Quote/s of the Day – 2 October – The Memorial of the Holy Guardian Angels
“Be ever more convinced, that your guardian angel is really present, that he is ever at your side. St Frances of Rome always saw him standing before her, his arms clasped at his breast, his eyes uplifted to Heaven but at the slightest failing, he would cover his face as if in shame and at times, turn his back to her.”
St John Bosco (1815-1888)
“Do you not greet warmly, all the people you love and speak to them cordially? — Well, you and I are going to greet Jesus, Mary and Joseph and our Guardian Angels, many times a day. “
Sunday Reflection – 22 September – The Twenty Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C
Jesus’ Sacrifice on Calvary
In the book “Padre Pio’s Mass” written by Fr Tarcisio of Cervinara, we again are given proof that the Holy Mass is the unbloody Holy Sacrifice of Jesus Christ, offered once and for all on Calvary. At the Council of Trent in the 22nd. session it states:
“Jesus Christ, our Lord and God, when he was about to offer himself once on the altar of the Cross to God the Father, making intercession by means of his death, so that he might gain there an eternal redemption, since his priesthood was not to be extinguished by death, at the last Supper, ‘on the night that he was handed over’, left to his beloved Spouse the Church a visible sacrifice, such as the nature of man requires, by which the bloody sacrifice achieved once upon the Cross might be represented and its memory endure until the end of the age and its saving power be applied to the remission of those sins which are daily committed by us.”
St Padre Pio is the first priest to have received the “stigmata,” the wounds of Jesus in his body (hands, feet and side). St Francis received them but only as a deacon. This is important because Padre Pio offered the sacrifice of the Holy Mass and St Francis was only able to assist.
St Padre Pio’s Holy Masses would last from 3 to 4 hours. People came from all over the world to be present. They would have to get there very early to be able to get a place in the church. No-one complained about it being so long and quiet. The only person for whom it was excruciating long was St Padre Pio. During the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, he would actually re-live the passion and crucifixion of Jesus.
First we need to be reminded, that at every Holy Mass, Jesus is, in an un-bloody form, offering His life on the Cross for the salvation of sinners. Then that the priest is truly an Alter Christus, which means the priest actually becomes the victim with Jesus Christ at the Holy Mass. This is shown by the priest saying: “This is My Body” and “This is My Blood”. The priest does not say: This is Jesus‘ Body or This is Jesus‘ Blood.
So when St Padre Pio would offer the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, he would become literally this Alter Christus in suffering the crucifixion and bleeding in his wounds. One priest who was next to the altar during Padre Pio’s Mass, said he could never do that again, because he could not stand to see Padre Pio go through that agony again.
Cleonice Morcaldi, one of the spiritual daughters of Padre Pio, asked him several times what he felt and lived in each of his Masses. She wrote carefully each of his answers and thanks to her, we have a unique testimony from the Father himself about his Mass.
– Father, what is your Mass?
– A sacred accomplishment of the Passion of Jesus.
– What should I comprehend in your Holy Mass?
– All of Calvary.
– Father, tell me all that you suffer at the Holy Mass.
– All that Jesus suffered in His Passion, I inadequately suffer to the extent a human creature can possibly suffer. All of it, at no merit of my own and only because of His Goodness.
Father, is it true that you suffer the torment of the crowning of thorns during the Holy Mass?
– And you doubt it?
– During the whole Mass?
– And also before and after it. The crown is never taken away.
Saint Padre Pio’s Feast Day is tomorrow, 23 September.
Our Morning Offering – 10 September – Tuesday of the Twenty third week in Ordinary Time, Year C
Come, O Holy Spirit By St Josemaria Escrivá (1902-1975)
Come, O Holy Spirit,
enlighten my understanding
to know Your commands,
strengthen my heart
against the wiles of the enemy,
inflame my will…
I have heard Your voice,
and I don’t want to
harden my heart to resisting,
by saying ‘later… tomorrow.’
Nunc coepi! Now!
Lest there be no tomorrow for me!
O, Spirit of truth and wisdom,
Spirit of understanding and counsel,
Spirit of joy and peace!
I want what You want,
I want it because You want it,
I want it as You want it,
I want it when You want it.
Amen
Quote of the Day – 30 June – Thirteenth Sunday of the Year in Ordinary Time, Year C, Gospel: Luke 9:51–62
Another said, “I will follow you, Lord but let me first say farewell to those at my home.” Jesus said to him, “No-one who puts his hand to the plough and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.”
Luke 9:61-62
“You learn to speak by speaking, to study by studying, to run by running, to work by working and just so, you learn to love by loving. All those who think to learn in any other way deceive themselves.”
“The Lord delights in every little step you take.”
St Francis de Sales (1567-1622)
Doctor of the Church
“You cannot be half a saint. You must be a whole saint or no saint at all.”
“Detach the heart from creatures and you shall find God.”
St Thérèse of Lisieux (1873-1897)
Doctor of the Church
“Why don’t you give yourself to God once and for all… really… NOW!”
St Josemaría Escrivá (1902-1975)
“Holiness is heroism.”
Bishop Robert Barron
“If you aren’t changing your schedule to follow Jesus, you are not a disciple of Jesus.”
Blessed Virgin of Potente del Trompone:
Visionary: Domenica di Miglianotto on 26 June 1562
Title: Blessed Virgin of Potente del Trompone
2nd Visionary: Visionary: St Peter of Alcantara (1499-1562) – seen below: Our Lady of Longing:Matka Boża Tęskniąca / Longing Mother of God, Warsaw, Poland – One of the oldest churches in the Archdiocese of Warsaw is St Elizabeth Powsin Located on the main altar is a painting of Our Lady of Longing – artist unknown – from the first half of the seventeenth century. At either side, the image is surrounded by statues of Saints Adalbert and Stanislaus – Polish bishops and martyrs . The testimony of miracles and graces relating to the Our Lady of Longing icon have been collected at least since the mid-seventeenth century. On 28 June 1998, the image became the fourth image of Mary in the Archdiocese of Warsaw to be canonically crowned.
St Acteie of Rome
St Albinus of Rome
Bl Andrea Giacinto Longhin
Bl Andrii Ischak
St Anthelm of Belley
St Babolenus of Stavelot-Malmédy
St Barbolenus of Fossés
Bl Bartholomew of Vir
St Corbican
St David of Thessalonica
St Deodatus of Nola
St Dionysius of Bulgaria
St Edburga of Gloucester
St Hermogius of Tuy
St Iosephus Ma Taishun
St John of Rome
St John of the Goths
St José Maria Robles Hurtado St Josemaria Escriva (1902-1975) Biography: https://anastpaul.com/2018/06/26/saint-of-the-day-26-june-st-josemaria-escriva-de-balaguer-y-albas-1902-1975-the-saint-of-ordinary-life/
Bl Jacques Ghazir Haddad OFM Cap (1875-1954)
St Maxentius of Poitou
St Medico of Otricoli
Bl Mykola Konrad
St Paul of Rome
St Pelagius of Oviedo
St Perseveranda of Poitiers
Bl Raymond Petiniaud de Jourgnac
St Salvius
Bl Sebastian de Burgherre
St Soadbair
St Superius
St Terence of Rome
St Vigilius of Trent
Bl Volodymyr Ivanovych Pryima
—
Martyrs of Africa – 4 saints: Four Christians who were martyred together – Agapitus, Emerita, Felix and Gaudentius at an unknown location in Africa, date unknown.
Martyrs of Alexandria – 3 saints: Three Christians who were martyred together, but we really know little more that the names – Agatho, Diogenes and Luceja. They were martyred in Alexandria, Egypt, date unknown.
Martyrs of Cambrai – 4 beati: Four Daughters of Charity of Saint Vincent de Paul nuns at Arras, France. Imprisoned together in 1792 and executed together two years later in the anti-Catholic excesses of the French Revolution. They were:
• Jeanne Gerard
• Marie-Françoise Lanel
• Marie-Madeleine Fontaine
• Thérèse-Madeleine Fantou
They were guillotined on 26 June 1794 at Cambrai, Nord, France and Beatified in June 1920 by Pope Benedict XV.
Our Morning Offering – 23 June – The Solemnity of The Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ 2019
“MAY WE ALL BE LIVING MONSTRANCES.” By St Josemaria Escrivá (1902-1975)
May we be monstrances
wrought of pure gold,
free from all worldly influence,
studded with rubies,
which are like the stains of blood
from our sorrow and our sacrifice;
monstrances adorned with emeralds,
which signify,
our unshakeable hope
and embedded with
many other small stones –
that are barely noticed
but that You behold always,
delighting in their brilliance—
and which are our small mortifications,
our self-denial at every moment.
May these living monstrances
illumine those around them
by their apostolic charity.
Deign, my God,
living in each one of them,
to vivify with the rays of Your Love
all those who come
into contact with us.
Mother of ours,
Mother of Eucharistic Love:
this is our petition today.
Present it, we beseech you,
at your Son’s feet.
Obtain for us a life
imbued with a Eucharistic spirit,
so that love for the Holy Eucharist
fills our heart.
Amen
Sunday Reflection – 5 May – Third Sunday of Easter, Year C
Pope Benedict XVI
” The Eucharist, the privileged place in which the Church recognises “the Author of life” (Acts 3: 15) is “the breaking of the bread”, as it is called in the Acts of the Apostles. In it, through faith, we enter into communion with Christ, who is “the priest, the altar and the lamb of sacrifice” (see Preface for Easter, 5) and is among us.
Let us gather round Him to cherish the memory of His words and of the events contained in Scripture, let us relive His Passion, death and Resurrection. In celebrating the Eucharist, we communicate with Christ, the victim of expiation and from Him we draw forgiveness and life.
What would our lives as Christians be without the Eucharist? The Eucharist is the perpetual, living inheritance which the Lord has bequeathed to us in the Sacrament of His Body and His Blood and which we must constantly rethink and deepen so that, as venerable Pope Paul VI said, it may “impress its inexhaustible effectiveness on all the days of our earthly life.” – (Insegnamenti, V [1967], p. 779)
Many Christians take their time and have leisure enough in their social life (no hurry here). They are leisurely, too, in their professional activities, at table and recreation (no hurry here either). But isn’t it strange, how those same Christians. find themselves in such a rush and want to hurry the priest, in their anxiety to shorten the time devoted to the most holy sacrifice of the altar?“
