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Eventide & Altar

The evening of life is not decline. It is deepening.

Daily reflections for Catholics who have spent decades at the altar - and are still becoming saints.

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What’s ready for you every morning

Today's Readings

First Reading, Psalm, Gospel — referenced and linked

Reflection

A substantive meditation on the day’s scripture

The Rosary Today

The mysteries of the day, connected to the readings

Prayer of the Faithful

Intercessions you can carry to Mass or pray at home

Something to Do

A concrete way to live the reflection today

Five minutes. Every morning.

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This is what’s waiting for you every morning. Read the full reflection.

Yesterday's Reflection

Tuesday of the Twelfth Week in Ordinary Time

Today's Readings

Read today’s readings at USCCB

Reflection

Great is the Lord and highly to be praised in the city of our God. His holy mountain, fairest of heights, is the joy of all the earth. The kings assembled and came together; they saw and were astounded. Your name, O God, like your praise, reaches to the ends of the earth.

The Assyrian army that surrounded Jerusalem was 185,000 strong. By morning they were all dead. Sennacherib withdrew to Nineveh. The answer to Hezekiah's prayer was total and immediate - not a partial deliverance but the complete removal of the threat overnight. The king who had boasted that no god had saved any nation from Assyria returned home without entering the city he had surrounded.

How narrow the gate and constricted the road that leads to life - and those who find it are few. In the evening of life the narrow road is known - where it diverged from the wide one, what it cost, who walked it alongside you. The few who found it includes you. The gate you entered is the gate that remained narrow all the way through.

The Rosary Tonight

The Sorrowful Mysteries walk the narrowest gate of all - the cross that no one expected to be the entrance to life. Pray them tonight as a meditation on the narrow road: constricted, few walking it, and life at the end.

Prayer of the Faithful

For those whose prayer is the spreading-out of the letter - bringing the specific threat before the Lord and asking him to look - that the angel of the Lord would act overnight, we pray to the Lord.
For those on the narrow road who are weary of its narrowness, that the few walking it would be company enough, we pray to the Lord.
In this Sacred Heart month, for the heart that entered the narrowest gate of all and made it the entrance to life for everyone who follows, we pray to the Lord.

Something to Do

O Lord, incline your ear and listen; open your eyes and see. Name the letter you need to spread before the Lord tonight - the specific thing that has been taunting you, saying your God cannot save you. Say these words over it: open your eyes and see. The king who heard this prayer sent 185,000 to sleep before morning.