The Church Year: Mar. 25, 2012

Today is the 5th Sunday of Lent. The liturgical color is violet.

In the Extraordinary Form, this is the season of Passiontide.

In the Extraordinary Form, it is Passion Sunday.

 

Saints & Celebrations:

On March 25, in both the Ordinary and the Extraordinary Form, we celebrate the Annunciation of the Lord. It is a solemnity.

In both the Ordinary and the Extraordinary Form, we celebrate the Annunciation of Our Lady. It is a Class I day.

If you’d like to learn more about the Annunciation of the Lord, you can click here.

If you’d like to learn more about the Annunciation of Our Lady, 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:

The Life of Worship: Communion with the Father, Through Christ, in the Holy Spirit

76. In the history or revelation, man’s salvation is constantly presented as a free gift of God, flowing from His mercy, given in sovereign freedom and total gratuity. The entire complex of events and words through which the plan of salvation is revealed and actualized, takes the form of a continuous dialogue between God and man. God takes the initiative, and man is asked for an attitude of listening in faith, and a response in “obedience to faith” (Rm 1,5; 16,26).

The Covenant stipulated on Sinai between God and His chosen people (cf Ex 19-24) is a singularly important event in this salvific dialogue, and makes the latter a “possession” of the Lord, a “kingdom of priests and a holy people” (Ex 19, 6). Israel, although not always faithful to the Covenant, finds in it inspiration and the power to model its life of God Himself (cf Lk 11,44-45; 19,2), and the content of that life on His Word.

Israel’s worship and prayer are directed towards the commemoration of the mirabilia Dei, or God’s saving interventions in history, so as to conserve a lively veneration of the events in which God’s promises were realized, since these are the constant point of reference both for reflection on the faith and for the life of prayer.