Beads of Joy Blog II (2025 - 2026)

🌿 Tuesday, February 24, 2026 The Our Father The Prayer That Changes Everything Photo created by James Dacey, Jr. using Co-Pilot. Tuesday of the First Week of Lent • Lent 2026 • Year A • Beads of Joy Blog II ✝️ Today's Mass Readings First Reading: Isaiah 55:10-11 Responsorial Psalm: Psalm 34:4-5, 6-7, 16-17, 18-19 Gospel: Matthew 6:7-15 📖 The Gospel - Matthew 6:7-15 Jesus sits His disciples down and teaches them how to pray. Not with long speeches and impressive words, but simply, honestly, from the heart. And He gives them, and us, the most perfect prayer ever spoken: Our Father. 🙏 Gospel Reflection There is something so tender about this moment in Matthew 6. The disciples came to Jesus and essentially said, teach us to pray like you do. They had watched Him slip away to pray in the early morning hours, in the desert, on the mountaintop, and they wanted to be like Him. And Jesus didn't give them a theology lecture. He gave them a very meaningful, powerful prayer. Spec...

🌿 Monday, February 23, 2026 Love Your Neighbor - Starting Today Photo created by James Dacey, Jr. using Co-Pilot. Monday of the First Week of Lent • Lent 2026 • Year A • Beads of Joy Blog II ✝️ Today's Mass Readings First Reading: Leviticus 19:1-2, 11-18 Responsorial Psalm: Psalm 19:8, 9, 10, 15 Gospel: Matthew 25:31-46 📖 The Gospel — Matthew 25:31-46 Jesus pulls back the curtain on the last day and shows us something that should stop all of us in our tracks, because of the way we treat the hungry, the thirsty, a stranger, the sick, the prisoners, that is how we treated Him. Every single one of them. We must remember, “What you did not do for one of these least ones, you did not do for me.” 🙏 Gospel Reflection This Gospel hits differently during Lent. Because we come into these forty days thinking about our own spiritual growth, our prayer, our fasting, our personal conversion. And then Jesus turns it completely outward and says, you want to find me? Go look at the person i...

🌿 Sunday, February 22, 2026 Forty Days in the Desert Photo created by James Dacey, Jr., using Co-Pilot. First Sunday of Lent • Year A • Lent 2026 • Year A • Beads of Joy Blog II ✝️ Today's Mass Readings First Reading: Genesis 2:7-9; 3:1-7 Responsorial Psalm: Psalm 51:3-4, 5-6, 12-13, 17 Second Reading: Romans 5:12-19 Gospel: Matthew 4:1-11 📖 The Gospel - Matthew 4:1-11 The Spirit leads Jesus into the desert, not away from God, but deeper into Him. For forty days He fasts, He prays, He is tempted. And every single time the enemy comes with a beautiful, reasonable sounding lie, Jesus answers with the Word of God. He doesn't argue. He doesn't negotiate. He just speaks the truth, and the devil leaves. 🙏 Gospel Reflection Here is something very powerful that I read in today’s gospel, it says the Spirit led Jesus into the desert. Not the devil. Not bad luck. Not circumstance. The Holy Spirit brought Him there. Which means the desert, the hard season, the ...

🌿 Saturday, February 21, 2026 Get Up and Follow Jesus - Leave Everything Photo created by James Dacey, Jr. using Co-Pilot. Saturday After Ash Wednesday • Memorial of St. Peter Damian • Lent 2026 • Year A • Beads of Joy Blog II ✝️ Today's Mass Readings First Reading: Isaiah 58:9b-14 Responsorial Psalm: Psalm 86:1-2, 3-4, 5-6 Gospel: Luke 5:27-32 📖 The Gospel - Luke 5:27-32 Jesus walks past a tax collector's booth, looks at a man named Levi sitting there, a man despised by his own community, a man everyone had written off, and says two words: Follow me. And Levi got up, left everything, and followed Him. Just like that. 🙏 Gospel Reflection I never get tired of this story. Never. Because Levi wasn't looking for Jesus. He wasn't at the synagogue praying. He wasn't in a posture of holy seeking. He was sitting at his tax collector's booth doing what he always did, and Jesus walked by and called him anyway. That is such a God move. He doesn't ...

🌿 Friday, February 20, 2026 The Fast That Sets Us Free Photo created by James Dacey, Jr. using Co-Pilot. Friday After Ash Wednesday • Day of Abstinence • Lent 2026 • Year A • Beads of Joy Blog II ✝️ Today's Mass Readings First Reading: Isaiah 58:1-9a Responsorial Psalm: Psalm 51:3-4, 5-6, 18-19 Gospel: Matthew 9:14-15 📖 The Gospel - Matthew 9:14-15 The disciples of John approach Jesus with a genuine question, why don't your disciples fast? And Jesus answers them with one of the most tender images in all of Scripture. He calls Himself the Bridegroom. And He says, you don't mourn when the bridegroom is right there with you at the wedding feast. 🙏 Gospel Reflection Isaiah hits hard today. God speaks through the prophet with a kind of holy frustration, you fast, but you keep on oppressing your workers. You bow your heads and lie in sackcloth, but your hearts haven't moved an inch. He's not attacking fasting. He's attacking the performance of fasting without ...

🌿 Thursday, February 19, 2026 The Road Before You - Choose Life Photo created by James Dacey, Jr. using Co-Pilot. Thursday After Ash Wednesday • Lent 2026 • Year A • Beads of Joy Blog II ✝️ Today's Mass Readings First Reading: Deuteronomy 30:15-20 Responsorial Psalm: Psalm 1:1-2, 3, 4, 6 Gospel: Luke 9:22-25 📖 The Gospel - Luke 9:22-25 Jesus looks His disciples straight in the eyes and tells them plainly, the road ahead involves a cross. Then He asks the question that cuts right to the heart of every Lent ever lived: What does it profit a man to gain the whole world but lose himself? 🙏 Gospel Reflection The day after Ash Wednesday is always a quiet one. The ashes have been received, the Lenten promises have been made, and now we are standing at the beginning of the road, looking out at forty days stretching before us. And right here on day two, Jesus does not let us ease into it gently. He says, pick up your cross. Daily. And follow me. Moses puts it even more directly in Deut...

🌿 Ash Wednesday, Feb. 18, 2026 Come Back to Me With All Your Heart Photo created by James Dacey, Jr. using Co-Pilot. Ash Wednesday • Lent 2026 • Year A • Beads of Joy Blog II ✝️ Today's Mass Readings First Reading: Joel 2:12-18 Responsorial Psalm: Psalm 51:3-4, 5-6, 12-13, 14, 17 Second Reading: 2 Corinthians 5:20–6:2 Gospel: Matthew 6:1-6, 16-18 📖 The Gospel - Matthew 6:1-6, 16-18 Today, Jesus doesn't open Lent with thunder or a list of rules; He opens it with a whisper about the heart. He pulls us aside and says: When you pray, when you fast, when you give, do it for God, not for the crowd. 🙏 Gospel Reflection Friends, welcome to Lent. Welcome to these forty sacred days where the Church invites us to slow down, strip away the noise, and ask ourselves one honest question: Where is my heart right now? Jesus is so gentle here in Matthew 6. He doesn't say if you pray, if you fast, if you give alms, He says when. He assumes we will do these things. What He's askin...