Catholic Family Devotions

Understanding the Day

Season

Time After Pentecost

Week

Week 18 of Time After Pentecost

Rank

Major feast

This celebration falls in Ordinary Time after Pentecost (Time After Pentecost), a part of the Church year focused on growing in Christian discipleship and charity. The title Beatæ Mariæ Virginis de Mercede honors Mary under the name Our Lady of Ransom, recalling her patronage of the Order of Mercy and the Church’s devotion to her help and intercession.

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 Evangelical Counsels

Chastity
The evangelical counsel of chastity is the voluntary renunciation of marriage for the sake of Christ and undivided service to His kingdom. It goes beyond the chastity required of every Christian and, when vowed in religious life, offers the whole person to God.
Poverty
The evangelical counsel of poverty is the voluntary surrender or restricted use of personal possessions in order to follow Christ with greater freedom. It goes beyond ordinary justice and detachment by making material goods subject to a stable form of Gospel renunciation.
Obedience
The evangelical counsel of obedience is the voluntary offering of one’s will to God through lawful religious authority and an approved rule. St. Thomas calls it the chief religious vow because it offers not merely possessions or bodily goods, but the direction of one’s own will.

Saint & Feast

Principal celebration

Feast of Our Lady of Ransom

Our Lady of Ransom

The Feast of Our Lady of Ransom is a Marian observance associated with the Mercedarian Order and its work of ransoming Christian captives.

The Feast of Our Lady of Ransom is a Marian observance associated with the Mercedarian Order and its work of ransoming Christian captives. It was traditionally celebrated on September 24 and is now commonly styled Our Lady of Mercy.

Learn more about Feast of Our Lady of Ransom

Customs & Fasting

No traditional fast · Complete abstinence

Traditional Friday complete abstinence.

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 see that Mary’s virginity and motherhood have a profound place in God’s saving plan. Her virginity reveals God’s absolute initiative in the Incarnation: Jesus is conceived by the Holy Spirit, has God as his Father, and is truly the Son of God made man. As the New Adam, Christ inaugurates the new creation and gives the Holy Spirit and grace to redeemed humanity. Mary’s faith, free obedience, and undivided gift of herself to God’s will enabled her to become the mother of the Saviour. At once virgin and mother, she is also the symbol and most perfect realization of the Church, which receives God’s word in faith and brings forth children to new and immortal life through preaching and Baptism. In our prayer, we can thank God for Mary’s faithful yes and ask for the grace to receive his word with faith.

The Catechism teaches that the first commandment condemns the main sins of irreligion: tempting God, sacrilege, and simony. Tempting God, as seen in Satan’s challenge to Jesus, puts God’s goodness and power to the test and wounds the trust and respect we owe him. Sacrilege treats sacraments, sacred persons, places, or things unworthily, and is especially grave when committed against the Eucharist. Simony is the buying or selling of spiritual things, forgetting that God’s gifts cannot be owned or purchased. The Catechism also calls atheism one of the most serious problems of our time. It can arise from practical materialism or from an exaggerated idea of human autonomy that refuses dependence on God. Believers, too, should remember that carelessness in faith instruction, false teaching, or failures in religious, moral, and social life can conceal rather than reveal the true nature of God and religion. Acknowledging God does not diminish human dignity; our dignity is grounded and brought to perfection in him.

Agnosticism can take different forms: it may include a search for God, but it can also express indifference toward the ultimate question of existence or become practical atheism. The first commandment calls us to believe in God, hope in him, and love him above all else. It also calls us to adore God, pray to him, offer him the worship due to him, and fulfill promises and vows made to him. This duty of authentic worship concerns us both personally and socially. Sacred images, rooted in the Incarnation of the Word of God, may be venerated with respect: the honor given to an image passes to the person portrayed. Yet adoration belongs to God alone. As we reflect together, we can ask for hearts that turn from indifference and superstition and grow in authentic worship of God.

Today's Mass Readings

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

Understanding the Day

Daily Prayer

Weekly Prayer

Weekly Formation

The Evangelical Counsels

The Evangelical Counsels

Saint & Feast

Feast of Our Lady of Ransom

Customs & Fasting

Today in Church History

Catechism

Catechism of the Catholic Church

Today's Mass Readings

Baltimore Catechism No. 3