In 1824, none of the candidates for president won a majority of votes in the electoral congress. This caused the House of Representatives to decide the issue, and they elected John Quincy Adams, Feb. 9, 1825. This is the only election after the 12th Amendment where this happened. And you thought the Bush-Gore election dispute was tense!
Today is Thursday of the 5th week in Ordinary Time. The liturgical color is green.
In the Extraordinary Form, this is the season after Septuagesima, and the liturgical color for today is white.
Saints & Celebrations:
On February 9, in the Extraordinary Form, we celebrate St. Cyril, bishop of Alexandria, confessor and doctor of the Church, who died in A.D. 444. It is a Class III day.
In the Extraordinary Form, we also celebrate St. Apollonia, virgin and martyr, who died in A.D. 259. This celebration is a commemoration.
If you’d like to learn more about St. Cyril, you can click here.
If you’d like to learn more about St. Apollonia, you can click here.
For information about other saints, blesseds, and feasts celebrated today, you can click here.
Readings:
To see today’s readings in the Ordinary Form, you can click here.
Or you can click play to listen to them:
Devotional Information:
According to the Holy See’s Directory on Popular Piety:
The Sacred Constitution on the Liturgy
50. The relationship between the Liturgy and popular piety, in our times, must be approached primarily from the perspective of the directives contained in the constitutionSacrosactum Concilium, which seek to establish an harmonious relationship between both of these expressions of piety, in which popular piety is objectively subordinated to, and directed towards, the Liturgy.
Thus, it is important that the question of the relationship between popular piety and the Liturgy not be posed in terms of contradiction, equality or, indeed, of substitution. A realization of the primordial importance of the Liturgy, and the quest for its most authentic expressions, should never lead to neglect of the reality of popular piety, or to a lack of appreciation for it, nor any position that would regard it as superfluous to the Church’s worship or even injurious to it.
Lack of consideration for popular piety, or disrespect for it, often betrays an inadequate understanding of certain ecclesial realities and is not infrequently the product not so much of the doctrine of the faith, but of some ideologically inspired prejudice. These give rise to attitudes which:
Many Christians in Ethiopia believe that the lost Ark of the Covenant is in a church in their country. (My guess: It isn’t, but they may have some kind of interesting artifact in that church.)
Recently we peered into The Mind Of Evil in an attempt to understand what the Obama administration was thinking when it imposed its draconian contraception requirement.
Now we get a little more insight into the Mind of Evil from evil spokeswoman herself, Kathleen Sebelius, who writes an editorial in USA Today with the preposterous title “Contraception rule respects religion.”
Let’s see what she has to say . . .
One of the key benefits of the 2010 health care law is that many preventive services are now free for most Americans with insurance. Vaccinations for children, cancer screenings for adults and wellness visits for seniors are all now covered in most plans with no expensive co-pays or deductibles. So is the full range of preventive health services recommended for women by the highly respected Institute of Medicine, including contraception.
I don’t know who the generically-named Institute of Medicine is. Perhaps their offices are located next door to the Superfriends’ generically-named Hall of Justice. However, the Institute of Medicine ain’t so highly respected by me if they’re recommending contraception for women as a preventive health service.
Children are not a disease, and they do not need to be prevented the way cancer or pneumonia do. While some women might have medical conditions that contraindicate pregnancy, that does not justify contraception as a means of avoiding it, and certainly the idea of recommending contraception to women in general is reflective of agenda rather than medicine.
Today, virtually all American women use contraception at some point in their lives.
This is irrelevant to the issue at hand. Virtually all women—and men—do stupid and immoral things at some point in their lives. That does not mean these things aren’t stupid and immoral.
And we have a large body of medical evidence showing it has significant benefits for their health, as well as the health of their children.
HUH?
What kind of Orwellian doublethink is this?
Today is Wednesday of the 5th week in Ordinary Time. The liturgical color is green.
In the Extraordinary Form, this is the season after Septuagesima, and the liturgical color for today is white.
Saints & Celebrations:
On February 8, in the Ordinary Form, we celebrate St. Jerome Emiliani, founder of the Order of Somascha. It is an optional memorial.
In the Ordinary Form, we celebrate, St. Josephine Bakhita, virgin. It is an optional memorial.
In the Extraordinary Form, we celebrate St. John of Matha, founder of the Order of Trinitarians, confessor, who died in A.D. 1213. It is a Class III day.
If you’d like to learn more about St. Jerome Emiliani, you can click here.
If you’d like to learn more about St. Josephine Bakhita, you can click here.
If you’d like to learn more about St. John of Matha, you can click here.
For information about other saints, blesseds, and feasts celebrated today, you can click here.
Readings:
To see today’s readings in the Ordinary Form, you can click here.
Or you can click play to listen to them:
Devotional Information:
According to the Holy See’s Directory on Popular Piety:
49. Each of these factors, and both in certain cases, not infrequently produces imbalances in the relationship between the Liturgy and popular piety, to the former’s detriment and the latter’s impoverishment. These should therefore be corrected through careful and persistent catechetical and pastoral work.
Conversely, the liturgical renewal and the heightened liturgical sense of the faithful have often recontextualized popular piety in its relationship with the Liturgy. Such should be regarded as a positive development and in conformity with the most profound orientation of Christian piety.
“Bonfire of the Vanities” isn’t just a phrase. It was a real historical event that took place on Feb. 7, 1497.
Today is Tuesday of the 5th week in Ordinary Time. The liturgical color is green.
In the Extraordinary Form, this is the season after Septuagesima, and the liturgical color for today is white.
Saints & Celebrations:
On February 7, there is no special fixed liturgical day in the Ordinary Form.
In the Extraordinary Form, we celebrate St. Romuald, abbot, founder of the Order of Camaldoli, who died in A.D. 1027. It is a Class III day.
If you’d like to learn more about St. Romuald, you can click here.
For information about other saints, blesseds, and feasts celebrated today, you can click here.
Readings:
To see today’s readings in the Ordinary Form, you can click here.
Or you can click play to listen to them:
Devotional Information:
According to the Holy See’s Directory on Popular Piety:
Historical considerations: the causes of imbalances
48. History principally shows that the correct relationship between Liturgy and popular piety begins to be distorted with the attenuation among the faithful of certain values essential to the Liturgy itself. The following may be numbered among the causes giving rise to this:
Princess Elizabeth of England was in a TREEHOUSE when she became Queen Elizabeth II on Feb. 6, 1956.
Today is Monday of the 5th week in Ordinary Time. The liturgical color is red.
In the Extraordinary Form, this is the season after Septuagesima, and the liturgical color for today is white.
Saints & Celebrations:
On February 6, in the Ordinary Form, we celebrate St. Paul Miki and Companions, martyrs. It is a memorial.
In the Extraordinary Form, we celebrate St. Titus, bishop of Crete, confessor, who died in A.D. 101. It is a Class III day.
In the Extraordinary Form, we also celebrate St. Dorothy, virgin and martyr, who died in A.D. 275. This celebration is a commemoration.
If you’d like to learn more about St. Paul Miki and Companions, you can click here.
If you’d like to learn more about St. Titus, you can click here.
If you’d like to learn more about St. Dorothy, you can click here.
For information about other saints, blesseds, and feasts celebrated today, you can click here.
Readings:
To see today’s readings in the Ordinary Form, you can click here.
Or you can click play to listen to them:
Devotional Information:
According to the Holy See’s Directory on Popular Piety:
46. At the outset of the twentieth century, St. Pope Pius X (1903-1914) proposed bringing the Liturgy closer to the people, thereby “popularizing” it. He maintained that the faithful assimilated the “true Christian spirit” by drawing from its “primary and indispensable source, which is active participation in the most holy mysteries and from the solemn public prayer of the Church.” In this way, St. Pope Pius X gave authoritative recognition to the objective superiority of the Liturgy over all other forms of piety; dispelled any confusion between Liturgy and popular piety, indirectly clarified the distinction between both and opened the way for a proper understanding of the relationship that must obtain between them.
Thus was born the liturgical movement which was destined to exercise a prominent influence on the Church of the twentieth century, by virtue of the contribution of many eminent men, noted for their learning, piety and commitment, and in which the Supreme Pontiffs recognized the promptings of the Spirit. The ultimate aim of the liturgical movement was pastoral in nature, namely, to encourage in the faithful a knowledge of, and love for, the divine mysteries and to restore to them the idea that these same mysteries belong to a priestly people (cf. 1 Pt 2,5).
In the context of the liturgical movement, it is easy to understand why some of its exponents assumed a diffident attitude to popular piety and identified it as one of the causes leading to the degeneration of the Liturgy. They faced many of the abuses deriving from the superimposition of pious exercises on the Liturgy as well as instances where the Liturgy was displaced by acts of popular worship. In their efforts to restore the purity of divine worship, they took as their ideal the Liturgy of the early centuries of the Church, and consequently radically rejected any form of popular piety deriving from the middles ages or the post tridentine period.
This rejection, however, failed to take sufficient account of the fact that these forms of popular piety, which were often approved and recommended by the Church, had sustained the spiritual life of the faithful and produced unequalled spiritual fruits. It also failed to acknowledge that popular piety had made a significant contribution to safeguarding and preserving the faith, and to the diffusion of the Christian message. Thus, Pope Pius XII, in his encyclical Mediator Dei of 21 November 1947, with which he assumed leadership of the liturgical movement, issued a defence of pious exercises which, to a certain extent, had become synonymous with Catholic piety in recent centuries.
The Constitution Sacrosanctum Concilium of the Second Vatican Council finally defined, in proper terms, the relationship obtaining between the Liturgy and popular piety, by declaring the unquestionable primacy of the Sacred Liturgy and the subordination to it of pious exercises, while emphasizing their validity.
Here are this week’s items for The Weekly Benedict (subscribe here):
ANGELUS: Angelus, 29 January 2012
AUDIENCE: 25 January 2012
HOMILY: 25 January 2012: Feast of the Conversion of St Paul the Apostle – Celebration of Vespers
MESSAGE: 46th World Communications Day, 2012 - Silence and Word: Path of Evangelization
MESSAGE: World Mission Day 2012
