Thursday after Ash Wednesday
Book of Deuteronomy 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 which 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 which the LORD swore he would give to your fathers Abraham, Isaac and Jacob."
Psalms 1,1-2.3.4.6.
Blessed the man who follows not
the counsel of the wicked
Nor walks in the way of sinners,
nor sits in the company of the insolent,
But delights in the law of the LORD
and meditates on his law day and night.
He is like a tree
planted near running water,
that yields its fruit in due season,
and whose leaves never fade.
Whatever he does, prospers.
Not so, the wicked, not so;
they are like chaff which the wind drives away.
For the LORD watches over the way of the just,
but the way of the wicked vanishes.
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint Luke 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?"
COMMENTARY
Embrace the poor Christ. Look upon him who became contemptible for you and follow him, making yourself contemptible in this world for him. Gaze, consider, contemplate, desiring to imitate your spouse, who though more beautiful than the children of men became, for your salvation, the lowliest of men, was despised, struck, scourged untold times throughout his entire body, and then died amid the sufferings of the cross!
If you suffer with him, you will reign with him; weeping with him, you will rejoice with him; dying on the cross of tribulation with him, you will possess heavenly mansions with him among the splendor of the saints and in the Book of Life your name will be called glorious among the peoples. Because of this you shall share always and forever the glory of the kingdom of heaven in place of what is earthly and passing, and everlasting treasures instead of those that perish, and you shall live forever and ever.
dailygospel.org
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