Catholic Family Devotions

Understanding the Day

Season

Time After Pentecost

Week

Week 21 of Time After Pentecost

Rank

Major feast

St. Raphael the Archangel is celebrated in the Time after Pentecost as a Greater Double feast. The Time after Pentecost is the long season of the Church’s year when families focus on living out Christ’s mission in everyday life: prayer, charity, and growth in holiness. “Greater Double” is an older liturgical rank indicating a solemn feast that calls for fuller prayer and attention than ordinary memorials; in modern practice it corresponds to a principal feast of local devotion, marked by special Mass prayers and often richer liturgical music. There is no octave or vigil specified here, so the celebration is observed on the appointed day without an extended eight-day period or a required vigil.

Introit (Daily Prayer)

Ps 102:20
Bless the Lord, all you His Angels, you mighty in strength, who do His bidding, obeying His spoken word.
Ps 102:1
Bless the Lord, O my soul; and, all my being, bless His holy name.
Glory Be to the Father…

O God, Who gave blessed Raphael the Archangel as a traveling companion to Your servant Tobias, grant us, Your servants, ever to be protected by his guardianship and by his help.
Through our Lord…

Weekly Prayer

Weekly prayer content will appear here once it is scheduled.

Weekly Formation

Anger and Meekness

The Way of Darkness

Anger
Sinful anger is a disordered movement toward revenge or punishment beyond what justice and charity allow. The emotion of anger can arise without sin, but it becomes vicious when deliberately nursed into resentment, hatred, cruelty, or uncontrolled retaliation.

The Way of Light

Meekness
Meekness moderates anger so that strength remains under the command of reason and charity. It is not weakness or indifference to injustice; it enables correction and defense of the good without hatred, cruelty, or loss of self-possession.

Saint & Feast

Principal celebration

Raphael

St. Raphael the Archangel

archangel featuring in Book of Tobit

Raphael is an archangel first mentioned in the Book of Tobit and in 1 Enoch, both estimated to date from between the 3rd and 2nd century BC. In later Jewish tradition, he became identified as one of the three heavenly visitors entertained by Abraham at the Oak of Mamre. He is not named in either the New Testament or the Quran, but later Christian tradition identified him with healing and as the angel who stirred waters in the Pool of Bethesda in John 5:2–4, and in Islam, where his name is Israfil, he is understood to be the unnamed angel of Quran 6:73, standing eternally with a trumpet to his lips, ready to announce the Day of Judgment. In Gnostic tradition, Raphael is represented on the Ophite Diagram.

Learn more about Raphael

Today in Church History

Dedication of Chartres Cathedral (1260)
1260Dedication
The dedication of Chartres Cathedral in 1260, attended by King Louis IX of France, marked a significant moment in the history of Gothic architecture and Catholic worship. This event underscored the importance of the cathedral as a center of faith and community in medieval France, reflecting the Church's influence in society.
The dedication of sacred spaces reminds us of the importance of community and worship in our spiritual journey.

Catechism

Catechism of the Catholic Church

The Catechism teaches that sexual pleasure is morally disordered when it is sought for itself, apart from its procreative and unitive purposes. It identifies lust, masturbation, fornication, pornography, and prostitution as serious disorders of sexuality that harm chastity and the dignity of persons. Sexual union is ordered to the good of spouses and to the generation and education of children, and the full meaning of mutual self-giving and human procreation is achieved in the context of true love and marriage. Pornography and prostitution particularly reduce people to objects of pleasure or profit, while rape is always an intrinsically evil act that gravely violates another person’s freedom, dignity, and integrity. As we reflect together, we can uphold chastity, respect the dignity of every person, and remember that personal circumstances, such as anxiety, habit, immaturity, destitution, blackmail, or social pressure, can lessen moral culpability in some cases. We should also be mindful of the grave harm done to vulnerable people, especially children.

The Catechism teaches that homosexual acts are contrary to the natural law and cannot be approved (CCC 2357). At the same time, men and women with deep-seated homosexual tendencies are to be accepted with respect, compassion, and sensitivity, and every sign of unjust discrimination should be avoided (CCC 2358). Homosexual persons are called to chastity and can grow toward Christian perfection through self-mastery, disinterested friendship, prayer, and sacramental grace (CCC 2359). Sexuality is ordered to the conjugal love of man and woman; in marriage, the spouses’ physical intimacy signifies and pledges their spiritual communion (CCC 2360). This self-giving love is lived through the acts proper and exclusive to spouses, within their total commitment to one another until death (CCC 2361). The spouses’ union serves both their own good and the transmission of life, calling conjugal love to fidelity and fecundity (CCC 2363).

Today's Mass Readings

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