Pope Francis washes the feet of God’s wayward children, boys and girls. Mommies and daddy’s wipe noses and evangelize just by being present in the midst of community.

Pope Francis washes the feet of God’s wayward children, boys and girls. Mommies and daddy’s wipe noses and evangelize just by being present in the midst of community.

Kathleen's avatarKathleen M. Basi

Triduum with young children is not a blissful devotional experience. But we do it anyway, because it’s important.

Michael is a wiggleworm during church at all times, but at bedtime, after immunization shots, it increases exponentially. I kept having to take him to the back so he could run back and forth, put his arms up to be picked up only to squirm back to the floor (rinse & repeat). Then he grabbed my face between his hands and started playing Eskimo kiss. It was less charming than it sounds, considering his version involves crashing foreheads and a runny nose.

But somewhere amid toddler wrestling and trying to show the 6- and 4- year-olds what’s so special about this particular day and why we go to Mass at night, something occurred to me that had I had never processed before:

Jesus washed Judas’ feet.

Now that has some pretty profound…

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August Queen of Heaven–Powerful Exorcism Prayer

 

H/T Barb at Suffering With Joy

A powerful exorcism prayer

Many years ago a spiritual director gave me a holy card with this prayer on the back written in French, and told me to say it every day. The prayer came about this way:

On the thirteenth of January, 1864, the Venerable Father Louis Cestac, founder of  the Congregation of the Servants of Mary, was given a vision of the demons of hell spread all over the earth doing indescribable damage, running riot everywhere. At the same time, the Blessed Virgin appeared to him and gave him this prayer, saying that the time had come to spread it all over the world, and that God wished it to be done. What interests me about the history of this prayer is that it predates the St. Michael prayer written as a result of a vision of Pope Leo XIII by approximately 40 years later, and that it clearly derives from Gen. 3:15.

When we are doing our best to live the Faith and to witness to Christ, we will be attacked. Hard. The work of the demons is unceasing and we experience it physically, mentally, and spiritually. Sometimes it seems like many things are conspiring to disturb our peace of mind and wear us out.  This is their invisible work bearing visible consequences.

Our loving Mama Mary, the one given us by Jesus at the foot of the Cross, the one who shared His passion most deeply, the one He desires us to love and venerate, wishes not one soul to be overcome by hell. We invoke our powerful and loving mother under the title of “August Queen of Heaven and Sovereign Mistress of Angels” to use the power given her by God to dispel demons.

Pope St. Pius X approved this prayer for indulgences. The power of the keys.

August Queen of Heaven

August Queen of Heaven, Sovereign Mistress of Angels, you who at the beginning received from God
the power and the mission to crush the head of Satan,
we beseech you humbly, send your holy legions so that,
on your orders and by your power, they will track down demons,
fight them everywhere, curb their audacity and plunge them into the abyss.

Who is like God?

Oh good and tender Mother,
you will always be our love and our hope.
Oh divine Mother, send the Holy Angels and Archangels to defend me
and to keep the cruel enemy far from me.

Holy Angels and Archangels defend us, protect us. Amen.

Holy Saturday Prayers

John Paul II visits Turin Cathedral during 2000 exhibition

Holy Saturday Prayer to Be Joined with Christ in Death
O Lord, Your sorrowing Mother stood by Your Cross; help us in our sorrows to share Your sufferings. Like the seed buried in the ground, You have produced the harvest of eternal life for us; make us always dead to sin and alive to God. Shepard of all, in death you remained hidden from the world; teach us to love our hidden spiritual life with You and the Father. In Your role as the new Adam, You went down among the dead to release all the just there since the beginning; grant that all who are dead in sin may hear Your voice and rise to new life. Son of the living God, You have allowed us through baptism to be buried with You; grant that we may also rise with You in baptism and walk in newness of life.

Holy Saturday Prayer


All-powerful and ever-living God, your only Son went down among the dead and rose again in glory. In your goodness raise up your faithful people, buried with him in baptism, to be one with him in the eternal life of heaven, where he lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, forever and ever.

A Prayer for Holy Saturday
O God, Creator of heaven and earth: Grant that, as the crucified body of your dear Son was laid in the tomb and rested on this holy Sabbath, so we may await with him the coming of the third day, and rise with him to newness of life; who now lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Good Friday of the Passion of Our Lord / DivineOffice.org

For an experience of the Liturgy of the Hours, the prayer of the Church, join in the praying of the hours for Good Friday at DivingOffice.org

Office of Readings for Friday of Holy Week

Standard Podcast [ 25:43 | 11.91 MB ] | Download

Good Friday of the Passion of Our Lord
“It was now about the sixth hour, and there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour, 45while the sun’s light failed; and the curtain of the temple was torn in two. 46Then Jesus, crying with a loud voice, said, ‘Father, into thy hands I commit my spirit!’” (Lk 23:44-46).

As Jesus died on the cross, all laws failed. Roman laws had accused an innocent man, natural laws had ceased to exist, and the moral law inherent in man’s own heart had crucified our Savior. As the centurion stated in Luke 23:47, “Certainly this man was innocent!”

As we continue in our reflection through Holy Week, today we must come to accept that justice may not exist in our cause. Things may not seem fair. It’s as if we must hold our breath… progress suspended.

Today’s paradox is we know a Godly commitment leads to good. We recognize that God is present with us as we strive to do His will. We have hope that new life will come; but today, unfortunately, can feel like a place without justice. Today, only the law of love remains.

Dolorous Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ

 

The following meditations will probably rank high among many similar works which the

contemplative love of Jesus has produced; but it is our duty here plainly to affirm that they

have no pretensions whatever to be regarded as history.

 They are but intended to take one of

the lowest places among those numerous representations of the Passion which have been

given us by pious writers and artists, and to be considered at the very utmost as the Lenten

meditations of a devout nun, related in all simplicity, and written down in the plainest and

most literal language, from her own dictation. To these meditations, she herself never

attached more than a mere human value, and never related them except through obedience,

and upon the repeated commands of the directors of her conscience.

The writer of the following pages was introduced to this holy religious by Count Leopold

de Stolberg. (The Count de Stolberg is one of the most eminent converts whom the Catholic

Church has made from Protestantism. He died in 1819.)

PDF of the Dolorous Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ

All Yours for Time and Eternity

All Yours:
All that is uncreated,
All that is of matter,
All we know,
All that is yet unfathomable,
All we shall never know,
All that is yet to be.

Though my will is free,
Yours are the hours that come to me.
You count out my years,
Allot the days of my life.
You feed me,
And so I am still here,
But one day not.

Why do I count the cost?
Why do I hoard?
Why do I envy?
Why do I paw the ground?
You Who span the Universe
Have paid the price,
And covenanted with me.

When I am dust again,
You will remember me.
Outside of Time,
You will hold me still.
My frame is written in Your being
For I am of the Son,
Who died for my eternity.

©2013 Joann Nelander
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