Jimmy Akin

Today is Wednesday of the 5th week of Easter. The liturgical color is white.

 

Saints & Celebrations:

On May 9, there is no special fixed liturgical day in the Ordinary Form.

In the Extraordinary Form, we celebrate St. Gregory Nazianzen, bishop, confessor, and doctor of the Church, who died in A.D. 389. It is a Class III day.

If you’d like to learn more about St. Gregory Nazianzen, 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 continue our series on the Blessed Virgin Mary. According to the Holy See’s Directory on Popular Piety:

191. In relation to the western custom of observing a “Marian month” during the month of May (or in November in some parts of the Southern hemisphere), it would seem opportune to take into account the demands of the Liturgy, the expectations of the faithful, their maturity in the faith, in an eventual study of the problems deriving from the “Marian months” in the overall pastoral activity of the local Church, as might happen, for example, with any suggestion of abolishing the Marian observances during the month of May.

In many cases, the solution for such problems would seem to lay in harmonizing the content of the “Marian months” with the concomitant season of the Liturgical Year. For example, since the month of May largely corresponds with the fifty days of Easter, the pious exercises practised at this time could emphasize Our Lady’s participation in the Paschal mystery (cf. John 19, 25-27), and the Pentecost event (cf, Acts 1, 14) with which the Church begins: Our Lady journeys with the Church having shared in the novum of the Resurrection, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. The fifty days are also a time for the celebration of the sacraments of Christian initiation and of the mystagogy. The pious exercises connected with the month of May could easily highlight the earthly role played by the glorified Queen of Heaven, here and now, in the celebration of the Sacraments of Baptism, Confirmation and Holy Eucharist.

The directives of Sacrosanctum Concilium on the need to orient the “minds of the faithful…firstly to the feasts of the Lord, in which, the mysteries of salvation are celebrated during the year”, and with which the Blessed Virgin Mary is certainly associated, should be closely followed.

Opportune catechesis should remind the faithful that the weekly Sunday memorial of the Paschal Mystery is “the primordial feast day.” Bearing in mind that the four weeks of Advent are an example of a Marian time that has been incorporated harmoniously into the Liturgical Year, the faithful should be assisted in coming to a full appreciation of the numerous references to the Mother of our Savior during this particular period.

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Today is Tuesday of the 5th week of Easter. The liturgical color is white.

 

Saints & Celebrations:

On May 8, 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:

We continue our series on the Blessed Virgin Mary. According to the Holy See’s Directory on Popular Piety:

190. With regard to the observance of “Marian months”, which is widespread in the Latin and Oriental Churches, a number of essential points can be mentioned.

In the West, the practise of observing months dedicated to the Blessed Virgin emerged from a context in which the Liturgy was not always regarded as the normative form of Christian worship. This caused, and continues to cause, some difficulties at a liturgico-pastoral level that should be carefully examined.

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Today is Monday of the 5th week of Easter. The liturgical color is white.

In the Extraordinary Form, the liturgical color for today is red.

 

Saints & Celebrations:

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

In the Extraordinary Form, we celebrate St. Stanislaus, bishop of Cracow, martyr, who died in A.D. 1079. It is a Class III day.

If you’d like to learn more about St. Stanislaus, 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 continue our series on the Blessed Virgin Mary. According to the Holy See’s Directory on Popular Piety:

189. Since it is a significant moment, a feast day is frequently preceded by a preparatory triduum, septinaria or novena. The “times and modes of popular piety”, however, should always correspond to the “times and modes of the Liturgy.”

Tridua, septinaria, and novenas can be useful not only for honoring the Blessed Virgin Mary through pious exercises, but also to afford the faithful an adequate vision of the positions she occupies in the mystery of Christ and of the Church, as well as the the role she plays in it.

Pious exercises cannot remain indifferent to the results of biblical and theological research on the Mother of Our Savior. These should become a catechetical means diffusing such information, without however altering their essential nature.

Tridua, septinaria and novenas are truly preparations for the celebration of the various feast days of Our Lady, especially when they encourage the faithful to approach the Sacraments of Penance and Holy Eucharist, and to renew their Christian commitment following the example of Mary, the first and most perfect disciple of Christ.

In some countries, the faithful gather for prayer on the 13th. of each month, in honor of the apparitions of Our Lady at Fatima.

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Today is the 5th Sunday of Easter. The liturgical color is white.

 

Saints & Celebrations:

On May 6, 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:

We continue our series on the Blessed Virgin Mary. According to the Holy See’s Directory on Popular Piety:

188. Saturdays stand out among those days dedicated to the Virgin Mary. These are designated as memorials of the Blessed Virgin Mary. This memorial derives from carolingian time (ninth century), but the reasons for having chosen Saturday for its observance are unknown. While many explanation have been advanced to explain this choice, none is completely satisfactory from the point of view of the history of popular piety.

Prescinding from its historical origins, to-day the memorial rightly emphasizes certain values “to which contemporary spirituality is more sensitive: it is a remembrance of the maternal example and discipleship of the Blessed Virgin Mary who, strengthened by faith and hope, on that great Saturday on which Our Lord lay in the tomb, was the only one of the disciples to hold vigil in expectation of the Lord’s resurrection; it is a prelude and introduction to the celebration of Sunday, the weekly memorial of the Resurrection of Christ; it is a sign that the “Virgin Mary is continuously present and operative in the life of the Church.”

Popular piety is also sensitive to the Saturday memorial of the Blessed Virgin Mary. The statutes of many religious communities and associations of the faithful prescribe that special devotion be paid to the Holy Mother of God on Saturdays, sometimes through specified pious exercises composed precisely for Saturdays.

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