Daily Thought from the Saints
"Force yourself, if necessary, always to forgive those who offend you, from the very first moment. For the greatest injury or offense you can suffer from them is nothing compared to what God has forgiven you."
— St. Josemaria Escriva
Daily Scripture Verse
"For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, virtue with knowledge, knowledge with self-control, self-control with endurance, endurance with devotion, devotion with mutual affection, mutual affection with love. If these are yours and increase in abundance, they will keep you from being idle or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ."
2 Peter 1:5-8
Daily Meditation
"Like an hourglass with a certain number of grains of sand within it, God has appointed your life to last only a certain number of days, and you have absolutely no idea how many there are. ... In God’s presence, consider: I have no idea when my life will end. All I know is that death will come for me eventually. Am I doing anything to prepare for the real possibility that God may call me, sooner rather than later? If he called me into eternity today, would I be ready?"
— Patrick Madrid
Daily Catholic Wisdom
God’s love can unleash its power only when it is allowed to change us from within. We have to let it break through the hard crust of our indifference, our spiritual weariness, our blind conformity to the spirit of this age.
—Pope Benedict XVI
from his book, “God Is Ever New”
A Prayer from Notre Dame University
Rev. Paul Kollman, C.S.C.
God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the healing power of your Son was made manifest through signs and wonders during his earthly ministry. Open our eyes to the ways of grace at work among us in these Lenten days. We ask this through Christ our Lord. Amen.
The Abbot’s Daily Lectio Divina
Abbot Austin Murphy, O.S.B., St. Procopius Abbey, Lisle, IL
Ezekiel 47:12
Reading
[The angel said to Ezekiel,] “Along both banks of the river [that flowed from the temple], fruit trees of every kind shall grow; their leaves shall not fade, nor their fruit fail. Every month they shall bear fresh fruit, for they shall be watered by the flow from the sanctuary. Their fruit shall serve for food and their leaves for medicine.“
Meditation
I imagine the fruit of these trees as sweet and their leaves as less appealing, even bitter. But the leaves, says the reading, are medicinal, that is, they have the power to heal. God sometimes puts things in our lives that are not appealing, and are even bitter, but that are nonetheless healing. Our first instinct is to avoid them, but we need them for healing. Are there bitter or unpleasant things in our lives that we need to embrace for our healing?
Prayer
Help me, O Lord, to be a good patient of Yours, taking what you prescribe for my healing, even when it is unpleasant, for I want to be made whole in You. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.
Contemplation…