Saint Mary Magdalen

Mary Magdalene and the Risen LordSaint Mary Magdalen is honored today on our liturgical calendar. We know her for a variety of reasons but the most important one is that she is the first to encounter the Risen Christ. This meeting gave her the duty and responsibility to announce the Risen Lord to the Apostles. According to the Gospel of Saint John Mary is thus honored as the Apostle to the Apostles.

Pious tradition speaks of Saint Mary Magdalen being dedicated to prayer, and solitude. Saint Mary is the patron saint of those religious and laity committed to the contemplative life. The Order of Preachers have Mary as a co-patron, also as the patron of preachers.

Saint Mary Magdalen calls us to rejoice in the Risen Christ, to witness Him to the world, and to re-dedicate ourselves to prayer.

Saint Camillus de Lellis

DeLellisCamillus went to Rome for medical treatment on his leg and he met Saint Philip Neri, the great apostle to Rome. Because he lacked an education, Camillus began to study with children when he was 32 years old. Sounds like he followed in the footsteps of Ignatius of Loyola.

At particular point Camillus founded the Congregation of the Servants of the Sick (known as the Camillians or Fathers of a Good Death) whose charism was to care for the sick both in the hospital and at home. The Congregation expanded to several countries. Gospel clarity of Matthew 25 gave Camillus honored the sick as living images of Christ. The service to the sick allowed Camillus to hope that he did sufficient penance for the sins of his youth.

What does Saint Camillus teach us? The answer comes from the opening prayer for the Mass of the saint. We ask for the grace that allows us to have the perspective and desire to service with “charity towards the sick,” because in serving God in our neighbor, we may enter into beatitude when it is our time –at the hour of our death. What we saw in Christ passes now over to the Mystical Body of Christ.

Georges Lemaître remembered at birthday

Lemaitre and EinsteinToday is the birthday of Father Georges Lemaître, born in 1894 in Charleroi, Belgium.

Father Lemaître studied civil engineering at the Catholic University of Louvain before serving in the Belgian army during World War I. After the war he trained to become a priest and a cosmologist. He succeeded in both endeavors. He is a great witness to work of faith and reason and faith and science.

In 1923, he was ordained a Catholic priest for the Archdiocese of Malines. He was a secular a priest and not a Jesuit as some assume. Father received his PhD in physics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In 1960 Saint John XXIII bestowed the title of Monsignor on Lemaître. Also in 1960, Lemaître became the presidentof the Pontifical Academy of the Sciences.

A biographer writes: In 1927 he published his most famous paper, “A Homogeneous Universe of Constant Mass and Growing Radius Accounting for the Radial Velocity of Extragalactic Nebulae,” in which he applied Albert Einstein’s theory of general relativity to the entire universe. According to Lemaître’s analysis, the universe was in a state of constant expansion, having begun at a specific point in time. Two years later, Edwin Hubble published his observations of distant galaxies that supported the idea. Although Lemaître remained a devout Catholic, he opposed efforts to link the creation and expansion of the universe to divine action.”

“He successfully persuaded Pope Pius XII to refrain from making proclamations about cosmology. Lemaître died on 20 June 1966, two years after the discovery of cosmic microwave background radiation provided experimental evidence in favor of his bold idea.”

Monsignor died at the age of 71 on June 20, 1966 in Leuven, Belgium.

Venerable Andrey Roman Alexander Maria Sheptytsky

Andrey SheptytskyThe Stamford Eparchy writes, “In the afternoon of 16 July 2015, Pope Francis received in a private audience the Prefect of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints, Cardinal Angelo Amato. During the audience, the Holy Father approved decrees recognizing the heroic virtues of several Servants of God. The first among these was Andrey Roman Alexander Maria Sheptytsky (1865–1944), Metropolitan-Archbishop of Lviv-Halych.

This formal declaration represents one of the penultimate stages in the beatification process. Once a miracle attributed to the intercession of Sheptytsky is formally recognized, Kyr Andrey will be declared a Blessed of the Universal Church.

The cause for his beatification had been introduced in 1958. With this declaration, the “Servant of God” becomes “Venerable” Andrey.

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The new Venerable Servant of God was born Roman Aleksander Maria Sheptytsky on July 29, 1865, in Prylbychi near Lviv. When he entered the Basilian Order took the name Andrey. Father Andrey was elected the major archbishop of the Ukrainian Catholic Church at the age of 36 and he known to have quickly recognized as a social and cultural leader in a period of great political uncertainty. He died November 1, 1944, just four months after the Soviets took control of Lviv. Paris-based Bishop Borys Gudziak said,  “His social teaching, his fine, subtle and prophetic voice allowed the church to survive.” He also said, “Born into an aristocratic family, the archbishop used his resources to create a free clinic, provide countless scholarships and help victims of famine, flooding and war. He personally lived a life of poverty.”

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Prayer for Beatification of Servant of God Metropolitan Andrew Sheptytsky

O My God, I adore Your infinite Majesty with all the powers of my soul. I thank You for the graces and gifts which You did bestow upon Your faithful Servant Metropolitan Andrew Sheptytsky. I ask You to glorify him also on earth with evident proofs and miracles.  For this end I beseech You to give me the favor [mention the intention], which I humbly ask from Your Fatherly mercy. O Lord Jesus Christ, through the intercession of Your Mother grant that Your faithful Servant Metropolitan Sheptytsky be proclaimed a saint for the greater glory of God, for the salvation of souls and the good of our Catholic Church. Amen.

Virgin of Mt Carmel teaches complete fidelity

Elijah on Mt CarmelSaint John Paul II said in 2000: “As I look at these mountains, my thoughts turn today to Mount Carmel, praised in the Bible for its beauty. We are, in fact, celebrating the feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel. On that mountain, located in Israel near Haifa, the holy prophet Elijah strenuously defended the integrity and purity of the chosen people’s faith in the living God. On that same mountain some hermits gathered in the 12th century after Christ and dedicated themselves to contemplation and penance. The Carmelite Order arose from their spiritual experience.

Walking with the Blessed Virgin, the model of complete fidelity to the Lord, we will fear no obstacles or difficulties.

Supported by her motherly intercession, like Elijah we will be able to fulfill our vocation as authentic “prophets” of the Gospel in our time… May Our Lady of Mount Carmel, whom we call upon today with special devotion, help us tirelessly climb towards the summit of the mountain of holiness;  may she help us love nothing more than Christ, who reveals to the world the mystery of divine love and true human dignity.”

Our Lady of Mount Carmel

OLMCO most beautiful flower of Mt. Carmel, fruitful vine, splendour of Heaven, Blessed Mother of the Son of God, Immaculate Virgin, assist me in my necessity. O Star of the Sea, help me and show me you are my Mother. O Holy Mary, Mother of God, Queen of Heaven and earth, I humbly beseech you from the bottom of my heart to succour me in this necessity (make request). There are none that can withstand your power. O Mary, conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee. Sweet Mother I place this cause in your hands. Amen.

Intimately connected with Our Lady of Mount Carmel is the Brown Scapular. Why not read a brief article on the scapular, a rather influential sacramental.

Saint Bonaventure

St Bonaventure cardSaint Bonaventure, today’s saint, is not as known among Catholics as his contemporary Aquinas is. Yet, he is a theologian and Doctor of the Church of some consequence. A Franciscan, priest and cardinal of the Roman Church, Bonaventure requires our attention. Below is a paragraph from the Divine Office today.

The saint taught:

If you ask how such things can occur, seek the answer in God’s grace, not in doctrine; in the longing of the will, not in the understanding; in the sighs of prayer, not in research; seek the bridegroom not the teacher; God and not man; darkness not daylight; and look not to the light but rather to the raging fire that carries the soul to God with intense fervour and glowing love. The fire is God, and the furnace is in Jerusalem, fired by Christ in the ardour of his loving passion. Only he understood this who said: “My soul chose hanging and my bones death.” Anyone who cherishes this kind of death can see God, for it is certainly true that: “No man can look upon me and live.”