Today is Wednesday of the 4th week in Ordinary Time. The liturgical color is green.
In the Extraordinary Form, this is the season after Epiphany, and the liturgical color for today is red.
Saints & Celebrations:
On February 1, there is no special fixed liturgical day in the Ordinary Form.
In the Extraordinary Form, we celebrate St. Ignatius, bishop of Antioch, martyr, who died in A.D. 110. It is a Class III day.
If you’d like to learn more about St. Ignatius, you can click here.
For information about other saints, blesseds, and feasts celebrated today, you can click here.
Readings:
To see today’s readings in the Ordinary Form, you can click here.
Or you can click play to listen to them:
Devotional Information:
According to the Holy See’s Directory on Popular Piety:
42. The age of enlightenment further delineated the separation of “the religion of the learned” which was potentially close to the Liturgy, and the “religion of the simple people” which, of its very nature, was closer to popular piety. Both the “learned” and the “simple people”, however, shared the same religious practices. The “learned” promoted a religious practice based on knowledge and the enlightenment of the intelligence and eschewed popular piety which they regaded as superstitious and fanatical.
The aristocratic sense which permeated many aspects of culture had its influence on the Liturgy. The encyclopedic character of knowledge, coupled with a critical sense and an interest in research, led to the publication of many of the liturgical sources. The ascetical concerns of some movements, often influenced by Jansenism, fuelled a call for a return to the purity of the Liturgy of antiquity. While certainly redolent of the cultural climate, the renewal of interest in the Liturgy was fuelled by a pastoral concern for the clergy and laity, especially from the seventeenth century in France.
In many areas of its pastoral concern, the Church devoted its attention to popular piety. There was an intensification of that form of apostolic activity which tended to integrate, to some degree, the Liturgy and popular piety. Hence, preaching was encouraged at significant liturgical times, such as Advent and on Sundays when adult catechesis was provided. Such preaching aimed at the conversion of the hearts and morals of the faithful, and encouraged them to approach the Sacrament of Penance, attend Sunday Mass regularly, and to demonstrate the importance of the Sacrament of the Anointing of the Sick and Viaticum.
Popular piety, which had been effective in stemming the negative influences of Protestantism, now became an effective antidote to the corrosiveness of rationalism and to the baleful consequences of Jansenism within the Church. It emerged strengthened and enriched from this task and from the extensive development of the parish missions. Popular piety emphasized certain aspects of the Christian mystery in a new way, for example, the Sacred Heart of Jesus, and new “days”, such as the “first Friday of the month”, gained importance in the piety of the faithful.
With regard to the eighteenth century, mention must be made of the work of Ludivico Antonio Muratori who combined erudition with notable pastoral activity. In his famous work, Della regolata devozione dei cristiani, he advocated a form of religiosity based on the Liturgy and the Scriptures that eschewed all attachment to superstition and magic. The work of Benedict XIV (Prospero Lambertini) was also significant, especially his authorization of the use of the Bible in the vernacular.
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