Lent: February 26th Including Today’s Saint: St. Porphyrius, Bishop (RM) (February 26th)

Thursday of the First Week of Lent: Bestow on us, we pray, O Lord, a spirit of always pondering on what is right and of hastening to carry it out, and, since without you we cannot exist, may we be enabled to live according to your will. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever.

In certain ways the Lenten Christian is like the Jew in exile. He is still exposed to the attacks of the enemies. Lent, like the exile in Babylon, is a time of cleansing. It intends to create in us a greater desire and longing for deliverance which God has promised us through our savior Jesus Christ. All the chants and prayers in today’s Mass are urgent pleas for God’s mercy and help.

The Church has fittingly assumed the prayer of Esther as her own today. Like the Jews of old, she finds her people in many countries fighting against a well-organized plan of a persecution and extermination, more terrible than the one the Jews had to face. She is undergoing this trial to show her fidelity to Christ, and to plead for the salvation of all men. —St. Andrew Bible Missal ……

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