{"ok":true,"date":"2030-03-13","dateKey":"03-13","liturgicalDay":"Lenten Ember Day","rank":"Non-privileged Feria","color":"violet","quoteOfTheDay":{"text":"I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith.","author":"St. Paul","source":"2 Timothy 4:7, Douay-Rheims","category":"Confidence and Daily Self-Denial"},"season":"Lent","novenas":[{"title":"Novena to St. Joseph","feast":"Solemn Commemoration of St. Joseph","day":4,"totalDays":9,"startIsoDate":"2030-03-10","feastIsoDate":"2030-03-19","intention":"Ask St. Joseph for purity, household order, fatherly courage, quiet obedience, and protection of the Church in exile.","prayer":null,"practice":"Pray for fathers, households, workers, and souls who need courage to obey God in hidden duties.","sources":[]}],"octaveContexts":[],"subject":"City of God in Exile: Lenten Ember Day - 2030-03-13","previewText":"Lenten Ember 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\nLenten Ember Day\n2030-03-13 - Lent - Non-privileged Feria - violet\nPLAIN-LANGUAGE GUIDE FOR TODAY\nMystical Body of Christ: the Church understood as a living body whose head is Christ and whose baptized members are united to Him and to one another by grace.\nEcclesiastical or ecclesial: belonging or relating to the Church; the words refer to her life, law, worship, ministers, or common mission.\nClergy or cleric: the Church's ordained ministers; a cleric is a deacon, priest, or bishop.\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. Contemplate the one divine plan carried from the Incarnation into the sanctification of the Church. Adore the Blessed Trinity and place the complete day—not merely its devotional moments—within the divine plan of sanctification.\n\n\"The conduct which the Three Persons of the Most Holy Trinity have deigned to pursue in the Incarnation and first coming of Jesus Christ, They still pursue daily in an invisible manner throughout the whole Church, and They will still pursue it even to the consummation of ages in the last coming of Jesus Christ.\"\nSt. Louis-Marie de Montfort, True Devotion to the Blessed Virgin, no. 22\n\nThe Blessed Trinity is the source and final end of the whole economy of grace. The Father's will, the Son's Incarnation and Redemption, and the Holy Ghost's sanctifying work are one divine plan. Mary's maternal office is entirely within that plan and entirely ordered to the reign of Jesus Christ.\n\nLet your spiritual life acquire the same unity. Doctrine, prayer, sacraments, Marian devotion, mortification, works of mercy, and daily duties must not become disconnected interests. All must proceed from God, conform you to Christ, and return you in the Holy Ghost to the Father.\n\nPRACTICE\nRefuse every compromise with comfort when duty, prayer, or truth asks for fidelity.\n\nQUOTE OF THE DAY\n\"I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith.\"\nSt. Paul, 2 Timothy 4:7, Douay-Rheims\n\nNOVENA IN PROGRESS\nNovena to St. Joseph - Day 4 of 9\nPreparing for Solemn Commemoration of St. Joseph on 2030-03-19.\nAsk St. Joseph for purity, household order, fatherly courage, quiet obedience, and protection of the Church in exile.\n\nPray for fathers, households, workers, and souls who need courage to obey God in hidden duties.\n\nROMAN MARTYROLOGY - March 13\nAt Nicomedia, the birthday of the holy martyrs Macedonius, his wife Patritia, and their daughter Modest a. — At Mcsea, the holy martyrs Theuseta, and Horres, his son, Theodora, Nimphodora, Marcus, and Arabia, who were burned to death for Christ. — At Hermopolis, in Egypt, the martyr St. Sabinus, who after many sufferings, terminated his martyrdom by being precipitated into a river. — In Persia, St. Christina, virgin and martyr. — At Cordova, the holy martyrs Rudericus, priest, and Solomon. — At Constantinople, the bishop St. Nicephorus. In defense of the traditions of his forefathers and of the worship of sacred images, he opposed firmly the Iconoclast emperor Leo the Armenian, by whom he was sent into exile, where he underwent a long martyrdom of fourteen years, and departed for the kingdom of God. — At Camerino, St. Ansovinus, bishop and confessor. — In Thebais, St. Euphrasia, virgin.\n\nHIGHLIGHTED SAINT\nThe Lenten Ember Day\nThe season sanctified by fasting, prayer, and ordination.\nThe Lenten Ember Days belong to the Church's quarterly sanctification of the seasons, joining fasting and prayer to the needs of the clergy and the whole Christian people.\nIn Lent the Ember discipline presses more deeply: the faithful ask God to purify the Church, strengthen sacred ministers, and make penance fruitful rather than theatrical.\nLet the Ember day widen your Lent. Your penance is not merely personal improvement; it is prayer with the Church for the Church.\nBREVIARY WITNESS\nFasting with the Church for the Church.\nMatins - Lenten Ember Day\n- The Lenten Ember Days join the penitential season to the Church's prayer for sacred ministers and the sanctification of the Christian people.\n- Their witness teaches that fasting is ecclesial. The faithful do penance not as isolated souls, but as members of the Mystical Body pleading for purity and holy order.\nOffer penance for the Church, her ministers, and those who hunger for valid sacraments.\nInstruction from the Breviary\nThe Breviary witness for Lenten Ember 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 Fasting with the Church for the Church.. Its first point is this: The Lenten Ember Days join the penitential season to the Church's prayer for sacred ministers and the sanctification of the Christian people. Its next point develops the lesson: Their witness teaches that fasting is ecclesial. The faithful do penance not as isolated souls, but as members of the Mystical Body pleading for purity and holy order.\nThe practical instruction is: Offer penance for the Church, her ministers, and those who hunger for valid sacraments. 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 Ecclesial penance and prayer for sacred ministers, 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 unity of life by ordering prayer, work, relationships, suffering, and rest toward the glory of God.\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 ecclesial penance and prayer for sacred ministers 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. Reject the divided life that gives God religious moments while reserving other hours for self-will. Consecrate all your duties through Mary to Jesus, asking the Holy Ghost to make every lawful act serve the Father's glory.\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: Refuse every compromise with comfort when duty, prayer, or truth asks for fidelity.\nCarry this word: The City of God and the city of man do not seek the same end.\nTHE PILGRIM'S MIRROR\n\"My son, be waking and diligent in the service of God, and think oft wherefore thou art come, and why thou hast forsaken the world.\"\nThomas à Kempis, The Imitation of Christ, Book I, chapter 25, p. 45\nFervor is not religious excitement. It is the awakened will that remembers its end and returns to duty when nature grows sluggish. You were created to know, love, and serve God and thereby attain eternal life; every lesser purpose must remain beneath this one.\n\nRecall why you began to seek a more faithful Catholic life. Then ask what has cooled: prayer postponed, sacrifice avoided, truth softened, or daily duty performed without love. Do not attempt to recover everything through emotion. Renew the next act, and let diligence carry the soul where feeling does not.\nToday's Practice: Renew aloud the purpose of your life before God, then complete the duty you have most resisted.\nDAILY EXAMEN\nGather the entire day into a complete offering to the Blessed Trinity and repent of every division between profession and conduct.\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, detach my heart from the city of comfort, applause, and self-rule. Order me toward Thy City, where truth, sacrifice, grace, and holiness reign.\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=2030-03-13&entered=1\nOpen this day's Daily Pilgrimage: https://cityofgodinexile.com/daily-dispatch?date=2030-03-13&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: Lenten Ember Day - 2030-03-13\n \n \n
\n Lenten Ember 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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Lenten Ember Day

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2030-03-13 - Lent - 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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Mystical Body of Christ
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the Church understood as a living body whose head is Christ and whose baptized members are united to Him and to one another by grace.
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Ecclesiastical or ecclesial
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belonging or relating to the Church; the words refer to her life, law, worship, ministers, or common mission.
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Clergy or cleric
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the Church's ordained ministers; a cleric is a deacon, priest, or bishop.
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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.

Contemplate the one divine plan carried from the Incarnation into the sanctification of the Church.

Adore the Blessed Trinity and place the complete day—not merely its devotional moments—within the divine plan of sanctification.

“The conduct which the Three Persons of the Most Holy Trinity have deigned to pursue in the Incarnation and first coming of Jesus Christ, They still pursue daily in an invisible manner throughout the whole Church, and They will still pursue it even to the consummation of ages in the last coming of Jesus Christ.”

St. Louis-Marie de Montfort, True Devotion to the Blessed Virgin, no. 22

The Blessed Trinity is the source and final end of the whole economy of grace. The Father's will, the Son's Incarnation and Redemption, and the Holy Ghost's sanctifying work are one divine plan. Mary's maternal office is entirely within that plan and entirely ordered to the reign of Jesus Christ.

Let your spiritual life acquire the same unity. Doctrine, prayer, sacraments, Marian devotion, mortification, works of mercy, and daily duties must not become disconnected interests. All must proceed from God, conform you to Christ, and return you in the Holy Ghost to the Father.

Refuse every compromise with comfort when duty, prayer, or truth asks for fidelity.

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Quote of the Day

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“I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith.”
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St. Paul, 2 Timothy 4:7, Douay-Rheims

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Novena in Progress

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Novena to St. Joseph - Day 4 of 9

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Preparing for Solemn Commemoration of St. Joseph on 2030-03-19.

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Ask St. Joseph for purity, household order, fatherly courage, quiet obedience, and protection of the Church in exile.

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Pray for fathers, households, workers, and souls who need courage to obey God in hidden duties.

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Roman Martyrology - March 13

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At Nicomedia, the birthday of the holy martyrs Macedonius, his wife Patritia, and their daughter Modest a. — At Mcsea, the holy martyrs Theuseta, and Horres, his son, Theodora, Nimphodora, Marcus, and Arabia, who were burned to death for Christ. — At Hermopolis, in Egypt, the martyr St. Sabinus, who after many sufferings, terminated his martyrdom by being precipitated into a river. — In Persia, St. Christina, virgin and martyr. — At Cordova, the holy martyrs Rudericus, priest, and Solomon. — At Constantinople, the bishop St. Nicephorus. In defense of the traditions of his forefathers and of the worship of sacred images, he opposed firmly the Iconoclast emperor Leo the Armenian, by whom he was sent into exile, where he underwent a long martyrdom of fourteen years, and departed for the kingdom of God. — At Camerino, St. Ansovinus, bishop and confessor. — In Thebais, St. Euphrasia, virgin.

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Highlighted Saint

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The Lenten Ember Day

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The season sanctified by fasting, prayer, and ordination.

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The Lenten Ember Days belong to the Church's quarterly sanctification of the seasons, joining fasting and prayer to the needs of the clergy and the whole Christian people.

In Lent the Ember discipline presses more deeply: the faithful ask God to purify the Church, strengthen sacred ministers, and make penance fruitful rather than theatrical.

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Let the Ember day widen your Lent. Your penance is not merely personal improvement; it is prayer with the Church for the Church.

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Breviary Witness

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Fasting with the Church for the Church.

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Matins - Lenten Ember Day

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  • The Lenten Ember Days join the penitential season to the Church's prayer for sacred ministers and the sanctification of the Christian people.
  • Their witness teaches that fasting is ecclesial. The faithful do penance not as isolated souls, but as members of the Mystical Body pleading for purity and holy order.
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Offer penance for the Church, her ministers, and those who hunger for valid sacraments.

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Instruction from the Breviary

The Breviary witness for Lenten Ember 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 Fasting with the Church for the Church.. Its first point is this: The Lenten Ember Days join the penitential season to the Church's prayer for sacred ministers and the sanctification of the Christian people. Its next point develops the lesson: Their witness teaches that fasting is ecclesial. The faithful do penance not as isolated souls, but as members of the Mystical Body pleading for purity and holy order.

The practical instruction is: Offer penance for the Church, her ministers, and those who hunger for valid sacraments. 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 Ecclesial penance and prayer for sacred ministers, 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 unity of life by ordering prayer, work, relationships, suffering, and rest toward the glory of God.

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 ecclesial penance and prayer for sacred ministers 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. Reject the divided life that gives God religious moments while reserving other hours for self-will. Consecrate all your duties through Mary to Jesus, asking the Holy Ghost to make every lawful act serve the Father's glory.

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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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Refuse every compromise with comfort when duty, prayer, or truth asks for fidelity.

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The City of God and the city of man do not seek the same end.
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The Pilgrim's Mirror

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How shall I imitate Christ today?

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“My son, be waking and diligent in the service of God, and think oft wherefore thou art come, and why thou hast forsaken the world.”
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Thomas à Kempis, The Imitation of Christ, Book I, chapter 25, p. 45

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Fervor is not religious excitement. It is the awakened will that remembers its end and returns to duty when nature grows sluggish. You were created to know, love, and serve God and thereby attain eternal life; every lesser purpose must remain beneath this one.

Recall why you began to seek a more faithful Catholic life. Then ask what has cooled: prayer postponed, sacrifice avoided, truth softened, or daily duty performed without love. Do not attempt to recover everything through emotion. Renew the next act, and let diligence carry the soul where feeling does not.

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Today's Practice

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Renew aloud the purpose of your life before God, then complete the duty you have most resisted.

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Daily Examen

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Three questions before night prayer

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Gather the entire day into a complete offering to the Blessed Trinity and repent of every division between profession and conduct.

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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, detach my heart from the city of comfort, applause, and self-rule. Order me toward Thy City, where truth, sacrifice, grace, and holiness reign.

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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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