Understanding the Day
Season
Eastertide
Week
Week 2 of Eastertide
Rank
Weekday
Eastertide is the fifty-day season from Easter Sunday to Pentecost, a time the Church celebrates Christ’s Resurrection, joyfully reflecting on the new life won for us. This day is the Wednesday of the second week of Eastertide. Its rank, Feria, means it is an ordinary weekday in the liturgical rhythm: the Mass and the daily offices follow the prayer texts assigned to this weekday in Easter Week II rather than marking a special feast. Because it falls within Eastertide, the prayers and readings focus on the resurrection mystery and its unfolding for the living Church. There is no octave or vigil unique to this weekday beyond the continuing celebration of Easter’s Paschal joy; however, the whole season is shaped by the Easter octave (the first eight days) and continues that grace.
Daily Prayer
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Weekly Prayer
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Weekly Formation
Beatitude 7
The Beatitudes
Blessed are the peacemakers; for they shall be called the children of God.
Peacemakers establish the tranquility of right order by reconciling persons to God, to truth, and to one another. Christian peace is therefore more than avoiding conflict; it rests on justice and charity and does not purchase quiet by cooperation with evil.
Featured Saint
Modern saintFeatured saintCalendar title
Wednesday of Week 2 of Eastertide
Saint Oscar Romero
A biography or feast reflection has not yet been prepared.
Today in Church History
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Catechism
Catechism of the Catholic Church
The Resurrection of Jesus is the crowning truth of faith in Christ, fulfilling what God promised to the fathers and standing at the heart of the Paschal mystery with the cross. The New Testament bears witness that it is a real historical event. The empty tomb, while not proof by itself, was an essential sign that led the disciples toward recognizing the Resurrection. Mary Magdalene and the holy women were the first to encounter the Risen One and to bring this message to the apostles; Jesus then appeared to Peter, the Twelve, and many others. Though the disciples were at first saddened, frightened, and slow to believe, their faith in the Resurrection was born, through divine grace, from their direct experience of the risen Jesus. As we reflect together, may we receive this central truth of faith with the witnesses who handed it on.
The Catechism teaches that through Baptism, Christians become the People of God and share, each in their own way, in Christ’s priestly, prophetic, and royal office. All the faithful have equal dignity and cooperate in building up the Body of Christ, according to each person’s condition and function. The Church’s diversity of ministries serves her unity and mission: ordained ministers teach, sanctify, and govern in Christ’s name, while the laity have their own assignment in the Church and in the world. Christ is the source of ministry in the Church, and sacramental ministry is a service, modeled on Christ who took the form of a servant. As we reflect together, we can give thanks for the different ways God calls the faithful to serve the one mission of the Church.
¶ 643
Given all these testimonies, Christ's Resurrection cannot be interpreted as something outside the physical order, and it is impossible not to acknowledge it as an historical fact. It is clear from the facts that the disciples' faith was drastically put to the test by their master's Passion and death on the cross, which he had foretold. The shock provoked by the Passion was so great that at least some of the disciples did not at once believe in the news of the Resurrection. Far from showing us a community seized by a mystical exaltation, the Gospels present us with disciples demoralized ("looking sad") and frightened. For they had not believed the holy women returning from the tomb and had regarded their words as an "idle tale". When Jesus reveals himself to the Eleven on Easter evening, "he upbraided them for their unbelief and hardness of heart, because they had not believed those who saw him after he had risen."