Catholic Family Devotions

Understanding the Day

Season

Septuagesima

Week

Week 2 of Septuagesima

Rank

Feast

Septuagesima is the pre-Lenten season in older liturgical calendars, a time of preparation that gently turns our hearts toward repentance and deeper prayer before Lent. A feast ranked as a “Double” in this system means it is more solemn than an ordinary feria or simple celebration: the community gives it special liturgical attention with proper prayers and readings, while still keeping the overall character of the Septuagesima season. There is no octave or vigil attached to this celebration in the supplied data, so the observance is kept to the single feast day within the second week of Septuagesima. Celebrating the Seven Holy Founders of the Servite Order honors those early members whose communal dedication to the Blessed Virgin and to service shaped a life of prayer and charity.

Introit (Daily Prayer)

Wis 10:20-21
The just sang, O Lord, Your holy name and praised in unison your conquering hand - because wisdom opened the mouths of the dumb, and gave ready speech to infants.
Ps 8:2
O Lord, our Lord, how glorious is Your name over all the earth!
Glory Be to the Father…

O Lord Jesus Christ, Who, to keep alive the memory of Your most holy Mother’s sorrows, through the seven holy fathers enriched your Church with a new family of her Servants, graciously grant that we may be so united with them in their sorrows, as also to share their joys.
Who livest…

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 celebration

Seven Holy Founders

Seven Holy Founders of the Order of the Servants of the Blessed Virgin Mary

seven founders of a Roman Catholic order

The Seven Holy Founders of the Servite Order were seven men of the town of Florence who became bound to each other in a spiritual friendship. They eventually felt called by Mary, mother of Jesus, towards whom they practised an intense devotion. They reported a vision, apparently shared by all separately at the same moment. None of them was aware that the others also had experienced it. The call was to "leave the world, the better to serve almighty God".

Learn more about Seven Holy Founders

Today in Church History

Foundation of the Abbey of La Roë
1096Founding
In 1096, Pope Urban II confirmed the foundation of the abbey of La Roë, established by Robert of Arbrissel, as a community of canons regular. This event highlights the growth of monasticism and the Church's support for new religious communities during the medieval period.
The establishment of new communities reflects the Church's ongoing mission to foster spiritual growth and communal living.
James II's Abdication and Its Impact on Catholicism in Britain
1689Event
The Convention Parliament declared that James II had abdicated the throne on February 12, 1689, but this date is not traditionally associated with the event. The declaration led to the Protestant Ascendancy and significant persecution of Catholics, highlighting tensions between Catholicism and Protestantism in British history, influencing the Church's status and the rights of Catholics for centuries.
The struggles of James II remind us of the enduring faith and resilience of the Catholic community in the face of adversity.
Pope Francis and Patriarch Kirill Sign Ecumenical Declaration
2016

Catechism

Catechism of the Catholic Church

The Annunciation to Mary inaugurates the fullness of time, the fulfillment of God’s promises and preparations. God invited Mary, a young Jewish virgin of Nazareth, to conceive his Son through the power of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit’s mission is united to that of the Son: he sanctified Mary’s womb and caused her to conceive the eternal Son of the Father in a humanity drawn from her own. From the beginning of his human life, Jesus is Christ, anointed by the Holy Spirit. As families reflect on this mystery, we can remember that God prepared for it through the history of his people, especially through holy women who hoped confidently for salvation. What the Catholic faith believes about Mary is rooted in what it believes about Christ, and Mary’s place in God’s plan helps illumine our faith in him.

As we reflect together on the profound question of why evil exists in a world created by a good and caring God, the Catechism reminds us that no quick answer is enough. The whole Christian faith helps us approach this mystery: the goodness of creation, the reality of sin, God’s patient love, the redemptive Incarnation of his Son, the gift of the Spirit, the Church, the sacraments, and our call to blessed life. God freely created a world still journeying toward its ultimate perfection, where physical evil remains while creation has not yet reached that perfection. Angels and human beings, created intelligent and free, can turn away from God; moral evil comes from this misuse of creaturely freedom, not from God. Yet God can bring good even from the consequences of evil, as he brought the greatest good—Christ’s glorification and our redemption—from the rejection and death of his Son. Evil never becomes good, and God’s providence often remains unknown to us; but we firmly believe that he is master of the world and its history, and that at the end we will fully know the ways by which he has guided creation.

In the creation of the world and of man, God gives witness to his almighty love and wisdom, revealing a plan of loving goodness that reaches its goal in the new creation in Christ. Although creation is especially attributed to the Father, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are together the one, indivisible principle of creation. God alone freely created the universe out of nothing and keeps it in existence through his Word and Creator Spirit. He created the world to show forth and communicate his glory, so that creatures may share in his truth, goodness, and beauty. For families, these truths invite us to trust God’s wise and loving providence, to bring him our anxieties, and to remember that even when evil remains mysterious, faith assures us that God can bring good from it.

Today's Mass Readings

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