23 February 2026 - whatever you did for one of these least

Today's  Readings
(Audio) 

‘Amen, I say to you, whatever you did
for one of these least brothers of mine, you did for me.’

Jesus is truly present in his people. In particular, by becoming poor and surrendering himself into the abusive hands of cruel authority, he associated himself with the poor, the abused, and the neglected throughout history. He took on himself the most challenging aspects of our fallen humanity, aspects that are hard to look upon directly, "as one from whom men hide their faces" (see Isaiah 53:3). It is perhaps easier to love the crucified Christ now that the traumatic nature of those events is in the past. But it is harder to love his presence in his people when it takes such challenging forms. Indeed, most of us manage it, if at all, by staying at a safe distance, empowering a special caste of volunteers and organizations with resources to do it on our behalf. Then we can do our part without facing the gritty reality. And perhaps this is OK much of the time. We are not called to address ourselves to every instance of poverty, illness, of imprisonment, since we are finite creatures with limited resources. But we must not turn our gaze from needs only we can meet. In a way analogous to how we should not ignore the Eucharistic presence of Jesus displayed to us on a monstrance or hidden in the tabernacle, neither should we forget his presence in other people, especially in the lowest and the least of his brethren. We did not have the opportunity to love Jesus while he embraced the fullness of earthly poverty in his passion. In any event, most of us would have fled the scene as did his disciples. But now we can at least signal that love for him by the way respond to these least brothers of his who cross our paths.

He will answer them, ‘Amen, I say to you,
what you did not do for one of these least ones,
you did not do for me.’

We will one day be answerable for the good we could have done but failed to do, and for the love we failed to show. We won't be able to suggest that we truly knew and loved our Lord Jesus if we neglected him in his distressing disguise of poverty, sickness, and imprisonment. It is not credible that we loved the reality but despised the image. We can't sit by while such ones are trampled under foot and yet plead that we loved every fallen fragment of the Eucharistic host. His presence in the Eucharist is indeed a more maximal level of presence. But it is a presence that is meant to lead us to discover more and more his other forms of presence, especially in our brothers and sisters.

And these will go off to eternal punishment,
but the righteous to eternal life.

It is not that we earn eternal life by our righteous deeds. Eternal life is fundamentally a gift. The ability to consistently perform righteous deeds is only possibly by grace. We have light because of the light of Christ that shines within us. Yet we can signal by how we live that we do not truly desire eternal life, can reject Jesus by the way we respond to his presence in others. Every opportunity to help others should thus be seen as an opportunity for us to show our love to Jesus himself, and to demonstrate with our actions, not only our thoughts and words, that we desire to be with him forever.

Vineyard Worship UK And Ireland - Refiner's Fire

 

22 Feburary 2026 - similarly tested

Today's Readings
(Audio) 

At that time Jesus was led by the Spirit into the desert
to be tempted by the devil.

Jesus did not need to let himself be tempted at all. That he did so was as a part of his condescension to share in our human nature. Among other things, it gives us the assurance that he is sympathetic to our condition, "one who has similarly been tested in every way, yet without sin" (see Hebrews 4:15). He experienced what Adam and Eve experienced in the Garden of Eden, yet was victorious. He was in the desert and hungry, yet did not sin in the way that the generation sinned, complaining, putting God to the test, and turning to idols. 

For if, by the transgression of the one,
death came to reign through that one,
how much more will those who receive the abundance of grace
and of the gift of justification
come to reign in life through the one Jesus Christ.

Jesus was obedient where humanity had failed. Yet his obedience was not instead of our own, but rather, to make our own obedience possible. Adam and Eve's sin had real consequences. It brought spiritual death into the world, and as a consequence of that spiritual death, many were made sinners. But Jesus, through his obedience, brought life into the world, and made many righteous.

The woman saw that the tree was good for food,
pleasing to the eyes, and desirable for gaining wisdom.

The woman wickedly stretched out her hand to take the fruit, and Adam, though close, said nothing. Jesus, on the other hand, resisted the temptation to satisfy his hunger in a way that was not part of God's plan. He refused to grumble or complain about that plan in the way that the people of Israel had in the desert. He may well have been hungrier than any of them. But he knew that man cannot live by bread alone. He who was himself the word of God would not now deviate from it, no matter what his he may have physically desired on a human level. In doing so he was triumphant over an entire category of sin, the lust of the flesh (see First John 2:16), not only for himself, but in such a way that it would later avail for all united to him who would eventually face such temptations.

Then the devil took him up to a very high mountain,
and showed him all the kingdoms of the world in their magnificence,
and he said to him, ""All these I shall give to you,
if you will prostrate yourself and worship me.”

The devil tried to appeal to the lust of the eyes (again, see First John 2:16), by showing Jesus what he believed he wanted but tempting him to obtain it in the wrong way. Jesus was not meant to inherit Satan's domination over the world, but to receive authority that was a gift from his Father. Satan provoked Jesus to obtain via idolatry what he was meant to receive only through his Passion, death, and resurrection. At a superficial level, the offer looked good, just as the fruit of the forbidden tree looked good to Eve. Achieve the results, but avoid the suffering? It is nothing if not relatable. But obtaining even a good thing in the wrong way would spoil the results. Jesus having authority over the world, as is now the case, is a very good thing. But if he had merely accepted it is a gift from the Evil One we can imagine that it would not have led to our salvation. One cannot serve an idol without becoming bound by that idol, after which any power one may possess is illusory, a puppet show of the devil. But Jesus refused to turn to idols as the Exodus generation had done. He refused to succumb to something less than his Father's will in order to enter into his messianic reign.

Then the devil took him to the holy city,
and made him stand on the parapet of the temple,
and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down.

The people God had liberated from Egypt put him to the test in the desert, trying to force him to prove he was present with them. For Jesus, the fact that God was with him was at the very core of his identity. It was this identity, above all, that the devil sought to attack. Though Jesus did want others to believe that the Father was present with him, he refused to force his Father to reveal it by means that were not part of the divine plan. In Eden, Eve found the fruit of the forbidden tree desirable for gaining wisdom, and succumbed to what we call the pride of life (see First John 2:16). She forgot about her royal identity as created in the image of God and desired greatness apart from him and his plans for her. She fell due to pride where Jesus triumphed due to humility.

Jesus is present for us in a way that Adam failed to be present and protect his own bride. His obedience has refashioned human nature to which he has united himself. We are joined to this renewed nature in our baptism and are meant to embrace that transformation throughout our lives. Jesus makes this possible by helping us to understand our own royal identity rooted in the Father in a new and deeper way, since we "have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!”" (see Romans 8:15). He renews our own minds so that we can recognize and reject the lies of the Evil One. Jesus himself, through every action of his life, answered the plea of the Psalmist's heart:

A clean heart create for me, O God,
and a steadfast spirit renew within me.
Cast me not out from your presence,
and your Holy Spirit take not from me.
Give me back the joy of your salvation,
and a willing spirit sustain in me.
O Lord, open my lips,
and my mouth shall proclaim your praise.

  

Michael W. Smith - Here I Am To Worship

 

21 February 2026 - true conversion

Today's Readings
(Audio) 

He said to him, “Follow me.”
And leaving everything behind, he got up and followed him.

We may sense that Jesus is worthy of us responding to him by making a complete break with our sinful past and following him with all that we are. But even if there is a level at which we understand this it is not often the case that we manage to make ourselves respond in the way that Levi (also called Matthew) responded, entirely, and without reservation. If we are adult converts our conversion often results in some immediate and significant changes to our lifestyles. We set aside harmful behaviors and begin to embrace a lifestyle befitting disciples. Lifelong Christians might experience similar moments of conversion on retreat or in prayer groups. But in both cases we typically discover our initial fervor only goes so far. We set out to leave our customs post behind, but find that, even if we wander off for a while, it is still our primary base of operation. Even to the degree that we manage to get away from it for a moment it still seems to influence our thoughts and actions with a gravity that always seems to pull us back eventually. How might we actually leave the old self behind as completely as Levi left his customs post?

“Those who are healthy do not need a physician, but the sick do.
I have not come to call the righteous to repentance but sinners.”

Put simply, we have to want conversion more deeply to experience it more fully. And the only way to really desire it is to have a deeper understanding of the futility of the alternatives we often pursue. Only when we really realize that wealth, yes, can provide for the basics, but cannot make us truly happy, will it begin to lose its grip on us. When we still hear whispers in our souls from all the possessions, property, or experiences, that money can buy, suggesting themselves to us to fill the emptiness within us, we will not be able to entirely shake their hold over us. But we don't like to think of ourselves as under the sway of money or any other addiction. We don't want to see ourselves as sick and in need of a physician. But here is the real secret. Levi didn't leave the customs post on his own, simply because he decided to do so. He didn't make some heroic and decisive act of will. He saw someone who could at last help with the things that were making him unhappy, causing him to be less than he was meant to be, and refused to let the one pass him by. He did, in effect, leave everything behind. But his actual choice was to remain near Jesus. Yes, later, there might be consequences. Things might become harder eventually. But if he was with Jesus he knew that Jesus could help him face those possibilities, that he could face them as long as they were together. Most of us have a hard time achieving a total break with the old sinful self. But the thing we need to focus on is not so much ourselves as it is being and remaining near Jesus. This is because, obvious to say but easy to forget, we don't heal ourselves. The divine physician does.

Then Levi gave a great banquet for him in his house,
and a large crowd of tax collectors
and others were at table with them.

It is a good sign that we are finally starting to get it when the grace that flows to us begins to flow out from us to those around us. When we can no longer keep silent about Jesus or keep what he is doing in our lives to ourselves it is evidence that we finally realize just how important he is for us. Not only that, we demonstrate that we now know the important lesson that, if he did it for us, he can truly do it for anyone.

The ancient ruins shall be rebuilt for your sake,
and the foundations from ages past you shall raise up;
“Repairer of the breach,” they shall call you,
“Restorer of ruined homesteads.

We must not be content with merely partial conversion of our hearts and minds to Jesus. The ramifications are not just for ourselves and the private sphere of our own spiritual lives, but also for the Church and the world as a whole. The ruins around us seem to have been in disrepair since so long ago that we hold little hope that they might be rebuilt. The breach seems like a permanent fixture of society. The ruined homesteads seem unsalvageable. And indeed, attacking the problems directly, through merely human effort, is doomed to fail. But when we finally surrender our hearts to the Lord he becomes able to do things through us that we never imagined. Then we will become light in the darkness, for he will be light in us.

Then light shall rise for you in the darkness,
and the gloom shall become for you like midday;
Then the LORD will guide you always
and give you plenty even on the parched land.

 

Elevation Worship - I Have Decided

 

20 February 2026 - the wedding of heaven and earth

 

Today's Readings
(Audio)

Can the wedding guests mourn
as long as the bridegroom is with them?

In a way, David's relationship with Israel had been like a marriage, with the people declaring to him, "Behold, we are your bone and flesh" (see First Chronicles 11:1), just as Adam had said of Eve in Genesis (see Genesis 2:23). And if it was a Davidic image then Jesus using it was appropriate, as he was the messianic son of David. But it was a role which David only ever fulfilled partially. In the same way that he stood in for God who was himself the true king of Israel, so too did he stand in for him as bridegroom, which was another role that was belonged fully only to God himself.

For as a young man marries a young woman,
so shall your sons marry you,
and as the bridegroom rejoices over the bride,
so shall your God rejoice over you (see Isaiah 62:5).

Jesus was the son of David, but somehow greater than David. That was why Jesus brought the attention of the Pharisees to an apparently incoherent element in Psalm 110, first quoting it, saying:

The Lord said to my Lord,
“Sit at my right hand,
until I put your enemies under your feet”’?

And then asking, "If then David calls him Lord, how is he his son?" (see Matthew 22:44). Jesus was like David, not like a shadow cast by a greater original, but as the truth of which David was only an imperfect foreshadowing. However much David was a man after God's own heart (see First Samuel 13:14), only Jesus had a heart perfectly united to that of his Father. Jesus was therefore the bridegroom because he was in actuality the presence of God in the midst of Israel. If anything called for a feast, it was this.

The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them,
and then they will fast.

But then, if Jesus was bridegroom because of his divinity, how could it be said that he would be taken from them? Jesus himself was the one who promised to be with them always, to the end of the age (see Matthew 28:20), and who said that if two or three of them gathered in his name that he would be present in their midst (see Matthew 18:20). The possibility of him being taken doesn't seem to admit of a situation in which the Eucharist presence of Jesus is as abundantly available as it is to us. 

The time to which Jesus referred was specifically his crucifixion and death, when he handed himself over freely, and let himself be taken. Just as he freely chose to lay down his life for his friends so too would his disciples enter into that experience by fasting, among other ways. It was part of the program by which they entered into the death of Jesus so as to share in the life of Jesus.

For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his (see Romans 6:5).

Considered in this way we see the incommensurability of what he did for us and our response to him. Even a very rigorous fast of the sort that none of us are likely to undertake, that would strike even our Eastern brethren as difficult, would in no way approximate the sorrow and pain Jesus experienced for us. Yet the abundance and sufficiency of Jesus makes the inadequacy of our response to be sufficient. Our response to him could never earn the reward of eternal life. But by our response we signal at least our desire to be united to him, to the bridegroom who has made us, his bride, to be beautiful.

so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish (see Ephesians 5:27).

David Ruis - We Will Dance

 

19 February 2026 - plausible deniability

 

Today's Readings
(Audio) 

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.

That the messiah would suffer had been predicted by the prophet Isaiah. But it was still hard to accept. It did not seem like it ought to have been necessary, or that it could lead to a positive outcome. Surely there was a more direct way to experience the rewards Isaiah mentioned when he wrote, "he shall see his offspring; he shall prolong his days; the will of the LORD shall prosper in his hand" (see Isaiah 53:10). It seemed Jesus was choosing the opposite of what Moses suggested, death rather than life. 

There is a way that seems right to a man,
But its end is the way of death (see Proverbs 14:12).

But in fact, he was only choosing against a shallow and temporary life. He chose death, not as an end, in order to destroy it. He accepted the necessity of his death because it would allow him to unleash the blessings of salvation on the world. Without his death the problem of sin would have remained unanswered. Without his sacrificial self-offering all of the dividing walls between people and each and between people and God would have remained impermeable. People could not have been brought together in one body. Jesus was entitled to divine and eternal life in virtue of who he was. But it was only because of his death that others may now share in that life.

If anyone wishes to come after me, he must deny himself
and take up his cross daily and follow me.

The path by which Jesus gave life for the world did not look like it would lead to life, but in fact led to life in abundance. So too for the path by which Christians may appropriate that life. It begins for us at baptism when we are baptized into his death. But then it must take shape in our lives through the choices we make. We must forego the shallow ways of living that are not true life. We must be willing to die to the old and fallen parts of ourselves so that new life may emerge. But just as Jesus did not die for his own sake, neither now are we called to do so. We are called to be completely reoriented from selfishly seeking our ego first, to living as offerings of love for the sake of others, and in particular, love in response to the love of Jesus himself who loved us first.

For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it,
but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it.

The reason that we are free to choose to put others first is precisely because Jesus made it possible by dying for our sakes. In doing so he put our selfish egos to death with him. And the love he showed us is now meant to be the primary thing that motivates and orients us in the new life that is his gift to us.

What profit is there for one to gain the whole world
yet lose or forfeit himself?”

We are not as fully committed to only and always choosing life as Moses would advise, especially because it often seems to us that in the short-term it is the more difficult path. But we know what happens to those who merely store up treasure on earth. We know that the whole world, even if we possessed it, comes with an expiration date. Even during this life we recognize that the world always underdelivers on its promises to satisfy us. Even as mortals living on earth we recognize that it is only when we answer that call of Jesus that we begin to experience the joy and satisfaction that can truly last forever.

Blessed are they who hope in the Lord.

Newsboys - Lead Me To The Cross

 

18 February 2026 - the Father who sees in secret

 

Today's Readings
(Audio) 

When you give alms...

When you pray...

When you fast...

Today we begin our annual campaign of Lenten renewal and transformation. Although we are invited to the traditional practices of prayer, fasting, and alms-giving, these are not meant to be manifestations of self-hatred. We do not undertake them because we are bad, in order to punish ourselves, but because they are good, in order that we might grow in holiness. 

But when you pray, go to your inner room,
close the door, and pray to your Father in secret.
And your Father who sees in secret will repay you.

The point of our Lenten practices not so much what happens externally, much less what others witness, but rather what happens within our hearts. It isn't so much about whether these actions are functional or meet some success criteria as to whether they lead us closer to the Father who sees in secret.

When you fast,
do not look gloomy like the hypocrites.
They neglect their appearance,
so that they may appear to others to be fasting.

We sometimes seek consolation prizes through our Lenten practices, something less than drawing near to God, something apparently more easily attainable. But such prizes have a very limited ability to console. We may seek pity from others, or simply content ourselves with a narrative of self-pity within our own thoughts. We may seek to appear pious or generous in the eyes of others, or simply content to think of ourselves as paragons of virtue. But all of these options fall short of acting for the Father who sees in secret, who is interested, above all, in what happens within our hearts.

There is something more at work here than a merely automatic consequence of virtuous asceticism. We are asked to enter into something deeper than would be possible without the assistance of grace. We are invited to experience a transformative that we could never bring about through our own efforts, to "become the righteousness of God" in Christ. To do so we must rely on God in such a way that if he were not there we would fall flat. But he is there, always, in secret, awaiting us. 

Behold, now is a very acceptable time;
behold, now is the day of salvation.

Matt Maher - 40 Days

 

17 February 2026 - leaven out

Today's Readings
(Audio) 

They concluded among themselves that
it was because they had no bread.

They had forgotten to bring bread. To us it seems a minor mistake. But the disciples seemed to be kicking themselves for it and seeing everything else through the lens of that failure. 

Jesus enjoined them, "Watch out,
guard against the leaven of the Pharisees
and the leaven of Herod." 

No doubt they assumed that the supernatural bread miracles of which they had just been a part were in view, since Jesus was still talking about bread. But they were stuck on the level of the physical reality. Their fixation on their own minor mistake prevented them from seeing the spiritual significance.

And do you not remember,
when I broke the five loaves for the five thousand,
how many wicker baskets full of fragments you picked up?

The fact that they did not actually have physical bread was not actually a problem since they still had Jesus himself, the bread of life. They needed to recognize this fact in order to avoid the temptation to rely on other strategies to feed the crowds. The leaven of the Pharisees and the leaven of Herod might lead to some measure of success, as it seemed at the time. But that success was ultimately based on divisiveness and destruction. Rather, the disciples needed to rely on the bread of life to unite the world, just as relying on Jesus had allowed the crowds to remain united. His gift allowed both Jews (at the feeding of the five thousand) and Gentiles (at the feeding of the four thousand) to remain centered on him, represented by the twelve and seven baskets left over respectively.

The disciples assumed a mindset of scarcity based on their mistakes, and the possibility of those mistakes to impede their purpose in life. But they were meant to realize that with Jesus they always had a superabundance that was more than equal to any situation in which they found themselves. The real danger of a lack of bread was that they would fail to turn to Jesus for help but instead try different strategies to solve their problems, whether merely human, or demonic. They were, we know, slow learners. After one multiplication of loaves they still seemed unable to conceive that there might be a second. And after both they still somehow assumed that a lack of bread might be their biggest problem.

No one experiencing temptation should say,
"I am being tempted by God";

The disciples seemed to act as though God was tempting them, in the sense that he was out to get them, looking for any reason to condemn them. They did not yet fully understand that he was entirely good and that "all good giving and every perfect gift is from above". They were not yet convinced of the love God had for them (see First John 4:16), at least, not fully. Thus Jesus pointed their attention away from themselves, away from their negligible, minor mistakes, and toward the superabundance of God as it was present in his own person, demonstrated in this case by the leftover fragments of bread. 

We have said before that we too have a hard time believing in God's abundance, even after we have experienced it. And so we must again repeat that, and point to today's Gospel as more evidence to help confirm that belief. We too get hung up on our failures in ways that make us less open to trusting in Jesus, as though our mistakes have surprised him, or somehow negated his ability to work through us. There is great risk when we write ourselves off as disqualified, risk that we might turn to the alternative leaven available in our own day in order to feed ourselves and the world.  Believing that God loves us, really knowing and understanding it in our hearts, is not a nice but optional extra. It is essential that we let him convince us of his love so that he can work through us as much as he desires, even in spite of our limitations and failings.

And now, a few alleluia songs before Lent. After all, as Saint John Paul the Great said, "We are an Easter people and Alleluia is our song!". Shout out any favorites I missed in the comments.

Caleb & John - Hallelujah Feeling

 

Newsboys - He Reigns

Michael W Smith - Agnus Dei

 

Singing Hallelujah

 

Saint Michael's Singers - Alleluia Sing To Jesus