Saints Peter and Paul, Apostles - Solemnity

  The National Gallery, Carlo Crivelli, 'St Peter and Paul'

Are you ready to ascend Mt. Carmel on the wings of a bird? Are you tired of being tied down by the things of this earth? Everything that God created is good. But He made the physical world as a means of drawing us towards Himself. One day, it will have served its purpose and be gone. Will you be ready to leave it behind when God calls you? “You can’t take it with you” - not to Heaven, and not up the mountain. Let’s follow St. Paul in enjoying the things of this earth without being consumed by them (1 Corinthians 7:31). St John of the Cross, Ascent of Mt. Carmel, Book One, 11.4. “May grace and peace be accomplished and perfect in you in the knowledge of God and of our Lord Jesus Christ, as all things of his divine power that pertain to life and piety are given us through the knowledge of him who called us with his own glory and power, by whom he has given us very great and precious promises, that by these we may be made partakers of the divine nature” [2 Pt. 1:2-4]. These are words from St. Peter in which he clearly indicates that the soul will participate in God himself by performing in him, in company with him, the work of the Most Blessed Trinity because of the substantial union between the soul and God. Although this participation will be perfectly accomplished in the next life, still in this life when the soul has reached the state of perfection…. she obtains a foretaste and noticeable trace of it in the way we are describing, although as we said it is indescribable. St. John of the Cross. Spiritual Canticle, Stanza 39. 

 

Read whole post......

Merciful Love and Returning Love for Love. Solemnity of the Sacred Heart of Jesus

"O Jesus, I know that Your Heart is more grieved by the thousand little imperfections of Your friends than by the faults, even grave, which Your enemies commit. Yet, it seems to me, that it is only when those who are Your own are habitually guilty of thoughtlessness and neglect to seek Your pardon, that You can say: 'These wounds which you see in the midst of My hands I have received in the house of those who love Me.' But Your Heart thrills with joy when You have to deal with all those who truly love, and who after each little fault come to fling themselves into Your arms, imploring forgiveness. You say to Your angels what the prodigal's father said to his servants: 'Put a ring upon his finger, and let us rejoice.' O Jesus, how little known is the merciful love of Your Heart!" (St Therese of Child Jesus, Letters, Councels and Souvenirs)

In the encyclicalAnnum Sacrum, Pope Leo XIII declares, "The Sacred Heart is the symbol and image of the infinite charity of Jesus Christ, the charity which urges us to give him love in return." Indeed, nothing is more able to arouse love than love itself. St Teresa of Jesus said: "Whenever we think of Christ, we should remember with what love He has bestowed all these favours upon us...for love begets love. And though we may be only beginners...let us strive ever to bear this in mind and awaken our own love" (Life, 22). The Church offers us the devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus to stir up our love and asks us "Who would not love Him who has loved us so much? Who among His redeemed would not love Him dearly?" (RB). Jesus said through the Prophet: "I have loved thee with an everlasting love; therefore have I drawn thee, taking pity on thee" (Jer 31:30). Devotion to the Sacred Heart, which is devotion to the infinite love of Jesus, should produce this particular effect on us: it should give us an ever increasing comprehension of "the charity of Christ which surpasseth all knowledge" (Eph 3:19). Meditating and contemplating the Heart of Jesus pierced for love of us, may be the way to learn the science of love, a science which no book on earth can teach us, because it is a science that can be acquired only from the open book of the Heart of Christ, our one and only Teacher, as St John of the Cross said: "He thought me a science most delectable". Therefore, the answer to His love is easy: He "loved me and delivered Himself for me...and I most gladly will spent and be spent myself for Him and for the souls that are His treasure" (Gal 2:20, Cor 12:15). Behold the love that raises us above all calculation, all self-love.

Read whole post......

Corpus Christi Solemnity

I invite all visitors to this blog, to read this beautiful devotional meditation written by Fr Gabriel of St Mary Magdalen, OCD, which may help us to understand better Our Lord's love and compassion for us, poor sinners, that prompted Him to remain with us for ever in the Most Holy Sacrament of the altar.

PRESENCE OF GOD: "The eternal tide flows hid in living bread. That with its heavenly life to be fed" (St John of the Cross 'Poems').

MEDITATION
1. We have gone, step by step, in the course of the liturgical year, from the consideration of the mysteries of the life of Jesus to the contemplation of the Blessed Trinity, whose feast we celebrated last Sunday. Jesus, our Mediator, our Way, has taken us by the hand and led us to the Trinity; and today it seems as though the three Persons Themselves wish to take us back to Jesus, considered in His Eucharist. "No man cometh to the Father but by Me" (Jn 14:6), Jesus said, and He added, "No man can come to Me except the Father...draw him" (Jn 6:44). This is the journey of the Christian soul: from Jesus to the Father, to the Trinity; from the Trinity, from the Father, to Jesus. Jesus brings us to the Father, the Father draws us to Jesus A Christian cannot do without Christ; He is, in the strictest sense of the word, our Pontiff, the great Bridge-builder who has spanned the abyss between God and us. At the end of the liturgical cycle in which we commemorate the mysteries of the Savior, the Church, who like a good Mother knows that our spiritual life cannot subsist without Jesus, leads us to Him, really and truly present in the Most Holy Sacrament of the altar. The solemnity of the Corpus Christ is not just the simple memorial of an historical event which took place almost two thousand years ago at the Last Supper; rather, it recalls us to the ever-present reality of Jesus always living in our midst. We can say, in truth, that He has not "left us orphans", but has willed to remain permanently with us, in the integrity of His Person in the fullness of His humanity and His divinity. "There is no other nation so great," the Divine Office enthusiastically sings, "as to have its gods so near as our God is present to us" (Roman Breviary). In the Eucharist, Jesus is really Emmanuel, God with us.

2. The Eucharist is not only Jesus actually living among us, but it is jesus become our Food. This is the chief aspect under which today's liturgy present the mystery to us; there is no part of the Mass which does not treat of it directly, or which does not, at least, make some allusion to it. The Introit refers to it when it mentions the wheat and honey with which God once fed the Hebrews in the desert, a miraculous food, and yet a very poor representation of the living, life-giving bread of the Eucharist. The Epistle (1 Cor 11: 23-39) speaks of it, recalling the institution of this Sacrament, when Jesus "took bread, and giving thanks, broke, and said, 'Take ye, and eat; this is My Body'"; the Gradual chants, "The eyes of all hope in You, O Lord, and You give them meat in due season". The very beautiful Sequence, Lauda Sion, celebrates it at length, and the Gospel (Jn 6: 56-59), echoing the Alleluia, cites the most significant passage in the discourse when Jesus Himself announced the Eucharist, "My Flesh is meat indeed, and My Blood is drink indeed"

The Communion Hymn repeats a sentence of the Epistle, and reminds us that we receive the Body of the Lord worthily. Finally, the Postcommunion tells us that Eucharistic Communion is the pledge of eternal communion, in heaven. But in order to have a better understanding of the immense value of the Eucharist, we must go back to the very words of Jesus, most opportunely recalled in the Gospel of the day, "He that eateth My Flesh and drinketh My Blood, abideth in Me and I in Him." Jesus made Himself our food in order to assimilate us to Himself, to make us live His life, to make us live in Him, as He Himself lives in His Father. The Eucharist is truly the Sacrament of the union and at the same time it is the clearest and most convincing proof that God calls us and pleads with us tp come to intimate union with Himself.

COLLOQUY

"O God, O Creator, O Spirit of life overwhelming Your creatures with ever new graces! You grant to Your chosen ones the gift which is ever renewed: the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ!...O my soul, how can you refrain yourself from plunging deeper and deeper into the love of Christ, who did not forget you in life or in death, but who willed to give Himself wholly to you, and to unite to Himself forever "St Angela of Folignio.

Read whole post......

Meditation, Novena and Offering to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, Novena starts today - click for link

"You know, my God, that my one desire is to be a victim of Your Sacred Heart, wholly consumed as a holocaust in the fire of Your holy love. Your Heart will be the altar on which I shall be consumed by You, my dear Spouse, and You will be the Priest who will consume this victim by the fires of Your most Sacred Heart. But, O my God, how ashamed I am to see how guilty is this victim and how unworthy to have her sacrifice accepted by You! But I am confident that all will be consumed by this divine fire!

By offering my whole self to You, I understand that I am giving You my free will, so that henceforth, You alone will be the Master of my heart, and Your will alone will regulate my actions. Therefore, dispose of me always according to Your good pleasure; I am content with everything, since I wish to love You with a love that is patient, mortified, wholly abandoned to You, an active love, a strong, undivided love and, what is more important, a persevering love." (St Teresa Margaret Redi)

All ye who bear a burden

Come unto Me, Who know

A place of quiet refreshment,

Where living waters flow!...

O Heart, the well-spring of all love,

Within Thy depths I hide,

And drink the living waters

That flow down from Thy side!

(St Therese "Poems")

Read whole post......