Archive for February, 2009
How canst thou find in creatures that which exists not in them? Can anyone give what he does not possess?
bloggingLOURDES
Just to be timely, here is the full text of the Papal Message for Lent
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( Comments Off on bloggingLOURDES )To arrive at the beginning and the first cause – St Pio Daily
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“Certain sorrows are not consoled naturally […]. Therefore, it is necessary to raise oneself higher, to arrive at the beginning and the first cause of our suffering. Now, the cause and beginning of our sufferings is Jesus Whom we have chosen for our portion; He is the health of souls, for whom we have explicitly immolated ourselves to the justice of God. […]. To us then, there remains nothing else than the eternal Will which thus disposes.” – St Pio
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Ave Maria Meditations : a Hospital Chaplain’s thoughts on an Ash Wednesday
A Hospital Chaplain’s thoughts on an Ash Wednesday
Ave Maria Meditations
I had just placed ashes on his head. I was looking at him – with his dirty forehead lying there on the white sheets of the hospital bed – when he said, ‘Father can I ask you a question?’
‘Yes’, I replied, realizing full well there was an ashen cross on this sinner’s forehead too.
Then he asked: ‘Why do I need Lent?’
I thought for a moment and answered: Lent confronts the horror of my sin before the Son of God, the Lord Jesus Christ, who knew no sin (See 2 Cor. 5:21). Without coming to grips with my sin, I can’t see how much I need God’s love.
I need to see his love for me in the cross of Christ and the glory of Easter. Sins really do matter. We deceive ourselves into thinking, ‘we are not really that bad compared to everyone else – God is not really concerned about my little sins.’
We have an eternal soul and Lent is a mini purgatory. In purgatory the soul stands before God Almighty, helpless, stripped, naked just like the Lord has always seen us. We can’t dress up our sin to hide it from God. We stand like our Lord Jesus stripped of His garments before He was nailed to the cross.
Every pain in purgatory points to His cross and our failure to see our need of accepting Christ’s pardon of our sins. Purgatory will not let us go until we discover how Jesus wants us to love Him. Our sins nailed Christ to the cross and His love for our souls held Him there.
THE WAY OF THE PILGRIM, a work by an unknown Christian, has this prayer: “Lord, make me worthy to love you as I have loved sin in the past.” And then the pains of purgatory will be the joyous peace of Easter.
Peace,
Father Joe
It is necessary to make ourselves living copies of our crucified Spouse – St. Margaret Mary
Saint Margaret Mary learned the grace of loving by means of the cross. In it she delivers to us a message that is ever relevant. It is necessary, she says, “to make ourselves living copies of our crucified Spouse, by expressing him in ourselves in all our actions” (Letter of January 5, 1689).
She invites us to contemplate the Heart of Christ, that is, to recognize in the humanity of the Word incarnate, the infinite riches of his love for the Father and for all human beings. It is the love of Christ which makes a person worthy of being loved. Created in the image and likeness of God, the human person has received a heart eager for love and capable of loving. The love of the Redeemer, which heals it from the wound of sin, elevates it to its filial condition. With Saint Margaret Mary, united to the Savior also in his suffering offered for love, we shall ask for the grace of knowing the infinite value of every person.
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Letter of John Paul II on the Sacred Heart on the occasion of the third centenary of the death of Saint Margaret Mary
“The third centenary of the death of Saint Margaret Mary, canonized by my predecessor Benedict XV in 1920, recalls the memory of one who, from 1673 to 1675, was favored with appearances of the Lord Jesus and was entrusted with a message whose widespread influence in the Church has been tremendous. It was during the Octave of Corpus Christi in 1675, in that Grand Century when so many writers and artists penetrated the riches of the human soul, that the young Visitandine of Paray-le-Monial heard these bewildering words:
“Behold this heart which has so loved man and which has spared itself nothing even to exhausting and spending itself to give witness to this love; and in recompense for the most part I have received only ingratitude.”
When I was on pilgrimage in 1986 to the tomb of Margaret Mary, I asked, in the spirit of what has been handed down in the Church, that veneration of the Sacred Heart be faithfully restored. For it is in the Heart of Christ that the human heart learns to know the true and unique meaning of its life and destiny; it is in the Heart of Christ that the human heart receives its capacity to love.
Saint Margaret Mary learned the grace of loving by means of the cross. In it she delivers to us a message that is ever relevant. It is necessary, she says, “to make ourselves living copies of our crucified Spouse, by expressing him in ourselves in all our actions” (Letter of January 5, 1689).
She invites us to contemplate the Heart of Christ, that is, to recognize in the humanity of the Word incarnate, the infinite riches of his love for the Father and for all human beings. It is the love of Christ which makes a person worthy of being loved. Created in the image and likeness of God, the human person has received a heart eager for love and capable of loving. The love of the Redeemer, which heals it from the wound of sin, elevates it to its filial condition. With Saint Margaret Mary, united to the Savior also in his suffering offered for love, we shall ask for the grace of knowing the infinite value of every person.
To give to veneration of the Sacred Heart the place due to it in the Church, it is necessary to take up again the exhortation of Saint Paul: “Have within you the sentiments which were in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 2:5, NIV). All the gospel accounts should be reread from this perspective: each verse, meditated with love, will reveal an aspect of the mystery hidden for centuries and now revealed to our eyes (Colossians 1:26). The only Son of God, in becoming incarnate, takes a human Heart. Through the years he passed in the midst of men, “gentle and humble of heart” (Matthew 11:29, NIV), he revealed the riches of his interior life by each of his gestures, his looks, his words, his silences. In Christ Jesus is fulfilled the fullness of the commandment of the Old Testament: “You shall love the Lord with all your heart” (Deuteronomy 6:5, NIV). In fact, only the Heart of Christ has loved the Father with an undivided love.
And behold we are called to share in this love and to receive through the Holy Spirit this extraordinary capacity to love. After their encounter with the Risen One on the road to Emmaus, the disciples were filled with amazement: “Were not our hearts burning inside us as he talked to us on the road and explained the Scriptures to us?” (Luke 24:32, NIV). Yes, the human heart is inflamed by contact with the Heart of Christ, for it discovers in this love for the Father that the risen Lord has accomplished “all that the prophets have announced” (Luke 24:25, NIV).
The humanity of the Lord Jesus dead and risen reveals itself to us through contemplation of his Heart. Nourished by meditation on the Word of God, prayer of adoration places us in the closest, most intimate relationship with this “Heart that has so loved human beings.” Understood in this way, devotion to the Sacred Heart fosters active participation of the faithful at times of grace in the Eucharist and the Sacrament of Penance; intimately bound to the humanity of Christ given for the salvation of the world, the faithful thus derive the desire to be united to all those who suffer and the courage to be witnesses of the Good News.
I encourage pastors, religious communities, and all animators of pilgrimages to Paray-le-Monial to contribute to the diffusion of the message received by Saint Margaret Mary. And to you, pastor of the Church of Autun, and to all who will allow themselves to be moved by this teaching, I hope you will discover in the Heart of Christ the force of love, the sources of grace, the real presence of the Lord in his Church by the gift daily renewed of his Body and Blood. To each of you, I willingly grant my apostolic blessing.”
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see also:Holy Smoke –
Franciscan Sisters of the Immaculate in Cornwall
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/damian_thompson/blog/2009/03/05/wonderful_contemplative_nuns_bring_traditional_latin_worship_back_to_cornwall
Fr. Blake – St. Mary Magdalen – Reform of the Reform
To keep one’s self unspotted from this world – – – James 1:27
“If anyone wishes to be first, he shall be the last of all”Some people are puzzled by the marks of the Passion on Christ’s body and ask themselves: «Who is this king of glory?» (Ps 24[23],8). Answer them that it is the Lord strong and mighty in all he has done and will continue to do… Show them the beauty of the robe worn by Christ’s suffering body, bejewelled by the Passion and transfigured by the brilliance of the divinity, that robe of glory that offers the object that is the most beautiful and most worthy of love in the world… Does the fact that he humbled himself for your sake make him small? Does the fact that he, the Good Shepherd who laid down his life for his flock (Jn 10,1), who came to seek out the lost sheep and, when he had found it, set it on those shoulders of his that had borne the cross for her, and who, when he had brought her back, placed her among the faithful sheep who had remained in the fold (Lk 15,4f.): does this make him contemptible? Do you think the less of him because he girded himself with a linen towel to wash his disciples’ feet, thus showing them that the surest way of being exalted is to humble oneself? (Jn 13,4; Mt 23,12). For, by turning his soul to the earth, he humbles himself so as to raise up with him all those who are bowed down beneath the weight of sin. Are you going to blame him for having eaten with publicans and sinners for their salvation? (Mt 9,10).He knew weariness, hunger, thirst, anguish and tears in accordance with the law of our human nature. Yet, as God, what did he not do?… We need a God made man, who has taken mortal nature, if we are to live. We have shared in his purifying death; through his death he enables us to share his resurrection; through his resurrection he enables us to share his glory.”
This kind can go out by nothing, but by prayer and fasting. Mark 9:28 Sacrifice for Reparation – Fr. Arellano
“This kind can go out by nothing, but by prayer and fasting.”
Part 1 Centrality of Jesus Christ – Deliverance & Exorcism
allianceoftwoheartsgeorgia.com One In Their Hearts
As we see the rise of the “Culture of Death” in our society today, Christ’s request for reparation seems to be more urgent NOW.
Read More
Join Fr. Edgardo “Bing” Arellano, Spiritual Director of the Alliance of the Holy Family, Inc. on EWTN Television each week for, “One In Their Hearts: Sacrifice for Reparation”. Fr. Bing appears Monday at 6:00pm†.
Fr. Bing Videos on YouTube
be sure to visit the Alliance of the Holy Family International (AHFI) page on YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/ahfinternational.
Let us not lose heart in Divine Providence – St. Pio
Feb 23 – St. Pio Daily – Seeing the Hand of God in All Things
February’s Theme: The Will of God
“Let us not lose heart in Divine providence which, alternating in the lives of individuals and of nations…leads to the achievement of our ultimate end. Let us see behind the hand of man, which manifests itself thus, the hand of God which hides itself.”
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see also:
http://vultus.stblogs.org/the-mother-of-god/2007/02/
Benedict XVI- Feast of the Cathedra – 2009
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Pope Benedict XVI Asks for Prayers, Reflects on Gospel Healing of Paralytic
(22 Feb 09 – RV) Pope Benedict XVI asked the faithful to keep him in their prayers this Sunday, the final Sunday before the start of the great penitential Season of Lent, and the Feast of the Chair of St. Peter.The Holy Father also reflected on this Sunday’s Gospel account of Christ’s healing a paralyzed man.Pope Benedict said physical healing is the sign of a return to spiritual health, and recalled how Christ intended to use the healing to show the power of the Son of Man to forgive sins on Earth.The Pope said sin is a sort of spiritual paralysis, from which the only power of God’s love can liberate us. The Holy Father also recalled the feast of the Chair of St. Peter, which falls on this Sunday, as well as the Season of Lent into which we shall enter this week.“Dear brothers and sisters,” said Pope Benedict, “this Feast of the Chair of Peter gives me the chance to ask you to accompany me with your prayers, that I might faithfully execute the high duties that the Divine Providence has entrusted to me as Successor to the Apostle Peter. Let us invoke the Virgin Mary, whom we celebrated yesterday here at Rome as ‘Our Lady of Trust’.We ask her also to help us enter with the proper spiritual disposition, the Lenten Season that shall begin this coming Wednesday with the eloquent Rite of the Imposition of Ashes. May Mary open our heart to conversion and docile attention to the Word of God.”AngelusAfter the traditional prayer of Marian devotion, the Holy Father greeted pilgrims in several different languages, including English…In today’s liturgy, we witness Jesus healing the paralytic lowered to him through the roof because of a large crowd. This passage reminds us that the Lord has power to forgive sins, and that nothing stands in the way of his mercy when we seek him with pure and contrite hearts! Let us never hesitate to ask his pardon – especially through the Sacrament of Reconciliation – so that we may become better instruments of his love for others. God bless you all!
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