Divine Intimacy - Lenten Meditations for 2026 - Day 16

What if the greatest danger to your soul isn’t failure but the pride that follows success? We open Jeremiah 17 and the parable of the rich man and Lazarus to trace a stark contrast: dryness for those who trust in themselves and living water for those who root their hope in God. From there, we step into a Carmelite meditation on humility that reframes discouragement, showing how self-reliance quietly breeds despair while confidence in mercy restores peace, joy, and strength.

We read the Gospel with fresh eyes: the rich man’s downfall isn’t luxury itself but a heart that overlooks Lazarus at his gate. Abraham’s reply cuts to the core—God has already spoken through Moses and the prophets; the invitation to conversion stands. That same invitation reaches into our daily patterns. It asks us to notice where we assign credit. Many of us can own our failures, yet we cling to our wins as self-made. True humility does both: it admits fault without despair and returns every success to the Giver. This shift not only guards our hearts from hidden pride but also frees us to serve with generosity.

Along the way, we hold up two paths after a fall: Judas’s despair and Peter’s tears. Both men failed; only one trusted love enough to come back. That trust becomes our Lenten practice—confess quickly, ask boldly, and let grace carry what effort cannot. We close with practical steps for the week, from fasting on Friday to small acts of mercy that keep our roots in living water. If this reflection moves you, share it with a friend, subscribe for the journey through Lent, and leave a review with one way you’re practicing humility today.

Transcript

How The Daily Practice Works

Reading Jeremiah On Trust

The Gospel Of Lazarus And The Rich Man

Opening Divine Intimacy

SPEAKER_00 0:30

Good morning, everyone. And welcome to Thursday of the second week of Lent, day sixteen, in our forty-six day long journey to uh to Easter here. Um, so today will be the last day of this week where I do so where I do this for with a professional mic and a professional webcam. Um, I'm not gonna say professional studio because it's a little messy right now. Um but um yeah, so I'll be traveling the remainder of the week here for my grandmother's funeral. Um, but we're still gonna do it. You just might have to suffer through a little. But it's Lent, so that's perfect, right? Considered a penance. Um, but anyways, we're gonna get into the readings from Mass for today and then the meditations from Divine Intimacy. And uh and we'll get going here. So I'll throw up an image on screen. You know, saying the same stuff day after day gets a little old, but you never know if someone's watching for the first time. So if you are joining us, what we do is I I read the the readings for mass, the the lesson or epistle followed by the gospel from the traditional missal uh for today. And then I read out of the book Divine Intimacy by uh let me just pull it up here by Father Gabriel of St. Mary Magdalene. He was a disgust uh Carmelite. Read the meditations from that, and then um I'll mention whatever comes to my head, I guess. Uh whatever nonsense is floating around in there afterwards. But I throw up an image on screen. There's nothing to look at or really watch, you just listen. Um, so you can do that on YouTube. Um, like I said, though, there's really not going to be anything to watch. Um, otherwise, you can do it on any of the audio podcast apps. So, without further ado, let me throw up this image on screen, and we'll get started with the readings from the traditional mass for Thursday of the second week of Lent here. Okay. So the lesson for today comes from Jeremiah 17. Thus saith the Lord God, Cursed be the man that trusteth in man, and maketh flesh his arm, and his heart departeth from the Lord. For he shall be like tamaric in the desert, and he shall not see when good shall come, but he shall dwell in dry dryness in the desert, in a salt land, and not inhabited. Blessed be the man that trusteth in the Lord, and the Lord shall be his confidence, and he shall be as a tree that is planted by the waters, that spreadeth out its roots towards moisture, and it shall not fear when the heat cometh, and the leaf thereof shall be green, and in the time of drought it shall not be solicitous, neither shall it cease at any time to bring forth fruit. The heart is perverse above all things, and unsearchable, who can know it? I am the Lord who searched the heart, improved the reins, who give to everyone according to his way, and according to the fruit of his devices, saith the Lord Almighty. Okay, now we'll read the gospel for today, which is Luke sixteen, nineteen through thirty one. At that time Jesus said to the Pharisees, There was a certain rich man who was clothed in purple and fine linen, and feasted sumptuously every day. There was a certain beggar named Lazarus, who lay at his gate full of sores, desiring to be filled with the crumbs that fell from the rich man's table, and no one did give him. Moreover, the dogs came and licked his sores. And it came to pass that the beggar died, and was carried by the angels into Abraham's bosom, and the rich man also died, and he was buried in hell. And lifting up his eyes when he was in when he was in torment, he saw Abraham far off, and Lazarus in his bosom, and he cried and said, Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus that he may dip the tip of his finger in water to cool my tongue, for I am tormented in this flame. And Abraham said to him, Son, remember that thou didst receive good things in thy lifetime, and likewise Lazarus is evil things. But now he is comforted, and thou art tormented. Besides all this, between us and you there is a fixed there is fixed a great chaos, so that they would pass from hence to you cannot, nor from thence come hither. And he said, Then father, I beseech thee that thou wouldst send him to my father's house, for I have five brethren, that he may testify unto them, lest they also come into this place of torment. And Abraham said to him, They have Moses and the prophets, let them hear them. But he said, No, Father Abraham, but if one shall go to them from the dead, they will do penance. And he said to them, If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they believe if one rose again from the dead. Okay, that's the Mass readings. Let me open up divine intimacy here now.

SPEAKER_01 6:17

Okay, let's see here.

Meditation: True Versus False Humility

SPEAKER_00 6:27

Humility in our falls. I am a beggar and poor. But the Lord is that But the Lord is careful for me, in the shadow of thy wings I will hope. Meditation one. If we contemplate our misery without raising our eyes to God, the Father of mercies, we will easily become discouraged. By examining ourselves thoroughly, we will see that discouragement always comes from two closely related causes. The first is that we always the first is that we depend upon our own strength. Through it our pride is wounded and deceived when we fall. The second is that we lack reliance on God. We do not think of referring to Him in times of prosperity, nor do we have recourse to Him when we fail Him. In short, we act by ourselves. We try to succeed alone, we fall alone, and alone we contemplate our fall. The result of such conduct can be can only be discouragement. Indeed, how could we expect to find ourselves find in ourselves the strength to rise again when it was our very want of strength that made us fall? God does not want us to act by ourselves. Woe to him that is alone, says sacred scripture, for when he falleth, he hath none to lift him up. Woe to him who relies only on his own strength to put his good resolutions into execution. When he falls, he will not have the aid of God's might to lift him up. Thus he will remain in his misery, confused and discouraged. Just as we should not make good resolutions without counting on God's help to keep them. By the same token, we should not view our failures without considering God's mercy at the same time. For as God is the only one who can help us persevere in good, so he alone can raise up raise us up from evil. That is why all the saints have taught that the knowledge of oneself must never be separated from the knowledge of God, and vice versa. Saint Teresa of Jesus says, the soul must sometimes emerge from self-knowledge and soar aloft a meditation upon the greatness and the majesty of its God. Doing this will help it to realize its own baseness better than thinking of its own nature, and it will be freer from the reptiles which enter the first rooms, that is, the rooms of self-knowledge. Meditation too. True humility, however deep it may be, neither disquiets nor troubles, nor disturbs the soul. It is accompanied by peace, joy, and tranquility. It enlarges it and makes it fit to serve God better. On the other hand, false humility only disturbs and upsets the mind and troubles the soul, so grievous is it. I think the devil is anxious for us to believe that we are humble, and if he can, he will lead us to distrust God. Distress and lack of confidence lessen our capacity for loving, and the devil's aim is to hold back souls on the road to love. He tries in this way to overcome those, especially who would never give in to open temptations to sin. In this case, we must react in a positive way. Recall as Saint Therese of the Child Jesus teaches, that what offends God and wounds his heart most is want of confidence. To be wanting in confidence in God's mercy, even after a grave fall, is never a sign of true humility, but of insidious pride and diabolical temptation. If Judas had been humble, he would have asked pardon and wept for his sins like Peter, instead of despairing. Humility is the virtue which keeps us in our place, and our place in God's sight is the and our place in God's sight is that of children who are weak and miserable. Yes, but confident children. When we fall into the same imperfections after so many good resolutions, when after many efforts we still do not succeed in correcting certain faults or in overcoming certain difficulties, and we find ourselves in one way or another far beneath what we ought or would like to be, let us have recourse to the infallible remedy of humility. Humility, says Saint Teresa of Jesus, is the ointment for our wounds. Yet if we seem to have used up all our strength, if we feel unable to do anything and see ourselves always prostrate, powerless to rise, there is still one possibility for us to humble ourselves. Let us humble ourselves sincerely and will and with confidence, and humility will supply for all our miseries, it will heal all our wounds because it will attract divine mercy to them.

The Colloquy On Mercy And Weakness

SPEAKER_01 11:34

And now the colloquy.

SPEAKER_00 11:44

I even glory in it, and expect every day to reveal some fresh imperfection. Indeed, these lights on my nothingness do me more good than lights on matters of faith. What an illusion. We wish never to fall. What difference does it make, O Lord, if I fall at every instant? It will make me realize my weakness, and I shall derive great profit from it. You see what I am capable of, O my God, and so you will be obliged to carry me in your arms. If you do not do so, it will mean that you are pleased to see me on the ground, but I shall not be disturbed. Full of love I shall always lift up my suppliant arms to you. I cannot believe that you will abandon me. O Jesus, it is true that I am not always faithful, but I never become discouraged. I cast myself into your arms, and like a little dew drop I sink deeper and deeper into your chalice, O divine flower of the field, and there I find all I have lost and much more besides. Yes, O my God, I am happy to feel little and weak in your presence, and my heart remains in peace. I am glad to feel so imperfect and to need your mercy so much. When we calmly accept the humiliation of being imperfect, your grace, O Lord, returns at once.

Applying Humility To Success

SPEAKER_01 13:04

Okay.

Judas And Peter As Contrasts

Personal Resolve And Lenten Practices

Closing And Friday Reminder

SPEAKER_00 13:12

There is. But I do observe these things. Uh I think a lot of people a lot of good Catholics are pretty good at being humble about our failures, right? I mean that's maybe for for a lot of people even that's an issue. But for a lot uh for for a lot of us that's not so hard. We recognize when we fail. You know, we we recognize our failings. And um and it's it's easy to it's easier, I should say, to be humble about that. Um to be honest with ourselves about that. But when we are succeeding, when we are doing well it's easy to instead of being humble, to be proud. It's easy to attribute that to ourselves, to our own uh intelligence, our own strength, you know, whatever. It's easy to attribute success to ourselves. Um, so so like humility, like in failures, being humble is attributing that failure to ourselves. But in success, being humble is attributing that success to someone or something else. Whereas I think those of us who find it easy to attribute our failures to ourselves sometimes also find it easy to attribute our success to ourselves instead of attributing any success or or grace or strength or skill that we have to to God. Um, and that's what humility is in that instance is attributing to when things are going well, still being humble and seeing that it it is all it is all from God. You know, then you have um, but there are definitely people who who do when who in failures um who maybe I'm not gonna I don't want to say attribute it to themselves too much, um, but when when they attribute failure to themselves, they they believe then that it that they have to rise out of that failure only by themselves too, right? And that's that's a sort of pride. And in Divine Intimacy talks about it, you know, he talks about talks about Judas, how Judas, when Judas fell, when Judas failed, when he betrayed our Lord, he was too proud to um to ask ask to be pardoned. He was too proud to ask for forgiveness, to ask for pardon and penance, and so instead he took his life. Um whereas Peter, Peter, who who is rash often, who um rushes to things, who who who can be proud in his successes and failures, right? You know, um, I think we see a lot of that in Peter. We also see um Peter's utter uh sorrow and repentance when when Peter does fail or or betray our Lord, um like when the cock crowed three times. So there is definitely a a dichotomy there um between Judas and Peter. You know, Peter wasn't the the perfect apostle, but he was definitely the um the antithesis in a way to to Judas. So yeah, there's lots of different sorts of humility or lots of different ways of showing the virtue of humility, of practicing the virtue of humility. So I know I need to work on not just being humble when I screw up, but being humble when I do something right, uh, especially because I definitely do feel pride in those instances, and I definitely don't attribute um successes to our Lord um because they really are his successes, um, they're not my own. Um so that's what I'm gonna be working on. That's what I'm taking away from it. Um so yeah, like I said, uh expect this to be done from somewhere in an Airbnb tomorrow off of a uh a laptop webcam and AirPods microphone. Um, but we'll get through it, right? So, anyways, thank you all. Hope you have a great day today. Um tomorrow is uh Lenten Friday, so be prepared to not eat meat tomorrow. And if you're able and willing, um maybe do a little extra fasting tomorrow, too. But anyways, thank you all. Have a have a great um great day today.