18 February 2026
Beware practicing piety to be seen; it’s already received its reward. Public prayer, visible fasting, conspicuous charity, all empty theater.
God sees what’s hidden and rewards what’s secret. The spiritual life flourishes in obscurity, away from applause, in the quiet places where only Love watches.
19 February 2026
Take up your cross daily; follow me into death. Whoever saves their life loses it, whoever loses it finds it.
The gospel doesn’t improve our life, it ends it, so real Life can begin. Discipleship is daily dying, hourly surrender, constant releasing of the self we’re trying to protect.
20 February 2026
Why fast when the bridegroom is present? Fasting is for absence, for longing, for the ache of waiting. But now he’s here, so feast.
Spiritual practices serve presence, not replace it. Sometimes the holy thing is not discipline but delight, not denial but celebration of the Word made flesh among us.
21 February 2026
Jesus calls a tax collector, eats with sinners, throws a party with the wrong people. I came not for the righteous but for sinners.
Religion attracts the sick who think they’re well; Jesus attracts the sick who know it. The Table is set for the broken who’ve stopped pretending otherwise.
22 February 2026
Jesus fasts forty days, then faces temptation: turn stones to bread, jump and be saved, worship and gain the world. Every test offers shortcuts to power without suffering, glory without cross.
The devil quotes scripture; demons know theology. True spiritual maturity is refusing the good in favor of the God.
23 February 2026
Whatever you did for the least, you did for me. Christ is hidden in the hungry, the stranger, the prisoner, the sick.
We’re judged not by our theology but our topology: where we stood in relation to suffering. Love of God is verified by love of neighbor; there’s no other test.
24 February 2026
Don’t heap up empty phrases like the pagans; your Father knows what you need. Prayer isn’t information for God but transformation for us.
The Lord’s Prayer is dangerously simple: daily bread, forgiveness, deliverance. We complicate prayer to avoid its implications, preferring religious talk to actual trust.