Paraphrasing Rev. Fr. Michael DePalma:
In life, it’s not how you begin. It’s how you end.
How will you be remembered? More importantly, how will The Father remember you?
Begin today to become a beautiful remembrance in the mind of God.
Our Day of Judgment should be our Day of Glory!
The Voice of Christ:
“COME to Me, all you that labor and are burdened, and I will refresh you.
The bread which I will give is My Flesh, for the life of the world.
Take you and eat: this is My Body, which shall be delivered for you. Do this for the commemoration of Me.
He that eateth My flesh, and drinketh My blood, abideth in Me, and I in him.
The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life.”
The Offering of Christ on the Cross; Our Offering
The Voice of Christ:
AS I offered Myself willingly to God the Father for your sins with hands outstretched and body naked on the cross, so that nothing remained in Me that had not become a complete sacrifice to appease the divine wrath, so ought you to be willing to offer yourself to Me day by day in the Mass as a pure and holy oblation, together with all your faculties and affections, with as much inward devotion as you can. What more do I ask than that you give yourself entirely to Me? I care not for anything else you may give Me, for I seek not your gift but you. Just as it would not be enough for you to have everything if you did not have Me, so whatever you give cannot please Me if you do not give yourself. Offer yourself to Me, therefore, and give yourself entirely for God — your offering will be accepted. Behold, I offered Myself wholly to the Father for you, I even gave My whole Body and Blood for food that I might be all yours, and you Mine forever. But if you rely upon self, and do not offer your free will to Mine, your offering will be incomplete and the union between us imperfect. Hence, if you desire to attain grace and freedom of heart, let the free offering of yourself into the hands of God precede your every action. This is why so few are inwardly free and enlightened — they know not how to renounce themselves entirely. My word stands:”Everyone of you that doth not renounce all that he possesseth, cannot be My disciple.” If, therefore, you wish to be My disciple, offer yourself to Me with all your heart.
How can I be an emptiness that beckons You enter,
if all I am is chatter?
Give my Your silence, Your “Be still,”
that You may come to me.
Day 10 Church Fathers Lenten Reading Plan 3/7/09
St. Ignatius of Antioch: Letter To the Smyrnaeans: complete
Day 10 Lite Version
St. Justin Martyr: First Apology: 8 – 14
Printer-Friendly Version of Outline: Church Fathers Lenten Reading Plan PDF
In “Keepers of History,” Joanna Lotta asks the question: Who holds your history? Lotta describes the “griots” who have amazing memories and whose role it is within their West African society to recite long histories and genealogies as well as songs of praise.
We can ask this question of our own lives. When we came into this world, we already possessed a history; one going back in time to all our fore-bearers. We held recorded in our genes, if not our memories, our mother and our father, our grandparents and great grand-parents; add to that as many greats as it takes to take us back to the very beginning of human beginnings. Even for one so small as each of us was in our zygotic beginnings, that’s a weighty argument for the worth of our being. From the beginning, you and I are not a nothing, nor a nobody, nor a blob of substance. Each of us is one in the line of the order of Adam called into existence by the breathe of God and cooperation of our human nature.
So now, for the unborn, I ask, “Who holds their history?” Further, I ask, “Who holds their destiny?” Will industries such as Planned Parenthood, abortion mills, research institutes, and unethical fertilization plants, manipulate the Present and the Future by abrogating our mortal and moral Past. Our souls, as well as our genes, tell a story; one that will be sung one day before our Creator as a song of praise or profanation. Eternity waits on an answer.
Day 9 Church Fathers Lenten Reading Plan 3/5/09
St. Ignatius of Antioch: Letter To the Philadelphians: complete
Day 9 Lite Version
St. Justin Martyr: First Apology: 1-7
Printer-Friendly Version of Outline: Church Fathers Lenten Reading Plan PDF
Be Holy! 