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1 LENT DAILY CATHOLIC DEVOTIONS based on the Mass Readings for Year A

2 Thursday after Ash Wednesday Attend to the Little Sins What profit is there for one to gain the whole world yet lose or forfeit himself? Luke 9:25 Among my top ten list of movies is A Man for All Seasons. The 1966 version is true to the play by Robert Bolt, and Paul Scofield is fabulous as Thomas More. It s a great movie for Lent. There is a brief interaction between Richard Rich and Sir Thomas after Richard has perjured himself to gain the office of Attorney General of Wales. Sir Thomas: Why Richard, it profits a man nothing to give his soul for the whole world but for Wales? Earlier in the play, Sir Thomas tried to warn Richard, knowing that one doesn t give away one s soul all at once, but bit by bit. A lie here, cheating there, petty theft it all leads to bigger sins as we forgive ourselves more and more easily until we apparently have no conscience at all. Lent is a good time to start taking seriously the little sins both our own and those of our children. Notice and confess the little sins and the big ones will avoid us. Paige Byrne Shortal 2 Deuteronomy 30:15-20 Psalm 1:1-4, 6 Luke 9:22-25

3 Friday after Ash Wednesday Open Up to God s Will This, rather, is the fasting that I wish: Setting free the oppressed, breaking every yoke; Sharing your bread with the hungry, sheltering the oppressed and the homeless. Isaiah 58:6-7 My younger children spend quite a bit of time pondering their Lenten disciplines. It s a pretty drawn-out process. They change their minds. They tell each other what they need to give up. That s always helpful. And they are pushed and pulled between the desires to be either too easy or brutally hard on themselves. Has much changed since childhood? Not really. Not for me at least. The dynamic is much the same. What do I want to do? It occurred to me this year, though, that my Lenten journey might take on a different flavor if I started with a different question, one sparked by God s word through Isaiah. What if I started, not with, What kind of fast do I want? but What kind of fast does God want of me? Lord, I open myself to you. Lead me through this Lenten season. Amy Welborn Isaiah 58:1-9 Psalm 51:3-6, Matthew 9:

4 Saturday after Ash Wednesday Making Room for the Needy The Pharisees and their scribes complained to [Jesus ] disciples, saying, Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners? Luke 5:30 Talk about a loaded question! The Pharisees and their scribe toadies think they have Jesus and his followers figured out. They know the rules, and they have caught Jesus and his disciples red-handed, doing what they know it s not okay to do, namely, hanging around with people everyone knows it s not okay to hang around with. Jesus replies that he is there to help those who need help, not those who think they have it all figured out in other words, those who think that faith is primarily a matter of obeying religious rules and regulations. Jesus reply to the rules-and-regulations guys reflects his belief that faith includes serving the undesirable and the marginalized. So the question for us is: How do we make room in our own lives for the socially unacceptable and those who offend the conventional morality of our own time and place? Lord Jesus, help me to make room in my life for those who need help the most. Mitch Finley 4 Isaiah 58:9-14 Psalm 86:1-6 Luke 5:27-32

5 First Sunday of Lent Facing Our Issues Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the desert to be tempted by the devil. Matthew 4:1 Sooner or later the Spirit will lead us into unfamiliar and uncomfortable desert places that we would rather not visit. However, the good news is this is the place where we stop shaking our fingers at others and face the accumulated junk that resides in our own hearts. It is a holy place where we learn about humility, forgiveness and, most of all, compassion. I remember talking to a very prayerful elderly woman about her desert experience. In her early 60s, her husband was transferred halfway across the country, away from family and friends. She said it was a very lonely and miserable experience, but with all that extra time she began to reflect on some of her negative attitudes and rigid beliefs. By the time she returned to her hometown a few years later, she was a changed person. She let go of her judgments and expectations of others and spent her remaining years reaching out to the hurting and lonely. Terri Mifek Genesis 2:7-9; 3:1-7 Psalm 51:3-6,12-14,17 Romans 5:12-19 Matthew 4:1-11 5

6 Our Lenten Food Monday, First Week of Lent Be holy, for I, the Lord, your God, am holy. Leviticus 19:1-2 What a loving word. If we listen deeply, we learn two things about the power of God s love for us. First, it s intensely relational: We belong to him, and are to be like him. Second, he sees the best for us. We don t always wake up feeling like we will be holy today. But he sees this destiny for us, and he asks us to claim it. How? The next verses in Leviticus, and the Last Judgment story from Matthew, help. Both are highly practical. We re to be fair to our neighbor, rich or poor; visit the sick; feed the hungry. Our desire to do this comes from his love, and in caring for others, holiness takes flesh. This is our Lenten food. Instead of filling our stomachs, for these 40 days at least, we look to the good of the other. And so even our Lenten days shine with Easter light. Mary Marrocco 6 Leviticus 19:1-2, Psalm 19:8-10, 15 Matthew 25:31-46

7 Tuesday, First Week of Lent Forgiveness from the Heart If you forgive others their transgressions, your heavenly Father will forgive you. But if you do not forgive others, neither will your Father forgive your transgressions. Matthew 6:14-15 As we prepare for Easter, we purify our hearts through charity, prayer and fasting. Another common practice is communal reconciliation. In confession, we lay bare our sinful nature before God and ask forgiveness, unburdening our heart. But as today s gospel reading of the Lord s Prayer reminds us, being forgiven requires that we forgive those who trespass against us. Jesus repeats this notion in verses 14-15, and later when Peter asks, Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother or sister who sins against me? (Matthew 18:21-35). Reconciliation can mean nothing, he says, unless you forgive others from your heart. And that means forgiving them as they are, sinful nature and all. One definition of forgiveness is looking past the harm to see the other person as the child of God that they are. During Lent and always, I pray for a loving heart to forgive any child of God who might do me harm. Phil Fox Rose Isaiah 55:10-11 Psalm 34:4-7, Matthew 6:7-15 7

8 Reading the Signs Wednesday, First Week of Lent When God saw by [the Ninevites ] actions how they turned from their evil way, he repented of the evil he had threatened to do to them; he did not carry it out. Jonah 3:10 We ve all ignored signs of danger: the way those numbers on the bathroom scale keep going up, or the doctor s lecture about our blood pressure, or the highway signs that caution us to slow down. We might get away with ignoring the warnings for a while, but they have a way of catching up with us eventually. We ignore signs of danger about our faith life too. Maybe it s that we don t feel quite the same when we don t go to Mass or confession or that emptiness we feel when we ve wronged someone or missed a ministry opportunity. Those warnings catch up with us as well. Better, then, to ask him for help now in getting back on the straight and narrow. Lord, thank you for the countless do-overs you ve granted me. Today, I will try anew to do your will. Melanie Rigney 8 Jonah 3:1-10 Psalm 51:3-4, 12-13, Luke 11:29-32

9 Thursday, First Week of Lent God s Opened Door Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. Matthew 7:7 These words prove that God truly is interested in you. The gift of God s presence and the power of his help are always there for you. You have only to ask, and then reflect on all the times God has touched your life with his compassionate love. In the midst of life s problems, the door has been opened to you. Life s problems can test our trust in God s care for us, especially when those problems cannot be resolved as quickly as we d like. That s when it helps to remember the death and resurrection of Jesus. There we see that God s answer to the problem of suffering and death is new life that comes through resurrection. The foretaste of this is present in our lives right now. Trusting in God lessens fear. Reconciling with enemies brings peace. And the fruit of trust and reconciliation is new life that gradually becomes possible for us now. Lord, thank you for opening the door to me. Fr. Kenneth E. Grabner, C.S.C. Esther C:12, 14-16, (Esther s prayer) Psalm 138:1-3, 7-8 Matthew 7:7-12 9

10 Believing that Lent and its focus on prayer, fasting and almsgiving is itself a sign of God s grace, we offer this booklet as one way for you to open your heart to God s presence and action in your life. If we give ourselves and all our activities to God in faith, then we can spiritually walk with Jesus on his road to Calvary, and be sure our Lent will bear lasting fruit. This book, along with many other for the Parish products, is available on and Acknowledgments Scripture texts in this work are taken from the New American Bible with Revised New Testament 1986, 1970 Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, Washington, DC, and are used by permission of the copyright owner. All rights reserved. No part of the New American Bible may be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the copyright owner. Dan Schutte, Walking the Sacred Path 2009, Dan Schutte, Twenty-Third Publications. Fr. Peter John Cameron, O.P., Jesus, Present Before Me 2009, Peter John Cameron, O.P., Servant Books. Living Faith Lent, Year A. Design by Jamie Wyatt. Cover image: Shutterstock for the Parish, a Division of Bayard, Inc., 1564 Fencorp Dr., Fenton, MO All rights reserved. LF9