Catholic Family Devotions

Understanding the Day

Season

Time After Pentecost

Week

Week 26 of Time After Pentecost

Rank

Feast

St. Albert the Great (S. Alberti Magni Episcopi Confessoris et Ecclesiæ Doctoris) is celebrated in Ordinary Time after Pentecost, a season that follows the Easter mystery and focuses on the growth of the Church and Christian life. In this calendar the day falls in the 26th week after Pentecost, when families continue to reflect on living the Gospel day by day. The rank given—Double—means this feast has a clear liturgical priority: there are special propers (prayers and readings) for the Mass and Office, and the celebration is observed more prominently than lesser memorials, though it does not supersede the highest solemnities. There is no octave or vigil attached here, so the observance is for the day itself. This celebration matters because it honors a bishop, confessor, and doctor of the Church whose teaching and pastoral witness enriched the Church’s life.

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

Presumption, Despair, and Hope

Sins Against the Theological Virtues

Presumption on God’s mercy
Presumption expects salvation or forgiveness without the repentance, grace, and cooperation God requires. It distorts hope by treating divine mercy as permission to remain in sin or by trusting one’s own power to reach heaven without God’s help.
Despair of God’s mercy
Despair is the deliberate loss of hope in God’s mercy or in the possibility of salvation. It falsely judges sin, weakness, or suffering to be greater than God’s power and goodness and therefore tempts the soul to stop seeking forgiveness and grace.

The Theological Virtues

Hope
Hope is the infused virtue by which a person confidently expects eternal life and the graces needed to reach it, relying on God’s goodness, promises, and power. It stands between despair, which distrusts mercy, and presumption, which expects heaven without conversion and grace.

Saint & Feast

Principal celebration

Albert the Great

St. Albert the Great, Bishop, Confessor and Doctor of the Church

German-Dominican friar and saint (c. 1200–1280)

Born: 1193-01-01 · Lauingen
Died: 1280-00-00 · Cologne

Albertus Magnus, also known as Saint Albert the Great, Albert of Swabia, Albert von Bollstadt, or Albert of Cologne, was a German Dominican friar, philosopher, scientist, and bishop, considered one of the greatest medieval philosophers and thinkers.

Learn more about Albert the Great

Today in Church History

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

Catechism

Catechism of the Catholic Church

Baptism gives us the grace of purification from all sins, yet the baptized continue to struggle against disordered desires. With God’s grace, we can grow in chastity, purity of intention and vision, discipline of our feelings and imagination, and prayer. Modesty is an important part of this path: it protects the intimate center and mystery of each person, guides how we look at and treat one another, and encourages patience, decency, and discretion in loving relationships. Teaching modesty to children and adolescents helps awaken respect for the human person. In a culture shaped by unhealthy curiosity and excessive displays of intimate matters, Christians are called to purity of heart, respect, and restraint. Through prayer, temperance, chastity, and purity of intention and vision, we can learn to see all things according to God.

¶ 2524

The forms taken by modesty vary from one culture to another. Everywhere, however, modesty exists as an intuition of the spiritual dignity proper to man. It is born with the awakening consciousness of being a subject. Teaching modesty to children and adolescents means awakening in them respect for the human person.

¶ 2525

Christian purity requires a purification of the social climate. It requires of the communications media that their presentations show concern for respect and restraint. Purity of heart brings freedom from widespread eroticism and avoids entertainment inclined to voyeurism and illusion.

Today's Mass Readings

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