{"ok":true,"date":"2028-01-29","dateKey":"01-29","liturgicalDay":"St. Francis of Sales, Bishop, Confessor, and Doctor","rank":"Double","color":"white","quoteOfTheDay":{"text":"Anxiety is the greatest evil that can befall a soul except sin. God commands you to pray, but He forbids you to worry.","author":"St. Francis de Sales","source":""},"season":"Time after Epiphany","novenas":[{"title":"Novena to Our Lady of Good Success","feast":"Our Lady of Good Success","day":6,"totalDays":9,"startIsoDate":"2028-01-24","feastIsoDate":"2028-02-02","intention":"Ask Our Lady for fidelity in crisis, protection against corruption of faith and morals, and hope beneath the trials of the Church.","prayer":null,"practice":"Pray for Catholic homes, mothers, children, vocations, and souls confused by the errors of the age.","sources":[]}],"octaveContexts":[],"subject":"City of God in Exile: St. Francis of Sales, Bishop, Confessor, and Doctor - 2028-01-29","previewText":"St. Francis of Sales, Bishop, Confessor, and Doctor. Justification Requires True Conversion. Resist false mercy, which comforts the sinner while leaving the wound unhealed.","plainText":"CITY OF GOD IN EXILE\nSt. Francis of Sales, Bishop, Confessor, and Doctor\n2028-01-29 - Time after Epiphany - Double - white\nPLAIN-LANGUAGE GUIDE FOR TODAY\nConfessor: in the traditional calendar, a male saint who openly professed the Faith by a holy life but was not killed as a martyr.\nDoctor of the Church: a saint formally recognized for teaching the Catholic Faith with exceptional depth and lasting value.\nBishop: a successor of the apostles charged with teaching, sanctifying, and governing a local Church.\nTODAY IN THE ROMAN YEAR\nThe mystery of the coming of Christ teaches the pilgrim to wait without surrender, to recognize divine humility, and to adore the King where He truly appears. Sacred time trains hope, but hope must remain disciplined by doctrine and worship. Approach with holy poverty the treasury God has placed in His Mother for the members of Christ. Confess your poverty before God and ask through Our Lady for every grace needed to keep His commandments and fulfill all your duties.\n\n\"God the Father made an assemblage of all the waters, and He named it the sea (mare). He has made an assemblage of all His graces, and He has called it Mary (Maria).\"\nSt. Louis-Marie de Montfort, True Devotion to the Blessed Virgin, no. 23\n\nThe image magnifies the abundance of God, not an independent abundance in a creature. Every grace belongs to Him and is purchased for us by Jesus Christ. Mary is called the treasury because God freely filled her and wills to employ her maternal intercession for Christ's members.\n\nCome as one who is poor and needs grace for everything: faith, repentance, purity, prayer, patience, courage, and perseverance. Spiritual poverty is not minimalism. Because the need is great, the petition should be persevering and the cooperation generous.\n\nPRACTICE\nEnd the day with thanksgiving, examination, contrition, and a firm purpose for tomorrow.\n\nQUOTE OF THE DAY\n\"Anxiety is the greatest evil that can befall a soul except sin. God commands you to pray, but He forbids you to worry.\"\nSt. Francis de Sales\n\nNOVENA IN PROGRESS\nNovena to Our Lady of Good Success - Day 6 of 9\nPreparing for Our Lady of Good Success on 2028-02-02.\nAsk Our Lady for fidelity in crisis, protection against corruption of faith and morals, and hope beneath the trials of the Church.\n\nPray for Catholic homes, mothers, children, vocations, and souls confused by the errors of the age.\n\nROMAN MARTYROLOGY - January 29\nAt Lyons, in France, St. Francis of Sales, bishop of Geneva, confessor and Doctor of the Church, who is mentioned on the 28th of December. — At Rome, on the Nomentan road, the birthday of the holy martyrs Papius and Maurus, soldiers under the emperor Diocletian. At their first confession of Christ their mouths were bruised with stones and they were thrown into prison by order of Laodicius, prefect of the city. Afterwards they were beaten with rods and with leaded whips until they expired. — At Perugia, in the time of Marcus Aurelius, St. Constantius, bishop and martyr, who together with his companions, received the crown of martyrdom for the defense of the faith. — At Edessa, in Syria, the holy martyrs Sarbelius and his sister Barbea, who were baptized by the blessed bishop Barsimseus, and crowned with martyrdom in the persecution of Trajan, under the governor Lysias. — In the territory of Troyes, St. Sabinian, martyr, who was beheaded for the faith of Christ by the command of the emperor Aurelian. — At Milan, St. Aquilinus, priest, who was crowned with martyrdom by having his throat pierced with a sword by the Arians. — At Treves, the demise of the blessed bishop Valerius, disciple of the apostle St. Peter. — At Bourges, St. Sulpicius Severus, bishop, distinguished by his virtues and erudition.\n\nHIGHLIGHTED SAINT\nSt. Francis de Sales\nBishop, Doctor, and gentle defender of truth.\nSt. Francis de Sales defended Catholic truth with patience, clarity, and pastoral charity. He labored for souls separated from the Church and did not answer error with mockery or rage.\nHis gentleness was not softness. He could speak calmly because he was not trying to win a quarrel for himself. He wanted souls to return to the truth.\nLet St. Francis de Sales teach measured defense. Gentleness is strong when it is yoked to doctrine and patience. Say what is true, but say it as a Catholic who desires conversion, not victory over a person.\nBREVIARY WITNESS\nGentleness made strong by doctrine.\nMatins - St. Francis de Sales\n- The Breviary honors St. Francis de Sales as bishop and Doctor, a defender of Catholic truth marked by patience and pastoral gentleness.\n- His witness refuses both harsh vanity and weak compromise.\nLet defense of the faith remain measured and medicinal. Gentleness is Catholic when it serves truth and conversion.\nInstruction from the Breviary\nThe Breviary witness for St. Francis de Sales 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 Gentleness made strong by doctrine.. Its first point is this: The Breviary honors St. Francis de Sales as bishop and Doctor, a defender of Catholic truth marked by patience and pastoral gentleness. Its next point develops the lesson: His witness refuses both harsh vanity and weak compromise.\nThe practical instruction is: Let defense of the faith remain measured and medicinal. Gentleness is Catholic when it serves truth and conversion. 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\nFROM MATINS\nThe missionary bishop whose gentleness served conversion.\nMatins - Second Nocturn - St. Francis de Sales, Bishop, Confessor, and Doctor\nRoman Breviary\n\"Amid all these dangers and struggles his constancy remained invincible.\"\n- The Breviary joins St. Francis de Sales's learning in theology and law to chastity, priestly vocation, and missionary labor among those separated by Calvinist heresy.\n- Gentleness did not mean avoidance of conflict: he endured plots, calumny, and danger while laboring for the return of souls to Catholic unity.\n- As bishop and Doctor he united discipline, peace, care for the poor, religious foundation, and a safe road to Christian perfection.\nAsk St. Francis de Sales for constancy without harsh vanity. Speak truth in a manner ordered to conversion, and let patience endure where quick anger would abandon the soul.\nTHE PILGRIM'S SPIRITUAL CONFERENCE\nJustification Requires True Conversion\nThe Church places this truth before you today: The sinner is not healed by excuse or affirmation, but by grace, repentance, faith, hope, charity, and the turning of the soul toward God. 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. Catholic mercy restores the sinner to truth; it never names sin as holiness or treats amendment as optional.\nThe grace to be practiced is Gentleness governed by truth, 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 supernatural poverty by relying upon grace while using every lawful means God places within reach.\nThere is also an enemy to recognize: Resist false mercy, which comforts the sinner while leaving the wound unhealed. 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 gentleness governed by truth 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. Let awareness of weakness drive you toward prayer and vigilance, never toward discouragement or lowered standards. Ask grace before all demanding duties and temptations, cooperate throughout them, and give thanks when they are completed.\nThe Church's witness: this truth manifests the Church's mark of holy; the witness placed beside it is Council of Trent.\nYour resolution before God: End the day with thanksgiving, examination, contrition, and a firm purpose for tomorrow.\nCarry this word: The day must end beneath truth.\nTHE PILGRIM'S MIRROR\n\"Words feed not the soul; but a good life refresheth the mind, and a clean conscience bringeth a man to a firm and stable trust in God.\"\nThomas à Kempis, The Imitation of Christ, Book I, chapter 2, p. 10\nPious speech cannot replace obedience. Peace grows where known duty is fulfilled and forgiven sin is honestly confessed.\n\nThe soul sometimes speaks about prayer, holiness, or the crisis in the Church because speaking is easier than amendment. Do not despise true words, but require them first of yourself. Let the repair of neglected duties become proof that truth has entered the will.\nToday's Practice: Begin completing the neglected duties you have discussed more than performed, ordering them justly and without further excuse.\nDAILY EXAMEN\nName the graces received today and return them through Mary to the Father from whom every good gift descends.\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, bring this day to judgment before Thy mercy. Show me where I obeyed, where I resisted, where I loved, and where I must begin again.\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\nGrace, Conversion, and Final Perseverance: https://cityofgodinexile.com/mercy-and-salvation/grace-conversion-and-final-perseverance?entered=1\nOpen this day in the Sacred Calendar: https://cityofgodinexile.com/sacred-calendar?date=2028-01-29&entered=1\nOpen this day's Daily Pilgrimage: https://cityofgodinexile.com/daily-dispatch?date=2028-01-29&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. Francis of Sales, Bishop, Confessor, and Doctor - 2028-01-29\n \n \n
\n St. Francis of Sales, Bishop, Confessor, and Doctor. Justification Requires True Conversion. Resist false mercy, which comforts the sinner while leaving the wound unhealed.\n
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City of God in Exile

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St. Francis of Sales, Bishop, Confessor, and Doctor

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2028-01-29 - Time after Epiphany - Double - white

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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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Confessor
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in the traditional calendar, a male saint who openly professed the Faith by a holy life but was not killed as a martyr.
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Doctor of the Church
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a saint formally recognized for teaching the Catholic Faith with exceptional depth and lasting value.
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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 mystery of the coming of Christ teaches the pilgrim to wait without surrender, to recognize divine humility, and to adore the King where He truly appears. Sacred time trains hope, but hope must remain disciplined by doctrine and worship.

Approach with holy poverty the treasury God has placed in His Mother for the members of Christ.

Confess your poverty before God and ask through Our Lady for every grace needed to keep His commandments and fulfill all your duties.

“God the Father made an assemblage of all the waters, and He named it the sea (mare). He has made an assemblage of all His graces, and He has called it Mary (Maria).”

St. Louis-Marie de Montfort, True Devotion to the Blessed Virgin, no. 23

The image magnifies the abundance of God, not an independent abundance in a creature. Every grace belongs to Him and is purchased for us by Jesus Christ. Mary is called the treasury because God freely filled her and wills to employ her maternal intercession for Christ's members.

Come as one who is poor and needs grace for everything: faith, repentance, purity, prayer, patience, courage, and perseverance. Spiritual poverty is not minimalism. Because the need is great, the petition should be persevering and the cooperation generous.

End the day with thanksgiving, examination, contrition, and a firm purpose for tomorrow.

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Quote of the Day

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“Anxiety is the greatest evil that can befall a soul except sin. God commands you to pray, but He forbids you to worry.”
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St. Francis de Sales

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Novena in Progress

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Novena to Our Lady of Good Success - Day 6 of 9

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Preparing for Our Lady of Good Success on 2028-02-02.

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Ask Our Lady for fidelity in crisis, protection against corruption of faith and morals, and hope beneath the trials of the Church.

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Pray for Catholic homes, mothers, children, vocations, and souls confused by the errors of the age.

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Roman Martyrology - January 29

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At Lyons, in France, St. Francis of Sales, bishop of Geneva, confessor and Doctor of the Church, who is mentioned on the 28th of December. — At Rome, on the Nomentan road, the birthday of the holy martyrs Papius and Maurus, soldiers under the emperor Diocletian. At their first confession of Christ their mouths were bruised with stones and they were thrown into prison by order of Laodicius, prefect of the city. Afterwards they were beaten with rods and with leaded whips until they expired. — At Perugia, in the time of Marcus Aurelius, St. Constantius, bishop and martyr, who together with his companions, received the crown of martyrdom for the defense of the faith. — At Edessa, in Syria, the holy martyrs Sarbelius and his sister Barbea, who were baptized by the blessed bishop Barsimseus, and crowned with martyrdom in the persecution of Trajan, under the governor Lysias. — In the territory of Troyes, St. Sabinian, martyr, who was beheaded for the faith of Christ by the command of the emperor Aurelian. — At Milan, St. Aquilinus, priest, who was crowned with martyrdom by having his throat pierced with a sword by the Arians. — At Treves, the demise of the blessed bishop Valerius, disciple of the apostle St. Peter. — At Bourges, St. Sulpicius Severus, bishop, distinguished by his virtues and erudition.

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Highlighted Saint

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St. Francis de Sales

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Bishop, Doctor, and gentle defender of truth.

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St. Francis de Sales defended Catholic truth with patience, clarity, and pastoral charity. He labored for souls separated from the Church and did not answer error with mockery or rage.

His gentleness was not softness. He could speak calmly because he was not trying to win a quarrel for himself. He wanted souls to return to the truth.

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Let St. Francis de Sales teach measured defense. Gentleness is strong when it is yoked to doctrine and patience. Say what is true, but say it as a Catholic who desires conversion, not victory over a person.

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Breviary Witness

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Gentleness made strong by doctrine.

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Matins - St. Francis de Sales

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  • The Breviary honors St. Francis de Sales as bishop and Doctor, a defender of Catholic truth marked by patience and pastoral gentleness.
  • His witness refuses both harsh vanity and weak compromise.
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Let defense of the faith remain measured and medicinal. Gentleness is Catholic when it serves truth and conversion.

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Instruction from the Breviary

The Breviary witness for St. Francis de Sales 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 Gentleness made strong by doctrine.. Its first point is this: The Breviary honors St. Francis de Sales as bishop and Doctor, a defender of Catholic truth marked by patience and pastoral gentleness. Its next point develops the lesson: His witness refuses both harsh vanity and weak compromise.

The practical instruction is: Let defense of the faith remain measured and medicinal. Gentleness is Catholic when it serves truth and conversion. 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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From Matins

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The missionary bishop whose gentleness served conversion.

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Matins - Second Nocturn - St. Francis de Sales, Bishop, Confessor, and Doctor

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Roman Breviary, Proper lessons for St. Francis de Sales

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“Amid all these dangers and struggles his constancy remained invincible.”
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  • The Breviary joins St. Francis de Sales's learning in theology and law to chastity, priestly vocation, and missionary labor among those separated by Calvinist heresy.
  • Gentleness did not mean avoidance of conflict: he endured plots, calumny, and danger while laboring for the return of souls to Catholic unity.
  • As bishop and Doctor he united discipline, peace, care for the poor, religious foundation, and a safe road to Christian perfection.
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Ask St. Francis de Sales for constancy without harsh vanity. Speak truth in a manner ordered to conversion, and let patience endure where quick anger would abandon the soul.

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The Pilgrim's Spiritual Conference

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Justification Requires True Conversion

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The Church places this truth before you today: The sinner is not healed by excuse or affirmation, but by grace, repentance, faith, hope, charity, and the turning of the soul toward God. 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. Catholic mercy restores the sinner to truth; it never names sin as holiness or treats amendment as optional.

The grace to be practiced is Gentleness governed by truth, 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 supernatural poverty by relying upon grace while using every lawful means God places within reach.

There is also an enemy to recognize: Resist false mercy, which comforts the sinner while leaving the wound unhealed. 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 gentleness governed by truth 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. Let awareness of weakness drive you toward prayer and vigilance, never toward discouragement or lowered standards. Ask grace before all demanding duties and temptations, cooperate throughout them, and give thanks when they are completed.

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The Church's witness: this truth manifests the Church's mark of holy; the witness placed beside it is Council of Trent.

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Your Resolution Before God

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End the day with thanksgiving, examination, contrition, and a firm purpose for tomorrow.

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The day must end beneath truth.
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The Pilgrim's Mirror

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How shall I imitate Christ today?

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“Words feed not the soul; but a good life refresheth the mind, and a clean conscience bringeth a man to a firm and stable trust in God.”
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Thomas à Kempis, The Imitation of Christ, Book I, chapter 2, p. 10

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Pious speech cannot replace obedience. Peace grows where known duty is fulfilled and forgiven sin is honestly confessed.

The soul sometimes speaks about prayer, holiness, or the crisis in the Church because speaking is easier than amendment. Do not despise true words, but require them first of yourself. Let the repair of neglected duties become proof that truth has entered the will.

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Today's Practice

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Begin completing the neglected duties you have discussed more than performed, ordering them justly and without further excuse.

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Daily Examen

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Three questions before night prayer

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Name the graces received today and return them through Mary to the Father from whom every good gift descends.

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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, bring this day to judgment before Thy mercy. Show me where I obeyed, where I resisted, where I loved, and where I must begin again.

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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 Grace, Conversion, and Final Perseverance\n
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Persevere, pilgrim.

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The gates remain open to the faithful.

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