{"ok":true,"date":"2030-02-03","dateKey":"02-03","liturgicalDay":"3rd Sunday after the Epiphany","rank":"Semi-Double Sunday","color":"green","quoteOfTheDay":{"text":"Greater thank have I not of them, than that I may hear my children do walk in truth.","author":"Holy Scripture","source":"3 John 4, Original Douay-Rheims","treasuryHref":"/wisdom#walking-in-truth","category":"Truth: Christ and His Church"},"season":"Time after Epiphany","novenas":[],"octaveContexts":[],"subject":"City of God in Exile: 3rd Sunday after the Epiphany - 2030-02-03","previewText":"3rd Sunday after the Epiphany. Outside the Church There Is No Salvation. Resist indifferentism, which treats contradictory religions as though they were equally pleasing to God.","plainText":"CITY OF GOD IN EXILE\n3rd Sunday after the Epiphany\n2030-02-03 - Time after Epiphany - Semi-Double Sunday - green\nPLAIN-LANGUAGE GUIDE FOR TODAY\n3rd Sunday after the Epiphany is the principal observance today. The calendar also preserves St. Blaise, Bishop and Martyr on this date. The Gospel and Breviary sermon or lesson panels below come from that secondary observance. That material adds another traditional lesson for the date; it does not replace the principal observance.\nEpiphany: the feast of Christ being revealed to the nations, represented especially by the Magi who came to adore Him.\nMartyr: a Christian who was killed rather than deny Christ or abandon the Faith.\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. Receive from Jesus through Mary only so that you may belong and return more completely to Jesus. Ask Jesus for mercy through His Mother and offer yourself as an instrument by which His charity may reach the persons entrusted to you.\n\n\"She is His mysterious canal; she is His aqueduct, through which He makes His mercies flow gently and abundantly.\"\nSt. Louis-Marie de Montfort, True Devotion to the Blessed Virgin, no. 24\n\nChrist is the source; Mary is the canal. The distinction is essential. She neither originates grace nor replaces Our Lord's sacrifice, Church, or sacraments. Everything she gives is His, and her whole maternal action carries souls toward union with Him.\n\nAn aqueduct receives in order to convey. Imitate that self-forgetful service. Whatever truth, time, strength, material good, consolation, or spiritual help God sends should not stagnate in self-possession. Let it pass through your duties into prayer, charity, reparation, and service of souls.\n\nPRACTICE\nPause at midday for a brief act of faith, hope, charity, and contrition.\n\nQUOTE OF THE DAY\n\"Greater thank have I not of them, than that I may hear my children do walk in truth.\"\nHoly Scripture, 3 John 4, Original Douay-Rheims\n\nROMAN MARTYROLOGY - February 3\nAt Sebaste, in Armenia, in the time of the governor Agricolaus, the passion of St. Blasius, bishop and martyr, who after working many miracles, was scourged a long time, and suspended on a tree where he was lacerated with iron combs. He was then imprisoned in a dark dungeon, thrown into a lake from which he came out safe, and finally, by order of the same judge, he and two boys were beheaded. Before him, seven women who were gathering the drops of his blood during his torture, were recognized as Christians, and after undergoing severe torments, were put to death by the sword. — In Africa, St. Celerinus, deacon, who was kept nineteen days in prison loaded with fetters, and confessed Christ gloriously in the midst of afflictions. By overcoming the enemy with invincible constancy, he showed to others the road to victory. — Also, the holy martyrs, Laurentinus, and Ignatius, his uncles, and Celerina, his grandmother, who had been previously crowned with martyrdom. They are highly praised in an epistle of St. Cyprian. — In the same country, the holy martyrs Felix, Symphronius, Hippolytus and their companions. — In the town of Gap, the holy bishops Tigides and Remedius. — At Lyons, the Saints Lupicinus and Felix, also bishops. — The same day, St. Anscharius, bishop of Bremen, who converted the Swedes and the Danes to the faith of Christ.\n\nGOSPEL OF THE DAY\nWhy are you fearful, O ye of little faith?\nSunday after the Epiphany cycle - Matthew 8:23-27\n\"The winds and the sea obey him.\"\nDo not be ashamed to wake Our Lord by prayer. But after praying, stay with Him in the boat, and let faith grow steadier than the weather.\n\nTHE CHURCH'S READING OF THE GOSPEL\nWhat This Gospel Teaches\nChrist is Lord over the storm, even when He permits His disciples to feel their weakness.\nFear becomes dangerous when it forgets Who is in the boat.\nError corrected: The panic that treats trial as proof that Christ has abandoned His Church.\n- Where does this error tempt me in practice?\n- What act does this Gospel require of me today?\n\nHIGHLIGHTED SAINT\nSt. Blaise\nBishop and martyr, intercessor in bodily danger.\nSt. Blaise is honored as bishop and martyr, and the Church has long invoked his intercession especially against ailments of the throat.\nHis feast teaches that the body is not beneath Catholic care. The Church blesses, prays, heals when God wills, and teaches the faithful to use bodily weakness as a summons to trust and conversion.\nAsk St. Blaise to guard both throat and tongue. A healed body is a mercy; a tongue ruled by Christ is a greater one.\nFROM MATINS\nThe bishop whose confession governed sickness and suffering.\nMatins - One Nocturn - St. Blaise, Bishop and Martyr\nRoman Breviary\n\"Neither flatteries nor threats could bring him to sacrifice to the gods.\"\n- The Breviary remembers St. Blaise as Bishop of Sebaste, hidden during persecution until the governor's soldiers found and imprisoned him.\n- His care for bodies remained ordered to Christ: he healed the sick in prison, including a boy near death from a fishbone lodged in his throat.\n- Repeated demands, threats, scourging, and iron combs could not purchase false worship; the bishop completed his testimony by beheading.\nAsk St. Blaise for mercy without spiritual compromise. Pray for bodily healing, govern the tongue, and prefer suffering to any outward act that denies Christ.\nTHE PILGRIM'S SPIRITUAL CONFERENCE\nOutside the Church There Is No Salvation\nThe Church places this truth before you today: All salvation comes through Christ and His Church; no soul is saved by false religion, indifferentism, or separation loved as separation. 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. The doctrine does not deny God's mercy. It denies that error, schism, or religious indifference can be treated as paths equal to the Church founded by Christ.\nThe grace to be practiced is Trust in bodily weakness, 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 generosity by receiving God's gifts gratefully and placing them at the service of His glory and your neighbor's salvation.\nThere is also an enemy to recognize: Resist indifferentism, which treats contradictory religions as though they were equally pleasing to God. 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 trust in bodily weakness 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. Renounce possessiveness over gifts, time, spiritual consolations, and the fruit of good works. Use all your duties, prayers, resources, and opportunities as channels of truth and charity without seeking ownership of the good accomplished.\nThe Church's witness: this truth manifests the Church's mark of one; the witness placed beside it is Pope Pius IX.\nYour resolution before God: Pause at midday for a brief act of faith, hope, charity, and contrition.\nCarry this word: Prayer keeps the day from becoming self-ruled.\nTHE PILGRIM'S MIRROR\n\"By resisting of passions, then, is gotten the very true peace of heart, and not by following them.\"\nThomas à Kempis, The Imitation of Christ, Book I, chapter 6, p. 15\nPeace is not surrender to every feeling. It is order beneath God, won by grace when appetite is made to obey truth and duty.\n\nA passion grows louder when it expects immediate obedience. Do not be alarmed merely because anger, fear, discouragement, or desire speaks forcefully. Place a little silence between the movement and your consent, call upon Jesus and Mary, and choose what remains right.\nToday's Practice: Delay impulsive responses and choose the calmer acts required by truth and duty.\nDAILY EXAMEN\nAsk whether grace ended in self-satisfaction or flowed onward into obedience, reparation, intercession, and works of mercy.\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, recollect my scattered thoughts, govern my words, and teach me to return to Thee before the noise of the day rules 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\nWhy Sincerity Cannot Replace the One True Church: https://cityofgodinexile.com/how-the-true-church-is-known/why-sincerity-cannot-replace-the-one-true-church?entered=1\nOpen this day in the Sacred Calendar: https://cityofgodinexile.com/sacred-calendar?date=2030-02-03&entered=1\nOpen this day's Daily Pilgrimage: https://cityofgodinexile.com/daily-dispatch?date=2030-02-03&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: 3rd Sunday after the Epiphany - 2030-02-03\n \n \n
\n 3rd Sunday after the Epiphany. Outside the Church There Is No Salvation. Resist indifferentism, which treats contradictory religions as though they were equally pleasing to God.\n
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City of God in Exile

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3rd Sunday after the Epiphany

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2030-02-03 - Time after Epiphany - Semi-Double Sunday - green

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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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3rd Sunday after the Epiphany is the principal observance today. The calendar also preserves St. Blaise, Bishop and Martyr on this date. The Gospel and Breviary sermon or lesson panels below come from that secondary observance. That material adds another traditional lesson for the date; it does not replace the principal observance.

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Epiphany
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the feast of Christ being revealed to the nations, represented especially by the Magi who came to adore Him.
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Martyr
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a Christian who was killed rather than deny Christ or abandon the Faith.
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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.

Receive from Jesus through Mary only so that you may belong and return more completely to Jesus.

Ask Jesus for mercy through His Mother and offer yourself as an instrument by which His charity may reach the persons entrusted to you.

“She is His mysterious canal; she is His aqueduct, through which He makes His mercies flow gently and abundantly.”

St. Louis-Marie de Montfort, True Devotion to the Blessed Virgin, no. 24

Christ is the source; Mary is the canal. The distinction is essential. She neither originates grace nor replaces Our Lord's sacrifice, Church, or sacraments. Everything she gives is His, and her whole maternal action carries souls toward union with Him.

An aqueduct receives in order to convey. Imitate that self-forgetful service. Whatever truth, time, strength, material good, consolation, or spiritual help God sends should not stagnate in self-possession. Let it pass through your duties into prayer, charity, reparation, and service of souls.

Pause at midday for a brief act of faith, hope, charity, and contrition.

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Quote of the Day

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“Greater thank have I not of them, than that I may hear my children do walk in truth.”
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Holy Scripture, 3 John 4, Original Douay-Rheims

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Roman Martyrology - February 3

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At Sebaste, in Armenia, in the time of the governor Agricolaus, the passion of St. Blasius, bishop and martyr, who after working many miracles, was scourged a long time, and suspended on a tree where he was lacerated with iron combs. He was then imprisoned in a dark dungeon, thrown into a lake from which he came out safe, and finally, by order of the same judge, he and two boys were beheaded. Before him, seven women who were gathering the drops of his blood during his torture, were recognized as Christians, and after undergoing severe torments, were put to death by the sword. — In Africa, St. Celerinus, deacon, who was kept nineteen days in prison loaded with fetters, and confessed Christ gloriously in the midst of afflictions. By overcoming the enemy with invincible constancy, he showed to others the road to victory. — Also, the holy martyrs, Laurentinus, and Ignatius, his uncles, and Celerina, his grandmother, who had been previously crowned with martyrdom. They are highly praised in an epistle of St. Cyprian. — In the same country, the holy martyrs Felix, Symphronius, Hippolytus and their companions. — In the town of Gap, the holy bishops Tigides and Remedius. — At Lyons, the Saints Lupicinus and Felix, also bishops. — The same day, St. Anscharius, bishop of Bremen, who converted the Swedes and the Danes to the faith of Christ.

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Gospel of the Day

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Why are you fearful, O ye of little faith?

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Sunday after the Epiphany cycle - Matthew 8:23-27

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“The winds and the sea obey him.”
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Do not be ashamed to wake Our Lord by prayer. But after praying, stay with Him in the boat, and let faith grow steadier than the weather.

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The Church's Reading of the Gospel

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What This Gospel Teaches

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Christ is Lord over the storm, even when He permits His disciples to feel their weakness.

Fear becomes dangerous when it forgets Who is in the boat.

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Error corrected: The panic that treats trial as proof that Christ has abandoned His Church.

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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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St. Blaise

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Bishop and martyr, intercessor in bodily danger.

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St. Blaise is honored as bishop and martyr, and the Church has long invoked his intercession especially against ailments of the throat.

His feast teaches that the body is not beneath Catholic care. The Church blesses, prays, heals when God wills, and teaches the faithful to use bodily weakness as a summons to trust and conversion.

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Ask St. Blaise to guard both throat and tongue. A healed body is a mercy; a tongue ruled by Christ is a greater one.

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From Matins

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The bishop whose confession governed sickness and suffering.

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Matins - One Nocturn - St. Blaise, Bishop and Martyr

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Roman Breviary, Proper lesson for St. Blaise

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“Neither flatteries nor threats could bring him to sacrifice to the gods.”
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  • The Breviary remembers St. Blaise as Bishop of Sebaste, hidden during persecution until the governor's soldiers found and imprisoned him.
  • His care for bodies remained ordered to Christ: he healed the sick in prison, including a boy near death from a fishbone lodged in his throat.
  • Repeated demands, threats, scourging, and iron combs could not purchase false worship; the bishop completed his testimony by beheading.
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Ask St. Blaise for mercy without spiritual compromise. Pray for bodily healing, govern the tongue, and prefer suffering to any outward act that denies Christ.

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The Pilgrim's Spiritual Conference

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Outside the Church There Is No Salvation

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The Church places this truth before you today: All salvation comes through Christ and His Church; no soul is saved by false religion, indifferentism, or separation loved as separation. 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. The doctrine does not deny God's mercy. It denies that error, schism, or religious indifference can be treated as paths equal to the Church founded by Christ.

The grace to be practiced is Trust in bodily weakness, 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 generosity by receiving God's gifts gratefully and placing them at the service of His glory and your neighbor's salvation.

There is also an enemy to recognize: Resist indifferentism, which treats contradictory religions as though they were equally pleasing to God. 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 trust in bodily weakness 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. Renounce possessiveness over gifts, time, spiritual consolations, and the fruit of good works. Use all your duties, prayers, resources, and opportunities as channels of truth and charity without seeking ownership of the good accomplished.

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The Church's witness: this truth manifests the Church's mark of one; the witness placed beside it is Pope Pius IX.

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Your Resolution Before God

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Pause at midday for a brief act of faith, hope, charity, and contrition.

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Prayer keeps the day from becoming self-ruled.
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The Pilgrim's Mirror

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How shall I imitate Christ today?

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“By resisting of passions, then, is gotten the very true peace of heart, and not by following them.”
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Thomas à Kempis, The Imitation of Christ, Book I, chapter 6, p. 15

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Peace is not surrender to every feeling. It is order beneath God, won by grace when appetite is made to obey truth and duty.

A passion grows louder when it expects immediate obedience. Do not be alarmed merely because anger, fear, discouragement, or desire speaks forcefully. Place a little silence between the movement and your consent, call upon Jesus and Mary, and choose what remains right.

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Today's Practice

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Delay impulsive responses and choose the calmer acts required by truth and duty.

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Daily Examen

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Three questions before night prayer

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Ask whether grace ended in self-satisfaction or flowed onward into obedience, reparation, intercession, and works of mercy.

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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, recollect my scattered thoughts, govern my words, and teach me to return to Thee before the noise of the day rules 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 Why Sincerity Cannot Replace the One True Church\n
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Persevere, pilgrim.

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The gates remain open to the faithful.

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