Communion - delight to your Infant Savior...

I have loved you with an everlasting love;

I have drawn you with loving kindness. 

Jeremiah 31:3

"It's a thirst of the heart of every creature that desires to be loved, and the love which can alone satisfy that craving is the Divine Love.  Let your heart delight in the love your God has for you, personally, individually. No soul ever in ardent fervor desires to unite herself to our Lord in Holy Communion, as our Lord desires to unite Himself to her.

So Holy Communion is a delight to your Infant Savior; because He loves you, oh, how immeasurably! He tells you in His heart-to-heart interview that He has become a little Infant so that you may love Him with a human love without fear." - St Katherine Drexel

____________________________________________

Feast of the Holy Innocents (Childermas)
Feast Day - December 28

As recorded in the gospel of Matthew after the visit of the Magi, Herod, in fear, rage and jealousy, “ordered the massacre of all the boys in Bethlehem and its vicinity two years old and under” in an attempt to destroy his perceived rival, the infant Messiah.  The horror of the massacre and the devastation of the mothers and fathers led Matthew to quote Jeremiah: “A voice was heard in Ramah, sobbing and loud lamentation; Rachel weeping for her children...”(Mt 2:18).

Since the sixth century, on December 28, the Church has celebrated the memory of those children killed because of Herod's rage against Christ (cf. Mt 2:16-17). These innocent lives bear witness to Christ who was persecuted from the time of His birth by a world which would not receive Him. Liturgical tradition refers to them as the "Holy Innocents" and regards them as martyrs. 

"Blessed are you, Bethlehem in the land of Judah! You suffered the inhumanity of King Herod in the murder of your babes and thereby have become worthy to offer to the Lord a pure host of infants. In full right do we celebrate the heavenly birthday of these children whom the world caused to be born unto an eternally blessed life rather than that from their mothers' womb, for they attained the grace of everlasting life before the enjoyment of the present. The precious death of any martyr deserves high praise because of his heroic confession; the death of these children is precious in the sight of God because of the beatitude they gained so quickly. For already at the beginning of their lives they pass on. The end of the present life is for them the beginning of glory. These then, whom Herod's cruelty tore as sucklings from their mothers' bosom, are justly hailed as "infant martyr flowers"; they were the Church's first blossoms, matured by the frost of persecution during the cold winter of unbelief." - St. Augustine

Triumph of the Innocents ~ William Holman Hunt (1883)

Click here: Holy Innocents - YouTube ( 2 mins)

Holy Innocents: First Martyrs and Pro-Life Patron Saints - SpiritualDirection.com

(short reflection - excellent)

The Holy Innocents - The Catholic Thing

Holy Innocents, Infant Martyr Flowers,
pray for us!

_______________________________

 

Fourth Day of Christmas

Following the Apostle of Charity...

  The Word became flesh and 

made his dwelling among us, and from 

his fullness we have all received - Jn 1:14,16

(Today's Communion Antiphon)

Holy Eucharist, Sacred Heart (oil on canvas) by Miguel Cabrera

"The presence of Jesus in the tabernacle 

must be a kind of magnetic pole attracting an 

ever greater number of souls enamoured of Him,

ready to wait patiently to hear His voice

and, as it were, to sense the beating of His heart.

“O taste and see that the Lord is good!” (Ps 34:8)."  

Mane Nobiscum Domine (Stay With Us Lord)

Apostolic Letter, 10/07/04, Pope St John Paul II

St John the Beloved Disciple

who sensed the beating of His Heart...

Apostle and Evangelist

Son of Zebedee, brother of James

Asia Minor, Galilee (6-115 AD)

Apostle of Charity

Patron of Asia Minor, Theologians

Feast Day - December 27

Valentin de boulogne

"It is a long way from being eager to sit on a 

throne of power or to call down fire from heaven 

to becoming the man who could write: 

“The way we came to know love 

was that He laid down His life for us;

so we ought to lay down our lives 

for our brothers” (1 John 3:16). 

Through John we know how 

we are to participate as 

our destiny in the life of Christ."

 St Teresa Benedicta (Edith Stein)

______________________

Click here: St. John the Evangelist - YouTube (2 mins)

Click here: St. John the Apostle - YouTube (7:30 mins)

O most Sacred, most loving Heart of Jesus, 

Thou art concealed in the Holy Eucharist, 

and Thou beatest for us still… 

I worship Thee with all my best love and awe, 

with my fervent affection, with my most subdued, 

most resolved will.

O my God, when Thou dost condescend

to suffer me to receive Thee, to eat and drink Thee, 

and Thou for a while takest up Thy abode within me, 

O make my heart beat with Thy Heart. 
Purify it of all that is earthly, all that is 

proud and sensual, all that is hard and cruel, 

of all perversity, of all disorder, of all deadness. 

So fill it with Thee, that neither the events of the day

nor the circumstances of the time 

may have power to ruffle it, but that in Thy love 

and Thy fear it may have peace. Amen.

St John Henry Newman, 

Meditations and Devotions 

Part III [XVI] para. 3

The eagle, believed to look directly into the light of the sun, 

is the symbol of St. John.  This bird was used because 

in his Gospel St. John dwells particularly upon the 

Divinity of the Redeemer and contemplates with 

the unflinching eye of an eagle the highest truths.

St John, pray for us!

_______________________________

 

Third Day of Christmas

Blood of the martyrs, seed of the church...

The gates of heaven were opened for blessed Stephen, 

who was found to be first among the number of the Martyrs 

and therefore is crowned triumphant in heaven.  

Today's Entrance Antiphon

"Thursday the 26th, St Stephen's Day.  

I (St Paul of the Cross) was in particular uplifting of soul, 

especially at Holy Communion;  I wanted to go and 

die a martyr's death in a place where the adorable 

mystery of the Most Blessed Sacrament is denied.  

This wish has been given to me for some time past by the 

Infinite Goodness, but today I had it in a special manner; 

I had the desire for the conversion of heretics, 

especially in England and the neighboring kingdoms, 

and I offered a special prayer 

for that at Holy Communion...." - Fr Edmund, CP

Excerpt from: Hunter of Souls: A Study of the Life 

and Spirit of St Paul of the Cross

  

St Stephen

Jerusalem ~  + 35 AD

Protomartyr and Archdeacon

Feast Day – Dec 26

Photo above:  Tabernacle, St Maron Catholic Church, 

Minneapolis, MN (Photo credit:  Mary Anne Frank)

“Yesterday we celebrated the birth in time of our eternal King.  Today we celebrate the triumphant suffering of His soldier.  Yesterday our king, clothed in the robe of flesh, left His place in the virgin’s womb and graciously visited the world.  Today His soldier leaves the tabernacle of His body and goes triumphantly to heaven. … And so the love that brought Christ from heaven to earth raised Stephen from earth to heaven; shown first in the king, it later shone forth in His soldier.” - St Fulgentius of Ruspe, bishop

_________________________

The first of all the martyrs in... Our Christian history ... St Stephen looked upon his foes... With love and sympathy ... Before the twelve apostles died ... He gave his life for Christ ... And in whatever way he could  ... He always sacrificed ... To those in high authority ... He pointed out that they  ... Enforced the laws which they had no ... Intention to obey ... He showed them their hypocrisy ... And did not fear his end ... As every pauper he had helped ... Became his special friend ... And as he loved the children of  ... His boundless charity ... The final prayer before his death ... Was for his enemy. - From Poem Portraits of the Saints, James J. Metcalfe 

Click here: Saint Stephen - YouTube (2 mins)

St Stephen, pray for us! 

_______________________________

Second Day of Christmas