Catholic Family Devotions

Understanding the Day

Season

Christmastide

Week

Week 1 of Christmastide

Rank

Second-class feast

Christmastide is the liturgical season celebrating the mystery of Christ’s birth and the continuing joy of the Incarnation. Within this season, the feast of St. John the Apostle and Evangelist honors the disciple whom the Church remembers for his close friendship with Jesus and for bearing witness to the Lord’s life, love, and teaching. The canonical title, S. Joannis Apostoli et Evangelistæ, reflects his double role as both apostle and author of Gospel and Revelation traditions. The rank “Double of the II Class” indicates an important liturgical feast: families may expect more solemn prayers, particular Mass propers, and priority in the parish calendar over ordinary ferial days, though it is not as high as first-class solemnities. As a feast in the first week of Christmastide, it falls within the joyful octave period that continues reflection on the Incarnation.

Introit (Daily Prayer)

Wis 18:14-15
When a profound stillness compassed everything and the night in its swift course was half spent, Your all-powerful Word, O Lord, bounded from heaven’s royal throne.
Ps 92:1
The Lord is King, in splendor robed; robed is the Lord and girt about with strength.
Glory Be to the Father…

For Octave of Nativity
Grant, we beseech You, almighty God, that the Saviour of the world, born this day, Who is the author of our birth in godliness, may bestow on us immortal life.
Who livest and reignest with God the Father…
Commemoration St. John the Evangelist
Refreshed with heavenly food and drink, we humbly pray You, our God, that we also may be helped by his prayers in memory of whom we have partaken of these gifts.
Through our Lord…
For Octave of the Nativity
Grant, we beseech You, almighty God, that the Saviour of the world, born this day, Who is the author of our birth in godliness, may bestow on us immortal life.
Who livest and reignest with God the Father…

Weekly Prayer

Weekly prayer content will appear here once it is scheduled.

Weekly Formation

Defrauding Laborers of Their Wages

Sins Crying to Heaven

Defrauding laborers of their wages
Defrauding laborers means withholding, delaying, or diminishing the just wages owed for their work. Scripture treats this as a sin crying to heaven because a worker’s livelihood may depend on that pay and the stronger party exploits an unequal position.

The Cardinal Virtues

Justice
Justice is the steady will to give God and each person what is due. It governs worship, rights, promises, property, work, authority, and social duties by measuring conduct according to objective obligation rather than convenience or favoritism.

Saint & Feast

Principal celebration

John

St. John the Apostle, Evangelist

author of the Gospel of John; traditionally identified with John the Apostle of Jesus, John of Patmos (author of Revelation), and John the Presbyter

Born: 0010-01-01 · Galilee
Died: 0098-01-01 · Ephesus

John the Evangelist is the name traditionally given to the author of the Gospel of John. Christians have traditionally identified him with John the Apostle, John of Patmos, and John the Presbyter, although there is no consensus on how many of these may actually be the same individual.

Learn more about John

CommemorationCalendar title

Today in Church History

Siege of Jasna Góra Monastery (1655)
1655Event
During the Second Northern War, the monks at Jasna Góra Monastery successfully defended against a month-long siege, symbolizing the resilience of the Catholic faith in Poland. This event became a pivotal moment in Polish history, reinforcing the role of the Church in national identity and resistance against foreign aggression.
The defense of Jasna Góra serves as a reminder of the strength found in faith during times of trial.
Pope John Paul II Forgives His Assailant
1983Event
In 1983, Pope John Paul II visited Mehmet Ali Ağca in prison, extending forgiveness for the assassination attempt on his life in 1981. This act of mercy exemplified the Pope's commitment to peace and reconciliation, reflecting core Christian values of forgiveness and love for one's enemies.
Forgiveness can lead to healing and peace, even in the face of grave injustice.

Catechism

Catechism of the Catholic Church

In the Incarnation, Christ assumed a complete human nature, including a rational human soul and a human body, without ceasing to be the divine Son of God. Everything he is and does in his humanity belongs to the one divine person of the Son. Jesus possessed true human knowledge, lived within the conditions of space and time, grew in wisdom, and learned through experience. Yet his human knowledge, united to the Word incarnate, also expressed the divine life of his person: he knew the Father intimately, could discern human hearts, and possessed fullness of understanding of the eternal plans he came to reveal. As we reflect together, we can marvel at Christ’s true humanity and his divine identity.

In the Lord’s Prayer, the petition for forgiveness, “as we forgive those who trespass against us,” teaches that our request for God’s mercy is joined to our willingness to forgive others. Though we continue to sin and turn away from God, we can return to him with confidence, confessing both our need and his mercy. Unforgiveness closes our hearts to the Father’s merciful love, while confessing our sins opens us to his grace. This forgiveness is more than a moral duty: through the Holy Spirit, wounded hearts can be transformed, injuries can become compassion, and hurt can become intercession. As we pray together, we can ask for hearts attuned to God’s compassion, ready to forgive from the heart. Forgiveness is a high point of Christian prayer and a fundamental condition of reconciliation with God and with one another.

¶ 472

This human soul that the Son of God assumed is endowed with a true human knowledge. As such, this knowledge could not in itself be unlimited: it was exercised in the historical conditions of his existence in space and time. This is why the Son of God could, when he became man, "increase in wisdom and in stature, and in favour with God and man", and would even have to inquire for himself about what one in the human condition can learn only from experience. This corresponded to the reality of his voluntary emptying of himself, taking "the form of a slave".

Today's Mass Readings

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