Chalice of light and life...

"The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church." - Tertullian

 

"O Lord, we cannot go to the pool of Siloe

to which you sent the blind man.

But we have the chalice of Your Precious Blood,

filled with life and light.

The purer we are, the more we receive."

St Ephrem the Syrian

Quote in honor of...

Feast of the Blessed Carmelite Martyrs of Compiègne 

Feast - July 17 

Click here: CARMELITE MARTYRS OF COMPIEGNE - YouTube (7 mins)

Click here: Martyrs of Compiègne - Catholic Focus - YouTube (24 mins)

Click here: The Mantle of Elijah: The Martyrs of Compiegne as Prophets of Modern Age
The Carmelite Martyrs of Compiegne, July 17, 1794 – Return to Fatima

"On July 17, 1794, the sixteen Carmelite nuns of Compiègne were guillotined in Paris, convicted of crimes against the state by the tribunal of the French Revolution. On this day they were born to eternal life. 

Mother Henriette de Jesus, renowned for her great beauty and strong personality, stood up to represent the other Carmelite sisters before the revolutionary tribunal and was remarkable for her heroic resolution. Since the prosecutor accused the Carmelites of being fanatics and counter-revolutionaries, she asked him to explain the meaning of those words. The irritated judge vomited a torrent of offenses against her, and then said: “It is your attachment to your Religion and the King.” 

Hearing these words, she replied, “I thank you for the explanation.” Then, addressing her companion Carmelites, she said: “My dear Mother and my Sisters, we must rejoice and give thanks to God for we die for our Religion, our Faith, and for being members of the Holy Roman Catholic Church.”

Prof. Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira

Blessed Martyrs of Compiègne, pray for us! 

Curagio! ...

Therefore, my dear brothers, stand firm.  Let nothing move you. 

Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because

you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain. - I Cor 15:58

"When Thomas More was Chancellor of England some of his friends reproached him for going to Communion so often.  With all his duties and responsibilities they thought that this piety took up too much of his time.  He answered their objections with these words: 

'Your reasons for wanting me to stay away from Holy Communion are exactly the ones which cause me to go so often.  My distractions are great, but it is in Communion that I recollect myself.  I have temptations many times a day; by daily Communion I get the strength to overcome them.  I have much very important business to handle and I need light and wisdom; it is for this very reason that  I go to Holy Communion every day to consult Jesus about them.' " 

John M Haffert

Excerpt from The World's Greatest Saints

St Thomas More

Husband, Father, Lawyer, Knight,

Lord Chancellor of England, Author, Martyr 
Steadfastly refused to approve Henry VIII’s divorce/remarriage

and establishment of the Church of England
Patron of Lawyers
England ~ 1478-1535 

Feast Day - June 22

  

 On July 6, 1535, the 57-year-old More

came before the executioner to be beheaded.

“I die the king's good servant,” he told the onlookers, “but God's first.”

Click here: St. Thomas More - YouTube (2 mins)
Click here: Discovering our Saints - Saints John Fisher and Thomas More - YouTube

St Thomas More, pray for us!

ANOTHER FEAST CELEBRATED TODAY:

Of all the English bishops, only Bishop John Fisher of Rochester publicly opposed Henry VIII's mandatory Oath of Allegiance, which unlawfully declared King Henry the head of the Church of England. The bishop's stand ultimately cost him his life. May his example inspire all Catholics today, especially the bishops on whose courageous leadership the Church depends.

On the scaffold he said to the people assembled:

"Christian people, I am come hither to die for the faith of Christ's Holy Catholic Church, and I thank God hitherto my stomach hath served me very well thereunto, so that yet I have not feared death. Wherefore I do desire you all to help and assist me with your prayers, that at the very point and instant of death's stroke, I may in that very moment stand steadfast without fainting in any one point of the Catholic faith free from any fear; and I beseech Almighty God of His infinite goodness to save the king and this Realm, and that it may please Him to hold His holy hand over it, and send the king good Counsel."

He then knelt, said the Te Deum and submitted to the axe.

Erasmus said: "He is the one man at this time who is incomparable for uprightness of life, for learning and for greatness of soul."

                                                                                                                                                                                                   

St. John Fisher

Bishop, Martyr
England ~ 1469-1535
Feast Day - June 22

 St. John wrote to someone who left the Church: “Had you but tasted one

drop of the sweetness which inebriates the souls of those religious from

their worship of this Sacrament, you would never have written as you have,

nor have apostatized from the faith that you formerly professed.”

St John Fisher, pray for us!

Firm foundation...

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

To warn, to lead, to bring them back...

“Remember then how our fathers worked out their salvation;
remember the sufferings through which the Church has grown, and 
the storms the ship of Peter has weathered because it has Christ on board.  
Remember how the crown was attained by those whose sufferings gave 
new radiance to their faith.  The whole company of saints bear witness
to the unfailing truth that without real effort no one wins the crown.” 

– St Thomas Becket

"A martyr, a saint, is always made by

the design of God, for His love of men,

to warn them and to lead them,

to bring them back to His ways.”

~ St. Thomas Becket, homily excerpt, Christmas morning Mass (1170),
four days before he was martyred

St. Thomas Becket

Archbishop of Canterbury, Martyr*

England  ~ 1118-1170

Feast Day - December 29

 

*On December 29th, 1170, four knights from the court of King Henry II burst into Canterbury Cathedral as the Archbishop was on his way to Vespers. Just inside the cloister door, they murdered Thomas Becket, whose defense of the rights of the Church had angered the King. His last words were: 'I accept death for the name of Jesus and for the Church.'

The murder shocked the conscience of all Europe; miracles were announced immediately; the archbishop was canonized as a martyr by Alexander III in 1173; the king did public penance at his tomb, and much of what St Thomas had worked for all his life was accomplished by his death.

 

Thomas said this to a friend on his way to Ordination: "Hereafter, I want you to tell me, candidly and in secret, what people are saying about me. And if you see anything in me that you regard as a fault, feel free to tell me in private. For from now on, people will talk about me, but not to me. It is dangerous for men in power if no one dares to tell them when they go wrong." 

Click here: St. Thomas Becket - YouTube  (2 mins)

St Thomas Becket, pray for us!

Woven round... like a robe...

"It is not sufficient to say that 
the Eucharist is at the center of the Church, 
because actually, the Eucharist makes the Church!  

It builds it from within 
and weaves it round itself like a robe. 

It is said that two sacraments in particular 
"make" the Church:  Baptism and the Eucharist.  

But whereas Baptism makes the Church grow quantitatively, as it were, in size and number, 
the Eucharist makes her grow qualitatively, 
in strength, because it transforms her ever more deeply 
into the image of Christ, her Head."

Raniero Cantalamessa

The Eucharist, Our Sanctification

Christ at Last Supper - Tapestry - Virginia Museum of Fine Arts ~ Richmond, VA

Remembering...
Sts Andrew Kim Tae-gon, 
Paul Chong Ha-Sang 
and Companions, pray for us!

Feast Day - 09/20/18
St. Andrew Kim Taegon - YouTube