Journeying with Newman
The Thanksgiving Novena for, with and to
the beloved and blessed John Henry Newman
Day Three – 6 October
Priest of God’s Altar
Intention
That we are blessed with more vocations to the priesthood.
“Had Angels been your priests, my brethren, they could not have condoled with you, sympathised with you, have had compassion on you, felt tenderly for you and made allowances for you, as we can; they could not have been your patterns and guides and have led you on from your own selves, into a new life, as they can – who come from the midst of you.”
From his writings Blessed John Henry Newman (1801-1890)
Prayer
Please pray one decade of the Rosary (any you choose) for this Intention and add the following Prayer:
O God our heavenly Father,
we offer You heartfelt thanks
for the life and holiness of John Henry Newman.
In him You give us,
an inspiring example of priest and teacher,
heroic and humble, in his labour
for the salvation of souls
and the pursuit of holiness.
Through his intercession,
we ask You to lead us,
by the kindly light of the Holy Spirit
and so grant us peace and joy,
in the one fold of the Redeemer.
We ask this through Christ our Lord.
Amen
Novena to Our Lady of the Rosary – Day Nine – 6 October
Day Nine: We Pray for the Virtue of Wisdom
and for our private intentions
At the end of this journey of prayer together,
Let us today, turn to Our Divine Father
and pray, so that we may be granted
the gift of wisdom and discernment,
to enable us to
Understand,
Distinguish,
Separate
and Decide between the good and evil.
We pray for the ability
to make the right judgement for
and about others, as well as for ourselves,
according to God’s Will.
Amen
Daily Prayer along with our Daily Rosary:
My dearest Mother Mary, behold me, your child, in prayer at your feet.
Accept this Holy Rosary, which I offer you in accordance with your requests at Fatima, as a proof of my tender love for you, for the intentions of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, in atonement for the offenses committed against your Immaculate Heart and for this special favour which I earnestly request in my Rosary Novena: ………………………….. (Mention your request).
I beg you to present my petition to your Divine Son.
If you will pray for me, I cannot be refused.
I know, dearest Mother, that you want me
to seek God’s holy Will concerning my request.
If what I ask for should not be granted,
pray that I may receive that which will be of greater benefit to my soul.
I offer you this spiritual Bouquet of Roses because I love you.
I put all my confidence in you,
since your prayers before God are most powerful.
For the greater glory of God and for the sake of Jesus,
your loving Son, hear and grant my prayer.
Sweet Heart of Mary, be my salvation.
Our Lady of the Rosary,
pray for our Holy Mother Church
and for our country.
Our Lady of Fatima,
obtain for humanity a lasting peace.
Sweet Heart of Jesus,
be my love.
Sweet Heart of Mary,
at the hour of my death,
lead me home.
Thought for the Day – 6 October – Twenty Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C, Gospel: Luke 17:5–10 and the Memorial of St Bruno O.Cart. (c 1030-1101)
This saint has the honour of having founded a religious order which, as the saying goes, has never had to be reformed because it was never deformed. No doubt, both the founder and the members would reject such high praise but it is an indication of the saint’s intense love of a penitential life in solitude.
Bruno was born in Cologne, Germany, became a famous teacher at Rheims and was appointed Chancellor of the Archdiocese at the age of 45. He supported Pope Gregory VII in his fight against the decadence of the clergy and took part in the removal of his own scandalous Archbishop, Manasses. Bruno suffered the plundering of his house for his pains.
He had a dream of living in solitude and prayer and persuaded a few friends to join him in a hermitage. After a while, he felt the place unsuitable and through a friend, was given some land which was to become famous for his foundation “in the Chartreuse”—from which comes the word Carthusians. The climate, desert, mountainous terrain and inaccessibility guaranteed silence, poverty and small numbers.
Bruno and his friends built an oratory with small individual cells at a distance from each other. They met for Matins and Vespers each day and spent the rest of the time in solitude, eating together only on great feasts. Their chief work was copying manuscripts.
Hearing of Bruno’s holiness, the pope called for his assistance in Rome. When the pope had to flee Rome, Bruno pulled up stakes again and after refusing a bishopric, spent his last years in the wilderness of Calabria.
Bruno was never formally Canonised, because the Carthusians were averse to all occasions of publicity. However, Pope Clement X extended his feast to the whole Church in 1674.
If there is always a certain uneasy questioning of the contemplative life, there is an even greater puzzlement about the extremely penitential combination of community and hermit life lived by the Carthusians, but this ‘into the silence and solitude’ is the perfect environment to touch God.
St Bruno wrote to his Carthusians:
“Rejoice, my dearest brothers, because you are blessed and because of the bountiful hand of God’s grace upon you. Rejoice, because you have escaped the various dangers and shipwrecks of the stormy world. Rejoice, because you have reached the quiet and safe anchorage of a secret harbour. Many wish to come into this port and many make great efforts to do so, yet do not achieve it. Indeed many, after reaching it, have been thrust out, since it was not granted them from above. By your work you show what you love and what you know. When you observe true obedience with prudence and enthusiasm, it is clear, that you wisely pick the most delightful and nourishing fruit of divine Scripture.”
May we mirror Bruno’s quest for holiness and unity with God.
One Minute Reflection – 6 October – Twenty Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C, Gospel: Luke 17:5–10 and the Memorial of St Mary Frances of the Five Wounds (1715-1791)
‘Prepare supper for me’ ...Luke 17:8
REFLECTION – “To believe is not simply to sit back and wait until the Lord comes and serves us with His grace. Faith receives it’s incomprehensible efficacy (tossing a tree into the ocean), in the course of serving the Lord, who, after all, has become the servant of us all and cannot stand to see anyone lazily let himself be served by Him (sola fides). Instead, He takes it as self-evident, that His followers serve alongside Him, which really means they serve Him, for “where I am, there will my servant also be” (Jn 12:26).
Moreover, this serving does not take place in haughty pride over how useful to the Lord my co-service may be (as if He could not do anything without me). Just the opposite, in modesty, the servant knows the words of Jesus – “Without me you can do nothing” (Jn 15:5).
Since He has already done everything for us, the correct estimation of ourselves, is the one commanded by the Lord Himself and expressed in the Confession – “We are useless servants, we have only done our duty.” … Cardinal Hans Urs von Balthasar (1905-1988)
PRAYER – Almighty, ever-living God, whose love surpasses all that we ask or deserve, guide us to perfect obedience to conform ourselves to Your holy will, that in the manner of St Mary Frances, our only wish may be to serve and find You. May we always serve in modesty and humility and know that only in Your Son, are we complete. May the prayers of St Mary Frances of the Five Wounds be a source of strength on our journey home. Through Christ our Lord, with the Holy Spirit, God for all eternity, amen.
Our Morning Offering – 6 October – Twenty Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C
”O Blessed Host” Prayer before Holy Communion By St Faustina Kowalska (1905-1938) Diary 159
O Blessed Host, in golden chalice enclosed for me,
That through the vast wilderness of exile I may pass –
pure, immaculate, undefiled.
Oh, grant that through the power of Your love
This might come to be.
O Blessed Host, take up Your dwelling within my soul,
O Thou my heart’s purest love!
With Your brilliance the darkness dispel.
Refuse not Your grace to a humble heart.
O Blessed Host, enchantment of all heaven,
Though Your beauty be veiled
And captured in a crumb of bread,
Strong faith tears away that veil.
Amen
Saint of the Day – 6 October – Saint Mary Frances of the Five Wounds TOSF (1715-1791) – Virgin, Third Order Franciscan, Mystic, Stigmatist, Apostle of Charity, born Anna Maria Gallo on 25 March 1715 at Naples, Italy and died on 6 October 1791 at Naples, Italy of natural causes. Patronages – Quartieri Spagnoli of Naples (co-patronof the Gallo World Family Foundation, expectant mothers, women seeking to have children.
She was born the daughter of Francesco Gallo and Barbara Basinsin, in the Quartieri Spagnoli (Spanish Quarter) of Naples, a red-light district of the city, still known for its high crime. According to tradition, another saint, the Jesuit, Francis de Geronimo (1642-1716), predicted her future sanctity while she was still an infant. Her family was of the middle class but her father, a weaver of gold lace, was a very violent man, who regularly abused his family physically, often severely.
When Gallo was sixteen, her father attempted to force her into a marriage with a young man of means, who was seeking her hand. She refused and asked to join the Franciscan Third Order, through which she could live out a religious life in the family home. The friars of Naples were part of the reform of St Peter of Alcantara and they and the tertiaries under their rul,e were known for the strictness of their lives. Through the intervention of a friar, Father Theophilus, permission to enter the Order was eventually granted by her father.
Gallo was received into the Order on 8 September 1731 and began wearing the religious habit of the Order, which was an uncommon practice during that time. She also adopted the use of the religious name she took upon being received into the Order, out of her devotion to the Blessed Mother, St Francis of Assisi and the Passion of Christ. She continued to live in the family home to serve God as a consecrated virgin, as was customary in those days.
She took as her spiritual director, the Franciscan friar, St John Joseph of the Cross OFM (1654–1739), while her confessor was the Barnabite priest, Francis Xavier Bianchi and she began to be known among her neighbours for her work of charity, helping the poor of the sector. She was a person of deep prayer, often spending long hours in meditation.
In 1753 she joined with another Franciscan tertiary, known only as Maria Felice and they moved into a small palace owned by a priest, Giovanni Pessiri, who became their spiritual director. The two women occupied the second floor, sleeping on the floor and the priest the floor above. She is said to have received the wounds of the stigmata while living there and suffered patiently many physical afflictions and spiritual trials. She would wear gloves to cover the marks on her hands, while she did her work. She is also said to have had visions of Saint Raphael the Archangel, who healed her of several afflictions.
Mary Frances was buried in the Franciscan Church of Santa Lucia al Monte in Naples, which she attended during her life. This church also contains the tomb of John Joseph, now also declared a saint.
Mary Frances was declared Venerable by Pope Pius VII, on 18 May 1803. She was Beatified by Pope Gregory XVI on 12 November 1843 and Canonised by Pope Pius IX on 29 June 1867.
Statue in Santa Chiara, Naples
Devotion to Mary Frances has long continued to be strong in the neighbourhood where she lived and of which she is the patron saint. The residents credit her intercession with the little damage the sector endured during World War II, when over 100 bombs were dropped on it. Her home has been preserved as a chapel and museum.
Pope Pius IX, who Canonised Mary Frances, declared her to be a patroness of expectant mothers and of women having difficulty conceiving. She is also the patroness of the Gallo World Family Foundation, which was founded to promote the development of Judeo-Christian values, for the betterment of the world, by members of the Gallo family scattered worldwide.
On 6 October 2001, her remains were transferred from the Church of Santa Lucia to the house where she had spent the last half of her life. It is now the Shrine of St Mary Frances of the Five Wounds.
It is still a common practice for expectant mothers to go there to be blessed with her relic. Many votive offerings from mothers who credit her with their successful deliveries are displayed in the sanctuary.
Bl Adalbero of Lambach
St Alberta of Agen
Bl Artaldo of Belley
St Aurea of Boves
St Ceollach
St Epiphania
St Erotis
St Faith of Agen
St Francis Trung Von Tran
Bl François Hunot
Bl Isidore of Saint Joseph
St Iwi
St John Xenos
Bl Juan de Prunera
St Magnus of Orderzo St Mary Frances of the Five Wounds TOSF (1715-1791)
St Pardulf
St Renato of Sorrento
St Romanus of Auxerre
St Sagar of Laodicea
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Martyrs of Capua – 4 saints: A group of martyrs who were either killed in Capua, Italy, or that’s where their relics were first enshrined. We now know nothing but their names – Aemilius, Castus, Marcellus and Saturninus.
Martyrs of Kyoto – 52 beati: Fifty-two Japanese lay people, some single, some married, some parents, some children, who were martyred together during one of the government sponsored persecutions of Christians.
Martyrs of Trier: Commemorates the large number of martyrs who died in Trier, Germany in the persecutions of Diocletian. 287 in Trier, Germany.
AnaStpaul 
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