{"ok":true,"date":"2030-12-11","dateKey":"12-11","liturgicalDay":"St. Damasus I, Pope and Confessor","rank":"Semi-Double","color":"white","quoteOfTheDay":{"text":"For I do not seek to understand that I may believe, but I believe in order to understand.","author":"St. Anselm of Canterbury","source":"Proslogium, Chapter 1","treasuryHref":"/wisdom#believe-in-order-to-understand","category":"Wisdom and Holy Fear"},"season":"Advent","novenas":[],"octaveContexts":[{"liturgicalDay":"Within the Common Octave of the Immaculate Conception","rank":"Common Octave","color":"white","sourceNotes":["St. Andrew Daily Missal, Liturgical Calendar, p. xxviii."]}],"subject":"City of God in Exile: St. Damasus I, Pope and Confessor - 2030-12-11","previewText":"St. Damasus I, Pope and Confessor. Hold the Traditions. Resist innovation that claims continuity while contradicting what was handed down.","plainText":"CITY OF GOD IN EXILE\nSt. Damasus I, Pope and Confessor\n2030-12-11 - Advent - Semi-Double - white\nPLAIN-LANGUAGE GUIDE FOR TODAY\nMartyr: a Christian who was killed rather than deny Christ or abandon the Faith.\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.\nThe full Breviary lessons preserve an older English translation. Read the modern explanation first; it identifies the people, event, and doctrine before the historical wording appears.\nTODAY IN THE ROMAN YEAR\nPope St. Damasus honored the Roman martyrs and labored for the Church's fidelity amid doctrinal conflict. A Catholic memory is not nostalgia: it receives the testimony of those who died rather than alter the Faith. Pray that reverence for holy places, Scripture, and the saints may strengthen you against the rootlessness by which novelty gains power. With Mary, turn from outward display toward the hidden sanctuary where God judges the heart. Ask Our Lady to guard the intention beneath today's prayer and labor.\n\n\"All the glory of the King's daughter is within.\"\nSt. Louis-Marie de Montfort, True Devotion to the Blessed Virgin, no. 11, citing Psalm 44:14\n\nThe world judges by what can be displayed, counted, and applauded. God sees the interior order from which a faithful act proceeds. Our Lady's glory is within because her faith, purity, charity, and consent belong wholly to Him before they become visible in any outward work.\n\nDo not use the interior life as an excuse for neglecting outward Catholic duty; Mary obeyed in deed. But begin where the deed receives its worth. Purify the intentions of your prayers and works today. Let them be done because God is God, not because the acts will preserve an image of yourself.\n\nOCTAVE CONTEXT\nWithin the Common Octave of the Immaculate Conception - Common Octave\n\nPRACTICE\nRead a brief account of a Roman martyr and ask what truth or duty you must hold with greater courage.\n\nQUOTE OF THE DAY\n\"For I do not seek to understand that I may believe, but I believe in order to understand.\"\nSt. Anselm of Canterbury, Proslogium, Chapter 1\n\nROMAN MARTYROLOGY - December 11\nAt Rome, St. Damasus, pope and confessor, who condemned the heresiarch Apollinaris, and restored to his see Peter, bishop of Alexandria, who had been driven from it. He also discovered the bodies of many holy martyrs, and wrote verses in their honor. — Also, at Rome, St. Thrason, who was arrested by order of Maximian for devoting his wealth to the support of the Christians who labored in the baths and at other public works, or were confined in prison. He was crowned with martyrdom with two others, Pontian and Prsetextatus. — At Amiens, the holy martyrs Victoricus and Fuscian, under the same emperor. By order of the governor Bictiovarus, they had iron pins driven into their ears and nostrils, heated nails into their temples, and arrows into their whole bodies. Being beheaded with St. Gentian, their host, they went to our Lord. — In Persia, St. Barsabas, martyr. — In Spain, St. Eutychius, martyr. — At Piacenza, St. Sabinus, a bishop renowned for miracles. — At Constantinople, St. Daniel the Stylite.\n\nHIGHLIGHTED SAINT\nSt. Damasus I\nPope and confessor who honored martyrs and condemned error.\nThe Martyrology honors Pope St. Damasus, who condemned the heresiarch Apollinaris, restored Peter of Alexandria to his see, discovered the bodies of many holy martyrs, and wrote verses in their honor.\nHis feast teaches Roman care for doctrine and memory. The Church guards the faith by condemning error and honoring those who shed blood for Christ.\nAsk St. Damasus for a Catholic memory. A Church that remembers her martyrs will be less likely to make peace with error.\nFROM MATINS\nThe Roman keeper of Scripture, psalmody, and martyr memory.\nMatins - Second Nocturn - St. Damasus I, Pope and Confessor\nRoman Breviary\n\"A man of eminence and of great learning in the Scriptures.\"\n- The Breviary remembers Pope St. Damasus as a Scriptural scholar who defended Nicaea and opposed the errors of Eunomius, Macedonius, and the assembly of Rimini.\n- His Roman care joined doctrine to worship and memory: he adorned the resting places of the Apostles, honored martyrs in verse, and strengthened the singing of the Psalms by alternate choirs.\n- His direction to St. Jerome concerning the New Testament shows that fidelity receives, guards, and transmits sacred texts rather than treating them as private possessions.\nLet St. Damasus teach a Catholic memory nourished by Scripture, psalmody, and the martyrs. Error thrives where the faithful forget what they have received.\nFULL BREVIARY LESSONS\nFourth Lesson - Defender of Nicaea against Arian Error\nDamasus was a Spaniard, a man of eminence and of great learning in the Scriptures, and was elected to the Chair of Peter in the year of our Lord, 366. In 381 he convoked the First Council of Constantinople, wherein he crushed the wicked heresy of Eunomius and Macedonius. He confirmed the condemnation of the Assembly, at Rimini, which condemnation had already been pronounced by Liberius. This Assembly of Rimini was that in which, to use the language of St Jerome, Valens and Ursacius brought it about through trickery that the Faith of Nice was abrogated by mob law, and the world afterwards groaned in amazement to find itself Arian.\nFifth Lesson - Churches, Martyrs, and Sacred Learning\nThis Pope built two Basilicas, first, St Lawrence's, near Pompey's Theatre, which he magnificently enriched, and endowed with houses and farms; and, secondly, another, over the Catacombs on the Road to Ardea. He also consecrated the Platonia, where the bodies of St Peter and St Paul lay for some time, and decorated it with elegant inscriptions in poetry composed by himself. He wrote on the subject of virginity both in prose and verse, and likewise many other poems on various subjects.\nSixth Lesson - Psalmody, Scripture, and Roman Order\nHe ordained that false accusers should be punished for the offences which they had falsely laid to the charge of their neighbours. He established the usage, which already prevailed in many churches, of singing the Psalms, both by day and by night, by alternate choirs, and of adding at the end of each Psalm the words, \"Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost.\" It was at his command that St Jerome revised the translation of the New Testament to accord with the Greek text. He ruled the Church for seventeen years, two months, and twenty-six days. He held five Advent ordinations, wherein he ordained thirty-one Priests, eleven Deacons, and sixty-two Bishops for divers Sees. At length he fell asleep in the Lord, in the reign of Theodosius the Elder, upon the 10th day of December, in the year 384, being aged nearly eighty years, and full of righteousness, truth, and judgment. He was buried beside his mother and sister in the Church which he had himself founded on the Road to Ardea. His reliques were afterwards taken to the Basilica of St Lawrence, which is thence sometimes called \"San Lorenzo in Damaso.\"\nTHE PILGRIM'S SPIRITUAL CONFERENCE\nHold the Traditions\nThe Church places this truth before you today: Apostolic tradition is not nostalgia. It is the handing down of what the Church received from Christ and the Apostles. 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. Tradition protects the faithful from the tyranny of the present moment and from teachers who mistake novelty for life.\nThe grace to be practiced is Roman fidelity to doctrine and martyrs, 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 purity of intention by choosing God's glory before praise, appearance, or self-satisfaction.\nThere is also an enemy to recognize: Resist innovation that claims continuity while contradicting what was handed down. 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 roman fidelity to doctrine and martyrs 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 that the holiest part of an act may remain unseen and unrewarded by men. Before each important duty, name the intention plainly: for God's glory and the salvation or good of souls.\nThe Church's witness: this truth manifests the Church's mark of apostolic; the witness placed beside it is St. Paul.\nYour resolution before God: Read a brief account of a Roman martyr and ask what truth or duty you must hold with greater courage.\nCarry this word: The Church remembers her martyrs in order to believe and persevere as they did.\nTHE PILGRIM'S MIRROR\n\"If we would every year overcome one vice, we should anon come to perfection.\"\nThomas à Kempis, The Imitation of Christ, Book I, chapter 11, p. 20\nÀ Kempis does not flatter the soul with the promise of instant perfection. He asks for patient warfare against a definite vice. Much spiritual discouragement comes from trying vaguely to become holy while refusing to name the repeated fault through which self-will governs ordinary life.\n\nChoose the vice by its actual frequency, not by how dramatic its name appears. It may be complaint, delay, curiosity, harsh judgment, vanity, impurity of thought, or refusal of prayer. Place it before God without excuse, ask Our Lady for the contrary virtue, and begin with its next small occasion.\nToday's Practice: Name your recurring vice and write down the contrary acts you will make whenever it appears.\nDAILY EXAMEN\nExamine not only what you did, but why you desired to do it. Give every mixed intention to Our Lady for purification.\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 Pope St. Damasus, preserve the Apostolic See in the received Faith and make the witness of the martyrs fruitful in me.\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\nHold the Traditions and Refuse the Innovators: https://cityofgodinexile.com/scripture-treasury/2-thessalonians-2-14-15-hold-the-traditions-and-refuse-the-innovators?entered=1\nOpen this day in the Sacred Calendar: https://cityofgodinexile.com/sacred-calendar?date=2030-12-11&entered=1\nOpen this day's Daily Pilgrimage: https://cityofgodinexile.com/daily-dispatch?date=2030-12-11&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. Damasus I, Pope and Confessor - 2030-12-11\n \n \n
\n St. Damasus I, Pope and Confessor. Hold the Traditions. Resist innovation that claims continuity while contradicting what was handed down.\n
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City of God in Exile

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St. Damasus I, Pope and Confessor

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2030-12-11 - Advent - Semi-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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Martyr
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a Christian who was killed rather than deny Christ or abandon the Faith.
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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.

The full Breviary lessons preserve an older English translation. Read the modern explanation first; it identifies the people, event, and doctrine before the historical wording appears.

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Today in the Roman Year

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Pope St. Damasus honored the Roman martyrs and labored for the Church's fidelity amid doctrinal conflict. A Catholic memory is not nostalgia: it receives the testimony of those who died rather than alter the Faith. Pray that reverence for holy places, Scripture, and the saints may strengthen you against the rootlessness by which novelty gains power.

With Mary, turn from outward display toward the hidden sanctuary where God judges the heart.

Ask Our Lady to guard the intention beneath today's prayer and labor.

“All the glory of the King's daughter is within.”

St. Louis-Marie de Montfort, True Devotion to the Blessed Virgin, no. 11, citing Psalm 44:14

The world judges by what can be displayed, counted, and applauded. God sees the interior order from which a faithful act proceeds. Our Lady's glory is within because her faith, purity, charity, and consent belong wholly to Him before they become visible in any outward work.

Do not use the interior life as an excuse for neglecting outward Catholic duty; Mary obeyed in deed. But begin where the deed receives its worth. Purify the intentions of your prayers and works today. Let them be done because God is God, not because the acts will preserve an image of yourself.

Read a brief account of a Roman martyr and ask what truth or duty you must hold with greater courage.

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Octave Context

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  • Within the Common Octave of the Immaculate Conception - Common Octave
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Quote of the Day

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“For I do not seek to understand that I may believe, but I believe in order to understand.”
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St. Anselm of Canterbury, Proslogium, Chapter 1

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Roman Martyrology - December 11

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At Rome, St. Damasus, pope and confessor, who condemned the heresiarch Apollinaris, and restored to his see Peter, bishop of Alexandria, who had been driven from it. He also discovered the bodies of many holy martyrs, and wrote verses in their honor. — Also, at Rome, St. Thrason, who was arrested by order of Maximian for devoting his wealth to the support of the Christians who labored in the baths and at other public works, or were confined in prison. He was crowned with martyrdom with two others, Pontian and Prsetextatus. — At Amiens, the holy martyrs Victoricus and Fuscian, under the same emperor. By order of the governor Bictiovarus, they had iron pins driven into their ears and nostrils, heated nails into their temples, and arrows into their whole bodies. Being beheaded with St. Gentian, their host, they went to our Lord. — In Persia, St. Barsabas, martyr. — In Spain, St. Eutychius, martyr. — At Piacenza, St. Sabinus, a bishop renowned for miracles. — At Constantinople, St. Daniel the Stylite.

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Highlighted Saint

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St. Damasus I

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Pope and confessor who honored martyrs and condemned error.

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The Martyrology honors Pope St. Damasus, who condemned the heresiarch Apollinaris, restored Peter of Alexandria to his see, discovered the bodies of many holy martyrs, and wrote verses in their honor.

His feast teaches Roman care for doctrine and memory. The Church guards the faith by condemning error and honoring those who shed blood for Christ.

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Ask St. Damasus for a Catholic memory. A Church that remembers her martyrs will be less likely to make peace with error.

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From Matins

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The Roman keeper of Scripture, psalmody, and martyr memory.

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Matins - Second Nocturn - St. Damasus I, Pope and Confessor

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Roman Breviary, Proper lessons for St. Damasus I

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“A man of eminence and of great learning in the Scriptures.”
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  • The Breviary remembers Pope St. Damasus as a Scriptural scholar who defended Nicaea and opposed the errors of Eunomius, Macedonius, and the assembly of Rimini.
  • His Roman care joined doctrine to worship and memory: he adorned the resting places of the Apostles, honored martyrs in verse, and strengthened the singing of the Psalms by alternate choirs.
  • His direction to St. Jerome concerning the New Testament shows that fidelity receives, guards, and transmits sacred texts rather than treating them as private possessions.
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Let St. Damasus teach a Catholic memory nourished by Scripture, psalmody, and the martyrs. Error thrives where the faithful forget what they have received.

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Full Breviary Lessons

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Fourth Lesson - Defender of Nicaea against Arian Error

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Damasus was a Spaniard, a man of eminence and of great learning in the Scriptures, and was elected to the Chair of Peter in the year of our Lord, 366. In 381 he convoked the First Council of Constantinople, wherein he crushed the wicked heresy of Eunomius and Macedonius. He confirmed the condemnation of the Assembly, at Rimini, which condemnation had already been pronounced by Liberius. This Assembly of Rimini was that in which, to use the language of St Jerome, Valens and Ursacius brought it about through trickery that the Faith of Nice was abrogated by mob law, and the world afterwards groaned in amazement to find itself Arian.

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Fifth Lesson - Churches, Martyrs, and Sacred Learning

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This Pope built two Basilicas, first, St Lawrence's, near Pompey's Theatre, which he magnificently enriched, and endowed with houses and farms; and, secondly, another, over the Catacombs on the Road to Ardea. He also consecrated the Platonia, where the bodies of St Peter and St Paul lay for some time, and decorated it with elegant inscriptions in poetry composed by himself. He wrote on the subject of virginity both in prose and verse, and likewise many other poems on various subjects.

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Sixth Lesson - Psalmody, Scripture, and Roman Order

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He ordained that false accusers should be punished for the offences which they had falsely laid to the charge of their neighbours. He established the usage, which already prevailed in many churches, of singing the Psalms, both by day and by night, by alternate choirs, and of adding at the end of each Psalm the words, "Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost." It was at his command that St Jerome revised the translation of the New Testament to accord with the Greek text. He ruled the Church for seventeen years, two months, and twenty-six days. He held five Advent ordinations, wherein he ordained thirty-one Priests, eleven Deacons, and sixty-two Bishops for divers Sees. At length he fell asleep in the Lord, in the reign of Theodosius the Elder, upon the 10th day of December, in the year 384, being aged nearly eighty years, and full of righteousness, truth, and judgment. He was buried beside his mother and sister in the Church which he had himself founded on the Road to Ardea. His reliques were afterwards taken to the Basilica of St Lawrence, which is thence sometimes called "San Lorenzo in Damaso."

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The Pilgrim's Spiritual Conference

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Hold the Traditions

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The Church places this truth before you today: Apostolic tradition is not nostalgia. It is the handing down of what the Church received from Christ and the Apostles. 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. Tradition protects the faithful from the tyranny of the present moment and from teachers who mistake novelty for life.

The grace to be practiced is Roman fidelity to doctrine and martyrs, 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 purity of intention by choosing God's glory before praise, appearance, or self-satisfaction.

There is also an enemy to recognize: Resist innovation that claims continuity while contradicting what was handed down. 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 roman fidelity to doctrine and martyrs 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 that the holiest part of an act may remain unseen and unrewarded by men. Before each important duty, name the intention plainly: for God's glory and the salvation or good of souls.

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

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Your Resolution Before God

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Read a brief account of a Roman martyr and ask what truth or duty you must hold with greater courage.

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The Church remembers her martyrs in order to believe and persevere as they did.
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The Pilgrim's Mirror

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How shall I imitate Christ today?

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“If we would every year overcome one vice, we should anon come to perfection.”
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Thomas à Kempis, The Imitation of Christ, Book I, chapter 11, p. 20

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À Kempis does not flatter the soul with the promise of instant perfection. He asks for patient warfare against a definite vice. Much spiritual discouragement comes from trying vaguely to become holy while refusing to name the repeated fault through which self-will governs ordinary life.

Choose the vice by its actual frequency, not by how dramatic its name appears. It may be complaint, delay, curiosity, harsh judgment, vanity, impurity of thought, or refusal of prayer. Place it before God without excuse, ask Our Lady for the contrary virtue, and begin with its next small occasion.

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Today's Practice

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Name your recurring vice and write down the contrary acts you will make whenever it appears.

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Daily Examen

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Three questions before night prayer

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Examine not only what you did, but why you desired to do it. Give every mixed intention to Our Lady for purification.

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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 Pope St. Damasus, preserve the Apostolic See in the received Faith and make the witness of the martyrs fruitful in me.

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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 Hold the Traditions and Refuse the Innovators\n
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Persevere, pilgrim.

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The gates remain open to the faithful.

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