Monthly Archives: October 2022

All Souls Day . Wednesday

A first essential setting for learning hope is prayer. When no one listens to me any more, God still listens to me. When I can no longer talk to anyone or call upon anyone, I can always talk to God. When there is no longer anyone to help me deal with a need or expectation that goes beyond the human capacity for hope, he can help me. When I have been plunged into complete solitude … if I pray I am never totally alone.

This early Jewish idea of an intermediate state ( Purgatory ) includes the view that these souls are not simply in a sort of temporary custody but, as the parable of the rich man illustrates … are experiencing a provisional form of bliss. There is also the idea that this state can involve purification and healing which mature the soul for communion with God.

Pope Benedict XVI

the Joyful Mysteries

Healing through the ROSARY . WEB

In the year 2000 our son was a teenager going through a very rough time. I could see the spirit of the world trying to pull him away from our family and take him into a dark world. Within our home there was suddenly a lot of turmoil. I was a full time mother so I could see how troubled our son was becoming but I did not know how to handle it.

During my daily holy hour I began to pray the rosary specifically for our son to be delivered away from all the bad influences and temptations that were pulling him down. I prayed the Glorious Mysteries because I was interceding for my son’s resurrection. While meditating on the Glorious Mysteries, I claimed for my son the grace of each mystery …

Pope Saint John Paul II

Young pilgrims, Christ needs you to enlighten the world and to show it the “path to life” ( Psalm 16 ) The challenge is to make the Church’s “yes” to Life concrete and effective. The struggle will be long, and it needs each one of you. Place your intelligence, your talents, your enthusiasm, your compassion and your fortitude at the service of life !

At this stage of history, the liberating message of the Gospel of Life has been put into your hands. And the mission of proclaiming it to the ends of the earth is now passing to your generation.

The Church needs your energies, your enthusiasm, your youthful ideals, in order to make the Gospel of Life penetrate the fabric of society, transforming people’s hearts and the structures of society in order to create a civilization of true justice and love.

You young people .. know that the Truth is more powerful than darkness; that Love is stronger than death. I would like to invite each of you to listen careful to God’s voice in your heart. Listen to his voice. Do not be afraid.

Pope St John Paul II

Blessed Karl and Zita

Uniquely among the responsible leaders on all sides of the First World War, Karl had frontline experience. After assuming power he strove to alleviate the horrors of war he saw, and took concrete steps to bring about peace. As emperor he understood peace to be his absolute, kingly duty. In his ascension manifesto, therefore, he named peace as his central goal. Only Karl took up the peace proposal of Pope Benedict XV, incorporating its principles in a set of proposed peace accords (which historians have evaluated as thoroughly realistic and having had great potential).

The life of Emperor Karl is an encouraging example of faith. His beatification gives encouragement to all who feel overtaxed by their duty – and it invites us to use his inherent qualities (yet also limited) for the pursuit of peace, freedom and loving responsibility.

Cause for Canonization . WEB

Saint Paul of the Cross

Holy Communion is the most efficacious means of uniting the soul to God. The best preparation for the divine banquet is to keep ourselves well purified.

Let everything in creation draw you to God. Refresh your mind with some innocent recreation and needful rest, if it were only to saunter through the garden or the fields, listening to the sermon preached by the flowers, the trees, the meadows, the sun, the sky, and the whole universe. You will find that they exhort you to love and praise God; that they excite you to extol the greatness of the Sovereign Architect Who has given them their being.

Believe me, afflictions, fears, desolations, dryness, abandonment, temptations, and other persecutions make an excellent broom, which sweeps from your soul all the dust of hidden imperfections.

St Paul of the Cross

Jesus holds the secret

It is Jesus that you seek when you dream of happiness; He is waiting for you when nothing else you find satisfies you; He is the beauty to which you are so attracted; it is He who provoked you with that thirst for fullness that will not let you settle for compromise; it is He who urges you to shed the masks of a false life; it is He who reads in your heart your most genuine choices, the choices that others try to stifle.

It is Jesus who stirs in you the desire to do something great with your lives, the will to follow an ideal, the refusal to allow yourselves to be ground down by mediocrity, the courage to commit yourselves humbly and patiently to improving yourselves and society, making the world more human and more fraternal.

People are made for happiness. Rightly, then, you thirst for happiness. Christ has the answer to this desire of yours. But he asks you to trust him. True joy is a victory .. Christ holds the secret of this victory.

Pope Saint John Paul II