Thursday after Ash Wednesday
Mass Readings
First Reading – Dt 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 that 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 that the LORD swore he would give to your fathers Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.”
Responsorial Psalm – 1:1-2, 3, 4 and 6 (R.40:5a)
R. Blessed are they who hope in the Lord.
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. R.
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. R.
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.
R. Blessed are they who hope in the Lord. R.
Gospel – Lk 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?”
Featured Saints
St. Cunegundes, empress († 1040). Wife of Saint Henry II, Holy Roman Emperor, she founded monasteries, built churches and patronized evangelization. After her husband’s death, she entered one of the monasteries she had founded where she died a holy death.
St. Anselm of Nonantola, abbot (†803). He renounced the Duchy of Friuli to enter a monastery. He founded a hospital for pilgrims and a monastery in Nonantola, Italy, of which he later became abbot.
St. Marinus and St. Asterius, martyrs (†c. 260). Roman citizens killed at Caesarea in Palestine during the persecution of Emperor Gallienus for professing the Christian Faith.
St. Teresa Eustochio Verzeri, virgin (†1852). Foundress of the Congregation of the Daughters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus in Bergamo, Italy.
St. Katharine Drexel, virgin (†1955). Foundress of the Congregation of the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament in Philadelphia. She was an educator of black and native Americans, generously employing her inheritance for this objective.
Blessed Peter di Jeremia, priest (†1452). Dominican religious, formed as a preacher by St. Vincent Ferrer; he dedicated himself entirely to the salvation of souls. He died in Palermo, Italy.
Blesseds Liberatus Weiss, Samuel Marzorati and Michael Pius Fasoli of Zerbo, priests and martyrs (†1716). Franciscan religious missionaries stoned to death in Gondar, Ethiopia.
Blessed Peter René Rogue, priest and martyr (†1796). Lazarist priest, martyred during the French Revolution for rejecting the Civil Constitution of the Clergy.
Blessed Frederick of Friesland, abbot (†1175). He was a parish priest in Hallum, Holland, and later abbot of the Premonstratensian monastery of Mariengaarde.
Blessed Jacopino de’Canepacci, religious (†1508). Carmelite lay brother from the monastery of Vercelli, Italy.
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