Divine Intimacy - Lenten Meditations for 2026 - Day 6

Judgment that looks like mercy, a Shepherd who refuses to lose a single sheep, and the honest truth about what happens to our good habits after Easter—this conversation brings Scripture and daily life into the same room. We open with Ezekiel 34’s promise that God Himself will seek, gather, and feed His people, then let Matthew 25 confront us with a standard that is both simple and searching: feed the hungry, welcome the stranger, visit the sick and imprisoned. If love is real, it takes a shape; if faith is alive, it meets a face.

We talk candidly about conversion as a daily reorientation rather than a one-time burst of zeal. Drawing on classic spiritual wisdom, we explore why aiming high matters—“no limits” not in noise or burnout, but in a steady refusal to settle. Sanctity grows where grace meets generous cooperation. That looks like motives purified by prayer, small promises kept on dull days, and a weekly work of mercy that grounds piety in service. The judgment scene stops being a threat and becomes a map for a life that recognizes Christ in the least.

Then we address the cycle many of us know too well: Lent focuses us, Easter delights us, and within weeks we drift. The goal is not to maintain Lenten intensity forever, but to keep conversion continuous and real.

If you’re longing for a Lent that doesn’t evaporate when the alleluias return, this one’s for you. Listen, take a note or two, and choose one habit to carry into the bright weeks ahead. If it helps, share this with a friend and make your rule together. Subscribe, leave a review, and tell us: what’s the one practice you’ll keep after Easter?

Transcript

Welcome And Lent Day Six

SPEAKER_00 0:31

Good morning, everyone, and welcome to day six of Lent. We are now on Monday of the first week of Lent here, and we will get into our uh our readings from Mass and then our meditations from Divine Intimacy. These recordings are up on YouTube as well as all the different audio podcast apps, and so feel free to check them out there. Um for those listening today and when it is released, there will not be a guns and rosaries show tonight. Um, I will be I have an appointment to go to uh a few hours away, so won't be able to um to make it tonight, unfortunately. But um, but yeah, so without further ado here, I'll pull it the uh epistle and gospel from today's mass. We'll go through that, and then we will go through divine intimacy here. So, like I've done in the past, I'm gonna throw up an image on screen. There won't be anything to look at. You just just listen either on YouTube or the audio podcast, and we'll go from there. So here we go. The epistle for the Monday of the first week of Lent, Ezekiel 34, 11 through 16. Thus saith the Lord God, behold, I myself will seek my sheep and will visit them. As the shepherd visiteth his flock in the day when he shall be in the midst of the sheep that were scattered, so will I visit my sheep, and will deliver them out of all the places where they have been scattered in the cloudy and dark day, and I will bring them out from the peoples, and will gather them out of the countries, and will bring them to their own land, and I will feed them in the mountains of Israel, by the rivers and in all the habit habitations of the land. I will feed them in the most fruitful pastures, and their pastures shall be in the high mountains of Israel. There shall they rest on the green grass and be fed in fat pastures upon the mountains of Israel. I will feed my sheep, and I will cause them to lie down, saith the Lord God. I will seek that which was lost, and that which was driven away I will bring again, and I will bind up that which was broken, and I will strengthen that which was weak, and that which was fat and strong I will preserve, and I will feed them in judgment, saith the Lord Almighty. Now the gospel of today from Matthew 25 31 through 46. At that time Jesus said to his disciples, When the Son of Man shall come in his majesty, and all the angels with him, then shall he sit upon the seat of his majesty, and all nations shall be gathered together before him, and he shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd separeth the sheep from the goats, and he shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on his left. Then shall the king say to them that shall be on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my father, possess you the kingdom prepared from you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me to eat. I was thirsty and you gave me to drink. I was a stranger and you took me in. Naked and you covered me, sick and you visited me. I was in prison and you came to me. Then shall the just answer him, saying, Lord, when did we see thee hungry and feed thee? Thirsty and gave thee drink, and when did we see thee a stranger and took thee in? Or naked and covered thee? Or when did we see thee sick or imprisoned and came to thee? And the king answering shall say to them, A man I say to you, as long as you did it to one of these least of my brother you did it to me. Then he shall say to them also that shall be on his left hand, depart from me, you cursed into everlasting fire, which was prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me not to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me not to drink. I was a stranger and you took me not in, naked and you covered me not, sick and in prison and you did not visit me. Then they sh also shall answer him, saying, Lord, when do we see thee hungry or thirsty, or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to thee? Then he shall answer them, saying, Amen I say to you, as long as you did it not to one of these least, neither did you do it to me, and thee shall go into everlasting punishment, but the just into life everlasting. Now are meditations from divine intimacy. Conversion. Presence of God. O Lord, you have created me for yourself. Grant that with all my strength I may tend toward you my last end. Meditation one. In the epistle of today's mass, we read, For thus saith the Lord God, Behold, I myself will see my sheep, and will visit them, and will deliver them out of all the places where they have been scattered in the cloudy and dark day. This is the program which the Lord wisheth to accomplish in our souls during the holy season of Lent, in order to lead us by means of it to a life of higher perfection and closer intimacy with Him. He stretches out His hand to us, not only to save us from dangers, but also to help us climb to those higher places where He Himself will nourish us. The point of departure which will make the realization of this divine plan possible is a new conversion on our part. We must collect our powers, desires, and affections, which have been scattered and are lingering in the valley of the purely human. Putting them all together, we must make them converge on God, our one last end. In this sense, our lenton conversion should consist in a generous determination to put ourselves more resolutely in the way of perfection. It means a new determination to become a saint. The desire for sanctity is the mainspring of the spiritual life. The more and intense and real this desire is in us, the more it will urge us to pledge ourselves totally. In this first week of Lent, we must try to arouse and strengthen our resolution to become a saint. If other efforts in the past have been unsuccessful or not entirely reached the goal, this is the reason for this is no reason for discouragement. Now I have begun. Or rather, now I begin. Let us repeat it humbly, and may the experience of our past failures make us place our trust in God alone. Meditation 2. Saint Thomas teaches that in the pursuit of the end, no limits should be set. Sanctity is the end of spiritual life. That is why we must propose it to ourselves, not in a reduced, restricted manner, but in all its fullness. Fullness which speaks to us of intimate union with God, of the complete invasion of grace, and of entire conformity to the divine will, to the extent that it becomes the only motive of all our actions. For when the soul becomes totally purified of everything contrary to God's will, then the Lord will communicate his supernatural being to it in such a way that it will seem to be God Himself and to have what God possesses. Sanctity is the plenitude of love and grace. It is transformation in God by love, it is deification by grace. What measure of love and grace must we attain? That depends primarily upon God's design on our soil, and then on our cooperation. Now on our part, the secret of reaching the goal is never to stop. First, because even if we were to grow in love indefinitely, we would never be able to love God as much as He is to be loved. Secondly, because we do not know to what degree of sanctity God is calling us. Furthermore, God does not let himself be outdone in generosity. The more we give ourselves to him in the exercise of intense love, the more he will give himself to us by grace. Measure of loving God is to love him without measure. If we should not set a limit to love, neither should we set one to our conversion. The Lord said, Be converted to me with all your heart. This is the indispensable condition for loving God with our whole heart. The cases where total conversion is reached in an instant by a very special grace are rare. Ordinarily we do not arrive at it except by a daily progressive conversion. And if in this conversion, as in the whole work of sanctification, the initiative is always from God, who prevents us with grace. Our cooperation is nevertheless required, hence we must strive every day with new diligence to be converted to God with all our heart. Let this be our program for Lent. Another colloquy. For it is we alone who are at fault and not once enjoying so great a dignity. If we attain to the perfect possession of this true love of God, it brings all blessing to a fail. But so niggardly and so slow are we in giving ourselves wholly to God that we do not prepare ourselves to receive this benefit. So it is that this treasure is not given to us in a short time, because we do not give ourselves to God entirely if we have it. O my God, grant me the grace and the courage to determine to strive after this good with all my strength. If I persevere, you, who never refuse your help to anyone, will strengthen my courage until I come off with victory. I say courage because the devil with so many obstacles tries to make us deviate from this path. Grant, O Lord Jesus, by the intimate merits of your passion, that I may be converted to you with all my heart. Now permit me to be discouraged from the continu discouraged by the continual renewals of my egotistical tendencies, or by the incessant struggle which I must maintain against them. Make me clearly understand that if I wish to be completely converted to you, I can never make peace with my weaknesses, my faults, my self-love, my pride. Make me understand that I must sacrifice everything to your love, and even when I have sacrificed everything, I must still say I am an unprofitable servant. O Lord, because everything is as nothing compared with the love which with which you deserve, O infinitely lovable one. There are our readings and meditations for the day. Well here, the the theme was conversion. Now it's a continual process. I don't know about you, but I seem to forget that right after Easter every year. I'll go through Lent, do it well, you know. Um, you know, my land will be full of prayer. Uh almsgiving, you know, all the things that makes a good land good. Um Easter will come. Well, I should say, well, first, you know, Passion Tide and Holy Week will come, and I'll have a great Passion Tide, and Holy Week and Easter will come, and I'll I'll you know spend that that uh that that octave of Easter fat uh feasting and celebrating. And then you know I'll you know I'll it's almost like after the 40 days of Lent, it it comes as like a break, right? Where you're where you can give up that penance and you're not doing that penance and uh and suddenly you've kind of forgotten about the prayer and the almsgiving, and um next thing you know, it gets to be you know coming up to uh to adjacent the next year, and you're like, I gotta get ready for to get ready for Lent. I've fallen away so much over the last year. You know, I need to come back, need to need to get ready to do it all over again. Um and it just it's like this process is on on repeat where every lent you just try to get back to where you were at the end of the last Lent. Um and hopefully I'll do better this year with that continual conversion. Um that can that that a continual process instead of just always on repeat. Um, so hopefully, you know, I'll go through this lens and hopefully I'll look. And of course, you should still celebrate and feast during the out, you know, the octave of Easter and and whatnot. I'm not saying you shouldn't, but I this year I need to have a plan to continue the prayer, continue, you know, on the and and after that that time of celebration to continue the you know penance, not at the same level as Lent, of course, but at least at a level to where I'm continuing that process of conversion instead of letting myself revert to old ways and until next one. Um so that's going to be my struggle. Um I'm sure it will be at least some of yours as well. But um maybe after Easter we can uh not not do stuff like this daily. That's just way too much work. That's another thing I think by the end of um by the time Easter comes around, these last three, four years, or however long I've been doing these. Uh I take great pleasure not having to do these for a while. Getting an extra hour of sleep every morning. Because it takes at least an hour to to do all this um every morning before I would have normally woken up. Um so that's another thing. I mean I get so exhausted from these and and waking up early, and it just makes it so easy to just not worry about and sleep in and stuff after Easter comes. But um maybe we'll do something more throughout the year every once in a while. Umberdays would be a good time. Obviously things like St. Michael's um St. Michael's Lent and uh things like that. So we'll think about that. We'll think of ways to to do the continual conversion, not just revert to the meeting for us to have to redo it all next year. But, anyways, um, I hope you have a great Monday here for this first full week of Lent. And um, like I said, no guns and rosaries tonight. Um, Anthony has possible plans to do something. Um, maybe he uh I think he's gonna be off work again this week, which those are my least favorite weeks, but because he gets some big ideas and he wants to do things and he's bored, and that's just not a good combination. But, anyways, um keep an eye out on on Twitter and on the YouTube page, and and we will we'll put stuff up hopefully before things happen, if anything's happen. But anyways, thank you all. Hope you have a great day. And I will see you all again tomorrow.