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March 9, 2016 Wednesday of the Fourth Week of Lent Reading 1 Is 49:8-15 Thus says the LORD:In a time of favor I answer you,on the day of salvation I help you;and I have kept you and given you as a covenant to the people,To restore the landand allot the desolate heritages,Saying to the prisoners: Come out!To those in darkness: Show yourselves!Along the ways they shall find pasture,on every bare height shall their pastures be.They shall not hunger or thirst,nor shall the scorching wind or the sun strike them;For he who pities them leads themand guides them beside springs...

March 8, 2016 Tuesday of the Fourth Week of Lent Reading 1 Ez 47:1-9, 12 The angel brought me, Ezekiel,back to the entrance of the temple of the LORD,and I saw water flowing outfrom beneath the threshold of the temple toward the east,for the façade of the temple was toward the east;the water flowed down from the right side of the temple,south of the altar.He led me outside by the north gate,and around to the outer gate facing the east,where I saw water trickling from the right side.Then when he had walked off to the eastwith a measuring cord...

March 7, 2016 Monday of the Fourth Week of Lent Reading 1 Is 65:17-21 Thus says the LORD:Lo, I am about to create new heavensand a new earth;The things of the past shall not be rememberedor come to mind.Instead, there shall always be rejoicing and happinessin what I create;For I create Jerusalem to be a joyand its people to be a delight;I will rejoice in Jerusalemand exult in my people.No longer shall the sound of weeping be heard there,or the sound of crying;No longer shall there be in itan infant who lives but a few days,or an old man...

March 4, 2016 Friday of the Third Week of Lent Reading 1 Hos 14:2-10 Thus says the LORD:Return, O Israel, to the LORD, your God;you have collapsed through your guilt.Take with you words,and return to the LORD;Say to him, “Forgive all iniquity,and receive what is good, that we may renderas offerings the bullocks from our stalls.Assyria will not save us,nor shall we have horses to mount;We shall say no more, ‘Our god,’to the work of our hands;for in you the orphan finds compassion.” I will heal their defection, says the LORD,I will love them freely;for my wrath is turned...

President Barack Obama presents the Medal of Honor to Senior Chief Special Warfare Operator Edward Byers, U.S. Navy SEAL, in the East Room of the White House, Feb. 29, 2016. Senior Chief Byers receives the Medal of Honor for his courageous actions while serving as part of a team that rescued an American civilian being held hostage in Afghanistan on December 8-9, 2012. (Official White House Photo by Chuck Kennedy)On Monday, Navy Senior Chief Edward C. Byers Jr. was awarded the Medal of Honor in a White House ceremony.The 36-year-old SEAL received the U.S. Military’s highest honor for his...

March 3, 2016 Thursday of the Third Week of Lent Reading 1 Jer 7:23-28 Thus says the LORD: This is what I commanded my people:Listen to my voice;then I will be your God and you shall be my people.Walk in all the ways that I command you,so that you may prosper. But they obeyed not, nor did they pay heed.They walked in the hardness of their evil heartsand turned their backs, not their faces, to me.From the day that your fathers left the land of Egypt even to this day,I have sent you untiringly all my servants the prophets.Yet...

February 23, 2016 Tuesday of the Second Week of Lent Reading 1 Is 1:10, 16-20 Hear the word of the LORD,princes of Sodom!Listen to the instruction of our God,people of Gomorrah! Wash yourselves clean!Put away your misdeeds from before my eyes;cease doing evil; learn to do good.Make justice your aim: redress the wronged,hear the orphan's plea, defend the widow. Come now, let us set things right,says the LORD:Though your sins be like scarlet,they may become white as snow;Though they be crimson red,they may become white as wool.If you are willing, and obey,you shall eat the good things of the...

February 22, 2016 Feast of the Chair of Saint Peter, Apostle Reading 1 1 Pt 5:1-4 Beloved:I exhort the presbyters among you,as a fellow presbyter and witness to the sufferings of Christand one who has a share in the glory to be revealed.Tend the flock of God in your midst,overseeing not by constraint but willingly,as God would have it, not for shameful profit but eagerly.Do not lord it over those assigned to you,but be examples to the flock.And when the chief Shepherd is revealed,you will receive the unfading crown of glory. Responsorial Psalm PS 23:1-3a, 4, 5, 6 R....

Mercy Heals Fear to TrustKathleen Beckman Fear is listed in the Catechism under the category of the morality of the passions. Fear is a human passion. Passions are neutral, "neither good or evil" (CCC 1767). There are many passions, but the principal ones are "love and hatred, desire and fear, joy, sadness, and anger" (CCC 1772). "Emotions and feelings can be taken up into the virtues or perverted by the vices" (CCC 1769). Our fear trigger can be used for good or for evil. God asks us to trust in Him so that our fears are "brought into the...

February 17, 2016 Wednesday of the First Week in Lent Reading 1 Jon 3:1-10 The word of the LORD came to Jonah a second time:"Set out for the great city of Nineveh,and announce to it the message that I will tell you."So Jonah made ready and went to Nineveh,according to the LORD's bidding.Now Nineveh was an enormously large city;it took three days to go through it.Jonah began his journey through the city,and had gone but a single day's walk announcing,"Forty days more and Nineveh shall be destroyed,"when the people of Nineveh believed God;they proclaimed a fastand all of them, great...

February 14, 2016 First Sunday of Lent Reading 1 Dt 26:4-10 Moses spoke to the people, saying: "The priest shall receive the basket from you and shall set it in front of the altar of the LORD, your God.Then you shall declare before the Lord, your God, 'My father was a wandering Aramean who went down to Egypt with a small household and lived there as an alien.But there he became a nation great, strong, and numerous.When the Egyptians maltreated and oppressed us, imposing hard labor upon us, we cried to the LORD, the God of our fathers, and...

February 7, 2016 Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time Reading 1 Is 6:1-2a, 3-8 In the year King Uzziah died,I saw the Lord seated on a high and lofty throne,with the train of his garment filling the temple.Seraphim were stationed above. They cried one to the other,"Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of hosts!All the earth is filled with his glory!"At the sound of that cry, the frame of the door shookand the house was filled with smoke. Then I said, "Woe is me, I am doomed!For I am a man of unclean lips,living among a people of unclean lips;yet...

February 5, 2016 Memorial of Saint Agatha, Virgin and Martyr Reading 1 Sir 47:2-11 Like the choice fat of the sacred offerings,so was David in Israel.He made sport of lions as though they were kids,and of bears, like lambs of the flock.As a youth he slew the giantand wiped out the people's disgrace,When his hand let fly the slingstonethat crushed the pride of Goliath.Since he called upon the Most High God, who gave strength to his right armTo defeat the skilled warriorand raise up the might of his people,Therefore the women sang his praises,and ascribed to him tens of...

February 3, 2016 Wednesday of the Fourth Week in Ordinary Time Reading 1 2 Sm 24:2, 9-17 King David said to Joab and the leaders of the army who were with him,"Tour all the tribes in Israel from Dan to Beer-shebaand register the people, that I may know their number."Joab then reported to the king the number of people registered:in Israel, eight hundred thousand men fit for military service; in Judah, five hundred thousand. Afterward, however, David regretted having numbered the people,and said to the LORD:"I have sinned grievously in what I have done.But now, LORD, forgive the guilt...

January 31, 2016 Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time Reading 1 Jer 1:4-5, 17-19 The word of the LORD came to me, saying:Before I formed you in the womb I knew you,before you were born I dedicated you,a prophet to the nations I appointed you. But do you gird your loins;stand up and tell themall that I command you.Be not crushed on their account,as though I would leave you crushed before them;for it is I this daywho have made you a fortified city,a pillar of iron, a wall of brass,against the whole land:against Judah's kings and princes,against its priests and people.They...

January 28, 2016 Memorial of Saint Thomas Aquinas, Priest and Doctor of the Church Reading 1 2 Sm 7:18-19, 24-29 After Nathan had spoken to King David, the king went in and sat before the LORD and said, "Who am I, Lord GOD, and who are the members of my house, that you have brought me to this point?Yet even this you see as too little, Lord GOD; you have also spoken of the house of your servant for a long time to come: this too you have shown to man, Lord GOD! "You have established for yourself your...

January 27, 2016 Wednesday of the Third Week in Ordinary Time Reading 1 2 Sm 7:4-17 That night the LORD spoke to Nathan and said:"Go, tell my servant David, 'Thus says the LORD:Should you build me a house to dwell in?I have not dwelt in a house from the day on which I led the children of Israel out of Egypt to the present, but I have been going about in a tent under cloth.In all my wanderings everywhere among the children of Israel, did I ever utter a word to any one of the judges whom I charged to...

January 26, 2016 Memorial of Saints Timothy and Titus, Bishops Reading 1 2 Tm 1:1-8 Paul, an Apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of Godfor the promise of life in Christ Jesus,to Timothy, my dear child:grace, mercy, and peace from God the Fatherand Christ Jesus our Lord. I am grateful to God,whom I worship with a clear conscience as my ancestors did,as I remember you constantly in my prayers, night and day.I yearn to see you again, recalling your tears,so that I may be filled with joy, as I recall your sincere faiththat first lived in your grandmother...

January 25, 2016 Feast of the Conversion of Saint Paul, Apostle Reading 1 Acts 22:3-16 Paul addressed the people in these words:"I am a Jew, born in Tarsus in Cilicia,but brought up in this city.At the feet of Gamaliel I was educated strictly in our ancestral lawand was zealous for God, just as all of you are today.I persecuted this Way to death,binding both men and women and delivering them to prison.Even the high priest and the whole council of elderscan testify on my behalf.For from them I even received letters to the brothersand set out for Damascus to...

January 24, 2016 Third Sunday in Ordinary Time Reading 1 Neh 8:2-4a, 5-6, 8-10 Ezra the priest brought the law before the assembly,which consisted of men, women,and those children old enough to understand.Standing at one end of the open place that was before the Water Gate,he read out of the book from daybreak till midday,in the presence of the men, the women,and those children old enough to understand;and all the people listened attentively to the book of the law.Ezra the scribe stood on a wooden platform that had been made for the occasion.He opened the scrollso that all the...