Catholic Family Devotions

Understanding the Day

Season

Time After Pentecost

Week

Week 15 of Time After Pentecost

Rank

Sunday

Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost falls in the season called Time after Pentecost (sometimes “Ordinary Time”), the long stretch of the Church’s year devoted to growth in Christian life after the great feasts. The canonical rank “Semidouble” is an older liturgical term meaning the day has a moderate level of liturgical celebration: particular prayers, readings, and hymns are assigned, but it is not as solemn as a major feast or a double of the first class. As a Sunday, it is a weekly Lord’s Day observance rather than a one-time saint’s feast; there is no octave or special vigil attached in this context. The celebration matters because Sundays form the rhythm of prayer and worship for Christian families: they gather, hear the Scriptures appointed for the season, receive instruction and grace, and are sent forth to live what they have heard during the coming week.

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 Spiritual Works of Mercy

Admonish the sinner
Admonishing the sinner is a charitable warning intended to help a person recognize and leave serious wrongdoing. It requires truth, prudence, and concern for the person’s salvation, not humiliation, anger, or a desire to display superiority.
Instruct the ignorant
Instructing the ignorant means teaching needed truth to someone who does not know it, especially truth concerning faith and moral duty. The work presumes patience and accuracy and differs from winning an argument or displaying knowledge.
Counsel the doubtful
Counseling the doubtful helps a person whose judgment is uncertain to recognize a sound and morally lawful course. Good counsel applies truth prudently to the actual difficulty and does not replace conscience with another person’s preferences.
Comfort the sorrowful
Comforting the sorrowful shares another person’s burden through truthful consolation, patient presence, and appropriate help. Christian comfort neither dismisses grief nor offers false assurances, but strengthens hope in God amid real suffering.
Bear wrongs patiently
Bearing wrongs patiently means enduring injuries that cannot prudently be corrected without yielding to hatred or revenge. It does not require enabling abuse or refusing lawful protection; patience governs the heart while justice addresses the wrong.

Saint & Feast

Principal celebrationCalendar title

Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost

A biography or feast reflection has not yet been prepared.

Commemoration

Decollation of John the Baptist

Beheading of St. John the Baptist

Christian holy day and dedication

The beheading of John the Baptist, also known as the decollation of Saint John the Baptist or the beheading of the Forerunner, is a biblical event commemorated as a holy day by various Christian churches. According to the New Testament, Herod Antipas, ruler of Galilee under the Roman Empire, had imprisoned John the Baptist because he had publicly reproved Herod for divorcing his first wife and unlawfully taking his sister-in-law Herodias as his second wife. He then ordered him to be killed by beheading.

Learn more about Decollation of John the Baptist

Today in Church History

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

Catechism

Catechism of the Catholic Church

Participation in society is an essential expression of our dignity as human beings, calling each of us to help promote the common good. In family life, this includes taking responsibility for the education of our family; in daily life, it includes conscientious work and service to others and society. We are encouraged, as far as possible, to take an active part in public life and to support authority exercised within the moral order and for the common good. This common good includes respect for fundamental rights, the development of society’s spiritual and temporal goods, and peace and security. By creating and supporting institutions that improve human life, we help build a more just and caring world and offer future generations reasons for life and optimism.

Social justice helps society provide the conditions in which individuals and associations can obtain what is due to them, in keeping with the common good and the proper exercise of authority. It depends on respect for the transcendent dignity of every person and for the rights that flow from that dignity; authorities that disregard these rights undermine their moral legitimacy. We are called to see every neighbor as “another self,” to serve the disadvantaged, and to extend forgiveness and love even to those who think or act differently from us. Our shared dignity, along with the different talents and needs we have, invites generosity, kindness, and the sharing of goods. In this way, we can resist the sinful inequalities that contradict the Gospel and grow in a more just and compassionate community.

¶ 1924

The common good comprises "the sum total of social conditions which allow people, either as groups or as individuals, to reach their fulfillment more fully and more easily" (GS 26 1).

Today's Mass Readings

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

Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost

Understanding the Day

Daily Prayer

Weekly Prayer

Weekly Formation

The Spiritual Works of Mercy

The Spiritual Works of Mercy

Saint & Feast

Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost

Decollation of John the Baptist

Today in Church History

Catechism

Catechism of the Catholic Church

Today's Mass Readings

Sabina

Baltimore Catechism No. 3