The Church Year: Apr. 30, 2012

Today is Monday of the 4th week of Easter. The liturgical color is white.

Saints & Celebrations:

On April 30, in the Ordinary Form, we celebrate St. Pius V, pope. It is an optional memorial.

In the Extraordinary Form, we celebrate St. Catherine of Siena, OP, virgin, who died in A.D. 1380. It is a Class III day.

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

If you’d like to learn more about St. Catherine of Siena, 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 Letter on Some Aspects of Christian Meditation:

8. Even in the first centuries of the Church some incorrect forms of prayer crept in. Some New Testament texts (cf. 1 Jn 4:3; 1 Tim 1:3-7 and 4:3-4) already give hints of their existence. Subsequently, two fundamental deviations came to be identified: Pseudognosticism and Messalianism, both of concern to the Fathers of the Church. There is much to be learned from that experience of primitive Christianity and the reaction of the Fathers which can help in tackling the current problem.

In combating the errors of pseudognosticism8 the Fathers affirmed that matter is created by God and as such is not evil. Moreover, they maintained that grace, which always has the Holy Spirit as its source is not a good proper to the soul, but must be sought from God as a gift. Consequently, the illumination or superior knowledge of the Spirit (“gnosis”), does not make Christian faith something superfluous. Finally, for the Fathers, the authentic sign of a superior knowledge, the fruit of prayer, is always Christian love.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download