†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 †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 |  click to read more | | St. Margaret of Castello St. 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. She was beatified in 1609. In 2021, recognizing her life of heroic virtue, Pope Francis declared her a saint through an equipollent canonization. Her feast day is April 13. | Thursday in the Octave of Easter Reading 1 Acts 3:11-26 As the crippled man who had been cured clung to Peter and John,
all the people hurried in amazement toward them
in the portico called "Solomon's Portico."
When Peter saw this, he addressed the people,
"You children of Israel, why are you amazed at this,
and why do you look so intently at us
as if we had made him walk by our own power or piety?
The God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob,
the God of our fathers, has glorified his servant Jesus
whom you handed over and denied in Pilate's presence,
when he had decided to release him.
You denied the Holy and Righteous One
and asked that a murderer be released to you.
The author of life you put to death,
but God raised him from the dead; of this we are witnesses.
And by faith in his name,
this man, whom you see and know, his name has made strong,
and the faith that comes through it
has given him this perfect health,
in the presence of all of you.
Now I know, brothers and sisters,
that you acted out of ignorance, just as your leaders did;
but God has thus brought to fulfillment
what he had announced beforehand
through the mouth of all the prophets,
that his Christ would suffer.
Repent, therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be wiped away,
and that the Lord may grant you times of refreshment
and send you the Christ already appointed for you, Jesus,
whom heaven must receive until the times of universal restoration
of which God spoke through the mouth
of his holy prophets from of old.
For Moses said: A prophet like me will the Lord, your God, raise up for you
from among your own kin;
to him you shall listen in all that he may say to you.
Everyone who does not listen to that prophet
will be cut off from the people. "Moreover, all the prophets who spoke,
from Samuel and those afterwards, also announced these days.
You are the children of the prophets
and of the covenant that God made with your ancestors
when he said to Abraham,
In your offspring all the families of the earth shall be blessed.
For you first, God raised up his servant and sent him to bless you
by turning each of you from your evil ways." Responsorial Psalm ps 8:2ab and 5, 6-7, 8-9 R.(2ab) O Lord, our God, how wonderful your name in all the earth!
or:
R. Alleluia.
O LORD, our Lord,
how glorious is your name over all the earth!
What is man that you should be mindful of him,
or the son of man that you should care for him?
R. O Lord, our God, how wonderful your name in all the earth!
or:
R. Alleluia.
You have made him little less than the angels,
and crowned him with glory and honor.
You have given him rule over the works of your hands,
putting all things under his feet.
R. O Lord, our God, how wonderful your name in all the earth!
or:
R. Alleluia.
All sheep and oxen,
yes, and the beasts of the field,
The birds of the air, the fishes of the sea,
and whatever swims the paths of the seas.
R. O Lord, our God, how wonderful your name in all the earth!
or:
R. Alleluia. Alleluia Ps 118:24 R. Alleluia, alleluia.
This is the day the LORD has made;
let us be glad and rejoice in it.
R. Alleluia, alleluia. Gospel Lk 24:35-48 The disciples of Jesus recounted what had taken place along the way,
and how they had come to recognize him in the breaking of bread. While they were still speaking about this,
he stood in their midst and said to them,
"Peace be with you."
But they were startled and terrified
and thought that they were seeing a ghost.
Then he said to them, "Why are you troubled?
And why do questions arise in your hearts?
Look at my hands and my feet, that it is I myself.
Touch me and see, because a ghost does not have flesh and bones
as you can see I have."
And as he said this,
he showed them his hands and his feet.
While they were still incredulous for joy and were amazed,
he asked them, "Have you anything here to eat?"
They gave him a piece of baked fish;
he took it and ate it in front of them. He said to them,
"These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you,
that everything written about me in the law of Moses
and in the prophets and psalms must be fulfilled."
Then he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures.
And he said to them,
"Thus it is written that the Christ would suffer
and rise from the dead on the third day
and that repentance, for the forgiveness of sins,
would be preached in his name
to all the nations, beginning from Jerusalem.
You are witnesses of these things."
| Daily Meditation: Luke 24:35-48 The Christ would suffer and rise from the dead. (Luke 24:46) Faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful than a locomotive . . . It's Superman! In that famous comic, the bad guys didn't stand a chance when Superman arrived on the scene. He always defeated them. Readers knew the story line, and it was fun to watch it unfold. In a way, this was the "story line" that many Israelites expected for their hoped-for Messiah. When God sent his Anointed One to rescue his people, he would come with power, and through him, God would utterly destroy Israel's enemies. Nobody expected a Messiah who would suffer and die. That would be like Superman being defeated! Such an ending doesn't just ruin the script; it means he's not Superman—or the Messiah. In fact, when God did send the Messiah, one of the things that most confused even Jesus' own followers was that he had suffered and died. "We were hoping that he would be the one to redeem Israel," the disciples told the risen Lord on the road to Emmaus (Luke 24:21). Because he had been crucified, it seemed obvious to them that he wasn't who they had hoped he would be. But Jesus' resurrection burst that old script to pieces. As he explained to these two disciples on that first Easter Sunday, the Scriptures actually did foretell a Messiah who would suffer and rise again (Luke 24:46). God had indeed freed his people from their worst enemies, but he did it by taking on human suffering and by draining it of its power. The great surprise of the gospel is that the Messiah was not Superman. He was far greater. He suffered and died out of love for humankind—love for you, personally, and for everyone else. But through that suffering, he was victorious. God's perfect love, not superhuman strength, defeated sin and death. We don't have to be Supermen and women, either. We don't have to rely on our own strength; the risen Jesus empowers us to walk in his ways. And when we do sin, we know that because of Jesus' suffering and death, we can repent and be forgiven. This is a story line only God could have written. Today, praise him for all he has done for you in Christ! "Lord Jesus, thank you for dying and rising out of love for me!" Acts 3:11-26
Psalm 8:2, 5-9 |  click to hear 2cents | Listen to my2cents audio. Share the link if you like:
Click to hear it My 2 cents with your brother Adrian | From today's 1st Holy Scripture:
"A prophet like me will the Lord, your God, raise up for you from among your own kin; to him you shall listen in all that he may say to you. Everyone who does not listen to that prophet will be cut off from the people." | We pray today:
"O LORD, our Lord, how glorious is your name over all the earth!
What is man that you should be mindful of him,
or the son of man that you should care for him?
O Lord, our God, how wonderful your name in all the earth!" | In the Gospel today we heard: ""Have you anything here to eat?"
They gave him a piece of baked fish;
he took it and ate it in front of them." Our Lord reminds the disciples that He is not just a ghost. He takes fish and eats with them. How does this even happen? To a human mind accustomed to only the physical senses, this does not make sense!
But, because our Lord is the God of the impossible, everything changes.
A crippled man from birth leaps for joy, in the church, he is reunited.
A blind man from birth sees people like trees, and then our Lord lets Him see how man sees, in their "normal' sense.
A deaf man speaks, and this is impossible because a deaf person cannot speak clearly because they cannot hear.
People with all sorts of diseases are healed instantly.
And the dead? HE commands them to rise and they rise out of their tombs.
How is this even possible?
This means nothing is impossible...with Him.
Wouldn't you like to be with Him then?
Wouldn't you like to live in the impossible world with Him?
Then let's do the impossible now!
I find myself in family, faith, or at work, always at odds with what seems to be a negative world. Everybody is so negative!
At church they say the people are never coming back. Not true! There are droves of people on the return! There aren't enough priests in the world!
They say that some in our family will never get better, or that addicted friend is gone. Not true! In an instant things can change, it's just a matter of the mind!
At work people think things are not fixable. Not true! It's just a matter of finding the way!
Some say our country is doomed. Well....LOL, HAHA. How much debt can we continue to accumulate? We are loading a ship with too much weight. How can we stop loading and start unloading? Wars, famines, pestilence, sin abounds. Are we doomed? Countries like this can only implode. That is, to corrode from within. And that is what can easily happen, and it happens by the body of the people that make up the nation. And so, it boils down, like Church, to me and you.
You are to make that difference. Everybody makes the difference happen.
Our Lord has done His part.
Now it is up to the rest of the body to follow suit, the head, and the Savior, our dear Lord Jesus Christ! | Let's pray:
...†...
Lord, help us with true integrity, in our faith. Help us appreciate this phenomenal gift of faith and use it to light the world on fire with Your love and Your light. | Random Bible Verse 1
Psalm 29:11 " May the LORD give strength to his people! May the LORD bless1 his people with peace!" | If one day you don't receive these, just visit Going4th.com
God Bless You! Peace | | |
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