This is the Liturgy of the Hours for December 31. Your local date is .
June 3
Memorial
“Kristu abagumye
Era abawe omukisa.
May Christ comfort you,
and may he bless you” [1]
Today is the Memorial of St. Charles Lwanga and Companions, the martyrs of Uganda. Charles Lwanga was a page in the royal court of Mwanga, the king of the Baganda in the south of what is now Uganda. Mwanga was young and his country was under many outside pressures. He became mentally unstable and increasingly hostile to Christians. When Joseph Mkasa, the master of the pages and a Catholic catechist, tried to protect the younger pages from the rages and sexual advances of the king, Joseph was beheaded. Charles Lwanga, also a Catholic, was appointed to succeed him. One morning the king assembled the pages and told those who were Christians to stand apart. When they said they intended to remain Christians, they were burned to death. One of their executioners reported that the young men prayed softly as they died. Those martyred by Mwanga included both Catholics and other Christians. Charles and his companions were beatified in 1920 and canonized in 1964. St. Charles Lwanga is the patron saint of African youth.[2][3][4]
Written by Sarah Ciotti
Reviewed by Fr. Hugh Feiss, OSB, STD
[1] John Paul II, Apostolic Blessing during Pastoral Journey to Uganda, February 7, 1993.
[2] Paul VI, in “Letter of his Holiness John Paul II to Cardinal James Knox,” January 17, 1979, www.vatican.va.
[3] Catholic News Agency, St. Charles Lwanga and Companions, June 3, 2013.
[4] Butler’s Lives of the Saints. New Full Edition. June. Ed. Kathleen Jones (Collegeville: Liturgical Press, 1997), 22-24.