Daily Retreat 02/16/07
2007 Feb 16 Fri
Gn 11: 1-9/ Ps 32(33): 10-11. 12-13. 14-15/ Mk 8: 34 – 9: 1
From today’s readings: “It was called Babel, because there the LORD confused the speech of all the world.... Blessed the people the Lord has chosen to be His own.... Whoever wishes to come after Me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow Me.”
Self-Denial Every Friday
Next week, with the start of Lent on Ash Wednesday, we will all strive to enter the penitential spirit of the season with our commitment to prayer, fasting, and almsgiving. One of the best known Catholic Lenten practices is the custom of abstaining from eating meat on the Fridays of Lent (and on Ash Wednesday).
Not eating meat is a mild form of the penitential practice of fasting. The idea is to commit ourselves to a concrete form of self-denial, thereby uniting ourselves with the Lord’s own self-denial, and His insistence that self-denial is an essential aspect of taking up one’s own cross and following Him in Christian discipleship.
Because Jesus died on a Friday, for Christians, that day of the week has ever since been colored by remembrance of that event. In fact, although many Catholics aren’t well aware of the fact, when not coinciding with a festive solemnity (such as Christmas), every Friday of the year (not just those of Lent!) is to be observed with a spirit of penance.
Excerpts from http://www.usccb.org/lent/2007/Penance_and_Abstinence.pdf:
Gn 11: 1-9/ Ps 32(33): 10-11. 12-13. 14-15/ Mk 8: 34 – 9: 1
From today’s readings: “It was called Babel, because there the LORD confused the speech of all the world.... Blessed the people the Lord has chosen to be His own.... Whoever wishes to come after Me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow Me.”
Self-Denial Every Friday
Next week, with the start of Lent on Ash Wednesday, we will all strive to enter the penitential spirit of the season with our commitment to prayer, fasting, and almsgiving. One of the best known Catholic Lenten practices is the custom of abstaining from eating meat on the Fridays of Lent (and on Ash Wednesday).
Not eating meat is a mild form of the penitential practice of fasting. The idea is to commit ourselves to a concrete form of self-denial, thereby uniting ourselves with the Lord’s own self-denial, and His insistence that self-denial is an essential aspect of taking up one’s own cross and following Him in Christian discipleship.
Because Jesus died on a Friday, for Christians, that day of the week has ever since been colored by remembrance of that event. In fact, although many Catholics aren’t well aware of the fact, when not coinciding with a festive solemnity (such as Christmas), every Friday of the year (not just those of Lent!) is to be observed with a spirit of penance.
Excerpts from http://www.usccb.org/lent/2007/Penance_and_Abstinence.pdf:
22. Friday itself remains a special day of penitential observance throughout the year, a time when those who seek perfection will be mindful of their personal sins and the sins of mankind which they are called upon to help expiate in union with Christ Crucified.
23. Friday should be in each week something of what Lent is in the entire year. For this reason we urge all to prepare for that weekly Easter that comes with each Sunday by freely making of every Friday a day of self-denial and mortification in prayerful remembrance of the passion of Jesus Christ. inward spiritual values that we cherish.
27. It would bring great glory to God and good to souls if Fridays found our people doing volunteer work in hospitals, visiting the sick, serving the needs of the aged and the lonely, instructing the young in the Faith, participating as Christians in community affairs, and meeting our obligations to our families, our friends, our neighbors, and our community, including our parishes, with a special zeal born of the desire to add the merit of penance to the other virtues exercised in good works born of living faith.
posted by FrPitstick | 2/10/2007
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