Category: Liturgical Year

Today is Monday of the 3rd 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.

In the Ordinary Form, this is the Day of Prayer for the Legal Protection of the Unborn in the Dioceses of the United States.

 

Saints & Celebrations:

On January 23, in the Ordinary Form in the United States, we celebrate St. Vincent, deacon and martyr. It is an optional memorial.

In the Extraordinary Form, we celebrate St. Raymond of Penafort, OP, confessor, who died in A.D. 1275. It is a Class III day.

In the Extraordinary Form, we celebrate St. Emerentiana, virgin and martyr, who died in A.D. 304. This celebration is a commemoration.

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

If you’d like to learn more about St. Raymond of Penafort, you can click here.

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

33. In the middle ages, the relationship between Liturgy and popular piety is constant and complex, but a dual movement can be detected in that same relationship: the Liturgy inspired and nourished various expressions of popular piety; and several forms of popular piety were assumed by, and integrated into the Liturgy. This is especially true with regard to the rites of consecration of persons, the assumption of personal obligations, the dedication of places, the institution of feasts and to the various blessings.

A dualism, however, prevailed between Liturgy and popular piety. Towards the end of the middles ages, both, however, went through a period of crisis. Because of the collapse of [ritual] unity, secondary elements in the Liturgy acquired an excessive relevance to the detriment of its central elements. In popular piety, because of the lack of adequate catechesis, deviations and exaggerations threatened the correct expressions of Christian worship.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Today is the 3rd Sunday of Ordinary Time. The liturgical color is green.

In the Extraordinary Form, this is the season after Epiphany.

In the Extraordinary Form, it is the 3rd Sunday after Epiphany.

 

Saints & Celebrations:

On January 22, there is no special fixed liturgical day in the Ordinary Form.

In the Extraordinary Form, we celebrate St. Vincent, martyr, and St. Anastasius, martyr, who died in A.D. 304 and 628. It is a Class III day.

If you’d like to learn more about St. Vincent and St. Anastasius, 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:

32. Throughout the middle ages many forms of populuar piety gradually emerged or developed. Many of these have been handed down to our times:

• the organization of sacred performances depicting the mysteries celebrated during the liturgical year, especially those surrounding the salvific events of Christ’s birth, his passion, death and resurrection;

• the participation of the faithful was encouraged by the emergence of poetry in the vernacular which was widely used in popular piety;

• as a parallel, or even an alternative to many liturgical expressions, several devotional forms appeared; for example, various forms of Eucharistic adoration served to compensate for the rarity with which Holy Communion was received; in the late middle ages, the rosary tended to substitute for the psalter; among the faithful, the pious exercises of Good Friday became a substitute for the Liturgy proper to that day;

• the growth in popular forms of devotion to Our Lady and the Saints: pilgrimages to the Holy Land, and to the tombs of the Apostles and martyrs, veneration of relics, litanies, and suffrage for the dead;

• the considerable developmnt of the rites of blessing which, together with Christian elements, also reflected a certain response to a naturalistic sensibility as well to popular pre-Christian beliefs and practices;

• nucleuses of “sacred times” based on popular practices were constituted. These were often marginal to the rhythm of the liturgical year: sacred or profane fair days, tridua, octaves, novenas, months devoted to particular popular devotions.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Today is Saturday of the 2nd week in Ordinary Time. The liturgical color is red.

In the Extraordinary Form, this is the season after Epiphany.

 

Saints & Celebrations:

Today, January 21, in both the Ordinary and the Extraordinary Form, we celebrate St. Agnes, virgin and martyr who died in A.D. 304. In the Ordinary Form, it is a memorial. In the Extraordinary Form, it is a Class III day.

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

31. The Middle Ages saw the emergence and development of many spiritual movements and associations of different ecclesiastical and juridical form. Their life and activities had notable consequences for the relationship between Liturgy and popular piety.

The new religious orders of evangelical and apostolic life, devoted their efforts to preaching and adopted simpler liturgical forms in comparison to those found in the monasteries. These liturgical forms were often close to the people and to their exprssive forms. On the other hand, they also developed and promoted pious exercises that encapsulated their charism, and diffused them among the people.

The emergence of the Confraternities, with their religious and charitable objectives, and of the lay corporations with their professional interests, gave rise to a certain popular liturgical activity. These often erected chapels for their religious needs, chose Patrons and celebrated their feast days. Not infrequently, they compiled the officia parva and other prayers for the use of their members. These frequently reflected the influence of the Liturgy as well as containing elements drawn from popular piety.

The various schools of spirituality that had arisen during the middle ages became an important reference point for ecclesial life. They inspired existential attitudes and a multiplicity of ways of interpreting life in Christ and in the Holy Spirit. Such interpretations exercised considerable influence on the choice of celebration (e.g. episodes from the Passion of Christ) and were the basis of many pious exercises.

Civil society, constituted ideally as a societas Christiana, modelled many of its structures on ecclesiastical useage and measured itself according to the rhythms of liturgical life. An example of this is to be found in the ringing of bells in the evening which called the peasants from the fields and simultaneously signalled the Angelus.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Today is Friday of the 2nd 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 red.

 

Saints & Celebrations:

Today, January 20, in both the Ordinary and the Extraordinary Form, we celebrate St. Fabian, pope and martyr who died in A.D. 250. It is an optional memorial.

In both the Ordinary and the Extraordinary Form, we also celebrate St. Sebastian, martyr, who died in A.D. 284. It is a Class III day.

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

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

29. In the West, the high middle ages saw the formation of new cultures, and political and civil institution deriving from the encounter of Christianity, already by the fifth century, with peoples such as the Celts, the Visigoths, the Anglosaxons, and the Francogermans.

Between the seventh and the fifteenth century, a decisive differentiation between Liturgy and popular piety began to emerge which gradually became more pronounced, ending eventually in a dualism of celebration. Parallel with the Liturgy, celebrated in Latin, a communitarian popular piety celebrated in the vernacular emerged.

30. The following may be counted among the reasons for the development of this dualism:

• the idea that the Liturgy was the competence of clerics since the laity were no more than spectators at the Liturgy;
• the marked distinction of roles in Christian society – clerics, monks, and laity – gave rise to different styles and forms of prayer;
• in Liturgy and iconography, the distinct and particular consideration given to the various aspects of the one mystery of Christ, while expressing a devotion for the life and work of our Lord, failed to facilitate an explicit realization of the centrality of the Paschal mystery and encouraged a multiplicity of particular times and forms of celebration of a distinctively popular tenor;
• lack of a sufficient knowledge of the Scriptures on the part, not only of the laity, but of many clerics and religious, made access to an understanding of the structure and symbolic language of the Liturgy difficult;
• the diffusion of apocryphical literature containing many stories of miracles and episodic anecdotes, on the other hand, had a significant influence on iconography which, touching the immagination of the faithful, naturally attracted their attention;
• the parctical absence of any form of homeletic preaching, the disappearance of mystagogical preaching, and poor catechetical formation, rendered the celebration of the Liturgy closed to the understanding and active participation of the faithful who turned to alternative [ritual] times and forms;
• a tendencey to allegory, excessively incroaching on the meaning of the liturgical texts and rites, often deviated the faithful from an understanding of the true nature of the Liturgy;
• the discovery of expressive, popular forms and structures unconsciously redrafted the Liturgy which, from many perspectives, had become increasingly incomprehensible and distant from the people.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Today is Thursday of the 2nd week in Ordinary Time. The liturgical color is green.

In the Extraordinary Form, this is the season after Epiphany.

 

Saints & Celebrations:

Today, January 19, there is no special fixed liturgical day in the Ordinary Form.

In the Extraordinary Form, we celebrate St.s Marius and Companions, martyrs, who died in A.D. 270. It is a commemoration.

In the Extraordinary Form, we also celebrate St. Canute, King of Denmark, martyr, who died in A.D. 1086. This celebration is also a commemoration.

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

If you’d like to learn more about St. Canute, 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 Middle Ages

28. Among the main concerns of the Oriental Christian Churches, especially the Byzantine Church, of the middle ages, mention can be made of both phases of the struggles against the iconaclast heresy (725-787 and 815-843) which was a watershed for the Liturgy. It was also a period of classical commentaries on the Eucharistic Liturgy and on the iconography for buildings set aside for worship.

In the liturgical field, there was a noticeable increase in the Church’s iconographical patrimony and in her sacred rites which assumed a definitive form. The Liturgy reflected the symbolic vision of the universe and a sacral hierarchical vision of the world. In this vision, we have the coalescence of all orders of Christian society, the ideals and structures of monasticism, popular aspirations, the intuitions of the mystics and the precepts of the ascetics.

With the decree De sacris imaginibus of the Second Council of Niceaand the resolution of the iconaclastic controversy in the “Triumph of Orthodoxy” , icognagraphy, having been given doctrinal legitimacy, developed and organized its definitive form. The icon, hieratic and pregnant with symbolic power, itself became part of the celebration of the Liturgy, reflecting, as it did, the mystery celebrated and retaining something of its permanent presence which was exposed for the veneration of the faithful.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Today is Wednesday of the 2nd week in Ordinary Time. The liturgical color is green.

In the Extraordinary Form, this is the season after Epiphany.

 

Saints & Celebrations:

Today, January 18, there is no special fixed liturgical day in the Ordinary Form.

In the Extraordinary Form, we celebrate St. Prisca, virgin and martyr, who died in the 1st century. It is a commemoration.

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

In many places, today begins a Week of Prayer for Christian Unity. According to the Holy See’s Directory on Popular Piety:

182. At every celebration of the Holy Eucharist, the Church prays for unity and peace, mindful of the Jesus’ prayer. “May they all be one. Father, may they be one in us, as you are in me and I am in you, so that the world may believe it was you who sent me” (John 17, 21). The Missale Romanum contains three Masses -among those for various needs- “for Christian unity.” The same intention is remembered in the intercessions of the Liturgy of the Hours.”

In deference to the sensibilities of the “separated brethren”, expressions of popular piety should take into account the principle of ecumenism. Effectively, “change of heart and holiness of life, along with public and private prayer for the unity of Christians, should be regarded as the soul of the whole ecumenical movement, and merits the name ‘spiritual ecumenism’.” The encounter of Catholics with Christians from other Churches or ecclesial communities affords a special occasion for common prayer for the grace of Christian unity, to offer to God their common anxieties, to give thanks to God and to implore his assistance. “Common prayer is particularly recommended during the “Week of Prayer for Christian Unity” or during the period between Ascension and Pentecost.” Prayer for Christian unity also carries several indulgences.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Today is Tuesday of the 2nd week in Ordinary Time. The liturgical color is white.

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

 

Saints & Celebrations:

Today, January 17, in both the Ordinary and the Extraordinary Form, we celebrate St. Anthony, abbot in Egypt who died in A.D. 356. 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. Anthony, 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:

27. Mention must be made of the pontificate of the great pastor and liturgist Pope St. Gregory VII (590-604), since it is regarded as an exemplary reference point for any fruitful relationship between the Liturgy and popular piety. Through the organization of processions, stations and rogations, Gregory the Great undertook a major liturgical reform which sought to offer the Roman people structures which resonated with popular sensibilities while, at the same time, remaining securely based on the celebration of the divine mysteries. He gave wise directives to ensure that the conversion of new nations did not happen without regard for their own cultural traditions. Indeed, the Liturgy itself could be enriched by new legitimate [ritual] expressions and the noble expressions of artistic genius harmonized with more humble popular sensibilities. He established a sense of unity in Christian worship by anchoring it firmly in the celebration of Easter, even if other elements of the one mystery of Salvation (Christmas, Epiphany, and Ascension) were also celebrated and the memorials of the Saints expanded.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Today is Monday of the 2nd 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 red.

 

Saints & Celebrations:

Today, January 16, there is no special fixed liturgical day in the Ordinary Form.

In the Extraordinary Form, we celebrate St. Marcellus I, pope and martyr, who died in A.D. 310. It is a Class III day.

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

26. During this period [the fourth and fifth centuries], the formation of various liturgical families with their consequent differences, matured. The more important metropolitan Churches now celebrate the one worship of the Lord with their own cultural and popular forms which developed from differences of language, theological traditions, spiritual sensibilities, and social contexts. This process gave rise to the progressive development of liturgical systems with their own proper styles of celebration and agglomeration of texts and rites. It is not insignificant to note that even during this golden age for the formation of the liturgical rites, popular elements are also to be found in those rites.

On the other hand, bishops and regional synods began to establish norms for the organization of worship. They became vigilant with regard to the doctrinal correctness of the liturgical texts and to their formal beauty, as well as with regard to the ritual sequences. Such interventions established a liturgical order with fixed forms which inevitably extinguished the original liturgical creativity, which had not been completely arbitrary. Some scholars regard these developments as one of the source of the future proliferation of texts destined for private and popular piety.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Today is the 2nd Sunday of Ordinary Time. The liturgical color is green.

In the Extraordinary Form, this is the season after Epiphany.

In the Extraordinary Form, it is the 2nd Sunday after Epiphany.

 

Saints & Celebrations:

Today, January 15, there is no special fixed liturgical day in the Ordinary Form.

In the Extraordinary Form, we celebrate St. Paul, first hermit, confessor, who died in A.D. 343. It is a Class III day.

If you’d like to learn more about St. Paul the hermit, 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:

Sunday is the first and original Christian feast day. According to the Holy See’s Directory on Popular Piety:

Sunday

95. Since the “Lord’s day” is the “primordial feast” and “basis and centre of the liturgical year”, it cannot be subordinated to popular piety. Hence, pious exercises whose main chronological reference point is Sunday, should not be encouraged.

For the pastoral good of the faithful, it is, however, licit to take up on the Sundays “per annum” those celebrations of the Lord, or in honor of the Blessed Virgin Mary or the Saints which occur during the week and which are particularly significant in popular piety, provided that they have precedence over Sundays in the tables published with the Roman calendar.

Given that popular or cultural traditions can sometimes be invasive of the Sunday celebration and deprive it of its Christian character, “There is a need for special pastoral attention to the many situations where there is a risk that the popular and cultural traditions of a region may intrude upon the celebration of Sundays and other liturgical feast-days, mingling the spirit of genuine Christian faith with elements which are foreign to it and may distort it. In such cases, catechesis and well-chosen pastoral initiatives need to clarify these situations, eliminating all that is incompatible with the Gospel of Christ. At the same time, it should not be forgotten that these traditions C and, by analogy, some recent cultural initiatives in civil society C often embody values which are not difficult to integrate with the demands of faith. It rests with the discernment of Pastors to preserve the genuine values found in the culture of a particular social context and especially in popular piety, so that liturgical celebration C above all on Sundays and holy days C does not suffer but rather may actually benefit.”

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Today is Saturday of the 1st 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:

Today, January 14, there is no special fixed liturgical day in the Ordinary Form.

In the Extraordinary Form, we celebrate St. Felix of Nola, priest and martyr, who died in A.D. 312. This celebration is a commemoration.

In the Extraordinary Form, we celebrate St. Hilary, bishop of Poitiers, confessor, and doctor of the Church, who died in A.D. 368. It is a Class III day.

If you’d like to learn more about St. Felix of Nola, you can click here.

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

25. In the fourth and fifth centuries, a greater sense of the sacredness of times and places begins to emerge. Many of the local Churches, in addition to their recollection of the New Testament data concerning the dies Domini, the Easter festival and fasting (cf. Mark 2,18-22), began to reserve particular days for the celebration of Christ’s salvific mysteries (Epiphany, Christmas and Ascension), or to honor the memory of the martyrs on their dies natalis or to commemorate the passing of their Pastors on the anniversary of their dies depositionis, or to celebrate the sacraments, or to make a solemn undertaking in life. With regard to the socialization of the place in which the community is called to celebrate the divine mysteries and give praise to the Lord, it must be noted that many of these had been transformed from places of pagan worship or profane use and dedicated exclusively to divine worship. They became, often simply by their architectural arrangements, a reflection of the mystery of Christ and an image of the celebrating Church.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download