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.”

St Catherine of Siena

“The soul, who is lifted by a very great and yearning desire for the honor of God and the salvation of souls, begins by exercising herself, for a certain space of time, in the ordinary virtues, remaining in the cell of self-knowledge, in order to know better the goodness of God towards her. This she does because knowledge must precede love, and only when she has attained love, can she strive to follow and to clothe herself with the truth. But, in no way, does the creature receive such a taste of the truth, or so brilliant a light therefrom, as by means of humble and continuous prayer, founded on knowledge of herself and of God; because prayer, exercising her in the above way, unites with God the soul that follows the footprints of Christ Crucified, and thus, by desire and affection, and union of love, makes her another Himself.”

— St. Catherine of Siena, The Dialogue of St. Catherine of Siena, p.1

Mercy is central

Indeed, mercy is the central nucleus of the Gospel message; it is the very name of God, the Face with which he revealed himself in the Old Covenant and fully in Jesus Christ, the incarnation of creative and redemptive Love. May this merciful love also shine on the face of the Church and show itself through the sacraments, in particular that of Reconciliation, and in works of charity, both communitarian and individual. May all that the Church says and does manifest the mercy God feels for man, and therefore for us. When the Church has to recall an unrecognized truth or a betrayed good, she always does so impelled by merciful love, so that men and women may have life and have it abundantly (cf. Jn 10:10). From Divine Mercy, which brings peace to hearts, genuine peace flows into the world, peace between different peoples, cultures and religions.

Pope Benedict XVI
Regina Caeli message,
Divine Mercy Sunday, March 30, 2008