Homily #120516 ( 08min) Play - In today’s Gospel Our Lord teaches us many truths about the Holy Spirit. “But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all truth.”
Ave Maria!
Mass: Ordinary Form -  St. Margaret of Cortona - Memorial
Readings:
1st Reading: Acts 17:15, 22-18:1
Responsorial Psalm: 148:1-2, 11-12, 13, 14
Gospel: John 16:12-15

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Queen of Heaven, Rejoice

Regina cæli lætare, Alleluia; Quia quem meruisti portare, Alleluia; Resurrexit, sicut dixit, Alleluia: Ora pro nobis Deum, Alleluia. 

Queen of Heaven rejoice, Alleluia; For the Son thou wast privileged to bear, Alleluia; is risen as He said, Alleluia: Pray for us to God, Alleluia.

This ancient Latin hymn and prayer is sung or recited at the Angelus during the entire Easter season, until Pentecost, replacing the usual Angelus prayers. The hymn reveals the intimate bond uniting the Virgin Mother of God to her Divine Son, who glorifies her, and with whom she intercedes for mankind, as she did at Cana.

“Rejoice, you who are full of grace” 

The Holy Spirit prepared Mary by His grace. It was fitting that the mother of Jesus in whom “the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily” should herself be “full of grace.” She was, by sheer grace, conceived without sin as the most humble of creatures, the most capable of welcoming the inexpressible gift of the Almighty. It was quite correct for the angel Gabriel to greet her as the “Daughter of Zion”: “Rejoice.” It is the thanksgiving of the whole People of God, and thus of the Church, which Mary in her canticle lifts up to the Father in the Holy Spirit while carrying within her the eternal Son.

a meditation from the Apostles of the Holy Spirit

Homily #120514 ( 06min) Play - As Our Lord exhorts us in today’s Gospel, St. Matthias, at the end of his apostolic ministry, laid down his life for his friends.
Ave Maria!
Mass: Ordinary Form - St. Matthias the Apostle – Feast
Readings:
1st Reading: Acts 1:15-17, 20-26
Responsorial Psalm: 113:1-2, 3-4, 5-6, 7-8
Gospel: John 15:9-17

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Homily #120513 ( 35min) Play – Fr. Bonaventure on the Gospel message “This I command you, Love one another as I love you.”  He reflects that following God’s commandments is the way to love Him and so abide in His love and so be able to love ones neighbor. There is no opposition between love and the law for love fulfills the law and obeying the law fulfills love. This is what Jesus did on the Cross for all of us.
Ave Maria!
Mass: Sunday 6th Week of Easter – Sunday – Form: OF
Readings: 
1st: act 10:25-26, 34-35, 44-48
Resp: psa 98:1, 2-3, 3-4
2nd: 1jo 4:7-10
Gsp: joh 15:9-17

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Homily #120513t ( 09min) Play - In confirmation we are given the grace to give witness to the truth of Christ. God never gives a test without the means to pass.
Ave Maria!
Mass: Sunday 6th Week of Easter – Sunday – Form: OF
Readings: 
1st: act 10:25-26, 34-35, 44-48
Resp: psa 98:1, 2-3, 3-4
2nd: 1jo 4:7-10
Gsp: joh 15:9-17

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Variety #201 - SheIsCatholic ( 04min) >>> Play

Ave Maria!

This video is not about medication.
(Miraculous medals our lady of the miraculous medal st Catherine of laboure apparition)

Ave Maria!

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Fifth Sunday After Easter

13 May 2012

“Amen, amen, I say to you if you ask the Father anything in my name, he will give it to you.” Jn. 16:23

Once again, today’s liturgy again, as in the past four Sundays after Easter, prepares us for Jesus’ Ascension, when He will leave His Apostles, and for Pentecost, when He will send the Holy Spirit to enlighten and strengthen them. Jesus also wants to console the Apostles for His absence by promising them that they can ask the Father anything “in His Name” and they will receive it: “Amen, amen, I say to you if you ask the Father anything in my name, he will give it to you.” Jn. 16:23 This istruly a consoling promise to the forlorn Apostles. They no longer have to fear being alone Jesus’ promise of asking the Father for help in His Name in today’s Gospel (Jn. 16:23-30) and the teaching of today’s Epistle from St. James (1:22-27)provide us with a solid teaching on efficacious prayer. If we pray, as Jesus taught His Apostles, then we have absolute confidence that we will be heard. All we need to do is to pray “in the Name of Jesus” with a good conscience, humility and confidence.

Ask “in the Name of Jesus”

When we pray “in the Name of Jesus,” our prayers and our good works obtain a superabundant value as they are founded on the infinite merits of Jesus Christ. We must remember that we are unprofitable servants (cf. Lk. 17:10) who can do nothing (cf. Jn. 15:5) of ourselves and that our sufficiency comes from Jesus Crucified. “Consequently,” according to Fr. Gabriel in Divine Intimacy, “the first condition of prayer made ‘in the name of Jesus’ is humility, an ever deeper and more realistic sense of our nothingness. It must be complemented by the second condition, a boundless confidence in the merits of Jesus, which surpass all our poverty, misery, necessities and needs. In view of Jesus’ infinite merits, we can never ask too much in His Name: we can never be too bold in imploring the plenitude of divine grace for our souls, in aspiring to that sanctity which is hidden, but genuine. …Moreover, there is no creature of good will, no matter how weak and insignificant, who, ‘in the Name of Jesus,’ cannot aspire to sanctity.” Fr. Gabriel, p. 524

“Be ye doers of the word

and not hearers only.”Ja. 1:22

“However, in order to make our prayer effective, a third condition is required: our life must correspond to our prayer, our faith must be translated into good works. ‘Be ye doers of the word and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves. For if a man be a hearer of the word and not a doer, he shall be compared to a man beholding his own countenance in a glass. For he beheld himself, and went his way, and presently forgot what manner of man he was.’ Ja. 1:22 This strong exhortation of St. James, which is found in today’s Epistle is an urgent reminder of the practical character of the Christian life. Vain is our prayer, vain our confidence in God, if we do not add our generous efforts to perform all our duties, to live up to our high vocation. We can add, and we should, hope for everything in the ‘Name of Jesus,’ but He expects a constant effort on our part to be entirely faithful to Him.” Fr. Gabriel, p. 524-5.

“…through our Lord Jesus Christ.”

Cornelius a Lapide in his Commentary on the Gospel of St. John, also reminds us why it is so important to pray genuinely “in the Name of Jesus”: “…To ask in the name of Christ is to ask through Christ, or through Christ’s merits, dignity, and authority. For Christ, by His passion and death, merited that we should obtain from God whatever we ask in His name. Therefore this obtaining, with respect to us, is grace, and with respect to Christ is but justice. ‘His name’ signifies in Scripture His strength, virtue, merits, grace, dignity and authority. Therefore to ask in the name of Christ, is to ask while counting on His merits, and to trust in them, not in our own; that God may look, not on our unworthiness and our sins, but upon the face of His anointed, and on account of His sanctity and merits grant us that which we do not deserve. Christ therefore points here not merely to God, but to God incarnate, and obedient even unto the death of the cross. For He merited, that the Father should hear our prayers. This is the Church’s interpretation, for she ends all her prayers ‘through our Lord Jesus Christ.’Thus the Jews used to pray through the merits of their fathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. But we Christians pray through the merits of Christ, who infinitely surpasses their merits.” a Lapide, p . 660.

For the good of our salvation

Since Jesus promised us that the Father would answer all our prayers, if we pray in His Name, we might ask why then are our prayers not answered as we wish? Cornelius a Lapide answers this observation: “Again, to ask in the name of Christ, is to ask those things which He wishes and desires to be given us, those namely which concern the salvation of the soul. Hence such a prayer is effectual, and is heard by God….The reason they obtain not, is because they ask not the things which they ought, not in the way they ought….It requires contrition for sin, so that he who prays may be, or may heartily wish to become, a friend of God. Sinners therefore, wilfully persisting in sin, are not heard by God…. It requires great faith and hope, or confidence, that we shall obtain what we ask for through the merits of Christ. This confidence many have not, and therefore they obtain not… Lastly, St. Augustine rightly observes, ‘God occasionally refuses what we ask for, because this is more expedient for our salvation and His glory. God therefore hears us, not according to our wishes, but according to our salvation.’” a Lapide, p. 660-1

The Need for Prayer

Our Holy Father, Bl. John Paul II, spoke of the absolute need for prayer in our lives: “… we must pray too because we are fragile and culpable. We need to admit humbly and truly that we are poor creatures, with confused ideas…We are fragile and weak, and in constant need of interior strength and consolation. Prayer gives us strength for great ideals, for keeping up our faith, charity, purity, generosity; prayer gives us strength to rise up from indifference and guilt, if we have had the misfortune to give into temptation and weakness. Prayer gives light by which to see and to judge from God’s perspective and from eternity. That is why you must not give up praying! Don’t let a day go by without praying a little! Prayer is a duty, but it is also a joy because it is a dialogue with God through Jesus Christ.” (Bl. John Paul II, Audience with Young People, 14 March 1979)

Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament

“Could you not, then, watch one hour with Me?” Mt. 26:40

From “HOLY FATHER’S PASTORAL LETTER TO THE CATHOLICS OF IRELAND” (3 March 2010) “….  Particular attention should also be given to Eucharistic adoration, and in every diocese there should be churches or chapels specifically devoted to this purpose. I ask parishes, seminaries, religious houses and monasteries to organise periods of Eucharistic adoration, so that all have an opportunity to take part. Through intense prayer before the real presence of the Lord, you can make reparation for the sins of abuse that have done so much harm, at the same time imploring the grace of renewed strength and a deeper sense of mission on the part of all bishops, priests, religious and lay faithful.” (No. 14) We are now in our second year of Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament from after Mass until Benediction at 3:10 P. M. every day.

May is the Month of Mary:

Our beloved Holy Father Bl. John Paul II spoke of the importance devotion to Our Lady and the Family Rosary: “The Christian family finds and consolidates its identity in prayer. Make the daily effort to find a time to pray together, to talk with Our Lord and listen to his voice. How beautiful it is when the family prays in the evening, even though it be only a part of the Rosary. The family that prays together stays together; a family that prays is a family that is saved. Act in such a way that your home may be a place of Christian faith and virtue through your praying together.” (Address to families, 24 March 1984)

May Crowning and Consecration

Today, 13 May 2012 (the Anniversary of the First Apparition of Our Lady at Fatima), we will have a May Crowning of Our Lady and a Consecration to the Immaculate according to St. Maximilian Kolbe at our Lourdes Grotto after Mass. This is a most important devotion as it honours Our Holy Mother during her special Month of May,and it binds us to her as her special “possession and property.” St. Maximilian Kolbe spoke of all those who are consecrated to the Immaculate “She penetrates our soul and directs its faculties with unlimited power. We truly belong to Her. Therefore, we are with Her always and everywhere…”(SK 461)

And further still: “We are Hers, of the Immaculate, unlimitedly Hers, perfectly Hers, we are, as it were, Her very self. She, by means of us, loves the good God. She, with our poor heart, loves Her divine Son. We become the means by which the Immaculate loves Jesus, and Jesus, seeing that we are Her property, a part, as it were, of His most loving Mother, loves Her in and through us. What beautiful mysteries!” Sk 508

St. Maximilian declared that those who are consecrated to the Immaculate would be a means of holiness and grace to others (especially their own family): “She needs to be brought into all hearts,’so that She, upon entering into these hearts,may give birth there to the sweet Jesus, to God, and bring Him up even tothat perfect age. What a beautiful mission!” SK508

St. Louis de Montfort tells us of Total Consecration to Mary: “This devotion consists, therefore, in giving ourselves entirely to the Most Blessed Virgin that, through her we may belong entirely to Jesus Christ. We must give her: (1) our body with all its senses and members; (2) our soul with its powers; (3) our material possessions and all that we may acquire; (4) our interior and spiritual possessions—our merits, our virtues and our good works, past, present, and future; in short, all that we possess in the order of nature, in the order of grace …” St. Louis de Montfort, True Devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary, p. 88-9

Sister, also mention that tea and coffee are avail-able in St. Joseph’s Hall after Mass. All are welcome.

On May 13th, 1917, Our Lady made the first of six apparitions to three little sheperd children…

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS ABOUT FATIMA

1. WHAT IS THE MESSAGE OF FATIMA?

The Message of Fatima consists of a number of precise predictions, requests, warnings and promises concerning the Faith and the world which were conveyed by the Blessed Virgin Mary to three shepherd children–Lucia, Jacinta and Francisco–in a series of apparitions at Fatima, Portugal from May to October 1917.

2. WHY SHOULD I BELIEVE THE MESSAGE OF FATIMA?
You should believe the Message of Fatima because:

(1) It was confirmed by an unprecedented public miracle, the Miracle of the Sun, which occurred at precisely the moment Lucia said it would. More than 70,000 people, including Masons, communists and atheists, saw the sun, contrary to all cosmic laws, twirl in the sky, throw off colors and descend to earth. The event was reported in newspapers around the world, including the New York Times.

(2) All of the Popes since the Fatima Miracle have recognized that the Message is authentic. Several Popes have gone to Fatima in person, including Paul VI, John Paul I and John Paul II. John Paul II said at Fatima in 1982 that “the Message of Fatima imposes an obligation on the Church.”

(3) Many other miracles have been performed by God authenticating the Fatima Message as coming from Him, not only at the time of the Miracle of the Sun, October 13, 1917, but down the years to the present day, miracles of conversions and cures which science cannot explain by natural means.

(4) The Message of Fatima accurately predicted world events, which proves that it is a true prophecy.

3. WHAT DID THE MESSAGE OF FATIMA PREDICT?

The Message of Fatima accurately predicted in 1917 all of the following events which came to pass:

(1) the end of World War I;

(2) the emergence of Russia as a world power which would “spread its errors (including Communism) throughout the world … raising up wars and persecutions against the Church”;

(3) the election of a Pope who would be named Pius XI;

(4) the waging of a second World War following a strange light in the night sky.

The Message of Fatima also predicted that if the requests of the Virgin Mary at Fatima are not honored, many souls will be lost, “the Holy Father will have much to suffer”, there will be further wars and persecutions of the Church and “various nations will be annihilated.” The annihilation of nations predicted at Fatima has not yet occurred, but many fear that it will soon happen, given the growing immorality and corruption of the world.

4. WHAT DOES THE MESSAGE OF FATIMA REQUEST?

At Fatima Our Lady said that God wished to establish in the world devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. Our Lady said that many souls would be saved from Hell and the annihilation of nations averted if, in time, devotion to Her Immaculate Heart were established principally by these two means:

1) the Consecration of Russia to the Immaculate Heart of Mary by the Pope together with the world’s bishops in a solemn public ceremony, and

(2) the practice or receiving Holy Communion (and other specific devotions of about 1/2 hour in duration) in reparation for the sins committed against the Blessed Virgin Mary, on the first Saturdays of five consecutive months–a practice known to Catholics as “the First Saturday” devotion.

5. WHAT DOES THE MESSAGE OF FATIMA WARN?

It warns that if the requests of Our Lady of Fatima for the Consecration of Russia and the First Saturday devotion are not honored, the Church will be persecuted, there will be other major wars, the Holy Father will have much to suffer and various nations will be annihilated. Many nations will be enslaved by Russian militant atheists. Most important, many souls will be lost.

6. WHAT DOES THE MESSAGE OF FATIMA PROMISE?

The Message of Fatima promises that if the requests of Our Lady of Fatima are carried out “My Immaculate Heart will triumph. The Holy Father will Consecrate Russia to Me, which will be converted, and a period of peace will be granted to mankind.”

7. WHY IS THE MESSAGE OF FATIMA IMPORTANT TO ME AND MY FAMILY?

The Message of Fatima is important to you and your family because it involves the salvation of souls, peace in the world and, if the requests of Our Lady of Fatima are not carried out, the consequences are the annihilation of nations and the enslavement of all mankind under militant atheists of Russia.

8. BUT ISN’T THE MESSAGE OF FATIMA JUST A PRIVATE REVELATION WHICH NO CATHOLIC HAS TO BELIEVE?

No, it is not just a private revelation. It is a public, prophetic revelation given by the Virgin Mary, the Mother of God. It is not to be confused with “Revelation” or as it is also called, the Deposit of the Faith, which ended with the death of the last Apostle. But public, prophetic revelation must not be despised. The Virgin Mary’s prophecy was confirmed by a public miracle and authenticated by a whole line of Popes. Also, its predictions have come true.

So, while belief in the Message of Fatima may not strictly be required of Catholics as an article of faith, one would be very foolish to disregard such an obviously authentic message from Heaven. As St. Paul taught: “Despise not prophecies, but prove all things; hold fast to that which is good.” (1 Thess. 5:20-21) The prophecy of Fatima has been proven worthy of belief. We should not despise it, but rather hold fast to what Our Lady told us at Fatima.

Homily #120512 ( 05min) Play – We anticipate the Feast of Our Lady of Fatima today because it falls on Sunday this year.
Ave Maria!
Mass: Saturday 5th Week of Easter – Wkdy – Form: OF
Readings: 
1st: act 16:1-10
Resp: psa 100:1-2, 3, 5
Gsp: joh 15:18-21

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