Understanding the Day
Season
Time After Pentecost
Week
Week 2 of Time After Pentecost
Rank
Sunday
The Second Sunday after Pentecost falls during the Season of Time after Pentecost, the part of the Church year that follows Pentecost and leads toward Ordinary Time. This season focuses on the life and mission of the Church, growth in discipleship, and the ongoing work of the Holy Spirit in the Christian community. The rank “Semidouble” is an older liturgical term meaning this Sunday keeps a proper collect, readings, and some particular prayers of the day while allowing certain common elements of the Sunday office; in plain terms, the celebration is important and has its own texts but does not override more solemn observances. This Sunday also occurs within the Octave of Corpus Christi, so the weekly celebration is observed in the context of eight days that honor the Real Presence of Christ in the Blessed Sacrament.
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 6
The Ten Commandments
Be faithful in marriage and respect God’s gift of the body.
The Sixth Commandment guards fidelity in marriage and the holiness of God’s gift of the body. It requires purity appropriate to each state of life, respect for personal boundaries, and faithful conduct in thought, word, and action.
Saint & Feast
Principal celebrationCalendar title
Second Sunday after Pentecost within the Octave of Corpus Christi
A biography or feast reflection has not yet been prepared.
CommemorationCalendar title
Day 4 within the Octave of Corpus Christi
A biography or feast reflection has not yet been prepared.
Commemoration
Felix I
St. Felix, Pope and Martyr
Pope and bishop of Rome from 269 to 274
Today in Church History
No Church history reflection has been prepared for this date yet.
Catechism
Catechism of the Catholic Church
In the Catechism, we learn that Jesus’ command to repeat his actions and words is not only a call to remember him, but a directive to celebrate liturgically the memorial of his life, death, Resurrection, and intercession before the Father. From the Church’s earliest days, Christians have gathered on Sunday, the day of Jesus’ Resurrection, to break bread. This celebration has continued throughout the Church’s history and remains the center of the Church’s life, proclaiming the Paschal mystery until he comes. The Eucharistic liturgy has a fundamental structure: the Liturgy of the Word and the Liturgy of the Eucharist, which together form one single act of worship. As the pilgrim People of God celebrates from gathering to gathering, we continue along the way of the cross toward the heavenly banquet in the kingdom.
In the celebration of the Eucharist, Christians gather in one place, with Christ himself as the principal agent who presides invisibly. The bishop or priest presides in the person of Christ the head, while all take active parts in the celebration: readers proclaim, gifts are brought forward, Communion is given, and the people’s “Amen” expresses their participation. In the Liturgy of the Word, the Church hears the Old Testament, the apostles’ letters, and the Gospels, then is exhorted to receive God’s Word and put it into practice, praying also for all people. At the Offertory, bread and wine are brought to the altar, and Christians also bring gifts to share with those in need. In the Eucharistic Prayer, the Church asks the Father to send the Holy Spirit so that bread and wine become Christ’s body and blood. As the faithful receive the bread of heaven and cup of salvation, they share in the Eucharist celebrated in communion with the whole Church in heaven and on earth, the living and the dead.
The Catechism teaches that the Church celebrates the one Paschal mystery of Christ in every place, from the first community in Jerusalem until Christ’s return. Although this mystery is one, its liturgical celebration takes diverse forms. These traditions developed as the Church carried out her mission among different peoples and cultures, expressing the same faith through distinctive symbols, forms of communion, theological understanding, and ways of holiness. In the communion of the same faith and sacraments, the Churches can enrich one another and grow in fidelity to Tradition and the Church’s common mission. The Church recognizes the Latin, Byzantine, Alexandrian or Coptic, Syriac, Armenian, Maronite, and Chaldean rites, holding all lawfully recognized rites to be of equal right and dignity and seeking to preserve and foster them.