Day20 Church Fathers Lenten Reading Plan 3/19/09
St. Cyprian: On the Unity of the Church (Treatise I): 19-27
Day 20 Lite Version
St. Cyprian: On the Unity of the Church (Treatise I): 19-21
Printer-Friendly Version of Outline: Church Fathers Lenten Reading Plan PDF
March 19th is the Solemnity of St. Joseph. It is the Saint that will once again be the center of attention for the Gallegos Family. According to Senaida Kane, the sister of Bishop Alphonse Gallego, this year’s celebration marks the 75th year that the family will gather in his honor. This tradition was established by Joseph and Caciana Gallegos as they called their family together to pray the Rosary in veneration of the great St. Joseph.
One member of the family will be looking on from the heavenly heights, no doubt. He is Bishop Alphonse Gallegos Member of the Order of Augustinian Recollects and Auxiliary Bishop of the Diocese of Sacramento, California, whose cause for beatification and canonization was introduced to the Vatican in Rome in November, 2006.
St. Joseph, pray for us!
Pope Bededict XVI touched down yesterday in Cameroon. According to the AP, this is the Pope’s first trip as pontiff to Africa. “For Benedict, whose only previous stop in Africa was in Kinshasa in 1987 as a cardinal, the continent presents major challenges and opportunities. He is expected to address them in meetings with Muslim representatives, bishops, health workers and women’s advocacy groups.”
This is the first day in his seven day pilgrimage. The Roman Catholic Church is booming and blooming in Africa. “Africa produces priests at a higher rate than anywhere in the world but finds itself in competition with Islam in Cameroon..”
“Benedict said he wants to invigorate the growing church in Africa. ‘I intend to confirm Catholics in their faith,” he said, and ‘proclaim the peace entrusted to the Church” by Jesus. Benedict said that as he sets out for Africa, he has in mind ‘the victims of hunger, disease, injustice, fratricidal conflicts and every form of violence which unfortunately continue to afflict adults and children, without sparing missionaries’ and volunteers working on the continent.”
“The Catholic Church has been one body that has been consistent in the development of the African continent not only spiritually, but in the provision of quality education, health care, caring for the neglected and victims of natural and man made disasters. It has also spoken up against corrupt and inept leaders in a fearless and constructive manner. The Church is only fulfilling its mandate to bring light to a darkened world and needs to continue this mission unceasingly. Africa definitely needs the Church. Osayawe Ogieva, Nigeria”
Pope John Paul II in his encyclical Orientale Lumen, the Light of the East, asserted that “the venerable and ancient tradition of the eastern churches is an integral part of the the heritage of the Catholic Church.” The pope called upon all Catholics to become “fully acquainted with this treasure.”
I checked out ngchase’s recommendation Eastern Christian Media. It looks beautiful and full of promise. Nelson says “there are some wonderful pieces on different aspects of the Eastern Christian faith! It also has a nice video of Fr Moses -of Holy Resurrection Monastery- cooking a nice meal. (I have had his cooking before and its great!)”
From The Story of a Soul, The Autobiography of St. Therese of Lisieux
What can I tell you, dear Mother, about my thanksgivings after Communion? There is no time when I taste less consolation. But this is what I should expect. I desire to receive Our Lord, not for my own satisfaction, but simply to give Him pleasure. I picture my soul as a piece of waste ground and beg Our Blessed Lady to take away my imperfections–which are as heaps of rubbish–and to build upon it a splendid tabernacle worthy of Heaven, and adorn it with her own adornments. Then I invite all the Angels and Saints to come and sing canticles of love, and it seems to me that Jesus is well pleased to see Himself received so grandly, and I share in His joy. But all this does not prevent distractions and drowsiness from troubling me, and not unfrequently I resolve to continue my thanksgiving throughout the day, since I made it so badly in choir. You see, dear Mother, that my way is not the way of fear; I can always make myself happy, and profit by my imperfections, and Our Lord Himself encourages me in this path.”
Well worth the effort to get to this pearl:
After I had received the Sacrament of life, and had retired to the place where I pray, it seemed to me that I saw a ray of light like an arrow coming forth from the Wound of the right side of the crucifix, which was in an elevated place, and it continued, as it were, to advance and retire for some time, sweetly attracting my cold affections. But my desire was not entirely satisfied with these things until the following Wednesday, when after the Mass, the faithful meditated on Thy adorable Incarnation and Annunciation, in which I joined, however imperfectly. And, behold, Thou camest suddenly before me, and didst imprint a wound in my heart, saying these words: May the full tide of your affections flow hither, so that all your pleasure, your hope, your joy, your grief, your fear, and every other feeling may be sustained by My love! And I immediately remembered that I had heard a wound should be bathed, anointed and bandaged. But Thou didst not teach me then in what manner I should perform these things, for Thou didst defer it to discover it to me more clearly in the end by means of another person, who had accustomed the ears of her soul to discern far more exactly and delicately than I do the sweet mummers of Thy love.
She advised me to reflect devoutly upon the love of Thy Heart when hanging on the Cross, and to draw from this fountain the waters of true devotion, to wash away all my offenses; to take from the unction of mercy the oil of gratitude, which the sweetness of this inestimable love has produced as a remedy for all adversities, and to use this efficacious charity and the strength of this consummate love as a ligament of justification to unite all my thoughts, words and works, indissolubly and powerfully to Thee. May all the deprivation of those things which my malice and wickedness has caused be supplied through that love whose plenitude abides in Him Who being seated on Thy right hand, has become “bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh!” As it is by Him, through the operation of the Holy Spirit, that Thou hast placed in me this noble virtue of compassion, humility and reverence, to enable me to speak to Thee, it is also by Him that I present to Thee my complaint of the miseries I endure, which are so great in number, and which have caused me to offend Thy Divine goodness in so many ways by my thoughts, words and actions, but principally by the bad use which I have made of the aforesaid graces, by my unfaithfulness, my negligence and my irreverence. For if Thou hast given to one so unworthy even a thread of flax as a remembrance of Thee, I should have been bound to respect it more than I have done all these favors.
Be Holy! 