The Daily Pilgrimage
Today in the City of God: calendar, Martyrology, Gospel, witness, prayer, and Catholic formation held together.
Daily formation
2030-11-23
Receive the day before spending it. Magnify Christ with Our Lady, obey God's commandments, fulfill the duties of your state in life, die to self, trust divine Providence, practice the virtues those duties require, resist error, and close the whole day beneath truth and mercy.
This page is meant to be read slowly and faithfully, so that every part of the present day may be ordered to God.
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St. Clement, Pope and Martyr
City of God in Exile
St. Clement, Pope and Martyr
2030-11-23 - Time after Pentecost - Double - red
Today
St. Clement, Pope and Martyr
A Roman Shepherd Anchored in Christ
Truth
Christ Is King Over Public Life
Our Lord's kingship is not confined to private devotion. Men, families, laws, and nations are subject to His authority.
Practice
Apostolic constancy in exile.
Read a short passage from an approved catechism and receive it as a rule of belief and life.
Offering
To Jesus through Mary
As a faithful servant of Mary, make room for the reign of Jesus Christ in the smallest duties.
The Pilgrim's Devotional Rhythm
Keep this month and this weekday in prayer.
The month's intention and the weekday remembrance gather the pilgrim's prayer into the devotional rhythm of the Church. In harmony with today's Mass, feast, and duties, they teach him to receive ordinary time from God and return it to Him in honor and intercession.
November intention
The Holy Souls in Purgatory
Christian charity crosses the boundary of death. Remember the faithful departed who can no longer merit for themselves, and let prayer for them keep judgment, mercy, and eternity before your own soul.
Intention
For the relief of the Holy Souls, especially the most forgotten, and for the grace of final perseverance for the living.
A faithful act
Offer a prayer, indulgenced work under the Church's conditions, or sacrifice for a forgotten soul in Purgatory.
Prayer
Eternal rest give unto them, O Lord; and let perpetual light shine upon them. May they rest in peace. Amen.
Saturday remembrance
The Blessed Virgin Mary
Saturday is kept in filial remembrance of Our Lady, who remained faithful when Our Lord lay hidden in the tomb. Walk with Mary toward Jesus by imitating her faith, purity, recollection, and perseverance.
Intention
For growth in true devotion to Mary, the conversion of sinners, the protection of purity, and perseverance in the Catholic Faith.
A faithful act
Set the goal of praying the complete traditional Rosary today: all fifteen decades of the Joyful, Sorrowful, and Glorious Mysteries. Offer it for a definite intention, especially for the conversion and salvation of sinners. If the duties of your state require it, pray its three parts at different hours, but persevere toward completing the whole Rosary. Souls are in need: at Fatima, Our Lady warned that many souls go to hell because there is no one to make sacrifices and pray for them.
Prayer
Blessed Mother, keep me under thy mantle, receive this day into thy hands, and lead me in all things to Jesus.
Good Morning, Pilgrim
Receive this day from God.
Pope St. Clement stands near the Apostles and witnesses that the Roman Church received a real duty to guard order, doctrine, and unity. His martyrdom teaches that authority is anchored not in earthly success but in fidelity to Christ. Pray for the Church to remain steady when confusion makes novelty appear stronger than tradition.
Renew your gift of self to Jesus through Mary. Nothing offered is too small when charity places it at the service of the King.
Formation in True Devotion - Day 357: Review and Deepening: Consecrated Life through Mary to Jesus
“These may be expressed in four words: to do all our actions by Mary, with Mary, in Mary and for Mary; so that we may do them all the more perfectly by Jesus, with Jesus, in Jesus and for Jesus.”
St. Louis de Montfort's fourfold practice is not a pious ornament laid over an unchanged life. It gives ordinary actions a new interior order. The soul renounces its own proud and hurried spirit, looks to Mary's dispositions, rests beneath her maternal care, and returns the act through her to Jesus Christ.
Offer the day's ordinary work in this manner. Before beginning, surrender self-will; while working, imitate Mary's recollection and fidelity; when the work is finished, place it in her hands without seeking praise. Thus common duties become part of a consecrated life.
Ora — Begin with Prayer
Offer the day before spending it
Prayer gives the day its right beginning and its right end. Before work, conversation, news, or distraction claims the mind, adore the Blessed Trinity and offer every prayer, work, joy, suffering, and temptation to Jesus through Mary. Ask your Guardian Angel for help, and place the souls and needs entrusted to you beneath God's will.
Begin simply. Make the Morning Offering through the hands of Our Lady. Pray the Three Hail Marys for purity and final perseverance, ask your Guardian Angel to govern the senses and imagination, and name the soul or intention for which today's prayers and sacrifices will be offered. Do not rush these acts merely because they are familiar; let them place the whole day beneath God before the world begins to claim it.
O Lord, through Pope St. Clement, preserve the Roman Church in apostolic doctrine and give her children obedience without blindness and courage without rebellion.
Quote of the Day
“Greater love than this no man hath, that a man lay down his life for his friends.”
Plain-language help for today - 3 unfamiliar terms
- Commemoration
- a shorter liturgical remembrance of another saint or observance occurring on the same day.
- Martyr
- a Christian who was killed rather than deny Christ or abandon the Faith.
- Apostolic
- belonging to the faith, mission, teaching, or authority handed down from Christ through the apostles.
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.
Today's Full Breviary Sermon or Proper Lesson
The Pope who recorded martyrs and fed exiles with living water.
Matins - Second Nocturn - St. Clement, Pope and Martyr
The complete appointed Breviary sermon or proper lessons verified for this observance are printed below. Where a Common supplies additional material, it is identified distinctly rather than presented as the proper text.
Roman Breviary, Proper lessons for St. Clement
“His teaching and the holiness of his life brought many to believe in Christ.”
- The Breviary identifies St. Clement as the third Pope after St. Peter and as the fellow-laborer praised by St. Paul.
- It remembers his care for the memory of martyrs, assigning scribes to gather their acts and sufferings, and his orthodox writing in explanation of the Christian religion.
- In exile among condemned Christians in the Crimea, his prayer and miracle of water brought consolation to the faithful and many unbelievers to Christ before his martyrdom.
Let St. Clement teach you to remember and hand on what the apostles taught. The Church preserves the testimony of martyrs, feeds Christians in exile, writes in defense of true doctrine, and suffers rather than surrender Christ.
Complete Breviary Text
Fourth Lesson - Disciple of St. Peter and Guardian of Martyr Memory
Clement, the son of Faustinus, was a Roman, from the quarter of the Coelian Mount. He was a disciple of the blessed Peter, and is the same concerning whom Paul saith, writing to the Philippians: "And I entreat thee also, true yokefellow, help those women which laboured with me in the Gospel, with Clement also, and with other my fellow-labourers, whose names are written in the book of life." He succeeded Cletus as Bishop of Rome. He it was who divided the seven quarters of the city among seven scribes, one to each, whose duty it was to search out most carefully, and record in writing the sufferings and acts of the Martyrs. He himself also wrote much, and that most orthodox and healthy, whereby he clearly explained the Christian Religion.
Fifth Lesson - Living Water for Christians in Exile
His teaching and the holiness of his life brought many to believe in Christ, and he was therefore exiled by the Emperor Trajan to Kherson, in the Crimea, where he found two thousand Christians, who had been condemned by the same Trajan. There they all worked in the marble quarries. During their labour they suffered for want of water, and Clement prayed, and then went up an hill hard by, on the top whereof he saw a Lamb standing, touching with its right foot a flowing spring of sweet waters. Therewith they all quenched their thirst, and by this miracle many unbelievers were brought to believe in Christ, and began to honour the holiness of Clement.
Sixth Lesson - Martyrdom in the Sea
These things moved Trajan to send a messenger to the Crimea, who tied an anchor about Clement's neck, and cast him into the deep of the sea. After it had been done, while the Christians were praying on the shore, the sea went back three miles, and when they followed it, they found a grotto of marble, in form like a temple, and therein a stone coffin wherein was laid the body of the Martyr, and, hard by, the anchor wherewith he had been sunk. Then were the country people moved to receive the faith of Christ. The body of Clement was afterwards brought to Rome, in the time of Pope Nicholas I, and buried in his own Church. A Church was also built in the Crimea, in the place where God had made the water to break forth. Clement lived as Pope nine years, six months, and six days. He held two Ordinations in the month of December, wherein he made ten Priests, two Deacons, and fifteen Bishops for divers places.
Walk with the Church
The Church has already begun praying. Enter her prayer.
Today the Roman year keeps St. Clement, Pope and Martyr. Receive the observance as the Church gives it: first understand what is commemorated, then let its doctrine and worship shape the day.
Roman Martyrology
November 23
The birthday of pope St. Clement, wno held the sovereign Pontificate the third after the blessed apostle Peter. In the persecution of Trajan, he was banished to Chersonesus, where, being precipitated into the sea with an anchor tied to his neck, he was crowned with martyrdom. His body was taken to Rome during the pontificate of Nicholas I., and placed with due honors in the church which had been previously built under his invocation. — At Rome, St. Felicitas, mother of seven sons, martyrs. After them she was beheaded for Christ, by order of the emperor Marcus Antoninus. — At Merida, in Spain, St. Lucretia, virgin and martyr, who consummated her martyrdom in the persecution of Diocletian, under the governor Dacian. — At Cyzicum, in Hellespont, St. Sisinius, martyr, who, after many torments, was put to the sword, in the same persecution. — At Iconium, in Lycaonia, the holy bishop Amphilochius, who was the companion of St. Basil and St. Gregory Nazianzen in the desert, and their colleague in the episcopate. After many combats for the Catholic faith, he rested in peace, with the reputation of a holy and learned prelate. — At Girgenti, the decease of St. Gregory, bishop. — In the village of Hasbein, St. Tron, priest and confessor. — At Mantua, blessed John the Good, of the Order of Augustinians, whose celebrated life was written by St. Antoninus.
Learn from Today's Saint or Feast
St. Clement
Pope and martyr, third after blessed Peter.
The Martyrology honors Pope St. Clement as holding the sovereign Pontificate third after blessed Peter.
In the persecution of Trajan he was banished to Chersonesus and crowned with martyrdom by being cast into the sea with an anchor tied to his neck.
Let St. Clement steady the exiled heart. The Church's pastors may be driven outward, but Christ's charge remains.
The Pilgrim's Spiritual Conference
Christ Is King Over Public Life
Remain here for a little while. The purpose is not to gather another fact, but to allow today's Catholic truth to judge the heart, strengthen the will, and become an act offered to God.
The Church places this truth before you today: Our Lord's kingship is not confined to private devotion. Men, families, laws, and nations are subject to His authority. 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 Church's Catholicity includes the public claim of Christ over all peoples, not merely the private consolation of believers.
The grace to be practiced is Apostolic constancy in exile, 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. Imitate Mary's hidden life. Let fidelity be complete even when the work is ordinary and no human eye rewards it.
There is also an enemy to recognize: Resist secular liberalism, which treats society as though it could be rightly ordered without Christ. 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 apostolic constancy in exile 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. Receive obscurity and lack of recognition as a school of self-forgetfulness, not as permission for discouragement. Complete every duty faithfully, giving the least-noticed duty the same care under Our Lady's gaze, and leave its value entirely to God.
The Church's witness
This truth manifests the Church's mark of catholic. The witness placed beside it today is Pope Pius XI.
Your resolution before God
Read a short passage from an approved catechism and receive it as a rule of belief and life.
The barque is safest when her shepherds remain anchored in the received Faith.
Carry this word quietly. Return to it when distraction, temptation, or discouragement begins to scatter the soul.
The Little Rule of Fidelity
Keep the day within prayer.
These anchors do not change because the soul needs a stable rule more than a daily novelty. Open them when you are learning the rule or when your ordinary prayer has begun to loosen.
Show today's prayer and duty anchors
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.
The Pilgrim's Mirror
How shall I imitate Christ today?
“It behoveth thee to break thine own will in many things, if thou wilt have peace and concord with others.”
Concord bought by surrendering truth is false, but many quarrels arise from preference rather than principle. Yield what belongs to self-will while holding fast what belongs to God.
Learn to distinguish the two before the moment of conflict. Doctrine, purity, justice, and necessary duty may require firmness. Your preferred method, timing, recognition, or last word usually does not. The soul becomes strong when it stops spending zeal upon the defense of self.
Today's Practice
Yield harmless preferences cheerfully whenever truth and duty do not require firmness.
Before Night Falls
Return the completed day to God.
Give thanks before measuring the day by feeling or visible success. Ask light to see faults without discouragement, make an Act of Contrition, forgive injuries, and place tomorrow beneath divine Providence.
Thank God for the hidden graces of the day. Ask Our Lady to teach you to treasure what Heaven sees rather than what the world applauds.
- 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?
Go Now, Pilgrim
Walk faithfully. Pray attentively. Bear your cross willingly. Love God above all things.
When this day is finished, may you have laid one more stone in the City of God.
You do not walk alone: remain beside the Blessed Virgin as she leads you toward her Divine Son and the Heavenly Jerusalem.
God willing, we shall meet again at tomorrow's pilgrimage.
Source notes for this pilgrimage
Martyrology: The Roman Martyrology, Baltimore, 1916, John Murphy Company; local raw text lines 12269-12304.
- Saint witness: St. Andrew Daily Missal, November 23.
- Saint witness: Roman Martyrology, 1916 Baltimore edition, November 23.
- Breviary witness: Roman Breviary, Matins lessons for November 23, St. Clement.
- Breviary witness: Roman Martyrology, 1916 Baltimore edition, November 23.
- Matins lesson: The Roman Breviary, translated by John, Marquess of Bute, 1908, vol. IV, Autumn, Second Nocturn for St. Clement, lessons iv-vi, printed pp. 763-765.
- Matins lesson: Bute 1908 is used here as an accessible pre-Pius X Breviary witness and is cited distinctly from the 1936-1937 Benziger / Burns Oates edition.
Pilgrim's Mirror: Thomas à Kempis, The Imitation of Christ, translated by Richard Whitford, edited by Wilfrid Raynal, O.S.B. (Mount Vernon, N.Y.: Peter Pauper Press, c. 1947). Today's passage is at Book I, chapter 17, p. 27.
Marian formation: St. Louis-Marie de Montfort, True Devotion to the Blessed Virgin, translated by Fr. Frederick William Faber, 1941 Company of Mary edition, imprimatur September 26, 1949. Today's passage is at True Devotion to the Blessed Virgin, no. 257. The supplied 2010 PDF is used only as a digital transcription of that pre-1955 edition.
- Devotional rhythm: St. Andrew Daily Missal, Dom Gaspar Lefebvre, O.S.B., 1953 edition; proper Mass or devotion named in this entry.
- Devotional rhythm: 2 Machabees 12:43-46, Douay-Rheims.
- Devotional rhythm: Luke 2:19 and John 19:25-27, Douay-Rheims.
- Devotional rhythm: Sister Lucia dos Santos, Fourth Memoir, December 8, 1941, account of the apparition of August 19, 1917.
- Faith point: Pope Pius XI, Quas Primas.
- Faith point: Psalm 2, Douay-Rheims.
- Marian atmosphere and imitation: Luke 1:38, 46-49; Luke 2:19; John 2:5; John 19:25-27; and John 3:30, Douay-Rheims.
- Authority and revolt: Exodus 5:2, Douay-Rheims.
- Daily examen: St. Ignatius of Loyola, Spiritual Exercises, Particular and Daily Examen.