Private Vows in The Laity/Spirituality

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Rather obvious that I have no understanding at all of softwear  

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                                             "God leads every soul by a separate path."

                                                                                                   St John of the Cross

 

                        

 

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I picked up the following excellent article on Praying the Rosary during Mass over on CAF (User JimG).  That CA thread is now closed:

https://www.traditioninaction.org/religious/d030_Rosary.htm

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Excerpt only: "The Mass-time Rosary is a devotion that assists the supplicant in raising his spirit to God. As a practice it provides a legitimate spiritual means for those who are so inclined to say it. Pius XII endorsed the Rosary as an appropriate means of assisting at Mass and Leo XIII also did so by allowing it to be said during Mass and by granting indulgences to do the same during the month of October.

Progressivist hierarchy and clergy today despise anything that detracts from their ideal of “active participation,” yet, despite their hatred, the practice of praying the Rosary during Mass is a firmly established tradition that has the approval of past Popes and the Sacred Congregation of Rites.

To unite oneself with the Mass by praying the Rosary and meditating on its mysteries thus continues to stand as a legitimate, praiseworthy and respectable custom of the Holy Catholic Church. Let those who so wish, honor Our Lady and Our Lord in this way.

 

                           

3 hours ago, BarbaraTherese said:

           

 

 

Sound theology!

Edited December 20, 2020 by BarbaraTherese

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Bob Dylan Lyrics - "TRYING TO GET TO HEAVEN"  (track from album "Time Out Of Mind") HERE:

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When you think that you've lost everything
You find out you can always lose a little more
I'm just going down the road feeling bad
Trying to get to Heaven before they close the door

I'm going down the river
They tell me everything is gonna be all right
But I don't know what all right even means

 

 

Just another trying day on the road! 

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Is there any such thing as coincidence? (Catholic Answers Q&A) https://www.catholic.com/qa/a-coincidence-isnt-one-for-god

 

         

 

 

  

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                                 SOLEMNITY

             Mary Mother of God: 1st January 2021

History of New Year's Day https://www.officeholidays.com/holidays/vatican-city/international-new-years-day

New Year's Day was originally observed on March 15th in the old Roman Calendar. When January and February were added during one of the many attempts to clean up the calendar, they were actually added to the end of the year.

The start of the year was fixed at January 1st in 153 BCE, by two Roman consuls. The month was named Janus after the name of the Roman god of doors and gates. Janus had two faces, one facing forward and one looking back, a fitting name for the month at the start of the year.

During the Middle Ages, a number of different Christian feast dates were used to mark the New Year, though calendars often continued to display the months in columns running from January to December in the Roman fashion.

For some parts of Europe, New Year's Day was determined by Easter, which meant a different New Year’s Day date every year.

It wasn't until 1582 when the Roman Catholic Church officially adopted January 1st as the New Year.

Most countries in Western Europe had officially adopted January 1st as New Year's Day even before they adopted the Gregorian calendar.

New Year's Resolutions

Many people take the opportunity of the new year to make resolutions. According to a survey by ComRes, the most common New Year's resolutions included exercise more (38%), lose weight (33%) and eat more healthily (32%).

The tradition of setting New Year's resolutions began some 4,000 years ago with the ancient Babylonians, although for them the year began not in January but in mid-March on the first moon after the spring equinox. According to historians, returning that rusty rake you'd borrowed from your neighbour was top of the Babylonian resolution list, along with the timeless promise to pay off debts.

 

  

             

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Proverbs 20:19 ESV 

Whoever goes about slandering reveals secrets; therefore do not associate with a simple babbler.

 

 

        

 

 

                                                                                         

 

Second Reading- Office of Readings - 31st Dec. 2020

                                 From a sermon of

                          Saint Leo the Great, pope

         

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The birthday of the Lord is the birthday of peace

God’s Son did not disdain to become a baby. Although with the passing of the years he moved from infancy to maturity, and although with the triumph of his passion and resurrection all the actions of humility which he undertook for us were finished, still today’s festival renews for us the holy childhood of Jesus born of the Virgin Mary. In adoring the birth of our Saviour, we find we are celebrating the commencement of our own life, for the birth of Christ is the source of life for Christian folk, and the birthday of the Head is the birthday of the body.

  Every individual that is called has his own place, and all the sons of the Church are separated from one another by intervals of time. Nevertheless, just as the entire body of the faithful is born in the font of baptism, crucified with Christ in his passion, raised again in his resurrection, and placed at the Father’s right hand in his ascension, so with Him are they born in this nativity.

  For this is true of any believer in whatever part of the world, that once he is reborn in Christ he abandons the old paths of his original nature and passes into a new man by being reborn. He is no longer counted as part of his earthly father’s stock but among the seed of the Saviour, who became the Son of man in order that we might have the power to be the sons of God.

  For unless He came down to us in this humiliation, no one could reach his presence by any merits of his own.

  The very greatness of the gift conferred demands of us reverence worthy of its splendour. For, as the blessed Apostle teaches, We have received not the spirit of this world but the Spirit which is of God, that we may know the things which are given us by God. That Spirit can in no other way be rightly worshipped, except by offering him that which we received from him.

  But in the treasures of the Lord’s bounty what can we find so suitable to the honour of the present feast as the peace which at the Lord’s nativity was first proclaimed by the angel-choir?

  For it is that peace which brings forth the sons of God. That peace is the nurse of love and the mother of unity, the rest of the blessed and our eternal home. That peace has the special task of joining to God those whom it removes from the world.

  So those who are born not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man but of God must offer to the Father the unanimity of peace-loving sons, and all of them, adopted parts of the mystical Body of Christ, must meet in the First-Begotten of the new creation. He came to do not his own will but the will of the one who sent him; and so too the Father in his gracious favour has adopted as his heirs not those that are discordant nor those that are unlike him, but those that are one with him in feeling and in affection. Those who are re-modelled after one pattern must have a spirit like the model.

  The birthday of the Lord is the birthday of peace: for thus says the Apostle, He is our peace, who made both one; because whether we are Jew or Gentile, through Him we have access in one Spirit to the Father.

 

 

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                                               Meaning Behind The Icon

 

                How the Virgin Mary can guide our new year 

                                     How Mary can guide us in this New Year

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https://www.sophiainstitute.com/products/item/union-with-god?utm_source=CEArticle&utm_medium=Dwyer16Dec20&utm_campaign=Dwyer16Dec20

Spiritual Classic Introduces Readers To

                             The Wisdom Of St. John Of The Cross

CLAIRE DWYER

" In a new edition of his spiritual classic, he illuminates St. John of the Cross as “a master of the contemplative life,” which is simply a life which “directly seeks intimacy with God.” A Life Meant For All

“The supreme grandeur of the human person,” Fr. Gabriel says, is “to be called to live eternally in intimate companionship with his God; alone with God alone, in an inexpressible contact with Him.”  Contemplation, the deeper prayer in which the soul is drawn by God, is a type of anticipation of that eternal intimacy.  And this prayer is not only meant for religious:  St. John of the Cross taught laity and religious alike about the contemplative life, a life of prayer and mortification because he knew it could prepare them to receive a more intimate experience of God’s love.  In giving these teachings to the laity, he never wanted to water them down or diminish them in any way, for it was “not only the crumbs from his sumptuous table that the saint allotted to seculars” but his entire doctrine. In this book, Fr. Gabriel masterfully compiles this doctrine, laying out the map of the ascent to union drawn by the saint and explaining it beautifully in a succinct summary which does exactly what I suspect it was meant to – it leaves one desiring to turn to the original works and devour them all.  Let’s explore the key themes he lays out."

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Australia

https://www.amazon.com.au/Union-God-According-John-Cross/dp/1622828585

(Also available on Kindle)

"Christian perfection consists in the twofold way of charity: service of neighbor and our direct quest for God’s love. Many of us discover ways to love our neighbor, but few achieve intimacy with God. Why? Because we don’t know how to prepare ourselves properly to reach this exalted goal. In these pages, Father Gabriel of St. Mary Magdalen lays out for us a time-tested path toward achieving complete intimacy with God, the path first mapped out centuries ago by the Church’s acclaimed master of the contemplative life, St. John of the Cross (1542-1591). St. John showed that God hungers for union with each of us but also requires arduous efforts on our part, the many details of which Father Gabriel explains in these enlightening pages. Do you perceive holiness as an unattainable goal for you? Or is fear of the fatigue of such an effort holding you back? Absorb this book, and allow gentle St. John to take you by the hand and lead you ― as he has led so many others ― to true intimacy with our Lord."

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Bishops grapple with Pope’s decree on new religious orders

https://international.la-croix.com/news/religion/popes-new-rules-on-establishing-religious-orders-getting-mixed-reviews/13581?utm_source=NewsLetter&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=0107mailjet

 

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Excerpt: Pope Francis has justified the change by explaining that "discernment about the ecclesial nature and reliability of charisms" is the responsibility of the bishops, but it involves "the wider horizon of the universal Church".   "A charism always has a universal dimension and it is therefore legitimate for the pope to speak out," said Bishop Dominique Rey of Fréjus-Toulon, whose diocese in southern France is often seen as a "laboratory" for new forms of consecrated life.

 

Edited January 7, 2021 by BarbaraTherese

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Dance defiant

Bent, stumbling

Supported

Moving lonely sole forward into the light

Defiant forward they dance

tears of tears

Out of the mirage, movement forward

Begins again

Silence speaks

 BDH                                                                                                                                                                                    13.6.20

                          

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St Albert wrote in his Ancient Rule for Carmel that "common sense is the guide of all the virtues".  In today's world with all the stresses and demands on family life especially, there are probably many demands and duties that must come before studying "divine truths".  One would be very wrong in putting aside the duties of one's state in life in order to devote time to study.  Common sense informs that it would be wrong.  That is not to state that the study of Scripture and Church teaching is not important.  It is rather to recognize that the "possession of Heaven" does not come about only through study and knowledge.  It is to recognize that The Holy Spirit has endless means at His disposal to guide us to Heaven - and the duties of our state is one of them.

Common sense is indeed the guide of all virtue.

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                                                                         lessons repeat

                                                                            fiddler plays

                                                                         Rome is burning

 

            

 

                                                                     

                                                                         context wood

                                      trees spot the ambiguities including nonverbal communications

                                                                               Reality

 

 

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I am puzzled by their laughter since every cause must be en masse

keeping busy in some light or just a number called and then full departed

unless a jewel in some base crown proclaimed or hidden

no salt or any leaven and empty vessels making many sounds

on any available handy surface

as the earth erupts reflecting pain as down the ages till but a shadow

not remembered or even heard nor full lesson ever learnt - nor then ever enter . . .

asks risk and a death by category

there are rather empty promises from gilded halls and podium robbing empty tombs and jeweled robes abandoned and no reflection anyway . . . and shining cars and phones and internet and yearly holidays and every trapping insults earth and heaven where none . . . and waiting judgment just like me we won’t escape it .....and images keep flashing of hope abandoned tears full falling, flowing...... The scratching scribe keeps pushing in one helpless way or is reaching to a mighty tree or a mustard seed a bushel glowing . . . sights a beckoning veiled silhouette a philosophical abstraction - foundational to vanities in motives . . . ominous . . . calling . . . unanswered and unheeded Here is this western cemetery . . . of vapid eyes and words confirming of ears that hear only the inner need with honey words and all touched is somehow tainted and is knowing and reaching tired and sweating palms . . . fearful . . . caught the message winging . . . ......because of him and his lonely life and dying .......a shadow calling in the mist, now spilt is silent until the caller calls again I see a mist misting glow glowing – all is merging there that beckoning in-between that unknown presence in the haze – somewhere beyond the haze? and no miasma and the secret silent calling called again I wish I could leave some actual hope and some a motive and go on hoping with nothing ever in my hands stillness – quiet - all is well moving on moving on quietly in this endless waiting . . . and there is housework and the dishes a pause or two for reasons like the rubbish and on out into it yet again the madness on the bus unless it calls in or on the phone . . . Say? If I ne'er write another poem? .....I do not care at all  and just the way I am and now tis finished and unfolded just like me tired spent needing sleep and rest and place to lay this aching and all that sort of undeserving just like all the rest . . . I think . . . perhaps?. . . or not? I guess he surely left his reasons . . . well . . . somewhere or other . . . I guess . . . I never listen to his tape somewhere in all these empty aspirations but I'll lift my game and keep on walking with nothing else to do . . . just like him in his grave and me soon enough in mine Wherever the caller is, the sun will rise again clearing any clutter and all uncertainties and such, I think – perhaps? – or not? I wish I could lock the door and lose the key and break the auctioneer ruling by default a wanton dereliction and terrible revenge and all . . . somewhere . . . well, I guess, surely . . . born to a thankfully transitional hell of caring . . . or purgation, well I don't know! and disinterested in any via negativa . . . and surely via negativa indeed! Death, that strange Samaritan will claim me in the end empty handed or full and wasting hope not needed in hopeful Sunday best . . .  Aye? He said? and Bob . . . Catch 22 . . . and Sadie and Monk and Amos, Garfield, Gaffy, John and Brad and Emma and all the rest . . . my Mum and Dad . . . the maimed by truly caring and all the broken, and the lost of hope . . . and somewhere I can only hope catharsis and a resolution and hope again is dressing up . . . probably a funeral . . . well I guess, I guess . . . it always is sooner or somewhere later . . . and all memories with words conjured painfully . . . gone soon enough . . . in someone's time . . . I guess . . . or not . . . you sort of get used to it all now and then . . . a familiar drill . . . images . . . drowned and strangled well here and there perhaps I can sleep it off this time . . . waken to better signs of life even if life's illusions thin with thinning ranks . . . Goodbye my friend . . . living inside these maddening chosen polarities and barriers . . . I guess one's not supposed to care . . . not really . . . breaking rules creating discomfort . . . too long epitaphs . . . messy breakdown . . . come some straw . . . . . . Daniel's vision by the water . . . weighted by the numbers a vision and a holocaust and all those quite distasteful things – hallucinations? Perhaps Or not 

and $3.70 Oxazapam keeps on keeping me from their crypt . . .

I wish I could rest and see the end but I fear that it will just begin again

cast the millstone then,

let it be!

    

                                              

 

                                     St Joseph, Patron of The Church, please pray for us

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                                                           The Grace to view Suffering as Gift

                                                                             Aleteia Article

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Excerpt: "With God's help, we can recognize his presence in every affliction.

While it is relatively easy to be thankful to God for good health and prosperity, do we ever give thanks to God for suffering?         It is difficult to see God’s presence in affliction and most often, we think that God is somehow absent from it.   Yet, with God’s help, we can see suffering as a (His) gift."

 

 

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Hippocrates (460-337 BC:  "The people ought to know that the brain is the sole origin of pleasures and joys, laughter and jests, sadness and worry as well as dysphoria, and differentiate between feeling ashamed, good, bad, happy   Through the brain we become insane, enraged, we develop anxiety and fears, which can come in the night or during the day, we suffer from sleeplessness, we make mistakes and have unfounded worries, we lose the ability to recognize reality, we become apathetic and we cannot participate in social life   We suffer all those mentioned above through the brain when it is ill"