As we progress through Lent, let us not forget to pray the Rosary each day like Mary requested of all peoples when she appeared in Fatima.Sancta Maria, ora pro nobis!
As we progress through Lent, let us not forget to pray the Rosary each day like Mary requested of all peoples when she appeared in Fatima.
O Jesus, it is not the heavenly reward you have promised which impels me to love you; neither is it the threat of hell that keep me from offending you. It is you, O Lord, it is the sight of you affixed to the Cross and suffering insults; it is the sight of your broken body, as well as your pains and your death. There is nothing you can give me to make me love you. For even if there were no heaven and no hell I would still love you as I do. Amen.
The Roman Martyr-Priest, Eusebius, whom the Arian Emperor Constantius II had imprisoned for seven months in the priest's own home so that he might slowly starve to death, is today our leader to the blessed Christ for whose Divinity Eusebius died and won eternal life.
Two weeks from today, we shall celebrate the Lord's life-giving death—the source of our resurrection and life. Christ's death is the Sacrament of all sacraments. All the Christian mysteries flow from this main-spring: "the mystery of new life" "out of water and the Holy Spirit"; restoring or healing life in the tribunal of God's mercy; the reception of the Bread of Life at the Lord's Table; as well as the great "come forth" on the last day (from our tombs as Lazarus was called from his tomb). These and all other mysteries of our Faith are rooted in the death of the Lamb of God.
Let us pray: O God, who renews the world by Thine ineffable sacraments, grant, we beseech Thee, that Thy Church may profit by Thy eternal institutions, and not be lacking in temporal help. Through Christ, Our Lord. Amen.
People with a homosexual orientation are children of God, not outcasts, Archbishop Harry Flynn explained, and Catholics are called to love gay people unconditionally; but the archbishop of St. Paul and Minneapolis said he was compelled to bar a national organization that ministers to homosexual Catholics from celebrating the Eucharist during its March 16 to 18 meeting in Minneapolis.
“Although I recognize the sincerity of the efforts made by New Ways Ministry to serve lesbian and gay persons, on many occasions this group has openly contested aspects of the fullness of Catholic teaching in this area,” the archbishop noted in a written statement following the event.
The Catholic Spirit
"Periucundum est Catholicum esse" is Latin for "It's cool to be Catholic". I just recently read about a new non-profit Catholic organization called Catholici Sumus.
Today is Friday, the day we commemorate Our Lord's passion and death. It was our own sins that condemned Our Glorious Lord to death - death on a Cross. As Catholics, we are bound to abstain from meat today. Willingly ignoring the law of fasting and abstinence is seriously sinful! It was on this day of the week that Our Glorious Redeemer died for us. Please, never forget this, especially at 3 o'clock, the hour that He died. At 3 o'clock attempt to pray the 3 o'clock Mercy Prayer. Please remember Our Lord's love and repent today.Near this church the penitents used to pass through one of the most infamous of places, near the crossroads of Mercury and the Serbian walls, where there was the merulana necropolis (cemetery). That was where pagan Rome left the bodies of slaves and criminals to rot in the open, until the Christians built a chapel with the aim of venerating the Christian martyrs.
Two weeks from today, the Church will celebrate the mystery of the living and life-giving Bread, the first source of life and health. "For he that eats this Bread shall have life everlasting." "And unless you eat this Bread you shall not have life in you."
Preceded by two stational saints, the first Confessors, who were given public veneration in the Church — St. Sylvester and St. Martin — we will go to God's altar, to the Mystery of Life, to Him who will say also to us:" I say to thee, arise!"
Let us pray: Grant, we beseech Thee, Almighty God, that we, who are chastised by fasting, may rejoice with holy devotion, and that our earthly affections being weakened, we may, more easily understand the things of heaven. Through Christ, Our Lord. Amen.
As readers will remember, I am currently reading "The Dolorous Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ" according to the visions by Blessed Anne Catherine Emmerich. I recently came into contact without another Traditional Catholic, who sent me an excerpt from a different book containing some of her visions. I feel that while the following excerpt is graphic and horrifying, it illustrates the need to immediately stop irreverence wherever it exists.Taken from "The Life of the Blessed Virgin Mary", Chapter 1: Our Lady's Ancestors; the Vision of the Feast of Our Lady's Conception, page 68
"My heavenly Bridegroom said to me, pointing round me as He spoke; 'See far more evil that befalls Me every day at the hands of many throughout the world.' And as I looked about me into the distance, many things came before my soul which were indeed still more dreadful than that sacrifice of children; for I saw Jesus Himself cruelly sacrificed on the Altar by unworthy and sinful celebrations of the Holy Mysteries. I saw how the blessed Host lay on the altar before unworthy degenerate priests like a living Child Jesus, whom they cut and terribly mutilated with the paten. Their sacrifice, though an efficacious celebration of the Holy Mysteries, appeared like a cruel murder."
"Today bring to Me the souls who are in the prison of Purgatory, and immerse them in the abyss of My mercy. Let the torrents of My Blood cool down their scorching flames. All these souls are greatly loved by Me. They are making retribution to My justice. It is in your power to bring them relief. Draw all the indulgences from the treasury of My Church and offer them on their behalf. Oh, if you only knew the torments they suffer, you would continually offer for them the alms of the spirit and pay off their debt to My justice" (Paragraph 1226, Our Lord to St Faustina).