A time of Lexio devena for the discerning heart.

Saturday of the second week in Lent.

As you begin, take a deep breath and exhale slowly.

For the next few moments, surrender all the cares and concerns of this day to the Lord.

Say slowly from your heart, Jesus, I trust in you.

You take over. Become aware that he is with you, looking upon you with love, wanting to be heard deep within your heart. A reading from the Holy Gospel of Luke

Chapter 15 verses 1 through 3 and 11 through 32

The tax collectors and the sinners were all seeking the company of Jesus

to hear what he had to say, and the Pharisees and the scribes complained.

This man, they said, welcomed sinners and eats with them.

So he spoke this parable to them.

A man had two sons. The younger said to his father,

Father let me have the share of the estate that would come to me.

So the father divided the property between them.

A few days later, the younger son got together everything he had

and left for a distant country,

where he squandered his money on a life of debauchery.

When he had spent it all, the country experienced a severe famine, and now he began to feel

the pinch, so he hired himself out to one of the local inhabitants, who put him on his farm to feed the pigs.

And he would willingly have filled his belly with the husks the pigs were eating,

but no one offered him anything.

Then he came to his senses and said,

...