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
Third Sunday of Advent
Sunday, December 17, 2028
Season: Advent
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
Third Sunday of Advent
Rank: Sunday of the Second Class
Color: violet
Quote for the day
Brother Lawrence of the Resurrection
“If it sometimes wander and withdraw itself from Him, do not much disquiet yourself for that: trouble and disquiet serve rather to distract the mind than to re-collect it: the will must bring it back in tranquility.”
The Practice of the Presence of God: The Best Rule of a Holy Life, Eighth Letter
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.
December intention
The Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary
As Advent prepares the Church for the Nativity, the Immaculate Conception displays God's victorious preparation of the Mother of the Redeemer. Ask for hatred of sin, purity of heart, and readiness to receive Christ.
Intention
For the preservation of baptismal innocence, the recovery of purity through repentance, and faithful preparation for the coming of Our Lord.
A faithful act
Remove voluntary occasions of sin and needless distractions as an Advent offering through Our Lady.
Prayer
O Mary, conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee, and prepare our souls for 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 - December 17
At Eleutheropolis, in Palestine, the holy martyrs Florian, Calanicus and their fifty-eight companions, who were massacred by the Saracens for the faith of Christ, in the time of the emperor Heraclius. — At Marseilles, in France, blessed Lazarus, bishop, who was raised from the dead by our Lord, as we read in the Gospel. — At Rome, St. John de Matha, founder of the Order of the Most Holy Trinity for the Redemption of Captives. His festival is observed on the 8th of February, according to the decree of Innocent XI. — In the monastery of Fulda, the holy abbot Sturmius, abbot and apostle of Saxony, who was ranked among the saints by Innocent II., in the second Council of Lateran. — At Bigarden, near Brussels, St. Vivina, virgin, whose eminent sanctity is attested by frequent miracles. — At Constantinople, St. Olympiades, widow. — At Andenne, at the Seven Churches, St. Begga, widow, sister of St. Gertrude. — The same day, the translation of St. Ignatius, bishop and martyr, who, the third after the blessed apostle Peter, governed the Church of Antioch. His body was conveyed from Rome, where he had suffered under Trajan, to Antioch, and deposited in the church cemetery beyond the gate of Daphnis. St. John Chrysostom, on that solemn occasion, delivered a discourse to his people. But afterwards his relics were carried back to Rome, and placed with the highest reverence in the church of St. Clement, together with the body of that blessed pope and martyr.
From Matins
St. John Baptist and the humility of truth.
Matins - Third Nocturn - Third Sunday of Advent
Pope St. Gregory the Great, Homily 7 on the Gospels
“He soberly chose rather to seem only what he really was.”
Doctrine taught
- The Breviary contemplates St. John Baptist confessing the truth about himself and refusing a dignity that did not belong to him.
- St. Gregory teaches that John's humility made him a member of Christ, precisely because he would not take Christ's title.
- True greatness in the Church is not self-enlargement, but faithful witness to the One who comes.
For the pilgrim in exile
Learn John's clean humility. Say what is true, refuse borrowed glory, and let every office, talent, and word point past you to Christ.
Sources
- The Roman Breviary, translated by John, Marquess of Bute, 1908, vol. I, Winter, Third Nocturn for the Third Sunday of Advent, lessons vii-ix.
- 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.
Gospel of the day
Make straight the way of the Lord.
Third Sunday of Advent - John 1:19-28
“I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness, Make straight the way of the Lord.”
What Our Lord teaches
- St. John refuses borrowed glory and gives all attention to Christ.
- True joy is not self-display, but making a straight road for the Lord.
Virtue to practice
Practice humility by decreasing so Christ may be better known.
Error to resist
The vanity that wants religious work to become self-importance.
For the pilgrim in exile
Let Gaudete joy be quiet and clean. A soul becomes lighter when it stops needing to be the center of the scene.
Sources
- John 1:19-28, Douay-Rheims.
- Traditional Roman Gospel for the Third Sunday of Advent.
Meditation
O Wisdom, Order the Soul
The Church begins the great O Antiphons by calling upon eternal Wisdom, who reaches from end to end and orders all things sweetly. The world calls self-direction freedom, but the soul becomes peaceful only when Christ orders its loves beneath His law. Ask Him to show you the next step of prudence and then obey it.
Related paths
Walk the day through the City.
Today's chapters
Read with the feast.
Prayer
The day should become prayer.
O eternal Wisdom, come and teach me the way of prudence; order my mind, affections, and duties beneath Thy reign.
Thought for the pilgrim
Divine Wisdom does not flatter disorder; He restores all things to their right end.
Practice
The day should become obedience.
Begin putting every disordered duty, possession, or use of time already known to you into a clear and Godward order.
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. ix: Advent I is a Sunday of the first class; Advent II–IV are Sundays of the second class.
- St. Andrew Daily Missal, Dom Gaspar Lefebvre, O.S.B., 1953 edition; proper Mass or devotion named in this entry.
- Genesis 3:15 and Luke 1:28, Douay-Rheims.
- Matthew 28:19, Douay-Rheims.