{"ok":true,"date":"2027-12-18","dateKey":"12-18","liturgicalDay":"Advent Ember Day","rank":"Non-privileged Feria","color":"violet","quoteOfTheDay":{"text":"If it sometimes wander and withdraw itself from Him, do not much disquiet yourself for that: trouble and disquiet serve rather to distract the mind than to re-collect it: the will must bring it back in tranquility.","author":"Brother Lawrence of the Resurrection","source":"The Practice of the Presence of God: The Best Rule of a Holy Life, Eighth Letter","treasuryHref":"/wisdom#bring-the-wandering-mind-back-in-tranquility","category":"Prayer and the Interior Life"},"season":"Advent","novenas":[{"title":"Christmas Novena","feast":"Nativity of Our Lord Jesus Christ","day":3,"totalDays":9,"startIsoDate":"2027-12-16","feastIsoDate":"2027-12-25","intention":"Prepare the soul and household to receive the King in humility, adoration, and Catholic faith.","prayer":null,"practice":"Keep silence and simplicity wherever they prepare the soul and household for the Christ Child.","sources":[]}],"octaveContexts":[],"subject":"City of God in Exile: Advent Ember Day - 2027-12-18","previewText":"Advent Ember Day. Obedience Serves Truth. Resist both rebellion against true authority and false obedience to commands that betray doctrine.","plainText":"CITY OF GOD IN EXILE\nAdvent Ember Day\n2027-12-18 - Advent - Non-privileged Feria - violet\nPLAIN-LANGUAGE GUIDE FOR TODAY\nClergy or cleric: the Church's ordained ministers; a cleric is a deacon, priest, or bishop.\nOrdination: the sacrament by which a baptized man is made a deacon, priest, or bishop and receives the grace and authority needed for that ministry.\nEmber Day: one of the traditional seasonal fast days—Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday—offered in thanksgiving, penance, and prayer for the Church's ministers.\nTODAY IN THE ROMAN YEAR\nThe Ember Friday joins fasting and prayer to the Church's cry for Adonai, the Lord who revealed His law and came to redeem with an outstretched arm. Redemption does not free man from God's commandments; it frees him from slavery to sin so that he may obey in grace. Offer today's penance for holy clergy and for your own deliverance from a chosen bondage. Keep theological order while receiving the instrument God freely chose in His work of sanctification. Adore the Holy Ghost as God and ask to cooperate humbly with every grace He gives through the order He has established.\n\n\"But what we want to say is, that the Holy Ghost chose to make use of our Blessed Lady, though He had no absolute need of her, to bring His fruitfulness into action, by producing in her and by her Jesus Christ in His members; a mystery of grace unknown to even the wisest and most spiritual among Christians.\"\nSt. Louis-Marie de Montfort, True Devotion to the Blessed Virgin, no. 21\n\nSt. Louis de Montfort again closes the door against exaggeration: the Holy Ghost has no absolute need of Mary. Her office rests upon His sovereign choice. That truth protects both divine majesty and authentic Marian devotion from confusion.\n\nThe soul must learn the same humility. God does not need our talents, plans, consolations, or reputation, yet He truly commands our cooperation. Serve diligently without imagining yourself indispensable; depend entirely upon grace without using dependence as permission for laziness.\n\nPRACTICE\nKeep the Ember fast and abstinence according to your duty and condition, offering it for priests and vocations.\n\nQUOTE OF THE DAY\n\"If it sometimes wander and withdraw itself from Him, do not much disquiet yourself for that: trouble and disquiet serve rather to distract the mind than to re-collect it: the will must bring it back in tranquility.\"\nBrother Lawrence of the Resurrection, The Practice of the Presence of God: The Best Rule of a Holy Life, Eighth Letter\n\nNOVENA IN PROGRESS\nChristmas Novena - Day 3 of 9\nPreparing for Nativity of Our Lord Jesus Christ on 2027-12-25.\nPrepare the soul and household to receive the King in humility, adoration, and Catholic faith.\n\nKeep silence and simplicity wherever they prepare the soul and household for the Christ Child.\n\nROMAN MARTYROLOGY - December 18\nAt Philippi, in Macedonia, the birthday of the holy martyrs Ruf us and Zosimus,who were of the number of the disciples, by whom the primitive church was founded among the Jews and the Greeks. Their happy martyrdom is mentioned by St. Polycarp, in his epistle to the Philippians. — At Laodicea, in Syria, the martyrdom of the Saints Theotimus and Basilian. — In Africa, the holy martyrs Quinctus, Simplicius, and others, who suffered in the persecution of Decius and Valerian. — In the same country, St. Moysetes, martyr. — Also, in Africa, the holy martyrs Victurus, Victor, Victorinus, Adjutor, Quartus, and thirty others. — At Mopsuestia, in Cilicia, St. Auxentius, bishop, who, while he was a soldier under Licinius, preferred to surrender his military insignia rather than to offer grapes to Bacchus. Having been made bishop, he was renowned for merit, and rested in peace. — At Tours, St. Gratian, consecrated first bishop of that city by pope St. Fabrian. Celebrated for many miracles, he calmly went to his repose in the Lord.\n\nHIGHLIGHTED SAINT\nThe Advent Ember Day\nThe winter fast of expectation and ordination prayer.\nThe Advent Ember Days sanctify the season of expectation with fasting, prayer, and supplication for the Church's ministers.\nThey teach that preparation for Christmas must include purification. The Church asks the Lord of the harvest for holy laborers and asks that her own children be made ready for the coming King.\nLet the Ember fast make Advent serious without making it gloomy. The King is near, and the Church prepares with prayer.\nBREVIARY WITNESS\nThe fast of expectation.\nMatins - Advent Ember Day\n- The Advent Ember Days sanctify the season of waiting with fasting and prayer for the Church and her ministers.\n- Their witness joins Our Lady's expectant purity to the Church's supplication, asking that Christ find His people ready.\nPrepare for Christmas by prayer that costs something. The King is near, and the Church fasts while she waits.\nInstruction from the Breviary\nThe Breviary witness for Advent Ember Day 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 fast of expectation.. Its first point is this: The Advent Ember Days sanctify the season of waiting with fasting and prayer for the Church and her ministers. Its next point develops the lesson: Their witness joins Our Lady's expectant purity to the Church's supplication, asking that Christ find His people ready.\nThe practical instruction is: Prepare for Christmas by prayer that costs something. The King is near, and the Church fasts while she waits. 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\nObedience Serves Truth\nThe Church places this truth before you today: Catholic obedience is a virtue ordered to God and His truth. It is not servility before contradiction or unlawful command. 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. Authority is real because it comes from God, but it remains ministerial. It cannot command against the faith it exists to guard.\nThe grace to be practiced is Purified expectation and prayer for the Church, 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 humble cooperation: labor faithfully while knowing that every supernatural fruit belongs first to grace.\nThere is also an enemy to recognize: Resist both rebellion against true authority and false obedience to commands that betray doctrine. 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 purified expectation and prayer for the Church 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 being an instrument rather than the owner of the work, surrendering both credit and control of results. Use all the abilities and opportunities God has entrusted to you, then return the entire fruit to Him through Mary.\nThe Church's witness: this truth manifests the Church's mark of apostolic; the witness placed beside it is St. Thomas Aquinas.\nYour resolution before God: Keep the Ember fast and abstinence according to your duty and condition, offering it for priests and vocations.\nCarry this word: The Redeemer breaks the chains that keep the soul from loving and obeying God.\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\nAsk where you acted as though success depended wholly upon you, or where false passivity excused neglected duty.\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 and ruler of Israel, come to redeem us by Thy mighty power; free me from sin and form holy priests for Thy altar.\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\nObedience, the Virtue Modernism Must Redefine: https://cityofgodinexile.com/authority-and-revolt/obedience-the-virtue-modernism-must-redefine?entered=1\nOpen this day in the Sacred Calendar: https://cityofgodinexile.com/sacred-calendar?date=2027-12-18&entered=1\nOpen this day's Daily Pilgrimage: https://cityofgodinexile.com/daily-dispatch?date=2027-12-18&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: Advent Ember Day - 2027-12-18\n \n \n
\n Advent Ember Day. Obedience Serves Truth. Resist both rebellion against true authority and false obedience to commands that betray doctrine.\n
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City of God in Exile

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Advent Ember Day

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2027-12-18 - Advent - Non-privileged 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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Clergy or cleric
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the Church's ordained ministers; a cleric is a deacon, priest, or bishop.
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Ordination
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the sacrament by which a baptized man is made a deacon, priest, or bishop and receives the grace and authority needed for that ministry.
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Ember Day
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one of the traditional seasonal fast days—Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday—offered in thanksgiving, penance, and prayer for the Church's ministers.
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Today in the Roman Year

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The Ember Friday joins fasting and prayer to the Church's cry for Adonai, the Lord who revealed His law and came to redeem with an outstretched arm. Redemption does not free man from God's commandments; it frees him from slavery to sin so that he may obey in grace. Offer today's penance for holy clergy and for your own deliverance from a chosen bondage.

Keep theological order while receiving the instrument God freely chose in His work of sanctification.

Adore the Holy Ghost as God and ask to cooperate humbly with every grace He gives through the order He has established.

“But what we want to say is, that the Holy Ghost chose to make use of our Blessed Lady, though He had no absolute need of her, to bring His fruitfulness into action, by producing in her and by her Jesus Christ in His members; a mystery of grace unknown to even the wisest and most spiritual among Christians.”

St. Louis-Marie de Montfort, True Devotion to the Blessed Virgin, no. 21

St. Louis de Montfort again closes the door against exaggeration: the Holy Ghost has no absolute need of Mary. Her office rests upon His sovereign choice. That truth protects both divine majesty and authentic Marian devotion from confusion.

The soul must learn the same humility. God does not need our talents, plans, consolations, or reputation, yet He truly commands our cooperation. Serve diligently without imagining yourself indispensable; depend entirely upon grace without using dependence as permission for laziness.

Keep the Ember fast and abstinence according to your duty and condition, offering it for priests and vocations.

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Quote of the Day

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“If it sometimes wander and withdraw itself from Him, do not much disquiet yourself for that: trouble and disquiet serve rather to distract the mind than to re-collect it: the will must bring it back in tranquility.”
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Brother Lawrence of the Resurrection, The Practice of the Presence of God: The Best Rule of a Holy Life, Eighth Letter

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Novena in Progress

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Christmas Novena - Day 3 of 9

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Preparing for Nativity of Our Lord Jesus Christ on 2027-12-25.

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Prepare the soul and household to receive the King in humility, adoration, and Catholic faith.

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Keep silence and simplicity wherever they prepare the soul and household for the Christ Child.

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Roman Martyrology - December 18

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At Philippi, in Macedonia, the birthday of the holy martyrs Ruf us and Zosimus,who were of the number of the disciples, by whom the primitive church was founded among the Jews and the Greeks. Their happy martyrdom is mentioned by St. Polycarp, in his epistle to the Philippians. — At Laodicea, in Syria, the martyrdom of the Saints Theotimus and Basilian. — In Africa, the holy martyrs Quinctus, Simplicius, and others, who suffered in the persecution of Decius and Valerian. — In the same country, St. Moysetes, martyr. — Also, in Africa, the holy martyrs Victurus, Victor, Victorinus, Adjutor, Quartus, and thirty others. — At Mopsuestia, in Cilicia, St. Auxentius, bishop, who, while he was a soldier under Licinius, preferred to surrender his military insignia rather than to offer grapes to Bacchus. Having been made bishop, he was renowned for merit, and rested in peace. — At Tours, St. Gratian, consecrated first bishop of that city by pope St. Fabrian. Celebrated for many miracles, he calmly went to his repose in the Lord.

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Highlighted Saint

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The Advent Ember Day

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The winter fast of expectation and ordination prayer.

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The Advent Ember Days sanctify the season of expectation with fasting, prayer, and supplication for the Church's ministers.

They teach that preparation for Christmas must include purification. The Church asks the Lord of the harvest for holy laborers and asks that her own children be made ready for the coming King.

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Let the Ember fast make Advent serious without making it gloomy. The King is near, and the Church prepares with prayer.

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Breviary Witness

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The fast of expectation.

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Matins - Advent Ember Day

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  • The Advent Ember Days sanctify the season of waiting with fasting and prayer for the Church and her ministers.
  • Their witness joins Our Lady's expectant purity to the Church's supplication, asking that Christ find His people ready.
    • \n
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Prepare for Christmas by prayer that costs something. The King is near, and the Church fasts while she waits.

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Instruction from the Breviary

The Breviary witness for Advent Ember Day 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 fast of expectation.. Its first point is this: The Advent Ember Days sanctify the season of waiting with fasting and prayer for the Church and her ministers. Its next point develops the lesson: Their witness joins Our Lady's expectant purity to the Church's supplication, asking that Christ find His people ready.

The practical instruction is: Prepare for Christmas by prayer that costs something. The King is near, and the Church fasts while she waits. 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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    \n
  • 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?
    • \n
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The Pilgrim's Spiritual Conference

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Obedience Serves Truth

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The Church places this truth before you today: Catholic obedience is a virtue ordered to God and His truth. It is not servility before contradiction or unlawful command. 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. Authority is real because it comes from God, but it remains ministerial. It cannot command against the faith it exists to guard.

The grace to be practiced is Purified expectation and prayer for the Church, 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 humble cooperation: labor faithfully while knowing that every supernatural fruit belongs first to grace.

There is also an enemy to recognize: Resist both rebellion against true authority and false obedience to commands that betray doctrine. 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 purified expectation and prayer for the Church 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 being an instrument rather than the owner of the work, surrendering both credit and control of results. Use all the abilities and opportunities God has entrusted to you, then return the entire fruit to Him through Mary.

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

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Your Resolution Before God

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Keep the Ember fast and abstinence according to your duty and condition, offering it for priests and vocations.

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The Redeemer breaks the chains that keep the soul from loving and obeying God.
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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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Ask where you acted as though success depended wholly upon you, or where false passivity excused neglected duty.

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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 and ruler of Israel, come to redeem us by Thy mighty power; free me from sin and form holy priests for Thy altar.

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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 Obedience, the Virtue Modernism Must Redefine\n
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Persevere, pilgrim.

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The gates remain open to the faithful.

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