The Church Year: Feb. 23, 2012

Today is the Thursday after Ash Wednesday. The liturgical color is violet.

 

Saints & Celebrations:

On February 23, in the Ordinary Form, we celebrate St. Polycarp, bishop and martyr. It is a memorial.

In the Extraordinary Form, we celebrate St. Peter Damian, OSB, bishop, confessor, and doctor of the Church, who died in A.D. 1072. It is a Class III day.

If you’d like to learn more about St. Polycarp, you can click here.

If you’d like to learn more about St. Peter Damian, 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:

Lent

124. Lent precedes and prepares for Easter. It is a time to hear the Word of God, to convert, to prepare for and remember Baptism, to be reconciled with God and one’s neighbor, and of more frequent recourse to the “arms of Christian penance”: prayer, fasting and good works (cf. Mt 6, 1-6. 16-18).

Popular piety does not easily perceive the mystical aspect of Lent and does not emphasize any of its great themes or values, such a relationship between “the sacrament of forty days” and “the sacraments of Christian initiation”, nor the mystery of the “exodus” which is always present in the lenten journey. Popular piety concentrates on the mysteries of Christ’s humanity, and during Lent the faithful pay close attention to the Passion and Death of Our Lord.