{"ok":true,"date":"2028-05-23","dateKey":"05-23","liturgicalDay":"Rogation Day","rank":"Non-privileged Feria","color":"violet","quoteOfTheDay":{"text":"You were not redeemed with corruptible things as gold or silver, but with the precious blood of Christ.","author":"St. Peter","source":"1 Peter 1:18-19, Douay-Rheims","category":"Christ, the Wisdom of God"},"season":"Eastertide","novenas":[],"octaveContexts":[],"subject":"City of God in Exile: Rogation Day - 2028-05-23","previewText":"Rogation Day. The Church Is Visible and Founded by Christ. Resist the claim that a self-made religious fellowship can replace the Church Christ visibly founded.","plainText":"CITY OF GOD IN EXILE\nRogation Day\n2028-05-23 - Eastertide - Non-privileged Feria - violet\nPLAIN-LANGUAGE GUIDE FOR TODAY\nAscension: Christ's return to the Father in His glorified humanity forty days after the Resurrection.\nRogation Day: a day of public prayer and procession on which the Church asks God for mercy, protection, and blessing upon the earth and its fruits.\nDivine Providence: God's wise and loving governance of creation, by which He directs all things without destroying human freedom.\nTODAY IN THE ROMAN YEAR\nChrist is risen, has ascended in His glorified humanity, and reigns in Heaven. The Church and her members still suffer on earth, but their trials do not overturn His victory. Christian hope is therefore more than an encouraging feeling: it trusts Christ's promise of resurrection and eternal life and gives the faithful a reason to persevere in obedience today. With Mary, ponder the mysteries of Christ and let revealed truth govern the day. Keep the mysteries of the Rosary near the mind today. Ask Our Lady to teach what they demand of faith, worship, and conduct.\n\n\"We must do all our actions with Mary; that is to say, we must in all our actions regard Mary as an accomplished model of every virtue and perfection which the Holy Ghost has formed in a pure creature for us to imitate according to our little measure.\"\nSt. Louis-Marie de Montfort, True Devotion to the Blessed Virgin, no. 260\n\nTo walk with Mary is first to look steadily at what God made her: humble under praise, recollected amid great mysteries, obedient without bargaining, pure in intention, and faithful when fidelity led beneath the Cross. Admiration that never becomes imitation remains unfinished devotion.\n\nAsk which of these dispositions is most absent from your conduct today. Strive for every virtue that duty requires, while giving particular attention to the one most opposed by your usual fault. Beg for it through Our Lady and practice it in the very circumstance where that fault ordinarily appears.\n\nPRACTICE\nPray the Litany of the Saints, or a portion of it, and name plainly the needs of your household, work, and community before God.\n\nQUOTE OF THE DAY\n\"You were not redeemed with corruptible things as gold or silver, but with the precious blood of Christ.\"\nSt. Peter, 1 Peter 1:18-19, Douay-Rheims\n\nROMAN MARTYROLOGY - May 23\nAt Langres, in France, the martyrdom of the holy bishop Desiderius, who visited the king as a suppliant in behalf of his people who were maltreated by the Vandal army. Being forthwith condemned to decapitation, he readily presented his neck, and being struck with the sword, died for the sheep committed to his charge and departed for heaven. With him suffered many of his flock, who are buried in the same city. — In Spain, the holy martyrs Epitacius, bishop, and Basileus. — In Africa, the holy martyrs Quintian, Lucius, and Julian, who merited eternal crowns by their sufferings, during the persecution of the Vandals. — In Cappadocia, the commemoration of the holy martyrs who died by having their legs crushed, in the persecution of Maximian Galerius. Also, in Mesopotamia, those martyrs who, at the same time, were suspended in the air with their heads downward. Being suffocated with smoke, and consumed with a slow fire, they consummated their martyrdom. — In the territory of Lyons, St. Desiderius, bishop of Vienne, who was crowned with martyrdom by being overwhelmed with stones by order of king Theodoric. — At Synnada, in Phrygia, St. Michael, bishop. — The same day, St. Mercurialis, bishop. — At Naples, in Campania, St. Euphebius, bishop. — At Norcia, the Saints Eutychius and Florentius, monks, mentioned by the blessed pope Gregory. — At Rome, the birthday of St. John Baptist de Rossi, confessor, a man illustrious for his patience and his zeal in preaching the Gospel to the poor.\n\nGOSPEL OF THE DAY\nAsk, seek, and knock.\nRogation Day - Luke 11:5-13\n\"Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and you shall find; knock, and it shall be opened to you.\"\nLet Rogation teach you how to ask without shame. Exile becomes fruitful when the soul admits need and knocks at the Father's door.\n\nTHE CHURCH'S READING OF THE GOSPEL\nWhat This Gospel Teaches\nThe Rogation Gospel teaches persevering petition: the Church asks because she knows her poverty before God.\nRogation prayer is not vague optimism. It is humble, public dependence on the Father who gives good things to those who ask.\nError corrected: The self-sufficient spirit that treats prayer as decorative rather than necessary.\n- Where does this error tempt me in practice?\n- What act does this Gospel require of me today?\n\nHIGHLIGHTED SAINT\nThe Rogation Procession\nThe Church asking mercy before the Ascension.\nThe Rogation days are days of solemn petition before the Ascension, when the Church asks God's mercy, protection, and blessing with litanies and humble supplication.\nThey teach public dependence on Providence. Fields, labor, homes, nations, and souls must be brought beneath the mercy of God rather than treated as self-sufficient possessions.\nRogation prayer is exile speaking rightly: poor before God, but confident enough to knock.\nBREVIARY WITNESS\nThe Church knocks at the Father's door.\nMatins - Rogation Day\n- The Rogation days place the Church in public supplication, asking mercy and blessing before the Ascension.\n- Their witness is humble and concrete: the faithful ask God for what they need because land, labor, weather, peace, and perseverance belong beneath Providence.\nAsk without embarrassment. Dependence on God is not weakness but the truthful posture of a pilgrim.\nInstruction from the Breviary\nThe Breviary witness for Rogation 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 Church knocks at the Father's door.. Its first point is this: The Rogation days place the Church in public supplication, asking mercy and blessing before the Ascension. Its next point develops the lesson: Their witness is humble and concrete: the faithful ask God for what they need because land, labor, weather, peace, and perseverance belong beneath Providence.\nThe practical instruction is: Ask without embarrassment. Dependence on God is not weakness but the truthful posture of a pilgrim. 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 Church Is Visible and Founded by Christ\nThe Church places this truth before you today: The true Church is not an invisible collection of private opinions, but the society founded by Our Lord, teaching, sanctifying, and governing in His name. 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. Apostolicity guards continuity of doctrine, worship, mission, and authority. The faithful do not invent the Church; they receive her from Christ through the Apostles.\nThe grace to be practiced is Humble petition and trust in Providence, 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 faith. She did not make private feeling the measure of God's word; she believed, obeyed, and persevered in darkness.\nThere is also an enemy to recognize: Resist the claim that a self-made religious fellowship can replace the Church Christ visibly founded. 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 petition and trust in Providence 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 understanding is limited, do not abandon what God has revealed. Trust Him, hold the Catholic Faith, and fulfill the known duty. Carry your acts into the mysteries of Christ's life and offer them with the corresponding decades of the Rosary.\nThe Church's witness: this truth manifests the Church's mark of apostolic; the witness placed beside it is St. Robert Bellarmine.\nYour resolution before God: Pray the Litany of the Saints, or a portion of it, and name plainly the needs of your household, work, and community before God.\nCarry this word: Rogation prayer teaches the whole community to admit its dependence upon God.\nTHE PILGRIM'S MIRROR\n\"Virtue appeareth best in time of adversity. Occasions make not a man frail, but they shew openly what he is.\"\nThomas à Kempis, The Imitation of Christ, Book I, chapter 16, p. 27\nThe trial does not excuse the fault; it reveals where grace must be received and nature mortified. Do not waste the revelation God permits.\n\nWhen adversity uncovers impatience or fear, do not conclude that every previous effort was false. Thank God for showing you where the wall remains weak. Humble yourself, ask pardon if another was wounded, and return to the battle with a more honest knowledge of your need for grace.\nToday's Practice: At the next contradiction, name the virtue being tested and practice it once.\nDAILY EXAMEN\nPonder the day with Mary: where was Christ present, where did you resist grace, and what truth must be kept more faithfully tomorrow?\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 God, have mercy upon Thy people. Bless our homes, labor, land, and daily bread; protect us from sin and calamity; and lead us through temporal needs toward eternal life.\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\nThe Visibility of the Church: https://cityofgodinexile.com/how-the-true-church-is-known/chapter-10-the-visibility-of-the-church-the-light-that-cannot-be-hidden?entered=1\nOpen this day in the Sacred Calendar: https://cityofgodinexile.com/sacred-calendar?date=2028-05-23&entered=1\nOpen this day's Daily Pilgrimage: https://cityofgodinexile.com/daily-dispatch?date=2028-05-23&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: Rogation Day - 2028-05-23\n \n \n
\n Rogation Day. The Church Is Visible and Founded by Christ. Resist the claim that a self-made religious fellowship can replace the Church Christ visibly founded.\n
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City of God in Exile

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Rogation Day

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2028-05-23 - Eastertide - 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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Ascension
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Christ's return to the Father in His glorified humanity forty days after the Resurrection.
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Rogation Day
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a day of public prayer and procession on which the Church asks God for mercy, protection, and blessing upon the earth and its fruits.
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Divine Providence
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God's wise and loving governance of creation, by which He directs all things without destroying human freedom.
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Today in the Roman Year

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Christ is risen, has ascended in His glorified humanity, and reigns in Heaven. The Church and her members still suffer on earth, but their trials do not overturn His victory. Christian hope is therefore more than an encouraging feeling: it trusts Christ's promise of resurrection and eternal life and gives the faithful a reason to persevere in obedience today.

With Mary, ponder the mysteries of Christ and let revealed truth govern the day.

Keep the mysteries of the Rosary near the mind today. Ask Our Lady to teach what they demand of faith, worship, and conduct.

“We must do all our actions with Mary; that is to say, we must in all our actions regard Mary as an accomplished model of every virtue and perfection which the Holy Ghost has formed in a pure creature for us to imitate according to our little measure.”

St. Louis-Marie de Montfort, True Devotion to the Blessed Virgin, no. 260

To walk with Mary is first to look steadily at what God made her: humble under praise, recollected amid great mysteries, obedient without bargaining, pure in intention, and faithful when fidelity led beneath the Cross. Admiration that never becomes imitation remains unfinished devotion.

Ask which of these dispositions is most absent from your conduct today. Strive for every virtue that duty requires, while giving particular attention to the one most opposed by your usual fault. Beg for it through Our Lady and practice it in the very circumstance where that fault ordinarily appears.

Pray the Litany of the Saints, or a portion of it, and name plainly the needs of your household, work, and community before God.

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Quote of the Day

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“You were not redeemed with corruptible things as gold or silver, but with the precious blood of Christ.”
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St. Peter, 1 Peter 1:18-19, Douay-Rheims

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Roman Martyrology - May 23

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At Langres, in France, the martyrdom of the holy bishop Desiderius, who visited the king as a suppliant in behalf of his people who were maltreated by the Vandal army. Being forthwith condemned to decapitation, he readily presented his neck, and being struck with the sword, died for the sheep committed to his charge and departed for heaven. With him suffered many of his flock, who are buried in the same city. — In Spain, the holy martyrs Epitacius, bishop, and Basileus. — In Africa, the holy martyrs Quintian, Lucius, and Julian, who merited eternal crowns by their sufferings, during the persecution of the Vandals. — In Cappadocia, the commemoration of the holy martyrs who died by having their legs crushed, in the persecution of Maximian Galerius. Also, in Mesopotamia, those martyrs who, at the same time, were suspended in the air with their heads downward. Being suffocated with smoke, and consumed with a slow fire, they consummated their martyrdom. — In the territory of Lyons, St. Desiderius, bishop of Vienne, who was crowned with martyrdom by being overwhelmed with stones by order of king Theodoric. — At Synnada, in Phrygia, St. Michael, bishop. — The same day, St. Mercurialis, bishop. — At Naples, in Campania, St. Euphebius, bishop. — At Norcia, the Saints Eutychius and Florentius, monks, mentioned by the blessed pope Gregory. — At Rome, the birthday of St. John Baptist de Rossi, confessor, a man illustrious for his patience and his zeal in preaching the Gospel to the poor.

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Gospel of the Day

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Ask, seek, and knock.

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Rogation Day - Luke 11:5-13

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“Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and you shall find; knock, and it shall be opened to you.”
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Let Rogation teach you how to ask without shame. Exile becomes fruitful when the soul admits need and knocks at the Father's door.

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The Church's Reading of the Gospel

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What This Gospel Teaches

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The Rogation Gospel teaches persevering petition: the Church asks because she knows her poverty before God.

Rogation prayer is not vague optimism. It is humble, public dependence on the Father who gives good things to those who ask.

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Error corrected: The self-sufficient spirit that treats prayer as decorative rather than necessary.

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  • Where does this error tempt me in practice?
  • What act does this Gospel require of me today?
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Highlighted Saint

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The Rogation Procession

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The Church asking mercy before the Ascension.

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The Rogation days are days of solemn petition before the Ascension, when the Church asks God's mercy, protection, and blessing with litanies and humble supplication.

They teach public dependence on Providence. Fields, labor, homes, nations, and souls must be brought beneath the mercy of God rather than treated as self-sufficient possessions.

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Rogation prayer is exile speaking rightly: poor before God, but confident enough to knock.

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Breviary Witness

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The Church knocks at the Father's door.

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Matins - Rogation Day

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  • The Rogation days place the Church in public supplication, asking mercy and blessing before the Ascension.
  • Their witness is humble and concrete: the faithful ask God for what they need because land, labor, weather, peace, and perseverance belong beneath Providence.
    • \n
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Ask without embarrassment. Dependence on God is not weakness but the truthful posture of a pilgrim.

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Instruction from the Breviary

The Breviary witness for Rogation 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 Church knocks at the Father's door.. Its first point is this: The Rogation days place the Church in public supplication, asking mercy and blessing before the Ascension. Its next point develops the lesson: Their witness is humble and concrete: the faithful ask God for what they need because land, labor, weather, peace, and perseverance belong beneath Providence.

The practical instruction is: Ask without embarrassment. Dependence on God is not weakness but the truthful posture of a pilgrim. 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 Church Is Visible and Founded by Christ

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The Church places this truth before you today: The true Church is not an invisible collection of private opinions, but the society founded by Our Lord, teaching, sanctifying, and governing in His name. 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. Apostolicity guards continuity of doctrine, worship, mission, and authority. The faithful do not invent the Church; they receive her from Christ through the Apostles.

The grace to be practiced is Humble petition and trust in Providence, 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 faith. She did not make private feeling the measure of God's word; she believed, obeyed, and persevered in darkness.

There is also an enemy to recognize: Resist the claim that a self-made religious fellowship can replace the Church Christ visibly founded. 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 petition and trust in Providence 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 understanding is limited, do not abandon what God has revealed. Trust Him, hold the Catholic Faith, and fulfill the known duty. Carry your acts into the mysteries of Christ's life and offer them with the corresponding decades of the Rosary.

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

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Your Resolution Before God

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Pray the Litany of the Saints, or a portion of it, and name plainly the needs of your household, work, and community before God.

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Rogation prayer teaches the whole community to admit its dependence upon God.
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The Pilgrim's Mirror

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How shall I imitate Christ today?

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“Virtue appeareth best in time of adversity. Occasions make not a man frail, but they shew openly what he is.”
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Thomas à Kempis, The Imitation of Christ, Book I, chapter 16, p. 27

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The trial does not excuse the fault; it reveals where grace must be received and nature mortified. Do not waste the revelation God permits.

When adversity uncovers impatience or fear, do not conclude that every previous effort was false. Thank God for showing you where the wall remains weak. Humble yourself, ask pardon if another was wounded, and return to the battle with a more honest knowledge of your need for grace.

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Today's Practice

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At the next contradiction, name the virtue being tested and practice it once.

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Daily Examen

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Three questions before night prayer

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Ponder the day with Mary: where was Christ present, where did you resist grace, and what truth must be kept more faithfully tomorrow?

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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 God, have mercy upon Thy people. Bless our homes, labor, land, and daily bread; protect us from sin and calamity; and lead us through temporal needs toward eternal life.

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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 The Visibility of the Church\n
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Persevere, pilgrim.

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The gates remain open to the faithful.

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