The Resurrection and the Life, 2023

The Resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ

“I am the Resurrection and the Life; he that believeth in Me, although he be dead, shall live.” (John 11, 25).

“Joy in truth: for only sincere and upright souls who seek the truth lovingly and still more, ‘do the truth’ can fully rejoice in the Resurrection. We are sincere when we recognize ourselves for what we are, with all our faults, deficiencies and need for conversion. From this knowledge of our miseries comes the sincere resolve to purify ourselves … in order to be renewed in the risen Christ.

“Truth, however, must be accomplished in charity — veritatem facientes in caritatem, doing the truth in charity. (Eph. 4, 15). Therefore the Postcommunion prayer that is placed on our lips is more timely than ever: ‘Pour forth upon us, O Lord, the Spirit of Thy love, to make us of one heart.’ Without unity and mutual charity there can be no real Paschal joy. (Father Gabriel of St. Mary Magdalene, Divine Intimacy, p. 419-420).

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The Paradox of the Resurrection

This essay from Msgr. Robert Hugh Benson seems presciently apt for this current chastisement. We are given this brief period of introspection to strengthen us for what is coming very quickly. Do not be caught unprepared, please use this time to gather your family, strengthen them spiritually and live your consecrations as never before.Be prepared for this great spiritual battle.

 .  . 

“. . . On Easter Day look at Him again and see how He lives as never before. See how the Life that has been His for thirty years – the Life of God made Man – itself pales almost to a phantom before the glory of that same Life transfigured by Death. Three days ago He fainted beneath the scourge and nails; now He shows the very scars of His Passion to be the emblems of immortal strength. Three days ago He spoke in human words to those only that were near Him, and limited Himself under human terms of space and time; He speaks now in every heart. Three days ago He gave His Body to the few who knelt at His Table; to-day in ten thousand tabernacles that same Body may be worshipped by all who come. Continue reading “The Paradox of the Resurrection”

Passion Sunday, 2023

previously posted on : March 21, 2021  by : evensong

Today, Passion Sunday, a few notes towards the Crucifixion of Our Lord Jesus Christ and the Passion of His  Mystical Body,  the Holy Catholic Church.

We note that, as Father Groenings reminds us, Christ had to die outside the gate of the city, just as the scapegoat laden with the sins of the people, had to be led outside the camp. St. Leo explains the significance of Christ’s sacrifice being offered outside the temple, even, indeed, outside the gates,

“Christ was slain as our paschal lamb. But because He offered Himself to the Father as the new and real sacrifice of propitiation, He was to be crucified, not in the temple whose privilege of sacredness was at an end, nor inside the walls of the city which was awaiting its destruction on account of its crime, but ‘outside the camp,’ in order that, after the mysteries of the ancient sacrifice had ceased, the new sacrifice might be offered on a new altar, and that the cross of Christ be an altar not for the temple, but for the entire world.”

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On the Eve of the Annunciation, 2023

previously posted on : march 24, 2021  by : evensong
“The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the most High shall overshadow thee.And therefore also the Holy which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God.”
(Luke 1, 35)

Today, the eve of the Feast of the Annunciation,  we conclude our Novena. And again we share the popular poem for the Annunciation by peregrine, a reader/contributor.

 

Annunciation

Hail Mary, Temple of the Trinity!

        Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with thee,

Art thou astonished at His deference?

Fear not, for thou hast found grace with God.
Thou shalt conceive … and bring forth a Son
Thou shalt call His name Jesus.

How shall it be?
(Mindful of thy chastity)

And yet . . . it is thy purity draws Him down
Captivated by thy pure and humble love
Thy Creator awaits at the door of thy will,

The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee
. . .  the most High shall overshadow thee . . .
the Holy born of thee shall be called the Son of God.

His will is clear
. . . moved by His will alone . . .

Behold the handmaid of the Lord
Be it done unto me…

The Architect of earth and heaven
Thus closed Himself in thy pure frame.
At thy “fiat” the Almighty Word
leapt down from heaven
The Sword of Truth wrought death to death,
Obedient, He vanquished disobedient pride.

And the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us,

peregrine, March 25, 2004

The Secret of St. Patrick’s Prayer, 2023

Some thoughts on prayer from Dom Eugene Boylan for today . . .

Jesus knows well our distaste for penance; He understands perfectly our dislike of suffering; nay, more, He sympathizes with us in these difficulties. True, He wishes us to help Him to carry His cross, but He also wishes to help us to do so. So sweet is His aid, so enthralling His companionship, that St. Teresa found that it was only the first of her crosses that was really hard; once she had embraced the nettle of her cross she found herself in close union with Jesus.

THE JOY OF THE CROSS

There is no joy in this life to equal that of sharing the cross with Jesus. It needs courage, it needs grace, it needs perhaps a special call; but the truth is that this path of suffering and of penance – penance, be it well understood, undertaken or accepted according to God’s will and not our own – is the road of highest joy, and the sure path to the heights of prayer. The importance of mortification is not so much that it hurts us, but that it gives Jesus a new life in us; we only put ourselves to death – that is what “mortification” means – in order to clear the way for Christ. That is at once the motive of mortification and its measure. If it only serves to make us more self–satisfied and proud, then it is no longer mortification of self; it is rather the mortification of Jesus.

The true principle of mortification was laid down by St. John the Baptist when he said: “He must increase, I must decrease.” Perhaps a somewhat far–fetched comparison may help to put this process in its true light. The bread and wine that are changed into the Body and Blood of Our Lord at Mass once graced the earth in a glory of purple and gold; they were cut down, beaten and bruised, ground and pressed out of all recognition. Not until many changes had been made in them could the priest say over them the words that would make them the Flesh and Blood of Christ.

Now, in so far as the Mass is a changing of bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Jesus – it is, of course, much more than that; it might be said that Our Lord says Mass with us and our lives as the bread and wine, but it is a Mass in which the grinding of the wheat and the pressing of the grape, the baking of the bread and the maturing of the wine, the offering of the Host and the oblation of the Chalice, the consecration of both and their conversion into the living Body and Blood of Christ, are all going on at the same time.

Every time that we deny ourselves in any way and to that extent offer ourselves to Jesus, He comes and takes possession of us to that same extent, and says: “This is My Body”.  More than that: He takes compassion on our cowardice, and sends us trials and humiliations that grind us and press us and make us into suitable bread and wine to become part of Himself. “My meat”, He said, “is to do the will of Him that sent Me”. So it is that everything done in accordance with the Divine will gives new life to Jesus in our souls, for He feeds on the doing of His Father’s will.

Every action we do, every suffering we undergo, whatever it be, as long as it is according to the will of God, is an act of communion with Jesus, an act that is no mere desire, but a positive advance in our union with Him; it gives Him new matter over which He can pronounce the saving words: “This is My Body.”
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The Weight of Sin

Yesterday’s post on sin by Ven. Archbishop Sheen was so well received that it seems an opportune time to second it with another essay, this time on the suffering which Our Blessed Lord endured because of sin; this time by St. John Henry Newman. I have added some emphasis. We begin with Our Lord’s Agony in the Garden of Gethsemane:

And now, my brethren, what was it (Jesus) had to bear, when He thus opened upon His soul the torrent of this predestinated pain? Alas! He had to bear what is well known to us, what is familiar to us, but what to Him was woe unutterable. He had to bear that which is so easy a thing to us, so natural, so welcome, that we cannot conceive of it as a great endurance, but which to Him had the scent and the poison of death. He had, my dear brethren, to bear the weight of sin; He had to bear our sins; He had to bear the sins of the whole world.

Sin is an easy thing to us; we think little of it; we cannot bring our imagination to believe that it deserves retribution, and, when even in this world punishments follow upon it, we explain them away or turn our minds from them. But consider what sin is in itself; it is rebellion against God; it is a traitor’s act who aims at the overthrow and death of his sovereign: it is that, if I may use a strong expression, which, could the Divine Governor of the world cease to be, would be sufficient to bring it about. Sin is the mortal enemy of the All-holy, so that He and it cannot be together; and as the All-holy drives it from His presence into the outer darkness; so, if God could be less than God, it is sin that would have power to make Him less.

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The Death of Life

previously posted on : March 22, 2021  by : evensong

Today, we offer a Lenten essay on sin by Venerable Fulton Sheen.

The gravest danger facing modern society, one which has brought the ruin of older civilizations and is destined to effect the collapse of our own unless we prevent it, is the loss of the sense of sin.

Remorse is almost an unknown passion, and penitent shame is but rarely felt. The burden of guilt does not rest on even a criminal’s heart, and even good men look on deeds of infamy and acts of gross injustice and are not shocked. This is not because they are innocent, but because no sense of sin possesses their souls. There is a general denial that anything is wrong or that anything is right, and a general affirmation that what the older theological generation called “sin” is only a psychic evil or a fall in the evolutionary process. Two principles inspire much of the personal and social dealings of many a citizen in our land; namely, “What can I get out of it?” and “Can I get away with it?”

Evil is confused with good, and good is confused with evil. Revolting books against virtue are termed “courageous”; those against morality are advertised as “daring and forward-looking”; and those against God are called “progressive and epoch-making.” It has always been the characteristic of a generation in decay to paint the gates of hell with the gold of paradise. In a word, much of the so-called wisdom of our day is made up of that which once nailed our Blessed Lord to the cross.
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A Novena to Saint Joseph

Today we have our  Novena for Saint Joseph, to begin on March 10, and complete the Eve of his feast day. I’m trying to restore our many other posts on this great saint, favorite of readers and favorite of our family too.

NOVENA TO SAINT JOSEPH

The feast day of our favorite saint, dear Saint Joseph is coming up soon and in preparation we have a Novena for St. Joseph from two of Father Lasance’s Prayer Books. First, Father Lasance’s “Prayer Book for Religious: A Complete Manual of Prayers and Devotions for the Use of the Members of All Religious Communities” from 1904. The second book is “With God: A Book of Prayers and Reflections” from 1911. In the latter book, we note,

“The Sovereign Pontiff, Pius IX, by a rescript of the Sacred Congregation of Indulgences, Nov. 28, 1876, granted to all the faithful who, with contrite heart, devoutly make at any time during the year the novena in honor of St. Joseph, spouse of Mary most holy, with any formula of prayer, provided it be approved by competent ecclesiastical authority, an indulgence of 300 days, once a day; a plenary indulgence, during the course of the novena, if, being truly penitent, having confessed and communicated, they pray for the intention of the Sovereign Pontiff.”

Thus, we may use any approved prayer to St. Joseph for our novena and this is usually coupled with the Litany to Saint Joseph, as Father Lasance does. And so we offer several prayers to St. Joseph for you to choose from followed by St. Joseph’s Litany. In our own family, we pray a perpetual Novena to St. Joseph for the spiritual healing of our family, our parish and the Church, which consists of the Litany followed by the Memorare to St. Joseph. But in March, his month, we also include more prayers and devotions such as the ones we offer today. If you begin St. Joseph’s Novena on March 10, it will conclude on March 18, the Eve of his feast day, which is a good time to renew your Consecration also. An excellent practice is to begin each day with the Consecration to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, Consecration to the Sacred Heart of Jesus and then follow with St. Joseph’s brief Consecration (as in the sidebar on right). When combined with Spiritual Communion (for the many of us who are not able to attend Mass daily), you have a great way to start each day.

NOTE: This year, St. Joseph’s feast day is observed the following day, due to falling on a Sunday, however, I am keeping the Novena as always, so that we can conclude it with Holy Mass and confession and Holy Communion.
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Dom Scupoli on the Exercise of the Will

previously posted on : March 2, 2021  by : evensong

NOTE: The typo in the second paragraph of the quote from Chapter 10 has been corrected; thank you.

“Abide in My Love”

The following essay is from Dom Lorenzo Scupoli’s “The Spiritual Combat” and is especially pertinent for devoutly inclined souls. The devil tempts us not by way of the obvious worldly pleasures but by the subtle means of loving to serve God “in our own way” and for the pleasure that accomplishing our own goals which we have assumed are God’s own goals, simply because they seem so right to us.

Indeed, Dom Scupoli begins his treatise on the Spiritual Combat by teaching us that we must become thoroughly convinced of our own weakness to the point of total distrust of ourselves coupled with the utmost pure and childlike trust in the wisdom, power and providence of God. Now this distrust of self is something utterly alien to most people today but distrust of self, and trust in God, when fortified by prayer, enable us to accomplish our tasks for the love of God alone, for the sole desire of pleasing Him while assiduously avoiding accomplishing our own will.
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Father Caussade on Bearing Afflictions, 2023

previously posted on February 19, 2021  by  evensong

Today we offer an essay by Père Caussade, “Bearing Up with the Crisis and Chastisement of the Faith.” Although his counsel is for a cloistered nun, you’ll soon see how apt it is for us today as we endure the reign of this unfortunate pope.

The disaster of which you speak is, as you say, a most visible scourge of God; happy will they be who take advantage of it to save their souls. These punishments, borne well, as from the hands of God, are of more value than all worldly prosperity. At the same time they may be made, by a bad use, the occasion to some of eternal reprobation.

This will be, however, entirely by their own fault, and their very great fault, for what could be more reasonable, or easier in a sense than to make, as I said before, a virtue of necessity? Why make a useless and criminal resistance to the chastisements of God, Who is our Father and Who strikes us only to detach us from the miserable pleasures of this world? Could He do us a greater favour than to deliver us from attaching ourselves to that which would cause us to lose eternal happiness and our own souls!

On such occasions it is well to think often and attentively of this passage in the writings of one of the Fathers of the Church. “Such is the goodness of our heavenly Father that even His anger proceeds from His mercy, since He only strikes us to withdraw us from sin, and to save us.” Like a wise surgeon He cuts the mortified flesh away from that which is sound to save the life of the patient, and to prevent the infection from spreading. We should accustom ourselves to see everything in the light of faith; and then no event of this life, nor desires, nor fears will have any effect on us. Those strong hopes that so frequently upset the peace of the soul and the tranquil course of life, even those will make very little impression on us. How blind men are! and how much attached to their own ideas!

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