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Word of the day

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Date15/02/2024
Thursday after Ash Wednesday

Reading of the day

A reading from the Book of Deuteronomy
Dt 30:15-20

Moses said to the people:
“Today I have set before you
life and prosperity, death and doom.
If you obey the commandments of the LORD, your God,
which I enjoin on you today,
loving him, and walking in his ways,
and keeping his commandments, statutes and decrees,
you will live and grow numerous,
and the LORD, your God,
will bless you in the land you are entering to occupy.
If, however, you turn away your hearts and will not listen,
but are led astray and adore and serve other gods,
I tell you now that you will certainly perish;
you will not have a long life
on the land that you are crossing the Jordan to enter and occupy.
I call heaven and earth today to witness against you:
I have set before you life and death,
the blessing and the curse.
Choose life, then,
that you and your descendants may live, by loving the LORD, your God,
heeding his voice, and holding fast to him.
For that will mean life for you,
a long life for you to live on the land that the LORD swore
he would give to your fathers Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.”

Gospel of the day

From the Gospel according to Luke
Lk 9:22-25

Jesus said to his disciples:
“The Son of Man must suffer greatly and be rejected
by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes,
and be killed and on the third day be raised.”

Then he said to all,
“If anyone wishes to come after me, he must deny himself
and take up his cross daily and follow me.
For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it,
but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it.
What profit is there for one to gain the whole world
yet lose or forfeit himself?”

Words of the Holy Father

We can’t think of the Christian life apart from this path. There is always this journey, a journey that He took first: the journey of humility, the journey, too, of humiliation, of denying oneself, and then rising. But this is the path. Without the Cross, the Christian style is not Christian, and if the Cross is a Cross without Jesus, it is not Christian. The Christian style takes the Cross with Jesus and goes forward — not without the Cross, not without Jesus. And this style will save us, will give us joy and make us fruitful, because this path of denying oneself is there to give us life, it is opposed to the path of selfishness, of being attached to all the good things for myself alone… This path is open to others, because the path Jesus took — of abnegation —, that path was to give life. The Christian style is precisely this style of humility, of mildness, of meekness. And this is our joy, and this is our fruitfulness: to go with Jesus. Other joys are not fruitful; as Jesus said, they think only to gain the whole world, but in the end lose and ruin their lives. At the beginning of Lent, let us ask the Lord to teach us a little of this style of Christian service, of joy, of self-abnegation, and of fruitfulness with Him, as He desires. (Santa Marta, 6 March 2014)