Month: March 2012

Today is the 2nd Sunday of Lent. The liturgical color is violet.

Saints & Celebrations:

On March 4, in both the Ordinary and the Extraordinary Form, we celebrate St. Casimir of Lithuania, confessor, who died in A.D. 1483. In the Ordinary Form, it is an optional memorial, and in the Extraordinary Form, it is a Class III day.

In the Extraordinary Form, we also celebrate St. Lucius I, pope and martyr, who died in A.D. 254. This celebration is a commemoration.

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

If you’d like to learn more about St. Lucius I, 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 Via Crucis [“Way of the Cross”] is a particularly apt pious exercise for Lent.

134. The following may prove useful suggestions for a fruitful celebration of the Via Crucis:

• the traditional form of the Via Crucis, with its fourteen stations, is to be retained as the typical form of this pious exercise; from time to time, however, as the occasion warrants, one or other of the traditional stations might possibly be substituted with a reflection on some other aspects of the Gospel account of the journey to Calvary which are traditionally included in the Stations of the Cross;
• alternative forms of the Via Crucis have been approved by Apostolic See or publicly used by the Roman Pontiff: these can be regarded as genuine forms of the devotion and may be used as occasion might warrant;
• the Via Crucis is a pious devotion connected with the Passion of Christ; it should conclude, however, in such fashion as to leave the faithful with a sense of expectation of the resurrection in faith and hope; following the example of the Via Crucis in Jerusalem which ends with a station at the Anastasis, the celebration could end with a commemoration of the Lord’s resurrection.

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Today is Saturday of the 1st week of Lent. The liturgical color is violet.

In the Extraordinary Form, it is Saturday of Ember Week in Lent.

Saints & Celebrations:

On March 3, in the Ordinary Form in the United States, we celebrate St. Katharine Drexel, virgin. 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. Katharine Drexel, 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:

133. The Via Crucis [“Way of the Cross”] is a journey made in the Holy Spirit, that divine fire which burned in the heart of Jesus (cf. Lk 12, 49-50) and brought him to Calvary. This is a journey well esteemed by the Church since it has retained a living memory of the words and gestures of the final earthly days of her Spouse and Lord.

In the Via Crucis, various strands of Christian piety coalesce: the idea of life being a journey or pilgrimage; as a passage from earthly exile to our true home in Heaven; the deep desire to be conformed to the Passion of Christ; the demands of following Christ, which imply that his disciples must follow behind the Master, daily carrying their own crosses (cf Lk 9, 23).

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Today is Friday of the 1st week of Lent. The liturgical color is violet.

In the Extraordinary Form, it is Friday of Ember Week in Lent.

Saints & Celebrations:

On March 2, 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:

132. The Via Crucis [“Way of the Cross”] is a synthesis of various devotions that have arisen since the high middle ages: the pilgrimage to the Holy Land during which the faithful devoutly visit the places associated with the Lord’s Passion; devotion to the three falls of Christ under the weight of the Cross; devotion to “the dolorous journey of Christ” which consisted in processing from one church to another in memory of Christ’s Passion; devotion to the stations of Christ, those places where Christ stopped on his journey to Calvary because obliged to do so by his executioners or exhausted by fatigue, or because moved by compassion to dialogue with those who were present at his Passion.

In its present form, the Via Crucis, widely promoted by St. Leonardo da Porto Maurizio (+1751), was approved by the Apostolic See and indulgenced, consists of fourteen stations since the middle of seventeenth century.

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