The Church Year: Feb. 3, 2012

Today is Friday of the 4th week in Ordinary Time. The liturgical color is green.

In the Extraordinary Form, this is the season after Epiphany.

 

Saints & Celebrations:

On February 3, in both the Ordinary and Extraordinary Form, we celebrate St. Blaise, bishop of Sebaste and martyr, who died in A.D. 317. In the Ordinary Form, it is an optional memorial, and in the Extraordinary Form, it is a commemoration.

In the Ordinary Form we also celebrate, St. Ansgar, bishop. It is an optional memorial.

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

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

43. The Catholic Reform strengthened the structure and unity of the Roman Rite. Given the notable missionary expansion of the eighteenth century, the Reform spread its proper Liturgy and organizational structure among the peoples to whom the Gospel message was preached.

In the missionary territories of the eighteenth century, the relationship between Liturgy and popular piety was framed in terms similar to, but more accentuated than, those already seen in the sixteenth and seventeenth ceturies:

  • the Liturgy retained a Roman character and hence remained, at least partially, extraneous to autochthonous culture. The question of inculturation was practically never raised, partly because of the fear of negative consequence for the faith. In this respect, however, mention must be made of the efforts of Matteo Rici in relation to the question of the Chinese rites, and those of Roberto de’ Nobili on the question of the Indian rites;
  • popular piety, on the one hand, was subject to the danger of religious syncretism, especially where evangelization was not deeply rooted; while on the other, it became more autonomous and mature: it was not limited to reproducing the pious practices promoted by the missionaries, rather it created other forms of pious exercises that reflected the character of the local culture.