TODAY IN THE LITURGY
Daily Mass Readings
Daily Divine Office
Daily Feast Day
Daily Reflection
"As “feast”, liturgy goes beyond the realm of what can be made and manipulated; it introduces us into the realm of given, living reality, which communicates itself to us. That is why, at all times and in all religions, the fundamental law of liturgy has been the law of organic growth within the universality of the common tradition. Even in the huge transition from the Old to the New Testament, this rule was not breached, the continuity of liturgical development was not interrupted. … Neither the apostles nor their successors “made” a Christian liturgy; it grew organically as a result of the Christian reading of the Jewish inheritance, fashioning its own form as it did so."
-Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger,
The Feast of Faith: Approaches to a Theology of the Liturgy (1986)
As we live the liturgical calendar each day, the saints cheer us on! We'll learn about them as we travel through their feast days shown in the calendar links above. We call special feast days "holidays."
The term "holiday" comes from the Old English word "haligdae" meaning "holy day." Holidays were given to humanity from God, as described in the Torah [Pentateuch], the first five books of the Bible.
Holidays celebrate events glorifying God through events highlighting a Person of the Holy Trinity [ most refer specifically to our Lord Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit], the Blessed Mother Mary, or a canonized saint of the Church.
Because holidays celebrate the supernatural life, most saint feast days are celebrated the day of the saint's death on Earth, and birth into Heaven. Some exceptions to this apply to the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary [Queen of All saints, who was conceived without the stain of Original Sin], and the birth of St. John the Baptist who was filled with the Holy Spirit within his mother's womb.