{"ok":true,"date":"2030-05-31","dateKey":"05-31","liturgicalDay":"St. Angela Merici, Virgin","rank":"Double","color":"white","quoteOfTheDay":{"text":"Now that which we receive entirely from the will of God is always very agreeable to Him, provided that we receive it with a good heart, and through love of his holy will: where there is least of our own, there is most of God's; the simple and pure acceptance of God's will makes our offerings extremely pure.","author":"St. Francis de Sales","source":"An Introduction to the Devout Life, Part III, chapter 16, pp. 143–144","treasuryHref":"/wisdom#receive-the-will-of-god-with-a-good-heart","category":"Divine Providence"},"season":"Eastertide","novenas":[{"title":"Novena to the Holy Ghost","feast":"Pentecost","day":1,"totalDays":9,"startIsoDate":"2030-05-31","feastIsoDate":"2030-06-09","intention":"Ask the Holy Ghost for truth, fortitude, docility, and zeal without novelty or disorder.","prayer":null,"practice":"Pray for light to obey the truth already known and for courage to confess the Faith publicly.","sources":[]}],"octaveContexts":[{"liturgicalDay":"Within the Privileged Octave of the Ascension","rank":"Privileged Octave of the Third Order","color":"white","sourceNotes":["St. Andrew Daily Missal, Division of the Ecclesiastical Year, p. ix."]}],"subject":"City of God in Exile: St. Angela Merici, Virgin - 2030-05-31","previewText":"St. Angela Merici, Virgin. The Sacraments Are Instruments of Christ. Resist sacramental casualness, especially the idea that good intention can repair invalid rites or invented forms.","plainText":"CITY OF GOD IN EXILE\nSt. Angela Merici, Virgin\n2030-05-31 - Eastertide - Double - white\nPLAIN-LANGUAGE GUIDE FOR TODAY\nCommemoration: a shorter liturgical remembrance of another saint or observance occurring on the same day.\nVirgin: in a saint's title, a woman honored for consecrating her chastity and whole life to Christ.\nPenance: repentance expressed through prayer, self-denial, reparation, and a real turning away from sin.\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. Ask Our Lady to form the likeness of her Son throughout His members and to make your whole life subject to Him. Offer your whole person to Jesus through Mary and ask that His mind, virtues, commandments, and Cross govern you today.\n\n\"God the Son wishes to form Himself, and, so to speak, to incarnate Himself, every day by His dear Mother in His members, and He has said to her, In Israel hæreditare—‘Take Israel for your inheritance.’\"\nSt. Louis-Marie de Montfort, True Devotion to the Blessed Virgin, no. 31\n\nSt. Louis de Montfort says ‘so to speak’: he does not teach a new Incarnation or identify the Christian substantially with Christ. The eternal Son became man once in Mary's womb. He now forms His supernatural likeness by grace in the members of His Mystical Body.\n\nMary's maternal formation must therefore yield recognizable conformity to Jesus: His faith, humility, purity, obedience, charity, prayer, sacrifice, and zeal for the Father's glory. Submit every part of life to this work through Catholic doctrine, sacramental grace, daily prayer, mortification, and complete fidelity to duty.\n\nOCTAVE CONTEXT\nWithin the Privileged Octave of the Ascension - Privileged Octave of the Third Order\n\nPRACTICE\nFulfill your ordinary duties promptly and offer them for the glory of God.\n\nQUOTE OF THE DAY\n\"Now that which we receive entirely from the will of God is always very agreeable to Him, provided that we receive it with a good heart, and through love of his holy will: where there is least of our own, there is most of God's; the simple and pure acceptance of God's will makes our offerings extremely pure.\"\nSt. Francis de Sales, An Introduction to the Devout Life, Part III, chapter 16, pp. 143–144\n\nNOVENA IN PROGRESS\nNovena to the Holy Ghost - Day 1 of 9\nPreparing for Pentecost on 2030-06-09.\nAsk the Holy Ghost for truth, fortitude, docility, and zeal without novelty or disorder.\n\nPray for light to obey the truth already known and for courage to confess the Faith publicly.\n\nROMAN MARTYROLOGY - May 31\nAt Brescia, St. Angela Merici, virgin, foundress of - the nuns of St. Ursula. She is mentioned on the 27th of January. — At Rome, St. Petronilla, virgin, daughter of the blessed apostle Peter, who refused to marry the nobleman Flaccus. Being granted three days to deliberate, she gave herself up to fasting and prayer, and on the third day, after having received the sacrament of the body of Christ, she yielded up her soul. — At Aquileia, the holy martyrs Cantius, Cantian, and Cantianilla. For their attachment to the Christian faith, they were condemned to capital punishment with their tutor Protus, in the time of the emperors Diocletian and Maximian. — At Torres, in Sardinia, St. Crescentian, martyr. — At Comana, in Pontus, in the time of the emperor Antoninus, St. Hermias, a soldier. Being miraculously delivered from many horrible torments, he converted his executioner to Christ, and made him partaker of the crown which he himself obtained first by having his head struck off with the sword. — At Verona, St. Lupicinus, bishop. — At Rome, St. Paschasius, deacon and confessor, who is mentioned by the blessed pope Gregory.\n\nHIGHLIGHTED SAINT\nSt. Angela Merici\nVirgin and mother of Catholic formation.\nSt. Angela Merici is honored as a virgin and foundress, remembered for forming women and girls in Christian life.\nHer feast teaches that Catholic formation is a work of motherhood in the order of grace: patient instruction, modesty, prayer, discipline, and protection of souls.\nAsk St. Angela for patient courage in formation. Souls are not protected by vague hopes; they are helped by truth, example, prayer, and steady care.\nFROM MATINS\nVirginal formation guarded by discernment, discipline, Eucharistic life, and works of mercy.\nMatins - Second Nocturn - St. Angela Merici, Virgin, with St. Petronilla, Virgin\nRoman Breviary and Roman Martyrology\n\"She established a new society of virgins under definite discipline and holy rules of life.\"\n- The Breviary presents St. Angela Merici guarding perpetual virginity from childhood through modesty, prayer, fasting, penance, evangelical poverty, and membership in the Third Order of St. Francis.\n- Her discernment was doctrinal and spiritual: she immediately recognized and drove away the devil when he attempted deception under the appearance of an angel of light.\n- Frequent Holy Communion nourished charity expressed in alms, care of the sick, consolation of the afflicted, reconciliation of enemies, conversion of sinners, pilgrimage, and reverence for the Roman Church.\n- Obeying a heavenly command, she founded at Brescia the Company of St. Ursula under definite discipline and holy rules. The commemorated St. Petronilla likewise guarded virginity through fasting, prayer, and reception of the Body of Christ rather than consent to an unwanted marriage.\nForm girls and women for holiness through doctrine, modesty, prayer, Eucharistic life, discipline, mercy, and tested discernment. Reject deceptive spirituality even when it appears luminous, and protect consecrated fidelity from coercion and worldly pressure.\nTHE PILGRIM'S SPIRITUAL CONFERENCE\nThe Sacraments Are Instruments of Christ\nThe Church places this truth before you today: The sacraments are outward signs instituted by Christ to give grace; they are not symbols invented by the community. 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. Because Christ instituted the sacraments, the Church must guard their matter, form, minister, and intention with holy fear.\nThe grace to be practiced is Maternal formation in grace, 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 conformity to Christ across all virtues and duties, refusing to confine devotion to words, feelings, or isolated exercises.\nThere is also an enemy to recognize: Resist sacramental casualness, especially the idea that good intention can repair invalid rites or invented forms. 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 maternal formation in grace when pride, comfort, fear, resentment, or human respect asks for control.\nDo the faithful act and entrust its fruit to divine Providence, God's wise and loving governance of all things. Place effort and outcome into Our Lady's hands so that the whole offering may be presented to her Divine Son. Confidence in God is not passivity: obey, pray, work, and accept that visible success, consolation, or immediate relief may not be given. God remains faithful when the duty is hidden and the outcome uncertain. Therefore, perform the duty that belongs to you, use the lawful means God has provided, and then surrender the fruit. Accept the cutting and shaping by which self-love is removed and the image of the crucified Jesus becomes clearer. Let Our Lady form Christ's likeness in every prayer, decision, conversation, duty, sacrifice, and act of charity.\nThe Church's witness: this truth manifests the Church's mark of holy; the witness placed beside it is St. Thomas Aquinas.\nYour resolution before God: Fulfill your ordinary duties promptly and offer them for the glory of God.\nCarry this word: Grace is guarded by ordinary fidelity.\nTHE PILGRIM'S MIRROR\n\"Thou hast here no place of long abiding, for wheresoever thou be, thou art but a stranger and a pilgrim.\"\nThomas à Kempis, The Imitation of Christ, Book II, chapter 1, p. 53\nThe citizen of Heaven uses earthly goods faithfully without building his final home in them. Receive the day's joys and sorrows as provisions for the road.\n\nExile becomes bitter when the soul demands permanence from what must pass. Let today's change, disappointment, or small loss remind you gently of your destination. Fulfill earthly duties well precisely because they are the road appointed by God, but keep the heart free for the City that does not pass away.\nToday's Practice: When something passes away today, say: My home is with God.\nDAILY EXAMEN\nCompare the day's conduct with Jesus Christ rather than with your preferences, and repent wherever His likeness was obscured.\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, strengthen the little duties of this day with Thy grace, that nothing entrusted to me may be wasted through negligence or vanity.\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\nWhat Are the Sacraments?: https://cityofgodinexile.com/catechism-foundations/what-are-the-sacraments?entered=1\nOpen this day in the Sacred Calendar: https://cityofgodinexile.com/sacred-calendar?date=2030-05-31&entered=1\nOpen this day's Daily Pilgrimage: https://cityofgodinexile.com/daily-dispatch?date=2030-05-31&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. Angela Merici, Virgin - 2030-05-31\n \n \n
\n St. Angela Merici, Virgin. The Sacraments Are Instruments of Christ. Resist sacramental casualness, especially the idea that good intention can repair invalid rites or invented forms.\n
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City of God in Exile

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St. Angela Merici, Virgin

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2030-05-31 - Eastertide - 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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Commemoration
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a shorter liturgical remembrance of another saint or observance occurring on the same day.
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Virgin
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in a saint's title, a woman honored for consecrating her chastity and whole life to Christ.
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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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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.

Ask Our Lady to form the likeness of her Son throughout His members and to make your whole life subject to Him.

Offer your whole person to Jesus through Mary and ask that His mind, virtues, commandments, and Cross govern you today.

“God the Son wishes to form Himself, and, so to speak, to incarnate Himself, every day by His dear Mother in His members, and He has said to her, In Israel hæreditare—‘Take Israel for your inheritance.’”

St. Louis-Marie de Montfort, True Devotion to the Blessed Virgin, no. 31

St. Louis de Montfort says ‘so to speak’: he does not teach a new Incarnation or identify the Christian substantially with Christ. The eternal Son became man once in Mary's womb. He now forms His supernatural likeness by grace in the members of His Mystical Body.

Mary's maternal formation must therefore yield recognizable conformity to Jesus: His faith, humility, purity, obedience, charity, prayer, sacrifice, and zeal for the Father's glory. Submit every part of life to this work through Catholic doctrine, sacramental grace, daily prayer, mortification, and complete fidelity to duty.

Fulfill your ordinary duties promptly and offer them for the glory of God.

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Octave Context

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  • Within the Privileged Octave of the Ascension - Privileged Octave of the Third Order
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Quote of the Day

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“Now that which we receive entirely from the will of God is always very agreeable to Him, provided that we receive it with a good heart, and through love of his holy will: where there is least of our own, there is most of God's; the simple and pure acceptance of God's will makes our offerings extremely pure.”
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St. Francis de Sales, An Introduction to the Devout Life, Part III, chapter 16, pp. 143–144

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Novena in Progress

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Novena to the Holy Ghost - Day 1 of 9

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Preparing for Pentecost on 2030-06-09.

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Ask the Holy Ghost for truth, fortitude, docility, and zeal without novelty or disorder.

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Pray for light to obey the truth already known and for courage to confess the Faith publicly.

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Roman Martyrology - May 31

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At Brescia, St. Angela Merici, virgin, foundress of - the nuns of St. Ursula. She is mentioned on the 27th of January. — At Rome, St. Petronilla, virgin, daughter of the blessed apostle Peter, who refused to marry the nobleman Flaccus. Being granted three days to deliberate, she gave herself up to fasting and prayer, and on the third day, after having received the sacrament of the body of Christ, she yielded up her soul. — At Aquileia, the holy martyrs Cantius, Cantian, and Cantianilla. For their attachment to the Christian faith, they were condemned to capital punishment with their tutor Protus, in the time of the emperors Diocletian and Maximian. — At Torres, in Sardinia, St. Crescentian, martyr. — At Comana, in Pontus, in the time of the emperor Antoninus, St. Hermias, a soldier. Being miraculously delivered from many horrible torments, he converted his executioner to Christ, and made him partaker of the crown which he himself obtained first by having his head struck off with the sword. — At Verona, St. Lupicinus, bishop. — At Rome, St. Paschasius, deacon and confessor, who is mentioned by the blessed pope Gregory.

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Highlighted Saint

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St. Angela Merici

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Virgin and mother of Catholic formation.

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St. Angela Merici is honored as a virgin and foundress, remembered for forming women and girls in Christian life.

Her feast teaches that Catholic formation is a work of motherhood in the order of grace: patient instruction, modesty, prayer, discipline, and protection of souls.

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Ask St. Angela for patient courage in formation. Souls are not protected by vague hopes; they are helped by truth, example, prayer, and steady care.

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From Matins

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Virginal formation guarded by discernment, discipline, Eucharistic life, and works of mercy.

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Matins - Second Nocturn - St. Angela Merici, Virgin, with St. Petronilla, Virgin

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Roman Breviary and Roman Martyrology, Proper lessons for St. Angela Merici and May 31 notice for St. Petronilla

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“She established a new society of virgins under definite discipline and holy rules of life.”
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  • The Breviary presents St. Angela Merici guarding perpetual virginity from childhood through modesty, prayer, fasting, penance, evangelical poverty, and membership in the Third Order of St. Francis.
  • Her discernment was doctrinal and spiritual: she immediately recognized and drove away the devil when he attempted deception under the appearance of an angel of light.
  • Frequent Holy Communion nourished charity expressed in alms, care of the sick, consolation of the afflicted, reconciliation of enemies, conversion of sinners, pilgrimage, and reverence for the Roman Church.
  • Obeying a heavenly command, she founded at Brescia the Company of St. Ursula under definite discipline and holy rules. The commemorated St. Petronilla likewise guarded virginity through fasting, prayer, and reception of the Body of Christ rather than consent to an unwanted marriage.
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Form girls and women for holiness through doctrine, modesty, prayer, Eucharistic life, discipline, mercy, and tested discernment. Reject deceptive spirituality even when it appears luminous, and protect consecrated fidelity from coercion and worldly pressure.

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The Pilgrim's Spiritual Conference

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The Sacraments Are Instruments of Christ

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The Church places this truth before you today: The sacraments are outward signs instituted by Christ to give grace; they are not symbols invented by the community. 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. Because Christ instituted the sacraments, the Church must guard their matter, form, minister, and intention with holy fear.

The grace to be practiced is Maternal formation in grace, 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 conformity to Christ across all virtues and duties, refusing to confine devotion to words, feelings, or isolated exercises.

There is also an enemy to recognize: Resist sacramental casualness, especially the idea that good intention can repair invalid rites or invented forms. 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 maternal formation in grace when pride, comfort, fear, resentment, or human respect asks for control.

Do the faithful act and entrust its fruit to divine Providence, God's wise and loving governance of all things. Place effort and outcome into Our Lady's hands so that the whole offering may be presented to her Divine Son. Confidence in God is not passivity: obey, pray, work, and accept that visible success, consolation, or immediate relief may not be given. God remains faithful when the duty is hidden and the outcome uncertain. Therefore, perform the duty that belongs to you, use the lawful means God has provided, and then surrender the fruit. Accept the cutting and shaping by which self-love is removed and the image of the crucified Jesus becomes clearer. Let Our Lady form Christ's likeness in every prayer, decision, conversation, duty, sacrifice, and act of charity.

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

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Your Resolution Before God

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Fulfill your ordinary duties promptly and offer them for the glory of God.

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Grace is guarded by ordinary fidelity.
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The Pilgrim's Mirror

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How shall I imitate Christ today?

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“Thou hast here no place of long abiding, for wheresoever thou be, thou art but a stranger and a pilgrim.”
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Thomas à Kempis, The Imitation of Christ, Book II, chapter 1, p. 53

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The citizen of Heaven uses earthly goods faithfully without building his final home in them. Receive the day's joys and sorrows as provisions for the road.

Exile becomes bitter when the soul demands permanence from what must pass. Let today's change, disappointment, or small loss remind you gently of your destination. Fulfill earthly duties well precisely because they are the road appointed by God, but keep the heart free for the City that does not pass away.

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Today's Practice

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When something passes away today, say: My home is with God.

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Daily Examen

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Three questions before night prayer

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Compare the day's conduct with Jesus Christ rather than with your preferences, and repent wherever His likeness was obscured.

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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, strengthen the little duties of this day with Thy grace, that nothing entrusted to me may be wasted through negligence or vanity.

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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 What Are the Sacraments?\n
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Persevere, pilgrim.

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The gates remain open to the faithful.

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