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One Minute Meditation

Laborers for the Harvest

O Jesus, Good Shepherd, raise up in all parish commu­nities, priests and deacons, religious, consecrated lay people and missionaries according to the needs of the whole world, which You love and want to save.

We entrust toYou in a particular way our parish community; create in it the spiritual atmosphere of the first Christians in order that it may be a cenacle of prayer where we lovingly receive the Holy Spirit and His gifts.

Assist our pastors and all consecrated souls. Guide the steps of those who have generously welcomed Your call and prepared themselves for Holy Orders or the profession of the evangelical counsels. Direct Your loving gaze to the many well-disposed young people and invite them to follow You. Help them to understand that only in You they can achieve their fulfillment.

We entrust these great desires of Your Heart to the powerful intercession of Mary, Mother and model of all vocations, and beg You to sustain our faith in the certainty that the Father will listen to what You Yourself have instructed us to ask for. Amen.

~Venerable Pope John Paul II

The stone for the tomb of the unborn babies’ bodies

rescued from the Boulder Abortion Clinic–article posted

at the end of the homily

St. Matthew’s Gospel (Mat. 2: 1-18) describes the events that took place in Bethlehem at the time of Christ’s birth and King Herod’s order that all male infants, two years old and younger, then living in and around Bethlehem be killed. He ordered this in an attempt to kill the new born King who he saw as a threat to his own power. The Book of Micah in the Bible predicted that the Messiah would come from Bethlehem: “But you, Bethlehem out of you will come a ruler who will be the shepherd of my people Israel.” (Micah 5: 2) We call these Holy Innocents martyrs because (more…)

Ave  Maria  Meditations

Ave Maria Meditations

“My answer is prayer. What we need is for every Parish to come before Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament in Holy Hours of prayer. ” “The time you spend with Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament … will help bring about an everlasting peace on earth” (Mother Teresa of Calcutta).

Nobel Peace Prize winner and foundress of the Missionaries of Charity, Mother Teresa brought the homeless, sick, destitute and dying home to “die like angels.” She attributed her many charitable works to her daily Holy Hours of prayer before Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament. Mother Teresa said, “I know I would not be able to work one week if it were not for that continual force coming from Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament.”

Reflections on Eucharistc Adoration from Mother Teresa of Calcutta :

“On the Cross Jesus said: ‘I thirst.’ From the Blessed Sacrament Jesus continues to say to each of us: ‘I thirst.’ He thirsts for our personal love, our intimacy, our union with Him in the Blessed Sacrament. His longing for us to be with Him in the Blessed Sacrament is infinitely greater than our longing to be with Him.”

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Ave Maria Meditations

excerpts from ECCLESIA DE EUCHARISTIA:

On the Eucharist in its relationship to the Church

Encyclical Letter of Pope John Paul II, April 2003

The Church draws her life from the Eucharist. This truth does not simply express a daily experience of faith, but recapitulates the heart of the mystery of the Church. In a variety of ways she joyfully experiences the constant fulfillment of the promise: “Lo, I am with you always, to the close of the age” (Mt 28:20), but in the Holy Eucharist, through the changing of bread and wine into the body and blood of the Lord, she rejoices in this presence with unique intensity…The Second Vatican Council rightly proclaimed that the Eucharistic sacrifice is “the source and summit of the Christian life.  For the most holy Eucharist contains the Church’s entire spiritual wealth: Christ himself, our Passover and living Bread. Through his own flesh, now made living and life-giving by the Holy Spirit, he offers life to men”. Consequently the gaze of the church is constantly turned to her Lord, present in the Sacrament of the Altar, in which she discovers the full manifestation of his boundless love.

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My love lifts up his voice, he says to me, ‘Come then, my beloved, my lovely one, come’. (Song of Songs 2:10)

Ave Maria Meditations

Solemnity of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary,

Body and Soul into Heaven. August 15th
APOSTOLIC CONSTITUTION OF POPE PIUS XII

MUNIFICENTISSIMUS DEUS

DEFINING THE DOGMA OF THE ASSUMPTION

November 1, 1950

http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/pius_xii/apost_constitutions/documents/hf_p-xii_apc_19501101_munificentissimus-deus_en.html

40. Hence the revered Mother of God, from all eternity joined in a hidden way with Jesus Christ in one and the same decree of predestination, immaculate in her conception, a most perfect virgin in her divine motherhood, the noble associate of the divine Redeemer who has won a complete triumph over sin and its consequences, finally obtained, as the supreme culmination of her privileges, that she should be preserved free from the corruption of the tomb and that, like her own Son, having overcome death, she might be taken up body and soul to the glory of heaven where, as Queen, she sits in splendor at the right hand of her Son, the immortal King of the Ages.

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Ave Maria Meditations

In his 1986 Holy Thursday Letter to Priests, Pope John Paul II wrote:

The Mass was for John Mary Vianney the great joy and comfort of his priestly life. He took great care, despite the crowds of penitents, to spend more than a quarter of an hour in silent preparation. He celebrated with recollection, clearly expressing his adoration at the consecration and communion. He accurately remarked: “The cause of priestly laxity is not paying attention to the Mass!”

The Curé of Ars was particularly mindful of the permanence of Christ’s real presence in the Eucharist. It was generally before the tabernacle that he spent long hours in adoration, before daybreak or in the evening; it was towards the tabernacle that he often turned during his homilies, saying with emotion: “He is there!”

It was also for this reason that he, so poor in his presbytery, did not hesitate to spend large sums on embellishing his church. The appreciable result was that his parishioners quickly took up the habit of coming to pray before the Blessed Sacrament, discovering, through the attitude of their pastor, the grandeur of the mystery of faith.

Dear brother priests, the example of the Curé of Ars invites us to a serious examination of conscience: what place do we give to the Mass in our daily lives? Is it, as on the day of our Ordination — it was our first act as priests! — the principle of our apostolic work and personal sanctification? What care do we take in preparing for it? And in celebrating it? In prayng before the Blessed Sacrament? In encouraging our faithful people to do the same? In making our churches the House of God to which the divine presence attracts the people of our time who too often have the impression of a a world empty of God.

OUR LADY OF THE BLESSED SACRAMENT

This title was given to our Blessed Mother in May 1868 by Saint Peter Julian Eymard to honor her in her relationship to the Holy Eucharist and to place her before us as a model in our duties and devotion to the Blessed Sacrament. Our Lady gives witness to being Christian. In her conduct toward the Blessed Sacrament, we learn what ours should be!

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Marycast #61 ( 10min) Play – (Part I) In Marian year of 1987, Pope John Paul II gave the Church one of its greatest Marian encyclicals of all-time, “Redemptoris Mater,” or “Mother of the Redeemer”.  The gems and pearls present in this work reveal to us the wisdom and sanctity of this great pope who was forever in love with the Mother of God.

To ask questions regarding Mary, email Dr Mark Miravalle: marycast@airmaria.com

Ave Maria!

Audio (MP3)

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Marycast #60 ( 10min) Play – (Intro) In Marian year of 1987, Pope John Paul II gave the Church one of its greatest Marian encyclicals of all-time, “Redemptoris Mater,” or “Mother of the Redeemer”.  The gems and pearls present in this work reveal to us the wisdom and sanctity of this great pope who was forever in love with the Mother of God.

To ask questions regarding Mary, email Dr Mark Miravalle: marycast@airmaria.com
Ave Maria!

Ave Maria!

Audio (MP3)
+++