Thought for the Day – 16 September – Meditations with Antonio Cardinal Bacci (1881-1971)
Putting Christianity into Practice
“Only the uiversal practice of Christianity, could change the world. Even after a period of twenty centuries, it is true to say, that for many Christans, the Gospel is an unexplained book, the principles of which, have yet to be fully realised in their ordinary lives.
None of us can change the world on his own but, each of us can accomplish that part of the task, which depends on himself.
Do we really love God whole-heartedly and above all things? Do we really love our neighbour as ourselves? Let us examine ourselves earnestly and find out how far we have still to go. Our love of God may be too feeble and this may be the reason why we have not achieved spiritual perfection. Our love of our neighbour may not be as generous as it should be. If this is so, we shall have to answer for it to God ,when He pronounces that terrible sentence on those who have been rejected: “Depart from me, accursed ones, into the everlasting fire which was prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you did not give me to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink, I was a stranger and you did not take me in, naked and you did not clothe me, sick and in prison and you did not visit me” (Mt 26:41-43). Let us resolve to be charitable and generous to all!”
Quote/s of the Day – 16 September – “Month of the Seven Sorrows of the Blessed Virgin Mary ” – Readings:Timothy 4: 12-16; Psalm 111: 7-10; Luke 7: 36-50
“Many sins are forgiven her because she has loved much.”
Luke 7:42
“Whatever you do, do from the heart, as for the Lord and not for others, knowing that you will receive from the Lord the due payment of the inheritance; be slaves of the Lord Christ.”
Colossians 3:23-24
“Without love, there is only faith, which the devil has.”
“Once for all, then, a short precept is given you – Love and do what you will, whether you hold your peace, through love, hold your peace; whether you cry out, through love cry out; whether you correct, through love correct; whether you spare, through love do you spare. Let the root of love be within, of this root, can nothing spring but what is good.”
St Augustine (354-430) Father nd Doctor of Grace
“You are rewarded, not according to your work, or your time but according to the measure of your love.”
St Catherine of Siena (1347-1380) Doctor of the Church
I Will Love and Follow You By Thomas à Kempis CRSA (1380-1471)
Oh my Lord, Let my heart expand in Your love. Let me learn to know how sweet it is, to serve You, how joyful it is, to praise You and to be absorbed in Your love. Oh, I am possessed by love and rise above myself because of the great fervour I feel, through Your infinite goodness. I will sing the canticle of love to You and I will follow You, my Beloved, wherever You go and may my soul never weary of praising you, rejoicing in Your love. I will love You more than myself and myself, only for Your sake. I will love all others in You and for you, as Your law of love commands. Amen
One Minute Reflection – 16 September – “Month of the Seven Sorrows of the Blessed Virgin Mary ” – Readings:Timothy 4: 12-16; Psalm 111: 7-10; Luke 7: 36-50 and the Memorial of Sts Cornelius & Cyprian
“… She stood behind him … weeping and began to bathe his feet with her tears. Then she wiped them with her hair, kissed them, and anointed them with the ointment.” – Luke 7:38
REFLECTION – “With her hands of good works, she holds the feet of those who preach His kingdom. She washes them with tears of charity, kisses them with praising lips and pours out the whole ointment of mercy, until He will return to her. This means that He will come back to her and say to Simon, to the Pharisees, to those who deny, to the nation of the Jews, “I came into your house. You gave me no water for my feet.”
When will He speak these words? He will speak them when He will come in the majesty of His Father and separate the righteous from the unrighteous, like a shepherd who separates the sheep from the goats. He will say, “I was hungry and you did not give me to eat. I was thirsty and you gave me no drink. I was a stranger and you did not take me in.” This is equivalent to saying, “But this woman, while she was bathing my feet, anointing them and kissing them, did to the servants what you did not do for the Master.” She did for the feet, what you refused to the Head. She expended upon the lowliest members, what you refused to your Creator. Then He will say to the Church, “Your sins, many as they are, are forgiven you because you have loved much.” – St Peter Chrysologus (c 400-450) Bishop of Ravenna, Father and “Doctor of Homilies”of the Church (Sermon 95)
PRAYER – Look upon us Lord, Creator and Ruler of the whole world, give us the grace to serve You with all our hearts, to take up our cross and follow You, that we may come to know the power of Your love and the forgiveness which You give and You teach. Grant that by the intercession of Sts Cornelius and Cyprian, we may attain the glory of Your kingdom and see You face to face. We make our prayer through Christ our Lord with the Holy Spirit, one God forever, amen.
Our Morning Offering – 16 September – “Month of the Seven Sorrows of the Blessed Virgin Mary ”
Jesu, be You my Life! By Msgr Robert Hugh Benson (1871-1914)
I cannot live alone another hour, Jesu, be You my Life! I have not power to strive, be You my Power In every strife! I can do nothing – hope, nor love, nor fear. But only fail and fall. Be You my soul and self, O Jesu dear. My God and all! Amen
Robert Hugh Benson AFSC KCSG KGCHS (18 November 1871 – 19 October 1914) was an English Anglican reverend who in 1903 was received into the Catholic Church in which he was Ordained Priest in 1904. He was a prolific writer of fiction and wrote the notable dystopian novel Lord of the World (1907). His output encompassed historical, horror and science fiction, contemporary fiction, children’s stories, plays, apologetics, devotional works and articles. He continued his writing career at the same time as he progressed through the hierarchy to become a Chamberlain to Pope Saint Pius X in 1911 and gain the title of Monsignor. He was a LaSallian Brother (AFSC) and a Knight of the Holy Sepulcher (KCSG KGCHS).
Saint of the Day – 16 September – Saint Euphemia (c 290-c 305) Virgen Martyr. Her name means “the well-spoken [of].” Patronages – Alba Adriatica, Italy, Rovinj, Croatia. Also known as – Euphemia of Chalcedon.
The Roman Martyrology states of her today: “At Chalcedon, the birthday of St Euphemia, Virgin and Martyr, under the Emperor Diocletian and the Proconsul Priscus. For faith in Our Lord, she was subjected to tortues, imprisonment, blows, the torment of the wheel, fire, the crushing weight of stones, the teeth of beasts, scourging with rods, the cutting of sharp saws, burning pans, all of which she survived. But when she was again exposed to the beasts in the amphitheatre, praying to Our Lord to receive her spirit, one of the animals, having inflicted a bite on her sacred body, whilst the rest licked her feet, she yielded her unspotted soul to God.”
St. Euphemia lived on the cusp of the 3rd and 4th centuries. According to tradition, she was the daughter of a senator named Philophronos and his wife Theodosia in Chalcedon, located across the Bosporus from the City of Byzantium (modern-day Istanbul). From her youth she consecrated her virginity to God.
The governor of Chalcedon, Priscus, had published a decree that all of the inhabitants of the City take part in sacrifices to the deity Ares. Euphemia was discovered, with forty-nine other Christians, hiding in a house and worshipping God, in defiance of the governor’s orders. Because of their refusal to sacrifice, they were tortured for a number of days,and then, all but Euphemia, were sent to the Emperor for trial. Euphemia, the youngest among them, was separated from her companions and subjected to particularly harsh torments, including the wheel, in hopes of breaking her spirit. She was placed in the arena, where lions were sent out to kill her,but they instead licked her wounds. She eventually died of wounds from a wild bear in the arena.
Mural depicting the martyrdom of St Euphemia (Church of St Euphemia, Rovinj, Croatia)
The Council of Chalcedon, the Fourth Ecumenical Council, took place in the City of Chalcedon in the year 451. It repudiated the Eutychian doctrine of monophysitism and set forth the Chalcedonian Definition, which describes the “full humanity and full divinity” of Jesus Christ, the Second Person of the Holy Trinity.
Present at the Council were 630 representatives from all the local Christian Churches. The meetings were quite contentious and no decisive consensus could be reached.
According to the Synaxarion of Constantinople, a collection of hagiographies,, both parties wrote a confession of their faith and placed them on the breast of Saint Euphemia within her tomb. After three days the tomb was opened and the scroll with the confession of the true faith, was seen in the right hand of St Euphemia, while the scroll of the Monophysites lay at her feet.
When the persecution of Diocletian ended, the Christians laid Saint Euphemia’s relics in a golden sarcophagus, placed within a Church that was dedicated to her. Her relics attracted crowds of pilgrims for centuries.
Sarcophagus containing some of the relics of Saint Euphemia in Rovinj, Croatia.
Around the year 620, in the wake of the conquest of Chalcedon by the Persians in the year 617, Saint Euphemia’s relics were transferred to a new Church in Constantinople. There, during the persecutions of the Iconoclasts, her reliquary was said to have been thrown into the sea, from which it was recovered by the ship-owning brothers, Sergios and Sergonos, who belonged to the Church and who gave it to the local Bishop who hid them in a secret crypt. The relics were afterwards taken to the Island of Lemnos and in 796 they were returned to Constantinople. The majority of her relics are still in the Patriarchal Church of St. George, in Istanbul and others are in Rovini, Croatia.
Nuestra Señora de las Lajas / Our Lady of the Flagstones, Potosí, Caldas, Colombia (1754) – 16 September:
In 1754, Maria Mueses de Quinones, an Indian woman from the village of Potosi, Colombia and her deaf-mute daughter, Rosa, were caught in a very strong storm. They sought refuge in a cave in the gigantic Lajas mountains. To Maria’s surprise, her mute daughter, Rosa exclaimed with her first words “the mestiza is calling me…” Maria did not see the figures of a woman and child that the girl described and fearfully ran back with her daughter to Ipiales and told the townspeople. After later returning to the spot, the woman saw an apparition of Our Lady and Child. Some months later, Rosa died and was returned to life when her mother prayed again at the cave. The townspeople came to see this place and encountered the miraculous image burned into the rocks!
The congregation celebrated the first Mass in the Pastarán river cave – it was 16 September 1754 and they built a straw grotto. With the endorsement of the ecclesiastical authorities, who declared the event as a miracle on 15 September 1754. Very soon, the image began to be venerated with great fervour and many miraculous events occurred there. Around the image the faithful devotees have erected four successively larger Churches, until culminating in the current Sanctuary whose construction lasted 30 years and was completed in 1949. In 1952 , Pope Pius XII granted the image the canonical coronation and in 1954 he granted the Sanctuary, the title of Minor Basilica.
St Abundantius of Rome St Abundius of Rome St Andrew Kim Taegon St Cunibert of Maroilles St Curcodomus Bl Dominic Shobyoye St Dulcissima of Sutri St Edith of Wilton St Eugenia of Hohenburg St Euphemia (c 290-c 305) Virgin Martyr St Geminianus of Rome St John of Rome
Blessed Luigi Ludovico Allemandi (c 1390-1450) Bishop and Cardinal, called “The Cardinal of Arles.” Blessed Luigi was a Priest driven by immense love for the Holy Mother of God and for the Church. His involvement in various Councils and Papal dissentions, were the result of his great desire to maintain the purity of the Chair of Peter. He was Beatified in 1527 by Pope Clement VII. His Life; https://anastpaul.com/2020/09/16/saint-of-the-day-blessed-luigi-ludovico-allemandi-c-1390-1450/
St Lucy of Rome St Ludmila St Marcian the Senator Bl Martin of Huerta Bl Michael Himonaya
Bl Paul Fimonaya St Priscus of Nocera St Rogellus of Cordoba St Sebastiana St Servus Dei St Stephen of Perugia
Blessed Pope Victor III OSB (1027-1087) Known as “the Gentle Pope,” Prince, Benedictine Abbot, Monk, Advisor, diplomat, reformer – Papal ascension – elected 24 May 1086 and enthroned on 9 May 1087 – until his death. Few have been more reluctant to accept the Papacy than the humble Monk and Hermit, who became Victor III. About Pope Victor III: https://anastpaul.com/2019/09/16/saint-of-the-day-16-september-blessed-pope-victor-iii-1027-1087/ St Vitalis of Savigny
Martyrs of the Via Nomentana: Four Christian men martyred together, date unknown – Alexander, Felix, Papias and Victor. They were martyred on the Via Nomentana outside Rome, Italy.
Martyred in the Spanish Civil War: • Blessed Antonio Martínez García • Blessed Ignasi Casanovas Perramón • Blessed Manuel Ferrer Jordá • Blessed Pablo Martínez Robles • Blessed Salvador Ferrer Cardet
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