†Saint Quote
"You must make a sound and firm resolution to submit yourselves totally to His will and, with a lively and steadfast faith, to receive from Him what you have to do for love of Him. And in this (whatever may happen) to persevere with constancy to the very end."
–St. Angela Merici †Today's Meditation
"God gives prayer growth precisely according to our degree of readiness for it. He forces no one. According as we are more or less receptive, He bestows more or less depth of communion. In the same manner, five hundred people in a parish church all hear the same sound waves during the homily, but they profit from it exactly as they are or are not disposed for the message. Jesus taught the same truth in his parable of the sower: from the word of God some hearers yield nothing at all, while others yield thirty or sixty or a hundredfold."
—Fr. Thomas Dubay, p. 114 An Excerpt From
Fire Within †Daily Verse
"You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might. And these words which I command you this day shall be upon your heart; and you shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. And you shall bind them as a sign upon your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. And you shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates." Deuteronomy 6:5-9
–Deuteronomy 6:5-9 |  click to read more | | Blessed Margaret of Castello Bl. Margaret of Castello (1287–1320) was born to noble Italian parents who were awaiting the birth of the child of their dreams. Instead, they bore a daughter who was blind, dwarfed, lame, and hunchbacked. Margaret's parents were horrified by the physical appearance of their newborn child, so they hid her and kept her existence secret. A servant had her baptized and named her Margaret, meaning, "Pearl." When she was six years of age she was nearly discovered, so that her father confined her to a cell inside the wall of a church with her necessities given through a window. The parish priest took it upon himself to educate Margaret. She lived in this way until age sixteen, when her parents took her on pilgrimage to a shrine famous for miraculous healings. There they prayed earnestly for their daughter to be cured of her deformities, which they loathed. When no cure came, her parents abandoned her in the streets and returned home, never to see her again. Margaret begged for food and was helped by the town's poor who took turns sheltering her in their homes. She became a Dominican Tertiary and took up the work of serving the sick, dying, and imprisoned. Margaret was known for her great joy, sanctity, and profound mystical experiences. She died at the age of 33, and hundreds of miracles were credited to her intercession both before and after her death. Her body is incorrupt. She is the patron against poverty, and of the disabled, handicapped, and unwanted. Her feast day is April 13th. | Wednesday of Holy Week Lectionary: 259
Reading I Is 50:4-9a The Lord GOD has given me a well-trained tongue,
That I might know how to speak to the weary a word that will rouse them.
Morning after morning he opens my ear that I may hear;
And I have not rebelled, have not turned back.
I gave my back to those who beat me, my cheeks to those who plucked my beard;
My face I did not shield from buffets and spitting. The Lord GOD is my help, therefore I am not disgraced;
I have set my face like flint, knowing that I shall not be put to shame.
He is near who upholds my right; if anyone wishes to oppose me, let us appear together.
Who disputes my right? Let him confront me.
See, the Lord GOD is my help; who will prove me wrong? Responsorial Psalm 69:8-10, 21-22, 31 and 33-34 R. (14c) Lord, in your great love, answer me.
For your sake I bear insult, and shame covers my face.
I have become an outcast to my brothers, a stranger to my mother's sons,
because zeal for your house consumes me, and the insults of those who blaspheme you fall upon me.
R. Lord, in your great love, answer me.
Insult has broken my heart, and I am weak, I looked for sympathy, but there was none; for consolers, not one could I find.
Rather they put gall in my food, and in my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink.
R. Lord, in your great love, answer me.
I will praise the name of God in song, and I will glorify him with thanksgiving:
"See, you lowly ones, and be glad; you who seek God, may your hearts revive!
For the LORD hears the poor, and his own who are in bonds he spurns not."
R. Lord, in your great love, answer me. Verse Before the Gospel Hail to you, our King;
you alone are compassionate with our errors. Or Hail to you, our King, obedient to the Father;
you were led to your crucifixion like a gentle lamb to the slaughter. Gospel Mt 26:14-25 One of the Twelve, who was called Judas Iscariot,
went to the chief priests and said,
"What are you willing to give me
if I hand him over to you?"
They paid him thirty pieces of silver,
and from that time on he looked for an opportunity to hand him over. On the first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread,
the disciples approached Jesus and said,
"Where do you want us to prepare
for you to eat the Passover?"
He said,
"Go into the city to a certain man and tell him,
'The teacher says, "My appointed time draws near;
in your house I shall celebrate the Passover with my disciples."'"
The disciples then did as Jesus had ordered,
and prepared the Passover. When it was evening,
he reclined at table with the Twelve.
And while they were eating, he said,
"Amen, I say to you, one of you will betray me."
Deeply distressed at this,
they began to say to him one after another,
"Surely it is not I, Lord?"
He said in reply,
"He who has dipped his hand into the dish with me
is the one who will betray me.
The Son of Man indeed goes, as it is written of him,
but woe to that man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed.
It would be better for that man if he had never been born."
Then Judas, his betrayer, said in reply,
"Surely it is not I, Rabbi?"
He answered, "You have said so." | Daily Meditation: Matthew 26:14-25 What are you willing to give me? (Matthew 26:15) Talk about lowering your expectations! Judas went to the chief priests to ask what they would give him in exchange for Jesus. Instead, Judas should have gone to Jesus and asked him what he was prepared to give him. Maybe Judas needed the money. But he also needed love and friendship, meaning and purpose. He also needed healing from the sin that was blocking his ability to see Jesus as he truly was. At one time, Judas understood that following Jesus could fulfill his every need, but now he had decided to look elsewhere. When did Judas stop going to Jesus for what he needed? Perhaps it happened gradually as the initial excitement of being a disciple began to wear off. Maybe he thought he had learned all he could from Jesus. Maybe he realized that Jesus was offering things he wasn't really interested in after all. What a tragedy this was! Judas stopped coming to Jesus just when Jesus was about to give him the greatest gifts possible. What was Jesus ready to give Judas—and what is he ready to give us? Let's look at just a few of the great gifts he is holding out to us. At the Last Supper, he revealed that he is ready to give us his own Body and Blood. And not just once, but "as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup" (1 Corinthians 11:26). On the cross, he revealed that he is ready to give us forgiveness for all our sins. At the resurrection, he revealed that he is ready to give us the hope of everlasting life. And in his ascension, he revealed that he is ready to give us the gift of his everlasting ministry of intercession for us (Hebrews 7:25). What he is willing to give us is priceless! We are in the middle of Holy Week. This is the time when Jesus wants to show us how much he has for us. Let's make sure we are open to receiving it. Let's bring him our questions, our needs, and our longings and ask him to fill us. There is so much he wants to give and to reveal. Expect more! "Jesus, thank you for giving yourself to me so completely! Help me turn my heart to you so that you can fill me." Isaiah 50:4-9
Psalm 69:8-10, 21-22, 31, 33-34 | From today's 1st Holy Scripture:
"My face I did not shield from buffets and spitting. The Lord GOD is my help, therefore I am not disgraced; I have set my face like flint" my child, when is the last time you decided to set your face like flint? That is to say, to be resolute and undeterred. I know I've done it a few times in my life. A life commitment. To the end. Have you ever set your face like flint to do God's will, to shoot straight? It is a one way. This is to give. This is to be all in. This is to forget oneself. This is devotion lived out as if to say "it is no longer I that lives...but Christ in me". In this resolution, you have given your life to God. And there will be no regrets when you die and live on forever. For to live is Christ. | We pray in Psalms:
"Insult has broken my heart, and I am weak, I looked for sympathy, but there was none; for consolers, not one could I find. Rather they put gall in my food,
and in my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink. Lord, in your great love, answer me"
Have you ever kicked someone while they were down? Or has anyone ever kicked you while you were down? Which one hurts more? It hurts more to kick someone while they are down. This one will come back to haunt you forever. Being kicked while down is another story, if you are humble and if it is for Christ, it is to gain glory for the Kingdom of God. For to be Christ is to be victorious. | In today's Gospel we heard:
""What are you willing to give me
if I hand him over to you?"
Judas carries on the name of Judah who betrayed Joseph in the Old Testament, and Joseph is a an archetype of Christ, a prefigure if you will, of what Christ would do for the whole world.
Like Moses who provides in Exodus, and like Joseph who provides for his people, Jesus provides the Exodus from death to life, and like Joseph, Jesus provides the dying and rising and providing bread even for the ones who betrayed him. | From Bishop Barron today:
"Friends, in today's Gospel, Jesus asks his disciples to go into Jerusalem and prepare a Passover supper.
At the heart of the Passover meal was the eating of a lamb, which had been sacrificed, in remembrance of the lambs of the original Passover, whose blood had been smeared on the doorposts of the Israelites in Egypt. Making his Last Supper a Passover meal, Jesus was signaling the fulfillment of John the Baptist's prophecy that he, Jesus, would be the Lamb of God and the definitive sacrifice.
This sacrifice is made sacramentally present at every Mass—not for the sake of God, who has no need of it, but for our sake. In the Mass, we participate in the act by which divinity and humanity are reconciled, and we eat the sacrificed body and drink the poured-out blood of the Lamb of God."
Thank You Bishop.
And we read in the Gospel:
""Surely it is not I, Lord?" He said in reply, "He who has dipped his hand into the dish with me is the one who will betray me."_
Who partakes of the bread and betrays God? For the one who betrays God it is better to never have been born.
Yet, today, we make light of our sins. The world teaches everything contrary to God. And the worldly are vying for your children, like a devil waiting to devour the children, waiting for them in hell. And there are souls falling by the millions into hell. Falling for traps, being trapped in sin.
For this today, Jesus our Lord steps in, that we may be free.
Those who think they are free and love sin, they are not free.
Those who think they do not have a problem, have no clear conscious, for even the greatest of saints recognize that they themselves are the greatest of sinners. But it is the opposite for the proud, the full of themselves, instead of poor. These are the ones who have no need of God, no need of church, no need of forgiveness, for they....are perfect in their own esteem.
And so we have to measure our morality by the truth of God Himself. You who are reading this are now ushered in the greatest of missions on earth. For this world is a mission. We are pilgrims. We do not belong here. And it starts with obedience. Jesus obeys Mother Mary. And ends with a kiss of death from one of his own friends. Cursed is the man who trusts in man. But blessed is the man who's whole life depends and lives and dies for God and His holy will. | from your brother in Christ,
Adrian |  click to hear | Random bible verse generator: AMEN! 1 John 2:24–25 24 Let what you heard from the beginning abide in you. If what you heard from the beginning abides in you, then you too will abide in the Son and in the Father. 25 And this is the promise that he made to us1—eternal life. | If one day you don't receive these, just visit Going4th.com
God Bless You! Peace | | |
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