An excerpt from the Responsorial Psalm in today’s Mass for the Friday after Ash Wednesday: Psalm 51:19 “A crushed spirit is a sacrifice to God. A contrite and humbled heart, O God, you will not spurn.” via Catholic Public Domain Version of the Sacred Bible. A crushed spirit is the person who is aware of …
This is an excerpt from the Gospel of today’s Mass for the Thursday after Ash Wednesday. Luke 9: 23 “Then he said to everyone: “If anyone is willing to come after me: let him deny himself, and take up his cross every day, and follow me.” via Catholic Public Domain Version of the Sacred Bible. …
In the rooms of AA, I’ve learned that gratitude means “wanting what you have.” At first I had thought this was silly and trite. Of course, I “want what I have!” But upon further thinking it became obvious the trite phrase has a deeper meaning. In our alcoholism, one drink was never enough. The idea …
On Page 552 of the “Big Book” of Alcoholics Anonymous (their basic text), there is a very helpful suggestion on how to rid yourself of resentments towards a person. You pray for them every day for two weeks. According to the writer of that Big Book chapter, they had held a deep resentment towards someone. …
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An excerpt from the First Reading of today’s Mass for the Second Sunday of Lent is from Genesis 12:4: “Abram went as the LORD directed him” via USCCB. Abram, later renamed Abraham, goes forth with the promise that he will be made the father of great nations with innumerable descendants. While that may be appealing …
In the Gospel Reading for Saturday of the First Week of Lent (I had meant to post this yesterday, but was having connectivity issues with the blog) (Matthew 5:43-48), Jesus said to his disciples: “You have heard that it was said, You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy. But I say to you, …
The Gospel reading from today’s Mass is from Luke. In this excerpt (Luke 5:27-28), we read about the call of Levi, the tax collector: After this he went out and saw a tax collector named Levi sitting at the customs post. He said to him, “Follow me.” And leaving everything behind, he got up and …
The response for the Psalm (Psalm 51:9) for today’s Mass is: “a contrite, humbled heart, O God, you will not scorn.” As this is Lent, chances are that if you are taking it seriously as a means of spiritual progression in the rejecting of sin and self-will, as well as in the casting off of …
An excerpt from the Gospel Reading for today’s Mass: Luke 9:23-25: “Then he said to all, “If anyone wishes to come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will …
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Today is Day 9 and thus the final one in our Novena of Mary Undoer of Knots. We ask Mary’s intercession for “this knot in my life…You know very well the suffering it has caused me…” So, what knot is it? Is it the same one you may have prayed about daily, or one of …
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