart of Mary. This is not a new devotion. In the seventeenth century, St. John Eudes preached it together with that of the Sacred Heart; in the nineteenth century, Pius VII and Pius IX allowed several churches to celebrate a feast of the Pure Heart of Mary. Pius XII instituted today's feast of the Immaculate Heart of Mary for the whole Church, so as to obtain by her intercession "peace among nations, freedom for the Church, the conversion of sinners, the love of purity and the practice of virtue" (Decree of May 4, 1944).

11/06/2026

Solemnity of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus

Today is the Solemnity of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, designated the Friday after the Second Sunday of Pentecost. Sixteenth century Calvinism and seventeenth century Jansenism preached a distorted Christianity that substituted for God's love and sacrifice of His Son for all men the fearful idea that a whole section of humanity was inexorably damned.

The Church always countered this view with the infinite love of our Savior who died on the cross for all men. The institution of the feast of the Sacred Heart was soon to contribute to the creation among the faithful of a powerful current of devotion which since then has grown steadily stronger. The first Office and Mass of the Sacred Heart were composed by St. John Eudes, but the institution of the feast was a result of the appearances of our Lord to St. Margaret Mary Alacoque in 1675. The celebration of the feast was extended to the General Roman Calendar of the Church by Pius IX in 1856.

11/06/2026

Memorial of St. Barnabas, Apostle

Today is the Memorial of St. Barnabas, Apostle, who was designated by the Holy Spirit to share the charge and mission of the twelve Apostles, is venerated by the Church as one of them. He played an important part in the first extension of Christianity outside the Jewish world. It was Barnabas who presented St. Paul to the other Apostles when, after his long retreat in Arabia, he came to Jerusalem for the first time after his conversion to submit for Peter's approval the mission to the Gentiles entrusted to him by the Master Himself. Barnabas was Paul's companion and helper on his first missionary journey and returned with him to Jerusalem, but left him when he set out on his second journey and went to Cyprus. The name of St. Barnabas is mentioned in the Canon of the Mass.

08/06/2026

ORATIO IMPERATA
PRAYER IN THE WAKE OF THE EARTHQUAKE

Almighty Father, we raise our hearts to You in gratitude for the wonders of creation,
for Your providence that sustains us in our needs, and for Your wisdom that guides the course of the universe.
We acknowledge our sins against You and the rest of creation. We have not been good stewards of Your gifts. We turn to You, our loving Father, and beg forgiveness for our sins.
Look with mercy upon Your people, O Lord, as we tremble in fear from the shaking of the earth.
Protect us from harm and shield us from the dangers of collapsing homes, falling debris, and all destruction caused by earthquakes.
We especially lift to You the poor, the vulnerable, and the defenseless, those who have no strong shelter, those whose homes are weak and fragile, and those who cannot recover easily from disaster. Be their refuge, O God, their comfort and their strength.
Calm our hearts when fear surrounds us.
Steady the ground beneath us and keep us safe. Heal the injured, console the grieving, and grant eternal rest to those who have perished.
We ask this through Your Son Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, forever and ever.
AMEN.

ORATIO IMPERATA
PRAYER IN THE WAKE OF THE EARTHQUAKE
Almighty Father, we raise our hearts to You in gratitude for the wonders of creation,
for Your providence that sustains us in our needs, and for Your wisdom that guides the course of the universe.
We acknowledge our sins against You and the rest of creation. We have not been good stewards of Your gifts. We turn to You, our loving Father, and beg forgiveness for our sins.
Look with mercy upon Your people, O Lord, as we tremble in fear from the shaking of the earth.
Protect us from harm and shield us from the dangers of collapsing homes, falling debris, and all destruction caused by earthquakes.
We especially lift to You the poor, the vulnerable, and the defenseless, those who have no strong shelter, those whose homes are weak and fragile, and those who cannot recover easily from disaster. Be their refuge, O God, their comfort and their strength.
Calm our hearts when fear surrounds us.
Steady the ground beneath us and keep us safe. Heal the injured, console the grieving, and grant eternal rest to those who have perished.
We ask this through Your Son Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, forever and ever.
AMEN.

07/06/2026

Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ

The Solemnity of the Body and Blood of Christ is observed on the Thursday following on the Solemnity of the Most Blessed Trinity. Where the Solemnity of the Body and Blood of Christ is not observed as a Holy Day of obligation on Thursday, it is assigned to the Sunday after Trinity Sunday, which is then considered its proper day in the calendar.

The Mass includes an option of singing or reciting the Sequence Laud, O Zion or Lauda Sion before the Alleluia. This sequence is optional. There are only two other feasts (Easter and Pentecost) with Sequences.

This feast is both a doctrinal and cultic response to heretical teaching on the mystery of the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist, and the apogee of an ardent devotional movement concentrated on the Sacrament of the Altar. It was extended to the entire Latin Church by Urban IV in 1264 —Dir. on Popular Piety & the Liturgy, 160).

03/06/2026

Memorial of Sts. Charles Lwanga and Companions, Martyrs

Today is the Memorial of St. Charles Lwanga and Companions (d. 1886), the companions numbering twenty-one other Ugandan martyrs. They are the first martyrs of Sub-Saharan Africa and true witnesses of the Christian faith. Charles Lwanga, a catechist and a young leader, was martyred in 1886 with a group of Catholic and Anglican royal pages, some of whom were not yet baptized. King Mwanga, who despised the Christian religion, gave orders that all the Christian pages in his service be laid upon a mat, bound, placed onto a pyre and burnt. This took place at Namugongo, just outside Kampala.

31/05/2026

Memorial of St. Justin, Martyr

Today is the Memorial of St. Justin, Apologist and Martyr (c. 100-165), who was one of the most important Christian writers of the second century. Justin himself tells how his study of all the schools of philosophy led him to Christianity, and how he dedicated his life to the defense of the Christian faith as "the one certain and profitable philosophy."

St. Justin is particularly celebrated for the two Apologies which he was courageous enough to address in succession to the persecuting emperors Antoninus and Marcus Aurelius. One of them contains a description of the rites of baptism and the ceremonies of Mass, thus constituting the most valuable evidence that we possess on the Roman liturgy of his day. He was beheaded in Rome in 165. Justin is also referred to as "the Philosopher."

30/05/2026

Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity

The fundamental dogma, on which everything in Christianity is based, is that of the Blessed Trinity in whose name all Christians are baptized. The feast of the Blessed Trinity needs to be understood and celebrated as a prolongation of the mysteries of Christ and as the solemn expression of our faith in this triune life of the Divine Persons, to which we have been given access by Baptism and by the Redemption won for us by Christ. Only in heaven shall we properly understand what it means, in union with Christ, to share as sons in the very life of God.

The Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity was introduced in the ninth century and was only inserted in the General Roman Calendar of the Church in the fourteenth century by Pope John XXII. But the cultus of the Trinity is, of course, to be found throughout the liturgy. Constantly the Church causes us to praise and adore the thrice-holy God who has so shown His mercy towards us and has given us to share in His life.

Today's Feast of the Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary is superseded by the Sunday Liturgy.

25/05/2026

Memorial of St. Philip Neri, Priest

Today is the Memorial of St. Philip Neri (1515-1595), who was born in Florence and died in Rome. He lived a spotless childhood in Florence. Later he came to Rome and after living for fifteen years as a pilgrim and hermit was ordained a priest. He gradually gathered around him a group of priests and established the Congregation of the Oratory. He was a man of original character and of a happy, genial and winning disposition. A great educator of youth, he spent whole nights in prayer, had a great devotion to the Blessed Sacrament, and burned with an unbounded love for mankind. He died on the feast of Corpus Christi.