Close to the halfway mark of Lent, it’s good to have a pick-me-up. Cardinal John Henry Newman, to be canonized sometime this year, offers one in this snippet from a homily of his for the 5th Sunday of Lent:
… it is only by slow degrees that meditation is able to soften our hard heart, and that the history of Christ’s trials and sorrows really moves us. It is not once thinking of Christ or twice thinking of Christ that will do it. It is by going on quietly and steadily, with the thought of Him in our mind’s eye, that by little and little we shall gain something of warmth, light, life, and love. We shall not perceive ourselves changing. It will be like the unfolding of the leaves in spring. You do not see them grow; you cannot, by watching, detect it. But every day, as it passes, has done something for them; and you are able, perhaps, every morning to say that they are more advanced than yesterday. So it is with our souls …
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And today we celebrate...