Divine Intimacy - Lenten Meditations for 2026 - Day 3

Struggling with what fasting is really for? We open Isaiah 58 and Matthew 5–6 and discover a sharper vision: fasting that loosens chains, almsgiving that hides from applause, and love that dares to bless enemies. It’s not about spiritual theatrics; it’s about training the heart to choose God over self—and letting that choice spill into justice for our neighbors.

We walk through the day’s readings, then sit with Divine Intimacy on the Cross as the ultimate proof of love. From there, we explore how small, intentional sacrifices—skipping meat on Friday, turning down a treat, biting back a sharp word—become daily “I love yous” to God when offered with charity. The saints show the way: Teresa Margaret’s steady mortification and Thérèse’s “scattering flowers” reveal that sincerity beats severity. A tiny sacrifice done with burning love can outweigh a grand penance done for show.

Along the way, we tackle a common question from non-Catholic friends: Why give up chocolate? We frame it in the language of everyday love—we already surrender comforts for the people we cherish. Lent simply extends that logic toward God. Tie abstinence to mercy by redirecting saved time and resources to the poor. Keep your giving quiet, your heart honest, and your gaze on the Crucified, who transforms hidden acts into deep change.

If this reflection helps your Lent, share it with someone who needs encouragement, subscribe for daily readings, and leave a review so others can find us. What small sacrifice will you offer today—and for whom?

Transcript

Welcome And Lenten Friday Reminder

SPEAKER_01 0:30

Good morning, everyone, and welcome to uh the third day of Lent. We are on day three. We're on our first Friday of Lent. So today is an official day of abstinence. So make sure you do not eat meat today. And um and we'll get going with our readings here. Uh, these are these videos or these readings and meditations are uh both on YouTube as well as audio podcast. So if you prefer to just listen and not have video, you can find them on Apple Podcasts, uh Spotify, any any other of the larger podcast apps. We're there. So check us out there. And um, yeah, I'll put up an image on screen. There won't be anything really to look at. And I'll read through the uh epistle and gospel of the day, and then we'll go through divine intimacy for today. So without further ado, here let me find my image and we'll get going.

Epistle From Isaiah On True Fasting

SPEAKER_00 1:46

Let me go to the epistle for today here real quick in my missile. Okay, here we go. So the epistle for Friday after ash Wednesday Isaiah 58, one through nine.

SPEAKER_01 2:13

Thus saith the Lord God, cry, cease not, lift up thy voice like a trumpet, and show my people their wicked doings, and the house of Jacob their sins. For they seek me from day to day and desire to know my ways. As a nation that hath done justice and hath not forsaken the judgment of their God, they ask of me the judgments of justice. They are willing to approach to God. Why have we fasted, and thou hast not regarded? Have we humbled our souls and thou hast not taken notice? Behold, in the day of your fast your own will is found, and you exact of all your debtors. Behold, you fast for debates and strife, and strike with your fist wickedly. Do not fast as you have done until this day, to make your cry to be heard on high. Is this such a fast as I have chosen for a man to afflict his soul for a day? Is this it to wind his head about like a circle and to spread sackcloth and ashes? Wilt thou call this a fast in a day acceptable to the Lord? Is not this rather the fast that I have chosen? Loose the bands of wickedness, undo the bundles that oppress, but them that are broken go free and break asunder every burden. Deal thy bread to the hungry, and bring the needy and the harborless into thy house. And thou shalt see one naked, cover him, and despise not thine own flesh. Then shall thy light break forth as the morning, and thy health shall speedily arise, and thy justice shall go before thy face, and the glory of the Lord shall gather thee up.

SPEAKER_00 4:04

Then shalt thou call, and the Lord shall hear, thou shalt cry, and he shall say, Here I am, for I, the Lord thy God am merciful.

Divine Intimacy: Proof Of Love

Saints On Mortification And Charity

Applying Sacrifice With Wisdom

Explaining Catholic Fasting To Others

Practical Encouragements And Closing

SPEAKER_01 4:19

Now the gospel of the day, Matthew five, forty-three through forty eight, and Matthew six, one through four. At that time Jesus said to his disciples, You have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbor and hate thine enemy. But I say to you, love your enemies, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them that persecute and calumniate you, that you may be the children of your Father who is in heaven, who maketh his son to rise upon the good and bad, and reigneth upon the just and the unjust. For if you love them that love you, what reward shall you have? Do not even the publicans do not even the publicans this? And if you salute your brethren only, what do you what do you more? Do not also the heathens this? Be you therefore perfect, as also your heavenly father is perfect. Take heed that you do not your justice before men to be seen by them. Otherwise you shall not have a reward of your father who is in heaven. Therefore, when thou dost an alms deed, so not a trumpet before thee, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may be honored by men. Amen I say to you, they have received their reward, but when thou dost alms, let not thy left hand know what thy right hand dot doth. Let thine alms may be in secret, and thy father who seeth in secret will repay thee. Okay So that's the epistle and gospel of the day. Give me a second to switch over to divine intimacy here. Okay, so divine intimacy. The proof of love the presence of God O Jesus crucified, make me understand that the cross is the greatest proof of love. Meditation number one after the incarnation, the cross of Jesus is the greatest proof of his love for man. Similarly, mortification, which is suffering eagerly accepted for the love of God, is one of the greatest proofs of love that we can give him. It means freely giving up a satisfaction or a pleasure in order to impose on ourselves the love of God, something which is contrary to our own natural inclinations. We thus prove that we prefer to satisfy God rather than ourselves. Every act of voluntary mortification, whether physical or moral, says to God, Lord, I love you more than myself, and since a soul in love has an ardent desire to give proof of its love, it is very vigilant not to miss a single opportunity for renunciation. It was in this sense that Saint Teresa Margaret of the Heart of Jesus resolved not to let a single occasion for suffering escape as far as she was able, and always in silence between God and herself. In fact, she made every effort to find at each moment some occasion for suffering or bodily pain, so as never to satisfy the slightest appetite or desire, and she sought ways to make even what was necessary, painful and wearying to her body. Her ardent love for God found an order an outlet in this generous, untiring exercise of mortification. Using a different expression, Saint Therese of the Child Jesus called this practice scattering flowers, that is, profiting by every least opportunity to suffer in order to give God a proof of her love, knowing that the value of mortification depends upon the generosity of the dispositions which with with which it is done, the saint said, I shall always sing, even should my flowers be gathered from the midst of thorns. Meditation too. The value of voluntary mortification consists much more in the good will with which it is practiced than in the intensity of the suffering which is imposed, although the latter may contribute to it in the sense that a more painful mortification requires more goodwill. The amount of suffering must be wisely proportioned, and limited to the physical strength of each one. But which must never be limited is the love, the spirit of generosity with which we perform each act of sacrifice. From this point of view, a slight mortification done with all the love of which a soul is capable has greater value than a painful penance performed in a material way, with no interior spirit. Hence, before performing an act of mortification, especially when it concerns certain customary practices, such as those which are used in religious institutes, it is necessary to arouse our good will and our sincere desire to suffer willingly for the love of God. This will prevent a mere mechanical performance of the act that has little or no value. Loving contemplation of the crucified was the soul of all the austerities of Saint Teresa Margaret. This humiliated, suffering God, of whom she was constantly thinking, was the one who gave her the interior strength to overcome every difficulty, however arduous, and to take on spontaneously so many labors and works of charity and mortification. It was he who gave her an insatiable desire for suffering. Contemplating Jesus crucified, the soul feels that even if it is mortifying itself much for love of him, its sacrifices and renunciations amount to very little, and instead of conceiving sentiments of vain complacency for the mortifications already practice, it feels the need of humbling itself and of always doing more. Have great love for suffering, says Saint John of the Cross, and consider it very little to attain the favor of the spouse, who hesitated not to die for thee. And now the colloquy O my beloved, how shall I show my love? Since love proves itself by deeds. I have no other means of proving my love than to strew flowers, and these flowers which will each word and look, each little daily sacrifice. I wish to make profit out of the smallest actions, and to do them all for love. For love's sake I wish to suffer and to rejoice, so I shall strew my flowers. Not one that I see, but singing all the while I will scatter its petals before you. Should my roses be gathered from amid thorns, I will sing notwithstanding, and the longer and sharper the thorns, the sweeter will grow my song. O Lord, dispose of me according to your will, for I am content with everything, if only I am following you on the road to Calvary. The more thones thorns there are on this road and the heavier the cross is, the more consoled shall I be, for I desire to love you with an effective heart, with an effect of love, and a patient love, with a love which is dead to self and entirely surrendered to you, O Lord, you on the cross for me, and I on the cross for you. Oh, if I could but once understand how sweet and precious it is to suffer, to suffer in silence for you, O Jesus, O dear suffering, O good Jesus. Yes, suffering is dear to me because it permits me to give God proofs of my love, because in the darkness of faith in which I must live here below, it gives me the assurance of loving not only in words, but with a strong effect of love. O Jesus, now I understand why Saint Teresa of Avila asked for only one thing to die or to suffer, professing to have no other reason for living except to suffer for love of you. O Lord, may I too have such strong, true, and ardent love granted to me, you who can give me all things, and who can in one instant transform this dry, cold heart into a furnace of charity. Okay, there are our readings and meditations for the day. Um at the beginning of Lent here, especially on a Friday, a Friday of abstinence. You know, and one of the things that is always uh confused and confounded me about Protestants is how they don't understand like the Catholic practices of fasting, abstinence, you know, and other other ways of penance and mortification. Um you know, even uh I like how how divine intimacy here um you know kind of explained it. You know, we we do these things as as proof of love, right? And if you think of it, you know, like when you when you love someone, you know, when you uh when you first fall in love, you know, with with someone who ends up being your spouse, um you are willing to to do anything to show them how much you love them, right? You're you're you're willing to go through anything, do anything, give up anything, whatever you whatever you need to to just show how much you love them. You know, and when you have kids, think of all the little things you you give up, all the little things you do um to be there for them, to give them what they need. Um, you know, and of course, there's there's so many things that that you do that go unseen by them that they'll never know until they have their own kids and realize it themselves. But um I don't I don't understand how how Protestants and other Christians can give up the things they do to show how much they love their family, but yet then do not understand how we you know how we Catholics can give up eating meat on a Friday to show our love of God, or you know, can give up chocolate for Lent to get you know to show love of God. And I think I think maybe it's because our practices have fallen so low to where you know it literally is for some people giving up of chocolate for Lent and not not to not to denigrate that practice if if anyone is doing it, um, because the divine intimacy makes clear like the the value of a mortification is not based in the severity of the mortification, it's based in which in the charity in which it is done. Um, so a small act done with full love is worth more than this large, huge mortification done with very little. Um but of course, those smaller acts uh are harder to be seen by those you know outside. Um, and not that we're doing these to be seen because the gospel of today once again makes very clear we're not. You know, when you give alms, you know, don't let your right hand know what the left is is doing when you're giving alms and things of that nature. But it it does make it hard for the outside world to understand, you know, to them why you know what does giving up chocolate have to do with loving God? And it's it's one of those things. It's like, you know, say you're within a marriage and your spouse is trying to lose a few pounds, you would give up having chocolate in front of them, you know, because you love them and want to help them and not make it miserable or harder for them. Um and I I I don't know how we go about explaining and showing that to other Christians, um, other than just trying to explain it like that, that we're you know, you you give up and you do small things or big things for everyone you love. Why would you not why would you not uh give up something just to show how much you love God? So I don't know, maybe give that a try for explaining it if you're ever asked, I guess. But um, I I liked how Divine Intimacy uh kind of explained that, how it's uh not so much dissimilar from how you prove you love others in your life. But anyways, so so that is it for today. First Friday of Lent. Do not eat meat today. Um yeah, I hope you all have a good Friday. We'll be continuing these and into the weekend. Um and I think that's everything I have for you. So thank you for watching these uh or listening to them, however you consume them. Um, like I said yesterday in yesterday's video, um I love doing these, I would do them no matter what. Uh, but please try to share them as much as you can with others. So one that others hopefully will find use of them and and will help in their lent, but uh also just to help the channel because these these do unfortunately hurt the reach of the channel, uh and it takes a while to regain that. But anyways, thank you all. Hope you have a great day, and um and I'll see you tomorrow.