Thursday of the Fifth Week of Lent
March 21, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/032124.cfm

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I will maintain my covenant with you
and your descendants after you
throughout the ages as an everlasting pact,
to be your God and the God of your descendants after you.

Genesis 17:7

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Genesis describes the sacred covenant God shares with us. In our Gospel, Jesus asserts the eternal nature of that covenant, made real in our lives by keeping his Word.

God’s promise of eternal love was made to us as well as to Abraham.
In every moment, God says to us, “I am yours.”
In every moment. we are called to respond, “Yes, Lord, and I am Yours as well.”

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Poetry: from The Book of Hours – Rainer Maria Rilkë

Although, as from a prison walled with hate,
each from his own self labors to be free,
the world yet holds a wonder, and how great!
ALL LIFE IS LIVED: now this comes home to me.
But who, then, lives it? Things that patiently
stand there, like some unfingered melody
that sleeps within a harp as day is going?
Is it the winds, across the waters blowing,
is it the branches, beckoning each to each,
is it the flowers, weaving fragrances,
the aging alleys that reach out endlessly?
Is it the warm beasts, moving to and fro,
is it the birds, strange as they sail from view?
This life — who really lives it? God, do you?

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Music: My God, I Am Yours – Suscipe of Catherine McAuley

My God, I am yours for time and eternity.
Teach me to cast myself entirely
into the arms of your loving Providence
with a lively, unlimited confidence in your compassionate, tender pity.
Grant, O most merciful Redeemer,
That whatever you ordain or permit may be acceptable to me.
Take from my heart all painful anxiety;
let nothing sadden me but sin,
nothing delight me but the hope of coming to the possession of You
my God and my all, in your everlasting kingdom.