Private Vows in The Laity/Spirituality

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The great thing with unhappy times is to take them bit by bit, hour by hour, like an illness. It is seldom the present,the exact present, that is unbearable. 

- C. S. Lewis

 

 

 

Anybody with any maturity knows that an experienced Christian is more eager to have God use him than he is to use God for his own ends; but this does not mean that God is absent from the processes of business and livelihood, nor unconcerned about them, nor unable to reveal Himself through them.

When we begin to look upon work, business, money, as potential sacraments through which God can work, we shall make better use of them.

    ... Samuel M. Shoemaker (1893-1963), The Experiment of Faith

Such is our dependence upon God that we are obliged not only to do everything for His sake, but also to seek from Him the very power. This happy necessity of having recourse to Him in all our wants, instead of being grievous to us, should be our greatest consolation.

What a happiness is it that we are allowed to speak to Him with confidence; to open our hearts and hold familiar conversation with him, by prayer! He Himself invites us to it.
    ... François Fénelon (1651-1715), Meditation

 

 

 QUOTATIONS

FROM

ST THERESE OF LISIEUX

If I did not simply live from one moment to another, it would be impossible for me to be patient; but I only look at the present, I forget the past, and I take good care not to forestall the future.

 The good God does not need years to accomplish His work of love in a soul; one ray from His Heart can, in an instant, make His flower bloom for eternity.

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Today, I have received Holy Communion at home for the first time. 

I will now be receiving each week at home.  I can no longer travel to Mass other than, I hope,

on a day I feel quite well with sufficient funds for taxis.

 

   A prayer much appreciated and you will be in mine.  Amen.

5th October 2018 - Today is the Feastday of St Faustina Kowalska

 

To read about St Faustina

and

The Divine Mercy Devotion

 

5th October 2018 - Today is the Feastday of St Faustina Kowalska

 

To read about St Faustina

and

The Divine Mercy Devotion

 

Edited October 5, 2018 by BarbaraTherese

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Full Question............Can anyone achieve heroic virtue?

Answer - Jesus reminds in Scripture that “with God all things are possible” (Matt. 19:26). Of course, we must cooperate with God’s grace. In the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7), Jesus provides us with a blueprint for holiness, without which heroic virtue cannot be attained.

Indeed, if heroic virtue is to be attained, we must strive to “seek first [God’s] kingdom and his righteousness” (Matt. 6:33), realizing, as St. Paul proclaims, that we “can do all things in him who strengthens me” (2 Cor. 12:8-10). In the process, Jesus reminds us, we must exercise radically childlike faith, because the road to eternal life is narrow and hard (Matt. 7:13-14). So we must be committed, like a great athlete, to undergo redemptive suffering so that our virtue may be refined, realizing that God’s “power is made perfect in weakness” (2 Cor. 12:8-10).

And, as we progress in virtue, we will increasingly attain the incomparable peace of Christ that the world cannot give (John 14:27).

Full Question ..........Would it have been a sin for Mary to say no at the Annunciation?

Answer - Theoretically, a no from Mary at the Annunciation could have been sinful, though it’s also possible that she could have said no without sinning.

More to the point, in actuality, we know that Mary didn’t sin. Still, it’s theoretically possible Mary could have said no at the Annunciation, and Jimmy Akin addresses this issue in a radio response (see below), as do I in an online answer regarding whether Mary was forced to be the Mother of God  (see below).

 

Full Question.............If Mary was immaculately conceived, then she was more free to say yes to the Angel Gabriel. However, she was protected from sin for this same yes. Are both statements right? If yes, doesn't that sound circular?

Answer - The perfection of freedom is being impervious to—or being free from committing—sin. As the eternal Son of God who became man, Jesus Christ not only didn’t sin, he couldn’t have sinned. If he were vulnerable to sin, he would not have been God.

In turn, Mary was immaculately conceived, i.e., conceived without sin. But being immaculately conceived doesn’t mean she was not free to say no at the Annunciation. After all, she was merely human, despite her exalted status. Given her immaculate conception and her cooperation with God’s grace as she grew up, Mary was certainly inclined toward accepting God’s will for her life. But the Church doesn’t teach that she couldn’t have sinned, including at the Annunciation.

On the other hand, it’s a common theological opinion that Mary was confirmed in grace at the Annunciation, i.e., that she became impervious to sin the rest of her life. And yet she suffered greatly in her life for the sins of others, in concert with her divine Son.

 

Full Question..............When Jesus was living on Earth, did he ever draw upon his nature as God to do anything, or did he function purely as a human being in all the limitations that entails?

Answer

As you convey in your question, Jesus is both God and man. As such, he necessarily always functioned as both God and man in his earthly ministry, because he is first and foremost a divine person, one who took on a human nature at the Incarnation (CCC 468-69). Thus, even though many of Jesus’ earthly actions did not have a visible dramatic effect one might associate with his being God, “Jesus is inseparably true God and true man” (CCC 469).

In addition, Jesus could not have performed any of his miracles by virtue of his human nature alone. Jesus especially couldn’t have atoned for the sins of the world had his redemptive death been a purely human offering. It was efficacious precisely because he is the God-man, the Incarnate Word.

 

 

[Guest]

1 minute ago, BarbaraTherese said:

Indeed, if heroic virtue is to be attained, we must strive to “seek first [God’s] kingdom and his righteousness” (Matt. 6:33), realizing, as St. Paul proclaims, that we “can do all things in him who strengthens me” (2 Cor. 12:8-10). In the process, Jesus reminds us, we must exercise radically childlike faith, because the road to eternal life is narrow and hard (Matt. 7:13-14). So we must be committed, like a great athlete, to undergo redemptive suffering so that our virtue may be refined, realizing that God’s “power is made perfect in weakness” (2 Cor. 12:8-10).

I would like to comment on the above.  We do need to remember that whatever comes our way by suffering, God always grants far more than sufficient Grace to deal with it.  In my teens, trying to emulate the penances of some of our great saints, I failed completely - totally unable to do penance as they did.  After that, when I read about their penances, sufferings and sometimes martyrdom, I formed the concept that I could never be a saint, a great saint.  I just had to give it up - I was not made of saintly stuff, not one little bit even.  Huge desires, no fortitude.

 Later in life, especially when I went through my very dark 20 years of serious psychotic bipolar episodes, when I looked back, I was totally amazed that I could endure what I had endured.

It wasn't until I was given a computer and the internet and began to read all sorts of texts about our Faith, God's Great Gift of the information highway, I realised that indeed God grants more than enough Grace to endure what we need to endure - and that that it is our Faith.  That Grace, Help and Support was what carried me through my dark 20 years because I knew beyond doubt I had no such fortitude of myself.    Sometimes texts can make the road to holiness very dark, depressive and difficult.   And to an outsider looking in, it might well seem to be so. 

I have read on Catholic Discussion sites at times much fear about the future and what they might need to endure on the way of holiness, including perhaps some sort of Very Dark Night.  Be totally reassured absolutely, whatever comes your way is not going to be even nearly as bad as you might imagine...........because God's Grace, His Help and Support will be with you, but not of necessity to help deal with imagination.

Live in The Now.   Close the door on the past and don't attempt to open a door to the future............within the bounds of common sense of course.

Amen.

[Guest]

PS  I do not mean that there is no suffering, even great difficulties and perhaps depression along the way;  however, somehow one comes through it all and that is, our Faith tells us, God's Graces, Help and Support.   You may not feel it at the time, you may not be able to invest expectations in it at the time.  But when you look back on it, there is only that one answer.  Therefore, there is nothing to fear in the future because another teaching of The Faith is that The Lord never sends something beyond our capacity to handle with His Grace.

No Jesus without His Cross.

It is a difficult thing to explain, at least I realise now, having set out on that road- I think I have written what I can............if I did bite off more than I could chew. 

..............f you say so............

 

 

Edited October 5, 2018 by BarbaraTherese

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............f you say so..........should read: if you say so.

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Saturday 6th October

Saturdays Traditionally dedicated to Our Lady

Saturday memorials of the Blessed Virgin Mary

‘On Saturdays in Ordinary Time when there is no obligatory memorial, an optional memorial of the Blessed Virgin Mary is allowed.

  ‘Saturdays stand out among those days dedicated to the Virgin Mary. These are designated as memorials of the Blessed Virgin Mary. This memorial derives from Carolingian times (9th century), but the reasons for having chosen Saturday for its observance are unknown. While many explanations of this choice have been advanced, none is completely satisfactory from the point of view of the history of popular piety.

  ‘Whatever its historical origins may be, today the memorial rightly emphasizes certain values to which contemporary spirituality is more sensitive. It is a remembrance of the maternal example and discipleship of the Blessed Virgin Mary who, strengthened by faith and hope, on that “great Saturday” on which Our Lord lay in the tomb, was the only one of the disciples to hold vigil in expectation of the Lord’s resurrection. It is a prelude and introduction to the celebration of Sunday, the weekly memorial of the Resurrection of Christ. It is a sign that the Virgin Mary is continuously present and operative in the life of the Church.’

  Directory on Popular Piety and the Liturgy (2001), §188

 

Optional Memorial - St Bruno  https://www.franciscanmedia.org/saint-bruno/

 

Daily Mass Online

Australia

Saturday 6th October 2018

 

 

On 10/2/2018 at 8:48 AM, BarbaraTherese said:

 

 

LITURGY OF THE HOURS

LET US PRAY WITH THE UNIVERSAL CHURCH

 For The Church and The World

Universalis

Each location has its own calendar http://universalis.com/930/n-location.htm

If you cannot find your location on the above link,

use

The General Calendar, which is posted daily into this thread (link below) - once you set your area calendar it will automatically open on your day.

 

General Calendar - Lauds (Morning Prayer) http://universalis.com/lauds.htm

(all Hours are in the left hand column)

 

[Guest]

 

 

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We misunderstand Humility?

Striking that sometimes difficult balance between strengths and weaknesses

Sum of particles?

Created for Glory, to give Glory to God

Our dignity comes from what we are

 

 

 

 

You don't really believe all that stuff, do you?

The lady replied, "Of course I do. It's theBible." 

He said, "Well, what about that guy that was swallowed by that whale?"

She replied, "Oh, Jonah. Yes, I believe that. It's in the Bible." 

 

He asked, "Well, how do you suppose he survived all that time inside the whale?" 

The lady said, "Well, I don't really know. I guess when I get to heaven, I will ask him." 

 

"What if he isn't in heaven?" the man asked sarcastically. 

"Then you can ask him." replied the lady.

---o0o---

Startle reflex

A passenger in a taxi leaned over to ask the driver a question and tapped him on the shoulder. The driver screamed, lost control of the cab, nearly hit  a bus, drove up over the curb, and stopped just inches from a large plate glass window.

For a few moments everything was silent in the cab, and then the still shaking driver said, "I'm sorry but you scared the daylights out of me." The frightened passenger apologized to the driver and said he didn't realize amere tap on the shoulder could frighten him so much.

The driver replied, "No, no, I'm sorry, it's entirely my fault. Today is my first day driving a cab. I've been driving a hearse for the last 25 years."

 

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What is Gnosticism:

A theological view prevalent around the time of Christ. Generally speaking, Gnosticism taught that salvation is achieved through special knowledge (gnosis). This knowledge usually dealt with the individual's relationship to the transcendent Being. It denies the incarnation of God as the Son. In so doing, it denies the true efficacy of the atonement since, if Jesus is not God, He could not atone for all of humanity and we would still be lost in our sins. 

 

Edited October 6, 2018 by BarbaraTherese

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“When I was younger, I could remember anything, whether it had happened or not; but my faculties are decaying now and soon I shall be so I cannot remember any but the things that never happened. It is sad to go to pieces like this but we all have to do it.”

Mark Twain

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Daily Mass online

SUNDAY 7TH OCTOBER 2018

7th October is traditionally the feast of Our Lady of The Rosary; however, the Sunday takes precedence.  I first made Private Vows (renewed yearly) on the Feast of Our Lady of The Rosary 1983 approx.

  I have a signed document still packed somewhere.

 

 

On 10/2/2018 at 8:48 AM, BarbaraTherese said:

LITURGY OF THE HOURS

LET US PRAY WITH THE UNIVERSAL CHURCH

For The Church and The World

Universalis

Each location has its own calendar http://universalis.com/930/n-location.htm

If you cannot find your location on the above link,

use

The General Calendar, which is posted daily into this thread (link below)

 

General Calendar - Lauds (Morning Prayer) http://universalis.com/lauds.htm

(all Hours are in the left hand column)

 

 

[Guest]

 

 

 

Daily Mass Online

Monday 8th October 2018

from Australia

 

 

21 hours ago, BarbaraTherese said:

 

 

LITURGY OF THE HOURS

LET US PRAY WITH THE UNIVERSAL CHURCH

For The Church and The World

Universalis

Each location has its own calendar http://universalis.com/930/n-location.htm

If you cannot find your location on the above link,

use

The General Calendar, which is posted daily into this thread (link below)

 

General Calendar - Lauds (Morning Prayer)  http://universalis.com/1030/lauds.htm

(all Hours are in the left hand column)

 

 

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PODCAST

Vatican II—Get the 411 https://clumsytheosis.wordpress.com/2018/09/09/vatican-ii-get-the-411/

How much of what you *know* about the Second Vatican Council is from hearsay or observation, rather than from actually reading the Vatican II documents? Here’s the basic run down of Vatican II and the Church’s articulation of herself. It’ll inspire you to read them yourself.

 

 

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SHORT VIDEOS

 

 

 

 

 

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Isaiah Chapter 42

I will lead the blind on their journey; by paths unknown I will guide them. I will turn darkness into light before them, and make crooked ways straight. These things I do for them, and I will not forsake them.

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St Denis (- 258)

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/04721a.htm

As might be expected for a saint of such an early period, practically no hard facts about Saint Denis survive. According to St Gregory of Tours, writing some 300 years later, Denis came to Gaul from Rome in the middle of the third century. He arrived at what is now the Ile de la Cité in Paris, where he built a church, arranged the regular celebration of Mass, and preached the Gospel. Together with two members of his clergy he was martyred near the city.

  Denis (in Latin, Dionysius) is not Dionysius the Areopagite, whom St Paul converted to Christianity, nor is he the author of the writings of the “Pseudo-Dionysius,” but both these confusions helped to popularise devotion to him from the seventh century onwards.

  Nevertheless, the real St Denis did exist, he brought the Gospel to Paris, and he was its first martyr. For these things alone devotion to him is proper and justified.

 

 

 

Daily Mass Online

9th. October 2018

from Australia

 

 

On 10/8/2018 at 8:49 AM, BarbaraTherese said:

 

 

 

LITURGY OF THE HOURS

LET US PRAY WITH THE UNIVERSAL CHURCH

For The Church and The World

Universalis

Each location has its own calendar http://universalis.com/930/n-location.htm

If you cannot find your location on the above link,

use

The General Calendar, which is posted daily into this thread (link below)

 

General Calendar - Lauds (Morning Prayer)  http://universalis.com/lauds.htm

(all Hours are in the left hand column)

 

[Guest]

 

 

 

Saint Elizabeth of the Trinity (1880-1906)
Carmelite

Quote

 

Last Retreat, 10th – 11th Days (in The Complete Works, vol. 1; ICS Publications, 1984)

 

"Mary who sat beside the Lord at his feet listened to him speak."

So that nothing may draw me out of this beautiful silence within, I must always maintain the same dispositions, the same solitude, the same withdrawal, the same stripping of self! If my desires, my fears, my joys or my sorrows, if all the movements proceeding from these "four passions" are not perfectly directed to God, I will not be solitary: there will be noise within me. There must be peace, sleep of the powers, "the unity of being.” "Listen, my daughter, lend your ear, forget your people and your father's house, and the King will become enamored of your beauty." (Ps 44[45]:11-12)… To forget "your people" is difficult, I think, for this people is everything which is, so to speak, part of us: our feelings, our memories, our impressions, etc.… when the soul has made this break, when it is free from all that, the King is enamored of its beauty…

The Creator, seeing the beautiful silence which reigns in His creature, and gazing on her wholly recollected in her interior solitude… leads her into this immense, infinite solitude, into this "spacious place" sung of by the prophet (Ps 17[18]:20), which is nothing else but Himself… "I will lead her into solitude and speak to her heart." (Hos 2:16) The soul has entered into this vast solitude in which God will make Himself heard I "His word," St. Paul says, "is living and active, and more penetrating than a two-edged sword: extending even to the division of soul and spirit, even of joints and marrow. "(Heb 2:16) It is His word then that will directlv achieve the work of stripping in the soul…

But it is not enough just to listen to this word, we must keep it! (Jn 14:23) And it is in keeping it that the soul will be "sanctified in the truth," (Jn 17:17) and that is the desire of the Master… To the one who keeps His word has He not made this promise: "My Father will love him and we will come to him and make our home in him"? (Jn 14:23) It is the whole Trinity who dwells in the soul that loves Him in truth, that is, by keeping His word.

 

 

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https://catholicexchange.com/the-fruitful-union-of-the-contemplative-and-active

The Fruitful Union of the Contemplative and the Active

DOM JEAN-BAPTISTE CHAUTARD

“Just as the love of God,” says St. Isidore, “reveals itself by acts of the interior life, so also the love of the neighbor manifests itself by the operations of the exterior life; and as the love of God and the love of the neighbor are practically inseparable, it follows that these two forms of life cannot subsist without each other.” This is also the teaching of Suarez and St. Thomas. “Those who are called to the works of the active life,” says the latter, “would be mistaken, were they to imagine that they are thereby dispensed from the acts of the contemplative life, for they should be added to the duties of the active life. Hence, these two modes of life, far from excluding one another, require, presuppose, mingle with, and complete each other; and if one of them should have the larger share, it should be the contemplative, which is the more perfect and the more necessary of the two.”

Action, to prove fertile, stands in need of contemplation; and when the latter has reached a certain degree of intensity, it pours out on the former some of its superabundance and enables the soul to draw directly from the Heart of God the graces that the active life is charged with distributing. This explains why, in a saint, action and contemplation united together in perfect harmony im­part perfect unity to his life. For instance, St. Bernard was at the same time the most contemplative and the most active person of his time. In him, contemplation and action so perfectly harmo­nized together, that he, at one and the same time, appeared wholly devoted to external works and all absorbed in the presence and the love of God.

 

 

 

The Interior Life: Both Active and Contemplative

ROMAN CATHOLIC SPIRITUAL DIRECTION

https://catholicexchange.com/interior-life-active-contemplative

 

Excerpt - to read whole text, see above link..............".............But once we have ascended to the summit of the contemplative life, traveling up the side that is the active life, we come down on the other side, bearing in our hands the treasures of God to distribute to our neighbor. This is the apostolic life. There is no one who has arrived at union with God, at the plenitude of contemplation, who does not feel himself eaten up with zeal for the salvation of souls. Then he descends from the height of contemplation to the field of the apostolate to win souls for God.

In one manner or another, therefore, every interior life must in its final phase be the contemplative life. Well, then, to contemplate God, the first requisite is to encounter Him. And once we have encountered Him, we need to know the means whereby to enter into communication with Him.

If I have a great desire to hear the lectures of a master, but if I do not know in what country or in what city he lives, the first thing I need to do is...................."  ...........

[Guest]

Daily Mass Online

10th. October, 2018

from Australia

 

My own Personal Rule of Life uses the Petitions  of The Our Father as subheadings.  The Our Father not only covers every petition imaginable, it is also a whole way of life.

 

 

22 hours ago, BarbaraTherese said:

 

LITURGY OF THE HOURS

LET US PRAY WITH THE UNIVERSAL CHURCH

For The Church and The World

Universalis

Each location has its own calendar http://universalis.com/930/n-location.htm

If you cannot find your location on the above link,

use

The General Calendar, which is posted daily into this thread (link below)

 

General Calendar - Lauds (Morning Prayer)  http://universalis.com/20181010/lauds.htm

 

 

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"In life, there is no end to getting well."

(Cary Grant)

http://www.healyourhealthnow.com/no-end-getting-well/

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I watch the following video every so often - it is my favourite.  The very best of it commences at 16.07, where Sister is speaking to an elderly Sister.....the younger Sister's appearance somewhat resembles St Elizabeth of The Trinity ...

St Elizabeth of The Trinity