Crux, Hostia, et Virgo...

"O sacrament of devotion! O sign of unity! 
O bond of charity!"  - St Augustine

"There is nothing littler, meeker or more silent

than Christ present in the Host.

This little piece of bread embodies the humility and perfect silence of God,

His tenderness and His love for us.

If we want to grow and

to be filled with the love of God,

it is necessary to plant our life firmly on three great realities:

the Cross, the Host, and the Virgin:

crux, hostia, et virgo. ...

These are three mysteries that God gave to the world in order to

structure, fructify, and sanctify our interior life and lead us to Jesus.

These three mysteries are to be contemplated in silence."

Robert Cardinal Sarah

in The Power of Silence 
Against the Dictatorship of Noise (57)

Painting: The Virgin with the Host ~ Jean Auguste-Dominique Ingres, 1860, France

Crux, Hostia et Virgo...

"O sacrament of devotion! O sign of unity! 
O bond of charity!"  - St Augustine

"There is nothing littler, meeker or more silent

than Christ present in the Host.

This little piece of bread embodies the humility and perfect silence of God,

His tenderness and His love for us.

If we want to grow and

to be filled with the love of God,

it is necessary to plant our life firmly on three great realities:

the Cross, the Host, and the Virgin:

crux, hostia, et virgo. ...

These are three mysteries that God gave to the world in order to

structure, fructify, and sanctify our interior life and lead us to Jesus.

These three mysteries are to be contemplated in silence."

Robert Cardinal Sarah

in The Power of Silence 
Against the Dictatorship of Noise (57)

Painting: The Virgin with the Host ~ Jean Auguste-Dominique Ingres, 1860, France

Your heart: a living tabernacle...

"Live in the joy and the peace of the divine Majesty.
Live lost in divine love." - St Paul of the Cross

"How wonderful are the treasures which are enclosed
in the divine Eucharist! I exhort you, even though you live in the world,
to receive Communion often, but with piety.
Holy Communion is the most efficacious means 
of uniting one's self to God.

Always prepare yourself well for this sacred banquet.
Have a very pure heart, and watch over your tongue,
for it is on the tongue that the Sacred Host is laid.

Carry Our Lord home with you after your thanksgiving,
and let your heart be a living tabernacle for Jesus.
Visit Him often in this interior tabernacle, offering Him your homage,
and the sentiments of gratitude with which divine love will inspire you. 
Preserve carefully the sentiments of love
with which you are filled after Communion."

 

St Paul of the Cross
Priest, Mystic, powerful teacher/preacher

Founder - Passionist Order
To the vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience they added a fourth: 
to spread devotion to Christ’s passion among the faithful.

Italy ~ 1694-1775

FEAST DAY - October 20

Painting above: First Communion ~ Jules Octave Triquet

"When you are alone in your room, take your crucifix,
kiss its five wounds reverently, tell it to preach to you a little sermon,
and then listen to the words of eternal life that it speaks to your heart;
listen to the pleading of the thorns, the nails, the precious Blood.
Oh, what an eloquent sermon!" - St Paul of the Cross

Click here: Discovering our Saints - St. Paul of the Cross - YouTube (3 mins)

Click here: St. Paul of the Cross - YouTube (10 mins)

St Paul of the Cross 

St Paul of the Cross, pray for us!

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.”

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

"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

 

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.”

Death by love... (Good Friday)

O crux, ave spes unica! 

(Hail, O cross, our only hope!)

GOOD FRIDAY

Sweet the timber, sweet the iron,

Sweet the burden that they bear! (Hymn:  Faithful Cross)

 

On the Cross, Jesus "loved me and gave Himself for me" (Gal 2:20).

Each of us can say, "He loved me and gave Himself for me."

Everyone can say that "for me"! 

 

~ Pope Francis, First Wednesday Audience, 27 March 2013

   

 

 Christ Crucified ~ Viktor Vasnetsov

 

"Nature is in mourning covered with darkness during the Holy Hour of the first Good Friday.  The chants of the heavenly Jerusalem are interrupted.  The entire court of Heaven waits in order to receive the last throb of the Heart of the Man-God, the victim of Golgotha.

    Fervant loving souls, we are truly at the summit of Calvary: it is the Holy Hour! 

 A loud voice resounds in the heights, a voice that says: "Father, into Thy hands I commend My spirit.'  And bending His lacerated Head, Jesus Crucified dies of love.  It is His Heart which out of love for us has brought Him to death.  All glory to His loving Heart which gave us life and which now is stilled in death!" ~ Fr. Mateo Crawley-Boevey

Souls have all the same price,

which is that of the Precious Blood of Jesus."

 

~ Blessed Charles de Foucauld

 

 

 “We adore Thee, O Christ, and we bless Thee -

because by Thy Holy Cross Thou has Redeemed the World.”

 

"All the greatest pains become sweet for

whoever looks at Jesus Christ on the Cross."

~ St. Mary Magdalen of Pazzi 

He is lifted, I am drawn...

Fifth Sunday of Lent*

*Final Lenten Sunday before Palm Sunday

 "And when I am lifted up from the earth, 

I will draw everyone to Myself." - John 12:32

(Gospel ~ today's Liturgy)

 

"I spend every free moment

at the feet of the hidden God

[in the Blessed Sacrament]. 

He is my Master; I ask Him about everything;

I speak to Him about everything.  

Here I obtain strength and light;

here I learn everything;

here I am given light

on how to act toward my neighbor."

 

St. Maria Faustina of the Blessed Sacrament

Divine Mercy Diary, 704

Same Body broken, same Blood flowed...

“Our way of thinking is attuned to the Eucharist, and the 
Eucharist in turn confirms our way of thinking.” – St Irenaeus

"The Mass is that which makes the cross visible to every eye; it placards the Cross at all the crossroads of civilization; it brings Calvary so close that even tired feet can make the journey to its sweet embrace; every hand may now reach out to touch its Sacred Burden, and every ear may hear its sweet appeal, for the Mass and the Cross are the same.

In both there is the same offering of a perfectly surrendered will of the beloved Son, the same Body broken, the same Blood flowed forth, the same Divine Forgiveness.

All that has been said and done and acted during Holy Mass is to be taken away with us, lived, practiced, and woven into all the circumstances and conditions of our daily lives."

Venerable Fulton J Sheen

Calvary and the Mass: The Ite, Missa Est

Recognize... and Receive

 Lift high the cross, the love of Christ proclaim,

Till all the world adore His sacred Name.

Sebastiano Ricci

“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. ... With the cross we are freed from the restraint of the enemy and we clutch on to the strength of slavation." ~ St Theodorus the Estudite

"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

 

O Jesus, Jesus, I no longer feel my cross

when I think of yours!"

St. Bernadette Soubirous

 "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 - From homily 09/14/03

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

Click here: Exaltation of the Holy Cross (Roodmas)

 

Crucifixes in your home serve as powerful reminders of the immensity

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

 

 

 Lift high the cross, the love of Christ proclaim,

Till all the world adore His sacred Name.

A Grandmother's gaze...

 

 

Between his breviary pages, Pope Francis keeps his Grandmother Rosa's letters and her last words to her grandchildren before she died. She said that in times of sadness, trouble or loss, to look to the tabernacle, "where the greatest and noblest martyr is kept," and to Mary at the foot of the cross so that they may "let fall a drop of salve on the deepest and most painful wounds."

 

 

Excerpt from... Pope Francis: Conversations with Jorge Bergoglio

by Sergio Rubin and Francesca Ambrogetti,

originally published 2010 under title "El Jesuita" ("The Jesuit")

It is not yet available in English.