Daily Readings for:March 26, 2014
(Readings on USCCB website)
Collect: Grant, we pray, O Lord, that, schooled through Lenten observance and nourished by your word, through holy restraint we may be devoted to you with all our heart and be ever united in prayer. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.
RECIPES
o New Orleans Shrimp and Spaghetti
ACTIVITIES
PRAYERS
o Prayer for the Third Week of Lent
· Lent: March 26th
· Wednesday of the Third Week of Lent
"If your virtue goes no deeper than that of the scribes and pharisees, you will never get into the kingdom of heaven (Matt. 5:20)." The need to make reparation is a vital, inescapable urge of a free person. His very nature cries out for order and peace. His reason tells him that where an order has been violated, the order must be repaired; and the higher the order, the greater must be the reparation. To be free at all, is to accept the responsibility for atonement. Sin is a violation of God's order. Sin demands reparation — the reparation of personal penance, personal prayer, personal charity to all. Part of our atonement to God is made by serving our fellow men. — Daily Missal of the Mystical Body
Meditation
The story of the Prodigal Son is repeated again today. It is the history of the Church; it is the history of our own desertion. In this Gospel we are given an urgent call to repentance and conversion. "Father, I have sinned." Penance alone can save us. Our Father welcomes us with mercy. The sin and its eternal punishment are forgiven; the good works which we did before sin and the merits which we lost through sin are revived. The Father receives us again as His children, and celebrates a joyful banquet with us at Holy Communion.
In the story of each human life, God's mercy stands on one side and the unfaithfulness of man on the other. Will God have to cast us off as He did the people of Israel? Have we not fully deserved it? Sometimes it appears that God wishes to allow our faithless generation to go its own way. If He does, it will merit a well deserved punishment.
What can save us from rejection? Only penance, self-examination, and conversion. "Be converted to Me with all your heart, in fasting and in weeping and in mourning" (Joel 2:12).
Excerpted from The Light of the World by Benedict Baur, O.S.B.
Things to Do:
- The parable of the lost sheep and the prodigal son in today's Gospel are both very important for your children to learn by heart. The well-known Catechesis of the Good Shepherd for children was developed by Sofia Cavaletti, a Roman Catholic Hebrew scholar who spent 30 years researching the religious development of children, and Gianna Gobbi, an educator who was trained by Maria Montessori. Through her observation of children's responses to different religious themes, Cavaletti found that an overwhelming number of younger children responded especially well to depictions of Christ as the Good Shepherd. Here is a brief article discussing the increasing prevalence of this religious program today. Find out more about this curriculum and try it with your own children. If you are pressed for time, find out about the nearest (Catholic) Good Shepherd program and consider enrolling your child.
The Station, at Rome, is in the church of St. Sisto Vecchio. It was built in the 4th century, and was one of the first parish churches in Rome and was known as the Titulus Crescentianae. Tradition claims that it was founded by Pope Anastasius I.