Divine Intimacy - Lenten Meditations for 2026 - Day 13

We read Daniel 9 and John 8, then sit with a demanding truth from Divine Intimacy: humility is not a mood or a vibe; it’s the foundation that lets charity stand. If love is the house, humility is the bedrock—and without it, even our best intentions warp into self-reliance.

We talk honestly about what that looks like in modern life. Creating content that serves people can collide with the drive for views and metrics, and the heart tug-of-war is real. Do we want reach or refinement? Platform or poverty of spirit? We name the tension and offer a different aim: fidelity over visibility, hiddenness when needed, and results left in God’s hands. Along the way, Jesus’ words—“You are from below; I am from above”—reframe our origin and our end. Belief is not mere assent; it’s surrender into a life taught and sustained by the Father.

Lent gives us a laboratory to practice the descent. We map out simple steps that loosen pride’s grip: trim social media, choose quiet over constant input, make hidden acts of charity, and turn failed penances into occasions for trust rather than tougher vows. Saints Teresa and Thérèse remind us that grace fills what we empty, and God stoops to the lowly. The invitation is steady and specific: dig deeper foundations, let God build the house, and judge progress by obedience and love. If you’re hungry for less noise and more substance, this conversation offers Scripture, prayer, and practical moves to make humility livable.

If this resonates, follow the show, share it with a friend who needs courage for the descent, and leave a review telling us how you’re reshaping your Lent. Your stories help others choose the quieter road.

Transcript

Welcome And Format For Lent Day 13

SPEAKER_01 0:30

Good.

SPEAKER_02 0:32

Why is this not full screen?

SPEAKER_00 0:39

There we go.

SPEAKER_01 0:41

Sorry about that, everyone. Uh, good morning. Welcome to day thirteen of Lent here. We are on Monday in the second week of Lent. And uh, yeah, if you are just joining us, we read the daily uh readings from Mass for the day, and then we read the meditations from Divine Intimacy. These uh meditations and readings are up on YouTube as well as all the all the audio podcast apps. And uh and yeah, without further ado, I'll throw up an image on screen. There's nothing to watch, you just listen and we will get going here.

SPEAKER_02 1:30

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:39

So our lesson for Monday of the second week of Lentier comes from Daniel 9, 15 through 19.

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In those days Daniel prayed to the Lord, saying, O Lord our God, who hast brought forth thy people out of the land of Egypt with a strong hand, and hast made thee a name as at this day. We have sinned, we have committed iniquity, O Lord, against all thy justice. Let thy wrath and thy indignation be turned away, I beseech thee, from thy city Jerusalem, and from thy holy mountain. For by reason of our sins and the iniquities of our fathers, fathers, Jerusalem and thy people are a reproach to all that are round about us now, that are around about us. Now, therefore, O our God, hear the supplication of thy servant and his prayers, and show thy face upon thy sanctuary which is desolate, for thy o for thy own sake. Incline, O my God, thy ear, and hear, open thine eyes and see our desolation, and the city upon which thy name is called. For it is not for our justifications that we present our prayers before thy face, but for the multitude of thy tender mercies. O Lord, hear, O Lord, be appeased, hearken and do, delay not for thy own sake, O my God, because thy name is invocated upon thy city and upon thy people, O Lord our God.

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And how the gospel for today comes from John eight, twenty one through twenty nine.

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At that time Jesus said to the multitudes of the Jews, I go and you shall seek me, and you shall die in your sin. Whither I go you cannot come. The Jews therefore said, Will he kill himself? Because he said, Whither I go you cannot come. And he said to them, You are from beneath, I am from above, you are of this world, I am not of this world. Therefore I say to you, that you shall die in your sins, for if you believe not that I am he, you shall die in your sin. They therefore said to him, Who art thou? Jesus said to them, The beginning, who also speak to you? Many things I have to speak in judge of you, but he that sent me is true, and the things I have heard of him, these same I speak in the in the world. And they understood not that he called God his Father. Jesus therefore said to them, When you shall have lifted up the Son of Man, then shall you know that I am he, and I do nothing of myself, but as the Father hath taught me, these things I speak, and he that sent me is with me, and he hath not left me alone, for I do always the things that please him.

SPEAKER_00 4:46

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 4:48

Those are the scripture readings from Mass for today. Now let me jump over to divine intimacy here.

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Humility the presence of God.

The Descent That Makes Room For Grace

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Oh Jesus, you who were so humiliated for us, teach me how to practice true humility. Meditation one charity is the essence of Chris Christian perfection, for charity alone has the power to unite man to God, his last end. But for us poor, miserable creatures, whom God wishes to raise to union with Himself, is charity the ultimate basis of the spiritual life? No. There is something deeper still which is, so to speak, the basis of charity, and that is humility. Humility is to charity what the foundation is to a building. Digging the foundation is not building the house, yet it is the preliminary indispensable work. The condition uh the condition quan The deeper and firmer it is, the better the house will be, and the greater assurance of stability it will have. Only the fool built his house upon the sand, with the inevitable consequence of seeing it crumble away very soon. The wise man, on the contrary, built upon a rock. Storms and winds might threaten, but his house was unshakable because its foundation was solid. Humility is the firm bedrock upon which every Christian should build the edifice of his spiritual life. If you wish to lay good foundations, says Saint Teresa of Jesus to her daughters, each of you must try to be the least of all. That is, you must practice humility. If you do that, your foundation will be so firmly laid that your castle will not fall. Humility forms the foundation of charity by emptying the soul of pride, arrogance, disordered love of self and of one's own excellence, and by replacing them with the love of God and our neighbor. The more humility empties the soul of the vain, proud pretenses of self, the more room there will be for God. When at last the spiritual man comes to be reduced to nothing, which will be the great greatest extreme of humility, spiritual union will be wrought between the soul and God. The soul who desires to reach sorry, meditation too. The soul who desires to reach the sublime heights of union with God must walk in the path of profound humility. For as the divine master taught, only he that humbleth himself shall be exalted. The higher the ideal of sanctity to which we aspire, the more sublime the end toward toward which we tend, the more we will have to descend and excavate in ourselves the fertile abyss of humility. The abyss of humility calls to the abyss of infinite mercy, of grace, and of the divine gifts, for God resisteth the proud, but to the humble he giveth grace. We must humble ourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, sincerely recognize our nothingness, take account of our poverty, and if we wish to glorify ourselves, we must glory like Saint Paul solely in our infirmities. It is only in our weakness, humbly acknowledged, that grace and divine virtue work in triumph. Even if we are of the number of those good souls who sincerely desire to advance on the road to perfection, but who are relying too much on their own powers and personal initiative, we can apply to ourselves the great advantage the val uh we can apply to ourselves the great advantage the valuable warning that Saint Therese of the child Jesus gave a novice. I see clearly that you are taking the wrong road. You will never reach the end of your journey. You want to scale a mountain, and the good God wills to make you descend. It is Jesus who takes upon himself to fill your soul, according as you rid it of imperfections. The sublime ideal of union with God totally exceeds our capacities, which are those of weak creatures. If we aspire to it, it is not because we expect to reach it by our own efforts and initiative, but because we trust that God Himself, according to His promise, will come and lead us by the hand. But God will not act thus with the proud soul. He stoops only to the humble. The more lowly he finds the soul, the closer he draws it to himself. Humility deepens the soul's capacity to receive the fullness of divine gifts. O my God, you make me realize how far I must descend in order that my heart may serve as a dwelling place for you. I must become so poor that I have no place whereon to lay my head. My heart is not wholly emptied of self, and that is why you ordered me to descend. Oh I want to descend much lower, so that you will be able to rest your divine head in my heart and know that there you are loved and understood. O sweet divine guest, you know my misery. That is why you come to me in the hope of finding an empty tabernacle, a heart wholly emptied of self. This is all you ask. O Lord, help me to excavate in my poor soul that abyss of humility which will attract the abyss of your infinite mercies. Help me to descend, although my pride seeks to rise. Help me to recognize and humbly confess my nothingness and my weakness, although my pride desires so much to have me esteemed as something great. Help me to glory sorry. Help me to glory in my infirmities, although my pride always tends to glory in what is not mine, but your free gift. How true it is, O God, that grace follows an entirely different road from that of nature. Give me the strength to travel on this way with courage, to swim against the current, the muddy, treacherous current of my pride. How can I succeed if you do? Do not come to help me? But I trust in you, Lord, because I know that you are always ready to uphold the weak who have recourse to you with trust, because I know that if my pride is great, your mercy is infinite and your omnipotence is invincible, because I know that if anyone is an inactive man that wants help, I know that if anyone is an inactive man that wants help, is very weak in ability and full of poverty, your eye looks upon him for good and lifts him up from the low estate and exalts his head. O Lord, who is more full of poverty than I, who have not yet conquered my pride? Who then is in greater need of your help?

SPEAKER_00 12:26

Okay, that is the reading from Divine Intimacy for today.

Wrestling With Humility While Podcasting

Social Media, Pride, And Lenten Practice

Surrendering Penances To God

Travel Update And Closing

SPEAKER_01 12:36

Okay humility as it says there, humility is so opposed um to nature. At least at least to the fallen nature of the world. Uh humility is a tough one. Um because as it says in divine intimacy, there, like not only is it uh that that to be humble we have to like not even trust in ourselves, right? In the spiritual life, like you might want to, you know, do so much daily scripture reading a day, so much uh mental prayer a day, so much, you know, uh your rosary and and this and that, and and you might have all this, you know, plan to grow in the spiritual life, but it could act that could actually work against you if you're trusting in yourself too much, instead of uh, as it says, descending, you know, descending lower into the abyss and um and putting that that trust instead into God alone instead of you know into yourself. And I'll I'll tell you, like doing um doing the podcast stuff and trying to remain humble is very difficult. Um, because if you want to be successful at the podcast stuff, so much of that works completely against humility, right? Um wanting to get views and to grow in views and subscriptions and and whatnot. Um, and you know, the things that you have to do to grow in those views and subscriptions. Um it almost works completely against humility, or I should say humility works almost completely against what you need to do to be successful in in the arena, and like even though you know, even if you don't want to say grow hugely and and you know get into the hundreds of thousands of of subscriptions and whatnot, um you know, you even when you're trying to stay humble, you want things to get views, especially if you think you're producing content which helps people, you know, at least in some way. You know, you might be the most humble person and and have the most amazing content, and but if it only ten people see it, then I I won't I won't I don't want to say what good does that do because hopefully it helps those ten people, but it would be better if a hundred people or a thousand people saw it. So uh it's a it's a tough balancing act to try to stay try to have some sense of humility, but also do this in a way that is successful in the sense that it it reaches as many people as you can. Um so not that that you all need to know that, uh, but just to put that out there, I guess. Um but yeah, humility, um to always want to lower oneself is is so contrary to our natures today, right? And especially with like social media, um, to well get away from the podcast aspect of it, but I think I think the way social media in general is designed is uh worked so contrary to to the virtue of um humility, uh wanting to chase, you know, likes and things like that, and followers and and so forth. Um it works directly, you know, to our pride and works directly against our humility. So I would say for the remainder of Lent to at least keep that in mind with social media. I'm not saying at this point that you need to you need to completely get off social media for at least Lent or anything like that. Um that you know, deciding to do that takes takes time and it can take some effort. Uh, so I'm not gonna just say start that randomly here in the middle of Lent, but at least keep it in mind. You know, at least maybe try to lessen social media use uh here throughout Lent. Um, I think that would help our our humility. And uh, you know, if you're struggling with with your Lent and penances, um just surrender it to God. You know, don't do the the prideful thing and and say you're gonna, you know, of your own strength and ability, work harder to succeed at it. Um, surrender it all to God, be humble about it. I think you have a more likely chance of it succeeding and being fruitful. But, anyways, uh, thank you for this Monday here in the second week of Lent. I am going to be traveling later in the week here for my grandmother's funeral. Um, let's see. I should be able to do Thursday morning like normal. But Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. Um Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, I will probably be doing from wherever we're staying, which means I will be doing it from my MacBook camera and from my headset. Uh I should say from my AirPods, um, like microphones. So it's gonna be probably lower quality. But uh see only only I don't know what else to do. So we'll just have to do that. You'll just have to bear with me for three mornings. But anyways, thank you all. Hope you have a great day. Great start to the second week. Is it the second week of one? Yeah, the second week of one. Okay. Thanks, everyone. Bye.