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15th Sunday of O.T. (A): THE NECESSITY OF HAVING THE PROPER DISPOSITIONS TO RECEIVE GOD AND HIS WORD. Summary vid + full text.
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Category: CATECHESIS
Thought for the Day – 15 June
Thought for the Day – 15 June
Why is the Sacred Heart the Holy Eucharist?
It is impossible to identify the Holy Eucharist too closely with Jesus Christ. We should remember He is in the Holy Eucharist not merely with His substance. I have corrected many of my students over the years who tell me “Transubstantiation means that the substance of bread and wine become the substance of Jesus Christ.” I reply, “No, transubstantiation means the substance of bread and wine are no longer there. The substance of bread and wine is replaced not only by the substance of Christ’s Body and Blood. What replaces the substance of bread and wine is Jesus Christ!” Everything that makes Christ, Christ replaces what had been the substance of bread and wine. The substance of bread and wine become the whole Christ.
Therefore, Christ in the Holy Eucharist is here with His human heart. Is it a living heart? Yes! That is why the revelations our Lord made to St. Margaret Mary about promoting devotion to the Sacred Heart were all made from the Holy Eucharist.
Why do we equate the Sacred Heart with the Holy Eucharist? Because the Holy Eucharist is the whole Christ with His human heart. According to St. Margaret Mary, the Sacred Heart is the Holy Eucharist. So it follows that devotion to the Sacred Heart is devotion to the Holy Eucharist. It is infinite Love Incarnate living in our midst in the Blessed Sacrament.
Servant of God Fr John A Hardon SJ
Thought for the Day – 4 June
Thought for the Day – 4 June
“If the damned were asked: Why are you in Hell? they would answer: ‘For having resisted the Holy Spirit.’
And if the saints were asked: Why are you in Heaven? they would answer: ‘For having listened to the Holy Spirit.’
When good thoughts come into our minds, it is the Holy Spirit who is visiting us.
The Holy Spirit is a power.
The Holy Spirit …. sustained the martyrs. Without the Holy Spirit, the martyrs would have fallen like the leaves from the trees. When the fires were lighted under them, the Holy Spirit extinguished the heat of the fire by the heat of divine love.
The good God, in sending us the Holy Spirit, has treated us like a great king who should send his minister to guide one of his subjects, saying, “You will accompany this man everywhere and you will bring him back to me safe and sound.”
How beautiful it is, my children, to be accompanied by the Holy Spirit!
He is indeed a good Guide; and to think that there are some who will not follow Him!
The Holy Spirit is like a man with a carriage and horse, who should want to take us to Pans. We should only have to say “yes,” and to get into it. It is indeed an easy matter to say “yes”!… Well, the Holy Spirit wants to take us to Heaven; we have only to say “yes,” and to let Him take us there.“…St John Vianney
“O Divine Spirit, draw us to the highest heaven where Jesus lives forever, interceding for us. Come, fill our hearts with Your fire, show us the way to the Lord that we may find Him shining with beauty and love. Amen”
Thought for the Day – 1 May
Thought for the Day – 1 May
The Foreshadowing of Saint Joseph
As the Church of Christ is prefigured in the rites and ceremonies of the Old Law, so the chief personages who centre round Our Lord in the redemption of the world are foreshadowed in the Old Testament. We trace the outlines of Our Lady’s graces in Esther, Jahel, Bethsabee, Judith. So, too, Saint Joseph’s place in the new dispensation is anticipated in the place of the patriarch Joseph at the court of Pharao. Thus it is that God in His love for His chosen ones paves the way for them centuries before. From the beginning He has prepared their work, and the throne they are to earn in heaven by their labors and sufferings for Him.
In the life of the patriarch Joseph there was throughout a correspondence to the life of the foster-father of Jesus Christ. The troubles and persecutions of his early life; his long time of servitude and obscurity; his wondrous purity, his time of patient expectation; his glorious exaltation; his omnipotence with the king; his power to save all who came to him – all these were repeated, or rather were fulfilled, in Saint Joseph. Reflect on each of these, and consider how Saint Joseph is a model to us.
We read of the patriarch, Joseph, that the king of Egypt made him lord of his house. So God made Saint Joseph lord of that earthly tabernacle of flesh in which He dwelt on earth. Joseph ruled Our Lord in His sacred humanity. He made him lord, too, of another house in which He sojourned, of the sacred house that Wisdom built for Himself in the form of His holy Mother. If Saint Joseph was thus lord of Jesus and Mary, what may we not expect from Him? In our lives on the ‘narrow road’, on our way home, in our difficulties, in our labour and our toil!?
To capture the devotion to Saint Joseph within the Catholic liturgy, in 1870, Pope Pius IX declared Saint Joseph the patron of the universal Church. In 1955, Pope Pius XII added the feast of Saint Joseph the Worker. This silent saint, who was given the noble task of caring and watching over the Virgin Mary and Jesus, now cares for and watches over the Church and models for all the dignity of human work.
“What emanates from the figure of Saint Joseph is faith. Joseph of Nazareth is a “just man” because he totally “lives by faith.” He is holy because his faith is truly heroic. Sacred Scripture says little of him. It does not record even one word spoken by Joseph, the carpenter of Nazareth. And yet, even without words, he shows the depth of his faith, his greatness. Saint Joseph is a man of great spirit. He is great in faith, not because he speaks his own words but above all because he listens to the words of the Living God. He listens in silence. And his heart ceaselessly perseveres in the readiness to accept the Truth contained in the word of the Living God. We see how the word of the Living God penetrates deeply into the soul of that man, that just man. And we, do we know how to listen to the word of God? Do we know how to absorb it into the depths of our human personalities? Do we open our conscience in the presence of this word?”
– Pope John Paul II from Daily Meditations
St Joseph the Worker, Pray for us!
One Minute Reflection – 17 April – Easter Monday 2nd Day of the Octave
One Minute Reflection – 17 April – Easter Monday 2nd Day of the Octave
Meditation for the Day: Help us put our baptism into action.
The women were frightened and yet very happy,
as they hurried from the tomb and ran to tell his disciples.
— Matthew 28:8
REFLECTION – “We imitate Christ’s death by being buried with him in baptism. If we ask what this kind of burial means and what benefit we may hope to derive from it, it means first of all making a complete break with our former way of life and our Lord Himself said that this cannot be done unless a man is born again. In other words, we have to begin a new life and we cannot do so until our previous life has been brought to an end. When runners reach the turning point on a racecourse, they have to pause briefly before they can go back in the opposite direction. So also when we wish to reverse the direction of our lives there must be a pause, or a death, to mark the end of one life and the beginning of another…….Baptism cleanses the soul from the pollution of worldly thoughts and inclinations: You will wash me, says the psalmist and I shall be whiter than snow. We receive this saving baptism only once because there was only one death and one resurrection for the salvation of the world and baptism is its symbol.”………St Basil the Great
Prayer – Loving Father, How do I live the baptismal promises I made again over the weekend? I want to live my life in service of You.
Help me to carry the gift of faith I received from You. Help me to welcome those who joined the church in baptism.
Guide me and give me the courage to live my faith, to accept Your love. Amen
Holy Saturday – 15 April – The Lord’s descent into hell
Holy Saturday – 15 April – The Lord’s descent into hell
The Creed proclaims “He descended into Hell.” This homily for Holy Saturday from the 4th Century treats of the “harrowing of hell” and the rescue of Adam and Eve. Note the parallels between Adam and Eve’s sin, which lost paradise for us and the passion of Christ, which won for us not simply an earthly paradise, but eternal life. It was to the Limbo of the Fathers that Christ descended, a place of the dead that was emptied through His Passion, Resurrection and Ascension and no longer exists. By this “Harrowing of Hell,” as His Descent is sometimes called, the doors to Heaven were swung open so that those who die in a state of grace may enter in, alleluia! Adam, Eve, Noah, Abraham, Moses, the good thief on the cross — all the righteous were illuminated by the Presence of Christ in the place of death, making Sheol itself a paradise. They remained there with Him until His Bodily Resurrection when the the “bars of Hell” were broken down and they were later able to enter into Heaven itself with His glorious Ascension.
“What is happening? Today there is a great silence over the earth, a great silence, and stillness, a great silence because the King sleeps; the earth was in terror and was still, because God slept in the flesh and raised up those who were sleeping from the ages. God has died in the flesh, and the underworld has trembled.
Truly he goes to seek out our first parent like a lost sheep; he wishes to visit those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death. He goes to free the prisoner Adam and his fellow-prisoner Eve from their pains, he who is God, and Adam’s son.
The Lord goes in to them holding his victorious weapon, his cross. When Adam, the first created man, sees him, he strikes his breast in terror and calls out to all: ‘My Lord be with you all.’ And Christ in reply says to Adam: ‘And with your spirit.’ And grasping his hand he raises him up, saying: ‘Awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give you light.
‘I am your God, who for your sake became your son, who for you and your descendants now speak and command with authority those in prison: Come forth, and those in darkness: Have light, and those who sleep: Rise.
‘I command you: Awake, sleeper, I have not made you to be held a prisoner in the underworld. Arise from the dead; I am the life of the dead. Arise, O man, work of my hands, arise, you who were fashioned in my image. Rise, let us go hence; for you in me and I in you, together we are one undivided person.
‘For you, I your God became your son; for you, I the Master took on your form; that of slave; for you, I who am above the heavens came on earth and under the earth; for you, man, I became as a man without help, free among the dead; for you, who left a garden, I was handed over to Jews from a garden and crucified in a garden.
‘Look at the spittle on my face, which I received because of you, in order to restore you to that first divine inbreathing at creation. See the blows on my cheeks, which I accepted in order to refashion your distorted form to my own image.
‘See the scourging of my back, which I accepted in order to disperse the load of your sins which was laid upon your back. See my hands nailed to the tree for a good purpose, for you, who stretched out your hand to the tree for an evil one.
`I slept on the cross and a sword pierced my side, for you, who slept in paradise and brought forth Eve from your side. My side healed the pain of your side; my sleep will release you from your sleep in Hades; my sword has checked the sword which was turned against you.
‘But arise, let us go hence. The enemy brought you out of the land of paradise; I will reinstate you, no longer in paradise, but on the throne of heaven. I denied you the tree of life, which was a figure, but now I myself am united to you, I who am life. I posted the cherubim to guard you as they would slaves; now I make the cherubim worship you as they would God.
“The cherubim throne has been prepared, the bearers are ready and waiting, the bridal chamber is in order, the food is provided, the everlasting houses and rooms are in readiness; the treasures of good things have been opened; the kingdom of heaven has been prepared before the ages.”
A reading from an ancient homily for Holy Saturday – prepared by Pontifical University Saint Thomas Aquinas, Rome. While it appears that this comes from a Holy Saturday homily written in Greek dating back to the fourth century liturgy (PG 43, 439, 462f), the author of this text is unknown.
Note:
For our Edification – what does Hell mean?
Christ is in His tomb. Rather, His Body is in the tomb but when His Soul left His Body, He descended into Hell to “free the captives.” “Hell” here refers to the place of the dead in general (“Sheol” in the Hebrew, or “Hades” in the Greek), not to the place of torment with which the word “Hell” is most usually associated with today. The world “Hell” in the loosest, earliest sense includes:
For our Edification – what does Hell mean?
Christ is in His tomb. Rather, His Body is in the tomb but when His Soul left His Body, He descended into Hell to “free the captives.” “Hell” here refers to the place of the dead in general (“Sheol” in the Hebrew, or “Hades” in the Greek), not to the place of torment with which the word “Hell” is most usually associated with today. The world “Hell” in the loosest, earliest sense includes:
1. the Limbo of the Fathers, the place for those who were righteous by charity and faith in the coming Messiah and who died before His Coming
2. the Limbo of Infants, where, possibly, those who are sent who die without personal guilt but without Baptism after the time of Christ, or who died without charity and faith in the coming Messiah before the time of Christ. This would be a place of beautiful, natural happiness, no punishment and no sensible suffering.
3. Purgatory, where righteous people go to be cleansed of the temporal effects of their sins
4. Gehenna, the “Hell of the Lost,” the eternal place of punishment for the damned, the place we usually refer to as simply “Hell” today
AnaStpaul 
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