{"ok":true,"date":"2028-07-31","dateKey":"07-31","liturgicalDay":"St. Ignatius of Loyola, Confessor","rank":"Double","color":"white","quoteOfTheDay":{"text":"Man is created to praise, reverence, and serve God our Lord, and by this means to save his soul.","author":"St. Ignatius of Loyola","source":"Spiritual Exercises, no. 23"},"season":"Time after Pentecost","novenas":[],"octaveContexts":[],"subject":"City of God in Exile: St. Ignatius of Loyola, Confessor - 2028-07-31","previewText":"St. Ignatius of Loyola, Confessor. The Church Suffers Without Ceasing to Be the Church. Resist both triumphalist denial of crisis and despairing denial of Christ's indefectible Church.","plainText":"CITY OF GOD IN EXILE\nSt. Ignatius of Loyola, Confessor\n2028-07-31 - Time after Pentecost - 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.\nApostolic: belonging to the faith, mission, teaching, or authority handed down from Christ through the apostles.\nPenance: repentance expressed through prayer, self-denial, reparation, and a real turning away from sin.\nTODAY IN THE ROMAN YEAR\nSt. Ignatius of Loyola allowed a soldier's ambition to be mortified and retrained for the service of Christ. Prayer, examination, penance, disciplined choice, teaching, mission, and warfare against heresy show that zeal becomes Catholic only when motives are purified and action is ordered to God's glory. With the saints, approach the depth of Mary's humility and ask to enter her school. Acknowledge your complete dependence upon grace and ask through Mary for the help needed in today's actual duties.\n\n\"…and finally, that the depth of her humility, and of all her virtues and graces, is an abyss which never can be sounded.\"\nSt. Louis-Marie de Montfort, True Devotion to the Blessed Virgin, no. 7\n\nThe saints do not grow weary of contemplating Our Lady because every virtue in her leads them more deeply into the work of God. Yet St. Louis de Montfort places humility at the depth. Mary is not full of grace because she made herself great; she is wholly receptive to God, empty of resistance, and therefore capable of being filled beyond every other creature.\n\nDo not attempt to imitate an abyss by multiplying resolutions. Begin at the edge: consent to be a creature, dependent upon grace, unable to sanctify yourself, and yet truly called by God. Ask Mary to make this dependence peaceful rather than anxious, and let it move you to prayer before effort and thanksgiving after it.\n\nPRACTICE\nMake the particular examen on your predominant fault and practice its contrary virtue whenever the fault appears.\n\nQUOTE OF THE DAY\n\"Man is created to praise, reverence, and serve God our Lord, and by this means to save his soul.\"\nSt. Ignatius of Loyola, Spiritual Exercises, no. 23\n\nROMAN MARTYROLOGY - July 31\nAt Rome, the birthday of St. Ignatius, confessor, founder of the Society of Jesus, renowned for sanctity and miracles, and most zealous for propagating the Catholic religion in all parts of the world. — At Caesarea, the martyrdom of the blessed martyr Fabius. As he refused to carry the ensign of the governor of the province, he was thrown into prison for some days, and as he persisted twice in confessing Christ when brought before the judge, he was condemned to capital punishment. — At Milan, during the persecution of Antoninus, St. Calimerius, bishop and martyr, who was arrested, covered with wounds, and pierced through the neck with a sword. He terminated his martyrdom by being precipitated into a well. At Synnada, in Phrygia, the holy martyrs Democritus, Secundus and Denis. — In Syria, three hundred and fifty monks, who became martyrs by being slain by the heretics for defending the Council of Chalcedon. — At Ravenna, the departure from this world of St. Germanus, bishop of Auxerre, a man most renowned for his birth, faith, learning, and glorious miracles, who freed England completely from the heretical doctrines of the Pelagians. — At Tagaste, in Africa, St. Firmus, bishop, illustrious by a glorious confession of the faith. — At Siena, in Tuscany, the birthday of blessed John Colombini. founder of the Order of the Jesuati, renowned for sanctity and miracles.\n\nHIGHLIGHTED SAINT\nSt. Ignatius of Loyola\nConfessor and founder, soldierly servant of Catholic mission.\nSt. Ignatius of Loyola was wounded as a soldier and, during recovery, was turned by grace from worldly ambition toward the service of Christ the King.\nHe founded the Society of Jesus and labored for Catholic mission, disciplined prayer, discernment, and obedience. His witness teaches that zeal must be examined, trained, and placed wholly beneath God's glory.\nEnd July by asking for ordered courage. St. Ignatius teaches that zeal must be trained, examined, and placed wholly under Christ.\nBREVIARY WITNESS\nAll for the greater glory of God.\nMatins - St. Ignatius of Loyola\n- The Breviary honors St. Ignatius as a wounded soldier turned founder, whose conversion became disciplined service of Christ and His Church.\n- His witness teaches vigilance over the movements of the soul, discernment under grace, and militant obedience ordered to God's glory.\nExamine the soul seriously, choose under obedience, and refuse spiritual softness. The city in exile needs Catholics trained for fidelity, not drift.\nInstruction from the Breviary\nThe Breviary witness for St. Ignatius of Loyola 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 All for the greater glory of God.. Its first point is this: The Breviary honors St. Ignatius as a wounded soldier turned founder, whose conversion became disciplined service of Christ and His Church. Its next point develops the lesson: His witness teaches vigilance over the movements of the soul, discernment under grace, and militant obedience ordered to God's glory.\nThe practical instruction is: Examine the soul seriously, choose under obedience, and refuse spiritual softness. The city in exile needs Catholics trained for fidelity, not drift. 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 wounded soldier trained for Christ's greater glory.\nMatins - Second Nocturn - St. Ignatius of Loyola, Confessor\nRoman Breviary\n\"The greater glory of his Master.\"\n- The Breviary presents St. Ignatius as the wounded soldier whose long illness became the occasion of conversion through godly reading and desire to follow Christ and His saints.\n- At Montserrat and Manresa he exchanged worldly arms for heavenly warfare, penance, prayer, fasting, and the Spiritual Exercises, later approved by the Apostolic See.\n- His work for souls joined education, missions, obedience to the Apostolic See, catechism, churches made seemly, frequent sermons, the sacraments, care for the fallen and imperilled, and warfare against paganism and heresy.\nLet zeal be trained, examined, and placed under Christ. St. Ignatius teaches ordered courage, mortified ambition, Catholic discipline, and labor for souls without theatrical noise.\nTHE PILGRIM'S SPIRITUAL CONFERENCE\nThe Church Suffers Without Ceasing to Be the Church\nThe Church places this truth before you today: The Church can be eclipsed, persecuted, betrayed, and reduced in visible splendor, yet Christ does not fail in His promises. 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. Exile must not make the faithful invent another Church, nor despair of the one Christ founded.\nThe grace to be practiced is Disciplined zeal, 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. Humility tells the truth about weakness without discouragement because it also tells the truth about God's help.\nThere is also an enemy to recognize: Resist both triumphalist denial of crisis and despairing denial of Christ's indefectible Church. 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 disciplined zeal 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 a limitation remind you to pray rather than tempt you either to despair or pretense. Before the most difficult duty, pause long enough to ask for grace; after it, give thanks instead of taking possession of success.\nThe Church's witness: this truth manifests the Church's mark of one; the witness placed beside it is St. John Fisher.\nYour resolution before God: Make the particular examen on your predominant fault and practice its contrary virtue whenever the fault appears.\nCarry this word: Zeal must be examined, mortified, and placed beneath the end for which man was created.\nTHE PILGRIM'S MIRROR\n\"Who hath a stronger battle than he that laboureth to overcome himself?\"\nThomas à Kempis, The Imitation of Christ, Book I, chapter 3, p. 12\nThe decisive field of combat is within. Heresy must be hated, and so must the pride, curiosity, compromise, and self-will by which falsehood finds lodging in the soul.\n\nMany souls desire victory in the Church while making peace with the tyrant within. Begin the restoration where grace has placed authority in your hands: over your next thought, word, appetite, and decision. A hidden victory over self-will is no small service to the City of God.\nToday's Practice: Refuse the demands of self-will promptly and without complaint.\nDAILY EXAMEN\nReturn every success and failure to God through Mary, keeping neither as material for pride or discouragement.\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, through St. Ignatius, order my desires, discipline my zeal, and make every choice serve Thy greater glory and the salvation of my soul.\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\nPerpetuity, Visibility, and Apostolic Continuity: https://cityofgodinexile.com/how-the-true-church-is-known/perpetuity-visibility-and-apostolic-continuity?entered=1\nOpen this day in the Sacred Calendar: https://cityofgodinexile.com/sacred-calendar?date=2028-07-31&entered=1\nOpen this day's Daily Pilgrimage: https://cityofgodinexile.com/daily-dispatch?date=2028-07-31&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. Ignatius of Loyola, Confessor - 2028-07-31\n \n \n
\n St. Ignatius of Loyola, Confessor. The Church Suffers Without Ceasing to Be the Church. Resist both triumphalist denial of crisis and despairing denial of Christ's indefectible Church.\n
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City of God in Exile

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St. Ignatius of Loyola, Confessor

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2028-07-31 - Time after Pentecost - 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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Apostolic
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belonging to the faith, mission, teaching, or authority handed down from Christ through the apostles.
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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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St. Ignatius of Loyola allowed a soldier's ambition to be mortified and retrained for the service of Christ. Prayer, examination, penance, disciplined choice, teaching, mission, and warfare against heresy show that zeal becomes Catholic only when motives are purified and action is ordered to God's glory.

With the saints, approach the depth of Mary's humility and ask to enter her school.

Acknowledge your complete dependence upon grace and ask through Mary for the help needed in today's actual duties.

“…and finally, that the depth of her humility, and of all her virtues and graces, is an abyss which never can be sounded.”

St. Louis-Marie de Montfort, True Devotion to the Blessed Virgin, no. 7

The saints do not grow weary of contemplating Our Lady because every virtue in her leads them more deeply into the work of God. Yet St. Louis de Montfort places humility at the depth. Mary is not full of grace because she made herself great; she is wholly receptive to God, empty of resistance, and therefore capable of being filled beyond every other creature.

Do not attempt to imitate an abyss by multiplying resolutions. Begin at the edge: consent to be a creature, dependent upon grace, unable to sanctify yourself, and yet truly called by God. Ask Mary to make this dependence peaceful rather than anxious, and let it move you to prayer before effort and thanksgiving after it.

Make the particular examen on your predominant fault and practice its contrary virtue whenever the fault appears.

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Quote of the Day

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“Man is created to praise, reverence, and serve God our Lord, and by this means to save his soul.”
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St. Ignatius of Loyola, Spiritual Exercises, no. 23

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Roman Martyrology - July 31

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At Rome, the birthday of St. Ignatius, confessor, founder of the Society of Jesus, renowned for sanctity and miracles, and most zealous for propagating the Catholic religion in all parts of the world. — At Caesarea, the martyrdom of the blessed martyr Fabius. As he refused to carry the ensign of the governor of the province, he was thrown into prison for some days, and as he persisted twice in confessing Christ when brought before the judge, he was condemned to capital punishment. — At Milan, during the persecution of Antoninus, St. Calimerius, bishop and martyr, who was arrested, covered with wounds, and pierced through the neck with a sword. He terminated his martyrdom by being precipitated into a well. At Synnada, in Phrygia, the holy martyrs Democritus, Secundus and Denis. — In Syria, three hundred and fifty monks, who became martyrs by being slain by the heretics for defending the Council of Chalcedon. — At Ravenna, the departure from this world of St. Germanus, bishop of Auxerre, a man most renowned for his birth, faith, learning, and glorious miracles, who freed England completely from the heretical doctrines of the Pelagians. — At Tagaste, in Africa, St. Firmus, bishop, illustrious by a glorious confession of the faith. — At Siena, in Tuscany, the birthday of blessed John Colombini. founder of the Order of the Jesuati, renowned for sanctity and miracles.

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Highlighted Saint

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St. Ignatius of Loyola

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Confessor and founder, soldierly servant of Catholic mission.

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St. Ignatius of Loyola was wounded as a soldier and, during recovery, was turned by grace from worldly ambition toward the service of Christ the King.

He founded the Society of Jesus and labored for Catholic mission, disciplined prayer, discernment, and obedience. His witness teaches that zeal must be examined, trained, and placed wholly beneath God's glory.

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End July by asking for ordered courage. St. Ignatius teaches that zeal must be trained, examined, and placed wholly under Christ.

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Breviary Witness

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All for the greater glory of God.

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Matins - St. Ignatius of Loyola

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  • The Breviary honors St. Ignatius as a wounded soldier turned founder, whose conversion became disciplined service of Christ and His Church.
  • His witness teaches vigilance over the movements of the soul, discernment under grace, and militant obedience ordered to God's glory.
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Examine the soul seriously, choose under obedience, and refuse spiritual softness. The city in exile needs Catholics trained for fidelity, not drift.

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Instruction from the Breviary

The Breviary witness for St. Ignatius of Loyola 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 All for the greater glory of God.. Its first point is this: The Breviary honors St. Ignatius as a wounded soldier turned founder, whose conversion became disciplined service of Christ and His Church. Its next point develops the lesson: His witness teaches vigilance over the movements of the soul, discernment under grace, and militant obedience ordered to God's glory.

The practical instruction is: Examine the soul seriously, choose under obedience, and refuse spiritual softness. The city in exile needs Catholics trained for fidelity, not drift. 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 wounded soldier trained for Christ's greater glory.

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Matins - Second Nocturn - St. Ignatius of Loyola, Confessor

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Roman Breviary, Proper lessons for St. Ignatius of Loyola

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“The greater glory of his Master.”
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  • The Breviary presents St. Ignatius as the wounded soldier whose long illness became the occasion of conversion through godly reading and desire to follow Christ and His saints.
  • At Montserrat and Manresa he exchanged worldly arms for heavenly warfare, penance, prayer, fasting, and the Spiritual Exercises, later approved by the Apostolic See.
  • His work for souls joined education, missions, obedience to the Apostolic See, catechism, churches made seemly, frequent sermons, the sacraments, care for the fallen and imperilled, and warfare against paganism and heresy.
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Let zeal be trained, examined, and placed under Christ. St. Ignatius teaches ordered courage, mortified ambition, Catholic discipline, and labor for souls without theatrical noise.

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The Pilgrim's Spiritual Conference

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The Church Suffers Without Ceasing to Be the Church

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The Church places this truth before you today: The Church can be eclipsed, persecuted, betrayed, and reduced in visible splendor, yet Christ does not fail in His promises. 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. Exile must not make the faithful invent another Church, nor despair of the one Christ founded.

The grace to be practiced is Disciplined zeal, 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. Humility tells the truth about weakness without discouragement because it also tells the truth about God's help.

There is also an enemy to recognize: Resist both triumphalist denial of crisis and despairing denial of Christ's indefectible Church. 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 disciplined zeal 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 a limitation remind you to pray rather than tempt you either to despair or pretense. Before the most difficult duty, pause long enough to ask for grace; after it, give thanks instead of taking possession of success.

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

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Your Resolution Before God

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Make the particular examen on your predominant fault and practice its contrary virtue whenever the fault appears.

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Zeal must be examined, mortified, and placed beneath the end for which man was created.
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The Pilgrim's Mirror

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How shall I imitate Christ today?

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“Who hath a stronger battle than he that laboureth to overcome himself?”
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Thomas à Kempis, The Imitation of Christ, Book I, chapter 3, p. 12

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The decisive field of combat is within. Heresy must be hated, and so must the pride, curiosity, compromise, and self-will by which falsehood finds lodging in the soul.

Many souls desire victory in the Church while making peace with the tyrant within. Begin the restoration where grace has placed authority in your hands: over your next thought, word, appetite, and decision. A hidden victory over self-will is no small service to the City of God.

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Today's Practice

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Refuse the demands of self-will promptly and without complaint.

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Daily Examen

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Three questions before night prayer

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Return every success and failure to God through Mary, keeping neither as material for pride or discouragement.

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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, through St. Ignatius, order my desires, discipline my zeal, and make every choice serve Thy greater glory and the salvation of my soul.

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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 Perpetuity, Visibility, and Apostolic Continuity\n
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Persevere, pilgrim.

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The gates remain open to the faithful.

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