Catholic Family Devotions

Understanding the Day

Season

Time After Epiphany

Week

Week 1 of Time After Epiphany

Rank

Feast

St. Paul the First Hermit is celebrated in the early weeks of the Time after Epiphany, a season that continues the Church’s reflection on the revelation of Christ and the beginnings of his public life. No octave or vigil is specified here, so the celebration is observed on the appointed day without an eight‑day extension or required forenight observance. This feast matters because it honors a life of radical conversion and faithful witness to Christ lived in solitude and prayer.

Daily Prayer

The Introit for this day has not yet been generated.

Weekly Prayer

Weekly prayer content will appear here once it is scheduled.

Weekly Formation

Provocation, Praise, and Concealment

Ways of Being Accessory to Another’s Sin

By provocation
A person becomes accessory by provocation when words or actions deliberately stir another toward anger, vice, or a specific sinful response. The fault lies in intending or recklessly encouraging the temptation rather than merely being present when another reacts badly.
By praise or flattery
A person becomes accessory by praise or flattery when approval makes sinful conduct seem admirable, harmless, or worth repeating. Compliments and social encouragement can strengthen another’s bad choice even when no direct command is given.
By concealment
A person becomes accessory by concealment when wrongdoing is deliberately hidden by someone who has a duty to reveal or prevent it. Not every secret must be disclosed, but secrecy becomes cooperation when it protects the sinful action or allows injustice to continue.

The Spiritual Works of Mercy

Admonish the sinner
Admonishing the sinner is a charitable warning intended to help a person recognize and leave serious wrongdoing. It requires truth, prudence, and concern for the person’s salvation, not humiliation, anger, or a desire to display superiority.

Saint & Feast

Principal celebration

Paul the Hermit

St. Paul the First Hermit, Confessor

Christian hermit

Born: 0227-00-00 · Egypt
Died: 0342-00-00 · Thebaid

Paul of Thebes, commonly known as Paul the First Hermit or Paul the Anchorite, was an Egyptian saint regarded as the first Christian hermit and grazer, who was claimed to have lived alone in the desert of Thebes in Roman Egypt from the age of 16 to the age of 113 years old. He was canonized in 491 by Pope Gelasius I, and is venerated as a saint by the Catholic Church, Eastern Orthodox Church, and Oriental Orthodox Churches.

Learn more about Paul the Hermit

Commemoration

Customs & Fasting

No traditional fast · Complete abstinence

Traditional Friday complete abstinence.

Today in Church History

No Church history reflection has been prepared for this date yet.

Catechism

Catechism of the Catholic Church

The Church teaches that what Christ entrusted to the apostles was handed on through their preaching and writing, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, for all generations until Christ returns in glory. Sacred Tradition and Sacred Scripture together form the single sacred deposit of the Word of God, through which the pilgrim Church contemplates God, the source of all her riches. In her doctrine, life, and worship, the Church perpetuates and transmits all that she is and believes to every generation. As God’s people, we are invited to welcome divine Revelation, grow more deeply in it, and live more fully from this gift. The authentic interpretation of the Word of God is entrusted to the Church’s Magisterium: the Pope and the bishops in communion with him.

In these paragraphs, the Catechism teaches that God speaks to us in Sacred Scripture through human words, revealing himself in the one Word through whom he expresses himself completely. The Church venerates the Scriptures as she venerates the Lord’s Body and offers the faithful the bread of life from the one table of God’s Word and Christ’s Body. Because the sacred books are inspired by the Holy Spirit, they teach firmly, faithfully, and without error the truth God wished to give us for our salvation. As we read together, we can remember that the Father lovingly comes to meet his children and speak with them in these sacred books. Christianity is not centered on a written and mute word, but on the living and incarnate Word, Jesus Christ, who through the Holy Spirit opens our minds to understand the Scriptures.

¶ 99

Thanks to its supernatural sense of faith, the People of God as a whole never ceases to welcome, to penetrate more deeply and to live more fully from the gift of divine Revelation.

Today's Mass Readings

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