Day: July 18, 2017

Posted in CATHOLIC DEVOTIONS of the Month, DEVOTIO, MORNING Prayers, The HOLY NAME

The Wonders of the Holy Name – Fr Paul O’Sullivan, O.P. – “Revealing the Simplest Secret Ever of Holiness and Happiness.” Part Nine – 18 July

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Previous – here: https://anastpaul.wordpress.com/category/the-holy-name/

the wonders of the holy name-day nine-18 july

The Saints and the Holy Name contd

St Francis of Asslsi:  that burning Seraph of
love found his delights in repeating the loved Name
of Jesus.   St. Bonaventure says that his face lit
up with joy and his voice showed by its tender
accents how much he loved to invoke this all-Holy
Name.
No ‘wonder then that he received on his hands
and feet and side the marks of the Five Wounds
of Our Lord, a reward of his burning love.

St Ignatius of Loyola:  was second to none in
his love for the Holy Name.   He gave to his great
Order not his own name but called it the Society
of Jesus.   This Divine Name has been, as it
were a shield and defence of the · Order against
its enemies and a guarantee of the holiness and
sanctity of its members.   Glorious, indeed is the
great Society of Jesus.  And now, our present Holy Father , too is a Jesuit.

St Francis de Sales:   has no hesitation in saying
that those who have the custom of repeating
the Holy Name frequently may feel certain of
dying a holy and happy death.
And, indeed, there can be no doubt of this
because every time we say Jesus we apply the
saving Blood of Jesus to our Souls, at the same
time we implore God, to do as He has promised,
granting us everything we ask in His Name.   All
who desire a holy death can secure it by repeating
the Name of Jesus.   Not only will this practice
obtain for us a holy death but it will lessen
notably our time in Purgatory and may very possibly
deliver us altogether from that dreadful fire.
Many saints spent their last days repeating
constantly Jesus, Jesus.
ALL the doctors of the Church agree in telling
us that the devil reserves his fiercest temptations
for our last moments and then he fills the minds
of the dying person with doubts, fears and
dreadful temptations in the hope of, at last,
carrying the unfortunate . soul to Hell.   Happy
those who in life have made sure of acquiring
the habit of calling on the Name of Jesus.
Facts like these we have just mentioned are to
be found in the 1ives of all the great servants of
God who became saints and reached the highest
degrees of sanctity by this simple and easy
means.
St Vincent Ferrer:  one of the most famous
preachers that the World has ever seen, converted
the most abandoned criminals and transformed
them into the most fervent Christians.   He converted
80000 Jews, and 70000 Moors, a prodigy
we read of in the life of no other saint.   He
worked an incredible number of miracles.  Three
miracles are demanded by the Church for the
canonisation of the saints, whereas in the bull of
canonisation of St. Vincent 873 are mentioned.
This great saint burned with love for the Name
of Jesus and with this Divine Name worked
extraordinary wonders. .
We, therefore, sinful as we are, can with this
Omnipotent Name obtain every favour and every
grace.   The weakest mortals become strong, the
most afflicted find in it consolation and joy.
Who then can be so foolish or negligent as not
to acquire the habit of repeating Jesus, Jesus, Jesus
constantly.   It robs us of no time, presents no
difficulty and is an infallible remedy for every evil.

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Posted in MORNING Prayers, QUOTES of the SAINTS, SAINT of the DAY, The WORD

Thought for the Day – 18 July

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Thought for the Day – 18 July

Commentary Saint Bruno of Segni on Mark 16:17-18

The Lord said to the Eleven: “These signs will accompany those who believe: in my name they will drive out demons, they will speak new languages. They will pick up serpents in their hands and if they drink any deadly thing, it will not harm them. They will lay hands on the sick and they will recover”. ..Mark 16:17-18
In the primitive Church all the signs the Lord lists here were fulfilled to the letter, not only by the apostles but many other of the saints.  The Gentiles would not have abandoned the worship of idols if the gospel preaching had not been confirmed with so many signs and wonders.   Indeed, did not the disciples preach “a crucified Christ, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles,” according to Saint Paul’s saying? (1Cor 1,23)…
As for us, from now on signs and wonders are no longer needed:  it is enough for us to read or hear an account of those that have happened. For we believe in the Gospel, we believe in the Scriptures that relate them.   And yet signs still take place daily and, if we would mark them well, we would acknowledge that they have far more worth than the concrete miracles of former times:

Every day priests administer baptism and call to conversion:  isn’t this to cast out demons?

Every day they speak a new language when they explain holy Scripture by replacing the old letter with the newness of its spiritual sense.

They put serpents to flight when they free sinners’ hearts from their attachment to evil with gentle exhortation…

They heal the sick when they reconcile weak souls to God with their prayers.

Such are the signs the Lord had promised his saints –  it is these they accomplish even today.

St Bruno of Segni – pray for us!

st bruno of segni pray for us.2

Posted in EUCHARISTIC Adoration, MORNING Prayers, PAPAL ENCYLICALS, QUOTES of the SAINTS, SAINT of the DAY, The HOLY EUCHARIST, The WORD

One Minute Reflection – 18 July

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One Minute Reflection – 18 July

Lo, I am with you always, to the close of the age……Matthew 28:20

REFLECTION – “For the most holy Eucharist contains the Church’s entire spiritual wealth:  Christ Himself, our Passover and living bread.   Through His own flesh, now made living and life-giving by the Holy Spirit, He offers life to men………The sacrifice of Christ and the sacrifice of the Eucharist are one single sacrifice.”…….St John Paul (Ecclesia de Eucharistia 1 &12)

through his own flesh - st john paul

PRAYER – Lord, let me live each day in joy – for You are with us to end of time.   We have the joy of receiving Your Body and thus we live in You and You in us.   Help us to give thanks and praise for the Holy Mass and Your saving Passion.   St Bruno of Segni, your great love of the Holy Sacrament, led you to zealous efforts to spend your life in growing in others, understanding of the great Eucharistic grace we receive, please pray for us, amen.

st bruno of segni pray for us

Posted in EUCHARISTIC Adoration, MORNING Prayers, PRAYERS of the SAINTS, The HOLY EUCHARIST

Our Morning Offering – 18 July

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Our Morning Offering – 18 July

Eucharistic Lord Jesus
St Pope John Paul – Cremona,Italy, June 21,1992

Lord Jesus,
who in the Eucharist make Your dwelling among us
and become our travelling companion,
sustain Our Christian communities
so that they may be ever more open to listening
and accepting Your Word.
May they draw from the Eucharist
a renewed commitment to spreading in society,
by the proclamation of Your Gospel,
the signs and deeds of an attentive and active charity.
Lord Jesus, in Your Eucharist
make Christian spouses
the “signs” of Your nuptial love among us:
make families communities of people who,
living in dialogue with God and each other,
do not fear life
and become responsible for sowing the seeds
of priestly, religious and missionary vocations.
Lord Jesus, from Your altar
illuminate this world with light and grace,
so that it may reject the seduction
of a materialistic conception of life,
and defeat the selfishness that threatens it,
the injustices that upset it,
and the divisions with which it is affliicted.
Lord Jesus: give us Your joy, give us Your peace.
Stay with us, Lord!
You alone have the words of eternal life! Amen

eucharistic lord jesus by st john paul

 

Posted in DOMINICAN OP, SAINT of the DAY

Saint of the Day – 18 July – St Bruno of Segni, O.S.B.

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Saint of the Day – 18 July – St Bruno of Segni, O.S.B. – Benedictine Bishop, Confessor, Missionary, Papal Advisor, Theologian, (1049 at Solero, Piedmont, Italy – 1123 of natural causes).   He was Canonised on 5 September 1183 by Pope Lucius III.  Patron of Segni, Italy.

San_Bruno

St Bruno was of the illustrious family of the lords of Asti in Piemont and born near that city.   From his cradle he considered that man’s happiness is only to be found in loving God:  and to please Him in all his actions was his only and his most ardent desire.    He made his studies in the monastery of St Perpetuus, in the diocess of Asti.

In the Roman council in 1079, he defended the doctrine of the Catholic Church concerning the blessed eucharist against Berengarius;   and Pope Gregory VII nominated him bishop of Segni in the ecclesiastical state in 1081.   Bruno, who had been compelled to submit to the appointment, after a long and strenuous resistance, served his flock and on many important occasions the universal church with unwearied zeal.   Gregory VII who died in 1085, Victor III formerly abbot of mount Cassino, who died in 1087 and Urban II who had been scholar to St. Bruno (afterwards institutor of the Carthusians) at Rheims, then a monk at Cluni and afterwards bishop of Ostia, had the greatest esteem for our saint.

He attended Urban II into France in 1095 and assisted at the council of Tours in 1096. After his return into Italy he continued to labour for the sanctification of his soul and that of his flock, till not being able any longer to resist his inclination for solitude and retirement, he withdrew to mount Cassino and put on the monastic habit.   The people of Segni demanded him back;  but Oderisus, abbot of mount Cassino and several cardinals, whose mediation the saint employed, prevailed upon the pope to allow his retreat.   The abbot Oderisus was succeeded by Otho in 1105 and this latter dying in 1107, the monks chose bishop Bruno abbot.   He was often employed by the pope in important commissions and by his writings laboured to support ecclesiastical discipline and to extirpate simony.   This vice he looked upon as the source of all the disorders which excited the tears of all zealous pastors in the church, by filling the sanctuary with hirelings, whose worldly spirit raises an insuperable opposition to that of the gospel.

Paschal II formerly a monk of Cluni, succeeded Urban II in the pontificate in 1099.   By his order St. Bruno having been abbot of mount Cassino about four years, returned to his bishopric and left his abbatial crozier on the altar.  He continued faithfully to discharge the episcopal functions to his death, which happened at Segni on the 31st of August in 1125.   He was canonized by Lucius III in 1183.

The works of St. Bruno of Segni, or of Asti, with a preliminary dissertation of Dom Maur Marchesi, were printed at Venice in 1651, in two vols. folio and in the Bibl. Patr. at Lyons in 1677, t. 20.   They consist of comments on several parts of scripture, one hundred and forty-five sermons, several dogmatical treatises and letters; and a life of St Leo IX and another of St Peter, bishop of Anagnia, whom Paschal II canonised.  Most importantly Bruno’s theologial work on the Holy Eucharist set the standard for centuries and he is considered one of the greatest biblical commentators of his era.

Fr Alban Butler (1711–73). Volume VII: The Lives of the Saints. 1866

Posted in SAINT of the DAY, The BLESSED VIRGIN MARY

Saints’ Memorials and Feast of the Blessed Virgin

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Our Lady of Good Deliverance:   Since the 1000s, the Church of Saint-Etienne-des-Grès in the old Latin Quarter of Paris had a chapel to Our Lady of Good Deliverance, where, across the centuries, pilgrims sought the Virgin’s help with all kinds of sufferings.   During the Wars of Religion and counter-Reformation, her confraternity had 12,000 members, including the King and Queen of France.   In 1587, young Francis de Sales, feeling himself damned, recovered confidence and joy after saying the prayer that had been pasted to a tablet before her statue, the Memorare.
In 1790, the revolutionary government closed the Church of Saint-Etienne-des-Grès. In 1791, when the church’s furnishings were advertised for sale, a devoted countess, Madame de Carignan Saint Maurice, bought the statue of the Black Virgin and moved it to her lodgings in Paris.   The following year, St.-Etienne’s was destroyed.   In 1793, the countess was sent to prison, where she met the Sisters of St. Thomas of Villanova.   They all got out the next year but when the government threatened to disband the Sisters, Mme de Carignan vowed to give them the statue if they were spared.   In 1806, she fulfilled the vow.   The image was installed in the Sisters’ chapel in Paris, moving with them in 1908 to their present motherhouse in the suburb of Neuilly-sur-Seine.
On a pedestal above the altar, the life-size polychrome limestone statue dates from the 1300s:   a classic Gothic standing mother and child, but both coal-black.   The Black Virgin wears a white veil and dark blue mantle ornamented with fleurs-de-lys over a red robe. Every day, the Sisters gather in the chapel to pray on behalf of families, the sick, religious vocations, those who have entrusted themselves to the Virgin and peace in the world.
The feast of Our Lady of Good Deliverance, is set for July 18, the date when the Vatican officially approved the congregation of Soeurs de Saint Thomas de Villenueve in 1873. The May 1 procession formerly held by her confraternity has been revived in recent years by the Chapter of Our Lady of Good Deliverance, Neuilly’s branch of Notre-Dame de Chrétienté.

our lady of good dliverance - 18 july
—
St Aemilian of Dorostorium
St Alanus of Sassovivo
St Alfons Tracki
Bl Arnold of Amiens
St Arnoul the Martyr
St Arnulf of Metz
St Athanasius of Clysma
Bl Bernard de Arenis
Bl Bertha de Marbais
St Bruno of Segni
St Ðaminh Ðinh Ðat
St Edburgh of Bicester
St Elio of Koper
St Frederick of Utrecht
St Goneri of Treguier
St Gundenis of Carthage
Bl Herveus
Bl Jean-Baptiste de Bruxelles
St Marina of Ourense
St Maternus of Milan
St Minnborinus
St Pambo of the Nitrian Desert
St Philastrius of Brescia
St Rufillus of Forlimpopoli
St Scariberga of Yvelines
St Szymon of Lipnicza
St Theneva
St Theodosia of Constantinople
—
Martyrs of Silistria – 7 saints: Seven Christians who were martyred together. No details about them have survived but the names – Bassus, Donata, Justus, Marinus, Maximus, Paulus and Secunda. They were martyred in Silistria (Durostorum), Moesia (in modern Bulgaria), date unknown.

Martyrs of Tivoli – 8 saints: A widow, Symphorosa and her seven sons ( Crescens, Eugene, Julian, Justin, Nemesius, Primitivus and Stracteus) martyred in Tivoli, Italy in the 2nd-century persecutions of Hadrian.