Toward Easter - Daily Readings & Meditations for Lent 2025 - Day 35

The world's hatred toward Christ forms the heart of today's powerful meditation as we journey through Tuesday in Passion Week. Reflecting on how Jesus walked in Galilee to avoid the murderous intentions of his enemies in Judea, we unpack the profound mystery that His suffering was entirely voluntary – He could escape when needed because "His hour had not yet come," but ultimately chose to surrender Himself for our salvation.

St. Louis de Montfort challenges us with the stark reality that faithful Christians must stand apart: "We must not believe or follow the false maxims of the world, or think, speak or act like people of the world. Their doctrine is opposed to that of incarnate wisdom, as darkness is to light and death to life." This countercultural calling resonates deeply in our secular age, where Christianity increasingly finds itself marginalized and opposed.

The meditation explores how Catholics have historically navigated hostile environments, often compromising to survive rather than standing firmly for their faith. Today's spiritual resolutions offer practical ways to strengthen our witness: making voluntary mortifications, offering interior acts of reparation when God's name is blasphemed, and praying for persecuted Christians worldwide. Even embracing silence in our noise-saturated culture becomes a radical act of spiritual resistance. As St. Vincent de Paul reminds us, "We have to be ready to suffer, sometimes in one way, sometimes in another, otherwise we would not be the disciples of this divine master." Join us in reflecting on how we might more faithfully follow Christ, even when doing so puts us at odds with the world around us.

Chapters

• 0:00 Tuesday in Passion Week Reading
• 2:43 The World's Hatred of Christ
• 4:51 Prayers and Thoughts for Today
• 7:22 Resolutions for Christian Living
• 9:02 Catholics in a Secular World
• 13:27 Practical Application and Closing

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:55

Sancte, sancte, amare morti decadast nos. Good morning everyone and welcome to day 35 of Lent. We are on Tuesday in Passion Week and we are continuing our meditations and readings from Toward Easter by Father Patrick Trodeck. Link is in the description below. If you'd like to purchase it Without further ado, I'm going to throw up an image on screen so you can just listen to me read here. So here we go, tuesday in Passion Week the world's Hatred.

Speaker 1: 1:56

From the Gospel of St John, chapter 7, verse1. Jesus walked in Galilee for he would not walk in Judea, because the Jews sought to kill him, kill him. In the gospel of today, st John tells us how Jesus chose to hide himself so as not to be arrested by his enemies who wanted to kill him. Indeed sinners reject Christ because they do not want to have anything to do with the law of God. They want to continue stealing, cheating, lying. They want to continue stealing, cheating, lying. They hate him because he says the truth, but he wills to deliver himself over out of love. It is consciously and freely that Jesus would accept the sum total of physical, moral and spiritual sufferings that he was to endure to redeem us. As the prophet Isaiah announced, he was offered because it was his own will. Our Lord said it in the gospel. For this reason the Father loves me. Because I lay down my life that I may take it up again. Such is the command I have received from my Father. He was therefore capable of escaping from the hands of his enemies. Several times their plans did in fact fail because his hour had not yet come. For example, during the feast of the tabernacles, they wanted to seize him, but no one laid hands on him because his hour had not yet come. Another time, during a discussion when Jesus affirmed that he had existed before Abraham, they took up stones to cast at him, but Jesus hid himself and went out from the temple. Likewise, in today's gospel, jesus hides himself because his hour has not yet come. In a few days, he will go himself to meet Judas, who will betray him into the hands of his enemies.

Speaker 1: 3:57

Lord Jesus, by thine own conduct during thy exile on earth facing thine enemies, thou teachest me what should be my own conduct in similar circumstances. Help me to imitate thee in accepting consciously and freely the share in the cross that Thou wilt present to me for my salvation, but without stepping ahead of providence. Help me likewise to react appropriately when Thy name or Thine image are disdained. And now a prayer from St Louis de Montfort In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost, amen. O Divine Wisdom, source of Truth, the world abandons Thee to follow after vanity. For our part, we all seek Thee with a lively faith. Whatever may befall In thy pity, show thyself In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost, amen.

Speaker 1: 5:05

Our first thought of the day also comes from St Louis de Montfort. We must not believe or follow the false maxims of the world, or think, speak or act like people of the world. Their doctrine is, as opposed to that of incarnate wisdom, as darkness is to light and death to life. And our second thought is from St Vincent de Paul. We have to be ready to suffer, sometimes in one way, sometimes in another, otherwise we would not be the disciples of this divine master. And we have four resolutions for today. One, let us accept already, in the spirit of faith, all the unpleasant aspects of the days to come. Two, let us make an act of voluntary mortification to unite ourselves to the sufferings that Jesus endured for us. 3. Let us make interior acts of reparation when we hear the name of God blasphemed, and four to pray for persecuted Christians throughout the world. That is it for the reading for today.

Speaker 1: 6:48

So, as we continue through Passion Tide here and get closer to the passion itself, we amplify our meditation on the sufferings of Christ, on his sacrifice for us, and we see today how the world hated. See today how the world hated him, how his own people hated him. You know, the gospel tells us he walked in Galilee For he would not walk in Judea Because the Jews wanted to kill him, his own people. And and we as Christians have to be willing to have that same sort of hatred shown to us as we walk through our world. Today we don't live in a Christian world. We don't live in a Christian world. We don't live in a Christian nation. You know, even if, even prior to you know, the intense secularization of the last century, like America as a nation was, was never christian. Uh, it was. Maybe, you know you could describe it as protestant. I wouldn't ever describe it as christian, um, and even as a protestant nation. It was a very, very secular, um, very secular. So, yeah, we have to be willing and ready to accept any, you know, hatred shown to us.

Speaker 1: 8:44

As St Louis de Montfort says, we must not believe or follow the false maxims of the world. We must not think, speak or act like everyone else in the world, because they are opposed to Christ, as darkness as opposed to light and as death as opposed to life. And you know, I'm pretty sure we've mentioned it at least once or twice through previous meditations here but, like, catholicism in the United States is always largely just gone along to get along, because, like I said, because it was a protestant nation that was always opposed to catholicism and catholics couldn't hold office for a long time, um, you know, there's always there's, there were the know-nothing riots, um, which were, you know, a series of violence against Catholics in the Northeast. So largely Catholics in this country have always just kind of gone along to to survive in in. You know, I think today's meditation makes it very, very clear that that is opposed to what we should actually be doing and I think that's changing. I think we're seeing that attitude and that way of being a Catholic in the United States change. But I mean it's not just Catholicism in the United States, I think it's Catholicism and throughout the West as a whole, throughout Europe, the U S, north America, um, but you know, there there's lots of things we can do to try to change that. There, there's lots of things we can do to try to change that, and some of these resolutions today are, uh are great for that, even if most of them are all interior.

Speaker 1: 10:59

You know, um, making an act of voluntary mortification, um, some of the suggestions that are given in the book are if you smoke, to not smoke today, uh, you know, not to take dessert, um, which I mean it's lent, shouldn't really be doing that anyways. Um, but you know, turning off the computer, the TV, the radio, whatever, you know, if you're a person that always has an ear in to listen to music or a podcast or something, um, as you go about your day, um, take it out today. You know, it's funny how, how opposed we are to silence in our world today, uh, and trust me, I'm, I'm a person that that, as I'm at work at the computer, I do like to have an earbud in to be listening to something. But I guess today, offer that up and suffer in silence a little. And, trust me, I acknowledge the irony of a podcaster telling you not to listen to podcasts today, telling you not to listen to podcasts today, especially ironic because it's on a day where we will be doing a live stream later tonight.

Speaker 1: 12:19

But regardless, one of the other resolutions make interior acts of reparation. When we hear the name of God blasphemed, when you do hear someone take the Lord's name in vain blasphemed, when you do hear someone take the Lord's name in vain, at the very least say a short interior prayer Just blessed be his holy name. You could do that interiorly. Otherwise, you could also bow your head, say that quietly, out loud, make a sign of the cross. You could also bow your head. Yeah, you know. Say that quietly aloud, make a sign of the cross. You do that enough times around someone taking the Lord's name in vain and they'll, they'll stop, you know, especially if you, if you ask them, if you ask them politely to stop. But anyways, that's all I have for you today. Tomorrow, wednesday, here in Passion Week, we will be talking about contradictions and oppositions. Just looking forward a little here. Okay, thank you all for joining me this morning. I hope you all have a great tuesday here in passion week and I will see you tomorrow, thank you.