Second Sunday After Epiphany

Second Sunday After Epiphany

The Wedding Feast at Cana by Paolo Veronese (1563)

And the third day, there was a marriage in Cana of Galilee: and the mother of Jesus was there. And Jesus also was invited, and his disciples, to the marriage (John 2:1-2).

Dear friends in Christ

Welcome to our weekly Sunday update. The liturgy for this Sunday (January 14, 2024), the second after the Epiphany of Our Lord, includes Saint John’s account of the first miracle performed by Jesus: the changing of water into wine during the wedding feast at Cana. Seemingly not ready yet to reveal himself to the world, Jesus yields to the promptings of His Blessed Mother and quietly sets His ministry in motion. “This beginning of miracles did Jesus in Cana of Galilee: and manifested his glory, and his disciples believed in him” (John 2:11).

In this update we share information about Sunday’s Mass and other Latin Masses scheduled during the week ahead.

Second Sunday after the Epiphany

The links provided below can be used to download printable copies of the Proper Prayers for the Second Sunday after the Epiphany with either English or Spanish translation. In addition, we offer a link to an article by Dr. Michael P. Foley on “The Orations of the Second Sunday after Epiphany” published by New Liturgical Movement.

Calendar of Saints and Special Observances

Celebrations listed are those on the traditional liturgical calendar found in the Roman Missal of 1962.

  • Sunday, January 14th – Second Sunday after Epiphany
  • Monday, January 15th – Saint Paul, the First Hermit, Confessor
  • Tuesday, January 16th – Saint Marcellus I, Pope and Martyr
  • Wednesday, January 17th – Saint Anthony, Abbot
  • Thursday, January 18th - Saint Prisca, Virgin and Martyr
  • Friday, January 19th – Saints Marius, Martha, Audifax and Abachum, Martyrs
  • Saturday, January 20th – Saint Fabian, Pope, and Saint Sebastian, Martyrs

Schedule of Latin Masses for Sunday, January 14th (Second Sunday after the Epiphany)

Charlotte Area Latin Masses

  • 11:30 a.m., Saint Thomas Aquinas
  • 12:30 p.m., Saint Ann

Other Diocese of Charlotte Latin Masses

  • 8:30 a.m., Saint John the Baptist (Tryon)
  • 9:00 a.m., Our Lady of the Angels (Marion)
  • 1:00 p.m., Our Lady of Grace (Greensboro)
  • 1:00 p.m., Church of the Epiphany* (Blowing Rock)

Diocese of Charleston Latin Masses

  • 12:00 p.m., Prince of Peace (Taylors SC)
  • 1:00 p.m., Our Lady of the Lake (Chapin SC)

Schedule of Weekday Latin Masses

Wednesday, January 17th, Saint Anthony, Abbot

  • 6:00 p.m., Saint Ann

Thursday, January 18th, Saint Prisca, Virgin and Martyr

  • 7:00 p.m., Saint Thomas Aquinas

Friday, January 19th, Saints Marius, Martha, Audifax and Abachum, Martyrs

  • 7:00 a.m., Saint Ann
  • 9:30 a.m., Church of the Epiphany* (Blowing Rock, NC)
  • 12:00 p.m., Prince of Peace (Taylors SC) (See note below)

Note: The Traditional Latin Mass is offered daily at Prince of Peace in Taylors, South Carolina: Monday-Friday at 12:00 p.m. and Saturday at 8:00 a.m., in addition to the Latin Mass on Sunday at 12:00 p.m.

* As of Sunday January 14, the Traditional Latin Mass previously celebrated at Saint Elizabeth of the Hill Country in Boone will be moved to their mission church, Church of the Epiphany in Blowing Rock, NC. The address is 163 Galax Lane Blowing Rock, NC 28605.

Readers are advised to consult parish bulletins and calendars regarding possible changes to regularly scheduled Mass times.

Holy Face Devotions

Prayers of Reparation to the Holy Face of Jesus will be offered at the following churches during the coming week:

  • St. James (Concord) – Monday, 10-10:30 a.m. (in the cry room)
  • St. Mark – Monday, 5:00 p.m.
  • St. Thomas Aquinas – Tuesday, 6:00 a.m.
  • St. Ann – Tuesday, 7:30 a.m. (following 7:00 a.m. Novus Ordo Mass)
  • St. Michael the Archangel (Gastonia) – Tuesday, 9:00 a.m.
  • Holy Spirit (Denver) – Tuesday, 10-11:00 a.m. (following the 9:15 a.m. Novus Ordo Mass)

Meal Assistance

Matthew and Katherine Gallegos, who attend the Saint Ann Latin Mass, recently welcomed their first child, Gabriela Noelle Gallegos. Please consider providing the blessing of a meal during this important period of recovery and transition: https://takethemameal.com/ZUHC4630

Steve and Meghann Cunningham, who also attend the Saint Ann Latin Mass, recently welcomed a new addition to their family and could use some help with meals in the weeks ahead. Please consider providing a meal for the Cunningham family at their Meal Train website: https://www.mealtrain.com/trains/lk59nw

Christmas Season Continues Through February 2nd

Contrary to the secular world’s calendar, the great Benedictine liturgist Dom Prosper Guéranger reminds us in The Liturgical Year that the Christmas season that began on December 25th will continue for forty days until the Feast of the Purification of the Blessed Mother on February 2nd:

We apply the name of Christmas to the forty days which begin with the Nativity of our Lord, December 25, and end with the Purification of the Blessed Virgin, February 2. It is a period which forms a distinct portion of the Liturgical Year, as distinct, by its own special spirit, from every other, as are Advent, Lent, Easter, or Pentecost. One same Mystery is celebrated and kept in view during the whole forty days. Neither the Feasts of the Saints, which so abound during this Season; nor the time of Septuagesima, with its mournful Purple, which often begins before Christmastide is over, seem able to distract our Holy Mother the Church from the immense joy of which she received the good tidings from the Angels [St Luke ii 10] on that glorious Night for which the world had been longing four thousand years. The Faithful will remember that the Liturgy commemorates this long expectation by the four penitential weeks of Advent.

The custom of celebrating the Solemnity of our Saviour’s Nativity by a feast or commemoration of forty days’ duration is founded on the holy Gospel itself; for it tells us that the Blessed Virgin Mary, after spending forty days in the contemplation of the Divine Fruit of her glorious Maternity, went to the Temple, there to fulfil, in most perfect humility, the ceremonies which the Law demanded of the daughters of Israel, when they became mothers.

The Feast of Mary’s Purification is, therefore, part of that of Jesus’ Birth; and the custom of keeping this holy and glorious period of forty days as one continued Festival has every appearance of being a very ancient one, at least in the Roman Church. [History of Christmas]

Latin Mass and Liturgical News

  • When Does the Christmas Season End? asks Gregory DiPippo in an article posted on New Liturgical Movement that provides clarity regarding the length of the Christmas season. [When Does the Christmas Season End]
  • Durandus on the Epiphany (Parts 1 & 2) presents the commentary for the feast of Epiphany by the 13th century bishop of Mende (France), William Durandus, one of the great liturgical writers of the medieval period. [Durandus On Epiphany Part I] [Durandus On Epiphany Part II]
  • Dom Guéranger on the Epiphany: The monks at Clear Creek Abbey in Oklahoma, who are associated with the Solesmes Abbey in France founded by the great Benedictine liturgist Dom Prosper Guéranger (whom, as our readers know, we often quote), share his beautiful reflection on the greatness of the Epiphany season and how it is truly a second Christmas Day wherein Christ manifests his Divinity. [Dom Guéranger on the Epiphany]

Saints and Special Celebrations

Saint Hilary, Bishop of Poitiers, Confessor and Doctor of the Church, is honored each year in the liturgy for the 14th of January, the date occupied by the saint on the traditional Roman Calendar. This year, however, the commemoration of Saint Hilary is superseded by celebration of the Second Sunday after Epiphany. As an alternative to the liturgical recognition afforded this great saint in most years, we offer the following excerpts from remarks delivered by Pope Benedict XVI during a General Audience in Saint Peter’s Square on Wednesday, the 10th of October, in the year of Our Lord 2007:

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

Today, I would like to talk about a great Father of the Church of the West, St Hilary of Poitiers, one of the important Episcopal figures of the fourth century. In the controversy with the Arians, who considered Jesus the Son of God to be an excellent human creature but only human, Hilary devoted his whole life to defending faith in the divinity of Jesus Christ, Son of God and God as the Father who generated him from eternity.

We have no reliable information on most of Hilary's life. Ancient sources say that he was born in Poitiers, probably in about the year 310 A.D. From a wealthy family, he received a solid literary education, which is clearly recognizable in his writings. It does not seem that he grew up in a Christian environment. He himself tells us of a quest for the truth which led him little by little to recognize God the Creator and the incarnate God who died to give us eternal life. Baptized in about 345, he was elected Bishop of his native city around 353-354. In the years that followed, Hilary wrote his first work, Commentary on St Matthew's Gospel. It is the oldest extant commentary in Latin on this Gospel. In 356, Hilary took part as a Bishop in the Synod of Béziers in the South of France, the "synod of false apostles", as he himself called it since the assembly was in the control of Philo-Arian Bishops who denied the divinity of Jesus Christ. "These false apostles" asked the Emperor Constantius to have the Bishop of Poitiers sentenced to exile. Thus, in the summer of 356, Hilary was forced to leave Gaul.

Banished to Phrygia in present-day Turkey, Hilary found himself in contact with a religious context totally dominated by Arianism. Here too, his concern as a Pastor impelled him to work strenuously to re-establish the unity of the Church on the basis of right faith as formulated by the Council of Nicea. To this end he began to draft his own best-known and most important dogmatic work: De Trinitate (On the Trinity). Hilary explained in it his personal journey towards knowledge of God and took pains to show that not only in the New Testament but also in many Old Testament passages, in which Christ's mystery already appears, Scripture clearly testifies to the divinity of the Son and his equality with the Father. To the Arians he insisted on the truth of the names of Father and Son, and developed his entire Trinitarian theology based on the formula of Baptism given to us by the Lord himself: "In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Spirit".

_____

In the years of his exile, Hilary also wrote the Book of Synods in which, for his brother Bishops of Gaul, he reproduced confessions of faith and commented on them and on other documents of synods which met in the East in about the middle of the fourth century. Ever adamant in opposing the radical Arians, St Hilary showed a conciliatory spirit to those who agreed to confess that the Son was essentially similar to the Father, seeking of course to lead them to the true faith, according to which there is not only a likeness but a true equality of the Father and of the Son in divinity. This too seems to me to be characteristic: the spirit of reconciliation that seeks to understand those who have not yet arrived and helps them with great theological intelligence to reach full faith in the true divinity of the Lord Jesus Christ.

In 360 or 361, Hilary was finally able to return home from exile and immediately resumed pastoral activity in his Church, but the influence of his magisterium extended in fact far beyond its boundaries. A synod celebrated in Paris in 360 or 361 borrows the language of the Council of Nicea. Several ancient authors believe that this anti-Arian turning point of the Gaul episcopate was largely due to the fortitude and docility of the Bishop of Poitiers. This was precisely his gift: to combine strength in the faith and docility in interpersonal relations. In the last years of his life he also composed the Treatises on the Psalms, a commentary on 58 Psalms interpreted according to the principle highlighted in the introduction to the work: "There is no doubt that all the things that are said in the Psalms should be understood in accordance with Gospel proclamation, so that, whatever the voice with which the prophetic spirit has spoken, all may be referred nevertheless to the knowledge of the coming of Our Lord Jesus Christ, the Incarnation, Passion and Kingdom, and to the power and glory of our resurrection" (Instructio Psalmorum, 5). He saw in all the Psalms this transparency of the mystery of Christ and of his Body which is the Church. Hilary met St Martin on various occasions: the future Bishop of Tours founded a monastery right by Poitiers, which still exists today. Hilary died in 367. . . . In 1851 Blessed Pius IX proclaimed him a Doctor of the universal Church. [Benedict XVI, General Audience October 10, 2007]

Closing Commentary

Continuation of a Guided Tour of Christmas and Epiphany with Dom Prosper Guéranger

Letting Dom Guéranger be our “tour guide” through the Christmas and Epiphany seasons, we share some of his beautiful writings on the joy of Christmas, the Baptism of Jesus, and the sanctoral (saintly) cycle of Christmastide beginning on January 14th. We believe his writings are seen in their fullest flower during the Advent and Christmas season; we hope our readers will agree after reading the following excerpts from The Liturgical Year:

The Joy of Christmas

But our Mother, the Church, does not only offer to the Infant God the tribute of her profound adoration. The mystery of Emmanuel, that is, of God with us, is to her a source of singular joy. Look at her sublime Canticles for this holy Season, and you will find the two sentiments admirably blended - her deep reverence for her God, and her glad joy at his Birth. Joy! did not the very Angels come down and urge her to it? She therefore studies to imitate the blithe Shepherds, who ran for joy to Bethlehem [St Luke ii 16], and the glad Magi, who were well-nigh out of themselves with delight when, on quitting Jerusalem, the star again appeared and led them to the Cave where the Child was [St Matt. ii 10]. Joy at Christmas is a Christian instinct, which originated those many Carols, which, like so many other beautiful traditions of the ages of Faith, are unfortunately dying out amongst us; but which Rome still encourages, gladly welcoming each year those rude musicians, the Pifferari, who come down from the Apennines, and make the streets of the Eternal City re-echo with their shrill melodies.

This is not the season for sighing or for weeping. For unto us a Child is born! [Isa. ix 6]. He for whom we have been so long waiting is come; and he is come to dwell among us [St John i 14]. Great, indeed, and long was our suspense; so much the more let us love our possessing him. The day will too soon come when this Child, now born to us, will be the Man of Sorrows [Isa. liii 3], and then we will compassionate him; but at present we must rejoice and be glad at his coming and sing round his Crib with the Angels. Heaven sends us a present of its own joy: we need joy, and forty days are not too many for us to get it well into our hearts. The Scripture tells us that a secure mind is like a continual feast [Prov. xv 15], and a secure mind can only be where there is peace; now it is Peace which these blessed days bring to the earth; Peace, say the Angels, to men of good will! [Practice During Christmas]

January 13 – the Baptism of Our Lord (The Octave of Epiphany)

[The thirteenth of January, which traditionally (i.e., before 1955) was the Octave Day of Epiphany, is also the Commemoration of the Baptism of Our Lord Jesus Christ, a feast that focuses on the third Epiphany of Christ, that of his baptism, an event that made his presence in the world known to an expanding audience. We share another brief excerpt from Dom Guéranger’s The Liturgical Year:]

The thoughts of the Church, today, are fixed on the Baptism of our Lord in the Jordan, which is the second of the three Mysteries of the Epiphany. The Emmanuel manifested himself to the Magi, after having shown himself to the Shepherds; but this manifestation was made within the narrow space of a stable at Bethlehem, and the world knew nothing of it. In the Mystery of the Jordan, Christ manifested himself with greater publicity. His coming is proclaimed by the Precursor; the crowd, that is flocking to the river for Baptism, is witness of what happens; Jesus makes this the beginning of his public life. But who could worthily explain the glorious circumstances of this second Epiphany?

It resembles the first in this, that it is for the benefit and salvation of the human race. The Star has led the Magi to Christ; they had long waited for his coming, they had hoped for it; now, they believe. Faith in the Messias’ having come into the world is beginning to take root among the Gentiles. But faith is not sufficient for salvation; the stain of sin must be washed away by water. He that believeth and is baptised, shall be saved. (St. Mark, xvi. 16.) The time is come, then, for a new manifestation of the Son of God, whereby there shall be inaugurated the great remedy, which is to give to Faith the power of producing life eternal. [The Octave of Epiphany]

Here Come the Saints of Christmastide (January 14 – February 1)

[After the Baptism of Our Lord on January 13th, the Christmas season moves into its final phase, focusing – in the days remaining before The Purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary on February 2nd – on the saints of the Christmas season: the man and women whose lives, works, and virtues lead us back to the crib in Bethlehem, as Dom Prosper Gueranger notes when examining the first of these saints, Hilary of Poitiers (whose feast is superseded this year by the Second Sunday after Epiphany):

After having consecrated the joyous Octave of the Epiphany to the glory of the Emmanuel who was manifested to the earth, the Church—incessantly occupied with the Divine Child and his august Mother during the whole time from Christmas Day to that whereon Mary will bring Jesus to the Temple, there to be offered to God as the law prescribes—the Church, we say, has on her Calendar of this portion of the year the names of many glorious Saints who shine like so many stars on the path which leads us from the joys of the Nativity of our Lord to the sacred mystery of our Lady’s Purification.

And firstly, there comes before us, on the very morrow of the day consecrated to the Baptism of Jesus, the faithful and courageous Hilary—the pride of the Churches of Gaul and the worthy associate of Athanasius and Eusebius of Vercelli in the battle fought for the Divinity of our Emmanuel.

Scarcely were the cruel persecution of paganism over when there commenced the fierce contest with Arianism, which had sworn to deprive of the glory and honors of his divinity that Jesus, who had conquered, by his Martyrs, over the violence and craft of the Roman Emperors. The Church had won her liberty by shedding her blood, and it was not likely that she would be less courageous on the new battlefield into which she was driven. Many were the Martyrs that were put to death by her new enemies—Christian, though heretical, Princes: it was for the Divinity of our Lord, who had mercifully appeared on the earth in the weakness of human flesh, that they shed their blood.

Thus did the holy bishop, Hilary of Poitiers, receive the honors of the Church’s love for his having so courageously, and even at the peril of his life, fought in defense of the great Mystery. Another of his glories is that he was one of the most intrepid champions of that principle which cannot be compromised without the vitality and very existence of the Church being endangered—the principle of that Church’s Liberty. A few days ago we were celebrating the Feast of our holy Martyr St. Thomas of Canterbury; today we have the Feast of the glorious Confessor whose example enlightened and encouraged him in the great struggle.

The Apostles and the Saints were strong in the battle against flesh and blood, only because they were detached from earthly goods, and were convinced that the true riches of a Christian and a Bishop consist in the humility and poverty of the Crib, and that the only victorious power is in the imitation of the simplicity and the weakness of the Child that is born unto us. They relished the lessons of the School of Bethlehem; hence, no promise of honors, of riches, or even of peace, could make them swerve from the principles of the Gospel. [January 14 – Feast of Saint Hilary, Bishop, Confessor, & Doctor of the Church]

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