March 6, 2026 // Friday of the Second Week of Lent
Read the Word // Open your Bible to today’s First Reading: Genesis 37:3-4, 12-13a, 17b-28a
Reflect on the Word //
“Lord, I am not worthy that you should enter under my roof, but only say the words and my soul shall be healed.” I’ll never forget the first time these words from the Communion Rite of the Mass really hit me. I saw what it meant to allow the Lord “under my roof” and how I had been trying to keep the interior of my being hidden from him. I wanted only the shiny, presentable parts of me to be seen by God, not the broken, hurt, and wounded parts. I needed to have a deeper experience of God’s love but I was not convinced I was lovable enough to be loved.
The opening line of today’s First Reading might feel like a shocker: “Israel loved Joseph best of all his sons, for he was the child of his old age” (Genesis 37:3). Can a father really have a favorite? That seems wrong. Perhaps hearing there is a favorite makes someone feel left out and unloved, as we see among Joseph’s brothers.
But what if instead of hearing that line from a place of lack or deficit, I hear it from a place of love, knowing that the Father’s love is limitless. I am the apple of the Father’s eye; I am God’s favorite. I rejoice that Joseph was the favorite because I, too, know the joy of being a favorite. It’s not pride to live in this truth; it’s embracing what the Father has revealed to each one of us. And when we operate out of this love, this knowledge of the Father’s love, we can reject envy and fear. We are chosen and beloved by God, each one of us deeply and thoroughly chosen and beloved. To receive that love is all that we need.
You are God’s beloved. You are His chosen one. You are the apple of God’s eye; you delight Him. Each one of us must embrace this truth and this love, to allow God to love us in every part of our inner being—the healed whole parts and the broken and hurting parts as well.
Relate to the Lord // Pray with this truth today: you are God’s favorite.
Rachel Balducci is a writer and speaker and co-host of the Gist on CatholicTV. She has a Masters degree from the Grady School of Journalism at the University of Georgia and teaches at Augusta University and is working on her doctorate in Religion at the University of Georgia. She and her husband Paul have five sons and one daughter and are part of an intentional Christian community in Augusta, Georgia. Find out more about her here.
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