First Holy Communion (1st in series of 3)...

"If angels could be jealous of men, they would be so for one reason: 

Holy Communion." - St Maximilian Kolbe

 

In the spring of 1891, when Saint Elizabeth of the Trinity was

almost eleven years old she made her First Communion. Sensitive

by nature, especially to things sacred, she was profoundly affected

by her first reception of Jesus Christ in the sacrament of the Eucharist.

Tears of joy were seen to run down the young girl's face after 

her Communion.   Upon leaving the church, she said to a close friend,

"I'm no longer hungry.  Jesus has fed me."

On the afternoon of her First Communion, Elizabeth also encountered the prioress of the Carmel of Dijon for the first time.  The prioress, upon learning the name of the child, explained that "Elizabeth" means "house of God."  A few days later, she would send this same message to Elizabeth, writing on the back of a holy card:

"Your blessed name hides a mystery, 

accomplished on this great day. 

Child, your heart is the House of God on earth, 

of the God of love."

This theme of being the "house of God," then, was at first closely associated with the mystery of the Eucharist in the mind of Elizabeth. In a poem that she would later write to commemorate the seventh anniversary of her First Communion,  she meditates upon the day:

"When Jesus made in me His dwelling place, 

When God took possession of my heart, 

So well that since that hour, 

Since that mysterious colloquy, 

That divine and delicious meeting, 

I have aspired to nothing else but to give my life

In order to return a bit of His great love

To the Beloved of the Eucharist

Who reposed in my feeble heart, 

Inundating it with all of His favors."

Elizabeth once wrote the following words to a friend who had just made her First Communion: 

"If He came this morning into your little heart, 
it was not to pass through it and go away, 
but to remain there always."

Excerpt from article, The Saint of the Divine Indwelling

by Fr. Gregory Ross, O.C.D., S.T.L.

Painting: After the First Holy Communion ~ Carlo F Smith (1892)

Photo: St Elizabeth of the Trinity

Do you remember/can you figure out 

your First Holy Communion date? 

Do HEARTILY celebrate it!

How splendid the Cross of Christ!...

"Blest is the wood through which
justice comes about." - Wisdom 14:7

Exquisite mosaic ~ Tree of Life, Holy Cross (detail) ~ San Clemente - Roma

 

“The event of the Cross and Resurrection

abides and draws everything toward life.” (CCC 1085)

FEAST of the
EXALTATION of the CROSS

September 14

"How splendid the cross of Christ! It brings life, not death; light, not darkness; Paradise, not its loss. It is the wood on which the Lord, like a great warrior, was wounded in hands and feet and side, but healed thereby our wounds. A tree has destroyed us, a tree now brought us life." ~ St Theodorus the Estudite

 

Painting (detail) The Exaltation of the Holy Cross, Luigi Gregori

Spes Unica: (Our) only Hope

"Recognize in this bread what hung on the cross, and in this chalice what flowed from His side... whatever was in many and varied ways announced beforehand in the sacrifices of the Old Testament pertains to this one sacrifice which is revealed in the New Testament.

Receive in this bread that which was hanged on the cross; receive in this cup that which was poured from Christ's side. For he will gain death, not life, who thinks Christ is a liar." ~ St Augustine

"On the Cross human misery and divine mercy meet. ...The Cross is planted in the earth and would seem to extend its roots in human malice, but it reaches up, pointing as it were to the heavens, pointing to the goodness of God.

By means of the Cross of Christ, the Evil One has been defeated, death is overcome, life is given to us, hope is restored, light is imparted. O Crux, ave spes unica!…" ~ St John Paul II, homily 09.14.03

Click here: Exaltation of the Holy Cross - YouTube (3 mins)

Click here: Exaltation of the Holy Cross (Roodmas)

Click here: Crucifixes and Crosses

O Jesus, Jesus, I no longer feel my cross

when I think of yours!"

St. Bernadette Soubirous

Crucifixes on rosaries, worn around one's neck and in one's home
serve as enduring and endearing reminders of the magnitude

of Christ's love and serve as focal points for private prayer.

 

Archbishop Fulton Sheen summarized the reason
for using a crucifix instead of an empty cross when he said,
“Keep your eyes on the crucifix,
for Jesus without the cross is a man without a mission,
and the cross without Jesus is a burden without a reliever.”

Queenship of Mary...

 "I shall sing a hymn to the mother, the Queen, whom I joyously
 approach in praise, gladly celebrating her wonders in song. . . 
Our tongue cannot worthily praise thee, O Lady; for thou who 
hast borne Christ the king art exalted above the seraphim. . . 
Hail, O Queen of the world; hail, O Mary, Queen of us all."

-  Axathistos (Byzantine hymn) 

Feast of Queenship of Mary ~ August 22*

*Octave of Feast of the Assumption (August 15)

 Feast established - Pope Pius XII - October 11, 1954

Encyclical Letter "Ad Caeli Reginam."

He points out that Mary deserves the title because she is Mother of God, 

because she is closely associated as the New Eve with Jesus’ redemptive work, 

because of her preeminent perfection and because of her intercessory power.

“When she became Mother of the Creator,

she truly became Queen of every creature.”~ St. John Damascene

The Coronation of the Virgin, Ridolfo Ghirlandaio (1483-1561)

"Every time the Son of God comes again to us in the “poverty” of the sacramental signs of bread and wine, the seeds of that new history wherein the mighty are “put down from their thrones” and “those of low degree are exalted” (cf. Lk 1:52), take root in the world. Mary sings of the “new heavens” and the “new earth” 
which find in the Eucharist their anticipation and in some sense their programme and plan. The Magnificat expresses Mary's spirituality, and there is nothing greater than this spirituality for helping us to experience the mystery of the Eucharist. The Eucharist has been given to us so that our life, like that of Mary, may become completely a Magnificat!   

Ecclesia de Eucharistia (58)

“Mary, then, is a Queen; but for our common consolation, be it known

that she is a Queen so sweet, clement, and so ready to help us

that Holy Church wills that we salute her as Queen of Mercy.  

Mary is Queen of Mercy as Jesus is King of Justice.” 

St. Alphonsus de Liguori - Glories of Mary

Click here: The Queenship of Mary - YouTube (2 mins)

Click here: Fr. Barron comments on The Queenship of Mary (6:30 mins)

Click here: Scott Hahn on the Queenship of Mary and Novena  (4 mins)

Click here: Mary's Queenship

“It is true that Our Lady is Queen of Heaven and earth,
but at the same time she is more Mother than Queen.” - St. Therese of Lisieux

 Mary, our Mother, Queen of Heaven, 

pray for us!

The building block...

Do this in memory of Me.

He sent them  ... so that as sharers in His power they might

make all peoples His disciples, sanctifying and governing them

“No Christian community

can be built up unless it has

its basis and center in the

celebration of the

most Holy Eucharist.”

Decree on the Ministry and Life of the Priests, 6

Vatican II Document

St Philip and St James

Apostles, Martyrs

FEAST DAY - May 3

Sts Philip and James, pray for us!

You are strangers and aliens no longer. 

No, you are fellow citizens of the saints and members of the household of God.

You form a building which rises on the foundation of the apostles and prophets,

with Christ Jesus Himself as the capstone. Through Him the whole structure 
is fitted together and takes shape as a holy temple in the Lord; in Him you are being built

into this temple, to become a dwelling place for God in the Spirit. - Ephesians 2:19-22

We learned it from Him!

For My Flesh is real food, and My Blood is real drink. - John 6:55 

 

 

"When we speak of the reality of Christ's nature being in us, we would be speaking foolishly and impiously--had we not learned it from Him.  For He Himself says: `My Flesh is truly food, and My Blood is truly Drink. He that eats My flesh and drinks My Blood will remain in Me and I in him (John 6:55-56).'

 

As to the reality of His flesh and blood, there is little room left for doubt, because now, both by the declaration of the Lord Himself and by our own faith, it is truly Flesh and truly Blood. And these Elements bring it about, when taken and consumed, that we are in Christ and Christ is in us. Is it not true?

Let those who deny that Jesus Christ is true God be free to find these things untrue. But He Himself is in us through the flesh and we are in Him, while that which we are with Him is in God."

 

St Hilary of Poitiers

300 - 368

Bishop and Doctor of the Church

"Hammer of the Arians"

 A favorite motto of St. Hilary:

Ministros veritatis decet vera proferre,

"Servants of the truth ought speak the truth."

FEAST DAY - January 13

 

 

This is how Hilary summed up the problem

with the Arian heretics* of the fourth century:

"They didn't know who they were."

 

*Arius, whose followers were called Arians, felt that God created Christ, not of his own matter. This meant, in his opinion, that Christ was not God and was not divine. Therefore, worshipping Christ would be tantamount to worshipping another god, and this specifically went against God’s teaching that He alone should be worshipped.

Click here: St. Hilary of Poitiers - YouTube (2 mins)

 

St Hilary, pray for us!

Waiting made holy (HOLY SATURDAY)

Holy Saturday

 

Holy Saturday is sacred as the day of the Lord's rest;

it has been called the "Second Sabbath" after creation.

The day is and should be the most calm and quiet day

of the entire Church year, a day broken by no liturgical function

and is chiefly a day of solemn vigil for the Lord’s resurrection.

 

 

"The last day of Holy Week: a fruitful stillness before the breathtaking action of the night. Perhaps only the greatest Russian writers have succeeded in painting it as it is, a pause, a last moment of waiting, made holy by the Lord's rest in the tomb.

The Church is waiting at the tomb and weeps.  She sees where the Lord has been laid, where the woman had buried Adam, where man is buried where he had come to grief through her evil counsel. She sees it and weeps. She weeps at the Lord's tomb, as the Lord wept for Lazarus: for sin which killed the giver of all life. But her tears are soft, and she is at peace. . . .

The death of Adam has lost its terrors in the tomb of Christ. The death for obedience' sake has snuffed out sin. No longer does a massa damnata blunder on from sin to sin and death to death, but the body of the obedient Christ rests in hope. A foreboding of the happy chance of fault which merited such and so great a redeemer. It is a foreboding of the blessedness of suffering earning 'the name which is above all names', and the 'glory of God the Father', which makes the seers — men and the Church — at peace and full of hope."

~D. Aemiliana Löhr, The Great Week

“Today a great silence reigns on earth, a great silence and a great stillness. A great silence because the King is asleep. The earth trembled and is still because God has fallen asleep in the flesh and he has raised up all who have slept ever since the world began. . . He has gone to search for Adam, our first father, as for a lost sheep.”  (From ancient homily, Liturgy of the Hours, Holy Saturday)

For you - Blood flows

"Now consider which is more excellent, the bread of angels (i.e., the manna) or the Flesh of Christ which is indeed the Body of life.

That manna was from heaven; this is from above the heavens. The former was from heaven, the latter from the Lord of the heavens; the former was subject to corruption if it was preserved for a second day, the latter foreign to all corruption so that whoever shall have piously tasted it will not be able to experience corruption. For the people of Israel water flowed from the rock; for you Blood flows from Christ. The water satisfied them for a while; Blood washes you for eternity."

St. Ambrose, Epistola

Simplest truth, pure reality

 

Stained glass:  Waltham Abbey, England

"This is my Body" ~ "This is my Blood"; under no circumstance may the is in these holiest of sentences be interpreted as "means" or "is a symbol of" my Body and Blood.  If ever the Lord's admonition, "Let your speech be, 'Yes, yes';' No,no'; and whatever is beyond these comes from the evil one" (Matthew 5:37) was deeply urgent, it is here.

    It is not only wrong but sacrilegious to tamper with these words.  What they express is simplest truth, and what takes place pure reality.  He who speaks is neither a great nor the greatest religious personality of the millennia, but the Son of God.

    His words are no expression of mystical profundity, but a command of Him who has all earthly and heavenly power.  They have no equivalent in human speech, for they are words of Omnipotence.  We can compare them only with other words of the Lord, when "He arose and rebuked the wind and the sea, and there came a great calm" (Matthew 8:26); or, to the leper: "I will, be thou made clean" (Matthew 8:3); or to Jairus' dead child, "Girl, arise!" (Luke 8:54).  Their real equivalent is the Father's "Be!" (light made) from which creation itself emerged (Genesis 1:3).

Romano Guardini

Meditations Before Mass (Sophia Press, 1993)