O, Jesus, keep them close to Your Heart...

 "By nature, the priest is like all other men; 
through his office, he surpasses everything on earth;
through his conduct, he must be comparable to the angels."

- St Bernard of Clairvoux

O Jesus,

I pray for your faithful and fervent priests;

for your unfaithful and tepid priests;

for your priests laboring at home

or abroad in distant mission fields;

for your tempted priests;

for your lonely and desolate priests;

for your young priests;

for your dying priests;

for the souls of your priests in Purgatory.

But above all, I recommend to you the priests dearest to me:

the priest who baptized me;

the priests who absolved me from my sins;

the priest at whose Masses I assisted and who gave me

Your Body and Blood in Holy Communion;

the priests who taught and instructed me;

all the priests to whom I am indebted in any other way (especially...N...).

O Jesus, keep them all close to your heart,

and bless them abundantly in time and in eternity.  Amen.

Daily Prayer of Saint Thérèse of Lisieux

Image:   Ordination ~ Neilson Carlin

To love as we ought...

"Blessed is the influence of one 
truly loving human soul on another." - George Eliot

"To love God as He ought to be loved,

we must be detached from all temporal love.

We must love nothing but Him,

or if we love anything else,

we must love it only for His sake."

St Peter Claver

Native of Spain ~ 1581–1654

Jesuit, missionary to South America

Apostolate to Africans on slave ships,

sailors and traders 

Estimated to have baptized 300,000 +

FEAST DAY - Sept 9

 Peter Claver understood that concrete service like the distributing
of medicine, food or brandy to his black brothers and sisters
could be as effective a communication of the word of God as mere verbal preaching.

Peter said of the slaves, "We must speak to them with

our hands by giving, before we try to speak to them with our lips."

Click here: Saint Peter Claver - YouTube (2 mins)

Click here: St Peter Claver - YouTube (CCTNtv - 3:30 mins)

St Peter Claver, pray for us!

Death thru Eve, life thru Mary...

 "When the most holy Virgin was born, 
the whole world was made radiant;

blessed is the branch and blessed is the stem 
which bore such holy fruit."
Today's Liturgy of the Hours, Antiphon 2

 

  

FEAST of the NATIVITY

of the BLESSED VIRGIN MARY

September 8

"This radiant and manifest coming of God to men 
most certainly needed a joyful prelude 
to introduce the great gift of salvation to us.  

The present festival, the birth of the Mother of God, is the prelude, 

while the final act is the foreordained union of the Word with flesh.  
Today the Virgin is born, tended and formed, and prepared for her role 
as Mother of God, who is the universal King of the ages." 

St Andrew of Crete, bishop - Oratio 1: PG 97

Raul Berzosa ~ Holy Mother

“Another woman is now given thee in place of the first, 
a prudent and humble Eve instead of the proud and foolish one,

an Eve who shall offer thee, not the tree of death but the

Bread of Life, and who shall yield thee, not the poisoned fruit

of bitterness but the delicious fruit of immortality.

Change thou, therefore, the wicked words of self-excuse into

the voice of praise and thanksgiving, and say to the Lord,

‘The woman whom Thou gavest me, gave me of the 
tree of life and I did eat; and it has become in my mouth 
 sweeter than honey, because in it Thou hast given me life.’

Behold here the purpose for which the Angel was sent from God

to the Virgin. O Virgin, worthy of all admiration, deserving of

all honour! O most wonderful of women and venerable over all.”

  St Bernard of Clairvaux

 

 "Death through Eve, life through Mary." ~ Saint Jerome 

"The day of the Nativity of the Mother of God is a day of
universal joy, because through the Mother of God, the entire
human race was renewed, and the sorrow of the first mother, Eve
was transformed into joy." ~ Saint John Damascene

 

"We never give more honour to Jesus than when we honour
His Mother, and we honour her simply and solely to honour Him
all the more perfectly. We go to her only as a way leading
to the goal we seek - Jesus, her Son. ... She is an echo of God,
speaking and repeating only God.  

If you say "Mary," she says "God." 

Saint Louis Marie de Montfort, True Devotion to the Blessed Virgin, #94

Click here: Nativity of the BVM - YouTube (song +images - lovely! - 2 mins)

Click here: The Birth of Mary - YouTube (Commentary + images - 2 mins)

Click here: Birth of Mary

 Litany of the Blessed Virgin Mary

Mary, mother of the Bread of Life, 
pray for us!

Spiritual dew...

Make holy, therefore, these gifts, we pray, by sending down 
your Spirit upon them like the dewfall, so that they may 
become for us the Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ.
(Prayers at the Epiclesis: "calling upon the Holy Spirit")

 

Someone once asked the celebrated biologist,

Sir Frederick Grant Banting, why he cared so much

about daily Communion. 

“Have you ever reflected,” he answered, “what would happen if the dew did not fall every night?  No plant would develop.  The grass 
and flowers could not survive the evaporations and the dryness 
that the day’s heat brings in one way or another.  Their cycle of energies, their natural renewal, the balance of their lymphatic fluids, the very life of plants requires this dew...” 

After a pause, he continued:  “Now my soul is like a little plant.  It is something rather frail that the winds and heat do battle with every day.  So it is necessary that every morning I go get my fresh stock of spiritual dew, by going to Holy Communion.”

Excerpted from Jesus Our Eucharistic Love

Fr Stefano M Manelli, FFI

Hope has a name! ...

 ...where then is my hope?  Who will see my hope? - Job 17:15

St Paul Street Evangelization team member, Fred Ford,  shares the Catholic faith on the streets  (Miami) 
Photographer: Anne Dibernardo/FC      For more info:  St. Paul Street Evangelization

"Do not be afraid

to give reasons for the hope that dwells in you,

a hope that has a concrete name:

Jesus Christ!

This hope must be transmitted

to your contemporaries,

helping them to seek,

offering them authentic friendship and acceptance,

leading them to discover the great gift of the Eucharist."

St. John Paul II
Meeting with youth, Roma

9 October 2004