Catholic Family Devotions

Understanding the Day

Season

Septuagesima

Week

Week 2 of Septuagesima

Rank

Second-class feast

Sexagesima Sunday (Dominica in Sexagesima) falls in the pre-Lenten season of Septuagesima. This period prepares families for Lent by shifting the liturgy’s tone from ordinary time toward penance and reflection. As a Greater Sunday of the II Class, Sexagesima is a principal Sunday with more solemn liturgical observance than ordinary weekdays: the Mass and Liturgy of the Hours use proper texts for the day, and the celebration has priority in parish scheduling. There is no octave or vigil specifically attached to this celebration; it is observed on the Sunday indicated by the traditional calendar. For families, Sexagesima matters because it marks an early step in spiritual preparation—Scripture readings and prayers begin to turn attention toward repentance, conversion, and readiness for the Lenten fast.

Introit (Daily Prayer)

Ps 43:23-26
Awake! Why are You asleep, O Lord? Arise! Cast us not off forever! Why do You hide Your face, forgetting our oppression? Our bodies are pressed to the earth. Arise, O Lord, help us, and deliver us.
Ps 43:2
O God, our ears have heard, our fathers have declared to us.
Glory Be to the Father…

O God, You Who see that we put no trust in anything we do, mercifully grant that by the protection of the Doctor of the Gentiles we may be defended against all adversity.
Through our Lord…

Weekly Prayer

Morning Offering

O Jesus, through the Immaculate Heart of Mary, I offer You my prayers, works, joys, and sufferings of this day for all the intentions of Your Sacred Heart,

in union with the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass throughout the world, in thanksgiving for Your favors, in reparation for my sins,

for the intentions of all my associates, and in particular for the intention recommended by the Holy Father this month.

Weekly Formation

Hatreds, Rivalry, Jealousy, and Fury

The Works of the Flesh

Hatreds
Hatred deliberately wills evil to another person or rejects the good that charity requires for him. Dislike or painful emotion is not identical with hatred; the sin lies in the settled choice against another’s true good.
Rivalry
Sinful rivalry turns another person’s success into a threat and seeks victory, attention, or superiority without regard for justice and charity. Good competition can pursue excellence, but rivalry becomes a work of the flesh when defeating the other matters more than the common good.
Jealousy
Jealousy anxiously guards a good, relationship, or honor as though another person’s good necessarily deprived one of it. It becomes sinful when suspicion, possessiveness, or resentment overrides truth, trust, and charity.
Outbursts of fury
Outbursts of fury are eruptions of anger in which reason and self-command are surrendered to harmful words or actions. Their disorder lies in allowing passion to punish, frighten, or wound without the measure required by justice and charity.

The Fruits of the Holy Spirit

Peace
Peace is the tranquility produced when desires are rightly ordered within the soul and charity unites persons in the good. It is more than quiet or lack of conflict, since true peace depends on union with God, justice, and ordered love.

Saint & Feast

Principal celebrationCalendar title

Sexagesima Sunday

A biography or feast reflection has not yet been prepared.

Commemoration

John of Matha

St. John of Matha, Confessor

French saint and Catholic priest

Born: 1150-06-23 · Faucon-de-Barcelonnette
Died: 1213-12-17 · Rome

John of Matha, OSsT was a French Catholic priest and cofounder of the Order of the Most Holy Trinity, initially dedicated to ransoming Christians who had been captured by marauders from North Africa.

Learn more about John of Matha

Today in Church History

Seventh Crusade and the Battle of Al Mansurah
1250Event
The Battle of Al Mansurah during the Seventh Crusade took place in February 1250, but the specific date of February 8 is not traditionally associated with the battle. The battle was a significant encounter between the forces of King Louis IX of France and the Ayyubid forces in Egypt.
The Crusades remind us of the complexities of faith and the call to defend it amidst adversity.

Catechism

Catechism of the Catholic Church

The Catechism teaches that throughout history, religions and philosophies have offered many different answers to the question of origins, often differing from the Christian faith. Human reason can know God the Creator through his works, though this knowledge can be obscured by error; faith confirms and enlightens reason so that we understand that the world was created by the word of God. The truth about creation is important for all human life: it reveals the one God who made heaven and earth, stands as a universal witness to his all-powerful love, and is the first step toward his covenant with his People. As families read Scripture together, the opening chapters of Genesis offer a principal source for learning about creation, the vocation of man, the reality of sin, and the hope of salvation.

The Catechism teaches that God, as the eternal Creator, brought all things into existence through His beloved Son, the Word, and the Holy Spirit, highlighting the intimate cooperation of the Holy Trinity in creation. This act was not born of necessity but from God's free will and love, aimed at manifesting His goodness and glory. As families reflect on the beauty of creation, they are reminded that their lives are meant to praise God and share in His divine goodness. Moreover, just as God created the world "out of nothing," He can transform hearts and grant new life through His Spirit, offering hope and renewal to all who seek Him.

¶ 285

Since the beginning the Christian faith has been challenged by responses to the question of origins that differ from its own. Ancient religions and cultures produced many myths concerning origins. Some philosophers have said that everything is God, that the world is God, or that the development of the world is the development of God (Pantheism). Others have said that the world is a necessary emanation arising from God and returning to him. Still others have affirmed the existence of two eternal principles, Good and Evil, Light and Darkness, locked, in permanent conflict (Dualism, Manichaeism). According to some of these conceptions, the world (at least the physical world) is evil, the product of a fall, and is thus to be rejected or left behind (Gnosticism). Some admit that the world was made by God, but as by a watch-maker who, once he has made a watch, abandons it to itself (Deism). Finally, others reject any transcendent origin for the world, but see it as merely the interplay of matter that has always existed (Materialism). All these attempts bear witness to the permanence and universality of the question of origins. This inquiry is distinctively human.

Today's Mass Readings

Open the day's Sancta MissaDivinum Officium · Divino Afflatu - 1954View readings

Sexagesima Sunday

Understanding the Day

Introit (Daily Prayer)

Collect

Weekly Prayer

Morning Offering

Weekly Formation

Hatreds, Rivalry, Jealousy, and Fury

The Works of the Flesh

The Fruits of the Holy Spirit

Saint & Feast

Sexagesima Sunday

John of Matha

Today in Church History

Seventh Crusade and the Battle of Al Mansurah

Catechism

Catechism of the Catholic Church

Today's Mass Readings

Baltimore Catechism No. 3