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
Feria of Septuagesima
Monday, February 28, 2028
Season: Septuagesima
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 Septuagesima
Rank: Feria
Color: violet
Quote for the day
St. Paul
“Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?”
Acts 9:6, Douay-Rheims
The pilgrim's devotional rhythm
Keeping the month and the weekday in prayer
This chosen devotional rhythm does not change the feast, rank, or obligations shown above. It gives the passing days a steady intention, helping the pilgrim honor God, intercede for souls, and carry one Catholic practice into the day. It is a household aid to devotion, not another law of the Roman Calendar.
February intention
The Holy Family
At Nazareth, Jesus, Mary, and Joseph show how hidden duties become holy when they are performed in obedience and charity. This month asks the pilgrim to carry the order of Nazareth into his own home.
Intention
For Catholic homes, the preservation of marriage and family life, and families divided by sin, error, absence, or sorrow.
A faithful act
Perform your ordinary household duties promptly and without complaint for the good of those entrusted to you.
Prayer
Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, order our homes in truth, purity, obedience, and peace.
Monday remembrance
The Holy Souls in Purgatory
Begin the working week with an act of mercy toward the faithful departed. Their helplessness calls forth charity, while their purification reminds the living to repent before death.
Intention
For the most abandoned soul in Purgatory and for deceased relatives, benefactors, priests, and those who have no one to pray for them.
A faithful act
Offer the first difficulty of the week for the Holy Souls and pray the De profundis.
Prayer
Eternal rest give unto them, O Lord; and let perpetual light shine upon them.
Roman Martyrology
Roman Martyrology - February 28
At Rome, the birthday of the holy martyrs Maca rius, Rufinus, Justus, and Theophilus. — At Alex andria, the passion of the Saints Cserealis, Pupulus, Caius, and Serapion. — In the same city, in the reign of the emperor Valerian, the commemoration of the holy priests, deacons, and other Christians in great number, who encountered death most willingly by nursing the victims of a most deadly pestilence then raging. They have been generally revered as martyrs by the pious faithful. — In the territory of Lyons, on Mount Jura, the demise of St. Romanus, abbot, who was the first to lead the eremitical life there. His reputation for virtues and miracles brought under his guidance numerous monks. — At Pavia, the translation, from the island of Sardinia, of the bod of St. Augustine, bishop, by Luitprand, king of the Lombards.
Highlighted saint
St. Romanus
Abbot remembered in the Roman Martyrology.
The Roman Martyrology remembers St. Romanus as an abbot whose monastic life was formed by solitude, prayer, discipline, and perseverance.
His witness teaches that a soul is not made free by following every impulse. Holy rule, silence, labor, and obedience make room for God.
The monastic witness is not remote from ordinary homes. Every Catholic needs some rule of life, some custody of speech, some restraint of appetite, and some faithful return to prayer.
Virtue to practice
Stable discipline under God.
Error to resist
The restless self-rule that calls every discipline narrow and every impulse freedom.
For the pilgrim in exile
Ask St. Romanus for steadiness. Even outside the cloister, the soul needs rule enough to belong to God with peace.
Imitate today
- Renew your complete rule of daily prayer.
- Keep custody over speech or appetite.
- Practice hidden obedience whenever duty is unseen.
Sources
- Roman Martyrology, 1916 Baltimore edition, February 28.
From the Roman Martyrology
The solitary whose virtue gathered a disciplined household for God.
Martyrology - Martyrology Notice - St. Romanus, Abbot
Roman Martyrology, Notice for February 28
“His reputation for virtues and miracles brought under his guidance numerous monks.”
Doctrine taught
- The Martyrology remembers St. Romanus as the first to lead the eremitical life on Mount Jura and as an abbot whose virtues drew numerous monks beneath his guidance.
- Solitude did not become self-rule. Prayer, discipline, and perseverance prepared Romanus to govern a stable religious household ordered toward God.
- The monastic witness reaches ordinary Catholic life: freedom from impulse requires a rule of prayer, custody of speech and appetite, faithful labor, and obedience to duty.
For the pilgrim in exile
Ask St. Romanus for stability under God. Renew the whole rule of prayer and duty entrusted to you, especially where hidden obedience has been weakened by restlessness.
Sources
- The Roman Martyrology, Baltimore: John Murphy Company, 1916, February 28, printed p. 61; local checked transcription at content/martyrology/roman-martyrology-1916-raw.txt, lines 2380-2402.
Meditation
Today in the City of God
The Church does not leave the faithful to pass through time as though days were neutral. This observance teaches the soul to receive the day under grace, to remember what God has done, and to let sacred time order study, prayer, and perseverance.
Related paths
Walk the day through the City.
Today's chapters
Read with the feast.
Prayer
The day should become prayer.
O Lord, bring this day to judgment before Thy mercy. Show me where I obeyed, where I resisted, where I loved, and where I must begin again.
Thought for the pilgrim
The day must end beneath truth.
Practice
The day should become obedience.
End the day with thanksgiving, examination, contrition, and a firm purpose for tomorrow.
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 ordinarily come from eligible Catholic sources issued no later than December 31, 1954: Scripture, Fathers, Doctors, saints, Roman Pontiffs, traditional catechisms, approved devotional works, and received liturgical texts. Legitimate additions promulgated under Pope Pius XII may be retained when identified precisely; this does not adopt the reformed Holy Week or later rubrical changes.
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.
- St. Andrew Daily Missal, Dom Gaspar Lefebvre, O.S.B., 1953 edition; proper Mass or devotion named in this entry.
- Luke 2:51-52, Douay-Rheims.
- Psalm 129 and 2 Machabees 12:43-46, Douay-Rheims.