A Daily Lent

Original Purpose Friday after the Resurrection – April 17, 2020 Each person has a different charism, a different grace given by God to animate our lives. Think of this charism or grace as your original purpose, the design for your creation, your truest vocation. Considering your charism or unique grace may not lead you to fame or financial security, but it will enable you to fill out the purpose for which you were created. Your calling in life is not to be like anyone else, but to be fully yourself, fully the person you were intended to be. At the end of the excerpt below, Underhill says, “All have access to direct sources of spiritual strength in prayer, quietude, communion, and spiritual reading and will not do their best work without these things.” Indeed, prayer, quietude, communion, and spiritual reading are but a few of the ways we begin to come to a sense of our original purpose, our most authentic vocation. Now the three-fold Ignatian question: “What have I done ...

Good Friday Daily Reading : John 19:17 – 30 Focus Passage : Later, knowing that everything had now been finished, and so that Scripture would be fulfilled, Jesus said, "I am thirsty." A jar of wine vinegar was there, so they soaked a sponge in it, put the sponge on a stalk of the hyssop plant, and lifted it to Jesus' lips. When he had received the drink, Jesus said, "It is finished." With that, he bowed his head and gave up his spirit. (Jn. 19:28 – 30) John editorializes about Jesus in verse 28: “ knowing that everything had now been finished . . . .” Then he writes of Jesus cry from the cross: “ It is finished .” The words announce his death. They also make a statement about his life-purpose. At other times in his ministry, Jesus claimed that his purpose was to complete the work God sent him to do. In John 4:34, for instance, when the disciples offered him food to eat, he said, “ My food is to do the will of the One who sent me and to finish God...