Thursday after Ash Wednesday
15th February 2024 (Thursday)
Psalter: Week 4
Reading of the Day
First Reading: Deuteronomy 30:15-20
Moses spoke to the people, saying, “See, I have set before you today life and good, death and evil. If you obey the commandments of the Lord your God that I command you today, by loving the Lord your God, by walking in his ways, and by keeping his commandments and his statutes and his rules, then you shall live and multiply, and the Lord your God will bless you in the land that you are entering to take possession of it. But if your heart turns away, and you will not hear, but are drawn away to worship other gods and serve them, I declare to you today, that you shall surely perish. You shall not live long in the land that you are going over the Jordan to enter and possess. I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse. Therefore choose life, that you and your offspring may live, loving the Lord your God, obeying his voice and holding fast to him, for he is your life and length of days, that you may dwell in the land that the Lord swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give them.”
Psalm 1:1-2, 3, 4 and 6 (R. 40:5ab)
R/. Blessed the man who has placed his trust in the Lord.
Verse Before The Gospel
V/. Glory and praise to you, O Christ
R/. Glory and praise to you, O Christ
V/. Repent, says the Lord, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.
R/. Glory and praise to you, O Christ.
Gospel : Luke 9:22-25
At that time: Jesus said to his disciples, “The Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised.” And he said to all, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it. For what does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses or forfeits himself?
Daily Gospel Reflection
Highlight: Strenuous but meritorious!
Guidelines: Know the ways of the Lord, and obey them; love the Lord and follow him. But, this is a strenuous and challenging path. But it is undoubtedly rewarding!
1. Many people today possess many things. But there is one thing that is drastically lacking. That is wisdom. Wisdom is not mere intelligence and knowledge. It is the essential inner capacity to distinguish, discern, and decide
2. It is between good and evil, blessing and curse, life and death, true God and false gods. It enables one to lose one’s life for the sake of the Lord instead of gaining and preserving it for the sake of the world. It realizes that it is no use to gain the whole world but lose one’s own self.
3. Wisdom thus makes a fundamental option for God. It strives ever to obey God, love Him, cling to Him, walk in His ways, and keep His commandments, His statutes, and His rules.
4. In the gospel, in Jesus’ own words, it would be a threefold way of life of a disciple: to deny the self, to take up the cross, and to follow the Lord. In fact, this triple path is the way of the cross.
5. This is the way of the cross of the disciple which is actually the replica of the way of the cross of the Lord. The Lord’s suffering and death are the climax and summing up of an entire life of self-denial, cross-bearing, and doing God’s will.
6. A follower of Christ has no other way except the way of the master. We must renounce all the self-centrism and self-interests; we must retrench all the layers of the ego, the false self. We must accept and bear patiently and perseveringly all our daily crosses and difficulties. We must constantly imitate the Lord in his virtues and mission with untiring zeal and commitment.
Practice: Following the Lord is not an easy thing. It involves a lot of sacrifice and suffering. But it is not a futile task. It is very rewarding. The Lord will bless us abundantly
