Month: January 2012

Today is Friday of the 1st 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 white.

 

Saints & Celebrations:

Today, January 13, in the Ordinary Form, we celebrate St. Hilary, bishop of Poitiers, confessor, and doctor of the Church, who died in A.D. 368. It is a Class III day and an optional memorial.

In the Extraordinary Form, we celebrate the Baptism of Our Lord. It is a Class II day.

If you'd like to learn more about St. Hilary, you can click here.

If you'd like to learn more about the Baptism of Our Lord, 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:

24. In the fourth century, given the new politico-social situation of the Church, the question of the relationship between liturgy and popular piety begins to be raised consciously in terms of adaptation and inculturation rather than solely in terms of spontaneous convergence.

The local Churches, guided by clear pastoral and evangelizing principles, did not hesitate to absorb into the Liturgy certain purified solemn and festive [ritual] elements deriving from the pagan world. These were regarded as capable of moving the minds and imaginations of the people who felt drawn towards them. Such forms, now placed at the service of the mystery of worship, were seen as neither contrary to the Gospel nor to the purity of true Christian worship. Rather, there was a realization that only in the worship of Christ, true God and true Savior, could many [ritual] expressions, previously attributed to false gods and false saviours, become true [ritual] expressions, even though these had derived from man's deepest religious sense.

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Today is Thursday of the 1st 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 white.

 

Saints & Celebrations:

Today, January 12, there is no special fixed liturgical day in the Ordinary Form.

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

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:

22. The relationship between Liturgy and popular piety is ancient. It is therefore necessary to begin by surveying, even rapidly, how this relationship has been experienced down through the centuries, since it will often help to resolve contemporary difficulties.

Christian antiquity

23. The Apostolic and post-apostolic periods are marked by a profound fusion of the [ritual] realities which are now called Liturgy and popular piety. For the earliest Christian communities, Christ alone (cf. Col 2,16) was the most important [ritual] reality, together with his life-giving word (cf. John 6,63), his commandment of reciprocal charity (cf. John, 13,34), and the ritual actions which he commanded in his memory (cf. 1 Cor 11,24-26). Everything else – days and months, seasons and years, feasts, new moons, food and drink… (cf. Gal 4,10; Col 2,16-19) – was of secondary importance.

Nevertheless, the signs of personal piety are already to be found among the first generation of Christians. Inspired by the Jewish tradition, they recommended following the example of incessant prayer of Jesus and St. Paul (cf. Luke 18,1; Rm 12,12; 1 Thes 5,17), and of beginning and ending all things with an act of thanksgiving (cf. 1 Cor 10,31; 1 Thes 2,13;Col 3,17). The pious Israelite began the day praising and giving thanks to God. In the same spirit, he gave thanks for all his actions during the day. Hence, every joyful or sorrowful occasion gave rise to an expression of praise, entreaty, or repentance. The Gospels and the writings of the New Testament contain invocations of Jesus, signs of christological devotion, which were repeated spontaneously by the faithful outside of the context of Liturgy. It must be recalled that it was a common usage of the faithful to use biblical phrases such as : "Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me" ( ); "Lord if you wish, you can heal me" (…); "Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom" (…); "My Lord and my God" ( …); "Lord Jesus, receive my spirit" (..). Innumerable prayers to Christ have been developed by the faithful of every generation on the basis this piety.

Until the second century, expressions of popular piety, whether deriving from Jewish, Greco-Roman or other cultures, spontaneously came together in the Liturgy. It has already been noted, for example, that the Traditio Apostolica contains elements deriving from popular sources.

The cult of martyrs, which was of great importance for the local Churches, preserves traces of popular usages connected with the memory of the dead. Some of the earliest forms of veneration of the Blessed Virgin Mary also reflect popular piety, among them the Sub tuum praesidium and the Marian iconography of the catacombs of St. Priscilla in Rome.

While always most vigilant with regard to interior conditions and the prerequisites for a dignified celebration of the sacred mysteries (cf. 1 Cor 11, 17-32), the Church has never hesitated in incorporating into the liturgical rites forms drawn from individual, domestic and community piety.

In this period Liturgy and popular piety, either conceptually or pastorally, did not oppose each other. Both concurred harmoniously in celebrating the one mystery of Christ, considered as a whole, and in sustaining the supernatural and moral life of the disciples of the Lord.

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Today is Wednesday of the 1st 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 white.

 

Saints & Celebrations:

Today, January 11, there is no special fixed liturgical day in the Ordinary Form.

In the Extraordinary Form, we celebrate St. Hyginus, pope and martyr, who died in A.D. 142. It is a commemoration.

If you'd like to learn more about St. Hyginus, 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:

Responsibilities and Competencies

21. Manifestations of popular piety are subject to the jurisdiction of the local Ordinary. It is for him to regulate such manifestations, to encourage them as a means of assisting the faithful in living the Christian life, and to purify and evangelize them where necessary. He is also to ensure that they do not substitute for the Liturgy nor become part of the liturgical celebrations. The local ordinary also approves the prayers and formulae associated with acts of public piety and devotional practices. The dispositions given by a particular local Ordinary for the territory of his jurisdiction are for the particular Church entrusted to his pastoral care.

Hence, the faithful – both clerics and laity, either as groups or individuals, may not publically promote prayers, formulae or private initiatives without the permission of the ordinary.

In accordance with the Apostolic Constitution Pastor Bonus, n.70, it is the competence of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments to assist the Bishops in matters relating to prayers and devotional practices of the Christian people, as well as to issue dispositions in those cases surpassing the bounds of a particular Church, and in imposing subsidiary provisions.

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