The Twenty-Third Sunday after Pentecost falls in the liturgical season called the Time after Pentecost (sometimes known as Ordinary Time). This long season follows Pentecost and focuses on the ongoing life of the Church: growth in faith, discipleship, and living the Gospel in everyday life. “Semidouble” is an older liturgical rank: in plain terms, it means this Sunday has its own prayers, readings, and antiphons that are given clear liturgical priority, though some simpler celebratory elements (like certain repeated antiphons) may be reduced compared with higher-ranking feasts. There is no octave or special vigil attached to this celebration in the provided context, so the Sunday is observed on the day itself with the usual Sunday Mass and the signs of the season.
Daily Prayer
The Introit for this day has not yet been generated.
Weekly Prayer
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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 celebrationCalendar title
Twenty-Third Sunday after Pentecost
A biography or feast reflection has not yet been prepared.
Commemoration
Martin I
St. Martin I, Pope and Martyr
pope (598-655)
Born
0598-06-21 · Pian di San Martino
Died
0655-09-19 · Chersonesus
Pope Martin I, also known as Martin the Confessor, was the bishop of Rome from 21 July 649 to his death 16 September 655. He had served as Pope Theodore I's ambassador to Constantinople, and was elected to succeed him as pope. He was the only pope when Constantinople controlled the papacy whose election had not awaited imperial mandate. For his strong opposition to Monothelitism, Pope Martin I was arrested by Emperor Constans II, carried off to Constantinople, and ultimately banished to Cherson. He is considered a saint by both the Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church, as well as the last pope recognised as a martyr.
Today in Church History
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Catechism
Catechism of the Catholic Church
In the Catholic faith, the practice of goodness is accompanied by spiritual joy and moral beauty, and truth carries its own joy and splendor. God reveals himself not only through words but through the order and harmony of creation, whose greatness and beauty point toward their Creator. Human artistic work can express the truth of our relationship with God, especially when it is inspired by truth and love. Sacred art, in particular, is meant to evoke and glorify God’s mystery and to draw us toward adoration, prayer, and love of God. We are also called to truthfulness in our deeds and words, avoiding deception, hypocrisy, detraction, and calumny, while respecting confidences and using communication with moderation and discipline.
¶ 2501
Created "in the image of God," man also expresses the truth of his relationship with God the Creator by the beauty of his artistic works. Indeed, art is a distinctively human form of expression; beyond the search for the necessities of life which is common to all living creatures, art is a freely given superabundance of the human being's inner riches. Arising from talent given by the Creator and from man's own effort, art is a form of practical wisdom, uniting knowledge and skill, to give form to the truth of reality in a language accessible to sight or hearing. To the extent that it is inspired by truth and love of beings, art bears a certain likeness to God's activity in what he has created. Like any other human activity, art is not an absolute end in itself, but is ordered to and ennobled by the ultimate end of man.
Sacred art is true and beautiful when its form corresponds to its particular vocation: evoking and glorifying, in faith and adoration, the transcendent mystery of God - the surpassing invisible beauty of truth and love visible in Christ, who "reflects the glory of God and bears the very stamp of his nature," in whom "the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily." This spiritual beauty of God is reflected in the most holy Virgin Mother of God, the angels, and saints. Genuine sacred art draws man to adoration, to prayer, and to the love of God, Creator and Savior, the Holy One and Sanctifier.
¶ 2503
For this reason bishops, personally or through delegates, should see to the promotion of sacred art, old and new, in all its forms and, with the same religious care, remove from the liturgy and from places of worship everything which is not in conformity with the truth of faith and the authentic beauty of sacred art.
¶ 2504
"You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor" ( Ex 20:16). Christ's disciples have "put on the new man, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness" ( Eph 4:24).
¶ 2505
Truth or truthfulness is the virtue which consists in showing oneself true in deeds and truthful in words, and guarding against duplicity, dissimulation, and hypocrisy.
¶ 2506
The Christian is not to "be ashamed of testifying to our Lord" ( 2 Tim 1:8) in deed and word. Martyrdom is the supreme witness given to the truth of the faith.
¶ 2507
Respect for the reputation and honor of persons forbids all detraction and calumny in word or attitude.
¶ 2508
Lying consists in saying what is false with the intention of deceiving the neighbor who has the right to the truth.
Baltimore track
Baltimore Catechism No. 3
Lesson 31 — The First Commandment--On the Honor and Invocation of the Saints
Q. 1209.What should we be certain of before using any relic or giving it to another?
A.Before using any relic or giving it to another we should be certain that all the requirements of the Church concerning it have been fulfilled, and that the relic really is, as far as it is possible for any one to know, what we believe it to be.
Q. 1210.Has God Himself honored relics?
A.God Himself has frequently honored relics by permitting miracles to be wrought through them. There is an example given in the Bible, in the IV Book of Kings, where it is related that a dead man was restored to life when his body touched the bones, that is, the relics of the holy prophet Eliseus.
Q. 1211.Does the first Commandment forbid the making of images?
A.The first Commandment does forbid the making of images if they are made to be adored as gods, but it does not forbid the making of them to put us in mind of Jesus Christ, His Blessed Mother, and the saints.
Q. 1212.How do we show that it is only the worship and not the making of images that is forbidden by the first commandment?
A.We show that it is only the worship and not the making of images that is forbidden by the first commandment, (1) Because no one thinks it sinful to carve statues or make photographs or paintings of relatives or friends; (2) because God Himself commanded the making of images for the temple after He had given the first commandment, and God never contradicts Himself.