Magnet for the friends of God...

"The Eucharist acts as a magnet

for the friends of God." - St Luigi Guanella

When St Luigi Guanella was traveling by train with pilgrimages to the various shrines,

he advised the pilgrims to turn their minds and hearts to Jesus every time

they saw a church tower from the carriage window.  He would say,

"Every bell tower indicates a church,

where there is a tabernacle,

where Mass is said,

and where Jesus stays."

St Luigi Guanella

____________________________

LABOR DAY

American and Canadian Federal Holiday

First Monday in September

"Work is not only good in the sense that it is useful or something to enjoy; 

it is also good as being something worthy, that is to say, something 

that corresponds to man's dignity, that expresses this dignity and 

increases it. ... Work is a good thing for man - a good thing for his humanity  - 

because through work man not only transforms nature, adapting it to his own needs, 

but he also achieves fulfillment as a human being and indeed in a sense 

becomes 'more a human being.'"  - St JP II, Laborem Exercens #9

Prayer after Work by Fr. Peter John Cameron, o.p.

From Blessing Prayers

© Magnificat – Used with permission.    

www.magnificat.com

Most merciful Father, thank you for this day of work with all its achievements as well as its  burdens.  Thank you for all the successes, the challenges, and even the difficulties that it brought to me.  Your Son once said to His Apostles, "Come by yourselves to an out-of-the-way place and rest a little." Thank you for this gift of rest.  May this time be a chance for me to renew my gratitude for all your blessings.  In your great compassion and generosity, please be mindful of those who are out of work.  And help me to do a better job tomorrow.  I ask this through Christ our Lord. Amen.

 St Joseph, patron of the Worker, pray for us!

Healing rays of the Sun of Justice...

The Church and the world have a great need for Eucharistic worship.
Jesus awaits us in this sacrament of love. 
Let us not refuse the time to go to meet Him in adoration,
in contemplation full of faith, and open to making amends
for the serious offenses and crimes of the world.
Let our adoration never cease." - Pope St JPII, Dominicae Cenae


College of St Benedict, St Joseph, MN

"I believe that today we are entering
into the reign of the Eucharistic Heart of Jesus. 
In the midst of the winter in the world 
and even in the Church today innumerable little shoots
are sprouting up through the snow. 

These shoots are chapels of
Perpetual Eucharistic Adoration
growing up around the world. 
...I encourage you to soak up the healing rays of the Sun of Justice
and do all you can to promote Perpetual Adoration."

Rev. Harold F. Cohen, SJ (+2001)

Check out:
Perpetual Eucharistic Adoration Locations

LABOR DAY

American and Canadian Federal Holiday

First Monday in September

"Work is not only good in the sense that it is useful or something to enjoy; it is also good as being something worthy, that is to say, something that corresponds to man's dignity, that expresses this dignity and increases it. ... Work is a good thing for man - a good thing for his humanity  - because through work man not only transforms nature, adapting it to his own needs, but he also achieves fulfillment as a human being and indeed in a sense becomes 'more a human being.'" ~ St JP II, Laborem Exercens #9

Prayer after Work by Fr. Peter John Cameron, o.p.

From Blessing Prayers

© Magnificat – Used with permission.    

www.magnificat.com

Most merciful Father, thank you for this day of work with all its achievements as well as its  burdens.  Thank you for all the successes, the challenges, and even the difficulties that it brought to me.  Your Son once said to His Apostles, "Come by yourselves to an out-of-the-way place and rest a little." Thank you for this gift of rest.  May this time be a chance for me to renew my gratitude for all your blessings.  In your great compassion and generosity, please be mindful of those who are out of work.  And help me to do a better job tomorrow.  I ask this through Christ our Lord. Amen.

 St Joseph, patron of the Worker, pray for us!

The Visit...

"The [Eucharistic] Visit is the practice which guides and influences our whole life... It draws together the fruits of all other practices and brings them to fruition. 
It is the great means for living Jesus Christ.  It is the great means for putting adolescence aside and forming a personality in Christ.  It is the secret for our transformation in Christ. 
It is experiencing the relationship of Jesus with His Father and with humanity. 
It is the guarantee of perseverance." - Bl James Alberione

The Eucharistic Visit

The Visit is a meeting of our soul

and of our whole being with Jesus.
It is the creature meeting the Creator;
the disciple before the Divine Master;
the patient with the Doctor of souls;
the poor one appealing to the Rich One;
the thirsty one drinking at the Font;
the weak before the Almighty;
the tempted seeking a sure Refuge;
the blind person searching for the Light;
the friend who goes to the True Friend;
the lost sheep sought by the Divine Shepherd;
the wayward heart who finds the Way;
the unenlightened one who finds Wisdom;
the bride who finds the Spouse of the soul;
the “nothing” who finds the All;
the afflicted who finds the Consoler;
the seeker who finds life’s meaning.

Bl Jame Alberione (+1971)

Click here: Directory of Churches and Chapels Having Eucharistic Adoration

Conquering the devil...

Submit yourselves, then, to God. 
Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. 

Come near to God and He will come near to you.  - James 4: 7, 8a

Do you want the Lord to give you many graces?  
Visit Him often.

Do you want Him to give you few graces? 
Visit Him rarely.

Do you want the devil to attack you?  
Visit Jesus rarely in the Blessed Sacrament.

Do you want him to flee from you?  
Visit Jesus often.

Do you want to conquer the devil?  
Take refuge often at the feet of Jesus.

Do you want to be conquered by the devil?  
Forget about visiting Jesus.

My dear ones, the Visit to the Blessed Sacrament

is an extremely necessary way to conquer the devil. 

Therefore, go often to visit Jesus

and the devil will not come out victorious against you.

St John Bosco

 

The Advent Season is approaching -

perhaps an ideal time to commit to a daily or weekly Holy Hour.

Of friendship...

I rejoiced with those who said to me,

"Let us go to the house of the Lord." - Psalm 122:1

“How pleasing to our Lord 
in the Blessed Sacrament

is the short quarter of an hour that

we steal from our occupations, 
from something of no use,

to come and pray to Him, 
to visit Him, to console Him.”

Saint John Vianney

On all sides, His presence...

"I pray because the need flows out of me

all the time, waking and sleeping. 

It doesn't change God, it changes me." - CS Lewis

"For my part, I know that all the great moments of my day

are found in the incomparable hours that I spend on my knees

in darkness before the Most Blessed Sacrament

of the Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ.

I am, so to speak, swallowed up in God

and surrounded on all sides by His presence.

I would like to belong now to God alone

and to plunge into the purity of His love.

And yet, I can tell how poor I am,

how far from loving the Lord as He loved me

to the point of giving Himself up for me."

Robert Cardinal Sarah

The Power of Silence

Against the Dictatorship of Noise

Article 54 (pg 46)

... a MUST READ

Graces are flying forth...

"The very words we use, a 'visit to the Blessed Sacrament,'

reminds us that we go to a living person, and that He is 

no other than our blessed Savior." - Fr Francis A. Spencer, O.P

"The life of our dear Lord in the sacred Host is most active.

He remains still in the tabernacle, it is true, but graces are

flying forth from His Heart in inconceivable abundance.

From the tabernacle, Our Lord works miracles both

on souls and bodies, as He did of old in Galilee and Judea."   ...

 

"Before the tabernacle great saints have

communed with God upon the heights which we may never reach;

there, too, sinners have come,

and touched by the grace that goes out from Him,

found the contrite and humbled heart which He will never despise.

Think of the millions of the faithful

who day by day come into the house of God to pray.

Think of the religious to whom this very presence is as the air they breathe,

the very life and sustenance of their souls.

 

No one shall ever know all

that this adorable Sacrament is for human souls, 

raising all our hearts

to that one Heart

which is the center and source of grace and love."

Fr. Francis Aloysius Spencer, O.P.

Bottom painting: Giotto

Better not bitter...

"A Holy Hour of Eucharistic Adoration is a sharing 
in the work of Redemption." - Archbishop Fulton J Sheen

    "Think of it this way, Thomas (priest receiving this letter). Because St. Martin [de Porres] was black and illegitimate he was insulted and mistreated.  He identified with Jesus, ignored and mistreated in the Blessed Sacrament.  As they consoled each other, Martin became more charitable, not hostile, better not bitter.  He would spend as many as eight hours each day in prayer before the Blessed Sacrament. 
   This so pleased Jesus that he made Martin a miracle worker.  He would take a basket of fresh bread from the monastery and go out into the streets to feed the poor.  With a single basket of bread he would feed an entire barrio. 
    Martin fed hundreds of starving people with a single basket of bread.  You, dear Thomas, save hundreds of people from hell with a single holy hour of prayer in the Presence of the Living Bread come down from Heaven."

Excerpt from: Letters To A Brother Priest

Co-Authors: Rev. Fr Vincent Martin Lucia

and Rev. Msgr. Josefino Ramirez

St Martin de Porres
aka: St Martin of Charity

Dominican Coadjutor Brother
Peru ~ 1579-1639

Father: Peruvian nobleman

Mother: free slave of Panama

Patron saint of Social justice and Interracial harmony

Feast Day - November 3

In 1962, Pope St John XXIII beautifully remarked at the canonization of Saint Martin de Porres: "He excused the faults of others. He forgave the bitterest injuries, convinced that he deserved much severer punishments on account of his own sins. He tried with all his might to redeem the guilty; lovingly he comforted the sick; he provided food, clothing and medicine for the poor; he helped, as best he could, farm laborers and Negroes, as well as mulattoes, who were looked upon at that time as akin to slaves: thus he deserved to be called by the name the people gave him: 'Martin of Charity.'"

Click here: St. Martin de Porres - YouTube (2 mins) Apostleship of Prayer

Click here: St. Martin de Porres - YouTube (3 mins) CCTN

St Martin de Porres, pray for us!

During the Octave of All Saints' Day (Nov 1 thru Nov 8) any of the faithful,

by devoutly visiting a cemetery and praying for the departed,

can obtain a plenary indulgence (each day this is done),

applicable to the poor souls in purgatory,
(under the usual conditions for obtaining indulgences).

On all sides, His presence...

"I pray because the need flows out of me

all the time, waking and sleeping. 

It doesn't change God, it changes me." - CS Lewis

"For my part, I know that all the great moments of my day

are found in the incomparable hours that I spend on my knees

in darkness before the Most Blessed Sacrament

of the Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ.

I am, so to speak, swallowed up in God

and surrounded on all sides by His presence.

I would like to belong now to God alone

and to plunge into the purity of His love.

And yet, I can tell how poor I am,

how far from loving the Lord as He loved me

to the point of giving Himself up for me."

Robert Cardinal Sarah

The Power of Silence

Against the Dictatorship of Noise

Article 54 (pg 46)

... a MUST READ

Lay it all down... without a word...

 "Spend as much time as possible in front of the Blessed Sacrament

and He will fill you with His strength and His power."

- St Mother Teresa of Calcutta

 

"Lay the tired brain, 

the strained muscles,

the aching head –

lay them all down at His feet 

without a word, 

just for His eye to rest on

and His Heart to help and heal."

Mother Mary Loyola

from Coram Sanctissimo

Encountering Jesus...

...at his tabernacle will I sacrifice with shouts of joy: 
I will sing and make music to the LORD.
...Your face, LORD, will I seek. - Psalm 27:6b, 8b

“Dear brothers and sisters,
Now let us remember the two phrases: 
every encounter with Jesus changes our life and 
every encounter with Jesus fills us with joy. 
Should we say them together?
Every encounter with Jesus changes our life;
 every encounter with Jesus fills us with   joy. 
This is true.”
 

Pope Francis

Excerpt: 03/23/14, Angelus 

St Peter’s Square, Roma 

Remembering ...



Traditional Feast of St Gabriel the Archangel,
patron of telecommunications and diplomats
March 24

A day in history:  March 24, 2011
Adoration Chapel, Cathedral of St Paul (Minnesota)
Inspiration Day
Seven Sisters Apostolate...
committed to praying for priests.

A Seven Sister: one holy hour/one priest/
each week/one heart of prayer

Visit the Apostolate website… leave a comment!   www.sevensistersapostolate.org

Please like our Facebook page! www.facebook.com/sevensistersapostolate

An eye for an eye...

“People often mistake their imagination for their heart,

and so often are convinced they are converted as soon as they 

start thinking of becoming converted.” - Blaise Pascal

 

 

"Eucharistic contemplation

also has an extraordinary power of healing. 

In the desert God ordered Moses to raise a bronze serpent on a pole.

All those bitten by poisonous snakes and then looked

at the bronze serpent were healed. (Cf. Numbers 21:4-9)

Jesus applied the mysterious symbol of the bronze serpent to Himself (Jn 3:14).

What we should do, then, when afflicted by the venomous bites 

of pride, sensuality, and all the other illnesses of the soul is 

not to get lost in vain considerations or seek excuses, but to run before 

the Most Blessed Sacrament, to look at the Host and let healing  

pass through the same organ through which evil so often passes: our eyes.

 

 

The only thing the Holy Spirit asks of us

is that we give Him our time,

even if at the beginning it might seem like lost time.

I will never forget the lesson that was given to me one day in this regard.

I said to God, 'Lord, give me fervor and I will give you all the

time you desire in prayer.'  I found that answer in my heart:

'Raniero, give me your time and I will give you

all the fervor you want in prayer.' "

 

Fr Raniero Cantalamessa

Preacher to the Papal Household 

Excerpt from This is My Body

Understanding the work...

"The Eucharist is supremely effective

for the transformation of the world into a world of

justice, holiness, and peace." - Bl. Pope Paul VI

 

 

"Since we began this adoration

of the Blessed Sacrament,

we have not reduced our work;

we devote just as much time to it as before,

but with more understanding.

 

People accept us better. They are hungry for God.

They have need, no longer of us, but of Jesus."

 

St Mother Teresa of Calcutta