Posted in MARIAN TITLES

Feast Saint Peter in Chains, the Portiuncula Indulgence, Nuestra Señora de las Mercedes / Our Lady of Mercy, Barcelona, Spain (1218) and Memorials of the Saints – 1 August

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Month of the Immaculate Heart of Mary

Feast Saint Peter in Chains

Portiuncula Indulgence:
An Indulgence which may be gained in any Church so designated by the Bishop, by all the faithful who, after Confession and Holy Communion, visit such Churches between noon of 1 August and midnight of 2 August, or on the Sunday following. The Indulgence is toties quoties and is applicable to the souls in Purgatory.

Nuestra Señora de las Mercedes / Our Lady of Mercy, Barcelona, Spain (1218,) Founding of the Mercedarian Order – 1 August, 24 September :

On 1 August of 1218, St Peter Nolasco, St Raymund of Penafort and James, King of Aragon, each had a vision of the Virgin Mary asking them to found a religious Order devoted to freeing Christian captives from the Muslims, who still held much of Spain. The Order of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Mercy grew quickly, collecting alms for ransom and sometimes offering themselves in exchange for prisoners. The Statue of the Mother of God of Mercy in Barcelona (below) dates from the 1300s. She became the City’s Patron after saving it from a plague of locusts in 1687. Before the counter-reformation, the Mercedarian Order celebrated the Feast of Our Lady of Ransom on 1 August, the date when she showed St. Peter Nolasco their white habit. The Vatican changed the date to 24 September when it extended the feast to entire Church in 1696. Since Vatican II, Catholic observance of Our Lady of Mercy’s day is limited to places and organisations that claim her as Patron.

Meanwhile, the Mercedarians have changed their mission to teaching and chaplaincy and the Barcelona soccer team visits the Basilica of La Mercè after victories in thanksgiving for her help. Her fiesta in Barcelona is a spectacular sequence of processions, dances, music, games and fireworks.

St Adela Mardosewicz
Bl Aleksy Sobaszek
St Alexander of Perga
St Almedha
St Arcadius
St Attius of Perga
St Buono
St Brogan
St Charity
St Ethelwold of Winchester (c 912-984) Bishop
St Exuperius of Bayeux
St Faith
St Faustus
St Felix of Gerona
St Friard
Bl Giovanni Bufalari
St Hope
St Jadwiga Karolina Zak
St Jonatus
St Justin of Paris
St Kenneth of Wales
St Leontius of Perga
St Maur
St Nemesius of Lisieux
Bl Orlando of Vallombrosa
St Peregrinus of Modena
St Rioch
Bl Rudolph
St Secundel
St Secundus of Palestrina
St Sophia
St Verus of Vienne

Holy Maccabees: Jewish dynasty which began with the rebellion of Mathathias and his five sons against the Syrian king, Antiochus IV (168 BC) and ruled the fortunes of Israel until the advent of Herod the Great. Syrian attempts to force Greek paganism on the Jews, the profanation of the Temple at Jerusalem and the massacre which followed, brought the nation to arms under Mathathias, a priest of the sons of Joarib. At the death of Mathathias, Judas Machabeus, his third son, drove the Syrians and Hellenists out of Jerusalem, rededicated the Temple and began an offensive and defensive alliance with the Romans. Before the treaty was concluded, however, Judas, with 800 men, risked battle at Laisa with an overwhelming army of Syrians under Bacchides, and was slain. He was succeeded in command by his youngest brother, Jonathan (161 BC). Jonathan defeated Bacchides, revenged the death of his brother and made peace with Alexander who had usurped the throne of Demetrius, the successor to Antiochus. A period of peace followed in which Jonathan ruled as high priest in Jerusalem but Tryphon, who was plotting for the throne of Asia, treacherously captured him at ptolemais and later put him to death. The captaincy of the armies of Israel then fell to Simon, the second son of Mathathias. Under him the land of Juda flourished exceedingly. He obtained the complete independence of the country and a grateful people bestowed upon him the hereditary kingship of the nation. His rule marked five years of uninterrupted peace. He was treacherously slain by his son-in-law, Ptolemy, about the year 135 BC After Simon the race of the Machabees quickly degenerated. In 63 BC the Romans thought it necessary to interfere in the fratricidal war between Hyrcanus II and Aristobulus II. With this interference and the advent of Herod the Great the sceptre passed forever from the land of Juda. The story of the Machabees is written in the two books of the Old Testament which bear that name.

Martyrs of Nowogrodek – 11 beati: A group of eleven Holy Family of Nazareth nuns who were murdered by the Nazi Gestapo in exchange for 120 condemned citizens of Nowogrodek, Belarus who were scheduled for revenge killings. They are –
• Adela Mardosewicz
• Anna Kukolowicz
• Eleonora Aniela Józwik
• Eugenia Mackiewicz
• Helena Cierpka
• Jadwiga Karolina Zak
• Józefa Chrobot
• Julia Rapiej
• Leokadia Matuszewska
• Paulina Borowik
• Weronika Narmontowicz
They were machine-gunned by firing squad on 1 August 1943 by the Gestapo about three miles outside Novogrudok (Nowogródek), Hrodzyenskaya voblasts’, in Nazi occupied Belarus and buried on the site of the execution in a common grave. One of their surviving sisters, Maria Malgorzata Banas, located the grave on 19 March 1945 and tended to it until her death in 1966. Their relics have since been re-interred in a common sarcophagus in the chapel of the Novograd Farny Church (the Church of the Transfiguration, also known as Biala Fara or the White Church).

Posted in SAINT of the DAY

Saints of the Day – 1 August – Saints Faith, Hope, Charity and Sophia

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Saints Faith, Hope and Charity were the daughters of Saint Sophia (Wisdom). Sophia was a widow of Milan who gave away her possessions and moved to Rome with her daughters. Her daughters were martyred before her and she buried them at Via Appia. She died a natural death three days later while praying at their grave. Their tomb in a crypt beneath the church afterwards erected to Saint Pancratius was long a place of pilgrimage, as detailed in various documents of the seventh century. Oils were gathered from their tombs and sent to Queen Theodelinda in the time of Gregory the Great.

Early Christians from the 4th century often took in baptism mystical names indicative of Christian virtues, and Sophia, Sapientia, and Fides are attested as names of Christian women in Catacomb inscriptions. While still children, the daughters were tortured and martyred in the persecutions of Hadrian. They were scourged, thrown into a fire, and then beheaded.

Posted in Our MORNING Offering

Our Morning Offering – 1 August – Make Your Dwelling in Me

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Make Your Dwelling in Me
By St John Damascene (675-749)
Father & Doctor of the Church

Hold dominion over my heart, O Lord!
Keep it as Your inheritance.
Make Your dwelling in me,
along with the Father and the Holy Spirit.
Widen in me
the cords of Your tabernacle,
even the operations
of Your Most Holy Spirit.
For You are my God
and I will praise You,
together with the Eternal Father
and your quickening Spirit,
now, henceforth and forever.
Amen

Posted in ONE Minute REFLECTION

One Minute Reflection – 1 August – “Blessed are those who hear the word of God and observe it”

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At that time, as Jesus was speaking to the multitudes, a certain woman from the crowd lifted up her voice and said to Him, Blessed is the womb that bore You, and the breasts that nursed You. But He said, Rather, blessed are they who hear the word of God and keep it.

Luke 11:27-28

REFLECTION – “Happy the one who bore you and she who nursed you at the breast.” How great is the devotion, how great the faith are expressed in the words of this woman in the gospel. Whereas scribes and Pharisees put the Lord to the test and blaspheme against him, this woman acknowledges his incarnation before them all with such loyalty and confesses it with such assurance that she undoes the calumny of her contemporaries and the false faith of heretics to come. Offending against the works of the Holy Spirit, Jesus’ contemporaries deny he is really the Son of God, consubstantial with the Father. Later on people also denied that Mary ever-Virgin had, through the working of the Holy Spirit, provided the substance of her flesh to the Son of God, who would be born with a truly human body. They denied he was really Son of man with the same nature as his mother. But the apostle Paul condemns this opinion when he says of Jesus that he was “born of a virgin, subject to the Law”. For, conceived in the womb of the Virgin, he took his flesh, not out of nothing, nor from some other source, but from the body of his mother. Otherwise it would not be correct to call him truly Son of man.

O truly happy mother who, in the words of the poet: “has given birth to the King who, through all ages, rules heaven and earth. She has the joy of motherhood and the honor of virginity. Before there was none like her and none will be seen after her”. Nevertheless the Lord adds: “Happy, rather, are those who hear the Word of God and keep it”. The Savior gives magnificent confirmation to this woman’s testimony. Not only does he declare blessed she to whom it was granted to give birth to the Word of God bodily, but blessed, too, all those who give themselves to spiritually conceiving the same Word through the hearing of faith and to giving birth and feeding him either in their own hearts or in that of others, keeping him present by doing good.

Saint Bede the Venerable (Homily on St Luke)

PRAYER – Forgive the sins of Your people Lord and since of ourselves, we are unable to do what pleases You, lead us on the way of salvation in Your divine Son who lives in us and gives us life. May the prayers of Mary, His Mother help us to constantly meditate on His eternal sustenance. He is our food, our Lord Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, God forever and ever, amen.

Posted in AUGUST - The Immaculate Heart of Mary

Quote/s of the Day – 1 August – Hail, holy Mother

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Quote/s of the Day – 1 August – “Month of the Immaculate Heart of Mary” – Readings: Sedulius, Ps 44:2, Ecclus 24:14-16, Luke 11:27-28

Hail, holy Mother, who in childbirth brought forth the King Who rules heaven and earth world without end.

Sedulius, Ps 44:2

She is clothed with the eternal Sun of the Godhead and with all the perfections of the Divine Essence, which surround, fill and penetrate her to such an extent that she has become transformed, as it were, into the power, goodness and holiness of God.

St John Eudes (The Admirable Heart of Mary)

That which denotes the grandeur and the charm of maternity in a woman are grief and tenderness. Grief which rends the heart as it rends the body in order to give life. Tenderness which binds the child to the mother and the mother to the child in such a way as to form only one being, as they form only one flesh. All these characteristics are found physically in the human maternity of Mary, in her relations with Jesus, and mystically in the spiritual maternity of Mary vis-a-vis all Christians but more especially Religious. The poem of maternal love which each mother lives, often without knowing it, is found in Mary with more grandeur and glory.

Thomas a Kempis (The Imitation of Mary)

Fifthly, on nothing will thine eyes rest with such keen delight as on the inexpressible beauty of Jesus and Mary, whose glorified bodies are so irresistibly charming, attractive, beautiful and majestic, that if the damned were permitted to behold them, they would no longer find Hell intolerable.

Father Martin von Cochem (The Four Last Things: On Heaven)

Mary has produced, together with the Holy Ghost, the greatest thing which has been, or ever will be, which is a God-Man; and she will consequently produce the greatest things that there will be in the latter times. The formation and education of the great Saints, who shall come at the end of the world, are reserved for her. For it is only that singular and miraculous Virgin who can produce, in union with the Holy Ghost, singular and extraordinary things.

St Louis de Montfort (True Devotion to Mary)

Before all ages, in the beginning, He created me, and through all ages I shall not cease to be. In the holy Tent I ministered before Him, and in Sion I fixed my abode. Thus in the chosen city He has given me rest, in Jerusalem is my domain. I have struck root among the glorious people, in the portion of my God, His heritage, and my abode is in the full assembly of Saints.

Ecclus 24:14-16

Posted in AUGUST - The Immaculate Heart of Mary

Thought for the Day – 1 August – Reasons for the name ‘Admirable’

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St John Eudes – The Admirable Heart of Mary

Reasons for the name ‘Admirable’

Jesus Christ, the Only-Begotten Son of God, chose the incomparable Virgin Mary from among all creatures to be His Mother and deigned to be nourished and governed by her. In His infinite goodness He also gave her to us to be our Queen, our Mother and our sure Refuge in all our needs. He therefore wishes us to honor her as He honors her and to love her as He loves her.

According to the Apostle St. Paul, Christ is the Head of His Mystical Body, the Church, and we are the members. We must therefore be animated by His Spirit; we must follow His inspirations, walk the path He has traced, and continue, as it were, His life on earth by practising the virtues which were His own. It follows that our devotion to His Holy Mother must be a continuation of His devotion to her. We must be filled with the sentiments of respect, submission and affection which He entertained for her on earth and still entertains in heaven. Mary always held and will hold forever the first place in the Sacred Heart of her Divine Son; she always was and will never cease to be the first object of His love after the Eternal Father; and so He wishes that, next to God, she should be the principal object of our devotion. For this reason, after the veneration we owe to the Divine Majesty of God, we cannot render a greater service to Jesus Christ or do anything more pleasing to Him than to serve and honor His most worthy Mother.

Among the divinely inspired passages of Sacred Scripture I select one from the twelfth chapter of the Apocalypse, which is a compendium of all the great things that can be said or thought of our marvellous Queen. “A great sign appeared in heaven: A woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars.”

What is this great sign? Who is this miraculous woman? St. Epiphanius, St. Augustine, St. Bernard and many other holy doctors agree that the woman is Mary, the Queen among women, the Sovereign of angels and men, the Virgin of virgins. She is the woman who bore in her chaste womb the perfect man, the God-Man. “A woman shall compass a man.” Mary appears in heaven because she comes from heaven, because she is heaven’s masterpiece, the Empress of Heaven, its joy and its glory, in whom everything is heavenly. Even when her body dwelt on earth, her thoughts and affections were all rapt in heaven.

She is clothed with the eternal Sun of the Godhead and with all the perfections of the Divine Essence, which surround, fill and penetrate her to such an extent that she has become transformed, as it were, into the power, goodness and holiness of God. She has the moon under her feet to show that the entire world is beneath her. None is above her, save only God, and she holds absolute sway over all created things.

Posted in AUGUST - The Immaculate Heart of Mary

AUGUST – The Month of the Immaculate Heart of Mary

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Do not be surprised if I say that the virginal Heart of this Mother of Fair Love is an admirable Heart indeed. Mary is admirable in her divine Maternity because as St. Bernardine of Siena says, “to be Mother of God is the miracle of miracles,” miraculum miraculorum.

But the august Heart of Mary is also truly admirable, for it is the principle of her divine Maternity and of the wonderful mysteries this privilege implies.

Of Mary’s admirable Heart I shall attempt to speak in this book although to speak and write worthily of the holy Heart of God’s own Mother one would need a heart of fire. To know and proclaim the perfections of the noble Heart of the Queen of Angels one should have the intellect of a cherub and the flaming love of a seraph. Nay more, it would be necessary to possess the mind, the heart, the tongue and the hand of Jesus Christ, the King of all hearts, to understand, honor, proclaim or commit to writing the treasures of sanctity contained in the holy Heart of Mary, the worthiest, most royal and most marvellous of all hearts after the most adorable Heart of our Saviour Himself.

Mary is truly admirable in all her perfections and in all her virtues?
But what is most admirable in her is her virginal heart. The heart of the
Mother of God is a world of marvels, an abyss of wonders, the source and principle of all the virtues which we admire in our glorious Queen: “All the glory of the king’s daughter is within.”

St John Eudes

Posted in SAINT of the DAY

Saint of the Day – 31 July – Saint Neot

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Saint Neot, also known as the Pygmy Saint. Related to King Alfred the Great, who visited him for counsel, Neot was an English monk born in the first half of the ninth century. He lived as a monk at Glastonbury Abbey and preferred to perform his religious devotions privately, fearing the creeping in of pride that came from acclaim. He later went to live an isolated life in Cornwall, near the village now called St Neot. There he lived as if he was a novice in religion; he fasted, he watched, he prayed for long hours, because he had not lived before this in any hermitical strictness.

His wisdom and religious dedication earned him admiration from the monks. He visited the Pope in Rome, who instructed him to found a monastery in Cornwall, saying “scatter the word of God among the people”. He did so, and because of his great piety, he became famous, and attracted large numbers of pilgrims. A number of miracles took place involving him. King Alfred visited numerous times and Neot repeatedly rebuked the King for his unbridled ambition. He warned that Alfred could expect greater misfortunes from the Viking invasions. Alfred had failed, Neot said, to attend to his people’s complaints and petitions.

He was very short, and described as being anything from 4 foot tall down to a mere 15 inches. He was so small that he needed to stand on a stool in order to say Mass. He spent much of his day up to his neck in a well during his devotions. Neot had a way with animals and birds, and worked miracles with them. He died of natural causes in 877, and the, because he was so popular, his body was stolen by other monks and taken to their priory in order to gain donations from pilgrims, and finally his remains were lost during the Dissolution of the Monasteries. Relics remain in Saint Neot’s church, Cambridgeshire, England, and at the abbey of Bee, Normandy, France.

St Neot is the patron saint of fish; the reason being that there was a holy well which contained three fish. An angel told Neot that as long as he ate only one fish a day, there would always be three in the well. But when Neot fell ill his servant cooked two of them. Saint Neot prayed for forgiveness and ordered that the fish be taken back to the well. When the cooked fish returned to the water, they miraculously returned to life. The Holy Well of St Neot is still there today.

St Neot Church, Cornwall

Posted in MARIAN TITLES

Memorials of the Saints and Feast of Our Lady of the Slain – 31 July

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Our Lady of the Slain, also known as Our Lady of the Murdered, is located at a Cistercian monastery in Ceica, near Lorban, in the country of Portugal.

It is believed that this image was brought directly from heaven to be given to the Abbot John, who was the uncle of King Afonso I of Portugal. The statue earned its unique title through many spectacular miracles. It is best known for the fact that life was restored to several persons who had been murdered. In memory of these miracles, those who had been raised from the dead would bear from that time forward, a red mark upon their throats, like that which was seen on the throat of the image.

King Afonso I, the Conqueror, (also known as Afonso Henriques), was the first king of Portugal and a lifelong sworn opponent of Islam. He spent 46 years as king of Portugal waging war against the Moors in order to drive the invaders from his land. He was also known for his piety and great love for God. A relative of Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, he bestowed many privileges and benefits to the religious orders and built Alcobaca Monastery for the Cistercian Order. He was responsible for the foundation of several monasteries and convents, and was favorable especially toward the Cistercians.

St Ignatius of Loyola SJ (1491-1556) (Memorial) Inigo Lopez de Loyola – Priest, Mystic Founder of the Society of Jesus and Theologian, Author of the Spiritual Exercises.

St Calimerius of Milan
Bl Cecilia Schelingov
Bl Everard Hanse
St Fabius of Caesarea
St Firmus of Tagaste

St Germanus of Auxerre (c 378 – c 448) Bishop of Auxerre (c 378 – c 448), Lawyer, Missionary, Reformer, Exorcist, Miracle-Worker.

Blessed Giovanni Colombini (1300-1367) Layman, Husband and Father, Founder of the Apostolic Clerics of Saint Jerome (the Jesuati).

St Giustino de Jacobis CM (1800-1860) Bishop, Apostolic Vicar of Abyssinia, Missionary of the Congregation of the Mission.

St Helen of Skofde
Bl Jean-François Jarrige de La Morelie de Breuil
St Marcel Denis
St Neot
—
Martyrs of Syria – 350 saints: 350 monks massacred by heretics for their adherence to orthodox Christianity and the decrees of the Council of Chalcedon. 517 in Syria.

Martyrs of Synnada: 3 Saints
Democritus
Dionysius the Martyr
Secundus

Martyred in the Spanish Civil War: Thousands of people were murdered in the anti-Catholic persecutions of the Spanish Civil War from 1934 to 1939.
• Blessed Ciriaco Olarte Pérez de Mendiguren
• Blessed Dionisio Vicente Ramos
• Blessed Francisco Remón Játiva
• Blessed Miguel Goñi Ariz
• Blessed Miguel Francisco González-Díez González-Núñez
• Blessed Agapito Alcalde Garrido
• Blessed Ciriaco Olarte Pérez de Mendiguren
• Blessed Dionisio Vicente Ramos
• Blessed Francisco Remón Játiva
• Blessed Jaume Buch Canals
• Blessed Maria Roqueta Serra
• Blessed Miguel Goñi Ariz
• Blessed Miguel Francisco González-Díez González-Núñez
• Blessed Prudencio Gueréquiz y Guezuraga
• Blessed Segundo de Santa Teresa
• Blessed Teresa Subirà Sanjaume
• Blessed Vicenta Achurra Gogenola
• Blessed Francisca Pons Sardá

Posted in Our MORNING Offering

Our Morning Offering – 31 July – Hail, O Mother!

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Our Morning Offering – 31 July – “Month of the Precious Blood” and Mary’s Day

Hail, O Mother!
By St John Chrysostom (347-407)
Father and Doctor of the Church

Hail, O Mother!
Virgin, heaven, throne, glory of our Church,
it’s foundation and ornament.
Earnestly pray for us to Jesus,
your Son and Our Lord,
that through your intercession,
we may have mercy on the day of judgement.
Pray that we may receive, all those good things
which are reserved for those who love God.
Through the grace and favour of Our Lord, Jesus Christ,
to Whom, with the Father and the Holy Spirit,
be power, honour and glory,
now and forever.
Amen

Posted in ONE Minute REFLECTION

One Minute Reflection 31 July – The harvest is plentiful

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One Minute Reflection 31 July – “Month of the Precious Blood” and the Memorial of Saint Ignatius Loyola (1491-1556) – Readings: Phil. 2:10-11, Ps 5:12-13, 2 Tim. 2:8-10; 3:10-12, Luke 10:1-9

And He said to them, The harvest indeed is great, but the laborers are few. Pray therefore the Lord of the harvest to send forth laborers into His harvest.

Luke 10:1-9

REFLECTION – Christ, filled with enthusiasm for his work, prepared to send out laborers. And so he has sent out reapers. “For here the saying is verified that ‘One sows and another reaps’. I sent you to reap what you have not worked for; others have done the work and you are sharing the fruits of their work”. Now what is this? Has he sent reapers without sending sowers? Where has he sent the reapers? Where others had already labored… Where the prophets had already preached since they themselves were the sowers.

Who were the ones who thus labored? Abraham, Isaac, Jacob. Read the account of their labors: in all their works a prophecy of Christ is to be found; in this sense, then, they were sowers. As for Moses, the other patriarchs and all the prophets, how much they had to put up with in the cold while they were sowing! It follows that the harvest was already ready in Judah. And we understand that the harvest was ripe at the moment when so many thousands of people brought along the value of their possessions, placed it at the feet of the apostles and, setting down the burdens of this world, began to follow Christ the Lord. The harvest had indeed come to maturity.

What was the outcome? Out of this harvest a few seeds were set aside; these sowed the whole world and now see how another harvest rises up that is to be harvested at the end of the ages. It will not be the apostles but the angels who will be sent to gather this harvest.

Saint Augustine (Sermons on Saint John’s Gospel, no.15)

PRAYER – Almighty God, grant that the example of Your saints may spur us on to perfection, so that we, who are celebrating the feast of St Ignatius, may follow him step-by-step in his way of life to reach You in heaven. Grant us the grace, by his intercession, to find our treasure in Your divine Son, through Christ our Lord, with the Holy Spirit, God for always and forever, amen.

Posted in CATHOLIC Quotes

Quote/s of the Day – 31 July – St Ignatius Loyola

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Quote/s of the Day – 31 July – “Month of the Precious Blood” and the Memorial of St Ignatius Loyola (1491-1556)

To have prevented one single sin is reward enough for the labors and efforts of a whole lifetime.

God freely created us so that we might know, love, and serve him in this life and be happy with him forever. God’s purpose in creating us is to draw forth from us a response of love and service here on earth, so that we may attain our goal of everlasting happiness with him in heaven. All the things in this world are gifts of God, created for us, to be the means by which we can come to know him better, love him more surely, and serve him more faithfully.
As a result, we ought to appreciate and use these gifts of God insofar as they help us toward our goal of loving service and union with God. But insofar as any created things hinder our progress toward our goal, we ought to let them go.

Laugh and grow strong.

If God causes you to suffer much, it is a sign that He has great designs for you, and that He certainly intends to make you a saint. And if you wish to become a great saint, entreat Him yourself to give you much opportunity for suffering; for there is no wood better to kindle the fire of holy love than the wood of the cross, which Christ used for His own great sacrifice of boundless charity.

He who goes about to reform the world must begin with himself, or he loses his labor.

For it is not knowing much, but realising and relishing things interiorly, that contents and satisfies the soul.

Posted in JULY - The MOST PRECIOUS BLOOD

Thought for the Day – 31st July – The Precious Blood in Heaven

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The Precious Blood – Short Meditations for July

By Rev. Richard F. Clarke

31st Day – The Precious Blood in Heaven

In heaven the Precious Blood of Jesus will not only share the glory of His sacred humanity, but it will be the source of its divine beauty, for the glory of Jesus will then consist in having bought us with a great price, and that price was none other than His Precious Blood. It will be a continual source of joy and thanksgiving to us, and will ever remind us of our ransom from sin and hell, and of the unspeakable blessings we shall then enjoy. Grant, O Lord, that I may share that joy!

The special glory of the Precious Blood appears to be ever present in the minds of the redeemed in heaven, and to form the subject of their songs and praise. ‘Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive honour and glory and power.’ ‘Thou wast slain and hast redeemed us to God in Thy blood.’ ‘We have washed our robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.’ If this is to be the continual song of heaven we must try to anticipate it on earth by cultivating a devotion to the Precious Blood of Jesus.

The Precious Blood will also receive the unceasing homage of the blessed in heaven on account of its having won for them all their graces. It purchased for them the glory that they now enjoy. In the overflowing of their hearts they will recognise it as the fount of all those delights that will inebriate their souls. Through it they drink of the waters of life, through it they gaze in ecstasy on the glory of Jesus, through it they are absorbed in the beatific vision. O my Lord! it is to Thy Precious Blood that I owe everything in this life, and shall owe my eternal happiness in the life to come. Oh, fill me with unspeakable gratitude to Thee now and forever!

Posted in Uncategorized

Notre-Dame-de-Gray / Our Lady of Gray, France (1602) and Memorials of the Saints – 30 July

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Notre-Dame-de-Gray / Our Lady de Gray, France (1602) – 30 July:

The Shrine of Notre-Dame-de-Gray, or Our Lady of Gray, is located near Besancon in Northern France near Franche-Comte. The Statue of Our Lady of Gray is made of an oak tree from Montaigu, has a dark wooden colour and is only 14.5 centimeters tall. It is much honoured in the country and there are many miracles and graces granted to petitioners that are attributed to Our Lady’s intercession at this shrine.

About five centuries ago, on a hill near Montaigu, a pious person placed a small statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary upon an old oak tree. The tree itself is believed to date from the time of the Druids and crested one of the hills in the Diocese of Malines. Soon the faithful began to come in crowds from throughout the region, for there were miraculous cures and various miracles granted to the pilgrims who invoked Mary under the name of Our Lady of the Oak.

In the year 1602 a small wooden chapel was built on the hill of Montaigu. The oak upon which the statue of Our Lady had once been displayed was now cut up into small pieces and carved by a local craftsman into statuettes of the same image. These statues were presented as a mark of respect to patrons of the shrine. Even the wood of the oak was considered almost a precious relic, for it had once touched the miraculous statue of the Blessed Virgin.
Wherever they went these figures were enshrined with honour and it seemed as if Our Lady of Montaigu sent her favour, for her miraculous power went with them.

In the year 1613, a poor, seventy year old widow named Jeanne Bonnet de Salins made a pilgrimage to the shrine. She obtained a piece of the venerable old oak and took it to a sculptor named Jean Brange to carve into a statue similar to that of the original. On 4 April 1613, the Archbishop of Besancon blessed the Statue and allowed it to be exhibited for public veneration.

It is reported, that Jeanne Bonnet was rewarded by signal graces she obtained through Our Lady’s intercession. She intended to give the statue to a local church but, in 1616, yielded to the repeated entreaties of Father Gabriel Appremont, who wanted to have the image for the Capuchins of Gray. A special chapel was richly decorated to receive it. The news soon spread in the region of Gray and the faithful flocked to pay their respects to the new Madonna, Our Lady of Gray.

Our Lady of Gray holds in her right hand a gleaming sceptre of gold that a parishioner donated in the year 1807. It was at this time that the chapel – now a Basilica (see below), was undergoing reconstruction after the ravages of the French Revolution. There are also three semi-precious stones set in the front of the base of the statue that were given by grateful petitioners to the Blessed Virgin. Finally, the two gold crowns were created in 1909 on the occasion of the celebration of the coronation of the statue of Our Lady of Gray.

St Peter Chrysologus (c 400-450) (Optional Memorial) “Golden Words,” Father and “Doctor of Homilies” of the Church

St Abdon
Bl Antonio di San Pietro
Bl Edward Powell
St Ermengyth
St Hatebrand
St Julitta of Caesarea
Blessed Manés de Guzmán OP (c 1168-1235) Dominican Priest and Friar, Brother of Saint Dominic

Bl Richard Featherstone
St Rufinus of Assisi
St Senen
St Tatwine of Canterbury
St Terenzio of Imola
Bl Thomas Abel
St Ursus of Auxerre
Bl Vicenta Chavez-Orozco
—
Martyrs of Castelseras: Three Dominicans, two of them priests, one a novice, who were martyred together in the Spanish Civil War for refusing to renounce Christianity.
• Joaquín Prats Baltueña
• José María Muro-Sanmiguel
• Zosimo Izquierdo Gil
They were shot on 30 July 1936 at a farm house outside Castelserás, Teruel, Spain.

Martyrs of Tebourba – 3 saints: Three girls martyred together in the persecutions of Diocletian. We know little else about them but the names – Donatilla, Maxima and Secunda. 304 at Tebourba in North Africa.

The Martyrs of the Spanish Civil War:
Bl Alejandro González Blanco
Bl Eugenio García Tribaldos
Bl Guillermo Álvarez Quemada
Bl Juan Lanz Palanca
Bl Luis Herrero Arnillas
Bl Miguel Solas del Val
Bl Pablo Díaz de Zárate y Ortiz de Zárate
Bl Racardo Pla Espí
Bl Sergio Cid Paz

Posted in SAINT of the DAY

Saint of the Day – 30 July – Blesseds Edward Powell, Thomas Abel and Richard Fetherston

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Blessed Edward Powell

Edward Powell (c.1478 – 30 July 1540) was a Welsh priest, theologian, and opponent to King Henry VIII. He was beatified in 1886. Powell was born in Wales, was M.A. of the University of Oxford, and a Fellow of Oriel College. He received the degree of Doctor of Divinity on 26 June 1506 and was styled perdoctus vir by the university.

A court preacher in high favour with Henry VIII, he helped the King write Assertio Septem Sacramentorum, a reply to Martin Luther, and then published his own work on the subject in December 1523. The University of Oxford commended this work, and styled Powell “the glory of the university” in a letter to the king. Powell was one of the four theologians selected to defend the legality of the king’s marriage of Catherine of Aragon, in connection with which he wrote the “Tractatus de non dissolvendo Henrici Regis cum Catherina matrimonio”.

In March, 1533, Powell was selected to answer Hugh Latimer at Bristol, and was alleged to have disparaged his moral character. Latimer complained to Thomas Cromwell, and Powell fell into further disfavour by denouncing Henry’s marriage with Anne Boleyn. He was discharged from the proctorship of Salisbury in January, 1534, and in November he was attainted, together with John Fisher, for high treason in refusing to take the oath of succession, deprived of his benefices, and imprisoned in the Tower of London.

The sentence was not carried out until 30 July 1540. Three Catholics (Powell, Abel, and Richard Featherstone) and three Protestants suffered together. (The protestants were were condemned for teaching Zwinglianism.) The victims were dragged on hurdles from the Tower to Smithfield, a Catholic and a Protestant on each hurdle. Powell’s companion was Robert Barnes, the Protestant divine. The Catholics were hanged, drawn, and quartered as traitors; the others were burned as heretics.

The site of executions at Smithfield

Blessed Thomas Abel

Blessed Thomas Abel (also Able, or Abell), priest and martyr, born about 1497; died 30 July, 1540. He was chaplain to Queen Catherine, and defender of the validity of her marriage to Henry VIII, for which reason he was put to death. He was a graduate of Oxford, and taught the queen modern languages and music. After a journey to Spain on her behalf, he received the parochial benefice of Bradwell in Sussex. He soon published in defence of the queen’s marriage a work entitled: “Invicta Veritas, an answer to the determination of the most famous Universities, that by no manner of law it may be lawful for King Henry to be divorced from the Queen’s grace, his lawful and very wife”. The work contained an answer to the numerous tracts supporting Henry’s ecclesiastical claims. The king, enraged and terrified, bought up copies of the book in order to destroy them.

A carving Blessed Thomas created in Beauchamp Tower

For his defence of holy matrimony, he was thrown into Beauchamp Tower, and after a year’s liberation again imprisoned, in December, 1533, on the charges of disseminating the prophecies of the Maid of Kent, encouraging the queen “obstinately to persist in her wilful opinion against the same divorce and separation”, and maintaining her right to the title of queen. He was kept in close confinement until his execution at Tyburn, two days after the execution of Cromwell himself. There is extant a very pious Latin letter written by him to a fellow-martyr, and another to Cromwell, begging for some slight mitigation of his “close prison” — i.e. “license to go to church and say Mass here within the Tower and for to lie in some house upon the Green”. It is signed “by your daily bedeman, Thomas Abell, priest”.

His act of attainder states that he and three others “have most traitorously adhered themselves unto the bishop of Rome, being a common enemy unto your Majesty and this your Realm, refusing your Highness to be our and their Supreme Head of this your Realm of England“.

The Tyburn ‘Tree’

Blessed Richard Fetherston

Blessed Richard Fetherston (Fetherstone, Featherstone) was an English priest. He was Archdeacon of Brecon, Chaplain to Catherine of Aragon, and Latin tutor to her daughter, Mary Tudor. He was executed on 30 July 1540 and beatified by Pope Leo XIII on 29 December 1886.

Richard Featherstone studied at Cambridge where he became a doctor of divinity. In 1523 he was appointed archdeacon of Brecon in South Wales. By 1525 he had become the Princess Mary’s Latin tutor. When the Convocation of Canterbury met in November 1529 and considered whether Henry VIII and Queen Catherine were truly married, he spoke in defence of the marriage. The Act of Parliament which condemned St John Fisher in 1534 for his refusal to take the Oath of Succession, also referred to Fetherstone, who was sent to the Tower of London on 13 December of the same year. There he was confined until his execution in 1540. As in these cases, the limbs of all three were fixed over the gates of the city, and their heads were placed upon poles on London Bridge.

London Bridge, with heads on spikes

Posted in ONE Minute REFLECTION

One Minute Reflection – 30 July – “If this day you only knew what makes for peace”

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One Minute Reflection – 30 July – “Month of the Most Precious Blood”– Readings: Ps 53:6-7, Ps 53:3, 1 Cor. 10:6-13, Luke 19:41-47

If you had known, in this your day, even you, the things that are for your peace!

Luke 19:41-47

REFLECTION – “May peace reign in your walls”. O Jerusalem, built as a city with compact unity”, peace in your strength, peace in your love! For your strength is your love. Listen to the Song of Songs: “Love is strong as death”. What wonderful words, brethren !… Who can resist death ? People resist flames, floods, steel; they resist tyrants and kings; let death come and who can resist it? There is nothing stronger. Love alone can match up to its strength. It can be said that love is strong as death. Because love kills what we used to be to make us become what as yet we were not, it carries out in us a work of death. Saint Paul died this death. He said: “The world is crucified to me and I to the world”, and those to whom he said: “You have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God” died this death.

Love is strong as death… let peace, therefore, be in your strength, Jerusalem; let peace be in your love. And by this strength, love, peace “may prosperity be in your towers”, that is to say, on your heights. Profusion of delights, countless riches, this is the God who is one, this is he with whom all this city’s inhabitants hold communion. This is he who will be our abundance in the city of Jerusalem.

St Augustine (Discourse on the Psalms, Ps 121[122])

PRAYER – Lord God, You hold out the light of Your Word to those who do not know You. Strengthen in our hearts the faith You have given us, so that no trials may quench the fire Your Spirit kindled within us. Grant that the prayers of Your faithful St Peter Chrysologus, may assist us to grow in love. Through Jesus Christ, our Lord, with the Holy Spirit, one God forever, amen.

Posted in Our MORNING Offering

Our Morning Offering – 30 July – A Prayer to Seek the Consolation of the Cross

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Our Morning Offering – 30 July – “Month of the Most Precious Blood”

A Prayer to Seek the Consolation of the Cross
By St Alphonsus Rodriguez SJ (1532-1617)

Jesus, love of my soul,
centre of my heart!
Why am I not more eager to endure pains
and tribulations for love of You,
when You, my God,
have suffered so many for me?
Come, then, every sort of trial in the world,
for this is my delight, to suffer for Jesus.
This is my joy, to follow my Saviour
and to find my consolation
with my Consoler on the Cross.
This is my happiness,
this my pleasure:
to live with Jesus,
to walk with Jesus,
to converse with Jesus,
to suffer with and for Him,
this is my treasure.
Amen

Posted in CATHOLIC Quotes

Quote/s of the Day – 30 July – St Peter Chrysologus

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Quote/s of the Day – 30 July – “Month of the Most Precious Blood”– The Memorial of St Peter Chrysologus (c 400-450) “Golden Words,” Father & Doctor of the Church

Impiety always suffers from a fever, cruelty is always possessed by madness. Fury does not know that it is depriving itself of clemency, for indeed he rages against himself as often as he aims for another, he punishes himself by striking down the innocent, he is completely destroying himself when he is cruel to a just person. See how John, as you yourself say, is now alive in Christ. He who has come to cure all with heavenly grace returns to punish you.

In concluding our remarks, we bring to your attention that the serpent ran in vain, for our John here destroyed all the brood of the ancient serpent, and by shedding his own blood, he who was murdered killed them all.

God recieves sinners, but God does not allow those whom he recieves to remain sinners.

Brothers, he sought us on earth, let us seek him in heaven. He has borne us to the glory of His divinity, let us bear him in our body with perfect holiness. The one who bears no sin through the action of his flesh bears God in his body.

‘He receives sinners and eats with them.’ This is how the envious see, how the haughty perceive, how the harsh understand, and how the malicious think.

‘Give it me on a dish.’ Why on a dish? Why do you carry about in a precious vessel the one whom you have killed so cheaply, except for the reason that ‘precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints’? This very thing that you want, you do not accomplish as you yourself want, since a heavenly purpose is at work doing something other than what you want.

Summon the sky and invoke the earth, so that both the earth be amazed and the sky marvel at the new kind of mercy presented by the Lord. What mind perceives, what ear grasps, what teaching has communicated the lesson to which the evangelist draws his Christian audience when he says: Love your enemies. Mortal perception does not absorb this, the human heart does not grasp this, the fleshy condition rejects this, the world’s hearing does not let this in. The feeble mind is insufficient to love those who love it, and fickle human nature is able only with difficulty to be charitable to those who are charitable.

You certainly were the only human being who saw the Holy Ghost come down in bodily form from heaven upon him. You are the one who grasped the Father with your ears, the Son with your hands, and the Holy Ghost with your eyes at one and the same moment in an unparalleled manifestation of power.

Posted in JULY - The MOST PRECIOUS BLOOD, Uncategorized

Thought for the Day – 30 July – The Precious Blood in Holy Communion

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The Precious Blood – Short Meditations for July

By Rev. Richard F. Clarke

30th Day – The Precious Blood in Holy Communion

If in other sacraments the Precious Blood is morally applied to the souls of those who receive them, in holy Communion it is physically communicated to body as well as soul. We have the wonderful privilege of being brought into bodily contact with the Precious Blood, whether it be under the species of wine in the chalice, or of bread in the Sacred Host. How pure our bodies should be if they are thus to touch the Source of all purity, the Holy of holies, the God Whose infinite purity is such that the very angels are not pure in His sight! How can we venture thus to touch Christ Himself? To receive the Precious Blood into our sinful and impure bodies?

Yet Christ Our Lord invites us to do so. In His inexplicable love for us, He desires us, asks us to receive His Precious Blood in holy Communion. Instead of saying, as he did to Mary, Touch Me not, He says, Drink, O My friends, and be inebriated, O my dearly beloved. Admire His divine condescension, and beware of presuming on His patience and His love.

How are we to account for Jesus’ willingness, nay, anxiety, to be thus received by sinful men. It is because in thus communicating Himself to us, He makes us more like to what He Himself is, and what He desires us to be. The Precious Blood imparts to our souls all heavenly gifts and graces if we receive it as we ought. O Jesus, grant that I may receive Thee frequently, fervently, with a complete oblation of my whole self!

Posted in SAINT of the DAY

Saint of the Day – 29 July – Saint Olaf II

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Saint Olaf Haraldsson (995 – 29 July 1030), also called Saint Olaf, Olaf the Holy, Olaf II, and Olaf the Stout, was King of Norway from 1015 to 1028. A viking and convert to Christianity, he was baptised in Rouen, Normandy, in 1010. The son of Harald Grenske, a petty king in Vestfold, Norway. Olaf was a great-great-grandson in the male line of the founder of the Norwegian kingdom. His father died when his mother was pregnant with him. She later married Sigurd Syr, with whom she had other children, including Harald Hardrada, who later reigned as king of Norway, and who claimed the English throne.

He helped King Ethelred of England (‘The Unready’) against pagan Danish invaders and brought missionaries, including Blessed Theodgar of Vestervig, to Norway to evangelize his people. He tried to force Christianity on them, so they revolted in 1029, and drove him first to Sweden and then to Kiev, in Russia. There he gathered his forces, and in 1030 attempted to re-take his throne. He was killed in battle, and regarded by Norwegians as the great champion of national independence. Many miracles were attributed to him. One such is that on the day of his death, a blind man regained his sight after rubbing his eyes with hands stained with Olaf’s blood. His cult spread extremely quickly, including across the sea to England.

St. Olaf in Orkney Cathedral, Kirkwall, Scotland

His remains were enshrined in Nidaros Cathedral, built over his burial site. His sainthood encouraged the widespread adoption of Christianity by Scandinavia’s Norsemen. Pope Alexander III confirmed Olaf’s local canonisation in 1164. He was posthumously given the title Rex Perpetuus Norvegiae (Eternal King of Norway). Olaf is symbolised by the axe in Norway’s coat of arms, and many Christian institutions with Scandinavian links, as well as Norway’s Order of St. Olav, are named after him.

St. Olaf in stained-glass window at St Olave’s Church, in London

Patronage: Carvers, difficult marriages, kings, Norway

Posted in MARIAN TITLES

Madonna dei Miracoli / Holy Mary of Miracles, Morbio Inferiore, Ticino, Switzerland (1594) and Memorials of the Saints – 29 July

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Madonna dei Miracoli / Holy Mary of Miracles, Morbio Inferiore, Ticino, Switzerland (1594) – 29 July:

Where the Sanctuary of Morbio now stands, a castle stood centuries ago, attested in 1198 and destroyed in the first half of the sixteenth century. Only the ruins of a Chapel, dedicated to St Bernardino of Siena, transformed over time into a pile of rubble, buried by weeds, brambles and thorns., remained. Surrounded by ivy and fortunately well preserved, remained the Fresco in the Chapel, depicting the Virgin with the Child.

The history of the Sanctuary of Holy Mary of Miracles began on 29 July 1594. It was a Friday when the two mothers with their daughters, Catherine and Angela , respectively ten and seven years old, travelled to Morbio to entreat the assistance of Fr Gaspare Basbetrini. They were sick girls, tormented by the devil and had travelled to Morbio, to ask for the blessing of Don Gaspare Barberini, the assistant Priest at Morbio, who was well-known as an Exorcist. However, sadly for the pilgrims, Fr Basbetrini was absent.

To the tiredness of the journey and the sadness of illness, the bitterness of disappointment was added. Among the ruins of the ancient castle the little group of supplicants waited and discovered on the crumbling and crumbling walls, the faded remains of a fresco depicting the Virgin in a deeply maternal position nursing Baby Jesus.

The two mothers knelt before the Virgin with their daughters and prayed in deep sadness and devotion for the intercession of the Holy Mother to come to the aid of the sick children.

And then the miracle happened. Those two poor simple and innocent creatures were cured. This is Morbio’s miracle – the Madonna appeared to the two little girls and cureds them of all their illnesses, dispelling any demonic presence within them.

Our Lady spoke to the elder girl, Catherine and instructed her to tell the Bishop that the Church should be rebuilt and that the Holy Rosary must be said everyday.

Eight days after the event, on 5 August 1594, the episcopal curia of Como, whose ecclesiastical jurisdiction also extended to the southern regions of Ticino, instructed the regular canonical process, which recognized, upon the sworn deposition of the main eyewitnesses, the truth of what happened and their prodigious and supernatural nature.

A stained-glass window, located at the top of the apse and placed at the beginning of this century, illustrates and reminds those who enter the Sanctuary of this miracle. Catherine is depicted on a ladder, with her arms outstretched, listening in front of the image of the Madonna dei Miracoli. At the foot of the ladder, Angela, the other sick girl, is lying asleep.

In a short while an Oratory was built on the site to recite the Rosary and celebrate Mass there, as the Madonna had said to Catherine, while on 29 July 1595, the Anniversary of the apparition and the miracle, the first stone was blessed and laid for the construction of the Sanctuary, Consecrated on 16 May 1631 by the Bishop of Como, Msgr Filippo Archinti.

St Martha (Memorial) – Sister of Saint Lazarus and Saint Mary of Bethany. Friend of Jesus and hostess to Him in her house. May have been part of an early mission to France.

St Antony
St Beatrix of Rome
Bl Beatrix of Valfleury
St Callinicus of Paphlagonia
Bl Charles-Antoine-Nicolas Ancel
St Faustinus of Rome
St Faustinus of Spello
St Felix of Rome
St John Baptist Luo Tingyin
St John the Soldier
Bl José Calasanz Marqués
St Joseph Zhang
St Kilian of Inishcaltra
St Lek Sirdani
Bl Luis Bertran
St Lupus of Troyes
Bl Mancius of the Cross
St Martha Wang
St Olaf II
St Olaus of Sweden
St Paulus Chen Changpin
Bl Petrus of Saint Mary
St Pjetër Çuni
St Prosper of Orleans
St Rufo of Rome
St Seraphina
St Serapia of Syria
St Simplicius of Rome
St Sulian

Blessed Pope Urban II (c 1035-1099) Bishop of Rome from 1088 until his death, Carthusian Abbot, Confessor

St William Pinchon of Saint Brieuc (1180-1234) Bishop of Saint Brieuc, Confessor
—
Four Anonymous Martyrs

Martyrs of Calanda – 8 beati: A group of Dominican priests and friars who were martyred over the course of a day in the same town by the same group of anti-Christian forces in the Spanish Civil War.
• Antonio Manuel López Couceiro
• Felicísimo Díez González
• Gumersindo Soto Barros
• Lamberto María de Navascués de Juan
• Lucio Martínez Mancebo
• Matías Manuel Albert Ginés
• Saturio Rey Robles
• Tirso Manrique Melero
They were martyred on 29 July 1936 in Calanda, Teruel, Spain I.

Martyrs of Lleida – 12 beati: Carmelites of the Ancient Observance novices, friars and priests who were all martyred together in the Spanish Civil War.
• Àngel Prat Hostench
• Eliseo Maneus Besalduch
• Gabriel Escoto Ruiz
• Ginés Garre Egea
• Joan Maria Puigmitjà Rubió
• Joan Prat Colldecarrera
• Josep Solé Rovira
• Lluis Fontdecava Quiroga
• Manuel Serrano Buj
• Miquel Soler Sala
• Pere Dorca Coromina
• Pere Ferrer Marín
They were martyred on 29 July 1936 in Clot dels Aubens, Cervera, Lleida, Spain.

Martyred in the Spanish Civil War: Thousands of people were murdered in the anti-Catholic persecutions of the Spanish Civil War from 1934 to 1939.
• Blessed Bartolomé Rodríguez Soria

Martyrs of Rome – 23 saints
Eugene
Flora the Martyr
Lucilla
Theodore

Posted in Our MORNING Offering

Our Morning Offering – 29 July – Now that the Daylight Fills the Sky, We Lift our Hearts to God on High

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Our Morning Offering – 29 July – “Month of the Most Precious Blood”

Now that the Daylight Fills the Sky,
We Lift our Hearts to God on High
By St Ambrose (340-397)
Great Latin Father and Doctor of the Church
Trans J M Neale (1818-1866)

Now that the daylight fills the sky,
We lift our hearts to God on high
That He, in all we do or say,
Would keep us free from harm today,

Would guard our hearts and tongues from strife,
From angry words, would shield our life,
From evil sights, would turn our eyes
And close our ears to vanities.

So we, when this new day is gone
And night in turn is drawing on,
With conscience by the world unstained,
Shall praise His name for vict’ry gained.

“All praise to You, Creator Lord!
All praise to You, eternal Word!
All praise to You, O Spirit wise!”
We sing as daylight fills the skies.
Amen

Posted in ONE Minute REFLECTION

One Minute Reflection – 29 July – “Mary has chosen the better portion and she shall not be deprived of it.”

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One Minute Reflection – 29 July – “Month of the Most Precious Blood” – Memorial of St Martha – Readings: Ps 44:8, Ps 44:2, 2 Cor 10:17-18; 11:1-2, Luke 10:38-42

At that time, Jesus entered a certain village; and a woman named Martha welcomed Him to her house. And she had a sister called Mary, who also seated herself at the Lord’s feet, and listened to His word.

Luke 10:38-42

REFLECTION – O ineffable Fire, O eternal Father, I no longer want my desire to tire of wanting your honor and the salvation of souls nor my eyes to dry up. I beg of you by your grace that they might become two rivers flowing out from you, a peaceful sea. Praise, praise to you, o Father, for you have responded to my request, and even to what I did not know, and even to what I had not asked of you. By giving me the gift of tears, you have invited me to offer you all my gentle, loving, anguished desires and my humble and constant prayers.

Now I ask you to have mercy on the world and on your holy Church. I beg you to do what you cause me to ask of you. Do not delay in having mercy on the world, agree to realizing your servants’ desire. You are the one who causes them to cry out, so hear their voice. Your truth said that if we call, we shall be answered, if we knock, it shall be opened to us, if we ask, it shall be given us. O eternal Father, your servants cry out to you for mercy. So answer them.

PRAYER – Almighty ever-living God, Your Son graciously came as a guest to the home of St Martha and was the friend of her family. Martha in her sorrow was moved to declare her total faith in Him, grant we pray, that in our trials and sorrows, we too may prove our love for You. By her prayers give us grace to serve Christ faithfully in our brethren and bring us to Your home in heaven. We make our prayer through Christ our Lord, in union with the Holy Spirit, amen.

Posted in QUOTES on WORRY/ANXIETY

Quote/s of the Day – 29 July – Anxiety

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Quote/s of the Day – 29 July – “Month of the Most Precious Blood” – Memorial of St Martha

Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things; and yet only one thing is needful.

Luke 10:38-42

Another sign of (St Vincent Ferrer’s) unbounded hope in God’s providence was the little solicitude he evinced in the course of his great apostolate, either for his own personal maintenance, or that of the numerous company who followed him. His confidence in his heavenly Father never failed him. Neither he nor his companions were ever in want, and on one occasion, our Lord came miraculously to their aid.

Fr Andre Pradel (St Vincent Ferrer: His life, Spiritual Teaching and Practical Devotion)

Do not fear what may happen tomorrow. The same loving Father who cares for you today will care for you tomorrow and every day. Either He will shield you from suffering, or He will give you unfailing strength to bear it. Be at peace, then, and put aside all anxious thoughts and imaginings.

Saint Francis de Sales

Hold your eyes on God and leave the doing to Him. That is all the doing you have to worry about.

Saint Jeanne de Chantal

The greater and more persistent your confidence in God, the more abundantly you will receive all that you ask.

Saint Albert the Great 

Those whose hearts are enlarged by confidence in God run swiftly on the path of perfection. They not only run, they fly; because, having placed all their hope in the Lord, they are no longer weak as they once were. They become strong with the strength of God, which is given to all who put their trust in Him.

St Alphonsus Liguori

Posted in JULY - The MOST PRECIOUS BLOOD

Thought for the Day – 29 July – The Precious Blood in the Sacrament of Penance

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The Precious Blood – Short Meditations for July

By Rev. Richard F. Clarke

29th Day – The Precious Blood in the Sacrament of Penance

The task of the Precious Blood in Baptism is a comparatively light one side by side with that which it performs in the sacrament of penance. In Baptism original sin is washed way, in penance, actual sin. The former cleaves to us through no fault of our own, the latter is the result of our own deliberate deed. It makes us the enemies of God in quite a different sense from that which is the result of original sin. It places us, or, rather, we place ourselves of our own free will, under the power of Satan, voluntarily we forfeit our inheritance, and proclaim ourselves rebels. The task of reconciliation is a far more difficult one, and is only possible with our own co-operation.

Yet the Precious Blood restores the sinner to his allegiance, and frees him from the power of Satan, which he becomes anxious to be delivered. As soon as it touches the soul of the sinner, it washes it clean and pure as if he had never sinned, and restores him to peace and friendship with God. Who has not witnessed its transforming power, and seen the sinner before hardened, depressed, almost in despair, now become full of peace and consolation and joy under its divine influence?

We cannot wonder at Our Lord’s cry of agony in Gethsemani, or at His sweat of blood, when we think what it was that the Precious Blood had to efface from our souls. What an accumulated horror of pride and selfishness and impurity and covetousness! Such a cleansing could only be gained at the cost of a sacrifice infinite in value. O Jesus! make me appreciate more Thy divine love.

Posted in SAINT of the DAY

Saint of the Day – 28 July – Blessed Christodoulos

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Blessed Christodoulus was born in the village of Kassandra in Halkidiki, Macedonia. He was a young tailor in Thessaloniki during a period of occupation by Ottoman Turks. Seeing local Christians giving in to pressure and proclaiming themselves Muslim, Christodoulus took a cross and went into the streets to encourage Christians, as well as into the coffee shops were the ‘ceremony’ of conversion would take place, and offered them the cross to kiss as a sign of their faith, urging them to recover, repent, and stand strong in the love of Christ. Most courageously, he would make the Sign of the Cross over crowds of Turks as well as the dreaded Janissaries, the most fanatical muslim warriors of all, the elite bodyguard of the Sultan. Janissaries who were themselves once Christian, before being enslaved by the Ottoman emperors as youth.

Enraged by this, the Turks imprisoned and tortured Christodoulus. They urged him to deny the Faith, but in return he urged them to turn away from the false religion of Islam. Driven to an excess of hatred by this, the Turks tortured him gruesomely and then hung him in front of a church in 1777.

Posted in MARIAN TITLES

The Siege of Rhodes. Victory over the Turks by the Knights Hospitaller at Rhodes in 1480 through the intercession of Our Lady and Memorials of the Saints – 28 July

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The Siege of Rhodes. Victory over the Turks by the Knights Hospitaller at Rhodes in 1480 through the intercession of Our Lady, final battle 27 July 1480 – commemorated on 28 July:

Constantinople, the capital of the Byzantine Empire, the last remnant of the Holy Roman Empire, fell to the “Scourge of Europe,” the Sultan Mehmet II, in the year 1453. This dire news was almost impossible to believe in the rest of Christendom but, it was sadly true and Constantinople was made into the new seat of the Ottoman Empire.

A few short years later, Pierre D’Aubusson was Grand Master of the Hospitallers, the Knights of Saint John, living on the island of Rhodes. He and his Knights were untiring opponents of Islam, sworn to do everything in their power to fight against them. Having made the island of Rhodes their home, the Knights harassed Ottoman shipping lanes and assisted with attacks against the Ottoman Empire.

In the year 1479, D’Aubusson refused to pay tribute to Mehmet in exchange for peace and furthermore, had the audacity to continue harassing the sultan’s shipping lanes. The Grand Master continued to work on the massive fortifications on Rhodes as he awaited the siege of Rhodes that he knew would soon come. His walls were strong but the Grand Master had only a few hundred Knights and about 2,000 natives to defend them.

Mehmet was not intimidated by the Christian defenses on Rhodes, for he had huge cannons and basilisks which had blasted holes in the stout walls of Constantinople. He also had over 70,000 men in his army, and he was determined to wipe out “that abode of the sons of Satan,” as he referred to the Catholic Knights of Rhodes.

The Siege of Rhodes began with a tremendous bombardment on the Tower of Saint Nicholas. Grand Master Pierre D’Aubusson was not intimidated as he asked: “What is more sacred than to defend the Faith? What is happier than to fight for Christ?”

Breaches were eventually made in the walls and the Muslim’s unremittingly attempted to rush through the breaches. Many of the Turks had to be forced to attack the defenses, as their commanders lashed them forward with whips and chains. The Janissaries, however, did not have to be urged, for they were the sultan’s finest troops. They were warriors to the core and advanced over the fallen bodies of their comrades, anxious to cross swords with the Catholic Knights.

Finally, the Tower of Italy began to crumble from the terrific assault, and large breaches opened in the wall. The Bashi-Bazouks and Janissaries rushed into the breach, placing the standard of Islam above the Tower.

On witnessing this act, the Grandmaster rushed into the breach together with a few of his excellent Knights. Howling and raging like madmen, the Janissaries pressed the assault, for the Knights seemed too few to stand against their wave after wave of thousands of elite warriors. Yet, the Grandmaster stood, insensible of any wounds he received in return for the carnage he wreaked among the fanatical Muslim warriors.

Fighting with broken blades and notched axes, the Knights of Saint John continued to hold the breach, cutting down any who approached them, until a huge Janissary rose up and hurled a spear with all his might directly at the Grand Master. Propelled at incredible speed, the sharp steel tip easily pierced D’Aubusson’s breastplate, puncturing a lung. The Grand Master went down beneath a torrent of hacking blades as the Knights struggled to drag his body from the fray.

By his courageous stand D’Aubusson had proven he was at least the equal of any Grand Master in history, but now, he was wounded unto death and could do no more. The siege of Rhodes appeared to be lost as D’Aubusson’s Knights struggled to haul him to safety. Thousands of Jannisaries were rushing into the breach with no-one to stop them and at this point the Knights knew, it would take a miracle to keep Rhodes from being overrun.

A miracle is exactly what they got. Suddenly there appeared in the sky “a refulgent cross of gold, by the side of which stood a beautiful woman clothed in garments of dazzling white, a lance in her hand and a shield on her arm, accompanied by a man dressed in goatskins and followed by a band of heavenly warriors armed with flaming swords.” It was the glorious figures of Saint John the Baptist, the Patron Saint of the Order of Saint John, Saint Michael the Archangel brandishing his unsheathed sword and the Queen of Heaven, the Blessed Virgin Mary herself, dressed in battle array!

The Turks turned at the sight and ran in panic-stricken flight. Thousands fell as they fled, cut down and pursued through the breaches by the Knights of Rhodes and their heavenly allies. Chased all the way back to their camp, it was now the defeated Muslims who suffered the insult of having their sultan’s own standard captured.

The siege of Rhodes had ended, and Grandmaster D’Aubusson later recovered of his wounds. He had lost 231 of his Knights but that was nothing compared to the thousands upon thousands of Muslim warriors who lay dead upon his shores.

It was in the year of Our Lord 1480 that the Knights of Rhodes had gained this signal victory over the Turks, by the help of the Blessed Virgin, whom the Knights regarded ever after as Our Lady of Victory. They renewed their dedication to her who had appeared on the walls during the siege of Rhodes holding a lance in her hand to defend them, bringing with her Saint Michael the Archangel and a heavenly army. She, the Patroness of the Sovereign and Military Order of Hospitallers, had turned the formerly obstinate enemy, who retired in disorder, to lose the greater part of their army. Thanks BE to Our Lady of Victory, the all-conquering sword of Mehmet II had shattered upon the walls of Rhodes!

St Acacius of Miletus

St Arduinus of Trepino
St Botwid of Sudermannland
St Camelian of Troyes
St Celsus of Rome
Bl Christodoulos
Bl Davíd Carlos-Marañon
St Eustathius of Galatia
St Pope Innocent I (Died 417)
St Irene of Cappadocia
Bl John Soreth
St José Caselles-Moncho
Bl José Melchór García-Sampedro Suárez
Bl Josep Castell-Camps
St Longinus of Satala
St Lucidius of Aquara
St Lyutius
Bl Manuel Segura-López
St Nazarius of Rome

St Peregrinus
St Samson of York

St Pope Victor I (Died c 199) The 14th Bishop of Rome, Martyr.

Martyrs of Laodicea – 8 saints

Martyred in the Spanish Civil War – Thousands of people were murdered in the anti-Catholic persecutions of the Spanish Civil War from 1934 to 1939.

Martyrs of Fernán Caballero – 14 beati: Fourteen Claretian clerics who were martyred together in the Spanish Civil War. – 28 July 1936 in Fernán Caballero, Ciudad Real, Spain.
Bl Antolín Astorga Díez
Bl Enrique Serra Chorro
Bl Gregorio Charlez Ribera
Bl Joan Ayats Plantalech
Bl Joan Bover Teixidor
Bl Joan Costa Canal
Bl José Aurelio Calleja de Hierro
Bl José Gutiérrez Arranz
Bl Josep Camí y Camí
Bl Josep Martí Coll
Bl Lluis Casanovas Vila
Bl Lorenzo Arribas Palacio
Bl Manuel Collellmir Sentíes
Bl Miguel Léibar Garay
Bl Narcís Felíu Costa
Bl Pedro Alonso Fernández
Bl Pelagi Ayats Vergés
Bl Pere Vilar Espona
Bl Primitivo Sandín Miñambres
Bl Ramon Gros Ballbé
Bl Vicente Toledano Valenciano

Posted in Our MORNING Offering

Our Morning Offering – 28 July – O God of Our Life

Posted on by AnaStpaul

Our Morning Offering – 28 July – “Month of the Most Precious Blood”

O God of Our Life
By St Augustine (354-430)
Father & Doctor of the Church

O God of our life,
there are days when the burdens we carry
chafe our shoulders and weigh us down,
when the road seems dreary and endless,
the skies grey and threatening,
when our lives have no music in them
and our hearts are lonely
and our souls have lost their courage.
Flood the path with light,
run our eyes to where the skies are full of promise,
tune our hearts to brave music,
give us the sense of comradeship,
with heroes and saints of every age
and so quicken our spirits,
that we may be able to encourage, the souls of all,
who journey with us on the road of life,
to Your honour and glory.
Amen

Posted in ONE Minute REFLECTION

One Minute Reflection – 28 July – “Not a hair on your head will be destroyed”

Posted on by AnaStpaul

But you will be delivered up by your parents and brothers and relatives and friends; and some of you they will put to death. And you will be hated by all for My name’s sake; yet not a hair of your head shall perish. By your patience you will win your souls.

Luke 21:9-19

REFLECTION – Persevere with strength and constancy in witnessing to divine grace … ; press on to receive the crown in the power of the Spirit. The Lord will be your protector and guide, as he has said: “Lo, I am with you always, to the close of the age”. Happy the prison which despatches the men of God to heaven!

Let there be nothing in your hearts and minds now except God’s words. It is by these that the Holy Spirit has all along strengthened you for suffering. Let no one think of death, but rather of immortality; do not think of the passing pain but of everlasting glory, as it is written: “Precious in the eyes of the Lord is the death of his faithful”. Again, when scripture speaks of the sufferings which consecrate the martyrs to God … “Though in the sight of men they were punished, their hope is full of immortality! They will govern nations and rule over peoples, and the Lord will reign over them for ever”. When you reflect that you will be judges and will reign with Christ the Lord, you must rejoice. In the light of the joy that is to come, you must trample on present sufferings.

The Lord made himself a model of all this. He taught us that no one can come to his kingdom except those who followed him on his way, when he said: “He who loves his life will lose it. And he who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life”, Saint Paul, too, exhorts us that if we wish to attain the Lord’s promises, we should imitate the Lord in everything: “We are children of God,” he says, “and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him”.

PRAYER – Remember Lord, Your solemn Covenant, renewed and consecrated by the Blood of the Lamb, so that Your people may obtain forgiveness for their sins and continued growth by grace. May the Blessed Virgin, the Mother of Christ, our Treasure, intercede for our salvation. We make our prayer through Jesus Christ Your Son, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God with You Father, now and forever, amen.

Posted in QUOTES on JUSTICE

Quote/s of the Day – 28 July – God gave the holy ones the recompense of their labors

Posted on by AnaStpaul

Quote/s of the Day – 28 July – “Month of the Most Precious Blood” – Readings: Ps 78:11; 78:12; 78:10, Ps 78:1, Wis 10:17-20, Luke 21:9-19

God gave the holy ones the recompense of their labors, conducted them by a wondrous road, and became a shelter for them by day and a starry flame by night. He took them across the Red Sea and brought them through the deep waters – but their enemies He drowned in the sea, and cast them up from the bottom of the depths.

Wis 10:17-20

If we speak of legal justice, it is evident that it stands foremost among all the moral virtues, for as much as the common good transcends the individual good of one person. On this sense the Philosopher declares that “the most excellent of the virtues would seem to be justice, and more glorious than either the evening or the morning star.” But, even if we speak of particular justice, it excels the other moral virtues for two reasons. The first reason may be taken from the subject, because justice is in the more excellent part of the soul, viz. the rational appetite or will, whereas the other moral virtues are in the sensitive appetite, whereunto appertain the passions which are the matter of the other moral virtues. The second reason is taken from the object, because the other virtues are commendable in respect of the sole good of the virtuous person himself, whereas justice is praiseworthy in respect of the virtuous person being well disposed towards another, so that justice is somewhat the good of another person.

St Thomas Aquinas (Summa Theologica, Question 58 – Justice)

It seems as if from Bethlehem and Nazareth we were to be continually looking on to the end of all things, and reminding ourselves that that sweet and gentle Child, around Whose opening days are clustered so many tender thoughts of thankfulness and hopefulness and love, is to come hereafter, terrible to His enemies, a fire going before His face, Heaven and earth rolling up like a scroll before Him, & ‘with the voice of an Archangel and the trumpet of God’ calling on the dead to arise and come to judgment.

Fr Coleridge SJ. 1822 -1893 (The Return of the King)

Cruelty lies not only in allowing the bad to do what they will, but in another thing too quite as much; to overlook, and leave uncared for, him who has done no wrong, but who is without cause or reason suffering ill. For tell me; were any one to gather together wicked men from all quarters, and arm them with swords, and bid them go about the whole city, and massacre all that came in their way, could there be anything more like a wild beast than he? And what if some other should bind, and confine with the utmost strictness those whom that man had armed, and should snatch from those lawless hands them, who were on the point of being butchered; could anything be greater humanity than this?

St John Chrysostom (Homily 16 on Matthew)

Do not suppose, my sisters, that because you do not seek favour with the world you will be left to starve; I can reassure you about that. Never try to sustain yourselves by any human artifice, or you will perish of famine as you would deserve. Look to your Spouse; He must maintain you: if He is pleased with you, those who like you least will give you food even against their will, as you have learnt by experience.

St Teresa of Avila (The Way of Perfection)

Oh grateful and delightsome service of God, whereby man is made truly free and holy! Oh sacred condition of the religious servant, which maketh man equal to the Angels, well-pleasing unto God, terrible to evil spirits, and acceptable to all faithful ones! Oh service to be embraced and ever desired, in which the highest good is promised, and joy is gained which shall remain for evermore!

Thomas a Kempis (The Imitation of Christ)