Catholic Family Devotions

Understanding the Day

Season

Lent

Rank

Weekday

Ash Wednesday (Feria IV Cinerum) begins the Church’s season of Lent, a forty-day time of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving that prepares Christians for the Paschal Triduum and Easter. On this day many Catholics receive ashes on the forehead as a visible sign of repentance and mortality, recalling that we are dust and to dust we shall return. The rank “Greater Privileged Feria” indicates this is a weekday observance of higher importance than ordinary ferias: its prayers and readings take precedence in the liturgy, and its penitential character shapes communal worship throughout the day. There is no octave or vigil attached specifically to Ash Wednesday; it stands as the liturgical beginning of Lent.

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

Hatreds, Rivalry, Jealousy, and Fury

The Works of the Flesh

Hatreds
Hatred deliberately wills evil to another person or rejects the good that charity requires for him. Dislike or painful emotion is not identical with hatred; the sin lies in the settled choice against another’s true good.
Rivalry
Sinful rivalry turns another person’s success into a threat and seeks victory, attention, or superiority without regard for justice and charity. Good competition can pursue excellence, but rivalry becomes a work of the flesh when defeating the other matters more than the common good.
Jealousy
Jealousy anxiously guards a good, relationship, or honor as though another person’s good necessarily deprived one of it. It becomes sinful when suspicion, possessiveness, or resentment overrides truth, trust, and charity.
Outbursts of fury
Outbursts of fury are eruptions of anger in which reason and self-command are surrendered to harmful words or actions. Their disorder lies in allowing passion to punish, frighten, or wound without the measure required by justice and charity.

The Fruits of the Holy Spirit

Peace
Peace is the tranquility produced when desires are rightly ordered within the soul and charity unites persons in the good. It is more than quiet or lack of conflict, since true peace depends on union with God, justice, and ordered love.

Saint & Feast

Principal celebrationCalendar title

Ash Wednesday

A biography or feast reflection has not yet been prepared.

Commemoration

Scholastica

St. Scholastica, Virgin

Italian saint

Born: 0480-00-00 · Norcia
Died: 0547-02-10 · Villa Santa Lucia

Scholastica was an Italian Christian hermit and the sister of Benedict of Nursia. She is traditionally regarded as the foundress of the Benedictine nuns.

Learn more about Scholastica

Customs & Fasting

Traditional fast · Complete abstinence

Traditional Ash Wednesday fast and complete abstinence.

Today in Church History

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

Catechism

Catechism of the Catholic Church

God's creation is a testament to His wisdom and goodness, designed for humanity, who is made in His image. It emphasizes that everything in the universe has purpose and is a gift from God, inviting families to cultivate a sense of wonder and gratitude towards the world around them. As they recognize their dependence on God, families can find joy and confidence in His providence, trusting that He cares for them in every detail of their lives. By acknowledging their role as cooperators in God’s plan, families are called to engage actively in the stewardship of creation, fostering a spirit of collaboration and responsibility in nurturing both the earth and their relationships with one another.

¶ 301

With creation, God does not abandon his creatures to themselves. He not only gives them being and existence, but also, and at every moment, upholds and sustains them in being, enables them to act and brings them to their final end. Recognizing this utter dependence with respect to the Creator is a source of wisdom and freedom, of joy and confidence:

¶ 302

Creation has its own goodness and proper perfection, but it did not spring forth complete from the hands of the Creator. the universe was created "in a state of journeying" (in statu viae) toward an ultimate perfection yet to be attained, to which God has destined it. We call "divine providence" the dispositions by which God guides his creation toward this perfection:

Today's Mass Readings

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