Catholic Family Devotions

Understanding the Day

Season

Septuagesima

Week

Week 3 of Septuagesima

Rank

Feast

Lent is a penitential season preparing families for the Paschal mystery through prayer, fasting, and works of charity. A celebration in Lent draws our attention inward, helping households focus on conversion and the life of grace. The rank “Double” in older liturgical classification indicates this feast has greater importance than an ordinary memorial: it is celebrated with more solemnity in the divine office and Mass, including proper prayers and readings when they are provided.

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

Beatitude 2

The Beatitudes

Blessed are the meek; for they shall possess the land.
Meekness is strength governed by reason and charity rather than by resentment or the desire to retaliate. The meek endure wrong without returning evil for evil and remain peaceful and teachable under God’s providence.

Saint & Feast

Principal celebration

Gabriel of Our Lady of Sorrows

St. Gabriel of the Sorrowful Virgin, Confessor

Italian Passionist student and Catholic saint (1838–1862)

Born: 1838-03-01 · Assisi
Died: 1862-02-27 · Isola del Gran Sasso d'Italia

Gabriel of Our Lady of Sorrows was an Italian Passionist seminarian. Born to a professional family, he gave up ambitions of a secular career to enter the Passionist congregation. His life in the monastery was not extraordinary, yet he followed the rule of the congregation perfectly and was known for his great devotion to the sorrows of the Virgin Mary. He died from tuberculosis at the age of 23 in Isola del Gran Sasso, in the province of Teramo. He was canonized by Pope Benedict XV in 1920.

Learn more about Gabriel of Our Lady of Sorrows

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 the title “Christ” means “anointed one.” Jesus fulfills Israel’s messianic hope as priest, prophet, and king. His birth was announced to the shepherds as the birth of the promised Savior, Christ the Lord, and he was conceived as holy in Mary’s virginal womb. God called Joseph to take Mary as his wife so that Jesus, who is called Christ, should be born of Joseph’s spouse into David’s messianic lineage. Anointed by the Father with the Holy Spirit, Jesus’ words and works revealed him as the Holy One of God. Although some understood the Messiah in political terms, Jesus showed that his kingship is found in his redemptive mission: he came to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many. The full meaning of his kingship is revealed on the cross and proclaimed after his Resurrection.

In the Old Testament, the title “son of God” can describe angels, the Chosen People, the children of Israel, and their kings, expressing an adoptive sonship and a special closeness to God. Peter’s confession that Jesus is “the Christ, the Son of the living God,” however, acknowledges Christ’s divine sonship, a truth revealed by the Father and central to the apostolic faith. Jesus speaks of himself as the Son who knows the Father and carefully distinguishes his own sonship from that of his disciples. At his Baptism and Transfiguration, the Father calls Jesus his beloved Son, and Jesus names himself the only Son of God. The full meaning of this title is revealed in the Paschal mystery, and after the Resurrection the apostles proclaim the glory of the only Son from the Father. For family devotion, these readings offer a reverent way to reflect on Jesus Christ, the beloved and only Son of God.

¶ 437

To the shepherds, the angel announced the birth of Jesus as the Messiah promised to Israel: "To you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, who is Christ the Lord." From the beginning he was "the one whom the Father consecrated and sent into the world", conceived as "holy" in Mary's virginal womb. God called Joseph to "take Mary as your wife, for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit", so that Jesus, "who is called Christ", should be born of Joseph's spouse into the messianic lineage of David.

Today's Mass Readings

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