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
13th Sunday after Pentecost
Sunday, September 3, 2028
Season: Time after Pentecost
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
13th Sunday after Pentecost
Rank: Semi-Double Sunday
Color: green
Impeded feast: St. Pius X, Pope and Confessor. The temporal observance has precedence. The precise commemoration rule remains tied to the relevant proper and rubric.
Quote for the day
St. Bernard of Clairvaux
“I answer, the reason for loving God is God Himself; and the measure of love due to Him is immeasurable love.”
The Book of Saint Bernard on the Love of God, Chapter 1
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.
September intention
The Seven Sorrows of the Blessed Virgin Mary
Our Lady did not flee the Cross. By remembering her sorrows, the pilgrim learns compassion for the Passion of Christ, patience in affliction, and fidelity when consolation is withdrawn.
Intention
For those crushed by grief, for sinners at the hour of death, and for the grace to carry every cross without abandoning Christ.
A faithful act
Accept sorrows without murmuring and offer them with Our Lady for dying souls.
Prayer
Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary, keep us faithful beside the Cross of Jesus.
Sunday remembrance
The Most Holy Trinity
Sunday belongs first to the worship of God and the commemoration of the Resurrection. Adore the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, from Whom every grace descends and to Whom the whole Christian life must return.
Intention
For the worthy worship of God, fidelity to Sunday Mass, and the restoration of Christian observance of the Lord's Day.
A faithful act
Protect the day from unnecessary servile work and give God an unhurried period of worship, doctrine, or spiritual reading.
Prayer
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost, now and forever.
Roman Martyrology
Roman Martyrology - September 3
At Rome, St. Serapia, virgin. Under the emperor Adrian, she was delivered to two lascivious young men, and as she could not be corrupted, nor afterwards burned with lighted torches, she was beaten with rods, and finally beheaded, by order of the judge Berillus. She died on the 29th of July, and was buried by blessed Sabina in her own sepulchre, near the field of Vindician. But the commemoration of her martyrdom is celebrated more solemnly on this day, when their common tomb was finished and adorned, and dedicated as a place of prayer. — At Corinth, the birthday of St. Phoabe, mentioned by the blessed apostle Paul in his epistle to the Komans. — At Aquileia, the holy virgins and martyrs Euphemia, Dorothea, Thecla, and Erasma. Under Nero, after enduring many torments, they were slain with the sword, and buried by St. Hermagoras. — At Capua, the holy martyrs Aristseus, bishop, and Antoninus, a boy. — At Nicomedia, the martyrdom of St. Basillissa, virgin and martyr, in the persecution of Diocletian, under the governor Alexander. At the age of nine years, after having, through the power of God, overcome scourging, fire, and the beasts, she gave up her soul to her Creator in prayer. — Also, the holy martyrs Zeno and Chariton. The one was cast into a caldron of melted lead, the other into a burning furnace. — At Cordova, St. Sandalus, martyr. — The same day, the birthday of the holy martyrs Aigulphus, abbot of Lerins, and the monks, his companions, who, after their tongues were cut off, and their eyes plucked out, were killed with the sword. — At Toul, in France, St. Mansuetus, bishop and confessor. — At Milan, the demise of St. Auxanus, bishop. — The same day, St. Simeon Stylites, the younger. — At Rome, the raising to the Sovereign Pontificate of St. Gregory the Great, an incomparable man, who, being forced to take that burden upon himself, sent forth from the more exalted throne brighter rays of sanctity upon the world.
Highlighted saint
13th Sunday after Pentecost
The grateful leper returns.
The Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost gives the healing of the ten lepers, of whom only one returns to give glory to God.
The day teaches gratitude, faith, and the danger of receiving mercy externally while failing to return interiorly to the Giver.
Gratitude is not only polite feeling. It returns to Christ, gives Him glory, and refuses to use His gifts while forgetting His rights.
Virtue to practice
Grateful faith.
Error to resist
The ingratitude that receives cleansing and walks away from Christ.
For the pilgrim in exile
Be the one who returns. Gratitude keeps mercy from becoming merely a benefit consumed and forgotten.
Imitate today
- Return thanks for concrete mercies.
- Let gratitude become worship.
- Avoid using gifts while forgetting the Giver.
- Thank God aloud for the mercies you usually pass over.
Sources
- Luke 17:11-19, Douay-Rheims.
- St. Andrew Daily Missal, Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost.
From Matins
Leprosy as a figure of false doctrine.
Matins - Third Nocturn - 13th Sunday after Pentecost
St. Augustine, Bishop of Hippo, Gospel Questions
“There is no false doctrine but hath some truth mixed up with it.”
Doctrine taught
- The Breviary reads the lepers as a figure of souls disfigured by mixed doctrine, where truth and falsehood are confused together.
- St. Augustine teaches that false teaching often keeps fragments of truth while corrupting the whole by disorder and mixture.
- Christ the Good Master cleanses doctrinal leprosy, but the diseased soul must stand afar off and cry for mercy.
For the pilgrim in exile
Do not be impressed by error because it contains some true words. Ask Christ to cleanse the whole mind, not merely improve its language.
Full Breviary lessons
Seventh Lesson - St. Augustine on the Ten Lepers
The Lesson is taken from the Holy Gospel according to Luke (xvii. 11.) It came to pass, as JESUS went to Jerusalem, that He passed through the midst of Samaria and Galilee. And, as He entered into a certain village, there met Him ten men that were lepers. And so on. Homily by St. Augustine, Bishop [of Hippo.] (Bk. ii. Gospel Questions, ch. 40.) The ten lepers "lifted up their voices and said: JESUS, Master, have mercy on us. And when He saw them, He said unto them: Go, show yourselves unto the Priests. And it came to pass that, as they went, they were cleansed." Question: why did the Lord send them unto the Priests, that, as they went, they might be cleansed? Lepers were the only class among those upon whose bodies He worked mercy, whom we find that He sent unto the Priests. It is written in another place that He said to a leper whom He had cleansed: "Go, and show thyself to the Priest, and offer for thy cleansing according as Moses commanded, for a testimony unto them" (Luke v. 14, Lev. xiv. 1 et seq.) We ask then, of what leprosy was a type, whereof they that were ridded were called, not "healed," but "cleansed." It is a disease which doth first appear in the skin, but destroyeth not immediately the strength, nor the use of feeling and the limbs.
Eighth Lesson - False Doctrine Figured by Leprosy
By lepers, therefore, we may not absurdly suppose such to be figured as have not the knowledge of the true faith, but do show forth divers parti-coloured teachings of error. They hide not their witlessness, but do use all such wit as they have to make it manifest, and proclaim it in high-sounding phrases. There is no false doctrine but hath some truth mixed up with it. A man's discourse then, with some truths in it unequally mingled with falsehoods, and all confounded in one mass, is like to the body of one that is stricken with leprosy, whereon all manner of foul colours do appear in this and that place along with the true colour of skin.
Ninth Lesson - Cleansed by the Good Master
Such men as these are banished out of the walls of the Church, to the end that haply when they stand afar off they may lift up their voices and cry to Christ for pardon, just as those ten men that were lepers, which stood afar off, outside the village, lifted up their voices and said: "JESUS, Master, have mercy on us." That they styled Him Master, by which title I know not if any besought the Lord for bodily healing, I think doth sufficiently show that leprosy signifieth false doctrine, whereof the Good Master doth cleanse us.
Sources
- The Roman Breviary, translated by John, Marquess of Bute, 1908, vol. IV, Autumn, Third Nocturn for the 13th Sunday after Pentecost, lessons vii-ix, printed pp. 325-326.
- 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.
Breviary Witness
Only one returned to give glory.
Matins - 13th Sunday after Pentecost
Breviary witness
- The Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost gives the healing of the ten lepers and the gratitude of the one who returned.
- Its witness teaches that grace received must become thanksgiving, worship, and deeper faith, lest mercy be used and forgotten.
For the pilgrim in exile
Return to give thanks. Gratitude keeps the soul near the Giver after the gift has been received.
Sources
- Roman Breviary, Matins lessons for the Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost.
- Luke 17:11-19, Douay-Rheims.
Gospel of the day
And he was a Samaritan.
13th Sunday after Pentecost - Luke 17:11-19
“Were not ten made clean? and where are the nine?”
What Our Lord teaches
- Christ heals ten lepers, but only one returns to give thanks.
- Gratitude completes the movement of mercy by returning the soul to the Giver.
Virtue to practice
Give thanks specifically for graces already received.
Error to resist
The entitlement that receives mercy and forgets the merciful Lord.
For the pilgrim in exile
Return and thank Him. Gratitude is one of the simplest ways for a healed soul to stay near the Healer.
Sources
- Luke 17:11-19, Douay-Rheims.
- Traditional Roman Gospel for the 13th Sunday after Pentecost.
Meditation
The Church Made Public
At Pentecost the Holy Ghost strengthened the apostles to preach Christ publicly and carry the Gospel to the nations. His work is not private excitement separated from doctrine, worship, and the authority Christ established. The faithful should ask Him for zeal that makes them more obedient to revealed truth, more constant in charity, and more courageous in Catholic witness.
Related paths
Walk the day through the City.
Today's chapters
Read with the feast.
Prayer
The day should become prayer.
O Lord, preserve me from fair appearances that hide error. Teach me to love truth more than comfort, approval, or the peace that leaves souls wounded.
Thought for the pilgrim
Be not deceived is a daily rule, not a rare warning.
Practice
The day should become obedience.
Ask where you may be excusing error because it appears gentle, modest, familiar, or socially peaceful.
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, Liturgical Calendar, p. xv: the third through twenty-third Sundays after Pentecost are semi-doubles; the twenty-fourth Sunday is fixed at the end of the cycle.
- St. Andrew Daily Missal, Liturgical Calendar, pp. xiii and xv: the remaining third through sixth Sundays after the Epiphany are restored before the twenty-fourth Sunday after Pentecost as the year requires.
- Sacred Congregation of Rites, decree extending the feast of St. Pius X to the universal Church on September 3, March 1, 1955, Acta Apostolicae Sedis 47 (1955), p. 256. Retained as a legitimate addition promulgated under Pope Pius XII without adopting the reformed Holy Week.
- St. Andrew Daily Missal, Dom Gaspar Lefebvre, O.S.B., 1953 edition; proper Mass or devotion named in this entry.
- Luke 2:34-35 and John 19:25-27, Douay-Rheims.
- Matthew 28:19, Douay-Rheims.