Monday of the Third Week of Easter

Year of the Family "Amoris Laetitia The Joy of Love"

Saint: Saint Athanasius, Bishop, Doctor (295-373)

Readings of the Day

Rule of Saint Benedict: Prologue 1-7 

Mass: Acts 6:8-15; Resp Ps 119; Jn 6:22-29

Teach me your statutes.

MARY, QUEEN OF PEACE,

PRAY FOR US.

This is the work of God, that you believe in the one He sent.

(Jn 6:29)

Welcome to Monday and the Prologue of the Rule of Saint Benedict, when we begin our second read through of the year (see RB 58:9-13). For starters then, we listen with the ear of our hearts (RB Prol. 1) to Saint Benedict: "First of all, every time you begin a good work, you must pray to God most earnestly to bring it to perfection" (RB Prol. 4). It seems a fitting way to begin the week and the month of May, the month dedicated to the Virgin Mary.

You will not see anyone who is really striving after his advancement who is not given to spiritual reading, and to him who neglects it, the fact will soon be observed in his progress.

(Saint Athanasius)

Idleness is the enemy of the soul. Therefore, the sisters should have specified periods for manual labor as well as for prayerful reading.

(Rule of Saint Benedict 48:1)

SAINT ATHANASIUS,

PRAY FOR US.

Today's photo: Benvenuta. "All absent sisters should always be remembered at the closing prayer of the Work of God ... when they come back from a journey ... they ask prayers for all their faults ..." (Rule of Saint Benedict, 67:2-4).

© Gertrude Feick 2022