Daily Gospel Reflection
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May 13, 2026
Jesus said to his disciples:
“I have much more to tell you, but you cannot bear it now.
But when he comes, the Spirit of truth,
he will guide you to all truth.
He will not speak on his own,
but he will speak what he hears,
and will declare to you the things that are coming.
He will glorify me,
because he will take from what is mine and declare it to you.
Everything that the Father has is mine;
for this reason I told you that he will take from what is mine
and declare it to you.”
Excerpts from the Lectionary for Mass for Use in the Dioceses of the United States of America, second typical edition © 2001, 1998, 1997, 1986, 1970 Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, Inc., Washington, DC. Used with permission. All rights reserved. No portion of this text may be reproduced by any means without permission in writing from the copyright owner. The full readings of the day from the Lectionary are available here.
I have fond memories of driving cross-country, from Maryland to California, to begin my new ministry as a fifth-grade teacher. My father, Papa Tony, accompanied me for the road trip that would culminate with my independence. Throughout the 2,800 mile expedition, Papa Tony imparted his wisdom on the keys to a fruitful life: keep in touch with family and call your mom often, go to Mass every weekend, pay your bills on time, follow a disciplined budget, choose your friends carefully, manage your time wisely, and on and on and on until we finally reached our destination. The next morning, I took him to the airport. As we approached the gate, he turned to me and said, “You’re on your own now, but you’re not alone. We’re only a phone call away.” With a parting hug, I had officially transitioned into adulthood.
Jesus spent the 50 days following his resurrection empowering his disciples to share his mission. He brought their task to focus on spreading the Good News, to make disciples, and to baptize in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. With his ascension on the horizon, Jesus knew his disciples would be left with much still to learn. As Papa Tony did for me, Jesus reassures his disciples by telling them they are not alone. The Spirit will guide them into all truth.
Our life journeys are filled with unpredictable twists and turns. Through it all, we lean on the direction we received from our parents and our formative experiences, while trusting always in the Spirit to lead and guide us along the way. Veni Sancte Spiritus.
Prayer
Loving God, Christ promised his disciples the gift of the Spirit who would guide them to all truth. In these often confusing and difficult times, many “truths” are spoken. Open us up to the gifts of your Spirit to be able to discern your truth so that we may more faithfully speak it to others and embrace it more fully in our own lives. We ask this through Christ our Lord. Amen.
Saint of the Day
In the middle of 1916 in Portugal, three children were tending sheep in a pasture near the poor village where they lived. The oldest, Lucia, 10, was in charge, and Francisco and Jacinta—brother and sister—helped. They were raised in faithful homes, and often would spend their time praying the rosary while they watched the sheep. Several times during that summer, they were visited by an angel while they were in the fields, and the angel taught them a prayer to the Trinity.
They added this prayer to their devotions, and the next year, on this date in 1917, a bolt of lightning caught their attention as they tended the sheep. When they looked in that direction, they saw a brilliant figure, a woman described by Lucia as “brighter than the sun, shedding rays of light clearer and stronger than a crystal ball filled with the most sparkling water and pierced by the burning rays of the sun.”
The lady, Mary, asked the children to pray for the conversion of sinners and for an end to the war (World War I) which was devastating Europe at the time. She asked the children to return to the site on the 13th of every month.
Mary visited the children on the 13th of June and July. By the end of the summer, their stories had drawn much attention. On August 13, authorities prevented the children from going to the fields, but Mary appeared to them on August 19 instead. On September 13, the Lady asked the children to pray the rosary, and to pray for an end to the war. In her last appearance, on October 13, she identified herself as Our Lady of the Rosary, and again asked for prayer and repentance.
On the day of that last appearance, a crowd nearing 70,000 gathered with the children to witness the appearance, though only the children could see Mary. In her first appearance, Mary told the children that they would witness a sign in the heavens during that last visit, and the whole crowd saw the phenomenon: the sun seemed to dance in the sky and fall towards the earth.
Mary also shared three “secrets” with the children that have been revealed over time. In the first secret, the children witnessed a vision of hell. In the second, Mary asked for the conversion of sinners, and especially communist Russia, and told of another phenomenon in the heavens that would precede a second great war. (In the month before Hitler seized Austria, an occurrence of the aurora borealis covered most of Europe—it was the widest display in 200 years; people in Paris called the fire department because they thought a huge fire had broken out in the city.)
The third secret was sealed until 1960 and was finally revealed by the Vatican in 2000. It told of a vision in which the children saw a figure like the pope killed by soldiers. They also saw many other of the faithful killed in persecution. Pope John Paul II interpreted the secret to refer to his survival of an assassination attempt (which happened on this date in 1981), and to the many persecutions and wars of the 20th century. Read more about the Fatima secrets at the Vatican website here.
Within two years of the apparitions, the two younger children, the brother and sister Francisco and Jacinta, died of the Spanish Influenza. Lucia died on February 13, 2005.
In the end, Mary’s message at Fatima is a call for Christians to convert and repent from their sins, and to pray. "I have come to exhort the faithful to change their lives, to avoid grieving our Lord by sin, to pray the rosary,” Mary told the children. She also asked for a special veneration to her Immaculate Heart, which was fulfilled by Pope Pius XII when he consecrated the world to Mary’s Immaculate Heart.
The apparition is portrayed in statues that stand at what used to be the Fatima Retreat House across the lake from campus. The retreat house is now a residence for Holy Cross religious. A part of the tree in which Mary appeared to the children rests in the reliquary chapel in the Basilica on campus.
Our Lady of Fatima, you call us to prayer and conversion—pray for us!
Image Credit: Our featured image for Our Lady of Fatima is in the public domain. Last accessed March 6, 2025 on Wikimedia Commons.
