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| An Intercessory Prayer of the Church Militant for the Church Suffering in Purgatory |
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Posted by: Stone - 11-02-2021, 06:58 AM - Forum: For the Souls in Purgatory
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An Intercessory Prayer of the Church Militant for the Church Suffering in Purgatory
"It is a holy and wholesome thought to pray for the dead, that they may be loosed from sins."--2 Mach. xii. 46
Ye souls of the faithful!
Who sleep in the Lord;
But as yet are shut out
From your final reward!
Oh! would I could lend you
Assistance to fly;
From your prison below,
To your palace on high:
O Father of mercies!
Thine anger withhold;
These works of Thy hand
In Thy mercy behold;
Too oft from Thy path
They have wandered aside:
But Thee, their Creator,
They never denied.
O tender Redeemer!
Their misery see;
Deliver the souls
That were ransomed by Thee;
Behold how they love Thee,
Despite of their pain:
Restore them, restore them
To favour again.
O Spirit of grace!
O Consoler divine!
See how for Thy presence
They longingly pine;
Ah, then, to enliven
Their sadness, descend;
And fill them with peace,
And with joy in the end.
O Mother of mercy!
Dear soother in grief!
Lend thou to their torments
A balmy relief;
Attemper the rigour
Of justice severe;
And soften their flames
With a pitying tear.
All ye who would honour
The Saints and their Head,
Remember, remember,
To pray for the dead;
And they, in return,
From their misery freed,
To you will be friends
In the hour of need.
Intercession for the Faithful Departed
"He himself shall be saved, yet so as by fire."--1 Cor. iii. 15
Help, Lord, the souls which Thou hast made,
The souls to Thee so dear,
In prison, for debt unpaid
Of sins committed here.
Those holy souls, they suffer on,
Resigned in heart and will,
Until Thy high behest is done,
And justice has its fill.
For daily falls, for pardoned crime,
They joy to undergo
The shadow of Thy cross sublime,
The remnant of Thy woe.
Oh, by their patience of delay,
Their hope amid their pain,
Their sacred zeal to burn away
Disfigurement and stain;
Oh, by their fire of love, not less
In keenness than the flame,
Oh, by their very helplessness,
Oh, by Thy own great Name,
Good Jesu, help! sweet Jesu, aid
The souls to thee most dear,
In prison, for tho debt unpaid
Of sins committed here.
Supplication to Jesus for the Faithful Departed
"Have pity on me, have pity on me, at least you my friends, because the hand of the Lord hath touched me.''--Job xix. 21
The souls, O Lord, by justice torn from Thee,
Who penitent ardently crave for Thee,
Wrapped in sin-cleansing flame who mourn for Thee,
Let Thy sweet mercy now recall to Thee
O Jesu! Miserere Domine.
Font that dost wash all stains of earth away,
And none so dark, but Thou mak'st clear as day,
The pangs of these meek suffering souls allay,
Streteh out Thy hand; raise up the dead, we pray.
O Jesu! Miserere Domine.
O Jesus! who in mercy redeemed all,
Release Thy captives from their fiery thrall;
E'en the least worthy, lamed by many a fall,
With saints and martyrs to Thy banquet call.
O Jesu! Miserere Domine.
O Jesu! spare these souls so dear to Thee,
Who, in prison, so calmly wait for Thee;
Hasten, O Lord, and bid them come to Thee,
Their glorious home, to gaze ever on Thee!
O Jesu! Miserere Domine.
Supplication to our Lady for the Souls in Purgatory
"How canst thou, O Mary, refuse to relieve the miserable, since thou art the Queen of Mercy?"--St. Bernard.
O Turn to Jesus, Mother, turn,
And call Him by His tenderest names;
Pray for the holy souls that burn
This hour among the cleansing flames.
Ah! they have fought a gallant fight;
In death's cold arms they persevered;
And after life's uncheery night
The harbour of their rest is neared.
In pains beyond all earthly pains,
Favourites of Jesus! there they lie,
Letting the fire wear out their stains,
And worshipping God's purity.
Spouses of Christ they are, for He
Was wedded to them by His blood;
And angels over their destiny
In wondering adoration brood.
They are the children of thy tears;
Then hasten. Mother! to their aid;
In pity think each hour appears
An age while glory is delayed.
See, how they bound amid their fires;
While pain and love their spirits fill;
Then with self-crucified desires
Utter sweet murmurs and lie still.
O Mary, let thy Son no more
His lingering spouses thus expect;
God's children to their God restore,
And to the Spirit His elect.
Pray, then, as thou hast ever prayed,
Angels and souls all look to thee;
God waits thy prayers, for He hath made
Those prayers His law of charity.
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| Fr. Michael Muller [1881]: Spiritual Work of Mercy: Praying for the Dead |
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Posted by: Stone - 11-02-2021, 06:51 AM - Forum: Church Doctrine & Teaching
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Spiritual Work of Mercy: Praying for the Dead
by Fr. Michael Muller, 1881
![[Image: ?u=http%3A%2F%2Fcharlestoncathedral.com%...f=1&nofb=1]](https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=http%3A%2F%2Fcharlestoncathedral.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2020%2F12%2FMass-purgatory-indulgences.jpg&f=1&nofb=1)
" It is a holy and wholesome thought to pray for the dead, that they may be loosed from sins." (II Machab., xii., 43.)
If it is an excellent spiritual work of mercy to pray for the living, it is also a most praiseworthy spiritual work of mercy to pray for the dead. Before the coming of Christ, the Jews were the chosen people of God. They looked upon prayer for the dead as a holy and laudable work. They believed that, by offering up prayers for the dead, they could free the souls of the departed from their sins. We read, in the second book of the Machabees, a striking example of their charity towards the departed souls. About two hundred years before Christ, they gained a brilliant victory over the enemies of their religion. Now, as many of the Jews had been slain in the battle, Judas Machabeus, their valiant general, took up a collection, and sent twelve thousand drachms of silver to Jerusalem for a sacrifice to be offered up in expiation of the sins of the dead. The Holy Ghost praises the Jews for their charity towards the departed, by saying: "It is a holy and wholesome thought to pray for the dead, that they may be loosed from sins." (II Machab., xii., 43.)
The souls in purgatory, those holy prisoners, and debtors to the divine justice are quite helpless. A sick man, afflicted in all his limbs, and a beggar in the most painful and destitute of conditions, has tongue left to ask relief. At least they can implore heaven--it is never deaf to their prayer. But the souls in purgatory are so poor that they cannot even do this. Those cases, in which some of them were permitted to appear to their friends and ask assistance, are but exceptions. To whom is it that they should have recourse? Is it perhaps to the mercy of God? Alas! they send forth their sighs in plaintive voices: "As the hart panteth after the fountains of water, so my soul panteth after Thee, O God. When shall I come and appear before the face of God? My tears have been my bread day and night, whilst it is said to me daily: Where is thy God." (Ps., xli., 1.) "Lord, where are thy ancient mercies." (Ps., lxxxviii., 50.) "I cry to thee, and thou hearest me not; I stand up, and thou dost not regard me. Thou art changed to be cruel toward me." (Job, xxx., 20–21.) But the Lord does not regard their tears, nor heed their moans and cries, but answers them that His justice must be satisfied to the last farthing. Are they to endeavor to acquire new merits, and thereby purify themselves more and more? Ah! they know that their time for meriting is passed away, that their earthly pilgrimage is over, and that upon them is come that fatal night in which no one can work. (John, ix., 4.)
They know that by all their sufferings they can gain no new merit, no higher glory in heaven--they know, it is through their own fault that they are condemned to this state of suffering; they see clearly, how many admonitions, exhortations, inspirations and divine lights they have rejected, how many prayers, opportunities to receive the sacraments and to profit by the means of grace they have neglected through mere caprice, carelessness and indolence; they see their ingratitude towards God, and the deep wounds they made in the Sacred Heart of Jesus--and their extreme grief and sorrow for all this is a worm never ceasing to gnaw at them. It is a heart-rending pain, it is a killing torment for them, to know that they have put themselves wilfully and wantonly into this state of the most cruel and most lacerating pains! "O cruel comforts! O accursed ease!" they cry out, "it is on your account that we are deprived of the enjoyment of God, our only happiness for all eternity!"
Shall they console themselves by the thought that their sufferings will soon be over? But they are ignorant of the duration of their sufferings unless it be revealed to them by God. Hence it is that they sigh day and night, that they weep constantly and cry unceasingly : "Wo is to us, that our sojourn is prolonged."
Shall these poor, helpless souls seek relief from their fellow-sufferers--all utterly incapable of procuring mutual relief? Lamenting, sobbing and sighing, shedding torrents of tears, and crying aloud, these poor souls stretch out their hands for one to help, console and relieve them. We are the only ones who have it in our power to assist them in their sufferings.
The souls in purgatory are holy souls. They are confirmed in grace and no longer in a condition to offend God or to forfeit heaven. They love God above every thing; all their disorderly affections and passions have died away, and as they love God, so are they loved by Him in an unutterable manner. For this reason, our Lord wishes that they should be united to him as soon as possible; but as He is a God most holy and most just, His holiness and justice forbid him to admit them into the city of the heavenly Jerusalem before their indebtedness to His divine justice has been fully discharged, either by their own sufferings or by the prayers and good works of their brethren on earth. To remove, then, by our charity this bar to the divine goodness, and to assist these souls in being sooner united to the angelic choirs and the number of the blessed in heaven, there to love, praise and glorify God in a most perfect manner, cannot but be a work most pleasing and most acceptable to the Almighty. "I was hungry," He will say to the elect on the day of judgment, "and you gave me to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave me a drink; I was a stranger and you took me in ; naked, and you clothed me: sick, and you visited me; I was in prison, and you came to me." And when the just will ask the Lord upon what occasion they acted thus toward Him, He will answer: "Amen, I say to you: so long as you did it to one of these, my least brethren. you did it to me." (Matt.., xxv., 34–40.)
Truly, if our Lord so highly values the least act of charity, what value will he not set on that charity which freed from their expiatory place such souls as were already espoused to Him for all eternity. We read in the life and revelations of St. Gertrude, that she one day inquired of our Lord why the recital of the Psalter for the souls of the departed was so agreeable to him, and why it obtained so great a relief for them, since the immense number of psalms and the long prayers after each, caused more weariness than devotion. Our Lord replied: "The desire which I have for the deliverance of the souls of the departed, makes it acceptable to me; even as a prince who had been obliged to imprison one of his nobles, to whom he was much attached, and was compelled by his justice to refuse him pardon, would most thankfully avail himself of the intercession and satisfaction of others to release his friend. Thus do I act towards those whom I have redeemed by my death and precious blood, rejoicing in the opportunity of releasing them from their pains and bringing them to eternal joy." "But," continued the Saint, "is the labor of those who recite this Psalter acceptable to thee?" He replied: "My love makes it most agreeable to me; and if a soul is released thereby, I accept it as if I had been myself delivered from captivity and I will assuredly reward at it a fitting time, according to the abundance of my mercy."--(Chap., xvi.) St. Gertrude never felt happier than on the days on which she had prayed much for the relief of the souls in Purgatory. One day she asked our Saviour why it was that she felt so happy on those days. "It is," He replied, "because it would not be right for me to refuse the fervent prayers which you on these days pour out to me for the relief of my suffering spouses in purgatory." "It is not right for me," says Jesus Christ, "to refuse the prayers which you address to me in behalf of my captive spouses." How consoling, then, and at the same time, how encouraging must it be to remember in our prayers the poor sufferers of purgatory!
Dinocrates, the brother of St. Perpetua, died at the age of seven years. Now, one day when St. Perpetua was in prison for the sake of faith, she had the following vision: "I saw Dinocrates," she says, "coming out of a dark place, where there were many others exceedingly hot and thirsty; his face was dirty, his complexion pale, with the ulcer in his face of which he died; and it was for him that I prayed. There seemed a great distance between him and me, so that it was impossible for us to meet each other. Near him stood a vessel full of water, whose brim was higher than the stature of an infant. He attempted to drink, but though he had water, he could not reach it. This mightly grieved me, and I awoke. By this I knew my brother was in pain, but I trusted I could, by prayer, relieve him; so I began to pray for him, beseeching God, with tears, day and night, that He would grant me my request, as I continued to do till we were removed to the camp-prison. The day we were in the stocks, I had this vision: I saw the place, which I had beheld dark before, now luminous; and Dinocrates, with his body very clean and well clad, refreshing himself, and, instead of his wound, a scar only. I awoke and I knew he was relieved from his pains."--(Butler's Lives of the Saints, March 7.)
After St. Ludgardis had offered up many fervent prayers for the repose of the soul of her deceased friend, Simeon, abbot of the monastery of Toniac, our Lord appeared to her saying: "Be consoled, My daughter, on account of thy prayers I will soon release this soul from purgatory." "Oh Jesus, Lord and Master of my heart," she rejoined; "I cannot feel consoled so long as I know that the soul of my friend is suffering so much in the purgatorian fire! Oh! I cannot help shedding most bitter tears until Thou hast released this soul from her sufferings." Touched and overcome by this tender prayer, our Lord released the soul of Simeon, who appeared to Ludgardis, all radiant with heavenly glory, and thanked her for the many fervent prayers which she had offered up for his delivery. He also told the saint that, had it not been for her fervent prayers, he should have been obliged to stay in purgatory for eleven years. (Life 1. i., 4) "It is, therefore, a holy and wholesome thought," says Holy Writ, "to pray for the dead that they may be loosed from their sins."--(II. Machabees, xii., 46.)
The relief, however, which the souls in purgatory receive from our prayers, is in proportion to the fervor with which we say them. This was one day expressly declared by our Lord to St. Gertrude when asking Him "How many souls were delivered from purgatory by hers and her sisters' prayers?" "The number," replied our Lord, "is proportioned to the zeal and fervor of those who pray for them." He added: "My love urges me to release a great number of souls for the prayers of each religious, and at each verse of the psalms which they recite, I release many." Although the souls of the departed are much benefited by these vigils and other prayers, nevertheless a few words, said with affection and devotion, are of far more value to them. And this may be easily explained by a familiar comparison; for it is much easier to wash away the stains of mud or dirt from the hands by rubbing them quickly in a little warm water, than by pouring a quantity of cold water on them without using any friction; thus, a single word, said with fervor and devotion, for the souls of the departed, is of far more efficacy than many vigils and prayers offered coldly and performed negligently.
What a soothing satisfaction to the heart is not prayer for the dead? It changes tears, heretofore barren, into works of piety and mercy; causes our sorrow to be a succor to the object of our love, and makes it, therefore, less bitter; it establishes and maintains, between ourselves and those who leave us, the most pleasing and salutary relations--a continual exchange of services and of precious help. Admirable relations between the living son and the departed father, between the mother and the daughter, the husband and the wife, between life and death! While I share what I have to spare with the poor, God, to recompense me, will withdraw my father, my mother, my friend, from a place of suffering. That same penny which goes to give his daily bread to a poor sufferer, will perhaps give to a delivered soul a place for all eternity at the table of the Lord. What heart does not thrill at such a thought! Who among us does not see one of those most near and dear to us in life, appear to exhort us to the work of prayer and the labors of virtue Who does not exclaim, when watering with his tears the tomb of a beloved one: "O beloved soul, whom so many virtues and good works have recommended to the clemency of the great Judge! whom so many sufferings have so long tried and purified before my eyes! whom a death, so very bitter indeed, but sanctified by religion and consoled by its hopes, has so quickly withdrawn from my embraces!--I hope for thy everlasting salvation, from the divine goodness and merits of Jesus Christ: but I know not if it is yet consummated by thy entrance into glory. In this uncertainty I pray for thee, and I unite to my prayers the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, which I daily offer upon his altar. My prayer made effectual by our Saviour's blood relieves thee if thou art still suffering; it obtains for myself the favors of heaven in greater abundance. The remembrance of thee accompanies me everywhere; the desire of hastening thy happiness urges me on, and unceasingly stimulates my zeal. I feel thee present, as it were, like a guardian angel, who at one time encourages me to prayer and good works, at another assures me of his prayers and assistance. Death has only brought our souls nearer to each other. Formerly I surrounded thee with my attentions, and was in turn the object of thy tenderest solicitude; now I still love, and still am loved, and more than ever is my love capable of helping thee, and is itself repaid by thee."
What purity is there not in this love! What holiness in the works which it imposes? What a charm in the consolations it procures! What a mysterious and holy association is that which unites in a community of mutual aid the visible and the invisible life, time and eternity: the just man who is still engaged in the combat, with him who is having his wounds healed in an exile that must soon end, and him who is already enjoying the glory and the triumph of heaven!
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| Rev. H. G. Hughes [1899]: The Burial of the Dead |
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Posted by: Stone - 11-02-2021, 06:44 AM - Forum: Church Doctrine & Teaching
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The Burial of the Dead
by the Rev. H.G. Hughes, 1899
![[Image: Burial%20of%20the%20Dead_01.jpg]](https://www.catholicharboroffaithandmorals.com/Burial%20of%20the%20Dead_01.jpg)
"It is, therefore, a holy and wholesome thought to pray for the dead, that they may be loosed from sins."--II. Maccabees xii, 46.
SYNOPSIS.-- Introduction.--Protestant criticism of Catholics burial rites unjust, because they do not witness the whole of Catholic obsequies (funeral service). The Church thinks more of the soul than of the body; believes that "it is a holy and wholesome thought, to pray for the dead, that they may be loosed from sins." Herein the difference between Protestant and Catholic burial rites.
Catholic rites, indeed, express hope, but also the sense of man's sinfulness and the dread of the Divine wrath.
I. The Office of the Dead.--Vespers; matins and lauds. Brief description of the sentiments expressed in Psalms, Antiphons and Lessons. Then pass on to consideration of the Requiem Mass. "Why do some Catholics spend money on a grand funeral and neglect to have Holy Mass offered?"
II. The Requiem Mass.--In the Requiem Mass the Church hushes the voice of praise; all is supplication, awe and self-abasement in view of judgment and the nothingness of man. Fitness of the Gregorian chant for expressing these sentiments. Introit, Prayer, Gradual; Dies Irae; Epistle and Gospel; Secret. Omission of the blessing.
III. The Absolutions and Burial.--Meaning of absolution in this connection. Description of the rite. The procession to the grave. Committal of the body to the earth.
IV. Cremation.--Reasons why the Church forbids this practice, vis.: Pagan origin of cremation. Present connection with materialism and irreligion. Indecency of thus treating what was the temple of the Holy Ghost. Impossibility after cremation of detecting poison or violence. Thus Christian charity and the interests of humanity are against cremation. Strictly forbidden by Leo XIII. in 1886.
Non-Catholics who are sometimes present at Catholic burials, not infrequently compare our burial service unfavorably with that of the Protestant Church, declaring it to be but a meagre performance when contrasted with what they term the dignified and apt "Order for the Burial of the Dead," contained in their Prayer Book. In the explanation that I now propose to give you of the rites with which the Church Catholic surrounds that last solemn act of the survivors toward a departed Christian, the committing of the body to that dust from which it sprang, we shall see whether this reproach is justified. In fact, by the expression that I have just used, I have hit upon the very misapprehension that causes Protestants sometimes to level that reproach against us. For, in truth, the committing to the earth of this poor clay of which our bodily part is formed is but a small and secondary part of the office which the Church performs towards her departed children. We have a higher, nobler part, which does not die, which sprang from a higher source than the dust of the earth, which was breathed into our bodies by the breath of God Himself-- the soul, immortal and spiritual, the direct creation of the almighty Hand. It is with the soul that the Church is chiefly concerned in her burial rites; for she believes, as did the chosen people of old, that "it is a holy and wholesome thought to pray for the dead, that they may be loosed from sins." It is this doctrine that makes the difference between a Catholic and a Protestant burial.
The Protestant burial service is beautiful and touching, we may readily admit. It is in part drawn from the Catholic Mass and Office for the Dead; but there are significant omissions. There is not one word of prayer for the soul of the deceased. It seems to be taken for granted that he has already entered into bliss. The idea of a place of purgation, the thought that few are so pure and holy at death as to be found worthy of an immediate entrance into heaven, to stand in the presence of the all-holy God, and at once become the companions of angels and saints the Spirits of the Just made perfect, seem not to have entered into the minds of the compilers of the Anglican Liturgy. Or, rather, must we not say that these considerations were deliberately excluded?
Not so with the Catholic rites. In these we find expressed, indeed, a great and consoling hope for the salvation of those who have died in the bosom of their Mother, the Catholic Church, Christ's Bride, whose children have God for their Father. She has aided them on their death-beds with her holy Sacraments; she has led them into the valley of the shadow of death and there given them into the keeping of Jesus; and she hopes, with a consoling assurance, for their eternal happiness. But she forgets not the awful sanctity of God. She remembers that "nothing defiled can enter heaven"; she knows that many shall be saved "yet so as by fire." She knows human frailty and human weakness, and she has no delusions concerning the dread truth that Divine justice has its claims as well as Divine mercy its pitiful indulgence. She realizes that a soul with a heavy load of offenses against God, even though they have been forgiven by means of the saving Sacraments of Penance and Extreme Unction, is yet liable to a debt of temporal punishment; and, moreover, is imperfect and weighed down by evil habits and dispositions that must need be purged away before that soul can bear the blinding light of the presence of God. How beautifully is this expressed in the words of the angel in the great Poem, the "Dream of Gerontius":
". . . . Praise to His Name!
The eager spirit has darted from my hold,
And, with the intemperate energy of love,
Flies to the dear feet of Emmanuel;
But, ere it reach them, the keen sanctity,
Which with its effluence, like a glory, clothes
And circles round the Crucified, has serged,
And scorched, and shrivelled it; and now it lies
Passive and still before the awful Throne.
A happy, suffering soul! For it is safe,
Consumed, yet quickened, by the glance of God."
I. The Office of the Dead.--The full ceremonies of burial commence with the recitation of the "Office of the Dead," consisting of Vespers, Matins, and Lauds. The Vesper psalms with their antiphons, breathe hope, longing for that Supreme Good from whom sin keeps us, and earnest supplication on the part of the living for the soul of their departed fellow-Christian. "The sorrows of death have compassed me; and the perils of hell have found me; and I called upon the Name of the Lord. O Lord, deliver my soul. The Lord is merciful and just, and our God showeth mercy . . . I will please the Lord in the land of the living" (Ps. cxiv). "Wo is me, that my sojourning is prolonged! I have dwelt with the inhabitants of Cedar; my soul hath been long a sojourner" (Ps. cxix). "Out of the depths I have cried unto thee, O Lord, Lord hear my voice" (Ps. cxxix), and in the last psalm of the Vesper Office we have the note of hope, "The Lord will repay for me. Thy mercy, O Lord, endureth forever; O despise not the works of Thy hands" (Ps. cxxxvii). At the end of each psalm, instead of the Gloria Patri, we have the supplicating appeal: "Eternal Rest give unto them, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon them," and the Office concludes with beautiful prayers, of which the last, at least, is familiar to you all: "O God, the Creator and Redeemer of all the faithful; grant to the souls of Thy servants departed the remission of all their sins, that by pious supplications they may obtain that pardon which they have always desired."
After Vespers follows the Office of Matins and Lauds. All these offices, when possible, should be recited in presence of the corpse, which is brought into the church for that purpose. Matins consists of three divisions, called "Nocturnes." Each Nocturne consists of three Psalms and three Lessons taken from Holy Scripture. The Lessons in the Office of the Dead are taken from the Book of Job; those passages being selected in which the holy man laments the miseries of his afflicted condition, and begs the mercy of God, whose chastising hand has fallen so heavily upon him. His words are full of sad recognition of the nothingness of man and the vanity of human life; the uncertainty of fortune, and the terror of the Divine vengeance upon sin. At the same time that God who avenges sin, is still a God of mercy who will not be angry forever. "Spare me, O God, for my days are nothing . . . . I have sinned; what shall I do to thee, O Keeper of men? Why hast Thou set me opposite Thee, and I am become burdensome to myself? Why dost Thou not remove my sin, and why dost Thou not take away my iniquity?" (Job vii). "I will say to God: Do not condemn me; tell me why Thou judgest me so . . . Remember, I beseech Thee, that Thou hast made me as the clay, and Thou wilt bring me into the dust again? . . . Suffer me, therefore, that I may lament my sorrow a little" (Job x).
After each lesson is recited a Responsory, in which, often in the very words of Scripture, the Church gathers up the teaching and sentiment of the Psalms and Lessons and impresses upon us the feelings of her own mind, mingling with her words pious aspirations from the living for their own souls, and touching appeals to the Divine mercy on behalf of the dead. "Do Thou, O Lord, who didst raise Lazarus from the tomb, give rest and pardon to them, who wilt come to judge the living and the dead, and the world by fire." "Alas, O Lord, that I have sinned much in my life. What shall I do, miserable man that I am? Whither shall I flee, but to Thee, O my God. Have mercy upon me when Thou comest in that last day. My soul is exceeding troubled, but do Thou, O Lord, help me?" "I believe that I shall see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living." The Office of Lauds, which follows Matins, is similar to Vespers in its general arrangement, and full of the same expressive and instructive mingling of prayer for the dead, of warning and supplication for the living, with holy dread of the Divine judgments and consoling hope in God's mercy that characterizes the whole of the rites for the final obsequies, and form an inimitable example of liturgical beauty, solemnity and impressiveness.
But we must pass on to the central act of the funeral rites of the Catholic Church, without which they would be shorn of more than half their efficacy for the living and the dead. I mean, of course, the Requiem Mass, in which the Holy Sacrifice of Christ's Body and Blood is offered for the souls of those who have gone before us. Why is it, dear breathren, that Catholics will spend great sums of money upon flowers, and a grand funeral, which can do no good whatever to the departed, and yet grudge the alms for Masses that would hasten the entrance of their dear ones into the bliss of heaven? It is surely not necessary for me to prove to you that of all things that can be done for the relief of the suffering souls in Purgatory, the offering of holy Mass is unspeakably the most efficacious. Will flowers, and a long line of carriages, and a funeral feast, and rich mourning costumes, give any consolation to those who are agonizing in Purgatory, and longing, with an intense agony of baffled love, for that God who alone can give them any peace, and from whom they are kept away by stains that you could remove by having the holy Mass said for them? I do not condemn that proper decency which respect and love for the departed rightly demand in the carrying out of funerals; but I do condemn useless ostentation which too often has for its motive to make good appearance before the world. Should we Catholics be less anxious for our departed than was the pious Judas Machabeus, who, as we read in Holy Scripture, after a great battle against the enemies of God's people, "making a gathering, sent twelve thousand drachmas of silver to Jerusalem for sacrifice to be offered for the sins of the dead?" (II. Mach. xii, 43). It is a poor piety and a weak affection that will strew flowers upon the grave where rests the body, and yet deprive the soul of that refreshment, light, and peace which the Holy Sacrifice will procure.
II. The Requiem Mass.--Let us glance now at the central rite of our Catholic obsequies, the Requiem Mass, offered for the repose of the soul of the defunct. You are doubtless familiar, by experience, with the differences in the ceremonial of Mass for the dead which distinguish it from an ordinary Mass. Awe-struck in the presence of death, with the silent corpse, that sad and vivid reminder of what we must all come to, laid before God's altar, the Church hushes for this occasion the voice of praise. The sacred ministers are vested in black; the Alleluia, the Gloria Patri, the Gloria in Excelsis are not heard. From beginning to end of the Mass we hear only the voice of supplication. In this solemn rite that trembling awe of judgment to come, those earnest prayers for mercy on the departed soul, those awe-inspiring prophecies of the last great day and of the dreadful Judge coming in power and majesty to judge the world by fire, those humble expressions of self-abasement and acknowledgments of the utter nothingness of man, which we have already heard in the office, reach their climax. It is scarcely necessary for me to dwell upon the fitness of that sublime chant which the Church uses in the Requiem Mass for the expression of these sentiments. This fitness is acknowledged by all. It is generally conceded that no composer, however eminent, has succeeded in equalling the Church's own music as a vehicle for the solemn words of the Mass for the dead.
We will now glance briefly at this great liturgical drama of life and death, of judgment and divine wrath, of tender hope and pathetic appeal.
For the Introit, we have that familiar prayer, "Eternal rest give to them, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon them," followed by words from the sixty-fourth Psalm, which tell us of the last end of all mankind, and carry us at once to the next world and the immediate presence of God: "A hymn, O Lord, becometh Thee in Sion; and a vow shall be paid to Thee in Jerusalem. O, hear my prayer; all flesh shall come to Thee." After the "Kyrie Eleison," with its repeated cry for mercy to the Adorable Trinity, the priest passes on at once to the prayer, in which the name of the departed is mentioned, that name by which he was baptized, that name known to God, without whose knowledge not even a sparrow falls to the ground, that name which has many times and oft been repeated in intercessory prayer by Mary and the saints and the Guardian Angel, who but now has presented the soul of him who owned it at the feet of God.
The Epistle is from the first of St. Paul to the Thessalonians, and bids us not give way to a pagan grief at the death of him whom we loved, telling us of the glory to come when we shall ascend to heaven in company with Jesus: "We will not have you ignorant, brethren, concerning them that are asleep, that you be not sorrowful, even as others who have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them who have slept through Jesus will God bring with Him. . . . for the Lord Himself shall come down from heaven with commandment, and with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God," and "we shall be taken up together . . . to meet Christ . . . and so shall we be always with the Lord. Therefore, comfort ye one another with these words" (I. Thess. iv, 12, seq.).
The Gradual and Tract repeat the prayer for mercy and for deliverance from those bound of sin that hold the soul from the immediate fruition of heaven; and then follows that marvelous sequence, the Dies Irae, unsurpassed for its religious pathos and power to move the hearts of all hearers. It is, in truth, at once a sublime prayer, a most impressive sermon, and a meditation that cannot fail to move and to convert. Therein we seem to see the great Throne set, and the Judge thereon; the open book, the multitudes of men on the right hand and the left; the hosts of angels, the dreadful Accuser, the roaring flames of the eternal prison-house, the awful terror of the lost. But the hymn finishes with words of hope in the mercy of Him who, though our Judge, is yet our loving Savior.
Time will not allow me to quote from this great liturgical hymn, but I would earnestly recommend you all to use it frequently in your private devotions. Its truth, its beauty, its spirit of simple faith, its awful warnings, its lesson of humble self-abasement cannot fail to exercise the most salutary influence upon yourselves if you then familiarize yourself with its holy and sublime sentiments. The gospel is from St. John, and gives us in our divine Lord's words the doctrine that He so solemnly and emphatically taught concerning the resurrection of the dead, the resurrection to life eternal of those who have done well, the resurrection to judgment and condemnation of those who have done evil. 'The Offertory recalls to us how from the beginning the promise of eternal life has been made to those who have believed, and speaks of Abraham, that great example of faith, who merited to be chosen as the forefather of God's people. We, as the apostle tells us, are the spiritual children of Abraham, who himself was only saved through faith in the Redeemer to come whom we, too, worship, and under whose new dispensation it is our happiness to live and die. God is entreated that the great Archangel Michael may conduct the souls of the departed into His holy light, and that He will receive the sacrifice and prayers now being offered for them.
In the "secret" appeal is made to the Divine mercy in virtue of the Christian name and profession of the departed, that as God "has granted him the merit of Christian faith, so also He will bestow upon him its reward." Then the Mass proceeds as usual to that supreme moment when the Divine Victim is lifted up before the Throne of the Father to plead for both living and dead. At the conclusion of the Mass no blessing is given; it is as if the Church were too much concerned with the welfare of the dead to bless the living. Also, instead of the usual "Ite missa est," or "Benedicamas Domino," is substituted the prayer "Requiescant in Pace," "May they rest in Peace. Amen."
III. The Absolutions and Burial.--The Holy Sacrifice being finished, the priest puts off the chasuble and maniple, and assumes the black cope, after which he proceeds to give what are known as the Absolutions. This word must not be misunderstood as if any pardon for unrepented sin can be given by the Church after death. Though, as you are well aware, this is not so, yet the Church's official prayers, if I may use that word, the prayers, that is, which she offers up as Christ's holy Bride, and exercising Christ's own priestly office of intercession through her consecrated ministers, are of special efficacy in obtaining release for the souls in Purgatory. This applies, of course, to all the prayers of the obsequies from beginning to end.
The "Absolutions" begin with a prayer for the living: "Deliver me, O Lord, from eternal death in that terrible day when the heavens and the earth are moved, when Thou comest to judge the world by fire." Note, dear brethren, how the use of the present tense brings vividly before us that day of wrath, as if it were actually come. "I tremble and fear while that judgment comes and the coming wrath. Oh, that day, that day of anger and calamity and misery! Oh, day, great and exceeding bitter; when Thou comest to judge the world by fire."
After the Kyrie Eleison and the "Pater Noster," during the recitation of which the officiant sprinkles with holy water and incenses the corpse, the final prayer is said before the mournful procession sets out for the cemetery to commit the body to that earth from which man came. At the beginning of this part of the obsequies are recited the Psalms De Profundis, "Out of the Depths," and the Royal Penitent's prayer for pardon, the "Miserere." Then follows an invocation of the saints and angels. "Come to his assistance, ye saints of God, meet him, ye angels of the Lord, receiving his soul, offering it in the sight of the Most High. May Christ receive thee, who has called thee, and may the angels receive thee into Abraham's bosom." It will be understood that the order of these prayers and ceremonies varies according as the full rites that I have described are carried out or not. While the body is actually being carried to the grave, the following antiphon, full of Christian hope and the sense of fellowship with the saints of God, is sung: "May the angels lead thee into Paradise; may the martyrs receive thee at thy coming, and bring thee into the holy city, Jerusalem. May the choir of angels receive thee, and with Lazarus, who once was poor, mayest thou have eternal rest."
On arriving at the grave, if it is not blessed, the priest blesses it, and the body is lowered. The rites then conclude with the singing of the Benedictus, with an antiphon consisting of those words of Jesus Christ which are the very light of the grave, dispelling fear and sorrow, and taking away the sting of death: "I am the resurrection and life; he that believeth in Me, though he be dead, yet shall he live; and every one that liveth and believeth in Me shall not die forever."
Once when the Kyrie and Pater Noster are said, the body incensed and sprinkled, and a final prayer for mercy uttered, and all is finished that Christian love and respect can do for that earthly frame which was once the tabernacle of the Holy Spirit, and the recipient of the Body and Blood of Christ.
Cremation.--This last thought, dear brethren, sums up for us the reasons why the Church forbids to all her children the practice of cremation or burning of the dead. Does not our Christian Catholic instinct shrink from such a thing? Let me briefly draw out, in conclusion, the motives of the Church's action in this respect. To begin with, cremation was a pagan custom, unknown to the Jews, God's chosen people, under the old law. In this the Jews were followed from the first by the Christian Church, in imitation also of the mode of burial of our Lord Himself. As a recent writer has said [see "Catholic Encyclopedia," Art. "Cremation"]: "Cremation, in the majority of cases to-day, is knit up with circumstances that make it a public profession of irreligion and materialism. Freemasons first obtained official recognition of this custom from various governments. The Church has opposed from the beginning a practice which has been used chiefly by opponents of the faith. She is justified by reasons of Christian charity and the interests of humanity. It is unseemly that the human body, once the living temple of God, the instrument of heavenly virtue, sanctified so often by the Sacraments, should finally be subjected to a treatment that filial piety, fraternal and conjugal love, or even mere friendship, seems to revolt against as inhuman." Again, "Another argument against cremation, and drawn from medico-legal sources, lies in this: that cremation destroys all signs of violence or traces of poison, and make examination impossible; whereas a judicial autopsy is always possible after exhumation, even of some months."
The arguments in favor of the practice from supposed reasons of public health are not supported by any unanimity of opinion on the part of medical and professional scientific men, and are shown by the same writer whom I have quoted above to be without solid foundation in fact. More than one Pope has absolutely forbidden the practice of cremation, and the late holy Father Leo XIII., of happy memory, issued in 1886 a decree in which he forbade membership in cremation societies, and declared the unlawfulness of demanding cremation for one's own body or that of another. The sentiment of the civilized world in general is at one with that of the Church in this matter; and we Catholics can trust herein the Christian instinct and the authoritative guidance of the rulers of God's Church. Pagan in its origin, adopted now by those who do not believe in the resurrection of the body, the burning of the dead is an outrage upon the sentiments of nature and Christianity alike.
"He is not dead," said our divine Lord of Lazarus, "but sleepeth"; and death to a Christian is but a sleep. Committing the bodies of her children to the earth, the Church recognizes the origin from when they sprang, and in beautiful symbolism laying the departed tenderly to rest in its narrow bed, typifies that sleep of the mortal remains of the just from which the trumpet of God's angel shall arouse them to reign with Christ.
1917 CODE OF CANON LAW REGARDING CREMATION
Cremation: Cremation is to be reprobated (1203, 1). To wish it is unlawful, and to stipulate it in one's will must be considered as not binding, when Catholic funeral services are to be held (1203, 2). Whoever while living commands his body to be cremated shall be denied ecclesiastical burial (1240, 1, 5). Any one who would force a priest to give such a one ecclesiastical burial is thereby excommunicated (2339).
Anathema/Excommunication: Excommunication is a censure which excludes a person from communion with the faithful (2257). An excommunicated person may not administer the Sacraments or sacramentals (C. 2261). Neither may he receive any Sacrament nor (after a judicial sentence) a sacramental. He is likewise excluded from ecclesiastical burial if he dies without having manifested signs of repentance (if a declaratory or condemnatory sentence has been passed) (C. 2260). Furthermore he does not share in any indulgences, suffrages or general prayers of the Church. But the faithful may pray for him, and a priest may celebrate Mass for him privately (Cf. 526 and C. 2262). An excommunicated person may not exercise any act of ecclesiastical jurisdiction, etc. (C. 2264). Cf. also 417 and 454.
✠ ✠ ✠
On the Denial of Christian Burial
by Rev. Spirago, Francis, 1899
Christian burial is denied to the unbaptized, to non-Catholics, and to Catholics who are known to have died in mortal sin. Catholics to whom Christian burial is denied are: Suicides (unless they are insane at the time of death and therefore irresponsible); duellists, and any persons who obstinately refuse to receive the last sacraments, or who have not for years past fulfilled the Easter precept. In the two last cases the matter is generally laid before the bishop. The denial of Christian burial to bad Catholics is not intended as a sentence of damnation, but merely as the public expression of abhorrence of their sin, and for the purpose of deterring others from falling into the same sin. An association would be little thought of if one of its members followed to the grave a fellow-member who had been a disgrace to that society; so it would be derogatory to the Church and her ministers if she were to celebrate the obsequies of an unfaithful Catholic. The Church also refuses ecclesiastical burial to non-Catholics, because she holds to the principle expressed by Pope Innocent III. in the words: "It is impossible for us to hold communion after their death with those who have not been in communion with us during their life. To do so would give rise to the idea that all religions were alike. It would destroy the prestige of the Church, and injure the souls of men. The maxim of the Church is that the ground she has consecrated is the last resting-place of her children, and none but members of her family have a right to be interred therein." Yet she permits non-Catholic relatives to be laid in a family vault. For suicides a portion of the cemetery which has not been consecrated is set apart.
Prayer on the Day of Burial
Lord we pray Thee to absolve the soul of Thy servant (or. Thine handmaid) N. (here express the name) who hath died unto the world, that he (or, she) may live unto Thee. And wheresoever while he (or, she) walked among men he (or, she) hath transgressed through the weakness of the flesh, do Thou in the exceeding tenderness of Thy mercy forgive and put away. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, Thy Son, Who liveth and reigneth with Thee, in the unity of the Holy Ghost, one God, world without end. Amen.
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| The Maxims and Sayings of St. Philip Neri |
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Posted by: Stone - 11-02-2021, 05:35 AM - Forum: Resources Online
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THE MAXIMS AND SAYINGS OF ST PHILIP NERI
PREFACE.
The following pages are a translation of the Ricordi e Detti di San Filippo Neri, published at Turin. Their purpose cannot be better de scribed than in the words of the Italian editor: “It was the aim and study of the holy father, Philip Neri, to introduce among Christians a daily spiritual repast. His children, who have drunk of the spirit of their holy father, have always sought to cultivate this custom of a spiritual repast among devout persons; and among the plans which they have tried, and the practices they have introduced, one, gentle reader, is a collection of the sayings and doings of the Saint, distributed into the number of the days of the year, to the end that every one might have each day, either a maxim to meditate upon, or a virtue to copy. The method of using these sayings and doings, is to read only one of them each day, and that the one set apart for the current day, (for to read more would not be food but curiosity,) and then to regulate the actions of the day by that maxim or example. I am sure that by doing this you will reap an abundant harvest, especially if to the maxim or example you add some particular devotion to the Saint who was the author of it. I think it useless to make any long commendation of this practice; but it is well you should know that by the daily suggestion of such truths, the fruit which the saint obtained in Rome was immense; and so also will it be in your soul if you practise it in a true spirit of devotion. Farewell.”
F.W. FABER.
St. Wilfrid’s,
Feast of St. Bridget, 1847.
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JANUARY.
1. WELL! when shall we have a mind to begin to do good?
2. Nulla dies sine linea: Do not let a day pass without doing some good during it.
3. We must not be behind time in doing good; for death will not be behind his time.
4. Happy is the youth, because he has time before him to do good.
5. It is well to choose some one good devotion, and to stick to it, and never to abandon it.
6. He who wishes for anything but Christ, does not know what he wishes; he who asks for anything but Christ, does not know what he is asking; he who works, and not for Christ, does not know what he is doing.
7. Let no one wear a mask, otherwise he will do ill; and if he has one, let him burn it.
8. Spiritual persons ought to be equally ready to experience sweetness and consolation in the things of God, or to suffer and keep their ground in drynesses of spirit and devotion, and for as long as God pleases, without their making any complaint about it.
9. God has no need of men.
10. If God be with us, there is no one else left to fear.
11. He who wishes to be perfectly obeyed, should give but few orders.
12. A man should keep himself down, and not busy himself in mirabilibus super se.
13. Men should often renew their good resolutions, and not lose heart because they are tempted against them.
14. The name of Jesus, pronounced with reverence and affection, has a kind of power to soften the heart.
15. Obedience is a short cut to perfection.
16. They who really wish to advance in the ways of God, must give themselves up into the hands of their superiors always and in everything; and they who are not living under obedience must subject themselves of their own accord to a learned and discreet confessor, whom they must obey in the place of God, disclosing to him with perfect freedom and simplicity the affairs of their soul, and they should never come to any resolution without his advice.
17. There is nothing which gives greater security to our actions, or more effectually cuts the snares the devil lays for us, than to follow another person’s will, rather than our own, in doing good.
18. Before a man chooses his confessor, he ought to think well about it, and pray about it also; but when he has once chosen, he ought not to change, except for most urgent reasons, but put the utmost confidence in his director.
19. When the devil has failed in making a man fall, he puts forward all his energies to create distrust between the penitent and the confessor, and so by little and little he gains his end at last.
20. Let persons in the world sanctify themselves in their own houses, for neither the court, professions, or labour, are any hindrance to the service of God.
21. Obedience is the true holocaust which we sacrifice to God on the altar of our hearts.
22. In order to be really obedient, it is not enough to do what obedience commands, we must do it without reasoning upon it.
23. Our Blessed Lady ought to be our love and our consolation.
24. The good works which we do of our own will, are not so meritorious as those that are done under obedience.
25. The most beautiful prayer we can make, is to say to God, “As Thou knowest and willest, O Lord, so do with me.”
26. When tribulations, infirmities, and contradictions come, we must not run away in a fright, but vanquish them like men.
27. It is not enough to see that God wishes the good we aim at, but that He wishes it through our instrumentality, in our manner and in our time; and we come to discern all this by true obedience.
28. In order to be perfect, we must not only obey and honour our superiors; we must honour our equals and inferiors also.
29. In dealing with our neighbour, we must assume as much pleasantness of manner as we can, and by this affability win him to the way of virtue.
30. A man who leads a common life under obedience, is more to be esteemed than one who does great penance after his own will.
31. To mortify one passion, no matter how small, is a greater help in the spiritual life than many abstinences, fasts, and disciplines.
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FEBRUARY.
1. He who wishes to be wise without the true Wisdom, or saved without the Saviour, is not well, but sick - is not wise, but a fool.
2. Devotion to the Blessed Virgin is actually necessary, because there is no better means of obtaining God’s graces than through His most holy mother.
3. A man should force himself to be obedient, even in little things which appear of no moment; because he will thus render the practice of obedience in great matters easy to himself.
4. He who always acts under obedience, may rest assured that he will not have to give an account of his actions to God.
5. Perfection does not consist in such outward things as shedding tears and the like, but in true and solid virtues.
6. Tears are no sign that a man is in the grace of God, neither must we infer that one who weeps when he speaks of holy and devout things necessarily leads a holy life.
7. Cheerfulness strengthens the heart and makes us persevere in a good life; wherefore the servant of God ought always to be in good spirits.
8. When a man is freed from a temptation or any other distress, let him take great care to show fitting gratitude to God for the benefit he has received.
9. We must accept the adversities which God sends us without reasoning too much upon them, and we must take for granted that it is the best thing which could happen to us.
10. We must always remember that God does everything well, although we may not see the reason of what He does.
11. Every one ought to give in readily to the opinion of another, and to argue in favour of another and against himself, and take things in good part.
12. There is nothing more to the purpose for exciting a spirit of prayer, than the reading of spiritual books.
13. Let a man frequent the holy Sacraments, go to sermons, and be often reading the Lives of Saints.
14. Let a man always think that he has God before his eyes.
15. When a man is in an occasion of sin, let him look what he is doing, get himself out of the occasion, and avoid the sin.
16. There is nothing good in this world: Vanitas vanitatum, et omnia vanitas.
17. We must die at last.
18. Beginners in religion ought to exercise themselves principally in meditation on the Four Last Things.
19. He who does not go down into hell while he is alive, runs a great risk of going there after he is dead.
20. The greatest help to perseverance in the spiritual life is the habit of prayer, especially under the direction of our confessor.
21. There is nothing the devil fears so much, or so much tries to hinder, as prayer.
22. An excellent method of preserving ourselves from relapsing into serious faults, is to say every evening, “To-morrow I may be dead.”
23. A man without prayer is an animal without the use of reason.
24. The religious state is indeed the highest, but it is not suitable for all.
25. A most excellent means of learning how to pray, is to acknowledge ourselves unworthy of such a benefit, and to put ourselves entirely into the hands of the Lord.
26. The true preparation for prayer consists in the exercise of mortification; for he who wishes to give himself up to prayer without mortification, is like a bird wishing to fly before it is fledged.
27. We can never arrive at the contemplative life, if we do not first exercise ourselves laboriously in the active life.
28. We must exercise the spirit which God gives us in prayer, and follow that; so that, when, for example, it inclines us to meditate on the Passion, we must not wish to meditate on some other mystery.
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MARCH.
1. We must never pray for a favour for anyone, except conditionally, saying, “If it please God,” or the like.
2. When a spiritual person feels a great calmness of mind in asking anything of God, it is a good sign that God either has granted it, or will do so shortly.
3. A man ought never to think he has done any good, or rest contented with any degree of perfection he may have attained, because Christ has given us the type of our perfection, in putting before us the perfection of the Eternal Father. Be ye perfect, even as your heavenly Father is perfect.
4. The sweetness which some experience in prayer, is milk which our Lord gives as a relish to those who are just beginning to serve Him.
5. To leave our prayer when we are called to do some act of charity for our neighbour, is not really a quitting of prayer, but leaving Christ for Christ, that is, depriving ourselves of spiritual sweetnesses in order to gain souls.
6. It is good for a man to go from prayer rather with an appetite and desire to return to it, than satiated and weary.
7. The wisdom of the Scriptures is learned rather by prayer than by study.
8. A diligent charity in ministering to the sick, is a compendious way to the acquisition of perfect virtue.
9. Let women remain indoors, and look after their families, and not be desirous of going into public.
10. We must pray incessantly for the gift of perseverance.
11. We must not leave off our prayers be cause of distractions and restlessness of mind, although it seems useless to go on with them. He who perseveres for the whole of his accustomed time, gently recalling his mind to the subject of his prayer, merits greatly.
12. If in times of dryness in prayer we make acts of humility, self-knowledge, protestations of our own inability to help ourselves, and petitions for God’s assistance, all this is real and substantial prayer.
13. The best remedy for dryness of spirit, is to picture ourselves as beggars in the presence of God and the Saints, and like a beggar, to go first to one saint, then to another, to ask a spiritual alms of them with the same earnestness as a poor fellow in the streets would ask an alms of us.
14. We may ask a spiritual alms even corporally, by going first to the church of one Saint, and then to the church of another, to make our petition.
15. Without prayer a man will not persevere long in spirituality; we must have recourse to this most powerful means of salvation every day.
16. If young men wish to protect themselves from all danger of impurity, let them never retire to their own rooms immediately after dinner, either to read or write, or do anything else; but let them remain in conversation, because at that time the devil is wont to assault us with more than usual vehemence, and this is that demon which is called in Scripture the noonday demon, and from which holy David prayed to be delivered.
17. If young men would preserve their purity, let them avoid bad company.
18. Let them also avoid nourishing their bodies delicately.
19. It is God’s custom to interweave human life with a trouble and a consolation, at least, of an interior sort, alternately.
20. Young men should be very careful to avoid idleness.
21. When fathers have given their sons a good education, and put everything clearly and distinctly in train for them, the sons who succeed them, and continue to follow the road marked out for them, will have the advantage of seeing their family persevere in holy ways, and in the fear of God.
22. In order to preserve their purity, young men should frequent the Sacraments, and especially confession.
23. We must never trust ourselves, for it is the devil’s way first to get us to feel secure, and then to make us fall.
24. We ought to fear and fly temptations of the flesh, even in sickness, and in old age itself, aye, and so long as we can open and shut our eyelids, for the spirit of incontinence gives no truce either to place, time, or person.
25. Our sweet Christ, the Word Incarnate, has given Himself to us for everything that was necessary for us, even to the hard and ignominious death upon the cross.
26. One of the most efficacious means of keeping ourselves chaste, is to have compassion for those who fall through their frailty, and never to boast in the least of being free, but with all humility to acknowledge that whatever we have is from the mercy of God.
27. To be without pity for other men’s falls, is an evident sign that we shall fall ourselves shortly.
28. In the matter of purity there is no greater danger than the not fearing the danger: when a man does not distrust himself, and is without fear, it is all over with him.
29. The devil generally makes use of the weaker sex when he wishes to cause us to fall.
30. In order to begin well, and to finish better, it is quite necessary to hear mass every day, unless there be some lawful hindrance in the way.
APRIL.
1. To acquire and preserve the virtue of chastity, we have need of a good and experienced confessor.
2. Let a man who desires the first place take the last.
3. As soon as a man feels that he is tempted, he should fly to God, and devoutly utter that ejaculation which the fathers of the desert so much esteemed: Deus in adjutorium meum intende; Domine ad adjuvandum me festina: or that verse, cor mundum crea in me Deus.
4. When sensual thoughts come into the mind, we ought immediately to make use of our minds, and fix them instantaneously upon something or other, no matter what.
5. Never say, “What great things the Saints do,” but, “What great things God does in His Saints.”
6. In the warfare of the flesh, only cowards gain the victory; that is to say, those who fly.
7. We should be less alarmed for one who is tempted in the flesh, and who resists by avoiding the occasions, than for one who is not tempted and is not careful to avoid the occasions.
8. When a person puts himself in an occasion of sin, saying, “I shall not fall, I shall not commit it,” it is an almost infallible sign that he will fall, and with all the greater damage to his soul.
9. It is a most useful thing to say often, and from the heart, “Lord, do not put any confidence in me, for I am sure to fall if Thou dost not help me;” or, “O my Lord, look for nothing but evil from me.”
10. In temptation we ought not to say, “I will do,” “I will say,” for it is a species of presumption and self-confidence; we ought rather to say with humility, “I know what I ought to do, but I do not know what I shall do.”
11. The stench of impurity before God and the angels is so great, that no stench in the world can equal it.
12. We must not trust in ourselves, but take the advice of our spiritual father, and recommend ourselves to everybody’s prayers.
13 We must avoid lies as we would a pestilence.
14. When we go to confession, we should accuse ourselves of our worst sins first, and of those things which we are most ashamed of, because by this means we put the devil to greater confusion, and reap more fruit from our confession.
15. One of the very best means of obtaining humility, is sincere and frequent confession.
16. In trying to get rid of bad habits, it is of the greatest importance not to put off going to confession after a fall, and also to keep to the same confessor.
17. In visiting the dying we should not say many words to them, but rather help them by praying for them.
18. A sick man should make God a present of his will; and if it turns out that he has to suffer for a long time, he must submit to the Divine Will.
19. The sick man must not fear when he is tempted to lose confidence; for if he has sinned, Christ has suffered and paid for him.
20. Let the sick man enter into the Side of Jesus and His most holy Wounds; let him not be afraid, but combat manfully, and he will come forth victorious.
21. The true way to advance in holy virtues, is to persevere in a holy cheerfulness.
22. The cheerful are much easier to guide in the spiritual life than the melancholy.
23. Those who wish to enter upon the religious life, should first of all mortify themselves for a long time, and particularly mortify their will in things to which they have the greatest repugnance.
24. Excessive sadness seldom springs from any other source than pride.
25. Charity and cheerfulness, or charity and humility, should be our motto.
26. It is very necessary to be cheerful, but we must not on that account give in to a buffooning spirit.
27. Buffoonery incapacitates a person from receiving any additional spirituality from God.
28. Nay more, it roots up the little a man may have already acquired.
29. At table, especially where there are guests, we ought to eat every kind of food, and not say, “I like this,” and “I do not like that.”
30. Human language cannot express the beauty of a soul which dies in a state of grace.
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MAY.
1. If a man finds it very hard to forgive injuries, let him look at a crucifix, and think that Christ has shed all His Blood for him, and not only forgave his enemies, but prayed the Eternal Father to forgive them also.
2. Let him remember also that when he says the Pater Noster every day, instead of asking pardon for his sins, he is calling down vengeance upon them.
3. Men are generally the carpenters of their own crosses.
4. Let us concentrate ourselves so completely in the divine love, and enter so far into the living fountain of wisdom, through the wounded Side of our Incarnate God, that we may deny ourselves and our self-love, and so be unable to find our way out of that Wound again.
5. We must not give up praying and asking, because we do not get what we ask all at once.
6. He who is unable to spend a long time together in prayer, should often lift up his mind to God by ejaculations.
7. We must often remember what Christ said, that not he who begins, but he that perseveres to the end, shall be saved.
8. We ought to abhor every kind of affectation, whether in talking, dressing, or anything else.
9. When a scrupulous person has once made up his mind that he has not consented to a temptation, he must not reason the matter over again to see whether he has really consented or not, for the same temptations often return by making this sort of reflections.
10. If those who are molested by scruples wish to know whether they have consented to a suggestion or not, especially in thoughts, they should see whether, during the temptation, they have always had a lively love to the virtue opposed to the vice in respect of which they were tempted, and hatred to that same vice, and this is mostly a good proof that they have not consented.
11. The scrupulous should remit themselves always and in everything to the judgment of their confessor, and accustom themselves to have a contempt for their own scruples.
12. Scruples are an infirmity which will make a truce with a man, but very rarely peace; humility alone comes off conqueror over them.
13. Even in bodily indispositions spiritual remedies are the most helpful.
14. As much love as we give to creatures, just so much we steal from the Creator.
15. Penitents ought never to force their confessor to give them leave to do anything against his inclination.
16. He who has the slightest taint of avarice about him, will never make the least advance in virtue.
17. Avarice is the pest of the soul.
18. Experience shows that men given to carnal sins are converted sooner than those who are given to avarice.
19. He who wishes for goods will never have devotion.
20. All sins are highly displeasing to God, but above all sensuality and avarice, which are very difficult to cure.
21. We must always pray God not to let the spirit of avarice domineer over us, but that we may live detached from the affections of this world,
22. If we find nothing in the world to please us, we ought to be pleased by this very not finding anything to please us.
23. He who wishes to attain to perfection must have no attachment to anything.
24. It is a good thing to leave the world and our possessions to serve God, but it is not enough.
25. The greatness of our love of God must be tested by the desire we have of suffering for His love.
26. Let us strive after purity of heart, for the Holy Spirit dwells in candid and simple minds.
27. The Holy Spirit is the master of prayer, and causes us to abide in continual peace and cheerfulness, which is a foretaste of Paradise.
28. If we wish the Holy Spirit to teach us how to pray, we must practise humility and obedience.
29. The fruit we ought to get from prayer, is to do what is pleasing to the Lord.
30. A virtuous life consists in mortifying vices, sins, bad thoughts, and evil affections, and in exercising ourselves in the acquisition of holy virtues.
31. Let us be humble and keep ourselves down:- Obedience! Humility! Detachment!
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JUNE.
1. The love which our Blessed Lady had for God was so great, that she suffered keenly through her desire of union with Him; hence the Eternal Father, to console her, sent her His only and beloved Son.
2. If you wish to come where I am going, that is, to glory, you must come this road, that is, through thorns.
3. Before communion, we ought to exercise ourselves in many acts of virtue.
4. Prayer and communion are not to be made or desired for the sake of the devotion we feel in them, for that is seeking self, and not God; but we must be frequent in both the one and the other in order to become humble, obedient, gentle, and patient.
5. When we see these virtues in a man, then we know that he has really gathered the fruit of prayer and of communion.
6. Our sweet Jesus, through the excess of His love and liberality, has left Himself to us in the Most Holy Sacrament.
7. Let all go to the Eucharistic Table with a great desire for that Sacred Food. Sitientes! Sitientes!
8. To feel any displeasure because we are refused the Communion, is a sign of hardiness, pride, and a want of mortification.
9. Those who are going to Communion should prepare themselves for more temptations than usual, for the Lord will not have us stand idle.
10. It is a good thing, during the week that follows our communion-day, to do something more than usual; for example, to say five Our Fathers and Hail Maries with our arms extended, or an extra rosary.
11. It is not a good thing to load ourselves with many spiritual exercises; it is better to undertake a little, and go on with it: for if the devil can persuade us to omit an exercise once, he will easily get us to omit it the second time, and the third, until at last all our pious practices will melt away.
12. We must take care of little faults: for he who once begins to go backward, and to make light of such defects, brings a sort of grossness over his conscience, and then goes wrong altogether.
13. The servant of God ought to seek knowledge, but never to show it or make a parade of it.
14. Let us always go to confession with sincerity, and take this as our rule - Never out of human respect to conceal anything from our confessor, however inconsiderable it may be.
15. He who conceals a grave sin in confession, is completely in the devil’s hands.
16. Penitents should not generally change their confessors, nor confessors be forward to receive the penitents of others, a few particular cases excepted.
17. When a person who has been living a spiritual life for a long time falls into a serious fault, there is no better way of raising him up again than by exhorting him to manifest his fall to any pious friend with whom he has a particular intimacy: and God will reconduct him to his first estate for the sake of his humility.
18. For young men to make sure of persevering, it is absolutely necessary that they should avoid wicked companions, and be familiar with good ones.
19. In the spiritual life there are three degrees: the first may be called the animal life; this is the life of those who run after sensible devotion, which God generally gives to beginners, to allure them onwards by that sweetness to the spiritual life, just as an animal is drawn on by a sensible object.
20. The second degree may be called the human life; this is the life of those who do not experience any sensible sweetness, but by the help of virtue combat their own passions.
21. The third degree may be called the angelic life; this is the life which they come to, who, having been exercised for a long time in the taming of their own passions, receive from God a quiet, tranquil, and almost angelic life, even in this world, feeling no trouble or repugnance in anything.
22. Of these three degrees it is well to persevere in the second, because the Lord will grant the third in His own good time.
23. We must not be too ready to trust young men who have great devotion; we must wait till their wings are grown, and then see what sort of a flight they make.
24. Outward mortifications are a great help towards the acquisition of interior mortification and the other virtues.
25. He who cannot put up with the loss of his honour, can never make any advance in spiritual things.
26. It is generally better to give the body rather too much food than rather too little; for the too much can be easily subtracted, but when a man has injured his constitution by the too little, it is not so easy to get right again.
27. The devil has a crafty custom of sometimes urging spiritual persons to penances and mortifications, in order that by going indiscreet lengths in this way, they may so weaken themselves as to be unable to attend to good works of greater importance; or be so intimidated by the sickliness they have brought upon themselves as to abandon their customary devotions, and at last turn their backs on the service of God.
28. Those who pay a moderate attention to the mortification of their bodies, and direct their main intention to mortify the will and understanding, even in matters of the slightest moment, are more to be esteemed than they who give themselves up exclusively to corporal penances and macerations.
29. We ought to desire to do great things for the service of God, and not content ourselves with a moderate goodness, but wish, if it were possible, to surpass in sanctity and love even St. Peter and St. Paul.
30. Even though a man may be unable to attain such a height of sanctity, he ought to desire it, so as to do at least in desire what he cannot carry out in effect.
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JULY.
1. We ought to make no account of abstinences and fasts, when there is self-will in the matter.
2. Our Blessed Lady is the dispenser of all the favours which the goodness of God concedes to the Sons of Adam.
3. In seeking for counsel it is necessary sometimes to hear what our inferiors think, and to recommend ourselves to their prayers.
4. A man ought never to say one word in his own praise, however true it may be, no, not even in a joking way.
5. Whenever we do a good work, and somebody else takes the credit of it, we ought to rejoice, and acknowledge it as a gift from God. Anyhow, we ought not to be sorry, because if others diminish our glory before men, we shall recover it with all the more honour before God.
6. Let us pray God, if He gives us any virtue or any gift, to keep it hidden even from ourselves, that we may preserve our humility, and not take occasion of pride because of it.
7. We ought not to publish or manifest to every one the inspirations which God sends us, or the favours He grants us. Secretum meum mihi! Secretum meum mihi!
8. In order to avoid all risk of vain-glory, we ought to make some of our particular devotions in our own rooms, and never seek for sweetnesses and sensible consolations in public places.
9. The true medicine to cure us of pride, is to keep down and thwart touchiness of mind.
10. When a man is reproved for anything, he ought not to take it too much to heart, for we commit a greater fault by our sadness than by the sin for which we are reproved.
11. They who when they have got a little devotion think they are some great one, are only fit to be laughed at.
12. Humility is the true guardian of chastity.
13. When a man has fallen he ought to acknowledge it in some such way as this: “Ah, if I had been humble I should not have fallen!”
14. We ought to be pleased to hear that others are advancing in the service of God, especially if they are our relations or friends; and we ought to rejoice that they share in whatever spiritual good we may have ourselves.
15. In order the better to gain souls, in visiting the sick, we ought to imagine that what we do for the sick man we are doing for Christ Himself; we shall thus perform this work of mercy with more love and greater spiritual profit.
16. He whose health will not permit him to fast in honour of Christ and our Blessed Lady, will please them much more by giving some alms more than usual.
17. Nothing is more dangerous for beginners in the spiritual life, than to wish to play the master, and to guide and convert others.
18. Beginners should look after their own conversion and be humble, lest they should fancy they had done some great thing, and so should fall into pride.
19. If we wish to help our neighbour, we must reserve neither place, hour, or season, for ourselves.
20. Avoid every kind of singularity, for it is generally the hot-bed of pride, especially spiritual pride.
21. A man must not, however, abstain from doing a good work merely to got out of the way of a temptation to vain-glory.
22. The love of God makes us do great things.
23. We may distinguish three kinds of vain-glory; the first we may call mistress; that is, when vain-glory goes before our works, and we work for the sake of it: the second we may call companion; that is, when a man does not do a work for the sake of vain-glory, but feels complacency in doing it: the third we may call servant; that is, when vain-glory rises in our work, but we instantly repress it. Above all things never let vain-glory be mistress.
24. When vain-glory is companion, it does not take away our merit; but perfection requires that it should be servant.
25. He who works purely for the love of God, desires nothing but His honour, and thus is ready in every thing either to act or not to act, and that not in indifferent matters only, but even in good ones; and he is always resigned to the Will of God.
26. The Lord grants in a moment what we may have been unable to obtain in dozens of years.
27. To obtain perfectly the gift of humility, four things are required: to despise the world, to despise no person, to despise one’s self, to despise being despised.
28. Perfection consists in leading captive our own will, and in playing the king over it.
20. A man ought to mortify his understanding in little things, if he wishes easily to mortify it in great ones, and to advance in the way of virtue.
30. Without mortification nothing can be done.
31. We ought to hope for and love the glory of God by means of a good life.
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AUGUST.
1. St. Peter and the other apostles and apostolical men, seeing the Son of God born in poverty, and then living so absolutely without anything, that He had not where to lay His Head, and contemplating Him dead and naked on a cross, stripped themselves also of all things, and took the road of the evangelical counsels.
2. Nothing unites the soul to God more closely, or breeds contempt of the world sooner, than being harassed and distressed.
3. In this life there is no purgatory; it is either hell or paradise; for to him who serves God truly, every trouble and infirmity turns into consolations, and through all kinds of trouble he has a paradise within himself even in this world: and he who does not serve God truly, and gives himself up to sensuality, has one hell in this world, and another in the next.
4. To get good from reading the Lives of the Saints, and other spiritual books, we ought not to read out of curiosity, or skimmingly, but with pauses; and when we feel ourselves warmed, we ought not to pass on, but to stop and follow up the spirit which is stirring in us, and when we feel it no longer then to pursue our reading.
5. To begin and end well, devotion to our Blessed Lady, the Mother of God, is nothing less than indispensable.
6. We have no time to go to sleep here, for Paradise was not made for poltroons.
7. We must have confidence in God, who is what He always has been, and we must not be disheartened because things turn out contrary to us.
8. Men should not change from a good state of life to another, although it may be better, without taking grave counsel.
9. Let every one stay at home, that is, within himself, and sit in judgment on his own actions, without going abroad to investigate and criticise those of others.
10. The true servants of God endure life and desire death.
11. There is not a finer thing on earth, than to make a virtue of necessity.
12. To preserve our cheerfulness amid sicknesses and troubles, is a sign of a right and good spirit.
13. A man should not ask tribulations of God, presuming on his being able to bear them: there should be the greatest possible caution in this matter, for he who bears what God sends him daily does not do a small thing.
14. They who have been exercised in the service of God for a long time, may in their prayers imagine all sorts of insults offered to them, such as blows, wounds, and the like, and so in order to imitate Christ by their charity, may accustom their hearts beforehand to forgive real injuries when they come.
15. Let us think of Mary, for she is that unspeakable virgin, that glorious lady, who conceived and brought forth, without detriment to her virginity, Him whom the width of the heavens cannot contain within itself.
16. The true servant of God acknowledges no other country but heaven.
17. When God infuses extraordinary sweetnesses into the soul, a man ought to prepare for some serious tribulation or temptation.
18. When we have these extraordinary sweetnesses, we ought to ask of God fortitude to bear whatever He may please to send us, and then to stand very much upon our guard, because there is danger of sin behind.
19. One of the most excellent means of obtaining perseverance is discretion; we must not wish to do everything at once, or become a saint in four days.
20. In our clothes we ought, like S. Bernard, to love poverty, but not filthiness.
21. He who wishes to advance in spirituality, should never slur over his defects negligently without particular examination of conscience, even independent of the time of sacramental confession.
22. A man should not so attach himself to the means as to forget the end; neither must we give ourselves so much to mortify the flesh as to forget to mortify the brain, which is the chief thing after all.
23. We ought to desire the virtues of prelates, cardinals, and popes, but not their dignities.
24. The skin of self-love is fastened strongly on our hearts, and it hurts us to flay it off, and the more we get down to the quick, the more keen and difficult it is.
25. This first step, which we ought to have taken of ourselves already, we have always in our mind, yet never put it in execution.
26. A man ought to set about putting his good resolutions in practice, and not change them lightly.
27. We must not omit our ordinary devotions for every trifling occasion that may come in the way, such as going to confession on our fixed days, and particularly hearing mass on week-days: if we wish to go out walking, or anything of that sort, let us make our confession, and perform our usual exercises first, and then go.
28. It is very useful for those who minister the word of God, or give themselves up to prayer, to read the works of authors whose names begin with S, such as Saint Augustine, Saint Bernard, &c.
29. Nothing more glorious can happen to a Christian, than to suffer for Christ.
30. There is no surer or clearer proof of the love of God than adversity.
31. When God intends to grant a man any particular virtue, it is His way to let him be tempted to the opposite vice.
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SEPTEMBER.
1. Persons who live in the world should persevere in coming to church to hear sermons, and remember to read spiritual books, especially the Lives of the Saints.
2. When temptation comes, a man should remember the sweetnesses he has had in prayer at other times, and he will thus easily master the temptation.
3. The fervour of spirituality is usually very great in the beginning, but afterwards, the Lord fingit se longius ire, makes as though He would go farther: in such a case we must stand firm and not be disturbed, because God is then withdrawing His most holy Hand of sweetnesses, to see if we are strong; and then, if we resist and overcome those tribulations and temptations, the sweetnesses and heavenly consolations return.
4. We ought to apply ourselves to the acquisition of virtue, because in the end the whole terminates in greater sweetnesses than before, and the Lord gives us back all our favours and consolations doubled.
5. It is easy to infuse a most fervent devotion into others, even in a short time; but the great matter is - to persevere.
6. He who continues in anger, strife, and a bitter spirit, has a taste of the air of hell.
7. To obtain the protection of our Blessed Lady in our most urgent wants, it is very useful to say sixty-three times, after the fashion of a Rosary, “Virgin Mary, Mother of God, pray to Jesus for me.”
8. When we make this prayer to our Blessed Lady, we give her every possible praise in the least possible compass, because we call her by her name of MARY, and give her those two great titles of Virgin, and Mother of God, and then name JESUS, the fruit of her most pure womb.
9. The things of this world do not remain constantly with us, for if we do not leave them before we actually die, in death at least we all infallibly depart as empty-handed as we came.
10. To pray well requires the whole man.
11. The discipline and other like things ought not to be practised without the leave of our confessor; he who does it of his own mind, will either hurt his constitution or become proud, fancying to himself that he has done some great thing.
12. God takes especial delight in the humility of a man who believes that he has not yet begun to do any good.
13. Before going to confession or taking counsel with our director, it will be very useful to pray for a sincere good will to become a really holy man.
14. He who runs away from one cross, will meet a bigger one on his road.
15. Christ died for sinners; we must take heart, therefore, and hope that Paradise will be ours, provided only we repent of our sins, and do good.
16. Never let a sick man set himself to reason with the devil, otherwise he will inevitably be taken in; let him appeal to his ghostly father, of whom the devil stands in mortal fear.
17. He who serves God must do the best he can not to receive the reward of his labours in this world.
18. In giving alms to the poor we must act as good ministers of the Providence of God.
19. He who feels that the vice of avarice has got hold of him, should not wish to observe fasts of supererogation, but to give alms.
20. Perfection cannot be attained without the greatest toil.
21. As soon as we are stripped of the sordid garb of avarice, we shall be clothed with the royal and imperial vest of the opposite virtue, liberality.
22. Even in the midst of the crowd we can be going on to perfection.
23. Not everything which is better in itself is better for each man in particular.
24. Be devout to the Madonna, keep yourself from sin, and God will deliver you from your evils.
25. If we wish to keep peace with our neighbours, we should never remind any one of his natural defects.
26. We must sometimes bear with little defects in others, as we have against our own will to bear with natural defects in ourselves.
27. Men of rank ought to dress like their equals, and be accompanied by servants, as their state requires, but modesty should go along with it all.
28. We should not be quick at correcting others, but rather to think of ourselves first.
29. Let us think, if we only got to heaven, what a sweet and easy thing it will be there to be always saying with the angels and the saints, Sanctus, Sanctus, Sanctus.
30. The best way to prepare for death is to spend every day of life as though it were the last.
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OCTOBER.
1. In passing from a bad state to a good one there is no need of counsel, but in passing from a good one to a better, time, counsel, and prayer must go to the decision.
2. We must continually pray to God for the conversion of sinners, thinking of the joy there is in heaven both to God and the angels in the conversion of each separate sinner.
3. To speak of ourselves without cause, saying, “I have said,” “I have done,” incapacitates us for receiving spiritual consolations.
4. We ought to desire to be in such a condition as to want sixpence, and not be able to get it.
5. Let us despise gold, silver, jewels, and all that the blind and cheated world vainly and ignorantly prizes.
6. Let us learn here below to give God the confession of praise which we ought to hope to give Him in heaven above.
7. He who wishes to go to Paradise must be an honest man and a good Christian, and not give heed to dreams.
8. Fathers and mothers of families should bring up their children virtuously, looking at them rather as God’s children than their own; and to count life and health, and all they possess, as loans which they hold of God.
9. In saying the Pater Noster, we ought to reflect that we have God for our Father in heaven, and so go on making a sort of meditation of it word by word.
10. To make ourselves disaffected to the things of the world, it is a good thing to think seriously of the end of them, saying to ourselves, “And then? And then?”
11. The devil, who is a most haughty spirit, is never more completely mastered than by humility of heart, and a simple, clear, undisguised manifestation of our sins and temptations to our confessor.
12. We ought not ordinarily to believe prophecies or to desire them, because it is possible there may be many deceits and snares of the devil therein.
13. It is a most useful thing, when we see another doing any spiritual good to his neighbour, to seek by prayer to have a part in that same good which the Lord is working by the hand of another.
14. At communion we ought to ask for the remedy of the vice to which we feel ourselves most inclined.
15. To him who truly loves God, nothing more displeasing can happen than the lack of occasion to suffer for Him.
16. We ought to hate no one, for God never comes where there is no love of our neighbours.
17. We must accept our own death and that of our relations when God shall send it to us, and not desire it at any other time; for it is sometimes necessary that it should happen at that particular moment for the good of our own and their souls.
18. The perfection of a Christian consists in knowing how to mortify himself for the love of Christ.
19. He who desires ecstasies and visions does not know what he is desiring.
20. As for those who run after visions, dreams, and the like, we must lay hold of them by the feet and pull them to the ground by force, lest they should fall into the devil’s net.
21. According to the rules of the fathers and ancient monks, whoever wishes to advance in perfection must hold the world in no reputation.
22. There is nothing more displeasing to God, than our being inflated with self-esteem.
23. When a man knows how to break down his own will and to deny his soul what it desires, he has got a good degree in virtue.
24. When a man falls into any bodily infirmity, he must lie and think, and say, “God has sent me this sickness, because He wishes something of me; I must therefore make up my mind to change my life and become better.”
25. When a man has a tribulation sent him from God, and is impatient, we may say to him, “You are not worthy that God should visit you; you do not deserve so great a good.”
26. Poverty and tribulations are given us by God as trials of our fidelity and virtue, as well as to enrich us with more real and lasting riches in heaven.
27. Scruples ought to be most carefully avoided, as they disquiet the mind, and make a man melancholy.
28. Let us throw ourselves into the arms of God, and be sure that if He wishes anything of us, He will make us good for all He desires us to do for Him.
29. Nothing helps a man more than prayer.
30. Idleness is a pestilence to a Christian man; we ought always therefore to be doing something, especially when we are alone in our rooms, lest the devil should come in and catch us idle.
31. We ought always to be afraid, and never put any confidence in ourselves; for the devil assaults us on a sudden, and darkens our understanding; and he who does not live in fear is overcome in a moment, because he has not the help of the Lord.
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NOVEMBER.
1. The great thing is to become saints.
2. In order to enter Paradise we must be well justified and well purified.
3. Let the young man look after the flesh, and the old man after avarice, and we shall all be saints together.
4. Where there is no great mortification there is no great sanctity.
5. The sanctity of a man lies in the breadth of three fingers, (the forehead,) that is to say, in mortifying the understanding, which would fain reason upon things.
6. He who really wishes to become a saint must never defend himself, except in a few rare cases, but always acknowledge himself in fault, even when what is alleged against him is untrue.
7. What we know of the virtues of the saints is the least part of them.
8. The relics of the saints ought to be venerated, and we may laudably keep them in our room; but it is not well, unless for some grave occasion, to wear them on our persons, because it will often happen then that they are not treated with all the respect which is becoming.
9. The old patriarchs possessed riches, and had wives and children, but they lived without defiling their affections with these things, although they possessed them, because they only allowed themselves the use of them, and were ready to abandon them in whatever way the Majesty of God might require of them.
10. We ought to pray God importunately to increase in us every day the light and heat of his goodness.
11. It is an old custom with the servants of God always to have some little prayers ready, and to be darting them up to heaven frequently during the day, lifting their minds to God from out of the filth of this world. He who adopts this plan will get great fruit with little pains.
12. Tribulations, if we bear them patiently for the love of God, appear bitter at first, but they grow sweet, when one gets accustomed to the taste.
13. The man who loves God with a true heart, and prizes him above all things, sometimes sheds floods of tears at prayer, and has in abundance of favours and spiritual feelings coming upon him with such vehemence, that he is forced to cry out, “Lord! let me be quiet!”
14. But a man ought not to seek for these sweetnesses and sensible devotions forcibly, for he will be easily deluded by the devil, and will run a risk of injuring his health.
15. When the soul lies resignedly in the hands of God, and is contented with the divine pleasure, it is in good hands, and has the best security that good will happen to it.
16. To be entirely conformed and resigned to the Divine Will, is truly a road in which we cannot get wrong, and is the only road which leads us to taste and enjoy that peace which sensual and earthly men know nothing of.
17. Resignation is all in all to the sick man; he ought to say to God, “Lord, if You want me, here I am, although I have never done any good: do with me what You will.”
18. Never make a noise of any sort in church, except for the greatest necessity.
19. Patience is necessary for the servant of God, and we must not be distressed at trouble, but wait for consolation.
20. When seculars have once chosen their secular state, let them persevere in it, and in the devout exercises which they have begun, and in their works of charity, and they shall have contentment at their death.
21. The vocation to the religious life is one of the great benefits which the Mother of God obtains from her Son for those who are devoted to her.
22. There is nothing more dangerous in the spiritual life, than to wish to rule ourselves after our own way of thinking.
23. Among the things we ought to ask of God, is perseverance in well-doing and in serving the Lord; because, if we only have patience, and persevere in the good life we have begun to lead, we shall acquire a most eminent degree of spirituality.
24. He is perfect in the school of Christ who despises being despised, rejoices in self-contempt, and accounts himself to be very nothingness.
25. The way which God takes with the souls that love him, by allowing them to be tempted and to fall into tribulations, is a true espousal between Himself and them.
26. In temptations of the flesh, a Christian ought to have immediate recourse to God, make the sign of the cross over his heart three times, and say, “Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me.”
27. As to temptations, some are mastered by flying from them, some by resisting them, and some by despising them.
28. In order to acquire prudence, and to make a good judgment, we must have lived long and been intimate with many people.
29. It is a great perfection in a heart when it is discreet and does not overstep the limits of convenience and what is befitting.
30. We must seek Christ where Christ is not, that is, in crosses and tribulations, in which truly He is not now, but we shall find Him in glory by this road.
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DECEMBER.
1. Frequent confession is the cause of great good to the soul, because it purifies it, heals it, and confirms it in the service of God: we ought not therefore to omit confession on our fixed days for any business whatsoever; but go to confession first, and to business afterwards, and the first will help the last.
2. When we go to confession, we ought to persuade ourselves to find Jesus Christ in the person of our confessor.
3. Give me ten men really detached from the world, and I have the heart to believe I could convert the world with them.
4. He who communicates often, as he ought to do, brings forth good fruit, the fruit of humility, the fruit of patience, the fruit of all the virtues.
5. Penitents ought not to go to confession for temporal ends, to get alms and the like.
6. We ought to make no account of an immodest person, notwithstanding that he may possess other virtues.
7. The Holy Spirit says of prelates and pastors, He who hears and obeys his superiors, hears and obeys Me, and he who despises them, despises and disobeys Me.
8. If the servant of God would fain walk with more security through so many snares scattered in every place, he should have our Blessed Lady as his mediatrix with her Son.
9. The sick man may desire to get well, provided he seals his desire always with an “If it please God,” “If it is good for my soul;” for we can do many good things in health, which sickness hinders us from doing.
10. In sickness we ought to ask God to give us patience, because it often happens, that when a man gets well, he not only does not do the good he proposed to do when he was sick, but he multiplies his sins and his ingratitude.
11. The mole is a blind rat, which always stays in the ground; it eats earth, and hollows it out, but is never satisfied with it: so is the avaricious man or woman.
12. Penitents should never make vows without the advice of their spiritual fathers.
13. If we do make such vows, it is best to make them conditionally: for example, “I make a vow to have two masses said on S. Lucy’s day, with this bargain, If I can, If I do not forget it, because if I do not remember it I do not wish to be bound.”
14. When a man has to buy anything, he ought not to do so because he is moved by an attachment to the thing, but from want and necessity; for it will never do to buy attachments.
15. Certain little voluntary attachments of self-love must be cut through, and then we must dig round them, and then remove the earth, till we get down deep enough to find the place where they are rooted and interlaced together.
16. A person must be ready to endure, when through a virtuous motive he is mortified by others, and even when God permits him to be in bad odour with others, and regarded and driven away as an infected sheep.
17. Our enemy the devil, who fights with us in order to vanquish us, seeks to disunite us in our houses, and to breed quarrels, dislikes, contests, and rivalries, because while we are fighting with each other, he comes and conquers us, and makes us more securely his own.
18. He who does not think on the benefits he receives from God in this life, and on those greater ones his mercy has prepared in that other life of bliss, does not nourish love to God, but chills and freezes it.
19. If a soul could altogether abstain from venial sins, the greatest pain it could have would be to be detained in this life, so great would its desire be of union with God.
20. In the persecutions which bad men excite against piety and devotion, we must keep our eyes on God, whom we serve, and on the testimony of a good conscience.
21. How patiently Christ, the King and Lord of heaven and earth, bore with the apostles, enduring at their hands many incivilities and misbeliefs, they being but poor and rough fishermen! How much more ought we to bear with our neighbour, if he treats us with incivility.
22. We must give ourselves to God altogether.
23. God makes all his own the soul that is wholly given to him.
24. It is as a general rule a bad sign when a man has not a particular feeling of devotion on the chief feasts of the year.
25. Let us reflect that the Word left heaven, and stooped to become man for us.
26. Besides pardoning those who persecute us, we ought to feel pity for the delusion they are labouring under.
27. To one who really loves God, there is nothing more harassing or burdensome than life.
28. Let young men be cheerful, and indulge in the recreations proper to their age, provided they keep out of the way of sin.
29. Not to know how to deny our soul its own wishes, is to foment a very hot-bed of vices.
30. All created things are liberal, and show the goodness of the Creator: the sun scatters its light, the fire its heat; the tree throws out its arms, which are its branches, and reaches to us the fruit it bears: water, and air, and all nature express the liberality of the Creator, and we, who are his lively image, do not represent him, but through our degenerate manners deny Him in deeds while we are confessing Him with our mouths.
31. The hour is finished - we may say the same of the year; but the time to do good is not finished yet.
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| Brits Who Post "False Information" About Vaccines Could Be Jailed For Two Years |
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Posted by: Stone - 11-02-2021, 05:31 AM - Forum: Global News
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Brits Who Post "False Information" About Vaccines Could Be Jailed For Two Years
ZH | NOV 02, 2021
Authored by Paul Joseph Watson via Summit News,
People in the UK who post “false information” about vaccines online could face two years in prison under a new law.
Yes, really.
The Online Safety Bill, described as “the flagship legislation to combat abuse and hatred on the internet” has faced fierce criticism from civil liberties groups for its broad overreach.
The law would create a “knowingly false communication” offence which, according to the Times, “will criminalise those who send or post a message they know to be false with the intention to cause “emotional, psychological, or physical harm to the likely audience”. Government sources gave the example of antivaxers spreading false information that they know to be untrue.”
Given that authorities have deemed all kinds of information about the pandemic and vaccines “false” that later turned out to be true, this is a chilling prospect.
For example, claims that vaccines are not fully effective in stopping the spread of COVID-19 would have once been deemed “false,” but that position is now a proven fact.
The bill would also change the current stricter standard of “indecent” or “grossly offensive” content to the much broader definition of “harmful effect” when deciding if a post or a message is criminal.
This is more in line with UK hate speech laws that determine whether an act of hate speech or a “hate incident” has been committed not on the basis of whether or not it actually happened, but on the basis of the supposed victim feeling like they’ve been targeted.
“The new offences will include so-called “pile-ons” where a number of individuals join others in sending harassing messages to a victim on social media,” reports the Times.
And if you think that will stop left-wing mobs who routinely form “pile-ons” against conservatives for expressing dissenting opinions, think again.
It will be selectively enforced against people who criticize or make fun of those deemed “oppressed minorities,” despite such groups having the full backing of the state and every cultural institution (the alphabet people).
The Online Harms Bill is being amplified with the help of relentless propaganda about black football players being abused online, despite the fact that most of the abuse originates abroad, mainly from Middle Eastern countries.
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| Thousands report developing abnormal tumors following COVID shots |
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Posted by: Stone - 11-01-2021, 01:17 PM - Forum: COVID Vaccines
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Thousands report developing abnormal tumors following COVID shots
There are no studies of the carcinogenicity of COVID vaccines, just as most childhood vaccines have no studies of their effects on cancer.
Mon Nov 1, 2021
(LifeSiteNews) — A 63-year-old previously healthy Michigan man developed a seven-centimeter tumorous growth after receiving Johnson & Johnson/Janssen’s shot against COVID-19, which caused him to go into respiratory failure and life-threatening cardiogenic shock where his heart was unable to pump enough blood to his vital organs.
One day after receiving the J&J shot, the man developed “intractable nausea,” vomiting, shortness of breath, watery diarrhea, chills, sweats, and heavy chest pain, though he had no symptoms prior to getting the COVID vaccine and no significant past medical history, according to a recently published case report titled “Johnson and Johnson COVID-19 Vaccination Triggering Pheochromocytoma Multisystem Crisis.”
At St. Joseph Mercy Oakland Hospital in Pontiac, the man had persistent high fevers, respiratory failure, low blood flow, and cardiomyopathy — a disease of the heart muscle.
A nearly three-inch noncancerous mass was detected by ultrasound in his right adrenal gland (which sits atop the kidney), and tests confirmed a diagnosis of a pheochromocytoma — a rare type of noncancerous tumor that releases hormones which may, according to the Mayo Clinic, cause high blood pressure, headache, sweating and symptoms of a panic attack, and may lead to severe or life-threatening damage to other body systems if not surgically removed.
Thousands of reports
Thousands of similar cases have been reported. VigiAccess, a World Health Organization database that collects COVID-19 vaccine side-effects currently reports 3,709 cases of “neoplasms” or new tumors which include breast, lung and brain cancers plus numerous noncancerous growths following COVID vaccination.
The Yellow Card adverse event reporting system in the United Kingdom has recorded indexed 731 reports of neoplasms (including 454 related to the U.K.-made AstraZeneca COVID vaccine, and 248 related to the Pfizer/BioNTech shot).
‘Elephant in the room’
These reports offer no description of events, but the U.S. Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) contains hundreds of more detailed reports describing sudden appearances of brain tumors, breast cancer, mouth tumors, skin tumors and colon cancer after COVID shots.
There are accounts of tumor markers increasing, previously innocuous cancer abruptly worsening and cases where the patient rapidly deteriorated and died. Doctors describe tumors “exploding” and rapidly increasing in size after COVID vaccination and of disease being suddenly aggravated. There are accounts of tumors ulcerating and new symptoms appearing, or unexpected metastasis of old cancers. Cancer patients describe how “everything went downhill” after the shots, and doctors speculate if the vaccination compromised the immune system so cancer could lead to such rapid demise. In one report of woman’s precipitous decline with cancer, a doctor remarked that “the elephant in the room was the vaccine.”
A sampling of VAERS reports related to vaccination against COVID includes:
- A 21-year-old Floridian who developed night sweats, coughing, and fevers after he received the second Pfizer COVID-19 vaccination and was diagnosed with acute leukemia.
- A 26-year-old woman didn’t show up for a night shift, four days after getting Pfizer’s shot in March. Her family found her in cardiopulmonary arrest. An autopsy showed evidence of bleeding in the brain and “suspicion of a brain tumor,” according to the doctor who filed the VAERS report.
- A 60-year-old Pennsylvania man noticed two lumps grow on his neck on the day he received a first dose of Pfizer’s experimental vaccine in May. After a second shot, he was hospitalized the next day with plunging hemoglobin levels and was eventually diagnosed with lymphoma after a brain tumor was discovered. By July, seven tumors were discovered in his brain, one in his right eye, and “numerous” throughout his body. He died August 19.
- A 46-year-old California man began to experience symptoms on the day he received his second dose of Moderna’s shot and he was diagnosed with an aggressive Glioblastoma (brain tumor) shortly afterwards.
- A 22-year-old who got Pfizer’s COVID-19 shots in May and June was diagnosed with testicular cancer in early September.
- A 29-year-old student described as a “picture of health and fitness” who didn’t want a COVID-19 vaccine but was “bullied, threatened and coerced into getting it” to attend school. She received Johnson & Johnson’s shot on April 30 and experienced rapid onset of fatigue, body aches, muscle pain, erratic heart rate, bruising, chest pain and difficulty breathing within 24 hours of the injection and was subsequently diagnosed with a pituitary brain tumor, new onset murmur, a thyroid condition and she stopped menstruating for five months.
- A 27-year-old with a history of ovarian cancer became ill within 24 hours of taking a second dose of Pfizer’s COVID-19 shot. She developed a sharp pain in her shoulder, bloating and frequent urination; scans revealed a 13-centimeter tumor in her left ovary requiring emergency surgery. According to the VAERS report: “Patient stated she does not believe the vaccine gave her cancer but she does believe it affected her hormones, specifically estrogen, which caused the tumor to grow at an exponential rate … Please look into the hormonal changes from this vaccine. I’m not the only person who has noticed this.”
- “My father deteriorated rapidly, and died on 3/18/21. The day he got the shot just prior, he was hauling wood, shoveling snow and living a normal life feeling good,” reported the daughter of a 70-year-old Michigan man whose liver cancer had been “stable for a year … The day after the shot he could barely get out of bed he was so weak, until he finally died 16 days later.”
- A 61-year-old Texas man developed shortness of breath following a Moderna shot. He was diagnosed with pericarditis. During a surgery to determine the source of internal bleeding, “the surgeon noted a mass that appeared to look like a fungus on the heart,” according to the VAERS report. The patient’s wife remarked, “The doctors are finding this very unusual. My husband was very healthy prior to this with no symptoms. Could this be caused by the vaccine?”
- A 35-year-old pregnant woman vaccinated with a second dose of Pfizer’s experimental mRNA COVID-19 shot on March 6, delivered a stillborn baby in her 33rd week of pregnancy on June 12. The baby was malformed with an enlarged head and genetic testing revealed it had the rare genetic syndrome called PTEN Hamartoma tumor syndrome which predisposes to multiple cancers.
‘No further information’
Remarkably, most of these cases conclude with the statements, “No follow-up attempts are possible,” or, “No further information is expected.” For most, there is no investigation, including autopsy. In the exceptional case where an autopsy is performed, the relationship to the vaccine frequently “cannot be evaluated.”
“I’ve seen three people who developed pancreatic cancers within weeks of vaccines,” a doctor in an American college town who wishes to remain anonymous told LifeSiteNews. He has also seen a case of prostate cancer that rapidly became aggressive and a breast cancer that suddenly became so big it filled a quarter of a woman’s chest wall. “They’re so aggressive, they’re untreatable,” he said. “I might recall one case like this, these are once in a blue moon events,” but he added that he has heard other doctors speak of seeing similar cases recently, as well.
No studies
There are no studies of the carcinogenicity of COVID vaccines, just as most childhood vaccines have no studies of their effects on cancer. Each of the mRNA vaccine trials were ended abruptly with six months’ worth of data and the “placebo” group was given the vaccine as well — so any long-term effects like cancers will be impossible to detect since there is no control group to study.
Pfizer, Moderna and Johnson& Johnson did not reply to questions about the reported incidents of tumors following their shots, and they provided no data on animal or human trials demonstrating their new vaccines do not induce tumor growth or affect cancers.
While reports to VAERS do not confirm a link between a vaccine and an event that follows, a Harvard-Pilgrim study found that only one percent of conditions that should have been, were in fact reported to VAERS, meaning the vast majority of cases went unreported.
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| St. Gregory Nazianzan: On the Holy Example of the Machabees |
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Posted by: Stone - 11-01-2021, 12:34 PM - Forum: Fathers of the Church
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BUT what are the Machabees ? For the present festival is in honour of those saints who are not honoured by many, because their contest was not after Christ but hwo are worthy of being honoured by all because their valour was for the laws of their country and, those who underwent martyrdom before the passion of Christ, what would they not have done had they been persecuted after Christ and were to imitate His death for us? For those who were so great in virtue with out such an example, how should they not have been witnessed more generous in undergoing after the example? And at the same time this appears to me, and to all other lovers of God, a certain mystic and secret, and very credible saying, that none of those who were made perfect before the coming of Christ, obtained this gift with out this gift without faith in Christ. For the Word was Openly preached afterwards in its own season, nevertheless it was previously known to those who were pure of mind, as is manifest from many who had been honoured before His coming.
Therefore those are not to be neglected because they were before the date of the cross but they are trust worthy because they have suffered according to the cross and they are worthy of the honour to be derived from words; not in order that their glory may receive an increase (for what increase e could the glory of those receive from words whose end contains glory itself? ) but in order that those who praise them may be glorified and those who hear may imitate their virtue, being impelled by the recollections of those things as by a goad to the performance of equal things. But being what manner of men, and starting originally whence, and from what training and teaching, those Machabees have advanced to such a degree of virtue and glory as to be honoured by those yearly ceremonies and festivals, and as that a greater glory than what is declared by the things seen, should be excited in the souls of all, the book concerning them will show to those who lover learning and labour; the book I mean which argues that reason is the master of the passions and lord of the propensity to both - I mean virtue and vice. For he made use of other examples not a few, and also of the struggles of those. But to me it will be sufficient to have said so much.
Eleazar is therein the first fruits of those before Christ, as Stephen was of those after, a priest and an elder, aged in hair and aged in wisdom, at an earlier period offering sacrifice and paying for the people, but now coming forward himself a most perfect sacrifice to God, purification of the entire people, a fortunate prelude of the contest and exhortation, at once speaking and Silent, but bring forward in addition his even sons, the fruits of his training, "a living sacrifice, truly pleasing to God.' more brilliant, and purer than any legal sacrifice. For that one should ascribe the virtue of the children to the father is amongst the most legitimate and the justest proceedings. Those generous and great souled children, the noble offspring of a noble mother, zealous champions of the truth,, more sublime than the days of Antiochus, genuine disciples of the law, rigid observers of the customs of their fathers; beings even (which n umber is of the numbers most reverenced by the Hebrews, as being honoured by the mystery of the seven days rest), breathing one thing, looking towards one thing, seeing one way of life, brethren not less in soul than in body, rivals amongst each other for death (O wondrous thing), struggling to be foremost in securing tortures as treasures; fighting in the first rank for the law their teacher, not so much fearing those of the tortures brought as seeking those that remained behind, fearing this one thing, lest the tyrant should desist from torturing, and, lest some of them should depart uncrowned, and should against their will be unyoked from their brethren, and might win the shameful victory, running the risk of not suffering. There was the brave and generous mother loving her children and loving God at the same time, and having her maternal bowels torn beyond the habit of nature. For She did not pity her children's suffer, but She was in agony les they Should not suffer; nor did she so much long after the dead, as she prayed that those left behind might be added to them, and her account was more of these, than of who had already passed from life. For the struggle of these was doubtful, the release of those was certain, and those she had already consigned to God, but she was still in concern that God might take these. O manly soul in a woman's body ! O wonderful and magnanimous gift! O sacrifice equal to that of Abraham ! Even if no great praise can be ventured upon. For he, indeed, freely brings forward one, even though it be his only one, the child who had been born according to the promise, and concerning whom the promise had been made, and what is greater because he stands forward the first fruits and the root, not only of his race, but of all sacrifices of this description; but she sacrifices to God an entire people of children; having excelled both mothers and priests by her victims ready for Slaughter, by her rational holocausts, by her willing sacrifices. She showed them her breasts and reminded them of their nursing; and put forward her gray hairs and advanced her old age as by way of supplication, not seeking their deliverance, but urging them to suffer, and readying delay, not death, as the danger. Whom nothing bent, nothing softened, nothing made less daring, not the racks, stretched forth before her, not the wheels brought forward, not the torchanteres, not the katapeltae, not the points of iron hooks; not the sharpened swords; not her offspring beheld by her; not their limbs torn asunder; not their lacerated flesh not the flowing streams of blood; not their youth which was being consumed; not the present terrors; not the expected sufferings. And what to others is most grievous in such matters, the prolongation of the danger, to her was light; for she revelled in the spectacle. For, not only did the variety of the tortures brought forward cause a delay to their sufferings, all which they contemned as another not have contemned even one torture but also the varied speeches of the persecutor, as he insulted, threatened, or flattered, or set in motion what not, in in order to attain what he hoped for.
And, truly, the answers of the children also to the tyrant are to be mentioned; those answers having so much wisdom and generosity together, that in comparison to their fortitude all the great actions of others collected into one, are small ; and that their fortitude was small compared with the understanding in their words, and with the circumstance that it was theirs alone so to suffer, and to philosophize spiritually in their answers to the threats of the persecutors, and to the terrors held out to them, of whom none were more lost, neither the noble children, nor the nobler mother. But placing herself above all, and mingling inspired passion with the charm of love, she bestows herself as a beautiful shroud upon her children, having followed those who went before. And how this? Of her own accord going forward to dangers, and, with what epitaphs 1 For the words of the children also to the tyrant were noble, and noblest of the noble (for how should it not be so?) wherewith they stood armed, and wherewith they struck the tyrant : but more noble were the words of the mother : both the exhorting words which she spoke first, and the words which she afterwards spoke as an epitaph.
What, then, were the words of the children ? for it is meet to remind you of those also, in order that you may have a type, as of the struggle, so also of the words used by martyrs on such occasions. The words of each, indeed, were different, and were spoken according as the words of the persecutors, or the order of the dangers, or the zeal of each one's soul armed him with them. But in order to take them together in one specimen, they were of this sort.
"To us, indeed, Antiochus, and all ye who stand around, there is one king, namely, God, by whom we were made, and to whom we return ; and one lawgiver, Moses, whom we will not betray nor insult : no, we swear by the danger encountered by the man for virtue's sake, and by his many wonders, not if another Antiochus more cruel than thou should threaten us. But there is one security for us, namely, the keeping his command, and the not breaking the law by which we are fenced in : but there is one glory for us, that, namely, of despising all glory for such things : but there is one wealth, namely, the things which we hope for ; but nothing is dreadful to us save that anything be dreadful before God. With these reasons we are arrayed for fight, and thus are we armed. Unto youths of this kind is the discourse now. Sweet indeed is also this world : sweet is the soil of our country, and our friends, and relations, and companions, and this temple, and its great and renowned name, and our country's festivals, and our mysteries, and all the things in which we seem to differ from other nations ; but they are not so dear as God, and as the danger, which we undergo for honour.
Do not imagine this. For there is for us another world, much more sublime and lasting than this. But our country is the Jerusalem above, to which no Antiochus shall lay siege, nor will it look to be subjected, strong and impregnable as it is : but our kindred is the breathing of life into man, and those who have been born according to virtue : but our friends are the prophets and the patriarchs, with whom also is for us the model of piety : but our companions, those who to-day are undergoing danger along with us, and are our cotemporaries in fortitude. But Heaven is far more magnificent than the temple. But our festival is the choir of angels, and our one great mystery, the greatest of all, and hidden from the multitude, is God, to whom those mysteries also here below refer. Cease, therefore, from promising us small and worthless advantages, for we will not be honoured by things without honour, nor will we gain hurtful things : we will not traffic so miserably. Cease also from threatening, or we shall threaten in our turn, to convict thy weakness : and for this purpose we shall threaten thee with our punishments. For we also have a fire by which we punish persecutors. Dost thou think that thy struggle is with nations and cities, or with the most cowardly of kings, of whom some will conquer, and others in like manner be defeated ? For neither do they encounter danger about such matters as we do. Thou art in arms against the law of God, against the tables graven by God, against national rites, honoured by reason and by time, against seven brethren bound together with one soul, who are about to inscribe thy name upon seven trophies of thy infamy, to prevail over whom would be nothing great, and to be conquered by whom is altogether disgraceful.
We are the sons and the disciples of those whom a pillar of fire and of a cloud led upon their way, for whom the sea divided and the river stood, and the sun was interrupted in his course and bread rained, and the stretching out of hands routed many, having defeated them through prayer ; by whom wild beasts were worsted, and whom fire did not touch, and from whom kings departed admiring their nobleness. And we shall tell thee something of the things familiar to thyself. We are the disciples of Eleazar, whose courage you know. Our father underwent the struggle before us : his children will undergo the struggle after him. Thou hast sought to terrify us in many things : we have prepared ourselves for more. What wilt thou do to us with thy threats, insolent man ? What shall we suffer ? Nothing can be stronger than those who are prepared to suffer all things. Executioners, why do you delay ? Why do you put off? Why do YOU await a clement order ? Where are the swords, where the chains ? I require speed ! Let more fire be kindled. Let more active beasts be brought forward, let more elaborate tortures he produced; let all things be royal and splendid. I am the firstborn: sacrifice me first. I am the last ; let the order be changed.
Let some one of the intermediate brothers be amongst the first, in order that they may be honoured by equality of lot. Dost thou forbear ? Dost thou expect, perchance, something contrary to what I have said ? Again and oftentimes will we speak the same word for thee : we will not eat unclean meats, we will not give in. Thou wilt sooner adore our mysteries, than we will yield to thy rites. To speak in one word, either invent newer punishments, or know that thy actual punishments are despised by us".
These things indeed they spake to the tyrant ; but the things which they said by way of exhortation to each other, and the things which they afforded to be seen, how beautiful and sacred were they not, and sweet to the lover of God beyond any other spectacle, or aught that may be heard? I, indeed, remembering them, am myself filled with sweetness, and am in spirit with them in their struggle, and glory in this narrative of their history. They embraced and kissed each other, and it was as it were a festival to men who had already come to the end of their struggles. " Let us go, brethren, to meet the dangers", they cried ; " let us go, let us hasten, whilst the tyrant still boils with rage against us, lest he may be in any degree softened, and we may lose our salvation.
The complete banquet lies before us, let us not be left behind. It is a beautiful thing when brethren dwell together, and feast together, and embrace each other, but it is more beautiful when together they encounter danger for virtue. If it were possible, we should with our bodies have struggled for, our national laws : for this death also is amongst those deserving of praise.
But since the present is not the time for this, let us bring forward our bodies themselves. For what is the case ? Even suppose we do not die now, are we not to die at all? Shall we not pay the service due to our birth ? Let us make necessity into zeal. Let us deceive our dissolution. Let not any one of us be a lover of life, or cowardly. Let the tyrant, dealing with us, despair of the others. He himself will assign their order to our trials ; but it is we who will put an end to the persecutions. Let us not differ about this in the fervour of our eagerness ; and let the first be a path to the others, and let the last be a seal of the straggle. But let this be a fixed determination for us all alike, that we be crowned universally, and that the persecutor take no portion from our merit, nor swelling in wickedness, may glory in one conquered, as if he had conquered all. Let us appear brethren both in birth and in death ; let us all seek danger as one, and let each one meet it on behalf of all. Receive us, Eleazar : accompany us, mother : Jerusalem, bury thy children magnificently, if anything of us be left to thee for burial. Relate our sufferings, and show to those coming after, and to those who love thee, the blessed burying-place of the children of one womb". But those indeed having said and done those things, and having aliened each other like the teeth of wild boars, persevered each one in the order of his age and in the equality of his eagerness.
They were a delight and a wonder to those of their own tribe ; a fear and astonishment to the persecutors ; who, having gone to war against the entire nation, were so easily overcome by the concord of seven brothers struggling for piety, that they had no encouraging hope concerning the others.
But the noble mother, truly the mother of children such as these, of children such and so great in virtue, that great and magnanimous nurseling of the law for a time was blended of joy and fear, and was upon the boundary line of two feelings. She was in joy on account of the courage of her sons, and of the things which she saw ; she was in fear on account of the delay, and the extreme character of the sufferings, and as a bird acts when a serpent or any of the insidious enemies creeps in, she flew around her young, she screamed around them, she supplicated, she struggled along with them, doing and saying what not of those things, exhorting them to virtue. She caught up the drops of blood, she received the fragments of the limbs, she venerated their remains. She gathered up this, she held out that, she prepared the other, she called out to all, " Well done, my children, well done, my brave ones, almost bodiless in bodies ; well done, ye champions of the law, and of my gray hairs, and of the city which has reared you and led you forward to this virtue : a little yet, and we have conquered. Are the torturers tired?
This is the only thing I fear : a little yet, and I shall be blessed amongst mothers, and you shall be blessed amongst youths. But do you long for your mother ? I shall not be left behind you, that I promise you. I do not so hate my children". But when she saw that they were dead, and she now had security, by reason of the completion of their martyrdom, then, having raised her head very joyfully, like one conquering in the Olympic games, with sublime spirit, and, having stretched out her hands, she says, "I return thanks to Thee, Holy Father, and to thee, law, my instructress, and to thee Eleazar, our father, and who hast gone before thy children in the struggle, because you have received the fruit of my throes, and because I have become a mother sacred above all mothers. I have left nothing to the world ; I have handed over all to God, ray entire treasure, the hopes that cherished my old age. How magnificently have I not been honoured! how exceedingly has not my old age been cherished ! I have the rewards of your nurture, my children, I have seen you struggling for virtue, I have beheld you all crowned. I look upon the torturers as benefactors ; and I almost give thanks to the tyrant for the order of our offerings, because he has reserved me last for the danger, in order that, having first looked on at my own offspring, and, having struggled in each one of my own children, I may thus, with complete security, follow those perfect victims.
I will not tear my hair, I will not rend my garments, I will not scratch my flesh with my nails, I will not excite lamentation, I will not call fellow-mourners, I will not shut myself up in darkness, in order that the air may lament along with me ; I will not expect consolers; I will not set out the bread of grief; for those are the demonstrations of ignoble mothers, who are mothers only according to the flesh, whose children depart without any distinguished commendation. But ye, most beloved of children, have not died for me, but you have been gathered to God ; you have not departed, but you have passed elsewhere ; you have not been torn, but fixed together. No wild beast has torn you ; the wave has not drowned you ; no robber has destroyed you ; no sickness has wrought your dissolution ; war has not carried you off; nor any other of mortal occurrences, small or great. I should have lamented, and very vehemently, if any of those things had happened to you. I should have then appeared a lover of my children by my tears, as now I appear so by my not weeping. But those mischances are yet small things. I should have bewailed you if you had been disgracefully saved, if you had been conquered by the torturers, if the persecutors had conquered any of you as they have now been conquered. But the things that have happened now are the source of praise, joy, glory, festivity, and brilliancy to those left behind. For I am poured out after you. We shall be ranked with Phineas, we shall be glorified with Anne, unless so far as he was but one, whereas you are such numerous slayers of harlots, having to-day pierced not the harlotry of the body, but that of the soul ; and he indeed sacrificed but one gift to God, and that one lately born, whereas I have sacrificed seven men and those, willing men, to God. And Jeremiah also has filled up for me their epitaph, not lamenting, but praising this holy end. "You have been brighter than snow; you were curdled beyond milk ; your assembly is beautiful beyond the sapphire". The assembly of you, begotten to God and offered to God. What more remains? Add me, tyrant, to my children, if there be any favour amongst enemies, in order that the conflict may be more illustrious for thee. And may it be granted me to pass through all those sufferings, in order that I may mingle my juices with their juices, and my old flesh with their flesh (I love the very punishments for my children's sake).
But if this be not so, consign my dust to their dust, and let one tomb receive us. Do not grudge an equally honourable end to those who have been of equal honour in their virtue. " Farewell, ye mothers, farewell, ye children. Let you, the former, so rear those coming from you : and be ye, the latter, so reared. We have given you a noble example. So struggle". She said those things, and added herself to her children. After what manner ? Running to the pile (for to this was she sentenced) as a bride to the bridal-chamber, not awaiting those who were to take her thither, in order that nothing impure might touch her pure and noble body. Thus did Eleazar exercise his priesthood.
Eleazar, who had learned and had taught Heavenly things, and having sanctified Israel, not by a sprinkling from without, but by his own blood, and having made his end the final mystery celebrated by him. Thus did the children exercise their youth, not having been slaves to pleasures, but ruling over their passions and purifying their bodies, and being transferred to a life free from passion. Thus did the mother enjoy her fruitfulness.
Thus was she proud of them while living, and ended her life along with them, departing, having given over to God those whom she had begotten to the world, and having reckoned by her conflicts the number of her throes in child-birth, and marked the course of births by the deaths of her offspring. For, from the first to the last of her children, they all underwent the struggle ; and one after the other, as in the succession of the waves, exhibited his virtue, and was more eager for suffering, having been strengthened by the sufferings of him who had preceded him, so that the tyrant was well pleased that she had not been the mother of more such sons : for he rather went away turned to shame and defeated ; and then he learned for the first time, that he was not able to accomplish all things by arms, since he had attacked unarmed boys, or rather boys armed with one thing, piety, and more willing to suffer all things than to do what he commanded them. This deed of theirs was more firm and more noble than the sacrifice of Jephthe. For the heat of the promise, and the desire of the despaired-of victory, did not make, as there, the gift compulsory, but the sacrifice was a willing one, and had only the things hoped for as a reward. This was not less honourable than the struggle of Daniel, who had been given as food to the lions, and who had overcome the lions by the stretching out of his hands. This was not second to the great act of the youths in Assyria, whom an angel refreshed in the fire, not having broken the law of their fathers, nor having taken into their mouths profane and unholy food. This is not inferior in zeal to those victims who afterwards suffered for Christ. For those, indeed (a thing which I said beginning my discourse), followed the blood of Christ, and God was the leader of such struggles, God who had imparted so great and incredible a gift upon our behalf: but to those there were not many, nor such like example. All Judea, indeed, marvelled at the fortitude of those, and exulted and stood erect as if she had herself been crowned. For, this contest was the greatest of all the contests at any time surrounding the city, namely, whether the law should be overturned on that day or be glorified; and the consequences of that struggle were standing, as it were, upon the edge of a razor for the whole Jewish race. But Antiochus himself admired, having changed his threats into wonder. For, even enemies know how to admire virtue, when, their passion being appeased, the action is estimated according to itself. So that he also went away, having done nothing, and having also greatly praised his father, Seleucus, for the honour which he had done to the nation, and for his munificence towards the temple, and having greatly blamed Simon, who had led him on, as the cause of his cruelty and of his disgrace. Let us all, priests, mothers, and children, honour those. The first indeed in honour of Eleazar, their spiritual father, who has given them the best example in word and work; but mothers, in honour of that generous mother, being first lovers of their children, and offering to Christ those "ho have come from them, in order that marriage may be sanctified by such a sacrifice ; but the children, reverencing the children of the priest, and spending their youth not in shameful passions, but in struggles against the passions, and fighting bravely against the Antiochus of our day, who wages war upon all our members, and persecutes us in various ways. For I desire to have combatants for every time and manner, and of every kind and every age, whether openly attacked or secretly plotted against, and that they should be assisted as well by the old narratives as by the new, and that like bees they should collect all things profitable for the formation and the sweetening of one honey-comb, in order that, through both the Old and the New Testaments, God, who is glorified in the Son and in the Spirit, may be glorified in us, knowing His own, and being known by His own, confessed and confessing, glorified and glorifying in Christ Himself, to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen.
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| Prayers in Honor of the Saints |
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Posted by: Stone - 11-01-2021, 07:56 AM - Forum: Prayers and Devotionals
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Prayers to the All Saints
![[Image: ?u=http%3A%2F%2Fgardenofmary.com%2Fwp-co...f=1&nofb=1]](https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=http%3A%2F%2Fgardenofmary.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2017%2F07%2FQueen-of-All-saints.jpg&f=1&nofb=1)
"So I say to you there shall be joy before the angels of God upon one sinner doing penance" (Luke xv. 10).
"For in the resurrection they [the saints] shall be as the angels of God in heaven" (Matt. xxii. 30).
The saints are friends of God. They are like the angels in heaven. We honor them, not as we honor God, but on account of the relation they bear to God. They are creatures of God, the work of His hands. When we honor them, we honor God; as when we praise a beautiful painting, we praise the artist.
We do not believe that the saints can help us of themselves, but we ask them to "pray for us." We believe that everything comes to us "through Our Lord Jesus Christ." With these words all our prayers end. It is useful, salutary, and reasonable to pray to the saints and ask them to pray for us. No doubt all will admit the reasonableness of this practice if the saints can hear and help us.
That they hear and help us is evident from many passages of Scripture. The patriarch Jacob would not have prayed to the angel to bless his grandchildren Manasses and Ephraim (as we learn he did from Gen. xlviii.), unless he knew the angel could do so. We are informed (Luke xv.) that the angels rejoice when one sinner does penance. We are also informed (Matt. xxii.) that the saints are like the angels--i.e., have the same happiness and knowledge. Hence the saints, as well as the angels, can hear us, can help us, and are acquainted with our actions, words, and thoughts.
It is generally conceded that it is reasonable to ask pious persons on earth to pray for us. St. Paul, in his epistles, frequently asks the Christians to pray for him. "Brethren," he says, "pray for us." It is well known that God was pleased to answer the prayer of Abraham in favor of Abimelech. "More things are wrought by prayer than this world knows of." Now, if we poor sinners here on earth do not pray in vain for one another, will the saints in heaven, the friends of God, who rejoice when a sinner does penance, pray in vain for us? No. We have hosts of friends in heaven to speak a good word for us. And as a child who has disobeyed his parents wisely asks a better brother or sister to intercede with his parents for mercy, so, too, having disobeyed our heavenly Father by sin, we have recourse to others better than ourselves, to our better brothers and sisters, the Blessed Virgin and saints, to intercede with God for us. Is not this a reasonable practice?
If your mother or sister crosses the sea she will continue to pray for you. And if she crosses the sea of death will she forget you? No. The love she bore you here will continue in heaven. She will pray for you, and the "Lord will hear the prayers of the just." Ask the saints to pray to your God and their God for you. Honor God by honoring His friends and asking their intercession. And all your friends in heaven will unite in praying to the Father of us all that one day all who love God and His friends, the saints, may be admitted with them into the company of the Saint of saints, Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.
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Giver of life, eternal Lord,
Thy own redeemed defend;
Mother of grace, thy children save,
And help them to the end.
Ye thousand thousand Angel hosts,
Assist us in our need;
Ye Patriarchs, with the Prophet choir,
For our forgiveness plead.
Forerunner blest, and thou who still
Dost heaven's dread keys retain;
Ye glorious Apostles all,
Unloose our guilty chain.
Army of Martyrs, holy Priests,
In beautiful array;
Ye happy troops of Virgins chaste
Wash all our stains away.
All ye who high above the stars
In heavenly glory reign,
May we through your prevailing prayers
Unto your joys attain.
Praise, honor, to the Father be,
Praise to His only Son;
Praise, Holy Paraclete, to Thee,
While endless ages run.
Amen
(Roman Breviary)
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A Prayer to your Patron Saints
O Blessed Saint N--, glorious citizen of heaven, as I render most humble thanks to God for all the good He has done thee so I beseech thee, to remember me in thy prayers, and to obtain for me the entire pardon of my sins, the amendment of my life, and the imitation of thy good spirit and holy graces, that I may be reconciled to my Saviour and always please Him. But especially I recommend to thee the hour of my death that by thy holy intercession, my soul may depart from this world in the grace of God, and may immediately come to everlasting life. Amen
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Petition for the Prayers of the Saints
Oh all ye saints and angels, who see Him face to face, Whom I here receive under these humble veils, and thou, most especially, ever blessed Virgin Mary, in whose sacred womb He was conceived and borne for nine months--I most humbly beg the assistance of your prayers and intercession, that I may in such a manner receive Him here in this place of banishment, as to be brought, one day, to behold Him with you in our true country, and there to praise and bless Him for ever and ever. Amen.
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Prayer for Greater Love of Jesus
O my Jesus, Thou knowest well that I love Thee; but I do not love Thee enough; O grant that I may love Thee more. O love that burnest ever and never failest, my God, Thou Who art charity itself, enkindle in my heart that divine fire which consumes the saints and transforms them into Thee. Amen
(An indulgence of 50 days, twice a day.--Leo XIII, Feb. 6, 1893.)
"The saints shall rejoice in glory: the high praises of God shall be in their mouths" Ps. cxlix. 5).
"The souls of the just are in the hands of God, they are in peace" (Wis iii i ).
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Te Deum, Ambrosian Hymn
TE DEUM laudamus: te Dominum confitemur.
O GOD, we praise Thee: we acknowledge Thee to be the Lord.
Te aeternum Patrem omnis terra veneratur.
Everlasting Father, all the earth doth worship Thee.
Tibi omnes Angeli; tibi Caeli et universae Potestates;
To Thee all the Angels, the Heavens and all the Powers,
Tibi Cherubim et Seraphim incessabili voce proclamant:
All the Cherubim and Seraphim, unceasingly proclaim:
Sanctus, Sanctus, Sanctus, Dominus Deus Sabaoth.
Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God of Hosts!
Pleni sunt caeli et terra maiestatis gloriae tuae.
Heaven and earth are full of the Majesty of Thy glory.
Te gloriosus Apostolorum chorus,
The glorious choir of the Apostles,
Te Prophetarum laudabilis numerus,
The wonderful company of Prophets,
Te Martyrum candidatus laudat exercitus.
The white-robed army of Martyrs, praise Thee.
Te per orbem terrarum sancta confitetur Ecclesia,
Holy Church throughout the world doth acknowledge Thee:
Patrem immensae maiestatis:
The Father of infinite Majesty;
Venerandum tuum verum et unicum Filium;
Thy adorable, true and only Son;
Sanctum quoque Paraclitum Spiritum.
And the Holy Spirit, the Comforter.
Tu Rex gloriae, Christe.
O Christ, Thou art the King of glory!
Tu Patris sempiternus es Filius.
Thou art the everlasting Son of the Father.
Tu ad liberandum suscepturus hominem, non horruisti Virginis uterum.
Thou, having taken it upon Thyself to deliver man, didst not disdain the Virgin's womb.
Tu, devicto mortis aculeo, aperuisti credentibus regna caelorum.
Thou overcame the sting of death and hast opened to believers the Kingdom of Heaven.
Tu ad dexteram Dei sedes, in gloria Patris.
Thou sitest at the right hand of God, in the glory of the Father.
Iudex crederis esse venturus.
We believe that Thou shalt come to be our Judge.
Te ergo quaesumus, tuis famulis subveni: quos pretioso sanguine redemisti.
We beseech Thee, therefore, to help Thy servants whom Thou hast redeemed with Thy Precious Blood.
Aeterna fac cum sanctis tuis in gloria numerari.
Make them to be numbered with Thy Saints in everlasting glory.
V. Salvum fac populum tuum, Domine, et benedic hereditati tuae.
V. Save Thy people, O Lord, and bless Thine inheritance!
R. Et rege eos, et extolle illos usque in aeternum.
R. Govern them, and raise them up forever.
V. Per singulos dies benedicimus te.
V. Every day we thank Thee.
R. Et laudamus nomen tuum in saeculum, et in saeculum saeculi.
R. And we praise Thy Name forever, yea, forever and ever.
V. Dignare, Domine, die isto sine peccato nos custodire.
V. O Lord, deign to keep us from sin this day.
R. Miserere nostri, Domine, miserere nostri.
R. Have mercy on us, O Lord, have mercy on us.
V. Fiat misericordia tua, Domine, super nos, quemadmodum speravimus in te.
V. Let Thy mercy, O Lord, be upon us, for we have hoped in Thee.
R. In te, Domine, speravi: non confundar in aeternum.
R. O Lord, in Thee I have hoped; let me never be put to shame.
(Indulgence: 5 years)
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Trent, Sess. XXV, De Invocatione, veneratione et reliquiis Sanctorum et sacris imaginibus
"The Holy Synod bids all Bishops and others whose duty it is to teach, diligently to instruct the faithful in accordance with the practice dating from the earliest ages of the Christian faith, and in harmony with the con-sentient teaching of the Holy Fathers and the Decrees of Councils, concerning the intercession and invocation of the Saints, the honor due to relics and the legitimate us of images. They are to teach that the Saints reigning with Christ offer to God prayers for us men; that it is a good and profitable thing humbly to invoke them and, in order to obtain benefits from God through His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord, our only Redeemer and Saviour, to appeal to them for their prayers, help and assistance. . . . . Also that the bodies of the Holy Martyrs Martyrs and others now living with Christ, bodies which were members of Christ and temples of the Holy Spirit and which are one day to be raised up by Him and glorified in eternal life, are to be venerated by the faithful, and that through them a many benefits are bestowed by God upon men."
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Prayer of St. Gertrude to the Saints in Heaven
I salute you through the Heart of Jesus, O all ye holy angels and saints of God; I rejoice in your glory and I give thanks to our Lord for all the benefits which He has showered upon you; I praise Him, and glorify Him, and offer you for an increase of your joy and honor, the most gentle heart of Jesus. Deign therefore, to pray for me that I may become according to the heart of God. Amen.
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Prayer to My Heavenly Patron
O heavenly patron, in whose name I glory, pray ever to God for me: strengthen me in my faith; establish me in virtue; guard me in the conflict, that I may vanquish the foe and attain to glory everlasting. Amen.
(Indulgence of 300 days)
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Quotes of the Saints
"We should honor God in His saints, and beseech Him to make us partakers of the graces He poured so abundantly upon them."--St. Vincent de Paul
"Let us read the lives of the saints; let us consider the penances which they performed, and blush to be so effeminate and so fearful of mortifying our flesh."--St. Alphonsus.
"There is more security in self-denial, mortification, and other like virtues, than in an abundance of tears."--St. Teresa
"Death is welcome to one who has always feared God and faithfully served Him.--St. Teresa
"The errors of others should serve to keep us from adding any of our own to them."--St. Ignatius
"In doing penance it is necessary to deprive oneself of as many lawful pleasures as we had the misfortune to indulge in unlawful ones.--St. Gregory the Great.
"Afflictions are the most certain proofs that God can give us of His love for us."--St. Vincent de Paul
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| October 31st - Vigil of All Saints |
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Posted by: Stone - 11-01-2021, 07:08 AM - Forum: October
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October 31 – Vigil of All Saints
Taken from T he Liturgical Year by Dom Prosper Guéranger (1841-1875)
![[Image: Fra_Angelico_-_Predella_of_the_San_Domen...C112&ssl=1]](https://i0.wp.com/sensusfidelium.us/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Fra_Angelico_-_Predella_of_the_San_Domenico_Altarpiece_-_WGA00447.jpg?resize=768%2C112&ssl=1)
Let us prepare our souls for the graces heaven is about to shower upon the earth in return for its homage. Tomorrow the Church will be so overflowing with joy that she will seem to be already in possession of eternal happiness; but today she appears in the garb of penance, confessing that she is still an exile. Let us fast and pray with her; for are not we too pilgrims and strangers in this world, where all things are fleeting and hurry on to death? Year by year, as the great solemnity comes round, it has gathered from among our former companions new saints, who bless our tears and smile upon our songs of hope. Year by year the appointed time draws nearer, when we ourselves, seated at the heavenly banquet, shall receive the homage of those who succeed us, and hold out a helping hand to draw them after us to the home of everlasting happiness. Let us learn, from this very hour, to emancipate our souls, let us keep our hearts free, in the midst of the vain solicitudes and false pleasures of a strange land: the exile has no care but his banishment, no joy but that which gives him a foretaste of his fatherland.
With these thoughts in mind, let us say with the Church the Collect of the Vigil.
Prayer
Domine Deus noster, multiplica super nos gratiam tuam: et, quorum prævenimus gloriosa solemnia, tribue subsequi in sancta professione lætitiam. Per Dominum.
O Lord our God, multiply thy grace upon us; and grant us in our holy profession to follow the joy of those whose glorious solemnity we anticipate. Through our Lord.
Let us close this month as we opened it, by homage to Mary, Queen of the holy Rosary, and Queen of all the Saints. The ancient Dominican Missals furnish us with a formula.
Sequence
Virginalis hortuli
Verni pubent surculi
Et efflorent pulluli
Fecunda propagine.
In the virginal garden, the young shoots of spring push forth, and burst into blossom with fruitful abundance.
Gelu et hiems transeunt,
Nix et imber abeunt,
Rosæ in terra prodeunt
Et cœlesti germine.
The frost and the winter have passed away, the snow and the rain are over; and roses spring up on earth from a heavenly seed.
Rosa, radix lilii
Haæc ex horto lilii
Toto curen exsilii
Collegit plantaria.
The rose has produced a lily; during the whole time of her exile she gathered the produce of her Son’s garden:
Justis ad lætitiam,
Reis ad justitiam,
Electic ad gloriam
Cunctis salutaria.
Joy for the just, and justification for sinners, glory for the elect, salvation for all.
Quæ de cœlis attulit
Et in terris sustulit,
Christus mundo contulit
Contra mundum prælians.
The gifts Christ brought from heaven, and the sufferings he endured on earth, he bestowed upon the world when he overcame the world.
Nos hic tectus frondibus,
Vulneratus sentibus,
Redimitus floribus,
Vocans, purgans, præmians.
He sheltered under the rose-tree’s foliage, he was wounded by the thorns, he was crowned with its flowers; thus does he call us, purify us, reward us.
A stirpis rosariæ
Gemmis, spinis, foliis,
Affluentis patriæ
Fruemur deliciis,
Ubi satrix residet.
Because of the leaves and thorns and flowers of the rose, we shall enjoy the delights of that rich land, where she, the fair cultivator resides.
Atque hujus militiæ
Læta sodalitiis
Triplicis hierarchiæ
Ter trinis consortiis
Imperatrix residet.
The empress, who joyfully presides over our militant companies, and over the nine choirs of the triple hierarchy.
Salve nova triumphatrix
Et triumphi reparatrix
Antiqui certaminis.
Hail! thou, who by a new triumph dost repair the loss we sustained, when the enemy triumphed in the first combat.
Rursus minax sævit ultor,
Ni resistas, perit cultor
Christiani nominis.
See how again he threatens fierce revenge; unless thou oppose him, every Christian must perish.
Ave Verbi domicilium,
Sancti Spiritus sacrarium,
Summi Patris filia.
Hail, home of the Word, sanctuary of the Holy Ghost, daughter of the most high Father!
Affer nobis juge auxilium,
Sub discrimen vitæ varium
Contra tela hostilia.
In the various perils of this life, bring us unfailing assistance against the darts of the enemy.
Ut coronent nos post prælium,
Quæ fert cœli viridarium
Mixta rosis lilia. Amen.
May lilies intertwined with roses from the garden of heaven, be our crown of victory after the combat. Amen.
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| October 30th - Saint Marcellus the Centurion and His Children, Martyrs |
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Posted by: Stone - 11-01-2021, 07:02 AM - Forum: October
- No Replies
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Saint Marcellus the Centurion and His Children, Martyrs
Taken from here.
![[Image: saint_marcellus_the_centurion_and_his_children.jpg]](https://sanctoral.com/en/saints/images/saint_marcellus_the_centurion_and_his_children.jpg)
It is believed that Saint Marcellus was born in Arzas of Galicia. A brave pagan, he entered upon the career of arms, hoping to gain a large fortune. He married a young lady named Nona and they were blessed with twelve children. Saint Marcellus was a valorous solider and was promoted to the charge of centurion; he had no thought for any advancement except the sort pertaining to his military life, when he heard the fervent preaching of a holy bishop of the church of Leon. He was converted with his entire family to the Christian religion. All of them except his wife would soon give their blood in honor of their Faith.
The birthday of the Emperor Maximian Herculeus was celebrated in the year 298 with extraordinary feasting and solemn rites. Marcellus, as a centurion of the army, a captain in the legion of Trajan then posted in Mauritania or Spain, in order not to defile himself in these impious sacrifices, left his company, throwing down his cincture and his arms and declaring aloud that he was a soldier of Jesus Christ, the eternal King. He was at once committed to prison. When the festival was over, he was brought before a judge, and having reiterated his faith, was sent under a strong guard to a prefect, Aurelian Agricolaus. This Roman officer passed upon him a sentence of death by the sword. Marcellus was immediately led to execution and beheaded on the 30th of October of the year 298. Cassian, the secretary or notary of the court, refused to record the sentence pronounced against the martyr, because of its injustice. He was immediately hurried to prison, and was beheaded in his turn on the 3rd of December.
The children of Saint Marcellus imitated his constancy, and all lost their lives for the defense of the Gospel; three of the boys were hanged and then decapitated at Leon. Their pious mother bought back their bodies for money and buried them secretly; they were later transferred to a church built in their honor in the city of Leon.
Reflection: We are ready to die rather than to transgress the laws of God! exclaimed one of the Maccabees. This sentiment must ever be that of a Christian in the throes of temptation.
Les Petits Bollandistes: Vies des Saints, by Msgr. Paul Guérin (Bloud et Barral: Paris, 1882), Vol. 13; Little Pictorial Lives of the Saints, a compilation based on Butler's Lives of the Saints and other sources by John Gilmary Shea (Benziger Brothers: New York, 1894).
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| Australia Confiscating Bank Accounts, Property, etc. For Non-Compliance With Fines |
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Posted by: Stone - 11-01-2021, 06:40 AM - Forum: Socialism & Communism
- No Replies
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Australia Confiscating Bank Accounts, Property, Licenses, & Businesses For Non-Compliance With COVID Fines
![[Image: australia-covid-compliance-768x446.jpg?itok=5zcbnR2T]](https://assets.zerohedge.com/s3fs-public/styles/inline_image_mobile/public/inline-images/australia-covid-compliance-768x446.jpg?itok=5zcbnR2T)
ZH | OCT 31, 2021
Authored by Sundance via The Last Refuge (emphasis mine),
Of all the extreme measures carried out by various states in Australia, the collections and confiscations by the State Penalty and Enforcement Register (SPER) might just be the icing on the cake.
During the lengthy COVID lockdown in the state of Queensland, Australia (Brisbane area), most workers were not permitted to work or earn a living.
Several states stepped in to provide wage subsidies so people could purchase essential products and pay their living expenses. However, during the lockdown if you were caught violating any of the lockdown rules, you were subject to a civil citation, a fine or ticket for your COVID violation.
Get caught too far from home, outside your permitted bubble, and you get a ticket. Get caught spending more than the permitted 1 hour outside, get a ticket. Get caught without a mask, even by yourself – and yep, ticket. Enter a closed quarantine zone (park, venue, etc.) and you get a ticket. Tickets were being handed out by police on the street as well as during random checkpoints on the roadways.
Additionally, people returning to Queensland were put into a system of involuntary quarantine. The costs for that quarantine, mostly hotel rooms, were to be paid by the people being involuntarily captive and not allowed home.
Citizens were required to have their physical location scanned via a QR code on their phone. These checkpoints were to assist in controlling the COVID spread and were used for contact tracing throughout the past two years. However, the checkpoints and gateway compliance scans also registered your physical location; the consequence was an increased ability for police and COVID compliance officers to catch people violating the COVID rules. Ex: If you checked in at the grocery store, they knew how far from home you are, and the police could figure out if you violated your one hour of time outside the home at the next checkpoint.
The result of all this compliance monitoring was thousands of fines, civil citations for violating COVID rules. Thousands of people given thousands of fines that would need to be paid.
Now the state is requiring all of those civil citations get paid, or else. And the enforcement actions to collect these fines from the State Penalty and Enforcement Register are quite extreme. Citizens who have outstanding tickets are finding their driver’s licenses suspended; bank accounts are being frozen and seized; homes and property are are being confiscated, as well as business licenses suspended for outstanding citations.
“Queenslanders who received fines for breaking Covid-19 rules risk having their homes seized and bank accounts frozen in a government crackdown to collect $5.2 million in repayments.” (LINK)
Brisbane Times – “SPER was undertaking “active enforcement” on another 18.4 per cent of fines, worth about $1 million, which a spokesman said “may include garnishing bank accounts or wages, registering charges over property, or suspending driver licences”. The remaining 25.2 per cent of fines were either under investigation or still open to payment without further action being taken.
Outside SPER’s work, Queensland Health took the unusual step of calling in private debt collectors to chase up $5.7 million amounting from 2045 significantly overdue invoices for hotel quarantine. (read more)
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| Statement of Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò on the occasion of the visit of Joe Biden to the Vatican |
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Posted by: Stone - 10-31-2021, 08:30 AM - Forum: Archbishop Viganò
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Statement of Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò on the occasion of the visit of Joe Biden to the Vatican
Taken from here.
![[Image: rikhfx4ahcc1grqgza9eh94rywnq88uq878m961....ormat=webp]](https://assistant.gloria.tv/FxK6pqhk7ZiS1AZwTDoBU6KMY/rikhfx4ahcc1grqgza9eh94rywnq88uq878m961.webp?format=webp)
On the occasion of the October 29 visit to the Vatican, the press agencies have spread the news that Joe Biden reported the content of the meeting and said that Francis called him “a good Catholic,” inviting him to “continue to receive Communion.” It is disconcerting that, to date, no clarifying comment has come from the Vatican Press Office. This leaves us to presume that Joe Biden’s words correspond to the truth and that Bergoglio actually spoke them.
Even if what Biden said corresponds perfectly to the intemperate quips of Jorge Mario Bergoglio – who called a notorious radical abortion activist a “great Italian” – it is evident that such statements represent an unheard of scandal, since they fail to condemn the positions of a political personality who supports abortion, disavow the immutable position of the Magisterium of the Church, and resound as a blatant invitation to commit sacrilege, profaning the Most Holy Eucharist by receiving it in the state of public and manifest sin.
Every Catholic knows that the killing of a defenseless creature in the mother’s womb is a horrendous crime; and that the most serious scandal is given to the faithful not only by Joe Biden as a convinced supporter of abortion, but also by Bergoglio himself, who is recognized as holding the authority of Supreme Pastor of the Church. His work of demolition knows no respite before the astonished silence of the Cardinals and Bishops. The very rare exceptions of Pastors who truly have at heart the souls entrusted to them – the example of His Eminence Cardinal Burke stands out among others – are seen with hostility by the majority of their brother Bishops and by the Vatican, in a disturbing subversion of the mission of the Church of Christ, which today has been reduced to climate change, inclusive capitalism, and mass vaccination. Bergoglio was recently recognized as “moral guide” by the Council for Inclusive Capitalism led by Lynn Forester de Rothschild, and he appointed Jeffrey David Sachs as a member of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences. Sachs is the president of the Sustainable Development Solutions Network of the United Nations, a supporter of reducing the global population and of the fight against climate change – this has nothing to do with the mission of the Papacy and ought to lead the Prelates of the Church to seriously ask themselves about Bergoglio’s mental and moral suitability for the role he holds.
I exhort the faithful, on the Feast instituted by Pius XI in honor of the social Kingship of Our Lord Jesus Christ, to beseech the Divine Majesty, asking that among the many societies afflicted by the present crisis, the Church of Christ may be the first in which Jesus Christ, who today has been replaced by the idols of globalist ideology, returns to reign.
+ Carlo Maria Viganò, Archbishop
Sunday 31 October 2021
Domini Nostri Jesu Christi Regis
1 Cf.https://apnews.com/article/joe-biden-pop...5f9ee1e252
2 Cf.http://chiesaepostconcilio.blogspot.com/...to-di.html
3 Cf. https://www.agensir.it/quotidiano/2021/1...e-sociali/
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| Archbishop Lefebvre 1989: Sermon given on the Feast of Christ the King |
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Posted by: Stone - 10-31-2021, 08:02 AM - Forum: Sermons and Conferences
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Sermon of Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre for the Feast of Christ the King
October 29, 1989
Dublin, Ireland
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.
My dear brethren,
It is a great pleasure for me to meet you again in this magnificent church. Four years ago I was here to bless this church and now I am here for the Feast of Jesus Christ, the King.
We must thank God for the many blessings, many graces, He gives you in this church by the ministry of your beloved priests. How many graces, how many blessings you receive by the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, by the Sacrament of Holy Communion, by the Sacrament of Penance! We must thank God.
I am very happy to celebrate this Sacrifice of the Mass this day of the Feast of Jesus Christ, the King. He is really King. In 1925 Pope Pius XI wrote a magnificent encyclical letter, Quas Primas, on Christ the King. I was then a seminarian in Rome and I remember very well when the Pope published this beautiful encyclical.
It is true that Jesus Christ is a King. He is King by nature because He is true God and by reason of the union of the divine nature with the human nature. Jesus Christ is really King. He is also King by conquest, by His Cross. By His sacrifice on the Cross, Jesus Christ became King of all souls. He gave His life and blood to save all souls. Therefore He is King of all souls. But you know, now, in our time, many refuse to acknowledge the Kingship of Jesus Christ. They are opposed to the principle of the Kingship of Jesus Christ. It is a great sadness when we know that after the Second Vatican Council the Vatican authorities requested many Catholic countries to abandon the idea of the Kingship of Jesus Christ as they did in your beloved country, Ireland.
I remember when I visited Ireland many years ago, I met your great President, Eamonn De Valera. He was a great Catholic. He certainly would refuse to say that Jesus Christ is not King of Ireland. But after the Council the Vatican authorities requested from the President of Ireland to abandon the principle of the Kingship of Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is no more publicly acclaimed King of Ireland; it is the same in many Catholic countries. The Vatican asked, for example, Italy, Colombia and other countries to abandon the principle that the Catholic religion is the public religion of the State. Why?
Jesus Christ is King of all countries, of all men; so, we must remain in, and profess this Catholic Faith. And we, personally, are very happy to celebrate this great Feast of Jesus Christ, the King, because we have this Catholic belief in the Kingship of Jesus Christ over the whole world, the universal, social Kingship of Jesus Christ. We need to do everything possible to extend this Kingdom of Jesus Christ in our souls, in our bodies, in our families, in our countries. We must extend the Kingdom of Jesus Christ in our minds by the practice of the Catholic Faith. The Catholic Faith is the obedience to the Kingdom of Jesus Christ in our souls. We must extend this Kingdom of Jesus Christ in our wills, by following the laws of Jesus Christ, and in our families, so that He rules all the Catholic faithful.
We must recognize the Kingdom of Jesus Christ and we must also labor to extend the Kingdom of Jesus Christ in our countries. You know that in Protestant countries, the Protestant religion is acknowledged as the public religion. For example, in Norway and Sweden the public religion is the Protestant religion. Why, then, do Catholics not have the same rights in Catholic countries? It is extraordinary. How is it possible that the Vatican has asked Catholic countries not to profess themselves, publicly, Catholic, but only privately? That is incredible. I told this to Pope John Paul II in my audience with him [1978]. That isn't Catholic teaching. The teaching of the Catholic Church is that we must do all in our power to extend the Kingdom of Jesus Christ, the social Kingdom of Jesus Christ. So, by this change in the Church, many Catholic countries are abandoning the law of Jesus Christ Christian law. The law permitting abortion and contraception is a law opposed to Catholic families. We must pray, my dear brethren, we must pray and ask God, by the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary, that the Kingdom of Jesus Christ will return, will come back in our cities, in our countries.
In heaven, Jesus Christ is King and we pray in the Our father that “Thy kingdom come.” That is a true Catholic prayer.
I hope that you are happy to have taken the decision to remain true Catholics because this is the aim of our Society, of our reaction against the errors of the Conciliar Church. Our reaction is only a Catholic reaction. There is no other explanation for our difficulties with modern Rome. It is because we have taken this decision to remain true Catholics, to keep the true Catholic Faith. We have never changed and cannot change because the Catholic Faith is always the same. During centuries and centuries, the Catholic Faith did not change. It is those who change the Catholic Faith who are the real schismatics, who are heretics. Not we. With the grace of God, we remain true Catholics. We keep all the articles of the Creed, all the seven Sacraments, the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass without any change. That is the will of God, of Jesus Christ. That is the true Kingdom of Jesus Christ in our souls, in our families.
We must thank God for the grace to remain true Catholics. It is very important in order to save our souls and the souls of our children.
Today we must pray to Our Lord Jesus Christ, we must pray to the Blessed Virgin Mary to remain true Catholics and to do everything possible to become saints. We must come to church frequently, pray in our church, receive the graces of the sacraments in order to become saints, to sanctify our souls and to go to heaven with all the members of our families and all those who kept the Catholic Faith here on earth and now enjoy the happiness of heaven.
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.
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