Falling Like Stars

Today’s post was originally published in 2015 and it foretold the attacks on the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass and the priesthood. Tell me, please – which Church leader among our many “excellencies” and “Eminences” is defending the faith in any substantial way, that is, by rallying faithful Catholics to return to the message of Our Lady of the Rosary at Fatima,? Only through obedience to God’s will, can sufficient reparation be made.

“And there was seen another sign in heaven: and behold a great red dragon, having seven heads, and ten horns: and on his head seven diadems: And his tail drew the third part of the stars of heaven, and cast them to the earth.”
(Apocalypse 12, v. 3-4).

IT’S ALL ABOUT THE MASS!

One point worth repeating is that the message at Fatima began with a warning from St. Michael the Archangel about abuses against the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass and the Holy Eucharist and then it presents Our Lady offering the remedy for this assault from satan. I want to be very clear on this point: God sends to us His most beloved creature, the most pure and ever Virgin Mary, whom He chose to provide the Body and Blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ, our Savior.

Again, the Sacred Body and Precious Blood, sacrificed for our redemption were provided through the Immaculate Virgin Mary. In that sense, we are united with her through our Holy Communions. She is the Mother of the Holy Catholic Church, and she is as well, the Mother of the Mass! This Immaculata is our only means to restore the essential Holy Sacrifice. If we continue to offend her by our indifference to her commands, there will be no further help given. I have updated this post from 2015 in the hope that it may help convince of the importance of our situation, which is dire. You will very soon lose even more than you already have lost. The world is on the brink of chaos and I have been unable to bring myself to speak of what will happen.
Continue reading “Falling Like Stars”

The Eucharistic Vision of Our Lady of Knock, 2023

A WARNING AGAINST SUPPRESSION OF THE HOLY SACRIFICE

This post from 2017 originally; restored as part of ongoing efforts to rebuild the site and maintain it as a an archive when my task is over.  An update is posted on our “About Us” page. May Our Lady of the Rosary keep you all close to her Immaculate Heart this New Year of Our Lord, 2023. Thank you for reading.

Today, we commemorate the eloquently silent apparition of Our Lady at Knock, Ireland, August 21, 1879. By her silence, Our Lady emphasised at once her displeasure that her message at La Salette was being attacked, and as many believe, she was pointing to the silence recounted in chapter 8 of the Apocalypse.  But there is still another reason for the silence – it is a warning against silencing the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass and outrages against the Holy Eucharist and it beckons us with mysterious silence towards the visions of the Apocalypse.

The Holy Ghost inspired St. John’s vision in such a way that through it, God revealed to us a glimpse of His own vision, not a linear accounting of events, and each subsequent generation could learn from its warnings and be comforted in its victories. In addition to sacred scripture, Our Heavenly Father guides us by the revelations He grants us down the centuries. Knock is one of the major apparitions, which are: Our Lady of Good Success in Ecuador, The Sacred Heart of Jesus at Paray le Monial, France, Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception at Rue du Bac, France, Our Lady of La Salette, France, Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception, Lourdes, France, Our Lady at Knock, Ireland, Our Lady of the Rosary at Fatima, Portugal,  and Our Lady of Akita, Japan.  Those apparitions provide a necessary complement to our understanding of the Apocalypse.

Continue reading “The Eucharistic Vision of Our Lady of Knock, 2023”

Chalice of Love, 2022

previously published in 2019

I found this delightful essay, which is posted anonymously on the Society’s website, and wanted to share it with you.  Of all the  facets of Mary, one of the most delightful, it seems to me, is that of her as the Chalice of Love. This consideration of her has never ceased to fill me with tenderest thoughts of God’s love for His most beloved, pure and  precious Creature and for us. God our Father gives us His Love in this Chalice of Love, Mary, our Mother!

† . † . †

THE CHALICE, SYMBOL OF MARY

December 14, 2019

What are the qualities of the chalice
and what is their meaning for our lives?

First, the precious metal in its dazzling beauty: a challenge to cleanse ourselves more and more from every stain of sin, and also from what is worldly and worthless. Then the insight into how precious our life is, our body and especially our soul, created in God’s image and likeness, predestined to share in the beauty of the Immaculata. This chalice, by itself, is quite empty, quite poor. Within it nothing of the world is found, not a speck of dust, nothing worldly, however beautiful it may be.

This attitude of complete self-emptying, of complete detachment from self, of total spiritual poverty, is an essential feature of the Immaculata: she has nothing for herself, she does not think about herself, she is completely poor and emptied of self; one might say that her ego does not exist. This is the only possible attitude of the creature toward its Creator, when the latter bends down in infinite mercy to our nothingness in order to fill it.

Then the chalice is quite open to what is above. The sides of the chalice are like the outspread hands of the Orante, full of longing and devotion. This is the virginal Heart of Mary, which lives in expectation of God and for God, as totally as a Bride for her Bridegroom. All her thoughts, words and deeds are directed toward Him, completely for Him. Mary gives us this longing for God and makes our hearts become pure of all disordered desires that pull us down.
Continue reading “Chalice of Love, 2022”

Chalice of Love, 2022

previously published in 2019.

I found this delightful essay, which is posted anonymously on the Society’s website, and wanted to share it with you.  Of all the  facets of Mary, one of the most delightful, it seems to me, is that of her as the Chalice of Love. This consideration of her has never ceased to fill me with tenderest thoughts of God’s love for His most beloved, pure and  precious Creature and for us. God our Father gives us His Love in this Chalice of Love, Mary, our Mother!

† . † . †

THE CHALICE, SYMBOL OF MARY

December 14, 2019

What are the qualities of the chalice
and what is their meaning for our lives?

First, the precious metal in its dazzling beauty: a challenge to cleanse ourselves more and more from every stain of sin, and also from what is worldly and worthless. Then the insight into how precious our life is, our body and especially our soul, created in God’s image and likeness, predestined to share in the beauty of the Immaculata. This chalice, by itself, is quite empty, quite poor. Within it nothing of the world is found, not a speck of dust, nothing worldly, however beautiful it may be.

This attitude of complete self-emptying, of complete detachment from self, of total spiritual poverty, is an essential feature of the Immaculata: she has nothing for herself, she does not think about herself, she is completely poor and emptied of self; one might say that her ego does not exist. This is the only possible attitude of the creature toward its Creator, when the latter bends down in infinite mercy to our nothingness in order to fill it.

Then the chalice is quite open to what is above. The sides of the chalice are like the outspread hands of the Orante, full of longing and devotion. This is the virginal Heart of Mary, which lives in expectation of God and for God, as totally as a Bride for her Bridegroom. All her thoughts, words and deeds are directed toward Him, completely for Him. Mary gives us this longing for God and makes our hearts become pure of all disordered desires that pull us down.

This longing is fulfilled through consecration and communion. The open heart receives the divine light and the warm, flowing blood of life. This is the purpose for which the chalice exists, and for this alone: that the transformation might take place in it, i.e. that Christ might renew His life, His suffering and death in it. As Elizabeth of the Trinity puts it so profoundly: “May I be for Him an additional humanity, in which He can renew His mystery in its entirety.” But this involves the union of one’s will with God’s will, as completely as Mary was united with Christ in utmost obedience.

The liturgy emphasizes that not only the contents of the chalice are offered, but the chalice itself (“We offer to Thee the chalice of salvation…”), so as to suggest discretely that the one Sacrifice of Christ is nevertheless the sacrifice of Mary as well, that the submission of the New Adam is inseparably united with the submission of the New Eve: that of the Redeemer with that of the Co-Redemptrix.

We all must place ourselves in this chalice like the little drop of water during the Offertory. As we are assimilated to the qualities of the chalice, we become a worthy vessel of God’s presence, filled and imbued with the Blood of Christ. A perpetual gaze upon the chalice is an immersion into her Immaculate Heart. Thus, we receive into ourselves Christ’s loving deed, in all its fullness.

Thus, Mary is the spiritual space, the holy atmosphere, the sanctuary, in which we are transformed, so as to understand and penetrate ever more deeply into the great divine drama and to receive interiorly all the fruits of this tree of life. “The Heart of Mary is the living altar upon which the sacrifice is offered. This pierced Heart is also the server at the altar, whose heartbeat is the liturgical responses. It is the censer, in which the faith, hope, love and adoration of the whole world ascends like incense before the Lamb who was slain. It is the choir of this formidable Mass, surpassing all the angels. Was not the silence of Mary’s wondrous sufferings like the singing of secret, ineffable songs to the enraptured ear of the bloody Victim?” (Fr. Faber) (From: FSSPX.news)

.

Indeed, she is the altar upon which His sacrifice is offered, and she is also the Chalice of His love. And just think on it! She is our Mother! Why do so many ignore this wonderful blessing? Here is such beauty, sweetness and hope! It is so good to think on this with the Rosary – The Angel Gabriel was the messenger; he only told Mary what God Himself was saying to this beautiful, perfectly pure young Virgin, “Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with thee: blessed art thou among women.” And when we say these words, we become a part of this loving scene – Yes! We are there in the very midst of the Most Holy Trinity and the object of this infinite, Divine Love, Mary Immaculate.

The Hail Mary is God’s love song to the Mother He chose for His beloved Son and also for us; and because God is three Persons in one, it is the love song of this Divine Son for His Mother; and the love song of the Holy Spirit for His chosen Spouse, beloved from all time.

With this exquisitely  simple prayer, He teaches us to love her, to love Him and to love our fellow sinners and pray for them. God made us in love and redeemed us in love. And in the most Holy Sacrifice of the Mass and the most Blessed Sacrament, He sustains us with His love.

We abide in His love with the prayers of our Rosaries. Let us never tire of these Hail Marys; they are our hearts beating with Her Immaculate Heart.

Please pray for our priests. Those who are loyal to the Immaculata suffer greatly with her under this reign of apostates. Please do not waste a single little cross. Offer everything up – We have much work to do!

Remember – Our Lady needs us to obey:  First Saturdays of Reparation, daily rosary, at least 5 mysteries, wear her brown scapular and live your Total Consecration to her Immaculate Heart, offering daily duties in reparation and for the conversion of poor sinners.

Open your hearts to the Lord and serve Him only: and He will free you from the hands of your enemies. With all your heart return to Him, and take away from your midst any strange gods” (I Kings 7:3)

 ✝︎  Immaculate Heart of Mary, Queen of our hearts, Mother of the Church, do thou offer to the Eternal Father the Precious Blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ, for the conversion of poor sinners, especially our Pontiff.
 ✝︎  Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, Thy kingdom come! Viva Cristo Rey!
 ✝︎  St. Joseph, protect us, protect our families, protect our priests.
 ✝︎ St. Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle.

~ by evensong for love of the Immaculate Heart of Mary and the Sacred Heart of Jesus Christ, King.
Vouchsafe that I may praise thee, O Sacred Virgin! Give me strength against thine enemies!

Pray the Rosary – save sinners!

With Mary at the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, 2022

A priest reader of ours from Africa recently commented favorably on this article, which we posted in September 2017. When I posted it, it was largely ignored, but I hope that perhaps with this repost, more will see its. Some time ago, several readers asked for an article or two about the Mass. Today, we offer a few excerpts from an  essay that appeared in 1935, written by a little known Jesuit, Father John Sexton Kennedy.

AT MASS WITH MARY

A glory of new stars, downward flung
And forged into seven swords, has stung
The heart of the Woman whom I pass
On my way to the altar for morning Mass.
There is no shrill crowd,
there are no hoarse cries,
But I meet One
bearing a cross in her eyes.

Those people who twenty centuries ago were present on Calvary because they hated Jesus Christ paid more attention to the sacrifice of the cross than do most of us who are Sunday after Sunday present at Mass because we love Jesus Christ. This is a fact at once startling and sobering. …

What is most difficult is to keep well focused the basic truth that the Sacrifice of the Mass is really the same sacrifice as that of Calvary. In the absence of glittering spears, strained and distorted faces, hideous cries, a grim cross we utterly forget that we attend the crucifixion of Christ.

Could we but sufficiently appreciate the fact, our problem of keeping attentive, devout at Mass would be solved. As a means to this end, a means not indeed perfect but if earnestly tried quite effective, we are suggesting the effort to hear Mass with Mary. The lessons which we can learn from Our Blessed Lady are quite beyond numbering; none of them is simpler or of greater value than that of worthy assistance at holy Mass. Herein we shall consider first the thorough excellence of Mary’s following of the first Mass, and then the value to us of her exceptional example. Continue reading “With Mary at the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, 2022”

The Eucharistic Heart of Jesus, 2022

 Previously posted on : september 2, 2020  by : evensong

The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass and the Holy Eucharist, Our Lord’s Sacrament of Love are under attack as never before and the most harmful attacks are those which come from within the Church, even from  the one who  presents himself to the world as the Vicar of Christ. A recent example was the Apostolic Letter Desiderio Desideravi issued this past June 29, 2022 on “the liturgical formation of the people of God” to quote from the Vatican’s website.
Continue reading “The Eucharistic Heart of Jesus, 2022”

The Eucharist and the Apocalypse

The judgments executed by the Eucharistic Lamb upon Satan shall involve the whole world not to destroy but to chasten it and wrest it from the hands of Satan liberating the human race from his sordid servitude. (Father Herman Bernard Kramer, The Book of Destiny)

Our good priests can (and often do!) prevent Eucharistic sacrilege and offer reparation for it. God bless our holy priests! To remind us of the pre-eminence of the Sacrifice of the Mass and the Blessed Sacrament in the unfolding of the Apocalypse, we offer the following.

In The Book of Destiny, Father Herman Bernard Kramer writes of satan that,

“… in trying to destroy Christ and His work, he brought the greatest defeat and humiliation of all upon himself and lost everything he had apparently gained in Paradise (with the temptation of Adam and Eve). With man redeemed and heaven re-opened, Satan’s kingdom in the world has been dismembered ever more and more, not so much by an almighty act of God or by an almighty word of the God-man, as by the words of mere man pronounced at the Consecration of the Mass. Man is here empowered to overthrow the kingdom of Satan and drive him out of the world. Christ is now triumphant over Satan in the humble and lifeless appearance of the eucharistic species.

This is the last phase of the final and hopeless defeat and utmost humiliation of the archenemy of God and man. 

Continue reading “The Eucharist and the Apocalypse”

If Today You Hear His Voice . . .

Repost
“If today you hear His voice, harden not your hearts.” (Psalm 94, v8), (Heb. 3,15)

Wherein we reiterate that the requests of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart of Mary still remain to be fulfilled. Indeed, they are more pressing now than ever.

The devotions to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, to Christ the King, and to the Immaculate Heart of Mary are inseparable, They are in no way disparate, nor are they contradictory. And these are inseparable as well from the Mass and most especially, the Holy Eucharist.  Furthermore, the requests, demands really, of the most Sacred Heart of Jesus, as relayed by St. Margaret Mary Alacoque in 1689, still stand today, more than three centuries after they were made known. Once God has uttered a request, it does not cease to be simply because centuries pass while Catholics turn an indifferent ear to them.

Continue reading “If Today You Hear His Voice . . .”

With Mary at the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, 2021

A priest reader of ours from Africa recently commented favorably on this article, which we posted in September 2017. When I posted it, it was largely ignored, but I hope that perhaps with this repost, more will see its. Some time ago, several readers asked for an article or two about the Mass. Today, we offer a few excerpts from an  essay that appeared in 1935, written by a little known Jesuit, Father John Sexton Kennedy.

AT MASS WITH MARY

A glory of new stars, downward flung
And forged into seven swords, has stung
The heart of the Woman whom I pass
On my way to the altar for morning Mass.
There is no shrill crowd,
there are no hoarse cries,
But I meet One
bearing a cross in her eyes.

Those people who twenty centuries ago were present on Calvary because they hated Jesus Christ paid more attention to the sacrifice of the cross than do most of us who are Sunday after Sunday present at Mass because we love Jesus Christ. This is a fact at once startling and sobering. …

What is most difficult is to keep well focused the basic truth that the Sacrifice of the Mass is really the same sacrifice as that of Calvary. In the absence of glittering spears, strained and distorted faces, hideous cries, a grim cross we utterly forget that we attend the crucifixion of Christ.

Could we but sufficiently appreciate the fact, our problem of keeping attentive, devout at Mass would be solved. As a means to this end, a means not indeed perfect but if earnestly tried quite effective, we are suggesting the effort to hear Mass with Mary. The lessons which we can learn from Our Blessed Lady are quite beyond numbering; none of them is simpler or of greater value than that of worthy assistance at holy Mass. Herein we shall consider first the thorough excellence of Mary’s following of the first Mass, and then the value to us of her exceptional example.

UNION OF INTENTIONS

No one of us countless Christians who have come after her has ever heard Mass as well as Mary did on Calvary. No one of us has ever heard Mass under precisely the same circumstances as she. True the sacrifice of our altars is the same as that of the great, gaunt cross; but the rending of the body she had borne, delivered, nursed at her breast, the spilling of the Precious Blood which had had its fountain source in the quiet places of her heart were not screened from Mary’s eyes, as they are from ours, by the appearances of bread and wine. They were present to her in brutal, unescapable reality. However this fact contributed least to the perfection of Our Blessed Lady’s participation in the holy sacrifice. Contributing infinitely more were acts of her mind and of her will.

She realized that the exquisite fruit of her womb, utterly crushed by slow suffering, was God, only Son of the unsired Father. She realized that He was dying to undo the sins of the ages. She recognized here the culmination of the conflict between divine love and sin.

Sin had been man’s answer to God’s love;
Love, abandoned to sacrifice, was now God’s answer to man’s sin.

Penetrating the meaning, the worth of this sacrifice, Mary bowed her will to that of God the Father, united her breaking heart with that of the dying Christ, and heroically prayed that the unimaginable agony of the cross might not be in vain.

These acts of Our Blessed Lady we can profitably and without difficulty imitate in our assistance at holy Mass. We know that what takes place at the hands of the priests at our altars is what took place at the hands of the soldiers on the desolate hill outside Jerusalem twenty centuries ago.

We know that He who suffers so is God of very God. We know that He goes down silent to an appalling death to save us from sin. And so as we kneel in the presence of this great oblation of God to God, we shall be with Mary. Wherever, whenever the cross is set up, she stands beneath it. She will help us to attend well and profit by its surpassing mystery.

Confiteor

Mass begins with a solemn confession of guilt. In the Confiteor, said twice before the priest goes up to the spotless altar (once by him, once by the boy in the name of all of us present), the reason for the Mass is set forth; the tone, the chief quality of our participation is suggested.

The great sin of our day is the casual assumption that there is no sin.

But Mary, without sin though she was, appreciates its stinging reality. Sin it was which had torn the singing stars down from the Bethlehem night sky to beat them into seven swords and here to plunge the last of them into her wrung soul.

Sin it was, our sin, which alone separated sinless Son and Immaculate Mother, flinging Him on a cross to die, leaving her in tears at its foot. And as we kneel at the renewal of His staggering sacrifice, we know in our hearts that there is such a thing as sin. We know because we have been guilty of it. We have turned away from God Our Father.

The light has gone out of our lives,
and we cannot find our way back to Him.

To light that way, a savage spear-thrust had to tear open the fierce furnace of love burning in the breast of a dying God. And only so was reconciliation made possible. That reconciliation is in the Mass about to be renewed in all its sufficiency, in all its fullness. While the priest mounts the altar steps, as Jesus did the arid hill, Mary reminds us of the treasures that are ours for the asking. Prompted by her, we acknowledge the sins which we so much regret; we heap them upon the back of the priest; we beg for forgiveness, for healing, for strength against future temptation.

Introit and Kyrie

The priest first reads the Introit. This varies from day to day. Generally it consists of a few words from the Old Testament; words rich in memories, often on the lips of God-fearing men during the long centuries before the coming of Christ; words which watered wilted hopes and fed those who looked with hungry eyes for the dawning of the day which would see the dominion of sin shattered and men reconciled with their Father; words familiar to Mary, lovingly repeated by her as she awaited the advent of the blessed Messias.

Moving to the centre of the altar, the priest gives utterance to an ancient prayer, simple but grave with significance: “Lord, have mercy on us!” It is the cry of the sin-oppressed, the cry of those who are lost in the night of human weakness and terrified by the realization, the voice of one saying:

Cry!
And I said: What shall I cry?
All flesh is grass, and the glory thereof as the flower of the field.
The grass is withered, and the flower fallen.
But the mercy of God endureth forever!

With Mary in her humble home we say, “Lord, have mercy on us!” And instant He is in mercy, instant and bountiful. Be comforted, be comforted, my people, saith your God. Speak ye to the heart of Jerusalem and call to her; For her evil is come to an end; her iniquity is forgiven. To save men from their fallen selves, God, so loving the world, promises salvation.

Gloria

And in the pregnant quiet of Nazareth a Virgin’s womb comes thrillingly alive with incarnate love. Mary is miraculously with child. She moves unknown, unnoticed down through the land of promise, through the very midst of those who are groaning for deliverance. And between the night’s end and the day’s beginning, under a roof of rock, in a lonely hillside cave Mary brings forth the Son of God, flesh-bound, and lays Him in a bin where oxen feed. High in the shining night wondering angels sing, and it is their song which the priest next takes up: “Glory to God in the highest and, at long last, peace to men. We adore thee; we bless thee.”

God has given us His only Son. Can we adequately phrase our gratitude? “We give thee thanks, O God the Father, and thee, Lamb of God, come to bear away the sins of the world.”

Epistle And Gospel

How to live in and by the eternal Son made man, as Mary did in the cloistered peace of the Holy Family, we learn from the Epistle. And as the Gospel is read, we stand with Mary on the fringe of the dusty, eager-faced throng that the words of the eternal Word rouse like lightning flashes or the shouts of a lusty wind.

Credo

After the Gospel comes the Creed, that sweeping, majestic act of faith in Christ and the truths He proclaimed by the lakeside. The awed Elizabeth had said to Mary: “Blessed art thou who hast believed.” And we, as soon as we have heard the magnificent message of Him whom Mary bore, are at once reminded that however naturally attractive the message may seem,  proper acceptance of it, worthy and fruitful living by it require divine faith. Our Blessed Lord Himself says:

“For God so loved the world that He sent His only-begotten Son, That whosoever believeth in Him may not perish, but may have everlasting life. He that believeth in me is not judged. He that believeth not is already judged: Because he hath not believed in the name of the only-begotten Son of God.”

Christ demands faith of us that we may carry Him into the sharp tests and crises of our every day, involving as they do temptation and sin. Christ demands faith of His Mother and His disciples that at the dramatic, humanly bewildering finish of His life they may stand firm and not fall miserably away.

Offertory

The finish of His life, the sacrifice that was to set the solemn seal on His mission of saving us from sin, is at once foreshadowed in the priest’s next action, the offering of the bread and the wine. Our thoughts seek out Gethsemani, the moon-swept garden where the Son of Mary, come to earth in a new and more humiliating sense, lies motionless under the crushing weight of human guilt there in the blood-wet grass. He is giving His all. God is yielding up His infinitude to the limits set by three nails and a thorny crown.

He is making to God the Father the surrender of His body to be broken, His blood to be poured out. This for us. Where Mary is during this endless night, we do not know. Wherever she is, her heart, ready now for the final thrust of that sword foreseen by Simeon as sunk deep into it, is upraised to the hidden face of God the Father; and she prays, as we must pray in all things trifling or tremendous:

“Thy will be done. That sin may be atoned for; that it may cease to stand as a barrier between us and Thee; that every sacrifice linked with that of Jesus Christ Thy Son may be availing unto life everlasting; Thy Will be done!”

Consecration

The accomplishment of that will is manifest as the Mass moves forward to the Consecration. With Mary we are silent, wrapped up in wordless prayer, as the body of Christ is breathed into the bread, His precious blood into the wine.*

They are lifted up-the body and the blood of Jesus Christ, elements of sacrifice. The one is drained of the other, separated in the condition of redeeming death.

We adore.

Pater Noster

Now that the Sacrifice has been outwardly realized, there pours from Mary’s lips, from our lips, the prayer taught us by Him slain for us, the perfect prayer to the offended Father placated by His obedient Son: “Our Father . . . Thy kingdom come; Thy will be done . . . forgive us our trespasses. . . .”

Agnus Dei

Under Mary’s brimming eyes, the spear is run through the Heart which has ceased to quiver with the agonizing urgency of its love, and the body of Christ is broken, the price of our peace. The priest says the Agnus Dei:

“Lamb of God, who at such great cost dost bear away the sins of the world, have mercy on us; grant us peace.”

Communion

As the disturbing dusk sets in, the body of Christ is taken down from the cross and laid in Mary’s arms. She looks into the wasted face with its mask of blood and sweat, spittle and dust and tears. She looks at the arms and legs, bloodless: and stiff and cold. The Victim is utterly destroyed. And Simeon’s sword is now thrust ruthlessly into her tender heart.

She has nowhere to lay Him, this victim of sin, her first-born. From her aching arms He is hurried with scant ceremony into a stranger’s tomb. Mary has recovered Him but briefly, and that only in death, only in her arms.

She who loves Him loses Him. And we, unworthy, receive Him in communion into our hearts, to live within us, to intensify the friendship of God so dearly bought by Him, to remain with us forever.

Thanksgiving

Communion finished, the priest reads prayers for our perseverance in the dispositions which attendance at Mass with Mary has fostered. Then with a blessing he bids us go – as the cross, bare but eloquent against the soft, spring twilight, bids Mary go – back to the everyday ways of life, with the remembrance of what we have shared driving us to Christian living. And the Mass will be with us through the monotonous days – as it was with Mary during the long years after the death of her Son – a source of strength, a principle of life.

It will be with us in the grey mornings when, perhaps ill, we go off to tiring occupation which may at any time be taken from us; it will be with us in the moment of temptation, when we are seized and shaken and our whole being seems irresistibly drawn to ruinous evil; it will be with us in the time of misunderstanding and piercing disappointment, when our every act is misjudged and there is no one too lowly to cast at us a stone of rebuke or of ridicule; it will be with us in the hour of bottomless sorrow, when all that warms and colors life falls to dust and all that was wonderfully sweet becomes as gall to the taste.

Then will the Mass be with us, to soothe and solace, to save us from sin, to confirm us in the grace purchased by the quenching of the Light of the World.

Last Gospel

Finally there is the Last Gospel, a perfect resume of the purpose and meaning of the Mass just offered, set at the end to balance the Confiteor at its beginning. The Word was made flesh. The light shineth in darkness. . . . He was in the world, and the world was made by Him, and the world knew Him not. . . . He came unto His own, and His own received Him not. . . .

Today He comes to us, His own, to us won back from perdition by His blood. May it never be said of us: “He came unto His own, and His own received Him not.”

Rather, as we go forth, grateful and thoughtful, let us remember that we are born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, Nor of the will of man, But of God . . . In Him is life.

[* Ed. Note: Father knows his theology, This is a reflection on Our Lord’s words, “This is My body”, etc. and not a denial of the dogma that the true body, blood, soul and divinity is present in both the consecrated host and wine.]

.  .

The above essay, “At Mass with Mary” may be found in several places online, and is also available in “The Catholic Collection”  by Catholic Way Publishing, in Kindle and in print.

Remember – Our Lady needs us to obey:  First Saturdays of Reparation, daily rosary, at least 5 mysteries, wear her brown scapular and live your Total Consecration to her Immaculate Heart, offering daily duties in reparation and for the conversion of poor sinners.

Open your hearts to the Lord and serve Him only: and He will free you from the hands of your enemies. With all your heart return to Him, and take away from your midst any strange gods” (I Kings 7:3)

  Immaculate Heart of Mary, Queen of our hearts, Mother of the Church, do thou offer to the Eternal Father the Precious Blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ, for the conversion of poor sinners, especially our Pontiff.

  Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, Thy kingdom come! Viva Cristo Rey!

  Immaculate Heart of Mary, pray for us now and at the hour of our death.

  St. Joseph, protect us, protect our families, protect our priests.

  St. Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle.

Pray for the Consecration of Russia to the Immaculate Heart of Mary!
~ by evensong for love of the Immaculate Heart of Mary and the Sacred Heart of Jesus Christ, King.
Vouchsafe that I may praise thee, O Sacred Virgin! Give me strength against thine enemies!

The Eucharistic Heart of Jesus

posted on : september 2, 2020  by : evensong

Many have fallen away from the faith in these dark and scandalous times. Many, many more are deprived of the Mass. For these we must pray, as the need is desperate.  Please consider this brief essay by Father Garrigou-Lagrange:

THE EUCHARISTIC HEART OF JESUS AND THE DAILY AND CEASELESS GIFT OF HIMSELF

Lastly, Jesus again and again, day after day, gives us the Eucharist as sacrament and sacrifice. He could have willed that the Mass be celebrated only once or twice a year in certain sanctuaries to which men would travel from afar. Yet the Holy Sacrifice is celebrated perpetually every minute of the day, over the whole surface of the earth, wherever the sun rises.

It is the unceasing manifestation of Christ’s merciful love, answering the spiritual needs of each era and of each soul. “Christ . . . loved the Church, and delivered Himself up for it: that He might sanctify it, cleansing it by the laver of water in the word of life: that He might present it to Himself a glorious Church, not having spot or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish.” This being so, He grants to His Church, especially through the Mass and Holy Communion, the graces she needs at the various moments of her history.

In the catacombs the Mass was a source of ever new graces, and so it was during the great barbarian invasions and during the Middle Ages. And so it is today, giving us the strength to resist the great perils that threaten us, above all the atheistic phalanxes which Communism is pouring out over the world to destroy all religion. Despite the sorrows of the present, the interior life of the Church in our time in its highest aspects is indeed beautiful when viewed from above as God and the angels see it. All these graces come to us from the Eucharistic heart of Jesus who has given us the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass and Holy Communion, and who is ever giving us His blood sacramentally shed on the altar.

A Single Drop

Father Charles de Foucauld had a deep understanding of this truth, as he prayed and died for the conversion of Islam and of Moslem lands. This truth is also understood by those who pray with all their souls and have Masses said for lands ravaged by materialism and Communism. A single drop of our Savior’s precious blood can regenerate thousands of souls that have gone astray and have dragged others along with them. Indeed, it is a truth that we too often forget. This cult of the precious blood of the Savior and deep suffering at the sight of it flowing in vain over rebellious souls can do much to turn the Eucharistic heart of Jesus toward His poor sinners—yes, His poor sinners.

They are His, and apostles like St. Paul, St. Francis, St. Dominic, St. Catherine of Siena, and so many others loved our Savior enough to strive by His side for the salvation of these souls. When we think of Christ’s love for us, we should suffer agonies at the sight of souls turning away from His heart, from the source of His precious blood. He shed His blood for them all, far removed as they might be from Him, even for the Communist who blasphemes and wishes to extirpate His name from the earth.

May our Lord, who does not will the death of the sinner, grant through the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass a new effusion of His heart’s blood, as it were, and of the blood from His sacred wounds.

There have been saints who at the moment of the elevation during Mass have seen the precious blood overflow the chalice, spill over the arms of the priest as if it would flow into the sanctuary, and be caught up in gold cups by angels who then carried it over the whole world, particularly to lands where the Gospel was little known. This was a symbol of the graces flowing from the heart of Christ upon the souls of unfortunate pagans. It is for them too, that He died on the cross. The practical consequence of this truth is that the Eucharistic heart of Jesus is by no means the object of an affected devotion. It is the supreme model of the perfect gift of self, a gift which in our own lives should become more generous with each passing day.

Each new consecration should mark for the celebrant progress in his faith, trust, and love of God and of souls. For the faithful, each Communion should be substantially more fervent than the preceding one, since each Communion should increase the charity in our hearts and make them resemble our Lord’s more closely and thus dispose us to receive Him more fervently on the morrow. As a stone gathers momentum in its fall toward the earth which attracts it, so should souls tend toward God with increasing speed as they come closer to Him and are more powerfully attracted to Him.

The Eucharistic Heart of Jesus yearns to attract our souls to itself. This Heart is often humiliated, abandoned, forgotten, scorned, outraged, and yet it is the heart that loves our hearts, the silent heart that would talk to souls to teach them the value of the hidden life and the value of the ever more generous gift of self. The Word made flesh came among His own, and “His own received Him not.”

A Single Soul

Blessed are those who receive all that His merciful love deigns to give them and who do not by their resistance reject the graces which should radiate through them upon other less favored souls. Blessed are they who after they have received follow the example of our Lord and give themselves ever more generously by Him, with Him, and in Him. If there is in the midst of even the most benighted pagans a single soul in the state of grace, a truly fervent and renounced soul such as that of Father Charles de Foucauld, a soul which receives everything that the Eucharistic heart of Christ wishes to give to it, sooner or later the radiation of that soul will inevitably transmit to straying souls something of what it has itself received.

It is impossible that the precious blood should not in some measure overflow the chalice at Mass and some day—at least at the moment of death purify those straying souls who do not resist divine attentions or the actual prevenient graces that inspire their conversion. Let us think now and then of the death of the Moslem, or of the Buddhist, or the Communist in our own town who may have been baptized as a child. Each of them has an immortal soul for which the heart of our Lord gave all its blood. (Reverend Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange O.P., “The Reverend Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange O.P. Collection” [16 Books] . Aeterna Press. Kindle Edition.) [I highly recommend this book! I make nothing from this recommendation; it is excellent spiritual teaching by one of the greatest Thomists of all time.]

Dear readers, make good use of every opportunity to offer Mass as Our Lady asked us to pray for sinners! Now, more than ever, graces abound, but only through the Sacred and Immaculate Hearts! It is the will of Our Lord Jesus Christ that we should love one another; this love requires that we offer our daily trials and crosses for the conversion of poor sinners. By uniting our sufferings with His sacrifice, re-presented all over the world at every hour, we have been so blessed to be given this opportunity to save countless souls. Let us resolve never to waste a single opportunity to do this!

“Most Holy Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, I offer You the most precious Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus Christ, present in all the tabernacles of the world, in reparation for the sacrileges, outrages and indifference by which He Himself is offended. And through the infinite merits of His most Sacred Heart, and the Immaculate Heart of Mary, I beg of You the conversion of poor sinners.”

Remember – Our Lady needs us to obey:  First Saturdays of Reparation, daily rosary, at least 5 mysteries, wear her brown scapular and live your Total Consecration to her Immaculate Heart, offering daily duties in reparation and for the conversion of poor sinners.

  Immaculate Heart of Mary, Queen of our hearts, Mother of the Church, do thou offer to the Eternal Father the Precious Blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ, for the conversion of poor sinners, especially our Pontiff.
  Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, Thy kingdom come! Viva Cristo Rey!
  St. Joseph, protect us, protect our families, protect our priests.
  St. Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle.

~ by evensong for love of the Immaculate Heart of Mary and the Sacred Heart of Jesus Christ, King.
Vouchsafe that I may praise thee, O Sacred Virgin! Give me strength against thine enemies!