Dominican Sisters of Mary: Mother of the Eucharist

Shared by my friend Melissa.

the ABC's of Fostering, Supporting, Nurturing Vocations Within the Home

Soutenous of A Catholic Notebook posted this on her blog recently. As we are entering Vocations Week, I thought it would be good to share. The original source is The Diocese of Grand Rapids, From the Office of Priestly Vocations: The Few, The Proud; The Called

1. Answer your children’s questions about priesthood or religious life; never discouraging them or ridiculing them if they bring it up.
2. Ask your child to identify a talent which he or she has; imagine together what work or ministry God might want someone to do with that type of talent. Also talk about what good things can be done with the talent right now. For instance, singing talent could be used to sing a baby brother or sister to sleep. Talent at soccer could be used to help someone on the team who needs extra practice.
3. Bring your family to the next ordination mass or prayer vigil for religious.
4. Challenge teens and young adults to consider a Church-related vocation. Tell them about the gifts in ministry you see in them. Encourage them to participate in at least one special vocation event (ordination, vocation retreat, discernment group).
5. Cultivate an attitude of service by responding as a family to the needs of others. Seek out those in need and find ways to care for them.
6. Discuss your own vocation to family life, explaining that God calls some people to priesthood or religious life, some to marriage, and some to life as single laypeople. You can talk about vocations firsthand!
7. Encourage your children to be involved in the liturgical life of the parish as servers, lectors, musicians, etc. (and see to it that they get there on time).
8. Explore the feelings you might experience should one of your children choose to give his or her life to Church ministry and discuss with your spouse your feelings and reactions if one of your children should decide to become a priest or nun.
9. Find opportunities to affirm the gifts and talents of your children, and help them relate their gifts to various career and life choices (including priesthood and religious life).
10. Guide your junior high child to pray that he or she might discover and use the gifts God has given.
11. Have a priest come and bless your home
12. Have your younger children make a cross to hang in each bedroom in your home.
13. Include the diocesan vocation prayer in your personal and family prayer especially on Fridays.
14. Invite a priest, brother or sister to dinner or to an outing with your family.
15. Join together in prayer as a family; include a short vocations prayer when you pray before meals (especially on Friday).
16. Keep an eye open for TV shows and movies that present Gospel-centered role models. Watch them with your children and engage in a discussion.
17. Let your children see their Baptism pictures. Have the children make and send a card or note to the priest who baptized them promising him they will pray for him.
18. Let your children notice an attitude of openness to God’s will in you.
19. Make time for teenagers in your life; your children and their friends, nieces and nephews, babysitters, etc.
20. Name the gifts of each family member on their birthday. Express gratitude for these gifts.
21. On the date of your child’s baptism, talk about the life of the saint for whom the child is named (or the saint’s day it is). There is plenty of information about the background of saints on the Internet. The saints are people from all walks of life who tried to make a positive difference in the world—a goal as real today as it was for the saints.
22. Pray for the seminarians of the diocese by name (you can get their names, bios, and birthdays on this website); you may want to “spiritually adopt” one of them.
23. Quiz your children and discuss with them stories of calls in Scripture (e.g. Mary’s response to God in Luke 1:26-39, Jesus’ calling the Apostles in Mt 4:18-22, etc.).
24. Remember in prayer by name those who minister to your family and include in your family prayers petitions for those called to priesthood and consecrated life.
25. Set aside a “family time” each week for kids to talk about what is happening in their lives. Let them share about their day.
26. Share the story of your own vocational choice with your children. Celebrate the occasion of your wedding anniversary as you share the story of your vocation to married life.
27. Support and participate in any school or parish vocation activities.
28. Talk about your family’s ethnic or cultural heritage at supper, while driving in the car, or at some other time when family members are all together. Pass along memories of cultural aspects of holiday and other celebrations that you remember.
29. Talk positively and enthusiastically about the priests, sisters, brothers, deacons in your parish and share with your children the stories of the priests or sisters who have inspired you and how (e.g. priest at your wedding, or baptized your children, priests or religious from school, etc.).
30. Tell your children why you chose your particular profession. Who helped you form your decision?
31. Use books and videos to familiarize your children with saints who are priests or vowed religious. Use these lives of the saints as a springboard for discussion on these lifestyles.
32. Utilize opportunities to share your vocation as parents; what you value, how you came to that decision, and the importance of faith in your life.
33. Visit Churches and Shrines while on vacation and offer prayers together as a family.
34. Witness to your own vocation by telling stories about how you fell in love. Let the children see the love and care that parents have for each other.
35. XYZ – the end of the alphabet, but certainly not the end of ways or ideas to foster vocations at home!
36. Please check out the above website for more information and prayers for parents.

Gregorian Masses

Shared by Sue of Half the Kingdom

GREGORIAN MASSES-WHAT THEY ARE AND WHY WE SHOULD HAVE THEM OFFERED!

THE MASS HEALS!
By Susan Tassone

We hear stories of people who have been healed in body and we are in awe! We seldom consider how much Jesus does to heal souls suffering on earth and more so the souls suffering in Purgatory. A place where none of us have seen to which many of us could go. We need to start acting on what Our Lord and the Saints are telling us about Purgatory...

“Remember your deceased. Give them joy with the celebration of the Holy Mass.” They become our nearest, sincerest, and dearest friends here on earth and in heaven.

The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass is the highest act of reparation, the highest form of prayer. It is the summit of our Faith. St. John Chrysostom says, “Christ is the victim that gives solace to the dead.”

So what are we doing for our dead? Who do you miss the most? Who do you wish you could have done more for? Who hurt you? Who are your enemies? Do you have family members that are into cults, not practicing their faith, do not have their children baptized? Have a Mass offered for them!

The Council of Trent states, “The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, the Perpetual Sacrifice, is the greatest of all suffrages for the holy souls.”

And remember to have Masses offered for yourselves as well! St. Anselm tells us that those which we hear or have offered during life are more profitable than those said for us after death.

Gregorian Masses

Free St. Louis de Monfort Consecration Package

Friends of Our Lady Apostolate is offering this package so that we pledge to consecrate ourselves to Jesus, through the Blessed Mother. If you have not already consecrated yourself through St. Louis de Monfort's Consecration, this is a good time to do so.

Top Ten Reasons

Why We Should Consecrate Our Lives

To Jesus Through Mary

1. To emulate the sanctity of our previous Holy Father, Pope John Paul II, who selected the de Montfort Consecration (True Devotion) for his own Marian Spirituality

2. To provide the easiest, safest, fastest, most secure, and surest path to Jesus and to our own salvation

3. To obtain Our Lady's help in bringing us from our own unworthiness to the level of conversion, holiness, and perfection in our lives needed to enable us to become saintly

4. To turn our lives over completely and without reservation in service to Jesus through Mary to reflect our love and our trust in them now and for all eternity

5. To obtain special graces and protection under Our Lady's sheltering mantle

6. To help bring others to Jesus through Mary for their conversion, holiness, and perfection through this total consecration devotion

7. To hasten the day of the Triumph of Our Lady's Immaculate Heart and the day when Mary and Jesus will reign in all hearts

8. To fulfill Our Lady's request for individual consecration of our lives to her Immaculate Heart, as given to us through Sister Lucia during the Fatima apparitions

9. To become an effective counter-force to the legion of evil so prevalent in the world by offering up our prayers, sacrifices, and sufferings to Jesus through Mary

10. To renew our Baptismal promises and to evangelize the world to Jesus through Mary

The above link will permanently appear on the side bar.

Do You Have A Connection With Your Patron Saint Story to Share?

If you have story to share on how you and your patron saint are right for each other, please feel free to contact us either by leaving a comment or email. Those of you how have posted about this connection on your own blogs can share the blog post link if you'd like.

Patron Saint of the Year Ministry Blog

Our Lady - Saturday

Artist - William-Adophe Bouguereau (1825-1905)

7 Reasons to be a Priest

It’s Vocations Awareness Week Jan 13-19, and there is a lot of news on the vocations front. But the best news is old news: The seven sacraments are the original, and best, seven reasons to be a priest. But here are seven that incorporate recent news headlines about the priesthood...

Well, actually, you can check them out at the National Catholic Register's website

Love is...

- swift,

- pure,

- dutiful,

- pleasant,

- agreeable,

- strong,

- patient,

- faithful,

- prudent,

- long-suffering;

- manly,

- never seeking its own advantage

- wary,

- humble,

- upright;

- it is not soft,

- it is not unstable,

- it is not intent on empty trifles;

- sober,

- chaste,

- steadfast,

- keeping due watch on all the senses,

- submissive,

- obedient to those in authority,

- mean and contemptible in its own regard;

- To God it is always devout and thankful,

- ever trusting and hoping in Him even when it cannot taste His sweetness.

From Chapter 5 of the Imitation of Christ by Thomas A Kempis.

Feast of the Epiphany

Prayer That Christ May be Known to All

O Lord,
give us a new Epiphany
when you will be manifested to the world:
to those who do not know you,
to those who do not want you,
to those who vilify your name,
to throe who oppress your Mystical Body,
to those who deny you,
and to all those who unconsciously long for you.

Bring the day closer
when all people will know and love you
together with the Father
and the Holy Spirit--
and the Kingdom of God will have arrived.


Prayer to the Infant King

O Jesus,
the Magi offered you revealing gifts:
gold because you are our King;
frankincense, because you are our God;
and myrrh, because you are our Redeemer.
Like the Magi,
I offer you my gifts:
the gold of my earnest love as your faithful subject;
the frankincense of frequent prayer as your creature;
and the myrrh of a generous self-sacrifice as a sinner.

From Saint Joseph People's Prayer Book, Catholic Book Publishing.

Inward Consolation

On the Way Christ Speaks inwardly to the Soul.

Blessed is the soul that hears the Lord speaking within her and receives from his lips words that bring her comfort.

Blessed are the ears that catch the soft whisper of God's voice and pay no heed to the muttering voices of this world

Blessed indeed the ears that listen not to the voices that ring out around them, but to him who inwardly teaches the truth.

Blessed are the eyes that are shut to things outside, their gaze fixed on inward things.

Blessed are those who make their way through to the heart of the inward life, who strive daily more and more to prepare themselves for the reception of heavenly secrets.

Blessed are those who long to give all their time to God and shake themselves free of all the trammels of this world.

...Shut fast the doors in the face of all that comes through the senses, that so you may hear what the Lord your God is peaking withing you.

What our Beloved Lord says:

"I am your well-being, your peace your life.

Keep close beside me, and you will find peace.

Let go of all things that pass away and seek those that last for ever.

What are all the things of time but things that lead you away from me?

What help is there for you in anything created if he who made you forsakes you?

Then give up your claim to all else and make yourself a faithful and pleasing servant of your Creator; so you will be enabled to bring real happiness within your grasp."

From Book III, Chapter 1, Imitation of Christ, Thomas A Kempis.