Author: Jimmy Akin

Today is Saturday of the 5th 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 white.

 

Saints & Celebrations:

On February 11, in both the Ordinary and the Extraordinary Form, we celebrate Our Lady of Lourdes and the apparition of in 1858. In the Ordinary Form, it is an optional memorial, and in the Extraordinary Form, it is a Class III day.

If you’d like to learn more about Our Lady of Lourdes, (the apparition of) in 1858, 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:

52. The laudable idea of making Christian worship more accessible to contemporary man, especially to those insufficiently catechized, should not lead to either a theoretical or practical underestimation of the primary and fundamental expression of liturgical worship, notwithstanding the acknowledged difficulties arising from specific cultures in assimilating certain elements and structures of the Liturgy. In some instances, rather than seeking to risolve such difficulties with patience and farsightedness, recourse is sometimes made to simplistic solutions.

QQEND

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Today is Friday of the 5th 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 white.

 

Saints & Celebrations:

On February 10, in both the Ordinary and the Extraordinary Form, we celebrate St. Scholastica, virgin, who died in A.D. 543. In the Ordinary Form, it is a memorial, and in the Extraordinary Form, it is a Class III day.

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

51. In the relationship between the Liturgy and popular piety, the opposite phenomenon is also encountered – the importance of popular piety is overestimated practically to the detriment of the Church’s Liturgy.

It has to be said that where such happens, either because of particular circumstances or of a theoretical choice, pastoral deviations emerge. The Liturgy is no longer the “summit towards which the activity of the Church is directed; [and]…the fount from which all her power flows.” Rather it becomes a [ritual] expression extraneous to the comprehension and sensibility of the people which is destined to be neglected, relegated to a secondary role or even become reserved to particular groups.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Today is Thursday of the 5th 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 white.

 

Saints & Celebrations:

On February 9, in the Extraordinary Form, we celebrate St. Cyril, bishop of Alexandria, confessor and doctor of the Church, who died in A.D. 444. It is a Class III day.

In the Extraordinary Form, we also celebrate St. Apollonia, virgin and martyr, who died in A.D. 259. This celebration is a commemoration.

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

If you’d like to learn more about St. Apollonia, 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 Sacred Constitution on the Liturgy

50. The relationship between the Liturgy and popular piety, in our times, must be approached primarily from the perspective of the directives contained in the constitutionSacrosactum Concilium, which seek to establish an harmonious relationship between both of these expressions of piety, in which popular piety is objectively subordinated to, and directed towards, the Liturgy.

Thus, it is important that the question of the relationship between popular piety and the Liturgy not be posed in terms of contradiction, equality or, indeed, of substitution. A realization of the primordial importance of the Liturgy, and the quest for its most authentic expressions, should never lead to neglect of the reality of popular piety, or to a lack of appreciation for it, nor any position that would regard it as superfluous to the Church’s worship or even injurious to it.

Lack of consideration for popular piety, or disrespect for it, often betrays an inadequate understanding of certain ecclesial realities and is not infrequently the product not so much of the doctrine of the faith, but of some ideologically inspired prejudice. These give rise to attitudes which:

• refuse to accept that popular piety itself is an ecclesial reality prompted and guided by the Holy Spirit;
• do not take sufficient account of the fruits of grace and sanctity which popular piety has produced, and continues to produce, within the ecclesial body;
• not infrequently reflect a quest for an illusory “pure Liturgy”, which, while not considering the subjective criteria used to determe purity, belongs more to the realm of ideal aspiration than to historical reality;
• and confound, “sense”, that noble component of the soul that legitimitatly permeates many expressions of liturgical and popular piety, and its degenerate form which is “sentimantality.”

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Today is Wednesday of the 5th 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 white.

 

Saints & Celebrations:

On February 8, in the Ordinary Form, we celebrate St. Jerome Emiliani, founder of the Order of Somascha. It is an optional memorial.

In the Ordinary Form, we celebrate, St. Josephine Bakhita, virgin. It is an optional memorial.

In the Extraordinary Form, we celebrate St. John of Matha, founder of the Order of Trinitarians, confessor, who died in A.D. 1213. It is a Class III day.

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

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

If you’d like to learn more about St. John of Matha, 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:

49. Each of these factors, and both in certain cases, not infrequently produces imbalances in the relationship between the Liturgy and popular piety, to the former’s detriment and the latter’s impoverishment. These should therefore be corrected through careful and persistent catechetical and pastoral work.

Conversely, the liturgical renewal and the heightened liturgical sense of the faithful have often recontextualized popular piety in its relationship with the Liturgy. Such should be regarded as a positive development and in conformity with the most profound orientation of Christian piety.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Today is Tuesday of the 5th 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 white.

 

Saints & Celebrations:

On February 7, there is no special fixed liturgical day in the Ordinary Form.

In the Extraordinary Form, we celebrate St. Romuald, abbot, founder of the Order of Camaldoli, who died in A.D. 1027. It is a Class III day.

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

Historical considerations: the causes of imbalances

48. History principally shows that the correct relationship between Liturgy and popular piety begins to be distorted with the attenuation among the faithful of certain values essential to the Liturgy itself. The following may be numbered among the causes giving rise to this:

• a weakened awareness or indeed a diminished sense of the Paschal mystery, and of its centrality for the history of salvation, of which the Liturgy is an actualization. Such inevitably occurs when the piety of the faithful, unconscious of the “hierarchy of truths”, imperceptibly turns towards other salvific mysteries in the life of Christ, of the Blessed Virgin Mary or indeed of the Angels and Saints;
• a weakening of a senses of the universal priesthood in virtue of which the faithful offer “spiritual sacrifices pleasing to God, through Jesus Christ” (1 Pt 2,5; Rm 12,1), and, according to their condition, participate fully in the Church’s worship. This is often accompanied by the phenomenon of a Liturgy dominated by clerics who also perform the functions not reserved to them and which, in turn, causes the faithful to have recourse to piuos exercises through which they feel a sense of becoming active participants;
• lack of knowledge of the language proper to the Liturgy – as well as its signs, symbols and symbolic gestures – causing the meaning of the celebration to escape the greater understanding of the faithful. Such can engender a sense of being extraneous to the liturgical action, and hence are easily attracted to pious exercises whose language more easily approaches their own cutural formation, or because certain forms of devotions respond more obviously to daily life.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Today is Monday of the 5th week in Ordinary Time. The liturgical color is red.

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

 

Saints & Celebrations:

On February 6, in the Ordinary Form, we celebrate St. Paul Miki and Companions, martyrs. It is a memorial.

In the Extraordinary Form, we celebrate St. Titus, bishop of Crete, confessor, who died in A.D. 101. It is a Class III day.

In the Extraordinary Form, we also celebrate St. Dorothy, virgin and martyr, who died in A.D. 275. This celebration is a commemoration.

If you’d like to learn more about St. Paul Miki and Companions, you can click here.

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

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

46. At the outset of the twentieth century, St. Pope Pius X (1903-1914) proposed bringing the Liturgy closer to the people, thereby “popularizing” it. He maintained that the faithful assimilated the “true Christian spirit” by drawing from its “primary and indispensable source, which is active participation in the most holy mysteries and from the solemn public prayer of the Church.” In this way, St. Pope Pius X gave authoritative recognition to the objective superiority of the Liturgy over all other forms of piety; dispelled any confusion between Liturgy and popular piety, indirectly clarified the distinction between both and opened the way for a proper understanding of the relationship that must obtain between them.

Thus was born the liturgical movement which was destined to exercise a prominent influence on the Church of the twentieth century, by virtue of the contribution of many eminent men, noted for their learning, piety and commitment, and in which the Supreme Pontiffs recognized the promptings of the Spirit. The ultimate aim of the liturgical movement was pastoral in nature, namely, to encourage in the faithful a knowledge of, and love for, the divine mysteries and to restore to them the idea that these same mysteries belong to a priestly people (cf. 1 Pt 2,5).

In the context of the liturgical movement, it is easy to understand why some of its exponents assumed a diffident attitude to popular piety and identified it as one of the causes leading to the degeneration of the Liturgy. They faced many of the abuses deriving from the superimposition of pious exercises on the Liturgy as well as instances where the Liturgy was displaced by acts of popular worship. In their efforts to restore the purity of divine worship, they took as their ideal the Liturgy of the early centuries of the Church, and consequently radically rejected any form of popular piety deriving from the middles ages or the post tridentine period.

This rejection, however, failed to take sufficient account of the fact that these forms of popular piety, which were often approved and recommended by the Church, had sustained the spiritual life of the faithful and produced unequalled spiritual fruits. It also failed to acknowledge that popular piety had made a significant contribution to safeguarding and preserving the faith, and to the diffusion of the Christian message. Thus, Pope Pius XII, in his encyclical Mediator Dei of 21 November 1947, with which he assumed leadership of the liturgical movement, issued a defence of pious exercises which, to a certain extent, had become synonymous with Catholic piety in recent centuries.

The Constitution Sacrosanctum Concilium of the Second Vatican Council finally defined, in proper terms, the relationship obtaining between the Liturgy and popular piety, by declaring the unquestionable primacy of the Sacred Liturgy and the subordination to it of pious exercises, while emphasizing their validity.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Today is the 5th 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 Septuagesima Sunday.

 

Saints & Celebrations:

On February 5, in both the Ordinary and the Extraordinary Form, we celebrate St. Agatha of Sicily, virgin and martyr, who died in A.D. 254. In the Ordinary Form, it is a memorial, and in the Extraordinary Form, it is a Class III day.

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

45. The revival of the Liturgy was not the sole activity of the nineteenth century. Independently of that revival, popular piety experienced significant growth. The revival of liturgical song coincided with the development of many popular hymns, the widespread use of liturgical aids such as bilingual missals for the use of the faithful, and a proliferation of devotional booklets.

The culture of Romanticism rediscovered man’s religious sense and promoted the quest for, and understanding of, the elements of popular piety, as well as emphasizing their importance in worship.

The nineteenth century experienced a phenomenon of crucial significance: expressions of local devotion arising from popular initiatives and often associated with prodigous events such as miracles and apparitions. Gradually, these received official approval as well as the favour and protection of the ecclesial authorities, and were eventually assumed into the Liturgy. Several Marian sanctuaries and centres of pilgrimages, and of Eucharistic and penitential Liturgies as well as Marian centres associated with popular piety are all emblematic of this phenomenon.

While the relationship between popular piety and the Liturgy in the nineteenth century must be seen against the background of a liturgical revival and an ever increasing expansion of popular piety, it has to be noted that that same relationship was affected by the negative influence of an accentuated superimposition of pious exercises on the liturgical actions, a phenomenon already evident during the period of the Catholic Reform.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Today is Saturday of the 4th 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:

On February 4, there is no special fixed liturgical day in the Ordinary Form.

In the Extraordinary Form, we celebrate St. Andrew Corsini, OC, bishop, and confessor who died in A.D. 1373. It is a Class III day.

If you’d like to learn more about St. Andrew Corsini, 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 Contemporary Period

44. Following the French revolution with its objective of eradicating the Christian faith and its overt hostility to Christian worship, the nineteenth century witnessed a important liturgical revival.

This was preceeded by the development of a vigorous ecclesiology which saw the Church not only in terms of a hierarchical society but also as the People of God and as a worshipping community. Besides the revival of ecclesiology, mention must also be made of the flowering of biblical and patrictic studies, as well as the ecclesial and ecumenical concerns of men such as Antonio Rosmini (+1855) and John Henry Newman (+1890).

The history of the renaissance of liturgical worship reserves a special place for Dom Prosper Guéranger (+ 1875), who restored the monastic life in France and founded the abbey of Solesmes. His conception of the Liturgy is permeated by a love for the Church and for tradition. The Roman Rite, he maintained in his writings on Liturgy, was indispensable for unity and, hence, he opposed autochthonous forms of liturgical expression. The liturgical renewal which he promoted has the distinct advantage of not having been an academic movement. Rather, it aimed at making the Liturgy an expression of worship in which the entire people of God participated.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download