Day: September 2, 2019

Posted in QUOTES of the SAINTS, QUOTES on CONVERSION, The WORD, THOMAS a KEMPIS

Thought for the Day – 2 September – My Words are Spirit and Life

Posted on by AnaStpaul

Thought for the Day – 2 September – Monday of the Twenty-second week in Ordinary Time, Year C, Luke 4:16–30

“He has sent me to proclaim liberty to captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free.” … Luke 4:18

My Words are Spirit and Life

Thomas á Kempis
Priest

An excerpt from his work, Imitation of Christ

My son, says the Lord, listen to my words, the most delightful of all words, surpassing all the knowledge of the philosophers and wise men of this world.   My words are spirit and life and cannot be comprehended by human senses alone.   They are not to be interpreted according to the vain pleasure of the listener but they must be listened to, in silence and received with all humility and great affection.   And I said – Blessed is the man whom you teach, Lord and whom you instruct in your law, for him you soften the blow of the evil day and you do not desert him on the earth.   The Lord says, I have instructed my prophets from the beginning.   Even to the present time I have not stopped speaking to all men but many are deaf and obstinate in response.

Many hear the world more easily than they hear God – they follow the desires of the flesh more readily than the pleasure of God.   The world promises rewards that are temporal and insignificant and these are pursued with great longing.   I promise rewards that are eternal and unsurpassable, yet the hearts of mortals respond sluggishly.   Who serves and obeys me in all matters with as much care as the world and its princes are served? Blush, then, you lazy, complaining servant, for men are better prepared for the works of death than you are for the works of life.   They take more joy in vanity than you in truth. Yet they are often deceived in their hope, while my promise deceives no-one and leaves empty-handed no=one who confides in me.   What I have promised I shall give, what I have said I will fulfil for any man who remains faithful in my love unto the very end.   I am the rewarder of all good men, the one who rigorously tests the devoted.

Write my words in your heart and study them diligently, for they will be absolutely necessary in the time of temptation.   Whatever you fail to understand, in reading my words, will become clear to you on the day of your visitation.   I am accustomed to visit my elect in a double fashion, that is, with temptation and with consolation.   And I read to them two lessons each day – one to rebuke them for their faults, the other to exhort them to increase their virtue.   He who possesses my words yet spurns them earns his own judgement on the last day.luke 4 18 he has set me to proclaim - even to the present time - thomas a kempis imitation 2 sept 2019.jpg

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Posted in MARTYRS, QUOTES of the SAINTS, QUOTES on FAITH, SAINT of the DAY, The TEN COMMANDMENTS

Quote of the Day – 2 September – We believe

Posted on by AnaStpaul

Quote of the Day – 2 September – The Memorial of St Solomon Le Clercq FSC (1745-1792) Martyr

“As for us, we hold, to what we believed,
ten and twenty years ago,
to what our forefathers believed,
one hundred years ago
and one thousand years ago
and to that which,
the whole Catholic world,
has always believed.”

St Solomon le Clercq (1745-1792)as-for-us-we-hold-to-what-we-believed-st-solomon-le-clercq-2 sept 2019 2018.jpg

Posted in ONE Minute REFLECTION, The MOST PRECIOUS BLOOD, The PASSION

One Minute Reflection – 2 September – Today this scripture has been fulfilled

Posted on by AnaStpaul

One Minute Reflection – 2 September – Monday of the Twenty-second week in Ordinary Time, Year C, Luke 4:16–30

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring glad tidings to the poor.   He has sent me to proclaim liberty to captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free…  Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”... Luke 4:18,21

REFLECTION – “The ‘today’, proclaimed by Christ that day, applies to every age, it echoes for us too in this Square, reminding us of the relevance and necessity of the salvation Jesus brought to humanity.   God comes to meet the men and women of all times and places, in their real life situations.   He also comes to meet us.   It is always He who takes the first step, He comes to visit us with His mercy, to lift us up from the dust of our sin. He comes to extend a hand to us in order to enable us to return from the abyss into which our pride made us fall and He invites us, to receive the comforting truth of the Gospel and to walk on the paths of good.   He always comes to find us, to look for us.

Let us return to the synagogue.   Surely that day, in the synagogue of Nazareth, Mary, His Mother, was also there.   We can imagine her heart beating, a small foreboding of what she will suffer under the Cross, seeing Jesus, there in the synagogue, first admired, then challenged, then insulted, threatened with death.   In her heart, filled with faith, she kept everything.   May she help us to convert from a god of miracles to the miracle of God, who is Jesus Christ.” … Pope Francis, 31 January 2016 Angelus, St Peter’s Squareluke 4 18 21 today the spirit of the lord is upon me - the today proclaimed by christ - pope francis 2 sept 2019.jpg

PRAYER – Almighty God and Father, open our eyes to see the coming of Your Son, to recognise Him in His Word, to hear His voice as He calls each one of us.   Christ be near at either hand!   Grant that by the prayers of His Mother, we may hear and follow Your Son and never be among those who wish to throw Him out.   Through Christ our Lord, in union with the Holy Spirit, God forever, amen.hail mary pray for us - 28 sept 2018.jpg

Posted in CATHOLIC DEVOTIONS of the Month, DOCTORS of the Church, MARIAN PRAYERS, MARIAN TITLES, MATER DOLOROSA - Mother of SORROWS, Our MORNING Offering, PRAYERS of the SAINTS, The SIGN of the CROSS

Our Morning Offering – 2 September – Prayer to our Lady of Sorrows

Posted on by AnaStpaul

Our Morning Offering – 2 September – Monday of the Twenty-second week in Ordinary Time, Year C ‘Month of Our Lady of Sorrows’

Prayer to our Lady of Sorrows
By St Bonaventure (1217-1274) Doctor of the Church

O most holy Virgin,
Mother of our Lord Jesus Christ,
by the overwhelming grief you experienced
when you witnessed the martyrdom,
the crucifixion
and the death, of your divine Son,
look upon me with eyes of compassion
and awaken in my heart a tender
commiseration for those sufferings,
as well as a sincere detestation
of my sins, in order that,
being disengaged from all undue affection
for the passing joys of this earth,
I may sigh after the eternal Jerusalem
and that henceforward all my thoughts
and all my actions may be directed
towards this one most desirable object,
the honour, glory and love
to our divine Lord Jesus,
and to the you,
the Holy and Immaculate
Mother of God.
Amenprayer-to-our-lady-of-sorrows-st-bonaventure-1-sept-2018.jpg

Posted in INCORRUPTIBLES

Saint of the Day – 2 September – Blessed Antonio Franco (1585-1626)

Posted on by AnaStpaul

Saint of the Day – 2 September – Blessed Antonio Franco (1585-1626) aged 41 – Monsignor, Priest, penitent, ascetic – born 26 September 1585 in Naples, Italy and died 2 September 1626 in Santa Lucia del Mela, Messina, Italy.   Patronage – Santa Lucia del Mela.   His body is incorrupt.Beato_Franco_santa_lucia

Bl Antonio was born in 1585 in Naples to a noble family of French origins.   He was born as the third of six children to Orlando Franco and Francesca Pisana di Antonio.    He studied theology and obtained a doctorate in civil and canon law on 23 September 1602 and he later pursued further studies at the behest of his father in Rome.  He then moved to Madrid to serve at the royal court at the insistence of his parents.

He was ordained to the priesthood in 1610 and he was requested by King Philip III to be a member of his court.   On 14 January 1611 he was named a royal chaplain and Bl Antonio was later appointed as the major chaplain of the Kingdom of Sicily in 1616.  With that appointment came the Prelature of Santa Lucia del Mela.   His appointment was confirmed by Pope Paul V.   He was formally installed in 1617.bl antonio

Franco was regarded as a man of extreme holiness who deprived himself of the pleasures in life.   He didn’t eat much and he slept on the floor.   He wore two chains all the time.   He died at the age of 41 due to his penances and his remains are incorrupt.  He is buried in the Basilica of Santa Lucia del Mela.bl antonio franco - Simulacro_contenente_il_corpo_incorrotto_Mons

The cause of Beatification for Franco commenced on 11 April 1984 under St Pope John Paul II with the declaration of “nihil obstat” – this stated there were no objections to the commencement of the cause.   That meant he could be made a Servant of God.   Pope Benedict XVI declared him to have lived a life of heroic virtue and proclaimed him to be Venerable on 14 January 2011.   He later approved a decree ratifying the existence of a miracle on 20 December 2012 leading to his Beatification.

He was Beatified on 2 September 2013 by Pope Francis.   Beatification recognition celebrated in the Co-Cathedral of Santa Maria Assunta, Santa Lucia del Mela, Messina, Italy, presided over by Cardinal Angelo Amato.

bl antonio franco relics
The body of the Blessed Antonio Franco coming back to Saint Lucia del Mela on 15 September 2013, after the beatification ceremony that took place in the Cathedral of Messina

Beato_Antonio_Franco

 

Posted in SAINT of the DAY

Memorials of the Saints – 2 September

Posted on by AnaStpaul

Bl Albert of Pontida
St Antoninus of Pamiers
St Antoninus of Syria
Bl Antonio Franco (1585-1626)
St Brocard
St Castor of Apt
St Comus of Crete
St Eleazar the Patriarch
St Elpidius of Lyon
St Elpidius the Cappadocian
St Hieu
St Ingrid of Sweden (Died 1282)

Biography:  https://anastpaul.com/2018/09/02/saint-of-the-day-2-september-st-ingrid-of-sweden-o-p-died-1292/

St Justus of Lyons
St Lanfranco of Vercelli
St Lolanus
St Margaret of Louvain
St Maxima
St Nonnossus
St Prospero of Tarragona
St Solomon le Clerq FSC (1745-1792) Martyr

About St Solomon here:
https://anastpaul.wordpress.com/2017/09/02/saint-of-the-day-2-september-st-solomon-le-clercq-fsc/

St Theodota of Bithynia
St Valentine of Strasbourg
St William of Roeskilde
—
Marytrs of Nicomedia – 3 saints: Three Christians who were martyred together in the persecutions of Diocletian. No details about them but their names have survived – Concordius, Theodore and Zenone. They were martyrd in
Nicomedia, Bithynia (in modern Turkey).

Martyrs of September – 191 beati: Also known as – • Martyrs of Paris,• Martyrs of Carmes.
A group of 191 martyrs who died in the French Revolution. They were imprisoned in the Abbey of St-Germain-des-Prés, Hôtel des Carmes in the rue de Rennes, Prison de la Force and Seminaire de Saint-Firmin in Paris, France by the Legislative Assembly for refusing to take the oath to support the civil constitution of the clergy. This act placed priests under the control of the state, and had been condemned by the Vatican.
They were massacred by a mob on 2 September and 3 September 1792 and Beatified on 17 October 1926 by Pope Pius XI.

Martyrs of 2 September – 10 saints: A group of ten Christian martyrs; their names are on old martyrologies but we have lost all record of their lives and deaths. They were canonised.
• Antoninus
• Diomedes
• Eutychian
• Hesychius
• Julian
• Leonides
• Menalippus
• Pantagapes
• Philadelphus
• Philip

Martyred in the Spanish Civil War:
• Blessed Baldomer Margenat Puigmitja
• Blessed Fortunato Barrón Nanclares
• Blessed Joan Franquesa Costa
• Blessed José María Laguía Puerto
• Blessed Lorenzo Insa Celma