Author: Jimmy Akin

Today is Thursday of the 6th week in Ordinary Time. The liturgical color is green.

In the Extraordinary Form, this is the season after Septuagesima, and the liturgical color for today is violet.

 

Saints & Celebrations:

On February 16, 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:

57. Any exclusive promotion of popular piety, which should always be seen in terms of the Christian faith, can encourage a process that eventually leads the faithful away from Christian revelation and encourages the undue or distorted use of elements drawn from cosmic or natural religions. It can also give rise to the introduction into Christian worship of elements taken from pre-Christian beliefs, or that are merely cultural, national or ethnic psychological expressions. Likewise, the illusion can be created that the transcendent can be reached through unpurified religious experiences, thereby promoting the notion that salvation can be achieved through man’s own personal efforts (the constant danger of pelagianism should never be forgotten), thereby compromising any authentic Christian understanding of salvation as a gratuitous gift of God. Indeed, the role of secondary mediators, such as the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Angels and Saints, or even national saints, can surpass that of the Lord Jesus Christ, the one Mediator, in the minds of the faithful.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Today is Wednesday of the 6th week in Ordinary Time. The liturgical color is green.

In the Extraordinary Form, this is the season after Septuagesima, and the liturgical color for today is violet.

 

Saints & Celebrations:

On February 15, there is no special fixed liturgical day in the Ordinary Form.

In the Extraordinary Form, we celebrate St.s Faustinus and Jovita, martyrs, who died in A.D. 117. It is a commemoration.

If you’d like to learn more about St.s Faustinus and Jovita, 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:

56. Theoretical or practical contempt for the Liturgy inevitably leads to a clouding of the Christian understanding of the mystery of God, Who has mercifully deigned to look down on fallen man and bring him to Himself through the incarnation of His Son and the gift of the Holy Spirit. Such fails to perceive the significance of salvation history and the relationship between Old and New Testaments. It underestimates the saving Word of God which sustains the Liturgy, and to which the Liturgy always refers. Such a disposition attenuates in the faithful any realization of the importance of the work of Christ our only Savior who is the Son of God and the Son of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Eventually, it leads to a loss of thesensus Ecclesiae.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Today is Tuesday of the 6th week in Ordinary Time. The liturgical color is white.

In the Extraordinary Form, this is the season after Septuagesima, and the liturgical color for today is violet.

 

Saints & Celebrations:

On February 14, in the Ordinary Form, we celebrate St.s Cyril, monk, and Methodius, bishop. It is a memorial.

In the Extraordinary Form, we celebrate St. Valentine, priest and martyr, who died in A.D. 270. It is a commemoration.

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

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

55. Any unilateral exaltation of popular piety which fails to take account of the Liturgy, is inconsistent with the fact that the essential elements of the Liturgy derive from the will of Christ himself, and is unable to emphasize its indispensable sotereological and doxological importance. Following the Lord’s ascension to the glory of the Father, and the descent of the Holy Spirit, the perfect glorification of God and the salvation of man comes about primarily through the celebration of the liturgy, which requires an adherence of faith, and brings the believer to participate in the fundamental salvific event: the Passion, Death and Resurrection of Christ (cf. Rm 6,2-6, 1 Cor 11,23-26).

The Church’s understanding of her mystery, and her worshipping and saving actions, constantly affirms that it is through “the Liturgy…, especially in the divine sacrifice of the Eucharist, [that] ‘the work of our redemption is accomplished’.” This affirmation, however, does not deny the importance of other forms of piety.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Today is Monday of the 6th week in Ordinary Time. The liturgical color is green.

In the Extraordinary Form, this is the season after Septuagesima, and the liturgical color for today is violet.

 

Saints & Celebrations:

On February 13, 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:

54. In an exaggerated and dialectic way, such views reflect the divergence that undeniably exists between the Liturgy and popular piety in some cutlural ambits.

Where such views are held, they inevitably indicate that an authentic understanding of the Christian Liturgy has been seriously compromised, or even evacuated of its essential meaning.

Against such views, it is always necessary to quote the grave and well pondered words of last ecumenical Council: “every Liturgical celebration, because it is an acion of Christ the Priest and of his Body, which is the Church, is a sacred action surpassing all others. No other action of the Church can equal its efficacy by the same title and to the same degree.”

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Today is the 6th Sunday of Ordinary Time. The liturgical color is green.

In the Extraordinary Form, this is the season after Septuagesima, and the liturgical color for today is violet.

In the Extraordinary Form, it is Sexagesima Sunday.

 

Saints & Celebrations:

On February 12, there is no special fixed liturgical day in the Ordinary Form.

In the Extraordinary Form, we celebrate the Seven Founders of the Servite Order, confessors, who died in A.D. 13th century. It is a Class III day.

If you’d like to learn more about the Seven Founders of the Servite Order, 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:

53. In those instances where the liturgical actions have been superceeded by popular piety comments, such as the following, are often heard:

• popular piety is sufficient for the free and spontaneous celebration of “Life” and its multiplicity of expressions; Liturgy, on the other hand, centered at it is on the “Mystery of Christ” is essentially anaemic, repetative, formalistic and inhibits spontaneity;
• the Liturgy fails to involve the total being, both corporeal and spiritual, of each member of the faithful; popular piety, because it speaks directly to man, involves his body, heart and mind;
• popular piety is an authentic and real locus for the life of prayer: through pious exercises the faifthful truly dialogue with the Lord, in terms which they fully understand and regard as their own; the Liturgy, however, places words on their lips that are not their own or alien to their level of culture, and thereby becomes a hindrance to prayer rather than a means;
• the ritual with which popular piety is expressed is one which is received and accepted by the faithful because of its correspondence between their cultural expectations and ritual language; the ritual proper to the Liturgy is impenetrable because its various expressive forms derive from different cultural sources widely removed from those of the faithful.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download