Tuesday of the Fourth week of Lent

Book of Ezekiel

47,1-9.12.

The angel brought me, Ezekiel, back to the entrance of the temple of the LORD, and I saw water flowing out from beneath the threshold of the temple toward the east, for the façade of the temple was toward the east; the water flowed down from the right side of the temple, south of the altar.
He led me outside by the north gate, and around to the outer gate facing the east, where I saw water trickling from the southern side.
Then when he had walked off to the east with a measuring cord in his hand, he measured off a thousand cubits and had me wade through the water, which was ankle-deep.
He measured off another thousand and once more had me wade through the water, which was now knee-deep. Again he measured off a thousand and had me wade; the water was up to my waist.
Once more he measured off a thousand, but there was now a river through which I could not wade; for the water had risen so high it had become a river that could not be crossed except by swimming.
He asked me, "Have you seen this, son of man?" Then he brought me to the bank of the river, where he had me sit.
Along the bank of the river I saw very many trees on both sides.
He said to me, "This water flows into the eastern district down upon the Arabah, and empties into the sea, the salt waters, which it makes fresh.
Wherever the river flows, every sort of living creature that can multiply shall live, and there shall be abundant fish, for wherever this water comes the sea shall be made fresh.
Along both banks of the river, fruit trees of every kind shall grow; their leaves shall not fade, nor their fruit fail. Every month they shall bear fresh fruit, for they shall be watered by the flow from the sanctuary. Their fruit shall serve for food, and their leaves for medicine."

Psalms

46(45),2-3.5-6.8-9.

God is our refuge and our strength,
an ever-present help in distress.
Therefore, we fear not, though the earth be shaken
and mountains plunge into the depths of the sea.
There is a stream whose runlets gladden the city of God,
the holy dwelling of the Most High.
God is in its midst; it shall not be disturbed;
God will help it at the break of dawn.
The LORD of hosts is with us;
our stronghold is the God of Jacob.
Come! behold the deeds of the LORD,
the astounding things he has wrought on earth.

Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint John

5,1-16.

There was a feast of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem.
Now there is in Jerusalem at the Sheep (Gate) a pool called in Hebrew Bethesda, with five porticoes.
In these lay a large number of ill, blind, lame, and crippled.
One man was there who had been ill for thirty-eight years.
When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had been ill for a long time, he said to him, "Do you want to be well?"
The sick man answered him, "Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up; while I am on my way, someone else gets down there before me."
Jesus said to him, "Rise, take up your mat, and walk."
Immediately the man became well, took up his mat, and walked. Now that day was a sabbath.
So the Jews said to the man who was cured, "It is the sabbath, and it is not lawful for you to carry your mat."
He answered them, "The man who made me well told me, 'Take up your mat and walk.'"
They asked him, "Who is the man who told you, 'Take it up and walk'?"
The man who was healed did not know who it was, for Jesus had slipped away, since there was a crowd there.
After this Jesus found him in the temple area and said to him, "Look, you are well; do not sin any more, so that nothing worse may happen to you."
The man went and told the Jews that Jesus was the one who had made him well.
Therefore, the Jews began to persecute Jesus because he did this on a sabbath.

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St. Luigi Orione(Priest (1872-1940))

Saint Luigi Orione Priest (1872-1940) St. Luigi Orione was born in Pontecurone, the diocese of Tortona, on June 23, 1872. At the age of 13, he entered the Franciscan Friary of Voghera (Pavia), but he left after one year because of poor health. From 1886 to 1889, he was a pupil of St. John Bosco at the Valdocco Oratory (Youth Center) in Turin. On October 16, 1889, Luigi joined the diocesan seminary of Tortona. As a young seminarian, he devoted himself to the care of others through membership in the San Marziano Society for Mutual Help and the Society of Saint Vincent de Paul. On July 3, 1892, he opened the first Oratory in Tortona for the Christian formation of boys. On October 15, 1893, he started a boarding school for poor boys in the Saint Bernardine estate. On April 13, 1895, Luigi Orione was ordained a priest. At the event, the bishop gave the clerical habit to six pupils of the boarding school. Soon after, Fr. Luigi opened new houses in Mornico Losana (Pavia), Noto in Sicily, Sanremo and Rome. Around the young Founder, there grew up seminarians and priests who made up the first core group of the Little Work of Divine Providence. In 1899, Fr. Luigi founded the branch of the Hermits of Divine Providence. The bishop of Tortona, Mgr. Igino Bandi, by a decree on March 21, 1903, issued the canonical approval of the Sons of Divine Providence (priests, lay brothers and hermits) - the male congregation of the Little Work of Divine Providence. The congregation's aim is to "co-operate to bring the little ones, the poor and the people, to the Church and to the Pope, by means of the works of charity," and professes a fourth vow of special "faithfulness to the Pope." In the first Constitutions of 1904, among the aims of the new Congregation, there appears that of working to "achieve the union of the separated Churches." Inspired by a profound love for the Church and for the salvation of souls, Fr. Luigi was actively interested in the new problems of his time, such as the freedom and unity of the Church, the Roman question, modernism, socialism and the Christian evangelization of industrial workers.He rushed to assist the victims of the earthquakes of Reggio and Messina (1908) and the Marsica region (1915). Saint Pius X afterward appointed him as vicar general of the Diocese of Messina for three years. On June 29, 1915, twenty years after the foundation of the Sons of Divine Providence, Fr. Luigi added to the "single tree of many branches" the Congregation of the Little Missionary Sisters of Charity who are inspired by the same founding charism. Alongside them, he placed the Blind Sisters, Adorers of the Blessed Sacrament. Later, the Contemplative Sisters of Jesus Crucified were also founded.For lay people, he set up the associations of the "Ladies of Divine Providence," the "Former Pupils," and the "Friends." More recently, the Don Orione Secular Institute and the Don Orione Lay People's Movement have come into being. Following the First World War (1914-1918), the number of schools, boarding houses, agricultural schools, charitable and welfare works increased. Among his most enterprising and original works, he set up the "Little Cottolengos" for the care of the suffering and abandoned, which were usually built on the outskirts of large cities to act as "new pulpits" from which to speak of Christ and of the Church - "true beacons of faith and of civilization." Don Orione's missionary zeal, which had already manifested itself in 1913 when he sent his first religious to Brazil, expanded subsequently to Argentina and Uruguay (1921), Palestine (1921), Poland (1923), Rhodes (1925), the USA (1934), England (1935) and Albania (1936). From 1921 to 1922 and from 1934 to 1937, he made two missionary journeys to Latin America: to Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay and Chile. Fr. Luigi was respected by the popes and the Holy See's authorities, who entrusted him with confidential tasks of sorting out problems and healing wounds, both inside the Church and in society. He was a preacher, a confessor and a tireless organiser of pilgrimages, missions, processions, live cribs and other popular manifestations and celebrations of the faith. He loved Our Lady deeply and fostered devotion to her by every means possible. Through the manual labor of his seminarians, the shrines of Our Lady of Safe Keeping in Tortona and Our Lady of Caravaggio in Fumo were built. In the winter of 1940, with the intention of easing the heart and lung complaints that were troubling him, he went to the Sanremo house, even though, as he said, "it is not among the palm trees that I would like to die, but among the poor who are Jesus Christ." Only three days later, on March 12, 1940, surrounded by his confreres, Fr. Luigi passed away while sighing, "Jesus, Jesus! I am going." St. Luigi's body was found uncorrupted at its first exhumation in 1965. It has been exposed to the veneration of the faithful in the shrine of Our Lady of Safe Keeping in Tortona ever since October 26, 1980 - the day in which Pope John Paul II inscribed St. Luigi Orione in the Book of the Blessed. He was canonized on May 16, 2004.

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St. Maximilian()

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misalcatolico.com

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