Did You Know? The Human Genome Project was completed Apr. 14, 2003, with 99% of the human genome sequenced to an accuracy of 99.99%. LEARN MORE.
Panic in the Skies
Did You Know? On the way to the Moon, an oxygen tank expolded on Apollo 13 on Apr. 13, 1970, severely endangering the crew. Although the scheduled Moon landing was aborted, the crew was safely returned to Earth. LEARN MORE.
The Church Year: Apr. 13, 2012
Today is Friday within the octave of Easter. The liturgical color is white.
Saints & Celebrations:
On April 13, in the Ordinary Form, we celebrate St. Martin I, pope and martyr. It is an optional memorial.
In the Extraordinary Form, we celebrate St. Hermenegild, martyred at Seville, who died in A.D. 586. It is a Class III day.
If you’d like to learn more about St. Martin I, you can click here.
If you’d like to learn more about St. Hermenegild, 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:
84. Popular piety, as an expression of ecclesial piety, is subject to the general discipline of Christian worship and to the Church’s pastoral authority which exercises a role of discernment and authentification in relation to it. The Church renews popular piety by placing it in fertile contact with the revealed Word, tradition and the Sacred Liturgy itself.
On the other hand, expressions of popular piety must always be open to the “ecclesiological principle” of Christian worship. In this way:
- popular piety can have a correct understanding of the relationship between the particular Church and the universal Church. When popular piety concentrates on local or immediate issues, it risks closing itself to universal values and to ecclesiological perspectives;
- the veneration of the Blessed Virgin Mary, of the Angels and Saints, and suffrage for the dead, should be set in the vast context of the relationship between the heavenly Church and the pilgrim Church on earth;
- the relationship between ministry and charism should be properly understood, while the former is necessary for divine worship, the latter is frequently found in manifestations of popular piety.
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When a Prie-Dieu becomes a *Play*-Dieu
A Day of Shame in Christian History
Did You Know? Latin forces of the Fourth Crusade breached the walls of Constantinople on Apr. 12, 1204, leading to the disastrous and shameful Sack of Constantinople. Pope Innocent III had demanded that the crusaders not attack, and when he heard of the event, he was filled with shame, rage, and strongly rebuked them. LEARN MORE.
The Church Year: Apr. 12, 2012
Today is Thursday within the octave of Easter. The liturgical color is white.
Saints & Celebrations:
On April 12, 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:
83. Authentic forms of popular piety are also fruits of the Holy Spirit and must always be regarded as expressions of the Church’s piety. They are used by the faithful who are in communion with the Church, accept her faith and who are docile to her discipline of worship. Indeed, many forms popular piety have been approved and recommended by the Church herself.
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40 Days for DEATH!
Lifesite News is reporting that a Planned Parenthood located in Humboldt County, California has begun a prayer campaign mocking the well-known 40 Days for Life campaign, which seeks to save children’s lives from abortion.
The Planned Parenthood effort–named “40 Days of Prayer: Supporting Women Everywhere”–involves the efforts of local clergy who belong to “Clergy for Choice,” which is “an official subcommittee of Six Rivers Planned Parenthood.”
One element in the campaign is a flyer offering prayer intentions for the 40 day campaign. These intentions were authored by another organization named FaithAloud, whose website (faithaloud.org) bills it as “The Religious and Ethical Voice for Reproductive Justice” and says it works toward “Overcoming the Religious Stigma of Abortion and Sexuality.” (Sexuality carries a stigma? Who knew?)
Among the intentions for the individual days are these:
Day 4: Today we give thanks for the doctors who
provide quality abortion care, and pray that they may
be kept safe.
Day 7: Today we pray for the 45 million American
women who have had safe, legal abortions. May they
stand tall and refuse shame.
Day 8: Today we pray for elected officials, that they
may always support a woman’s right to make her own
medical decisions.
Day 14: Today we pray for Christians everywhere
to embrace the loving model of Jesus in the way he
refused to shame women.
Day 18: Today we pray for all the staff at abortion
clinics around the nation. May they be daily
confirmed in the sacred care that they offer women.
Day 27: Today we give thanks for abortion providers
around the nation whose concern for women is the
driving force in their lives.
Day 34: Today we give thanks for abortion escorts
who guide women safely through the hostile gauntlets
of protesters.
Day 36: Today we pray for the families we’ve chosen.
May they know the blessing of choice.
Day 40: Today we give thanks and celebrate that
abortion is still safe and legal.
The Next North Star!
Did You Know? Right now Polaris is the bright star closest to the north celestial pole, making all the other stars seem to circle it every day. But because of the wobble of the Earth’s axis, the celestial poles trace a path in the sky every 26,000 years that takes them near many different stars. By A.D. 3000 the North Star will have changed from being Polaris (Alpha Ursae Minoris) to Alrai (Gamma Cephei). LEARN MORE.
The Church Year: Apr. 11, 2012
Today is Wednesday within the octave of Easter. The liturgical color is white.
Saints & Celebrations:
On April 11, in the Ordinary Form, we celebrate St. Stanislaus, bishop and martyr. It is a memorial.
In the Extraordinary Form, we celebrate St. Leo I, pope, confessor, and doctor of the Church, who died in A.D. 461. It is a Class III day.
If you’d like to learn more about St. Stanislaus, you can click here.
If you’d like to learn more about St. Leo 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:
82. The celebration of the Liturgy, however, does not exhaust the Church’s divine worship. Following the example and the teaching of the Lord, the disciples of Christ pray in the seclusion of their rooms (cf. Mt 6, 6), they gather to pray according to forms created by men and women of great religious experience, who have encouraged the faithful and oriented their piety towards specific aspects of the mystery of Christ. They also pray according to structures which have emerged practically spontaneously from the collective Christian consciousness, in which the demands of popular culture harmoniously convey the essential data of the Gospel message.
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Eighteen-Hundred-and-Froze-To-Death
Did You Know? The Indonesian volcano Mt. Tambora blew on April 10, 1815 with such force that it caused global cooling, leading to “The Year Without a Summer” or “Eighteen-hundred-and-froze-to-death,” as it was nicknamed. The inclement weather resulted in Mary Shelly writing the novel Frankenstein. LEARN MORE.
