{"ok":true,"date":"2027-09-27","dateKey":"09-27","liturgicalDay":"Ss. Cosmas and Damian, Martyrs","rank":"Semi-Double","color":"red","quoteOfTheDay":{"text":"Ask, and it shall be given you: seek, and you shall find, knock, and it shall be opened to you.","author":"Holy Scripture","source":"Matthew 7:7, Original Douay-Rheims","treasuryHref":"/wisdom#ask-seek-and-knock","category":"Prayer and the Interior Life"},"season":"Time after Pentecost","novenas":[],"octaveContexts":[],"subject":"City of God in Exile: Ss. Cosmas and Damian, Martyrs - 2027-09-27","previewText":"Ss. Cosmas and Damian, Martyrs. The Sacrifice of the Mass Is the Heart of Catholic Worship. Resist every reduction of the Mass to a memorial meal, community symbol, or religious performance.","plainText":"CITY OF GOD IN EXILE\nSs. Cosmas and Damian, Martyrs\n2027-09-27 - Time after Pentecost - Semi-Double - red\nPLAIN-LANGUAGE GUIDE FOR TODAY\nMartyr: a Christian who was killed rather than deny Christ or abandon the Faith.\nBishop: a successor of the apostles charged with teaching, sanctifying, and governing a local Church.\nDivine Providence: God's wise and loving governance of creation, by which He directs all things without destroying human freedom.\nThe full Breviary lessons preserve an older English translation. Read the modern explanation first; it identifies the people, event, and doctrine before the historical wording appears.\nTODAY IN THE ROMAN YEAR\nThe Time after Pentecost is the long school of the Holy Ghost. The fire given at Pentecost must become doctrine believed, worship guarded, commandments kept, homes ordered, tongues governed, and charity practiced without novelty or disorder. With Our Lady, ask to be hidden from vanity and humbled into truth. Ask for grace to accept the place Providence gives today without inward theatre or complaint.\n\n\"He heard her prayers when she begged to be hidden, to be humbled and to be treated as in all respects poor and of no account.\"\nSt. Louis-Marie de Montfort, True Devotion to the Blessed Virgin, no. 3\n\nThis prayer of Our Lady is severe only to the part of us that desires religious importance. She does not ask to be separated from God, but to be freed from the false greatness that would draw the heart toward itself. Her littleness makes room for the mighty works of the Lord because she does not seize them as material for self-exaltation.\n\nDo not manufacture humiliation or permit injustice when duty requires a response. But when Providence allows you to be overlooked, misunderstood, or assigned an ordinary place, watch the inward protest. There you may offer Mary something real: the claim of self-love to be accounted greater than God has presently appointed.\n\nPRACTICE\nBegin ordinary labor with deliberate recollection and return to God whenever distraction scatters the mind.\n\nQUOTE OF THE DAY\n\"Ask, and it shall be given you: seek, and you shall find, knock, and it shall be opened to you.\"\nHoly Scripture, Matthew 7:7, Original Douay-Rheims\n\nROMAN MARTYROLOGY - September 27\nAt 2Egea, during the persecution of Diocletian, - the birthday of the holy martyrs Cosmas and Damian, brothers. After miraculously overcoming many torments from bonds, imprisonment, fire, crucifixion, stoning, arrows, and from being cast into the sea, they received capital punishment. With them are said to have also suffered three of their brothers, Anthimus, Leontius, and Euprepius. — At Koine, St. Epicharis, wife of a senator, who, in the same persecution, was scourged with leaded whips, and struck with the sword. — At Todi, the holy martyrs Fidentius and Terence, under the same Diocletian. — At Cordova, the holy martyrs Adulphus and John, brothers, who won the martyr's crown in the Arabian persecution. — At Sion, in Switzerland, St. Florentinus, martyr, who was put to the sword with blessed Hilary, after his tongue had been cut out. — At Byblos, in Phoenicia, St. Mark, bishop, who is also called John by blessed Luke. — At Milan, the holy bishop Caius, a disciple of the blessed apostle Barnabas, who passed calmly to rest after suffering severely in the persecution of Nero. — At Ravenna, St. Aderitus, bishop and confessor. — At Paris, St. Vincent de Paul, priest, and founder of the Congregation of the Mission and of the Daughters of Charity, an apostolic man and a father to the poor. His feast is celebrated on the 19th of July. — In the same city, St. Eleazar, count. — In Hainaut, St. Hiltrude, virgin.\n\nHIGHLIGHTED SAINT\nSs. Cosmas and Damian\nBrother physicians and martyrs under Diocletian.\nThe Martyrology honors Cosmas and Damian as brothers who overcame bonds, imprisonment, fire, crucifixion, stoning, arrows, and the sea before receiving capital punishment.\nTheir witness joins healing mercy to martyrdom. Christian care for the body must remain subject to Christ, for the physician's art is noblest when charity and faith govern it.\nLet Cosmas and Damian teach Catholic mercy toward the sick. Healing is holy when it serves the whole person and remains obedient to Christ.\nFROM MATINS\nHealing freely given and confession sealed by martyrdom.\nMatins - Second Nocturn - Ss. Cosmas and Damian, Martyrs\nRoman Breviary and St. Augustine, Bishop of Hippo\n\"They freely owned themselves Christians and the Christian faith needful to salvation.\"\n- The Breviary honors Cosmas and Damian as brothers whose medical service was given without price and ordered to Christian charity.\n- Their endurance through chains, imprisonment, fire, water, crucifixion, stones, arrows, and the sword places bodily healing beneath eternal fidelity.\n- Their witness teaches medicine as merciful when it serves the person under divine law and refuses to purchase safety through apostasy.\nPray for healers who remember the soul. Cosmas and Damian join skill, generosity, courage, and obedience to God.\nFULL BREVIARY LESSONS\nFourth Lesson - Physicians Confessing the Faith Needful to Salvation\nCosmas and Damian, who were eminent physicians in the time of the Emperors Diocletian and Maximian, were brothers, and Arabs by race, but born in the city of Ægæ [in Cilicia.] Not more by their knowledge of medicine than by the power of Christ they healed diseases which had been hopeless for others. When the Praefect Lysias learnt to what faith they belonged, he commanded them to be brought before him, and questioned them as to their way of life, and the confession of their religion; and then, forasmuch as they freely owned themselves Christians and the Christian faith needful to salvation, he commanded them to worship the gods, under threats of torments and a most cruel death.\nFifth Lesson - Witness Borne through Torment unto Death\nBut when he found that it was but in vain to lay such things before them, he said: \"Bind their hands and feet together, and put them to the sharpest of the question.\" And he was obeyed, but nevertheless Cosmas and Damian abode still of the same mind. Therefore they were cast into the depth of the sea, bound as they were, but they came forth again, whole and unbound. The Praefect, therefore, who would have it that it came to pass so by force of art magic, cast them into prison. On the morrow he haled them forth again, and bade cast them upon a great fire, but the flame turned away from them. He was pleased then to have them tormented in divers and cruel sorts, and, lastly, smitten with the axe. Thus did they bear witness for Christ JESUS even until they grasped the palm of their testimony.\nSixth Lesson - From the Common of Many Martyrs\nBut some man will say: \"And who is he that can tread in the footsteps of the blessed Martyrs?\" To such an one I answer that, by the Lord's help, we are able, if we so will, to tread in the footsteps, not of the blessed Martyrs only, but even of the same Lord Himself. Hearken, not to me, but to the same Lord, Who crieth unto all men: \"Learn of Me, for I am meek and lowly in heart.\" (Matth. xi. 29.) Hear also with what words the Apostle Peter warneth us: \"Christ suffered for us, leaving us an example, that we should follow His steps.\" (1 Pet. ii. 21.)\nTHE PILGRIM'S SPIRITUAL CONFERENCE\nThe Sacrifice of the Mass Is the Heart of Catholic Worship\nThe Church places this truth before you today: Catholic worship is centered on the true Sacrifice of the altar, offered by the priest in union with Christ the eternal High Priest. Do not hurry past it as though doctrine belonged only to books and controversies. A revealed truth is also a light by which the soul must judge its loyalties, its fears, its habits, and the duties immediately before it. The same sacrificial worship belongs to the Church throughout the world; it is not a local invention or a merely human assembly rite.\nThe grace to be practiced is Charity toward the suffering, drawn from today's saintly witness. Ask God for more than the natural appearance of this virtue. Temperament may make an action seem easy for a time, but supernatural virtue remains faithful because God is worthy of obedience, even when feeling offers no assistance and no one notices the cost. Humility receives truth about oneself from God and does not require either praise or false self-contempt.\nThere is also an enemy to recognize: Resist every reduction of the Mass to a memorial meal, community symbol, or religious performance. Do not study this danger only in other people. Look quietly for the door by which it seeks entrance into your own soul - perhaps through delay, curiosity, resentment, human respect, attachment to comfort, or the desire to control the outcome. Dying to self today means choosing charity toward the suffering when pride, comfort, fear, resentment, or human respect asks for control.\nDo the faithful act and entrust its fruit to divine Providence, God's wise and loving governance of all things. Place effort and outcome into Our Lady's hands so that the whole offering may be presented to her Divine Son. Confidence in God is not passivity: obey, pray, work, and accept that visible success, consolation, or immediate relief may not be given. God remains faithful when the duty is hidden and the outcome uncertain. Therefore, perform the duty that belongs to you, use the lawful means God has provided, and then surrender the fruit. When overlooked, remain charitable and exact in duty instead of withdrawing your good will. Let useful acts remain unannounced whenever charity does not require them to be known.\nThe Church's witness: this truth manifests the Church's mark of catholic; the witness placed beside it is Council of Trent.\nYour resolution before God: Begin ordinary labor with deliberate recollection and return to God whenever distraction scatters the mind.\nCarry this word: The faithful soul receives the day before it spends it.\nTHE PILGRIM'S MIRROR\n\"If it be lawful and expedient to speak, speak then of God and of such things as are to the edifying of thy soul or of thy neighbour's.\"\nThomas à Kempis, The Imitation of Christ, Book I, chapter 10, p. 18\nSpeech is a stewardship. Our Lady's recollection teaches the pilgrim that silence is not emptiness but a guard placed around charity and truth.\n\nNot every true observation must be spoken, and not every fault must be exposed by you. Before speaking, ask whether the words serve God's truth, a real duty, or the good of a soul. If they serve only irritation, curiosity, or the wish to appear discerning, let silence make the sacrifice.\nToday's Practice: Omit unnecessary remarks and use the silence to make holy aspirations.\nDAILY EXAMEN\nExamine the moments when being of little account disturbed your peace more than offending God would have done.\n- For what grace or mercy should I thank God today?\n- What sin, fault, neglected duty, or resistance to grace must I confess?\n- What definite amendment will I carry into tomorrow?\nPRAYER\nO Lord, place this day beneath Thy Providence. Keep my mind in truth, my heart in charity, and my work in obedience until evening.\nDAILY RULE FOR THE PILGRIM\nA brief rule to keep every day:\nBegin with morning prayer\nAdore the Blessed Trinity and offer the whole day to Jesus through Mary before other duties claim the mind.\nKeep the Angelus\nPause morning, noon, and evening to remember the Incarnation.\nSeek Our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament\nAttend Holy Mass when duty permits; otherwise make a Spiritual Communion and renew desire for Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament.\nReturn to Jesus and Mary\nUse frequent holy aspirations during work, waiting, suffering, and temptation.\nPray the Rosary\nKeep the mysteries of Christ before the mind with Our Lady and learn to imitate what they contain.\nEnd with night prayer and examen\nGive thanks, confess faults, forgive injuries, make a practical amendment, and entrust the night to Our Lady.\nCONTINUE STUDY\nWhat Is the Mass?: https://cityofgodinexile.com/catechism-foundations/what-is-the-mass?entered=1\nOpen this day in the Sacred Calendar: https://cityofgodinexile.com/sacred-calendar?date=2027-09-27&entered=1\nOpen this day's Daily Pilgrimage: https://cityofgodinexile.com/daily-dispatch?date=2027-09-27&entered=1\nBrowse the Formation Index: https://cityofgodinexile.com/daily-dispatch/formation?entered=1","html":"\n\n \n \n \n City of God in Exile: Ss. Cosmas and Damian, Martyrs - 2027-09-27\n \n \n
\n Ss. Cosmas and Damian, Martyrs. The Sacrifice of the Mass Is the Heart of Catholic Worship. Resist every reduction of the Mass to a memorial meal, community symbol, or religious performance.\n
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City of God in Exile

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Ss. Cosmas and Damian, Martyrs

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2027-09-27 - Time after Pentecost - Semi-Double - red

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“Walk whilst you have the light, that the darkness overtake you not.”
John 12:35
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Plain-Language Guide for Today

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Martyr
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a Christian who was killed rather than deny Christ or abandon the Faith.
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Bishop
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a successor of the apostles charged with teaching, sanctifying, and governing a local Church.
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Divine Providence
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God's wise and loving governance of creation, by which He directs all things without destroying human freedom.

The full Breviary lessons preserve an older English translation. Read the modern explanation first; it identifies the people, event, and doctrine before the historical wording appears.

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Today in the Roman Year

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The Time after Pentecost is the long school of the Holy Ghost. The fire given at Pentecost must become doctrine believed, worship guarded, commandments kept, homes ordered, tongues governed, and charity practiced without novelty or disorder.

With Our Lady, ask to be hidden from vanity and humbled into truth.

Ask for grace to accept the place Providence gives today without inward theatre or complaint.

“He heard her prayers when she begged to be hidden, to be humbled and to be treated as in all respects poor and of no account.”

St. Louis-Marie de Montfort, True Devotion to the Blessed Virgin, no. 3

This prayer of Our Lady is severe only to the part of us that desires religious importance. She does not ask to be separated from God, but to be freed from the false greatness that would draw the heart toward itself. Her littleness makes room for the mighty works of the Lord because she does not seize them as material for self-exaltation.

Do not manufacture humiliation or permit injustice when duty requires a response. But when Providence allows you to be overlooked, misunderstood, or assigned an ordinary place, watch the inward protest. There you may offer Mary something real: the claim of self-love to be accounted greater than God has presently appointed.

Begin ordinary labor with deliberate recollection and return to God whenever distraction scatters the mind.

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Quote of the Day

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“Ask, and it shall be given you: seek, and you shall find, knock, and it shall be opened to you.”
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Holy Scripture, Matthew 7:7, Original Douay-Rheims

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Roman Martyrology - September 27

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At 2Egea, during the persecution of Diocletian, - the birthday of the holy martyrs Cosmas and Damian, brothers. After miraculously overcoming many torments from bonds, imprisonment, fire, crucifixion, stoning, arrows, and from being cast into the sea, they received capital punishment. With them are said to have also suffered three of their brothers, Anthimus, Leontius, and Euprepius. — At Koine, St. Epicharis, wife of a senator, who, in the same persecution, was scourged with leaded whips, and struck with the sword. — At Todi, the holy martyrs Fidentius and Terence, under the same Diocletian. — At Cordova, the holy martyrs Adulphus and John, brothers, who won the martyr's crown in the Arabian persecution. — At Sion, in Switzerland, St. Florentinus, martyr, who was put to the sword with blessed Hilary, after his tongue had been cut out. — At Byblos, in Phoenicia, St. Mark, bishop, who is also called John by blessed Luke. — At Milan, the holy bishop Caius, a disciple of the blessed apostle Barnabas, who passed calmly to rest after suffering severely in the persecution of Nero. — At Ravenna, St. Aderitus, bishop and confessor. — At Paris, St. Vincent de Paul, priest, and founder of the Congregation of the Mission and of the Daughters of Charity, an apostolic man and a father to the poor. His feast is celebrated on the 19th of July. — In the same city, St. Eleazar, count. — In Hainaut, St. Hiltrude, virgin.

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Highlighted Saint

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Ss. Cosmas and Damian

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Brother physicians and martyrs under Diocletian.

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The Martyrology honors Cosmas and Damian as brothers who overcame bonds, imprisonment, fire, crucifixion, stoning, arrows, and the sea before receiving capital punishment.

Their witness joins healing mercy to martyrdom. Christian care for the body must remain subject to Christ, for the physician's art is noblest when charity and faith govern it.

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Let Cosmas and Damian teach Catholic mercy toward the sick. Healing is holy when it serves the whole person and remains obedient to Christ.

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From Matins

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Healing freely given and confession sealed by martyrdom.

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Matins - Second Nocturn - Ss. Cosmas and Damian, Martyrs

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Roman Breviary and St. Augustine, Bishop of Hippo, Proper lessons for Ss. Cosmas and Damian and the Common of Many Martyrs

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“They freely owned themselves Christians and the Christian faith needful to salvation.”
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  • The Breviary honors Cosmas and Damian as brothers whose medical service was given without price and ordered to Christian charity.
  • Their endurance through chains, imprisonment, fire, water, crucifixion, stones, arrows, and the sword places bodily healing beneath eternal fidelity.
  • Their witness teaches medicine as merciful when it serves the person under divine law and refuses to purchase safety through apostasy.
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Pray for healers who remember the soul. Cosmas and Damian join skill, generosity, courage, and obedience to God.

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Full Breviary Lessons

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Fourth Lesson - Physicians Confessing the Faith Needful to Salvation

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Cosmas and Damian, who were eminent physicians in the time of the Emperors Diocletian and Maximian, were brothers, and Arabs by race, but born in the city of Ægæ [in Cilicia.] Not more by their knowledge of medicine than by the power of Christ they healed diseases which had been hopeless for others. When the Praefect Lysias learnt to what faith they belonged, he commanded them to be brought before him, and questioned them as to their way of life, and the confession of their religion; and then, forasmuch as they freely owned themselves Christians and the Christian faith needful to salvation, he commanded them to worship the gods, under threats of torments and a most cruel death.

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Fifth Lesson - Witness Borne through Torment unto Death

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But when he found that it was but in vain to lay such things before them, he said: "Bind their hands and feet together, and put them to the sharpest of the question." And he was obeyed, but nevertheless Cosmas and Damian abode still of the same mind. Therefore they were cast into the depth of the sea, bound as they were, but they came forth again, whole and unbound. The Praefect, therefore, who would have it that it came to pass so by force of art magic, cast them into prison. On the morrow he haled them forth again, and bade cast them upon a great fire, but the flame turned away from them. He was pleased then to have them tormented in divers and cruel sorts, and, lastly, smitten with the axe. Thus did they bear witness for Christ JESUS even until they grasped the palm of their testimony.

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Sixth Lesson - From the Common of Many Martyrs

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But some man will say: "And who is he that can tread in the footsteps of the blessed Martyrs?" To such an one I answer that, by the Lord's help, we are able, if we so will, to tread in the footsteps, not of the blessed Martyrs only, but even of the same Lord Himself. Hearken, not to me, but to the same Lord, Who crieth unto all men: "Learn of Me, for I am meek and lowly in heart." (Matth. xi. 29.) Hear also with what words the Apostle Peter warneth us: "Christ suffered for us, leaving us an example, that we should follow His steps." (1 Pet. ii. 21.)

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The Pilgrim's Spiritual Conference

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The Sacrifice of the Mass Is the Heart of Catholic Worship

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The Church places this truth before you today: Catholic worship is centered on the true Sacrifice of the altar, offered by the priest in union with Christ the eternal High Priest. Do not hurry past it as though doctrine belonged only to books and controversies. A revealed truth is also a light by which the soul must judge its loyalties, its fears, its habits, and the duties immediately before it. The same sacrificial worship belongs to the Church throughout the world; it is not a local invention or a merely human assembly rite.

The grace to be practiced is Charity toward the suffering, drawn from today's saintly witness. Ask God for more than the natural appearance of this virtue. Temperament may make an action seem easy for a time, but supernatural virtue remains faithful because God is worthy of obedience, even when feeling offers no assistance and no one notices the cost. Humility receives truth about oneself from God and does not require either praise or false self-contempt.

There is also an enemy to recognize: Resist every reduction of the Mass to a memorial meal, community symbol, or religious performance. Do not study this danger only in other people. Look quietly for the door by which it seeks entrance into your own soul - perhaps through delay, curiosity, resentment, human respect, attachment to comfort, or the desire to control the outcome. Dying to self today means choosing charity toward the suffering when pride, comfort, fear, resentment, or human respect asks for control.

Do the faithful act and entrust its fruit to divine Providence, God's wise and loving governance of all things. Place effort and outcome into Our Lady's hands so that the whole offering may be presented to her Divine Son. Confidence in God is not passivity: obey, pray, work, and accept that visible success, consolation, or immediate relief may not be given. God remains faithful when the duty is hidden and the outcome uncertain. Therefore, perform the duty that belongs to you, use the lawful means God has provided, and then surrender the fruit. When overlooked, remain charitable and exact in duty instead of withdrawing your good will. Let useful acts remain unannounced whenever charity does not require them to be known.

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The Church's witness: this truth manifests the Church's mark of catholic; the witness placed beside it is Council of Trent.

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Your Resolution Before God

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Begin ordinary labor with deliberate recollection and return to God whenever distraction scatters the mind.

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The faithful soul receives the day before it spends it.
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The Pilgrim's Mirror

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How shall I imitate Christ today?

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“If it be lawful and expedient to speak, speak then of God and of such things as are to the edifying of thy soul or of thy neighbour's.”
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Thomas à Kempis, The Imitation of Christ, Book I, chapter 10, p. 18

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Speech is a stewardship. Our Lady's recollection teaches the pilgrim that silence is not emptiness but a guard placed around charity and truth.

Not every true observation must be spoken, and not every fault must be exposed by you. Before speaking, ask whether the words serve God's truth, a real duty, or the good of a soul. If they serve only irritation, curiosity, or the wish to appear discerning, let silence make the sacrifice.

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Today's Practice

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Omit unnecessary remarks and use the silence to make holy aspirations.

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Daily Examen

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Three questions before night prayer

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Examine the moments when being of little account disturbed your peace more than offending God would have done.

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  • For what grace or mercy should I thank God today?
  • What sin, fault, neglected duty, or resistance to grace must I confess?
  • What definite amendment will I carry into tomorrow?
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Prayer

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O Lord, place this day beneath Thy Providence. Keep my mind in truth, my heart in charity, and my work in obedience until evening.

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Daily Rule for the Pilgrim

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A brief rule to keep every day:

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Begin with morning prayer

Adore the Blessed Trinity and offer the whole day to Jesus through Mary before other duties claim the mind.

Keep the Angelus

Pause morning, noon, and evening to remember the Incarnation.

Seek Our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament

Attend Holy Mass when duty permits; otherwise make a Spiritual Communion and renew desire for Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament.

Return to Jesus and Mary

Use frequent holy aspirations during work, waiting, suffering, and temptation.

Pray the Rosary

Keep the mysteries of Christ before the mind with Our Lady and learn to imitate what they contain.

End with night prayer and examen

Give thanks, confess faults, forgive injuries, make a practical amendment, and entrust the night to Our Lady.

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Continue Study

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Carry today's lesson into a focused chapter from the library.

\n What Is the Mass?\n
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Persevere, pilgrim.

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The gates remain open to the faithful.

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