Monday, December 28, 2015

The Holy Innocents

When the Magi arrived in Judea seeking the newborn “king of the Jews” (Matt. 2:1-2), King Herod was worried. After ascertaining in Scriptures that Bethlehem was the likely birthplace of the Child, he met with the Wise Men. The crafty king bid them go to Bethlehem and bring him back details so he could also adore the new king.

But God Who sees into the hearts of men, warned the three Magi in a dream not to return by way of King Herod. Far from wishing to adore Christ Jesus, the tetrarch wished to destroy Him.

Realizing that he had been found out, Herod raged and ordered all little boys, two years of age and under, to be slaughtered in Bethlehem and its surroundings, hoping thus, to also destroy the Child Jesus.

But warned in time by an angel, St. Joseph had gathered the mother and child and fled to Egypt. Thus was fulfilled the prophecy of the Prophet Jeremiah: “A voice in Rama was heard, lamentation and great mourning, Rachel bewailing her children, and would not be comforted, because they are not.” (Matt.2:17-18).

The Church considers those slaughtered babes, the first martyrs, since they shed their blood because of Christ. The Church officially honors their martyrdom on December 28. Several churches in Rome and throughout Europe claim to house their relics.

Sunday, December 27, 2015

The Holy Family

 Jesus, Mary, and Joseph

In the fullness of time, God chose to send His Only- begotten Son to earth by means of a family – a family of Judea. The head of that family was a man whom Scriptures calls “Just” (Matt.1:19). It also gives the genealogy of this “Just Man”, Joseph by name, he was “of the house of David” (Luke 1:27), though he was impoverished and exercised the profession of a carpenter. His bride was the youthful Mary, offered by her parents to the Temple as a small child; she had been raised among the things of God and educated in the Holy Writ. She also descended from King David.

Given their ancestry, Joseph and Mary were a Judean prince and princess.

By a special providence of the Most High, these two holy people were betrothed, though Mary had made a vow of perpetual virginity, which Joseph meant to honor in their marriage. Evidence of their mutual agreement to this effect  is the fact that when the Archangel Gabriel appeared to Mary and announced that she was to bear a son, she asked the question foremost in her mind: “How shall this be, since I know not man?” (Luke1:34) – a question, otherwise nonsensical, in a person entering the married state.

Mary’s question was not the result of doubt but of a simple need to understand. And thus, when she was told that the child she was to bear would be Jesus, the Son of the Most High, and that this marvel would occur through the work of the Holy Spirit, she gave her Fiat, “…and the Word was made flesh” (John 1:14).

And Joseph and Mary were married and lawfully constituted a family, in the eyes of God and men. And when Joseph learned of the mystery within Mary, we can imagine him falling to his knees, and adoring the God Child in the world’s first tabernacle.

And as true foster father, he lived to serve the God made man who called him “father”.

In the virtuous, cross-embracing example of the Holy Family, and later by constituting marriage between a man and a woman a Sacrament, God has exalted the Christian Family, giving it the means to be the mainstay of every wholesome society, the “hub” of true culture, and the nest of sanctity.

Saturday, December 26, 2015

Catholics Defend Virgin Mary Against Satanic Sacrilege


Quote of the Day

To withdraw from creatures and repose with Jesus in the Tabernacle
is my delight; there I can hide myself and seek rest.
There I find a life which I cannot describe, a joy which I cannot make
others comprehend,
  a peace such as is found only under the
hospitable roof of our best Friend.


St. Ignatius Loyola

Friday, December 25, 2015

Nativity of Our Lord Jesus Christ

On December 25 the Church celebrates the birth of Our Lord Jesus Christ, the second Person of the Most Holy Trinity made man, Who taking flesh in the womb of the Blessed Virgin Mary through the power of the Holy Spirit, was  born nine months later in a stable in Bethlehem as predicted in the Scriptures: "And Thou, Bethlehem Ephrata, art a little one among the thousands of Juda: out of thee shall he come forth unto me that is to be the ruler in Israel: and his going forth is from the beginning, from the days of eternity" (Micah, 5:2). The Gospels of St. Luke and St. Mathew cover the marvelous story. St. Luke writes of Joseph and Mary traveling to Bethlehem for the census of Caesar Augustus and Jesus being born there and laid in a manger.  He tells of the appearance of an angel to shepherds nearby announcing the birth of the Child as the awaited Savior, Christ the Lord, and how these same shepherds found Him in the humble stable just as the angel had foretold.

In the account of St. Matthew, wise men follow a mysterious star to Bethlehem and lay gifts at the feet of the Divine Child. He also recounts the massacre, ordered by the envious Herod, of all little boys two years old and under, and the flight of the holy family into Egypt to save the Child Jesus. They later settle in Nazareth.

Though there are records of the feast of the Nativity of Jesus being celebrated as early as the third century in Egypt, the celebration of this feast did not spread throughout the Christian world until the middle of the fourth century. It was at first celebrated along with the feast of Epiphany on January 6, the feast of the arrival of the Wise Men or Magi. Little by little, Christmas became its own feast. Many of the early Church Fathers regarded December 25 as the actual date of Christ’s birth.

Historically and traditionally, Christmas is deemed one of the greatest Christian feasts along with the solemn, grateful remembrance of the Lord’s death on Good Friday, and the joyful celebration of His Resurrection on Easter Sunday.

In all Christian countries, Christmas gives rise to a multitude of cultural expressions of colorful, sparkling joy, in remembrance and thanksgiving for this most charming of divine gifts, a God made a babe for our salvation. Countless songs, and ballads through the ages sing of this Gift of gifts, and people, in turn, have recourse to gift giving as a visible overflow of their gratitude and joy – or so it should be.

Wednesday, December 9, 2015

The Rosary Defeats God’s Enemies

The Rosary Defeats God’s Enemies

The Rosary — as spiritual weapon against evil — has a very long and precious history. In twelfth and thirteenth century France, a group of heretics known as the Albigensians was destroying the minds of the Catholic laity with its erroneous ideas.

The Albigensians’ teachings encouraged suicide, many times by self-induced starvation, because they believed that the body was an intrinsic evil and that the soul must be liberated from matter at all costs. However, as history often shows, Providence raises up great Saints in times of dire crises. This time it was no different. Saint Dominic, born of noble lineage, received the Rosary from Our Lady in the year 1214.

Saint Dominic received the Rosary from Our Lady in 1214
Saint Dominic received
the Rosary from Our Lady in 1214.
Our Lady gave Saint Dominic the Rosary as a weapon to combat the awful Albigensian heresy.
The Rosary as we know it today took some time to develop. After Saint Dominic died in the year 1221, the Rosary was almost immediately forgotten. However, in 1464 Our Lord, Our Lady, and Saint Dominic appeared to Blessed Alan de la Roche, a Dominican friar, after which he preached the Rosary until his death in 1475. This tremendous apostolate by Blessed Alan de la Roche, through the direct intercession of Our Lady, made the Rosary a widespread devotion. The fifteen mysteries as we know them came about through the many confraternities founded after Blessed Alan de la Roche’s preaching, and were formalized with Pope Saint Pius V’s encyclical, Consueverunt.
The Battle of Lepanto - a miraculous victory for Christiandom
The Battle of Lepanto: a miraculous
victory for Christiandom.
The Rosary and
the Battle of Lepanto

The Battle of Lepanto was a crucial conflict between the Christians and the Ottoman Turks, one of the greatest naval battles of all time. The Christian lands around Greece and the Eastern Mediterranean were constantly getting sacked by Muslim pirates, and Imperial warships were ravaging the land. At this point in time, Pope Saint Pius V saw it appropriate to raise a Crusade against these heathen Muslims. After raising a Crusade, he asked every non-combatant across the whole Christian world to pray the Rosary.
“You shall obtain all you ask of me
by the recitation of the Rosary.”

Our Lady to Blessed Alan de la Roche
Even after this call to arms, the Christian fleet at Lepanto was greatly outnumbered by the Ottoman Turks. The Crusaders got on their knees and began to pray the Rosary. Soon after, the Christians and the Muslims were immersed in a bloody battle. Thus it was that on October 7, 1571, the Christian fleet was blessed with a miraculous victory. Pope Saint Pius V immediately dedicated the victory to Our Lady, establishing October 7 as “The Feast of the Most Holy Rosary.”
Fr Petrus Pavlicek convoked the Viennese faithful to a public Rosary procession, asking God to expell the communists from Austria
Fr. Petrus Pavlicek convoked the Viennese faithful to a public Rosary procession, asking God
to expell the communists
from Austria.
Holy Rosary Crusade of Reparation
After World War II, Austria was divided between four countries: America, France, the United Kingdom, and Russia. At the time, Russia was still communist. The section of Austria controlled by the communists was the richest, and included the city of Vienna. The Viennese were subject to the all the atrocities and tyrannies of communism. However, in 1946, Fr. Petrus Pavlicek, after making a pilgrimage to Mariazell, the principle Marian shrine in Austria, was told by an interior voice: “Do as I say and there will be peace.”
To obey this inspiration of Our Lady, Father Pevlicek founded the Holy Rosary Crusade of Reparation in 1947. This Crusade consisted of the Viennese faithful coming out of their homes in order to participate in a public Rosary procession in the streets of the city. The intentions of the Rosary were for the end of communism in their country and in the world. At first, the processions were minuscule, but in time they grew to staggering proportions. In 1955, after eight years spreading the word about the Crusade throughout Austria, the Rosary processions would reach sizes of half a million people, about 1/10 of the Austrian population. Finally, through the help of Our Lady, the Soviet forces pulled out of Austria in October of 1955, leaving the country for good.
The Rosary and the Fatima Message
Between May 13 and October 13, 1917, Our Lady appeared to three shepherd children, Jacinta, Lucia, and Francisco, at the Cova de Iria, near Fatima, Portugal. During six visits, Our Lady communicated to them a secret which had three parts. The first part was a vision of Hell. During this vision, Sister Lucia said numerous souls fell into Hell like “snowflakes.”
Miracle of the Sun in Fatima Portugal where Our Lady appeared, asking for conversion, penance, reparation and sacrifice
In Fatima, Portugal Our Lady appeared, asking for conversion, penance, reparation and sacrifice. To achieve this she requested the daily recitation of the Rosary. In the October apparition, Our Lady performed the Miracle of the Sun (photo above) for everyone to see and believe.
In the second part, Our Lady states that World War I would end, but “if people do not cease offending God, a worse one will break out during the Pontificate of Pius XI. To prevent this, I shall come to ask for the consecration of Russia to my Immaculate Heart, and the Communion of reparation on the First Saturdays. If my requests are heeded, Russia will be converted, and there will be peace; if not, she will spread her errors throughout the world, causing wars and persecutions of the Church.”
As Our Lady predicted, World War II erupted and the errors of atheist Communism spread. Our Lady added that many will be martyred and nations will be annihilated, if people do not convert. Have people converted? The answer is no. Can Divine punishment be avoided?
In July 1972, in New Orleans, La. this statue of Our Lady of Fatima miraculously wept real human tears
In July 1972, in New Orleans, La. this statue of Our Lady of Fatima miraculously wept real human tears.
It depends on the world’s fidelity to Our Lady’s requests.
Lucia asked Our Lady during the apparitions, “Who are you and what do you want?” Our Lady responded, “I am the Lady of the Rosary, and I have come to warn the faithful to amend their lives and ask pardon for their sins. People must not continue to offend the Lord, Who is already so deeply offended. They must say the Rosary.”
Therefore, Our Lady gave us a solution: the recitation of the daily Rosary for the conversion of sinners. The Fatima message is a remedy for our culture immersed in sin. If it were not for Our Lady’s promise that “Finally, My Immaculate Heart will Triumph,” we would be much dismayed and disheartened. So let us heed her requests. Let us practice the First Saturday devotions. Let us pray the daily Rosary. By fulfilling these requests, we will be consoling the sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary and hasten the triumph of good over evil.
Related Articles:
Quotes About the Rosary from Our Lady, Popes, and Saints
Tears, a Miraculous Warning
Find a Public Square Rosary Rally Near You


Tuesday, December 8, 2015

Feast of the Immaculate Conception

The Catholic Church teaches that the Blessed Virgin Mary was immaculately conceived, that is, from the time of her conception in her mother’s womb, she was free from the stain of the original sin of our first parents, Adam and Eve.

This is a singular privilege of Mary Most Holy, applicable to no other human being.
By disobeying God’s command to refrain from eating of the tree of knowledge, Adam and Eve forfeited their original holiness, their innocence and integrity (Genesis 2-3).
They lost sanctifying grace, and human nature became “wounded”. Whereas before original sin our nature’s lower powers, passions and instincts were easily ruled by reason and the spirit, after original sin these same powers, passions and instincts became weakened and rebellious (CCC 396-309). Because Adam and Eve were the “seed” of the great human tree, every human being’s nature is tainted in that seed, although without personal guilt.
But it was only right that one human creature, the one chosen to be the New Ark of the Covenant, the tabernacle of the living God, should be sinless from the start.
Two passages in Scriptures support this claim: 
Genesis 3:15 and Luke 1:28.
Genesis 3:15 mentions that “enmity” would be placed between the serpent and “the Woman”. Sin of any kind is subjection to Satan, and if “the Woman”, interpreted by the Church as Mary, was to have nothing in common with him, she had to be sinless.
In Luke 1:28, the angel calls Mary “full of Grace” pointing to the fact that she had never lacked grace.
Throughout the centuries, several were the antagonists and protagonists of this doctrine. There were saints and sages on both sides of the debate. In the thirteenth century, Venerable Duns Scotus was one of the most brilliant advocates of the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception. His is the beautiful argument that if Our Lord Jesus, as God, was capable of exempting his Mother from the original stain, He would certainly, as a loving Son, have done it.
In 1598 Pope St. Pius V included the feast of the Immaculate Conception in the Roman breviary. In 1846 the Sixth Provincial Council of Baltimore declared Mary Immaculate patroness of the United States.
But it was only in 1854 that Blessed Pope Pius IX solemnly proclaimed, as Church Dogma, the doctrine that Mary was, indeed, exempt from original sin and immaculately conceived.
In 1858 in Lourdes, in the final apparition to young Bernadette Soubirous, Our Lady electrified the world when she said, “I am the Immaculate Conception”, thus echoing Blessed Pius IX’s infallible declaration.

Saturday, December 5, 2015

Today is First Saturday




The Five First Saturdays devotion is one of the principal points of the Fatima message. It centers on the urgent need for mankind to offer reparation and expiate for the many injuries that the Immaculate Heart of Mary suffers from the hands of both impious and indifferent men.



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History
During the third apparition on July 13, 1917, Our Lady revealed that she would come to ask for the consecration of Russia to her Immaculate Heart and for the Communion of Reparation of the Five First Saturdays. Consequently, she asked for the devotion in 1925 and the consecration in 1929.
While staying at the House of the Dorothean Sister in Pontevedra, Portugal, Sister Lucia received a vision on December 10, 1925 where the Blessed Mother appeared alongside a Boy who stood over a luminous cloud. Our Lady rested one hand on the Boy’s shoulder while she held on the other hand a heart pierced with thorns around it.
Sister Lucia heard the Boy say, "Have pity on the Heart of your Most Holy Mother which is covered with thorns with which ingrate men pierce it at every moment with no one to make an act of reparation to pull them out."
Our Lady expressed her request in the following words,
"See, my daughter, My Heart surrounded with thorns with which ingrates pierce me at every moment with blasphemies and ingratitude. You, at least, make sure to console me and announce that all those who for five months, on the first Saturdays, go to confession, receive Communion, say five decades of the Rosary and keep me company for 15 minutes meditating on the mysteries of the Rosary, with the purpose of making reparation to Me, I promise to assist them at the hour of death with all the graces necessary for the salvation of their souls."
A few days afterward, Sister Lucia detailed this vision in a letter addressed to Monsignor Manuel Pereira Lopes, her confessor when she resided in the Asylum of Vilar in the city of Oporto, Portugal.


Why Five Saturdays?     
Sister Lucia’s confessor questioned her about the reason for the five Saturdays asking why not seven or nine. She answered him in a letter dated June 12, 1930. In it she related about a vision she had of Our Lord while staying in the convent chapel part of the night of the twenty-ninth to the thirtieth of the month of May, 1930. The reasons Our Lord gave were as follows:
The five first Saturdays correspond to the five kinds of offenses and blasphemies committed against the Immaculate Heart of Mary. They are:
  a.    Blasphemies against the Immaculate Conception
  b.    Blasphemies against her virginity
  c.    Blasphemies against her divine maternity, at the same time the refusal to accept her as the Mother of all men
  d.    Instilling , indifference, scorn and even hatred towards this Immaculate Mother in the hearts of children
  e.    Direct insults against Her sacred images
Let us keep the above reasons firmly in our minds. Devotions have intentions attached to them and knowing them adds merit and weight to the practice.

Modifications to the Five First Saturdays Devotion to facilitate its observation
The original request of Our Lady asks one to confess and receive Communion on five consecutive first Saturdays; to say five decades of the Rosary; to meditate during 15 minutes on the mysteries of the Rosary for the purpose of making reparation to the Immaculate Heart of Mary in reparation for the sins of men.
In subsequent private visions and apparitions however, Sister Lucia presented to Our Lord the difficulties that devotees encountered in fulfilling some conditions. With loving condescension and solicitude, Our Lord deigned to relax the rules to make this devotion easy to observe:
  • Confession may be done on other days other than the First Saturdays so long as one receives Our Lord worthily and has the intention of making reparation to the Immaculate Heart of Mary.
  • Even if one forgets to make the intention, it may be done on the next confession, taking advantage of the first occasion to go to confession.
  • Sister Lucia also clarified that it is not necessary to meditate on ALL mysteries of the Rosary on each First Saturdays. One or several suffice.
With much latitude granted by Our Lord Himself, there is no reason for the faithful to hesitate or delay this pious practice in the spirit of reparation which the Immaculate Heart of Mary urgently asks.

This devotion is so necessary in our days
The culture of vice and sin remains unabated even as one reads this. Abortion, blasphemy, drug abuse, pornography, divorce and bad marriages, religious indifference, the advances of the homosexual agenda and others are just some of society’s many plagues that cut deeply into the Immaculate Heart of Mary.
We must console Our Lady amidst all these insults and injuries to her and her Divine Son. She asks for reparation, she pleads for our prayers, she hopes for our amendment of life. Let us listen to her maternal pleas and atone for the ingratitude of men.
The First Five Saturdays devotion stimulates the spirit of reparation; it instills a tender love for the Holy Sacraments of Confession and the Blessed Eucharist. It nurtures a holy affection for the Immaculate Heart of Mary and the Rosary. Above all, it is an excellent means to maintain one in the state of grace while immersed in the daily spiritual battles and prosaic existence in the neo-pagan world that we live in.
Let us not delay in observing this devotion for it too gives us hope for eternal salvation.


REFERENCE:
Solimeo, Luiz Sergio, Fatima, A Message More Urgent than Ever 
(Spring Grove, PA: The American Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family, and Property-TFP, 2008.)
  
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