Day: October 3, 2026

Posted in MARIAN TITLES

The Nineteenth Sunday after Pentecost, The Miracle of Ocotlán, Notre-Dame de Bonne Nouvelle / Our Lady of Good News (Rennes, Ille-et-Vilaine, Brittany, France) 1720 and Memorials of the Saints – 3 October

Posted on by AnaStpaul

The Miracle of Ocotlán – 3 October
Our Lord of Mercy
“The Prodigy of Ocotlán ”
This is a major miracle that you’ve probably never heard of, the appearance of Christ in the clouds, in Ocotlan, Mexico, in 1847.

Notre-Dame de Bonne Nouvelle / Our Lady of Good News (Rennes, Ille-et-Vilaine, Brittany, France) 1720 – First Sunday of October, 23 December:

Jean de Montfort founded the Dominican Convent of Our Lady of Good News in Rennes to pay a vow taken during the battle of Auray in 1364, where his victory settled him as Duke of Brittany. In the following century, a panel painting in the Convent’s cloister gained a reputation for miracles, resulting in the building of a separate Chapel to give due veneration to Our Lady and to accommodate the pilgrims.

Another vow was paid after the plague of 1632, which spared Rennes the serious devastation which the surrounding regions suffered. In thanks,giving to the Madonna, the City gave Our Lady of Good News a solid silver model of the town and, from 1634, observed a votive celebration every year on 8 September, the Feast of Mary’s Birth. Another miracle occurred during the great fire of 23 December 1720, when, as their wooden houses burned, the people of Rennes saw Our Lady of Good News look down in compassion from the sky.

During the French Revolution, the silver model, was melted down. The Chapel was destroyed and the Convent used to store fodder. A gardener saved the holy image, which he gave to the neighbouring Church of St Aubin. In 1849, a cholera epidemic inspired a new vow. A new silver-plated model city was commissioned from Napoleon III’s goldsmith and the September votive feast reinstated. When St Aubin’s became too small for all the pilgrims, a new Church was built, dedicated in 1904 to St Aubin and Notre-Dame de Bonne Nouvelle.

The painting was canonically crowned in 1908. In recent years the votive feast has been held on the first Sunday in October rather than 8 September.

St Adalgott of Chur
Bl Agostina of the Assumption
St Candidus the Martyr
St Cyprian of Toulon
Bl Damian de Portu
St Dionysius the Aeropagite
Bl Dominic Spadafora
St Ewald the Black
St Ewald the Fair
St Froilan

St Gerard of Brogne (c 895 – 959) Priest, Abbot of Brogne, Reformer.

St Hesychius
Bl Juan Tapia
Bl Maddalena the Greater
St Maximian of Bagaia
St Menna

St Theodore Guerin SP (1798 – 1856) Religious, Foundress of the Sisters of Providence of Saint Mary-of-the-Woods and numberous schools, Educator.

Bl Utto of Metten
St Virila OSB (Died c 950) Abbot
St Widradus
—
Martyrs of Alexandria – 9 saints: A number of Christian martyrs remembered together. We know the names Caius, Cheremone, Dionysius, Eusebio, Fausto, Lucio, Maximus, Paul, Peter and that there were at least two more whose names have not come down to us, and that’s about all we know.

Martyrs of Brazil – 30 beati: On 25 December 1597 an expedition of colonists, with two Jesuit and two Franciscan evangelists, arrived at Natal, Rio Grande do Norte, Brazil. The region was colonized by Portuguese Catholics but was invaded by Dutch Calvinists who soon took over the whole territory. They immediately made a policy of the persecution of Catholics. On Sunday 16 July 1645 at Cunhau, Brazil, 69 people were gathered in the Chapel of Our Lady of the Candles for Mass celebrated by Father Andre de Soveral. At the moment of the elevation a group of Dutch soldiers attack the Chapel, murdering many of the faithful including Father Andre; the parishioners died professing their faith and asking pardon for their sins. On 3 October 1645, 200 armed Indians and a band of Flemish troops, led by a fanatical Calvinist convert, hacked to death an unknown number of people of Rio Grande including:
• Blessed Ambrosio Francisco Ferro
• Blessed André de Soveral
• Blessed Antônio Baracho
• Blessed Antônio Vilela
• Blessed Antônio Vilela Cid
• Blessed Diogo Pereira
• Blessed Domingos Carvalho
• Blessed Estêvão Machado de Miranda
• Blessed Francisco de Bastos
• Blessed Francisco Mendes Pereira
• Blessed João da Silveira
• Blessed João Lostau Navarro
• Blessed João Martins
• Blessed José do Porto
• Blessed Manuel Rodrigues de Moura
• Blessed Mateus Moreira
• Blessed Simão Correia
• Blessed Vicente de Souza Pereira
and other lay people whose names have not come down to us.

Posted in Uncategorized

Saints of the Day – 3 October – Saint Ewald the Black & Saint Ewald the Fair

Posted on by AnaStpaul

The Two Ewalds (also known as Hewald) were Anglo-Saxon priest-martyrs bearing the same name, who were nicknamed for the difference in their hair colour and complexion.

The two were companions, both natives of Northumbria, England. They spent several years as students in the schools of Ireland. Ewald the Black was the more learned of the two, but both were equally renowned for holiness of life. They were acquainted with St. Willibrord, the Apostle of Friesland, and were animated with his zeal for the conversion of the Germans. Some sources number them among the eleven companions of that saint. They began their mission labours about 690 at Saxony, now part of Westphalia, and covered by the dioceses of Münster, Osnabrück, and Paderborn.

The pagan Saxons, witnessing these activities of the Christian priests and missionaries, began to suspect that the Ewalds planned to convert their over-lord, destroy their temples and supplant their religion. Inflamed with jealousy and anger, they resolved that the Ewalds should die. An uprising followed and both priests were quickly seized. Ewald the White was killed quickly by sword; Ewald the Black was tortured and torn limb from limb, after which both their bodies were cast into the Rhine. This is understood to have happened on 3 October 695 at a place called Aplerbeck, today a district of Dortmund, where a chapel still stands. When the ealdorman heard of what had been done, he became angry and fearful of reprisals, and punished the murderers by putting them to death and burning their villages.

After the priests’ deaths, miracles occured. Their bodies were miraculously carried against the stream for the space of forty miles to the place in which the companions of the Ewalds were residing. As they floated along a heavenly light, like a column of fire, was seen to shine above them. Even the murderers witnessed the miraculous brightness. Moreover, one of the martyrs appeared in vision to the monk Tilmon (a companion of the Ewalds), and told him where the bodies would be found: “that the spot would be there where he should see a pillar of light reaching from earth to heaven”. Tilmon arose and found the bodies, and interred them with the honours due to martyrs. From that time onwards, the memory of the Ewalds was annually celebrated in those parts. A spring of water gushed forth in the place of the martyrdom.

Basilica of St. Cunibert, Cologne

Pepin, Duke of Austrasia, having heard of the wonders that had occurred, caused the bodies to be buried in Cologne, where they were solemnly enshrined in the collegiate church of St. Kunibert. The two Ewalds are honoured as patrons in Westphalia.

Many who, by the straitness of poverty, were unable to manifest the kindness of wealth, manifested more than wealth, making up by their own labour a service dearer than all riches.

The Life and Passion of St Cyprian (Pontius)

Posted in Our MORNING Offering

Our Morning Offering – 3 October – O Jesus, Sweetest Love, Come Thou to Me

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Our Morning Offering – 3 October – The Nineteenth Sunday after Pentecost

O Jesus, Sweetest Love,
Come Thou to Me
1940 Fr Francis Xavier Lasance (1860–1946)

O Jesus, sweetest Love, come Thou to me.
Come down in all Thy beauty unto me.
Thou Who didst die for longing of me
And never, never more depart from me.
Free me, O beauteous God, from all but Thee;
Sever the chain that holds me back from Thee;
Call me, O tender Love, I cry to Thee;
Thou art my all! O bind me close to Thee.
O suffering Love, Who hast so loved me;
O patient Love, Who wearies not of me.
Thou alone O Love! Thou weary not of me!
Ah! Weary not till I am lost in Thee,
Nay, weary not, till I am found in Thee.
Amen

Posted in ONE Minute REFLECTION

One Minute Reflection – 3 October – The prayer of God’s children

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One Minute Reflection – 3 October – “Month of the Holy Rosary” – Readings: Song 4:8-9, Ps 112:1, Isa 66:12-14, Matt 18:1-4

You have ravished My Heart, My sister, My bride; you have ravished My Heart.

Song 4:8-9

REFLECTION – This is how Our Lord tells us to pray: “Our Father who art in heaven.” A new man, reborn and restored to his God by his grace says in the first place “Father” because he has now begun to be a son. “He came,” the Gospel says, “unto his own and his own received him not. But as many as received him he gave to them the power to become the sons of God, to those who believe in his name”. He, therefore, who has believed in his name and has become the son of God, thereafter should begin to give thanks by professing himself son of God and by declaring that his father is God in heaven.

How great is the indulgence of the Lord, how great the abundance of his regard for us and his goodness, that he has thus wished us to offer prayer in the sight of God so as to call the Lord “Father”! And just as Christ is the Son of God, he wants us also to be pronounced the sons of God, which name no one of us would dare to take in prayer, had not he himself permitted us so to pray.

So, most beloved brethren, we ought to remember and to know that, when we speak of God, we ought to act as sons of God, so that, just as we are pleased with God as Father, so too he may be pleased with us. Let us live as if temples of God, that it may be clear that the Lord dwells in us.

St Cyprian

PRAYER – Almighty, everliving God, whose love surpasses all that we ask or deserve, open up for us, the treasures of Your mercy. Teach us the truth of love and forgive us all that weighs on our conscience. Grant us even more than we dare to ask and grant us the merciful and guiding assistance of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Through Him who redeemed us in unity with the Holy Spirit, one God forever, amen.

Posted in CATHOLIC Quotes

Quote/s of the Day – 3 October – St Thérèse of Lisieux

Posted on by AnaStpaul

God taught me tht the only glory which matters is the glory which lasts forever and that one does not have to perform shining deeds to win that, but to hide one’s acts of virtue from others, and even from oneself.

I was sure that I was born to be great and began to wonder how I should set about winning my glory; then it was revealed to me in my heart that my glory would lie in becoming a Saint, though this glory would be hidden on earth.

We looked upon their high-sounding titles as nothing more than the ‘vapour of smoke’. I realised that real nobility is in the soul, not in a name.

The one who chose for love of God to be the poorest and most obscure on earth will be the first and the richest and most glorious in Heaven.

When we surrender to discouragement or despair, it is usually because we are thinking too much of the past or future.

It has come to this, that I can no longer suffer because all suffering is sweet.

Posted in OCTOBER - The HOLY ROSARY and The HOLY ANGELS

Thought for the Day – 3 October – The Glories of the Holy Angels

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DEVOTION TO THE HOLY ANGELS

By Venerable Henri Boudon, Archdeacon of Evreux

MOTIVE THE FIRST
The admirable perfections of these Blessed Spirits

We have already said, and again repeat, that the perfection of the Angels is like to an immense sea without shore or bottom. Enlightened souls feel that all they can say of them is nothing, their greatness being above the reach of human thought. The angelic nature contains in itself a world of perfections: but if we add to it the consideration of their grace and glory, it is truly admirable. However perfect human nature may become, it is still, as faith teaches, very inferior to the angelic nature. A certain theologian has asserted, (although indeed it be not the common opinion,) that the least of the Angels exceeds in glory the greatest of the saints—and he grounded his opinion on this text of the Holy Scripture, “He who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than John the Baptist.”

The Angels are spiritual beings, incorruptible in their nature, perfectly disengaged from matter, and quite free from the miseries to which we are incident. They possess wonderful intelligence; what the greatest geniuses have not been able to comprehend, is perfectly understood by them. They know many things in one and the same moment, and without the least difficulty. Their manner of understanding is not like ours; at the first sight which they have of a thing, they know its whole import, and all its consequences—hence they are called by excellence “Intelligences.” Scripture, to declare to us this admirable faculty of theirs, says that they are clothed in burning fire. In the Apocalypse they are represented in the habits of the ancient pontiffs, to give us to understand, that to these holy spirits the most sacred mysteries of religion are revealed, and as if enveloped in clouds, their lights being too brilliant for our weak vision. The most learned men are ignorant, if compared with these pure intelligences.

The power of the Angels is incredible—one alone of these blessed spirits being able to defeat millions of armed men—nay, the whole world put together. [We are told in the Book of Kings, that an Angel slew in one night 85,000 of the Assyrians the enemies of the people of God.] They can make the winds blow, the rain fall, the thunder roar: they can raise tempests, cause earthquakes, give abundance and famine, cure and inflict all sorts of maladies, and operate many other things, almost in a moment. It is to mark their celerity that they are painted with wings; it surpasses that of the wind : in an instant, they can pass from one end of the world to the other —being thus, in some sense, everywhere, as Tertullian says.

But their beauty is enrapturing: the greatest beauty on earth is deformity in comparison with them, and the least beautiful among the Angels possesses more charms than all earthly beauties together. Here the mind is lost in the contemplation of an infinity of beauties, which are to be found among the angelic choirs; for if the least of the Angels be so charming, and if they be so numerous, my God! what beauty is to be seen in the holy Sion ! To give us some idea of this truth, St. Anselm says, that if God put an Angel in the sun’s orbit, and environed him with as many suns as there are stars, and permitted the blessed spirit to emit in a borrowed form a single ray of his glory, it would at once eclipse all the splendour of the suns, and render them invisible.

All is wonderful in these holy spirits. An Angel, to recreate St. Francis, touched a lute so melodiously, that the saint thought he would have died of joy.

The greatness of these blessed spirits is without baseness—their science without ignorance—their light without darkness— their power without weakness—their beauty without defect—their love without inconstancy—their peace without trouble—their action continual, yet without fatigue— their happiness without alloy—their felicity complete, and without admixture of any evil. Jacob having had a vision of an Angel, says that he had seen the Lord face to face. Will not the consideration of all these perfections of the Angels excite you to love them? You who are so prone to love whatever is beautiful, and noble, and perfect? This truth merits deep consideration, the glory of God, the author of all these excellencies and perfections being concerned in it.

Posted in OCTOBER - The HOLY ROSARY and The HOLY ANGELS

Novena to Our Lady of the Rosary – Day Six – 3 October

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Day Six: We Pray for the Virtue of Meekness
along with our private intentions.

O Jesus,
our pride, stubbornness
and lack of faith labelled each thorn
as it pierced Your Sacred Head.
Our exclusion of spiritual realities
tightened the branches around Your Head.
Our lack of confidence in Your Mercy
and the lukewarmness of our love,
braided torture into a wreath of unspeakable pain.
O Jesus, let us NEVER forget Your love for us all
and the reparation You offered the Father for our sake.
Let our soul magnify the Lord by humility of heart,
purity of mind
and a gentle spirit,
so that we may overcome pride, vainglory and resentments
and look forward for an increase in faith.
Send Your beloved Mother and ours, O Lord,
to teach us meekness and humility.
Make us like unto Yourself, O Lord,
“for I am meek and humble of heart.”
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.

Sweet Heart of Jesus,
be my love.

Sweet Heart of Mary,
at the hour of my death,
lead me home.