Understanding the Day
Season
Eastertide
Week
Week 2 of Eastertide
Rank
Feast
Eastertide is the fifty-day season from Easter Sunday to Pentecost, a time when families focus on the risen Christ and the joy of new life in baptism. A “Double” in the older Latin liturgical ranking indicates this feast is celebrated with particular liturgical prominence: it has its own proper prayers and readings, and the Mass and Office are observed with more solemnity than ordinary weekdays. There is no octave or vigil specified here, so the celebration is kept on its appointed day within the third week of Eastertide. For families, this feast highlights fidelity to the Gospel even to the point of martyrdom, offering a concrete example of courageous witness.
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
Commandment 1
The Ten Commandments
I am the Lord thy God. Thou shalt not have strange gods before Me.
The First Commandment requires the worship, faith, hope, and love owed to God alone. A strange god is not only an idol, but anything treated as more important than God or trusted in place of His providence.
Saint & Feast
Principal celebration
Fidelis of Sigmaringen
St. Fidelis of Sigmaringen, Martyr
Capuchin friar
- Born
- 1577-10-01 · Sigmaringen
- Died
- 1622-04-24 · Seewis im Prättigau
Fidelis of Sigmaringen, OFM Cap. was a German Capuchin friar who was involved in the Catholic Counter-Reformation. He was martyred by his opponents at Seewis im Prättigau, now part of Switzerland. Fidelis was canonized in 1746.
Learn more about Fidelis of SigmaringenToday in Church History
No Church history reflection has been prepared for this date yet.
Catechism
Catechism of the Catholic Church
The Resurrection of Jesus is the crowning truth of faith in Christ, fulfilling what God promised to the fathers and standing at the heart of the Paschal mystery with the cross. The New Testament bears witness that it is a real historical event. The empty tomb, while not proof by itself, was an essential sign that led the disciples toward recognizing the Resurrection. Mary Magdalene and the holy women were the first to encounter the Risen One and to bring this message to the apostles; Jesus then appeared to Peter, the Twelve, and many others. Though the disciples were at first saddened, frightened, and slow to believe, their faith in the Resurrection was born, through divine grace, from their direct experience of the risen Jesus. As we reflect together, may we receive this central truth of faith with the witnesses who handed it on.
In the face of death, Christians who unite their death to Jesus can view it as a step toward him and an entrance into everlasting life. Death brings earthly life, the time for accepting or rejecting God’s grace in Christ, to an end. At the moment of death, each person receives eternal retribution in a particular judgment that refers his or her life to Christ, according to faith and works. Those who die in God’s grace and friendship and are perfectly purified live forever with Christ in heaven. Heaven is perfect communion of life and love with the Holy Trinity, the Virgin Mary, the angels, and all the blessed: the ultimate fulfillment of our deepest longings. There the blessed see God face to face in the beatific vision, rejoice in doing his will, and reign with Christ forever.
In Catholic teaching, those who die in God’s grace and friendship but are still imperfectly purified undergo a final purification called Purgatory, so that they may attain the holiness needed to enter the joy of heaven (CCC 1030-1031). The Church’s teaching is joined to her longstanding practice of honoring the dead and praying for them, especially through the Eucharistic sacrifice; she also commends almsgiving, indulgences, and works of penance offered on their behalf (CCC 1032). Conversely, to die in mortal sin without repentance and acceptance of God’s merciful love is to remain separated from God forever by one’s own free choice; this definitive self-exclusion is called hell (CCC 1033, 1035). Jesus’ warnings about hell call us to use our freedom responsibly and to turn again to God in conversion (CCC 1034-1036). God predestines no one to hell, and the Church continually implores God’s mercy, praying that all may come to repentance (CCC 1037). As we reflect together, we can remember the dead in prayer and ask for the grace to choose love, repentance, and friendship with God.