{"ok":true,"date":"2028-03-07","dateKey":"03-07","liturgicalDay":"St. Thomas Aquinas, Confessor and Doctor","rank":"Double","color":"white","quoteOfTheDay":{"text":"To convert somebody, go and take them by the hand and guide them.","author":"St. Thomas Aquinas","source":""},"season":"Lent","novenas":[],"octaveContexts":[],"subject":"City of God in Exile: St. Thomas Aquinas, Confessor and Doctor - 2028-03-07","previewText":"St. Thomas Aquinas, Confessor and Doctor. The Cross Is Daily. Resist a comfortable religion that admires Christ while refusing self-denial.","plainText":"CITY OF GOD IN EXILE\nSt. Thomas Aquinas, Confessor and Doctor\n2028-03-07 - Lent - 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.\nPenance: repentance expressed through prayer, self-denial, reparation, and a real turning away from sin.\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. With Mary, turn from outward display toward the hidden sanctuary where God judges the heart. Ask Our Lady to guard the intention beneath today's prayer and labor.\n\n\"All the glory of the King's daughter is within.\"\nSt. Louis-Marie de Montfort, True Devotion to the Blessed Virgin, no. 11, citing Psalm 44:14\n\nThe world judges by what can be displayed, counted, and applauded. God sees the interior order from which a faithful act proceeds. Our Lady's glory is within because her faith, purity, charity, and consent belong wholly to Him before they become visible in any outward work.\n\nDo not use the interior life as an excuse for neglecting outward Catholic duty; Mary obeyed in deed. But begin where the deed receives its worth. Purify the intentions of your prayers and works today. Let them be done because God is God, not because the acts will preserve an image of yourself.\n\nPRACTICE\nAsk where you may be excusing error because it appears gentle, modest, familiar, or socially peaceful.\n\nQUOTE OF THE DAY\n\"To convert somebody, go and take them by the hand and guide them.\"\nSt. Thomas Aquinas\n\nROMAN MARTYROLOGY - March 7\nIn the monastery of Fossanova, near Terracina, St. Thomas of Aquin, confessor and doctor, of the Order of Preachers, illustrious by the nobility of his birth, the sanctity of his life, and his knowledge of theology. Leo XIII. declared him heavenly patron of all Catholic schools. — At Tuburbum, in Mauritania (Barbary), in the reign of the emperor Severus, the birthday of the Saints Perpetua and Felicitas, whose festival is kept on the 6th of this month. St. Augustine relates that Felicitas, being with child, her execution was deferred, according to the laws, until after her delivery, and whilst she was in labor she mourned, and when exposed to the beasts, she rejoiced. With them suffered Revocatus, Saturninus, and Secundulus. This last died in prison; all the others were delivered to the beasts. — At Caesarea, in Palestine, the passion of St. Eubulus, the companion of St. Adrian. Two days after the latter, being mangled by the lions, and killed with the sword, he was the last of all those who received the crown of martyrdom in that city. — At Nicomedia, St. Theophilus, bishop, who was driven into exile for the worship of holy images, and there closed his life. — At Pelusium, in Egypt, St. Paul, bishop, who for the same cause also died an exile. — At Brescia, St. Gaudiosus, bishop and confessor. — In Thebais, St. Paul, surnamed the Simple.\n\nHIGHLIGHTED SAINT\nSt. Thomas Aquinas\nDoctor of the Church and servant of sacred doctrine.\nSt. Thomas Aquinas served the Church by ordering theology beneath revelation, reason beneath faith, and learning beneath prayer.\nHis sanctity was not scholarship alone. He sought truth in obedience to the Church, defended doctrine with clarity, and placed the intellect at the service of God.\nLet St. Thomas teach the mind to kneel. Study becomes holy when it ends in adoration, obedience, and clearer love of truth.\nBREVIARY WITNESS\nSacred doctrine in the service of God.\nMatins - St. Thomas Aquinas\n- The Breviary honors St. Thomas Aquinas as Doctor of the Church, a servant of sacred doctrine and contemplative truth.\n- His witness orders reason beneath faith and learning beneath God.\nStudy without vanity. St. Thomas teaches that the Catholic mind is most free when it kneels before revealed truth.\nInstruction from the Breviary\nThe Breviary witness for St. Thomas Aquinas 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 Sacred doctrine in the service of God.. Its first point is this: The Breviary honors St. Thomas Aquinas as Doctor of the Church, a servant of sacred doctrine and contemplative truth. Its next point develops the lesson: His witness orders reason beneath faith and learning beneath God.\nThe practical instruction is: Study without vanity. St. Thomas teaches that the Catholic mind is most free when it kneels before revealed truth. 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 Angelic Doctor: prayer before study, doctrine unto life.\nMatins - Second Nocturn - St. Thomas Aquinas, Confessor and Doctor of the Church\nRoman Breviary\n\"Whatever he knew, he had learnt, not so much from his own labour and study, as from the inspiration of God.\"\n- The Breviary presents St. Thomas as light of the Church, formed in devotion to the Mother of God, prayer, chastity, and religious obedience.\n- He never set himself to read or write without first praying, and when a hard passage of Holy Scripture stood before him, he joined fasting to study.\n- His doctrine is ordered to practice: the Church asks that the faithful understand what he teaches and faithfully live the same.\nLearn as St. Thomas learned: on your knees, under discipline, and for the glory of God. Catholic study is not display; it is truth received, loved, defended, and lived.\nTHE PILGRIM'S SPIRITUAL CONFERENCE\nThe Cross Is Daily\nThe Church places this truth before you today: The disciple of Christ must deny himself, take up his cross daily, and follow Our Lord in obedience, penance, and perseverance. 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. Holiness is formed in ordinary fidelity before it is tested in public suffering.\nThe grace to be practiced is Humble intellect beneath revelation, 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 purity of intention by choosing God's glory before praise, appearance, or self-satisfaction.\nThere is also an enemy to recognize: Resist a comfortable religion that admires Christ while refusing self-denial. 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 humble intellect beneath revelation 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 that the holiest part of an act may remain unseen and unrewarded by men. Before each important duty, name the intention plainly: for God's glory and the salvation or good of souls.\nThe Church's witness: this truth manifests the Church's mark of holy; the witness placed beside it is St. Bede the Venerable.\nYour resolution before God: Ask where you may be excusing error because it appears gentle, modest, familiar, or socially peaceful.\nCarry this word: Be not deceived is a daily rule, not a rare warning.\nTHE PILGRIM'S MIRROR\n\"It behoveth thee to break thine own will in many things, if thou wilt have peace and concord with others.\"\nThomas à Kempis, The Imitation of Christ, Book I, chapter 17, p. 27\nConcord bought by surrendering truth is false, but many quarrels arise from preference rather than principle. Yield what belongs to self-will while holding fast what belongs to God.\n\nLearn to distinguish the two before the moment of conflict. Doctrine, purity, justice, and necessary duty may require firmness. Your preferred method, timing, recognition, or last word usually does not. The soul becomes strong when it stops spending zeal upon the defense of self.\nToday's Practice: Yield harmless preferences cheerfully whenever truth and duty do not require firmness.\nDAILY EXAMEN\nExamine not only what you did, but why you desired to do it. Give every mixed intention to Our Lady for purification.\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, preserve me from fair appearances that hide error. Teach me to love truth more than comfort, approval, or the peace that leaves souls wounded.\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\nTake Up Thy Cross Daily: https://cityofgodinexile.com/scripture-treasury/luke-9-23-deny-thyself-take-up-thy-cross-daily-and-the-standard-of-christ?entered=1\nOpen this day in the Sacred Calendar: https://cityofgodinexile.com/sacred-calendar?date=2028-03-07&entered=1\nOpen this day's Daily Pilgrimage: https://cityofgodinexile.com/daily-dispatch?date=2028-03-07&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. Thomas Aquinas, Confessor and Doctor - 2028-03-07\n \n \n
\n St. Thomas Aquinas, Confessor and Doctor. The Cross Is Daily. Resist a comfortable religion that admires Christ while refusing self-denial.\n
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City of God in Exile

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St. Thomas Aquinas, Confessor and Doctor

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2028-03-07 - Lent - 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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Penance
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repentance expressed through prayer, self-denial, reparation, and a real turning away from sin.
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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.

With Mary, turn from outward display toward the hidden sanctuary where God judges the heart.

Ask Our Lady to guard the intention beneath today's prayer and labor.

“All the glory of the King's daughter is within.”

St. Louis-Marie de Montfort, True Devotion to the Blessed Virgin, no. 11, citing Psalm 44:14

The world judges by what can be displayed, counted, and applauded. God sees the interior order from which a faithful act proceeds. Our Lady's glory is within because her faith, purity, charity, and consent belong wholly to Him before they become visible in any outward work.

Do not use the interior life as an excuse for neglecting outward Catholic duty; Mary obeyed in deed. But begin where the deed receives its worth. Purify the intentions of your prayers and works today. Let them be done because God is God, not because the acts will preserve an image of yourself.

Ask where you may be excusing error because it appears gentle, modest, familiar, or socially peaceful.

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Quote of the Day

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“To convert somebody, go and take them by the hand and guide them.”
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St. Thomas Aquinas

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Roman Martyrology - March 7

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In the monastery of Fossanova, near Terracina, St. Thomas of Aquin, confessor and doctor, of the Order of Preachers, illustrious by the nobility of his birth, the sanctity of his life, and his knowledge of theology. Leo XIII. declared him heavenly patron of all Catholic schools. — At Tuburbum, in Mauritania (Barbary), in the reign of the emperor Severus, the birthday of the Saints Perpetua and Felicitas, whose festival is kept on the 6th of this month. St. Augustine relates that Felicitas, being with child, her execution was deferred, according to the laws, until after her delivery, and whilst she was in labor she mourned, and when exposed to the beasts, she rejoiced. With them suffered Revocatus, Saturninus, and Secundulus. This last died in prison; all the others were delivered to the beasts. — At Caesarea, in Palestine, the passion of St. Eubulus, the companion of St. Adrian. Two days after the latter, being mangled by the lions, and killed with the sword, he was the last of all those who received the crown of martyrdom in that city. — At Nicomedia, St. Theophilus, bishop, who was driven into exile for the worship of holy images, and there closed his life. — At Pelusium, in Egypt, St. Paul, bishop, who for the same cause also died an exile. — At Brescia, St. Gaudiosus, bishop and confessor. — In Thebais, St. Paul, surnamed the Simple.

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Highlighted Saint

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St. Thomas Aquinas

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Doctor of the Church and servant of sacred doctrine.

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St. Thomas Aquinas served the Church by ordering theology beneath revelation, reason beneath faith, and learning beneath prayer.

His sanctity was not scholarship alone. He sought truth in obedience to the Church, defended doctrine with clarity, and placed the intellect at the service of God.

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Let St. Thomas teach the mind to kneel. Study becomes holy when it ends in adoration, obedience, and clearer love of truth.

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Breviary Witness

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Sacred doctrine in the service of God.

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Matins - St. Thomas Aquinas

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  • The Breviary honors St. Thomas Aquinas as Doctor of the Church, a servant of sacred doctrine and contemplative truth.
  • His witness orders reason beneath faith and learning beneath God.
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Study without vanity. St. Thomas teaches that the Catholic mind is most free when it kneels before revealed truth.

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Instruction from the Breviary

The Breviary witness for St. Thomas Aquinas 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 Sacred doctrine in the service of God.. Its first point is this: The Breviary honors St. Thomas Aquinas as Doctor of the Church, a servant of sacred doctrine and contemplative truth. Its next point develops the lesson: His witness orders reason beneath faith and learning beneath God.

The practical instruction is: Study without vanity. St. Thomas teaches that the Catholic mind is most free when it kneels before revealed truth. 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 Angelic Doctor: prayer before study, doctrine unto life.

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Matins - Second Nocturn - St. Thomas Aquinas, Confessor and Doctor of the Church

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Roman Breviary, Proper lessons for St. Thomas Aquinas

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“Whatever he knew, he had learnt, not so much from his own labour and study, as from the inspiration of God.”
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  • The Breviary presents St. Thomas as light of the Church, formed in devotion to the Mother of God, prayer, chastity, and religious obedience.
  • He never set himself to read or write without first praying, and when a hard passage of Holy Scripture stood before him, he joined fasting to study.
  • His doctrine is ordered to practice: the Church asks that the faithful understand what he teaches and faithfully live the same.
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Learn as St. Thomas learned: on your knees, under discipline, and for the glory of God. Catholic study is not display; it is truth received, loved, defended, and lived.

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The Pilgrim's Spiritual Conference

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The Cross Is Daily

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The Church places this truth before you today: The disciple of Christ must deny himself, take up his cross daily, and follow Our Lord in obedience, penance, and perseverance. 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. Holiness is formed in ordinary fidelity before it is tested in public suffering.

The grace to be practiced is Humble intellect beneath revelation, 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 purity of intention by choosing God's glory before praise, appearance, or self-satisfaction.

There is also an enemy to recognize: Resist a comfortable religion that admires Christ while refusing self-denial. 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 humble intellect beneath revelation 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 that the holiest part of an act may remain unseen and unrewarded by men. Before each important duty, name the intention plainly: for God's glory and the salvation or good of souls.

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The Church's witness: this truth manifests the Church's mark of holy; the witness placed beside it is St. Bede the Venerable.

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Your Resolution Before God

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Ask where you may be excusing error because it appears gentle, modest, familiar, or socially peaceful.

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Be not deceived is a daily rule, not a rare warning.
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The Pilgrim's Mirror

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How shall I imitate Christ today?

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“It behoveth thee to break thine own will in many things, if thou wilt have peace and concord with others.”
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Thomas à Kempis, The Imitation of Christ, Book I, chapter 17, p. 27

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Concord bought by surrendering truth is false, but many quarrels arise from preference rather than principle. Yield what belongs to self-will while holding fast what belongs to God.

Learn to distinguish the two before the moment of conflict. Doctrine, purity, justice, and necessary duty may require firmness. Your preferred method, timing, recognition, or last word usually does not. The soul becomes strong when it stops spending zeal upon the defense of self.

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Today's Practice

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Yield harmless preferences cheerfully whenever truth and duty do not require firmness.

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Daily Examen

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Three questions before night prayer

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Examine not only what you did, but why you desired to do it. Give every mixed intention to Our Lady for purification.

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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, preserve me from fair appearances that hide error. Teach me to love truth more than comfort, approval, or the peace that leaves souls wounded.

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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 Take Up Thy Cross Daily\n
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Persevere, pilgrim.

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The gates remain open to the faithful.

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