Monday of the Twelfth Week in Ordinary Time, Optional Memorials of St. Paulinus of Nola, St. Thomas More, and St. John Fisher
God our creator, you gave us the earth to cultivate and the sun to serve our needs. Help us to spend this day for your glory and our neighbor’s good. We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, Your Son, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever. Amen.
Daily Thought from the Saints
"For true hearts there is no separating ocean; or, rather, God is their ocean, in Whom they meet and are united; they love, and lose themselves in Him and in each other."
— St. Théodore Guérin
Daily Scripture Verse
"Give ear to my words, O Lord; give heed to my groaning. Hearken to the sound of my cry, my King and my God, for to thee do I pray. O Lord, in the morning thou dost hear my voice; in the morning I prepare a sacrifice for thee, and watch. For thou art not a God who delights in wickedness; evil may not sojourn with thee."
Psalm 5:1-4
Daily Meditation
"Jesus Christ did not think the sovereign beatitude and glory of Heaven too dearly purchased at the price of unspeakable tortures, and by suffering His sacred flesh to be mangled by nails, thorns, and scourges. Great indeed must be the value of that which cost the Son of God so dear! And yet we esteem it so little, as to be even ready to renounce our claim to it, as, in fact, so many of us do, for the sake of some wretched pleasure or despicable interest! Ye blind and deluded children of men, contemplate the Wounds of your Crucified God, and see in what manner the gates of the kingdom of glory have been opened to you! See what it has cost Him to place you in possession of it, and understand, if possible, how infinite a benefit was bestowed upon you by the Son of God when He purchased for you Heaven, which you had lost by sin! ... Enter in spirit into these sacred Wounds, and you will comprehend the value and sublimity of that eternal felicity which they have acquired for you, and you will learn to detach your heart from the earth and from creatures, so as to place all your affections and desires upon Heaven."
— Fr. Ignatius of the Side of Christ
Day by Day with Mary, the Mother of God
At the moment that Mary pronounced fiat or “Be it done,” something greater happened than the fiat lux or “Let there be light,” of creation, for the light that was now made was not the sun, but the Son of God in the flesh.
—Archbishop Fulton Sheen
A Prayer from Notre Dame University
Rev. Thomas McNally, C.S.C.
Lord, there are many kinds of blindness. We know that we are blind at times about what we should do or how we should live. In our blindness, we often pass by someone who needs a kind word or a helping hand. Improve our vision so that we can be ready to see what you want us to do and who you want us to help. Amen.