January 19 - Monday of the 2nd Week in Ordinary Time, Year II
Release Date: 01/18/2026
February 2 - Presentation of the Lord
The BreadCast
(Mal.3:1-4; Ps.24:7-10; Heb.2:14-18; Lk.2:22-40) “Suddenly there will come to the temple the Lord whom you seek.” “And He will purify the sons of Levi, refining them like gold or like silver that they may offer due sacrifice to the Lord.” “To expiate the sins of the people” He has come – to bring us light. But to do this “He had to become like His brothers and sisters in every way”; He had to “share in blood and flesh” with us, and so share in our death, to overcome death and make us holy in the sight of God, that...
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February 1 - Sunday of the 4th Week in Ordinary Time, Year A
The BreadCast
(Jer.1:4-5,17-19; Ps.71:1-6,15,17; 1Cor.12:31-13:13; Lk.4:21-30) “I am with you to deliver you, says the Lord.” When God calls Jeremiah to prophesy “against Judah’s kings and princes, against its priests and people,” He tells him to “gird [his] loins” and commands: “Be not crushed on their account.” For though his people “will fight against” him, they shall “not prevail over” him. The Lord makes Jeremiah “a fruitful city, a pillar of iron, a wall of brass” able to stand against attacks of any in...
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January 31 - Prayer to St. John Bosco
The BreadCast
O teacher and father of the children in your care, in whose hands they were not abandoned but held in patience by Christ’s love – teach us, too, to have that same patience, to have that same love for those the Lord places in our care, that anger shall be banished from our hearts and our minds, that the wisdom of Christ’s sacrifice you taught and lived we too might embody, and so serve in raising the kingdom of Heaven among the children of this earth. And pray that we, too, may know the Lord’s gentle word and touch upon our own souls and so grow into His likeness.
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January 31 - Saturday of the 3rd Week in Ordinary Time, Year II
The BreadCast
(2Sm.12:1-7,10-17; Ps.51:12-17; Mk.4:35-41) “I have sinned against the Lord.” David is the man who “took the poor man’s ewe lamb and made a meal of it for his visitor.” To feed his lust he has feasted on another man’s wife. And he sees the injustice of this; he recognizes his guilt when his sin is exposed. But why has he done it? “As the Lord lives, the man who has done this merits death!” And so David, too, has need of the true King and His cross to redeem him. What does the Lord say to David as he “lie[s] on the ground...
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January 30 - Friday of the 3rd Week in Ordinary Time, Year II
The BreadCast
(2Sm.11:1-10,13-17; Ps.51:3-7,10-11; Mk.4:26-34) “The seed sprouts and grows without his knowing how it happens.” Jesus in our gospel tells us of the kingdom of God and of its gradual growth without our knowing. Seed is scattered, the Word is sown in our souls, and as we “[go] to bed and [get] up day after day,” remaining in the presence of the Lord, good fruits little by little reveal themselves in our lives – till finally at the time of judgment we are gathered into the heavenly reign. Though small and humble seed, once we are sown in the...
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January 29 - Thursday of the 3rd Week in Ordinary Time, Year II
The BreadCast
(2Sm.7:18-19,24-29; Ps.132:1-2,3-5,11-14,Lk.1:32; Mk.4:21-25) “If your sons keep my covenant and the decrees which I shall teach them, their sons, too, forever shall sit upon your throne.” Yes, “the Lord has chosen Zion; He prefers her for His dwelling.” His blessings are upon His Church and its people, for “the Lord swore to David a firm promise from which He will not withdraw: ‘Your own offspring I will set upon your throne,’” and Jesus completes that promise by establishing the New Jerusalem in His Name. But we must exhibit the...
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January 28 - Prayer to St. Thomas Aquinas
The BreadCast
O wise doctor of the Church who ate the bread of angels in your long hours of prayer and study and writing and shared with us the knowledge you gained of the sublime truth of God, shedding the light of reason upon the faith we hold so dear – teach us this day to know God that we might better love and serve Him, that we might not be blind to His presence in our midst, to the holiness to which He calls us. Pray we shall enter into His Cross, His love, His obedience; pray we, too, might have knowledge, true knowledge of His grace and the everlasting life which is ours in Him… and pray the...
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January 28 - Wednesday of the 3rd Week in Ordinary Time, Year II
The BreadCast
(2Sm.7:4-17; Ps.89:4-5,27-30; Mk.4:1-20) “Your house and your kingdom shall endure forever before me; your throne shall stand firm forever.” David seems intent on establishing the Lord’s presence forever by building a permanent house in which He might dwell, but how well our God answers the great king’s thoughts with the promise of making “his posterity endure forever.” It is the Lord who establishes all, and so He states, “I will fix a place for my people Israel; I will plant them so that they may dwell in their place without further...
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January 27 - Prayer to St. Angela Merici
The BreadCast
O holy virgin and spiritual mother to the poorest of girls, whom you protected and guided in wisdom and love, keeping them from the snares of the world and raising them in Christ; you who fulfilled so well the twofold call to love God and save souls – pray for those who so easily go astray this day in a world of great corruption, where souls are in danger of being captured by the wiles of Satan and sin; and pray, too, that there shall be many who desire as you have, with the living love of God, to bring them into His fold.
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January 27 - Tuesday of the 3rd Week in Ordinary Time, Year II
The BreadCast
(2Sm.6:12-15,17-19; Ps.24:7-10; Mk.3:31-35) “Lift up, O gates, your lintels; reach up, you ancient portals, that the King of glory may come in!” In our first reading David leads all the Israelites in, “bringing up the ark of the Lord with shouts of joy and to the sound of the horn.” “Dancing before the Lord with abandon,” he brings the ark into Jerusalem and sets it within its tent or tabernacle. All celebrate this day as they surround the ark on its journey and as David “offers holocausts and peace offerings before the Lord,” the ark...
info_outline(1Sm.15:16-23; Ps.50:8-9,16-17,21,23; Mk.2:18-22)
“Does the Lord so delight in holocausts and sacrifices
as in obedience to the command of the Lord?
The answer to the question Samuel puts to Saul is, in a word, “No.” “Obedience is better than sacrifice, and submission than the fat of rams.” Nothing does the Lord deem greater than our hearing and heeding His Word, than our obedience to His will. And nothing will save us, nothing will preserve our place in His kingdom like our doing what He asks of us.
Saul loses his kingship for his disobedience to the command of the Lord. The Lord has told him to destroy the enemy he invades and all that belongs to them. Saul retains some of the animals to bring back for sacrifice to God. Why waste them? Why not honor God with them? Reasonable thoughts to the human mind, but not the will of God. And in heeding these thoughts is revealed the seed of Saul’s rebellion against God, which will lead to his attempts to destroy the king (David) the Lord has chosen to replace him, and end in his own suicide.
How prone the human mind is to favor its own counsels against those of God. How foolish seem submission and obedience, especially when they go against our own logic. But David will show the humility God desires in those He would bless. “To him that goes the right way I will show the salvation of God,” He promises us. David will be one who does not hate the discipline of the Lord or cast His words behind his back. When all justification is present for his killing Saul, who hunts down God’s chosen like an animal, he forgoes every opportunity, respecting his pursuer as God’s anointed. How different his attitude from Saul’s, he who “rejected the command of the Lord” by taking matters in his own soiled hands.
The blessing obedience is, the transcendent joy of joining oneself to the will of the Lord, is evident in our gospel as well, in Jesus’ teaching that “new wine is poured into new skins” and not old. Fasting is a blessed sacrifice provided by the law and by God. But as wholesome as this practice, or any other religious observance, can be, it does not supersede being present to the Lord. If we are not present to Him, all our works become empty. The disciples are so close to Jesus, so happy to be in His company, it is as if they have stepped into heaven – and so how can the law’s prescription for fasting touch them in a place where fasting is no longer necessary? Indeed, they shall fast upon His death, and we know our great saints have performed great fasts and sacrifices in the Name of the Lord and for His glory… but first the grace of God must be with us all, or all becomes empty show.
It is the new wine of which we drink now, brothers and sisters; it is the Word become whole which is ours. Let us now be obedient to the Lord’s command, and all we do will be joy for us and for our God.
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O LORD, make of us new wineskins
that we might bear your Word within ourselves.
YHWH, let us not question your Word or your will but walk in your way, for only by such obedience will we find salvation. Let us not pull away from you or presume our thoughts above your own. For in such foolishness we shall surely die – how can we remain if rejected by you?
And surely shall our rejection come if we fail to listen to your command and do your bidding. For your command is life to us, O LORD, and following in your way our means to glory; thus we will be without hope if we turn from your discipline.
Let us listen to Jesus, Him whom you have sent as Bridegroom among us. In His presence our hearts rejoice, and apart from Him we can only fast. But in feasting and in sacrifice He is our treasure; Him do we love. And so, let us be obedient to His teaching, LORD, that your blessing we might ever find.