{"ok":true,"date":"2027-02-16","dateKey":"02-16","liturgicalDay":"Feria of Lent","rank":"Feria","color":"violet","quoteOfTheDay":{"text":"Stand fast; and hold the traditions which you have learned.","author":"St. Paul","source":"2 Thessalonians 2:14, Douay-Rheims","category":"Truth: Christ and His Church"},"season":"Lent","novenas":[],"octaveContexts":[],"subject":"City of God in Exile: Feria of Lent - 2027-02-16","previewText":"Feria of Lent. The Papacy Serves the Faith It Receives. Resist confusing the office Christ instituted with commands or claimants that attack the faith the office must protect.","plainText":"CITY OF GOD IN EXILE\nFeria of Lent\n2027-02-16 - Lent - Feria - violet\nPLAIN-LANGUAGE GUIDE FOR TODAY\nCompunction: sorrow for sin that pierces the heart and moves a person toward repentance rather than despair.\nPurgative way: the stage of spiritual growth in which a person, helped by grace, concentrates especially on turning from serious sin and correcting disordered habits.\nProper Mass or prayers: the texts assigned specifically to a particular feast or day, rather than texts shared with many celebrations.\nTODAY IN THE ROMAN YEAR\nHumiliation, opposition, and penance do not mean that God has ceased to govern. Our Lord redeemed the world through His obedient suffering on the Cross. When Catholics accept unavoidable trials without sin, perform penance, and continue obeying the truth, those sufferings can humble pride and deepen fidelity rather than lead to despair. Through Mary to Jesus: receive grace humbly, answer it faithfully, and give the glory to God. Acknowledge that God is the source of every grace and has freely willed that His graces should come to us through the hands of Our Blessed Mother. Ask her to obtain the help needed to serve her Son today.\n\n\"It is not that we take her for the last end of our services, for that is Jesus Christ alone; but we take her for our proximate end, our mysterious means and our easy way to go to Him.\"\nSt. Louis-Marie de Montfort, True Devotion to the Blessed Virgin, no. 265\n\nHere St. Louis de Montfort guards true devotion from every distortion: Jesus Christ alone is the end. Mary never asks the soul to stop with her. Like her word at Cana, her maternal office is a continual direction toward obedience: do whatsoever He shall say to you.\n\nLet this give you both confidence and order. You need not approach the duties of grace as an orphan relying upon personal strength. Go to Jesus beside the Mother He gave you, but go prepared to hear Him, to renounce sin, to receive Catholic truth whole, and to obey.\n\nPRACTICE\nIdentify your concrete faults, make an act of contrition, and practice the contrary virtues.\n\nQUOTE OF THE DAY\n\"Stand fast; and hold the traditions which you have learned.\"\nSt. Paul, 2 Thessalonians 2:14, Douay-Rheims\n\nROMAN MARTYROLOGY - February 16\nThe birthday of blessed Onesimus, concerning whom the apostle St. Paul wrote to Philemon. He made him bishop of Ephesus after St. Timothy, and committed to him the office of preaching. Being led a prisoner to Rome, and stoned to death for the faith of Christ, he was buried in that city; but his body was afterwards carried to the place where he had been bishop. — At Cumse, in Campania, the Translation of St. Juliana, virgin and martyr. Under the emperor Maximian, she was first severely scourged by her own father, Africanus, then made to suffer many torments by the prefect, Evilasius, whom she had refused to marry. Later being thrown into prison, she encountered the evil spirit in a visible manner. Finally, as a fiery furnace and a caldron of boiling oil could do her no injury, she terminated her martyrdom by decapitation. — In Egypt, St. Julian, martyr, with five thousand other Christians. — At Caesarea, in Palestine, the holy martyrs Elias, Jeremias, Isaias, Samuel, and Daniel, Egyptians, who of their own accord served the confessors of Christ condemned to labor in the mines of Cilicia, but were arrested on their return, and after being cruelly tortured by the governor Firmilian, under the emperor Galerius Maximian, were put to the sword. — After them, St. Porphyry, servant of the martyr Pamphilus, and St. Seleucus, a Cappadocian, who had been victorious in several combats, being again exposed to torments, won the crown of martyrdom, the one by fire, the other by the sword. — At Arezzo, in Tuscany, blessed Gregory X., a native of Piacenza, who was elected Sovereign Pontiff while he was archdeacon of Liege. He held the second Council of Lyons, received the Greeks into the unity of the Church, appeased discords among Christians, made generous efforts for the recovery of the Holy Land, and governed the Church in the most holy manner. — At Brescia, St. Faustinus, bishop and confessor.\n\nHIGHLIGHTED SAINT\nThe Lenten Feria\nThe Church's daily school of penance.\nThe Lenten feria is not empty time between Sundays. In the Roman rite, Lent gives proper Masses to the ferias, forming the faithful by daily penance, prayer, almsgiving, and conversion.\nThese weekdays teach that penance is not a mood but a discipline. The Church trains the whole man: appetite, speech, memory, habits, and the will turned back to God.\nDo not despise the ordinary Lenten weekday. Small faithful penance is one of the roads by which exile becomes pilgrimage.\nBREVIARY WITNESS\nThe daily discipline of the forty days.\nMatins - Feria of Lent\n- The Lenten ferias form the faithful through the Church's daily school of penance, in which conversion is practiced rather than merely admired.\n- Their witness is steady and practical: fasting, prayer, compunction, almsgiving, and obedience bring the soul back beneath the rule of Christ.\nUse the ordinary weekday for conversion through repeated small acts of fasting, prayer, mercy, and obedience. A soul is often rebuilt by these quiet fidelities.\nInstruction from the Breviary\nThe Breviary witness for Feria of Lent is part of the Church's daily teaching. It should not be read as a list of isolated facts. In the Divine Office, Scripture, the lives of the saints, doctrine, and the Church's prayer are placed together so that the mind learns what the Church remembers and the heart learns how a Catholic ought to judge and live.\nToday's witness is gathered under The daily discipline of the forty days.. Its first point is this: The Lenten ferias form the faithful through the Church's daily school of penance, in which conversion is practiced rather than merely admired. Its next point develops the lesson: Their witness is steady and practical: fasting, prayer, compunction, almsgiving, and obedience bring the soul back beneath the rule of Christ.\nThe practical instruction is: Use the ordinary weekday for conversion through repeated small acts of fasting, prayer, mercy, and obedience. A soul is often rebuilt by these quiet fidelities. Ask what truth is being guarded, what virtue is being praised, and what danger or forgetfulness is being corrected. In this way the Breviary becomes instruction for the present day rather than information that is quickly passed over.\n- What truth does this Breviary witness teach or defend?\n- What virtue does the Church place before me through it?\n- What judgment or action should change because I have received this lesson?\n\nTHE PILGRIM'S SPIRITUAL CONFERENCE\nThe Papacy Serves the Faith It Receives\nThe Church places this truth before you today: The Roman Primacy exists to guard, confirm, and govern in the apostolic faith; it is not license to create another religion. 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. True authority is recognized by its service to the deposit of faith, not by bare claims severed from Catholic doctrine.\nThe grace to be practiced is Daily penance and conversion, 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. Imitate Mary's gratitude. Magnify the Lord for His gifts instead of turning them into a reason for self-esteem.\nThere is also an enemy to recognize: Resist confusing the office Christ instituted with commands or claimants that attack the faith the office must protect. 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 daily penance and conversion 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. When consolation is absent, trust the order of divine Providence. Our Lady remains a Mother in darkness as surely as in joy. Give thanks before beginning, ask Mary's help while working, and return the completed act to Jesus without claiming it as your own.\nThe Church's witness: this truth manifests the Church's mark of apostolic; the witness placed beside it is St. John Fisher.\nYour resolution before God: Identify your concrete faults, make an act of contrition, and practice the contrary virtues.\nCarry this word: The purgative way begins by refusing excuses.\nTHE PILGRIM'S MIRROR\n\"Thou hast here no place of long abiding, for wheresoever thou be, thou art but a stranger and a pilgrim.\"\nThomas à Kempis, The Imitation of Christ, Book II, chapter 1, p. 53\nThe citizen of Heaven uses earthly goods faithfully without building his final home in them. Receive the day's joys and sorrows as provisions for the road.\n\nExile becomes bitter when the soul demands permanence from what must pass. Let today's change, disappointment, or small loss remind you gently of your destination. Fulfill earthly duties well precisely because they are the road appointed by God, but keep the heart free for the City that does not pass away.\nToday's Practice: When something passes away today, say: My home is with God.\nDAILY EXAMEN\nMake your Magnificat in little: name God's mercies, diminish self, and entrust tomorrow to the Mother He has given you.\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, show me the sins I excuse, the occasions I keep near, and the attachments I protect. Give me contrition without despair and amendment without delay.\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\nSt. John Fisher and the Papacy: https://cityofgodinexile.com/champions-of-orthodoxy/st-john-fisher-and-the-papacy-fidelity-to-true-authority-against-schism?entered=1\nOpen this day in the Sacred Calendar: https://cityofgodinexile.com/sacred-calendar?date=2027-02-16&entered=1\nOpen this day's Daily Pilgrimage: https://cityofgodinexile.com/daily-dispatch?date=2027-02-16&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: Feria of Lent - 2027-02-16\n \n \n
\n Feria of Lent. The Papacy Serves the Faith It Receives. Resist confusing the office Christ instituted with commands or claimants that attack the faith the office must protect.\n
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City of God in Exile

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Feria of Lent

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2027-02-16 - Lent - Feria - violet

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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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Compunction
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sorrow for sin that pierces the heart and moves a person toward repentance rather than despair.
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Purgative way
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the stage of spiritual growth in which a person, helped by grace, concentrates especially on turning from serious sin and correcting disordered habits.
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Proper Mass or prayers
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the texts assigned specifically to a particular feast or day, rather than texts shared with many celebrations.
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Today in the Roman Year

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Humiliation, opposition, and penance do not mean that God has ceased to govern. Our Lord redeemed the world through His obedient suffering on the Cross. When Catholics accept unavoidable trials without sin, perform penance, and continue obeying the truth, those sufferings can humble pride and deepen fidelity rather than lead to despair.

Through Mary to Jesus: receive grace humbly, answer it faithfully, and give the glory to God.

Acknowledge that God is the source of every grace and has freely willed that His graces should come to us through the hands of Our Blessed Mother. Ask her to obtain the help needed to serve her Son today.

“It is not that we take her for the last end of our services, for that is Jesus Christ alone; but we take her for our proximate end, our mysterious means and our easy way to go to Him.”

St. Louis-Marie de Montfort, True Devotion to the Blessed Virgin, no. 265

Here St. Louis de Montfort guards true devotion from every distortion: Jesus Christ alone is the end. Mary never asks the soul to stop with her. Like her word at Cana, her maternal office is a continual direction toward obedience: do whatsoever He shall say to you.

Let this give you both confidence and order. You need not approach the duties of grace as an orphan relying upon personal strength. Go to Jesus beside the Mother He gave you, but go prepared to hear Him, to renounce sin, to receive Catholic truth whole, and to obey.

Identify your concrete faults, make an act of contrition, and practice the contrary virtues.

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Quote of the Day

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“Stand fast; and hold the traditions which you have learned.”
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St. Paul, 2 Thessalonians 2:14, Douay-Rheims

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Roman Martyrology - February 16

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The birthday of blessed Onesimus, concerning whom the apostle St. Paul wrote to Philemon. He made him bishop of Ephesus after St. Timothy, and committed to him the office of preaching. Being led a prisoner to Rome, and stoned to death for the faith of Christ, he was buried in that city; but his body was afterwards carried to the place where he had been bishop. — At Cumse, in Campania, the Translation of St. Juliana, virgin and martyr. Under the emperor Maximian, she was first severely scourged by her own father, Africanus, then made to suffer many torments by the prefect, Evilasius, whom she had refused to marry. Later being thrown into prison, she encountered the evil spirit in a visible manner. Finally, as a fiery furnace and a caldron of boiling oil could do her no injury, she terminated her martyrdom by decapitation. — In Egypt, St. Julian, martyr, with five thousand other Christians. — At Caesarea, in Palestine, the holy martyrs Elias, Jeremias, Isaias, Samuel, and Daniel, Egyptians, who of their own accord served the confessors of Christ condemned to labor in the mines of Cilicia, but were arrested on their return, and after being cruelly tortured by the governor Firmilian, under the emperor Galerius Maximian, were put to the sword. — After them, St. Porphyry, servant of the martyr Pamphilus, and St. Seleucus, a Cappadocian, who had been victorious in several combats, being again exposed to torments, won the crown of martyrdom, the one by fire, the other by the sword. — At Arezzo, in Tuscany, blessed Gregory X., a native of Piacenza, who was elected Sovereign Pontiff while he was archdeacon of Liege. He held the second Council of Lyons, received the Greeks into the unity of the Church, appeased discords among Christians, made generous efforts for the recovery of the Holy Land, and governed the Church in the most holy manner. — At Brescia, St. Faustinus, bishop and confessor.

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Highlighted Saint

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The Lenten Feria

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The Church's daily school of penance.

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The Lenten feria is not empty time between Sundays. In the Roman rite, Lent gives proper Masses to the ferias, forming the faithful by daily penance, prayer, almsgiving, and conversion.

These weekdays teach that penance is not a mood but a discipline. The Church trains the whole man: appetite, speech, memory, habits, and the will turned back to God.

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Do not despise the ordinary Lenten weekday. Small faithful penance is one of the roads by which exile becomes pilgrimage.

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Breviary Witness

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The daily discipline of the forty days.

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Matins - Feria of Lent

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  • The Lenten ferias form the faithful through the Church's daily school of penance, in which conversion is practiced rather than merely admired.
  • Their witness is steady and practical: fasting, prayer, compunction, almsgiving, and obedience bring the soul back beneath the rule of Christ.
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Use the ordinary weekday for conversion through repeated small acts of fasting, prayer, mercy, and obedience. A soul is often rebuilt by these quiet fidelities.

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Instruction from the Breviary

The Breviary witness for Feria of Lent is part of the Church's daily teaching. It should not be read as a list of isolated facts. In the Divine Office, Scripture, the lives of the saints, doctrine, and the Church's prayer are placed together so that the mind learns what the Church remembers and the heart learns how a Catholic ought to judge and live.

Today's witness is gathered under The daily discipline of the forty days.. Its first point is this: The Lenten ferias form the faithful through the Church's daily school of penance, in which conversion is practiced rather than merely admired. Its next point develops the lesson: Their witness is steady and practical: fasting, prayer, compunction, almsgiving, and obedience bring the soul back beneath the rule of Christ.

The practical instruction is: Use the ordinary weekday for conversion through repeated small acts of fasting, prayer, mercy, and obedience. A soul is often rebuilt by these quiet fidelities. Ask what truth is being guarded, what virtue is being praised, and what danger or forgetfulness is being corrected. In this way the Breviary becomes instruction for the present day rather than information that is quickly passed over.

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  • What truth does this Breviary witness teach or defend?
  • What virtue does the Church place before me through it?
  • What judgment or action should change because I have received this lesson?
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The Pilgrim's Spiritual Conference

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The Papacy Serves the Faith It Receives

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The Church places this truth before you today: The Roman Primacy exists to guard, confirm, and govern in the apostolic faith; it is not license to create another religion. 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. True authority is recognized by its service to the deposit of faith, not by bare claims severed from Catholic doctrine.

The grace to be practiced is Daily penance and conversion, 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. Imitate Mary's gratitude. Magnify the Lord for His gifts instead of turning them into a reason for self-esteem.

There is also an enemy to recognize: Resist confusing the office Christ instituted with commands or claimants that attack the faith the office must protect. 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 daily penance and conversion 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. When consolation is absent, trust the order of divine Providence. Our Lady remains a Mother in darkness as surely as in joy. Give thanks before beginning, ask Mary's help while working, and return the completed act to Jesus without claiming it as your own.

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The Church's witness: this truth manifests the Church's mark of apostolic; the witness placed beside it is St. John Fisher.

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Your Resolution Before God

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Identify your concrete faults, make an act of contrition, and practice the contrary virtues.

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The purgative way begins by refusing excuses.
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The Pilgrim's Mirror

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How shall I imitate Christ today?

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“Thou hast here no place of long abiding, for wheresoever thou be, thou art but a stranger and a pilgrim.”
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Thomas à Kempis, The Imitation of Christ, Book II, chapter 1, p. 53

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The citizen of Heaven uses earthly goods faithfully without building his final home in them. Receive the day's joys and sorrows as provisions for the road.

Exile becomes bitter when the soul demands permanence from what must pass. Let today's change, disappointment, or small loss remind you gently of your destination. Fulfill earthly duties well precisely because they are the road appointed by God, but keep the heart free for the City that does not pass away.

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Today's Practice

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When something passes away today, say: My home is with God.

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Daily Examen

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Three questions before night prayer

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Make your Magnificat in little: name God's mercies, diminish self, and entrust tomorrow to the Mother He has given you.

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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, show me the sins I excuse, the occasions I keep near, and the attachments I protect. Give me contrition without despair and amendment without delay.

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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 St. John Fisher and the Papacy\n
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Persevere, pilgrim.

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The gates remain open to the faithful.

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