Forty is used to symbolize a time of testing, purification, and trial. The rain during the Great Flood lasted forty days and forty nights. Each time Moses went up Mount Sinai, he remained there for forty days and nights. The Israelites wandered in the desert for forty years. After His resurrection, Jesus appeared to His disciples for forty days before ascending into Heaven. Interestingly, forty is even significant within human nature, in that we develop within our mother’s womb for forty weeks before being born.

Our Lord spent forty days and forty nights in the desert being tempted by the devil while He fasted and prayed. Thus, it should also be seen as a symbol of our entire life here on earth. The wording not only symbolizes our entire lives, but the “days” represent the many graces and blessings we sometimes receive, while the “nights” represent the crosses we sometimes endure.

First, we see that Jesus not only endured temptation, but he also confronted it. We must never be afraid to confront and reject temptations directly and confidently when the Holy Spirit is in the lead.

A second important lesson is that Jesus voluntarily fasted during this time in the desert. This illustrates the importance of the virtue of temperance in our life. As Jesus, when we choose, we should not consider only to the need of the moment (I am hungry…) but mainly from the perspective of the past time (does it fit with my commitments as a Christian?) and the time to come (and then what?).

Today’s challenge: Set yourself free from that bad sentiment, resentment, or envy towards that person. Forgive and forget.

 

Prayer - As Christians, our mission is to co-redeem, which means to cooperate as God's instruments so that the fruits of his Cross may reach every soul. God wanted to make great things, but depending on our cooperation.

Thus, our Christian vocation includes a guarantee from Christ that we will always have the grace we need for this supernatural task. He will give us his divine strength to renew the earth, and spread to people across the whole world the desire to achieve holiness in and through their state in life.

What a lot of spiritual calories you need! And what a tremendous responsibility if you let yourself grow cold! And – I don't even want to think of it – what a terrible crime if you were to give bad example! Feel the responsibility you have for your mission: all heaven is watching you.

To accomplish it, you must be constantly united to Jesus, like a branch to the vine.

Each day during this Lenten Season, I will be offering you a challenge, which will help you prepare for the joyful day of Easter.

Today’s challenge: It is called, “Where Is God? Have a few minutes of intimate conversation with God –this is prayer– thus, you will listen to Him in your heart.

 

*Conversion.* - Christ came to save us, sinners, and guide us on the way of salvation through repentance and conversion.

With the help of God's grace, we shall be able to fulfill God's commandments, overcome temptations, disordered inclinations, avoid sin, and do the natural and supernatural good.

Christ did not come to interpret and trivialize sin by appealing to the love of God, but to remove its deadly sting from our mortal being and to make us capable of living “in true righteousness and holiness” in the following of Christ (cf. Eph 4:24).

"If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar and his word is not in us. …But if anyone sins, we have the Father's help: Jesus Christ, the righteous one. He is the propitiation for our sins, and not only for our sins, but also for the sins of the whole world." (1 John 1:10:2, 1f)".

Each day during this Lenten Season, I will be offering you a challenge, which will help you prepare for the joyful day of Easter.

Today’s challenge: Make *a bold decision*, put aside, or cut off that toxic friendship, which is an occasion of sin.

Openness - To live a full Christian life, Christ sought me out and called me by my name, just as he did with the Apostles. When they had brought their boats to land, they left everything and followed him.

Lord, give me a caring, merciful, charitable heart like yours. Thank you for helping me to confirm that I can only achieve this if I practice justice and charity, beginning in my own family.

May my life be, Lord, a constant embracing the others with my gestures, looks, words and feelings of tenderness and love! May their defects encourage me to overcome them in myself. May I learn to keep silence from the talkative, toleration from the intolerant, and kindness from the unkind;… yet, strange, I am ungrateful to those teachers.

May your tenderness, Lord, incline me to transform my heart to open it to the others! Send your Spirit upon me, Lord, to be compassionate and merciful, tender, and loving, as you are merciful to me!

Each day during this Lenten Season, I will be offering you a challenge, which will help you prepare for the joyful day of Easter.

Today’s challenge: Complete your reception of the ashes last Wednesday, by preparing yourself well and make a good sacramental confession.

 

 

In this Lent, the Church reminds us that God expects our free response. For that reason, “Lent should suggest to us these basic questions: Am I advancing in my faithfulness to Christ, in my desire for holiness, in a generous apostolate in my daily life, in my ordinary work among my colleagues?

“Each one of us, silently, should answer these questions, and each will see that he needs to change again if Christ is to live in him, if Jesus' image is to be reflected clearly in his behavior.” St Josemaría

Do not think that following Christ is only in time of persecution or when one has the chance of martyrdom, but in all circumstances, in everything you do and think, in everything you say, may you deny what you used to be and confess what you now are, reborn as you have been in Christ.

Conversion is the task of a moment; sanctification is the work of a lifetime. The divine seed of charity, which God has sown in your soul, wants to grow, to express itself in action, to yield results which continually coincide with what God wants from you. Therefore, you must be ready to begin again, to find again – in new situations – the light and the stimulus of your first conversion. You must prepare yourself with a deep examination of conscience, asking our Lord for his help, so that you will know him and yourself better. If you want to be converted again, there's no other way.

 

Remember man, “To dust you shall return.” Yesterday, our Mother the Church reminded us of the role of material assets, not as ends in themselves, but as steps towards our personal accomplishment as human beings, as steps towards the great happiness forever that we all desire.

But also, we were told, “You are dust,” pointing out to us clearly the way towards that happiness: by being dust, by being what we are.

This is humility. Recognizing what we are and the consequences that should affect our responses.

Christ's call requires a continuing response on our part, an ever-greater penetration into God's will for us, and a deeper understanding of the greatness and the responsibilities of our Christian vocation.

There is no room in our lives for routine. We can't let our eagerness to follow Christ lose its first freshness. We can't allow monotony to creep into our divine adventure. If that were to happen, it would be a sign that we had started dawdling along the way.

Every day is a call to us to renew our love for our Christian vocation, to refresh our desires to live it to the full. Our fidelity is a continuous offering: a continuous act of love and generosity and magnanimity, which is not just the result of inertia. What gave rise to your early love, also has to maintain it now.

 

Our answer to God's call should be more generous every day. What a pity, if we were ever tempted to rest on our laurels, and to settle for what we have achieved so far. For the laborers are few, and the harvest plentiful.

Our apostolate is a sea without shores, and there are so few souls in the world who want to serve God! Imagine what would happen if those of us who are willing to serve were to be half-hearted about it.

Let us turn to Mary, asking her to help us be generous. Here I am, determined on this occasion not to let time pass like water over the rocks, without leaving a trace. I'll let myself be drenched and transformed; this time I won't hesitate to give myself.

Illustration: Adoration of the Child with St peter and other saints, by Carlo Crivelli.

 

Lent begins today, and God's call to penance reaches our ears. The Church is offering us an opportunity for a new conversion.

Benedict XVI wrote: “If God is the Creator, it means we are creatures. It means that we do not create ourselves, but that we depend for existence and growth on God and on others.

“Man is relational. I come from parents; I live for others. I give myself to a project I cannot consider that it is just limited to myself.”

We are not just autonomous zombies floating around each other. Rather, we are connected to each other because we are connected to God, who himself is Relationship as the Trinity.

Some may object, saying, “No one ever asked me if I wanted to be born!”

It is only when you know that there is One who did not cast lots blindly to bring you to existence…,

It is only when you realize that your existence is not necessary…,

It is only when you know that your existence is not an accident, but rather that you were born of freedom and love…,

It is only then that you can begin to be thankful for this freedom that created you,

and know –with gratitude– that it is a gift to be human...and live with a purpose.”

Sin is the destruction of the relationship between myself and God, and then among all of us. There is no such thing as an individual sin that does not have effects on others. Every turn away from God’s plan, from God’s law, affects not only me, but everyone else, as well.

This can be healed by denying myself and turning to Christ, the source of my love. How important is the Eucharist in restoring me, a fallen man, to unity with myself and with God.

 

The word “understanding,” in personal relationships, could sometimes hint only one of its aspects: that of not being surprised by others’ defects and faults. But if this were the case, we would not fully grasp the meaning of that point from The Way: “Charity does not consist so much in ‘giving’ as in ‘understanding.’”

The understanding that is the fruit of charity, of love, is “comprehensive,” it “sees,” first of all, not the defects or faults, but the virtues and good qualities of others.

I remember a meditation preached by Don Javier in which he forcefully and affectionately exhorted us “not to see people through their defects, but through their virtues.” Love makes us see, with joy, what is positive in others. “We need to rejoice in the prosperity of our neighbor as well as in our own.” This is the complete opposite of seeing others with that dark sin of envy, which is sadness for the good others possess. (Msgr. Ocariz)

Illustration: Holy Family with St John Baptist and St Anne. Inspired in Bronzino.

 

This is a call to live what you have received in baptism. “I baptize you in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit”: the formula immerses every Christian in the source of the Trinity.

This is a call to devotion to the Trinity, a calling to "Love" [1 Jn 4:8-16]. Live with Them there within, in the heaven of your soul. God the Father will cover you with His shadow [cf. Mt 17:5; Lk 1:35], interposing a kind of cloud between you and the things of the earth, to keep you all for Himself, and He will communicate His power to you so that you may love Him with a love as strong as death [Song of Solomon 8:6].

The Son will engrave on your soul, as on a crystal, the image of his beauty, so that you may be pure with his purity and luminous with his light.

The Holy Spirit will transform you into a mysterious lyre which, at his divine touch, will sing in silence a magnificent song of Love. Then you will be "the praise of his glory," what you and I should dream of being on earth.

Here on earth, the Blessed Trinity cannot be understood fully, but can be lived in depth.

 

The more I look at her picture, the more she seems to be telling me, “My child, are you sure you are in the right track of mind?... That your plans are the plans of my Son for you? … That your dreams are my dreams for you?

Do you accept to run along the straight road, the narrow path leading to Paradise?

My child, answer these questions yourself, and make the appropriate moves.”

The Apostles answered Christ's personal directives one by one. Their initial generous response was by no means the end of the story. In fact, it was just the beginning of a far more important task: that of their progressive incorporation into Christ, culminating in complete union with him.

This is the adventure we are always engaged in. “Our life is simple and ordinary. Yet, if you live according to the demands of our spirit, it will also be heroic. Sanctity is never a mediocre thing; our Lord didn't call us with the idea of making the way to him any easier or less heroic.” (St Josemaría)

Think of this: There is a wonderful world there, waiting for you. Do not let it pass by.

Picture: Our Lady del Buon Aiuto (of the Powerful Help), based on a 14th century Roman fresco, with ex-voto(s) attached, crowns and necklaces.

 

‘Two people who love one another, when they have to part, exchange some photographs with a dedication so full of affection, so aflame, that it is almost a wonder that the words don't burn the paper.

It's the same with Jesus, who loves us to the end: he has to go, and, at the same time, he wants to stay. But what we are not able to do, God can do: he goes, and he stays. He institutes the Holy Eucharist so that we may eat him, so that we will be strengthened, so that we will be faithful and come to perfect union with him ...” St. Josemaría

Jesus is really present in the Holy Eucharist, with his Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity. And he stayed for you and for me.

Love is repaid with love! Think about how you genuflect before the tabernacle, about your visits to the Blessed Sacrament, how you think of him when you pass close to a tabernacle, or to a church, with thoughts that should be more ardent every time. Love is repaid with love!

 

An intelligent man distinguishes what is God’s will from what is not, what is only his own greed, laziness, or sensuality.

This leads him to ponder –first– and then to proclaim and to fulfill the will of God.

Prudence, finally, leads him to live constantly turning towards the will of God and not to other attractions.

And to those who are weak God says: “Come, eat my Body, the bread that is the nourishment of virtue, and makes you divine. For I have miraculously mingled my divinity with my blood for your salvation.”

Illustration: The icon of the “Mother of God Значение” (znamenie, The Sign) belongs to the group of the Orans (Praying), from the 11th – 12th century. One of the most revered icons in Russia. Our Mother manifests us always a sign, the sign of Her mercy and intercession, for she carries the Son of God in her pure womb.

 

Have you ever met Jesus, Our Lord and God?

Have you ever talked alone with him?

Are you his friend?

God does not want to enter a house, but to live in your heart.

Jesus does not want to live in a hotel with prepaid full board, but to meet someone who opens his intimacy and shares his concerns with him.

This is what friends do; they open the doors of their homes. Your home is your heart.

In the journey of life, Jesus can become a great friend, or even more, your companion for life…and beyond.

You choose.

But do not forget that He has already chosen you, He wants to be your friend forever, and to talk face to face with the one who desires His friendship.

 

Michelangelo carved this “tondo” (rounded) image of Our Lady in marble. Its circular shape indicates the entire world, nothing outside except God. The circle, perfect figure, implies that the plans of God are good, not misshaped, fruit of his fatherly concern for all.

Our Lady is a crucial figure in God’s plans. She is looking backwards, towards the Old Testament (the left side of the tondo), dwelling on the prophecies. But her body is turned towards Jesus, forwards, open to the plans of God.

Her Son is the continuity of God’s plans, the accomplishment, not the rupture of them. She holds the Child tightly, her hand embracing Jesus. The plans of God go through Jesus our Redeemer, and nothing outside Him.

Jesus’ head rests upon a Book, the Scriptures, and his little arm establishes a connection between the Scriptures and his mind, God’s Wisdom. Mary holds the Book, the fulfillment of God’s plans; moreover, the Book is open, Jesus opened it and showed the totality of Revelation. Now anyone can read it. There is a perfect agreement between the Scriptures and the salvation worked by Jesus.

The Child is naked, just himself, perfect God and perfect man. He does not need weapons, human strategy, impressive garments, or devices; just He. And we find Him in the Word and the sacraments.

The countenance of Our Lady follows the perfect classical canons, implying her perfections and virtues with which God adorned her. She is crowned by angels’ figures in her forehead, she is the Queen of the Angels.

Our Mother is seated on a perfect shaped and polished stone cube, especially solid, it is the Church. She is an important part of the mystical Body Christ, she is the Mother of God. She is not outside the Church, but in the Church, as Mother of the Church.

Behind her, the Old Testament, appears roughly finished, it was there to prepare its own completion in Jesus. The figure of John de Baptist appears, almost in shadows, preparing the arrival of the King.

 

For Feb. 14; in this picture of Our Lady, the distinctive mark is that she is wearing an apron; I call this painting Our Lady of the Apron. She looks like an ordinary, modest, housewife.

Our Mother is looking towards heaven seeking for directions in her life, for her decisions, instead of choosing just what is “popular,” “cool” or “more comfy.”

In seeking God’s Will, she is internally talking to God, praying. Our work is prayer, contemplation; we do it in the presence of God. She is ready to serve, because our Christian vocation leads us to serve, following Christ who did not come to be served but to serve. But not any kind of service, not any kind of work rather, she's ready to work well as an act of love of God; she has her hair gathered to be more effective in her work so nothing will fall from her hair.

She's carrying the Child Jesus. When we work, in a manner of speaking, we are carrying the Child Jesus with us, because we are doing his work. The Child is also looking towards heaven, because he, and the Father, with the Holy Spirit, are not separated, but one God. He is always doing the Will of his Father, who sent him. He is wrapped in a prayer shawl typical of the Jews, indicating that he belongs to the people of Israel. He is declaring the continuity of the covenant, that he is the fullness of the New Covenant.

The painting is framed with a thin golden frame; our work, no matter how humble, becomes pure gold in the eyes of God.

The painting is resting upon a red carpet. Our Lady is hinting to us that we must be like carpets, soft carpets, on which the others may be able to step comfortably. It means that this service to the others should be directed to make their life, and their way to heaven, easier, more pleasant, as an expression of fraternity, because we are all involved in the same journey as a family towards heaven.

 

God’s calling to a Christian demands a continuing response. The call that we heard as Christians, one day, is not a distant echo, lost in the mists of memory. Each day we must find the best way of serving God; we must be on the lookout to discover his will behind everything that happens to us.

It is in the things of every day that God awaits us; it is there that he calls us; and it is there that we respond to Him. “If doing the same thing day after day seems monotonous and unappealing, it's because love is missing. When there is love, every new day has a different hue, a different tone; each day strikes a different chord.” (St Josemaría)

The Child Jesus looks very Filipino; his little lips are pouting as if pointing out Filipino style. Probably, pointing what direction He wants you to go. My joke.

Second Sunday of St. Joseph

 

According to a posthumous book recently published of Pope Benedict XVI, “Jesus celebrated Passover with his family, that is to say with the apostles, who had become his new family.”

“Thus, he complied with a precept according to which pilgrims who went to Jerusalem could join together in companies called ‘chaburot.’

The Christians continued this tradition. We are his ‘chaburah,’ his family, which he has formed from his company of pilgrims who travel the road of the Gospel along with him through the land of history.”

“Thus, celebrating the Eucharist in the ancient Church was from the beginning linked to the community of believers and, hence, subject to strict conditions of access.”

Lord, help me understand the real meaning of communion, that “love” is not just a noun, a concept, but that love is, above all, a verb, an action.

Today, Our Lady of Lourdes. She intercedes to cure her children. Let us ask her to cure the sickness of the Church. Or, to be precise, let ask Our Lady of Lourdes, united to the pope, that she cures the sickness, the doctrinal and moral confusion, that affect so many in the Church.

 

Jesus, teach me to pray, to talk to you, while getting closer and closer to your plans.

Teach me to ask for wisdom to understand the others, to have more capacity to forgive, to accept some things I don’t like, to be a better person.

I want to learn to be less selfish, and to become an example in the life of my children and friends.

I ask you for the grace to believe more intensely and so, always respond according to your plans.

May the Lord change my heart constantly, to seek the true treasure and thus, following the example of my Mother Mary, become a luminous beacon and not a person in darkness.

 

Story about a dog before the tabernacle in a seminary---

Waiting for Pope John Paul II to arrive

The dog in the photo was trained to identify and find life after earthquakes. His posture and the fact of staying fixed as seen in the image is the posture that tells the rescuer that there is life in that place...

“On the evening of the last day of his October 1995 visit to the United States, John Paul II was scheduled to greet the seminarians at Saint Mary’s Seminary in Baltimore. It had been a very full day.

The schedule was tight, so the plan was simply to greet the seminarians while they stood outside on the steps. But the Pope made his way through their ranks and into the building. His plan was to first make a visit to the Blessed Sacrament.

When his wishes were made known, security flew into action. They swept the building paying close attention to the chapel where the Pope would be praying. For this purpose, highly trained dogs were used to detect any person who might be present.

The dogs went up and down the aisle, past the pews and finally into the side chapel where the Blessed Sacrament is reserved.

Upon reaching the tabernacle, the dogs sniffed, whined, pointed, and refused to leave, their attention riveted on the tabernacle, until called by their handlers. They were convinced that they had discovered someone there. They found a real, living Person in the tabernacle!” — Fr. Arthur Byrne

 

Follow me! Christ's call shook me; it came as an authoritative summons that gave meaning to all the longings and ambitions of my heart.

When called, someone may have been young, with his whole life before him, like James and John; or he may already have had experience of life, like Simon and Matthew. But in either case, the person realized that he had a long voyage ahead of him, a new life, a divine adventure: “Put out into the deep.”

Just as the fermentation of new wine causes old vessels to burst, so too the Gospel spirit bursts through prejudices and cowardly conformity, routine, because the apostle, rescued by Jesus, has found the purpose of his life.

 

A disciple of Christ is never afraid, for he is not alone. God is a loving Father, who, as He takes care of even the smallest details in his creatures, with all the more reason He will take care of his faithful children.

As Christians, it belongs to us to bear witness to the message of the Gospel, living it in the simplicity and normality of our professional and family life. In so doing, we become instruments of God –lamps of His Light– to illuminate the world with the light that emanates from our lives.

Illustration: Madre del Amor Hermoso painted by Legarda, during the time of the Virreinato, Quito Ecuador, Quito

God is a loving Father who doesn't want us to live out in the cold, exposed to the elements. We are not fighting alone; ours is not the sad struggle of a person abandoned by fortune, who never finds a helping hand or hears a word of encouragement.

We are children, and we have a family, a place of safety where we can regain our strength, so that we can set out on our way once more with renewed enthusiasm.

By God's will, family life at home plays an important role in our sanctification and our apostolic effectiveness. Consequently, no matter how many other things we have to do, we make sure we take special care of our family life. God gives us the warmth of a home as a means to our holiness, and we must make full use of it.

God made us salt and light for our family and friends. Those who have truly encountered Jesus cannot remain silent, cannot close in on themselves. Like Mary, they must open the doors and share him with the whole world.

 

 

Praised be God, the Father. In our Lord Jesus Christ, you have given me every spiritual blessing.

O Light serene of God the Father’s glory, I worship You.

You, O Christ, are the Light. I was just darkness.

In baptism, you shared your light with me, and I became a lamp, carrying your light. My task is to remove my opacity and to let your light illumine the others.

By the power of the Holy Spirit, Mary brought Christ into the world.

Through the Church, may Christ be born again today in the hearts of my fellow men.

Father, may your Spirit lead me forward out of egoism and solitude.

May he lead me to open the eyes of the blind, to proclaim the Word of light, to reap together the harvest of life.

 

God wants us to acknowledge our sins and not hide our iniquities from him. Sincerity is the first step towards repentance.

We have all sinned; and we all have faults and imperfections that distance us from God. we should acknowledge our contrition, together with King David: I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me.

The sacrifice that pleases God is a contrite heart.

God has given us so much, and he is going to demand a lot of us. Given that God's faithful love for us is so very great, so abundant and generous, no infidelity on our part can be considered small.

We must not be afraid to call sins by their name, however many years we may have spent serving God. We cannot allow ourselves to do things that are wrong and say they are holy.

Tomorrow, we begin the Seven Sundays of St. Joseph

 

The Catholic belief proposes that freedom is the cause of faith, because one believes only if one freely wants to believe. The Second Vatican Council itself clearly expresses that no one can be forced to believe: "By faith man gives himself entirely and freely to God, freely assenting".

In the lap of the Blessed Virgin, contemplating the Infant Jesus who came to give his life for us, we will dream of the dreams of God's children, and with her intercession they will be fulfilled sooner, more, and better.

Let us trust fully in Jesus. It does not matter if he needs our wealth to achieve this, for what good does it do us to gain the whole world if in the end we lose our soul?

As Mary and Joseph offered to the Lord those two little turtle-doves, and then, they had to cut and run to Egypt, we should learn to join our poor offerings to those of Christ, to join our prayers with His prayers, our tears with His tears, our sacrifice with His sacrifice. Thus, something of little value will acquire an infinite worth.

 

Today, the Presentation of Our Lord in the Temple, we should imitate the unconditional dedication of Jesus Christ to the Will of God.

We never have sufficient reason to be proud. In our day, looking also at the example of our Lady, this fact becomes clearer than ever. She deserves every privilege in heaven and on earth, yet Mary comes to the Temple just as any other woman.

When we strive to be humble, we can feel the amazing power of God acting, building on our weakness; and we know that we are never more powerful than when we rely only on God.

We must follow with docility the interior inspirations which the Holy Spirit causes in our souls. Sometimes this happens in little things: accepting serenely the sacrifices asked of us in our work or in the effort to live amiably with others; choosing something which is not to our taste, or taking for ourselves some task or place which is not our preference...

Christ is truly our LIGHT, our life and resurrection, our peace and strength, our triumph and our certain hope. With Him we can live again!

 

The reasons for enduring life and continue struggling are not discovered, but are built with the imperfect help of other persons, my real friends.

As I sail through the storm-tossed waters of this life, may the trials and troubles I encounter purify me, and bring lasting peace to my soul.

Heavenly Father, help me to go on trusting in you, and to have faith in the healing power of your Son, who binds up all my wounds.

When I receive Jesus in Holy Communion, I get a torrent of grace that floods me with joy, gives me the firmness I need to carry on, and causes the very angels to be amazed at my good fortune.

Heavenly Father, I rejoice in your abundant love for me; establish your kingdom within me, and be my companion along the road of life.

Russian icon of Mother of God Spes Nostra. With pearls, beads, and rhinestones. The border says: The Mother of God, our Hope in Difficult Cases.