WEDNESDAY OF THE 3RD WEEK OF LENT - 2025

DAILY HOLY MASS READINGS

Your words are spirit, Lord, and they are life;
you have the message of eternal life. JN 6:63, 68

DEUTERONOMY 4:1,5-9

My Soul's Beloved,

Thank You for Your Word, and thank You for Your Law of Love that is written on our hearts. Thank You for the Holy Spirit that makes us His holy temple by living in us and uniting us with the Father and with You making all who are called by Your Name, One with You, the Father and the Spirit. We are all united in You with God, and it is the life of the Spirit that animates us and makes us light and salt in the world. 

Beloved, all that Moses said to the people about being a special people chosen by God from all the nations, to be His very own people, and who, if they kept the law, and taught them to each generation and they all observed them faithfully, they would truly be a people whom all nations would admire in awe. The Law given to them was divine law, and had they followed it as Moses urged them to, then the entire world would know that they were truly a great nation led by the wisdom of God. Sadly, my Lord, it was not so. They did not heed his instructions, and so time and time again they were attacked, taken into exile, punished, enslaved, and reduced greatly in number. They who could have been great among the nations were scattered because they disobeyed God's law over and over again.

Had they been faithful and walked in the shadow of the Lord their God, they would have recognized You when You came into the world, and perhaps the history of the world would be so different from what it is. God used their disobedience and unfaithfulness to bring to Himself those who were considered outsiders, Gentiles, sinners, tax collectors, prostitutes, were given an opportunity to receive and be blessed and raised up to take the place of those who rejected You and refused to recognize the time when God visited them, walked among them, and revealed Himself to them.

May we who know You, love You, are redeemed and saved by You, remain faithful and be Your witnesses throughout the world.

‘But take care what you do and be on your guard. Do not forget the things your eyes have seen, nor let them slip from your heart all the days of your life; rather, tell them to your children and to your children’s children.’

PSALM 147:12-13,15-16,19-20

O praise the Lord, Jerusalem!

O praise the Lord, Jerusalem!
Zion, praise your God!
He has strengthened the bars of your gates
he has blessed the children within you.

He sends out his word to the earth

and swiftly runs his command.
He showers down snow white as wool,
he scatters hoar-frost like ashes.

He makes his word known to Jacob,

to Israel his laws and decrees.
He has not dealt thus with other nations;
he has not taught them his decrees.

O praise the Lord, Jerusalem!

MATTHEW 5:17-19

My Soul's Beloved,

You are the fulfillment of every covenant, every law, every promise that God ever made with man when He created the world and everything in it. All through salvation history, we see how God pursues man relentlessly despite the fact that they are disobedient, false, sin gravely and repeatedly, and refuse to do as God desires, yet, after punishing them often severely, God always relents, has pity, compassion, heals, and forgives. 

Lord, You remember that we are made of dust. Original sin has wounded us and rendered us weak and prone to sin. We are tempted easily because we lack discipline and self-control. We refuse to ask for help and try to live independent of You and the help You make readily available to us through the Sacraments. We are so foolish, Lord; we make excuses for our weaknesses, our faults, our failings, our timidity, and our selfishness, and we expect You to take all these into consideration, although we refuse to take Your Word and Your commandments seriously. We are accountable, Lord, and our eternal happiness is dependent on whether or not we have been faithful. Enough time is given to us all to live the Truth, know the Truth, and allow the Truth to set us free.

Jesus said to his disciples: ‘Do not imagine that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets. I have come not to abolish but to complete them. I tell you solemnly, till heaven and earth disappear, not one dot, not one little stroke, shall disappear from the Law until its purpose is achieved. Therefore, the man who infringes even one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be considered the least in the kingdom of heaven; but the man who keeps them and teaches them will be considered great in the kingdom of heaven.’

THE ANNUNCIATION OF THE LORD - 2025

DAILY HOLY MASS READINGS

The Word became flesh,
he lived among us,
and we saw his glory. JN 1:14

ISAIAH 7:10-14,8:10

My Soul's Beloved,

Signs of Your loving providence are everywhere if we care to look for them, take heart, and be consoled by them, and in doing so we increase our faith, hope, love, and confidence in Your ever-present help which is readily available to all who call on Your Name. Signs can be great but mostly it is the little signs that constantly remind us that You are close to us, You are Emmanuel - God with us. Unlike Ahaz, Lord, we thank You for these signs that lift our spirit each time we recognize that Your loving, tender, and compassionate gaze is always on us.

For those who are too afraid to ask for a sign Lord because they are afraid one has been given anyway, it is a sign that brings not fear but hope into are dark, dreary, hate-filled, violent world. It is the universal sign of hope - a young woman with child. But this is not any woman and this is not any child but the fairest of all God's daughters Mary, the handmaid of the Lord, and in her, the almighty Word leaped from the heavens and came to nestle in her womb Taking Your flesh from her body, You became the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. Blessed are we who are invited to the Supper of the Lamb.

Then Isaiah said:
‘Listen now, House of David:
are you not satisfied with trying the patience of men
without trying the patience of my God, too?
The Lord himself, therefore,
will give you a sign.
It is this: the maiden is with child
and will soon give birth to a son
whom she will call Immanuel,
a name which means “God-is-with-us.”’

PSALM 39(40):7-11

Here I am, Lord! I come to do your will.

You do not ask for sacrifice and offerings,
but an open ear.
You do not ask for holocaust and victim.
Instead, here am I.

In the scroll of the book it stands written

that I should do your will.
My God, I delight in your law
in the depth of my heart.

Your justice I have proclaimed

in the great assembly.
My lips I have not sealed;
you know it, O Lord.

I have not hidden your justice in my heart

but declared your faithful help.
I have not hidden your love and your truth
from the great assembly.

Here I am, Lord! I come to do your will.

HEBREWS 10:4-10

My Soul's Beloved,

The endless ritual sacrifices and offerings to God prescribed by Moses following the will of God in the Old Testament served their purpose and were a foreshadowing of the one, true, holy, and only pleasing once-for-all eternal Sacrifice that God would receive later as pleasing and acceptable in His sight. One which has the power to take away the sins of the whole world. Unlike the endless sacrifices of goats, lambs, and bulls, which, as St. Paul says, were useless for taking away the sins of the world. They did nothing to help them avoid sin and strengthen them in virtue. These were just rituals that were a foreshadowing of the real, only, and holy Sacrifice that would make atonement for the sins of Adam and the whole world. 

Beloved, God, from the beginning after the fall of Adam, desired to save us because He loved us so much He did not want us to perish but have eternal life. So He desired You, His only Son, to come into our fallen world, by taking on a Body from the womb of the Virgin. He prepared this Body carefully, ensuring that the Virgin daughter chosen by Him to clothe You in flesh was to be free of all stain of sin. Her body was sinless, pure, holy, immaculately conceived without original sin for our God, her Son, redeemed her by the power of His Blood received from her and the power of the Cross, except You did so, before the fact for with God all things are possible.

You offered Yourself to the Father as a pleasing, holy, and acceptable Sacrifice and by Your self-emptying obtained for the entire human race forgiveness, redemption, pardon, and restoration to the family of God. Thank You, Lord, for Your 'Yes" that gave us so glorious a Savior, Redeemer, Brother, Bridegroom, and Friend. Keep us faithful to the end so at last we may behold You face to face as You are, and be united with You forever. 

Then I said,
just as I was commanded in the scroll of the book,
‘God, here I am! I am coming to obey your will.’
Notice that he says first: You did not want what the Law lays down as the things to be offered, that is: the sacrifices, the oblations, the holocausts and the sacrifices for sin, and you took no pleasure in them; and then he says: Here I am! I am coming to obey your will. He is abolishing the first sort to replace it with the second. And this will was for us to be made holy by the offering of his body made once and for all by Jesus Christ.

LUKE 1:26-38