Tag Archives: Religion

Happier Than the Blessed Mother?

by

From Story of a Soul by St. Therese of Lisieux:

Speaking of that Blessed Mother, I must tell you of one of my
simple ways. Sometimes I find myself saying to her: “Dearest
Mother, it seems to me that I am happier than you. I have you for my Mother, and you have no Blessed Virgin to love. . . . It is
true, you are the Mother of Jesus, but you have given Him to me; and He, from the Cross, has given you to be our Mother–thus we are richer than you! Long ago, in your humility, you wished to become the little handmaid of the Mother of God; and I–poor little creature–am not your handmaid but your child! You are the Mother of Jesus, and you are also _mine!”_

Making the Ordinary Holy

by 
From Story of a Soul by St.Therese of Lisieux:

Questioned as to her method of sanctifying meals, she answered:

"In the refectory we have but one thing to do: perform a lowly
action with lofty thoughts. I confess that the sweetest
aspirations of love often come to me in the refectory. Sometimes I
am brought to a standstill by the thought that were Our Lord in my
place He would certainly partake of those same dishes which are
served to me. It is quite probable that during His lifetime He
tasted of similar food--He must have eaten bread and fruit.

"Here are my little rubrics:

"I imagine myself at Nazareth, in the house of the Holy Family.
If, for instance, I am served with salad, cold fish, wine, or
anything pungent in taste, I offer it to St. Joseph. To our
Blessed Lady I offer hot foods and ripe fruit, and to the Infant
Jesus our feast-day fare, especially rice and preserves. Lastly,
when I am served a wretched dinner I say cheerfully: 'To-day, my
little one, it is all for you!'"

Love’s Little Way

by

For those of us who are small at heart, ill equipped for great undertakings, yet desiring to fulfill in perfection the Will of God in our little lives simply to please Him, take heart.  There is a Little Way.

From Story of a Soul by St. Theresa of Lisieux – Manuscript B, Chapter IX – MY VOCATION IS LOVE:

St. Theresa of Lisieux, “I feel the vocation of the WARRIOR, THE PRIEST, THE APOSTLE, THE DOCTOR, THE MARTYR.  finally I feel the need and the desire of carrying out the most heroic deeds for You, O Jesus. I feel within my  the courage of the crusader, the Papal Guard, and I would want to die on the field of battle in defense of the Church………….

At prayer these desires made me suffer a true martydom. I opened the Epistles of St. Paul to seek some relief. The 12th and 13th chapters of the First Epistle to the Corinthians fell before my eyes. I read, in the first, that not all can be apostles, prophets, and doctors, etc., that the Church is composed of different members, and that the eye cannot also be at the same time the hand.

The answer was clear, but it did not satisfy my desires, it did not give me peace…. Without being discouraged I continued my reading, and this phrase comforted me: “Earnestly desire the more perfect gifts. And I show you a still more excellent way” (1 Cor 12:31). And the Apostle explains how all gifts, even the most perfect, are nothing without Love… that charity is the excellent way that leads surely to God. At last I had found rest…. Considering the mystical Body of the Church, I had not recognized myself in any of the members described by St. Paul, or rather, I wanted to recognize myself in all… Charity gave me the key to my vocation. I understood that if the Church has a body composed of different members, the noblest and most necessary of all the members would not be lacking to her. I understood that the Church has a heart, and that this heart burns with Love. I understood that Love alone makes its members act, that if this Love were to be extinguished, the Apostles would no longer preach the Gospel, the Martyrs would refuse to shed their blood… I understood that Love embraces all vocations, that Love is all things, that it embraces all times and all places… in a word, that it is eternal!

Then in the excess of my delirious joy, I cried out: “O Jesus, my Love, at last I have found my vocation, my vocation is Love!… Yes, I have found my place in the Church, and it is you, O my God, who have given me this place… in the heart of the Church, my Mother, I will be Love!…. Thus I shall be all things: thus my dream shall be realized!!!”

I am a child… It is not riches or glory (not even the glory of Heaven) that this child asks for… No, she asks for Love. She knows but one desire: to love you, Jesus. Glorious deeds are forbidden her; she cannot preach the Gospel or shed her blood… But what does that matter, her brothers work in her place, and she, a little child, stays close to the throne of the King and Queen, and loves for her brothers who are in the combat… But how shall she show her love, since love proves itself by deeds? Well! the little child will strew flowers, she will embalm the royal throne with their fragrance, she will sing with a silver voice the canticle of Love.

Yes, my Beloved, I wish to spend my life thus… I have no other means of proving my love except by strewing flowers, that is to say, letting no little sacrifice pass, no look, no word–profiting by the littlest actions, and doing them out of love. I wish to suffer out of love and to rejoice out of love; thus I shall strew flowers before your throne. I shall not find one without scattering its petals before you… and in strewing my flowers I will sing (can one weep in doing so joyous an action?) I will sing, even if my roses must be gathered from among thorns; and the longer and sharper the thorns, the sweeter shall be my song.

Begin today with a desire and a prayer, looking not at yourself  but at the generous Heart of Jesus.

Do I hear an, “Amen” ?

Work of God and Prayer

by

The Anchoress writes in Not believing is even worse of her conversation with a Muslim cab driver in Brooklyn:

“God is merciful,” he said. “Many people, all kinds of people, try to live in this way. My people, some Christian people, some Jewish people, they all try, but it is not always easy, as some think it is.”

“No, but we try.” I mused. “We people of faith all try to live it, and we all believe, and yet we have no peace between us.”

He shrugged. I got the impression that this was a conversation neither of us would be having, if one of us did not have our back to the other. “Faith is good,” he mused. “But peace…is difficult. We all believe different things.”

Ah, the eternal struggle – the mobius upon which we all ride and cannot escape. Why can’t believers simply allow other believers their beliefs? Because they believe.

I teased the driver, “maybe, then, we believers should just stop believing, and that would solve everything.”

“No, no,” he answered very seriously. “Not believing is even worse.”

Alisyn Camerota  wrote of a conversation with an Iraqi Colonel over dinner at his home in Baghdad:

“One day, while he and his oldest son (His four sons were named after the followers of the Prophet Mohammed.) worked his shop, three armed men came in and kidnapped them.  For three days COL M. was beaten and tortured and when he wasn’t being tortured, he listened to the screams of his teenage son in the next room receiving the same treatment.
I told him I was sorry for the loss of his family members and hoped that this was not the future of Iraq.  I said good night and left.  As we walked to the Humvee, I felt a little uneasy about showing him my family pictures.  Had I made that cultural flaw that would ruin our relationship? In the back ground, an Iraqi Jundi called to us.  My interpreter ran back inside the building.  When he returned, he handed me a plastic bag with some photographs, “the Colonel wants you to see these and bring them back tomorrow.”
We drove the bumpy ride home and by midnight I was looking at my secret plastic bag with the white label in English on the outside.  It was about a dozen photographs of him and his son whipped across their backs, arms, legs and heads;  facial expressions of broken men.  His wounds had the consistency of being whipped by a piece of cane, the skin exploding with each strike swelling from the inside as the blood rushed to the surface.  COL Ms upper left arm severely bruised and bloodied from different techniques of punching, pulling, twisting and whipping.  The left side of his back split open and bruised as well from three days worth of continued beatings.  He and his son tortured over a name and religion, beaten because his son was named after the follower of a Prophet.”

We all suffer for believing;  not believing is even worse.  Our coming together will be a work of God, Who hears the prayers of all who believe.  Those who don’t believe do not escape suffering, but here there is no prayer.

Lenten Reading Plan – Apr 4

by

crucificionicon12Day34 Church Fathers Lenten Reading Plan 4/4/09

St. Cyril of Jerusalem: Catechetical Lectures: Lecture XXIII

Day 34 Lite Version

St. Cyril of Jerusalem: Catechetical Lectures: Lecture XXII

Compilation of Lenten readings

Printer-Friendly Version of Outline: Church Fathers Lenten Reading Plan PDF

Fr. Corapi – Socialism’s Evil

by

With Americans  reeling from the all too sudden change in our country’s prospects and prognosis, Capitalism is looking like a culprit in the world’s collective eye.  Those jumping ship for Utopian dreams had better learn a lesson from history.

Fr. Corapi warns of the Evils of Socialism, calling it “failed and immoral territory”:

“Historically pure socialism has never worked, philosophically it cannot work, and morally it is inherently evil (because it undermines the right of private property ownership, an inherent human right) and hence should not be given a chance to work.
The response might be that what we have at the moment isn’t pure socialism. The problem is that the moment is incredibly fluid and the direction toward a more radical form of socialism under way with frightening speed. Unless, of course, you believe the politicians and their appointees whose stock-in-trade has become lies, deception, and self-interest.
The common error is to think that socialism helps the poor and disenfranchised. As Pope Leo XIII pointed out as long ago as 1891 in his Encyclical “Rerum Novarum”, socialism does not help the poor. Rather, it reduces everyone to the same lowest common denominator of poverty and misery, while at the same time drying up the very sources of capital.”