The Church Year: Jan. 13, 2012

13Today is Friday of the 1st week in Ordinary Time. The liturgical color is green.

In the Extraordinary Form, this is the season after Epiphany, and the liturgical color for today is white.

 

Saints & Celebrations:

Today, January 13, in the Ordinary Form, we celebrate St. Hilary, bishop of Poitiers, confessor, and doctor of the Church, who died in A.D. 368. It is a Class III day and an optional memorial.

In the Extraordinary Form, we celebrate the Baptism of Our Lord. It is a Class II day.

If you'd like to learn more about St. Hilary, you can click here.

If you'd like to learn more about the Baptism of Our Lord, 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:

24. In the fourth century, given the new politico-social situation of the Church, the question of the relationship between liturgy and popular piety begins to be raised consciously in terms of adaptation and inculturation rather than solely in terms of spontaneous convergence.

The local Churches, guided by clear pastoral and evangelizing principles, did not hesitate to absorb into the Liturgy certain purified solemn and festive [ritual] elements deriving from the pagan world. These were regarded as capable of moving the minds and imaginations of the people who felt drawn towards them. Such forms, now placed at the service of the mystery of worship, were seen as neither contrary to the Gospel nor to the purity of true Christian worship. Rather, there was a realization that only in the worship of Christ, true God and true Savior, could many [ritual] expressions, previously attributed to false gods and false saviours, become true [ritual] expressions, even though these had derived from man's deepest religious sense.

Author: Jimmy Akin

Jimmy was born in Texas, grew up nominally Protestant, but at age 20 experienced a profound conversion to Christ. Planning on becoming a Protestant seminary professor, he started an intensive study of the Bible. But the more he immersed himself in Scripture the more he found to support the Catholic faith, and in 1992 he entered the Catholic Church. His conversion story, "A Triumph and a Tragedy," is published in Surprised by Truth. Besides being an author, Jimmy is the Senior Apologist at Catholic Answers, a contributing editor to Catholic Answers Magazine, and a weekly guest on "Catholic Answers Live."