Sacred Calendar
The Roman year ordered for memory, penance, feasts, saints, and the daily pilgrimage of the faithful.
Calendar standard
Pre-1955 Roman usage
The calendar follows the universal Roman year under the rubrics of Pope St. Pius X, with the Roman Martyrology preserved as a distinct daily witness.
The day is presented for prayer, recollection, study, and perseverance in the City.
Daily observance
Today in the City of God
The Church keeps this day in holy time. The Pilgrim's Companion gathers the feast, daily quote, Martyrology, meditation, prayer, and related chapters into one daily path through the City.
Choose a date
Daily observance
Ash Wednesday
Wednesday, February 18, 2026
Season: Lent
The day is set within the Roman year so its feast, Martyrology, daily quote, prayer, and reading path may be received together without blurring their proper sources.
Today's pilgrimage
Ash Wednesday
Rank: Feria of the First Class
Color: violet
Impeded feast: St. Simeon, Bishop of Jerusalem and Martyr. The temporal observance has precedence. The precise commemoration rule remains tied to the relevant proper and rubric.
Quote for the day
The Prophet Joel
“Be converted to me with all your heart, in fasting, and in weeping, and in mourning.”
Joel 2:12, Douay-Rheims
Roman Martyrology
Roman Martyrology - February 18
At Jerusalem, the birthday of St. Simeon, bishop and martyr, who is said to have been the son of Cleophas, and a relative of the Saviour according to the flesh. He was consecrated bishop of Jerusalem after St. James, the brother of our Lord, and in the persecution of Trajan, after having endured many torments, he consummated his martyrdom. All who were present, even the judge himself, were astonished that a man one hundred and twenty years of age could bear the torment of crucifixion with such fortitude and constancy. — At Ostia, the holy martyrs Maximus and his brother Claudius, and Praepedigna, the wife of Claudius, with her two sons Alexander and Cutias, all of an illustrious family. By the order of Diocletian, they were apprehended and sent into exile. Afterwards being burned alive, they offered to God the sweet-smelling sacrifice of martyrdom. Their remains were cast into the river, but the Christians found them and buried them near that city. — In Africa, the holy martyrs Lucius, Sylvanus, Rutulus, Classicus, Secundinus, Fructulus, and Maximus. — At Constantinople, the holy bishop Flavian, who for having defended the Catholic faith at Ephesus, was buffeted and kicked by the partisans of the impious Dioscorus, and being banished, ended his life within three days. — At Toledo, St. Helladius, bishop and confessor.
Highlighted saint
St. Simeon of Jerusalem
Bishop and martyr, kinsman of Our Lord.
St. Simeon, bishop of Jerusalem and kinsman of Our Lord according to the flesh, is honored as a martyr who suffered in extreme old age.
His feast teaches apostolic endurance across a long life. Age, weakness, and length of trial do not release the soul from fidelity; they can become the final place where fidelity is crowned.
As bishop of Jerusalem, he also reminds the faithful that the Church is historical and visible. The faith was handed through real shepherds, real cities, real persecutions, and real blood.
Virtue to practice
Aged perseverance in apostolic witness.
Error to resist
The discouragement that treats age, weakness, or long trial as permission to loosen fidelity.
For the pilgrim in exile
Ask St. Simeon for the grace to finish well. The last stretch of the road still belongs to Christ.
Imitate today
- Pray for perseverance in old age.
- Honor the visible history of the Church.
- Endure a long duty without resentment.
Sources
- St. Andrew Daily Missal, February 18.
- Roman Martyrology, 1916 Baltimore edition, February 18.
Meditation
The Cross in Exile
The day teaches the soul that humiliation, contradiction, and penance do not mean God has lost His rule. The Cross is the form by which fidelity is purified. The Church in exile must learn to suffer without surrendering truth and to repent without losing hope.
Related paths
Walk the day through the City.
Today's chapters
Read with the feast.
Prayer
The day should become prayer.
O Lord, make doctrine fruitful in habit. Let truth become patience, courage, purity, recollection, penance, charity, and perseverance.
Thought for the pilgrim
Virtue grows by repeated acts under grace.
Practice
The day should become obedience.
Choose one virtue for the day and practice it deliberately before evening.
Source notes
Universal Roman Calendar under the rubrics of Pope St. Pius X
Fasting and abstinence according to the laws observed in 1952
Daily quotations and pilgrimage excerpts should come from Scripture, Fathers, Doctors, saints, traditional popes before 1958, traditional catechisms, approved devotional works, or received liturgical texts.
The Roman Martyrology, Baltimore, 1916, published by John Murphy Company; the local 1916 text is displayed and traceable to its source lines.
- Computed from Gregorian Easter.
- St. Andrew Daily Missal, Liturgical Calendar, pp. xvii–xxviii.