Jimmy Akin

Today is Monday of the 5th week in Ordinary Time. The liturgical color is red.

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

 

Saints & Celebrations:

On February 6, in the Ordinary Form, we celebrate St. Paul Miki and Companions, martyrs. It is a memorial.

In the Extraordinary Form, we celebrate St. Titus, bishop of Crete, confessor, who died in A.D. 101. It is a Class III day.

In the Extraordinary Form, we also celebrate St. Dorothy, virgin and martyr, who died in A.D. 275. This celebration is a commemoration.

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

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

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

46. At the outset of the twentieth century, St. Pope Pius X (1903-1914) proposed bringing the Liturgy closer to the people, thereby “popularizing” it. He maintained that the faithful assimilated the “true Christian spirit” by drawing from its “primary and indispensable source, which is active participation in the most holy mysteries and from the solemn public prayer of the Church.” In this way, St. Pope Pius X gave authoritative recognition to the objective superiority of the Liturgy over all other forms of piety; dispelled any confusion between Liturgy and popular piety, indirectly clarified the distinction between both and opened the way for a proper understanding of the relationship that must obtain between them.

Thus was born the liturgical movement which was destined to exercise a prominent influence on the Church of the twentieth century, by virtue of the contribution of many eminent men, noted for their learning, piety and commitment, and in which the Supreme Pontiffs recognized the promptings of the Spirit. The ultimate aim of the liturgical movement was pastoral in nature, namely, to encourage in the faithful a knowledge of, and love for, the divine mysteries and to restore to them the idea that these same mysteries belong to a priestly people (cf. 1 Pt 2,5).

In the context of the liturgical movement, it is easy to understand why some of its exponents assumed a diffident attitude to popular piety and identified it as one of the causes leading to the degeneration of the Liturgy. They faced many of the abuses deriving from the superimposition of pious exercises on the Liturgy as well as instances where the Liturgy was displaced by acts of popular worship. In their efforts to restore the purity of divine worship, they took as their ideal the Liturgy of the early centuries of the Church, and consequently radically rejected any form of popular piety deriving from the middles ages or the post tridentine period.

This rejection, however, failed to take sufficient account of the fact that these forms of popular piety, which were often approved and recommended by the Church, had sustained the spiritual life of the faithful and produced unequalled spiritual fruits. It also failed to acknowledge that popular piety had made a significant contribution to safeguarding and preserving the faith, and to the diffusion of the Christian message. Thus, Pope Pius XII, in his encyclical Mediator Dei of 21 November 1947, with which he assumed leadership of the liturgical movement, issued a defence of pious exercises which, to a certain extent, had become synonymous with Catholic piety in recent centuries.

The Constitution Sacrosanctum Concilium of the Second Vatican Council finally defined, in proper terms, the relationship obtaining between the Liturgy and popular piety, by declaring the unquestionable primacy of the Sacred Liturgy and the subordination to it of pious exercises, while emphasizing their validity.

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Today is the 5th Sunday of Ordinary Time. The liturgical color is green.

In the Extraordinary Form, this is the season after Septuagesima, and the liturgical color for today is violet.

In the Extraordinary Form, it is Septuagesima Sunday.

 

Saints & Celebrations:

On February 5, in both the Ordinary and the Extraordinary Form, we celebrate St. Agatha of Sicily, virgin and martyr, who died in A.D. 254. 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. Agatha, 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:

45. The revival of the Liturgy was not the sole activity of the nineteenth century. Independently of that revival, popular piety experienced significant growth. The revival of liturgical song coincided with the development of many popular hymns, the widespread use of liturgical aids such as bilingual missals for the use of the faithful, and a proliferation of devotional booklets.

The culture of Romanticism rediscovered man’s religious sense and promoted the quest for, and understanding of, the elements of popular piety, as well as emphasizing their importance in worship.

The nineteenth century experienced a phenomenon of crucial significance: expressions of local devotion arising from popular initiatives and often associated with prodigous events such as miracles and apparitions. Gradually, these received official approval as well as the favour and protection of the ecclesial authorities, and were eventually assumed into the Liturgy. Several Marian sanctuaries and centres of pilgrimages, and of Eucharistic and penitential Liturgies as well as Marian centres associated with popular piety are all emblematic of this phenomenon.

While the relationship between popular piety and the Liturgy in the nineteenth century must be seen against the background of a liturgical revival and an ever increasing expansion of popular piety, it has to be noted that that same relationship was affected by the negative influence of an accentuated superimposition of pious exercises on the liturgical actions, a phenomenon already evident during the period of the Catholic Reform.

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Today is Saturday of the 4th 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:

On February 4, there is no special fixed liturgical day in the Ordinary Form.

In the Extraordinary Form, we celebrate St. Andrew Corsini, OC, bishop, and confessor who died in A.D. 1373. It is a Class III day.

If you’d like to learn more about St. Andrew Corsini, 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 Contemporary Period

44. Following the French revolution with its objective of eradicating the Christian faith and its overt hostility to Christian worship, the nineteenth century witnessed a important liturgical revival.

This was preceeded by the development of a vigorous ecclesiology which saw the Church not only in terms of a hierarchical society but also as the People of God and as a worshipping community. Besides the revival of ecclesiology, mention must also be made of the flowering of biblical and patrictic studies, as well as the ecclesial and ecumenical concerns of men such as Antonio Rosmini (+1855) and John Henry Newman (+1890).

The history of the renaissance of liturgical worship reserves a special place for Dom Prosper Guéranger (+ 1875), who restored the monastic life in France and founded the abbey of Solesmes. His conception of the Liturgy is permeated by a love for the Church and for tradition. The Roman Rite, he maintained in his writings on Liturgy, was indispensable for unity and, hence, he opposed autochthonous forms of liturgical expression. The liturgical renewal which he promoted has the distinct advantage of not having been an academic movement. Rather, it aimed at making the Liturgy an expression of worship in which the entire people of God participated.

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Today is Friday of the 4th week in Ordinary Time. The liturgical color is green.

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

 

Saints & Celebrations:

On February 3, in both the Ordinary and Extraordinary Form, we celebrate St. Blaise, bishop of Sebaste and martyr, who died in A.D. 317. In the Ordinary Form, it is an optional memorial, and in the Extraordinary Form, it is a commemoration.

In the Ordinary Form we also celebrate, St. Ansgar, bishop. It is an optional memorial.

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

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

43. The Catholic Reform strengthened the structure and unity of the Roman Rite. Given the notable missionary expansion of the eighteenth century, the Reform spread its proper Liturgy and organizational structure among the peoples to whom the Gospel message was preached.

In the missionary territories of the eighteenth century, the relationship between Liturgy and popular piety was framed in terms similar to, but more accentuated than, those already seen in the sixteenth and seventeenth ceturies:

• the Liturgy retained a Roman character and hence remained, at least partially, extraneous to autochthonous culture. The question of inculturation was practically never raised, partly because of the fear of negative consequence for the faith. In this respect, however, mention must be made of the efforts of Matteo Rici in relation to the question of the Chinese rites, and those of Roberto de’ Nobili on the question of the Indian rites;
• popular piety, on the one hand, was subject to the danger of religious syncretism, especially where evangelization was not deeply rooted; while on the other, it became more autonomous and mature: it was not limited to reproducing the pious practices promoted by the missionaries, rather it created other forms of pious exercises that reflected the character of the local culture.

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Today is Thursday of the 4th week in Ordinary Time. The liturgical color is white.

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

 

Saints & Celebrations:

On February 2, in the Ordinary Form, we celebrate the Presentation of the Lord. It is a feast.

In the Extraordinary Form, we celebrate the Purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary. It is a Class II day.

If you’d like to learn more about the Presentation of the Lord, you can click here.

If you’d like to learn more about the Purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary, 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 Feast of the Presentation of Our Lord

120. Until 1969, the ancient feast of the presentation of Our Lord, which is of Oriental origin, was known in the West as the feast of the Purification of Our Lady, and closed the Christmas season, forty days after the Lord’s birth. This feast has for long been associated with many popular devotional exercises. The faithful:

• gladly participate in the processions commemorating the Lord’s entry into the Temple in Jerusalem and his encounter with God, whose house he had come to for the first time, and then with Simeon and Anna. Such processions, which in the West had taken the place of licentious pagan events, always had a penitential character, and were later identified with the blessing of candles which were carried in procession in honor of Christ, “the light to enlighten the Gentiles” (Lk 2, 32);
• are sensitive to the actions of the Blessed Virgin in presenting her Son in the Temple, and to her submission to the Law of Moses (Lk 12, 1-8) in the rite of purification; popular piety sees in the rite of purification the humility of Our Lady and hence, 2 February has long been regarded as a feast for those in humble service.

121. Popular piety is sensitive to the providential and mysterious event that is the Conception and birth of new life. Christian mothers can easily identify with the maternity of Our Lady, the most pure Mother of the Head of the mystical Body – notwithstanding the notable differences in the Virgin’s unique Conception and birth. These too are mothers in God’s plan and are about to give birth to future members of the Church. From this intuition and a certain mimesis of the purification of Our Lady, the rite of purification after birth was developed, some of whose elements reflect negatively on birth.

The revised Rituale Romanum provides for the blessing of women both before and after birth, this latter only in cases where the mother could not participate at the baptism of her child.

It is a highly desirable thing for mothers and married couples to ask for these blessings which should be given in accord with the Church’s prayer: in a communion of faith and charity in prayer so that pregnancy can be brought to term without difficulty (blessing before birth), and to give thanks to God for the gift of a child (blessing after birth).

122. In some local Churches, certain elements taken from the Gospel account of the Presentation of the Lord (Lk 2, 22-40), such as the obedience of Joseph and Mary to the Law of the Lord, the poverty of the holy spouses, the virginity of Our Lady, mark out the 2 February as a special feast for those at the service of the brethren in the various forms of consecrated life.

123. The feast of 2 February still retains a popular character. It is necessary, however, that such should reflect the true Christian significance of the feast. It would not be proper for popular piety in its celebration of this feast to overlook its Christological significance and concentrate exclusively on its Marian aspects. The fact that this feast should be “considered […] a joint memorial of Son and Mother” would not support such an inversion. The candles kept by the faithful in their homes should be seen as a sign of Christ “the light of the world” and an expression of faith.

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