{"ok":true,"date":"2027-02-03","dateKey":"02-03","liturgicalDay":"St. Blaise, Bishop and Martyr","rank":"Simple","color":"red","quoteOfTheDay":{"text":"Greater thank have I not of them, than that I may hear my children do walk in truth.","author":"Holy Scripture","source":"3 John 4, Original Douay-Rheims","treasuryHref":"/wisdom#walking-in-truth","category":"Truth: Christ and His Church"},"season":"Septuagesima","novenas":[{"title":"Novena to the Holy Face","feast":"Holy Face of Jesus","day":4,"totalDays":9,"startIsoDate":"2027-01-31","feastIsoDate":"2027-02-09","intention":"Ask for reparation, reverence, hatred of blasphemy, and love for the suffering Face of Christ before Lent begins.","prayer":null,"practice":"Offer the day's prayers, sacrifices, and duties in reparation for blasphemy, irreverence, false worship, and sins against the first three commandments.","sources":[]}],"octaveContexts":[],"subject":"City of God in Exile: St. Blaise, Bishop and Martyr - 2027-02-03","previewText":"St. Blaise, Bishop and Martyr. Outside the Church There Is No Salvation. Resist indifferentism, which treats contradictory religions as though they were equally pleasing to God.","plainText":"CITY OF GOD IN EXILE\nSt. Blaise, Bishop and Martyr\n2027-02-03 - Septuagesima - Simple - red\nPLAIN-LANGUAGE GUIDE FOR TODAY\nMartyr: a Christian who was killed rather than deny Christ or abandon the Faith.\nBishop: a successor of the apostles charged with teaching, sanctifying, and governing a local Church.\nTODAY IN THE ROMAN YEAR\nThe Church does not leave the faithful to pass through time as though days were neutral. This observance teaches the soul to receive the day under grace, to remember what God has done, and to let sacred time order study, prayer, and perseverance. Contemplate the glorified Jesus as true God and true Man, eternally the Son of the Father and forever the Son of Mary according to His sacred humanity. Honor Jesus Christ as Mary's divine Son and ask her to make your will obedient to His in all things.\n\n\"Inasmuch as grace perfects nature, and glory perfects grace, it is certain that our Lord is still, in heaven, as much the Son of Mary as He was on earth; and that, consequently, He has preserved the most perfect obedience and submission of all children towards the best of all mothers.\"\nSt. Louis-Marie de Montfort, True Devotion to the Blessed Virgin, no. 27\n\nThe Incarnation was not temporary. Jesus Christ reigns in heaven with the same sacred humanity He received from Our Lady. Yet St. Louis de Montfort immediately guards the truth: Mary is infinitely below her divine Son, and her will is perfectly conformed to the eternal and immutable will of God.\n\nOur Lady's intercession can therefore never oppose, correct, or replace Christ's sovereign will. Go to her with confidence because she belongs wholly to Him. Ask her to purify your petitions, obtain what serves salvation, and teach you the filial obedience by which Jesus was subject to her at Nazareth.\n\nPRACTICE\nPause at midday for a brief act of faith, hope, charity, and contrition.\n\nQUOTE OF THE DAY\n\"Greater thank have I not of them, than that I may hear my children do walk in truth.\"\nHoly Scripture, 3 John 4, Original Douay-Rheims\n\nNOVENA IN PROGRESS\nNovena to the Holy Face - Day 4 of 9\nPreparing for Holy Face of Jesus on 2027-02-09.\nAsk for reparation, reverence, hatred of blasphemy, and love for the suffering Face of Christ before Lent begins.\n\nOffer the day's prayers, sacrifices, and duties in reparation for blasphemy, irreverence, false worship, and sins against the first three commandments.\n\nROMAN MARTYROLOGY - February 3\nAt Sebaste, in Armenia, in the time of the governor Agricolaus, the passion of St. Blasius, bishop and martyr, who after working many miracles, was scourged a long time, and suspended on a tree where he was lacerated with iron combs. He was then imprisoned in a dark dungeon, thrown into a lake from which he came out safe, and finally, by order of the same judge, he and two boys were beheaded. Before him, seven women who were gathering the drops of his blood during his torture, were recognized as Christians, and after undergoing severe torments, were put to death by the sword. — In Africa, St. Celerinus, deacon, who was kept nineteen days in prison loaded with fetters, and confessed Christ gloriously in the midst of afflictions. By overcoming the enemy with invincible constancy, he showed to others the road to victory. — Also, the holy martyrs, Laurentinus, and Ignatius, his uncles, and Celerina, his grandmother, who had been previously crowned with martyrdom. They are highly praised in an epistle of St. Cyprian. — In the same country, the holy martyrs Felix, Symphronius, Hippolytus and their companions. — In the town of Gap, the holy bishops Tigides and Remedius. — At Lyons, the Saints Lupicinus and Felix, also bishops. — The same day, St. Anscharius, bishop of Bremen, who converted the Swedes and the Danes to the faith of Christ.\n\nHIGHLIGHTED SAINT\nSt. Blaise\nBishop and martyr, intercessor in bodily danger.\nSt. Blaise is honored as bishop and martyr, and the Church has long invoked his intercession especially against ailments of the throat.\nHis feast teaches that the body is not beneath Catholic care. The Church blesses, prays, heals when God wills, and teaches the faithful to use bodily weakness as a summons to trust and conversion.\nAsk St. Blaise to guard both throat and tongue. A healed body is a mercy; a tongue ruled by Christ is a greater one.\nFROM MATINS\nThe bishop whose confession governed sickness and suffering.\nMatins - One Nocturn - St. Blaise, Bishop and Martyr\nRoman Breviary\n\"Neither flatteries nor threats could bring him to sacrifice to the gods.\"\n- The Breviary remembers St. Blaise as Bishop of Sebaste, hidden during persecution until the governor's soldiers found and imprisoned him.\n- His care for bodies remained ordered to Christ: he healed the sick in prison, including a boy near death from a fishbone lodged in his throat.\n- Repeated demands, threats, scourging, and iron combs could not purchase false worship; the bishop completed his testimony by beheading.\nAsk St. Blaise for mercy without spiritual compromise. Pray for bodily healing, govern the tongue, and prefer suffering to any outward act that denies Christ.\nTHE PILGRIM'S SPIRITUAL CONFERENCE\nOutside the Church There Is No Salvation\nThe Church places this truth before you today: All salvation comes through Christ and His Church; no soul is saved by false religion, indifferentism, or separation loved as separation. Do not hurry past it as though doctrine belonged only to books and controversies. A revealed truth is also a light by which the soul must judge its loyalties, its fears, its habits, and the duties immediately before it. The doctrine does not deny God's mercy. It denies that error, schism, or religious indifference can be treated as paths equal to the Church founded by Christ.\nThe grace to be practiced is Trust in bodily weakness, drawn from today's saintly witness. Ask God for more than the natural appearance of this virtue. Temperament may make an action seem easy for a time, but supernatural virtue remains faithful because God is worthy of obedience, even when feeling offers no assistance and no one notices the cost. Practice filial obedience by receiving every lawful command promptly, reverently, and without self-willed reservation.\nThere is also an enemy to recognize: Resist indifferentism, which treats contradictory religions as though they were equally pleasing to God. Do not study this danger only in other people. Look quietly for the door by which it seeks entrance into your own soul - perhaps through delay, curiosity, resentment, human respect, attachment to comfort, or the desire to control the outcome. Dying to self today means choosing trust in bodily weakness when pride, comfort, fear, resentment, or human respect asks for control.\nDo the faithful act and entrust its fruit to divine Providence, God's wise and loving governance of all things. Place effort and outcome into Our Lady's hands so that the whole offering may be presented to her Divine Son. Confidence in God is not passivity: obey, pray, work, and accept that visible success, consolation, or immediate relief may not be given. God remains faithful when the duty is hidden and the outcome uncertain. Therefore, perform the duty that belongs to you, use the lawful means God has provided, and then surrender the fruit. Accept the humiliation of dependence and correction after the example of the Incarnate Word, who freely chose a hidden and obedient life. Bring every intention to Our Lady while surrendering its outcome completely to the sovereign will of her Son.\nThe Church's witness: this truth manifests the Church's mark of one; the witness placed beside it is Pope Pius IX.\nYour resolution before God: Pause at midday for a brief act of faith, hope, charity, and contrition.\nCarry this word: Prayer keeps the day from becoming self-ruled.\nTHE PILGRIM'S MIRROR\n\"By resisting of passions, then, is gotten the very true peace of heart, and not by following them.\"\nThomas à Kempis, The Imitation of Christ, Book I, chapter 6, p. 15\nPeace is not surrender to every feeling. It is order beneath God, won by grace when appetite is made to obey truth and duty.\n\nA passion grows louder when it expects immediate obedience. Do not be alarmed merely because anger, fear, discouragement, or desire speaks forcefully. Place a little silence between the movement and your consent, call upon Jesus and Mary, and choose what remains right.\nToday's Practice: Delay impulsive responses and choose the calmer acts required by truth and duty.\nDAILY EXAMEN\nExamine where self-will resisted God, rightful authority, or duty, and ask Our Lady to lead you back to Jesus in humble obedience.\n- For what grace or mercy should I thank God today?\n- What sin, fault, neglected duty, or resistance to grace must I confess?\n- What definite amendment will I carry into tomorrow?\nPRAYER\nO Lord, recollect my scattered thoughts, govern my words, and teach me to return to Thee before the noise of the day rules my soul.\nDAILY RULE FOR THE PILGRIM\nA brief rule to keep every day:\nBegin with morning prayer\nAdore the Blessed Trinity and offer the whole day to Jesus through Mary before other duties claim the mind.\nKeep the Angelus\nPause morning, noon, and evening to remember the Incarnation.\nSeek Our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament\nAttend Holy Mass when duty permits; otherwise make a Spiritual Communion and renew desire for Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament.\nReturn to Jesus and Mary\nUse frequent holy aspirations during work, waiting, suffering, and temptation.\nPray the Rosary\nKeep the mysteries of Christ before the mind with Our Lady and learn to imitate what they contain.\nEnd with night prayer and examen\nGive thanks, confess faults, forgive injuries, make a practical amendment, and entrust the night to Our Lady.\nCONTINUE STUDY\nWhy Sincerity Cannot Replace the One True Church: https://cityofgodinexile.com/how-the-true-church-is-known/why-sincerity-cannot-replace-the-one-true-church?entered=1\nOpen this day in the Sacred Calendar: https://cityofgodinexile.com/sacred-calendar?date=2027-02-03&entered=1\nOpen this day's Daily Pilgrimage: https://cityofgodinexile.com/daily-dispatch?date=2027-02-03&entered=1\nBrowse the Formation Index: https://cityofgodinexile.com/daily-dispatch/formation?entered=1","html":"\n\n \n \n \n City of God in Exile: St. Blaise, Bishop and Martyr - 2027-02-03\n \n \n
\n St. Blaise, Bishop and Martyr. Outside the Church There Is No Salvation. Resist indifferentism, which treats contradictory religions as though they were equally pleasing to God.\n
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City of God in Exile

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St. Blaise, Bishop and Martyr

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2027-02-03 - Septuagesima - Simple - red

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“Walk whilst you have the light, that the darkness overtake you not.”
John 12:35
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Plain-Language Guide for Today

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Martyr
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a Christian who was killed rather than deny Christ or abandon the Faith.
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Bishop
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a successor of the apostles charged with teaching, sanctifying, and governing a local Church.
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Today in the Roman Year

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The Church does not leave the faithful to pass through time as though days were neutral. This observance teaches the soul to receive the day under grace, to remember what God has done, and to let sacred time order study, prayer, and perseverance.

Contemplate the glorified Jesus as true God and true Man, eternally the Son of the Father and forever the Son of Mary according to His sacred humanity.

Honor Jesus Christ as Mary's divine Son and ask her to make your will obedient to His in all things.

“Inasmuch as grace perfects nature, and glory perfects grace, it is certain that our Lord is still, in heaven, as much the Son of Mary as He was on earth; and that, consequently, He has preserved the most perfect obedience and submission of all children towards the best of all mothers.”

St. Louis-Marie de Montfort, True Devotion to the Blessed Virgin, no. 27

The Incarnation was not temporary. Jesus Christ reigns in heaven with the same sacred humanity He received from Our Lady. Yet St. Louis de Montfort immediately guards the truth: Mary is infinitely below her divine Son, and her will is perfectly conformed to the eternal and immutable will of God.

Our Lady's intercession can therefore never oppose, correct, or replace Christ's sovereign will. Go to her with confidence because she belongs wholly to Him. Ask her to purify your petitions, obtain what serves salvation, and teach you the filial obedience by which Jesus was subject to her at Nazareth.

Pause at midday for a brief act of faith, hope, charity, and contrition.

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Quote of the Day

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“Greater thank have I not of them, than that I may hear my children do walk in truth.”
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Holy Scripture, 3 John 4, Original Douay-Rheims

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Novena in Progress

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Novena to the Holy Face - Day 4 of 9

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Preparing for Holy Face of Jesus on 2027-02-09.

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Ask for reparation, reverence, hatred of blasphemy, and love for the suffering Face of Christ before Lent begins.

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Offer the day's prayers, sacrifices, and duties in reparation for blasphemy, irreverence, false worship, and sins against the first three commandments.

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Roman Martyrology - February 3

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At Sebaste, in Armenia, in the time of the governor Agricolaus, the passion of St. Blasius, bishop and martyr, who after working many miracles, was scourged a long time, and suspended on a tree where he was lacerated with iron combs. He was then imprisoned in a dark dungeon, thrown into a lake from which he came out safe, and finally, by order of the same judge, he and two boys were beheaded. Before him, seven women who were gathering the drops of his blood during his torture, were recognized as Christians, and after undergoing severe torments, were put to death by the sword. — In Africa, St. Celerinus, deacon, who was kept nineteen days in prison loaded with fetters, and confessed Christ gloriously in the midst of afflictions. By overcoming the enemy with invincible constancy, he showed to others the road to victory. — Also, the holy martyrs, Laurentinus, and Ignatius, his uncles, and Celerina, his grandmother, who had been previously crowned with martyrdom. They are highly praised in an epistle of St. Cyprian. — In the same country, the holy martyrs Felix, Symphronius, Hippolytus and their companions. — In the town of Gap, the holy bishops Tigides and Remedius. — At Lyons, the Saints Lupicinus and Felix, also bishops. — The same day, St. Anscharius, bishop of Bremen, who converted the Swedes and the Danes to the faith of Christ.

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Highlighted Saint

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St. Blaise

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Bishop and martyr, intercessor in bodily danger.

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St. Blaise is honored as bishop and martyr, and the Church has long invoked his intercession especially against ailments of the throat.

His feast teaches that the body is not beneath Catholic care. The Church blesses, prays, heals when God wills, and teaches the faithful to use bodily weakness as a summons to trust and conversion.

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Ask St. Blaise to guard both throat and tongue. A healed body is a mercy; a tongue ruled by Christ is a greater one.

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From Matins

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The bishop whose confession governed sickness and suffering.

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Matins - One Nocturn - St. Blaise, Bishop and Martyr

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Roman Breviary, Proper lesson for St. Blaise

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“Neither flatteries nor threats could bring him to sacrifice to the gods.”
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  • The Breviary remembers St. Blaise as Bishop of Sebaste, hidden during persecution until the governor's soldiers found and imprisoned him.
  • His care for bodies remained ordered to Christ: he healed the sick in prison, including a boy near death from a fishbone lodged in his throat.
  • Repeated demands, threats, scourging, and iron combs could not purchase false worship; the bishop completed his testimony by beheading.
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Ask St. Blaise for mercy without spiritual compromise. Pray for bodily healing, govern the tongue, and prefer suffering to any outward act that denies Christ.

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The Pilgrim's Spiritual Conference

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Outside the Church There Is No Salvation

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The Church places this truth before you today: All salvation comes through Christ and His Church; no soul is saved by false religion, indifferentism, or separation loved as separation. Do not hurry past it as though doctrine belonged only to books and controversies. A revealed truth is also a light by which the soul must judge its loyalties, its fears, its habits, and the duties immediately before it. The doctrine does not deny God's mercy. It denies that error, schism, or religious indifference can be treated as paths equal to the Church founded by Christ.

The grace to be practiced is Trust in bodily weakness, drawn from today's saintly witness. Ask God for more than the natural appearance of this virtue. Temperament may make an action seem easy for a time, but supernatural virtue remains faithful because God is worthy of obedience, even when feeling offers no assistance and no one notices the cost. Practice filial obedience by receiving every lawful command promptly, reverently, and without self-willed reservation.

There is also an enemy to recognize: Resist indifferentism, which treats contradictory religions as though they were equally pleasing to God. Do not study this danger only in other people. Look quietly for the door by which it seeks entrance into your own soul - perhaps through delay, curiosity, resentment, human respect, attachment to comfort, or the desire to control the outcome. Dying to self today means choosing trust in bodily weakness when pride, comfort, fear, resentment, or human respect asks for control.

Do the faithful act and entrust its fruit to divine Providence, God's wise and loving governance of all things. Place effort and outcome into Our Lady's hands so that the whole offering may be presented to her Divine Son. Confidence in God is not passivity: obey, pray, work, and accept that visible success, consolation, or immediate relief may not be given. God remains faithful when the duty is hidden and the outcome uncertain. Therefore, perform the duty that belongs to you, use the lawful means God has provided, and then surrender the fruit. Accept the humiliation of dependence and correction after the example of the Incarnate Word, who freely chose a hidden and obedient life. Bring every intention to Our Lady while surrendering its outcome completely to the sovereign will of her Son.

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The Church's witness: this truth manifests the Church's mark of one; the witness placed beside it is Pope Pius IX.

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Your Resolution Before God

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Pause at midday for a brief act of faith, hope, charity, and contrition.

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Prayer keeps the day from becoming self-ruled.
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The Pilgrim's Mirror

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How shall I imitate Christ today?

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“By resisting of passions, then, is gotten the very true peace of heart, and not by following them.”
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Thomas à Kempis, The Imitation of Christ, Book I, chapter 6, p. 15

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Peace is not surrender to every feeling. It is order beneath God, won by grace when appetite is made to obey truth and duty.

A passion grows louder when it expects immediate obedience. Do not be alarmed merely because anger, fear, discouragement, or desire speaks forcefully. Place a little silence between the movement and your consent, call upon Jesus and Mary, and choose what remains right.

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Today's Practice

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Delay impulsive responses and choose the calmer acts required by truth and duty.

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Daily Examen

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Three questions before night prayer

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Examine where self-will resisted God, rightful authority, or duty, and ask Our Lady to lead you back to Jesus in humble obedience.

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  • For what grace or mercy should I thank God today?
  • What sin, fault, neglected duty, or resistance to grace must I confess?
  • What definite amendment will I carry into tomorrow?
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Prayer

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O Lord, recollect my scattered thoughts, govern my words, and teach me to return to Thee before the noise of the day rules my soul.

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Daily Rule for the Pilgrim

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A brief rule to keep every day:

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Begin with morning prayer

Adore the Blessed Trinity and offer the whole day to Jesus through Mary before other duties claim the mind.

Keep the Angelus

Pause morning, noon, and evening to remember the Incarnation.

Seek Our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament

Attend Holy Mass when duty permits; otherwise make a Spiritual Communion and renew desire for Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament.

Return to Jesus and Mary

Use frequent holy aspirations during work, waiting, suffering, and temptation.

Pray the Rosary

Keep the mysteries of Christ before the mind with Our Lady and learn to imitate what they contain.

End with night prayer and examen

Give thanks, confess faults, forgive injuries, make a practical amendment, and entrust the night to Our Lady.

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Continue Study

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Carry today's lesson into a focused chapter from the library.

\n Why Sincerity Cannot Replace the One True Church\n
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Persevere, pilgrim.

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The gates remain open to the faithful.

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