We, the Church militant, must proclaim the love of Christ to the world. While on earth Jesus prepared His Church by giving authority to His disciples and by setting Saint Peter as the Church's head. Most importantly, He gave The Church "The Great Commission": to baptize all nations in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost.
Christ's Faithful Witness: The LGBT Agenda and the Triumph of Godlessness
Here's an excellent piece clearly setting forth what is really happening in our world. It is well worth the read.
Christ's Faithful Witness: The LGBT Agenda and the Triumph of Godlessness: Christopher Ziegler
THE MOST PERSONAL RELATIONSHIP WITH JESUS ONE CAN HAVE -- RECEIVE HIM ON YOUR TONGUE AT HOLY MASS!!
http://www.traditionalcatholicpriest.com/
In the fullness of time God sent his messenger, the
archangel Gabrielle, to a virgin in Israel with a stupendous announcement. She was to become the Mother of God!
Jesus was born, grew into manhood, spent three years in his ministry, and, in the end, suffered and died for us -- to save us from an eternity in hell ... if we choose to accept him fully.
Jesus did not leave us alone. Not only did the Holy Ghost come to guide His Church but Jesus, having risen from the dead, left us with his Body and Blood whenever his apostles and their successors consecrate bread and wine.
The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.
What an amazing thing that Jesus left for His Bride the Church. He left His very Self for us.
We are often reminded by our more Evangelical friends the need for a personal relationship with Jesus. We need to meet Our Lord in prayer. We need to ask our heavenly family to intercede for us. We need to change our whole lives to be Christ centred.
See John Chapter 6.
The truth in the original teaching about Holy Communion has been well summed up at My Flesh is Real Meat, My Blood is Real Drink
" There are so many important things said on the subject in this passage that verses 50-60 are listed here: This is the bread which comes down from heaven, that a man may eat of it and not die. I am the living bread which came down from heaven; if any one eats of this bread, he will live for ever; and the bread which I shall give for the life of the world is my flesh." The Jews then disputed among themselves, saying, "How can this man give us his flesh to eat?" So Jesus said to them, "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, you have no life in you; he who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is food indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him. As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so he who eats me will live because of me. This is the bread which came down from heaven, not such as the fathers ate and died; he who eats this bread will live for ever." This he said in the synagogue, as he taught at Capernaum. Many of his disciples, when they heard it, said, "This is a hard saying; who can listen to it?" Those who believe that Holy Communion is a mere symbol, hold a question in their minds similar to that of the Jews who said, “How can he give us his flesh to eat?” How he did this may be a mystery but Jesus made it clear that this is exactly did. If there were any doubt as to what he was saying it is removed when he says, “ My flesh is food indeed, and my blood is drink indeed.” There is nothing more that he could have said if he had wanted to indicate an actual presence rather than a symbolic one. However if he had intended to leave behind only a symbolic presence, he could have stated it much more clearly. He could have said: this represents my Body or my Blood. However, that’s not what was said. The Jews knew that Christ literally meant what he had said, and so in disbelief they abandoned him in verse 66. It insults the intellect to believe that the Jews would have left merely over a symbol. "[Emphasis mine.]
At each and every Catholic Mass (and at every Orthodox Divine Service) what had been bread and wine are now the Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity of Our Lord Jesus Christ.
When the priest places the Host on your tongue you are actually receiving the God of the Universe. The Second Person of the Holy Trinity, the very Word of God.
What can be more intimate than that?
Christ humbles himself so much because he has so much love for us!
There we are, God’s army being fed with His very flesh. Each soldier is being refreshed. Plus we are in communion. We are being both unified and strengthened.
That leaves us with a great responsibility.
We HAVE to be prepared. Do we expect God, who IS good, to come into us when we are dead to him?
Don’t be afraid to not
receive at every Mass.
There are times in our lives when we are going through rough
times with those we love. We may be (at
the time of Mass) still harbouring feelings of anger or perhaps even
hatred. Sometimes we may be concerned
that we are in a state of mortal sin.
We must still go and assist at the Holy Sacrifice of the
Mass but we must not present ourselves to receive Our Lord unworthily. We can still receive "Spiritual Communion": When the priest receives the
precious Body and Blood of Jesus we too can receive spiritually.
[ I do wish this was preached from the pulpit. ]
Dear Lord, may I receive you in this Communion With open arms, And a loving, contrite heart, So that I may be filled with Your grace, For my good and Your glory! Amen.
http://copiosa.org/mass/transubstantiation.htm
HOLY SATURDAY & EASTER VIGIL
http://cardinalsblog.adw.org/
Divine Office, Saturday April 4th, 2015 (http://divineoffice.org):
“What is happening? Today there is a great silence over the earth, a great silence, and stillness, a great silence because the King sleeps; the earth was in terror and was still, because God slept in the flesh and raised up those who were sleeping from the ages. God has died in the flesh, and the underworld has trembled.”[1]
Holy Saturday is a day of silence, rest, and prayer. Today God is concealed, which creates a divine pause, stilling our hearts. Today, as the Church waits for the return of the Servant, there are no liturgical celebrations until the Easter Vigil Mass. As the people of God, we are asked to enter into Christ’s rest, a form of self-emptying. As Pope Francis said, “Holy Week is not so much a time of sorrow, but rather a time to enter into Christ’s way of thinking and acting. It is a time of grace given us by the Lord so that we can move beyond a dull or mechanical way of living our faith, and instead open the doors of our hearts.”[2][3]
Written by Sarah Ciotti
Reviewed by Fr. Hugh Feiss, OSB, STD
[1] Unknown, The Lord’s Descent into Hell, ed Pontifical University Saint Thomas Aquinas, Vatican.va.
[2] Francis I, March 27, 2013.
[3] Adrian Nocent, OSB, The Liturgical Year: Lent & Holy Week (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1977), 94-98.
Tonight is my favourite celebration of The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass ~ THE EASTER VIGIL MASS.
When I was younger I always felt that it was too early to celebrate the Resurrection. What an experience though.
In my opinion it's best if the celebration does not begin until late at night so that Mass itself does not begin until after midnight -- IE Sunday. (The Church today makes sure that it follows the Jewish method of keeping track of the days. Holy Saturday ends at sundown.)
What a wonderful and glorious night!
God became Man.
God grew in Mother Mary and was born a humble baby.
God was obedient to His Mother and foster father St. Joseph.
God taught us ... He performed miracles ... He left us His Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity in the Blessed Sacrament ... He established His Church which provided us with the bible and His sacraments ... He took our sins upon His sinless Self AND SUFFERED AND DIED OUT OF LOVE FOR US.
Death has no power over God. He was the first to rise from the dead. We shall follow if we so choose.
http://ivehadanepiphany.blogspot.ca/
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/
http://www.sacerdotus.com/
http://www.greatstbarts.com/
https://therottedapple.wordpress.com/
http://www.stpeterslist.com/
GOOD FRIDAY ... O SACRED HEAD
Lyrics: O Sacred Head Surrounded**********************************************************************
(Latin: Salve caput cruentatum, St. Bernard)
O Sacred Head surrounded
By crown of piercing thorn!
O bleeding Head so wounded,
Reviled and put to scorn!
Death's pallid hue comes o'er Thee,
The glow of life decays,
Yet angel hosts adore Thee,
And tremble as they gaze.
In this, Thy bitter passion,
Good shepherd, think of me,
With Thy most sweet compassion,
Unworthy though I be:
Beneath Thy cross abiding,
Forever would I rest;
In Thy dear love confiding,
And with Thy presence blest.
Meditation by St. Alphonsus De Liguori
Ah, cruel thorns, ungrateful creatures, wherefore do ye torment your Creator thus? But to what purpose asks St. Augustine, dost thou find fault with the thorns? They were but innocent instruments--our sins, our evil thoughts, were the wicked thorns which afflicted the head of Jesus Christ: "What are the thorns but sinners?"
Thou, too, therefore, O my soul, didst then inflict torture upon the venerable head of thy Redeemer by thy many consentings to evil: Know thou and behold how grievous and bitter it is for thee to have left the Lord thy God." Open now thine eyes, and see, and bitterly bewail all thy life long the evil that thou hast done in so ungratefully turning thy back upon thy Lord and God.
Ah, my Jesus! No, Thou hast not deserved that I should have treated Thee as I have done. I have done evil; I have been in the wrong; I am sorry for it with all my heart. Oh, pardon me, and give me a sorrow which may make me bewail all my life long the wrongs that I have done Thee. My Jesus, my Jesus, pardon me, wishing, as I do, to love Thee forever.
This always gives me puse for thought:
"Yet angel hosts adore Thee,
And tremble as they gaze."
PASSIONTIDE ~ REFLECTIONS OF SUFFERING
http://luke2-14.blogspot.ca/2014/04/passiontide-and-my-lenten-moment.html
Passiontide -
Two weeks to consider suffering, both Christ's suffering and our own.
Wikipedia has a good summary:
Passiontide (in the Christian liturgical year) is a name for the last two weeks of Lent, beginning on the Fifth Sunday of Lent, long celebrated as Passion Sunday, and ending on Holy Saturday.
In the Roman Catholic Church, and in Anglo-Catholic churches, all crucifixes and images may be covered in veils (usually violet, the color of vestments in Lent) starting on Passion Sunday: "The practice of covering crosses and images in the church may be observed, if the episcopal conference decides. The crosses are to be covered until the end of the celebration of the Lord's passion on Good Friday. Statues and images are to remain covered until the beginning of the Easter Vigil."[1] (Specifically, those veils are removed during the singing of the Gloria.) The veiling was associated with Passion Sunday's Gospel (John 8:46-59), in which Jesus "hid himself" from the people.[2]
From Gloria in Excelsis Deo
This veiling of the statues and icons stems from the Gospel reading of Passion Sunday (John 8:46-59), at the end of which the accusers take up stones to cast at Jesus, Who hides Himself away. The veiling also symbolizes the fact that Christ's Divinity was hidden at the time of His Passion and death, the very essence of Passiontide.I usually follow the traditional calendar even though my local parish follows the modern calendar and celebrates the "Novus Ordo"/ "Ordinary Form" Mass only. When possible I make the trek the the city to assist in a Tridentine Mass.
Since 1969 Passion Sunday and Palm Sunday have been combined into one, making Holy Week also Passiontide.
Mass readings beginning on the fifth Sunday of Lent concentrate on the idea of suffering, particularly Christ's suffering for us.
How do we suffer?
We have to willingly accept ALL THE LITTLE things that cause us any irritation or suffering, be it physical, mental, or spiritual.
We are not animals. An animal does not possess an immortal soul nor the ability to reflect on life. When an animal suffers it is living in the moment. Humans however can reflect back on how things used to be or how we though things were going to be. We can also be afraid of how our suffering may change our future.
Think of Our Lord's suffering in the Garden of Gethsemane. He struggled but willingly accepted the Father's will for Him:
- He accepted the physical suffering to come.
- He accepted the horrifying idea that He was to take our sins upon His sinless Self.
- He accepted being abandoned by his friends and followers ... even to being abandoned by God the Father as he suffered and died a tortuous death on the cross.
- He did all this with the full knowledge that people would mock his sacrifice then and down through the centuries.
http://www.zazzle.ca/jesus_christ_agony_in_the_garden_of_gethsemane_photosculpture-153335356698085618
How can we refuse to willingly accept this cold spring?
The toe we just stubbed?
Our inability to meet a deadline?
Our headaches? Our occasional moodiness? Monotony? Fatigue?
I know I have trouble accepting these and more. I much prefer to grumble rather than quietly and willingly accept these small sufferings.
But that is what we are called to do, especially in the coming two weeks.
Suffer with Our Lord. Offer up a prayer that your suffering may be combined with Jesus' for the salvation of souls.
Dear Lord, I offer you (whatever your concern or problem here) For the conversion of sinners For the forgiveness of sins In reparation for sins and For the salvation of souls. Amen.
From http://christhecomrade.blogspot.ca/2012/08/first-friday-of-august-pope-benedict.html
MARCH 19th, THE FEAST of SAINT JOSEPH ought not be overshadowed by St. Patrick's Day ... for most.
I always find it a shame that the feast day of Our Lord's foster father is overshadowed by the St. Patrick's Day festivities of two days before.
March is the Month of St. Joseph March 19th is the Feast Day of St. Joseph.
St. Joseph was chosen by God the Father to be the 'foster father' of the Second Person of the Holy Trinity Incarnate. God's servant Joseph was charged with bringing up God-Made-Man from a baby into manhood. Joseph is a mighty saint ... the one I picked as my patron after converting to the Catholic Church many years ago.
http://www.catholiccompany.com/
http://media-cache-ec0.pinimg.com/
http://images.monstermarketplace.com
http://www.saintanneshelper.com/
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