St. Peter's Mass

A Catholic Prayer of Thanksgiving

Archbishop Romero on Education

J.M.J.


ARCHBISHOP ROMERO ON EDUCATION


In general, education in our Latin American countries is directed toward the desire to have more, whereas today’s youth demand rather

to be more, to realize themselves through service and love.

Let us not develop an education that creates in the mind of the student a hope of becoming rich and having the power to dominate. That does not correspond to the times in which we live. Let us form in the heart of the child and the young person the lofty ideal of loving, of preparing oneself to serve and to give oneself to others. Anything else would be education for selfishness, and we want to escape the selfishness that is precisely the cause of the great malaise of our societies.

The Church must propose an education that makes people agents of their own development, protagonists of history, not a passive, compliant mass, but human beings able to display their intelligence, their creativity, their desire for the common service of the nation. Education must recognize that the development of the individual and of peoples is the “advancement of each and all from less-human to more-human conditions.” (Pope Paul VI, The Development of Peoples, n. 20)


-- Archbishop Oscar Romero

January 22, 1978

Thanks Brother John Samaha for sharing.

The Month of June - Dedicated to the Sacred Heart of Jesus

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Efficacious Novena to the Sacred Heart of Jesus


I. O my Jesus, you have said: "Truly I say to you, ask and you will receive, seek and you will find, knock and it will be opened to you." Behold I knock, I seek and ask for the grace of...... (here name your request)
Our Father....Hail Mary....Glory Be to the Father....Sacred Heart of Jesus, I place all my trust in you.


II. O my Jesus, you have said: "Truly I say to you, if you ask anything of the Father in my name, he will give it to you." Behold, in your name, I ask the Father for the grace of.......(here name your request) Our Father...Hail Mary....Glory Be To the Father....Sacred Heart of Jesus, I place all my trust in you.

III. O my Jesus, you have said: "Truly I say to you, heaven and earth will pass away but my words will not pass away." Encouraged by your infallible words I now ask for the grace of.....(here name your request) Our Father....Hail Mary....Glory Be to the Father...Sacred Heart of Jesus, I place all my trust in you.

O Sacred Heart of Jesus, for whom it is impossible not to have compassion on the afflicted, have pity on us miserable sinners and grant us the grace which we ask of you, through the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary, your tender Mother and ours.
Say the Hail, Holy Queen and add: St. Joseph, foster father of Jesus, pray for us.
-- St. Margaret Mary Alacoque

Prayer Source EWTN

Angelus is essence of prayer

Painting The Angelus by Jean-François Millet

Thanks to Ed for sharing this wonderful article on one of my favorite Marian devotions.

The Angelus, the prayer once prayed daily at noon and supper throughout the Church, is the whole of Christian spiritual life in a nutshell, says Father John Randall.

"I love the Angelus because the Angelus takes us into the essence of prayer," Randall said May 1 at a conference sponsored by Catholic Renewal Services.

The plan of the Angelus is simple, he said. It consists of three short prayers, each followed by a Hail Mary to meditate on the meaning of that prayer.

First, we pray that the angel came to Mary and told her of God's plan. Second, Mary surrenders to that plan. Third, we learn that the plan was successful - the Word has become flesh.

The Angelus is a prayer of the incarnation and the incarnation continues to the end of the world, Randall said. "It goes on in your life."

Every day, if you hear God's plan and you agree to it, "God's plan is going to take place in your life that day."
The Angelus

The angel of the Lord declared unto Mary.
And she conceived of the Holy Spirit.
Hail Mary . . .

Behold the handmaid of the Lord.
Be it done unto me according to thy word.
Hail Mary . . .

The Word was made flesh.
And dwelt among us.
Hail Mary . . .

Pray for us, O holy Mother of God.
That we may be made worthy of the promises of Christ.

Let us pray.

Pour forth, we beseech thee, O Lord, thy grace into hearts; that we, to whom the Incarnation was made known by the message of an angel, may by his Passion and cross be brought to the glory of his resurrection, through the same Christ Our Lord. Amen.

Feast of the Most Holy Trinity

For some reason this did not post yesterday when it was supposed to.

Feast of the Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary

Prayer:

Mary, you showed true charity in visiting Elizabeth and remaining with her for three months before the birth of John the Baptist; obtian for me the grace to love my neighbor.

Prayer Source: New Saint Joseph People's Prayer Book Catholic Book Publishing.

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Magníficat ánima mea Dóminum,

et exsultávit spíritus meus

in Deo salvatóre meo,

quia respéxit humilitátem

ancíllæ suæ.

Picture Source

Ecce enim ex hoc beátam

me dicent omnes generatiónes,

quia fecit mihi magna,

qui potens est,

et sanctum nomen eius,

et misericórdia eius in progénies

et progénies timéntibus eum.

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Fecit poténtiam in bráchio suo,

dispérsit supérbos mente cordis sui;

depósuit poténtes de sede

et exaltávit húmiles.

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Esuriéntes implévit bonis

et dívites dimísit inánes.

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Suscépit Ísrael púerum suum,

recordátus misericórdiæ,

sicut locútus est ad patres nostros,

Ábraham et sémini eius in sæcula.

Picture Source

Glória Patri et Fílio

et Spirítui Sancto.

Sicut erat in princípio,

et nunc et semper,

et in sæcula sæculórum.

Amen.

Prayer Source Women for Faith and Family

Memorial Day History

Picture Source

In Flanders Fields - John McCrae, 1915.

In Flanders fields the poppies blow

Between the crosses, row on row

That mark our place; and in the sky

The larks, still bravely singing, fly

Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago

We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,

Loved and were loved, and now we lie

In Flanders fields.

Click here to learn all about Memorial Day

Thanks Sue!

Memorial Day 2010

A big mahalo to Patriotic Resistence for the following tribute to those who gave their lives so that we can be free.

It is the veteran, not the preacher, who has given you freedom of religion.
It is the veteran, not the reporter, who has given you freedom of the press.
It is the veteran, not the poet, who has given you freedom of speech.
It is the veteran, not the protester, who has given you freedom to assemble.
It is the veteran, not the lawyer, who has given you the right to a fair trial.
It is the veteran, not the politician, who has given you the right to vote.
It is the veteran, who salutes the Flag, who serves under the Flag, whose coffin is draped by the Flag.

Freedom Is Not Free
- Kelly Strong I watched the flag pass by one day.

It fluttered in the breeze.
A young Marine saluted it,
and then he stood at ease.
I looked at him in uniform
So young, so tall, so proud,
He'd stand out in any crowd.
I thought how many men like him
Had fallen through the years.
How many died on foreign soil?
How many mothers' tears?
How many pilots' planes shot down?
How many died at sea?
How many foxholes were soldiers' graves?
No, freedom isn't free.

I heard the sound of TAPS one night,
When everything was still
I listened to the bugler play
And felt a sudden chill.
I wondered just how many times
That TAPS had meant "Amen,"
When a flag had draped a coffin
Of a brother or a friend.
I thought of all the children,
Of the mothers and the wives,
Of fathers, sons and husbands
With interrupted lives.
I thought about a graveyard
At the bottom of the sea
Of unmarked graves in Arlington.
No, freedom isn't free

Centered in the Eucharist

Photo of the Chapel at St. Stephen's Church, Paterson, NJ

The following is from Father Euteneur's recent e-newsletter found here.

As the Church departs the glorious season of Easter and returns to Ordinary Time, we take a moment to pause and remind ourselves how we may grow in holiness during the "normal" course of our spiritual lives. The liturgical seasons of the Church immerse us in the greatest mysteries of our faith, but as necessary as they are for our souls, true spiritual growth doesn't happen in just a season. It happens in an organic process, over long periods of time and with diligent effort. For advancement along that arduous pathway of holiness, then, we need to be sustained and encouraged: and that is the role of the Most Holy Sacrament of the Eucharist.

Let us never forget what the Church teaches about the Eucharist. Our Catechism tells us that the Sacrament of the Eucharist is the "source and summit" of our faith (n. 1324). That is another way of saying that it is the very reason why the Church and each individual Christian believer has the gift of faith at all. Accordingly, even those separated Christians who do not believe in the Eucharist have faith in Jesus Christ because of the Eucharist! As the "summit" of our faith, it is the culmination of all goodness, the treasure of God's Life and the very thing that holds the Church and all of reality in existence. What a marvelous source of grace, healing, virtue and union with God and man is this Most Blessed Sacrament!

In this Sacrament we find the entire Christ: Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity. His Body and Blood, given to Him by the Virgin Mary, we are now able to consume sacramentally for the transformation of our souls. He communicates and even squanders His Soul and Divinity upon us like a holy Prodigal Son who cannot cease spending Himself for those He loves. How is it that every Christian is not flocking to Mass every single day to be nurtured by the Lord's very Life?

We must never forget either that the Eucharistic is a sacrifice, not just a meal. To reduce the Eucharist to a fraternal sharing only is to miss the essence of Jesus' redeeming act of love, which was the perfect act of self-giving and dying to self on Calvary that He asks each of us to imitate. As such, this Sacrament is the one font of all consolation for all the myriad sacrifices of our lives, those willed directly and those suffered. Every pain and sorrow in heaven and on earth can be offered to the Sacrificial Victim on the altar and will be met with the deepest of compassion and understanding. We must just stay in His divine Presence long enough to hear His tender words that address our particular sorrows: "Be not afraid, my dearest friend, I have trod this path before you. You are not alone!" What strength that consolation gives us for the journey and difficulties of life!

As the absolute epicenter of our spiritual lives, rivers of grace flow inexhaustibly from the Eucharist. One font of grace is the obligation to "keep holy the Sabbath" which requires us to have weekly contact with God in the Eucharist. Many parishes nowadays even have Eucharistic Adoration chapels that allow us to pray before the Blessed Sacrament directly and with greater frequency. Thanks be to God! We may also see the Eucharist as a repository for all our intercessory intentions on behalf of others by presenting them to Christ any time we have contact with the Eucharist. How wonderful that the Eucharistic Lord allows every one of us to see Him face to face, something that was only allowed to Moses in the Old Testament!

In Ordinary Time, let us renew our love for the greatest gift ever poured out upon mankind, the gift of God's very essence that has no equal in this world. Given faith and time, this Most Blessed Sacrament transforms us, strengthens our virtue, detaches us from sin, purifies our imperfections, inflames our charity and perfects our souls. He Himself calls and invites us to center our lives once again on the Eucharist. Who could possibly turn down such a gracious invitation from the Eucharistic King of Heaven?

Sincerely,


Rev. Thomas J. Euteneuer,
President, Human Life International