In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, amen.

My Lord and my God, I firmly believe that you are here, that you see me, that you hear me.

I adore you with profound reverence. I ask your pardon for my sins and the grace to make this time of prayer fruitful.

My immaculate Mother St. Joseph, my father and Lord, my guardian angel in deceit for me.

As we begin this time of prayer, as always, placing our attention in the tabernacle,

because he's really there.

And the tabernacle that holds the true presence of Jesus

is a reminder that this true presence can only happen when he dies on the cross at mass.

The topic of prayer, lest I lull people to sleep.

I want you to be awake for the topic anyway. It's love for

the cross. I know it's not lent, but yesterday we celebrated, the church celebrated the exultation

of the Holy Cross. And if you were in a center of Opus Day you would notice that that

black wooden cross without a body on it would be decorated with red roses

if it's too hard to buy red roses, they would be decorated by red carnations.

And the reason for that is that a rose has thorns.

And if you grab the stem, you'll know it's a rose bush even if you're blind because thorns pierce

skin and cause pain Jesus was crowned with thorns and the flower the actual rose

it's traditionally a symbol of Mary but it's a symbol of Christ. It's a symbol of the resurrection, because a flower is inherently beautiful.

And a plant culminates in giving off beautiful flowers.

And so the reason for decorating the cross with roses is to remind us that

becoming Christ is the fruit of the cross. We could use an aspiration of St. Jose Maria,

heart on the cross. Lord Heart on the cross. I don't know about you, but almost everything of the gospel, nothing's easy. Everything's a superlative. How much are we supposed to pray always? To be a follower, we need to humble ourselves. We get it. We understand that we need to be detached from material things and

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