For love of priests and of holy Mass...

 "We are born to love, we live to love,  and we will die to love still more." - St. Joseph Cafasso  

"March 26th is one of two days the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church honors a Pearl of Our Lady's Dowry. The Church chose this day, as it was the first available. In reality, she was put to death on quite a momentous day. Not only was it March 25th - the date that the Feast of the Annunication is normally celebrated, but in the year that she died, 1586, this date was also Good Friday. She followed in  her dear Saviour's footsteps so closely that she died in a cruciform position, her hands and arms outstretched and bound to the floor on which she would be crushed. After having been secured in the cruciform position mentioned before, in imitation of Christ, the martyr was crushed to death by several hundred pounds of weights that were laid on top of her. She was not the only victim of the execution. She had been four months pregnant.

This "Pearl" is St. Margaret Clitherow. She died in defense of the Catholic faith. More specifically, she died in defense of the priesthood, the Mass, and the Blessed Sacrament. 

St. Margaret opened her home to the most reviled class of people in Elizabethan England - Catholic priests. "This is a war and a trial in God's Church," she wrote of the persecution in her country. "Therefore, if I cannot do my duty without peril and dangers, yet by God's grace I will not be a slacker for them. If God's priests dare venture themselves to my house, I will never refuse them." 

One biographer wrote, "The heart and center of [St. Margaret's] life was the Mass." One priest that she harbored, Father John Mush, wrote, "Her most delight was to kneel where she might continually behold the Blessed Sacrament."

Source: Click here: An Imitation of Christ - St. Margaret Clitherow
Click here: PEOPLE Margaret Clitherow - YouTube

St Margaret Clitherow

England ~ 1556-1586

Convert, Wife, Mother, Martyr

aka "Pearl of York"
Co-Patroness: Seven Sisters Apostolate

Feast Day - March 26

"I die for the love of my Lord Jesu."- St Margaret Clitherow  Moved by her saintly life, all her children entered the religious life.
Anne became a nun. Henry and William both became priests.

St Margaret Clitherow, pray for us! ______________________
Special reminder for  Seven Sisters Apostolate intercessors
www.sevensistersapostolate.org _________________________________________
Tomorrow - FRIDAY - Holy Father will offer an  Urbi et Orbi blessing on the sagrada of St Peter's Basilica

"Nerve-centre of the Church"...

 I look into the paten's gold
My consecrated fingers hold,
And mirrored in its circle see
The other Christ I'm called to be.

Adrienne Gascoigne

Translation: Accept, holy Father... (addressed to God the Father)

Holy card image: www.thewindowshowsitall.blogspot.com/

"When the Holy Father (St JPII) described the priesthood 

as "the nerve-centre of the Church's whole life and mission" 

(Holy Thursday Exhortation, 4 April 1996), he was affirming the key role 

played by priests in the drama of salvation.  Priests, it could also be said, 

are God's key-men in the further sense that to them have been given 

the keys of the kingdom - the kingdom of privileged sacramental treasures, 

notably the Eucharist and the forgiveness of sins (cf. Mt 16:19).  ...

... a priest's whole meaning and purpose is focused 
on the Eucharist in general, the Mass in particular.

 For he is consecrator and sacrifice-offerer of the Blessed Sacrament, besides being 

distributor, custodian and privileged adorer.  How accurate and apt, therefore, is the 

Holy Father's (St JPII) observation:  "A priest is worth what his Eucharistic life is worth."

St Claude de la Colombiere treasured the personal 

graces gained through holy Mass like rubies....

"Each day in my Mass He will give me new counsels, new strength.   

He will teach me, encourage me.  He will grant me or obtain for me, 

through His sacrifice, all the graces I shall ask of Him."

      

Fr Richard Foley, SJ
  Excerpts from Mary and the Eucharist (Must read!)

During this grace-filled season of Lent priests offer many extra Masses

and spend many long hours celebrating the Sacrament of Reconciliation

for the holy benefit of those they serve.  Let us PRAY DAILY for priests -

in thanksgiving for their vocation, for their stamina and piety and to implore 

deeper, richer Eucharistic lives for them - and ultimately for the Church!


"In strengthening the priest
you strengthen the whole Church. ...
Strengthen the priest and
you strengthen the whole foundation,
you strengthen everything in the Church."

Fr Gerald Fitzgerald, s.P., Founder
Handmaids of the Precious Blood

"The devil tempts one priest more than 100 seculars... 
Because to take away the Shepherd,
scatters the flock."- St Alphonsus Liguori

Check out a vibrant and growing Apostolate committed
to pray for priests in the form of Holy Hours:
Seven Sisters Apostolate
Seven Sisters Apostolate
www.sevensistersapostolate.org
 www.facebook.com/sevensistersapostolate

Nerve center of the Church...

 I look into the paten's gold
My consecrated fingers hold,
And mirrored in its circle see
The other Christ I'm called to be.

Adrienne Gascoigne

Translation: Accept, holy Father... (addressed to God the Father)

Holy card image: www.thewindowshowsitall.blogspot.com/

"When the Holy Father (St JPII) described the priesthood 

as "the nerve-centre of the Church's whole life and mission" 

(Holy Thursday Exhortation, 4 April 1996), he was affirming the key role 

played by priests in the drama of salvation.  Priests, it could also be said, 

are God's key-men in the further sense that to them have been given 

the keys of the kingdom - the kingdom of privileged sacramental treasures, 

notably the Eucharist and the forgiveness of sins (cf. Mt 16:19).  ...

... a priest's whole meaning and purpose is focused 
on the Eucharist in general, the Mass in particular.

 For he is consecrator and sacrifice-offerer of the Blessed Sacrament, besides being 

distributor, custodian and privileged adorer.  How accurate and apt, therefore, is the 

Holy Father's (St JPII) observation:  "A priest is worth what his Eucharistic life is worth."

St Claude de la Colombiere treasured the personal 

graces gained through holy Mass like rubies....

"Each day in my Mass He will give me new counsels, new strength.   

He will teach me, encourage me.  He will grant me or obtain for me, 

through His sacrifice, all the graces I shall ask of Him."

      

Fr Richard Foley, SJ
  Excerpts from Mary and the Eucharist (Must read!)

During this grace-filled season of Lent priests offer many extra Masses

and spend many long hours celebrating the Sacrament of Reconciliation

for the holy benefit of those they serve.  Let us PRAY DAILY for priests -

in thanksgiving for their vocation, for their stamina and piety and to implore 

deeper, richer Eucharistic lives for them - and ultimately for the Church!


"In strengthening the priest
you strengthen the whole Church. ...
Strengthen the priest and
you strengthen the whole foundation,
you strengthen everything in the Church."

Fr Gerald Fitzgerald, s.P., Founder
Handmaids of the Precious Blood

"The devil tempts one priest more than 100 seculars... 
Because to take away the Shepherd,
scatters the flock."- St Alphonsus Liguori

Check out a vibrant and growing Apostolate committed
to pray for priests in the form of Holy Hours:
Seven Sisters Apostolate
Seven Sisters Apostolate
www.sevensistersapostolate.org