FRIDAY AFTER ASH WEDNESDAY - 2025

DAILY HOLY MASS READINGS

Seek good and not evil so that you may live,
and that the Lord God of hosts may really be with you. AMOS 5:14

ISAIAH 58:1-9

My Soul's Beloved,

In these first days of the first week in Lent we are invited to get back to the basics, silence the voices that clamor for our attention and pay attention to the life-giving things necessary for our salvation. We are to purify our intentions, return to the Word of God, allow God's Word, practice the life-giving teachings of the Church, and return to the Sacraments during this most holy and fruitful liturgical season. We are invited to return to You by rending our hearts not our garments. Here is another opportunity to take stock of our lives, do all that is needful for our salvation and pray earnestly for the salvation of the world. 

Self-discipline, mortification, denial of the cravings of the flesh are all anathema to the children of the world. But we are no longer children of the world but children of God and if we are God's children, then we must act like it. You have shown us the Way, we must walk in it. 

Is not this the sort of fast that pleases me

  – it is the Lord who speaks –

to break unjust fetters and

  undo the thongs of the yoke,

to let the oppressed go free,

  and break every yoke,

to share your bread with the hungry,

  and shelter the homeless poor,

to clothe the man you see to be naked

  and not turn from your own kin?

Then will your light shine like the dawn

  and your wound be quickly healed over.

Your integrity will go before you

  and the glory of the Lord behind you.

Cry, and the Lord will answer;

  call, and he will say, ‘I am here.’

PSALM 50(51):3-6,18-19

A humbled, contrite heart, O God, you will not spurn.

Have mercy on me, God, in your kindness.
In your compassion blot out my offence.
O wash me more and more from my guilt
and cleanse me from my sin.

My offences truly I know them;
my sin is always before me
Against you, you alone, have I sinned;
what is evil in your sight I have done.

For in sacrifice you take no delight,

burnt offering from me you would refuse,
my sacrifice, a contrite spirit.
A humbled, contrite heart you will not spurn.

A humbled, contrite heart, O God, you will not spurn.

MATTHEW 9:14-15

My Soul's Beloved,

You are our Bridegroom, the Church and we, its members, are Your Bride. For a little while You are taken from us, but we have Your assurance that You will return in glory to claim Your Bride for Yourself and will present her to Your Father without wrinkle and stain.

For the present O Lord, You are taken from our sight and while this is our time of desolation, it is also a time of preparation as we wait in joyful anticipation for Your glorious second coming. While we wait, the Church gives us yet another opportunity to enter into the mysteries of our faith. We meditate and contemplate the saving plan of the Father and His rescue mission to snatch us from the jaws of death and of hell by sending You, His only Son into the world, not to condemn it as we so richly deserve, but to redeem it. 

Holy Spirit of God, pour upon us all the graces we need to persevere in our Lenten practices of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving so we do not give up and fall by the wayside but stand firm to the end. Thank You.

John’s disciples came to Jesus and said, ‘Why is it that we and the Pharisees fast, but your disciples do not?’ Jesus replied, ‘Surely the bridegroom’s attendants would never think of mourning as long as the bridegroom is still with them? But the time will come for the bridegroom to be taken away from them, and then they will fast.’