Understanding the Day
Season
Lent
Week
Week 3 of Lent
Rank
Sunday or semidouble observance
The Forty Holy Martyrs are celebrated during Lent, a season of repentance, prayer, and preparation for Easter. The celebration’s rank, “Semidouble,” indicates it is more solemn than a simple memorial but less than a principal feast; in family practice that means the Mass and prayers are given special attention without displacing the overall Lenten character of penance. There is no octave or vigil indicated here, so the observance is kept on the single day itself. This feast matters because it honors a group of Christians who witnessed to their faith unto death, offering a powerful example of courage, fidelity, and the cost of discipleship.
Introit (Daily Prayer)
Ps 16:6-8
I call upon You, for You will answer me, O God; incline Your ear to me; hear my word. Keep me, O Lord, as the apple of Your eye; hide me in the shadow of Your wings.
Ps 61:1
Hear, O Lord, a just suit; attend to my outcry.
Glory Be to the Father…
I call upon You, for You will answer me, O God; incline Your ear to me; hear my word. Keep me, O Lord, as the apple of Your eye; hide me in the shadow of Your wings.
Ps 61:1
Hear, O Lord, a just suit; attend to my outcry.
Glory Be to the Father…
Commemoration Forty Holy Martyrs of Sebaste
Be appeased by the prayers of Your Saints, O Lord, and grant, we beseech You, that the rites we perform in this life may avail for our eternal salvation.
Through our Lord…
Be appeased by the prayers of Your Saints, O Lord, and grant, we beseech You, that the rites we perform in this life may avail for our eternal salvation.
Through our Lord…
Weekly Prayer
Prayer to the Holy Family
Jesus, Mary, and Joseph,
bless us and grant us the grace
to love and serve God faithfully,
to honor one another with patience and charity,
and to make our home a dwelling place of peace.
Holy Family of Nazareth,
help us to grow in faith, hope, and love.
Guide our work, our rest, our words, and our choices,
so that in all things we may seek the will of God.
Jesus, Mary, and Joseph,
pray for us and protect our family. Amen.
bless us and grant us the grace
to love and serve God faithfully,
to honor one another with patience and charity,
and to make our home a dwelling place of peace.
Holy Family of Nazareth,
help us to grow in faith, hope, and love.
Guide our work, our rest, our words, and our choices,
so that in all things we may seek the will of God.
Jesus, Mary, and Joseph,
pray for us and protect our family. Amen.
Weekly Formation
Beatitude 3
The Beatitudes
Blessed are they that mourn; for they shall be comforted.
The blessed mourners grieve chiefly for sin—their own and the sins of the world—and bear unavoidable trials in union with God. Their promised comfort is not mere earthly relief but the consolation of grace and, finally, eternal joy.
Saint & Feast
Principal celebration
Forty Holy Martyrs
Roman soldiers and martyrs
- Died
- 0320-01-01 · Sivas
The Forty Martyrs of Sebaste or the Holy Forty were a group of Roman soldiers in the Legio XII Fulminata whose martyrdom in the year 320 AD for the Christian faith is recounted in traditional martyrologies.
Learn more about Forty Holy MartyrsCommemorationCalendar title
Tuesday of Week 3 of Lent
A biography or feast reflection has not yet been prepared.
Customs & Fasting
Traditional fast
Traditional Lenten fast.
Today in Church History
Discovery of the Galápagos Islands by Fray Tomás de Berlanga
1535EventFray Tomás de Berlanga, the fourth Bishop of Panama, discovered the Galápagos Islands on March 10, 1535, while en route to Peru. This event is significant in the context of exploration during the Age of Discovery.
God often leads us to unexpected places for His greater purpose.
Catechism
Catechism of the Catholic Church
In the Catechism, we learn that Jesus’ descent into hell means that he truly experienced death and, in his human soul united to his divine person, entered the realm of the dead. He went there as Savior, proclaiming the Good News to the spirits imprisoned there. He did not descend to free the damned or destroy the hell of damnation, but to deliver the just who had gone before him and were awaiting their Redeemer. In this final phase of his messianic mission, Christ’s redemptive work reaches all who are saved, across all times and places. By his death, Jesus conquered death and the devil, who held the power of death, and he opened heaven’s gates for the just. This is a powerful source of hope: the risen Christ holds the keys of Death and Hades, and the dead who hear the voice of the Son of God will live.
In the Catechism, we learn about the significance of Christ's Ascension into heaven. After his Resurrection, Jesus entered definitively into God's heavenly domain and sits at the right hand of the Father, his humanity glorified. This event inaugurates the Messiah's kingdom, which will have no end. Christ also remains our high priest and mediator, constantly interceding for those who draw near to God through him. For family devotion, these truths offer hope: Christ, the head of the Church, has gone before us into the Father's glorious kingdom, opening access to God's life and happiness so that we may hope to be with him for ever.
¶ 632
The frequent New Testament affirmations that Jesus was "raised from the dead" presuppose that the crucified one sojourned in the realm of the dead prior to his resurrection. This was the first meaning given in the apostolic preaching to Christ's descent into hell: that Jesus, like all men, experienced death and in his soul joined the others in the realm of the dead. But he descended there as Saviour, proclaiming the Good News to the spirits imprisoned there.