I will attempt day by day to break my will into pieces. I want to do God's Holy Will, not my own!Saint Gabriel of the Sorrowful Mother (1838-1862)
Picture courtesy of THIS SITE
Picture courtesy of Aida Yared and used with permission.6:48. I am the bread of life.
Ego sum panis vitae
6:49. Your fathers did eat manna in the desert: and are dead.
Patres vestri manducaverunt in deserto manna et mortui sunt
6:50. This is the bread which cometh down from heaven: that if any man eat of it, he may not die.
Hic est panis de caelo descendens ut si quis ex ipso manducaverit non moriatur
6:51. I am the living bread which came down from heaven.
Ego sum panis vivus qui de caelo descendi
6:52. If any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever: and the bread that I will give is my flesh, for the life of the world.
Si quis manducaverit ex hoc pane vivet in aeternum et panis quem ego dabo caro mea est pro mundi vita
6:53. The Jews therefore strove among themselves, saying: How can this man give us his flesh to eat?
Litigabant ergo Iudaei ad invicem dicentes quomodo potest hic nobis carnem suam dare ad manducandum
6:54. Then Jesus said to them: Amen, amen, I say unto you: except you eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, you shall not have life in you.
Dixit ergo eis Iesus amen amen dico vobis nisi manducaveritis carnem Filii hominis et biberitis eius sanguinem non habetis vitam in vobis
6:55. He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood hath everlasting life: and I will raise him up in the last day.
Qui manducat meam carnem et bibit meum sanguinem habet vitam aeternam et ego resuscitabo eum in novissimo die
6:56. For my flesh is meat indeed: and my blood is drink indeed.
Caro enim mea vere est cibus et sanguis meus vere est potus
6:57. He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood abideth in me: and I in him.
Qui manducat meam carnem et bibit meum sanguinem in me manet et ego in illo
6:58. As the living Father hath sent me and I live by the Father: so he that eateth me, the same also shall live by me.
Sicut misit me vivens Pater et ego vivo propter Patrem et qui manducat me et ipse vivet propter me
6:59. This is the bread that came down from heaven. Not as your fathers did eat manna and are dead. He that eateth this bread shall live for ever.
Hic est panis qui de caelo descendit non sicut manducaverunt patres vestri manna et mortui sunt qui manducat hunc panem vivet in aeternum
A man and his dog were walking along a road. The man was enjoying the scenery, when it suddenly occurred to him that he was dead. He remembered dying, and that the dog walking beside him had been dead for years.
He wondered where the road was leading them. After a while, they came to a high, white stone wall along one side of the road It looked like fine marble. At the top of a long hill, it was broken by a tall arch that glowed in the sunlight.
When he was standing before it he saw a magnificent gate in the arch that looked like mother-of-pearl, and the street that led to the gate looked like pure gold. He and the dog walked toward the gate, and as he got closer, he saw a man at a desk to one side.
When he was close enough, he called out, "Excuse me, where are we?"
"This is Heaven, sir," the man answered. "Wow! Would you happen to have some water?" the man asked.
"Of course, sir. Come right in, and I'll have some ice water brought right up."
The man gestured, and the gate began to open. "Can my friend," gesturing toward his dog, "come in, too?" the traveler asked.
"I'm sorry, sir, but we don't accept pets." The man thought a moment and then turned back toward the road and continued the way he had been going with his dog. After another long walk, and at the top of another long hill, he came to a dirt road leading through a farm gate that looked as if it had never been closed. There was no fence. As he approached the gate, he saw a man inside, leaning against a tree and reading a book.
"Excuse me!" he called to the man.
"Do you have any water?"
"Yeah, sure, there's a pump over there, come on in."
"How about my friend here?" the traveler gestured to the dog.
"There should be a bowl by the pump."
They went through the gate, and sure enough, there was an old-fashioned hand pump with a bowl beside it. The traveler filled the water bowl and took a long drink himself, then he gave some to the dog. When they were full, he and the dog walked back toward the man who was standing by the tree.
"What do you call this place?" the traveler asked.
"This is Heaven," he answered. "Well, that's confusing," the traveler said. "The man down the road said that was Heaven, too." "Oh, you mean the place with the gold street and pearly gates?
Nope. That's hell."
"Doesn't it make you mad for them to use your name like that?"
"No, we're just happy that they screen out the folks who would leave their best friends behind."
Robert Parsons was an English composer of liturgical music in the late Renaissance (Tudor era, he died in 1570). Here are some of his compositions to download or to print for a choir presented by Columbia University's Vox Ensamble. Live concert, so occasional coughs or paper rustling is heard - but boy - is this gorgeous!!I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.
If I were you, I'd go for the finest piece in the collection and listen to the absolutely heavenly Ave Maria (listed under 'Sound Recordings')
Under the title, you can also select "English Works" by the same author,
and go to that page with more music for you do download and enjoy. Love
the Te Deum and the Magnificat!
In the Sacred & Immaculate Hearts - shana
"Crosses teach us, give us further merit, crush us, but at the same time they exalt us spiritually and teach us not to trust our own skills and strength, but only the Immaculata. This is why God in His mercy sends these crosses."~ St. Maximillian Kolbe
Melanie was kind enough to post the last update in the comments section. Today she emailed me another update. Please continue to pray for these nuns!Today I followed up my contact with another phone call to Sr. Carol Marie OP, their sub-prioress. And it seems appropriate to report to you what I learned.
There are five women left. Sr. Carol keeps things going as the sub-prioress. Her prioress, Sr. Mary Jordan, remains in a nursing home. Sr. Carol assures me that Sr. Jordan receives an inperson visit at least once a week from Sr. Carol, and she phones her prioress every day. In this way, Sr. Jordan continues to direct and decide for the community of nuns, although she is outside the monastery itself.
I got things a little mixed up I think about the sisters who needed medical
attention. Here is the latest version. Sr. Mary Gemma OP can actually get up and walk now. For a period of time, Sr. Carol had to carry meals to Sr. Gemma's cell because she could not get up and walk to the refectory. Professional caregivers have been visiting the monastery to nurse Sr. Gemma and do some kind of physiotheraphy with her. The attention has paid off. Sr. Gemma has a walker, and with the walker she can go from her cell to the refectory and back, joining Sr. Carol and Sr. Maria Aquinas OP for meals.
Soon the caregivers will be discharged from their monastery visits, and Sr. Carol tells me that Sr. Gemma -- frail physically, but very spirited and lively on the psychological/mental level -- gives thanks to God Almighty that those therapists aren't coming in her room anymore because now she can actually have some peace and quiet for a change.
That leaves the fifth nun, Sr. Mary Charlotte OP. More serious than I
realized. She has a cancer diagnosis and will shortly begin chemotherapy.
That course of treatment will go a month, God willing. Sr. Charlotte
has been admitted to a Union City nursing home in order to undergo
treatment for her cancer. Sr. Carol remarked to me, that until her illness and hospitalization, Sr. Charlotte had been extremely active and the
community depended very much on her efforts; without her, it is particularly hard to keep everything going.
The closing of the Union City monastery is not formal and official at
the moment. There is still all the formal communicating to do. Sr.
Jordan, the prioress, is leaning toward leaving as it is so hard to keep the big old monastery going with no new vocations. However, it is some time, Sr. Carol says, since the last visitation by the Eastern US Dominican Provincial prior who is the vicar who reports back to the Promoter and the Master of the Order in Europe. So Father is expected at the monastery again in the near future, and he will be the go-between for the nuns and the European curia.
It is all proceeding very slowly.
Well that is all my news. You know, I have never met the nuns. Reading
about them in MONIALIBUS (online at www.op.org/ to find it click onto
English-language and then Nuns) touched me so deeply that I wanted to
help.
But when I ask the sub-prioress about coming to the monastery to meet
them in person, she insists, Wait a month until maybe we have got Sr.
Charlotte back from chemotherapy....it's too hard for us without her. One of these days I will meet them somehow. Thanks for listening, Melanie T.,
Quincy, Massachusetts
Picture courtesy of Aida Yared and used with permission.Heroic Catholic soldier and defender of your Faith, you dared to criticize a tyrannical Emperor and were subjected to horrible torture. You could have occupied a high military position but you preferred to die for your Lord. Obtain for us the great grace of heroic Christian courage that should mark soldiers of Christ. Amen.Above prayer from THIS SITE
Picture courtesy of NASAAn Army sergeant complained in a rare opinion article that the U.S. flag flew at half-staff last week at the largest U.S. base in Afghanistan for those killed at Virginia Tech but the same honor is not given to fallen U.S. troops here and in Iraq.ARTICLE
1st Degree: the soul carries out all rules and statutes pertaining to external observance
2nd Degree: the soul accepts interior inspirations and carries them out faithfully
3rd Degree: the soul, abandoned to the will of God, allows Him to dispose of it freely and God does with it as He pleases, and it is a docile tool in His hands.
Picture courtesy of Aida Yared and used with permission.
Picture courtesy of Joyce Images"The devotion to the Eucharist, is the most noble, because it has God as its object; it is the most profitable for salvation, because It gives us the Author of Grace; it is the sweetest, because the Lord is Sweetness Itself."
