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Ave Maria Meditations

It is a great thing to realize that in order to be saints we have only to be what God made us to be, and to do what God made us to do. If we are clever, then to be clever; if we are not clever, then not to be clever; if we are successful, then to be successful; if not successful, then not to succeed; if in good health, then to be healthy; if sickly, then to be sickly; and so on. Perfect simplicity with regard to ourselves; perfect contentment with everything that comes our way; perfect peace of mind in utter self-forgetfulness. 

This becomes easier the more we realize the utter greatness and goodness and allness of God. Then we realize our own utter insignificance and worthlessness and nothingness; a mere squeak of a mouse in the infin­ity of God. If we see the whole, we shall easily despise the trifles; if we lose ourselves in God, how puny the rest appears!  

This is the cure for making too much of little things whether they go right, or whether they go wrong, which is the cause of all our loss of peace of mind. This is the real test of sanctity, that simplicity of trust in God, which is the perfection of human nature. In the end, when life is done and all is over, such a soul is found more precious than one that has shone in many deeds.

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Homily #111101s ( 09min) Play – On the morning of All Saints Day Fr. Dominic preaches on how the crowd of saints are very much interested in our efforts to become Holy and are interceding with God on our behalf that we are able to persevere though all the same difficulties that they themselves have overcome.
Ave Maria!
Mass: All Saints – Solemnity – Form: OF
Readings:
1st: rev 7:2-4, 9-14
Resp: psa 24:1-2, 3-4, 5-6
2nd: 1jo 3:1-3
Gsp: mat 5:1-12

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Homily #111101 ( 15min) Play – On all Saints Eve we have our annual Celebration where all the kids come dressed as their favorite saints. Fr. Dominic preaches on how these kids are following good models and how we all need to do this and to ask for the saints to intercede for us and to intercede for each other before God to become real saints.
Ave Maria!
Mass: All Saints – Solemnity – Form: OF
Readings:
1st: rev 7:2-4, 9-14
Resp: psa 24:1-2, 3-4, 5-6
2nd: 1jo 3:1-3
Gsp: mat 5:1-12

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Homily #101204 ( 05min) Play – Fr. Dominic preaches on today’s Gospel where Our Lord says,”The harvest indeed is great, but the laborers are few. Pray therefore the Lord of the harvest, that he send forth laborers into his harvest.” Priests and laity must both pray for this and for holiness of Pastors and sheep alike.
Ave Maria!
Mass: St. John Damascene – Optnl Memorial – Form: OF
Readings: Saturday in the 1st Week in Advent
1st: isa 30:19-21, 23-26
Resp: psa 147:1-2, 3-4, 5-6
Gsp: mat 9:35, 10:1, 6-8

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Homily #101203 ( 06min) Play – Fr. Dominic preaches on the life of St. Francis Xavier who as one of the first Jesuits went on missions to the Orient evangelizing and Baptizing countless thousands of new converts. Father exhorts us to have this same orientation of zeal of souls by living our own lives out of love for God, all fueled by a faithful prayer life.
Ave Maria!
Mass: St. Francis Xavier – Memorial – Form: OF
Readings: Friday in the 1st Week in Advent
1st: isa 29:17-24
Resp: psa 27:1, 4, 13-14
Gsp: mat 9:27-31

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Homily #101129 ( 07min) Play – Today is the feast of All Saints of the Franciscan Order where we honor all the Franciscan saints. Fr. Dominic explains how St. Francis founded his three orders in order to produce saints and great ones. He exhorts us friars to be one of those saints by following the four Ps: Penance, Perseverance , Prayer, Preaching,
Ave Maria!
Mass: All Saints of the Franciscan Ord. – Feast – Form: OF
Readings:
1st: sir 44:1, 10-15
Resp: psa 24:1-2, 3-4, 5-6
Gsp: mar 10:17-21

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Conferences #97 – Fr. James McCurry reciting the prayer for Canonization of Bls. Scotus and Newman ( 06min) >>> Play

Ave Maria!

For Scotus Month:

During the the Newman-Scotus Symposium in Washington, DC on Oct 22, Fr. James McCurry makes the first public recitation of the new prayer to obtain the canonization of Bl. John Newman and Bl. John Duns Scotus. Please follow along using the subtitles in the video. The text has also been provided below. Bls. Newman and Scotus pray for us!

Prayer to Obtain the Canonization of
Bl. John Henry Newman (1801-1890) and
Bl. John Duns Scotus (1265-1308)

Heavenly Father, the two great Oxford scholars, Bl. John Duns Scotus and Bl. John Henry Newman, spent their lives in the service of Holy Mother Church and the salvation of souls. With courageous loyalty to the truth and exemplary obedience to the Church they sought to show how best to sanctify the intellect in the pursuit of holiness and wisdom. The insights of Bl. John Duns Scotus into the mystery of divine love and the Incarnation, his profound understanding of and devotion to the Immaculate Virgin Mother, his defense of the Holy Eucharist and the Church; the sage counsels of Bl. John Henry on living our faith in a radically secularized world and his deeply moving illustrations of our hope inspire us to ask you, the Giver of all good gifts, to grant that these two great examples of Christian virtue and learning might soon be counted among the Saints to be imitated by the faithful.

Through the intercession of Bl. Scotus we ask you for this favor….

Through the intercession of Bl. Newman we ask you for this favor….

In all this, may we learn to speak “heart to heart” with Jesus through Mary and pass from “shadows and images into the Truth”, your Son and our Savior, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, forever and ever. Amen

Please report any favors received from either Bl. Scotus or Bl. Newman to:

The Very Reverend James McCurry, OFMConv.
12300 Folly Quarter Rd.
Ellicott City, MD 21042

IMPRIMATUR + Edwin F. O’Brien, D.D,
Archbishop, Archdiocese of Baltimore

Ave Maria!

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Homily #101115 ( 07min) Play – Our Lord cures the blind man in today’s Gospel and says, “Receive your sight: your faith has made you whole”. Fr. Dominic relates this to the blindness of sin that blinds us to spiritual goods and to the needs of our neighbors.
Ave Maria!
Mass: St. Albert the Great – Optnl Memorial – Form: OF
Readings: Monday in the 33rd Week in Ordinary Time
1st: rev 1:1-4; 2:1-5
Resp: psa 1:1-2, 3, 4, 6
Gsp: luk 18:35-43

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Homily #101101 ( 12min) Play – Fr. Dominic preaches on the need to desire sanctity in order to get to heaven and this is why we honor all the saints on this Solemnity of All Saints, to spur our desire. This desire must extend beyond our first fervor of a moment of conversion, and be fostered until the day we depart from this life. We must have purity of heart to achieve peace with God and peace among men in the likeness of Mary Immaculate. To get this long-lasting desire we must pray for it.
Ave Maria! All Saints – Mass: OF, – Readings:
1st: rev 7:2-4, 9-14
Resp: psa 24:1-2, 3-4, 5-6
2nd: 1jo 3:1-3
Gsp: mat 5:1-12

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Ave Maria Meditations

Nothing is far from God. - Saint Monica

Son, nothing in this world now affords me delight. I do not know what there is now for me to do or why I am still here, all my hopes in this world being now fulfilled.

- Saint Monica, about the conversion of Augustine

The day was now approaching when my mother Monica would depart from this life; you know that day, Lord, though we did not. She and I happened to be standing by ourselves at a window that overlooked the garden in the courtyard of the house. At the time we were in Ostia on the Tiber. And so the two of us, all alone, were enjoying a very pleasant conversation, “forgetting the past and pushing on to what is ahead..”

We were asking one another in the presence of the Truth – for you are the Truth – what it would be like to share the eternal life enjoyed by the saints, which “eye has not seen, nor ear heard, which has not even entered into the heart of man.” We desired with all our hearts to drink from the streams of your heavenly fountain, the fountain of life. That was the substance of our talk, though not the exact words.

But you know, O Lord, that in the course of our conversation that day, the world and its pleasures lost all their attraction for us. My mother said, “Son, as far as I am concerned, nothing in this life now gives me any pleasure. I do not know why I am still here, since I have no further hopes in this world. I did have one reason for wanting to live a little longer: to see you become a Catholic Christian before I died. God has lavished his gifts on me in that respect, for I know that you have even renounced earthly happiness to be his servant. So what am I doing here?”

 I do not really remember how I answered her. Shortly, within five days or thereabouts, she fell sick with a fever. Then one day during the course of her illness she became unconscious and for a while she was unaware of her surroundings. My brother and I rushed to her side, but she regained consciousness quickly. She looked at us as we stood there and asked in a puzzled voice: “Where was I?”

We were overwhelmed with grief, but she held her gave steadily upon us, and spoke further: “Here you shall bury your mother.” I remained silent as I held back my tears. However, my brother haltingly expressed his hope that she might not die in a strange country but in her own land, since her end would be happier there. When she heard this, her face was filled with anxiety, and she reproached him with a glance because he had entertained such earthly thoughts. Then she looked at me and spoke: “Look what he is saying.” Thereupon she said to both of us, “Bury my body wherever you will; let not care of it cause you any concern. One thing only I ask you, that you remember me at the altar of the Lord wherever you may be.” Once our mother had expressed this desire as best she could, she fell silent as the pain of her illness increased.

- from the Confessions of Saint Augustine

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Ave Maria Meditations

“Let us give ourselves to the Immaculata. Let her prepare us, let her receive Him in Holy Communion. This is the manner most perfect and pleasing to the Lord Jesus and brings great fruit to us.”   – St. Maximilian Kolbe

 For Jesus Christ I am prepared to suffer still more.
- Saint Maximilian Kolbe

“A soul consecrated to the Immaculate must follow the inspirations of the heart with complete liberty and approach the tabernacle, the cross, the Holy Trinity with much more courage, because that soul does not approach alone, but together with the Heavenly Mother, the Immaculate. Therefore, the soul consecrated to the Immaculate needs to pray the ejaculatory prayers and other prayers with great liberty, as the wings of the love of God guide it, where the Holy Spirit inspires it, shattering all barriers.”

 “A soul that is consecrated to the Immaculate, even if it does not turn its thought in an explicit way to the Immaculate and offers the prayer, the work, the suffering or any other thing, directly to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, that soul procures for the Heart of Jesus a pleasure that is incomparably greater than it would if it were not consecrated to the Immaculate.”

 “If we belong to the Immaculate, then everything that is ours belongs to Her and Jesus accepts everything that comes from us as if it came from Her, as if it belonged to Her. In this case, She cannot leave those actions imperfect, but She renders them worthy of Herself, that is Immaculate, without the slightest stain.”

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Ave Maria Meditations

O wondrous blessed clarity of Clare!
In life she shone to a few;
after death she shines on the whole world!
On earth she was a clear light;
Now in heaven she is a brilliant sun.

O how great the vehemence of the
brilliance of this clarity!
On earth this light was indeed kept
within cloistered walls,
yet shed abroad its shining rays;
It was confined within a convent cell,
yet spread itself through the wide world.

- Pope Innocent IV

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Ave Maria Meditations

St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross  (Edith Stein)

Only by the power of grace can nature be liberat­ed from its dross, restored to its purity, and made free to receive divine life. And this divine life itself is the inner driving power from which acts of love come forth. Whoever wants to preserve this life continually within herself must nourish it constantly from the source whence it flows without end: from the holy sacraments, above all from the sacrament of love. To have divine love as its inner form, a woman’s life must be a Eucharistic life. 

Only in daily, confidential relationship with the Lord in the tabernacle can one forget self, become free of all one’s own wishes and pretentions, and have a heart open to all the needs and wants of others. Whoever seeks to consult with the Eucharistic God in all her concerns, whoever lets herself be purified by the sanctifying power coming from the sacrifice at the altar, offering herself to the Lord in this sacrifice, whoever receives the Lord in her soul’s innermost depth in Holy Communion can­not but be drawn ever more deeply and powerfully into the flow of divine life, incorporated into the Mystical Body of Christ, her heart converted to the likeness of the Divine Heart.   (more…)

Ave Maria Meditations

Maria Goretti died a martyr before her twelfth birthday. Young as she was, she made a choice, a choice based on her faith. The Church holds up to the world the life, death and the faith of Maria Goretti.

The story of a young holy life: (more…)