The Collect for the Feast of the Holy Family

O God, Who were pleased to give us the shining example of the Holy Family, graciously grant that we may imitate them in practicing the virtues of family life and in the bonds of charity, and so, in the joy of Your house, delight one day in eternal rewards. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, Your Son, Who lives and reigns with You in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

the shining example of the Holy Family – For thirty years, Jesus lived His life in a family. He prayed with Mary and Joseph, worked with them, played with them, shared meals with them, and spent His time relaxing in their company. Jesus was even obedient to His earthly parents. Imagine that. The Son of God submitted Himself to Mary and Joseph's loving guidance and obeyed them. This is indeed a shining example of family life, an example of love and respect, enjoyment and docility, community and harmony, that we should strive to imitate.

practicing the virtues of family life – What are these virtues of family life? Exactly those that are listed above: first of all, love, then respect, enjoyment of one another, docility to each other, community, and harmony with each other. These virtues are practiced in the context of the theological virtues, faith, hope, and love, so that our family life may enter into the divine life of God.

in the bonds of charity – When most people hear the word “charity,” they automatically think about giving to the poor. While alms are indeed an important expression of charity, they certainly do not contain the entire meaning of the word. Charity is self-giving love, the kind of love that imitates and participates in God's love, the love through which the Father gave His only Son for us.

in the joy of Your house – In John 14:2, Jesus assures us, “In My Father's house there are many dwelling places,” and Jesus is going to prepare a place perfectly suited to each one of us that we may be where He is for all eternity. There we will experience perfect, pure joy.

delight one day in eternal rewards – Why are so many people afraid to die? Isn't death our ticket home to Heaven, to the delight our Lord has prepared for us, to the full enjoyment of His presence? Certainly we should respect and care for the earthly bodies God has given to us, but they are not permanent, and they must, therefore, take a back seat to our spirits, souls, and minds. Our physical health is important, but it is not nearly as important as our spiritual, mental, and emotional health. Our bodies will die one day; our souls will continue to live. Our first desire must always be to get to Heaven and to immerse ourselves in God and His eternal life and love.

Collect for the Fourth Week of Advent

O God, eternal majesty, Whose ineffable Word the immaculate Virgin received through the message of an Angel and so became the dwelling-place of divinity, filled with the light of the Holy Spirit, grant, we pray, that by her example we may in humility hold fast to Your will. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, Your Son, Who lives and reigns with You in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

O God, eternal majesty – The phrase “eternal majesty” focuses our attention on the transcendence of God. He is infinitely far above us, so far that our human minds cannot reach. We can know that He exists with our human reason, and we can discern a few of His qualities, but we run into limits quickly.

Whose ineffable Word – God, therefore, reveals Himself to us, first through the Law and the Prophets and the Wisdom books that make up the Old Testament and then, definitely, through His divine Son, the Word of God, Whose story is told in the New Testament. Yet this Word, this Son, is God, and is therefore ineffable, incapable of being fully expressed or described in words. We must get to know Him personally, experience His love, and immerse ourselves in His life.

the immaculate Virgin received through the message of an Angel – This part of the prayer invites us to meditate on the annunciation. Picture Mary rapt in prayer and the angel Gabriel appearing before her, calling her “you who have been filled with grace,” and telling her that she is to be the mother of the Son of the Most High, the Messiah, the Davidic King promised long ago. Mary is sinless and perfectly open to this message from God, yet she wonders and ponders. “How can this be?” she asks Gabriel. She does not doubt, but she wants to know more, and the angel honors her question. The Holy Spirit will overshadow Mary, just as He overshadowed the void during the creation, and a new creation will enter into her womb, God-made-Man, the Incarnate Word.

so became the dwelling-place of divinity – God did not force Mary; she freely chose to accept His message and to become the Mother of God. She welcomed the divine Son into her body. She became the tabernacle of God, the new Ark of the Covenant, the dwelling-place of God-made-Man. For nine months, she cherished Him, nourished Him, sheltered Him in her body. We, too, become tabernacles of the living God, for when we are baptized, His divine presence enters into our souls, and when we receive Him in the Eucharist, we accept Him into our very bodies as well as our souls and hold Him within us.

filled with the light of the Holy Spirit – The Holy Spirit overshadowed Mary at the Incarnation, but paradoxically, His shadow is the brightest of lights. We must pray to be filled with the light of the Holy Spirit that He may enlighten our minds for truth and our wills for love.

by her example – We should look to Mary as the prime example of a human being perfectly in sync with God. She never once went against His will in anything she thought, said, or did. She remained completely in His grace at all times, preserved from original sin at her conception through the anticipated merits of her Son and upheld in grace by her cooperation with God's outpouring of love.

we may in humility hold fast to Your will – This is our goal, to embrace Mary's humility and to remain always in God's will. We are such fragile creatures. We fall so easily. And sometimes we don't realize this. We think we're strong and independent, a match for whatever life throws at us. But then we fall, following our own will instead of God's. Humility helps us recognize that God knows exactly what is best for us, even when we don't think so. In His will is our salvation and sanctification and more love than we can ever imagine.

The Collect for the Third Week of Advent

O God, Who see how Your people faithfully await the feast of the Lord's Nativity, enable us, we pray, to attain the joys of so great a salvation and to celebrate them always with solemn worship and glad rejoicing. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, Your Son, Who lives and reigns with You in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

see how Your people faithfully await the feast of the Lord's nativity – Are we eagerly, faithfully awaiting Christmas? Are we looking forward to celebrating our Lord's birth, to inviting Him to be born into our hearts and souls in a new, more intense, more intimate way? Are we preparing our hearts to receive Him? Do we remember that our Lord is watching us, not waiting with a checklist to jot down everything we have done, right or wrong, but rather waiting eagerly to come to us and to shower us with His love?

enable us...to attain the joys of so great a salvation – What joy we should experience when we reflect on what God has done for us and what He has in store for those who remain in His grace! When we live in His grace, when God dwells within our souls, we can start living eternal life and its joy right now. We can feel within us that peaceful contentment, that twinge of pure delight, that comes from intimacy with God. This is the joy that no one can take away from us if we decide to hold fast to it and remain in our Lord. It is the joy that will find its fulfillment in Heaven.

to celebrate them always – This prayer reminds us to celebrate our joys, to celebrate God's gift of salvation. These days, the word “celebrate” is often associated with parties or excitement about good news, but the original meaning of the word as it developed in English in the mid-fifteenth century is “to perform publicly with appropriate rites” as in (and especially) the celebration of the Mass. The English word comes from the Latin participle celebratus, “kept solemn” or “much-frequented,” and its verb celebrare, “to assemble to honor,” “to publish,” or “to sing praises of.” To celebrate our joys, then, means to express them solemnly and to sing the praises of the One Who has given them to us and to do so especially in the Mass.

with solemn worship and glad rejoicing – Indeed, this prayer captures the deeper definition of “celebrate” by telling us how to celebrate. We worship God, and we rejoice with great gladness in recognition of Who He is and what He has done for us. Solemnity and rejoicing don't seem to fit well together, but solemnity, seriousness, or formality certainly does not exclude joy. In fact, sometimes such solemnity, a solemnity that arises from wonder and awe in the presence of God, can lead to even greater joy, for we realize, even in our limited way, how truly amazing, how truly mighty, how truly perfect He is.

The Collect for the Second Week of Advent

Almighty and merciful God, may no earthly undertaking hinder those who set out in haste to meet Your Son, but may our learning of heavenly wisdom gain us admittance to His company. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, Your Son, Who lives and reigns with You in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

Almighty and merciful God – Isn't it wonderful to be able to reflect on how God is both almighty and merciful? He has the power to do whatever He wills, yet He wills to reach out to us in love, to forgive our sins, and to send His Son to die on the cross for our salvation.

may no earthly undertaking hinder – It's so easy to get caught up in the things of this world and forget God. There are so many temptations, so many human longings, so many distractions that pull our attention away from Him. We need God's grace that earthly things may not get in our way, may not hinder us in our journey toward eternal life, may not lead us away from God and into the mire of sin. This isn't to say that what we do here on earth is all bad. Of course it isn't! Yet we must keep the things of this world firmly in their place, that is, secondary to God and our love and service to Him.

set out in haste to meet Your Son – Are we eagerly running toward Jesus? Or are we slogging along, shuffling our feet and stopping periodically (or all the time) to gaze at some distraction? Jesus, may we hurry to meet You, keeping our eyes fixed on You at all times.

may our learning of heavenly wisdom – What is this heavenly wisdom? It is getting to know God and the plan of salvation His love sets before us. It is immersing ourselves in the sacraments. It is growing in familiarity and appreciation for God's Word in the Scriptures. It is praying to grow closer and closer to God and to see the world more and more through His perspective (as much as we can in our limited human nature). It is keeping our eyes, our minds, and our hearts on God.

gain us admittance to His company – Just reflect on this for a moment. Here is the goal of our entire existence. We want to spend eternity in the company of Jesus, face to face with Him, immersed in His love.

The Collect for the First Week of Advent

Grant Your faithful, we pray, almighty God, the resolve to run forth to meet Your Christ with righteous deeds at His coming, so that, gathered at His right hand, they may be worthy to possess the heavenly Kingdom. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, Your Son, Who lives and reigns with You in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

Your faithful – We are God's faithful. Think for a moment about what that means. Faith is both a divine gift and a human act. Our faith comes from God. It is a theological virtue, infused into our souls. But it is also our response to that gift. We must accept, embrace, apply, and develop the faith God has given us. Then we will truly merit to be called His faithful.

the resolve to run forth to meet Your Christ – Here is the first request we make in this collect. We ask God for resolve, for a firm determination, a set purpose, a solid intention. We need God's help with this as much as with everything else. We are weak. We waver. We make plans and have great ideas but then fail to carry them out. That's why we need God to strengthen our resolve. Our resolve to do what? To run to meet Jesus! To be ready when He comes for us. This may happen at the end of time, if such occurs during our lifetime, but it will certainly happen when we die. Advent helps us prepare the way for Christ in our hearts that we will be ready to run into His arms whenever He calls us home.

with righteous deeds – Of course, there is no way we can ever earn our salvation. We are saved by God's grace alone. Yet we have a responsibility to cooperate with that grace, and that means obeying our Lord when He tells us to love other people and express our love for them in good works. When Jesus calls us to Him, we bring these works along with us as our gift to Him.

gathered at His right hand – These words suggest the judgment scene from Matthew 25. We want to be among those at Jesus' right hand, in the place of His favor. How do we get there? We have faith in Him, and we live out our faith by obeying Him and caring for the needs of others.

may be worthy to possess the heavenly Kingdom – Jesus is the one Who makes us worthy by His grace and love, expressed to the max in His life, passion, death, and resurrection. But again, we must accept His love and grace and live them out in our lives. Then we will be ready to go home to the kingdom of Heaven. We will be ready to receive our inheritance, the place God has prepared for us from eternity, that we may live in His loving presence forever.

The Collect for Christ the King Sunday

Almighty ever-living God, Whose will is to restore all things in Your beloved Son, the King of the universe, grant, we pray, that the whole creation, set free from slavery, may render Your Majesty service and ceaselessly proclaim Your praise. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, Your Son, Who lives and reigns with You in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

Whose will is to restore all things in Your beloved Son – You are already being restored in Christ. When you were baptized, you sacramentally entered into His death and rose with Him in His resurrection. You received His sanctifying grace, God's indwelling presence in your very soul. Even when you sin and weaken or even destroy your relationship with God, He restores that relationship when you turn back to Him, repenting and confessing your sins. Someday, at the end of time, God will fully restore all things in Christ. He will raise up our bodies and join them to our resurrected souls, and He will recreate a new Heaven and a new earth to be our home forever.

the King of the universe – Jesus Christ is King of all, of every time and every place, of all peoples, of the entire universe. What's more, He wants to be the King of your heart. Will you let Him?

the whole creation, set free from slavery – In Romans 8:19-23, St. Paul writes, “For creation awaits with eager expectation the revelation of the children of God; for creation was made subject to futility, not of its own accord but because of the one who subjected it, in hope that creation itself would be set free from slavery to corruption and share in the glorious freedom of the children of God. We know that all creation is groaning in labor pains even until now; and not only that, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, we also groan within ourselves as we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies.” When the first human beings sinned, creation fell along with them. This is why there are things like natural disasters and diseases. Now creation awaits its own restoration to freedom at the Second Coming of Christ, groaning with us as we wait for the final incorporation of all things into God. Of course, we have already been set free from slavery to sin and death, but we must choose to accept and live out our freedom.

may render Your Majesty service – We are called to serve God, to place our lives in His hands and obey His will, to love Him with all our hearts and to love our neighbor in Him. How well do we serve our loving Lord?

ceaselessly proclaim Your praise – We are also called to worship God. Indeed, this is part of our service to Him. We must proclaim how wonderful, how amazing, how utterly marvelous He is, and we must mean it with our whole hearts. We must break out in streams of gratitude for what God has done for us and of adoration simply for Who He is. We limited, weak human beings can never love God as much as He loves us (for He loves us infinitely), but we must at least make the effort to love Him as much as we can and to praise Him without end, for when we do that, we begin to live Heaven right now.

The Collect for the Thirty-Third Week in Ordinary Time

Grant us, we pray, O Lord our God, the constant gladness of being devoted to You, for it is full and lasting happiness to serve with constancy the Author of all that is good. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, Your Son, Who lives and reigns with You in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

the constant gladness of being devoted to You – Are we devoted to God with constant gladness? Are we content in His presence, thankful to be able to pray to Him and worship Him? We don't normally think about our devotion to God in these terms. Devotion may seem like something solemn and serious, and indeed it is. But it is also a source of joy. God wants us to be glad in Him, to take delight in His love, to be cheerful in our prayer, and to find our pleasure in Him above all.

full and lasting happiness to serve with constancy – The things of this world will never make us truly and fully happy. We might enjoy them and take some satisfaction in them, but this kind of “happiness” quickly fades. Our real happiness, the happiness that will remain no matter what our situation, lies in God. Only in loving and serving Him, constantly and with all our hearts, do we find true, full, and lasting happiness.

the Author of all that is good – God has created all that is good, and all that He has created is good. If this is true, we may wonder why we suffer and why there is evil in the world. First off, God did not create evil. He is not the author of evil. Evil is a deprivation of good or a corruption of something good like blindness is the deprivation of sight or an infection is a corruption of healthy skin. We bring about and choose evil by our own free will, and God permits it because He gave us that free will to start with. He does not violate our freedom to choose. But, thanks be to God, He can and does bring good even out of the evil we get ourselves into.

The Collect for the Thirty-Second Week in Ordinary Time

Almighty and merciful God, graciously keep from us all adversity, so that, unhindered in mind and body alike, we may pursue in freedom of heart the things that are Yours. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, Your Son, Who lives and reigns with You in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

graciously keep from us all adversity – From a purely human point of view, we might be inclined to complain that God has not been doing a very good job of keeping us from adversity this year. We seem to be attacked by hardships on all sides, floundering in difficulties, unable to live as we normally do. We ask ourselves what God is doing with all this and why He is not preventing it when we are praying so much and so hard. Well, for one thing, God's view of the situation is so much better than ours. He sees the big picture, the infinite picture, and we must trust that when He allows adversities (as we label them), He does so only for our ultimate good. Yes, this is hard to accept in the midst of them. But later, when we look back, we will understand. We may have to get to Heaven to really understand, but God will show us these things from His point of view, and we will see clearly. Further, we have to be careful how we define adversity. True adversity is what separates us from God, namely, sin. We certainly can and should pray that God preserve us from hardships, but we absolutely must pray that God preserve us from sin.

unhindered in mind and body alike – What hinders us in mind and body? We may think of various illnesses, pain, sadness, and depression. We might reflect on how our bodies and minds often feel weak and tired. We may even consider how much we have to struggle just to get through the day sometimes in the craziness of this world. But what hinders us most in both mind and body is sin. Sin weakens our will and our intellect. The more we choose to do wrong, the easier it is to do so again and the more we try to rationalize our actions. Sin can weaken our bodies, too, when we chose unhealthy or dangerous actions. So when we pray here that our minds and bodies may be unhindered, we are again first and foremost asking God to keep us from sin.

we may pursue in freedom of heart – Freedom of heart is freedom to love to God and to obey God. It is freedom from slavery to sin and death. This is real, true freedom.

the things that are Yours – God's love, God's will, God's life. These are what we pursue in freedom of heart. We long to bask in God's presence for all eternity, glowing with His love, safe in His arms.

The Collect for the Solemnity of All Saints

Almighty ever-living God, by Whose gift we venerate in one celebration the merits of all the Saints, bestow on us, we pray, through the prayers of so many intercessors, an abundance of the reconciliation with You for which we earnestly long. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, Your Son, Who lives and reigns with You in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

by Whose gift – This Solemnity of All Saints is truly a gift from God. The saints themselves are a gift from God. He gives them to us for our comfort, help, and example, and He allows us to rejoice in and celebrate our relationship with them. Why, then, should we turn our backs on God's gifts?

venerate in one celebration the merits of all the Saints – Catholics never worship the saints. Rather, we venerate them. We recognize them as God's intimate friends and our role models and intercessors. We praise them for their love, and we acknowledge their merits. No, they did not earn their way to Heaven, but they did accept and cooperate with God's grace and are now enjoying their reward, eternal life with God.

through the prayers of so many intercessors – We pray for each other here on earth, gladly and often with great vigor. So why shouldn't the saints, whose love is much stronger than ours and who have a front row seat to God, pray for us? Indeed, we ask the saints for their prayers, imploring them to join their prayers to ours, for they see God face to face and love us more than ever.

an abundance of the reconciliation with You for which we earnestly long – We falter in our relationship with God every day. We sin. We fall short of His expectations. We need His mercy and forgiveness, an abundance of reconciliation with Him, every day. The saints pray for us that we may repent of our sins and turn back to God's grace. After all, they want us to be in Heaven with them for all eternity.

The Collect for the Thirtieth Week in Ordinary Time

Almighty ever-living God, increase our faith, hope and charity, and make us love what You command, so that we may merit what You promise. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, Your Son, Who lives and reigns with You in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

increase our faith, hope and charity – Faith, hope, and charity are the three theological virtues, which are “infused by God into the souls of the faithful to make them capable of acting as His children and of meriting eternal life” (CCC #1813). God gives us the gift of faith that we may believe in Him and all He has revealed. Faith combines with hope, “the theological virtue by which we desire the kingdom of heaven and eternal life as our happiness” and trust Christ's promise that these great gifts will be ours through God's grace and our open cooperation (CCC #1817). Charity, self-giving love, allows us to “love God above all things for His own sake, and our neighbor as ourselves for the love of God” (CCC #1822). With charity, we live out our faith and hope and immerse ourselves in God's infinite love for us.

make us love what You command – Do we love God's commands? Or do we see them as burdensome nuisances that get in the way of our freedom? Actually, God's commands are perfectly designed to give us true freedom. God knows us better than we know ourselves, and His commands fit our nature perfectly. God is never arbitrary. He never commands us to do something just because He says so. He always has a reason, and that reason is to draw us closer to Him. God's commands free us from sin so that we may be truly free to do good and to love God and to know Him better and better. This is why we should love His commands.

so that we may merit what You promise – We do not earn our way to Heaven! The Catholic Church never has, does not now, and never will teach that we earn eternal life. God gives it to us by His grace, which we accept in faith and live out in love. But as we believe, hope, and love, God allows us to merit, to deserve and be worthy of what He has promised and what He gives us. We don't even do this on our own, although we do cooperate, for God gives us the grace even to merit and to grow in His love.

The Collect for the Twenty-Ninth Week in Ordinary Time

Almighty ever-living God, grant that we may always conform our will to Yours and serve Your majesty in sincerity of heart. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, Your Son, Who lives and reigns with You in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

grant that we may always conform our will to Yours – This is an easy prayer to pray and a difficult calling to live. God's will is perfect. He knows us better than we know ourselves, and He sees infinitely farther in space and time then we do. We must be humble enough to recognize this and say “yes” to whatever God is doing or permitting in our lives, whether we understand it or not. As St. Paul says in Romans 8:28, “We know that all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to His purpose.” That said, though, we need God's grace to help us conform our will to His because we tend to rebel and complain and try to go our own way. This is why we pray as we do today, that our hearts open to grace and that grace moves our wills to join as one with His.

serve Your majesty – God created us to love and serve Him. Period. That is the whole purpose of our life, and it should be our highest joy. Yet it is so easy to get distracted by the things of this world. They tend to take priority over our service to God when they are actually given to us that we may use them to serve God.

in sincerity of heart – We humans are plagued by mixed motives. We love God and want to serve Him and please Him and conform ourselves to His will, but then we falter. We turn selfish. We want to be recognized and honored by others so that we feel better about ourselves. We fail to become transparent and allow God's light to shine through us. Rather, we block the light with our own desires and intentions. This is why we need to pray for sincerity of heart. Sincerity refers to a freedom from deceit and a truth in intention. We can never deceive God, but we must stop deceiving ourselves and allow God to purify our motives and our service with His grace and love.

The Collect for the Twenty-Eighth Week in Ordinary Time

May Your grace, O Lord, we pray, at all times go before us and follow after and make us always determined to carry out good works. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, Your Son, Who lives and reigns with You in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

Your grace – God's grace is divine power in action in our lives. Sanctifying grace fills us with the divine presence. Actual grace guides and helps us along the path of God; it gives us the direction and strength we need to do God's will. Sacramental grace is poured out upon us in the sacraments, which communicate and strengthen sanctifying grace and provide actual graces according to the nature of the sacrament. We must, of course, be properly disposed to receive grace, and we must cooperate with God's grace.

go before us – We can do nothing without God's grace. His grace saves us from sin and death. His grace gives us the ability to believe, to hope, to love, and to accept the salvation He offers. His grace gives us the ability to pray, to do good works, and to respond to God according to His will. Yet we must always cooperate with God's grace, and our free will comes into play here, for we are free to reject God's grace as well as accept and embrace it.

follow after – Aren't we lucky that God's grace also follows after us? We make horrible messes of our lives sometimes. We sin. We fall. We turn our backs on God. But God's grace still pursues us, poking our consciences, nudging us back toward Him. When we do turn back to God and repent and confess our sins, He is right there waiting for us, filling us with His forgiveness and His grace.

make us always determined to carry out good works – We human beings tend to want to be independent, to do things on our own. But when we rely on our own strength and our own shaky motives, we often fail to do good to others. In fact, we tend to do more harm than good. That's why we need to ask God to guide us, first to give us the desire and determination to do good things out of love and second to give us the ability to accomplish them and then to attribute them all to His glory.

The Collect for the Twenty-Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time

Almighty ever-living God, Who in the abundance of Your kindness surpass the merits and the desires of those who entreat You, pour out Your mercy upon us to pardon what conscience dreads and to give what prayer does not dare to ask. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, Your Son, Who lives and reigns with You in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

Almighty ever-living God – Sometimes it's good to stop for a while and reflect on God's greatness. We get so caught up in asking Him for what we need and want that we don't take time to simply praise Him for how wonderful He is. We can never wrap our minds around God's almighty, eternal power, but we can worship Him for it.

the abundance of Your kindness – These days we hear plenty about an “abundance of caution,” but what we really need to focus our attention on is God's abundance of kindness. In the Old Testament a word often translated as “kindness” is the Hebrew hesed, which refers to God's covenant faithfulness and love. God has made a series of covenants (family bonds created by swearing an oath) with His people down through the centuries, and now He has sworn the ultimate covenant through Jesus Christ, pouring out upon us the bounty of His love and care.

surpass the merits and the desires of those who entreat You – God gives us far more than we deserve or desire. We actually do not deserve anything but God's contempt. After all, we sin all the time. We flaunt His will and His word to follow our own “miserable interests” (a phrase used by Our Lady at Medjugorje). Yet God doesn't give us what we deserve; He gives us His grace and His love instead. What's more, our desires often fall far short of our needs, and God in His wisdom gives us what we need but not always what we desire. We have trouble figuring out what is truly good for us. God always knows that, and He provides accordingly. That's why He says “no” to our prayers sometimes, for His plan is to give us far more than our meager, often disordered desires.

pour out Your mercy upon us – We all sin, and we all need God's mercy in abundance. Let us take a moment to enter into the silence of our hearts, bring before God all that we have on our consciences, and beg Him for His mercy.

to pardon what conscience dreads – If our consciences are properly trained, we know when we have done wrong. Our consciences will be appalled by our sins, and we will turn to God for forgiveness.

to give what prayer does not dare to ask – Is there anything we do not dare to ask of God? Is there anything we dare not bring before Him in prayer? There shouldn't be because if there is, we shouldn't be asking for it or thinking about it. That said, though, we know that God always gives us far more than we ask for, for He knows our needs far better than we do.

The Collect for the Twenty-Sixth Week in Ordinary Time

O God, Who manifest Your almighty power above all by pardoning and showing mercy, bestow, we pray, Your grace abundantly upon us and make those hastening to attain Your promises heirs to the treasures of heaven. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, Your Son, Who lives and reigns with You in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

Your almighty power – Do you ever stop to think how powerful God really is? There is no limit to His might. He is infinite in His abilities. Yet He acts in ways that are perfectly in tune with the nature of His creatures. He is never arbitrary. He never does something just because He can. He always acts for our good because He loves us and wants only the very best for us: our salvation.

pardoning and showing mercy – This is especially where God shows His almighty power. We should marvel at this. God's power is particularly manifest in forgiving us and giving us His mercy so that we may be with Him in Heaven forever. Just bask in that for a while.

bestow, we pray, Your grace abundantly upon us – We must ask God for His grace continually. He knows, of course, that we need it, but He wants us to ask so that we, too, are aware of our great need for His favor and assistance. Our prayer also helps us to open ourselves to God's grace.

hastening to attain Your promises – Are we eager to attain God's promises? Are we hastening toward our salvation? How much to we desire to be with God forever, to see Him face to face, to enter into intimacy with Him? Are we committed to obeying Him, to living the divine life as much as possible now, that we may live it fully one day in Heaven?

heirs to the treasures of heaven – Here is our ultimate goal: the treasures of Heaven. And what are these treasures? Nothing less than God Himself and His intimate love for all eternity. We are heirs in the Heir, sons and daughters in the Son, Jesus Christ, and in Heaven, we will share fully in the divine life. This is our treasure and our heritage, and our hearts must already be where our treasure lies.

The Collect for the Twenty-Fifth Week in Ordinary Time

O God, Who founded all the commands of Your sacred Law upon love of You and of our neighbor, grant that, by keeping Your precepts, we may merit to attain eternal life. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, Your Son, Who lives and reigns with You in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

Your sacred Law – Our culture tends to have a negative impression of law. Law is restrictive of our freedoms, some people proclaim. It prevents us from doing what we want when we want. But this isn't the intention of law (even though human law sometimes fails) and especially not of God's law. God's moral laws are designed to make us truly free, free to choose good, free to embrace truth, free to enjoy beauty, free to live up to the potential God has given us. Indeed, God's laws are not arbitrary. He created us and knows our nature perfectly, so He gives us exactly what we need when we need it to become the best human beings we can be. He gives us His sacred Law.

love of You and of our neighbor – Everything in that sacred Law is geared toward love of God and love of neighbor. God wants to draw us out of ourselves and into a self-giving communion with Him and with each other. He knows that because of our sinful weakness, we have a hard time entering into such a relationship on our own, so He helps us by giving us the moral law. That moral law assists us to understand how love can, should, and must be applied in the day-to-day circumstances of our lives.

by keeping your precepts – God knows how unsteady and frail we are, yet He still expects us to keep the precepts of His law. He doesn't leave us to try and fail on our own, though; He gives us His grace that we may obey Him. We must accept that grace and cooperate with it, but it is always there to support us, to help us overcome to temptation, to guide us toward correct decisions, and to make us better, more God-like human beings.

we may merit to attain eternal life – No, we do not earn our way to Heaven! The Catholic Church does not and has never taught that. Our salvation is due to God's grace, but we must accept that grace and live according to it. That is how we merit, through our cooperation. And Who gives us the grace to cooperate? God does! He thereby gives us the grace even to merit. The goal of all this, of keeping His commandments, of cooperating with His grace, of loving God and others, is, of course, eternal life, intimacy with God beginning now and fulfilled perfectly in Heaven.

The Collect for the Twenty-Fourth Week in Ordinary Time

 Look upon us, O God, Creator and ruler of all things, and, that we may feel the working of Your mercy, grant that we may serve You with all our heart. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, Your Son, Who lives and reigns with You in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

Look upon us, O God – When God turns His face toward us, we are illuminated by His glory. He fills us with His love and His light. Are we prepared to stand before God's gaze? He sees right into our minds, hearts, and souls. What will He see? No matter what He sees in us, God loves us anyway, and He wants us to repent of our sins and hand over our weaknesses to Him that He may fill us with His grace.

Creator and ruler of all things – These titles for God are so familiar to us that we seldom stop to think about them. Yet God created all things from nothing. Why? He wanted to share the great love that flows between the Persons of the Blessed Trinity, allowing that love to pour into creation. Indeed, God is not the watchmaker that some philosophers identify Him as, admitting that He created the universe but claiming that then He sat back and let it run on its own without any further intervention from its Maker. That, however, is far from true, for God rules the entire universe in His divine wisdom and providence.

we may feel the working of Your mercy – How do we feel God's mercy at work? There are so many ways of experiencing God's mercy. When we receive absolution in the sacrament of Confession, God reaches down through the priest to shower us in His mercy. When we receive the Eucharist, Jesus' presence, the fire of His love, burns up all our venial sins and strengthens us to fight against temptation. When we pray, God mercy calms and encourages our hearts.

grant that we may serve You with all our heart – Our ability to serve God is itself a gift from God. But we must cooperate and strive to serve and obey God with all our heart, not by half measures, not for our own benefits, but completely for love of Him.

The Collect for the Twenty-Third Week in Ordinary Time

O God, by Whom we are redeemed and receive adoption, look graciously upon Your beloved sons and daughters, that those who believe in Christ may receive true freedom and an everlasting inheritance. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, Your Son, who lives and reigns with You in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

redeemed – This word is so familiar, we hear it so often, that it has lost its power. To redeem someone is to buy that person out of slavery. Jesus Christ bought us out of the slavery of sin and death, and He paid for us with His own blood.

receive adoption – From the beginning, God has made a series of covenants with His people. A covenant is a family bond created by swearing an oath. When God makes a covenant with us, He adopts us into His divine family, and in the New Covenant enacted by Jesus Christ, He gives us a share in His own divine life as He pours His sanctifying grace into our souls.

look graciously – The Greek word for “grace” is charis, and it literally means something like “leaning toward favorably” or “extending toward with a benefit.” So when God looks upon us graciously, He is leaning toward us, extending Himself to give us His favor, to provide us with His benefits.

Your beloved sons and daughters – Take a few minutes and reflect on the amazing fact that God loves you.

those who believe in Christ – What does it mean to believe in Christ? Is it merely accepting some facts about Him as being true? Is it holding to the proposition that He is the divine Son of God Who brings us salvation? Or is it something more? To truly believe in Christ, we must indeed hold fast to the truths revealed about Him, but we must also live those truths each and every day in obedience and love. As St. James says, “So faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead” (2:17). Faith that is not lived will not save.

true freedom – Freedom does not mean doing whatever we want. Far from it! True freedom is freedom to love and serve God. It means being free from sin that we may do what it right. It means being free from error that we may embrace the truth. It means being free from ugliness and boredom that we may appreciate beauty. True freedom is the freedom to begin living eternal life now and find its fulfillment in Heaven.

everlasting inheritance – We are members of God's covenant family and heirs with Christ. So what do we inherit? God! Our inheritance is God. In Heaven we will see Him face to face and, as St. Paul says, we will know as we are known (1 Cor 13:12). We will enjoy Him forever in the fullness of eternal life.

The Collect for the Twenty-Second Week in Ordinary Time

God of might, giver of every good gift, put into our hearts the love of Your name, so that, by deepening our sense of reverence, You may nurture in us what is good and, by Your watchful care, keep safe what You have nurtured. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, Your Son, Who lives and reigns with You in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

God of might – God is all-powerful, yet He is also most gentle with His children. He created the universe. He set the planets in motion and determined the laws of nature. Yet He stoops down to each of us in love. He even becomes our food in the Holy Eucharist, giving Himself to us Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity.

giver of every good gift – God gives us all we have and all we are. Everything that is good comes from Him. Yet are we grateful? Do we spend some of our prayer time thanking Him for His gifts to us? Or do we just keep asking for more? God wants us to ask Him for what we need and want, but we should also continually express our gratitude for what we already have.

put into our hearts the love of Your name – The ability to love God is a gift from God. Love, real love, self-sacrificing love that wills the absolute best for another and helps to achieve that best, is a theological virtue. As the Catechism says, love (or charity) is “the theological virtue by which we love God above all things for His own sake, and our neighbor as ourselves for the love of God” (#1822). Here we pray that God put His love into our hearts so that we can love Him more. We need to open up and expand our hearts so we can receive more of that love. Remember that “name” in the Scriptures refers to the whole of a person, in this case God's Person, His character, and all of His marvelous attributes. When we love God's name, we love God.

deepening our sense of reverence – Do we ever just stand before God and be amazed? Do we ever gaze upon Him in our hearts and think, “Wow! Just wow!”? We should develop a deep reverence for God, and that reverence should extend into our churches and our lives so that we approach God at Mass and in the other sacraments and in prayer and in study with all the respect and awe He deserves.

You may nurture in us what is good – What has God nurtured in us? He has given us a share in His divine life. He has poured His sanctifying grace into our souls. He Himself dwells within us. He gives us grace to love, to believe, to hope, to pray, to receive the sacraments, to study, and to experience a taste of the joy of the Kingdom of God. If we cooperate with Him, we will grow ever closer to Him.

by Your watchful care – God cares for us at every moment of every day. He holds us in existence every second. If God were to forget about us for even an instant (not that He ever would), we would simply disappear. Yet God doesn't just watch us from a distance or remain uninvolved in our lives. He is constantly giving us grace to follow Him and protecting us from harm and working all things for our good.

keep safe what You have nurtured – We are weak and sinful, and we fall often. That's why we must pray for God's protection, that He keep safe His divine life within us, that He protect us from temptation and from harm, that He continually give us the grace to resist evil and embrace His love.

The Collect for the Twenty-First Week in Ordinary Time

O God, Who cause the minds of the faithful to unite in a single purpose, grant Your people to love what You command and to desire what You promise, that, amid the uncertainties of this world, our hearts may be fixed on that place where true gladness is found. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, Your Son, Who lives and reigns with You in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

unite in a single purpose – God causes our unity as His people, and He desires our unity as His people. We are the Body of Christ, the Bride of Christ. We partake in the same Eucharist. We live as God's family in the same covenant, sharing in His divine life. We must, then, embrace the unity that God desires for us and gives us. We must stand together in faith, hope, and love against the forces of the enemy and the temptations of this world that threaten to tear us apart. We must hold fast to God's commandments, to the moral law that guides us along the path of life. We much share one purpose: love of God and love of our neighbors for God's sake.

to love what You command – Do we truly love what God commands? Or do we merely sigh and tolerate it as a sacrifice of obedience? Yet God's commands are perfect for us. God, Who made our human nature and perfectly understands its frailty, gives us exactly what we need to grow in love and to grow closer to Him. Those are the purposes of the commandments, after all. They aren't some arbitrary orders that we must fulfill or else. They are perfectly suited to us and to our needs. We should love them as gifts from God, which they are.

to desire what You promise – Sometimes it seems that we desire everything but what we should. We desire money, fame, honor, possessions, all the things of this world. We chase after those. But our desire of God and the eternal life He promises to those Who follow Him fades into the background or even disappears. We must adjust our priorities so that our desire for God overwhelms all else.

the uncertainties of this world – The world is more uncertain than ever these days, and if we focus too much on the chaos, it will drive us crazy.

our hearts may be fixed on that place where true gladness is found – Here is the answer to the uncertainties of the world. We must fix our hearts, focus our attention, and place our trust in one place, the place where true gladness is found. That place, of course, is God. In the midst of all the trials, all the difficulties, all the suffering, all the craziness of life, we must keep our eyes and our minds and our hearts on God. No, it isn't easy. Distractions are everywhere. We get sidetracked. We get angry. We get upset. We lose our focus. But we must always return to God. We will find true happiness and peace only in Him. So how do we fix our hearts on God (and get them back on God when they stray)? We pray (a lot!). We go to Mass and receive Jesus in the Eucharist (more than once a week if possible). We read Scripture. We study about our faith. And most importantly, we ask God to help us like we're doing in this collect.

The Collect for the Twentieth Week in Ordinary Time

O God, Who have prepared for those who love You good things which no eye can see, fill our hearts, we pray, with the warmth of Your love, so that, loving You in all things and above all things, we may attain Your promises, which surpass every human desire. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, Your Son, Who lives and reigns with You in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

those who love You – Why do we find it so hard to love God as we should? Perhaps we don't know Him. Perhaps He seems distant to us. Perhaps we don't understand how wonderful He is or how perfect or how merciful. Perhaps we don't realize how much He loves us. Yes, God loves us more than we can imagine. How can we respond to that kind of love with anything less than all our love?

prepared...good things which no eye can see – In 1 Corinthians 2:9, Paul remarks, “But, as it is written, 'What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the human heart conceived, what God has prepared for those who love Him.'” Yet, he continues, “these things God has revealed to us through the Spirit, for the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God” (2:10). Right now we see “in a mirror dimly, but then we will see face to face” (13:12). Right now we know in part. We cannot see God or Heaven. But “then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known” (13:12). We walk by faith now, but someday we will see God face to face.

fill our hearts, we pray, with the warmth of Your love – God's love can indeed warm us from the inside out. We should pray to feel that warmth, to feel His love. Even if He doesn't give us that grace right now (for good reasons of His own), we should pray for greater faith that we can be sure of His love and for greater hope that we can trust Him to bring us home to Heaven and for greater love that we can love others as He loves us.

loving You in all things and above all things – God must take first place in our lives. Always. Everyone else and everything else must be loved in Him and for His sake. This does not mean we love others less. In fact, loving them in God, we love them more, for He loves them in us.

we may attain Your promises – What does God promise? Our salvation. Eternal life. His perfect love. Himself. What more could we want?

surpass every human desire – God has so much more in store for us than we can ever imagine. Right now, we are caught up in time and in our limited human perspective. We can't escape those, but God is infinitely greater, and He will fulfill every one of our hopes and then keep right on going. He will surpass our wildest dreams, for He will give us Himself.

The Collect for the Nineteenth Week in Ordinary Time

Almighty ever-living God, Whom, taught by the Holy Spirit, we dare to call our Father, bring, we pray, to perfection in our hearts the spirit of adoption as Your sons and daughters, that we may merit to enter into the inheritance which You have promised. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, Your Son, Who lives and reigns with You in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

Almighty ever-living God – Do you ever stop to reflect on how awesome God is? Indeed, He is awesome in the true sense of the word: He evokes awe and wonder when we think about Him. The marvelous old Baltimore Catechism #3 tells us, “When we say God is 'infinitely perfect' we mean there is no limit or bounds to His perfection; for He possesses all good qualities in the highest possible degree and He alone is 'infinitely perfect.'” God is all-powerful, all-present, all-knowing, all-loving, and eternal. Now that is truly awesome.

taught by the Holy Spirit – Jesus promised that “the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, Whom the Father will send in My name, will teach you everything and remind you of all that I have said to you” (John 14:26). If we open our minds and hearts, the Holy Spirit will guide us to truth. This isn't to say that we shouldn't study our faith through classes, discussions, books, etc. We should! But we should always do so with a receptivity to the Holy Spirit.

we dare to call our Father – “God has sent the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying, 'Abba! Father!'” (Galatians 4:6). “For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received a spirit of adoption. When we cry, 'Abba! Father!' it is that very Spirit bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ...” (Romans 8:15-17). God has made a covenant with us. A covenant creates a family bond that makes us God's children, so we can (with the help of the Holy Spirit within us) dare to call God “Father.”

perfection in our hearts – In the language of the Scriptures, perfection refers to completeness, to everything being in its proper order. Only God can bring this about in our hearts, but we must cooperate and let Him.

the spirit of adoption as Your sons and daughters – We are God's children now, made His adopted sons and daughters through the covenant. Therefore, we must act like God's children. We must imitate our Father and our elder Brother, Christ. We must always remember the divine family to which we belong.

we may merit to enter into the inheritance which You have promised – We will never earn Heaven. God's grace alone can bring us to our inheritance, eternal life with Him. But we must cooperate with that grace. We must obey God's commands and repent when we fail. We must pray and love and hope and believe. In all of these, God allows us to merit for ourselves, to share in the merits of Christ, to work out our salvation (Philippians 2:12). God even gives us the grace to merit, but He expects us to do it! He expects us to embrace His promise, to make it our own, to desire it, and to strive toward our final destination, our home in Heaven.

The Collect for the Eighteenth Week in Ordinary Time

Draw near to Your servants, O Lord, and answer their prayers with unceasing kindness, that, for those who glory in You as their Creator and guide, You may restore what You have created and keep safe what You have restored. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, Your Son, Who lives and reigns with You in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

Draw near – God is always close to us. He is closer to us than we are to ourselves. When we are in a state of grace, He dwells within our very souls. So why do we ask Him to draw near? We're praying to be able to feel His presence, to know that He is with us. We're beseeching Him for the grace to experience His nearness.

Your servants – In Greek, the word pais means both child and servant. We are God's children by adoption, but we are also His servants. This isn't a bad thing! In fact, serving God should be a joy for us, for when we embrace His will and obey Him with love, we will find true happiness.

unceasing kindness – Have you ever thought about how kind God is? We don't normally identify kindness as one of His characteristics, do we? We think about His omniscience, His omnipotence, and His omnipresence. We remember His mercy and justice. But do we think about His kindness? God is perfectly kind. The modern English word “kind” comes from the Old English gecynde, which actually means “natural” or “innate” and refers to the feelings that family members are to have for one another. Kindness is indeed an element of God's nature, and He has made us His family through His covenant.

glory in You as their Creator and guide – When we glory in God, we allow His glory to wash over us, to enter us, to fill us with His light and love. We glory in God as our Creator. He made us. Everything we are and everything we have comes from Him. He didn't have to create us, but He wanted to share His goodness and love. We also glory in God as our guide. His will is perfect, and He leads us perfectly...if we let Him.

You may restore what You have created – God created us for intimacy with Him. Our first parents lost that intimacy with the first sin. They lost the sanctifying grace within their souls. But God restores that grace to us in Baptism and restores it again in Confession if we lose it through serious sin. He also refreshes that grace when we reach out to Him in prayer, acts of love, and the sacraments.

keep safe what You have restored – Do we trust God to help us stay in His grace? He will. We just have to ask Him. When temptation strikes, we must pray. When we sin, we must repent and turn to Him. God is in this for the long haul. He desires our salvation more than we do. He wants us with Him for all eternity. He will keep us safe...if we let Him.

The Collect for the Seventeenth Week in Ordinary Time

O God, protector of those who hope in You, without Whom nothing has firm foundation, nothing is holy, bestow in abundance Your mercy upon us and grant that, with You as our ruler and guide, we may use the good things that pass in such a way as to hold fast even now to those that ever endure. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, Your Son, Who lives and reigns with You in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

protector – None of us realizes exactly how much God protects us. We don't see all the times when He has prevented something horrible from happening. We don't know all the times when our prayers or someone else's prayers have contributed to avoidance of accidents or illnesses. We don't even catch a glimpse of how God is working in the background, guarding us and guiding us at all times. Instead, we tend to focus on complaining about the “bad things” that happen to us (that God uses for our good) rather than thanking Him for the good we experience and the bad He has already prevented.

hope in You – How is your hope? Do you expect the very best from God? That's what He wants to give us. Yes, we have to cooperate, but even when we mess up, He forgives us when we repent and turn back to Him. If your hope is shaky, ask God to increase it today. He will.

nothing has firm foundation, nothing is holy – Without God, nothing would exist. Without God, we could do nothing at all. We could never become holy without His grace. He gives us all that we have and all that we are, and “in Him we live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:28). Do we thank Him?

bestow in abundance Your mercy – God, pour down Your mercy upon us, please. We sin every day. We fail to follow Your will. We give in to our disordered emotions and desires. We turn away from You. Please forgive us, heal us, and draw us back to You.

our ruler and guide – Our culture often tells us that we must be independent, that we must take charge of our own lives and do what we want, that we must resist guidance from others. Of course, in our current climate, the message has changed to obeying the government without question, trusting in “experts,” and fearing everything. We must reject both of these extremes and look to God as our ruler and guide. Only He can and will lead us through this life according to His will and bring us safely home to Heaven. We must remain faithful subjects of His kingdom.

use the good things that pass – God made this world to be lived in. There are good things all around us, things in which we take pleasure, and it's okay to use and enjoy these things, even though they will someday pass away.

in such a way as to hold fast even now to those that ever endure – But when we use and enjoy passing things, we must be careful not to abuse them or to put our entire focus on them. Instead, we must use them for the glory of God. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 10:31, “So whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do everything for the glory of God.” Work for the glory of God. Play for the glory of God. Spend time with loved ones for the glory of God. Use all the gifts God has given you so that they help you grow closer to Him and progress on your journey to Heaven.

The Collect for the Sixteenth Week in Ordinary Time

Show favor, O Lord, to Your servants and mercifully increase the gifts of Your grace, that, made fervent in hope, faith and charity, they may be ever watchful in keeping Your commands. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, Your Son, Who lives and reigns with You in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

Show favor – We begin by asking for God's favor. How does God show His favor to us? First off, He created us! We live because He freely called us into existence and gave us a soul and a body. What's more, He preserves us in existence at every moment. We receive every breath we take from Him. But God doesn't stop there. He pours out His grace upon us constantly, loving us, guiding us, protecting us, even when we don't see it or realize it. So why are we asking for God's favor when He is always giving it to us? We are so weak and small and sinful that we always need more grace, and God wants us to ask for it because the more we ask, the more we understand how much we need it...and Him.

Your servants – God has adopted us as His children, but we must still serve Him. How? By choosing faith, hope, love, and obedience. By conforming our wills to His. By being open to His guidance. By trusting Him completely. By following Him at all times whether we feel like it or not. But no fear...God rewards His servants extremely well.

gifts of Your grace – Have you ever thought about the different types of grace that God pours out upon us? Here's what the Catechism has to say: “Sanctifying grace is an habitual gift, a stable and supernatural disposition that perfects the soul itself to enable it to live with God, to act by His love. Habitual grace, the permanent disposition to live and act in keeping with God's call, is distinguished from actual graces which refer to God's interventions, whether at the beginning of conversion or in the course of the work of sanctification” (#2000). Sanctifying grace is the divine presence dwelling in our souls. Actual graces are all the helps and nudges God gives us each and every day that guide us in His will and support us in temptations so we can resist sin.

fervent in hope, faith and charity – Are we fervent in hope, faith, and charity? Do we sincerely and consistently practice these virtues? Do we actively seek to grow in them? Do we fight against feelings and temptations that might diminish them? Do we ask God for His help to preserve and increase hope, faith, and charity in us?

watchful in keeping Your commands – It's easy to let down our guard. Just this once... No one will know. It's just a little thing. What does it matter? The more excuses we make, the more we become groggy in keeping God's commands and the easier it is to fall into more serious sins. So we are called to be watchful, to be awake, and to fight temptation with the constant help of God's grace.