Praying the Lauds - Your Daily Christian Morning Prayer

LISTEN | Morning Prayer - February 28, 2023 | Tuesday in the First Week of Lent Lent is a good time to seek the Lord. It is a special time of divine mercy and grace. The Church, acting as God's prophet, calls us to return to the Lord by true penance. The word of God which is sown so abundantly during Lent should grow and bear fruit in us if we have really prepared ourselves by fasting and discipli...

LISTEN | Morning Prayer - February 27, 2023 | Monday in the First Week of Lent Ash Wednesday, the days immediately following, and the first two weeks of Lent are penitential in character. Our liturgy invites us to examine the areas in our life that needs purification, if we are to deepen our friendship with Jesus. At the start of this first full week of Lent, we are reminded that good works - as w...

LISTEN | Morning Prayer - February 26, 2023 | First Sunday of Lent "One does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes forth from the mouth of God." - Matthew 4:4B Jesus, truly a man like us, was tempted by the devil while fasting in the wilderness. He resists these temptations because of his adherence to the word of God and because of his faith in God. We too are called to be faithful...

LISTEN | Morning Prayer - February 25, 2023 | Saturday After Ash Wednesday "I have not come to call the righteous to repentance but sinners." - Luke 5:32 The Word of God is not just for those who believe and live their lives in accordance with his wishes, for they are not in need of conversion. It is especially for those who acknowledge their sins before God and their need for His love and mercy i...

LISTEN | Morning Prayer - February 24, 2023 | Friday After Ash Wednesday "The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast." - Mt. 9:15 We cannot be Christians by halves. Conversion will always cost us something. It should pervade not only aspects of our life, but all of it. When we decided to follow Jesus, it means following him even to the cross. With his p...

LISTEN | Morning Prayer - February 23, 2023 | Thursday After Ash Wednesday "Repent, says the Lord; the Kingdom of heaven is at hand." - Mt. 4:17 What is your Lenten program? In this second day of Lent, we get down to work on our spiritual itinerary and identify the areas in our life we want to work on for God's purification and renewal. At this early part of Lent, we are encouraged to reflect on w...

LISTEN | Morning Prayer - February 22, 2023 | Ash Wednesday "If today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts." - Ps. 95:8 The time has now come in the Church year for the solemn observance of the great central act of history, the redemption of the human race by our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. In the Roman Rite, the beginning of the forty days of penance is marked with the austere symbol of a...

LISTEN | Morning Prayer - February 21, 2023 | Tuesday in the Seventh Week in Ordinary Time "If anyone wishes to be first, he shall be the last of all and the servant of all." - Mark 9:35 When we aspire to serve the Lord, we must be ready to embrace the demands and challenges in serving others, as our way of loving God. Let us be steadfast in faith, trusting in the Lord's help to direct our ways of...

LISTEN | Morning Prayer - February 20, 2023 | Monday in the Seventh Week in Ordinary Time "I do believe, help my unbelief!" - Mark 9:24 Faith seems easy until we are in the midst of challenging situations that demand and test the genuineness of our faith. It is especially in these moments of helplessness that we are invited to come to the Lord in deep humility, holding on to the hope and certainty...

LISTEN | Morning Prayer - February 19, 2023 | Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time / Pontifical Work of St. Peter the Apostle (Opus Sancti Petri) "Be holy, for I, the LORD, your God, am holy." - Lev. 19:2 Each of us is called to holiness. As God's children, we ground this call in His unconditional love for us, acknowledging that we need the grace of the Holy Spirit to fill us with the gifts we need to...

LISTEN | Morning Prayer - February 18, 2023 | Saturday Memorial of the Blessed Virgin Mary "Without faith it is impossible to please (God), for anyone who approaches him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him." - Hebrews 11:6 It is only by faith that we can become one with the Father. We cannot please God in anything we do unless we believe in Him. Mary is our true mode...

LISTEN | Morning Prayer - February 17, 2023 | Friday in the Sixth Week in Ordinary Time "Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me." - Mark 8:29 Every disciple is called to love until he loses himself. Too often, the world offers a distorted kind of self-love that is idolatrous. Jesus proposes a better one: to realize ourselves as a gift means openness and...

LISTEN | Morning Prayer - February 16, 2023 | Thursday in the Sixth Week in Ordinary Time "Who do you say that I am?" - Mark 8:29 As Jesus asked his disciples, so He is also asking us. How have you personally experienced the Lord in your life? God is indeed a powerful God who heals our sicknesses, intervenes in our life, and solves our problems. But we must remember that His way is through the cro...

LISTEN | Morning Prayer - February 15, 2023 | Wednesday in the Sixth Week in Ordinary Time "To you, Lord, I will offer a sacrifice of praise." - Ps. 116:17 Everyday, God blesses us beyond what we can imagine and it takes the eyes of faith to recognize these blessings. Today is a new day to give thanks to God for all that we have received in life no matter how trivial it may seem, remembering also...

LISTEN | Morning Prayer - February 14, 2023 | Memorial of Saints Cyril, monk, and Methodius, Bishop "These are holy men who became friends of God, glorious heralds of divine truth." - Entrance antiphon St. Cyril (827-869) was a priest and a philosopher and accompanied his brother St. Methodius (826-885) to Moravia to preach the Gospel. They both perfected a Slavonic alphabet which is now known as...

LISTEN | Morning Prayer - February 13, 2023 | Monday in the Sixth Week in Ordinary Time  "Be kind to me Lord, and I shall live." - Ps. 119 How many more signs do we need to believe that God is present in our life? As we start a new week, let us recall the many signs with which God manifests his infinite loving mercy to us. Let us pray that the Lord may make our faith in Him grow deeper and de...

LISTEN | Morning Prayer - February 12, 2023 | Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time  "I have come not to annul (the Law) but to fulfill them." - Mt 5:17 How have you experienced God's love today? Opening ourselves to God's daily manifestations of love helps us grow in faith, and enables us to share that love generously to others without counting the cost. When we immerse ourselves in God's unconditio...

LISTEN | Morning Prayer - February 11, 2023 | Memorial of Our Lady of Lourdes "Blessed is the womb of the Virgin Mary, which bore the Son of the eternal Father." - Luke 11:27 The Church celebrates the Optional Memorial of Our Lady of Lourdes today, marking the first apparition of the Blessed Virgin Mary in 1858 to fourteen-year-old Marie Bernade (St. Bernadette) Soubirous. Between February 11 and...

LISTEN | Morning Prayer - February 10, 2023 | Memorial of St. Scholastica, Virgin "The holy virgins praise their Lord and King; come, let us join in their worship." - antiphon St. Scholastica (480-547) was the twin sister of St. Benedict, the Patriarch of Western monasticism. She was born in Umbria, Italy, about 480. Under Benedict's direction, Scholastica founded a community of nuns near the grea...

LISTEN | Morning Prayer - February 9, 2023 | Thursday of the Fifth Week in Ordinary Time "Awake, lyre and harp, with praise let us awake the dawn" - antiphon All-powerful and ever-living God, at morning, noon, and evening we pray: cast out from our hearts the darkness of sin and bring us to the light of your truth, Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and...

LISTEN | Morning Prayer - February 8, 2023 | Wednesday of the Fifth Week in Ordinary Time "The LORD God formed man out of the clay of the ground and blew into his nostrils the breath of life, and so man became a living being." - Genesis 2:2 The breath of God is our breath of life. Within each one of us is the capacity for beauty, goodness and love. Let us draw out from the source of all goodness,...

LISTEN | Morning Prayer - February 7, 2023 | Tuesday of the Fifth Week in Ordinary Time "O Lord, our God, how wonderful your name in all the earth!" - Ps. 8:2 God created us out of His goodness and love and we give praise to Him for all His magnificent creation. As stewards of His gifts, He has entrusted us to take care of the earth on His behalf in the way in which He intends. Let us listen more...

LISTEN | Morning Prayer - February 6, 2023 | Memorial of St. Paul Miki and Companions, Martyrs " Blessed are those who suffer persecution for the sake of justice; the kingdom of heaven is theirs. " - Gospel canticle Paul Miki, a Japanese Jesuit, and his twenty-five companions (d. 1597) were martyred in Nagasaki, Japan. They were the first martyrs of East Asia to be canonized. They were killed simu...

LISTEN | Morning Prayer - February 5, 2023 | Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time "The just man is a light in darkness to the upright." - Psalm 112:4a Jesus promises the light of life to those who will follow Him. He instructed his disciples to share that light to others so that they may experience God's presence among them. Today, we too are invited to become modern day heralds of the Good News and we t...

LISTEN | Morning Prayer - February 4, 2023 | Saturday Memorial of the Blessed Virgin Mary "When Jesus disembarked and saw the vast crowd, his heart was moved with pity for them, for they were like sheep without a shepherd; and he began to teach them many things." - Mark 6:34 At some point in our lives, we may feel lost and abandoned amidst all the challenges of the world today and we see so many f...