Day: March 9, 2020

Saint Frances of Rome

Widow
(1384-1440)

Frances was born in Rome in 1384. Her parents, of high rank, overruled her desire to become a nun, and when she reached the age of twelve, married her to Lorenzo Ponziano, a Roman noble. During the forty years of their married life they never had a disagreement. While spending her days in retirement and prayer, Saint Frances attended promptly to every household duty, saying, A married woman must leave God at the altar to find Him in her domestic cares. She once found the verse of a psalm, at which she had been four times thus interrupted, completed for her in letters of gold. Her ordinary food was dry bread, and secretly she would exchange with beggars good food for their hard crusts. Continue reading →

Meditations for Each Day of Lent by St. Thomas Aquinas

Monday After the Second Sunday

It was fitting that our Lord should suffer at the hands of the Gentiles

They shall deliver Him to the Gentiles to be mocked., and scourged and crucified.–Matt. xx. 19.

In the very manner of the Passion of Our Lord its effects are foreshadowed. In the first place, the Passion of Our Lord had for its effect the salvation of Jews, many of whom were baptised in His death. Continue reading →