St. Louise de Marillac

Louise was the daughter of Louis de Marillac, the Lord of Ferrières, a French nobleman. She never knew her mother who died shortly after her birth. Ordinarily there is something wanting in a child not brought up in a mother’s care; in Louise, however, this privation in her own childhood made her better understand the love necessary for the little motherless beings that she would one day snatch from death. She was raised partially by her father and partially by her aunt, for whom she was named, a Dominican religious at Poissy.

Intelligent, ardent and pious, she first wished to become a religious but at twenty-two, under her confessor’s advice, she accepted marriage to Antoine Le Gras, a young secretary to Queen Marie de Medicis. The couple was happily married in February of 1613 and had an only son, Michel.

In 1619, Mlle. Le Gras came to know Francis de Sales who was to provide her with great support and consolation in her future trials. Around 1621, Antoine contracted a chronic illness, believed to have been a form of tuberculosis, and eventually became bedridden. Troubled by the thought that she had rejected an early call to the religious life, Louise took a vow in 1623 never to remarry should her husband die before her. Antoine’s illness did, in fact, accompany him to his deathbed and he died on December 21, 1625.

Francis de Sales, the Bishop of Geneva, had introduced her to the spiritual director of his religious of the Visitation in Paris, Monsieur Vincent de Paul. Under his cautious and prudent direction after her husband’s death, Louise gradually became involved in Monsieur Vincent’s works of charity in the French capital. These charitable works were funded by wealthy and pious aristocratic ladies; however, Monsieur Vincent and Mlle. Le Gras both saw the need for a more formalized organization of charity. In 1633 Louise invited four young women into her home where she began to train them to serve the poor and the infirm. “Love the poor and honor them as you would honor Christ Himself,” she instructed them. The small group practiced in local hospitals where they were soon in demand. This first nucleus developed into the religious institute of the Daughters of Charity which received official approval in 1655.

Louise, who had struggled with ill health all her life, led the Daughters of Charity until her death on March 15, 1660, a mere six months before the death of her beloved mentor, Monsieur Vincent. She was sixty-eight, and left more than forty houses of charity throughout France. The order was to spread throughout the world, her spiritual daughters universally recognized by their “winged” white headdress.

Actions speak

 

Actions speak louder than words.
Let your words teach
and your actions speak.

St. Anthony of Padua

St. Leobinus of Chartres

Lubin’s parents were peasants from the region of Poitiers in France. As a young boy, Lubin had an aptitude for learning and applied to a monastery where he was employed in menial tasks. His work occupied him the entire day, and he was obliged to do most of his studying at night, screening his candle as best he could. The monks complained that the light disturbed their slumbers, but by much humility and perseverance Lubin advanced in knowledge.

He eventually joined the monastery and, probably at the suggestion of St. Carilef, for a time lived as a hermit under the guidance of St. Avitus. Later, after some misadventures, he settled in an abbey near Lyons, remaining for five years.

In a war between the Franks and the Burgundians this monastery was raided and all the monks fled with the exception of Lubin and an old monk. The enemy, unable to extort from Lubin the location of the monastery’s "treasure", tortured him by first strangling him with a rope and then by tying his feet and dipping him, head first, into the river. Left for dead, he recovered, and was received in the monastery of Le Perche.

Bishop Aetherius of Chartres nominated Lubin the Abbot of Brou and had him ordained to the priesthood. His responsibility as abbot weighed so heavily upon him that he begged – although in vain – to be relieved of it. Instead, upon the death of the bishop, he was elevated and consecrated in his place. He brought about various reforms and became renowned for his miracles. Lubin participated in the Fifth Council of Orleans and in the Second Council of Paris, and died on March 14, about the year 558, after a long illness.

Photo by: Chatsam

How mothers prepare us for heaven

 

Someone who in the first stages of life
experienced the joy of having a good mother
understands that life on earth can be very difficult,
but as long as he remembers his mother,
he will retain the paradisiacal remembrance of his infancy.
And retaining this remembrance, the person
maintains hope in the Celestial Paradise.

Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira

St. Euphrasia

Euphrasia’s father, Antigonus, was a kinsman of the Emperor Theodosius I, and her mother, also named Euphrasia, was of an equally exalted station.

Both parents were as virtuous as they were socially privileged and wealthy. When Antigonus died a year after Euphrasia’s birth, the emperor took the widow and child under his protection. At five years of age, Euphrasia was promised in marriage by Emperor Theodosius to the son of a wealthy senator.

When the young widow herself began to be sought in marriage, she took her child and moved to Egypt to live near a monastery of nuns known for their holiness and austerity.  At age seven, feeling drawn to religious life, the little girl begged to be allowed to join the religious. Delighted, the mother cautiously allowed her a time in the monastery, but realizing that her daughter, despite her youth, was in dead earnest, the widow entrusted her child to the motherly care of the abbess. Soon after, feeling herself close to death, Euphrasia counseled her daughter: "Fear God, honor your sisters, and serve them with humility. Never think of what you have been, nor say to yourself that you are of royal extraction. Be humble and poor on earth, that you may be rich in heaven.”

And, in fact, young Euphrasia edified her sisters by her astounding meekness and humility. Once, being tempted by all the things and honors she had left, her superior had her move a great pile of stones, at which task she persevered for thirty days, conquering her temptation.
Upon the death of her mother, and Euphrasia having reached a marriageable age, the emperor pressed his claim requesting her return to court. But she sent him the following reply written in her own hand: “Invincible emperor, having consecrated myself to Christ in perpetual chastity, I cannot be false to my engagement, and marry a mortal man, who will shortly be the food of worms. For the sake of my parents, be pleased to distribute their estates among the poor, the orphans, and the church. Set all my slaves at liberty, and discharge my vassals and servants, giving them whatever is their due. Order my father’s stewards to acquit my farmers of all they owe since his death that I may serve God without let or hindrance, and may stand before him without the solicitude of temporal affairs. Pray for me, you and your empress, that I may be made worthy to serve Christ.” The emperor shed many tears upon reading Euphrasia’s reply, as did those senators who were present. Overcome, one of them exclaimed in admiration: “She is the worthy daughter of Antigonus and Euphrasia, of your royal blood, and the holy off-spring of a virtuous stock.” Shortly before his own death in 395, the emperor fulfilled all as she had desired.

Euphrasia died at age thirty and was favored with the gift of miracles before her death.

How do we love God?

 

It is certain that the love of God
does not consist in
this sweetness and tenderness which we for the most part desire;
but rather in serving Him
in justice, fortitude, and humility.
His Majesty seeks and loves courageous souls.

St. Teresa of Avila

St. Theophanes the Chronicler

Theophanes was the son of Isaac, the imperial governor of the islands of the Black Sea, and of Theodora, of whose family nothing is known. At the death of his father when he was only three, he was left the heir of a very large estate and was subsequently brought up at the court of the Byzantine Emperor Constantine V, who saw to his education.

He was induced to marry early, but convinced his wife to lead a life of virginity. Later, after the death of his father-in-law, they separated by mutual consent, each to embrace monastic life. Theophanes first entered Polychronius Monastery on Mount Sigriano, then went on to found another monastery on the island of Kalonymos, which was part of his inheritance.

Six years later, Theophanes returned to Sigriano where he made another monastic foundation. It was in virtue of his position as abbot of this monastery that he participated in the Second Council of Nicaea in 787, which issued the declaration of faith concerning the veneration of holy images:

“As the sacred and life-giving cross is everywhere set up as a symbol, so also should the images of Jesus Christ, the Virgin Mary, the holy angels, as well as those of the saints and other pious and holy men be embodied in the manufacture of sacred vessels, tapestries, vestments, etc., and exhibited on the walls of churches, in the homes, and in all conspicuous places, by the roadside and everywhere, to be revered by all who might see them. For the more they are contemplated, the more they move to fervent memory of their prototypes. Therefore, it is proper to accord to them a fervent and reverent adoration, not, however, the veritable worship which, according to our faith, belongs to the Divine Being alone — for the honor accorded to the image passes over to its prototype, and whoever adores the image adores in it the reality of what is there represented.”

When Emperor Leo the Armenian resumed his iconoclastic persecution, he had Theophanes brought to Constantinople. The Emperor tried in vain to induce him to condemn the same veneration of icons that had been sanctioned by the council. When the Emperor’s promises failed to move him, he resorted to threats. Finding the venerable old man equally unmoved, the Emperor submitted him to 300 lashes and had him thrown in a dungeon. His imprisonment lasted for two years, but he remained constant in his faith. Theophanes was released in 817 only to be banished to Samothrace, a Greek island in the Aegean Sea, where he died seventeen days later as a consequence of the cruel treatment he had endured during his imprisonment.

Theophanes left a chronicle or short history of the world to the year 813. He is also mentioned in the Roman Martyrology.

Anniversary of the birth of Saint Jacinta Marto

 

 

Visiting Fatima years back, preparing to work on my children’s book Jacinta’s Story, the tiny town of Aljustrel gave me a glimpse into the personalities of the three small seers, Lucia dos Santos, and Francisco and Jacinta Marto.

I will never forget emerging from the tiny, white-washed cottage that had been Francisco and Jacinta’s home and seeing the last of their living brothers leaning against a wall, available for souvenir photos. He was a man out of modern time, unsophisticated, direct and simple, a man “of the earth”, still untouched by the complications of industrialized civilization.

This is how Jacinta, her brother and cousin, must have been–even more so. There was nothing remarkable about this man, peering at me shyly from under his brow, just as there must have been nothing extraordinary about the little shepherd girl who Pope John Paul II declared Blessed in May of 2000 and was canonized a Saint in May of 2017, and who looks at us just as shyly from under her brow in her photos.

Pictures and descriptions of little Jacinta show us a pretty, spritely, charming girl who at times, according to Lucia, was a bit sulky, and “the sweetest of his children” in the words of her father, “Ti”  Marto.

 

 

 

We get a glimpse of a sensitive, affectionate child when, at age five, she cried bitterly on hearing about the sufferings of Christ,  and promised not to make Him suffer anymore.

We sense her contemplative nature when we read of her calling the moon, “Our Lady’s lamp.".

And we meet the little Portuguese “hostess” when, at age seven, at the first apparition, on May 13, 1917, she shyly asks Lucia if they should share their lunch with their heavenly visitor.

We also glimpse the pristine innocence in the small oval face of the pictures, coupled with an almost disconcerting directness and strength in the brown eyes–eyes that seem to see “beyond”,  for indeed they had had a glimpse of Heaven–and Hell.

In the second apparition of June 13, the Blessed Virgin said that she would soon take Francisco and Jacinta to Heaven. In the  vision of July 13, they were shown a terrifying scene of Hell, in which they saw, immersed in a huge fire, innumerable souls like  “burning ambers”.

 

This vision coupled with Our Lady’s pathetic plea “Pray for sinners, many go to Hell because there is no one to pray for them,” lit in the innocent girl’s heart a fire of love for God and souls.

Between the great graces of Our Lady, the knowledge that she was not long for this earth and the thirst to save as many “poor  sinners” as she could, Jacinta forgot the earth, and for four short years lived only to please God, her “Lady” and to help souls  make it to that Heaven she had been promised for herself.

Jacinta’s natural sensitivity and affectionate disposition were sublimated into that burning charity that renders all sacrifice small and all effort easy. Lucia writes in her memoirs how Jacinta never tired of telling Our Lord and Our Lady how much she loved them. She once said, “ I have a fire in my chest but it doesn’t burn me."

This inward “fire” fueled her on until her death of tuberculosis just shy of her eleventh birthday, alone in a hospital in Lisbon, which last sacrifice she embraced for her beloved “sinners”. 

Despite her youth, in the words of Pope John Paul II at her beatification on May 13, 2000, “She could well exclaim with St. Paul: ‘I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I complete what is lacking in Christ's afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the Church’” (Col 1: 24).

In four short years the little Portuguese girl had gone from carefree shepherdess to heroic saint.

 

On the Anniversary of Saint Jacinta’s birth:

America Needs Fatima invites you to take the children you love on a wonderful pilgrimage to feel Our Lady’s maternal love and to learn about her beautiful Fatima apparitions through Jacinta’s Story. Children will follow Jacinta’s footsteps to the Cova da Iria—the famous spot where the Mother of God appeared. They will see Jacinta kneel in awe as Our Lady approaches the holm-oak tree in a radiant sphere of light. They will feel Jacinta’s sadness as people spread a rumor that it was the devil instead of the Virgin Mary who had appeared.

Jacinta’s Story is the Fatima story imaginatively told through the eyes of Saint Jacinta Marto, the youngest of the three seers to whom Our Lady appeared in 1917 to deliver the most important message of our times. The book is hardbound and richly illustrated by author Andrea F. Phillips.

Jacinta’s Story contains many vital lessons for children—why it is so important that they pray the Rosary, obey their parents and follow the difficult but rewarding road of virtue in this life.

 

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Visit our On-Line store to place your book order: https://store.tfp.org

Or call us toll free 1-888-317-5571 to place your book order.

Jacinta’s Story:                               

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References:  
America Needs Fatima online, Mystics of the Church online
Speech of Pope John Paul II at Beatification of Francisco and Jacinta Marto-Vatican Website

 

 

St. Aengus Abbot (Feast: March 11)

 

St. Aengus, called “God’s Vassal” was of the royal house of Ulster, and was born around the middle of the seventh century. As a young man he entered the Monastery of Clonenagh, which under its holy abbot Maelaithgen was famous for its learning, sanctity and numerous followers.

At Clonenagh, Aengus advanced so rapidly that there came a day when it was said that none in Ireland rivaled Aengus in knowledge and virtue.

Desiring to abandon the world entirely, Aengus retired to an isolated hermitage where he practiced severe mortifications. These, in turn, began to attract all manner of people to his “desert”. So, one night, he simply disappeared.

Knocking at the door of the great monastery of Tallaght in Dublin, he asked to be admitted as a servant – concealing both his name and renown. He was accepted by the abbot, St. Maelruain, and for seven years labored at the meanest chores about the monastery, none suspecting his true identity.

One day as he worked in the barn, a little boy who did not know his lesson, and was playing truant from the monastery school sought shelter in the granary. Aengus befriended him, and by the time the lad left the barn yard he knew his lesson perfectly.

The fact came to the attention of Abbot Maelruain, who divined that his chore-boy was the missing great teacher Aengus. Relieved of his menial work, Aengus went on to write the metrical hymn known as the Félire Óengusso or The Martyrology of Oengus the Culdee.

After the death of St. Maelruain, he returned to Clonenagh where he appears to have been made abbot and to have been raised to episcopal dignity.

As he felt his end approaching, he withdrew again to solitude where he finished his Félire, and perhaps other works now lost.  The exact date of his death is not known but it is thought that he lived to a great age.

 

What catches the hearts of men?

 

Mary is the most sweet bait;
chosen, prepared and ordained by God,
to catch the hearts of men.

St. Catherine of Siena

Novena to St. Joseph - March 11 to March 19

 

 

Click here to receive the novena prayers each day in your inbox

You can choose to start today or on March 11th. 

Novena Prayer to be said at the end of each day's devotion. (See each day's prayer below)

Saint Joseph, I, your unworthy child, greet you. You are the faithful protector and intercessor of all who love and venerate you. You know that I have special confidence in you and that, after Jesus and Mary, I place all my hope of salvation in you, for you are especially powerful with God and will never abandon your faithful servants. Therefore I humbly invoke you and commend myself, with all who are dear to me and all that belong to me, to your intercession. I beg of you, by your love for Jesus and Mary, not to abandon me during life and to assist me at the hour of my death.

Glorious Saint Joseph, spouse of the Immaculate Virgin, obtain for me a pure, humble, charitable mind, and perfect resignation to the divine Will. Be my guide, my father, and my model through life that I may merit to die as you did in the arms of Jesus and Mary.

Loving Saint Joseph, faithful follower of Jesus Christ, I raise my heart to you to implore your powerful intercession in obtaining from the Divine Heart of Jesus all the graces necessary for my spiritual and temporal welfare, particularly the grace of a happy death, and the special grace I now implore: (Mention your request).

Guardian of the Word Incarnate, I feel confident that your prayers in my behalf will be graciously heard before the throne of God. Amen.

Memorare
Remember, most pure spouse of Mary, ever Virgin, my loving protector, Saint Joseph, that no one ever had recourse to your protection or asked for your aid without obtaining relief. Confiding, therefore, in your goodness, I come before you and humbly implore you. Despise not my petitions, foster-father of the Redeemer, but graciously receive them. Amen.

 

 

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First Day Second Day Third Day

Fourth Day Fifth Day Sixth Day

Seventh Day Eighth Day Ninth Day

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FIRST DAY
Foster-Father of Jesus

Saint Joseph, you were privileged to share in the mystery of the Incarnation as the foster-father of Jesus. Mary alone was directly connected with the fulfillment of the mystery, in that she gave her consent to Christ's conception and allowed the Holy Spirit to form the sacred humanity of Jesus from her blood. You had a part in this mystery in an indirect manner, by fulfilling the condition necessary for the Incarnation -- the protection of Mary's virginity before and during your married life with her. You made the virginal marriage possible, and this was a part of God's plan, foreseen, willed, and decreed from all eternity.

In a more direct manner you shared in the support, upbringing, and protection of the Divine Child as His foster-father. For this purpose the Heavenly Father gave you a genuine heart of a father -- a heart full of love and self-sacrifice. With the toil of your hands you were obliged to offer protection to the Divine Child, to procure for Him food, clothing, and a home. You were truly the saint of the holy childhood of Jesus -- the living created providence which watched over the Christ-Child.

When Herod sought the Child to put Him to death, the Heavenly Father sent an angel but only as a messenger, giving orders for the flight; the rest He left entirely in your hands. It was that fatherly love which was the only refuge that received and protected the Divine Child. Your fatherly love carried Him through the desert into Egypt until all enemies were removed. Then on your arms the Child returned to Nazareth to be nourished and provided for during many years by the labor of your hands. Whatever a human son owes to a human father for all the benefits of his up-bringing and support, Jesus owed to you, because you were to Him a foster-father, teacher, and protector.

You served the Divine Child with a singular love. God gave you a heart filled with heavenly, supernatural love -- a love far deeper and more powerful than any natural father's love could be.

You served the Divine Child with great unselfishness, without any regard to self-interest, but not without sacrifices. You did not toil for yourself, but you seemed to be an instrument intended for the benefit of others, to be put aside as soon as it had done its work, for you disappeared from the scene once the childhood of Jesus had passed.

You were the shadow of the Heavenly Father not only as the earthly representative of the authority of the Father, but also by means of your fatherhood -- which only appeared to be natural -- you were to hide for a while the divinity of Jesus. What a wonderfully sublime and divine vocation was yours -- the loving Child which you carried in your arms, and loved and served so faithfully, had God in Heaven as Father and was Himself God!

Yours is a very special rank among the saints of the Kingdom of God, because you were so much a part of the very life of the Word of God made Man. In your house at Nazareth and under your care the redemption of mankind was prepared. What you accomplished, you did for us. You are not only a powerful and great saint in the Kingdom of God, but a benefactor of the whole of Christendom and mankind. Your rank in the Kingdom of God, surpassing far in dignity and honor of all the angels, deserves our very special veneration, love, and gratitude.

Saint Joseph, I thank God for your privilege of having been chosen by God to be the foster-father of His Divine Son. As a token of your own gratitude to God for this your greatest privilege, obtain for me the grace of a very devoted love for Jesus Christ, my God and my Savior. Help me to serve Him with some of the self-sacrificing love and devotion which you had while on this earth with Him. Grant that through your intercession with Jesus, your foster-Son, I may reach the degree of holiness God has destined for me, and save my soul.

Novena Prayer

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SECOND DAY
Virginal Husband of Mary

Saint Joseph, I honor you as the true husband of Mary. Scripture says: "Jacob begot Joseph, the husband of Mary, and of her was born Jesus who is called Christ" (Matt. 1:16). Your marriage to Mary was a sacred contract by which you and Mary gave yourselves to each other. Mary really belonged to you with all she was and had. You had a right to her love and obedience; and no other person so won her esteem, obedience, and love.

You were also the protector and witness of Mary's virginity. By your marriage you gave to each other your virginity, and also the mutual right over it -- a right to safeguard the other's virtue. This mutual virginity also belonged to the divine plan of the Incarnation, for God sent His angel to assure you that motherhood and virginity in Mary could be united.

This union of marriage not only brought you into daily familiar association with Mary, the loveliest of God's creatures, but also enabled you to share with her a mutual exchange of spiritual goods. And Mary found her edification in your calm, humble, and deep virtue, purity, and sanctity. What a great honor comes to you from this close union with her whom the Son of God calls Mother and whom He declared the Queen of heaven and earth! Whatever Mary had belonged by right to you also, and this included her Son, even though He had been given to her by God in a wonderful way. Jesus belonged to you as His legal father. Your marriage was the way which God chose to have Jesus introduced into the world, a great divine mystery from which all benefits have come to us.

God the Son confided the guardianship and the support of His Immaculate Mother to your care. Mary's life was that of the Mother of the Savior, who did not come upon earth to enjoy honors and pleasures, but to redeem the world by hard work, suffering, and the cross. You were the faithful companion, support, and comforter of the Mother of Sorrows. How loyal you were to her in poverty, journeying, work, and pain. Your love for Mary was based upon your esteem for her as Mother of God. After God and the Divine Child, you loved no one as much as her. Mary responded to this love. She submitted to your guidance with naturalness and easy grace and childlike confidence. The Holy Spirit Himself was the bond of the great love which united your hearts.

Saint Joseph, I thank God for your privilege of being the virginal husband of Mary. As a token of your own gratitude to God, obtain for me the grace to love Jesus with all my heart, as you did, and  love Mary with some of the tenderness and loyalty with which you loved her.

Novena Prayer

 

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THIRD DAY
Man Chosen by the Blessed Trinity

Saint Joseph, you were the man chosen by God the Father. He selected you to be His representative on earth, hence He granted you all the graces and blessings you needed to be His worthy representative.

You were the man chosen by God the Son. Desirous of a worthy foster-father, He added His own riches and gifts, and above all, His love. The true measure of your sanctity is to be judged by your imitation of Jesus. You were entirely consecrated to Jesus, working always near Him, offering Him your virtues, your work, your sufferings, your very life. Jesus lived in you perfectly so that you were transformed into Him. In this lies your special glory, and the keynote of your sanctity. Hence, after Mary, you are the holiest of the saints.

You were chosen by the Holy Spirit. He is the mutual Love of the Father and the Son -- the heart of the Holy Trinity. In His wisdom He draws forth all creatures from nothing, guides them to their end in showing them their destiny and giving them the means to reach it. Every vocation and every fulfillment of a vocation proceeds from the Holy Spirit. As a foster-father of Jesus and head of the Holy Family, you had an exalted and most responsible vocation -- to open the way for the redemption of the world and to prepare for it by the education and guidance of the youth of the God-Man. In this work you cooperated as the instrument of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit was the guide; you obeyed and carried out the works. How perfectly you obeyed the guidance of the God of Love!

The words of the Old Testament which Pharaoh spoke concerning Joseph of Egypt can well be applied to you: "Can we find such another man, that is full of the spirit of God, or a wise man like to him?" (Gen. 41:38). No less is your share in the divine work of God than was that of Egypt. You now reign with your foster-Son and see reflected in the mirror of God's Wisdom the Divine Will and what is of benefit to our souls.

Saint Joseph, I thank God for having made you the man specially chosen by Him. As a token of your own gratitude to God, obtain for me the grace to imitate your virtues so that I too may be pleasing to the Heart of God. Help me to give myself entirely to His service and to the accomplishment of His Holy Will, that one day I may reach heaven and be eternally united to God as you are.

Novena Prayer

 

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FOURTH DAY
Faithful Servant

Saint Joseph, you lived for one purpose -- to be the personal servant of Jesus Christ, the Word made flesh. Your noble birth and ancestry, the graces and gifts, so generously poured out on you by God -- all this was yours to serve our Lord better. Every thought, word, and action of yours was a homage to the love and glory of the Incarnate Word. You fulfilled most faithfully the role of a good and faithful servant who cared for the House of God.

How perfect was your obedience! Your position in the Holy Family obliged you to command, but besides being the foster-father of Jesus, you were also His disciple. For almost thirty years, you watched the God-Man display a simple and prompt obedience, and you grew to love and practice it very perfectly yourself. Without exception you submitted to God, to the civil rulers, and to the voice of your conscience.

When God sent an angel to tell you to care for Mary, you obeyed in spite of the mystery which surrounded her motherhood. When you were told to flee into Egypt under painful conditions, you obeyed without the slightest word of complaint. When God advised you in a dream to return to Nazareth, you obeyed. In every situation your obedience was as simple as your faith, as humble as your heart, as prompt as your love. It neglected nothing; it took in every command.

You had the virtue of perfect devotedness, which marks a good servant. Every moment of your life was consecrated to the service of our Lord: sleep, rest, work, pain. Faithful to your duties, you sacrificed everything unselfishly, even cheerfully. You would have sacrificed even the happiness of being with Mary. The rest and quiet of Nazareth was sacrificed at the call of duty. Your entire life was one generous giving, even to the point of being ready to die in proof of your love for Jesus and Mary. With true unselfish devotedness you worked without praise or reward.

But God wanted you to be in a certain sense a cooperator in the Redemption of the world. He confided to you the care of nourishing and defending the Divine Child. He wanted you to be poor and to suffer because He destined you to be the foster-father of His Son, who came into the world to save men by His sufferings and death, and you were to share in His suffering. In all of these important tasks, the Heavenly Father always found you a faithful servant!

Saint Joseph, I thank God for your privilege of being God's faithful servant. As a token of your own gratitude to God, obtain for me the grace to be a faithful servant of God as you were. Help me to share, as you did, the perfect obedience of Jesus, who came not to do His Will, but the Will of His Father; to trust in the Providence of God, knowing that if I do His Will, He will provide for all my needs of soul and body; to be calm in my trials and to leave it to our Lord to free me from them when it pleases Him to do so. And help me to imitate your generosity, for there can be no greater reward here on earth than the joy and honor of being a faithful servant of God.

Novena Prayer

 

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FIFTH DAY
Patron of the Church

Saint Joseph, God has appointed you patron of the Catholic Church because you were the head of the Holy Family, the starting-point of the Church. You were the father, protector, guide and support of the Holy Family. For that reason you belong in a particular way to the Church, which was the purpose of the Holy Family's existence.

I believe that the Church is the family of God on earth. Its government is represented in priestly authority which consists above all in its power over the true Body of Christ, really present in the Blessed Sacrament of the Altar, thus continuing Christ's life in the Church. From this power, too, comes authority over the Mystical Body of Christ, the members of the Church -- the power to teach and govern souls, to reconcile them with God, to bless them, and to pray for them.

You have a special relationship to the priesthood because you possessed a wonderful power over our Savior Himself. Your life and office were of a priestly function and are especially connected with the Blessed Sacrament. To some extent you were the means of bringing the Redeemer to us -- as it is the priest's function to bring Him to us in the Mass -- for you reared Jesus, supported, nourished, protected and sheltered Him. You were prefigured by the patriarch Joseph, who kept supplies of wheat for his people. But how much greater than he were you! Joseph of old gave the Egyptians mere bread for their bodies. You nourished, and with the most tender care, preserved for the Church Him who is the Bread of Heaven and who gives eternal life in Holy Communion.

God has appointed you patron of the Church because the glorious title of patriarch also falls by special right to you. The patriarchs were the heads of families of the Chosen People, and theirs was the honor to prepare for the Savior's incarnation. You belonged to this line of patriarchs, for you were one of the last descendants of the family of David and one of the nearest forebears of Christ according to the flesh. As husband of Mary, the Mother of God, and as the foster-father of the Savior, you were directly connected with Christ. Your vocation was especially concerned with the Person of Jesus; your entire activity centered about Him. You are, therefore, the closing of the Old Testament and the beginning of the New, which took its rise with the Holy Family of Nazareth. Because the New Testament surpasses the Old in every respect, you are the patriarch of patriarchs, the most venerable, exalted, and amiable of all the patriarchs.

Through Mary, the Church received Christ, and therefore the Church is indebted to her. But the Church owes her debt of gratitude and veneration to you also, for you were the chosen one who enabled Christ to enter into the world according to the laws of order and fitness. It was by you that the patriarchs and the prophets and the faithful reaped the fruit of God's promise. Alone among them all, you saw with your own eyes and possessed the Redeemer promised to the rest of men.

Saint Joseph, I thank God for your privilege of being the Patron of the Church. As a token of your own gratitude to God, obtain for me the grace to live always as a worthy member of this Church, so that through it I may save my soul. Bless the priests, the religious, and the laity of the Catholic Church, that they may ever grow in God's love and faithfulness in His service. Protect the Church from the evils of our day and from the persecution of her enemies. Through your powerful intercession may the church successfully accomplish its mission in this world -- the glory of God and the salvation of souls!

Novena Prayer

 

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SIXTH DAY
Patron of Families

Saint Joseph, I venerate you as the gentle head of the Holy Family. The Holy Family was the scene of your life's work in its origin, in its guidance, in its protection, in your labor for Jesus and Mary, and even in your death in their arms. You lived, moved, and acted in the loving company of Jesus and Mary. The inspired writer describes your life at Nazareth in only a few words: "And (Jesus) went down with them and came to Nazareth, and was subject to them" (Luke, 2:51). Yet these words tell of your high vocation here on earth, and the abundance of graces which filled your soul during those years spent in Nazareth.

Your family life at Nazareth was all radiant with the light of divine charity. There was an intimate union of heart and mind among the members of your Holy Family. There could not have been a closer bond than that uniting you to Jesus, your foster-Son and to Mary, your most loving wife. Jesus chose to fulfill toward you, His foster-father, all the duties of a faithful son, showing you every mark of honor and affection due to a parent. And Mary showed you all the signs of respect and love of a devoted wife. You responded to this love and veneration from Jesus and Mary  with feelings of deepest love and respect. You had for Jesus a true fatherly love, enkindled and kept aglow in your heart by the Holy Spirit. And you could not cease to admire the workings of grace in Mary's soul, and this admiration caused the holy love which you had consecrated to her on the day of your wedding grow stronger every day.

God has made you a heavenly patron of family life because you sanctified yourself as head of the Holy Family and thus by your beautiful example sanctified family life. How peacefully and happily the Holy Family rested under the care of your fatherly rule, even in the midst of trials. You were the protector, counselor, and consolation of the Holy Family in every need. And just as you were the model of piety, so you gave us by your zeal, your earnestness and devout trust in God's providence, and especially by your love, the example of labor according to the Will of God. You cherished all the experiences common to family life and the sacred memories of the life, sufferings, and joys in the company of Jesus and Mary. Therefore the family is dear to you as the work of God, and it is of the highest importance in your eyes to promote the honor of God and the well-being of man. In your loving fatherliness and unfailing intercession you are the patron and intercessor of families, and you deserve a place in every home.

Saint Joseph, I thank God for your privilege of living in the Holy Family and being its head. As a token of your own gratitude to God, obtain God's blessing upon my own family. Make our home the kingdom of Jesus and Mary -- a kingdom of peace, of joy, and love.

I also pray for all Christian families. Your help is needed in our day when God's enemy has directed his attack against the family in order to desecrate and destroy it. In the face of these evils, as patron of families, be pleased to help; and as of old, you arose to save the Child and His Mother, so today arise to protect the sanctity of the home. Make our homes sanctuaries of prayer, of love, of patient sacrifice, and of work. May they be modeled after your own at Nazareth. Remain with us with Jesus and Mary, so that by your help we may obey the commandments of God and of the Church; receive the holy sacraments of God and of the Church; live a life of prayer; and foster religious instruction in our homes. Grant that we may be reunited in God's Kingdom and eternally live in the company of the Holy Family in heaven.

Novena Prayer

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SEVENTH DAY
Patron of Workers

Saint Joseph, you devoted your time at Nazareth to the work of a carpenter. It was the Will of God that you and your foster-Son should spend your days together in manual labor. What a beautiful example you set for the working classes!

It was especially for the poor, who compose the greater part of mankind, that Jesus came upon earth, for in the synagogue of Nazareth, He read the words of Isaiah and referred them to Himself:  "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because He has anointed Me to bring good news to the poor..." (Luke 4:18). It was God's Will that you should be occupied with work common to poor people, that in this way Jesus Himself might ennoble it by inheriting it from you, His foster-father, and by freely embracing it. Thus our Lord teaches us that for the humbler class of workmen, He has in store His richest graces, provided they live content in the place God's Providence has assigned them, and remain poor in spirit for He said, "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven" (Matt. 5:3).

The kind of work to which you devoted your time in the workshop of Nazareth offered you many occasions of practicing humility. You were privileged to see each day the example of humility which Jesus practiced -- a virtue most pleasing to Him. He chose for His earthly surroundings not the courts of princes nor the halls of the learned, but a little workshop of Nazareth. Here you shared for many years the humble and hidden toiling of the God-Man. What a touching example for the worker of today!

While your hands were occupied with manual work, your mind was turned to God in prayer. From the Divine Master, who worked along with you, you learned to work in the presence of God in the spirit of prayer, for as He worked He adored His Father and recommended the welfare of the world to Him, Jesus also instructed you in the wonderful truths of grace and virtue, for you were in close contact with Him who said of Himself, "I am the Way and the Truth and the Life."

As you were working at your trade, you were reminded of the greatness and majesty of God, who, as a most wise Architect, formed this vast universe with wonderful skill and limitless power.

The light of divine faith that filled your mind, did not grow dim when you saw Jesus working as a carpenter. You firmly believed that the saintly Youth working beside you was truly God's own Son.

Saint Joseph, I thank God for your privilege of being able to work side by side with Jesus in the carpenter shop of Nazareth. As a token of your own gratitude to God, obtain for me the grace to respect the dignity of labor and ever to be content with the position in life, however lowly, in which it may please Divine Providence to place me. Teach me to work for God and with God in the spirit of humility and prayer, as you did, so that I may offer my toil in union with the sacrifice of Jesus in the Mass as a reparation for my sins, and gain rich merit for heaven.

Novena Prayer

 

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EIGHTH DAY
Friend in Suffering

Saint Joseph, your share of suffering was very great because of your close union with the Divine Savior. All the mysteries of His life were more or less mysteries of suffering. Poverty pressed upon you, and the cross of labor followed you everywhere. Nor were you spared domestic crosses, owing to misunderstandings in regard to the holiest and most cherished of all beings, Jesus and Mary, who were all to you. Keen must have been the suffering caused by the uncertainty regarding Mary's virginity; by the bestowal of the name of Jesus, which pointed to future misfortune. Deeply painful must have been the prophecy of Simeon, the flight into Egypt, the disappearance of Jesus at the Paschal feast. To these sufferings were surely added interior sorrow at the sight of the sins of your own people.

You bore all this suffering in a truly Christ-like manner, and in this you are our example. No sound of complaint or impatience escaped you -- you were, indeed, the silent saint! You submitted to all in the spirit of faith, humility, confidence, and love. You cheerfully bore all in union with and for the Savior and His Mother, knowing well that true love is a crucified love. But God never forsook you in your trials. The trials, too, disappeared and were changed at last into consolation and joy.

It seems that God had purposely intended your life to be filled with suffering as well as consolation to keep before my eyes the truth that my life on earth is but a succession of joys and sorrows, and that I must gratefully accept whatever God sends me, and during the time of consolation prepare for suffering. Teach me to bear my cross in the spirit of faith, of confidence, and of gratitude toward God. In a happy eternity, I shall thank God fervently for the sufferings which He deigned to send me during my pilgrimage on earth, and which after your example I endured with patience and heartfelt love for Jesus and Mary.

You were truly the martyr of the hidden life. This was God's Will, for the holier a person is, the more he is tried for the love and glory of God. If suffering is the flowering of God's grace in a soul and the triumph of the soul's love for God, being the greatest of saints after Mary, you suffered more than any of the martyrs.

Because you have experienced the sufferings of this valley of tears, you are most kind and sympathetic toward those in need. Down through the ages souls have turned to you in distress and have always found you a faithful friend in suffering. You have graciously heard their prayers in their needs even though it demanded a miracle. Having been so intimately united with Jesus and Mary in life, your intercession with Them is most powerful.

Saint Joseph, I thank God for your privilege of being able to suffer for Jesus and Mary. As a token of your own gratitude to God, obtain for me the grace to bear my suffering patiently for love of Jesus and Mary. Grant that I may unite the sufferings, works and disappointments of life with the sacrifice of Jesus in the Mass, and share like you in Mary's spirit of sacrifice.

Novena Prayer

 

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NINTH DAY
Patron of a Happy Death

Saint Joseph, how fitting it was that at the hour of your death Jesus should stand at your bedside with Mary, the sweetness and hope of all mankind. You gave your entire life to the service of Jesus and Mary; at death you enjoyed the consolation of dying in Their loving arms. You accepted death in the spirit of loving submission to the Will of God, and this acceptance crowned your hidden life of virtue. Yours was a merciful judgment, for your foster-Son, for whom you had cared so lovingly, was your Judge, and Mary was your advocate. The verdict of the Judge was a word of encouragement to wait for His coming to Limbo, where He would shower you with the choicest fruits of the Redemption, and an embrace of grateful affection before you breathed forth your soul into eternity.

You looked into eternity and to your everlasting reward with confidence. If our Savior blessed the shepherds, the Magi, Simeon, John the Baptist, and others, because they greeted His presence with devoted hearts for a brief passing hour, how much more did He bless you who have sanctified yourself for so many years in His company and that of His Mother? If Jesus regards every corporal and spiritual work of mercy, performed in behalf of our fellow men out of love for Him, as done to Himself, and promises heaven as a reward, what must have been the extent of His gratitude to you who in the truest sense of the word have received Him, given Him shelter, clothed, nourished, and consoled Him at the sacrifice of your strength and rest, and even your life, with a love which surpassed the love of all fathers.

God really and personally made Himself your debtor. Our Divine Savior paid that debt of gratitude by granting you many graces in your lifetime, especially the grace of growing in love, which is the best and most perfect of all gifts. Thus at the end of your life your heart became filled with love, the fervor and longing of which your frail body could not resist. Your soul followed the triumphant impulse of your love and winged its flight from earth to bear the prophets and patriarchs in Limbo the glad tidings of the advent of the Redeemer.

Saint Joseph, I thank God for your privilege of being able to die in the arms of Jesus and Mary. As a token of your own gratitude to God, obtain for me the grace of a happy death. Help me to spend each day in preparation for death. May I, too, accept death in the spirit of resignation to God's Holy Will, and die, as you did, in the arms of Jesus, strengthened by Holy Viaticum, and in the arms of Mary, with her rosary in my hand and her name on my lips!

Novena Prayer

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Click here - FREE St. Joseph Novena Booklet

  

Married couples

 

Married couples ought
to say the Rosary together each night, for
their common prayer
is more than the separate prayers of each.

Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen

St. John Ogilvie (Feast: March 10)

Son of a Scottish laird, John Ogilvie was brought up in a Calvinist family. Sent to France to be educated, he ultimately converted to Catholicism. Becoming acquainted with the Jesuit Order, he requested admission, was accepted, and was ordained in 1610 in Paris.

After meeting two Jesuits who had undertaken clandestine missionary work in Scotland (since 1560 Catholicism was outlawed in the British Isles) he offered himself for the perilous mission. With orders to proceed to Scotland, he travelled under the name of John Watson, horse dealer.

Landing in Scotland in November of 1613, during nine months he provided spiritual support to clandestine Catholics and reconciled many to the Church in the region of Glasgow and Edinburgh.

Betrayed, he was imprisoned and suffered various tortures but nothing could induce him to reveal the names of those he had helped. His patience, courage and gaiety aroused the admiration of his persecutors, but, in the end, he was condemned as a traitor who refused to acknowledge the religious supremacy of the king, and was hanged in Glasgow.

John Ogilvie was canonized in 1976, the only Scottish martyr of the Counter-Reformation.

Fear God’s judgment and not that of men

 

Take no notice, my son;
let them publish what they like.
I fear God’s judgment and not that of men.
Only sin is to be feared
because it offends God and dishonors us.

St. Padre Pio of Pietrelcina

St. Frances of Rome

Frances was born in Rome in 1383, the daughter of noble, wealthy and pious parents. At eleven she asked to become a religious but only met with point blank refusal. A year later, the attractive, precocious girl was betrothed to Lorenzo Ponziano, a young man of good character, fortune and position. Frances submitted.

At first, married life was trying for the thirteen-year-old. One day Vannozza, her sister-in-law, found her weeping. To France’s surprise Vannozza revealed that she also would rather have been a religious. Thus was born a life-long friendship.

The two friends drew out a program for virtuous living amidst their social duties; they began to pray together, and to visit the sick in Rome. Their husbands supported them against wagging “social” tongues.

Frances and Lorenzo had three children: John Baptista, Evangelist and Agnes. Despite their privileged position, Frances would hear of none other caring for them.

Being supporters of the true Pope against the antipope during the great schism, the Ponzianis suffered through war, imprisonment and pillage of their estate. Frances’ husband was seriously wounded but recovered under her care, and her boy Baptista was taken hostage but was miraculously delivered.

During a pestilence young Evangelist died and Frances turned part of the house into a hospital.  God rewarded her labors with the gift of healing. In a vision she saw Evangelist accompanied by an Archangel. He revealed to his bereaved mother that Agnes was also soon to die, but as a consolation she would have the Archangel as her visible companion for twenty-three years. In the last part of her life she was to have an angel of even higher dignity.

By this time the fame of France’s virtues and miracles had spread throughout Rome and her assistance was sought from all quarters. With the full support of both her husband and her confessor she formed a society of women living in the world but dedicated to serving God and the poor. After seven years, they felt the need to establish a community house to which Frances retired after her husband’s death.

Frances died on the evening of March 9, 1440 saying: “The angel has finished his task: he beckons me to follow him.”

Enemies?

 

You have enemies?
Good.
That means
you've stood up for something, sometime in your life.

Sir Winston Churchill

St. John of God

John of God was born of pious parents in 1495 in Montemoro Novo in northern Portugal. Obscure circumstances led to him being absconded from his parents into Spain at the age of nine to be raised by a farmer.

Pleased with his pious character and diligence the farmer insisted that John marry his daughter, whom John viewed as a sister. Unwilling to do so, he enlisted in the army of Emperor Charles V and served in the wars between France and Spain and later against the Turks.

In the army John took on the loose lifestyle of soldiers for which his upright character would later bitterly reproach him.

On leaving the army he made a trip to Portugal in an attempt to find his parents. News of his mother’s premature death after his mysterious disappearance saddened him.

Succeeding years find him engaged in different occupations first in Seville, then Gibraltar and later in Africa, to ransom with his own liberty the Christians held captive by the Moors. At the advice of his confessor he returned to Spain and began selling religious books and pictures as a form of apostolate.

Around this time John, who was now about forty, had a vision of the Infant Jesus holding an open pomegranate (in Spanish “Granada”), Who said to him, “John of God, Granada will be your cross.”

Proceeding to the city of Granada, John was struck to the heart by a sermon of St. John of Avila. Entering a period of intense remorse for his sins, he went about as if deranged beating his breast and calling out for God’s mercy. St. John of Avila convinced him to desist from his lamentations and to take up another method of penance to atone for his past life.

He then made a pilgrimage to the shrine of Guadeloupe where the Blessed Virgin revealed to him his vocation. On returning to Granada, John of God dedicated his life to the care of the sick and poor. After renting a house, he searched the city for the homeless and afflicted with all sorts of diseases and carried them on his shoulders to shelter. Soon others joined him in the endeavor.

Though St. John of God never officially founded an order in his lifetime, his work was later constituted into the Order of the Hospitallers of St. John of God.

John of God died exhausted by his labors on behalf of the abandoned of society and died on his knees before an altar on March 8, 1550 at age fifty-five. The whole of Granada, rich and poor, the powerful and the weak attended his funeral.

The Fatima Seers Help You Have the Best Lent Ever

Lent, that time of the liturgical year when Holy Mother Church calls on Catholics to fast and abstain from meat in the spirit of penance and self-denial, also encourages the faithful to meditate on the dolorous Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ.

In this penitential exercise, Our Lord Jesus Christ serves as our supreme model- He led the way of mortification by denying Himself sustenance for forty days and forty nights in preparation for the commencement of His public ministry. He, who has most tender compassion for humble and repentant sinners, assures us, “I came not to call the just, but sinners to penance.” Luke 5:32. And in a supreme act of immolation, Our Lord offered Himself in sacrifice for our salvation and accepted His suffering humanity for the redemption of the world.

In light of the above, how are we to model our Lenten practices in the spirit of the Fatima message?

 

1.    During Lent, Fatima’s constant theme of prayer, penance and amendment of life becomes ever more relevant in our daily lives.

Nowadays, many are accustomed to the conveniences that technological progress provides. Fast food, TV dinners, cell phones, ATM’s, express delivery, Internet, email, on-line shopping, etc – modern inventions that fuel that frenetic desire to get things done quickly and easily. Everything comes at one’s fingertips at one’s beckoning. And voila! The recurring mantra jumps out, “I want it and I want it NOW.”  In short, no fuss, no delay; period!

 

•    The appeal of the Seven Capital Sins

In a fast paced world as such, instant gratification is the rule.  Sadly, it also opens the door wide to sin and vice. The myriad of ads that one watches or reads these days appeal in more ways than one to the seven capital sins.  A new facial anti-wrinkle cream flatters a 50-year-old’s vanity; a luscious and tantalizing food product feeds one’s gluttonous tendencies; the Jones’ new car spur’s one envy; an exotic perfume wakes up ones passion and lust; a sales pitch for faster delivery service mitigates one’s anger over a previously botched job; and so it goes down the line.

 

•    Our Ruling Passions

From another vantage view, each individual suffers from a ruling passion or vice that dominates all others and, frequently causes one to fall from grace. Be it pride or sensuality, intemperance, a loose tongue or what not, we know, more or less, our own weaknesses. Thankfully by the grace of God, Lent offers the opportunity for one to tackle this or that defect through serious reflection, prayer and the practice of mortification.

Would it burden us much if we cease to be creatures of comfort starting this Lenten season and mortify our senses for the good of our souls? Let us turn to the children of Fatima for inspiration and courage.

 

2.    Exemplary models of penance and sacrifice

The Angel of Portugal taught the children the virtue of asking pardon for evildoers through prayer and offering sacrifices. He impressed upon them the compelling need to make reparation for the insults, sacrileges and indifference committed against the Most Blessed Sacrament.

Our Lady of Fatima consistently asked the children for prayers of reparation and sacrifice for poor sinners which culminated in the vision of hell that had a profound and lasting effect on them.  Having seen the horrors and torments of everlasting infernal fire, the seers were transformed into heroes of mortification and penance.

 

•    A belt of rope as self torment

The children devised innovative ways as they see them fit to observe mortified lives. Lucia found a rope one day and suggested it to be cut into three pieces so each of the seers could wear them continuously around their waists. This they practiced with such zeal that it bothered them in their sleep. Pleasing at it was to God, Our Lady had to intervene later and asked them to remove them at night.

 

•    Suffering Hunger

Francisco thought it a good sacrifice to give their lunches to the sheep and in later days to poor children they met along the way. Thus they fasted much like in the spirit of austere monks. They thrived admirably on acorns from holm oak and oak trees, pine nuts, roots, berries, mushrooms and other things harvested from the roots of pine trees.

 

•    Suffering Thirst

On one occasion, Lucia and the other two children, while suffering from severe thirst, decided to forego drinking from a jar of water that Lucia fetched from a nearby house and poured it instead into a hollow in a stone for the sheep to drink.

 

•    Self-Inflicted pain

On other occasions, they would hit their own legs with nettles, "so as to offer to God yet another sacrifice."

Such were the edifying examples of mortification the child seers practiced because of their deep understanding of the urgent necessity of acts of reparation and sacrifices to appease Divine Justice and to mitigate the injuries perpetrated against the Immaculate Heart of Mary.

Let us take all these to heart and apply them to our own situation keeping in mind the widespread decadence corroding the moral well-being of our contemporary times. It is undeniable that much penance and prayers are needed to atone for all these transgressions. One needs just to open the newspaper or watch the nightly news to find proofs.

 

3.    Adopting realistic resolutions appropriate for our condition and times

The messages revealed in the apparitions to the three Portuguese children by the Angel of Portugal and the Queen of Heaven and Earth all speak of the gravity of the sins and crimes of mankind - a tragedy that begs for serious and resolute atonement and conversion to appease the wrath of God. To avert a terrible chastisement, Our Lady asks men to pray ardently for the conversion of sinners and to offer many expiatory sacrifices.

 

•    A sense of urgency and a call to action

We must take this warning with utmost seriousness and immediacy.  It is a standing message for our times directed to all men.

The seers of Fatima responded to this call by making heroic acts of penance and reparation for they fully grasped the meaning of appeasing Divine wrath. Let us follow their lead and reconcile the Fatima message with the real moral crisis staring at us blankly.

 

•    No easy way out

What has been written here so far would be put to waste if our intellect fails to change our mentality and move our will to make steadfast resolutions. If the service of God consisted only in fulfilling certain obligations, devotional practices and prescribed prayers compatible to a life of ease and comfort, then the Church would be flooded with new-found saints.

But such is not the case. Sadly, it is our human nature to shun sufferings, to avoid pain and to be self-satisfied with whatever little progress we gain in the spiritual life. Let us shed our false optimism. Let us cast our tepidity and lukewarm spirit. With a changed mentality, let us replace our misconceptions with a sincere abiding sorrow for our sins.

 

•    Carrying the Cross

Take heart in the Divine counsel, ‘If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily and follow Me.” Luke 9:23.

The cross is the embodiment of the Gospel and the glorious standard of a true Christian. And by carrying our cross, we must humble ourselves and look at ourselves as our greatest enemy; with whom we ought to wage a continual war for the rest of our lives.

 

 

 

 

The current situation and the message of Fatima place the above reflections in a different perspective. Whatever self denial or sacrifice we choose to practice, we must perform with humility and prudence. Lent or otherwise, we must imbue ourselves with a lasting penitential spirit in face of the unabated moral chaos besetting mankind for, indeed, we are in extraordinary times!

And lastly, let us turn Our Lady for inspiration, strength and fortitude, always hoping in Her promise at Fatima,

“Finally, my Immaculate Heart will triumph.”

 

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Desire grace?

 

To desire grace
without recourse to the Virgin Mother
is to desire to fly
without wings.

Pope Pius XII

Sts. Perpetua and Felicita

In the ancient city of Carthage, North Africa in the year 203, Perpetua, a young married lady and the mother of an infant son, and Felicita, a pregnant slave girl found themselves in a dark dungeon. With them were Felicita’s fellow slave Revocatus and two free men Saturninus and Secundulus. Another, Seturus, who declared himself a Christian before the judge, joined them – he was probably Perpetua’s husband. The first five were catechumens and were imprisoned for violating the decree issued by Emperor Septimus Severus forbidding any one from becoming a Christian. They were baptized before being incarcerated.

Perpetua, who was of a patrician family and well educated, left an amazing chronicle of their ordeal up to the day before their martyrdom. Her father was a pagan and her mother a Christian. Her father repeatedly pleaded with her to give up her faith for the sake of her family and infant son. In her account she writes: “When my father in his affection for me was trying to turn me from my purpose by arguments and thus weaken my faith, I said to him, ‘Do you see this vessel, water pot, or whatever it may be? Can it be called by any other name than what it is? ‘No’, he replied. ‘So also I cannot call myself by any other name than what I am – a Christian.’”

Later, in prison she recounts: “What a day of horror! Terrible heat on account of the crowd! Rough treatment by the soldiers! To crown all, I was tormented with anxiety for my baby…" But Pepetua’s mother was able to bring her child to her to suck, which relieved her "...and being relieved of my…anxiety for him, I at once recovered my health, and my prison became a palace to me and I would rather have been there than anywhere else.”

In prison Perpetua and Saturus were given visions foretelling their martyrdom and their entrance into heaven. Felicita was anxious that being pregnant she would not be able to suffer martyrdom with her companions, as Roman law forbade the execution of expectant mothers. But two days before their martyrdom she gave birth to a little girl who was adopted by a Christian woman. Secundulus died in prison.
The account of the martyrdom of the five holy confessors comes to us through an eye-witness. The martyrs suffered as part of the games for the Emperor’s birthday on March 7, 203. The pagan mob first demanded they be scourged. Then a boar, a bear and a leopard were set on the men. The two women were thrown before a raging bull which wounded them. Then they were put to the sword.

Before dying Perpetua made a profession of faith:

“For the sake of this cause, we came willingly into prison, that our liberty may not be obscured. To this Christian cause have we devoted our lives.”

How to fight temptations against chastity

 

In temptations against chastity, the spiritual masters advise us not  
so much to contend with the bad thought,  
as to turn the mind to some spiritual, or, at least, indifferent object.  
It is useful to combat other bad thoughts face to face,  
but not thoughts of impurity. 

St. Alphonsus Maria de Liguori

St. Colette Broyet

Colette Broyet lived during the great Church schism when there were two men claiming to be Pope: one in Rome and one in Avignon.

Her father worked as a carpenter for the Benedictine Abbey of Corbie in French Picardy. Both parents were older and prayed earnestly to St. Nicholas of Myra to conceive. On the birth of a daughter, they named her Nicolette. Left an orphan at seventeen, Colette distributed what little she had to the poor, and with the help of her guardian, the Abbot of Corbie, moved into a small hermitage and joined the Third Order of Saint Francis.

In her cell, Colette lived a life of austerity and prayer becoming known for her holiness. In a vision, St. Francis asked her to reform his order. Heartsick at the prospect, the twenty-five year old girl hesitated, only to become blind for three days, and then deaf for another three. Taking this as a sign that she must take up her mission, in 1406 she left her seclusion and under the direction of her confessor, Fr. Henry de Baume, set about to try to explain her mandate only to realize that, if she was to succeed, she must be invested with the proper authority.

She visited Peter de Luna, who under the name of Benedict XIII was then considered the true Pope by the French, though illegitimate according to Church history.  Luna was so impressed with Colette that he professed her in the rule of St. Clare and invested her with the necessary authority for her mission.

With these credentials Colette visited convents in France, Savoy and Flanders inviting these to return to the original rule of St. Clare. Still, at first she met with violent opposition. Bearing all with joy she persevered and, after a while, began to make a difference as convents accepted her revised rule. In all, she founded seventeen new convents, and several houses of Franciscan friars also accepted her reform.

An energetic reformer, mystic and miracle worker, Collette died in Flanders at age of sixty-seven after foretelling her own death. She was canonized in 1807.

Photo by: DirkVE

Tomorrow is First Saturday

 

 

The Five First Saturdays devotion is one of the principal points of the Fatima message. It centers on the urgent need for mankind to offer reparation and expiate for the many injuries that the Immaculate Heart of Mary suffers from the hands of both impious and indifferent men.

 

On the First Saturday during 5 Consecutive Months, the Devotion consists of:

1. Going to Confession,
2. Receiving the Sacrament of Holy Communion,
3. Saying five decades of the Rosary,
4. Meditating for 15 minutes on the mysteries of the Rosary.

All this offered in REPARATION for the sins of blasphemy and ingratitude committed
against the Immaculate Heart of Mary. 

 

History

During the third apparition on July 13, 1917, Our Lady revealed that she would come to ask for the consecration of Russia to her Immaculate Heart and for the Communion of Reparation of the Five First Saturdays. Consequently, she asked for the devotion in 1925 and the consecration in 1929.

While staying at the House of the Dorothean Sister in Pontevedra, Portugal, Sister Lucia received a vision on December 10, 1925 where the Blessed Mother appeared alongside a Boy who stood over a luminous cloud. Our Lady rested one hand on the Boy’s shoulder while she held on the other hand a heart pierced with thorns around it.

Sister Lucia heard the Boy say, "Have pity on the Heart of your Most Holy Mother which is covered with thorns with which ingrate men pierce it at every moment with no one to make an act of reparation to pull them out."

Our Lady expressed her request in the following words,

"See, my daughter, My Heart surrounded with thorns with which ingrates pierce me at every moment with blasphemies and ingratitude. You, at least, make sure to console me and announce that all those who for five months, on the first Saturdays, go to confession, receive Communion, say five decades of the Rosary and keep me company for 15 minutes meditating on the mysteries of the Rosary, with the purpose of making reparation to Me, I promise to assist them at the hour of death with all the graces necessary for the salvation of their souls." 

A few days afterward, Sister Lucia detailed this vision in a letter addressed to Monsignor Manuel Pereira Lopes, her confessor when she resided in the Asylum of Vilar in the city of Oporto, Portugal.

 

Why Five Saturdays?     

Sister Lucia’s confessor questioned her about the reason for the five Saturdays asking why not seven or nine. She answered him in a letter dated June 12, 1930. In it she related about a vision she had of Our Lord while staying in the convent chapel part of the night of the twenty-ninth to the thirtieth of the month of May, 1930. The reasons Our Lord gave were as follows:

The five first Saturdays correspond to the five kinds of offenses and blasphemies committed against the Immaculate Heart of Mary. They are:

  a.    Blasphemies against the Immaculate Conception
  b.    Blasphemies against her virginity
  c.    Blasphemies against her divine maternity, at the same time the refusal to accept her as the Mother of all men
  d.    Instilling indifference, scorn and even hatred towards this Immaculate Mother in the hearts of children
  e.    Direct insults against Her sacred images

Let us keep the above reasons firmly in our minds. Devotions have intentions attached to them and knowing them adds merit and weight to the practice. 

 

 

Modifications to the Five First Saturdays Devotion to facilitate its observation

The original request of Our Lady asks one to confess and receive Communion on five consecutive first Saturdays; to say five decades of the Rosary; to meditate during 15 minutes on the mysteries of the Rosary for the purpose of making reparation to the Immaculate Heart of Mary in reparation for the sins of men.

In subsequent private visions and apparitions however, Sister Lucia presented to Our Lord the difficulties that devotees encountered in fulfilling some conditions. With loving condescension and solicitude, Our Lord deigned to relax the rules to make this devotion easy to observe:

• Confession may be done on other days other than the First Saturdays so long as one receives Our Lord worthily and has the intention of making reparation to the Immaculate Heart of Mary.
• Even if one forgets to make the intention, it may be done on the next confession, taking advantage of the first occasion to go to confession.
• Sister Lucia also clarified that it is not necessary to meditate on ALL mysteries of the Rosary on each First Saturdays. One or several suffice.

With much latitude granted by Our Lord Himself, there is no reason for the faithful to hesitate or delay this pious practice in the spirit of reparation which the Immaculate Heart of Mary urgently asks.

 

This devotion is so necessary in our days

The culture of vice and sin remains unabated even as one reads this. Abortion, blasphemy, drug abuse, pornography, divorce and bad marriages, religious indifference, the advances of the homosexual agenda and others are just some of society’s many plagues that cut deeply into the Immaculate Heart of Mary.

We must console Our Lady amidst all these insults and injuries to her and her Divine Son. She asks for reparation, she pleads for our prayers, she hopes for our amendment of life. Let us listen to her maternal pleas and atone for the ingratitude of men.

The First Five Saturdays devotion stimulates the spirit of reparation; it instills a tender love for the Holy Sacraments of Confession and the Blessed Eucharist. It nurtures a holy affection for the Immaculate Heart of Mary and the Rosary. Above all, it is an excellent means to maintain one in the state of grace while immersed in the daily spiritual battles and prosaic existence in the neo-pagan world that we live in.

Let us not delay in observing this devotion for it too gives us hope for eternal salvation.

 

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REFERENCE:
Solimeo, Luiz Sergio, Fatima, A Message More Urgent than Ever 
(Spring Grove, PA: The American Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family, and Property-TFP, 2008.)

  

 

Also Read:

• Why Devotion to the Immaculate Heart is so Crucial
• Our Lady Kept Her Promise