Catholic Family Devotions

Understanding the Day

Season

Time After Pentecost

Week

Week 17 of Time After Pentecost

Rank

Major feast

This celebration falls in Ordinary Time after Pentecost (Time After Pentecost), a part of the Church year focused on growing in Christian discipleship and charity. The title Beatæ Mariæ Virginis de Mercede honors Mary under the name Our Lady of Ransom, recalling her patronage of the Order of Mercy and the Church’s devotion to her help and intercession.

Introit (Daily Prayer)

Ps 118:137; 118:124
You are just, O Lord, and Your ordinance is right. Deal with Your servant according to Your kindness.
Ps 118:1
Happy are they whose way is blameless, who walk in the law of the Lord.
Glory Be to the Father…

Commemoration Our Lady of Ransom
Having received the aids conducive to our salvation, O Lord, we beseech You, grant that we may everywhere be protected by the patronage of blessed Mary, ever Virgin, in veneration of whom we have made these offerings to Your Majesty.
Through our Lord…

Weekly Prayer

Jesus, Mary, and Joseph

Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, I give you my heart and my soul.
Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, assist me in my last agony.
Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, may I breathe forth my soul in peace with you.

Weekly Formation

The Evangelical Counsels

Chastity
The evangelical counsel of chastity is the voluntary renunciation of marriage for the sake of Christ and undivided service to His kingdom. It goes beyond the chastity required of every Christian and, when vowed in religious life, offers the whole person to God.
Poverty
The evangelical counsel of poverty is the voluntary surrender or restricted use of personal possessions in order to follow Christ with greater freedom. It goes beyond ordinary justice and detachment by making material goods subject to a stable form of Gospel renunciation.
Obedience
The evangelical counsel of obedience is the voluntary offering of one’s will to God through lawful religious authority and an approved rule. St. Thomas calls it the chief religious vow because it offers not merely possessions or bodily goods, but the direction of one’s own will.

Saint & Feast

Principal celebration

Feast of Our Lady of Ransom

Our Lady of Ransom

The Feast of Our Lady of Ransom is a Marian observance associated with the Mercedarian Order and its work of ransoming Christian captives.

The Feast of Our Lady of Ransom is a Marian observance associated with the Mercedarian Order and its work of ransoming Christian captives. It was traditionally celebrated on September 24 and is now commonly styled Our Lady of Mercy.

Learn more about Feast of Our Lady of Ransom

Today in Church History

Second Council of Nicaea
787Council
The Second Council of Nicaea (787) was a pivotal ecumenical council that addressed the veneration of icons, affirming their place in the Church and condemning iconoclasm. This council reinforced the importance of tradition and the role of images in Catholic worship, shaping the Church's theological and liturgical practices.
The veneration of icons invites the faithful to deepen their relationship with the divine through visual representations.

Catechism

Catechism of the Catholic Church

In the Catechism, we see that Mary’s virginity and motherhood have a profound place in God’s saving plan. Her virginity reveals God’s absolute initiative in the Incarnation: Jesus is conceived by the Holy Spirit, has God as his Father, and is truly the Son of God made man. As the New Adam, Christ inaugurates the new creation and gives the Holy Spirit and grace to redeemed humanity. Mary’s faith, free obedience, and undivided gift of herself to God’s will enabled her to become the mother of the Saviour. At once virgin and mother, she is also the symbol and most perfect realization of the Church, which receives God’s word in faith and brings forth children to new and immortal life through preaching and Baptism. In our prayer, we can thank God for Mary’s faithful yes and ask for the grace to receive his word with faith.

The Catechism teaches that the first commandment condemns the main sins of irreligion: tempting God, sacrilege, and simony. Tempting God, as seen in Satan’s challenge to Jesus, puts God’s goodness and power to the test and wounds the trust and respect we owe him. Sacrilege treats sacraments, sacred persons, places, or things unworthily, and is especially grave when committed against the Eucharist. Simony is the buying or selling of spiritual things, forgetting that God’s gifts cannot be owned or purchased. The Catechism also calls atheism one of the most serious problems of our time. It can arise from practical materialism or from an exaggerated idea of human autonomy that refuses dependence on God. Believers, too, should remember that carelessness in faith instruction, false teaching, or failures in religious, moral, and social life can conceal rather than reveal the true nature of God and religion. Acknowledging God does not diminish human dignity; our dignity is grounded and brought to perfection in him.

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Today's Mass Readings

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

Our Lady of Ransom

Understanding the Day

Introit (Daily Prayer)

Collect

Weekly Prayer

Jesus, Mary, and Joseph

Weekly Formation

The Evangelical Counsels

The Evangelical Counsels

Saint & Feast

Feast of Our Lady of Ransom

Today in Church History

Second Council of Nicaea

Catechism

Catechism of the Catholic Church

Today's Mass Readings

Baltimore Catechism No. 3