Private Vows in The Laity/Spirituality

[BarbTherese]

 

I think I might have stumbled over a means of posting links to the various Hours of The Divine Office.........by using the hyperlink.........I think and I hope!

We are about to have dinner here.  I will be posting Monday's LOH in a couple of hours.

Edited March 11, 2023 by BarbTherese

[BarbTherese]

                                  

                                   From Divine Office (General Calendar)   

                                Monday 13th March 2023 - 3rd Week LENT

Morning Prayer - Lauds - LAUDS

Evening Prayer - Vespers - Vespers

Night Prayer - Compline - Compline

                                     Second Reading Office of Readings 

                                               Sunday 12th March 2023

                                                        From a homily by Saint Basil the Great, bishop

                                             Boast only of the Lord

The wise man must not boast of his wisdom, nor the strong man of his strength, nor the rich man of his riches. What then is the right kind of boasting? What is the source of man’s greatness? Scripture says: The man who boasts must boast of this, that he knows and understands that I am the Lord. Here is man’s greatness, here is man’s glory and majesty: to know in truth what is great, to hold fast to it, and to seek glory from the Lord of glory. The Apostle tells us: The man who boasts must boast of the Lord. He has just said: Christ was appointed by God to be our wisdom, our righteousness, our sanctification, our redemption, so that, as it is written, a man who boasts must boast of the Lord.

  Boasting of God is perfect and complete when we take no pride in our own righteousness but acknowledge that we are utterly lacking in true righteousness and have been made righteous only by faith in Christ.

  Paul boasts of the fact that he holds his own righteousness in contempt and seeks the righteousness in faith that comes through Christ and is from God. He wants only to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and to have fellowship with his sufferings by taking on the likeness of his death, in the hope that somehow he may arrive at the resurrection of the dead.

  Here we see all overweening pride laid low. Humanity, there is nothing left for you to boast of, for your boasting and hope lie in putting to death all that is your own and seeking the future life that is in Christ. Since we have its first fruits we are already in its midst, living entirely in the grace and gift of God.

  It is God who is active within us, giving us both the will and the achievement, in accordance with his good purpose. Through his Spirit, God also reveals his wisdom in the plan he has preordained for our glory.

  God gives power and strength in our labours. I have toiled harder than all the others, Paul says, but it is not I but the grace of God, which is with me.

  God rescues us from dangers beyond all human expectation. We felt within ourselves that we had received the sentence of death, so that we might not trust ourselves but in God, who raises the dead; from so great a danger did he deliver us, and does deliver us; we hope in him, for he will deliver us again.

      

Eucharistic Adoration Live Online: HERE

Edited March 11, 2023 by BarbTherese

[BarbTherese]

                                              

                                   From Divine Office (General Calendar)   

                               Tuesday 14th March 2023 - 3rd Week LENT

 

Morning Prayer - Lauds - Morning Prayer

Evening Prayer - Vespers - Vespers

Night Prayer - Compline - Night Prayer (Compline)

 

                                     Second Reading Office of Readings 

                                               Tuesday 14th March 2023

                                                 From a sermon by Saint Peter Chrysologus, bishop

                            Prayer knocks, fasting obtains, mercy receives

There are three things, my brethren, by which faith stands firm, devotion remains constant, and virtue endures. They are prayer, fasting and mercy. Prayer knocks at the door, fasting obtains, mercy receives. Prayer, mercy and fasting: these three are one, and they give life to each other.

  Fasting is the soul of prayer, mercy is the lifeblood of fasting. Let no one try to separate them; they cannot be separated. If you have only one of them or not all together, you have nothing. So if you pray, fast; if you fast, show mercy; if you want your petition to be heard, hear the petition of others. If you do not close your ear to others you open God’s ear to yourself.

  When you fast, see the fasting of others. If you want God to know that you are hungry, know that another is hungry. If you hope for mercy, show mercy. If you look for kindness, show kindness. If you want to receive, give. If you ask for yourself what you deny to others, your asking is a mockery.

  Let this be the pattern for all men when they practise mercy: show mercy to others in the same way, with the same generosity, with the same promptness, as you want others to show mercy to you.

  Therefore, let prayer, mercy and fasting be one single plea to God on our behalf, one speech in our defence, a threefold united prayer in our favour.

  Let us use fasting to make up for what we have lost by despising others. Let us offer our souls in sacrifice by means of fasting. There is nothing more pleasing that we can offer to God, as the psalmist said in prophecy: A sacrifice to God is a broken spirit; God does not despise a bruised and humbled heart.

  Offer your soul to God, make him an oblation of your fasting, so that your soul may be a pure offering, a holy sacrifice, a living victim, remaining your own and at the same time made over to God. Whoever fails to give this to God will not be excused, for if you are to give him yourself you are never without the means of giving.

  To make these acceptable, mercy must be added. Fasting bears no fruit unless it is watered by mercy. Fasting dries up when mercy dries up. Mercy is to fasting as rain is to earth. However much you may cultivate your heart, clear the soil of your nature, root out vices, sow virtues, if you do not release the springs of mercy, your fasting will bear no fruit.

  When you fast, if your mercy is thin your harvest will be thin; when you fast, what you pour out in mercy overflows into your barn. Therefore, do not lose by saving, but gather in by scattering. Give to the poor, and you give to yourself. You will not be allowed to keep what you have refused to give to others.

                                                   

      

Eucharistic Adoration Live Online: HERE

[BarbTherese]

                              

                                 

From Divine Office (General Calendar)   

                               Wednesday 15th March 2023 - 3rd Week LENT

 

Morning Prayer - Lauds - Morning Prayer

Evening Prayer - Vespers - Evening Prayer

Night Prayer - Compline - Night Prayer (Compline)

 

                                     Second Reading Office of Readings 

                                         Wednesday 15th March 2023

   

From the book addressed to Autolycus by Saint Theophilus of Antioch, bishop

                   Blessed are the clean of heart, for they will see God

If you say, “Show me your God,” I will say to you, “Show me what kind of person you are, and I will show you my God.” Show me then whether the eyes of your mind can see, and the ears of your heart hear.

  It is like this. Those who can see with the eyes of their bodies are aware of what is happening in this life on earth. They get to know things that are different from each other. They distinguish light and darkness, black and white, ugliness and beauty, elegance and inelegance, proportion and lack of proportion, excess and defect. The same is true of the sounds we hear: high or low or pleasant. So it is with the ears of our heart and the eyes of our mind in their capacity to hear or see God.

  God is seen by those who have the capacity to see him, provided that they keep the eyes of their mind open. All have eyes, but some have eyes that are shrouded in darkness, unable to see the light of the sun. Because the blind cannot see it, it does not follow that the sun does not shine. The blind must trace the cause back to themselves and their eyes. In the same way, you have eyes in your mind that are shrouded in darkness because of your sins and evil deeds.

  A person’s soul should be clean, like a mirror reflecting light. If there is rust on the mirror his face cannot be seen in it. In the same way, no one who has sin within him can see God.

  But if you will you can be healed. Hand yourself over to the doctor, and he will open the eyes of your mind and heart. Who is to be the doctor? It is God, who heals and gives life through his Word and wisdom. Through his Word and wisdom he created the universe, for by his Word the heavens were established, and by his Spirit all their array. His wisdom is supreme. God by wisdom founded the earth, by understanding he arranged the heavens, by his knowledge the depths broke forth and the clouds poured out the dew.

  If you understand this, and live in purity and holiness and justice, you may see God. But, before all, faith and the fear of God must take the first place in your heart, and then you will understand all this. When you have laid aside mortality and been clothed in immortality, then you will see God according to your merits. God raises up your flesh to immortality along with your soul, and then, once made immortal, you will see the immortal One, if you believe in him now.

                                             

Eucharistic Adoration Live Online: HERE

 

[BarbTherese]

 

                                From Divine Office (General Calendar)   

                           Thursday 16th March 2023 - 3rd Week LENT

 

Morning Prayer - Lauds - Morning Prayer

Evening Prayer - Vespers - Evening Prayer

Night Prayer - Compline - Night Prayer (Compline)

 

                                     Second Reading Office of Readings 

                                         Thursday 16th March 2023

                                                       From the treatise On Prayer by Tertullian, priest

                                      The spiritual offering of prayer

Prayer is the offering in spirit that has done away with the sacrifices of old. What good do I receive from the multiplicity of your sacrifices? asks God. I have had enough of burnt offerings of rams, and I do not want the fat of lambs and the blood of bulls and goats. Who has asked for these from your hands?

  What God has asked for we learn from the Gospel. The hour will come, he says, when true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth. God is a spirit, and so he looks for worshippers who are like himself.

  We are true worshippers and true priests. We pray in spirit, and so offer in spirit the sacrifice of prayer. Prayer is an offering that belongs to God and is acceptable to him: it is the offering he has asked for, the offering he planned as his own.

  We must dedicate this offering with our whole heart, we must fatten it on faith, tend it by truth, keep it unblemished through innocence and clean through chastity, and crown it with love. We must escort it to the altar of God in a procession of good works to the sound of psalms and hymns. Then it will gain for us all that we ask of God.

  Since God asks for prayer offered in spirit and in truth, how can he deny anything to this kind of prayer? How great is the evidence of its power, as we read and hear and believe.

  Of old, prayer was able to rescue from fire and beasts and hunger, even before it received its perfection from Christ. How much greater then is the power of Christian prayer. No longer does prayer bring an angel of comfort to the heart of a fiery furnace, or close up the mouths of lions, or transport to the hungry food from the fields. No longer does it remove all sense of pain by the grace it wins for others. But it gives the armour of patience to those who suffer, who feel pain, who are distressed. It strengthens the power of grace, so that faith may know what it is gaining from the Lord, and understand what it is suffering for the name of God.

  In the past prayer was able to bring down punishment, rout armies, withhold the blessing of rain. Now, however, the prayer of the just turns aside the whole anger of God, keeps vigil for its enemies, pleads for persecutors. Is it any wonder that it can call down water from heaven when it could obtain fire from heaven as well? Prayer is the one thing that can conquer God. But Christ has willed that it should work no evil, and has given it all power over good.

  Its only art is to call back the souls of the dead from the very journey into death, to give strength to the weak, to heal the sick, to exorcise the possessed, to open prison cells, to free the innocent from their chains. Prayer cleanses from sin, drives away temptations, stamps out persecutions, comforts the fainthearted, gives new strength to the courageous, brings travellers safely home, calms the waves, confounds robbers, feeds the poor, overrules the rich, lifts up the fallen, supports those who are falling, sustains those who stand firm.

  All the angels pray. Every creature prays. Cattle and wild beasts pray and bend the knee. As they come from their barns and caves they look out to heaven and call out, lifting up their spirit in their own fashion. The birds too rise and lift themselves up to heaven: they open out their wings, instead of hands, in the form of a cross, and give voice to what seems to be a prayer.

  What more need be said on the duty of prayer? Even the Lord himself prayed. To him be honour and power for ever and ever. Amen.

 

Eucharistic Adoration Live Online: HERE

[BarbTherese]

 

https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/hope-through-suffering

"Hope through Suffering"

When offered in union with Christ, our suffering acquires purpose and efficacy

Edited March 13, 2023 by BarbTherese

[BarbTherese]

                               From Divine Office (General Calendar)   

                           Friday 17th March 2023 - 3rd Week LENT

 

Morning Prayer - Lauds - Morning Prayer

Evening Prayer - Vespers - Evening Prayer

Night Prayer - Compline - Night Prayer (Compline)

 

                                     Second Reading Office of Readings 

                                         Friday 17th March 2023

         

                                  The Moral Reflections on Job by Pope St Gregory the Great

The mystery of our new life in Christ

Holy Job is a type of the Church. At one time he speaks for the body, at another for the head. As he speaks of its members he is suddenly caught up to speak in the name of their head. So it is here, where he says: I have suffered this without sin on my hands, for my prayer to God was pure.

  Christ suffered without sin on his hands, for he committed no sin and deceit was not found on his lips. Yet he suffered the pain of the cross for our redemption. His prayer to God was pure, his alone out of all mankind, for in the midst of his suffering he prayed for his persecutors: Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.

  Is it possible to offer, or even to imagine, a purer kind of prayer than that which shows mercy to one’s torturers by making intercession for them? It was thanks to this kind of prayer that the frenzied persecutors who shed the blood of our Redeemer drank it afterwards in faith and proclaimed him to be the Son of God.

  The text goes on fittingly to speak of Christ’s blood: Earth, do not cover over my blood, do not let my cry find a hiding place in you. When man sinned, God had said: Earth you are, and to earth you will return. Earth does not cover over the blood of our Redeemer, for every sinner, as he drinks the blood that is the price of his redemption, offers praise and thanksgiving, and to the best of his power makes that blood known to all around him.

  Earth has not hidden away his blood, for holy Church has preached in every corner of the world the mystery of its redemption.

  Notice what follows: Do not let my cry find a hiding place in you. The blood that is drunk, the blood of redemption, is itself the cry of our Redeemer. Paul speaks of the sprinkled blood that calls out more eloquently than Abel’s. Of Abel’s blood Scripture had written: The voice of your brother’s blood cries out to me from the earth. The blood of Jesus calls out more eloquently than Abel’s, for the blood of Abel asked for the death of Cain, the fratricide, while the blood of the Lord has asked for, and obtained, life for his persecutors.

  If the sacrament of the Lord’s passion is to work its effect in us, we must imitate what we receive and proclaim to mankind what we revere. The cry of the Lord finds a hiding place in us if our lips fail to speak of this, though our hearts believe in it. So that his cry may not lie concealed in us it remains for us all, each in his own measure, to make known to those around us the mystery of our new life in Christ.

                                       

Eucharistic Adoration Live Online: HERE

 

                    Hearing the Cry of The Poor - Especially during this Lent

Hearing the cry of the poor starts with desire and a few choices. If we recognize a desire to be more attentive to the poor and to grow in solidarity with them, then it is likely that this is a grace we have received. Many things may have happened to open us to this grace, but it is important to name it and welcome it. God has been offering us this grace for some time and perhaps is preparing us to receive it this Lent. If we don’t feel this desire, we can ask for it. We can ask our Lord to help us grow in a desire to better hear the cry of those most in need.

Who are the poor? Who are most in need? Who are pushed to the margins of neglect and powerlessness? It doesn’t take a great social analysis to come up with some immediate answers, locally in our own world and across the globe. Listening to the news is a beginning. Who is suffering? Who is tremendously burdened? Poverty doesn’t always make the news, but being sensitive to the stories we do hear is a place to start. HERE

This is from Praying Lent by Andy Alexander, SJ, and Maureen McCann Waldron.

[BarbTherese]

                           From Divine Office (General Calendar)   

                      Saturday 18th March 2023 - 3rd Week LENT

 

Morning Prayer - Lauds - MORNING PRAYER

Evening Prayer - Vespers - EVENING PRAYER

Night Prayer - Compline NIGHT PRAYER (COMPLINE)

 

                                     Second Reading Office of Readings 

                                         Saturday 18th March 2023

 

From a sermon by Saint Gregory Nazianzen

                                       Serve Christ in the poor

Blessed are the merciful, because they shall obtain mercy, says the Scripture. Mercy is not the least of the beatitudes. Again: Blessed is he who is considerate to the needy and the poor. Once more: Generous is the man who is merciful and lends. In another place: All day the just man is merciful and lends. Let us lay hold of this blessing, let us earn the name of being considerate, let us be generous.

  Not even night should interrupt you in your duty of mercy. Do not say: Come back and I will give you something tomorrow. There should be no delay between your intention and your good deed. Generosity is the one thing that cannot admit of delay.

  Share your bread with the hungry, and bring the needy and the homeless into your house, with a joyful and eager heart. He who does acts of mercy should do so with cheerfulness. The grace of a good deed is doubled when it is done with promptness and speed. What is given with a bad grace or against one’s will is distasteful and far from praiseworthy.

  When we perform an act of kindness we should rejoice and not be sad about it. If you undo the shackles and the thongs, says Isaiah, that is, if you do away with miserliness and counting the cost, with hesitation and grumbling, what will be the result? Something great and wonderful! What a marvellous reward there will be: Your light will break forth like the dawn, and your healing will rise up quickly. Who would not aspire to light and healing.

  If you think that I have something to say, servants of Christ, his brethren and co-heirs, let us visit Christ whenever we may; let us care for him, feed him, clothe him, welcome him, honour him, not only at a meal, as some have done, or by anointing him, as Mary did, or only by lending him a tomb, like Joseph of Arimathaea, or by arranging for his burial, like Nicodemus, who loved Christ half-heartedly, or by giving him gold, frankincense and myrrh, like the Magi before all these others. The Lord of all asks for mercy, not sacrifice, and mercy is greater than myriads of fattened lambs. Let us then show him mercy in the persons of the poor and those who today are lying on the ground, so that when we come to leave this world they may receive us into everlasting dwelling places, in Christ our Lord himself, to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen. 

 

                              Eucharistic Adoration Live Online HERE      

                               

 

  

                              GENERAL CALENDAR 2023

 

                                            MARCH 2023

Sat 18Saturday of the 3rd week of Lent  
(commemoration of Saint Cyril of Jerusalem, Bishop, Doctor)

Sun 194TH SUNDAY OF LENT (LAETARE SUNDAY) Psalm week 4

Mon 20SAINT JOSEPH, HUSBAND OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN MARY Solemnity 

Tue 21Tuesday of the 4th week of Lent  

Wed 22Wednesday of the 4th week of Lent  

Thu 23Thursday of the 4th week of Lent  
(commemoration of Saint Turibius of Mongrovejo, Bishop)

Fri 24Friday of the 4th week of Lent  

Sat 25THE ANNUNCIATION OF THE LORD Solemnity 

Sun 265TH SUNDAY OF LENT Psalm week 1

Mon 27Monday of the 5th week of Lent  

Tue 28Tuesday of the 5th week of Lent  

Wed 29Wednesday of the 5th week of Lent  

Thu 30Thursday of the 5th week of Lent  

Fri 31Friday of the 5th week of Lent  

                                                             APRIL 2023

Sat 1Saturday of the 5th week of Lent  

Sun 2PALM SUNDAY Psalm week 2

Mon 3MONDAY OF HOLY WEEK 

Tue 4TUESDAY OF HOLY WEEK 

Wed 5WEDNESDAY OF HOLY WEEK 

Thu 6MAUNDY THURSDAY 

Fri 7GOOD FRIDAY 

Sat 8HOLY SATURDAY 

Sun 9EASTER SUNDAY Psalm week 1

Mon 10EASTER MONDAY 

Tue 11EASTER TUESDAY 

Wed 12EASTER WEDNESDAY 

Thu 13EASTER THURSDAY 

Fri 14EASTER FRIDAY 

Sat 15EASTER SATURDAY 

Sun 16DIVINE MERCY SUNDAY (2ND SUNDAY OF EASTER) 

Mon 17Monday of the 2nd week of Eastertide  Psalm week 2

Tue 18Tuesday of the 2nd week of Eastertide  

Wed 19Wednesday of the 2nd week of Eastertide  

Thu 20Thursday of the 2nd week of Eastertide  

Fri 21Friday of the 2nd week of Eastertide  
or Saint Anselm of Canterbury, Bishop, Doctor  

Sat 22Saturday of the 2nd week of Eastertide  

Sun 233RD SUNDAY OF EASTER Psalm week 3

Mon 24Monday of the 3rd week of Eastertide  
or Saint Fidelis of Sigmaringen, Priest, Martyr  

Tue 25SAINT MARK, EVANGELIST Feast 

Wed 26Wednesday of the 3rd week of Eastertide  

Thu 27Thursday of the 3rd week of Eastertide  

Fri 28Friday of the 3rd week of Eastertide  
or Saint Peter Chanel, Priest, Martyr  
or Saint Louis Marie Grignion de Montfort, Priest  

Sat 29Saint Catherine of Siena, Virgin, Doctor 

Sun 304TH SUNDAY OF EASTER Psalm week 4

  

                 

LINK TO GENERAL CALENDAR (for your future reference) HERE

[BarbTherese]

  

 

  

 

The Poor and Vulnerable, Marginalized https://www.usccb.org/beliefs-and-teachings/what-we-believe/catholic-social-teaching/option-for-the-poor-and-vulnerable

                                                      Tradition  

“What is needed is a model of social, political and economic participation ‘that can include popular movements’ . . . Such movements are ‘social poets’ that, in their own way, work, propose, promote and liberate. They help make possible an integral human development that goes beyond ‘the idea of social policies being a policy for the poor, but never with the poor and never of the poor, much less part of a project that reunites peoples’.” (Pope Francis, Brothers and Sisters to Us [Fratelli Tutti], no. 169) 

“Dialogue must not only favor the preferential option on behalf of the poor, the marginalized and the excluded, but also respect them as having a leading role to play. Others must be acknowledged and esteemed precisely as others, each with his or her own feelings, choices and ways of living and working. Otherwise, the result would be, once again, ‘a plan drawn up by the few for the few,’ [28] if not ‘a consensus on paper or a transient peace for a contented minority.’ [29] Should this be the case, ‘a prophetic voice must be raised,’ [30] and we as Christians are called to make it heard.” (Pope Francis, The Beloved Amazon [Querida Amazonia], no. 27) 

God's word teaches that our brothers and sisters are the prolongation of the incarnation for each of us: "As you did it to one of these, the least of my brethren, you did it to me" (Mt 25:40). The way we treat others has a transcendent dimension: "The measure you give will be the measure you get" (Mt 7:2). It corresponds to the mercy which God has shown us: "Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful. Do not judge, and you will not be judged; do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven; give, and it will be given to you . . . For the measure you give will be the measure you get back" (Lk 6:36-38). What these passages make clear is the absolute priority of "going forth from ourselves toward our brothers and sisters" as one of the two great commandments which ground every moral norm and as the clearest sign for discerning spiritual growth in response to God's completely free gift. (Pope Francis, The Joy of the Gospel [Evangelii Gaudium], no. 179)

"The Church's love for the poor . . . is a part of her constant tradition." This love is inspired by the Gospel of the Beatitudes, of the poverty of Jesus, and of his concern for the poor. . . . "Those who are oppressed by poverty are the object of a preferential love on the part of the Church which, since her origin and in spite of the failings of many of her members, has not ceased to work for their relief, defense, and liberation." (Catechism of the Catholic Church, nos. 2444, 2448, quoting Centisimus annus, no. 57, and Libertatis conscientia, no. 68)

Love for others, and in the first place  love for the poor, in whom the Church sees Christ himself, is made concrete in the promotion of justice. (St. John Paul II, On the Hundredth Year [Centesimus Annus], no. 58)
    
The  obligation to provide justice for all means that the poor have the single most urgent economic claim on the conscience of the nation. (United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, Economic Justice for All, no. 86)
    
The primary purpose of this special commitment to the poor is to enable them to become active participants in the life of society. It is to enable all persons to share in and contribute to the common good. The  "option for the poor," therefore, is not an adversarial slogan that  pits one group or class against another. Rather it states that the deprivation and powerlessness of the poor wounds the whole community. The extent of their  suffering is a measure of how far we are from being a true community of persons. These wounds will be healed only by greater solidarity with the poor and among the poor themselves. (United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, Economic Justice for All, no. 88)

The needs of the poor take priority over the desires of the rich; the rights of workers over the maximization of profits; the preservation of the environment over uncontrolled industrial expansion; the production to meet social needs over production for military purposes. (United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, Economic Justice for All, no. 94)
    
In teaching us charity, the Gospel  instructs us in the preferential respect due to the poor and the special situation they have in society: the more fortunate should renounce some of their rights so as to place their goods more generously at the service of  others. (Blessed Paul VI, A Call to Action [Octogesima Adveniens], no. 23)
    
"He who has the goods of this world and sees his brother in need and closes his heart to him, how does the love of  God abide in him?”  Everyone knows that the Fathers of the Church laid down the duty of the rich toward the  poor in no uncertain terms. As St. Ambrose put it: “You are not making a gift  of what is yours to the poor man, but you are giving him back what is his. You  have been appropriating things that are meant to be for the common use of  everyone. The earth belongs to everyone, not to the rich.” (Blessed Paul VI, On the Development of  Peoples [Populorum Progressio], no. 23)
    
Therefore everyone has the right to possess a sufficient amount of the earth's goods for themselves and  their family. This has been the opinion of the Fathers and Doctors of the church, who taught that people are bound to come to the aid of the poor and to do so not merely out of their superfluous goods. Persons in extreme necessity are entitled to take what they need from the riches of others.
 
Faced with a world today where so many people are suffering from want, the council asks individuals and governments to remember the saying of the Fathers:  "Feed the people dying of hunger, because if you do not feed them you are killing them," and it urges them according to their ability to share and  dispose of their goods to help others, above all by giving them aid which will  enable them to help and develop themselves. (Second Vatican Council, The Church in the Modern World [Gaudium et Spes], no. 69)

Still, when there is a question of defending the rights of individuals, the poor and badly off have a claim to especial consideration. The richer class have many ways of shielding themselves, and stand less in need of help from the State; whereas the mass of  the poor have no resources of their own to fall back upon, and must chiefly depend upon the assistance of the State. (Pope Leo XIII, On  the Condition of Labor [Rerum Novarum], no. 37)

[BarbTherese]

  

 

 

[BarbTherese]

 

          

O my God, fill my soul with holy joy, courage, and strength to serve You. Enkindle Your love in me and then walk with me along the next stretch of road before me. I do not see very far ahead, but when I have arrived where the horizon now closes down, a new prospect will open before me, and I shall meet it with peace.

– St. Edith Stein

 

Sister Teresa Benedicta of the Cross

Prayer:

Dear Sister Teresa Benedicta of the Cross,
Child of the Day of Atonement –
Yom Kippur,
Daughter of Abraham,
Bride of Christ,
Seeker of truth,
Scholar of the Church,
Handmaid of Our Lady of Mt. Carmel,
Servant of the Suffering Servant,
Presence of mercy,
Victim of victimizer,
Embracer of the Cross of Christ-like love,
Martyr of Auschwitz,
Imitator of Jesus,
Conqueror of evil,
Friend of God, Edith,
Please pray for me.
Please intercede for this petition of mine.
(Here mention your petition).

Amen.

Saint Edith Stein, Sister Teresa Benedicta of the Cross, Pray for us.

                                     

 

 

[BarbTherese]

 

 

https://catholiceducation.org/resources/how-do-we-seek-god The exasperated complaint is often made by the church-going Christian that he is often told to pray and rarely told how.

Of course, if a pastor does describe methods of prayer, he runs the risk of prescribing something that will not suit all people ... methods are innumerable and each man needs to find what suits him individually.

But something can be said at the outset which applies to all people and all methods. In its simplest form prayer is ”being in the presence of God.” We are always in that presence, for God is everywhere and to be found in all places, and in him ”we live and move and have our being” (Acts 17.28).

And so, to put oneself in the presence of God is simply to recollect where one is already. To do that at the deepest part of one’s personality, of the thinking, willing, feeling self, to direct one’s wishes and purposes and desires to God—that is the beginning of prayer. We are “in God,” and God is “in us,” simply because we are human. We are united with God in the deepest part of our being, by virtue of being human.

True, our understanding of that union has been blurred and marred. We have to recover our belief in it and our grasp of it, and God himself, through Christ, makes this possible. But this is where our prayer begins—in our recognizing that we belong to God, and that we are already with God. - Canon Reginald Cant, 1914-1987

 

                                                           o0o   

In the following track, most interpretations of Dylan's lyrics read "strengthen the things that remain" and he does seem to sing this in places.  I maintain it should read, in places, "strength in the things that remain".  Both interpretations have something valid to state and speak to each other.

 

[BarbTherese]

  

HERE APOSTOLIC JOURNEY OF HIS HOLINESS POPE FRANCIS
TO THE UNITED ARAB EMIRATES
(3-5 FEBRUARY 2019)

 

A DOCUMENT ON

                                                HUMAN FRATERNITY

                                 FOR WORLD PEACE AND LIVING TOGETHER

 

 

 

Edited March 18, 2023 by BarbTherese

[BarbTherese]

     

 

NETFLIX - INSIDE THE MIND OF A CAT (over 1 hour long)

 

[BarbTherese]

 

Feast of St Joseph Spouse of Mary on some calendars is 19th March (as for me in Australia), while on others is 20th March.

I almost lost my admiration for Fr Bill due to the above video.  St Joseph is Patron of The Church and he is also Patron of a Happy Death.  Finally, however, Father mentions the fact of the Patron of The Church at the end of the video.  I do wish we had a feast day to celebrate  this fact, especially perhaps at a time when The Church is passing through a shockingly dark period of our history.

A rumour went around one previous parish in my journey, that the little boat of The Church all roughed up in a  terrible storm would not come out of the storm - and Jesus awaken from His sleep in the boat to calm the wind and sea until St Joseph is recognised universally as Patron of The Church.  Our two greatest saints, Mary and Joseph, of whom Mary was one  had so little to say in The Gospels - She speaks briefly before Jesus is born.  She speaks again at Cana: "Do what He tells you to do".  Joseph never speaks at all.

 

Lyrics

Great Saint Joseph! Son of David,
Foster father of our Lord,
Spouse of Mary ever virgin,
Keeping o'er them watch and ward!
In the stable thou didst guard them
With a father's loving care;
Thou by God's command didst save them
From the cruel Herod's snare.

 

Three long days in grief and anguish
With His Mother sweet and mild,
Mary Virgin, didst thou wander
Seeking the beloved Child.
In the temple thou didst find Him:
Oh! What joy then filled thy heart!
In thy sorrows, in thy gladness
Grant us, Joseph, to have a part.

Clasped in Jesus' arms and Mary's,
When death gently came at last,
Thy pure spirit sweetly sighing
From its earthly dwelling passed.
Dear Saint Joseph! By that passing
May our death be like to thine;
And with Jesus, Mary, Joseph,
May our souls forever shine.

[BarbTherese]

                                         

 

[BarbTherese]

  

 

[BarbTherese]

                    From Divine Office (General Calendar)   

                      Tuesday 20th March 2023 - 3rd Week LENT

 

Morning Prayer - Lauds - MORNING PRAYER

Evening Prayer - Vespers - EVENING PRAYER

Night Prayer - Compline - NIGHT PRAYER (COMPLINE)

 

                                     Second Reading Office of Readings 

                                         TUESDAY 21st March 2023

From a sermon of Saint Leo the Great, pope

                                              In praise of charity

In John’s gospel the Lord says: By this love you have for one another, everyone will know you are my disciples. In a letter by John we read: My dear people, let us love one another since love comes from God and everyone who loves is begotten by God and knows God. Anyone who fails to love can never have known God, because God is love.

  So the faithful should look into themselves and carefully examine their minds and the impulses of their hearts. If they find some of the fruits of love stored in their hearts then they must not doubt God’s presence within them, but to make themselves more and more able to receive so great a guest they should do more and more works of durable mercy and kindness. After all, if God is love, charity should know no limit, for God himself cannot be confined within limits.

  What is the appropriate time for performing works of charity? My beloved children, any time is the right time, but these days of Lent provide a special encouragement. Those who want to be present at the Lord’s Passover in holiness of mind and body should seek above all to win this grace. Charity contains all other virtues and covers a multitude of sins.

  As we prepare to celebrate that greatest of all mysteries, by which the blood of Jesus Christ destroyed our sins, let us first of all make ready the sacrificial offerings — that is, our works of mercy. What God in his goodness has already given to us, let us give to those who have sinned against us.

  And to the poor also, and to those who are afflicted in various ways, let us show a more open-handed generosity so that God may be thanked through many voices and the needy may be fed as a result of our fasting. No act of devotion on the part of the faithful gives God more pleasure than the support that is lavished on his poor. Where God finds charity with its loving concern, there he recognises the reflection of his own fatherly care.

  Do not be put off giving by a lack of resources. A generous spirit is itself great wealth, and there can be no shortage of material for generosity where it is Christ who feeds and Christ who is fed. His hand is present in all this activity: his hand, which multiplies the bread by breaking it and increases it by giving it away.

  When you give alms, do not be anxious but full of happiness. The greatest treasure will go to the one who has kept the least for himself. The holy apostle Paul tells us: He who provides seed for the sower will give bread for food, provide you with more seed, and increase the harvest of your goodness, in Christ Jesus our Lord, who lives and reigns with the Father and the Holy Spirit for ever and ever. Amen.

 

 

                              Eucharistic Adoration Live Online HERE    

[BarbTherese]

                                      From Divine Office (General Calendar)   

                                Wednesday 21st March 2023 - 3rd Week LENT

 

Morning Prayer - Lauds - Morning Prayer

Evening Prayer - Vespers - Evening Prayer

Night Prayer - Night Prayer (Compline)

 

                                     Second Reading Office of Readings 

                                               Wednesday 22nd March 2023

 

From a letter by Saint Maximus the Confessor, abbot

                                    The mercy of God to the penitent

God’s will is to save us, and nothing pleases him more than our coming back to him with true repentance. The heralds of truth and the ministers of divine grace have told us this from the beginning, repeating it in every age. Indeed, God’s desire for our salvation is the primary and pre-eminent sign of his infinite goodness. Precisely in order to show that there is nothing closer to God’s heart than this, the divine Word of God the Father, with untold condescension, lived among us in the flesh, and did, suffered, and said all that was necessary to reconcile us to God the Father, when we were at enmity with him, and to restore us to the life of blessedness from which we had been exiled. He healed our physical infirmities by miracles; he freed us from our sins, many and grievous as they were, by suffering and dying, taking them upon himself as if he were answerable for them, sinless though he was. He also taught us in many different ways that we should wish to imitate him by our own kindness and genuine love for one another.

  So it was that Christ proclaimed that he had come to call sinners to repentance, not the righteous, and that it was not the healthy who required a doctor, but the sick. He declared that he had come to look for the sheep that was lost, and that it was to the lost sheep of the house of Israel that he had been sent. Speaking more obscurely in the parable of the silver coin, he tells us that the purpose of his coming was to reclaim the royal image, which had been coated with the filth of sin. “You can be sure there is joy in heaven’, he said, over one sinner who repents.

  To give the same lesson he revived the man who, having fallen into the hands of the brigands, had been left stripped and half-dead from his wounds; he poured wine and oil on the wounds, bandaged them, placed the man on his own mule and brought him to an inn, where he left sufficient money to have him cared for, and promised to repay any further expense on his return.

  Again, he told of how that Father, who is goodness itself, was moved with pity for his profligate son who returned and made amends by repentance; how he embraced him, dressed him once more in the fine garments that befitted his own dignity, and did not reproach him for any of his sins.

  So too, when he found wandering in the mountains and hills the one sheep that had strayed from God’s flock of a hundred, he brought it back to the fold, but he did not exhaust it by driving it ahead of him. Instead, he placed it on his own shoulders and so, compassionately, he restored it safely to the flock.

  So also he cried out: ‘Come to me, all you that toil and are heavy of heart’. ‘Accept my yoke’, he said, by which he meant his commands, or rather, the whole way of life that he taught us in the Gospel. He then speaks of a burden, but that is only because repentance seems difficult. In fact, however, my yoke is easy, he assures us, and my burden is light.

  Then again he instructs us in divine justice and goodness, telling us to be like our heavenly Father, holy, perfect and merciful. Forgive, he says, and you will be forgiven. Behave towards other people as you would wish them to behave towards you.

                                                   

Eucharistic Adoration Live Online: HERE

[BarbTherese]

                                     From Divine Office (General Calendar)   

                                Thursday 23rd March 2023 - 3rd Week LENT

 

Morning Prayer - Lauds - Morning Prayer

Evening Prayer - Vespers - Evening Prayer

Night Prayer - Night Prayer (Compline)

 

                                     Second Reading Office of Readings 

                                               Thursday 23rd March 2023

From a sermon of Saint Leo the Great, pope

                                       Contemplating the Lord's passion

True reverence for the Lord’s passion means fixing the eyes of our heart on Jesus crucified and recognising in him our own humanity.

  The earth – our earthly nature – should tremble at the suffering of its Redeemer. The rocks – the hearts of unbelievers – should burst asunder. The dead, imprisoned in the tombs of their mortality, should come forth, the massive stones now ripped apart. Foreshadowings of the future resurrection should appear in the holy city, the Church of God: what is to happen to our bodies should now take place in our hearts.

  No one, however weak, is denied a share in the victory of the cross. No one is beyond the help of the prayer of Christ. His prayer brought benefit to the multitude that raged against him. How much more does it bring to those who turn to him in repentance.

  Ignorance has been destroyed, obstinacy has been overcome. The sacred blood of Christ has quenched the flaming sword that barred access to the tree of life. The age-old night of sin has given place to the true light.

  The Christian people are invited to share the riches of paradise. All who have been reborn have the way open before them to return to their native land, from which they had been exiled. Unless indeed they close off for themselves the path that could be opened before the faith of a thief.

  The business of this life should not preoccupy us with its anxiety and pride, so that we no longer strive with all the love of our heart to be like our Redeemer, and to follow his example. Everything that he did or suffered was for our salvation: he wanted his body to share the goodness of its head.

  First of all, in taking our human nature while remaining God, so that the Word became man, he left no member of the human race, the unbeliever excepted, without a share in his mercy. Who does not share a common nature with Christ if he has welcomed Christ, who took our nature, and is reborn in the Spirit through whom Christ was conceived?

  Again, who cannot recognise in Christ his own infirmities? Who would not recognise that Christ’s eating and sleeping, his sadness and his shedding of tears of love are marks of the nature of a slave?

  It was this nature of a slave that had to be healed of its ancient wounds and cleansed of the defilement of sin. For that reason the only-begotten Son of God became also the son of man. He was to have both the reality of a human nature and the fullness of the godhead.

  The body that lay lifeless in the tomb is ours. The body that rose again on the third day is ours. The body that ascended above all the heights of heaven to the right hand of the Father’s glory is ours. If then we walk in the way of his commandments, and are not ashamed to acknowledge the price he paid for our salvation in a lowly body, we too are to rise to share his glory. The promise he made will be fulfilled in the sight of all: Whoever acknowledges me before men, I too will acknowledge him before my Father who is in heaven.

Eucharistic Adoration Online -live: HERE