Novena to Holy Spirit

Come, Creator Spirit,
visit the minds of your children,
and fill the hearts you have made,
with heavenly grace.
 
You are called the Comforter,
the gift of God most high,
living spring, and fire, love,
and spiritual anointing.
 
You are sevenfold in your gifts,
the finger of God’s right hand;
you are the Father’s true promise,
endowing our tongues with speech.
 
Enkindle your light in our senses,
infuse your life in our hearts;
strengthen our bodies’ weakness
by your never failing might.
 
Drive far away our foe,
and grant peace without end,
that with you to lead us on,
we may escape all harm.
 
Grant us, through you,
to know the Father, also the Son;
may we ever believe in you,
the Spirit of them both.
Amen.
 
In preparation for the great Solemnity of Pentecost, my hope is we are praying the novena to the Holy Spirit. We need to beg the Holy Spirit for His grace! It can be done anytime of the day, perhaps a good time is in the evening. Here is the translation of the ancient Latin hymn.
 
(the translation was done by one of the monks of Spencer Abbey).

Benedictine spirituality is simple

Lady Abbess Benedict Duss (+2005) of Regina Laudis in a 1998 conference with the Core Oblates of the Abbey that may be of interest to those who live –or try to live– according the Rule of Benedict:

“Benedictine Spirituality is very elusive, because it is so simple. We have great aspirations, which can cause us to lose sight of the simple, and achievement is not helped, thereof.”

The Ascension of the Lord

On … “reflection on the meaning of the Ascension is found in this phrase: Jesus took his place. After having undergone the humiliation of his passion and death, Jesus took his place at the right-hand of God; he took his place with his eternal Father. But he also entered heaven as our Head. Whereupon, in the expression of Leo the Great, the glory of the Head became the hope of the body. For all eternity Christ takes is place as the firstborn among many brethren: our nature is with God in Christ. And as man, the Lord Jesus lives for ever to intercede for us with Father. At the same time, from his throne of glory, Jesus sends out to the whole Church a message of hope and a call to holiness.

“Because of Christ’s merits, because of his intercession with the Father, we are able to attain justice and holiness of life, in him. The Church may indeed experience difficulties, the Gospel may suffer setbacks, but because Jesus is at the right-hand of the Father the Church will never know defeat. Christ’s victory is ours. The power of the glorified Christ, the beloved Son of the eternal Father, is superabundant, to sustain each of us and all of us in the fidelity of our dedication to God’s Kingdom and in the generosity of our celibacy. The efficacy of Christ’s Ascension touches all us in the concrete reality of our daily lives. Because of this mystery it is the vocation of the whole Church to wait in joyful hope for the coming of our Saviour, Jesus Christ.

“Dear sons, be imbued with the hope that is so much a part of the mystery of the Ascension of Jesus. Be deeply conscious of Christ’s victory and triumph over sin and death. Realize that the strength of Chist is greater than our weakness, greater than the weakness of the whole world. Try to understand and share the joy that Mary experienced in knowing that her Son had taken his place with his Father, whom he loved infinitely. And renew your faith today in the promise of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has gone to prepare a place for us, so that he can come back again and take us to himself.

St John Paul, Ascension Thursday, 1979

The Cross of Jesus defines our life

Jesus’ death on the cross was a sacrifice of expiation; it makes us understand both the gravity of sin as a rebellion against God and a rejection of his love, and the marvelous saving work of Christ which was offered humanity and which has restored us to grace and therefore to participation in God’s Trinitarian life and to the inheritance of eternal happiness.

Jesus’ passion and death on the cross give us the true and definitive meaning of life where the redemption is already realized in the perspective of eternity. Just as Christ is risen, so too we will rise in glory, if we have accepted his message and mission.

Saint Pope John Paul II
General Audience, March 1, 1989

Mother’s Day

“Commemorating our most holy, pure, blessed, and glorious Lady, the Theotokos and ever-virgin Mary, with all the saints, let us commend (παραθώμεθα, предадим, place before God, hand over) ourselves and one another and our whole life to Christ our God.” (Great Litany, Byzantine Divine Liturgy) [VL]

I am always reminded the intimate connection and relationship that exists between and among the Blessed Mother and earthly mothers. Each has a strong hand in my doing the right, the good and the beautiful.

God bless Mom, may God care for our grandmothers: indeed all mothers! Our Lady of Fatima, pray for us.

Fatima at 100

On May 13, 1917, Mary, the Mother of God, known also by a title of “Our Lady of Fatima,” revealed herself to  three shepherd children in a small town in Portugal. 100 years later we firmly recognize and follow the lead Jacinta, Francisco, and Lucia who gave us a renewed opportunity to enter into deeper communion with our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ through His Mother.

Saint John Paul II tells us that “the message of Fatima is, in its basic nucleus, a call to conversion and repentance as in the Gospel.”

At Fatima we were told to “Pray the Rosary, every day, in order to bring peace to the world.”

Hence, we pray for ourselves, indeed, all sinners, as we say the prayer Our Lady of Fatima asked to be added after each mystery of the Rosary: “O my Jesus, forgive us our sins, save us from the fire of hell. Lead all souls to heaven, especially those who are most in need of Thy mercy.” During the six monthly apparitions in 1917, Mary instructed Lucia, Jacinta, and Francisco to pray the Rosary daily for peace, and to make sacrifices for sinners, saying that “many souls go to hell, because there are none to sacrifice themselves and pray for them.”

So, today we celebrate the feast of Our Lady of Fatima with special solemnity, as we mark the 100th anniversary of her first apparition.

Sing Alleluia, Christian

After all our trials have ceased, our life will be taken up entirely with God’s praises. Therefore, it is our custom to commemorate this peaceful and blissful state by chanting Alleluia more frequently and joyfully during these fifty days.

In the book of Revelation, John the Evangelist says that he heard the throngs of heavenly powers singing this word. And the venerable father, Tobit, perceiving something of the glory of the citizens on high and the splendor of the heavenly Jerusalem, described it with these mystical words:

All the streets shall be paved with white and clean stones,and, Alleluia shall be sung in its streets. (Tobit 13:22)

St. Bede the Venerable
Quoted in: Your Hearts Will Rejoice
Ludolph of Saxony, Carthusian

Solanus Casey to be beatified

Capuchin Father Solanus Casey is pictured in an undated file photo. Admirers of Father Casey, a doorkeeper at Franciscan houses in New York and Detroit, are hoping for his beatification. In 1995 he was declared venerable, one of the first steps toward canonization. (CNS photo) (July 31, 2007) See DETROIT-SOLANUS July 31, 2007.

Father Casey becomes the newest American to be beatified.

 
GREAT NEWS, at Noon in Rome today, it was announced that the Venerable Servant of God Solanus Casey, Capuchin, will be beatified. The Congregation for Saints as acknowledged that a miracle was attributed to Casey’s intercession.
 
Born: 25 November 1870 and died 31 July 1957. He was a professed member of the Capuchin Franciscans and a priest.
 
Thanks be to God.

Recommended to St Joseph

“To other Saints Our Lord seems to have given power to succor us in some special necessity—but to this glorious Saint, I know by experience, He has given the power to help us in all. Our Lord would have us understand that as He was subject to St. Joseph on earth—for St. Joseph, bearing the title of father and being His guardian, could command Him—so now in Heaven Our Lord grants all his petitions. I have asked others to recommend themselves to St. Joseph, and they, too, know the same thing by experience . . .”

Saint Teresa of Avila
Autobiography, VI, 9

Bear the mark of Jesus

In the Gospel it is revealed that Jesus breaks bread on the road to Emmaus. This 12th century monastic author teaches:

“Break yourself, then, by the labor of obedience, by the humiliation of repentance. Bear in your body the marks of Jesus Christ by accepting the condition of a servant, not of a superior. And when you have emptied yourself, you will know the Lord through the breaking of bread.”