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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.

Daily observance

Feria of Passiontide

Monday, March 23, 2026

Season: Passiontide

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

Feria of Passiontide

Rank: Feria

Color: violet

Quote for the day

Pope St. Leo the Great

“Truth, which is simple and one, admits of no variety.”

Roman Martyrology

Roman Martyrology - March 23

In Africa, the holy martyrs Victorian, proconsul of Carthage, and two brothers, of Aquaregia. Also two merchants, named Frementius, who, bishop Victor Africanus tells us, were subjected to most atrocious torments for their coureageous confession of the Catholic faith, and gloriously crowned under the Arian king Hunneric, during the persecution of the Vandals. Also in Africa, St. Fidelis, martyr. — In the same country, St. Felix, and twenty others. — At Caesarea, in Palestine, the holy martyrs Nicon, and twenty-nine others. — Also, the crowning of the holy martyrs Domitius, Pelagia, Aquila, Eparchius, and Theodosia. — At Lima, in Peru, the archbishop St. Turibius, through whose labors faith and ecclesiastical discipline were diffused through America. — At Antioch, St. Theodulus, priest. — At Caesarea, St. Julian, confessor. — In Campania, St. Benedict, a monk, who was shut up by the Goths in a burning furnace, but was the next day found uninjured. — At Barcelona, in Spain, St. Joseph Oriol, priest and beneficiary of the church of St. Mary of the Kings. He was remarkable for his love of poverty and his charity towards the needy and the infirm. Distinguished both in life and after death by the working of miracles, he was placed in the number of the Saints by Pius X.

Read and verify the full entry

Highlighted saint

The Passiontide Feria

The veiled days near the Passion of Our Lord.

The ferias of Passiontide draw the faithful nearer to the sufferings of Christ, when the Church's prayer grows more grave and the Cross comes into sharper view.

These days teach that the Passion is not only remembered on Good Friday. The soul is led step by step into compunction, reparation, silence, and fidelity to the rejected Messias.

This is a good time to stop explaining away small betrayals. Passiontide asks the soul to look at sin near the wounds of Christ, where excuses lose their power and mercy becomes grave and beautiful.

Virtue to practice

Compunction and reparation.

Error to resist

The shallow Lent that wants discipline without entering the sorrow and love of the Passion.

For the pilgrim in exile

Walk more quietly now. Passiontide teaches the exile to stay near Christ when His glory is veiled and His enemies gather.

Imitate today

  • Make an act of reparation to the suffering Christ.
  • Keep a little silence in honor of His Passion.
  • Accept one contradiction without complaint.
  • Name one sin plainly before God and ask for hatred of it.

Sources

  • St. Andrew Daily Missal, Proper of the Time, Passiontide ferias.
  • John 8:46-59, Douay-Rheims.

Breviary Witness

Nearer to the rejected Christ.

Matins - Feria of Passiontide

Breviary witness

  • The Passiontide ferias draw the faithful more directly toward the sufferings and rejection of Our Lord.
  • Their witness teaches silence, compunction, reparation, and steadfastness before the mystery of Christ opposed by sinners.

For the pilgrim in exile

Do not flee the veiled days. Nearness to the Passion teaches the soul how to remain faithful when Christ is contradicted.

Sources

  • Roman Breviary, ferial Matins in Passiontide.
  • St. Andrew Daily Missal, Passiontide ferias.

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.

Prayer

The day should become prayer.

O Lord, keep me near Thy Cross when comfort, acceptance, and ease invite me elsewhere. Let fidelity be stronger than the desire to belong.

Thought for the pilgrim

The faithful remain at the Cross when the multitude walks past it.

Practice

The day should become obedience.

Stand with one difficult truth today even if silence would be easier.

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.

  • St. Andrew Daily Missal, Division of the Ecclesiastical Year, p. x: Lent has a proper Mass for each feria; other ferias without a proper Mass use the Mass of the Sunday.
  • This is a temporal fallback only; it does not assert a saint, a fast, or an unentered proper Mass.
Browse the Roman Martyrology