Today, we celebrate Tuesday of the Octave of Easter. The Octave of Easter is a 8-day liturgical period which starts on Easter Sunday and which concluded on the following Sunday when we celebrate Christ’s divine mercy. The Octave is a special time of celebration of the resurrection our Lord Jesus Christ, with each daily Mass within the octave celebrated as a solemnity.
The saint we celebrate today is Hermann Joseph von Steinfeld, a Norbertine priest from Germany who was born in the late 12th century. As a child, he had a deep devotion to Mary. A legend is told him out on a cold day without adequate shoes, with Mary providing shoes for him. He entered the Norbertine Abbey at Steinfeld at the age of 12. He maintained a mystical devotion to Mary throughout his lifetime. He was trained as a clockmaker, and even as a priest, used that skill to make and repair clocks. He is declared a patron saint of clock makers. He died in 1241 at a cloister of Cistercian nuns where served as chaplain, where he is now buried. He was canonized a saint by Pope Pius XII in 1958, more than 700 years after his death. Many miracles of healing from the medieval period are attributed to his intercession.
In our reading today from the Acts of the Apostles today, we hear about 3,000 people who were baptized in response to the message that Peter preached to them. On Good Friday, we heard the crowd cry out in the midst of Christ’s passion to have him crucified. Some of those same people who cried out for Jesus to be put to death could have been the very ones who responded to Peter’s call of repentance and baptism in our reading today. They “were cut to the heart” when they realized that Jesus, who was just crucified, was made Christ and Lord by God. May their witness be an example of faith for us today.
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