Catholic Family Devotions

Understanding the Day

Season

Christmastide

Week

Week 1 of Christmastide

Rank

Second-class feast

Holy Innocents falls within Christmastide, the liturgical season celebrating the Nativity and early life of Christ. This feast commemorates the children in Bethlehem who suffered in connection with Herod’s attempt to destroy the newborn King. Classified as a “Double of the II Class,” the day is a significant solemnity: in plain terms, it is a principal feast that takes precedence over ordinary weekday observances and calls for fuller liturgical celebration (extended prayers, proper antiphons, and appropriate readings) while still allowing the season’s Christmas character to shine. In the divino_afflatu calendar this feast occurs in the first week of Christmastide and does not carry a separate octave in the data provided; it is celebrated on its appointed day without an additional eight-day prolongation indicated here.

Introit (Daily Prayer)

Ps 8:3
Out of the mouths of babes and of sucklings, O God, You have fashioned praise because of Your foes.
Ps 8:2
O Lord, our Lord, how glorious is Your name over all the earth!
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…

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

Holy Innocents

narrative from the Gospel of Matthew

The Massacre of the Innocents is a story recounted in the Nativity narrative of the Gospel of Matthew (2:16–18) in which Herod the Great, king of Judea, orders the execution of all male children who are two years old and under in the vicinity of Bethlehem. Modern scholarship finds no evidence that it happened outside the passages in Matthew, though it is congruous with Herod's character.

Learn more about Holy Innocents

CommemorationCalendar title

Day 4 within the Octave of the Nativity

A biography or feast reflection has not yet been prepared.

Today in Church History

Election of Pope Boniface I
418Papal
The election of Pope Boniface I in 418 marked a significant moment in the early Church, as he became a key figure in addressing the challenges of the time, including the relationship between the Church and the Roman Empire. His papacy is noted for its emphasis on the authority of the papacy and the role of the Church in guiding the faithful.
The election of a pope reminds us of the continuity and guidance of the Holy Spirit within the Church.

Catechism

Catechism of the Catholic Church

The Church teaches that Jesus Christ, true God and true man, possesses two distinct wills—one divine and one human—cooperating in the work of our salvation. This mystery of the Incarnation reveals the wonderful union of divine and human natures in the one person of the Word. In Jesus’ human body, we see our God made visible, and holy images of Christ may rightly be honored because the believer venerates the person depicted. Families can find comfort in knowing that Christ’s Sacred Heart loves each of us personally and is a chief sign of the love with which the divine Redeemer loves the Father and every human being. Jesus, the one and only mediator between God and men, remains the perfect union of the divine and human in one divine person.

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.

In the Catechism, the petition "Lead us not into temptation" emphasizes our need for God's guidance to resist the allure of sin and the importance of discernment in our spiritual battles. It teaches that while God does not tempt us, we must be vigilant against the Evil One, who seeks to lead us astray. This prayer not only requests protection from temptation but also reinforces our communal bond as the Church, as we seek deliverance from evil together. As families, we can apply this by fostering a spirit of vigilance and prayer, supporting one another in the face of temptation, and recognizing the strength found in our faith and the Holy Spirit’s guidance.

Today's Mass Readings

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

Holy Innocents

Understanding the Day

Introit (Daily Prayer)

Collect

Weekly Prayer

Weekly Formation

Defrauding Laborers of Their Wages

Sins Crying to Heaven

The Cardinal Virtues

Saint & Feast

Holy Innocents

Day 4 within the Octave of the Nativity

Today in Church History

Election of Pope Boniface I

Catechism

Catechism of the Catholic Church

Today's Mass Readings

Baltimore Catechism No. 3