louange de sa gloire

Memorial of St. Stephen

2011-12-26T04:13:00.004-04:00

"If you know what witness means, you understand why God brings St. Stephen, St. John, and the Holy Innocents to the crib in the cave as soon as Christ is born liturgically. To be a witness is to be a martyr. Holy Mother Church wishes us to realize that we were born in baptism to become Christ — He who was the world's outstanding Martyr."

-- Love Does Such Things by Rev. M. Raymond, O.C.S.O.

Memorial of Bl Louis Morbioli

2011-11-09T00:04:00.002-04:00

"The oldest biography of Blessed Louis is a poem composed between 1485 and 1489 (Saggi dates it in the autumn of 1486) by Bl. Baptist of Mantua, who lived in Bologna for many years. Louis belonged to a family of the lower middle class; his father was called Francis of Anthony, his mother Agnes, and these were blessed with six children, five boys and one girl. Louis was born in Bologna in 1433; his youth was happy and carefree, nor did his life change after his marriage with Lucy, daughter of John Tura.

In 1462 he moved to Venice, where he was struck by a serious illness, taken into the hospice of the Canons Regular of St. Savior, he underwent a profound spiritual crisis that resulted in a radical change in his life. He probably returned to Bologna in 1470, and aroused admiration and amazement for his austere and penitent conduct. He separated from his wife, put on a plain grey habit, much like that of the Carmelites (hence the erroneous affirmation that he was a Carmelite tertiary), which he afterwards changed for a white one with a cross on his breast and which he wore both summer and winter. He went through the streets of Bologna preaching penance and mortification, and accompanied those condemned to the scaffold. He visited other cities of Emilia (Modena, Ferrara) on donkey back. He traveled the streets holding a cross in his hand and preaching penance. When he became sick, he refused every relief. He died at Bologna on Nov. 9, 1485, as he himself had foretold.

He was buried in the cathedral of St. Peter. Although a popular cult to him began immediately after his death, his bones were not found in the restoration of the cathedral, which occurred under Gabriel Card. Paleotti (1566-97). Already in 1582, Louis was inscribed in the catalogue of saints of Bologna, and Card. Paleotti included him in the Archiepiscopalis Bononiensis /Of the Archdiocese of Bologna/ in 1594. Under Jerome Card. Boncompagni a regular process of canonization was begun (1654), but the work was never brought to a conclusion. In 1843 his cult was permitted for the diocese of Bologna and for the Carmelite Order, which erroneously claimed him as one of its tertiaries. The liturgical celebration at Bologna is fixed for Nov. 17, as an optional memorial."

-- Biography by John Dominic Gordini

Memorial of Bl Lucas of St Joseph and companions

2011-11-06T04:11:00.016-04:00

"Fr. Lucas of St. Joseph (José Tristany Pujol) was born on December 14, 1872. He was only six months old when his father died. It became such a hardship that his mother, Rosa, had to ask her older sons and daughter to live on their own. She took with her the two younger boys to live near a hermitage on the estate called Saint Justin. They later moved to the town of Cardona where Rosa died shortly after.

Jose, as a child, was taken in by a neighboring farm family that hoped to eventually train him to be a sheepherder. This only lasted for a short time until his Uncle Antonio and Aunt Margarita brought José to their home in Tarragona after his older brother, Meliton, who became known as Ludovico of the Sacred Hearts, entered the Discalced Carmelite Order. It was here that Jose spent his adolescent years and where he became interested in carpentry. He was frequently found helping at the local carpenter’s shop on Florencio Vives Street. As the boy grew older, his relatives thought he would marry. However the young man felt in his heart the vocation to be a priest. At fifteen years of age, he began his studies in Humanities at the seminary. At age eighteen, Jose, along with his relatives, made a visit to the Carmelite Desert Monastery of Las Palmas—the same monastery where his brother had lived. He began his novitiate there in 1890 and made his first profession of vows the following year. He made his solemn vows in 1894 at the hands of his brother, Fr. Ludovico.

After his ordination to the priesthood on May 27, 1899, Fr. Lucas was made superior and professor of Philosophy. He became well known for his preaching and spiritual writings. His great intellectual capacity was coupled with a warm, generous heart that he placed at the service of God, the Order, and souls. His conviction as a Carmelite friar inspired him to write these prophetic words in an article: “As long as God preserves my vocation, I will not lower my head in shame for anybody because I am a religious ... If we die for the truth, we will have triumphed.”

Fr. Lucas was sent to Mexico in 1902 where his apostolic work began in Mazatlan and Durango. His personality attracted many people and helped in the building up of the good name of the Carmelites. As a result, the bishop of Mazatlan requested more friars for ministry and handed over to them a parish in the city with Fr. Lucas being appointed its first pastor. However the situation was not as smooth in Durango, and both Frs. Pedro of St. Elijah and Lucas had difficulties making a Carmelite establishment in that city. The issues that impeded them from establishing in the diocese were lifted upon the installation of a new bishop in Durango who granted them all the permissions necessary to minister to the people there and establish a monastery. It was soon after these negotiations that Fr. Lucas contracted typhoid that almost cost him his life were it not for the diligent care of a religious sister who was a nurse.

The religious persecution in Mexico brought the Discalced Carmelites to the Diocese of Tucson in the United States in 1912. The Catalonian Carmelites vigorously served twenty-two mission churches in the surrounding mining towns and camps. Bishop Henry Granjon, as a sign of his appreciation for the work done by the friars, assigned the newly-built Holy Family Church in the city of Tucson to the Carmelites and appointed Fr. Lucas as its first pastor in 1915. He left the United States and returned to Barcelona when he was elected provincial of the Catalonian Province in 1924. A year later, Fr. Lucas was transferred to Rome to serve as general definitor. After completing his tenure there in 1933, he returned to Barcelona and served as prior. In 1936, he assumed the office of provincial and was stationed at the Carmelite monastery in Barcelona."

-- From the website of the Discalced Carmelite Friars of the California-Arizona Province

"The political ambiance was gradually simmering on an anticlerical attitude since the assassination of General Miguel Primo de Rivera who had established a military dictatorship. The republican government, headed by President Manuel Azaña, had passed laws and restrictions including the confiscation of church property and the prohibition of clergy from teaching in public schools. When the monarchy had been overthrown by the exile of King Alfonso XIII and with the republican government established for a second time in 1931, churches in Madrid and in Andalucia were burned.Fearful that the government would lose popular support, police authorities were unwilling to stop the destruction. In the new republican government, the Catholic Political Party (CEDA) demanded representation. However in 1934, leftist groups responded with a rebellion by killing thirty-four priests, brothers, and seminarians in the mining area of Asturias.

By election time in February 1936, the Popular Front Party, comprised of liberals, socialists, and communists with anarchist support, had taken power over the government. In July, the military rose up against the Popular Front government, which in turn called the working-class organizations to bear arms in response.

The uprising turned into a civil war and thereby began what one historian called “the greatest clerical bloodletting in the entire history of the Christian Church.”Carmelites in Barcelona at the onset of civil warThe friars at the Carmelite monastery in Barcelona, located at the corner of LIuria Street and Diagonal Avenue, were still asleep at 4:30 Sunday morning when suddenly they were awakened by shouts and banging at the door.

On that morning of July 19, 1936, the quiet streets of Barcelona had turned into a battlefield when nationalist troops were sent to secure the cross streets between Paseo de Gracia and Diagonal.The troops were ambushed between Callis and Llüria Street by republican assault guards and city militia. The civil war had come to Barcelona. The sounds of horrible gun fire and the militia shouting “Viva Ia Republica” and “Viva el Ejercito” grew louder and louder. The banging at the door was increasingly frantic— shouting through the door that the wounded needed care. The monastery door was opened and infantry men from the Santiago cavalry barged in bringing with them several armed soldiers.

The community had rapidly set up an infirmary in the largest room in the monastery close to the entrance. They had laid the wounded on mattresses that the friars had taken from all their cells. Food was scarce for so many inside, but the friars made sure that the wounded and fatigued were well nourished, even if it meant abstaining from food themselves. Soldiers from the infantry continued to storm into the monastery bringing weapons and ammunition and placing themselves in strategic areas throughout the compound and turning the Carmelite monastery into a military fort.

An American reporter, Magan Laird, was vacationing with her family at an apartment across from the monastery when she heard what sounded like firecrackers and rockets. But when she looked out of her apartment and found no one coming out, she knew something was wrong: “The first sign of life is a private car coming rapidly up Calle Lluria ... It stops in the next block in front of the church and monastery of the Carmelites. Two assault guards get out hurriedly, grasp the rifles in firing position, and station themselves behind a tree. At the same moment, I see other assault guards running, rifles in their hands, down the diagonal, another block away ... There is a crackle and a puff of smoke from the tower of the Carmelite church. In the street below, an assault guard, sheltered behind a tree knoll, raises his rifle and fires ... this is no fiesta. This is war.”

The cavalry had set a perimeter with soldiers on the bell tower, on windows inside the cells, and church areas. Laird recounts, “From time to time the air is torn with their sharp pum-pum-pum ... Suddenly the drone of an airplane motor is heard directly above our heads. In a minute the plane itself dips into our line of vision, flying high and circling above the Carmelite church. There is the sharp rattle of machine guns from the plane. They are firing at random on the streets and houses below.”

In the midst of this chaos, the whole Carmelite community was able to celebrate Sunday Mass and pray the Divine Office.As evening drew near, the wounded were transferred to the library where they would be safer and make more space for the incoming troops from the street. “Cars are passing more frequently in the streets—beautiful cars, luxurious limousines, and open sport models, polished and shining—the cars of the wealthy, filled now with men and soldiers in shirt sleeves, firing constantly as they careen wildly through the streets. All of them have painted letters on the sides — FAI and CNT ...“ The streets finally fell quiet late Sunday night.Inside the monastery, as it was forbidden to light any lamps, many soldiers rested in the pews, refectory, sacristy, and basement.

The Carmelites did not go back to their cells but attended to the needs of the soldiers and prisoners who had been captured by the military. “The night air is very cold ... here and there, among darkened buildings of the city, rises a column of white, heavy smoke. They are burning the churches. Off to the right, and elevated on a little hill, one church stands up like liquid gold against the night.”Early Monday morning, the friars celebrated Mass in the middle of gunfire, which was heavier than Sunday.

Throughout the morning, many officers and troops inside came to the Carmelites to be enrolled in the Scapular of Our Lady of Mt. Carmel. With no reinforcements to relieve the soldiers, it was a matter of time before they could no longer hold down the monastery. Seeing that surrender was inevitable, the Carmelite community gathered in the church and knelt before theBlessed Sacrament. Fr. Lucas, the provincial, proceeded to distribute all the consecrated hosts to be consumed. Shortly after this, everyone was alerted that there was an agreement to surrender, with the condition that the lives of the officers, the troops, the wounded, and the religious be spared.For safety, the Carmelites were told not to wear their habits outside, One friar recalls: “We took off our Carmelite habits and clothed ourselves in civilian attire ... all of us were ready to die after having received the Sacrament of Reconciliation and the Eucharist.”

Laird continues: “Presently, in the top of the bell tower, the white flag is run up. Instantly the streets are filled with cheering mobs. The police are powerless to hold them back; they surge against the church, shaking their fists, dancing with rage. Many carry lighted torches.” The mob had infiltrated the monastery by breaking doors and windows. The civil guard was able to give some of the friars a safe passage outside, but the mob became so uncontrollable that there was no longer any guarantee for their safety.

Some friars tried to escape by blending with the crowd, but for some it was no use. Fr. Jorge of St. Joseph and Bro. Juan Jose of Jesus were killed as soon as they were discovered to be friars.Martyrdom of Fr. LucasWitnesses testify to seeing Fr. Lucas as he came out of the monastery through the smaller door adjacent to the tower bell with his face covered with blood, his head bandaged with a colored handkerchief, and accompanied by two civil guards. The mob wanted to lynch Father, but the soldiers forced them back telling them they wanted to take him to the authorities.

As they approached Diagonal Avenue, one of the civil guards with him said, “I gave you my word that I will save your life.” From a distance, however, a patrol shot the guard in the head killing him. The other soldiers fell back as the mob grew restlessly violent.Fr. Lucas crossed Diagonal Avenue alone under fire and took refuge before a large portal. A patrol, armed with two rifles, pushed him ruthlessly onto the Avenue. The patrol approached him again striking him on the head with rifle butts.

Fr. Lucas was ordered to walk down the Avenue and “with an uncertain gait, he staggers slowly down the Diagonal, his palms joined before his breast praying.” After walking a few yards, he was shot from behind and fell to the ground. Wounded, Fr. Lucas was able to crawl some distance before he died near a small oak tree in front of a doctor’s clinic on Diagonal Avenue. Fr. Lucas was lying on the ground with his face turned to the Carmelite monastery until 8 o’clock that night when a Red Cross ambulance from Lluria Street came to take away the body."

-- Account of martyrdom from Tucson priests blog.

Memorial of St Nuño of St Mary (Alvares Pereira)

2011-11-06T03:30:00.000-04:00

"Nuno was born at Sernache do Bomjardim (Portugal) on June 24, son of the noble, Don Alvaro Gonçalves Pereira, grand prior of the priory of Crato, of the Order of the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem. Nuno grew up in the company of the knights dependent on his father and was given to the reading of the knightly and military deeds of the Round Table. At the age of thirteen he was admitted to the court of King Ferdinand, in view of a military career. He soon gave such proofs of bravery that while still thirteen years old he was chosen as an equerry of the queen and created a knight. In imitation of Galahad, the pure knight of the Holy Grail, he would have wished to remain celibate; but, so as not to oppose his father, on Aug. 15, 1376, he consented to take Lady Eleonora de Alvim as his wife. He had three children, two of whom died young; the third, Beatrice, in 1401 married Don Alphonse, a son of King John I. Don Alphonse was also Count of Barcelos and the first Duke of Braganza, the founder of several princely and royal dynasties of Europe.

During the war between Portugal and Castile Nuno had many occasions to show his valor, which, however, was fully revealed only in the political crisis that followed the death of King Ferdinand (Oct. 22, 1383). Among the supporters of the right of Beatrice to the throne of Portugal—she was the daughter of the deceased King Ferdinand and the wife of the King of Castile—were not a few Portuguese, among them Nuno's own brothers. Nuno, however, tenaciously opposed the incorporation of Portugal into the kingdom of Castile and, in order to safeguard national independence, defended the candidacy of John, Master of Aviz, a brother of King Ferdinand; at the same time Nuno endeavored to overcome the hesitations and opposition of his compatriots. On April 6, 1384, he overcame the followers of the King of Castile in the battle of Atoleiros. A year later the Master of Aviz was proclaimed king of Portugal, and he chose Nuno as his Constable. Thus, at only twenty-five years of age, Nuno became the supreme commander of the army. On Aug. 14, 1385, he engaged in the battle of Aljubarrota and the definitive defeat of the Castilians, despite the fact that the Portuguese were greatly outnumbered. Nuno then passed to the offensive and gained another glorious victory in Castilian territory at Valverde (Oct. 1385). Atoleiros, Aljubarrota and Valverde were but the more salient points on a chain of guerilla encounters drawn out for several years.

To his military valor Nuno joined a profound Christian piety. He nourished special devotion to the Most Blessed Sacrament and to the Virgin Mary; he assisted at two Masses every day, and three on Saturdays and Sundays. He went often to confession, and to Communion on Christmas, Easter, Pentecost and the feast of the Assumption. In honor of Our Lady he fasted on every Wednesday, Friday and Saturday, as well as on the vigils of her feasts, even when they were days of battle. On his banner were depicted the sacred images of the Crucifixion, Our Lady, and the two patrons Of knighthood, St. James and St. George. Before battle he prepared his soldiers spiritually, exhorting them to trust in God and having them receive the sacraments. He attributed his stupendous victories to the help of God through the intercession of Our Lady. At Valverde, in the thick of the battle, when victory seemed unattainable, Nuno was found on his knees between two rocks, with hands raised up in the act of prayer.

He manifested his gratitude to Our Lady by making frequent pilgrimages to Marian sanctuaries and building churches in her honor. Thus, at Nuno's expense, the churches of Vila Viçosa, Souzel, Portel, Monsaraz, Mou-rao, fivora, Camarate were erected. All of them were dedicated to the Virgin Mary, as was the magnificent temple of Carmel in Lisbon, later destroyed by the earthquake of 1755. He also built a chapel to the Virgin Mary and to St. George exactly where his banner had stood during the battle of Aljubarrota. At Estremoz he completed the construction of a temple of Our Lady of the Martyrs, begun by King Ferdinand. Finally, bound up with the name of Nuno are the monastery and church of St. Mary of Victory, a masterpiece of Gothic architecture in Portugal and better know by the name of Batalha, ordered built by Don John I to commemorate the victory of Aljubarrota and to fulfill a vow made on the field of battle. After the death of his wife in 1387, Nuno constantly refused to enter into a second marriage. Military engagements had made him live far from home ever since 1383; yet, according to the testimony of Portuguese historians, he always gave the example of an unsullied life and never tolerated any licentiousness among his soldiers. He was always very generous in assisting the needy of every kind. When definite peace had been reestablished with Castile, Nuno distributed a great part of his immense possessions to his comrades in arms. In 1415 he took part in the Portuguese expedition to Ceuta; and then on Aug. 15, 1423, to the wonder and surprise of the whole country, Nuno abandoned all his remaining possessions and was clothed in the Carmelite habit in the convent of Lisbon, which had also been established and endowed by him. He chose the status of the so-called Oblates and dedicated himself to the most humble tasks of the convent.

He took the name Brother Nuno of St. Mary. Only the intervention of the prince, Don Edward, son of King John I, was able to prevent him from actualizing his desire to betake himself to another convent far from Portugal, so that he could avoid the frequent visits of illustrious citizens. He also expressed the desire of begging publicly for his daily food, but his superiors and the same prince Edward did not allow him this. He died in 1431 /the same year as St. Joan of Arc/, probably on April 1, after eight years of a life completely dedicated to prayer and penance. His funeral was a most solemn celebration, with the participation of the entire royal court. He was buried in the Carmelite church of Lisbon."

-- Biography by Elias Cardoso, OCarm

In the Hands of God

2011-10-15T15:04:00.004-04:00

I am Yours and born of You,
What do You want of me?

Majestic Sovereign,
Unending wisdom,
Kindness pleasing to my soul;
God sublime, one Being Good,
Behold this one so vile.
Singing of her love to you:
What do You want of me?

Yours, you made me,
Yours, you saved me,
Yours, you endured me,
Yours, you called me,
Yours, you awaited me,
Yours, I did not stray.
What do You want of me?

Good Lord, what do you want of me,
What is this wretch to do?
What work is this,
This sinful slave, to do?
Look at me, Sweet Love,
Sweet Love, look at me,
What do You want of me?

In Your hand
I place my heart,
Body, life and soul,
Deep feelings and affections mine,
Spouse -- Redeemer sweet,
Myself offered now to you,
What do You want of me?

Give me death, give me life,
Health or sickness,
Honor or shame,
War or swelling peace,
Weakness or full strength,
Yes, to these I say,
What do You want of me?

Give me wealth or want,
Delight or distress,
Happiness or gloominess,
Heaven or hell,
Sweet life, sun unveiled,
To you I give all.
What do You want of me?

Give me, if You will,prayer;
Or let me know dryness,
And abundance of devotion,
Or if not, then barrenness.
In you alone, Sovereign Majesty,
I find my peace,
What do You want of me?

Give me then wisdom.
Or for love, ignorance,
Years of abundance,
Or hunger and famine.
Darkness or sunlight,
Move me here or there:
What do You want of me?

If You want me to rest,
I desire it for love;
If to labor,
I will die working:
Sweet Love say
Where, how and when.
What do You want of me?

Calvary or Tabor give me,
Desert or fruitful land;
As Job in suffering
Or John at Your breast;
Barren or fruited vine,
Whatever be Your will:
What do You want of me?

Be I Joseph chained
Or as Egypt's governor,
David pained
Or exalated high,
Jonas drowned,
Or Jonas freed:
What do You want of me?

Silent or speaking,
Fruitbearing or barren,
My wounds shown by the Law,
Rejoicing in the tender Gospel;
Sorrowing or exulting,
You alone live in me:
What do You want of me?

Yours I am, for You I was born:
What do You want of me?

-- St Teresa of Avila

Memorial of Bl Isidore Bakanja

2011-08-12T00:18:00.000-04:00

"Isidore Bakanja worked as an assistant mason for white colonists in what was then the Belgian Congo and later known as Zaire. Convert, baptized 6 May 1906 at age 18 after receiving instruction from Trappists missionaries. Rosary in hand, he used any chance to share his faith; though untrained, many thought of him as a catechist. He left his native village because there were no fellow Christians.

He further worked as a domestic on a Belgian rubber plantation. Many of the Belgian agents were atheists who hated missionaries due to their fight for native rights and justice; the agents used the term "mon pere" for anyone associated with religion. Isidore encountered their hatred when he asked leave to go home. The agents refused, and he was ordered to stop teaching fellow workers how to pray: "You'll have the whole village praying and no one will work!" He was told to discard his scapular, and when he didn't, he was flogged twice. The second time the agent tore the scapular from Isidore's neck, had him pinned to the ground, and then beaten with over 100 blows with a whip of elephant hide with nails on the end. He was then chained to a single spot 24 hours a day.

When an inspector came to the plantation, Isidore was sent to another village. He managed to hide in the forest, then dragged himself to the inspector. "I saw a man," wrote the horrified inspector, "come from the forest with his back torn apart by deep, festering, malodorous wounds, covered with filth, assaulted by flies. He leaned on two sticks in order to get near me - he wasn't walking; he was dragging himself". The agent tried to kill "that animal of mon pere", but the inspector prevented him. He took Isidore home to heal, but Isidore knew better. "If you see my mother, or if you go to the judge, or if you meet a priest, tell them that I am dying because I am a Christian."

Two missionaries who spent several days with him reported that he devoutly received the last sacraments. The missionaries urged Isidore to forgive the agent; he assured them that he already had. "I shall pray for him. When I am in heaven, I shall pray for him very much." After six months of prayer and suffering, he died, rosary in hand and scapular around his neck."

-- Biography from Savior.org

** Isidore was born around 1887 and died in 1909. He was a lay young man invested with the Scapular of Our Lady of Mt Carmel. Carmelites observe his feast on 12 August since we celebrate the Assumption of Our Lady on the 15th, the day of his entering into eternal life.

Letter of Pope Pius XII on the Scapular

2011-07-25T04:57:00.000-04:00

To the Most Reverend Fathers
Prior General of the Order of the Brothers
of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Mount Carmel (O.Carm.)
&
Prepositus General of the Order of the Discalced Brothers
of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Mount Carmel (O.C.D.)

Christ is the way; Mary reflects the way; her Scapular is our keepsake on the way.

There is no one who is not aware how greatly a love for the Blessed Virgin, Mother of God, contributes to the enlivening of the Catholic faith and to the raising of the moral standard. These effects are especially secured by means of those devotions which, more than others, are seen to enlighten the mind with celestial doctrine and to excite souls to the practise of the Christian life. In the first rank of the most favoured of those devotions, that of the Holy Carmelite Scapular must be placed — a devotion which, adapted to the minds of all by its very simplicity, has become so universally widespread among the faithful and has produced so many and such salutary fruits.

Therefore it has pleased Us greatly to learn of the decision of our Carmelite Brethren both Calced and Discalced; namely, to take all pains to pay homage to the Blessed Virgin Mary in as solemn a manner as possible on the occasion of the Seventh Centenary of the Institution of the Scapular of Our Lady of Mount Carmel. Prompted therefore by Our constant love for the tender Mother of God and mindful also of Our own enrolment from boyhood in the Confraternity of this same Scapular, most willingly do We commend so pious an undertaking and We are certain that upon it will fall an abundance of divine blessings. For not with a light or passing matter are We here concerned, but with the obtaining of eternal life itself which is the substance of that Promise of the Most Blessed Virgin that has been handed down to us. We are concerned, namely, with that which is of supreme importance to all and with the manner of achieving it safely. For the Holy Scapular, which may be called the Habit or Garment of Mary, is a Sign and a Pledge of the protection of the Mother of God. But not for this reason, however, may they who wear the Scapular think that they can gain eternal salvation while remaining slothful and negligent of spirit, for the Apostle warns us: “In fear and trembling shall you work out your salvation.” —Phil. 2:12.

Therefore all Carmelites, whether they live in the cloisters of the First and Second Orders or are members of the Third Order Regular or Secular or of the Confraternities, belong to the same Family of Our Most Blessed Mother and are attached to it by a special bond of love. May they all see in this Keepsake of the Virgin herself a Mirror of humility and purity; may they read in the very simplicity of the Garment a concise lesson in modesty and simplicity; above all, may they behold in this same Garment, which they wear day and night, the eloquently expressive symbol of their prayers for the divine assistance; finally, may it be to them a Sign of their Consecration to the Most Sacred heart of the Immaculate Virgin, a consecration which in recent times We have so strongly recommended.

And certainly this gentle Mother will not delay to open as soon as possible, through her intercession with God, the gates of Heaven for her children who are expiating their faults in Purgatory - a trust based on that Promise known as the Sabbatine Privilege.

Now, therefore, as a pledge of the divine protection and help, and as an assurance of Our own special predilection We most lovingly impart to you, Beloved Sons, and to the whole Carmelite Order, the Apostolic Benediction.

Given In Rome At The See Of Peter
On The Eleventh Day Of February,
On The Feast Of The Apparition Of The Immaculate Virgin Mary,
In The Year 1950,
And The Eleventh Of Our Pontificate.

Pius PP XII

Share your spiritual treasure: preach the word of God

2011-07-21T04:21:00.000-04:00

"There is a spiritual life that we share with the angels of heaven and with the divine spirits, for like them we have been formed in the image and likeness of God. The bread that is necessary for living this life is the grace of the Holy Spirit and the love of God. But grace and love are nothing without faith, since without faith it is impossible to please God. And faith is not conceived unless the word of God is preached. Faith comes through hearing, and what is heard is the word of Christ. The preaching of the word of God, then, is necessary for the spiritual life, just as the planting of seed is necessary for bodily life.

Christ says: The sower went out to sow his seed. The sower goes out as a herald of justice. On some occasions we read that the herald was God, for example, when with a living voice from heaven he gave the law of justice to a whole people in the desert.

On other occasions, the herald was an angel of the Lord, as when he accused the people of transgressing the divine law at Bochim, in the place of weeping. At this all the sons of Israel, when they heard the angel's address, became sorrowful in their hearts, lifted up their voices, and wept bitterly. Then again, Moses preached the law of the Lord to the whole people on the plains of Moab, as we read in Deuteronomy. Finally, Christ came as God and man to preach the word of the Lord, and for the same purpose he sent the apostles, just as he had sent the prophets before them.

Preaching therefore, is a duty that is apostolic, angelic, Christian, divine. The word of God is replete with manifold blessings, since it is, so to speak, a treasure of all goods. It is the source of faith, hope, charity, all virtues, all the gifts of the Holy Spirit, all the beatitudes of the Gospel, all good works, all the rewards of life, all the glory of paradise: Welcome the word that has taken root in you, with its power to save you.

For the word of God is a light to the mind and a fire to the will. It enables man to know God and to love him. And for the interior man who lives by the Spirit of God, through grace, it is bread and water, but a bread sweeter than honey and the honeycomb, a water better than wine and milk. For the soul it is a spiritual treasure of merits yielding an abundance of gold and precious stones. Against the hardness of a heart that persists in wrongdoing, it acts as a hammer. Against the world, the flesh and the devil it serves as a sword that destroys all sin."

-- Sermo Quadragesimalis 2 by St Lawrence of Brindisi, OFM Cap

2011-07-07T00:35:00.005-04:00

"Since union with God, precious fruit of silence, could not exist if calmness did not reign within and around us, we must, by a vigilant mortification of the tongue and of the imagination, repress without ceasing the too great love of talking as well as the curious desire of knowing everything."

-- Mother Catherine Aurelia Caouette, Foundress of the Sisters Adorers of the Most Precious Blood

Precious Blood Prayer to the Mother of God

2011-07-06T00:23:00.005-04:00

Dear Mother of God and purest virgin, do offer to the Heavenly Father the Precious Blood and merits of Jesus Christ for all poor sinners and for the prevention of mortal sin.

Dear Mother of God and Protectress of the Holy Church, do offer to the Heavenly Father the Precious Blood and Merits of Jesus Christ for our Holy Mother Church, for our Holy Father the Pope and his intentions, for our Bishop and his diocese.

Dear Mother of God, and my Mother also, do offer to the Heavenly Father the most Precious blood and the merits of Jesus Christ, His most holy and Divine Heart, and His infinite merits, for our cruelly persecuted brethren in every land where Christians suffer persecution. Offer them also for the unhappy pagans that they may learn to know Jesus, Thy Son, and their Redeemer, and for the liberty, victory, and extension of the Catholic Faith in all the countries of the world. Obtain also for the newly converted fidelity and constancy in our holy Faith. Amen.

Seven Offerings of the Precious Blood

2011-07-05T00:04:00.018-04:00

Eternal Father, I offer Thee the merits of the Most Precious Blood of Jesus, Thy Beloved Son and my Divine Redeemer, for the propagation and exaltation of my dear Mother the Holy Church, for the safety and prosperity of her visible Head, the Holy Roman Pontiff, for the cardinals, bishops and pastors of souls, and for all the ministers of the sanctuary.

Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost. As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen. Blessed and praised forevermore be Jesus Who hath saved us by His Precious Blood! Amen.

Eternal Father, I offer Thee the merits of the Most Precious Blood of Jesus, Thy Beloved Son and my Divine Redeemer, for the peace and concord of nations, for the conversion of the enemies of our holy faith and for the happiness of all Christian people.

Glory be...

Eternal Father, I offer Thee the merits of the Most Precious Blood of Jesus, Thy Beloved Son and my Divine Redeemer, for the repentance of unbelievers, the extirpation of all heresies, and the conversion of sinners.

Glory be...

Eternal Father, I offer Thee the merits of the Most Precious Blood of Jesus, Thy Beloved Son and my Divine Redeemer, for all my relations, friends and enemies, for the poor, the sick, and those in tribulation, and for all those for whom Thou willest I should pray, or knowest that I ought to pray.

Glory be...

Eternal Father, I offer Thee the merits of the Most Precious Blood of Jesus, Thy Beloved Son and my Divine Redeemer, for all those who shall this day pass to another life, that Thou mayest preserve them from the pains of hell, and admit them the more readily to the possession of Thy Glory.

Glory be...

Eternal Father, I offer Thee the merits of the Most Precious Blood of Jesus, Thy Beloved Son and my Divine Redeemer, for all those who are lovers of this Treasure of His Blood, and for all those who join with me in adoring and honoring It, and for all those who try to spread devotion to It . . .

Glory be...

Eternal Father, I offer Thee the merits of the Most Precious Blood of Jesus, Thy Beloved Son and my Divine Redeemer, for all my wants, spiritual and temporal, for the holy souls in Purgatory, and particularly for those who in their lifetime were most devoted to this Price of our redemption, and to the sorrows and pains of our dear Mother, most Holy Mary . . .

Glory be...

Blessed and exalted be the Blood of Jesus, now and always, and through all eternity. Amen.

Memorial of Bl Maria Crocifissa Curcio

2011-07-04T00:34:00.000-04:00

"Maria Crocifissa [Kroh-Chee-FEE-sah] Curcio [KUR-chee-oh], foundress of the Carmelite Missionary Sisters of Saint Therese of the Child Jesus, was born in Ispica (Rg), southeast Sicily, in the diocese of Noto, on January 30, 1877. Her parents were Salvatore Curcio and Concetta Franzò. Being the seventh of ten siblings, she spent her childhood in a highly cultural and social home environment, in which she quickly exhibited lively intelligence and a pleasant personality. She was very strong-willed and determined, and in her early teens she developed a strong tendency towards piety, with specific attention and solidarity towards the weak and marginalized.

At home she was raised under the strict moral guidelines, by virtue of which her father not only impeded her yearning for an intense life of faith, but according to the customs of the era, he did not permit her to study beyond grade six at the elementary level.

These deprivations cost her greatly. However, eager to learn, she drew comfort from the many books in the family library, where she found a copy of the Life of Saint Teresa of Jesus. The impact of this saint enabled her to come to know and love the Carmel, and so she began her "study of celestial things".

In 1890, at the age of thirteen, she succeeded, and not without difficulty, in enrolling in the Carmelite Third Order, which had only recently been re-established in Ispica. Because of her regular attendance at the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Mount Carmel and her deep devotion to Our Lady of Mount Carmel, who "had captured her heart since childhood" by assigning her the mission of“making the Carmel reflourish”, her knowledge of Carmelite Spirituality made her understand the divine plans in store for her.

Her desire to share the ideal of a Missionary Carmel, which unites the contemplative dimension with that of a specifically apostolic dimension, she began an initial experience of community life with a few fellow members of the Third Order in a small apartment in her ancestral home, which her siblings had bequeathed to her. She then transferred to Modica (Rg) where she was entrusted with the management of the "Carmela Polara” conservatory for the acceptance and assistance of young females who were orphans or in any way needy, with the firm resolution to turning them into"worthy women who would be useful to themselves and to society".

After several years of trials and hardships in the vain attempt to see this undertaking of hers in some way supported and officially recognized by the local ecclesiastic authorities, she finally managed to obtain the support and agreement of her missionary ideal in Father Lorenzo Van Den Eerenbeemt, a Carmelite Father of the Ancient Order. On May 17, 1925, she came to Rome for the canonization of St. Therese of the Child Jesus, and the next day, accompanied by father Lorenzo, she visited Santa Marinella, a small town on the Latium coast north of Rome. She was struck by the natural beauty of this region, but also by the extreme poverty of a great number of this town’s inhabitants and it was here that she finally realized that she had reached her landing place. Having obtained an oral permission “of experiment” from the bishop of the Diocese of Porto Santa Rufina, Cardinal Antonio Vico, on July 3,1925, she definitively settled in Santa Marinella, and on July 16 of the following year, she received the decree of affiliation of her small community with the Carmelite Order, hence sealing her belonging to Mary in the Carmel forever more.

In 1930, after many sufferings and crosses, her small nucleus obtained the recognition of the Church and Cardinal Tommaso Pio Boggiani, Ordinary of the diocese Porto Santa Rufina, erected the Congregation of the Carmelite Missionary Sisters of St. Therese of the Child Jesus as an institute of diocesan rights.

“To bring souls to God” is the objective that brought to life the numerous openings of educational and charitable institutions in Italy and abroad. For this reason she urged her daughters to bring a Christian point of view to families. She was able to achieve her missionary yearning in 1947 when, on the ashes of the second world war, she sent the first sisters to Brazil with the mandate to “never forget the poor”, continuing to dream of increasingly vast horizons towards which to drive the sails of her missionary Carmel.

With her entire life marked by poor health and diabetes, which she forced herself to always accept with strength and a serene adhesion to the will of God, she passed the last years of her life in illness, continuing to pray and to give of herself to her sisters, to whom she offers a precious example of virtues, which became all the more transparent and bright.

Her prayer was an imitate and constant dialogue with Jesus, the Father, and all the Blessed, inspired by a filial confidence, spousal love, sentiments of gratitude, praise, adoration and amends, that she sought to transmit, first of all, to her spiritual daughters and to all those who had the opportunity to know her through the example of her life, always nourishing the “desire to have holy daughters, eucharistic daughters, and daughters that know how to pray”.

She intensely cultivated the union of love with Christ in the Eucharist by giving all of herself to satisfy the desire to make amends “for the immense number of souls who do not know and do not love God” and by offering to be the victim of atonement along “with the Great Martyr of Love”. An amends which made her capable of sharing the pains and anxieties of humanity; of becoming aware of their various needs, with charity and justice; of providing a voice to those who do not have one; and of perceiving the image of the Crucified Christ in those whose image had been distorted by pain and suffering. For this reason she urged the sisters to “love with holiness the treasures with which the Divine Goodness entrusts you; the souls of the youth, the hope of the future.” And to not spare oneself in the service of the youth most humiliated and abandoned by “freeing in them the gold from the mud”, in order to restore in every creature the dignity and the image of being a child of God.

From the Mother of Jesus she learned to be a mother to those in need. With St. Therese of the Child Jesus she found spiritual bliss in the “regular and faithful fulfilment of one’s duties”, doing “with love and dedication even the smallest deeds”; experiencing with humility and simplicity, joy and tenderness, every human relationship and everyday achieving that unity of life and faith “by peacefully combining” the untiring activity of Martha and the profound mysticism of Mary.

On July 4, 1957, in Santa Marinella, she serenely returned forever to Christ, her spouse, leaving behind in everyone’s heart a live memory of her love and of her holiness."

All men are under obligation to make reparation

2011-07-03T05:51:00.000-04:00

"Among the various devotions paid to the Sacred Heart, the one foremost in importance and interest is assuredly the Act of Consecration, whereby we give to the divine Heart of Jesus both ourselves and all that is ours; in recognition of the truth that all we have cometh unto us out of the infinite charity of the eternal Deity. But it is expedient that any attempt of ours at self-consecration be accompanied with the purpose of making expiation (otherwise called reparation) to the most Sacred Heart of Jesus. In consecration the predominant intention may be said to be the purpose to repay (as it were) the love of the Creator by the love of us his creatures. But since Love Uncreate is passed over by human forgetfulness, and dishonoured by the sins of mankind, we should endeavour to repair such outrages; and the performance of this duty is ordinarily known as reparation.

If we are, for the aforesaid reasons, to undertake both of those practices, we must recognize that we are impelled to the duty of reparation by the most powerful motives of justice and love: of justice, in order to expiate the injury done to God by our sins, and to re-establish through penance the divine order which was violated by them; of love, in order to suffer together with Christ, (who patiently endured all possible dishonour,) so that we may offer him some solace in return for his sufferings. For it is our duty to do more than honour God by the worship of adoration, whereby we adore his infinite Majesty, or by means of prayer, when we recognize his supreme dominion over us, or by acts of thanksgiving, when we praise his infinite generosity towards us. Because we are sinners, burdened with many offences, we must also make satisfaction to the offended justice of God, because of the numberless sins, offences and negligences we have committed. Wherefore, we must add to the act of consecration, by which we offer ourselves to God, and become thereby, as it were, sacred unto God by reason of the holiness which naturally floweth from an act of consecration, as the Angelic Doctor teacheth. We must add the act of reparation, by means of which all our faults are blotted out, lest perchance the sanctity of Infinite Justice spurn our arrogant unworthiness, and look upon the gift of ourselves as something to be rejected rather than accepted.

All men are under obligation to make reparation; for our souls are disfigured as the Christian faith teacheth by original sin as a result of the pitiable fall of Adam. We are also subject to passions, whereby we are corrupted in a truly sad state, and have thus made ourselves worthy of everlasting condemnation. It is true that the proud philosophers of this world deny the aforesaid verities, and in their place do raise up again the ancient heresy of Pelagius: which taught that in human nature there is a certain innate goodness wherewith, by our own powers, we are raised up to ever higher levels of perfection; but such false theories, born of human pride, have been condemned by the Apostle in his saying that all men are by nature the children of wrath. As a matter of fact, from the very beginning of the creation of the world, mankind recognized, in one way or another, the obligation of making reparation, impelled thereto, as by a natural instinct, in an endeavour to placate God by offering public sacrifices unto him."

-- From the Encyclical Letter of Pope Pius XI

The priesthood of Christ is derived from sacrifice

2011-06-28T05:18:00.000-04:00

"In what was done by Melchisedech the priest we recognize a type of the Sacrament of the Lord's Sacrifice. For thus it is written in the writings of God: And Melchisedech, King of Salem, brought forth bread and wine, for he was the priest of the Most High God, and he blessed Abraham. Concerning the fact that Melchisedech was a type of Christ, the Holy Ghost himself doth testify in the Psalms, where the First Person of the Holy Trinity (that is, the Father) is set before us as saying unto the Second Person (that is, the Son): Before the day-star have I begotten thee: Thou art a priest for ever, after the order of Melchisedech. And doubtless the sameness of order in the priesthood of Christ and of Melchisedech is derived from sacrifice, and proceedeth from this, namely; that Melchisedech was the priest of the Most High God; that he offered bread and wine; and that he blessed Abraham.

For who is so truly the priest of the Most High God as is our Lord Jesus Christ? And he it is that hath made an offering unto God the Father, and the same offering that Melchisedech made, Bread and Wine, that is to say, his own Flesh and his own Blood. And so far as Abraham is concerned, the blessing which Melchisedech gave him so long ago belongeth also to us. For if Abraham believed God and it was accounted to him for righteousness, verily then, whosoever believeth God and liveth by faith, the same is found righteous, and is made manifest unto us as one who hath thereby attained the blessing given faithful Abraham; which same is also justified as the Apostle Paul proveth, where he saith: Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness; know ye therefore that they which are of faith, the same are the children of Abraham; and the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the heathen through faith, preached before the Gospel unto Abraham, saying, In thee shall all nations be blessed.

To the end therefore, that this blessing of Abraham by Melchisedech the priest might be duly solemnized, it was preceded (as we are told in Genesis) by a symbolic sacrifice consisting of bread and wine. Completing and fulfilling this sacrifice, our Lord Jesus Christ offered up bread, and a cup of wine mingled with water. And thus he who came, (not to destroy, but to fulfil, the Law and the Prophets,) utterly satisfied all the implications prefigured in the oblation made by Melchisedech. Through Solomon's Proverbs also did the Holy Ghost clearly foreshadow, as it were in a parable, the Lord's Sacrifice, saying: Wisdom hath builded her house, she hath hewn out seven pillars: referring thus to the Church. In the same passage he pointeth to the victim slain, and the bread and wine, saying: She hath killed her beasts, she hath mingled her wine. He pointeth to the altar in the words: She hath also furnished her table. And to the apostolic priesthood in the words: She hath sent forth her servants, she crieth upon the highest places of the city, saying, Whoso is simple, let him turn in hither unto me; as for them that want understanding, she saith to them, Come, eat of my bread, and drink of the wine which I have mingled for you."

-- From the letter to Caecilius by St. Cyprian, Bishop and Martyr

2011-06-27T00:22:00.020-04:00

"St. Thomas Aquinas wrote that 'the first thing that is necessary for every Christian is faith, without which no one is truly called a faithful Christian. Faith brings about four good effects. The first is that through faith the soul is united to God, and by it there is between the soul and God a union akin to marriage. 'I will espouse thee in faith.''

In other words, that Therese Martin should become St. Therese, a bride of Christ, should only appear logical to us in light of St. Thomas' doctrine. If espousal with God is the fruit of the act of faith, then this must also be a universal vocation and not something exclusive to consecrated souls. God's courtship of the soul begins in baptism. Certainly, the nature of love is that it must be freely offered and the response must also be given in freedom, but often God's proposal is left unrequited - hence, the scandal of sin. But when his offer is accepted whole-heartedly and with the radical response demanded of an authentic act of faith, then the soul enters into a marital covenant with God and takes upon itself all the dignity and privileges accorded to this state.

This faithful matrimonial love implies total participation in the life of one's spouse, experiencing in one's own soul the spouse's interior and exterior trials. Naturally, St. Therese of Lisieux, faithful spouse to Christ, could do no less than offer herself together with her divine Spouse as an expiatory victim for the salvation of sinners.

Her formal relationship with Christ and her new insertion into his life began fittingly on Christmas. Also fittingly, her relationship with him on earth would end on Calvary.

Between Bethlehem and Calvary, St. Therese of Lisieux would share in her Spouse's joys, sorrows, trials and always his peace. Further, like her Spouse, she could not remain indifferent to his rejection by so many souls. Her relationship with these souls began under the auspices of maternal love and intercession. It would transform with time into fraternal love and solidarity - and the vicarious suffering to which both loves expose themselves."

-- St. Therese of Lisieux: Spouse and Victim by Cliff Ermatinger

Solemnity of Corpus Christi

2011-06-26T10:12:00.000-04:00

Sing, my tongue, the Saviour’s glory,
Of his Flesh the mystery sing;
Of the Blood, all price exceeding,
Shed by our immortal King,
Destined, for the world’s redemption,
From a noble womb to spring.

Of a pure and spotless Virgin
Born for us on earth below,
He, as Man with man conversing,
Stay’d, the seeds of truth to sow;
Then He closed in solemn order
Wondrously his life of woe.

On the night of that Last Supper,
Seated with his chosen band,
He the Paschal victim eating,
First fulfils the Law’s command;
Then, as Food to his Apostles
Gives Himself with his own hand.

Word made Flesh, the bread of nature
By his word to Flesh He turns;
Wine into his Blood He changes: —
What though sense no change discerns?
Only be the heart in earnest,
Faith her lesson quickly learns.

-- Traditional Hymn

Holy Spirit eternal love!

2011-06-12T03:03:00.007-04:00

1.Who are you, sweet light, that fills me
And illumines the darkness of my heart?
You lead me like a mother's hand,
And should you let go of me,
I would not know how to take another step.
You are the space
That embraces my being and buries it in yourself.
Away from you it sinks into the abyss
Of nothingness, from which you raised it to the light.
You, nearer to me than I to myself
And more interior than my most interior
And still impalpable and intangible
And beyond any name:
Holy Spirit eternal love!

2.Are you not the sweet manna
That from the Son's heart
Overflows into my heart,
The food of angels and the blessed?
He who raised himself from death to life,
He has also awakened me to new life
From the sleep of death.
And he gives me new life from day to day,
And at some time his fullness is to stream through me,
Life of your life indeed, you yourself:
Holy Spirit eternal life!

3.Are you the ray
That flashes down from the eternal Judge's throne
And breaks into the night of the soul
That had never known itself?
Mercifully relentlessly
It penetrates hidden folds.
Alarmed at seeing itself,
The self makes space for holy fear,
The beginning of that wisdom
That comes from on high
And anchors us firmly in the heights,
Your action,
That creates us anew:
Holy Spirit ray that penetrates everything!

4.Are you the spirit's fullness and the power
By which the Lamb releases the seal
Of God's eternal decree?
Driven by you
The messengers of judgement ride through the world
And separate with a sharp sword
The kingdom of light from the kingdom of night.
Then heaven becomes new and new the earth,
And all finds its proper place
Through your breath:
Holy Spirit victorious power!

5.Are you the master who builds the eternal cathedral,
Which towers from the earth through the heavens?
Animated by you, the columns are raised high
And stand immovably firm.
Marked with the eternal name of God,
They stretch up to the light,
Bearing the dome,
Which crowns the holy cathedral,
Your work that encircles the world:
Holy Spirit God's molding hand!

6.Are you the one who created the unclouded mirror
Next to the Almighty's throne,
Like a crystal sea,
In which Divinity lovingly looks at itself?
You bend over the fairest work of your creation,
And radiantly your own gaze
Is illumined in return.
And of all creatures the pure beauty
Is joined in one in the dear form
Of the Virgin, your immaculate bride:
Holy Spirit Creator of all!

7.Are you the sweet song of love
And of holy awe
That eternally resounds around the triune throne,
That weds in itself the clear chimes of each and every being?
The harmony,
That joins together the members to the Head,
In which each one
Finds the mysterious meaning of his being blessed
And joyously surges forth,
Freely dissolved in your surging:
Holy Spirit eternal jubilation!

-- St Teresa Benedicta of the Cross (Edith Stein)

Ven Thomas Aquinas of St Teresa

2011-06-06T03:41:00.000-04:00

"It seems that Thomas was born in Dublin about 1612; in 1635 he joined the DiscalcedCarmelites in the same city. Ordained a priest in 1640, he immediately began abeneficent ministry which was soon limited, but not interrupted, by the Puritanpersecution that broke out in 1642. In order to save a Catholic family from falling backinto error, he went for a visit, although the home of this family was in a very dangerouszone: the family had already abjured its Protestantism, but was in new danger becauseof the insistence of the Puritans. In consequence, soon afterwards he was captured.Transferred to Drogheda, Thomas was able to celebrate Mass secretly in prison and thusprepared himself for martyrdom. In fact, after only five days and having just aboutfinished Mass, he received the announcement of his condemnation to death, anannouncement which he publicly called «a happy and awaited message». He did wish to know the concrete cause of his condemnation and the reason for itwithout previous judgment. And when he learned that «for papist priests there was noneed of any form of law,» he added: «Blessed be God! My Savior also was condemned todeath against every law and reason. See, I shall die with Him, my friend! There is noreason for losing time».

Before leaving the prison he was able to go to confession to the guardian of the FriarsMinor, who was also being held; and then, carrying a crucifix and a rosary in his hands,he was brought to the place of judgment. Along the way he recited the litany of OurLady in a loud voice. He was interrupted by repeated invitations to abjure «the papalheresy,» but he immediately resumed his prayer. Along the way he was also able toconfirm in the faith a poor Catholic woman who was also being led to punishment andwas in danger of betraying her religion. With the litany of Our Lady still on his lips,Thomas reached the scaffold. Publicly, he asked once more for the reason of hiscondemnation and after it had been confirmed repeatedly that he had been sentencedbecause he was a papist, a priest and a religious, he exclaimed in a voice that could beheard by those present: «That is enough for me! Fortunately, I do not die for any othercrime. I am very ready to die for the Catholic faith and for my religious profession.» Hewas tempted yet again to deny the faith; but when it was seen that all was in vain, therope was put around his neck. But, the first time, it broke. He fell, still holding thecrucifix and the rosary in his hands. The second time, the rope held and he died byhanging. It was June 6, 1642.

His body was buried by Catholics, and his burial place was repeatedly surrounded by astrange radiance, something that many persons experienced and confirmed, beginningwith the Protestant authorities themselves. His cause was promoted immediately afterhis death, but had some success only at the beginning of this century. It was introducedby St. Pius X on Feb. 12, 1915, with that of the other Irish martyrs of the period from1541-1713."

-- Biography by Valentino Macca

Act of Love

2011-06-03T03:44:00.004-04:00

Reveal Thy Sacred Heart to me, O Jesus, and show me Its attractions. Unite me to It for ever. Grant that all my aspirations and all the beats of my heart, which cease not even while I sleep, may be a testimonial to Thee of my love for Thee and may say to Thee: Yes, Lord, I am all Thine; pledge of my allegiance to Thee rests ever in my heart will never cease to be there. Do Thou accept the slight amount of good that I do and be graciously pleased to repair all my wrong-doing; so that I may be able to bless Thee in time and in eternity. Amen.

-- Writte by Cardinal Merry del Val

Memorial of Bl Elia of St Clement

2011-05-29T00:26:00.000-04:00

"Blessed Elia of St. Clement was born in Bari, 17th January 1901, to deeply Christian parents. At her baptism she was given the name Theodora, gift of God. In the brief course of her life on earth she lived up to her name. On 8th April 1920 (then Feast of St. Albert, author of the Carmelite Rule), she entered the Carmel of St. Joseph in Bari. She received the habit on 24th November of the same year, the feast of St John of the Cross. On 8th December 1924 she wrote in her own blood her act of total and definitive offering to the Lord with the vow to embrace the "most perfect". She died on Christmas day 1927. On 19th December 2005 Pope Benedict XVI signed the Decree of Beatification. She was proclaimed Blessed in Bari Cathedral on 18th March 2006."

-- From the Discalced Carmelite Proper

"O sweet hiddenness, I love to pass my days in your shadow and to consume thus my existence, for love of my sweet Lord. At times, thinking of those eternal rewards, so great compared to the slight sacrifices of this life, my soul remains in wonder, and seized by an ardent longing, it throws itself on God, exclaiming: “Oh my good Jesus, I want to reach my goal, the gates of salvation, no matter what the cost. Do not deny me anything; give me suffering. May this be the most intimate martyrdom of my poor heart, hidden from every human glance: a rugged cross is what I ask of you. I want to pass my days here below hanging from this cross.”"

-- From the letters of Bl Elia of St Clement, ocd

The Holy Spirit is the soul of the Church

2011-05-23T04:31:00.000-04:00

"The Holy Spirit, who with the Father and the Son, created the universe, who guided the People of Israel through history and spoke through the Prophets, who in the fullness of time cooperated in our redemption, came down at Pentecost upon the nascent Church and made her missionary, sending her out to proclaim to all peoples the victory of divine love over sin and death.

The Holy Spirit is the soul of the Church. Without him what would she be reduced to? She would certainly be an important movement in history, a complex and solid social institution, perhaps a sort of humanitarian agency. And to tell the truth she is considered such by those who do not see her from a perspective of faith. Yet, the reality is that in her true nature and also in her authentic presence in history, the Church is ceaselessly formed and guided by the Spirit of her Lord. She is a living body, whose vitality is, precisely, the fruit of the invisible divine Spirit."

-- Pope Benedict XVI, Regina Coeli address on Mary 31, 2009, Solemnity of Pentecost

"Dear friends, let us too learn at the school of Mary to recognize the presence of the Holy Spirit in our lives, to listen to his inspirations and to follow them with docility. He makes us grow in accordance with the fullness of Christ, in accordance with those good fruits which the Apostle Paul lists in his Letter to the Galatians: "Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control" (Gal 5:22). I hope you will be filled with these gifts and that you will always walk with Mary, in accordance with the Spirit..."

-- Pope Benedict XVI, address on Mary 30, Marian Vigil

The Lord will accept the last even as the first

2011-05-10T03:07:00.009-04:00

If any manbe devout and love God,

let himenjoy this fair and radiant triumphal feast.

If any manbe a wise servant,

let himenter rejoicing into the joy of his Lord.

If any havelabored long in fasting,

let him nowreceive his recompense.

If any havewrought from the first hour,

let himtoday receive his just reward.

If any havecome at the third hour,

let himwith thankfulness keep the feast.

If any havearrived at the sixth hour,

let himhave no misgivings,

because heshall in no wise be deprived.

If any havedelayed until the ninth hour,

let himdraw near, fearing nothing.

If any havetarried even until the eleventh hour,

let himalso be not alarmed at his tardiness;

for theLord, who is jealous of his honor,

will acceptthe last even as the first;

he givesrest unto him who comes at the eleventh hour,

even asunto him who has worked from the first hour.

And Heshows mercy upon the last,

and caresfor the first;

and to theone he gives, and upon the other he bestows gifts.

And he bothaccepts the deeds,

andwelcomes the intention,

and honorsthe acts and praises the offering.

Wherefore,enter ye all into the joy of your Lord,

and receiveyour reward,

both thefirst and likewise the second.

You richand poor together,

hold highfestival.

You soberand you heedless,

honor theday.

Rejoicetoday,

both youwho have fasted

and you whohave disregarded the fast.

The tableis fully laden;

feastsumptuously.

The calf isfatted;

let no onego hungry away.

Enjoy thefeast of faith;

receive allthe riches of loving-kindness.

Let no onebewail his poverty,

for theuniversal kingdom has been revealed.

Let no oneweep for his iniquities,

for pardonhas shone forth from the grave.

Let no onefear death,

for theSavior's death has set us free:

he that washeld prisoner of it has annihilated it.

Bydescending into hell, he made hell captive.

Heembittered it when it tasted of his flesh.

And Isaiah,foretelling this, cried:

"Hellwas embittered when it encountered thee in the lower regions."

It wasembittered, for it was abolished.

It wasembittered, for it was mocked.

It wasembittered, for it was slain.

It wasembittered, for it was overthrown.

It wasembittered, for it was fettered in chains.

It took abody, and met God face to face.

It tookearth, and encountered heaven.

It tookthat which was seen, and fell upon the unseen.

O Death,where is your sting?

O Hell,where is your victory?

Christ isrisen, and you are overthrown.

Christ isrisen, and the demons are fallen.

Christ isrisen, and the angels rejoice.

Christ isrisen, and life reigns.

Christ isrisen, and not one dead remains in the grave.

For Christ,being risen from the dead,

is becomethe first-fruits of those who have fallen asleep.

To him beglory and dominion unto ages of ages. Amen.

-- From an Easter Sermon by St John Chrysostom

He who desires nothing but God does not walk in darkness

2011-05-09T03:40:00.001-04:00

"He who desires nothing but GOD does not walk in darkness, however blind and poor he may think himself to be. He that is not presumptuous, nor desires his own satisfaction has no need to falter or fret over anything. You are progressing well, remain in peace and joy. Who do you think you are to be anxious about yourself? You will only get yourself into a fine state!"

-- From the letters of St John of the Cross

Let God's people then recognize that they are a new creation in Christ

2011-05-08T05:24:00.000-04:00

I. We Must All Be Partakers in Christ'sResurrection Life
In my last sermon, dearly-beloved, not in- appropriately, as I think, weexplained to you our participation in the cross of Christ, whereby the life ofbelievers contains in itself the mystery of Easter, and thus what is honouredat the feast is celebrated by our practice. And how useful this is youyourselves have proved, and by your devotion have learnt, how greatly benefitedsouls and bodies are by longer fasts, more frequent prayers, and more liberalalms. For there can be hardly any one who has not profited by this exercise,and who has not stored up in the recesses of his conscience something overwhich he may rightly rejoice. But these advantages must be retained withpersistent care, lest our efforts fall away into idleness, and the devil'smalice steal what God's grace gave. Since, therefore, by our forty days'observance we have wished to bring about this effect, that we should feelsomething of the Cross at the time of the Lord's Passion, we must strive to befound partakers also of Christ's Resurrection, and "pass from death untolife," while we are in this body. For when a man is changed by someprocess from one thing into another, not to be what he was is to him an ending,and to be what he was not is a beginning. But the question is, to what a maneither dies or lives: because there is a death, which is the cause of living,and there is a life, which is the cause of dying. And nowhere else but in thistransitory world are both sought after, so that upon the character of ourtemporal actions depend the differences of the eternal retributions. We mustdie, therefore, to the devil and live to God: we must perish to iniquity thatwe may rise to righteousness. Let the old sink, that the new may rise; andsince, as says the Truth, "no one can serve two masters," let not himbe Lord who has caused the overthrow of those that stood, but Him Who hasraised the fallen to victory.

II. God Did Not Leave His Soul in Hell, NorSuffer His Flesh to See Corruption
Accordingly, since the Apostle says, "the first man is of the earthearthy, the second man is from heaven heavenly. As is the earthy, such also arethey that are earthy; and as is the heavenly, such also are they that areheavenly. As we have borne the image of the earthy, so let us also bear theimage of Him Who is from heaven," we must greatly rejoice over thischange, whereby we are translated from earthly degradation to heavenly dignitythrough His unspeakable mercy, Who descended into our estate that He mightpromote us to His, by assuming not only the substance but also the conditionsof sinful nature, and by allowing the impossibility of Godhead to be affectedby all the miseries which are the lot of mortal manhood. And hence that thedisturbed minds of the disciples might not be racked by prolonged grief, Hewith such wondrous speed shortened the three days' delay which He hadannounced, that by joining the last part of the first and the first part of thethird day to the whole of the second, He cut off a considerable portion of theperiod, and yet did not lessen the number of days. The Saviour's Resurrectiontherefore did not long keep His soul in Hades, nor His flesh in the tomb; andso speedy was the quickening of His uncorrupted flesh that it bore a closerresemblance to slumber than to death, seeing that the Godhead, Which quittednot either part of the Human Nature which He had assumed, reunited by Its powerthat which Its power had separated.

III. Christ's ManifestationAfter the Resurrection Showed that His Person Was Essentially the Same asBefore
And then there followed many proofs, whereon the authority of the Faith to bepreached through the whole world might be based. And although the rolling awayof the stone, the empty tomb, the arrangement of the linen cloths, and theangels who narrated the whole deed by themselves fully built up the truth ofthe Lord's Resurrection, yet did He often appear plainly to the eyes both ofthe women and of the Apostles not only talking with them, but also remainingand eating with them, and allowing Himself to be handled by the eager andcurious hands of those whom doubt assailed. For to this end He entered when thedoors were closed upon the disciples, and gave them the Holy Spirit bybreathing on them, and after giving them the light of understanding opened thesecrets of the Holy Scriptures, and again Himself showed them the wound in theside, the prints of the nails, and all the marks of His most recent Passion,whereby it might be acknowledged that in Him the properties of the Divine andHuman Nature remained undivided, and we might in such sort know that the Wordwas not what the flesh is, as to confess God's only Son to be both Word andFlesh.

IV. But Though It is theSame, It is Also Glorified
The Apostle of the Gentiles, Paul, dearly. beloved, does not disagree with thisbelief, when he says, "even though we have known Christ after the flesh,yet now we know Him so no more." For the Lord's Resurrection was not theending, but the changing of the flesh, and His substance was not destroyed byHis increase of power. The quality altered, but the nature did not cease toexist: the body was made impassible, which it had been possible to crucify: itwas made incorruptible, though it had been possible to wound it. And properlyis Christ's flesh said not to be known in that state in which it had beenknown, because nothing remained passible in it, nothing weak, so that it wasboth the same in essence and not the same in glory. But what wonder if S. Paulmaintains this about Christ's body, when he says of all spiritual Christians"wherefore henceforth we know no one after the flesh." Henceforth, hesays, we begin to experience the resurrection in Christ, since the time when inHim, Who died for all, all our hopes were guaranteed to us. We do not hesitatein diffidence, we are not under the suspense of uncertainty, but havingreceived an earnest of the promise, we now with the eye of faith see the thingswhich will be, and rejoicing in the uplifting of our nature, we already possesswhat we believe.

V. Being Saved by Hope, WeMust Not Fulfil the Lasts of the Flesh
Let us not then be taken up with the appearances of temporal matters, neitherlet our contemplations be diverted from heavenly to earthly things. Thingswhich as yet have for the most part not come to pass must be reckoned asaccomplished: and the mind intent on what is permanent must fix its desiresthere, where what is offered is eternal. For although "by hope we weresaved," and still bear about with us a flesh that is corruptible andmortal, yet we are rightly said not to be in the flesh, if the fleshlyaffections do not dominate us, and are justified in ceasing to be named afterthat, the will of which we do not follow. And so, when the Apostle says,"make not provision for the flesh in the lusts thereof," we understandthat those things are not forbidden us, which conduce to health and which humanweakness demands, but because we may not satisfy all our desires nor indulge inall that the flesh lusts after, we recognize that we are warned to exercisesuch self-restraint as not to permit what is excessive nor refuse what isnecessary to the flesh, which is placed under the mind's control. And hence thesame Apostle says in another place, "For no one ever hated his own flesh,but nourisheth and cherisheth it;" in so far, of course, as it must benourished and cherished not in vices and luxury, but with a view to its properfunctions, so that nature may recover herself and maintain due order, the lowerparts not prevailing wrongfully and debasingly over the higher, nor the higheryielding to the lower, lest if vices overpower the mind, slavery ensues wherethere should be supremacy.

VI. Our Godly ResolutionsMust Continue All the Year Round, Not Be Confined to Easier Only
Let God's people then recognize that they are a new creation in Christ, andwith all vigilance understand by Whom they have been adopted and Whom they haveadopted. Let not the things, which have been made new, return to their ancientinstability; and let not him who has "put his hand to the plough" forsakehis work, but rather attend to that which he sows than look back to that whichhe has left behind. Let no one fall back into that from which he has risen,but, even though from bodily weakness he still languishes under certainmaladies, let him urgently desire to be healed and raised up. For this is thepath of health through imitation of the Resurrection begun in Christ, whereby,notwithstanding the many accidents and falls to which in this slippery life thetraveler is liable, his feet may be guided from the quagmire on to solidground, for, as it is written, "the steps of a man are directed by theLord, and He will delight in his way. When the just man falls he shall not beoverthrown, because the Lord will stretch out His hand." These thoughts,dearly-beloved, must be kept in mind not only for the Easter festival, but alsofor the sanctification of the whole life, and to this our present exerciseought to be directed, that what has delighted the souls of the faithful by theexperience of a short observance may pass into a habit and remain unalterably,and if any fault creep in, it may be destroyed by speedy repentance. Andbecause the cure of old-standing diseases is slow and difficult, remediesshould be applied early, when the wounds are fresh, so that rising ever anewfrom all downfalls, we may deserve to attain to the incorruptible Resurrectionof our glorified flesh in Christ Jesus our Lord, Who lives and reigns with theFather and the Holy Ghost for ever and ever. Amen.

-- Sermon LXXI: On the Resurrection I by St Leo the Great

Divine Mercy Sunday and Beatification of John Paul II

2011-05-01T03:01:00.000-04:00

Jezu, ufam Tobie!
John Paul II, ora pro nobis!

Trust - Completely Trust in Jesus

Trust in Jesus is the essence of the message of mercy. When we go to a public fountain, we can draw water from it as long as we have a vessel or container of some kind to put the water in. If our vessel is small, we can only bring back a little water; if it’s large, we can bring back a lot. And anyone with a vessel can draw water from the fountain. The water is there for us, and no one is excluded. All we need is a vessel.

So it is with God’s mercy. In repeated revelations to St. Faustina, Our Divine Savior makes it clear that the fountain is His Heart, the water is His mercy, and the vessel is trust.

I have opened My Heart as a living fountain of mercy. Let all souls draw life from it. Let them approach this sea of mercy with great trust (Diary, 1520). On the cross, the fountain of My mercy was opened wide by the lance for all souls — no one have I excluded! (1182). I am offering people a vessel with which they are to keep coming for graces to the fountain of mercy. That vessel is this image with the signature: "Jesus, I trust in You" (327). The graces of My mercy are drawn by means of one vessel only, and that is — trust. The more a soul trusts, the more it will receive (1578).

In the Diary of St. Faustina, we hear Our Lord reminding us that we can depend upon His love … that He alone is worthy of our trust: I never reject a contrite heart (1485). Sooner would heaven and earth turn into nothingness than would My mercy not embrace a trusting soul (1777).

But there is more to trust than just believing that God is trustworthy. We have to act upon that belief. Trust involves a turning back to God, a real conversion of our whole lives to God, repenting of our sins and forgiving others. Trust is a living faith.

Trust means that we agree to let God be God, instead of trying to be God ourselves. (Trust is the antidote to the first sin of Adam!) It means that we agree that God can write the script of our lives, instead of insisting on our own script. It means that we agree with the great pledge we make in the Our Father: “Your will [not mine] be done on earth as it is in heaven.” It means that even in our moments of agony we agree with the cry of Jesus in the Garden, “Not my will, but Yours be done” (Lk 22:42).

God is Mercy itself, and we are called to practice the ABC’s of mercy (Ask for His Mercy, Be merciful to others, Completely trust in Jesus). As we do, our trust in Jesus is the vital ingredient. We don’t simply ask for mercy, nor do we simply try to be good to other people. We ask with complete trust, and Our Lord fills us with grace so that we can be merciful as our Heavenly Father is merciful.

I am Love and Mercy itself. When a soul approaches Me with trust, I fill it with such an abundance of graces that it cannot contain them within itself, but radiates them to other souls (1074).

We share in the Resurrection

2011-04-26T04:48:00.000-04:00

I've had problems with the scheduling of posts. I apologize for the delays. May Christ's Resurrection bring all of you closer to the Light of the World and guide you in the path to holiness. May all of you have a beautiful, blessed Easter Season!

-o-o-o-

"When we hear this account in Saint John’s Gospel about Our Lord’s appearance to Saint Mary Magdalene, we can only imagine the joy she would have had. Consider the context: Here was a woman who had been possessed by seven demons and lived a tragic life, becoming a prostitute and doing all kinds of terrible things.

When Our Lord freed her from all of this, she was absolutely in love with Him. Not in a negative way, but truly in love with the One who freed her from the bonds of the devil. So, imagine the sadness this woman would have had. We can see the power of that love; she was willing to be there, at the foot of the Cross. All of His disciples, except Saint John, fled; and there she was with Our Lady. We see the tenacity of this lady and the sadness, the loneliness, the tragedy in the heart that she would have felt when Our Lord died.

Now, she comes to anoint His body because she did not understand what the Resurrection was all about. She figured she would come and anoint the body of the Lord. Then, she finds that the body is not there. How empty, how downhearted she must have been at that moment to see that the Lord was not present; not understanding what the Resurrection was about and assuming that someone took the body of Our Lord. She finally recognized Our Lord when He turned to her and said her name "Mary." Her heart, from being so down, must have just leapt with utter joy at being able to see the Lord and talk with Him.

Imagine the excitement she would have had in her voice when she ran to the apostles to explain to them what had happened. She had seen the Lord! Of course, we know they did not believe her because they did not believe in the resurrection from the dead; but she knew what had happened and her heart must have been absolutely radiant, pounding, without a doubt. Her heart was radiant with joy at the truth that Jesus Christ was risen from the dead. The tomb was empty, except for two angels who were worshiping the spot where the Son of God, in His humanness, had lain in death; even that she did not understand. Now she knew that the One, Whom her heart loved more than anyone in the world, was risen from the dead. The Good News was given to her to bring this message to the apostles; to tell them, even though they would not believe. It did not matter to her that they would not believe. I am sure it bothered her, but it did not matter. That was not going to shake her faith. Just as their infidelity at the Cross did not shake her fidelity, she was going to be there with the Lord, no matter what.

That is why the Lord would appear to her. We do not hear about the appearances to Our Lady. All the saints tell us that Our Lord appeared to His mother first. But Mary Magdalene, after Our Blessed Lady, is the first to whom the Lord appeared because she is the one who remained faithful. She was the one who was willing to risk her life to be at the foot of the Cross. She was the one who would be with Jesus to the end. Therefore, right at the beginning of this new life, Jesus comes to her and gives her the privilege of being the very first to bring the news of the Resurrection to those who did not yet believe.

This Resurrection is what inspires Saint Peter and gives him the grace, being one who not only did not believe but was terrified to be known as a follower of Jesus, to stand up in front of a crowd of thousands of people and proclaim his faith and the name of Jesus Christ; to tell them "God has made both Lord and Messiah this Jesus whom you have crucified. Therefore, you must be baptized into Jesus Christ."

We share that life. We share in the Resurrection already. The joy of Saint Mary Magdalen should be ours, but even in a more incredible way because we share the life. She saw it, but until she was baptized she did not share it. We do; we are baptized into the Lord. Saint Peter says, at the end of the first reading, that when we are baptized into the name of Jesus we receive the Holy Spirit, and it is in this that our sins will be forgiven. It is in this, Saint Peter tells us, that we will be saved. But our lives must change. It is not enough just to say, "Well, I am baptized now. Therefore, it is enough." We are baptized into Jesus Christ; therefore, we must live the life of Jesus Christ. We must live a life of faith, of hope, and of love. We must be filled with the same kind of love that filled Saint Mary Magdalene’s heart: We will be with Our Lord, regardless; we will not be ashamed of Jesus; we are willing to stand with Him at the moment of His death; we will be proclaiming the Gospel because of our faith in the Resurrection. That is what Saint Mary Magdalene did. That is what the Lord is asking of us.

So, we can ask ourselves today, "Are we ashamed of Jesus Christ?" Now, on one level, obviously you would not be here right now if you were. But when you go out into the world, are you? Are you willing to be known as a follower of Jesus by the way you live, by the way you act, by the way you speak? Are we willing to stand up with the Lord? Are we willing to be counted? Are we willing to be ridiculed for the name of Jesus Christ? We do not want to be like Nicodemus, a disciple in secret, who came to Him at night because he was afraid. We need to be like Saint Mary Magdalene because Jesus Christ has freed us. He has freed us from sin; he has freed us from death; he has freed us from Satan’s grasp. We, now, should be on fire with love for Jesus. We should be willing, like Saint Mary Magdalene when she saw what He did for her - she was willing to stand with Him, no matter what it might cost. She was rewarded to be the first, after Our Lady, to see the Resurrected Christ; and to be the first one to preach the Gospel message that Jesus Christ is truly risen from the dead."

-- From a homily by Fr Robert Altier, ocds

Palm Sunday

2011-04-17T17:03:00.000-04:00

"In the Gospels today, we hear, first of all, about the triumphal entrance of Jesus into Jerusalem. In the second Gospel reading of the Passion, we hear about how the whole crowd that was praising God and glorifying Him had turned so quickly against the Lord. We need to look at these different elements. Needless to say, there is so much to say about these reading that I could be here for hours, but I will spare you that; so we will just touch on a few of the points to highlight some of the things that were going on, some of the things that we might not recognize or understand immediately.

First of all, we hear Jesus coming into Jerusalem on a donkey. We ask ourselves, "Why?" Well, first of all, there was a prophecy that the Messiah would ride into Jerusalem on a donkey. So we say, "Okay, that needed to be fulfilled." But there was a purpose for that. Many people will say that in the time of Our Lord, the victor, the king who was victorious, would come into the city on a white horse, letting the whole world know that he was the victor. But if one was in defeat, he would come in on a donkey - a sign of humility. That is not so much the reason. It was more a matter of obedience to God. By this point, the Jewish people had become very disobedient to the Will of God. They were not following what God had required very specifically in the Scriptures. It is absolutely forbidden in the Scriptures for the people of Israel to ride a horse.

Now, on first hearing that, we might say, "Well, that’s kind of a foolish thing." But if you read, for instance in some of the books, like back in Kings at the time of David, they rode donkeys. They didn’t ride horses into battle; they rode donkeys. Now, that again seems foolish to us because donkeys don’t run and the horses are quite fast. We ask, "Why would they ride donkeys? Why doesn’t God allow them to have horses?" Because the only place in the ancient world where horses were raised was in Egypt. Egypt, of course, was the enemy of Israel and God had forbidden that the people of Israel would make a pact with Egypt in order to have horses. And so, at this point in the midst of the disobedience of the Jewish people, while they were indeed riding horses at the time of Our Lord, Jesus Himself, obedient to the Will of God and in fulfillment of the prophecy, came in riding a donkey.

We see the people shouting out their Hosannas to God. But then, within a week’s time, as I mentioned, they all turn against Him. We see those odd exchanges between Pilate and the chief priests; and between Pilate and Jesus. It doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to us. It seems that Pilate is trying to push this away; indeed he was. The Jewish people had a concordat with the Romans. I should say that it was really the other way around: the Romans had signed a concordat with the Jewish people. The Jews had their own law. We don’t hear the Passion quite as explicitly in Luke’s Gospel as we do in the others. As the week draws on, we hear in Saint John’s Gospel on Friday, for instance, all the different elements of the law. Keep these things in mind.

The concordat that the Romans signed with Israel was that the Jews would be the ones to take care of their own people. If a Jewish person was arrested by the Romans, the Romans could do nothing. They must turn him over to the Jewish authorities, and the Jewish authorities would try the person for their crimes. The only person in history known to have been turned over to the Romans by the Jews is Jesus Christ. So, once again, that is the reason for Our Lord telling us three times that He is going to be handed over to the pagans. Why was there a whole group of people following Him, including the women crying and lamenting? Because they had violated their own law. It wasn’t merely that the Messiah was going to be killed, because many of them did not understand that. What they saw was the injustice. Why was a Jew being crucified? Why was a Jew being handed over to pagans? This violated the concordat; that is why Pilate was trying to push the whole thing away. He knew this was against the law.

But then you can look at it the other way, and you see this most clearly in Saint Mark’s Gospel. We see that Herod is in Jerusalem at that time. Herod was the tetrarch. This is not the Herod that wanted to kill Jesus when He was a baby, but rather this is Herod’s son. Herod, at this point, was the king in Galilee. He was now in Jerusalem for some purpose. Therefore, because this governor would have been there, there would have been 1,000 Roman soldiers who would have come with him. You also have at the Praetorium, another group of soldiers who would have been there because of Pontius Pilate and the whole situation as they were patrolling the area of Jerusalem. There would have been thousands of Roman soldiers who could do nothing to a Jewish person. The Jews could make fun of the Roman soldiers; they could slander them; yell at them; throw things at them; and the Roman soldiers could do nothing because, by their own concordat, they were forbidden from touching any Jews.

After all these things had gone on, now they finally had their opportunity. Here was a Jewish man, and He had been turned over to them. To take Him into the Praetorium; to flog Him; to make a crown of thorns and robe Him in purple; to abuse Him in various ways; they now had their chance. The Romans would throw people to the lions and cheer gleefully as they saw the bloodshed. This was a group of Roman soldiers who had not seen much blood for a long time. You can imagine the cruelty and the mob mentality as they went after Jesus. It wasn’t just an ordinary flogging, it was a rather extraordinary thing, even for Pilate. You see his waffling. On one level, he’s trying to sound like he is somewhat righteous; but here he is waffling and saying, "Well, I find this man completely innocent, why don’t I just have him flogged?" If He is innocent, why would He be flogged? Finally, he waffles completely and says, "Fine. Crucify him." Again, this is totally violating everything in the concordat that had been signed.

As we see these different elements, it helps us to understand the cruelty and the incredible suffering that Our Lord endured on a human level. We see in the garden what He suffered as He prayed and the wave of all of our sins came down upon Him. He was crushed. Remember, the word Gethsemane (as in the Garden of Gethsemane), means the olive press. So, the Garden of Gethsemane is the Garden of the Olive Press. It was there that they would bring the olives. A huge press they had with a huge stone would squeeze the olives and the oil would come out and drip over the sides of the press. When the olives were squeezed, the oil would come out of the pores of the olive. In the ancient world, they called that the blood of the olive. As the blood poured forth from the pores of Our Blessed Lord, He was being crushed, squeezed under the weight of our sins. The blood poured forth from His very pores. He was crushed for our offenses.

On Friday, when we read from Isaiah chapter 53, and when we hear the Passion from Saint John, these are some things to ponder and keep in mind. The intense suffering that Our Lord endured. The cruelty with which he suffered. And all of this because of us; because He loved us even to the point of death. He was obedient to His Father out of love for us. That is the thing we can never lose sight of. Jesus’ suffering, His Passion, His death, His crucifixion, is not something we can put at an arm’s distance. It is not something we can look at objectively and say, "What an unfortunate thing. What a terrible injustice that happened." Instead, it is something we need to look at subjectively and personally. As we ponder these things, and meditate upon them in this most holy of weeks, make it your own. Recognize it is because of your sins and my sins; but each one of us looking at it says, "He did this for me. He did it because of me. That suffering is because of me; I did that to Him. It’s not just the Romans, it’s not just the Jews, it was me. I’m the one who turned Him over to Pilate; I’m the one who crucified Him; I’m the one who mocked Him. It is my sins that weighed down upon Him. I’m the one who crushed Him." That is what we need to keep in mind.

Don’t leave it out there someplace as something that happened 2000 years ago and has no bearing on us. Because the Crucifixion of Our Blessed Lord is happening still. In just a few moments, on the altar, Jesus Christ will be sacrificed. Not again, but still. The exact same sacrifice as happened on the Cross 2000 years ago. He is sacrificing Himself now for us and because of us. He gives Himself to us in Holy Communion because He loves us. So, as we ponder these saving mysteries, make them your own; take them into your heart. Walk through them with Our Blessed Lord. With those women who followed Him, weep and lament for yourselves and for your children, because He did this out of love for you."

-- From a homily by Fr Robert Altier, ocds

Lent must be used for removing all our defilements

2011-04-16T08:55:00.000-04:00

"As we are therefore, dearly-beloved, about to enter on those mystic days which are dedicated to the benefits of fasting, let us take care to obey the Apostle's precepts, cleansing ourselves from every defilement of flesh and spirit 2 Corinthians 7:1: that by controlling the struggles that go on between our two natures, the spirit which, if it is under the guidance of God, should be the governor of the body, may uphold the dignity of its rule: so that we may give no offense to any, nor be subject to the chidings of reprovers. For we shall be rightly attacked with rebukes, and through our fault ungodly tongues will arm themselves to do harm to religion, if the conduct of those that fast is at variance with the standard of perfect purity. For our fast does not consist chiefly of mere abstinence from food, nor are dainties withdrawn from our bodily appetites with profit, unless the mind is recalled from wrong-doing and the tongue restrained from slandering. This is a time of gentleness and long-suffering, of peace and tranquillity: when all the pollutions of vice are to be eradicated and continuance of virtue is to be attained by us. Now let godly minds boldly accustom themselves to forgive faults, to pass over insults, and to forget wrongs. Now let the faithful spirit train himself with the armour of righteousness on the right hand and on the left, that through honour and dishonour, through ill repute and good repute, the conscience may be undisturbed in unwavering uprightness, not puffed up by praise and not wearied out by revilings. The self-restraint of the religious should not be gloomy, but sincere; no murmurs of complaint should be heard from those who are never without the consolation of holy joys. The decrease of worldly means should not be feared in the practice of works of mercy. Christian poverty is always rich, because what it has is more than what it has not. Nor does the poor man fear to labour in this world, to whom it is given to possess all things in the Lord of all things. Therefore those who do the things which are good must have no manner of fear lest the power of doing should fail them; since in the gospel the widow's devotion is extolled in the case of her two mites, and voluntary bounty gets its reward for a cup of cold water. For the measure of our charitableness is fixed by the sincerity of our feelings, and he that shows mercy on others will never want for mercy himself. The holy widow of Sarepta discovered this, who offered the blessed Elias in the time of famine one day's food, which was all she had, and putting the prophet's hunger before her own needs, ungrudgingly gave up a handful of grain and a little oil. But she did not lose what she gave in all faith, and in the vessels emptied by her godly bounty a source of new plenty arose, that the fullness of her substance might not be diminished by the holy purpose to which she had put it, because she had never dreaded being brought to want."

-- From a sermon by St Leo the Great

Personal amendment and domestic harmony

2011-04-15T02:19:00.001-04:00

"But, beloved, in this opportunity for the virtues' exercise there are also other notable crowns, to be won by no dispersing abroad of granaries, by no disbursement of money, if wantonness is repelled, if drunkenness is abandoned, and the lusts of the flesh tamed by the laws of chastity: if hatreds pass into affection, if enmities be turned into peace, if meekness extinguishes wrath, if gentleness forgives wrongs, if in fine the conduct of master and of slaves is so well ordered that the rule of the one is milder, and the discipline of the other is more complete. It is by such observances then, dearly-beloved, that God's mercy will be gained, the charge of sin wiped out, and the adorable Easter festival devoutly kept. And this the pious Emperors of the Roman world have long guarded with holy observance; for in honour of the Lord's Passion and Resurrection they bend their lofty power, and relaxing the severity of their decrees set free many of their prisoners: so that on the days when the world is saved by the Divine mercy, their clemency, which is modelled on the Heavenly goodness, may be zealously followed by us. Let Christian peoples then imitate their princes, and be incited to forbearance in their homes by these royal examples. For it is not right that private laws should be severer than public. Let faults be forgiven, let bonds be loosed, offenses wiped out, designs of vengeance fall through, that the holy festival through the Divine and human grace may find all happy, all innocent: through our Lord Jesus Christ Who with the Father and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns God for endless ages of ages. Amen."

-- From a sermon by St Leo the Great

Use Lent to vanquish the enemy

2011-04-14T03:45:00.003-04:00

"Accordingly, dearly-beloved, that we may be able to overcome all our enemies, let us seek Divine aid by the observance of the heavenly bidding, knowing that we cannot otherwise prevail against our adversaries, unless we prevail against our own selves. For we have many encounters with our own selves: the flesh desires one thing against the spirit, and the spirit another thing against the flesh. And in this disagreement, if the desires of the body be stronger, the mind will disgracefully lose its proper dignity, and it will be most disastrous for that to serve which ought to have ruled. But if the mind, being subject to its Ruler, and delighting in gifts from above, shall have trampled under foot the allurements of earthly pleasure, and shall not have allowed sin to reign in its mortal body , reason will maintain a well-ordered supremacy, and its strongholds no strategy of spiritual wickednesses will cast down: because man has then only true peace and true freedom when the flesh is ruled by the judgment of the mind, and the mind is directed by the will of God. And although this state of preparedness, dearly-beloved, should always be maintained that our ever-watchful foes may be overcome by unceasing diligence, yet now it must be the more anxiously sought for and the more zealously cultivated when the designs of our subtle foes themselves are conducted with keener craft than ever. For knowing that the most hallowed days of Lent are now at hand, in the keeping of which all past slothfulnesses are chastised, all negligences alerted for, they direct all the force of their spite on this one thing, that they who intend to celebrate the Lord's holy Passover may be found unclean in some matter, and that cause of offense may arise where propitiation ought to have been obtained."

-- From a sermon by St Leo the Great

The Christian's armour is both for defence and for attack

2011-04-13T00:42:00.000-04:00

"So, dearly-beloved, let us who instructed in Divine learning come wittingly to the present contest and strife, hear the Apostle when he says, for our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers, against the rulers of this dark world, against spiritual wickedness in heavenly things, and let us not forget that these our enemies feel it is against them all is done that we strive to do for our salvation, and that by the very fact of our seeking after some good thing we are challenging our foes. For this is an old-standing quarrel between us and them fostered by the devil's ill-will, so that they are tortured by our being justified, because they have fallen from those good things to which we, God helping us, are advancing. If, therefore, we are raised, they are prostrated: if we are strengthened, they are weakened. Our cures are their blows, because they are wounded by our wounds' cure. Stand, therefore, dearly-beloved, as the Apostle says, having the loins of your mind girt in truth, and your feet shod in the preparation of the gospel of peace, in all things taking the shield of faith in which you may be able to extinguish all the fiery darts of the evil one, and put on the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God. See, dearly-beloved, with what mighty weapons, with what impregnable defences we are armed by our Leader, who is famous for His many triumphs, the unconquered Master of the Christian warfare. He has girt our loins with the belt of chastity, He has shod our feet with the bonds of peace: because the unbelted soldier is quickly vanquished by the suggester of immodesty, and he that is unshod is easily bitten by the serpent. He has given the shield of faith for the protection of our whole body; on our head has He set the helmet of salvation; our right hand has He furnished with a sword, that is with the word of Truth: that the spiritual warrior may not only be safe from wounds, but also may have strength to wound his assailant."

-- From a sermon by St Leo the Great

Each one of us is a new creation in Jesus Chris

2011-04-12T04:39:00.000-04:00

""See, I am doing something new. Do you not perceive it?" The Lord asks this question through the prophet Isaiah in the first reading today. He tells us that we are to forget the things of the past, and we are to look ahead because there is something entirely new. The interesting thing in this is, that when He is talking about forgetting the things of the past, He is even talking about the most important events in Israel’s history. He talks about the opening of the Red Sea. He talks about leading Pharaoh’s chariots and army out into the sea and then closing the sea on them while the people of Israel entered through the sea and were freed. Yet he says, "Don’t think about that so much. Look forward. Stop looking back and look ahead." While it is important to know that God has done these extraordinary things and He is with His people, what is more necessary is to know not simply that He was with our ancestors years ago, but that He is with us now. And that He is doing something now that He has not done in the past.

So, for the people of Israel, they might fall into the trap of thinking, "Why isn’t God working the extraordinary things He did in the past?" In fact, we even see that several times we read in the Scriptures where some of the people would say, "We have heard of the things You did in the past for our forefathers. Where are You today? You did these extraordinary things: there were the plagues in Egypt, the crossing of the Red Sea, the fire on the mountain, and the Ten Commandments. There were all these extraordinary events that took place and we are not seeing them today. Where are You, Lord?" What He is saying is that He is doing something entirely different. It is entirely new. We cannot look today to try to figure out, based on the past, what is happening now. We can’t look to the events of the crossing of the Red Sea to say, "Shouldn’t these extraordinary kinds of things be happening today?" He says, "No, I am doing something entirely different now." So we need to look in a different way.

Saint Paul picks up the exact same theme in the second reading today. He says that he no longer looks to the past, but he only struggles forward into the future. He is striving for the goal. For us, this is where we can see this newness that the Lord is talking about. The Church puts these two readings in juxtaposition for us today so that we can understand what this newness is about. It has to do with our sins. We saw last week where the Lord said to Joshua that He "has removed the reproach of Egypt from the people of Israel." He’s removed the sinfulness. He’s removed everything that Egypt stands for: the slavery to sin and all the evil. And He is doing something which is entirely new. Saint Paul is saying, "I don’t look to the past. I’ve put all my sins behind me, they are forgiven, they are gone. I now strive forward to the future. I look forward to the goal."

It is a very important thing that he points out as well, he says, "..not that I consider that I already have possession of it." It is a very important passage, if you are talking to any of your Fundamentalist friends who want to say that they are already saved. Here is Saint Paul saying, "I do not consider that I have already achieved the goal." He is not claiming that he’s already saved. He is striving for the goal. So are we. But oftentimes, what happens is that we get stuck in our sins. We keep looking backwards, instead of looking forward. It is true that what happened in the past did, in fact, happen. We keep saying, "Lord, look at what I did." We even wonder to ourselves sometimes and say, "Can God forgive this? How can I be forgiven for this?" And the devil is right there to hold our sins in front of our face and say, "Look at what you did!" He’s trying to get us to despair of God’s mercy. So like Saint Paul, we have to be able to say, "I’ve put all of the things of the past behind me and I look forward to the goal. I‘m looking ahead to Jesus; I’m looking to the Resurrection." If you have confessed your sins, they are gone. They are forgiven, they’re not there anymore. Stop looking at them and look ahead. Look to the One who has forgiven your sins.

While it is true that we have sinned, it is more true that we have been forgiven. As Saint Paul says elsewhere, "Where sin abounds, grace abounds all the more." So, no matter how horrible our sins have been, the grace of God is there in abundance, not only to make up for our sins, but even to project us beyond them. The Lord makes very clear in the Gospel reading today, that He doesn’t hold these things against us any longer. When you think about what happened to this woman in the Gospel, these people actually catch her in the very act of adultery. There is no trial that is necessary, she is caught red-handed, if you will. They bring her to Jesus to test Him, to see what He’s going to do with this woman. Is He really going to follow the Law? They themselves wouldn’t. By that time in Judaism, they would not have stoned this woman. But they bring her to Jesus to see if He’s going to do this. After all, if He is a righteous teacher, the righteous one would follow the Law. So naturally, He would say, "Stone her. She was caught in adultery, stone her." That is what they were looking for: Is He really going to do what the Law says, or is He going to follow what the customs of the people were at that point and say, "Yes, I know that is what the Law says, but we won’t worry about it." Once again, He just turns the whole thing right around on them. As they walk away, He looks at the woman and says, "Where have they all gone? Has no one condemned you?" Then He says, "Neither do I."

Now put that into the context of your own self. Jesus knows the sins we have committed. We have been caught in the very act of any sin that we have ever committed. We are totally guilty. Yet, when we confess our sins He looks at us and says, "Has no one condemned you? Did that priest sitting in the confessional not condemn you? You came to him and you actually told him, ‘This is what I did.’ Did he not condemn you?" Then He looks at us and says, "Neither do I." But the next line is also exceedingly important. He says, "Now go, and sin no more."

God’s mercy is not something that we can presume upon. It’s not something that we can say, "We can go out and sin because we can just come to confession and it’s not a problem. God doesn’t care if we sin because He doesn’t condemn us anyway." That is presumption. Presumption is a mortal sin. We need to make sure we are doing what it actually says in the Act of Contrition: that not only are we going to confess our sins but we truly do intend to amend our lives, we are going to try to avoid the near occasions of sin, and we’re going to do what we can to change. Some of the Acts of Contrition put it as it was in the Gospel. They actually say: I firmly intend with Your help to sin no more.
Which is exactly what the Lord tells us in the Gospel reading today: Sin no more. That is what we need to be about. We need to be renewed in mind and heart. We need to have a change, we need to stop living according to the old way and live according to the new way. It’s not just a matter of us saying, "Let’s stop thinking about our sins." But it is a matter of changing our entire life, of putting the past behind us, of "taking on the new man" as Saint Paul says. It is a matter of dying to ourselves and to the old way and living according to the new way. This is something which is very difficult for us because we live in a world that is totally immersed in the old way.

Each one of us is a new creation in Jesus Christ. As we have seen over the last couple of weeks, the world does not want to be a new creation. But we are immersed in the world all too often. What would Saint Paul say about us today? "It’s all lost and I consider it rubbish." The word that he uses is even a little bit more rabid than that. It’s rubbish, it’s garbage! When you drive home today, look around, and when you get home, ask yourself, "Do I consider all of this lost, that I might have Jesus Christ? Or am I attached to all of these things? Am I really living my life for Jesus Christ?"

You see, if we aren’t living our life in a day to day way for Jesus Christ, neither are we going to be able to put our sins behind us entirely because they are always going to be right there. They are always going to be staring us in our face because we continue to live the same kind of life. Maybe we are not committing the sin anymore, but we haven’t fully turned our lives around, either. We have turned them to some degree, we have turned away from the sin, but we are still living immersed in the world. Saint Paul is telling us, "Put everything of the past behind." Not only the sin but the entire way that we have lived. Change, so that we’re living a new life in Christ. Consider it all lost. There is nothing in this world that is not passing. There is nothing in this world that we are going to take with us. Everything here is going to be left behind. Therefore, we need to start now to leave it behind. Look ahead, look at Jesus.

When we look at the people around us, that will change everything if we are looking at Jesus. We will begin to truly love them. Solely for their sake, for who they are. Not for us, not for what we get out of it, but for them. All the things we have, we are going to approach them in a different way. We will use what we need, because we need them. We will see the good in the things that are there and we will use them for the glory of God, not for our own selfish whims. Everything that we do will be directed toward salvation. That is the way we need to begin living now, in all things. Next time you go to the store and you are going to buy something, ask yourself, "Do I really need this? Will this thing help to lead me closer to Heaven? Or is it going to lead me away from Jesus? Is it about myself? Or is it about the good of others and true necessity?" When we look at other people, when we look at our families, we can ask ourselves, "Am I truly loving them for their sake? Am I pouring myself out? Am I serving the needs of others out of love for neighbor? Or do I look instead for others to take care of me? Is it about the self or is it about other people? Is it about me or is it about Christ?"

Do we see the surpassing value of Jesus Christ? Do we embrace that? Do we live it? That is what we need to take on: to strive for that goal like Saint Paul said. He didn’t consider that he already had it. So we are not going to walk out of here today completely turned; it is a process. It is something that we have to keep working at. But do we want to do it? This is the real question that we need to ask today. Do we want to put the things of the world, and the things of our own past behind us? Do we really want to live in Jesus Christ? Do we want to know of the surpassing value of knowing Jesus Christ? To be united to Him, living our life for Him. Sinning no more. "God is doing something entirely new. Do you not perceive it?" He is doing it in your heart, in your mind, in your life. He is turning you around. Don’t look to the past; put the past entirely behind you. Instead, look inside and see what God is doing. Ask Him in prayer to show you what He is doing in your life, how He is changing it, how He is turning it around. Look to the future. Strive for the goal. The goal is Jesus Christ and eternal life with Him.

-- From a homily by Fr Robert Altier, ocds

Servant of God Gerome of Jesus Mary Joseph

2011-04-11T00:26:00.016-04:00

"Jerome Nunzio Matthew Terzo was born at Noto, Italy, on May 17, 1683; his youth was spent in poverty, as he exercised the craft of shoemaker. In 1707 he retired to the hermitage of Jesus, Mary and St. Conrad, above Noto, where he took the hermit's habit on Oct. 30, 1707, and committed himself to a life of contemplation and to the apostolate, known as he was for his miraculous powers. Called in 1710 to the pass of Bove, to direct the other hermitage of St. Mary of the Stairs, he was able to transfer the ancient image of Our Lady, till then exposed to the inclemency of the weather, into the church of the hermitage. After an earthquake, in 1715 he rebuilt and amplified the church and made it a center of Marian piety. It is due to him, as the brief Scandere caelum /To ascend into heaven/ of Nov. 27, 1963, recalls, that the devotion to Mary, Stairway to Paradise, was established and diffused among the people, and that after more than two centuries the diocese of Noto asked for and obtained the Virgin, precisely under that title, as its principal patroness. This devotion had been the great devotion of the venerable Jerome.

In 1710 Providence put him in contact with the Marquis Andrew Statella of Palermo, who through his influence became a priest and then a Carmelite with the name of Salvatore of the Trinity (1678-1728). Fr. Salvatore attained a great holiness and introduced a Carmelite reform into some houses of Sicily, which was afterwards extended also to the nuns (Syracuse, 1729). This reform, which the venerable supported and guided from behind the wings, while still obeying the order of the ordinary and looking after the reform of all the hermitages of the diocese of Syracuse, was embraced by Jerome himself in 1741. This happened after he had obtained from Pope Benedict XIV, on a trip to Rome, leave to have the hermitage of the Scala aggregated to the Carmelite reform. The pontifical concession ended (though not completely) a long series of vicissitudes and sorrows that Jerome had humbly and courageously borne in his efforts to have the ancient hermitage pass over to Carmel. The trials continued even after Jerome had been vested in the Carmelite habit (Oct. 6, 1741) and had made his religious profession. Yet, endowed with great trust in God and in Our Lady, he always bore the trials with serenity, and the ancient hermitage became the heart of the reformed province of Sicily, with St. Mary of the Stairs as titular.

A man of prayer and of penance and of palpable faith, Jerome also had the gifts of prophecy, of wonders and the reading of hearts, and he worked extraordinary miracles. Full of zeal for the salvation of souls, he worked for the conversion of sinners and of the Moslems in Sicily and Malta. He was convinced of having received a heavenly communication that foretold the return of England to the ancient Roman faith. In 1743, when Messina was devasted by the plague, he worked wonders of heroic charity. He died on Apr. 11, 1758, near the sanctuary of Our Lady of the Stairs, which he had served and honored so much and where his body rests.

His fame for holiness and wonders moved the ecclesiastical authorities to begin working immediately for his canonization. His cause for beatification was introduced on May 4, 1796; after being interrupted for well-known political reasons, it was reopened in our century. On Nov. 7, 1944, the S. Congregation of Rites held a preparatory congregation for the declaration of heroicity of his virtues."

-- Biography by Valentine Macca, OCarm

Prayer to the Holy Name of Jesus

2011-04-09T21:41:00.007-04:00

O good Jesus, according to Thy great mercy, have mercy on me. O most merciful Jesus, by that Precious Blood which Thou didst will to shed for sinners, I beseech Thee to wash away all my iniquities and to look graciously upon me, a poor and unworthy sinner, as I call upon Thy holy Name. Therefore, O Jesus, do Thou save me for Thy holy Name's sake. Amen.

We must follow our Divine Leader

2011-04-08T20:31:00.010-04:00

"In order to reach our final goal, we must follow our Divine Leader who usually leads chosen Souls by the path He Himself has trodden and by no other; by the path, I tell you, of self-denial and suffering."

-- St Padre Pio

Make our prayer one of friendship

2011-04-07T05:05:00.000-04:00

"Dear brothers, the commands of the Gospel are nothing else than God’s lessons, the foundations on which to build up hope, the supports for strengthening faith, the food that nourishes the heart. They are the rudder for keeping us on the right course, the protection that keeps our salvation secure. As they instruct the receptive minds of believers on earth, they lead safely to the kingdom of heaven.

God willed that many things should be said by the prophets, his servants, and listened to by his people. How much greater are the things spoken by the Son. These are now witnessed to by the very word of God who spoke through the prophets. The Word of God does not now command us to prepare the way for his coming: he comes in person and opens up the way for us and directs us toward it. Before, we wandered in the darkness of death, aimlessly and blindly. Now we are enlightened by the light of grace, and are to keep to the highway of life, with the Lord to precede and direct us.

The Lord has given us many counsels and commandments to help us toward salvation. He has even given us a pattern of prayer, instructing us on how we are to pray. He has given us life, and with his accustomed generosity, he has also taught us how to pray. He has made it easy for us to be heard as we pray to the Father in the words taught us by the Son.

He has already foretold that the hour was coming when true worshipers would worship the Father in spirit and in truth. He fulfilled what he had promised before, so that we who have received the spirit and the truth through the holiness he has give us may worship in truth and in the spirit through the prayer he has taught.
What prayer could be more a prayer in the spirit than the one given us by Christ, by whom the Holy Spirit was sent upon us? What prayer could be more a prayer in the truth than the one spoken by the lips of the Son, who is truth himself? It follows that to pray in any other way than the Son has taught us is not only the result of ignorance but of sin. He himself has commanded it, and has said: You reject the command of God, to set up your own tradition.

So, my brothers, let us pray as God our master has taught us. To ask the Father in words his Son has given us, to let him hear the prayer of Christ ringing in his ears, is to make our prayer one of friendship, a family prayer. Let the Father recognize the words of his Son. Let the son who lives in our hearts be also on our lips. We have him as an advocate for sinners before the Father; when we ask for forgiveness for ours sins, let us use the words given by our advocate. He tells us: Whatever you ask the Father in my name, he will give you. What more effective prayer could we then make in the name of Christ than in the words of his own prayer?"

-- From the writings of St Cyprian

Prayer is the light of the spirit

2011-04-06T03:59:00.007-04:00

"Prayer and converse with God is a supreme good: it is partnership and union with God. As the eyes of the body are enlightened when they see light, so our spirit when it is intent on God, is illumined by his infinite light. I do not mean the prayer of outward observance but prayer from the heart, not confined to fixed times or periods but continuous throughout the day and night.

Our spirit should be quick to reach out toward God, not only when it is engaged in meditation; at other times also, when it is carrying out its duties, caring for the needy, performing works of charity, giving generously in the service of others, our spirit should long for God and call him to mind, so that these works may be seasoned with the salt of God's love, and so make a palatable offering tot he Lord of the universe. Throughout the whole of our lives we may enjoy the benefit that comes from prayer if we devote a great deal of time to it.

Prayer is the light of the spirit, true knowledge of God, mediating between God and man. The spirit, raised up to heaven by prayer, clings to God with the utmost tenderness; like a child crying tearfully for its mother, it craves the milk that God provides. It seeks the satisfaction of its own desires, and receives gifts outweighing the whole world of nature.

Prayer stands before God as an honored ambassador. It gives joy to the spirit, peace to the heart. I speak of prayer, not words. It is the longing for God, love too deep for words, a gift not given by man but by God's grace. The apostle Paul says: We do not know how we are to pray but the Spirit himself pleads for us with inexpressible longings.

When the Lord gives this kind of prayer to a man or woman, he gives him riches that cannot be taken away, heavenly food that satisfies the spirit. One who tastes this food is set on fire with an eternal longing for the Lord: his spirit burns as in a fire of the utmost intensity.

Practice prayer from the beginning. Paint your house with the colors of modesty and humility. Make it radiant with the light of justice. Decorate it with the finest gold leaf of good deeds. Adorn it with the walls and stones of faith and generosity. Crown it with the pinnacle of prayer. In this way you will make it a perfect dwelling place for the Lord. You will be able to receive him as in a splendid palace, and through his grace you will already possess him, his image enthroned in the temple of your spirit."

-- From a homily by St John Chrysostom

God continues to invite us

2011-04-05T04:40:00.001-04:00

"[H]ow patient God is with us! He only asks our attention. If we will attend to Him, He will do all the rest. We shall find that things begin to drop into our lap without any asking. In spite of our repeated blind refusals, in spite of our obstinancy and selfwill, up to the very moment of death God continues to invite, to persuade, to beckon.

Now there is one perfectly obvious way in which we can, or ought to be able to detect if we are travelling on the wrong - or just not on the right - path through life. If there is a recurring: 'If I were you I should' in our conversations with other people, we may begin to wonder. This persistent desire on the part of them all to tell us what they would do if they were us, can only mean one thing: whatever the facts may be, we are managing to give the impression that we are not in the right place nor engaged in the right occupation.

Of course we may indignantly exclaim that it is only the mistake of a lot of intolerable busybodies. Very well, then, so much the better. In that case it is quote easy to rectify their mass-mistake by convincing ourselves that our circumstances are just what we should have chosen. If we had all the world to choose from, and that we are doing the one thing on earth which suits us best. When we have convinced ourselves of that, we shall find that quite automatically all the busybodies will begin minding their own business again and no longer be interested in us and our occupations. It is a curious fact, but it has only to be tried to be proved.

On the other hand, let us admit that what they suggest may quite possibly be true. Perhaps we are not making the best of life; not using our gifts to the greatest advantage; we are either misfits or merely forlorn drifters, and everyone else can see if except ourselves. All we do is to grumble in general about life, without making any whole-hearted attempt to grapple with it.

For we have only to turn to God: to think of Him and of our neighbour instead of thinking exclusively along our own lines. We have only to wake up and become aware of existence as a real thing, and God as a real Person, and ourselves as His creation, and the next event in our lives will be that our vocation will come walking down the road to meet us, and bump into us so heavily that even we shall no longer be able to pretend that we do not know what it is."

-- Catch us those little foxes by A Carmelite Nun

You cannot separate the Cross and the Resurrection

2011-04-04T08:06:00.000-04:00

"Our Lord tells us that it is when we lift up the Son of Man that we will realize that He is I AM; that He is Yahweh; that He is God. But only when He is lifted up. This is the important thing that we need to look at. Throughout history, God has sent prophets, judges, and saints. He has sent people who were able to do extraordinary things. There have also been many people who have come into the world with various claims of different types about how they themselves are indeed the Messiah. Yet, we can ask ourselves, "How do we know that Jesus really is who He says that He is? If there are other people who made that claim, how do we know that He is the Messiah?" If somebody came along today saying, "I’m God. I’m the Messiah. I’m the one that God sent into the world," how would you be able to say absolutely and definitively either: "Yes, that is true," or "No, that is not"? Our Lord told us it is only when we lift Him up from the earth. Only in the Crucifixion will we come to know that He is God; that He is one with His heavenly Father. Any of us, if we were insane or totally caught up in ourselves and wanted to lie, could say the words of Jesus. But who of us can prove it? Who can live it? So, how do we know that He is the Lord? It is only when we study the crucifix.

There are many Christians who want to remove the Lord from the crucifix. They want to say, "Well, Jesus is risen from the dead now. He’s not on the cross anymore. We don’t need to worry about that." But note the reading that the Church puts in juxtaposition to this because they recognize the importance of Moses making a seraph. When the people had been bitten, they had to look at the bronze serpent up on top of the pole in order to be healed. So too, those of us who have been bitten by the sting of the serpent, by Original Sin and by our own sins. The only way we are going to be healed is when we look at the One who has been lifted up from the earth. When we look at the One who became sin for us. When we look at the One who "became a curse for us," as Saint Paul says. He took on our sins. He took on the curse for us. He is the one who healed us when we could not be healed. It is only in that, that we come to see who He is. If we do not look at the crucifix; if we do not study the crucifix very carefully; if we do not spend time to meditate upon the Crucifixion of Our Lord, we will never come to understand fully that He is God and what it is that He has done for us.

Looking at the Resurrection isn’t going to be enough to do it. You cannot separate the Cross and the Resurrection. Looking just at the miracles and His teachings isn’t going to do it. Someone could read the teachings of Our Lord and say (as the people did in His own day), "He’s crazy! This guy is really caught up. He’s got the Messiah complex." If you go to the hospital, in the psyche ward, you are likely to find three or four people who claim to be Jesus. You are also likely to find a couple of other people who simply claim to be God. There are a lot of people who, in their insanity, make some of these same kinds of claims. So we need to look beyond simply that.

The reason we believe in His teaching is because He went to the Cross. The reason why we can look at all the other things that he does is because He went to the Cross for us. Had He not done that, we would have no reason in the world to believe that He is the Son of God. There is no way we could ever be able to say He is the one. Nothing else really, truly proves it beyond a shadow of a doubt; except the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. That is why Saint Paul says, "May I boast in nothing but the Cross of my Lord Jesus Christ. May I boast of nothing but Jesus Christ and Him crucified." It is the power of the Cross that heals us. It is the power of the Cross that sets us free. If we are really going to be the Christians we profess to be, there is no Christian without the Cross because there is no Christ without the Cross. So if we want to be healed of the bite of the serpent, we need to look at the one who has been lifted up and hung on a pole - The One who is truly I AM: Jesus Christ, the true Son of God and the only savior of the world, the One who proved it with His very life."

-- From a homily by Fr Robert Altier, ocds

The fruit of reading holy scripture: the fullness of eternal happiness

2011-04-03T07:50:00.007-04:00

"The outcome or the fruit of reading holy scripture is by no means negligible: it is the fullness of eternal happiness. For these are the books which tell us of eternal life, which were written not only that we might believe but also that we might have everlasting life. When we do live that life we shall understand fully, we shall love completely, and our desires will be totally satisfied. Then, with all our needs fulfilled we shall truly know the love that surpasses all understanding and so be filled with the fullness of God. The purpose of scriptures, which comes to us from God, is to lead us to this fullness according to the truths contained in those sayings of the apostles to which I have referred. In order to achieve this, we must study holy scripture carefully, teach it and listen to it in the same way."

-- St Bonaventure

Abstinence Not Only from Food But from Other Evil Desires

2011-04-02T21:18:00.002-04:00

"Relying, therefore, dearly-beloved, on these arms, let us enter actively and fearlessly on the contest set before us: so that in this fasting struggle we may not rest satisfied with only this end, that we should think abstinence from food alone desirable. For it is not enough that the substance of our flesh should be reduced, if the strength of the soul be not also developed. When the outer man is somewhat subdued, let the inner man be somewhat refreshed; and when bodily excess is denied to our flesh, let our mind be invigorated by spiritual delights. Let every Christian scrutinise himself, and earth severely into his inmost heart: let him see that no discord cling there, no wrong desire be harboured. Let chasteness drive incontinence far away; let the light of truth dispel the shades of deception; let the swellings of pride subside; let wrath yield to reason; let the darts of ill-treatment be shattered, and the chidings of the tongue be bridled; let thoughts of revenge fall through, and injuries be given over to oblivion. In fine, let "every plant which the heavenly Father hath not planted be removed by the roots." For then only are the seeds of virtue well nourished in us, when every foreign germ is uprooted from the field of wheat. If any one, therefore, has been fired by the desire for vengeance against another, so that he has given him up to prison or bound him with chains, let him make haste to forgive not only the innocent, but also one who seems worthy of punishment, that he may with confidence make use of the clause in the Lord's prayer and say, "Forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors." Which petition the Lord marks with peculiar emphasis, as if the efficacy of the whole rested on this condition, by saying, "For if ye forgive men their sins, your Father which is in heaven also will forgive you: but if ye forgive not men, neither will your Father forgive you your Sins.""

-- From a sermon by St Leo the Great

The fast should lead to good deeds

2011-04-01T04:21:00.002-04:00

"Therefore, dearly-beloved, seeing that, as we are taught by our Redeemer's precept, "man lives not in bread alone, but in every word of God," and it is right that Christian people, whatever the amount of their abstinence, should rather desire to satisfy themselves with the "Word of God" than with bodily food, let us with ready devotion and eager faith enter upon the celebration of the solemn fast, not with barren abstinence flora food, which is often imposed on us by weakliness of body, or the disease of avarice, but in bountiful benevolence: that in truth we may be of those of whom the very Truth speaks, "blessed are they which hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled." Let works of piety, therefore, be our delight, and let us be filled with those kinds of food which feed us for eternity. Let us rejoice in the replenishment of the poor, whom our bounty has satisfied. Let us delight in the clothing of those whose nakedness we have covered with needful raiment. Let our humaneness be felt by the sick in their illnesses, by the weakly in their infirmities, by the exiles in their hardships, by the orphans in their destitution, and by solitary widows in their sadness: in the helping of whom there is no one that cannot carry out some amount of benevolence. For no one's income is small, whose heart is big: and the measure of one's mercy and goodness does not depend on the size of one's means. Wealth of goodwill is never rightly lacking, even in a slender purse. Doubtless the expenditure of the rich is greater, and that of the poor smaller, but there is no difference in the fruit of their works, where the purpose of the workers is the same."

-- From a sermon by St Leo the Great

The Benefits of Abstinence

2011-03-31T04:15:00.004-04:00

"In former days, when the people of the Hebrews and all the tribes of Israel were oppressed for their scandalous sins by the grievous tyranny of the Philistines, in order that they might be able to overcome their enemies, as the sacred story declares, they restored their powers of mind and body by the injunction of a fast. For they understood that they had deserved that hard and wretched subjection for their neglect of God's commands, and evil ways, and that it was in vain for them to strive with arms unless they had first withstood their sin. Therefore abstaining from food and drink, they applied the discipline of strict correction to themselves, and in order to conquer their foes, first conquered the allurements of the palate in themselves. And thus it came about that their fierce enemies and cruel taskmasters yielded to them when fasting, whom they had held in subjection when full. And so we too, dearly beloved, who are set in the midst of many oppositions and conflicts, may be cured by a little carefulness, if only we will use the same means. For our case is almost the same as theirs, seeing that, as they were attacked by foes in the flesh so are we chiefly by spiritual enemies. And if we can conquer them by God's grace enabling us to correct our ways, the strength of our bodily enemies also will give way before us, and by our self-amendment we shall weaken those who were rendered formidable to us, not by their own merits but by our shortcomings."

-- From a sermon by St Leo the Great

All life is a choice

2011-03-30T19:22:00.000-04:00

"All life is a choice, and that is a fact. Every act we do is a choice, conscious or unconscious. I put it to myself in this way: A successful life is a life where, on the whole, the choices are coordinate, leading to a definite end; an unsuccessful, the life where, on the whole, the choices are haphazard, leading to various and sometimes conflicting ends differing at different periods, or to different ends pursued simultaneously and therefore pulling against each other. Again, there may be no specific end in view at all, and people just go on living as chance and opportunity and passing inclination dictate. One can pursue happiness, success in a career, money, the arts, or one pursue God. I don't think one can pursue anything else very violently if one is really pursuing God - I suppose that is why people break off and become priests and religious.

Anyway, the great thing is to live at one's best whatever one is doing, and to get the right medium. Of course, I expect some people live most easily in the material world and like dealing with material things; comfort - that's their real object. 'Those were the days,' they say regretfully, remembering the fleshpots of Egypt at some particular period of their lives. Oh, well, we all have our fleshpots hidden away in a corner, I expect, so we need not be too critical of other people's. "

-- A Nun's Answer by A Carmelite Nun

Persevere and go along they way of humble submission to God's good pleasure

2011-03-29T03:13:00.046-04:00

"The real test and end of prayer is union with God, and the real test of that is acceptance of His will. But there is no denying that this is not the inevitable result of prayer; there is a type which, practically speaking, appears to lead no one any farther. Our Mother begged me quite severely on no account to practise that sort; she said it was no good at all in the religious life. It may be a source of great pleasure to those practising it, but they keep it, as it were, in a separate compartment of their head, or their heard, or somewhere, and it never gets anywhere near the will, either God's or their own. She said that Christ did not teach us to pray like that: He taught us to pray, 'Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven,' and we poor mortals just could not imagine how perfectly it was done in heaven because it was so far above us. Still, we could struggle towards it, towards the perfection of surrender to the will of God that is, and that was the whole use and meaning of things like holy poverty, and mortification, and detachment.

Prayer itself and its effects must keep constantly in step, and where the prayer begins to leave the effects far behind, so that we are practising a prayer, not one or two, but four or five degrees beyond our display of practical virtue, it is time to do something about it or we run the danger of ending up in delusion. She pointed out that the proper way was not in the least to slow down or stop the prayer, but only to speed up the practice of virtue.

Then she became quite serious; she began to tell me about the people who have real difficulty praying, and real darkness in their souls. It sounded quite awful as she described it; awful and yet marvelous. Of course, one reads St John of the Cross, but that is a saint writing about wonderful experiences in the Middle Ages, and this was an old nun talking of that she seemed to think quite every day happenings... She described how such people will sit in church or choir for an hour on end, trying to concentrate, trying to find their way to God through the dark, and everything remains completely blank. They can, of course, still pray vocally, but they do not want to pray vocally. They could, of course, meditate, but unfortunately they do not want to mediate. What they want - and want with their whole souls - is to find God: to find Him in heaven, or to find Him within themselves, they do not care where or how, so long as they find Him. And they cannot.

But if they persevere, one day, she said, they will. If they go on quietly stepping along they way of mortification, of patience, of humble submission to God's good pleasure; if they follow the star which is leading them, even though it is always unaccountably disappearing over the edge of their world; if they follow it, not only trying to pull it down to them but by climbing slowly and painfully towards it, towards the clearer skies above, it will lead them to that real communion with God for which their souls long. All paths in prayer lead to Him, provided that they are the up-paths of solid virtue, and not mere cul-de-sacs of pious fancy and the end of which we shall find nothing more exciting than ourselves."

-- A Nun's Answer by A Carmelite Nun

We give everything

2011-03-28T03:34:00.002-04:00

"Religious life can easily be a heaven on earth, but only for the man who lives it perfectly. And although much has been written on the fine art of acquiring perfection, all spiritual writers seem to agree on one big point. If a religious can obey, he can find perfect happiness. If he cannot obey, then he only nails himself to his own cross (by his own hand) and hangs over forever on the left side of Christ. Religious life demands greatness; and a man is never greater than he he bows his head in submission to another.

Obedience is the big vow. Obedience is the problem. In our monasteries we are not free to do what we want, or have what we like. We are pledged to obedience and there is a solemn vow to remind us of it. It is a vow that makes us say 'yes' when we would like to say 'no.' But when we take this vow, we offer to God one of our most priceless possessions: our free will. It is a perfect gift, one that God would never force from us. It is the last word, the limit. When we give this, we give everything. But it is only too bad that its worth is lost to many young men who, possessing all the other needed talents and dispositions, find themselves balking at that they call, 'this business of taking orders.'

...

Actually, there is a probably not a single man on the face of this earth who is free from the obligations of taking orders. Every subject has a boss who in turn has a boss, who in turn has another boss. It is the same in both lay and clerical circles. So we men in a monastery figure that since we must take order from someone, we might just as well make a good thing of it. We might just as well gain merit for our troubles."

-- Men in Sandals by Fr Richard C Madden, ocd

Be guided by the hidden light of the Holy Ghost

2011-03-27T04:56:00.000-04:00

"We have to remind ourselves, over and over again, that prayer is not an isolated thing, at thing to be sought by itself, a kind of pleasurable accomplishment like music, pr painting or literature, or anything of that kind. It is not something in which we lose ourselves for our own pleasure, though from the way most of us behave when we temporarily lose the pleasure, one might almost be tempted to think that we were no more than amateurs, enjoying and playing with the beauty of an art for the sake of the beauty and the happiness it gives, but without any real knowledge of it, without any genuine proficiency in it, without depth or meaning or understanding.

To pray means to be brought within the life of Christ: to suffer, to love, to win souls with Him. It means to be enmeshed for ever in the will of the Father, to be guided by the hidden light of the Holy Ghost. The suffering of Christ is a very real suffering; the will of God often runs counter to our own; and to follow the promptings of the Holy Spirit will often mean to set aside all selfish considerations for the sake of an eternal principle and a divine charity."

-- The Nun's Answer by A Carmelite Nun

God's love has the power to make every burden light

2011-03-26T04:16:00.035-04:00

"There is a strong element of surprise in chastity. A religious is surprised that he is able to take a vow of chastity; other people are surprised that he is able to keep it. But in spite of everything, chastity is possible. And it is entirely satisfying.

...

I suppose the first and most salient reason for our choice is that Christ Himself lived a celibate life. We love Christ. Because we love Him, we try to make ourselves like Him in every respect. He is our model, so we strive to imitate Him not only in the things He chose to do, but also in the things He chose not to do. Christ lived a celibate life - this is good enough for us. If there were no other reasons, this alone would be sufficient.

Getting along into the realm of practicality (and how the world loves that word 'practical' - it is so broad), we find many good, solid reasons to give the person who asks 'why?' First of all, saving souls is a full-time job. It occupies either directly or indirectly every waking moment (and our dreams at night). Every single one of us is most definitely aware that in our life no other system could work. We cannot afford to shoulder obligations which by their very nature would take us away from our apostolate. We have enough as it is. Why, the wife of almost any good physician would tell us that her husband is more consistently a doctor than he is a husband or a father.

...

Just suppose that we were not bound to live a life of celibacy. Suppose we were all married men. That would automatically bring thirty women under our roof. And presuming that we would lead good Catholic lives, suppose we all had a family of five or ten children! We laugh to think of the intrigue, the confusion, the heart-breaking chaos that would surely descend upon our haven of prayer and work. Maybe this seems silly. Maybe it is no reason at all. But it certainly is something to think about. Maybe that is why some non-Catholic clergymen are beginning to embrace the celibate state. They are beginning to see that in laboring for God, it is the only thing that works.

Yet, people who are forced to live in the fiery midst of a carnal world still look askance at us when we go by. Many question us and our motives, probably because they could not live like this themselves. And they harbor doubts because the have overlooked the battering but soothing dynamism that is the grace of God. They have forgotten that God's love has the power to make every burden light.

We do not say it is easy. But when we pluck the cross from the little Calvarys within our hearts, there is method to it. We are not seeking comfort or personal satisfaction, because there is no room for that in God's plan for us. So we turn our heads forward and upward, comprehending full well the enormity of our task. We must live and work in the midst of others' suffering, so we do not wish to be without suffering ourselves. In our labors we must come face to face with the full-cupped loneliness of men. We do not want to be without loneliness ourselves. We want to walk unafraid and unashamed at the side of those who need us and to be able to say, 'You have suffering, so have we. You have loneliness, so have we. We we shall forget our problem; let us turn to yours. Let us heal yours, for ours can wait for eternity.'"

-- Men in Sandals by Fr Richard Madde, ocd

Solemnity of the Annunciation of the Lord

2011-03-25T03:57:00.007-04:00

"The mysteries of God are unsearchable, as is especially declared in the prophetical words: What man is he that can know the counsel of God? or who can think what the will of the Lord is? Nevertheless, some things have been revealed to us. And hence we may gather, from the words and works of our Lord and Saviour, that there was a special purpose of God in the fact that she who was chosen to bring forth the Lord was espoused to a man. Why did not the power of the Highest overshadow her before she was so espoused? Perhaps it was lest any might blasphemously say that the Holy One was conceived in fornication.

And the Angel came in unto her. Let us learn from his Virgin how to bear ourselves: let us learn by her devout utterance; above all let us learn by the holy mystery to be timid, to avoid the advances of men, and to shrink from men's addresses. Would that our women would learn from the example of modesty here set before us. She upon whom the stare of men had never been fixed was alone in her chamber, and was found only by an Angel. There was neither companion nor witness there, that what passed might not be debased in gossip; and the Angel saluted her."

-- From a homily by St Ambrose

** Painting by Peter Paul Rubens

Feast of St Gabriel Archangel

2011-03-24T04:34:00.000-04:00

"Consider that this Angel was not one of lesser rank, even though such are, on one account or another, often sent on embassies to this earth. That he was an Angel of greater rank is indicated by his name which signifieth: Strength of God : and by the fact that he was sent, not by some Angel perhaps more excellent than he (as is usual), but from God himself. Therefore for this reason it is said: From God. Or, it might be for another reason, namely, lest it should be thought that God had discourteously revealed his counsel to any of the blessed spirits, except only the Archangel Gabriel, before he did so to the Virgin. For Gabriel alone was found so eminent among his compeers as to be held worthy both of such a name and message.

Neither do his name and his message disagree. For whom did it more behove to announce Christ, who is the Power of God, than him who is honoured by a like name? For what else is power than strength? Neither doth it appear to be unbecoming or unseemly that the Lord and his messenger should be known by a like title. Christ is called the power or strength of God in a very different sense from that in which this appellation is given to the Angel. In the Angel it is but a name. In the case of Christ, it is also an eternal attribute."

-- From a homily by St Bernard of Clairvaux

Spirit of the Lenten Season

2011-03-23T04:00:00.001-04:00

There are two guiding principles for the observance of Lent. During this season, the faithful are to grow in their love of Jesus Crucified, and they are to practice extra penance for their own and other people's sins. Both aspects of Lent deserve some explanation.

Love of Jesus Crucified. The spirit of Lent is the spirit of Christ Crucified. Therefore, whatever enables us to better understand Christ's Passion and Death, and deepens our responsive love for His great love toward us should be fostered during the Lenten season. Some recommendations:

Meditation on the Gospel narratives of Christ's Passion.
Spiritual reading of books like Goodier's Passion and Death of Our Lord Jesus Christ, Abbot Marmion's The Way of the Cross, Edward Leen's Why the Cross?, Fulton Sheen's Seven Words on the Cross.
Recitation of prayers like Soul of Christ Sanctify Me.
Besides making the daily Way of the Cross, encouraging others to make the Stations at least on Fridays during Lent.
Having some symbol of Christ's Passion, like the crucifix or picture of the crucifix within easy eye vision to remind us of the Passion at odd moments of the day.
Having some short aspiration which is recited (at least mentally) a few times during the day, like, "My Jesus Crucified," or "Heart of Jesus, obedient unto death, have mercy on us."
Occasionally reciting the Litany of the Precious Blood.
Spending some extra time before the Blessed Sacrament, asking Our Lord to grow in the understanding of His continued Passion now in the Church, which is His Mystical Body on earth!
Making an occasional entry into one's spiritual journal about, "How much the Passion of Christ means to me."

Reparation for Sin. In practicing penance, we should keep in mind that there are two levels of reparation we are to practice, for our own and other people's sins. We are to expiate the guilt incurred by failing in one's love for God. And we are to repair the harm done by disobeying the will of God.

On the first level, our penance should be the practice of a deeper and more generous love for God

By making acts of divine love.
By doing our ordinary work with more selfless love for God.
By putting our heart more sincerely into whatever we are doing, and periodically telling our Lord we are doing it out of love for Him.
By deciding before Lent, what form(s) of charity I will practice towards those with whom I live or work. There is no more pleasing love of God, as expiation, than the selfless love of others whom God puts into my daily life.
By going through the spiritual and corporal works or mercy, and selecting one or more on which I wish to concentrate during Lent, as my form of penance-as-love, offered to the loving but offended God.

On the second level, our penance should strive to endure some pain in order to expiate the sinful pleasure that is always the substance of sin. This can take on a variety of forms, and no two people are the same in this matter. The following are merely examples.

More frequent reception of the Sacrament of Penance during Lent.
More frequent attendance at Mass.
Less time spent in eating, or eating less food, or getting up earlier than usual.
Sacrifice of some hours per week that would otherwise have been spent in watching television, listening to the radio, reading secular newspapers, magazines, or fiction.
Walking, instead of driving, and walking upstairs instead of using an elevator.
Doing without some delicacy at table, or not eating between meals.
Getting up promptly in the morning, and retiring in good time at night.
Answering letters or writing to persons who would appreciate hearing from us.
Gauging one's time in telephone conversation or conversation in general.

-- A Brief History of Lent by Fr John A Hardon, SJ

Written for the Marian Catechist, 1989

Solitude purifies

2011-03-22T18:43:00.000-04:00

"If persons enter into solitude and taste its fruits, one certain effect is that they will no longer see as they saw before, no longer behold themselves, others, or God as they did formerly. Solitude provides another way of seeing. We will be given new lenses to in-sight. Our eyes will have been purified by the mystery of solitude changing the heart and therefore changing the vision. The obvious is always to be discovered anew! The mystery of solitude purifies the sight, the seeing, the beholding of each person, when we are open to discovering and to receiving. When solitude brings us to God, God brings us into new vision. 'Open my eyes, so that I may behold wondrous things..." (Ps 119:18)"

-- Sounding Solitude by Sr Mary Paul Cutri, ocd

He is waiting for you on the altar

2011-03-21T05:03:00.000-04:00

"Go to Jesus. He loves you and is waiting for you to give you many graces. He is on the altar surrounded by angels adoring and praying. Let them make some room for you and join them in doing what they do."

-- St Mary Joseph Rosello, Foundress of the Daughters of Our Lady of Mercy

The love love of God lies in the grace-aided will

2011-03-20T07:02:00.000-04:00

Gethsemani

"It would also be a grievous error to conceive the love of God as anything which essentially involves sense-emotion or feeling. The love love of God lies in the grace-aided will; it presupposes and the intellect insofar as the will needs its cooperation to love, for the will is a blind faculty; but in practice one need only attend to the will. A very high degree of love of God is quite compatible with an absence of any feeling of emotion, and even with the presence of a feeling of distaste for the service of God. We have only to remember our Lord's prayer in the Agony at Gethsemani to realize that. In fact, if one is going to achieve the heights of the spiritual life, it is necessary to pass through a stage where one's apparent spiritual activity is reduced to a dry act of willingness to conform one's self to God's Will, in the darkness of a sheer decision to believe in God without light of any sort. This does not mean that the emotions have not their part to play in the spiritual life. On the contrary, they can be a most effective aid to the real agent, which is the will working by faith."

Solemnity of St Joseph

2011-03-19T04:14:00.012-04:00

"Why was the Lord conceived of a virgin already espoused, rather than of one as yet unpledged to a man? For one thing, because from the genealogy of Joseph, the lineage of Mary as a descéndant of David, and thus of her Child, could be the more easily established. For another, because by this betrothal Mary would be saved from being stoned by the Jews as an adulteress. Again, because thereby Mary was given a guardian during the flight into Egypt. To these reasons the Martyr Ignatius addeth another, namely; that the virgin birth might take place unknown to the devil, who would naturally suppose that Mary had conceived by Joseph.

Before they came together, she was found with child, of the Holy Ghost. That is, she was found so to be by Joseph, not by any one else, for he already had almost an husband's privilege to know all that concerned her. But when it is said: Before they came together: it doth not follow that they ever did come together carnally. The Scripture is to be understood merely in the sense that up to this time they had not done so."

-- From a homily by St Jerome

The bond of all perfection is love

2011-03-18T06:30:00.020-04:00

"On the cross, Christ 'summed up' in one sacrificial act His whole life and His whole love. In His life and death, He 'sums up' the whole life and destiny of His Church, and also the whole life and death of each member of that Church. There is, of course, individual diversity between the members but there is also a fundamental unity of pattern. To see it, one must first look below the surface of the individuating differences to observe the common pattern, and then stand back far enough from the complete unity to see it as a whole; for unless something of the consummation be glimpsed, there is difficulty in seeing the full significance of the individual destiny and of the common bond.

For the common bond - the bond of all perfection - is love, and the magnificence of the whole is the unity of love. The model according to which the whole is designed is the Blessed Trinity itself - that they may be one as we also are one. And the final consummation and achievement of the whole is summed up one one daring pregnant phrase of St Augustine: And there shall be one Christ loving Himself. For 'no one can love the Father unless he love the Son and he who loves the Son... loves also the members of the Son. And by loving he too becomes a member; through love he enters into the unity of the Body of Christ - and there shall be one Christ loving Himself - for when the members love one another, the body loves itself.'"

-- This Tremendous Lover by Fr Eugene M Boylan, ocso

Prayer for the unemployed

2011-03-17T06:59:00.003-04:00

O Saint Joseph, we pray to you for those who are out of work, for those who want to earn their living or support their families.

You who are the patron of workers; grant that unemployment may vanish from our ranks; that all those who are ready to work may put their strength and abilities in serving their fellowmen and earn a just salary.

You are the patron of families; do not let those who have children to support and raise lack the necessary means. Have pity on our brothers and sisters held down in unemployment and poverty because of sickness or social disorders. Help our political leaders and captains of industry find new and just solutions. May each and every one have the joy of contributing, according to his abilities, to the common prosperity by an honorable livelihood. Grant that we may all share together in the abundant goods God has given us and that we may help underprivileged countries.

Amen.

Ask St Therese to accompany you

2011-03-16T04:39:00.000-04:00

"St Therese wrote that the four Gospels were her greatest treasure. There she came to know Jesus Christ more profoundly and to love Him more deeply. She wrote, 'I wanted to love, to love Jesus with a passion, giving Him a thousand proofs of my love while it was possible. I copied out several passages on perfect love, on the reception God will give His Elect at the moment He becomes their Reward, great and eternal and I repeated over and over the words of love burning in my heart' (Story of a Soul, 102-3).

The beautiful relationship that she had with Jesus can in some measure be ours. St Therese invites us to join her in reflecting God's Word in Lent, to allow God's Word to touch us in transforming ways. As we meet God's Word each day and join that Word to St Therese's reflection, we will be drawn into prayer. [...] Our heart may wish to praise the Lord or simply be thankful for all that we have received. We may find ourselves resting with a word or a phrase over a period of time because the word engages our heart.

Our prayerful mindfulness of a word or a phrase is truly a form of lectio divina, an ancient form of prayer in which God's Word is central. The experience of God's Word in lectio is live giving, providing a way of bonding with God's love.

St Therese invites us to sit or to kneel and to put ourselves in the presence of God. God is always with us but we need to become mindful of His loving presence within us. From that act of faith, we can begin our Lenten meditation. Ask St Therese to accompany you and to help you to draw closer to the living God Who is Christ Jesus, the Lord."

-- A Lenten Journey with Jesus Christ and St Therese of Lisieux by Fr John F Russell, OCarm

Lent can become a period of renewal

2011-03-15T08:23:00.000-04:00

"As the Season of Lent is a call to conversion through prayer, fasting, and almsgiving, John of the Cross, with his added insistence on conversion, is a good guide for the Season of Lent. For John of the Cross, conversion takes place when God calls the faithful to replace their usual way of finding fulfillment in life, with God himself.

Thus, with the guidance of John of the Cross, Lent can become a period of renewal, a period where we reorder our priorities from many things to one: God alone. We still have our work to do and obligations to fulfill, but throughout Lent we can learn to be for God alone and to find out reward in God alone.

Such an undertaking cannot be done by mere human willing; we need the help of God, which comes primarily through prayer. Lent and prayer go together like labor and energy. Without the energy that comes from food, we would have a hard time getting out labor done. The same is true with ordering our lives around God during Lent. Without the energy that comes from encountering God in prayer, we will not have the energy to center our lives around God alone, much like Elijah could not continue the journey to Mount Horen unless he ate the food given to him by an angel. Like Elijah, and in the words of John of the Cross, 'Seek in reading and you will find in meditation; knock in prayer and it will be opened to you in contemplation.'

We can see that prayer is seeking God from the heart in one's spirit in order to commune with him who is pure spirit. As Jesus told the Samaritan woman, God is Spirit, and those who worship him must worship in Spirit and truth (Jn 4:24). Thus, we must seek God in our spirit, created in his image and likeness, so that we can commune with Him who is spirit."

-- A Lenten Journey with Jesus Christ and St John of the Cross by Fr George Mangiaracina, ocd

Your Cross

2011-03-14T20:51:00.000-04:00

The everlasting God has

in His wisdom foreseen

from eternity the cross

that He now presents to you

as a gift from His inmost heart.

This cross He now sends you

He has considered with His all-knowing eyes,

understood with His divine mind,

tested with His wise justice,

warmed with loving arms

and weighed with His own hands

to see that it be not one inch too large

and not one ounce too heavy for you.

He has blessed it with His holy Name,

anointed it with His consolation,

taken one last glance at you

and your courage,

and then sent it to you from heaven,

a special greeting from God to you,

an alms of the all-merciful love of God.

--St Francis de Sales

Jesus is waiting for you

2011-03-13T03:59:00.000-04:00

“Jesus is waiting for you in the chapel. Go and find him when your strength and patience are giving out, when you feel lonely and helpless. Say to him: ‘You know well what is happening, my dear Jesus. I have only you. Come to my aid ...’ And then go your way. And don’t worry about knowing how you are going to manage. It is enough to have told our good Lord. He has an excellent memory.”

-- St Mary of the Cross (Jeanne Jugan, foundress of the Little Sisters of the Poor)

Lent, a time of unselfish sacrifice

2011-03-12T03:15:00.014-04:00

"Love makes sacrifice a pleasure

Once again we are in the season of Lent. Lent carries different meaning for different people. To us Catholics it should be a reminder of the ultimate sacrifice of Christ, who laid down his life on the cross for us. There is no greater love than that ultimate sacrifice of Christ.

To some of us fasting, abstinence, the way of the cross and prayer are what Lent is all about. To others it is a time of abstinence from the pleasures of our senses. This may be true to some extent but these acts are in a way are for our own selfish purposes and nothing more.

Christ did not die on the cross for his selfish needs. No one in his right mind will allow himself to be crucified for his selfish reasons. As the followers of Christ, we are asked to emulate that ultimate sacrifice of Christ, the crucifixion.

We need not literally lay down our lives for others but we can sacrifice some precious possessions of ours - our time, energy and wealth for the betterment of fellow mankind. At the same we can give up something which we all possess in abundance - pride, selfishness, ego, anger and greed which impede our endeavors to serve others.

Do we see Jesus in people whom we meet daily – our spouse, our children, our parents, our boss and fellow colleagues in the office, the poor and hungry, the sick and the dying, the handicapped, the sinner, the orphans, our priests and clergy and even our enemies?

Are we willing to forgive and offer our hand of friendship to our enemies and those who sin against us? Are we sensitive to the needs of others around us, or do we close our eyes and ears to their cries of plea? Are we willing to go down to the level of the downtrodden to help them? Are we willing to patiently listen to those in distress? Are we willing and brave enough to speak out against injustice wherever it occurs?

These are some issues we must ponder during this season of Lent. We must consider them in the light of Christ’s ultimate sacrifice, the crucifixion.

The real meaning of Lent is sacrifice, not for our well-being but that of others. Fasting, abstinence and prayer are just a means to achieve that goal.

We are asked to become holy and like Mother Teresa,our holiness in God,must be for the benefit of others."

-- Originally published 21 February, 2007, by Dr Chris Anthony

Op/Ed
Catholic Online

His love is true and totally reliable

2011-03-11T03:22:00.001-04:00

"Confidence and trust are almost synonymous, but not quite. Confidence usually bears the connotation of self-reliance or self-confidence, while trust as a supernatural virtue entails primarily a warm personal reliance on the Lord. It can be said that confidence is trust in self, while trust is confidence in God.

Faith assures us that a true love like God's is totally trustworthy, that his love is true and totally reliable. He will never forsake us, though we may forsake him. If we really trust God, we're willing to have our confidence in God put to the test to prove its genuineness and maturity. This type of trust features a quality of readiness for the trials of conflict, frustration, loss, or failure - all under God's guiding hand.

Yet, when fear of failure is the issue because of lack of confidence, experience shows that the soul who trusts the Lord will fail far less frequently than one who distrusts him.In the words of the saintly preacher Mcduff, 'Trust God where you cannot trace him. Do not try to penetrate the cloud that he brings over you; rather, look to the rainbow that is over it. The mystery is God's; the promise is yours.'"

-- Pathways of Trust: 101 Shortcuts to Holiness by John H Hampsch, CMF

I have but one desire: to see Thee reigning in me

2011-03-10T04:12:00.000-04:00

"My Good Master... I have but one desire; it is to see Thee reigning in this being which Thou has given me and always more and more that this breath of my soul, which is part of God, remain pure with a divine purity, and that my body might be animated by Him to a completely spiritual life."

-- The Life of Gabrielle Lefebvre by Fr Le Crom

** Painting titled The Soul Guided by Christ by Francisco Martínez, photo © Michel Zabé

Ash Wednesday

2011-03-09T03:59:00.002-04:00

"From these precepts it is evident that our every action should be directed towards the attainment of an interior life, which alone giveth true happiness. For if contrariwise we seek our reward in outward things, we shall be conformed to the fashion of this world, and thus forfeit God's promise of happiness, to wit, that we shall be conformed to the image of his Son. Such happiness, inasmuch as it concerneth inward things, is all the more certain and enduring. Howbeit, the special teaching of this passage is this: That vainglory can come forth, not only from worldly elegance and human pretensions, but even from a condition of sad countenance and dirty disfigurement. Furthermore, the latter kind of vainglory is the more dangerous, in that it deceiveth under the pretence of an humble service of God.

On the one hand, whosoever sheweth unbridled indulgence, whether in bodily comforts and dress, or in other forms of elegance, thereby standeth manifestly convicted as a follower of the pomps of this world. Nor doth such an one, by his pretence of godliness, deceive anybody. On the other hand, whosoever from choice, and not of necessity, professeth Christianity in such wise as to draw attention unto himself by reason of his seeming humility, or his particular disregard for outward things, this man is to be judged from the fashion of his other behaviour, as to whether therein he sheweth a desire for mortification, or rather for vainglory. For the Lord biddeth us beware of wolves in sheep's clothing. Rather, as he saith, by their fruits shall ye know them.

Now here is the test of the seeming godliness of such folk. When some adversity bringeth upon them the loss of the advantages which they had gained, or sought to gain, by their profession of godliness, then it must needs appear whether they be wolves in sheep's clothing, or sheep in their own. Nevertheless, a Christian should not seek to tickle the fancy of other folk by a parade of elegance, on the plea that hypocrites do seek to beguile the unwary by a display of frugality. For sheep should not lay aside their own clothing because wolves do sometimes falsely assume the same."

-- From a homily by St Augustine

Feast of the Holy Face

2011-03-08T04:31:00.004-04:00

O Jesus, Who in Thy bitter Passion didst become "the most abject of men, a man of sorrows," I venerate Thy Sacred Face whereon there once did shine the beauty and sweetness of the Godhead ... but now it has become for me as if it were the Face of a leper! Nevertheless, under those disfigured features, I recognize Thy Infinite Love and I am consumed with the desire to love Thee and make Thee loved by all men.

The tears which well up abundantly in Thy Sacred Eyes appear to me as so many precious pearls that I love to gather up, in order to purchase the souls of poor sinners by means of their infinite value. O Jesus, Whose adorable Face ravished my heart, I implore Thee to fix deep within me Thy Divine Image and to set me on fire with Thy Love, that I may be found worthy to come to the contemplation of Thy glorious Face in Heaven. Amen.

-- St Thérèse of Lisieux

I Will Remain With You...

2011-03-07T03:23:00.004-04:00

You reign at the Father's right hand
In the kingdom of his eternal glory
As God's Word from the beginning.

You reign on the Almighty's throne
Also in transfigured human form,
Ever since the completion of your work on earth.

I believe this because your word teaches me so,
And because I believe, I know it gives me joy,
And blessed hope blooms forth from it.

For where you are, there also are your own,
Heaven is my glorious homeland,
I share with you the Father's throne.

The Eternal who made all creatures,
Who, thrice holy, encompasses all being,
In addition has a silent, special kingdom of his own.

The innermost chamber of the human soul
Is the Trinity's favorite place to be,
His heavenly throne on earth.

To deliver this heavenly kingdom from the hand of the enemy,
The Son of God has come as Son of Man,
He gave his blood as the price of deliverance.

In the heart of Jesus, which was pierced,
The kingdom of heaven and the land of earth are bound together.
Here is for us the source of life.

This heart is the heart of the triune Divinity,
And the center of all human hearts
That bestows on us the life of God.

It draws us to itself with secret power,
It conceals us in itself in the Father's bosom
And floods us with the Holy Spirit.

This Heart, it beats for us in a small tabernacle
Where it remains mysteriously hidden
In that still, white host.

That is your royal throne on earth, O Lord,
Which visibly you have erected for us,
And you are pleased when I approach it.

Full of love, you sink your gaze into mine
And bend your ear to my quiet words
And deeply fill my heart with peace.

Yet your love is not satisfied
With this exchange that could still lead to separation:
Your heart requires more.

You come to me as early morning's meal each daybreak.
Your flesh and blood become food and drink for me
And something wonderful happens.

Your body mysteriously permeates mine
And your soul unites with mine:
I am no longer what once I was.

You come and go, but the seed
That you sowed for future glory, remains behind
Buried in this body of dust.

A luster of heaven remains in the soul,
A deep glow remains in the eyes,
A soaring in the tone of voice.

There remains the bond that binds heart to heart,
The stream of life that springs from yours
And animates each limb.

How wonderful are your gracious wonders!
All we can do is be amazed and stammer and fall silent
Because intellect and words fail.

And I Remain With You

-- St Teresa Benedicta of the Cross (Edith Stein)

An empty pocket here might possibly assure us a full pocket up in heaven

2011-03-06T05:19:00.000-04:00

"We do not worry about paying bills because the majority of us never even see them. We can eat at our frugal tables without knowing the price of an egg. Our simple needs are provided by many kind souls who slip little white envelopes under our front door and then scurry back to the grind of getting a little something for themselves. No, we never realized how rich we could be until we took upon ourselves the life of poverty.

-o-

As Carmelites we have received poverty as our heritage, from a foundress who was herself pre-eminently poor. St Teresa loved poverty, and when food and clothing began coming through the turn with stern regularity, when she became deprived of deprivation, she felt as if she had lost 'a great many golden trinkets.' And when things were not quite so miserably poor as usual, the nuns would say anxiously to Teresa, 'Mother, we do not seem to be poor any more.' They were not crazy; only different.

No, we are not rich. We never shall be, for we live by alms. It is a rather haphazard way of life, especially when a Loan Company asks for security, but it was always worked. And many times it is the poor old widow who in saying good-by palms a crumpled dollar bill in our hand. We know she needs it; we know she will feel its loss. But we also know that she needs far more than any dollar bill the tremendous blessings of God that will be hers because of her generosity.

So we friars don't worry if there's a hole in our pocket. What is wrong with a hole as long as there are no pennies to slip through? A hole in a pocket means the pocket is empty. And an empty pocket here on earth might possibly assure us a full pocket up in heaven."

-- Men in Sandals by Richard Madden, ocd

-o-

In the cloister it is not unusual to receive many treats for Christmas, Easter, Thanksgiving Day, etc. People are so generous that they overwhelm us with many goodies: cakes, pastries, ice cream, cookies, candies... I call them Diabetic Holidays. While so many people in the world suffer and struggle for a piece of bread, God, in His infinite generosity, allows many souls devoted to His serving to not feel a pinch. What is a hard straw bed, some cold or (heat), a bare floor, a lack of menu to choose from, when day after day we see God's generous bounty in the sacrifice of His people?

Thank you for your spiritual and financial support of cloistered (and active) religious communities. May God reward you abundantly for your generosity!

Our spiritual needs come befor

2011-03-05T04:36:00.008-04:00

"One frequent cause of disappointment, especially in our prayers of petition, is that God does not give us what we want, but that we need. 'Your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things' (Mt 6:32). In such a case, we are disappointed because our priorities may be misplaced and our value system inverted.

Occasionally we should ask ourselves what our priorities really are. To help us refocus, Jesus advises: 'Strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well' (Mt 6:33). Attaining this holiness ('righteousness') should leave us immune to disappointment, because when we have God and his love (manifested by his beneficence toward us), we have everything we need, spiritually. The answers to our physical needs come as an unfailing bonus.

-o-

Our spiritual needs come before, not instead of, our physical needs. Thus, really trusting in God's promised provisions for our life-needs, with spiritual goals at the top of our shopping list, will immunize us against any disappointment. When our wants are subordinate to our needs, especially our spiritual needs, the art of trusting God without disappointment is the inevitable result, and the reward that awaits us is equally inevitable. It is the one that Paul was allowed to preview: 'No eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the human heart conceived, what God has prepared for those who love him' (1 Cor 2:9)."

-- Pathways of Trust: 101 Shortcuts to Holiness by John H Hampsch, CMF

An Act of Reparation to the Sacred Heart for the first Friday of the month

2011-03-04T03:54:00.001-04:00

Adorable Heart of Jesus, glowing with love for us and inflamed with zeal for our salvation: O Heart! ever sensible of our misery and the wretchedness to which our sins have reduced us, infinitely rich in mercy to heal the wounds of our souls, behold us humbly prostrate before Thee to express the sorrow that fills our hearts for the coldness and indifference with which we have so long requited the numberless benefits that Thou hast conferred upon us. With a deep sense of the outrages that have been heaped upon Thee by our sins and the sins of others, we come to make a solemn reparation of honor to thy most sacred majesty. It was our sins that overwhelmed Thy Heart with bitterness; it was the weight of our iniquities that pressed down Thy face to the earth in the Garden of Olives, and caused Thee to expire in anguish and agony on the cross. But now, repenting and sorrowful, we cast ourselves at Thy feet, and implore forgiveness.

Adorable Heart of Jesus, source of true contrition and ever merciful to the penitent sinner, impart to our hearts the spirit of penance, and give to our eyes a fountain of tears, that we may sincerely bewail our sins now and for the rest of our days. Oh, would that we could blot them out, even with our blood! Pardon them, O Lord, in Thy mercy, and pardon and convert to Thee all that have committed irreverences and sacrileges against Thee in the sacrament, of Thy love, and thus give another proof that Thy mercy is above all Thy works. Divine Jesus, with Thee there are mercy and plentiful redemption; deliver us from our sins, accept the sincere desire we now entertain, and our holy resolution, relying on the assistance of Thy grace, henceforth to be faithful to Thee. And in order to repair the sins of ingratitude by which we have grieved Thy most tender and loving Heart, we are resolved in the future ever to love and honor Thee in the most adorable Sacrament of the Altar, where Thou art ever present to hear and grant our petitions, and to be the food and life of our souls. Be Thou, O compassionate Jesus! our Mediator with Thy heavenly Father, Whom we have so grievously offended, strengthen our weakness, confirm these our resolutions of amendment, and as Thy Sacred Heart is our refuge and our hope when we have sinned, so may it be the strength and support of our repentance, that nothing in life or death may ever again separate us from Thee. Amen.

Glorious St Joseph, make us a family of saints

2011-03-01T04:01:00.003-04:00

Glorious Saint Joseph! Thou to whom God confided the care of the two persons He most loved on earth, forget not that we too have been entrusted to thy care.

Thou who art our protector and our father, deign to take our interests into thy own hands, but above all, watch over all that concerns our souls.

O virtuous guardians of the Holy Family, by thy powerful intercession, make us a family of saints. And since to merit thy favors, we must strive to imitate thy virtues, obtain for us all a sincere will to walk in thy footsteps and to be like thee, full of love for Jesus and Mary and faithful to all our other duties.

Thou art too jealous of the glory of God and our salvation to refuse to receive our prayers.

O beloved head of the Holy Family, graciously hear us.

That this love may be so strong that never will anything stop it

2011-02-28T04:13:00.001-04:00

"It would only be right, O my God, that each minute, each second, I should say to Thee without ceasing, O my Jesus I love Thee, and that thus I may fill, day and night, the emptiness and the fullness of my heart. But, alas, O my Jesus, my poor human nature hinders me from carrying out this incessant act of love. So condescend to consider, I beseech Thee, each word, each movement, each breath, as so many acts of love, which, beating in unison with Thy Heart, extending Thy reign, sanctifying Thy Name, they may be steps which lead me to Thee and make me taste the joys of the children of God.... That this love may be so strong that never will anything stop it, and that I may be able to cry, 'I have no longer anything, anything which has not been given.'"

-- The Life of Gabrielle Lefebvre by Fr Le Crom

Consume my heart

2011-02-27T09:58:00.000-04:00

Hail! O sacred Heart of Jesus, living and quickening source of eternal life, infinite treasure of the Divinity, and burning furnace of divine love. Thou art my refuge and my sanctuary, O my amiable Savior. Consume my heart with that burning fire with which Thine is ever inflamed. Pour down on my soul those graces which flow from Thy love, and let my heart be so united with Thine, that our wills may be one, and mine in all things be conformed to Thine. May Thy divine will be equally the standard and rule of all my desires and of all my actions. Amen
-- Prayer by Saint Gertrude

Red and white roses

2011-02-26T08:22:00.000-04:00

"One time I was seated near the door, as I was portress. I was feeling somewhat hurt, as it seemed to me the older Sisters were not satisfied that the Prioress had placed me at the Turn, because I was still young, and I thought that they were right under the present circumstances. In this mood I saw in spirit our Lord showing me a withered rosebush in the courtyard, all covered with red and white roses; as it was dried up and it was not the season of roses, the Divine Master said to me: ”these roses cannot be gathered without encountering the thorns.” He wished to make me understand, by that, that it is by suffering and contradictions that virtue is acquired."

-- Bl Anne of St Bartholomew, ocd

The Sacred Lance and Nails

2011-02-26T03:58:00.000-04:00

"O Jesus! I remember the very bitter pain You did suffer when the executioners nailed Your Sacred Hands and Feet to the Cross by blow after blow with big blunt nails, and, not finding You in a sad enough state, to satisfy their cruelty they enlarged Your Wounds, and added pain to pain, stretching Your Body on the Cross and dislocated Your Bones by pulling Them on all sides. I beg of You by the memory of this most loving suffering of the Cross to grant me the grace to love You. Amen.

O Jesus! I remember the abundant outpouring of Blood which You shed. From Your Side, pierced with a lance by a soldier, Blood and Water poured forth until there was not left in Your Body a single Drop; and finally the very substance of Your Body withered and the marrow of Your Bones dried up.

Through this bitter Passion and through the outpouring of Your Precious Blood, I beg You to pierce my heart so that my tears of penance and love may be my bread day and night. May I be entirely converted to You; may my heart be Your perpetual resting place; may my conversation be pleasing to You; and may the end of my life be so praiseworthy that I may merit Heaven and there with Your saints praise You forever. Amen."

-- From the 15 prayers of St Bridget

** Traditionally, these two instruments of the Passion are commemorated the Friday after the first Sunday in Lent.

The Great Power of the Rosary

2011-02-25T07:51:00.000-04:00

"Dear young people do not be ashamed to recite the Rosary alone, while you walk along the streets to school, to the university or to work, or as you commute by public transport. Adopt the habit of reciting it among yourselves, in your groups, movements and associations. Do not hesitate to suggest that it be recited at home by your parents and brothers and sisters, because it rekindles and strengthens the bonds between family members. This prayer will help you to be strong in your faith, constant in charity, joyful and persevering in hope." -- Servant of God John Paul II

Who could ever separate me from You?

2011-02-24T05:05:00.000-04:00

"My Delight, who could ever separate me from You? Who could be capable of breaking these strong chains that keep my heart attached to yours? Perhaps the abandonment of creatures? It is precisely this that unites the soul to its Creator. Perhaps tribulations, suffering, crosses? It is in these thorns that the canticle of the soul that loves you is freest and lightest. Perhaps death? But this will be nothing other than the beginning of true happiness for the soul. Nothing, nothing can separate this soul from You, not even for a brief moment. It was created for You and is lost if it does not abandon itself to You."

-- Bl Elisha of St Clement, ocd

O my Beloved Sacrament!

2011-02-23T09:10:00.000-04:00

“O my Beloved Sacrament, I see you, I believe in you!... O Holy Faith. Contemplate with ever greater faith our Dear Lord in the Sacrament: live with Him who comes to us every day”.

-- Bl Maria Candida of the Eucharist, ocd

Prayer for the dying and a special soul

2011-02-22T05:02:00.000-04:00

O most merciful Jesus, lover of souls,
I beseech Thee, by the agony of Thy most SacredHeart,
and by the sorrows of Thine Immaculate Mother,
wash clean in the Thy Blood the sinners of thewhole world
who are to die this day.

Remember most especially the soul I spirituallyadopt
with the intention of entrusting him or her toThy Shepherd's care:
I beseech Thee for the grace to move this sinner,who is in
danger of going to Hell, to repent. I ask thisbecause of my
trust in Thy great mercy.

If it should please Thy Majesty to send me a sufferingthis day
in exchange for the grace I ask for this soul,then, it, too,
shall please me very much, and I thank Thee,Most Sweet Jesus,
Shepherd and Lover of Souls; I thank Thee forthis
opportunity to give mercy in thanksgiving forall the mercies
Thou hast shown me. Amen.

Heart of Jesus, once in agony, have mercy on thedying.

We are linked by the power of prayer

2011-02-21T20:46:00.000-04:00

"When we are linked by the power of prayer, we, as it were, hold each other's hand as we walk side by side along a slippery path; and thus by the bounteous disposition of charity, it comes about that the harder each one leans on the other, the more firmly we are riveted together in
brotherly love."

-- St Gregory the Great

2011-02-20T19:48:00.000-04:00

Eucharistic Miracle at Lanciano

"I thirst with an ardent desire to be loved by men in the Blessed Sacrament, and I find none who strives, in accordance with My wish, to quench this thirst, by making any return of love."

-- Our Lord to St Margaret Mary Alacoque

Make this my life!

2011-02-19T07:35:00.000-04:00

“O Holy Spirit, you will be the one who will inspire not only my prayer, but by actions as well, who will rule over my relations with my neighbor, and who will produce within me those wonderful fruits which are your gifts, just as all the virtues are your gifts, since we act in a human way, but in a divine way through you, O Holy Spirit, who are within us. Those who are moved by the Spirit of God are children of God. This is the true life, the life of the children of God. Oh, make this my life!”

-- Sr Carmela of the Holy Spirit

The Mother of God asks for our collaboration

2011-02-17T05:22:00.000-04:00

"Modern times will be dominated by Satan and the future will be even more so. The combat against Hell cannot be carried out by men and women alone, even the most intelligent ones. Only the Immaculate has received the Promise of the Victory over the Demon from God.

However, since she was raised to Heaven, the Mother of God asks for our collaboration. She seeks souls that will be devoted entirely to her and become efficient and sure instruments between her hands, to inflict Satan’s defeat and establish God’s reign on this earth."

-- St Maximilian Kolbe

Notre-Dame des Victoires, priez pour nous!

I wish to be inflamed with a supreme love for You

2011-02-16T04:32:00.000-04:00

“Ah, how great is your goodness my Jesus! Although I have so deeply offended You, You still wish to clothe Yourself with human flesh, and to take on Yourself all my sins, in order to obtain their pardon for me. I deserved to see You sitting in the tribunal of Divine Justice, as a judge angered against one capable of so many failings; and behold! I find You, instead, in the bosom of Mary, a Savior full of indulgence for my sins. O Lamb of God! How efficacious the sweetness of Your love should be in softening the hardness of my heart! I am more sorry for my sins than for any other evil. I detest them with all my strength, because they are opposed to Your infinite bounty. You deserve to be loved above any other good, O Divine Infant. I wish to be inflamed with a supreme love for You, that I may have a true sorrow for my sins. Deign to imprint on my heart such repentance that I may prefer to die rather than ever to offend You again.

Holy Spirit, to You I have recourse; with the help of Your grace I firmly resolve never again to offend my Savior.”

-- Bl Mary of the Angels, ocd

It is internal silence that counts

2011-02-15T04:19:00.018-04:00

"We are religious. We are different. So we cannot expect the world to accept silence and treasure it as we have done. We cannot expect traffic cops to throw away their whistles or bus drivers to disconnect their horns. We cannot expect merchants to haggle in low, subdued voices; or cab drivers to transport their fares beneath a cloud of deep, sepulchral quiet. We cannot expect any of these things. We do not expect them. We cannot hope that silence will subdue noise. We do not believe it is possible. But we do believe that if people said less, made less noise, they would be wiser. And with that wisdom would come the ability to cope more adequately with the complexities of living.

Noise and talk have not made us less human, but they have med us less wise. Because of it, we have sometimes crippled the growth of our culture and impeded the development of our knowledge. And the fact that some Americans have failed to adjust their mighty voices to their little worlds has turned them into some of the greatest bores on the face of the earth.

None of us should be too proud or too ashamed to admit that we have spoken too much and too often for our own good. And if some friend loves us enough to say, "shut your mouth," we should not condemn him for his insolence, but thank him for his advice. It is only too bad that God did not furnish zippers with every mouth He made. For if He had, we might more easily become intellectual giants. We might more easily become saints.

So when the five o'clock bell rings on these dark winter evenings, we go into our grand silence. We do this in an effort to achieve through external silence, the great prize, internal silence. For it is internal silence that counts; it is the internal silence that gives us the power to remain unruffled, ever calm, ever the master of our surroundings. And blessed is he who can remain unruffled before the wild antics of modern civilization."

-- Men in Sandals by Fr Richard Madden, ocd

In silence you can find rest

2011-02-14T04:17:00.000-04:00

"After years of seasoning we would come to see the reason for it all. We would find that through silence we could begin to live in a world that would not be laid open to the penetrating wheeze of high pitched voices or the gruff cursings of the basso profundos. We would come to appreciate silence for the splendid opportunity it would give us to see all things in their true light. We would aways be grateful for the lesson it would teach us - that the less we say, the more effect and weight out words will carry when we do speak. And we would come to accept silence not as a form of capital punishment (as some would) but as a reprieve from the overpowering pressure of ordinary living. In silence we would find rest, not boredom. And what is more, we would actually come to enjoy it."

-- Men in Sandals by Fr Richard Madden, ocd

-o-
I apologise for the posting delay. Our Internet connection has been intermittent for weeks now.

Our Lady of Lourdes

2011-02-11T08:18:00.000-04:00

Rejoice, flower of incorruptibility;
Rejoice, crown of continence!
Rejoice, Thou from whom shineth the Archetype of the Resurrection;
Rejoice, Thou Who revealest the life of the angels!
Rejoice, tree of shining fruit, whereby the faithful are nourished;
Rejoice, tree of goodly shade by which many are sheltered!
Rejoice, Thou that has carried in Thy womb the Redeemer of captives;
Rejoice, Thou that gavest birth to the Guide of those astray!
Rejoice, supplication before the Righteous Judge;
Rejoice, forgiveness of many sins!
Rejoice, robe of boldness for the naked;
Rejoice, love that doth vanquish all desire!
Rejoice, O Bride Unwedded!

-- Romanos the Melodist

Call upon Mary

2011-02-10T04:19:00.012-04:00

"In dangers, in doubts, in difficulties, think of Mary, call upon Mary. Let not her name depart from your lips, never suffer it to leave your heart. And that you may more surely obtain the assistance of her prayer, neglect not to walk in her footsteps. With her for (your) guide, you shall never go astray; while invoking her, you shall never lose heart; So long as she is in your mind, you are safe from deception; while she holds your hand, you cannot fall; under her protection you have nothing to fear; if she walks before you, you shall not grow weary; if she shows you favor, you shall reach the goal."

-- St Bernard of Clairvaux

Devotion to the saints

2011-02-09T04:15:00.001-04:00

"Devotion to a particular saint always means that the saint in question is held in high personal regard. Not only do we have particular reverence for the saint, but we are spiritually fascinated by his life, works, and virtues. Somehow we are able spiritually to enter into his life: we seem to understand and grasp something of his unique spiritual genius. Not only that, but we want to be influenced by this saint, because the way he lived and practiced virtue on earth is viewed as a thing of compelling beauty."

-- Saint Joseph by Fr. Michael D Griffin, ocd