Catholic Family Devotions

Understanding the Day

Season

Time After Pentecost

Week

Week 9 of Time After Pentecost

Rank

Sunday or semidouble observance

Sts. Cyriacus, Largus and Smaragdus are celebrated during the Time After Pentecost, the long season following Pentecost when the Church focuses on growth in Christian life and witness. The feast is ranked Semidouble in the older liturgical terminology: in plain language that means it is an important local or communal celebration that keeps a fuller set of prayers and readings than an ordinary weekday, but it is not as solemn as a major feast. There is no octave or vigil attached in the information given, so this day is observed as a single celebration within the week of the Time After Pentecost.

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 Theological Virtues

Faith
Faith is the infused virtue by which the mind firmly assents to the truths God has revealed because He can neither deceive nor be deceived. It rests on God’s authority and gives the foundation by which the believer knows Him and orders life toward Him.
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.
Charity
Charity is the infused virtue by which God is loved above all things for His own sake and one’s neighbor is loved for God. It gives supernatural life to the other virtues by directing the whole person toward friendship with God and eternal union with Him.

Saint & Feast

Principal celebration

Largus

Sts. Cyriacus, Largus and Smaragdus, Martyrs

Christian martyr

Born: 0300-01-01
Died: 0303-01-01 · Rome

Cyriacus, sometimes Anglicized as Cyriac, according to Christian tradition, is a Christian martyr who was killed in the Diocletianic Persecution. He is one of twenty-seven saints, most of them martyrs, who bear this name, of whom only seven are honoured by a specific mention of their names in Roman Martyrology.

Learn more about Largus

Today in Church History

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

Catechism

Catechism of the Catholic Church

The Catechism teaches that our passions—our feelings and emotions—are natural parts of human life and can dispose us toward beatitude. Love, desire, joy, fear, sadness, and anger are among the principal passions. In themselves, these feelings are neither morally good nor evil; their moral character depends on how they engage reason and will. When governed by reason and directed by an upright will, they can contribute to good actions, virtue, charity, and beatitude. In the Christian life, the Holy Spirit works in the whole person, including sorrows, fears, and sadness, so that human feelings may reach their fulfillment in charity and divine beatitude. As we reflect together, we can acknowledge our feelings and ask that they be directed toward the good, with hearts moved to love.

¶ 1766

"To love is to will the good of another." All other affections have their source in this first movement of the human heart toward the good. Only the good can be loved. Passions "are evil if love is evil and good if it is good."

¶ 1767

In themselves passions are neither good nor evil. They are morally qualified only to the extent that they effectively engage reason and will. Passions are said to be voluntary, "either because they are commanded by the will or because the will does not place obstacles in their way." It belongs to the perfection of the moral or human good that the passions be governed by reason.

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 Theological Virtues

The Theological Virtues

Saint & Feast

Largus

Today in Church History

Catechism

Catechism of the Catholic Church

Today's Mass Readings

Baltimore Catechism No. 3