Jimmy Akin

NOTE: The Church Year is moving to its own web site, which will enable it to grow an audience that is specifically interested in the kind of information it presents. The new website is www.LiturgicalDay.com. Visit there for the full story and to sign up to receive it by email every day starting July 1!

Today is Saturday of the 12th week of Ordinary Time. The liturgical color is green.

In the Extraordinary Form, this is the season after Pentecost, and the liturgical color for today is red.

 

Saints & Celebrations:

On June 30, in the Ordinary Form, we celebrate the First martyrs of the Holy Roman Church. It is an optional memorial.

In the Extraordinary Form, we celebrate St. Paul, apostle. It is a Class III day.

In the Extraordinary Form, we also celebrate St. Peter, apostle. This celebration is a commemoration.

If you’d like to learn more about the First Martyrs of the Holy Roman Church, you can click here.

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

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

176. The Christological titles associated with the Redeemer are particularly associated with the mystery of the Blood of Christ: Christ has redeemed us from an ancient slavery by his most precious and innocent Blood (cf. 1 Pt 1, 19) and “purifies us of sin” (1 John 1, 17);High Priest “of all blessings to come” since Christ “has entered the sanctuary once and for all, taking with him not the blood of goats and bull calves, but his own blood, having won an eternal redemption for us”; faithful Witness vindicating the blood of the martyrs (cf Ap 6, 10) “who were slain on account of the word of God, for witnessing to it” (cf. Aps 6, 9); of King, who as God, “reigns from the wood of the Cross”, which is adorned with the purple of his own Blood; Spouse and Lamb of God in whose Blood the members of the Church -the Bride- have washed their garments (cf. Ap 7, 14; Eph 5, 25-27).

NOTE: The Church Year is going to be moving to its own web site, which will enable it to grow an audience that is specifically interested in the kind of information it presents. The new website is www.LiturgicalDay.com. Visit there for the full story and to sign up to receive it by email every day starting July 1!

Today is Friday of the 12th week of Ordinary Time. The liturgical color is red.

In some parts of the world (like England and Wales but not the United States or Canada), this is a holy day of obligation (St.s Peter and Paul, Apostles). If you live in a place where it is a holy day of obligation, be sure to go to Mass if you didn’t go yesterday evening.

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

 

Saints & Celebrations:

On June 29, in both the Ordinary and the Extraordinary Form, we celebrate St.s Peter and Paul, apostles. In the Ordinary Form, it is a solemnity, and in the Extraordinary Form, it is a Class I day.

If you’d like to learn more about St.s Peter and Paul, 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:

We will now begin a brief series looking at devotion to the Precious Blood of Christ. According to the Holy See’s Directory on Popular Piety:

The Most Precious Blood of Christ

175. Biblical revelation, both in its figurative stage in the Old Testament and in its perfect and fulfilled stage in the New Testament, connects blood very closely with life, and authentically with death, exodus and the Pasch, with the priesthood and sacrificial worship, with redemption and the covenant.

The Old Testament figures associated with blood and its redemptive significance are fulfilled perfectly in Christ, especially in his Passion, Death and Resurrection. Thus the mystery of the Blood of Christ is to be found at the very centre of the faith and of our salvation.

The mystery of the Saving Blood of Christ recalls and refers to:

• the Incarnation of the Word (cf. John 1, 14) and Christ’s becoming a member of the people of the Old Testament through circumcision (Lk 2,21);
• the Biblical image of the Lamb abounds with implication: “The Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world” (John 1,29), in which Isaiah’s Suffering Servant image (Is 53) is also to be found, carries upon himself the sins of mankind (cf Is 53, 4-5); the “Paschal Lamb”, symbol of Israel’s redemption (cf. At 8, 31-35; 1 Cor 5, 7; 1 Pet 1, 18-20);
• the “chalice of the passion” of which Jesus spoke in allusion to his imminent redemptive death, when he asked the sons of Zebede: “Can you drink this chalice that I must drink?” (Mt 20, 22; cf Mk 10, 38) and the chalice of the agony in the garden of olives (cf Lk 22, 42-43) which was accompanied by th Lord’s sweating blood (cf. Lk 22, 44);
• the Eucharistic chalice, under the form of wine, contains the Blood of the New Covenant poured out for the remission of sins; is a memorial of the Lord’s Pasch (1 Cor 11, 25); and the drink of salvation according to the Lord’s own words: “he who eats my flesh and drinks my blood shall have life eternal and I shall raise him up on the last day” (John 6, 54);
• the event of the Lord’s death, since by pouring out his Blood on the Cross, Christ reconciled heaven and earth (cf Col 1, 20);
• the lance which transfixed the immolated Lamb, from whose open side flowed blood and water (cf John 19, 34), a sign of the redemption that had been achieved, and of the sacramental life of the Church -blood and water, Baptism and Eucharist-, symbol of the Church born from the side of Christ dying on the Cross.