FRIDAY AFTER ASH WEDNESDAY

FIRST READING: Isaiah 58:1-9

RESPONSORIAL PSALM: Psalm 51:3-4, 5-6, 18-19

GOSPEL: Matthew 9:14-15



"St. Francis used to say that he felt filled with the sweetest fragrance and anointed with "costly ointment" when it was reported to him that his brothers, scattered throughout the world, were drawing many to return to the right way by the fragrant perfume of their holiness. When he heard things like this, he rejoiced in spirit and poured his enviable blessings upon those brothers who, by word and deed, were leading sinners to the love of Christ."

St. Bonaventure - Major Life 8:3




Gazing down, I see my hands with my palms facing toward the sky and I am holding my heart in my hands. It is crushed and broken. I offer it to you. I see your heart as you hang there on the tree and see that it is even more crushed and broken than my own. It is I who have done this to you, my Lord.

Oh, how can I heal you? Just tell me Lord, how can I make things right? You refuse my gift, calling it unacceptable to you. You tell me to take my heart that I hold in my hands and offer it to others.

But to whom, Lord? To the one who has hurt me the most? May it not be, Lord! To the one person that I loathe above all other creatures? NO! To the one I would love to see crushed, humiliated and stomped into the ground? How can you do this to me, my Lord? I am offering it to you, not them! So this is the Fast you demand from me: to offer my heart and soul to the lepers of today; the poor, the sorrowful, the hungry, the naked, the racist, the bigot, the government official, my boss, the harlot in the second pew, the wealthy, the AIDS victim. And you tell me that I must offer them my heart knowing full well that they could simply reach out and squash it in their hands, just as I did to yours when you offered it to me so many times and in so many ways.

Ah, I surrender to you, my Lord!


Submitted by a brother at the "Portiuncula: the Little Portion"