Today, February 28
Feast of the Day
No feast of the day
Saint of the Day
Readings of the Day
Book of Deuteronomy 26,16-19.
Moses spoke to the people, saying: "This day the LORD, your God, commands you to observe these statutes and decrees. Be careful, then, to observe them with all your heart and with all your soul. Today you are making this agreement with the LORD: he is to be your God and you are to walk in his ways and observe his statutes, commandments and decrees, and to hearken to his voice. And today the LORD is making this agreement with you: you are to be a people peculiarly his own, as he promised you; and provided you keep all his commandments, he will then raise you high in praise and renown and glory above all other nations he has made, and you will be a people sacred to the LORD, your God, as he promised."
Psalms 119(118),1-2.4-5.7-8.
Blessed are they whose way is blameless, who walk in the law of the LORD. Blessed are they who observe his decrees, Who seek him with all their heart. You have commanded that your precepts be diligently kept. Oh, that I might be firm in the ways of keeping your statutes! I will give you thanks with an upright heart, when I have learned your just ordinances. I will keep your statutes; do not utterly forsake me.
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint Matthew 5,43-48.
Jesus said to his disciples: "You have heard that it was said, You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy. But I say to you, love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your heavenly Father, for he makes his sun rise on the bad and the good, and causes rain to fall on the just and the unjust. For if you love those who love you, what recompense will you have? Do not the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet your brothers only, what is unusual about that? Do not the pagans do the same? So be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect."
Daily Reflection
Whence begins charity, brethren? Attend a little: to what it is perfected, you have heard; the very end of it, and the very measure of it is what the Lord has put before us in the Gospel: Greater love has no man, says He, than that one lay down his life for his friends. John 15:13 Its perfection, therefore, He has put before us in the Gospel, and here also it is its perfection that is put before us: but you ask yourselves, and say to yourselves, When shall it be possible for us to have this charity? Do not too soon despair of yourself. Haply, it is born and is not yet perfect; nourish it, that it be not choked. But you will say to me, And by what am I to know it? For to what it is perfected, we have heard; whence it begins, let us hear. He goes on to say: But whoever has this world's good, and sees his brother have hunger, and shuts up his bowels of compassion from him, how can the love of God dwell in him? 1 John 3:17 Lo, whence charity begins withal! If you are not yet equal to the dying for your brother, be even now equal to the giving of your means to your brother. Even now let charity smite your bowels, that not of vainglory you should do it, but of the innermost marrow of mercy; that you consider him, now in want. For if your superfluities you can not give to your brother, can you lay down your life for your brother? If the love of the Father abide not in you, you are not born of God. How do you boast to be a Christian? You have the name, and hast not the deeds. But if the work shall follow the name, let any call you pagan, show by deeds that you are a Christian. For if by deeds you do not show yourself a Christian, all men may call you a Christian yet; what does the name profit you where the thing is not forthcoming? But whoever has this world's good, and sees his brother have need, and shuts up his bowels of compassion from him, how can the love of God dwell in him? And then he goes on: My little children, let us not love in word, neither in tongue but in deed and in truth. 1 John 3:18