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the Assumption . Holy Day on Friday
Category Archives: Pope Benedict XVI
St Clare of Assisi
Love Him totally, who gave Himself totally for you
Place your mind before the mirror of eternity! Place your soul in the brilliance of glory! And transform your entire being into the image of the Godhead Itself through contemplation.
Our labor here is brief, but the reward is eternal. Do not be disturbed by the clamor of the world, which passes like a shadow. Do not let false delights of a deceptive world deceive you.
Imitation is not a literal mimicking of Christ, rather it means becoming the image of the beloved, an image disclosed through transformation. This means we are to become vessels of Godās compassionate love for others.
Saint Clare
St John Vianney
The Cure of Ars
If people would do for God what they do for the world,
what a great number of Christians would go to Heaven.
Private prayer is like straw scattered here and there:
If you set it on fire it makes a lot of little flames.
But gather these straws into a bundle and light them,
and you get a mighty fire, rising like a column into the sky;
public prayer is like that.
When we receive Holy Communion, we experience something extraordinary: a joy, a fragrance, a well-being that thrills the whole body and causes it to exalt.
Every Consecrated Host is made to burn Itself up with love in a human heart.
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St John Vianney on Prayer
Consider, children, a Christianās treasure is not on earth, it is in heaven.
Well then, our thoughts should turn to where our treasure is. Man has a noble task: that of prayer and love. To pray and to love, that is the happiness of man on earth.
Prayer is nothing else than union with God. When the heart is pure and united with God it is consoled and filled with sweetness; it is dazzled by a marvellous light.
Prayer is a foretaste of heaven, an overflowing of heaven. It never leaves us without sweetness; it is like honey, it descends into the soul and sweetens everything. In a prayer well made, troubles vanish like snow under the rays of the sun.
Healing Prayer . Fr Boniface
Litany Prayer . VID
Jesus, we all have places in our hearts and in our histories that have been hurting for a long time. Some wounds might be self-inflicted, but the wounds caused by others tend to cut most deeply. At the same time, there is also a sacred place in each of us where we can be alone with You and the whole Trinity. The most powerful healing can begin by bringing those painful places into relationship with You, Who love us infinitely. And right now, You are herewith us in all Your power and glory in the Eucharist. Nothing is lacking in Your Presence with us. It can be hard to open tender places in our hearts. You respect us and You honor our experience through Your offer of healing. We are here together and here with the communion of Saints, and we lean on each other for support as we seek to open our hearts to you. We want to be gentle with ourselves and allow the Holy Spirit to descend with all the gentleness of the dewfall onto our thirsty hearts. We pray for courage now as we hold all the hurting places in our hearts before Your loving gaze.
[Note: The following meditation can help to prepare your heart to receive the Lordās healing
power, or you can go straight into the Litany]
Close your eyes (if you are comfortable doing so)
Take a deep breath.
Breathe in the Holy Spiritā¦Come, Holy Spirit
Breathe out negativity
Breathe in the Holy Spiritā¦Come, Holy Spirit
Breathe out all that is not of Him
Notice your heartbeat
Each heartbeat is a gift
God wants you
He made you.
He knit you together with love, with His own hands in your motherās womb
You are a masterpiece of His loving creativity
He has chosen you
He sees you
He gazes on you with love
He delights in you
Now I want to invite you on a journey of healing and reconciliation.
Jesus wants to lift you up to see your whole life through His eyes of healing and hope.
Try to zoom out, letting yourself be lifted up away from the details
He wants to lift you up so you can see your whole life
from your conception in your motherās womb to this very moment.
He is lovingly drawing near to you with the Father.
There is only love.
Together He looks on your whole life with you.
He looks on you and your whole life with love.
Through your whole life there is a golden thread of goodness.
You are made in His image.
Even where there are deep sorrows, the Holy Spirit weaves a golden thread of goodness.
As you look together on your life
You may see some darker moments, clouded moments, harder moments.
Some of those moments might be too hard to enter into right now and that is ok.
There are some sins and failures.
There are times of weakness.
There are times you were hurt.
He wants to bring healing to your whole life: healing for your hurts, healing for your failures.
He has only compassion for you, loving care.
He honors you and wants to protect you.
Try to open your heart to Jesusās healing love.
If any of these heart movements are difficult, thatās ok. You can still let Jesus draw close.
Please repeat after me:
Jesus, I believe in you.
Jesus, I believe in your Real Presence in the Eucharist.
Jesus, I believe you are here with me.
Jesus, I believe you are in my heart.
Jesus, I believe in your love for me.
Jesus, I believe your love is greater than every sin.
Jesus, I believe your love is greater than all evil.
Jesus, I believe your love can free me from my sin.
Letās practice the response several times: Jesus, heal my heart with Your love
For the times Iāve felt abandonedā¦
For the times Iāve been betrayedā¦
For the times Iāve been rejectedā¦
For the times Iāve been forgottenā¦
For the times Iāve been disappointedā¦
For the times Iāve been let down by the Churchā¦
For the times Iāve been lonelyā¦
For the times Iāve been desperateā¦
For the times Iāve been lostā¦
For the times Iāve been dejectedā¦
For the times Iāve been usedā¦
For the times Iāve been neglectedā¦
For the times Iāve been starved for loveā¦
For the times Iāve been deprived of affirmationā¦
For the times Iāve lost my wayā¦
For the times Iāve gone astrayā¦
For the times Iāve made the wrong choiceā¦
the response is:
Jesus, come close to me.
Whenever I feel unseenā¦
Whenever I feel ignoredā¦
Whenever I feel unimportantā¦
Whenever I feel uselessā¦
Whenever I feel aloneā¦
Whenever I feel abandonedā¦
Whenever I feel like it would be better if I didnāt existā¦
Whenever I feel misunderstoodā¦
Whenever I feel usedā¦
Whenever I feel forgottenā¦
Whenever I feel angryā¦
Whenever I feel anxiousā¦
Whenever I feel depressedā¦
Whenever I feel enviousā¦
Whenever I feel lustfulā¦
Whenever I feel afraidā¦
the response is:
Please forgive me, Jesus
For the times Iāve used othersā¦
For the times Iāve failed to seeā¦
For the times Iāve hardened my heart to a person in needā¦
For the times Iāve failed to do the right thingā¦
For the times Iāve given in to peer pressureā¦
For the times Iāve lied when someone needed me to tell the truthā¦
For the times Iāve looked away when someone needed my helpā¦
For the times Iāve closed my ears to the cries of the helplessā¦
For the times Iāve chosen comfort over courageā¦
For the times Iāve turned my back on someone who was hurtingā¦
For the times Iāve ignored my feelingsā¦
For the times Iāve silenced the cry of my heartā¦
For the times I havenāt been Your mercy for othersā¦
For the times Iāve invalidated my own feelingsā¦
For the times Iāve believed the lies of othersā¦
For the times Iāve repeated the lies of othersā¦
For the times Iāve suppressed righteous angerā¦
For the times Iāve given up in despairā¦
For the times Iāve failed to share You with someone who needed Youā¦
For the times Iāve wrongly hid my faith from othersā¦
For the times Iāve misrepresented You in my words and actionsā¦
For the times Iāve caused scandal by my words or actionsā¦
For the times Iāve brought hatred instead of loveā¦
For the times Iāve brought division instead of peaceā¦
For the times Iāve brought gossip instead of charityā¦
For the times Iāve torn down when I could have built upā¦
the response is:
Jesus, help me to believe
When I doubt the power of Your loveā¦
When I doubt Your love for meā¦
When I struggle to trustā¦
When I doubt that I am worthy of loveā¦
When I doubt that I have a place in anyoneās heartā¦
When I wonder if I am enoughā¦
When I doubt I have what it takesā¦
When I feel helplessā¦
When I feel uselessā¦
When I doubt that I have anything to offerā¦
When I doubt that I can make a changeā¦
When I doubt that my efforts matterā¦
When I feel hopelessā¦
When I want to give up on my neighborā¦
When I want to give up on my enemyā¦
When I want to give up on the Churchā¦
When I want to give up on myselfā¦
When I want to give up on You, Jesusā¦
Jesus I need you.
Jesus I trust in you.
Jesus I love you.
Jesus, meek and humble of heart,
Make my heart like unto yours.
Let us pray.
Lord Jesus Christ, You are the Good Shepherd who rescues the lost. You are the Divine
Physician who heals the sick. You are the Savior Who washes away our sin in your Blood. You are the Beloved Son who shares your sonship with us along with the love of the Father. We know that even if we do not feel it, you will continue this work of healing in our hearts. We trust that you love us and desire our wholeness and flourishing. Fill each of our hearts as we worship you and receive You in all your love in this Holy Eucharist. We make this prayer in your Name, Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen.
Sts Lazarus, Martha and Mary
From a Sermon by Saint Augustine
Our Lordās words teach us that though we labour among the many distractions of this world, we should have but one goal. For we are but travellers on a journey without as yet a fixed abode; we are on our way, not yet in our native land; we are in a state of longing, not yet of enjoyment. But let us continue on our way, and continue without sloth or respite, so that we may ultimately arrive at our destination.
Martha and Mary were sisters, related not only by blood but also by religious aspirations. They stayed close to our Lord and both served him harmoniously when he was among them. Martha welcomed him as travellers are welcomed. But in her case, the maidservant received her Lord, the invalid her Saviour, the creature her Creator, to serve him bodily food while she was to be fed by the Spirit. For the Lord willed to put on the form of a slave, and under this form to be fed by his own servants, out of condescension and not out of need.
But you, Martha, if I may say so, are blessed for your good service, and for your labours you seek the reward of peace. Now you are much occupied in nourishing the body, admittedly a holy one. But when you come to the heavenly homeland will you find a traveller to welcome, someone hungry to feed, or thirsty to whom you may give drink, someone ill whom you could visit, or quarrelling whom you could reconcile, or dead whom you could bury?
No, there will be none of these tasks there. What you will find there is what Mary chose. There we shall not feed others, we ourselves shall be fed. Thus what Mary chose in this life will be realised there in all its fullness; she was gathering fragments from that rich banquet, the Word of God. Do you wish to know what we will have there? The Lord himself tells us when he says of his servants, Amen, I say to you, he will make them recline and passing he will serve them.
the Answer to Fear
Whats wrong with the world ?
the Christian Ideal
There are two ways to get enough.
One is to continue to accumulate more and more.
The other is to desire less and less.
The true soldier fights not because
he hates what is in front of him
but because he loves what is behind him.
Literature is a luxury.
Fiction is a necessity.
There is the great lesson of āBeauty and the Beast
that a thing must be loved before it is lovable.
G K Chesterton
Contemplating the Face of Christ
Praying with Jesus, Mary and Joseph . VID
When you pray Miracles happen
Miracles still do happen
Prayer is the best weapon we have; it is the key to Godās heart. You must speak to Jesus not only with your lips, but with your heart. In fact on certain occasions you should only speak to Him with your heart.
ā Padre Pio
This Beloved of ours is merciful and good. Besides, he so deeply longs for our love that he keeps calling us to come closer ā¦ For now, his voice reaches us through words spoken by good people, through listening to spiritual talks, and reading sacred literature. God calls to us in countless little ways all the time. Through illnesses and suffering and through sorrow he calls to us. Through a truth glimpsed fleetingly in a state of prayer he calls to us. No matter how halfhearted such insights may be, God rejoices whenever we learn what he is trying to teach us.
ā St Teresa of Avila
Prayer is not asking. Prayer is putting oneself in the hands of God, at His disposition, and listening to His voice in the depth of our hearts ā¦ I do not pray for success, I ask for faithfulness.
ā Mother Teresa
Spiritual Communion
Spiritual Communion Prayer
I wish O Lord to receive You
with the purity, humility and devotion
with which Your most Holy Mother
received You, in the spirit and fervor
of all the saints.
Amen
Gaze upon him, consider him, contemplate him
as you desire to imitate him.
ā St Clare of Assisi
We must visit Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament
a hundred thousand times a day.
ā St Francis de Sales
When you look at the crucifix, you understand how much Jesus
loved you then. When you look at the Sacred Host, you understand
how much Jesus loves you now.
ā St Teresa of Calcutta
In the Eucharist, āunlike any other sacrament, the mystery (of communion) is so perfect that it brings us to the heights of every good thing: Here is the ultimate goal of every human desire, because here we attain God and God joins himself to us in the most perfect union.ā Precisely for this reason it is good to cultivate in our hearts a constant desire for the sacrament of the Eucharist. This was the origin of the practice of āspiritual communion,ā which has happily been established in the Church for centuries and recommended by saints who were masters of the spiritual life. St. Teresa of Jesus wrote: āWhen you do not receive communion and you do not attend Mass, you can make a spiritual communion, which is a most beneficial practice; by it the love of God will be greatly impressed on youā
ā Pope John Paul II in his encyclical, Ecclesia de Eucharistia