Recurring Events

• January 22 – National Sanctity of Human Life Day, U.S.A. declared by President Donald J. Trump as he addressed the 45th Annual March for Life in Washington, D.C. in 2018.
• January 26, 2020-3rd Sunday in Ordinary Time — Sunday of the Word of God His Holiness Pope Francis announced on September 30, 2019 that the 3rd Sunday in Ordinary time would be devoted to the celebration, study and dissemination of the Word of God. September 30, 2019 celebrates 1600 years since the death of St. Jerome, the man who translated most of the Bible into Latin and who famously said: “Ignorance of Scripture is ignorance of Christ.” Read Motu proprio “Aperuit illis” (He opened their minds to understand the Scriptures)
  January 28—World Leprosy Day
  2018-65th World Leprosy Day Message from Peter Kodwo Appiah Cardinal Turkson [Read Here]
• February 8 – International Day of Prayer against Human Trafficking on the Feast Day of St. Josephine Bakhita, a Sudanese nun, who as a child had the traumatic experience of being a victim of human trafficking.
• February 11 is World Day of the Sick, begun in the Diocese of Krakow by Blessed Hanna Chrzanowska, RN in collaboration with Fr. Karol Woyjtla and implemented in the Universal Church by Pope Saint John Paul II, observation of this day is a way to offer prayers for those suffering from illnesses of all kinds, those who care for the sick, and, indeed, for all people of good will. [READ Inaugral Message, 1993]
• February 28—Rare Disease Day
  2018 – 11th Rare Disease Day – Message from Peter Kodwo Appiah Cardinal Turkson [Read Here]
• April 2—World Autism Awareness Day
• April 28 — Anniversary of the beatification of Blessed Hanna Chrzanowska, RN, the first lay Catholic Registered Nurse to be beatified. Blessed Hanna taught Community Health Nursing but was too Christian so the communist moved her to teach at the Psychiatric Hospital outside Krakow. After she took the student nurses on pilgrimage to the Black Madonna (picture of the Blessed Virgin Mary painted by St. Luke), she was fired. It was then that she established Parish Nursing in Krakow and met the young priest Karol Wojytla, who as a Cardinal officiated at her funeral mass. [READ MORE]
• May 6-12—National Nurses Week, U.S.A.
• May 12—Florence Nightingale anniversary of birth. Pioneer of Public Health and founder of modern nursing. Named after the city in which she was born, Florence, Italy. In late 1854, Nightingale received a letter from Secretary of War Sidney Herbert, asking her to organize a corps of nurses to tend to the sick and fallen soldiers in the Crimea. Given full control of the operation, she quickly assembled a team of almost three dozen nurses from a variety of religious orders and sailed with them to Scutari, Turkey just a few days later. Her work reduced the hospital’s death rate by two-thirds. The soldiers, who were both moved and comforted by her endless supply of compassion, took to calling her “the Lady with the Lamp.” Others simply called her “the Angel of the Crimea.” [READ MORE]
• July 16-Feast Day of the Patron Saint of Nurses and Nursing Associations, Saint Camillus de Lellis (1550-1614), Founder of the Ministers of the Sick. St. Camillus was canonized in 1746, and was, with St. John of God, declared patron of the sick by Pope Leo XIII, and of nurses and nursing associations by Pope Pius XI.
• October 11, 2017—World Sight Day
  2017-30th World Sight Day Message from Peter Kodwo Appiah Cardinal Turkson [Read Here]
• 33rd Sunday in Ordinary Time (in 2017 was Nov 19) – World Day of the Poor, established by His Holiness Pope Francis in 2017. “It is my wish that, in the week preceding the World Day of the Poor, which falls this year on 19 November, the Thirty-third Sunday of Ordinary Time, Christian communities will make every effort to create moments of encounter and friendship, solidarity and concrete assistance. They can invite the poor and volunteers to take part together in the Eucharist on this Sunday, in such a way that there be an even more authentic celebration of the Solemnity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, Universal King, on the following Sunday.” [READ Inaugural Message]
• November 23—Mary Jane Seacole OM (née Grant; 1805 – 14 May 1881) was a British-Jamaican business woman and nurse who set up the British Hotel behind the lines during the Crimean War.
  December 3, International Day of Persons with Disabilities Read 2019 Message from His Holiness Pope Francis
• December 8, Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception patroness of the National Association of Catholic Nurses, U.S.A.

Day of the Week Recurring Events

• SUNDAY – The Day of Our Lord – The Day of the Resurection of Our Lord Jesus Christ — Now the 1st day of the week on which we celebrate our Lord’s resurrection from the dead.
• FRIDAY – The Day of the Death of Our Lord Jesus Christ at the 3pm hour – the Hour of Mercy
  A day of fast and penance in remembrance of the sacrifice of our Lord and God Jesus Christ, 2nd Person of the Blessed Trinity.
  Code of Canon Law 1250 states that the days and times of penance for the whole Church are the Fridays of the entire year, and the season of Lent.
  1983 Revision of the Code of Canon Law – 1251 gives further details on just how Catholics are to make these days penitential: Unless a solemnity falls on a Friday, abstinence from meat, or some other food as determined by the Bishops’ Conference, is to be observed on all Fridays; while Ash Wednesday and Good Friday are days of both abstinence and fasting.1966-USCCB Pastoral Statement on Penance and Abstinence – “Friday itself remains a special day of penitential observance throughout the year…For this reason we urge all to prepare for that weekly Easter that comes with each Sunday by freely making of every Friday a day of self-denial and mortification in prayerful remembrance of the passion of Jesus Christ… …Among the works of voluntary self-denial and personal penance which we especially commend to our people for the future observance of Friday, even though we hereby terminate the traditional law of abstinence binding under pain of sin, as the sole prescribed means of observing Friday, we give first place to abstinence from flesh meat. We do so in the hope that the Catholic community will ordinarily continue to abstain from meat by free choice as formerly we did in obedience to the Church law… (Nos. 19-24).
  Pastoral Statement on Penance and Abstinence, November 18, 1966 [Read Here]
• 1st Friday Devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus [READ MORE]
• 1st Saturday Devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary [READ MORE]