The season of Lent…

                            

…is especially suitable for the celebration of the sacrament of penance, for on Ash Wednesday the faithful are admonished: ‘Repent and believe the Gospel.’ It is appropriate, therefor, to arrange for frequent penitential services during Lent, so that all the faithful might be offered the opportunity of being reconciled to God and their brothers and of celebrating the Paschal mystery with renewed heart during the holy triduum.

 

New Order of Penance (13)

The Gift of Love

13 1 If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. 3 If I give away all I have, and if I deliver my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing. 4 Love is patient and kind; love is not jealous or boastful; 5 it is not arrogant or rude. Love does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; 6 it does not rejoice at wrong, but rejoices in the right. 7 Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. 8 Love never ends; as for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. 9 For our knowledge is imperfect and our prophecy is imperfect; 10 but when the perfect comes, the imperfect will pass away. 11 When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became a man, I gave up childish ways. 12 For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall understand fully, even as I have been fully understood. 13 So faith, hope, love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.

Prayer to Our Lady of Lourdes

O ever Immaculate Virgin, Mother of mercy,
health of the sick, refuge of sinners,
comforter of the afflicted,
you know my wants, my troubles,
my sufferings; look with mercy to me.

By appearing in the Grotto of Lourdes,
you were pleased to make it a privileged sanctuary,
whence you dispense your favors;
and already many sufferers have
obtained the cure of infirmities,
both spiritual and corporal.

I come, therefore, with complete confidence
to implore your maternal intercession.
Obtain, O loving Mother, the grant of my requests.
Through gratitude for your favors,
I will endeavor to imitate your virtues,
that I may one day share your glory.
Amen.