June 29 is the combined celebration of Saints Peter and Paul, both apostles and martyrs. It is a solemnity, the highest rank for a liturgical feast, and when it falls on a Sunday of Ordinary Time, it outranks the Ordinary Sunday and is celebrated, instead.
This is Year B of the liturgical cycle, the year that highlights the Gospel of Mark. With the passing of Pentecost, late Ordinary time begins, the longer, later segment of Ordinary Time that extends from the conclusion of the Easter Season until the beginning of Advent, from June to the end of November.
St. Anthony of Padua was born in Lisbon, Portugal, in 1195. His baptismal name was Ferdinand, and he was a member of the prominent Bouillon or Buglione family.
The Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ is celebrated every year on the Second Sunday after Pentecost. The traditional name for the feast is Corpus Christi. It is one of the three doctrinal feasts celebrated during Ordinary Time.
During the Fourth and Fifth Centuries, the Church was beset by conflict over different understandings of the God the Father, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit, who they are and their relationship to each other. A series of three major ecumenical councils addressed these questions and progressively defined the Church’s doctrine of the Most Holy Trinity.
The Seventh Sunday of Easter is the Solemnity of the Ascension of the Lord, how the Father lifted the Son from the earth after the Resurrection, bought him back to heaven, and enthroned him in glory and power at his right hand (Mk 16:19; Acts 2:33; 5:31; 7:55,56; Eph 1:20). The Ascension is a major mystery of our Christian faith, so important that it is the second Glorious Mystery of the Rosary.
“I am the true vine” (Jn 15:1), “You are the branches” (Jn 15:5), and he made the profound observation: “A branch cannot bear fruit on its own” (Jn 15:4). “Apart from me you can do nothing” (Jn 15:5).
St. Louis Mary de Montfort is also known as St. Louis Grignion de Montfort and St. Louis Mary Grignion. He was born on January 31, 1673, in Montfort in Brittany, France, the eldest of eight children in a very poor family. He entered the college in Rennes, France, at the age of twelve, where he was educated by the Jesuits.
Length. The Easter Season is fifty days, not forty days, like Lent, or four weeks or slightly less, like Advent. The Easter Season extends from Easter Sunday to Pentecost. It is sometimes known as the “Festival of Weeks,” seven weeks of seven days (49 days), plus one, the fiftieth day, Pentecost.
There is a unique detail that stands out in Mark’s gospel account of the Resurrection. Peter receives special mention. There was a young man clothed in a white robe sitting inside the tomb.
It has traditionally been known as Palm Sunday because the Mass begins with a gospel text that recounts how palm branches were used to welcome Jesus into Jerusalem, and because palm branches are blessed at the beginning of Mass and carried in procession as part of the Entrance Rite. It has also traditionally been known as Passion Sunday because the Passion Narrative is proclaimed during the Liturgy of the Word.
