St. Andrew the Apostle is celebrated within Advent, the season of watchful waiting for Christ’s coming. The rank “Double of the II Class” (Double II) is a traditional liturgical classification: in plain terms, it means this feast is important and observed with fuller prayers and readings than ordinary weekdays, but it is one level below the very highest solemnities. There is no octave or vigil noted here, so the celebration is kept on the day itself without an eight-day extension or a required preceding special vigil.
Introit (Daily Prayer)
Ps 138:17 To me, Your friends, O God, are made exceedingly honorable; their principality is exceedingly strengthened. Ps 138:1-2 O Lord, You have probed me and You know me; You know when I sit and when I stand. Glory Be to the Father…
We humbly pray Your majesty, O Lord, that, as blessed Andrew was a preacher and ruler in Your Church, so he may always intercede for us with You. Through our Lord…
Weekly Prayer
Weekly prayer content will appear here once it is scheduled.
Weekly Formation
Obstinacy, Impenitence, and Charity
Sins Against the Theological Virtues
Obstinacy in sin
Obstinacy is the stubborn decision to remain attached to sin despite correction, grace, or clear knowledge of duty. It hardens the will against repentance and makes amendment increasingly difficult by turning a sinful choice into a settled refusal.
Final impenitence—refusal to repent
Final impenitence is perseverance in the refusal to repent until death. It is unforgiven not because God’s mercy is insufficient, but because forgiveness is knowingly rejected to the end and the will closes itself against the remedy God offers.
The Theological Virtues
Charity
Charity is the infused virtue by which God is loved above all things for His own sake and one’s neighbor is loved for God. It gives supernatural life to the other virtues by directing the whole person toward friendship with God and eternal union with Him.
Saint & Feast
Principal celebration
Andrew
St. Andrew the Apostle
religious figure of the Christian faith
Born
0006-00-00 · Bethsaida
Died
0060-11-30 · Patras
Andrew the Apostle was an apostle of Jesus. According to the New Testament, he was a fisherman and one of the Twelve Apostles chosen by Jesus.
A biography or feast reflection has not yet been prepared.
Today in Church History
Promulgation of the New Roman Missal
1969Doctrine
On November 30, 1969, the new Roman Missal, revised after the Second Vatican Council, was promulgated. This marked a significant liturgical reform aimed at greater participation of the laity in the Mass.
The liturgical reforms encourage active participation in the Eucharist, deepening our communal worship.
Catechism
Catechism of the Catholic Church
Praise is a fundamental form of prayer that recognizes God as God and gives him glory simply because he is. It joins us to the happiness of those who love God in faith and, through the Holy Spirit, bears witness that we are God’s children. The Church has long expressed this praise in psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, celebrating the saving work God accomplished in his Son. In family prayer, we can make room for praise and thanksgiving, bringing every joy, suffering, event, and need before God with grateful hearts. The Holy Spirit teaches the Church to pray and inspires blessing, petition, intercession, thanksgiving, and praise. As we bless God, the source of every blessing, may our home grow in gratitude and give him glory.
¶ 2639
Praise is the form of prayer which recognizes most immediately that God is God. It lauds God for his own sake and gives him glory, quite beyond what he does, but simply because HE IS. It shares in the blessed happiness of the pure of heart who love God in faith before seeing him in glory. By praise, the Spirit is joined to our spirits to bear witness that we are children of God, testifying to the only Son in whom we are adopted and by whom we glorify the Father. Praise embraces the other forms of prayer and carries them toward him who is its source and goal: the "one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist."
St. Luke in his gospel often expresses wonder and praise at the marvels of Christ and in his Acts of the Apostles stresses them as actions of the Holy Spirit: the community of Jerusalem, the invalid healed by Peter and John, the crowd that gives glory to God for that, and the pagans of Pisidia who "were glad and glorified the word of God."
¶ 2641
"[Address] one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with all your heart." Like the inspired writers of the New Testament, the first Christian communities read the Book of Psalms in a new way, singing in it the mystery of Christ. In the newness of the Spirit, they also composed hymns and canticles in the light of the unheard - of event that God accomplished in his Son: his Incarnation, his death which conquered death, his Resurrection, and Ascension to the right hand of the Father. Doxology, the praise of God, arises from this "marvelous work" of the whole economy of salvation.
¶ 2642
The Revelation of "what must soon take place," the Apocalypse, is borne along by the songs of the heavenly liturgy but also by the intercession of the "witnesses" (martyrs). The prophets and the saints, all those who were slain on earth for their witness to Jesus, the vast throng of those who, having come through the great tribulation, have gone before us into the Kingdom, all sing the praise and glory of him who sits on the throne, and of the Lamb. In communion with them, the Church on earth also sings these songs with faith in the midst of trial. By means of petition and intercession, faith hopes against all hope and gives thanks to the "Father of lights," from whom "every perfect gift" comes down. Thus faith is pure praise.
¶ 2643
The Eucharist contains and expresses all forms of prayer: it is "the pure offering" of the whole Body of Christ to the glory of God's name and, according to the traditions of East and West, it is the "sacrifice of praise."
¶ 2644
The Holy Spirit who teaches the Church and recalls to her all that Jesus said also instructs her in the life of prayer, inspiring new expressions of the same basic forms of prayer: blessing, petition, intercession, thanksgiving, and praise.
¶ 2645
Because God blesses the human heart, it can in return bless him who is the source of every blessing.
¶ 2646
Forgiveness, the quest for the Kingdom, and every true need are objects of the prayer of petition.
Baltimore track
Baltimore Catechism No. 3
Lesson 33 — From the Fourth to the Seventh Commandment
Q. 1281.What is the sixth Commandment?
A.The sixth Commandment is: Thou shalt not commit adultery.
Q. 1282.What are we commanded by the sixth Commandment?
A.We are commanded by the sixth Commandment to be pure in thought and modest in all our looks, words, and actions.
Q. 1283.It is a sin to listen to immodest conversation, songs or jokes?
A.It is a sin to listen to immodest conversation, songs or jokes when we can avoid it, or to show in any way that we take pleasure in such things.