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One Minute Meditation

For Holy Church and for Priests

O my Jesus, I beg You on behalf of the whole Church, grant it love and the light of Your Spirit and give power to the words of priests so that hardened hearts might be brought to repentance and return to You, O Lord.

Lord, give us holy priests. You Yourself maintain them in holiness.  O Divine and Great High Priest, may the power of Your mercy accompany them everywhere and protect them from the devil’s traps and snares which are continually being set for the souls of priests.

May the power of Your mercy, O Lord, shatter and bring to naught all that might tarnish the sanctity of priests, for You can do all things. I ask You, Jesus, for a special blessing and for light for the priests before whom I will make my confessions throughout my lifetime. Amen.

~ St. Faustina

Mary, Co-redemptrix with Christ. The meaning of pain.  

Old Simeon, having blessed the young couple, turned to Mary and, inspired by the Holy Spirit, opened her eyes to the sufferings her Son would have to undergo and to the sword of sorrow that would pierce her soul. Pointing to Jesus, he said: Behold, this child is set for the fall and rising of many in Israel, and for a sign that is spoken against (and a sword will pierce through your own soul also), that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed. (Lk. 2:35)

Commenting on this, St Bernard says: The time will come when Jesus will not be offered in the temple nor in the arms of Simeon, but outside the city walls on the arms of a cross. The time will come when he will not be ransomed with money but will himself redeem others with his own blood, for God the Father has sent him as a ransom for his people.  The suffering of his Mother, the sword that will pierce her soul, will have as their only cause the agony of her Son, his persecution and death, the uncertainty about when these things will happen, and the resistance to the grace of the Redemption, which will be the ruin of many. Mary’s destiny is bound up with that of Jesus, in its operation, and without any other possible reason. (more…)

Ave Maria Meditations

THE MAGNIFICAT: THE HUMILITY OF MARY

The humility of the Blessed Virgin and the meaning of humility.

Wherever she went, the Blessed Virgin was a bringer of joy: For behold, when the voice of your greeting came to my ears, the babe in my womb leaped for joy, says St Elizabeth, referring to John the Baptist with whom she was then with child. Hearing such praise from her cousin, Our Lady replied with words which have become that most beautiful hymn of jubilation: My soul magni­fies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior.

In the Magnificat is to be found the deepest meaning of true humility. Mary considers that God has regarded the low estate of his handmaiden. Thus, He who is mighty has done great things in her. On this scale then, one of grandeur and humility,is passed Our Lady’s entire life. What humility, that of my holy Mother Mary! She is not to be seen amidst the palms of Jerusalem, nor – excepting the first one at Cana – at the hour of the great miracles. But she doesn’t flee from the degradation of Golgotha: there she stands, ‘juxta crucem Jesu’, by the Cross of Jesus – His Mother. She never sought the slightest personal glory.

The virtue of humility, so evident in Our Lady’s life, is truth, the true recognition of what we are and are worth in the eyes of God and of our fellow men. It is also an emptying of ourselves to allow God to work in us with his grace. It is the rejection of appearances and of all superficiality; it is the expression of the depth of the human spirit; it is a condition for its greatness. Humility is founded on the awareness of our position in the eyes of God and on the wise moderation of our always excessive desires for glory. It should never be confused with timidity, faint-heartedness or mediocrity. It is not opposed to our awareness of the talents we have received, nor to the full use of them with rectitude of intention, for humility does not diminish, but broadens one’s outlook.

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One Minute Meditation

Prayer to the Eternal High Priest

O Jesus, Eternal Priest, keep Your priests within the shelter of Your Most Sacred Heart, where none can touch them. Keep unstained their anointed hands, which daily touch Your Sacred Body. Keep unsullied their lips daily tinged with Your Precious Blood. Keep pure and unworldly their hearts, sealed with the sublime mark of the priesthood. Let Your Holy Love surround and protect them from the world’s contagion. Bless their labors with abundant fruit, and may the souls to whom they minister be their joy and consolation here, and their everlasting crown in the hereafter. Amen.

~ St. Therese of the Child Jesus

Ave Maria Meditations

“Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in Heaven.” (Mt. 5:12)

Reflection of Fr. Alfred Delp while in prison in the Advent of 1944, after  months of torture, shackles, and confinement: he reflected on joy.  He would be martyred by the Nazis two months later, on February 2, 1945.

The Conditions for True Joy

Well now, what is joy, true joy? The philosophers say it is satisfaction and emotional uplift in response to the goods at one’s disposal. That may be true of some phenomena of joy, but it is not joy itself. Otherwise, how could I attain to true joy in these times and in this situation? Is there any point in bothering about joy? Is joy not among those luxury items of life that have no place in the meager private area tolerated in wartime conversations? Certainly it has no place in a prison cell where someone is pacing back and forth, his hands in irons, his heart swelled by all the winds of longing, his head filled with worries and questions.

Someone must experience such a situation, must have it happen time and again, that suddenly the heart no longer can grasp the abundance of inflowing life and happiness, that suddenly, and without knowing why or how, the flags are in place once again over existence, and promises are valid again. One time or another, it might be the self-defense mechanism of existence fighting against crushing abuse and violation ­but not every time. It was so often a presentiment of good news on the way-such things do happen in our Monastery of the Hard Life. And often, soon afterward, resourceful love found a way to us with a gift of kindness at a time when this was not customary.

However, that was not all. There have been, and continue to be, times where one is comforted and spiritually uplifted: times where one sees the facts of the case exactly as real and hopeless as ever and yet is not grieved by it, but truly manages to turn the whole thing over to the Lord.

Joy in human life has to do with God. (more…)

One Minute Meditation

Prayers for All Priests

My God, I pray for all Your priests and beseech You to sanctify them. Let them love their sacrifice deeply so that they may live it lovingly. I beg You, grant them obedience, a spirit of detachment, a chastity which is constant and true, a spirit of self-denial, humility, sweetness, zeal and dedication.

I beg You that all those who may approach them may leave them with a greater love for You. My God, I pray that through them Your Kingdom on earth may grow and be strengthened.  O Jesus, I promise with all my heart to sacrifice myself with You. Amen.

~ Canon Formingio

One Minute Meditations

A Prayer for Priests:

O Almighty, Eternal God, look upon the Face of Your Son and for love of Him, who is the Eternal High Priest, have pity on Your priests. Remember, O most compassionate God, that they are but weak and frail human beings. Stir up in them the grace of their vocation which is in them by the imposition of the bishop’s hands. Keep them close to You, lest the enemy prevail against them, so that they may never do anything in the slightest degree unworthy of their sublime vocation.

O Jesus, I pray for Your faithful and fervent priests; for Your unfaithful and tepid priests; for Your priests laboring at home or abroad in distant mission fields; for Your tempted priests; for the lonely and desolate priests; for Your young priests; for Your dying priests; for the souls of Your priests in purgatory. But above all, I commend to You the priests dearest to me, the priest who baptized me, the priests who have absolved me from my sins, the priests at whose Masses I have assisted and who have offered me Your Body and Blood in Holy Communion, the priests who have taught and instructed me or helped and encouraged me, and the priests to whom I am indebted in any other way. O Jesus, keep them all close to Your Heart, and bless them abundantly in time and in eternity. Amen.

~ Cardinal Cushing

Ave Maria Meditations  

“The Lord is in the midst of you.”

It is St. John the Baptist who speaks to us in the Gospel (Jn1:I9~28),   ” There is one in the midst of you whom you know not.” John, a man of faith, was telling the Jews with full conviction that Jesus had been living among them for thirty years and that they did not know Him because He had not yet manifested Himself by miracles.

His words have value for us too; Jesus is really present in our midst: present in our tabernacles by the Eucharist, present in our souls by grace. But who recognizes Him? Only those who believe. Revive, then, your faith; you will find Jesus, and will know Jesus according to the measure of your faith in Him. Sometimes He conceals Himself from you, and you think that you will never find Him, never feel Him again. This is the time to redouble your faith, to walk “in pure faith.” “Blessed are they that have not seen, and have believed”(Jn.20:29). Such was the faith of St. John the Baptist, who had not seen Jesus’ miracles, and never­theless believed.

Such was Mary’s faith, to which the Vesper antiphon refers, “Blessed art thou, O Mary, that hast believed the Lord; those things will be fulfilled in thee,  which were spoken to thee.” (Lk.1:45). Even Mary lived by faith; she had to believe in the words of the Angel, and when she agreed to become the Mother of God, she had to accept a mystery which she did not understand. But Mary did believe, and by her faith, God’s words were accomplished in her. And so shall they be in you; you will see all your hopes fulfilled, you will be able to realize your ideal of intimate union with God if you have faith in Him and in His promises. (more…)

From the Encyclical Letter of Ven. Pius XII: Mystici Corporis (on the Mystical Body of Christ and our union with It with Christ)

He wished to make known and proclaim His Spouse through the visible coming of the Holy Spirit with the sound of a mighty wind and tongues of fire. For just as He Himself when He began to preach was made known by His Eternal Father through the Holy Spirit descending and remaining on Him in the form of a dove, so likewise, as the Apostles were about to enter upon their ministry of preaching, Christ our Lord sent the Holy Spirit down from Heaven, to touch them with tongues of fire and to point out, as by the finger of God, the supernatural mission and office of the Church.

The Rosary: The First Luminous Mystery

THE BAPTISM OF THE LORD

• John is baptizing in the Jordan proclaiming a baptism of repentance.
• “I am the voice of one crying in the desert, make straight the way of the Lord.”
• “One mightier than I is coming after me.”
• “I have baptized you with water, He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.”
• Seeing Jesus, John exclaims: “Behold the Lamb of God.”
• After Jesus’ baptism a voice from Heaven: “This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased.”
• The Spirit descends upon Jesus in the form of a dove.
• In this heavenly manifestation is instituted the sacrament of baptism.
• The divine Trinity is manifested: the voice of the Father is heard as the Spirit descends upon the Son.
• Filled with the Holy Spirit, Jesus was led by the Spirit into the desert for 40 days.

Spiritual Fruit: Gratitude for the gift of Faith

The Voice is John, the Word is Christ

John is the voice, but the Lord is the Word who was in the beginning. John is the voice that lasts for a time; from the beginning Christ is the Word who lives for ever. Take away the word, the meaning, and what is the voice? Where there is no understanding, there is only a meaningless sound. The voice without the word strikes the ear but does not build up the heart.

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Ave Maria Meditations

He chose his Mother … When we reflect upon the joy which it is to ourselves to think of Mary, to brood upon her supernatural loveliness, and to study the greatness of her gifts and the surpassing purity of her virtues, we shall get such faint idea, as lies within our compass, of the unspeakable gladness which it must have been to the Word to have chosen Mary, and to have created her through that very choice.

He must choose a Mother who shall be worthy of being the Mother of God, a Mother suitable to that tremendous mystery of the Hypostatic Union, a Mother fitted to minister that marvelous Body out of her own heart’s blood, and to be herself for months the tabernacle of that most heavenly Soul. All God’s works are in proportion. When he appoints to an office, his appointment is marked by extreme fitness. He ele­vates nature to the level of his own purposes. He enables it to compass the most supernatural destinies by fulfilling it with the most incredible graces. There was no accident about his choice of Mary. (more…)

Ave Maria Meditations

The priesthood in the Catholic Church is identified with many things. The priest can be pastor, teacher, counselor, writer, admin­istrator, or social worker; but the main reason he has been ordained is because of the Eucharist. So true is this that if we would specify the heart of the priesthood we would have to say it is the Eucharist: the Eucharist as Presence and the Eucharist as Sacrifice. A priest makes the Real Presence possible and no one, no king, no ge­nius, not even the will of a thousand people, nor the combined efforts of a whole nation, can substitute for the power of a priest’s consecrated words: “This is My Body. .. This is the chalice of My Blood.” (more…)

Ave Maria Mediations

AN EPIPHANY BLESSING OF A HOME +

(one form):

All make the Sign of the Cross.

Head of Household: “Peace be to this house and: to all who dwell here, in the name of tfie Lord.

All: Blessed be God forever.

Reader: In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. (more…)