Today is Monday of the 7th week of Easter. The liturgical color is white.

Saints & Celebrations:

On May 21, in the Ordinary Form, we celebrate St. Christopher Magallanes, priest, and Companions, martyrs. It is an optional memorial.

There is no special fixed liturgical day in the Extraordinary Form.

If you’d like to learn more about St. Christopher Magallanes and Companions, 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:

We continue our series on the Blessed Virgin Mary. According to the Holy See’s Directory on Popular Piety:

203. Litanies are to be found among the prayers to the Blessed Virgin recommended by the Magisterium. These consist in a long series of invocations of Our Lady, which follow in a uniform rhythm, thereby creating a stream of prayer characterized by insistent praise and supplication. The invocations, generally very short, have two parts: the first of praise (Virgo clemens), the other of supplication (Ora pro nobis).

The liturgical books contain two Marian litanies: The Litany of Loreto, repeatedly recommended by the Roman Pontiffs; and the Litany for the Coronation of Images of the Blessed Virgin Mary, which can be an appropriate substitute for the other litany on certain occasions.

From a pastoral perspective, a proliferation of litanies would not seem desirable, just as an excessive restriction on them would not take sufficient account of the spiritual riches of some local Churches and religious communities. Hence, the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments recommends “taking account of some older and newer formulas used in the local Churches or in religious communities which are notable for their structural rigour and the beauty of their invocations.” This exhortation, naturally, applies to the specific authorities in the local Churches or religious communities.

Following the prescription of Leo XIII that the recitation of the Rosary should be concluded by the Litany of Loreto during the month of October, the false impression has arisen among some of the faithful that the Litany is in some way an appendix to the Rosary. The Litanies are independent acts of worship. They are important acts of homage to the Blessed Virgin Mary, or as processional elements, or form part of a celebration of the Word of God or of other acts of worship.

Did You Know? Fulgurites (from the Latin fulgur meaning thunderbolt) are natural hollow glass tubes formed in quartzose sand, silica, or soil by lightning strikes. They are formed when lightning with a temperature of at least 3,270 °F instantaneously melts silica on a conductive surface and fuses grains together; the fulgurite tube is the cooled product. This process occurs over a period of around one second. LEARN MORE.

This  version of The Weekly Benedict covers material released in the last week from 13 May – 18 May 2012  (subscribe here; get as an eBook version for your Kindle, iPod, iPad, Nook, or other eBook reader):

Regina Caeli

• 13 May 2012

Homilies

• 13 May 2012 – Holy Mass in “Il Prato” Park in Arezzo

Speeches

• 18 May 20212 – To the Bishops of the United States of America (Regions XIV-XV and the Eastern Rite) on their ad Limina visit

Today is the 7th Sunday of Easter. The liturgical color is white.

In some places, we celebrate the Ascension of the Lord Jesus today.

Saints & Celebrations:

On May 20, in both the Ordinary and the Extraordinary Form, we celebrate St. Bernardine of Siena, priest and confessor, who died in A.D. 1444. In the Ordinary Form, it is an optional memorial, and in the Extraordinary Form, it is a Class III day.

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

We continue our series on the Blessed Virgin Mary. According to the Holy See’s Directory on Popular Piety:

202. “In recommending the value and beauty of the Rosary to the faithful, care should be taken to avoid discrediting other forms of prayer, or of overlooking the existence of a diversity of other Marian chaplets which have also been approved by the Church.” It is also important to avoid inculcating a sense of guilt in those who do not habitually recite the Rosary: “The Rosary is an excellent prayer, in regard to which, however, the faithful should feel free to recite it, in virtue of its inherent beauty.”

Did You Know? The First Council of Nicaea was convenend on May 20, A.D. 325 in Nicaea (modern Iznik, Turkey). Among other things, it defined the deity of Jesus Christ, composed the original version of the Nicene Creed (which was later supplemented to define the deity of the Holy Spirit as well), and helped settle the date of Easter. It was the first ecumenical council (not counting the Council of Jerusalem in Acts 15 and Galatians 2). LEARN MORE.

Today is Saturday of the 6th week of Easter. The liturgical color is white.

Saints & Celebrations:

On May 19, there is no special fixed liturgical day in the Ordinary Form.

In the Extraordinary Form, we celebrate St. Peter Celestine, PC, who died in A.D. 1296. It is a Class III day.

In the Extraordinary Form, we also celebrate St. Pudentiana, virgin, who died in A.D. 163. This celebration is a commemoration.

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

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

We continue our series on the Blessed Virgin Mary. According to the Holy See’s Directory on Popular Piety:

201. The custom of making an insertion in the recitation of the Hail Mary, which is an ancient one that has not completely disappeared, has often been recommended by the Pastors of the Church since it encourages meditation and the concurrence of mind and lips.

Insertions of this nature would appear particularly suitable for the repetitive and meditative character of the Rosary. It takes the form of a relative clause following the name of Jesus and refers to the mystery being contemplated. The meditation of the Rosary can be helped by the choice of a short clause of a Scriptural and Liturgical nature, fixed for every decade.

Did You Know? An event known as “New England’s Dark Day” occurred on May 19, 1780, when an unusual darkening of the day sky was observed over the New England states and parts of Canada. The primary cause of the event is believed to have been a combination of smoke from forest fires, a thick fog, and cloud cover. The darkness was so complete that candles were required from noon on. It did not disperse until the middle of the next night. LEARN MORE.

One of the most sinister figures in the Bible is the so-called “Beast” from the Book of Revelation. Portrayed as a frightening monster and identified with the ominous number 666, the Beast has been the subject of an enormous amount of discussion down through the centuries.

Countless individuals, both past and future, have been proposed as the true identity of the Beast, but what does the evidence from the Bible say?

In this video, I take a calm, balanced look at the evidence from the perspective of the original Christians reading the book of Revelation in the first century and suggest that the evidence points to an individual that many will find very surprising, especially if they view the book of Revelation as applying almost exclusively to the future.

Here’s the video!

By the way, I’m preparing a Secret Information Club communique in which I “interview” Pope Benedict about the Book of Revelation.

If you’d like to know what Pope Benedict says about Revelation, you should sign up by Friday, May 25, and you’ll get the special interview on Saturday morning.

You should sign up using this form right here:

Or you can use the one in the top right hand margin or by going to www.SecretInfoClub.com.

Today is Friday of the 6th week of Easter. The liturgical color is white.

In the Extraordinary Form, the liturgical color for today is red.

Saints & Celebrations:

On May 18, in the Ordinary Form, we celebrate St. John I, pope and martyr. It is an optional memorial.

In the Extraordinary Form, we celebrate St. Venantius of Camerino, martyr, who died in A.D. about 250. It is a Class III day.

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

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

On the nine days between (not including) Ascension Thursday and Pentecost, many pray a Pentecost Novena. According to the Holy See’s Directory on Popular Piety:

The Pentecost Novena

155. The New Testament tells us that during the period between the Ascension and Pentecost “all…joined in continuous prayer, together with several women, including Mary the mother of Jesus, and with his brothers” (Acts 1, 14) while they awaited being “clothed with the power from on high” (Lk 24, 49). The pious exercise of the Pentecost novena, widely practiced among the faithful, emerged from prayerful reflection on this salvific event.

Indeed, this novena is already present in the Missal and in the Liturgy of the Hours, especially in the second vespers of Pentecost: the biblical and eucological texts, in different ways, recall the disciples’ expectation of the Paraclete. Where possible, the Pentecost novena should consist of the solemn celebration of vespers. Where such is not possible, the novena should try to reflect the liturgical themes of the days from Ascension to the Vigil of Pentecost.

In some places, the week of prayer for the unity Christians is celebrated at this time.

Did You Know? Colorful evangelist Aimee Semple McPherson–founder of the Foursquare Gospel Church–disappeared May 18, 1926. At first it was thought she was drowned. She later reappeared and claimed to to have been kidnapped. Significant evidence indicated she had spent the missing time with an illicit lover. What’s the truth? You decide. LEARN MORE.