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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

Memorial of Saint Bonaventure, Bishop and Doctor of the Church

Today's Readings

Read today’s readings at USCCB

Reflection

He who planted the ear, shall he not hear? He who formed the eye, shall he not see? The psalm's logic is luminous: the Creator of the sense organs has them supremely. The God who made the eye sees more clearly than any eye made. The God who planted the ear hears what no ear can hear. They say the Lord does not see - but this is the one whose seeing is the source of all seeing.

For the Lord will not reject his people nor abandon his inheritance; judgment shall return to justice and all the upright of heart shall follow it. The evening word for the day on which the axe has forgotten the craftsman is this: the craftsman has not abandoned the tool. The Lord's people are still his inheritance. The judgment is returning to justice. The upright of heart will follow.

All things have been handed over to me by my Father. The one who speaks this is not the axe boasting of its own power. He is the Son acknowledging the source. The posture of the Father's total trust and the Son's total dependence - this is the knowledge that the little ones receive.

The Rosary Tonight

The Glorious Mysteries show the Son who held all things as handed over and received the vindication that followed. Pray them tonight as a meditation on what it looks like to hold authority as received rather than as seized.

Prayer of the Faithful

For those who have forgotten they are tools in the hand of the craftsman - who have been boasting before the hewer - that the corrective would come while the corrective is still available, we pray to the Lord.
For the widow and stranger and fatherless whose cases have been dismissed by those who think the Lord does not see, that the Lord who planted the ear has heard and the Lord who formed the eye has seen, we pray to the Lord.
In this Precious Blood month, for the Precious Blood of the one who held all handed-over things as handed over and did not exalt himself, we pray to the Lord.

Something to Do

No one knows the Father except the Son and the one to whom the Son reveals him. Ask the Son tonight to reveal the Father - not the concept of the Father, the specific knowledge that the little-one posture receives. Come as a little one. Receive what is given.