Category: +Religion

Today is the 3rd Sunday of Lent. The liturgical color is violet.

Saints & Celebrations:

On March 11, 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.

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Devotional Information:

According to the Holy See’s Directory on Popular Piety:

The Subject of Popular Piety

67. The Church’s Magisterium, mindful that “the spiritual life…is not limited solely to participation in the liturgy” and that “the Christian…must enter into his bedroom to pray to his Father in secret”, indeed, “according to the teaching of the apostle, he must pray without ceasing”, holds that the subject of the various forms of prayer is every Christian – clerics, religious and laity – both privately when moved by the Spirit of Christ, and when praying with the community in groups of different origins and types.

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

Saints & Celebrations:

On March 10, there is no special fixed liturgical day in the Ordinary Form.

In the Extraordinary Form, we celebrate the Forty Martyrs of Sebaste, martyrs, who died in A.D. 320. It is a Class III day.

If you’d like to learn more about the Forty Martyrs of Sebaste, 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:

65. In its attempts to remedy such defects in popular piety, the contemporary Magisterium has insistently stressed the need to “evangelize” popular piety, and sees it in relation to the Gospel which “will progressively free it from its defects; purify it, consolidate it and clarify that which is ambiguous by referring it of the contents of faith, hope and charity.”

Pastoral sensibility recommends that the work of “evangelizing” popular piety should proceed patiently, tolerantly, and with great prudence, following the methodology adopted by the Church throughout the centuries in matters relating to inculturation of the Christian faith, the Sacred Liturgy and those inherent in popular piety.

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

Saints & Celebrations:

On March 9, in both the Ordinary and the Extraordinary Form, we celebrate St. Frances of Rome, religious, widow, who died in A.D. 1440. 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 St. Frances, 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:

Deviations in Popular Piety

64. While the Magisterium highlights the undeniable qualities of popular piety, it does not hesitate to point out dangers which can affect it: lack of a sufficient number of Christian elements such as the salvific significance of the Resurrection of Christ, an awareness of belonging to the Church, the person and action of the Holy Spirit; a disproportionate interest between the Saints and the absolute sovereignty of Jesus Christ and his mysteries; lack of direct contact with Sacred Scripture; isolation from the Church’s sacramental life; a dichotomy between worship and the duties of Christian life; a utilitarian view of some forms of popular piety; the use of “signs, gestures and formulae, which sometimes become excessively important or even theatrical”; and in certain instances, the risk of “promoting sects, or even superstition, magic, fatalism or oppression.”

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

Saints & Celebrations:

On March 8, in both the Ordinary and the Extraordinary Form, we celebrate St. John of God, religious, confessor, and founder of the Brothers Hospitallers, who died in A.D. 1550. 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 St. John of God, 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:

64. The Magisterium also highlights the importance of popular piety for the faith-life of the People of God, for the conservation of the faith itself and in inspiring new efforts at evangelization.

It is impossible to overlook “those devotions practised in certain regions by the faithful with fervour and a moving purity of intention”; that authentic popular piety “in virtue of its essentially Catholic roots, is an antidote to the sects and a guarantee of fidelity to the message of salvation”; that popular piety has been a providential means of preserving the faith in situations where Christians have been deprived of pastoral care; that in areas in which evangelization has been deficient, “the people for the most part express their faith primarily through popular piety”; that popular piety is an important and indispensable “starting point in deepening the faith of the people and in bringing it to maturity.”

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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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