Catholic Family Devotions

Understanding the Day

Season

Time After Pentecost

Week

Week 7 of Time After Pentecost

Rank

Feast

This feast falls in Ordinary Time after Pentecost, a season when the Church focuses on the life and mission of the Church empowered by the Holy Spirit. The rank “Double” is a traditional liturgical classification meaning this celebration has a higher precedence than simpler memorials: specific prayers, readings, and propers for the saint are used in the liturgy so the community directly honors him. No octave or vigil is indicated here, so the observance is kept on the single calendar day without an extended eight-day celebration or a required night-before liturgy.

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

The Two Greatest Commandments

You shall love the Lord your God with your whole heart, with your whole soul and with all your mind.
To love God with the whole heart, soul, and mind is to prefer Him above every created good and to order the whole life toward Him. This love includes worship, obedience, trust, and the willing acceptance of His truth and commandments.
You shall love your neighbor as yourself.
To love one’s neighbor as oneself is to desire and seek the neighbor’s true good for the love of God. Every human person is a neighbor in this sense, and this charity excludes both deliberate harm and indifference to another’s genuine need.

Saint & Feast

Principal celebration

Anthony Mary Zaccaria

St. Anthony Mary Zaccaria, Confessor

Italian saint

Born: 1502-01-01 · Cremona
Died: 1539-07-05 · Cremona

Anthony Maria Zaccaria, CRSP was an Italian Catholic priest and early leader of the Counter-Reformation. He was the founder of the Barnabites and a promoter of devotion to the Passion of Christ and the Eucharist and of renewal of the religious life among the laity. He is venerated as a saint in the Catholic Church, which celebrates his feast day on 5 July.

Learn more about Anthony Mary Zaccaria

Commemoration

Today in Church History

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

Catechism

Catechism of the Catholic Church

In the face of illness and suffering, the Church offers the sacrament of the Anointing of the Sick, inviting the faithful to unite their suffering with the Passion of Christ, which can lead to spiritual growth and healing. Illness serves as a profound reminder of our human limitations and can provoke a search for God, allowing individuals to discern what truly matters in life. Jesus, who empathizes with our suffering, not only heals but also forgives, showing us that our pain can have redemptive value and connect us to His own suffering. For Catholic families, this teaches the importance of compassion, prayer, and support for those who are sick, encouraging a deeper reliance on God's mercy and the transformative power of love in times of distress.

In following Christ, his disciples are called to take up their crosses, gaining a new outlook on illness and on those who are sick. The Church, sent by the risen Lord, continues Jesus’ ministry of compassion and healing through care for the sick, prayer of intercession, and the sacraments, especially the Eucharist. While the Holy Spirit gives some a charism of healing, even intense prayer does not always bring recovery from every illness; in suffering, the Lord’s grace is sufficient and his power is made perfect in weakness. The sacrament of Anointing of the Sick is especially intended to strengthen those tried by illness. When someone is sick, the Church’s rite calls for the elders of the Church to pray over the person and anoint him or her with oil in the name of the Lord.

¶ 1502

The man of the Old Testament lives his sickness in the presence of God. It is before God that he laments his illness, and it is of God, Master of life and death, that he implores healing. Illness becomes a way to conversion; God's forgiveness initiates the healing. It is the experience of Israel that illness is mysteriously linked to sin and evil, and that faithfulness to God according to his law restores life: "For I am the Lord, your healer." The prophet intuits that suffering can also have a redemptive meaning for the sins of others. Finally Isaiah announces that God will usher in a time for Zion when he will pardon every offense and heal every illness.

Today's Mass Readings

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

St. Anthony Mary Zaccaria, Confessor

Understanding the Day

Daily Prayer

Weekly Prayer

Weekly Formation

The Two Greatest Commandments

The Two Greatest Commandments

Saint & Feast

Anthony Mary Zaccaria

Today in Church History

Catechism

Catechism of the Catholic Church

Today's Mass Readings

Feast of Saints Peter and Paul

Baltimore Catechism No. 3