The Season: This feast falls in Ordinary Time after Pentecost, a period in the Church year focused on growth in Christian discipleship and the ongoing life of the local Church.
What “Double” Means: In older liturgical terminology, “Double” indicates a solemn celebration of the saint’s feast with proper prayers and readings. In plain terms for families: it’s a significant feast day in the parish calendar, meant to be observed with special Mass and, where possible, family prayer at home.
Octave or Vigil: No octave or special vigil is attached here. The day is celebrated on its proper date within the season without an eight-day extension.
Introit (Daily Prayer)
John 15:13 Greater love than this no one has, that one lay down his life for his friends. Ps 40:2 Happy is he who has regard for the lowly and the poor; in the day of misfortune the Lord will deliver him. Glory Be to the Father…
Commemoration Ss. Symphorosa and sons May Your healing action, O Lord, mercifully rid us of our evil inclinations and lead us to do good. Through our Lord…
Weekly Prayer
Act of Charity
O my God, I love Thee above all things, with my whole heart and soul, because Thou art all-good and worthy of all love.
I love my neighbor as myself for the love of Thee. I forgive all who have injured me, and ask pardon of all whom I have injured.
Weekly Formation
The Precepts of the Church: Sunday Worship
The Precepts of the Church
You shall attend Mass on Sundays and on Holy Days of Obligation and rest from servile labor.
This precept gives a concrete minimum for keeping the Lord’s Day: Catholics assist at Mass on Sundays and holy days of obligation and refrain from work that prevents worship, proper rest, or duties of charity. Serious reasons such as illness or the necessary care of others can excuse the obligation.
Saint & Feast
Principal celebration
Camillus de Lellis
St. Camillus de Lellis, Confessor
Italian priest, nurse and saint
Born
1550-05-25 · Bucchianico
Died
1614-07-14 · Rome
Camillus de Lellis, M.I., was a Catholic priest from Italy who founded the Camillians, a religious order dedicated to the care of the sick. He was beatified by Pope Benedict XIV in the year 1742, and canonized by him four years later in 1746. De Lellis is the patron saint of the sick, hospitals, nurses and physicians. His assistance is also invoked against gambling.
In 1870, the First Vatican Council defined the dogma of papal infallibility, affirming that the Pope is preserved from error when proclaiming doctrines of faith and morals. This pivotal moment solidified the authority of the papacy within the Catholic Church and has had lasting implications for Church governance and teaching.
The declaration of papal infallibility invites the faithful to trust in the guidance of the Holy Spirit through the Church's leadership.
Catechism
Catechism of the Catholic Church
The Catechism teaches that the matrimonial covenant, established by God, is a partnership of the whole of life between a man and a woman, ordered toward the good of the spouses and the procreation and education of children. Between baptized persons, Christ has raised this covenant to the dignity of a sacrament. Rooted in Scripture and in God’s loving design from creation, marriage reflects the mutual love to which God calls man and woman and is meant to be fruitful. Yet this union is often wounded by sin, bringing discord, domination, infidelity, jealousy, and conflict. God’s grace, which he never refuses in his mercy, helps heal these wounds and enables spouses to seek the union of life for which they were created. For Catholic families, this invites us to cherish marriage, foster love and unity, and rely on God’s grace amid the struggles of daily life.
¶ 1601
"The matrimonial covenant, by which a man and a woman establish between themselves a partnership of the whole of life, is by its nature ordered toward the good of the spouses and the procreation and education of offspring; this covenant between baptized persons has been raised by Christ the Lord to the dignity of a sacrament."
¶ 1602
Sacred Scripture begins with the creation of man and woman in the image and likeness of God and concludes with a vision of "the wedding-feast of the Lamb." Scripture speaks throughout of marriage and its "mystery," its institution and the meaning God has given it, its origin and its end, its various realizations throughout the history of salvation, the difficulties arising from sin and its renewal "in the Lord" in the New Covenant of Christ and the Church.
Symphorosa is venerated as a saint of the Catholic Church. According to tradition, she was martyred with her seven sons at Tibur toward the end of the reign of the Roman Emperor Hadrian (117–38), or during the reign of Trajan.
"The intimate community of life and love which constitutes the married state has been established by the Creator and endowed by him with its own proper laws.... God himself is the author of marriage." The vocation to marriage is written in the very nature of man and woman as they came from the hand of the Creator. Marriage is not a purely human institution despite the many variations it may have undergone through the centuries in different cultures, social structures, and spiritual attitudes. These differences should not cause us to forget its common and permanent characteristics. Although the dignity of this institution is not transparent everywhere with the same clarity, some sense of the greatness of the matrimonial union exists in all cultures. "The well-being of the individual person and of both human and Christian society is closely bound up with the healthy state of conjugal and family life."
¶ 1604
God who created man out of love also calls him to love the fundamental and innate vocation of every human being. For man is created in the image and likeness of God who is himself love. Since God created him man and woman, their mutual love becomes an image of the absolute and unfailing love with which God loves man. It is good, very good, in the Creator's eyes. and this love which God blesses is intended to be fruitful and to be realized in the common work of watching over creation: "and God blessed them, and God said to them: 'Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it.'"
¶ 1605
Holy Scripture affirms that man and woman were created for one another: "It is not good that the man should be alone." The woman, "flesh of his flesh," i.e., his counterpart, his equal, his nearest in all things, is given to him by God as a "helpmate"; she thus represents God from whom comes our help. "Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother and cleaves to his wife, and they become one flesh." The Lord himself shows that this signifies an unbreakable union of their two lives by recalling what the plan of the Creator had been "in the beginning": "So they are no longer two, but one flesh."
¶ 1606
Every man experiences evil around him and within himself. This experience makes itself felt in the relationships between man and woman. Their union has always been threatened by discord, a spirit of domination, infidelity, jealousy, and conflicts that can escalate into hatred and separation. This disorder can manifest itself more or less acutely, and can be more or less overcome according to the circumstances of cultures, eras, and individuals, but it does seem to have a universal character.
¶ 1607
According to faith the disorder we notice so painfully does not stem from the nature of man and woman, nor from the nature of their relations, but from sin. As a break with God, the first sin had for its first consequence the rupture of the original communion between man and woman. Their relations were distorted by mutual recriminations; their mutual attraction, the Creator's own gift, changed into a relationship of domination and lust; and the beautiful vocation of man and woman to be fruitful, multiply, and subdue the earth was burdened by the pain of childbirth and the toil of work.
¶ 1608
Nevertheless, the order of creation persists, though seriously disturbed. To heal the wounds of sin, man and woman need the help of the grace that God in his infinite mercy never refuses them. Without his help man and woman cannot achieve the union of their lives for which God created them "in the beginning."
Baltimore track
Baltimore Catechism No. 3
Lesson 18 — On Contrition
Q. 765.What is perfect contrition?
A.Perfect contrition is that which fills us with sorrow and hatred for sin, because it offends God, who is infinitely good in Himself and worthy of all love.
Q. 766.When will perfect contrition obtain pardon for mortal sin without the Sacrament of Penance?
A.Perfect contrition will obtain pardon for mortal sin without the Sacrament of Penance when we cannot go to confession, but with the perfect contrition we must have the intention of going to confession as soon as possible, if we again have the opportunity.
Q. 767.What is imperfect contrition?
A.Imperfect contrition is that by which we hate what offends God because by it we lose heaven and deserve hell; or because sin is so hateful in itself.
Q. 768.What other name is given to imperfect contrition and why is it called imperfect?
A.Imperfect contrition is called attrition. It is called imperfect only because it is less perfect than the highest grade of contrition by which we are sorry for sin out of pure love of God's own goodness and without any consideration of what befalls ourselves.