Catholic Family Devotions

Understanding the Day

Season

Ascensiontide

Week

Week 2 of Ascensiontide

Rank

First-class vigil

The Vigil of Pentecost falls in Ascensiontide, the short season between Ascension and Pentecost when the Church prepares to remember the gift of the Holy Spirit. As a “Vigil of the I Class,” this day is among the most important preparatory observances: families set aside regular routines for prayer, attentive worship, and simple, expectant waiting. A vigil is a time of watchfulness and preparation on the evening before a major feast; here it leads into Pentecost, the Church’s celebration of the Spirit’s outpouring and the birth of the Church’s public mission.

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

Commandment 3

The Ten Commandments

Remember to keep holy the Lord’s Day.
The Third Commandment sets apart the Lord’s Day for divine worship and true rest from ordinary labor. For Catholics this is fulfilled especially by assisting at Mass on Sundays and holy days and by allowing the day to serve God, the soul, and the duties of charity.

Saint & Feast

Principal celebrationCalendar title

Vigil of Pentecost

A biography or feast reflection has not yet been prepared.

Commemoration

John Baptist de la Salle

St. John Baptist de la Salle, Confessor

French priest and Catholic saint (1651–1719)

Born: 1651-04-30 · Reims
Died: 1719-04-07 · Rouen

St John-Baptiste de La Salle was a French priest, educational reformer, and founder of the Institute of the Brothers of the Christian Schools. He is a saint of the Catholic Church and the patron saint for teachers of youth. He is referred to both as La Salle and as De La Salle.

Learn more about John Baptist de la Salle

Customs & Fasting

Traditional fast · Complete abstinence

Traditional Pentecost Vigil 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

The Holy Spirit is essential to our faith: no one can confess Jesus as Lord except by the Holy Spirit, who comes to meet us and kindles faith in us. Through grace, the Spirit awakens us to the new life of knowing the Father and Jesus Christ, and in Baptism communicates to us the life that comes from the Father and is offered in the Son. The Spirit is at work with the Father and the Son throughout God’s plan of salvation, and makes Christ known to us while preparing us to welcome him in faith. In the shared life of the Church, we come to know the Holy Spirit through Scripture, Tradition, the Church’s teaching, the sacraments, prayer, charisms and ministries, missionary life, and the witness of the saints. As families, we can turn together toward this life of the Church, asking the Spirit to help us welcome Christ in faith.

The Holy Spirit, whom the Father sends into our hearts and whom Christ sends to those who believe in him, is truly God, inseparable from the Father and the Son. Though Christ is the visible image of the invisible God, the Spirit reveals him to us. As the Spirit of adoption, he unites us to Christ and helps us live in him as children adopted by the Father in the Body of his Son. The Church adores and glorifies the Holy Spirit with the Father and the Son, and professes his name in Baptism. Jesus calls him the Paraclete, or Consoler, and the Spirit of truth. In our family devotion, we can lovingly remember the Holy Spirit by these names and rejoice that he unites believers to Christ.

¶ 683

"No one can say 'Jesus is Lord' except by the Holy Spirit." "God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, 'Abba! Father!"' This knowledge of faith is possible only in the Holy Spirit: to be in touch with Christ, we must first have been touched by the Holy Spirit. He comes to meet us and kindles faith in us. By virtue of our Baptism, the first sacrament of the faith, the Holy Spirit in the Church communicates to us, intimately and personally, the life that originates in the Father and is offered to us in the Son.

Today's Mass Readings

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