Toward Easter - Daily Readings & Meditations for Lent 2025 - Day 37

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The transformative power of forgiveness takes center stage as we journey through the Thursday of Passion Week, with just nine days remaining until Easter. Through the moving Gospel story of Mary Magdalene washing Jesus' feet with her tears, we discover the perfect counterpart to the parable of the Prodigal Son—a firsthand account of divine mercy from the recipient's perspective.

Mary Magdalene's encounter with Christ reveals how true conversion happens: having sought happiness in worldly pleasures and finding only emptiness, she sees in Jesus something authentic and beautiful that awakens her soul. Her silent tears and humble gestures speak volumes, and Christ's response teaches us everything about genuine forgiveness. Unlike Simon, Jesus—though perfectly pure—accepts her touch, her repentance, and simply tells her, "Go in peace." No lecture, no conditions—just complete restoration.

This meditation arrives at the perfect moment as we prepare for Holy Week. St. John Vianney reminds us that "it is not the sinner who comes to God to ask forgiveness, but God himself who runs after the sinner." His warning that claiming our sins are too great for God's mercy is "a great blasphemy" challenges us to trust in limitless divine forgiveness. Whether you've maintained regular confession or haven't been in years, what better time than Passion Week to experience the mercy Christ offers? Our twofold resolution emerges clearly: prepare carefully for Easter confession with genuine contrition, and extend that same forgiveness to others who have wronged us. Share your thoughts on forgiveness and join us tomorrow as we contemplate Our Lady of Compassion through the beautiful Stabat Mater.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:13):
Choir singing.
Good morning everyone andwelcome to day 37 of Lent.

(00:35):
We are on Thursday in PassionWeek, so we have nine days left
of Lent, just slightly over aweek.
So yeah, a week from today willbe Holy Thursday, maundy
Thursday, the beginning of theEaster Triduum, and then Good
Friday, holy Saturday and then,of course, easter.

(00:57):
So we are, man, we are closeSunday, you know.
Just one.
Three days from now is PalmSunday and I'm very excited
because right now, as the planfor my family this year is to
attend attend our very first notonly our first TLM Palm Sunday,

(01:21):
even though we've, you know,palm Sunday, even though we've,
you know, we've been so-calledtrads for well for basically
five years now, we've never hadthe chance to make that drive on
Palm Sunday because it's a longdrive to the local TLM.
But we'll be having the chanceto actually go to our first

(01:44):
pre-55 Palm Sunday and I am veryexcited for that.
So, yeah, so, without furtherado, let's get into our reading
and meditation today.
And just so everyone knows theresponse to my question
yesterday of whether or notyou'd all like me to finish the

(02:07):
book off basically because itdoes go through the octave of
easter and continue to do thesemeditations that it gives us
through that.
You know that octave of easterwill, um, the response was
unanimously yes, you would likethat.
So I will do that, um, and thenI'm considering I I will

(02:28):
probably take then the rest ofuh of eastertide off.
Doing these in the morning doesmean about an hour less sleep
every day, um, but aftereasteride, uh, maybe starting
with Pentecost, maybe not goingto promise anything here, folks.

(02:50):
Maybe starting with Pentecost,uh, I will maybe just do these
daily forever.
Maybe, maybe not.
We'll see.
Um, if I were I don't know if Iknow Father Trodeck here has
other books in the series.

(03:10):
I don't know if he has them forthe entire year or not, but I
could do something like thereadings from Divine Intimacy
every day or something of that,maybe even readings from Dom
Guernsey's the Liturgical YearDaily, maybe, who knows, there's
different options.
I'm considering it.
I'm not going to promise itbecause, like I said, it's

(03:33):
actually a fair amount of work,but we'll see.
But let's at least continuewith what we have now.
So, without further ado, let meput up an image and we'll
continue with Thursday andPassion Week.
So, without further ado, let meput up an image and we'll
continue with Thursday andPassion Week.
Thursday and Passion Week theFolly of Love.

(03:56):
From the Gospel of St Luke,chapter 7, verses 48 and 50.
Jesus said to the woman Thysins are forgiven thee, thy
faith has saved thee.

(04:17):
Go in peace.
The story of Mary Magdalene isone of the most moving passages
in the Gospel.
It is the perfect counterpartto the story of the prodigal son
.
This woman had been leading aworldly and sinful life.
She had sought happiness in thedisorder of sin and had found
only emptiness and shame.
But as soon as she hears theword of Jesus, as soon as she
sees him so dignified, somajestic and at the same time so

(04:41):
good, so merciful, so indulgenttoward the small and the weak,
there awakens in her soul asense for the true, the
beautiful and the good.
Now she has before her eyes amodel to which she compares
everything that surrounds herand what she is herself.
And she is seized with loathing, both for the world and for

(05:06):
herself.
And she is seized with loathingboth for the world and for
herself.
Remorse burns in her heart sointensely that she begins to
detest sin.
She kneels at the feet of Jesus, she washes them with the tears
of repentance.
She wipes them with her hair,of which she had once been so
proud.
It is the silent admission,holding nothing back, which

(05:32):
tells everything and begs forpity.
Jesus lets her go on.
He does not push away thiswoman of evil life.
He accepts that she touch hisvery pure flesh and this contact
purifies her.
Not a word of reproach, not aword that might confound her.
On the contrary, magdalene isforgiven, justified, transformed

(05:58):
.
Go in peace.
He does not even tell her sin,no more.
It is done.
Jesus alone has the goodness toforgive with so much delicacy.
Simon would have pushed thesinner away.
He would have said get out ofhere.
I am pure, pure.

(06:18):
Who was as pure as Jesus?
He is true in his purity.
He does not make a parade of it.
He understands human misery andhe reaches out toward it.
He lets her kiss his feet.
It is over, everything isforgiven.
Go in peace.
I thank thee, my God, on behalfof all of us poor sinners, all

(06:47):
of us poor sinners.
Lord Jesus, may I have the samespirit as Mary Magdalene in
every one of my confessions.
And now our prayer is fromFather Gabriel, st Mary
Magdalene, from Divine Intimacy,volume 2, page 106.
In the name of the Father andof the Son and of the Holy Ghost
, amen.
By the merits of thy passion,grant me, o Lord, to bring

(07:15):
always to thy tribunal ofpenance a heart truly humble and
contrite, a sorrow ever moreperfect for my sins, or a horror
ever more sincere and profoundfor all that offends thee.
My God, amen.
In the name of the Father andthe Son and the Holy Ghost, amen
.

(07:39):
Both of our two thoughts todayare from St John Marie Vianney.
The first it is not the sinnerwho comes to God to ask him for
forgiveness.
But it is not the sinner whocomes to God to ask him for
forgiveness, but it is Godhimself who runs after the
sinner and makes him come backto him.
And our second thought thereare some who say I have done too

(08:06):
many evil things, god cannotforgive me.
That is a great blasphemy.
It places a limit on the mercyof God and it has none.
It is infinite.
And we have two resolutions fortoday.
Number one every Catholic mustmake an Easter confession.

(08:32):
It has to be carefully prepared.
Let us arrange things so as tohave time to prepare and make
this confession in calm andserenity.
Number two to forgive offensesand therefore to do everything

(08:53):
we can to forget them.
And that is the reading fortoday.
Um, part of that meditation, so, between that little bit of the
gospel and the, the prayer fromdivine, about half of that

(09:16):
meditation, is a quote thatFather included from Father DA
Mordier, from the Order ofPreachers, from the book the
Dominican Liturgy, volume 4.
So that was a quote from aDominican priest that he
included.
So today, yeah, forgiveness,forgiveness.

(09:41):
Confession when we go toconfession which we should do
often, at least monthly when wego to confession, if we truly

(10:02):
have contrition, if we trulyhave an amendment of purpose, we
should come over to thatconfessional with an absolute
loathing and hatred for sin.
That should be what our Lordinspires in us.

(10:26):
You know, his purity, hisgoodness, his mercy, his love
for us, his goodness, his mercy,his love for us, the love that
we will see on the cross here injust over a week's time, that

(10:48):
should all inspire in us anabsolute loathing for sin.
Now, that loathing, that hatred, that shouldn't extend to
ourselves or to other sinners.
You know, we should neverbelieve we are beyond that mercy
because, as St John Vianneysays, that is a great blasphemy,
that despair is a sin againstthe Holy, holy ghost.

(11:10):
Um, so, yeah, we can't let that.
You know that hatred or or orloathing cause us to despair,
but we do need to have thathatred and loathing for sin
itself, that that will be whatwhat stops us from committing

(11:33):
those same sins in the future.
Um, and his father says here uh, we must make an Easter
confession.
Um, well, you know what, whatbetter time to to have, you know
, a conversion, an amendment oflife, than you know at the time

(11:58):
of Christ's passion and deathand resurrection?
So if you have not number one,if you have not been to
confession in a long time, youknow, if you're say what many
would call a fallen awayCatholic, lapsed Catholic or
whatever, and for whateverreason you're listening to these

(12:20):
, I mean, now's the time.
You know what better time tocome back to the church than
during Passion Tide, than during, you know, holy Week, than
during Easter.
So go to confession, get backto Mass.
You know, if Mary Magdalene canbe redeemed, so go to

(12:43):
confession, get back to mass.
You know, if, if, if, maryMagdalene can be redeemed and
become a, a great saint, youknow one of the greatest saints,
then then you can too, you know.
So there's no better time thanthe present, no better time than
now.
But even if you uh, even if youknow you, you go to confession

(13:06):
monthly, you know let's, let'sall get to confession, uh,
throughout holy week, um priorto easter.
So we're all ready for Christ'sresurrection on Easter Sunday.

(13:33):
And then, of course, there'salso our second resolution today
, where Father calls us toforgive offenses and to do
everything we can to forget them.
We are all called to forgiveoffenses, or at the very least
to offer that forgiveness.
Forgiveness does need to beaccepted, on the other end, for

(13:56):
someone to be forgiven, ofcourse.
But we must offer forgivenessand to the amount that it is
prudent, we should also try toforget offenses now.
We shouldn't, you know, forgetan offense you know that, say,
could cause us danger.
Right, if someone has, say,physically hurt us in the past
or or even mentally, emotionally, you, you know, you know,

(14:19):
caused us harm, you don't wantto necessarily forget that, you
know, just due to prudence, weuh in order to protect other

(14:49):
people in the future.
But to the extent that it ispossible or prudent to forget
the offense that someone hascaused, you should, um trying to

(15:10):
think if there's anything elsehere that kind of hit me as we
read.
Not so much, sorry guys.
I, toward the end of the weekshere, I get a little burnt out.
I fell asleep at like 8 o'clocklast night.
Still does not feel like enough, let me see.
Okay, so I think that'severything we have today.

(15:33):
Tomorrow, friday, during PassionWeek, we will talk about Our
Lady of Compassion.
We will talk about Our Lady ofCompassion and the, not
scripture.
It's not scripture, but the, sothe kind of the reading right.

(15:53):
That first little part.
We, that is usually the gospelthat we read every day.
You know that's taken from thatday's liturgy.
So it's not always the gospelor it's not always even
scripture, it's just some partof that liturgy.
So tomorrow what we will readis taken from the Stabat Mater.
So, anthony, if you'relistening to this, make sure to

(16:14):
listen to tomorrow, since youdidn't know what the Stabat
Mater was.
So, yeah, tomorrow we will talkabout Our Lady of Compassion,
and then, of course, we haveSaturday and Passion Week, but
then after that we begin HolyWeek.
So only two more days untilHoly Week.

(16:34):
But thank you all for joiningthese.
Like I said, you were allunanimous yesterday in your
desire for these to continuethroughout the Easter octave.
So we will do that.
Whether or not these become apermanent feature on the channel
, I don't know yet.
I am considering it but it is alot of work.

(16:55):
I'm not saying I don't want todo it, but it is a lot of work
and it makes me less available,say, to get up with one of the
kids in the morning Instead ofhope if I'm.
You know it makes it hard to dothat when I have to do these

(17:16):
two.
So we'll see, I'll think aboutit to do these two.
So we'll see, I'll think aboutit.
Maybe maybe we'll domeditations for certain feasts
throughout the year, or I don'tknow.
Let me know what you think.
You know, if you really wantthem daily throughout the year,
let me know If you'd be okay,fine with them, just say being
for certain feasts and entireliturgical seasons like Advent

(17:41):
and Lent.
Let me know that, let me knowwhat you think.
But thank you all.
I hope you all have a great dayand we will see you tomorrow,
on Friday in Passion Week.
Thank you.