Thursday, March 01, 2012 (Lenten Weekday)

REFLECTION FOR TODAY
Our Lord knew that to draw strength and efficacy from fasting, something more than abstinence from prohibited food is necessary. Thus He instructed His disciples and, consequently, disposed them to gather the fruits proper to fasting. Among many others are these four: fasting fortifies the spirit, mortifying the flesh and its sensuality; it raises the spirit to God; it fights concupiscence and gives power to conquer and deaden its passions; in short, it disposes the heart to seek to please only God with great purity of heart.
-- St. Francis de Sales

READINGS FOR TODAY
First Reading: 1 Esther 12: 14-16, 23-25
14 In the evening she went, and on the next day she returned into the second house of the women, to the custody of Shaashgaz, the king’s chamberlain, who kept the concubines: she came in to the king no more, except the king delighted in her, and she were called by name.
15 Now when the turn of Esther, the daughter of Abihail the uncle of Mordecai, who had taken her for his daughter, was come to go in to the king, she required nothing but what Hegai the king’s chamberlain, the keeper of the women, appointed. Esther obtained favor in the sight of all those who looked at her.
16 So Esther was taken to king Ahasuerus into his house royal in the tenth month, which is the month Tebeth, in the seventh year of his reign.
23 When inquisition was made of the matter, and it was found to be so, they were both hanged on a tree: and it was written in the book of the chronicles before the king.

Psalms: Psalm 138:1-3, 7-8
(A Prayer of Thanksgiving)
1 I will give you thanks with my whole heart. Before the gods, I will sing praises to you.
2 I will bow down toward your holy temple, And give thanks to your Name for your loving kindness and for your truth; For you have exalted your Name and your Word above all.
3 In the day that I called, you answered me. You encouraged me with strength in my soul.
7 Though I walk in the midst of trouble, you will revive me. You will stretch forth your hand against the wrath of my enemies. Your right hand will save me.
8 Yahweh will fulfill that which concerns me; Your loving kindness, Yahweh, endures forever. Don’t forsake the works of your own hands.
Gospel: Matthew 7:7-12
(Ask, Seek, Knock)
7 “Ask, and it will be given you. Seek, and you will find. Knock, and it will be opened for you.
8 For everyone who asks receives. He who seeks finds. To him who knocks it will be opened.
9 Or who is there among you, who, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone?
10 Or if he asks for a fish, who will give him a serpent?
11 If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!
12 Therefore whatever you desire for men to do to you, you shall also do to them; for this is the law and the prophets.