Quote/s of the Day – 17 October – The Memorial of St Ignatius of Antioch (c 35 – 107) Father of the Church, Martyr
“Do not have Jesus Christ on your lips and the world in your heart.”
“Therefore run together as into one temple of God, as to one altar, as to one Jesus Christ, who came forth from one Father and is with and has gone to One.”
“I am the wheat of God, and am ground by the teeth of the wild beasts, that I may be found the pure bread of God. I long after the Lord, the Son of the true God and Father, Jesus Christ. Him I seek, who died for us and rose again. I am eager to die for the sake of Christ. My love has been crucified, and there is no fire in me that loves anything. But there is living water springing up in me, and it says to me inwardly: “Come to the Father.”
St Ignatius of Antioch (c 35 – 107) Father of the Church, Martyr
Quote/s of the Day – 16 October – The Memorial of St Margaret Mary Alacoque (1647-1690) and St Gerard Majella (1726-1755)
“Let us begin in earnest to work out our salvation, for no-one will do it for us, since even He Himself, Who made us without ourselves, will not save us without ourselves!”
“Let every knee bend before You, O greatness of my God, so supremely humbled in the Sacred Host. May every heart love You, every spirit adore You and every will be subject to You!
St Margaret Mary Alacoque (1647-1690)
“The Most Blessed Sacrament is Christ made visible. The poor sick person is Christ again made visible.”
The Memorial of Blessed John Henry Newman (1801-1890)
“I have a place in God’s counsels, in God’s world, which no one else has, whether I be rich or poor, despised or esteemed by man, God knows me and calls me by my name. God has created me to do Him some definite service. He has committed some work to me which He has not committed to another. I have my mission – I never may know it in this life but I shall be told it in the next. Somehow I am necessary for His purposes, as necessary in my place as an Archangel in his – if, indeed, I fail, He can raise another, as He could make the stones children of Abraham. Yet I have a part in this great work, I am a link in a chain, a bond of connection between persons. He has not created me for naught. I shall do good, I shall do His work, I shall be an angel of peace, a preacher of truth in my own place, while not intending it, if I do but keep His commandments and serve Him in my calling.
Therefore I will trust Him. Whatever, wherever I am, I can never be thrown away. If I am in sickness, my sickness may serve Him, in perplexity, my perplexity may serve Him, if I am in sorrow, my sorrow may serve Him. My sickness, or perplexity, or sorrow may be necessary causes of some great end, which is quite beyond us. He does nothing in vain – He may prolong my life, He may shorten it; He knows what He is about. He may take away my friends, He may throw me among strangers, He may make me feel desolate, make my spirits sink, hide the future from me – still He knows what He is about.”
“Who is the flower but our Blessed Lord? Who is the rod, or beautiful stalk or stem or plant out of which the flower grows but Mary, Mother of our Lord, Mary, Mother of God?”
“Fear not that your life shall come to an end but rather fear, that it shall never have a beginning.”
“Regarding Christianity, ten thousand difficulties – do not make one doubt.”
“He compasses me round and bears me in His arms. He takes me up and sets me down.”
Quote/s of the Day – 26 September – The Memorial of Blessed Louis Tezza M.I. (1841-1923) and Blessed Pope Paul VI (1897-1978)
“God’s invitation to become saints is for all, not just a few. Sanctity, therefore, must be accessible to all. In what does it consist? In a lot of activity? No. In doing extraordinary things? No, this could not be for everybody and at all times. Therefore, sanctity consists in doing good and in doing this “good” in whatever condition and place God has placed us. Nothing more, nothing outside of this”
Blessed Louis Tezza M.I. (1841-1923)
“No matter where you are or where you may be working, make sure the world, will be renewed, upon contact with you.”
“Somebody should tell us, right at the start of our lives, that we are dying. Then we might live life to the limit, every minute of every day. Do it! I say. Whatever you want to do, do it now! There are only so many tomorrows.”
“Every mother is like Moses. She does not enter the promised land. She prepares a world she will not see.”
“If you want peace, work for justice.”
“… The Blessed Sacrament, which is in the tabernacle, is the living heart of each of our churches.”
“Christ is truly the Emmanuel, that is, God with us, day and night, He is in our midst. He dwells with us full of grace and truth. He restores morality, nourishes virtue, consoles the afflicted, strengthens the weak.”
“Every theological explanation… must firmly maintain that in objective reality, independently of our mind, the bread and wine have ceased to exist after the consecration, so that the adorable body and blood of the Lord Jesus from that moment on, are really before us. under the sacramental species of bread and wine”.
“This motherhood of Mary in the order of grace, continues uninterruptedly, from the consent, which she loyally gave, at the Annunciation and which she sustained, without wavering beneath the Cross, until the eternal fulfilment of all the elect.
Taken up to heaven, she did not lay aside this saving office but by her manifold intercession, continues to bring us the gifts of eternal salvation. By her maternal charity, she cares for the brethren of her Son, who still journey on earth, surrounded by dangers and difficulties, until they are led into their blessed home.
Therefore the Blessed Virgin is invoked in the Church under the titles of Advocate, Helper, Benefactress and Mediatrix. This, however, is so understood, that it neither takes away anything from, nor adds anything to, the dignity and efficacy of Christ the one Mediator.”
Thought for the Day – 20 September – The Memorial of the Korean Martyrs – Sts Andrew Kim Taegon, Paul Chong Hasang & Companions – 103 saints and beati
Andrew Kim waged his last combat on 16 September 1846. He faced it with the same intrepid calm he had always shown in every trial of his life. Fastened to a chair with his arms in chains, he was borne to the river’s edge some distance from Seoul. A company of soldiers surrounded him, followed by a large crowd. The sentence was read to the condemned man at the execution site. Andrew then protested in a loud voice that if he had communicated with the French, it had been for his religion and his God. “It is for Him that I die!” he cried out. Then, after exhorting all those who heard him to become Christians if they desired to escape a miserable eternity, he gave himself up to the executioners for the long and cruel preparatory steps that were to precede his death.
The torturers pierced both his ears with arrows and left them in the wounds, raised up the hair on his neck and covered his face with lime in order to give him a grotesque and repulsive appearance. His arms were then pulled back and bound from behind. The soldiers passed long sticks under his armpits, lifted him up and circled the attending crowd three times, each time drawing closer to the execution post. Commanded to kneel down, he obeyed and stretched out his neck. As calm as though this were the most ordinary action of his life, he asked, “Am I well positioned like this? Can you strike easily?”
“No, not like that,” the soldiers answered. “Turn to the side a little. There, that’s fine!”
“Strike, then,” said Andrew. “I am ready.”
They began their savage dance, whirling round him and working themselves up with a sort of death chant, brandishing their large sabres and striking at will. The martyr’s head fell only at the eighth blow.
Thus did young Andrew Kim the first Korean priest, live and die. He was scarcely twenty-five years old. He received the finest funeral prayers – the tears of his bishop and all his brethren, who at his venerated tomb wept over so many eminent gifts, pledges of a fruitful apostolate, cut off by the sabres.
But he is not altogether dead. His memory lives on in every heart and it is in the contact with his sacred bones that Korean priests come to seek the lights and generous inspirations of charity which will one day transform Korea and you and I!
Quote/s of the Day – 3 September – The Memorial of St Pope Gregory the Great (540-604) – Father & Doctor of the Church “Father of the Fathers”
“If we knew at what time we were to depart from this world, we would be able to select a season for pleasure and another for repentance. But God, who has promised pardon to every repentant sinner, has not promised us tomorrow. Therefore we must always dread the final day, which we can never foresee. This VERY DAY is a day of truce, a day for conversion. And yet we refuse to cry over the evil we have done! Not only do we not weep for the sins we have committed, we even add to them…”
“Don’t be anxious about what you have, but about what you are!”
“When we attend to the needs of those in want, we give them what is theirs, not ours. More than performing works of mercy, we are paying a debt of justice.”
“The proof of love is in the works. Where love exists, it works great things. But when it ceases to act, it ceases to exist.”
“He who would climb to a lofty height must go by steps, not leaps.”
“He truly believes who puts what he believes into practice.”
There is more joy in heaven over a converted sinner than over a righteous person standing firm. A leader in battle has more love for a soldier who returns after fleeing and who valiantly pursues the enemy, than for one who never turned back but who never acted valiantly either. A farmer has greater love for land which bears fruitfully, after he has cleared it of thorns, than for land which never had thorns but which never yielded a fruitful harvest.”
“The Emperor of heaven, the Lord of men and of angels, has sent you His epistles for your life’s advantage— and yet you neglect to read them eagerly. Study them, I beg you and meditate daily on the words of your Creator. Learn the heart of God in the words of God, that you may sigh more eagerly for things eternal, that your soul may be kindled with greater longings for heavenly joy.”
“No one does more harm in the Church than he who has the title or rank of holiness and acts perversely.”
St Pope Gregory the Great (540-604)
Father & Doctor of the Church
“Father of the Fathers”
Quote of the Day – 31 August – Friday of the Twenty-first week in Ordinary Time, Year B – Today’s Gospel: Matthew 25:1–13
‘Behold, the bridegroom! Come out to meet him.’ …Matthew 25:6
“Give me grace to amend my life and to have an eye to mine end, without grudge of death, which to them that die in You, good Lord, is the gate of a wealthy life.”
One Minute Reflection – 31 August – Friday of the Twenty-first week in Ordinary Time, Year B – Today’s Gospel: Matthew 25:1–13 and the memorial of St Aidan of Lindisfarne
But at midnight there was a cry, ‘Behold, the bridegroom! Come out to meet him.’ … Matthew 25:6
REFLECTION – “The souls’ husband is the Holy Spirit, by His grace. When His interior inspiration calls the soul to repentance, then every enticement of vice is in vain. The pride that wants command, the greed and lust that consumes everything: this was the master that used to control and ravage the soul. Their very names have been removed from the repentant sinner’s mouth… When grace is poured into the soul and gives it light, God makes a covenant with sinners. He is reconciled with them… Then is celebrated the wedding of the bridegroom with His bride in the peace of a pure conscience.”…St Anthony of Padua (1195-1231) Doctor of the Church
“You have been created for the glory of God and your own eternal salvation…..This is your goal! This is the centre of your life; this is the treasure of your heart. If you reach your goal you will find happiness. If you fail to reach it, you will find misery.”……St Robert Bellarmine (1542-1621) Doctor of the Church
PRAYER – My Lord and my God, help me eternal Father, to stay awake! Teach me to be constantly on guard against my own weakness, to constantly keep watch for temptation and to live constantly in prayer, that Your Son will lead me to safety. Grant that by the prayers of your holy servant, St Aidan of Lindisfarne, who always remained prayerful and awake, waiting for the Lord, we may be ready to meet the bridegroom. Through Jesus our Lord, with the Holy Spirit, one God forever,amen.
One Minute Reflection – 21 August – Tuesday of the Twentieth week in Ordinary Time, Year B – Today’s Gospel: Matthew 19:23–30 and the Memorial of St Pope Pius X (1835-1914)
And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or lands, for my name’s sake, will receive a hundredfold and inherit eternal life...Matthew 19:29
REFLECTION – “Despite all our feelings of woe or of well-being, God wants us to understand and to believe, that we are more truly in heaven than on earth. Our faith comes from the natural love of our soul and from the clear light of our reason and from the steadfast memory, which we have from God in our first creation. And when our soul is breathed into our body, at which time we are made sensual, at once mercy and grace begin to work, having care of us and protecting us with pity and love, in which operation the Holy Spirit forms in our faith the hope, that we shall return up above to our substance, into the power of Christ, increased and fulfilled through the Holy Spirit… For in the same instant and place in which our soul is made sensual, in that same instant and place exists the city of God, ordained for Him from without beginning (Heb 11:16; Rv 21:2-3). He comes into this city and will never depart from it, for God is never out of the soul, in which He will dwell blessedly without end.”…Julian of Norwich (1342-1430) Mystic & Recluse (Revelations of divine love, ch. 55)
“Catholics are part of the Church Militant. They struggle and they suffer for the triumph of Christ. They must never lose sight of their Divine Model, so that their trials will be turned into joy.”…St Pius X
PRAYER – Lord God, You filled the saints with strength and courage and gave them the knowledge of unity with You. Grant, we pray, that in imitation of St Pope Pius X, we may defend the Catholic faith and renew all things in Christ, Your Son. Help us Holy Father, to follow the example of St Pius and finally inherit eternal life ,with You and all the saints. We make our prayer through Christ, our Lord with the Holy Spirit, one God forever, amen.
One Minute Reflection – 7 July – Saturday of the Thirteenth Week of Ordinary Time, Year B – Today’s Gospel Matthew 9:14-17.
And Jesus said to them, “Can the wedding guests mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them? The days will come, when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast...Matthew 9:15
REFLECTION – “However, our mourning is right if we burn with desire to see Him. How happy they were who were able to enjoy His presence before His Passion, to question Him as they wished and listen to Him as necessary… As for us, we see the fulfilment of what He said: “The days are coming when you will long to see one of the days of the Son of Man, and you will not see it” (Lk 17:22)…A little while and you will no longer see me and again a little while and you will see me” (Jn 16:19). But now this is the hour of which He said: “You will weep and mourn but the world will rejoice… But, He added, I will see you again and your hearts will rejoice and no one will take your joy away from you” (v.22). The hope thus given us by Him, who is faithful in His promises, never now leaves us, without a certain joy — until that overwhelming joy comes on the day when we will be like Him because we will see Him as he is (1Jn 3:2)… “When a woman is in labour, she has pain because her hour has come,” says the Lord, “but when her child is born, she no longer remembers the anguish because of the joy of having brought a human being into the world” (Jn 16:21). This is the joy no one can take away from us and with which we will be satisfied when we pass to eternal light from our present conception in faith. So let us fast and pray since we are still on the threshold of birth.“…St Augustine (354-430) Father and Doctor
PRAYER – Father almighty, as we wait and work and pray and fast in joyful hope of our eternal life with You, grant we pray that we may always remain steadfast in Your love. Blessed Maria Romero Meneses, pray for us that we will fully utilise the many gifts our Almighty God has bestowed on us as we journey home. We make our prayer through Jesus Christ our Lord, in union with You and the Holy Spirit, one God forever, amen.
Quote/s of the Day – 30 June – The Memorial of Blessed Raymond Lull T.O.S.F. (c 1232 – c1315) Martyr
“The Beloved created and the Lover destroyed. The Beloved judged and the Lover wept. Then the Beloved redeemed him and the Lover again had glory. The Beloved finished His work and the Lover remained forever, in his Beloved’s companionship.”
“Death has no terrors for a sincere servant of Christ, who is labouring to bring souls to a knowledge of the truth.”
One Minute Reflection – 22 June – The Memorial of St John Fisher (1469-1535) and St Thomas More (1478-1535) Martyrs
More than that, I even consider everything as a loss because of the supreme good of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have accepted the loss of all things and I consider them so much refuse, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having any righteousness of my own based on the law but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God, depending on faith to know him and the power of his resurrection and the sharing of his sufferings by being conformed to his death, if somehow I may attain the resurrection from the dead…Philippians 3:8-11
REFLECTION – “Although I know well, Margaret, that because of my past wickedness, I deserve to be abandoned by God, I cannot but trust in His merciful goodness. His grace has strengthened me until now and made me content to lose goods, land and life as well, rather than to swear against my conscience. God’s grace has given the king a gracious frame of mind toward me, so that as yet he has taken from me nothing but my liberty. In doing this His Majesty has done me such great good, with respect to spiritual profit, that I trust, that among all the great benefits he has heaped so abundantly upon me, I count my imprisonment the very greatest.
I cannot, therefore, mistrust the grace of God. By the merits of His bitter passion joined to mine and far surpassing in merit for me, all that I can suffer myself, His bounteous goodness, shall release me from the pains of purgatory and shall increase my reward in heaven besides.
I will not mistrust Him, Meg, though I shall feel myself weakening and on the verge of being overcome with fear. I shall remember, how Saint Peter at a blast of wind, began to sink because of his lack of faith and I shall do as he did, call upon Christ and pray to Him for help. And then I trust He shall place His holy hand on me and in the stormy seas, hold me up from drowning.
And finally, Margaret, I know this well, that without my fault He will not let me be lost. I shall, therefore, with good hope commit myself wholly to Him. And if He permits me to perish for my faults, then I shall serve as praise for His justice. But in good faith, Meg, I trust that His tender pity shall keep my poor soul safe and make me commendHhis mercy.
And, therefore, my own good daughter, do not let you mind be troubled over anything that shall happen to me in this world. Nothing can come but what God wills. And I am very sure, that whatever that be, however bad it may seem, it shall indeed be the best.” – from a letter written by Saint Thomas More from prison to his daughter Margaret
PRAYER – Almighty, ever-living God, You set the perfection of true faith in martyrdom. Strengthen us by the prayers of the martyrs, St Thomas More and St John Fisher , so that our lives may bear witness to the faith we profess. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, with You in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God forever, amen.
Thought for the Day – 18 April – Wednesday of the Third Week of Eastertide – Acts 8:1-8, Psalm 66:1-7, John 6:35-40
St John Chrysostom (347-407) – Sermon 45 on the Gospel of John – John 6:40
And I will raise him up at the last day. Why does He continually dwell upon the Resurrection? Is it that men may not judge of God’s providence by present things alone; that if they enjoy not results here, they become not on that account desponding but wait for the things that are to come and that they may not, because their sins are not punished for the present, despise Him, but look for another life.
Now those men gained nothing but let us take pains to gain by having the Resurrection continually sounded in our ears; and if we desire to be grasping, or to steal, or to do any wrong thing, let us straightway take into our thoughts that Day, let us picture to ourselves the Judgment-seat, for such reflections will check the evil impulse more strongly than any bit. Let us continually say to others and to ourselves, There is a resurrection, and a fearful tribunal awaits us.
If we see any man insolent and puffed up with the good things of his world, let us make the same remark to him and show him that all those things abide here: and if we observe another grieving and impatient, let us say the same to him and point out to him that his sorrows shall have an end; if we see one careless and dissipated, let us say the same charm over him and show that for his carelessness he must render account.
This saying is able more than any other remedy to heal our souls. For there is a Resurrection and that Resurrection is at our doors, not afar off, nor at a distance. For yet a little while, and He that shall come will come and will not tarry. Hebrews 10:37 And again, We must all appear before the judgement-seat of Christ 2 Corinthians 5:10; that is, both bad and good, the one to be shamed in sight of all, the other in sight of all to be made more glorious. For as they who judge here, punish the wicked and honour the good publicly, so too will it be there, that the one sort may have the greater shame and the other more conspicuous glory.
Let us picture these things to ourselves every day. If we are ever revolving them, no care for present things will be able to sting us. For the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal. 2 Corinthians 4:18 Continually let us say to ourselves and to others, There is a Resurrection, and a Judgement and a scrutiny of our actions; and let as many as deem that there is such a thing as fate repeat this and they shall straightway be delivered from the rottenness of their malady; for if there is a Resurrection, and a Judgement, there is no fate, though they bring ten thousand arguments and choke themselves to prove it.
But I am ashamed to be teaching Christians concerning the Resurrection: for he that needs to learn that there is a Resurrection and who has not firmly persuaded himself that the affairs of this world go not on by fate and without design and as chance will have them, can be no Christian.
Wherefore, I exhort and beseech you, that we cleanse ourselves from all wickedness and do all in our power to obtain pardon and excuse in that Day….For a man cannot possibly live a pure life without believing in the Resurrection!
Thought for the Day – 3 April – Easter Tuesday in the Easter Octave
On the Spiritual Resurrection of the Children of God
If you be risen with Christ, mind the things that are above, not the things that are upon the earth. – Colossians 3
Let us represent to ourselves Jesus Christ, rising glorious from the Sepulchre.
“Faith in the Risen One is faith in something that has really taken place. Today, it is still true, that Christianity is neither legend nor fiction, not mere exhortation nor mere solution. Faith stands on the firm basis of reality that has actually taken place. Today too, in the words of Scripture, we can as it were, touch the Lord’s glorified wounds and say, with Thomas, in gratitude and joy – My Lord and my God! (Jn 20:28)
One question, however, continually arises at this point. Not everyone saw the Risen Jesus. Why not? Why did He not go in triumph to the Pharisees and Pilate to show them that He was alive and to let them touch His scars? But in asking such a question, we are forgetting that Jesus was not a resuscitated corpse like Lazarus and the boy of Naim. They were allowed to return once more, to their erstwhile biological life, which sooner or later, would have to end, after all, with death. What happened in Jesus’ case, was quite different – He did not return to the old life but began a new one, a life that is ultimate, no longer subject to nature’s law of death but standing in God’s freedom and hence final and absolute. A life, therefore, that is no longer part of the realm of physics and biology, although it has integrated matter and nature into itself on a higher plane. And that is why it is no longer within the ambit of our senses of touch and sight. The Risen One cannot be seen like a piece of wood or stone. He can only be seen by the person to whom He reveals Himself. And He only reveals Himself, to the one whom He can entrust with a mission. He does NOT reveal Himself, to curiosity but to LOVE; LOVE is the indispensable organ if we are to see and approach Him.”
Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger (Pope Benedict XVI)
The Word of the Witnesses – Seek that Which is Above (1985)
Devotion of The Seven Last Words of Christ – The Seventh Word – 31 March – Holy Saturday 2018
The Seven Last Words of Christ refer, not to individual words but to the final seven phrases that Our Lord uttered as He hung on the Cross. These phrases were not recorded in a single Gospel but are taken from the combined accounts of the four Gospels. Greatly revered, these last words of Jesus have been the subject of many books, sermons and musical settings.
The Seven Last Words of Christ
” Jesus reaches the heights of the depth of his prayer to the Father during His Passion and Death, when He pronounces His supreme “yes” to the plan of God and reveals how the human will finds its fulfilment precisely in adhering fully to the divine will, rather than the opposite. In Jesus’ prayer, in His cry to the Father on the Cross, “all the troubles, for all time, of humanity enslaved by sin and death, all the petitions and intercessions of salvation history are summed up … Here the Father accepts them and, beyond all hope, answers them beyond all hope, answers them by raising His Son. Thus is fulfilled and brought to completion the drama of prayer in the economy of creation and salvation” (CCC 2606)
Pope Benedict 7 March 2012
The Seventh Word
“Into Your hands I commend My spirit” (Luke 23:46)
Gospel: It was now about noon and darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon because of an eclipse of the sun. Then the veil of the temple was torn down the middle. Jesus cried out in a loud voice, “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit” and when he had said this, he breathed his last…Luke 23:44-46
The Word Incarnate utters His last sentence and in doing so, every last word takes on a special significance. In the act of dying, the God-Man teaches His brothers and sisters in the human family how to die. What is the final lesson?
Jesus died resigned to the Will of the One Who sent Him. However, we should not see this as passivity; it is an active resignation, which sums up His entire life: “As a man lives so shall He die.”
As we listen to the dying Saviour, two words draw our attention: “Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit.” “Father” and “thy” are the keys to the mystery of death. Jesus, in His humanity, does not rely on His own resources but casts His cares upon His heavenly Father, the Abba (“Papa”) in Whom He encouraged His disciples to have complete trust.
His heart is thus other-directed or, better, Other-directed toward the One “who was able to save Him from death” (Heb 5:7). With eyes fixed on Jesus (cf. Heb 3:1), then, Christians ponder what they need in death. They are three: the grace of perseverance, the grace of final repentance and the grace of a happy death.
Such a gift then leads to that most blessed thing of all – the grace of a happy death. Several years ago I received an early morning call to the hospital to bring Viaticum for a cancer patient I had attended the entire summer. Always thoughtful to a fault, she had restrained her family from contacting a priest during the night, lest he lose sleep. Upon my arrival, the woman stirred herself to prepare for her final encounter with the Eucharist. As I placed the Sacred Host on her tongue, she smiled, swallowed and died. Her son looked at me and said, “Father, that’s all she was waiting for all night.”
What a holy death! What a calming effect it had on her entire family! What a powerful and unforgettable witness she had offered! A holy death ensures a happy death because our eyes are “fixed on Jesus.”
Thinking about death – our own death – should not be an exercise in morbidity but a truly positive opportunity. St Alphonsus Liguori, author of the classic “Way of the Cross,” provides ample food for thought in his reflection for the Fifth Station . It has within it all the serenity of Jesus’ serenity in His final moments and thus recommends itself to our thoughts and as a guide for our actions – perennially.
And so we are encouraged to say and to mean: “My beloved Jesus, I will not refuse the cross, as the Cyrenian did; I accept it, I embrace it. I accept in particular the death You have destined for me; with all the pains that may accompany it; I unite it to your death, I offer it to You. You have died for love of me; I will die for love of You, and to please You. Help me by your grace. I love You, Jesus, my love; I repent of ever having offended You. Never permit me to offend You again. Grant that I may love You always and then do with me what you will.” (St Alphonsus Liguori (1696-1787) Doctor of the Church) ...Excerpt from Fr Peter Stravinskas
Prayer of Abandonment to God’s Providence
Lord, Your Cross is high and uplifted;
I cannot mount it in my own strength.
You have promised:
“I, when I am lifted up from the earth,
I will draw all to Myself.”
Draw me, then, from my sins to repentance,
from darkness to faith,
from the flesh to the spirit,
from coldness to ardent devotion,
from weak beginnings to a perfect end,
from smooth and easy paths,
if it be Your will, to a higher and holier way,
from fear to love,
from earth to heaven,
from myself to You.
And as You have said:
“No man can come to Me,
except the Father, who sent Me, draw him,”
give unto me the Spirit Whom the Father hath sent in Your Name,
that in Him and through Him,
I being wholly changed,
may hasten to You
and go out no more for ever.
Amen
(From a Prayer a Day for Lent – 1923)
Our Morning Offering – 31 March – Holy Saturday 2018
Sabbatum Sanctum By Blessed John Henry Newman (1801-1890)
I look at You, my Lord Jesus
and think of Your most holy Body
and I keep it before me,
as a pledge of my own resurrection.
Though I die, as die I certainly shall,
nevertheless, I shall not forever die,
for I shall rise again.
O You, who are the Truth,
I know and believe with my whole heart,
that this very flesh of mine will rise again.
I know, base and odious as it is at present,
that it will one day, if I be worthy,
be raised incorruptible
and altogether beautiful and glorious.
This I know,
this by Your grace,
I will ever keep before me.
Amen
Quote/s of the Day – 30 March 2018 – Good Friday of the Passion of the Lord
“But far be it from me to glory, except in the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me and I to the world.”
St Paul
“We give glory to You, Lord, who raised up Your Cross to span the jaws of death like a bridge by which souls might pass from the region of the dead to the land of the living. .. You are incontestably alive. Your murderers sowed Your living body in the earth as farmers sow grain but it sprang up and yielded an abundant harvest of men raised from the dead.”
St Ephrem the Syrian (306-373) Father & Doctor of the Church
“Mount Calvary is the academy of love.”
St Francis de Sales (1567-1622) Doctor of the Church
” …Let us direct today our gaze toward Christ, a gaze frequently distracted by scattered and passing earthly interests. Let us pause to contemplate His Cross. The cross, fount of life and school of justice and peace, is the universal patrimony of pardon and mercy. It is permanent proof of a self-emptying and infinite love that brought God to become man, vulnerable like us, unto dying crucified.”
Quote of the Day – 28 March – Wednesday of Holy Week 2018
By nothing else except the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ has death been brought low, the sin of our first parent destroyed, hell plundered, resurrection bestowed, the power given us to despise the things of this world, even death itself, the road back to the former blessedness made smooth, the gates of paradise opened, our nature seated at the right hand of God and we made children and heirs of God. By the cross all these things have been set aright… It is a seal that the destroyer may not strike us, a raising up of those who lie fallen, a support for those who stand, a staff for the infirm, a crook for the shepherded, a guide for the wandering, a perfecting of the advanced, salvation for soul and body, a deflector of all evils, a cause of all goods, a destruction of sin, a plant of resurrection and a tree of eternal life.
St John Damascene (675-749) Father & Doctor of the Church
Lenten Reflection – 14 March 2018 – Wednesday of the 4th Week of Lent
Isaiah 49:8-15, Psalms 145:8-9, 13-14, 17-18, John 5:17-30
Isaiah 49:13 – “For the Lord has comforted his people and will have compassion on his afflicted.”
John 5:28-29 – “…. for the hour is coming when all who are in the tombs will hear his voice 29 and come forth, those who have done good, to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil, to the resurrection of judgement.”
As we approach the end of the Lenten journey, the tone becomes darker and we can feel the crises approaching.
Today’s first reading is a lovely one, Israel’s God promising that all is going to be well “I shall answer you” and “they shall find food on all the bare places.” And there is a beautiful image of God as mother, utterly incapable of forgetting Israel. Notice however, that Israel is feeling forgotten, they are hungry and thirsty and in desolate places and in darkness.
These dark tones return in today’s gospel, which continues from yesterday. Jesus here lays His cards on the table and states plainly and simply, His intimate relationship with the One whom He calls Father and precisely because of who He is – He incurs now the homicidal wrath of His opponents.
We need to be clear this Lent, NOW and forever, about who we think Jesus is – and KNOW that what we believe, will bring the same response – hostility, ire, persecution even hatred! For it is literally – it is very important to be aware of this – a matter of life and death!
But, “the one who hears my word and believes the One who sent me, has eternal life”. There is Resurrection here but there is also first death.
We must choose our sides NOW! Now is the time!…(Fr Nicholas King SJ – Reflections for Lent)
Am I ready? Have I chosen my side? Am I prepared?
“There was once a good Trappist Father, who was trembling all over at perceiving the approach of death. Someone said to him, “Father, of what then are you afraid?” “Of the judgement of God,” he said. “Ah! if you dread the judgement–you who have done so much penance, you who love God so much, who have been so long preparing for death–what will become of me?”
See, my children, to die well we must live well; to live well, we must seriously examine ourselves: every evening think over what we have done during the day; at the end of each week review what we have done during the week; at the end of each month review what we have done during the month; at the end of the year, what we have done during the year. By this means, my children, we cannot fail to correct ourselves and to become fervent Christians in a short time. Then, when death comes, we are quite ready; we are happy to go to Heaven.”…St John Vianney (1786-1859)
I have nothing, O my Saviour and my God!
I have nothing, O my Saviour and my God! I have nothing which can be pleasing unto Thee; I can do nothing, I am nothing but I have a heart and this is enough for me. Health, honour and life itself may be taken from me but no man can rob me of my heart. I have a heart and with this heart I can love Thee, O my Saviour Jesus, worthy of all adoration! And with this heart, it is my determination to love You and always I resolve to love Thee, only to love Thee always. Amen
Thought for the Day – 14 March 2018 – Wednesday of the 4th Week of Lent
Each of us must enter on eternity. Blessed John Henry Newman (1801-1890)
“Each of us must come to the evening of life. Each of us must enter on eternity. Each of us must come to that quiet, awful time, when we will appear before the Lord of the vineyard and answer for the deeds done in the body, whether they be good or bad. That, my dear brethren, you will have to undergo. … It will be the dread moment of expectation when your fate for eternity is in the balance and when you are about to be sent forth as the companion of either saints or devils, without possibility of change. There can be no change; there can be no reversal. As that judgement decides it, so it will be for ever and ever. Such is the particular judgement. … when we find ourselves by ourselves, one by one, in His presence and have brought before us most vividly all the thoughts, words and deeds of this past life. Who will be able to bear the sight of himself?
And yet we shall be obliged steadily to confront ourselves and to see ourselves. In this life we shrink from knowing our real selves. We do not like to know how sinful we are. We love those who prophesy smooth things to us and we are angry with those who tell us of our faults.
But on that day, not one fault only but all the secret, as well as evident, defects of our character will be clearly brought out. We shall see what we feared to see here and much more. And then, when the full sight of ourselves comes to us, who will not wish that he had known more of himself here, rather than leaving it for the inevitable day to reveal it all to him! …………………….We can believe what we choose. We are answerable for what we choose to believe.”
Quote/s of the Day – 14 March 2018 – Wednesday of the 4th Week of Lent
“Speaking of Death & Eternity”
“Christ’s martyrs feared neither death nor pain. He triumphed in them who lived in them; and they, who lived not for themselves but for Him, found in death itself the way to life.”
St Augustine – (354-430) – Father & Doctor of the Church
“The more we are afflicted in this world, the greater is our assurance in the next; the more sorrow in the present, the greater will be our joy in the future.”
St Isidore of Seville (560-636) – Doctor of the Church
“A man may very well lose his head and yet come to no harm – yea, I say, to unspeakable good and everlasting happiness.”
St Thomas More (1478-1535)
“Let us prepare ourselves for death; we have not a minute to lose: it will come upon us at the moment when we least expect it; it will take us by surprise. Look at the saints, my children, who were pure; they were always trembling, they pined away with fear and we, who so often offend the good God–we have no fears. Life is given us that we may learn to die well and we never think of it. We occupy ourselves with everything else. The idea of it often occurs to us and we always reject it; we put it off to the last moment. O my children! this last moment, how much it is to be feared! Yet the good God does not wish us to despair; He shows us the good thief, touched with repentance, dying near Him on the cross; but he is the only one and then see, he dies near the good God. Can we hope to be near Him at our last moment–we who have been far from Him all our life? What have we done to deserve that favour? A great deal of evil and no good.”
Quote/s of the Day – 16 October – The Memorials of St Margaret Mary Alacoque (1647-1690) and St Gerard Majella (1725-1755)
“All for the Eucharist nothing for me.”
“Announce it and let it be announced to the whole world, that I set neither limit nor measure to my gifts of grace, for those who seek them in my Heart.” Revelations of Our Lord to St Margaret Mary Alacoque
“The Sacred Heart is the symbol of that boundless love which moved the Word to take flesh, to institute the Holy Eucharist, to take our sins upon Himself and, dying on the Cross, to offer Himself as a victim and sacrifice to the eternal Father.”
“Let every knee bend before You, O greatness of my God, so supremely humbled in the Sacred Host. May every heart love You, every spirit adore You and every will be subject to You!
“The Most Blessed Sacrament is Christ made visible. The poor sick person is Christ again made visible.”
“Who except God can give you peace? Has the world ever been able to satisfy the heart?”
“Consider the shortness of time, the length of eternity and reflect how everything here below comes to an end and passes by. Of what use is it to lean upon that, which cannot give support? “
AnaStpaul 
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