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Monday of the First
Week of Lent • Lent 2026 • Year A • Beads of Joy Blog II
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✝️ 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 in front of you who needs something.
Leviticus lays the groundwork today for us. God says
to Moses, be holy, for I, the Lord your God, am holy. And then He immediately
defines what holiness looks like. Not elaborate rituals. Not a religious
performance. He says, don't steal, don't lie, don't defraud your workers, don't
hold grudges. And then Jesus would later call one of the two
greatest commandments, love your neighbor as yourself.
A devotion to Our Lady always, always, leads
you outward toward other people. She never let me keep my faith private and
sealed up tight. From the moment those beads got into my hands, I was making
rosaries for missions, finding ways to get them to people, building communities
of prayer. Our Lady has a way of turning your heart toward her Son, and her Son
always has a crowd of needy people standing right next to Him.
The beautiful sting in this Gospel is that
the righteous people at the judgment don't even realize they were serving
Christ. They just saw a person in need and responded. That's the goal of Lent,
friends, to become so formed by love that holiness stops being something we
have to try hard at and starts being simply the way we live.
💭 Reflection Question
Who is the 'least of
these' in your own daily life right now, the person whose face you might be
overlooking, and what is one concrete way Jesus might be asking you to serve
Him through them this week?
📿 Today's Rosary - The Sorrowful Mysteries
Today's Focus
Mystery: The Crucifixion and
Death of Jesus
On the cross, Jesus
was the ultimate 'least of these', stripped, humiliated, abandoned, dying.
Those who recognized Him, the good thief, Mary, John, and Mary Magdalene, stayed.
Today's Gospel asks us the same question the cross asked them: Will you see me
here and stay?
🌹 Our Lady of Fatima - Today's Connection
At Fatima, Our Lady
showed the children souls in great need, the forgotten ones, the overlooked
ones. Her urgent request for prayer and sacrifice on behalf of sinners is the
Fatima version of today's Gospel, will you see the ones nobody sees, and bring
them to God? Every Rosary you pray for another person is a direct answer to
that call. You are feeding the hungry and visiting the prisoner in a spiritual
sense every time those beads move through your fingers for someone else's sake.
🕊️ Closing Prayer
Lord Jesus, open my
eyes today. Let me see You in the face of whoever crosses my path who is in
need. Make my hands Your hands, my presence Your presence. May my Lent be
measured not just in what I gave up, but in who I showed up for. Amen.
©2026 James Dacey, Jr., OFS
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about My Spiritual Journey?
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