Author: Jimmy Akin

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

 

Saints & Celebrations:

On March 7, in the Ordinary Form, we celebrate St.s Perpetua and Felicity, martyrs. It is a memorial.

In the Extraordinary Form, we celebrate St. Thomas Aquinas, OP, confessor, and doctor of the Church, who died in A.D. 1274. It is a Class III day.

If you’d like to learn more about St.s Perpetua and Felicity, you can click here.

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

137. This pious exercise [the Via Matris or “Way of the Mother”] harmonizes well with certain themes that are proper to the lenten season. Since the sorrows of Our Lady are caused by the rejection of her Son (cf. John 1,11; Lk 2, 1-7; 2, 34-35; 4, 28-29; Mt 26, 47-56; Acts 12, 1-5), the Via Matris constantly and necessarily refers to the mystery of Christ as the suffering servant (cf. Is 52, 13-53, 12). It also refers to the mystery of the Church: the stations of the Via Matris are stages on the journey of faith and sorrow on which the Virgin Mary has preceded the Church, and in which the Church journeys until the end of time.

The highest expression of the Via Matris is the Pieta which has been an inexhaustible source of inspiration for Christian art since the middles ages.

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

 

Saints & Celebrations:

On March 6, there is no special fixed liturgical day in the Ordinary Form.

In the Extraordinary Form, we celebrate St.s Perpetua and Felicitas of Carthage, martyrs, who died in A.D. 202. It is a Class III day.

If you’d like to learn more about St.s Perpetua and Felicitas, 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 Matris [“Way of the Mother”]

136. As Christ and Our Lady of Dolours were associated in God’s saving plan (Lk 2, 34-35), so too they are associated in the Liturgy and popular piety.

As Christ was the “man of sorrows” (Is 53, 3) through whom it pleased God to have “reconciled all things through him and for him, everything in heaven and everything on earth, when he made peace by his death on the cross” (Col 1, 20), so too, Mary is “the woman of sorrows” whom God associated with his Son as mother and participant in his Passion (socia passionis).

Since the childhood of Christ, the Blessed Virgin Mary’s life was entirely lived out under the sign of the sword (cf, Lk 2, 35). Christian piety has signalled out seven particular incidents of sorrow in her life, known as the “seven sorrows” of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

Modelled on the Via Crucis [“Way of the Cross”], the pious exercise of the Via Matris dolorosae [“Way of the Mother of Sorrows”], or simply theVia Matris [“Way of the Mother”], developed and was subsequently approved by the Apostolic See. This pious exercise already existed in embryonic form since the sixteenth century, while its present form dates from the nineteenth century. Its fundamental intuition is a reflection on the life of Our Lady from the prophecy of Simeon (cf. Lk 2, 34-35), to the death and burial of her Son, in terms of a journey in faith and sorrow: this journey is articulated in seven “stations” corresponding to the “seven dolours” of the Mother of Our Savior.

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

 

Saints & Celebrations:

On March 5, 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:

135. Innumerable texts exist for the celebration of the Via Crucis [“Way of the Cross”]. Many of them were compiled by pastors who were sincerely interested in this pious exercise and convinced of its spiritual effectiveness. Texts have also been provided by lay authors who were known for their exemplary piety, holiness of life, doctrine and literary qualities.

Bearing in mind whatever instructions might have been established by the bishops in the matter, the choice of texts for the Via Crucis should take a count of the condition of those participating in its celebration and the wise pastoral principle of integrating renewal and continuity. It is always preferable to choose texts resonant with the biblical narrative and written in a clear simple style.

The Via Crucis in which hymns, silence, procession and reflective pauses are wisely integrated in a balanced manner, contribute significantly to obtaining the spiritual fruits of the pious exercise.

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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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