When You Awake

From Your Soul’s Salvation by Rev. Edward F. Garesche, S.J.

Our waking hour is more important than we ever dream. It has in itself the keynote of the day.

When we first open our eyes in the morning, what do we think of, what do we resolve? Our acts and thoughts are so linked together that upon this first moment depends the color and the action of the following hours.

Great wisdom, then, to give those first moments to Him to whom we wish the whole day to go — to God. Most of us, when we awake, are inclined to cast a half-conscious glance over the day and see what it has in store for us.

Out of our sleepy eyes we look forward through the waking hours and speculate and plan. If there is any special good fortune in store for us, it makes us cheerful. If we anticipate a coming sorrow, we grow sad.

Now, whether sorrow or joy is coming to us, the wisest thing we can do is to give it all over from the beginning into the Hands and into the Heart of God.

Our first thought is to be a loving thought of God which will consecrate our mind and inspire our thoughts through all the day. Our first act of the will is to be an offering of the day with all its thoughts and words and actions in union with His Sacred Heart and with the Heart of His Blessed Mother and with the tremendous sacrifice of the Mass which He offers on so many altars every morning.

This intention, never withdrawn, and, better still, often renewed during our waking hours, will make Christ live in us and let us live in Him.

Besides the Morning Offering, there is another most blessed and fruitful practice which we should all resolve upon and which begins at the waking hour. It is called by spiritual writers the examen of conscience, and it is practiced in this way:

After we have offered our thoughts and words and acts to God, we cast a glance over the coming day and make a strong and earnest purpose to serve God faithfully all during the hours. We foresee perhaps some special difficulty we shall meet in the way of goodness, and resolve and pray to overcome it.

We anticipate some special occasion of doing good and make up our mind gladly to embrace it. Then, in a little prayer, we thank God for His blessings already given, ask pardon for our past offenses, and beg His grace that during the coming day we may go forward in His service and not offend Him.

This will take only a few moments when we wake, and it is the first part of our examination of conscience. The hours run swiftly and bring us to noon — a splendid time to pause and look backward and forward. This will be the second part of our examen.

At some quiet moment we once more think of the good resolutions of the morning. How have we carried them out? We run over rapidly hour by hour, ask ourselves what we have done for God and what we have done against Him. “Give an account of thy stewardship.” We are anticipating God’s judgment.

A good order for our thoughts is this: First, a brief act of thanksgiving for God’s goodness during the morning. Second, a prayer for light that we may know how we have served or offended Him. Third, the brief review of the hours of the morning. Fourth, an act of deep sorrow for whatever sins we have committed and finally an earnest little prayer for grace to serve God better in the future.

After this little interview with God, you will feel a new courage and peace. Then renew your offering and resolutions of the morning, and resolve most earnestly to serve God with more diligence and love from noon until dark.

The afternoon runs on and brings us swiftly to night. The hour of bedtime comes. Now is the time to complete your daily examination. After your prayer is said and before you go to sleep, run briefly again over the five points which you touched on at your midday examen, a prayer of thanks, a prayer for light, then go over the hours of the afternoon and see in what you have offended God and in what you have pleased Him.

Then a brief but fervent act of sorrow and finally an earnest prayer that tomorrow you may make up for today and that you may go forward in praising and loving God.

If this is your last thought at night, you will wake up in the morning with thoughts of God in your mind and ready to renew again this holy and simple progress toward goodness.

This practice is most earnestly commended by all spiritual writers, and it has done wonders in bringing ordinary Christians to heights of goodness. It consecrates the whole day to God, and at what slight expense!

Only three moments are needed, at morning, noon, and night, and it will cost you no time and very little effort to give these moments to God. Yet if He sees you in earnest in this holy practice, He will enrich your whole day with many graces.

Begin this very day and resolve that tomorrow your waking hour will be given to God, that at noon and night and all successive days, you will practice the fruitful activity of this general examen of conscience.

There is another part to this devotion of the examen of conscience, and it is called the particular examen.

In the particular examen we set ourselves to practice some virtue, or to root out some special fault. It is an old remark that every man has some predominant weakness, some central and foundation fault which shows itself in all his sins.

With some it is an inordinate pride, with others a love of pleasure, with others still a love of ease. These besetting sins have been classified, as it were, under the heads of the seven deadly sins of Pride, Covetousness, Lust, Anger, Gluttony, Envy, and Sloth.

By thinking a bit over our own misdeeds, we shall easily see to which one of these sins we are most inclined. There then is our dangerous enemy, and to obtain the opposite virtue should be our most earnest object and desire.

If our fault is a very glaring one and may be observed and give scandal to others, then we should attack it directly by means of a particular examen. But if it is a fault which shows itself more in sins of omission than of commission, it is better sometimes not to attack it directly, but to try to remedy it by cultivating the opposite virtue.

Thus, for instance, if we are given to outbursts of anger, our particular examen should be directed toward correcting our temper. But if we are inclined to the sin of sloth or that of selfishness, then we should do better to cultivate the opposite virtue, and to make our particular examen bear on being energetic and industrious, or on doing good to others.

What is the particular examen? It consists in this, that at three times or moments, the hour of waking, midday, and the hour of retiring, we join to our general examination of conscience this following practice: After going over the five points described, we should call briefly to mind the special fault which we have determined to correct, or the special virtue we have resolved to practice.

In the morning we make a strong resolve to practice this virtue or correct the fault so many times during the course of the morning. At noon, we carefully recall how many times we have fulfilled our resolution, trying to make the number of faults decrease and the number of acts of virtue increase from day to day, and from examen to examen.

It is useful to note down in a little book the results of our examens, and to make comparison day by day. This will give added interest and will afford a useful check on our progress.

At night again we make a review of the time since noon, to discover our progress, then we thank God for His kind assistance, ask His pardon for our faults, and make a fresh resolve for the coming day.

This practice of the particular examen is of immense use in correcting our faults and implanting virtues. We should keep manfully on until we find the fault we were working at is satisfactorily under control, and the virtue we aimed at is fairly implanted in us.

Then we should go on to the next defect in our character, and try to remove it in the same practical way.

Cheerful Chats for Catholic Children Book. Short Stories for Catholic Children with a Moral and a Prayer following each Anecdote

This is a unique book I have written of Catholic devotions for young children. There is nothing routine and formal about these stories. They are interesting, full of warmth and dipped right out of life. These anecdotes will help children know about God, as each one unfolds a truth about the saints, the Church, the virtues, etc.

Available here.

Here is a complete guide to mature, responsible, even noble behavior in our complex modern society. Written in the 1930s by a wise Jesuit priest and steeped in the wisdom of the ages, these pages teach the timeless principles that have led countless souls to true success and lasting happiness.

Without condescension, Fr. Garesché shows how to maintain a healthy mind, resist temptations, grow temperate, practice fortitude, think kindly of others, and choose worthwhile amusements. He even explains how to accept criticism graciously and how to develop the kind of confidence that is not rooted in pride, but is the necessary foundation for any life that will be productive and holy. Once you assimilate the wisdom here, you’ll know how to find genuine success the success that transcends money, fame, and pleasure.

Fr. Garesché shows you how to become an apostle for Christ in myriad ways, not only at home among your family and friends, but even at work. You’ll learn how to talk about religion with your friends as naturally as you discuss sports or current events. He even gives you tips on how you can bear witness to your faith in Jesus Christ not just in what you say, but in what you do.

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The Four Points of Prayer – A Little Mission Talk

For Throwback Thursday….

We went to a mission talk last week. It was on prayer and, even though I struggled to stay awake, I actually remembered the four points of prayer that Father talked about! 🙂

It was a short mission talk ….shorter than any mission talk I have ever attended…(and I still fought to stay awake…yipes!) …yet it touched me and so I thought I would share the four points with you, mixed with a little of my own thoughts.

The first point is confidence. We must pray with confidence!

God is our Father….why do we pray with hesitancy, expecting NOT to have our prayers answered? Confidence pleases Our Lord very much! This was a blessing for me to hear. Most of the time, when I pray, I don’t have the confidence that would be pleasing to Him. So I have revved it up and am working on really EXPECTING God to answer my prayers!

I told Vincent about the talk (he was working late, so he couldn’t attend) and we especially talked about the confidence part.

The next evening he told me he went to Mass that morning and prayed WITH MUCH CONFIDENCE for some financial stress to be relieved. By the end of the day he was quite astounded at the way God answered him so quickly!

So….let’s pray knowing that God will answer our prayers! We’re not always sure how, or what His timing will be, but He WILL answer them. Something so basic and yet we seem to forget it, don’t we?

The second point is Urgency.

This really spoke to me.  When we think of something to pray for, let us not put it off and think, well I will include that in our rosary this evening (which is a good thing, too) or I will remember it in my night prayers.

NO! Pray for it that second. Send those little prayers up to God like little shooting darts of loving petitions!

I thought this was awesome as there are SO many things and people to pray for, isn’t there? We can do it the instant we think of it and God listens to each and every one of those prayers! Wonderful!

The third point is Simplicity.

We don’t have to have elaborate prayers. God wants our prayers to be from the heart.

Those little heartfelt prayers of our own are dear to Our Lord.  And those potent and short ejaculations, like…… Jesus I trust in Thee…. Jesus, meek and humble of heart, make our hearts like unto Thine….Sweet Heart of Mary, be my Love….. Sweet Heart of Jesus, be my Salvation…are very powerful!

The fourth point is perseverance.

Oh my! There are certain things in my life…..loved ones, especially…. that I have been praying about for years. A couple of the situations have not turned out well. Do we get discouraged? Well….yes. Is that right and good? No!

God, in His mercy, answers every prayer. Even though, with human eyes, things don’t look like they have turned out well, or our prayers seem like they have not been answered, we must keep praying.

This was good for me to hear. I know it in my head. I had to hear it again to get it back in my heart.

Confidence, Urgency, Simplicity and Perseverance! So simple, so profound!

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Coloring pages for your children…..

 

By the design of nature, a father leans toward justice and severity; the mother toward mercy and leniency. Both these shadings of authority are needed for the rounded development of the child. Children need to see the father and mother working together, complementing each other, in bringing them up. Above all, it is important that they never be given grounds for “playing” their father and mother against each other. – Fr. Donald Miller, C.SS.R., 1950’s

Within these works, St. Alphonsus stresses the importance of the inner life; the ease with which we can converse with God; on how the eternal truths are revealed to us; the absolute necessity of prayer, and how all is eventually lost without prayer. He directs us as to how to talk with God; explains how God answers us; how God listens to the prayers of everyone, and shows us how to continually have God’s Presence with us throughout our day…

The Little Flower Prayerbook is a vintage manual of prayers combined with a treasury of St. Therese\’s spiritual writings that showcases the wisdom and contemplation she achieved in her short lifetime.

Originally published in 1926 A Carmelite Manual of Prayers is an introduction to the time-honored Carmelite prayers and devotions that St. Therese herself practiced during her lifetime.

Features Include: Morning and Evening Prayers, Acts of Faith, Daily Prayers Devotions for Confession and Benediction Extraordinary Form of the Mass Devout Exercises for Every Day of the Week Novena to Our Lady of Mount Carmel Scapular Devotions Spiritual Writings of St. Therese And so much more . . .

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My Morning and Night Prayers – Sharing With You….

Vincent Vidal. French (1811-1887)

I am going to share with you something close to my heart, rather personal, and that I do every day….

It is my Morning and Night prayers.

Someone wrote to me about a year ago and asked what I say for morning and night prayers and it made me think that not everyone has a guideline for this sort of thing.

Through the years and my own research…good prayer books, wise mentors, etc., I have come up with some basic prayers that I say for morning and night prayers that I think could be helpful to some.

The Rosary and the Bargain

Our Lady reminds us of her crucial role in our salvation these next few days. On Sunday (Oct. 7th) it is the Feast of the Holy Rosary, Thursday., Oct. 11th is the Feast of Our Lady’s Maternity and Saturday, October 13th is the Anniversary of the Miracle of the Sun at Fatima!

The surest and easiest way to heaven is taking Our Lady’s hand and letting her guide and direct our footsteps. She is the “vehicle” to help us up the laborious climb to the top of the mountain!

Do something special this week to remind your children of her very important role!

And don’t forget the daily Rosary!

by Joseph A. Breig

When I get to heaven – as I trust I shall – something very embarrassing is bound to happen. As sure as shooting; somebody who has known me rather too well for comfort on this earth is going to come up to me and say, in a loud voice enough for everybody to hear, “How in the world did you get in here?”

I am not going to answer in words. I am simply going to pull a rosary out of my pocket and dangle it in front of my questioner. That will be my reply; and it will be perfectly true. It will also be true for my family, which I have every reason to hope will be there with me. We will all pull our rosaries out of our pockets and wave them.

I think that we will wave them for all eternity; or at least wear them around our necks for everybody to see. It will save a lot of explaining, and it will give credit where credit is due.

I am not humble enough for public confession of my sins: besides, it would be scandalous; and the readers would be writing to the editor denouncing him for printing such shocking stuff.

I will simply say this: there is a period of my life that I want to forget; and I would still be in it if it weren’t for the rosary.

The rosary is the rope by which I climbed hand over hand out of the pit into which I had fallen.

I started climbing out after I discovered one basic rule for any kind of success in life. The way to get something done is to do it. I will never forget how that realization suddenly popped into my head and transformed me.

Ever since then, I have been getting things done, simply by doing them. And the thing that taught me that lesson was the rosary. I do not remember how or why or when I started saying the rosary daily. But I do remember that doing it was the hardest thing I ever did in my life.

When people say to me now that they just can’t seem to get at it, I chuckle. They’re telling me! They complain about the irregularity of their lives, about visitors dropping in, and whatnot. And I chuckle again.

When I started saying the daily rosary, I was a reporter for a Hearst newspaper in the big city. It was not in the least unusual for me to be out on a story half the night, or three-quarters of the night, or all night.

At any moment during the day, the city editor might answer the telephone, look across the desk at me, and order me to high-ball by automobile, or train or other conveyance to some city or town or crossroads 100, 500, 1000 miles distant.

At any hour of the night, I might be awakened by the telephone and told to dash into the office, or dash somewhere else. As for social and other affairs, I had more than my share of them. But I had discovered that the way to get something done is to do it. I had learned that the way to get the rosary said is to say it. And I said it – and I don’t think anybody ever said it harder.

Meditation? It came as naturally to me as eating glass or swallowing swords. Praying? It was hard, sweaty, ditch-digging heavy labor for me. I was going it alone then; and the going was all uphill. It was all mountain climbing.

More than once, I awoke in the wee hours of the night, still on my knees, with the upper half of my body sprawled over the bed, and the rosary still clutched in my fingers at the second or third decade.
But the way to get something done was to do it; and I wouldn’t allow myself to crawl into bed until the rosary was finished.

I tell all this only in order that the reader may know that I am not one to whom prayer came easily. You say that it is hard for you; I answer that it was hard for me.

Then suddenly, somewhere along the line, I met Father Patrick Peyton, and discovered an additional rule for success. I discovered that whereas it was exceedingly difficult for me to say the rosary alone, it was as easy as rolling off a log to say it with my family.

We were one of the early families in Father Peyton’s Family Rosary Crusade; and what he gave to us when he talked us into it, we wouldn’t trade today for all the Fords and Lincolns in Henry Fords factory for the next thousand years.

I state a simple fact; and you needn’t take it just from me. Ask my wife. Ask the children. Ask the neighbors. Ask our visitors. They’ll all tell you the same thing: that ever since we started the daily family Rosary, and kept it up, our house has been one of the happiest and healthiest homes in the world.

To use a popular jive expression, the place simply jumps with joy. And there were times when it didn’t. There were a great many times when it didn’t. There was a time when the doctor told us we might as well make up our minds to sell our home for whatever we could get and go to Florida, with or without a job, if we didn’t want to see our children dying one by one before our eyes.

He said they simply couldn’t stand the climate in which we were living; and they’d be better off living on bananas under a tree in the south than suffering what they were suffering in the north.

The rosary changed all that; and today our youngsters, everyone of them, can whip their weight in wildcats; and would do it at the drop of a hat if there were any Wildcats in sight.

But that is the least of the blessings that have come to us from the family Rosary. I remember vividly my first conversation with Father Peyton, long before he became world famous as the originator of the family hour on the radio, in which the greatest stars of Broadway and Hollywood donate their talents to popularize the slogan, “The family that prays together, stays together.”

Father Peyton, knitting his brows in the way he has, and speaking in that wonderful Irish brogue which I won’t try to reproduce, told me that, when he was first ordained, he planned to start a crusade for daily mass, communion and the rosary.

The longer he prayed and puzzled over it, the more he became convinced that if he asked for everything at first, he’d get nothing; whereas if he could get people to say the rosary, the rosary would lead them to the other things.
Today I can testify that, in our case at least, he was perfectly right. We have learned that the rosary, if you will just say it, takes care of the full spiritual development of the family.

I would say this – that by far the easiest and least troublesome way of rearing a family of which you can be proud is to institute the family rosary in your home, and keep it up.

It knits the family together with bonds 10,000 times stronger than any that can be forged by merely natural means.

I think that I’ve heard all the objections to the family rosary. Fully half the fathers and mothers who have talked with me about it have shrugged their shoulders helplessly and said that there simply doesn’t seem to be any time of the day when all the members of the family can be brought together in prayer.

The answer to that, of course, is exceedingly simple. If you can’t get all the members of the family together, say the rosary with the members who are present.

Sooner or later, something will happen to make it possible for the others to join in.

The rosary is like that. Give it a chance, and it’ll take care of the problems. The Mother of God can have whatever she wants from her divine Son; and one of the things she wants is Rosary Families.

Mothers have said to me that the smaller members of the family won’t behave during the rosary. What of it? The smaller members of our family won’t behave either.

Between them, our two-year-old Jimmy and eight month old Regina put on something resembling a three ring circus while we are saying the rosary. We don’t interfere. It’s our business to say to say the rosary; it’s theirs to have a circus. God made them that way; and if He doesn’t mind, why should we? We pray above and between their shouts and gurgles, and it works out very well.
I have also heard people say that the antics of the smaller children interfere with their meditations. They interfered with mine, too, until I learned to include the youngsters in the meditation.

Now, while saying the Joyful Mysteries, I look at Regina, cooing and bouncing in her crib, and I think, “Why, Christ was just like that once! He cooed and gurgled too, and waved his arms, and kicked his legs, and rolled over on his stomach, then worked like a Trojan to get turned to his back again.”
Or if the baby is sitting on her mother’s lap, I look at them and realize that the Christ child sat in Mary’s lap too, and clutched at her garments, and tried to pull Himself upright, and swung His hands at her face, and laughed when she smiled at Him.

I think of the fact that He, too, had to be fed; that although He held the universe in the palm of His hand and kept the planets on their courses. He depended on his mother for everything.
Perhaps we are saying the Sorrowful Mysteries. If so, sometimes I look at Jimmy and think how I would feel if he were crucified in front of my eyes. Then I know something about what Mary felt.

I know something, too, about the infinite love of God which caused Him to send His only Son to die for us.

Could I send one of my sons to die in agony for someone who had insulted me? I think of that; and then I am better able to thank God for the redemption.
If we are saying the Glorious Mysteries, I consider often what a moment it will be when all the family rises from the grave and is reunited, nevermore to be parted; when we are all together to stay together, in perfect happiness, forever.

If the happy family is a thing of rollicking joy – and it is – then what must a perfectly happy family in heaven be like! It is very well worth looking forward to. It is very well worth the trouble of saying the daily rosary.
Ten or fifteen minutes a day is what it takes; and eternity is what it purchases. I wasn’t born yesterday; and I’m not passing up a bargain like that.

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“Be patient with everyone, but above all with yourself…do not be disheartened by your imperfections, but always rise up with fresh courage.”
Introduction the the Devout Life― St. Francis de Sales

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I used this book when my children were young. It was a valuable tool in helping them to incorporate True Devotion to Mary by St. Louis de Montfort into their little lives…. “PREFACE: This Marian program has but one purpose, to imbue the little ones with a genuine devotion to Mary. It is a copying of Mary- a way of life. It is the De Montfort Method simplified for young minds.” Available here. (afflink)

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A sermon for your day!

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Beautiful Handcrafted Rosaries and Rosary Bracelets at my Meadows of Grace Shoppe!

Wire wrapping is one of the oldest techniques for making jewelry or rosaries by hand.

In wire wrapping, rosaries are made using jewelry wire to make components.

Frequently, in this approach, a wire is bent into a loop or other decorative shape and then the wire is wrapped around itself to finish the wire component making that loop or decorative shape permanent.

Because of this technique for wrapping wire around itself this craft is called wire wrapping.

Not only is it quite beautiful but it makes the rosaries sturdy and durable.

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Meditating on Scripture

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how to meditate, meditating on scripture, meditation, prayer

Excellent helps for meditation!

From Thirsting for Prayer by Fr. Jacques Philippe

Here we are in touch with the very ancient tradition of lectio divina, reading Scripture with the aim of finding God and opening ourselves to what He wants to tell us through it here and now.

Lectio divina can take different directions and various forms. At present I am speaking of it as a method of prayer.

Times and the Best Time

The best time for lectio divina is the morning if that is possible. One’s spirit is fresher and better disposed then, normally less loaded with cares and concerns, than at the end of the day.

Psalm 90 says, “Satisfy us in the morning with thy steadfast love, that we may rejoice and be glad all our days.”

And the book of Isaiah says, “The Lord … provides me with speech. Each morning he wakes me to hear, to listen like a disciple” (Is 50:4).

Another advantage of doing the lectio divina in the morning is that this testifies that the most urgent thing in our lives is disposing ourselves to listen to God. This practice also establishes us, right from the start of the day, in an inner attitude of listening. That enables us more easily to preserve the attitude of availability throughout the day and so perceive more readily the calls that God may make to us.

That said, this advice is obviously not set in stone. Clearly, many people do not have the opportunity for it in the morning and can only do it at some other time of day. That won’t prevent God from speaking to them if they are thirsty for Him.

Which passage should we take for meditation?

There are all sorts of possibilities. We can meditate on a text continuously (one of the Gospels, a Letter of St. Paul, or another book from the Bible) day after day. I know a married layman with a family who, every morning, spends time in prayer based on the Word of God. He has spent two or three years on St. John’s Gospel.

However, the advice I give people who are beginners in this field is, on the whole, to do their lectio by taking the passages that the Church gives for the Readings of Mass each day. That has the advantage of putting us in harmony with the life of the universal Church and the liturgical times and seasons, and preparing us for the Eucharist if we are going to participate in it.

Furthermore we will have three different well-chosen texts (the First Reading, the Psalm, the Gospel), which reduces the risk of being confronted with passages that are too dry or hard to interpret.

It is very rare for at least one of the three passages not to speak to us. Often, too, doing lectio divina while looking at several different passages together helps us grasp the profound unity of Scripture.

When reading the Bible it is a great joy to discover how often passages that are very different from one another in style, date of composition, content, etc., can, when brought together, reveal new harmonies and shed light on one another.

When interpreting passages of Scripture, the wise men in the Rabbinic tradition loved to bring out the richness of their meaning by “stringing necklaces” whose pearls were verses taken from different parts of Scripture— the Torah, the Prophets, Psalms, and Wisdom literature.

This is what Jesus himself did for the disciples after his Resurrection, as we see in St. Luke’s Gospel (Lk 24:27, 44). The tradition of bringing together different passages to illuminate one another has been continued by all the Fathers of the Church and spiritual commentators up to the present day.

How exactly should we go about it?

As I have already emphasized, the fruitfulness of lectio divina depends on our inner attitudes and not the effectiveness of some particular method. Therefore it is important to not begin by starting straight in on the Scripture passage but only after having taken sufficient preparation time to enter into the appropriate dispositions of prayer, faith, and desire.

Following are some steps that might be taken in doing that. As with every time when we start to pray, we should begin by recollecting ourselves, putting ourselves in God’s presence. We should leave aside our worries and concerns; the one thing necessary for us, as for Mary of Bethany, is to sit at our Lord’s feet and listen to His words.

To do that, we need to situate ourselves in the present moment, which we sometimes have great difficulty doing. When necessary, we do well to use the resources of our body and sensations for this purpose.

Sometimes it is beneficial to begin with a physical preparation before starting to read: close our eyes, center ourselves in our bodies, relax (loosen our shoulders and any tense muscles), become aware of our breathing and breathe gently but deeply; feel the contact of our bodies with the material world around us—the contact of our feet with the ground, our bodies with the seat, arms with the table, hands with the Bible or missal we are going to use for our reading.

The first contact with the Word should be a physical contact. Touching it is already a form of listening. St. John speaks of “That which … we have … touched with our hands, concerning the word of life” (1 Jn 1:1).

Once we feel relaxed, connected with our body, centered on the present moment, we should turn our heart toward God, to thank Him in advance for the time He is granting us in which He will contact us through his Word.

We should ask Him for light, beg Him to open our minds to understand the Scriptures (Lk 24:45) as He did for his disciples, and, above all, ask Him that this word may truly visit us in depth, convert our heart, lay bare the ways we compromise with sin, enlighten us and transform us where we need it today, so that we may be more fully in tune with God’s plan for our life. We should ask Him to stir up our desire and will for all this.

When we are ready—and do not hesitate to take time over this, because it is essential—we can open our eyes and begin to read the passage we have chosen for the lectio divina. Read slowly, applying mind and heart to what is read and meditating on it.

But realize that “meditating” in the biblical tradition (e.g., Psalm 1, “Blessed is the man who meditates on the law of the Lord day and night”) means not so much reflecting as murmuring, repeating, ruminating.

To begin with, it is more of a physical activity than an intellectual one. When a verse attracts our attention we should not fear to repeat it over and over again, because it is often through such rumination that it will release its deep meaning, what God wants to say to us today through that verse.

Of course, the intelligence also has a part to play. We can question the passage. What does it tell me about God? What is it telling me about myself? What good news does it contain? What specific invitation for my life can I find in it?

If a verse seems obscure, we can consult notes or a commentary, but we should avoid turning the time of lectio into a time of intellectual study. We should not hesitate to dwell at length on a verse that takes on a particular savor for us and to enter into dialogue with God based on what it is saying to us.

The lectio should become prayer—giving thanks for an encouraging verse, invoking God’s help when a passage invites us to a conversion that we find difficult, etc.

At certain times, if the grace is given us, we can stop our reading and remain in an attitude of more contemplative prayer, simple wonder, and admiration at the beauty of what God makes us discover through the text.

A verse may, for instance, convey a deep sense of God’s gentleness or his majesty or his faithfulness or the splendor of what he does in Christ, and it invites us to contemplate that and give thanks for it.

The ultimate goal of the lectio is not to read miles and miles of texts, but to lead us as far as possible into the attitude of contemplative wonder, which nourishes our faith, hope, and love. That is not always given, but when it is, we should be able to interrupt our reading and content ourselves with a simple loving presence before the mystery revealed to us in the text.

In what has just been said, we can see the four stages of the lectio divina in the tradition of the Middle Ages: Lectio (reading), Meditatio (meditation), Oratio (prayer), and Contemplatio (contemplation).

These are not so much successive stages to be followed in just that order as they are particular modes of doing lectio divina. That is all the more apparent from the fact that, while the first three involve human activity, the fourth is not something we can do at will: it is a gift of grace, which we should desire and welcome but which is not always granted.

Moreover, as I said earlier, there may be times of aridity and dryness, as in any kind of prayer. We must never get discouraged—one who seeks will always end by finding.

It is difficult for a child to be better than his home environment or for a nation to be superior to the level of its home life. -Fr. Lovasik, The Catholic Family Handbook

Need some good book suggestions? Visit

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Book List for Catholic Men

Book List for the Youth

 

 

A Contemplative? Such a Waste!

We’ve heard the comments and maybe thought them ourselves.

When someone enters the religious life, especially those who are entering into the contemplative orders, which shuts one out from the whole world, heads are shaken in disbelief and wonderment. Why would one do such a thing? She is so talented, so beautiful…what a waste!

I remember when my sister-in-law, a beauty of about 20 years old, was joining the convent. I thought of her thick, long, gold flaxen hair, natural highlights and all and my heart gave a tug. Gulp! Off it goes!

It’s amazing how we humans judge things….by exteriors a lot of times!

I did see the bigger picture, though, and I was very happy for my sister-in-law and in awe of the awesome step she was about to take! She saw life for what it was and walked away from it…for something very beautiful!

Those of us who are schooled in the beauty and meaning of our Catholic Faith know what this “walking away” means. And Fr. Gabriel puts it into beautiful words in Divine Intimacy.

Let us pray for more contemplatives! They are the backbone of the active work! Like St. Francis de Sales says….”If you don’t have time for prayer, you don’t have time for anything!”

And let us remember this in our own lives. It is not all about what we get done. It is about the power of the Holy Ghost working through us as we do our duties and work in our own fields of the Apostolate. Prayer is where it’s at…with the prayer of the Sacrifice of the Mass at the top of the list!

The following is from  Divine Intimacy.

When we speak of the apostolate, we think almost exclusively of external activity; this is certainly necessary, but it is not the only kind of apostolate. We must always bear in mind that Jesus saved us not only by the activity of the last three years of His life, which were dedicated to the evangelization of the multitudes and the formation of the first nucleus of the church, but also by prayer, suffering, vigils – by His whole life.

Jesus was always an apostle, always the one sent by the Father for our salvation. His apostolate began at Bethlehem in the dreariness of a cave; as a tiny Babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, He was already suffering for us; it continued during the thirty years spent at Nazareth in prayer, in retirement, in the hidden life; it took an external form in His direct contact with souls during His public life, and reached its culmination in His agony in the Garden of Olives and his death on the Cross.

Our apostolate consists in associating ourselves with what Jesus has done for the redemption of mankind; therefore, it is not limited to external activity, but it also consists, and essentially so, in prayer and sacrifice.

Thus one clearly sees that there are two fundamental forms of apostolate: the interior apostolate of prayer and immolation, which is a prolongation of the hidden life and of the Passion of Jesus; and the exterior apostolate of word and of work, which is a prolongation of His public life. Both are a participation in the redemptive work of Jesus, but there is a great difference between them.

The interior apostolate is the indispensable foundation of the exterior apostolate; no one, in fact, can hope to save souls by exterior works which are not sustained by prayer and sacrifice.

On the other hand, there are cases where external works can be dispensed with, without, on that account, lessening the interior apostolate of prayer and sacrifice, which can still be very intense and fruitful.

Every Christian is an apostle, not only in virtue of the activity in which he engages, but principally because of his participation in the prayer and sacrifice by which Jesus has redeemed the world.

The interior apostolate can subsist by itself; in fact, there are states of life that justify the absence of an exterior apostolate. One of these is the purely contemplative life, which has always flourished in the Church.

Like a mother, she jealously defends it against the attacks of those who condemn it as an escape from the field of action.

Those who follow God’s call and retire from active works to give themselves to this kind of life are not deserters; if they leave the ranks of the external apostolate, they do this only in order to give themselves to a more intensive apostolate, that of prayer and continual immolation.

“Those in the Church who perform the function of prayer and continual penance, contribute to the growth of the Church and the salvation of the human race to a greater degree than those who cultivate the Lord’s field by their activity; for, if they did not draw down from heaven an abundance of divine grace to irrigate the field, the evangelical workers would certainly receive less fruit from their labors” (Pius XI: Umbratilem).

This authorized statement of a great Pope can leave no doubt as to the immense apostolic value of the contemplative life; but, on the other hand, it is but just to remark that such value is realized only when contemplatives engage themselves with all their strength in prayer and continual immolation.

In other words, it is not any kind of prayer or sacrifice that will result in such great fruitfulness, but only the prayer and sacrifice that come from an extremely pure and generous heart, a heart wholly given to God and which, day by day, renews and lives its immolation with ever greater freshness and intensity.

When the contemplative life is lived with such intensity it is, in an eminent way, an apostolic life.

It is in this sense that Pope Pius XII has defined the vocation to a cloistered life as “a universal, apostolic vocation…a fully and totally apostolic vocation, not limited by boundaries of place, time, and circumstances, but always and everywhere, zealous for everything that in any way relates to the honor of the heavenly Spouse or the salvation of souls” (Apostolic Constitution: Sponsa Christi).

Furthermore, contemplative monasteries, by the simple example of their hidden life, their prayer and penance, are a continual reminder for all to be detached from earthly things and to seek those that are heavenly: union with God and sanctity.

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While we are speaking of contemplatives…..this is a fascinating and beautiful book!

 

I have read it more than once. It is delightful. You may have to search around for it as it is out of print.

This book is an autobiography written by Mother Catherine Thomas and published in 1957. It tells of her journey as a normal, happy young lady who enjoyed life in its wholesomeness.

She chooses Carmel and eventually becomes the Mother Superior. It tells of her spiritual journey and is charmingly candid and human.

It is good reading for young and old.

This is a review that sums it up well:

“My Beloved: the Story of a Carmelite Nun is an American Carmelite classic about a young woman, Cecilia Walsh, who answers the call of God and so enters a Carmelite Monastery in New York (later moving to a new foundation in Oklahoma). This is her autobiography. She reveals many things about the hidden life of Carmel… the simplest things often wondered about. She speaks of the work, recreation, prayers, meal times, silence, ceremonies, vows, the Rules and Constitutions and much more of the Discalced Carmelite Nuns. She is very detailed in writing. She does all of this while recounting her own struggles and successes physically, mentally, and spiritually as a postulant, novice, and finally professed sister.  It is an absolute delight to read because she is so intimate, simple, and even comical in her writing. It is interesting and captivating… I couldn’t put it down. I read practically straight through it in one setting. It sadly is not published any longer, so one would have to search for a used copy. It has wonderful wisdom for lay as well as religious, and I would recommend it to both as well as those not of the Catholic faith.”

A few pictures from the book:

A reporter interviewing Mother Catherine.

A nun arranging one of the original barrack cells on the day of the move.

Mother Catherine writing in the barn loft.

A nun milking the monastery cow.

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Have you heard of the sacramental, the Agnus Dei? “It is a sacramental, consisting of a small piece of wax, blessed by the Pope. It is a symbol of the ‘Lamb of God’, the Savior. It is intended as a protection against Satan, sickness, tempests, temptations and sudden death, also in maternity cases. It is usually worn suspended from the neck, but may be carried in any other manner. Those who piously venerate the Agnus Dei may hope for the divine aid in all the evils that threaten mankind, through the merits of the Passion of Jesus Christ.” -The Precious Blood and Family Prayer Book (I found some available here: http://traditionalpoorclaremonastery.org/index.html)

 

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Excellent Sermon! Life After Death

What happens after we die? What should we expect? Fr speaks on the teaching of St Thomas Aquinas for this..

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Sign up for the Advent Giveaway here! Purchase the Advent package here.

 

 

 

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The Hail Mary of a Protestant

A little six-year-old Protestant boy had often heard his Catholic companions reciting the prayer “Hail Mary.” He liked it so much that he copied it, memorized it and would recite it every day.

“Look, Mommy, what a beautiful prayer,” he said to his mother one day.

“Never again say it,” answered the mother. “It is a superstitious prayer of Catholics who adore idols and think Mary a goddess. After all, she is a woman like any other. Come on, take this Bible and read it. It contains everything that we are bound to do and have to do.”

From that day on the little boy discontinued his daily “Hail Mary” and gave himself more time to reading the Bible instead.

One day, while reading the Gospel, he came across the passage about the Annunciation of the Angel to Our Lady. Full of joy, the little boy ran to his mother and said: “Mommy, I have found the ‘Hail Mary’ in the Bible which says: ‘Hail full of grace, the Lord is with thee, blessed art thou amongst women.’ Why do you call it a superstitious prayer?”

On another occasion he found that beautiful Salutation of St. Elizabeth to the Virgin Mary and the wonderful canticle MAGNIFICAT in which Mary foretold that “the generations would call her blessed.”

He said no more about it to his mother but started to recite the “Hail Mary” every day as before. He felt pleasure in addressing those charming words to the Mother of Jesus, our Savior.

When he was fourteen, he one day heard a discussion on Our Lady among the members of his family. Every one said that Mary was a common woman like any other woman.

The boy, after listening to their erroneous reasoning could not bear it any longer, and full of indignation, he interrupted them, saying:

“Mary is not like any other children of Adam, stained with sin. No! The Angel called her FULL OF GRACE AND BLESSED AMONGST WOMEN. Mary is the Mother of Jesus Christ and consequently Mother of God.

There is no higher dignity to which a creature can be raised. The Gospel says that the generations will proclaim her blessed and you are trying to despise her and look down on her. Your spirit is not the spirit of the Gospel or of the Bible which you proclaim to be the foundation of the Christian religion.”

So deep was the impression which the boy’s talk had made that his mother many times cried out sorrowfully: “Oh my God! I fear that this son of mine will one day join the Catholic religion, the religion of Popes!”

And indeed, not very long afterwards, having made a serious study of both Protestantism and Catholicism, the boy found the latter to be the only true religion and embraced it and became one of its most ardent apostles.

Sometime after his conversion, he met his married sister who rebuked him and said indignantly: “You little know how much I love my children. Should any one of them desire to become a Catholic, I would sooner pierce his heart with a dagger than allow him to embrace the religion of the Popes!”

Her anger and temper were as furious as those of St. Paul before his conversion. However, she would change her ways, just as St. Paul did on his way to Damascus.

It so happened that one of her sons fell dangerously ill and the doctors gave up hope of recovery. Her brother then approached her and spoke to her affectionately, saying:

“My dear sister, you naturally wish to have your child cured. Very well, then, do what I ask you to do. Follow me, let us pray one ‘Hail Mary’ and promise God that, if your son recovers his health, you would seriously study the Catholic doctrine, and should you come to the conclusion that Catholicism is the only true religion, you would embrace it no matter what the sacrifices may be.”

His sister was somewhat reluctant at the beginning, but as she wished for her son’s recovery, she accepted her brother’s proposal and recited the “Hail Mary” together with him.

The next day her son was completely cured. The mother fulfilled her promise and she studied the Catholic doctrine. After long preparation she received Baptism together with her whole family, thanking her brother for being an apostle to her. The story was related during a sermon given by the Rev. Fr. Tuckwell. “Brethren,” he went on and said, “the boy who became a Catholic and converted his sister to Catholicism dedicated his whole life to the service of God.

He is the priest who is speaking to you now! What I am I owe to Our Lady.

You, too, my dear brethren, be entirely dedicated also to Our Lady and never let a day pass without saying the beautiful prayer, ‘Hail Mary’, and your Rosary.

Ask her to enlighten the minds of Protestants who are separated from the true Church of Christ founded on the Rock (Peter) and against whom the gates of hell shall never prevail.'”

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A mother holds her baby in her arms, looks up to God, and knows that she, by months of suffering and patience, has co-operated with Him in making and bringing into the world a little body housing a priceless soul. A father stands above his new-born son resting in the arms of his wife, and knows as he picks him up and weighs him tenderly that he has shared with God the Father His very fatherhood; for this mite of humanity, immortal in destiny, is truly his son. Mother and father together have co-operated with God in the astonishing creation of a human being. -Fr. Daniel A. Lord, 1950’s

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Happy Feast Day of the Maternity of Our Lady! Coloring Pages for your children…

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Lovely and Graceful, these handcrafted, wire-wrapped Blessed Mother Necklaces can be blessed and worn as Sacramentals. They would make a special gift for someone! Available at http://www.meadowsofgrace.com

 

 

 

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The Rosary and the Bargain

What a week! Our Lady reminds us of her crucial role in our salvation these next few days. On Saturday (Oct. 7th) it was the Feast of the Holy Rosary, Weds., Oct. 11th is the Feast of Our Lady’s Maternity and Friday, October 13th is the 100th Anniversary of the Miracle of the Sun at Fatima!

The surest and easiest way to heaven is taking Our Lady’s hand and letting her guide and direct our footsteps. She is the “vehicle” to help us up the laborious climb to the top of the mountain!

Do something special this week to remind your children of her very important role!

And don’t forget the daily Rosary!

by Joseph A. Breig

When I get to heaven – as I trust I shall – something very embarrassing is bound to happen. As sure as shooting; somebody who has known me rather too well for comfort on this earth is going to come up to me and say, in a loud voice enough for everybody to hear, “How in the world did you get in here?”

I am not going to answer in words. I am simply going to pull a rosary out of my pocket and dangle it in front of my questioner. That will be my reply; and it will be perfectly true. It will also be true for my family, which I have every reason to hope will be there with me. We will all pull our rosaries out of our pockets and wave them.

I think that we will wave them for all eternity; or at least wear them around our necks for everybody to see. It will save a lot of explaining, and it will give credit where credit is due.

I am not humble enough for public confession of my sins: besides, it would be scandalous; and the readers would be writing to the editor denouncing him for printing such shocking stuff.

I will simply say this: there is a period of my life that I want to forget; and I would still be in it if it weren’t for the rosary.

The rosary is the rope by which I climbed hand over hand out of the pit into which I had fallen.

I started climbing out after I discovered one basic rule for any kind of success in life. The way to get something done is to do it. I will never forget how that realization suddenly popped into my head and transformed me.

Ever since then, I have been getting things done, simply by doing them. And the thing that taught me that lesson was the rosary. I do not remember how or why or when I started saying the rosary daily. But I do remember that doing it was the hardest thing I ever did in my life.

When people say to me now that they just can’t seem to get at it, I chuckle. They’re telling me! They complain about the irregularity of their lives, about visitors dropping in, and whatnot. And I chuckle again.

When I started saying the daily rosary, I was a reporter for a Hearst newspaper in the big city. It was not in the least unusual for me to be out on a story half the night, or three-quarters of the night, or all night.

At any moment during the day, the city editor might answer the telephone, look across the desk at me, and order me to high-ball by automobile, or train or other conveyance to some city or town or crossroads 100, 500, 1000 miles distant.

At any hour of the night, I might be awakened by the telephone and told to dash into the office, or dash somewhere else. As for social and other affairs, I had more than my share of them. But I had discovered that the way to get something done is to do it. I had learned that the way to get the rosary said is to say it. And I said it – and I don’t think anybody ever said it harder.

Meditation? It came as naturally to me as eating glass or swallowing swords. Praying? It was hard, sweaty, ditch-digging heavy labor for me. I was going it alone then; and the going was all uphill. It was all mountain climbing.

More than once, I awoke in the wee hours of the night, still on my knees, with the upper half of my body sprawled over the bed, and the rosary still clutched in my fingers at the second or third decade.
But the way to get something done was to do it; and I wouldn’t allow myself to crawl into bed until the rosary was finished.

I tell all this only in order that the reader may know that I am not one to whom prayer came easily. You say that it is hard for you; I answer that it was hard for me.

Then suddenly, somewhere along the line, I met Father Patrick Peyton, and discovered an additional rule for success. I discovered that whereas it was exceedingly difficult for me to say the rosary alone, it was as easy as rolling off a log to say it with my family.

We were one of the early families in Father Peyton’s Family Rosary Crusade; and what he gave to us when he talked us into it, we wouldn’t trade today for all the Fords and Lincolns in Henry Fords factory for the next thousand years.

I state a simple fact; and you needn’t take it just from me. Ask my wife. Ask the children. Ask the neighbors. Ask our visitors. They’ll all tell you the same thing: that ever since we started the daily family Rosary, and kept it up, our house has been one of the happiest and healthiest homes in the world.

To use a popular jive expression, the place simply jumps with joy. And there were times when it didn’t. There were a great many times when it didn’t. There was a time when the doctor told us we might as well make up our minds to sell our home for whatever we could get and go to Florida, with or without a job, if we didn’t want to see our children dying one by one before our eyes.

He said they simply couldn’t stand the climate in which we were living; and they’d be better off living on bananas under a tree in the south than suffering what they were suffering in the north.

The rosary changed all that; and today our youngsters, everyone of them, can whip their weight in wildcats; and would do it at the drop of a hat if there were any Wildcats in sight.

But that is the least of the blessings that have come to us from the family Rosary. I remember vividly my first conversation with Father Peyton, long before he became world famous as the originator of the family hour on the radio, in which the greatest stars of Broadway and Hollywood donate their talents to popularize the slogan, “The family that prays together, stays together.”

Father Peyton, knitting his brows in the way he has, and speaking in that wonderful Irish brogue which I won’t try to reproduce, told me that, when he was first ordained, he planned to start a crusade for daily mass, communion and the rosary.

The longer he prayed and puzzled over it, the more he became convinced that if he asked for everything at first, he’d get nothing; whereas if he could get people to say the rosary, the rosary would lead them to the other things.
Today I can testify that, in our case at least, he was perfectly right. We have learned that the rosary, if you will just say it, takes care of the full spiritual development of the family.

I would say this – that by far the easiest and least troublesome way of rearing a family of which you can be proud is to institute the family rosary in your home, and keep it up.

It knits the family together with bonds 10,000 times stronger than any that can be forged by merely natural means.

I think that I’ve heard all the objections to the family rosary. Fully half the fathers and mothers who have talked with me about it have shrugged their shoulders helplessly and said that there simply doesn’t seem to be any time of the day when all the members of the family can be brought together in prayer.

The answer to that, of course, is exceedingly simple. If you can’t get all the members of the family together, say the rosary with the members who are present.

Sooner or later, something will happen to make it possible for the others to join in.

The rosary is like that. Give it a chance, and it’ll take care of the problems. The Mother of God can have whatever she wants from her divine Son; and one of the things she wants is Rosary Families.

Mothers have said to me that the smaller members of the family won’t behave during the rosary. What of it? The smaller members of our family won’t behave either.

Between them, our two-year-old Jimmy and eight month old Regina put on something resembling a three ring circus while we are saying the rosary. We don’t interfere. It’s our business to say to say the rosary; it’s theirs to have a circus. God made them that way; and if He doesn’t mind, why should we? We pray above and between their shouts and gurgles, and it works out very well.
I have also heard people say that the antics of the smaller children interfere with their meditations. They interfered with mine, too, until I learned to include the youngsters in the meditation.

Now, while saying the Joyful Mysteries, I look at Regina, cooing and bouncing in her crib, and I think, “Why, Christ was just like that once! He cooed and gurgled too, and waved his arms, and kicked his legs, and rolled over on his stomach, then worked like a Trojan to get turned to his back again.”
Or if the baby is sitting on her mother’s lap, I look at them and realize that the Christ child sat in Mary’s lap too, and clutched at her garments, and tried to pull Himself upright, and swung His hands at her face, and laughed when she smiled at Him.

I think of the fact that He, too, had to be fed; that although He held the universe in the palm of His hand and kept the planets on their courses. He depended on his mother for everything.
Perhaps we are saying the Sorrowful Mysteries. If so, sometimes I look at Jimmy and think how I would feel if he were crucified in front of my eyes. Then I know something about what Mary felt.

I know something, too, about the infinite love of God which caused Him to send His only Son to die for us.

Could I send one of my sons to die in agony for someone who had insulted me? I think of that; and then I am better able to thank God for the redemption.
If we are saying the Glorious Mysteries, I consider often what a moment it will be when all the family rises from the grave and is reunited, nevermore to be parted; when we are all together to stay together, in perfect happiness, forever.

If the happy family is a thing of rollicking joy – and it is – then what must a perfectly happy family in heaven be like! It is very well worth looking forward to. It is very well worth the trouble of saying the daily rosary.
Ten or fifteen minutes a day is what it takes; and eternity is what it purchases. I wasn’t born yesterday; and I’m not passing up a bargain like that.

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“Be patient with everyone, but above all with yourself…do not be disheartened by your imperfections, but always rise up with fresh courage.”
Introduction the the Devout Life― St. Francis de Sales

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I used this book when my children were young. It was a valuable tool in helping them to incorporate True Devotion to Mary by St. Louis de Montfort into their little lives…. “PREFACE: This Marian program has but one purpose, to imbue the little ones with a genuine devotion to Mary. It is a copying of Mary- a way of life. It is the De Montfort Method simplified for young minds.” Available here. (afflink)

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A sermon for your day!

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Beautiful Handcrafted Rosaries and Rosary Bracelets at my Meadows of Grace Shoppe!

Wire wrapping is one of the oldest techniques for making jewelry or rosaries by hand.

In wire wrapping, rosaries are made using jewelry wire to make components.

Frequently, in this approach, a wire is bent into a loop or other decorative shape and then the wire is wrapped around itself to finish the wire component making that loop or decorative shape permanent.

Because of this technique for wrapping wire around itself this craft is called wire wrapping.

Not only is it quite beautiful but it makes the rosaries sturdy and durable.

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Mind the Baby! – Quiet Time

A mother’s various attempts in the course of the days routine to appreciate by observation, reason and faith the wonders of God’s making and remaking of one small Christian–these attempts set forth in the hope of working with God’s help towards a less harassed, more intelligent and loving service of Christ in these his least brethren our fascinating and exasperating children

by MARY PERKINS

Painting by Mabel Rollins Harris

QUIET TIME

“Where did you come from?”

THERE he sits in his play-pen, Thomas Edmund Ryan, age a year and a half. His hair shines in the afternoon sunlight; his cheeks are bright red from his morning on the porch; his dark eyes look merrily round at the world and finds it good.

He is clutching his after-lunch cookies, one in each hand, taking bites from each alternately; and he pauses now and then to smile a wide and crumby smile, or to utter a loud cry of dismay when a piece of cookie falls before it reaches his mouth and a satisfied chuckle of discovery when he finds it safe on his lap.

This is supposed to be the quiet time of day–and, for once, it is.

Four-year-old Jonjo is asleep upstairs, a rare and happy event. Thomas here should be well provided against the hour’s confinement with his cookies to eat and a newspaper to tear up, two trucks with wheels that go round, an empty pill bottle with its top, a big ball and an enormous wooden spoon. I can lie down on the couch for a few minutes and relax.

This might be the moment for that fifteen-minute meditation which spiritual writers say everybody can find time for…But Thomas is so distracting with his exclamations and bumps and rustlings and bangings.

As his father remarked one Sunday when he was in charge of Thomas and the telephone and the door-bell: “It’s like trying to think in a boiler factory!”

But since I have to be with Thomas so much of every day, I ought to be able to think in his presence. Perhaps “minding the baby” ought to mean keeping your mind on him, not trying to get it off. What does Thomas remind me of?

“Where did you come from, baby dear?” Well, certainly not out of the everywhere. Everywhere could never produce anything so definite and particular and personal as Thomas.

Where did he come from? From nothing? But nothing couldn’t have produced him, any more than everywhere; he is too clearly something and somebody.

Nothingness could never have been the cause of this so very actual and active little boy here in his playpen, eating a cookie, kicking his feet and uttering loud comments on life as he sees it.

Yet he must have come from nothing, for only two years ago I was wondering whether he would be a he or a she, and only three years ago he didn’t exist. There wasn’t any Thomas at all. From nothingness to existence, from nothingness to this very special existence–all in less than three years!

But where did the idea of Thomas come from? It could not have come from us, his parents, for we did not even know about him until he had already started to be. And anyway, how could we have had as pleasing and startling an idea as Thomas?

Sometimes when you make a cake or write a book it turns out better than you expected. But nothing that you make is ever such a vast and continual surprise as your own child, from the first moment you see him.

(And when, by God’s grace, you finally meet him in heaven and for the first time really see his very self all filled with the life and happiness of God in its own special way–that must be the most wonderful surprise of all.)

But if Thomas is not our idea, whose is he? Of course, he must be God’s. Thomas did not exist until a short time ago: but the idea, the plan, the blue-print of him has been in the mind of God from all eternity.

That funny round yellow head, that serious look with which he is surveying the vanishing cookie, those short hard little legs–were planned by God and foreseen by Him from forever!

Thinking about Thomas as one of God’s ideas certainly gives you rather a different notion of His mind from that which you can get merely by thinking of Him as planning everything-in-general. When God looked at Himself, Infinite Reality, with a view to creation (to put it in very human language), He saw all the possible ways in which He could express Himself through created things, all the ways in which His infinite perfections could be expressed and reflected by things outside Himself, from the angel to the amoeba, from the star to the star-fish.

And, therefore, babyhood in general and our Thomas in particular must reflect some of God’s Perfections. Could one deduce from looking at Thomas that among these perfections must be infinite Humor?

But God not only knew about our Thomas; He loved him from all eternity too. Otherwise he would be just a possibility, not the very actual and active fact that he is. We could not love him until he was here to be loved. But God’s creative love brought him into existence in order to share His Goodness with him.

And how much God must love this funny little boy now sprawled all over his big red ball, laughing as it rolls him over on his back, sitting up like a Jack-in-the-box to hug it to his chest and start his game all over again.

For God not only planned him and chose him to share in His perfections as far as a human baby can do so. He “chose him out in Christ before the foundation of the world, to be a saint, to be blameless in His sight for love of Him, marking him out beforehand (so His Will decreed) to be His adopted child through Jesus Christ.”

God the Father looked at His Word, His Son, and saw in Him the idea of our little son. God the Father ordained the Incarnation of His Son, and in that very decree He chose our son to share in His Own Son’s Sonship.

He wanted our baby not only to be His creature, but to become His Own child in Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit, to be co-heir with Christ of His eternal happiness. The mysterious Will of God from all eternity chose this little boy to “manifest the splendor of that grace by which He has taken us into favor in the person of His beloved Son.”

And this must mean that the human mind of Christ also knew all about Thomas Edmund long before we did. For from the first moment of His Incarnation, His human mind knew about all the souls He had come to save, and His human Will loved them all.

On the Cross, He “loved him and delivered Himself for him.” When He rose on Easter morning, He foresaw his Baptism, when He would destroy our small Thomas’ death by His dying, and restore his life as a child of God by His rising.

And now in heaven He looks at our Thomas with His human eyes, and loves our Thomas with His human as well as His Divine love. He is continually giving His life of sanctifying grace to this little boy, through His Holy Spirit, in the mysterious vital current which flows through the branches of the Vine, through all the members of the Mystical Body of Christ.

Our Lord has ready for Thomas all the graces he will need all his life long to grow up in all things in Christ, to take his special and unique place in the work of the Mystical Body, the Church on earth, to achieve his own place in heaven for all eternity.

To think that Thomas Edmund here in his playpen has such an integral part in God’s plans for all mankind!–that he is planned to be, called to be God’s assistant, Christ’s cooperator in the work of redemption, instrument of the Holy Spirit in the sanctification of other people…

Look at him now. The cookies have long since vanished, but their memory lingers in crumbs all over his face, his hands, and his nice blue suit that Granny brought him only yesterday. Every yellow hair is standing on end at a different angle from his wrestling with the ball, and he has taken both shoes and one sock off and thrust them out of his pen onto the floor.

Now he is working on the pill-bottle. He has got the top off and is trying earnestly to screw it back on. Ah!, he says loudly as at last it fits, and he bangs the bottle on the floor of the pen. How wonderful to know that somebody in our house is receiving all that God’s love wants to give him, is giving all the glory to God he possibly can, simply by existing and wriggling and banging a bottle!

But we, Thomas’ parents, are also responsible for all the glory our son is giving God now and will ever give Him. For God allowed us to help Him,–or, rather, He made us able to help Him to bring Thomas into existence.

God so recently created his soul from nothing; but, if one may say so, He made his body out of nothing very indirectly–and with our help. All the actual material of his bones and blood and solid flesh was made back at the beginning of things, when “God created heaven and earth.”

And the form, the pattern of Thomas’ body was created when God first made man to His image and likeness. St. Paul says that we were all “in Adam”; so Thomas must have been in Adam too.

He must have been “in” the father of the human race when he first looked around at the garden of Paradise, when he and Eve were blessed by God and told to increase and multiply and fill the earth and rule over it.

He certainly was “in” Adam in this mysterious solidarity of the human race with its first head, when Adam fell and lost the life of grace for himself, and for his children and for us and our children–for otherwise Tom wouldn’t have needed to be baptized.

And he must have been “in” Adam when God promised a Redeemer, a new Head of the human race, in Whom human nature would once again and more gloriously be united to God.

God must have been preparing for our little son’s existence through all the uncountable generations of men from Adam to John and me. He must have been watching over all the combinations and permutations of genes and chromosomes (or whatever scientists now call them), through all those centuries of prehistory and history, so that when our Tom finally came to exist, his body would have just the special characteristics and capabilities that God wanted it to have, so that it would fit the special soul He was going to create to in-form it and to make it into this special human person, Thomas Edmund Ryan.

And then, after all these centuries of preparation, God used us, John and me, and all the chances and changes of our lives and our free wills, to produce little Thomas for His love.

That we should have met each other at all–born thousands of miles and fourteen years apart–seems like accident. That we should have loved and married each other rather than anyone else seems to be the chance result of innumerable events and circumstances and choices.

But here is this little boy, and his older brother upstairs, and their sister in heaven, to prove it not really chance, but Providence, to show that God was forming us all along in order to marry us in Christ and to produce, through us, these children, who are at once the gift of God’s love to us and the gift of our love to God.

For it was the action of our love which gave God His opportunity to create each of these three new human creatures. Without our cooperation, God would not have brought these three beings into everlasting existence, these three special persons, each unique and individual, each having a special part in God’s plans for the whole human race.

How God honors us, even in the natural order of things, to make His actions so dependent on ours!

But if He would not produce these special babies without us, we certainly could not have produced them without Him. One can plan not to have a baby; but nobody can plan to have a baby and be sure that it will happen.

At some moment, some instant of whose coming or passing I was entirely unaware, God’s creative power came to meet our action, and infused a new and unique soul into the first beginnings of a human body.

Up to that time, my body had been placidly attending to its own needs; all my organs and glands had merely been going about their usual business of keeping me alive and active. But, all of a sudden, there was a new life for them to attend to.

Without my knowing anything about it, or having any control over it, my physical forces went to work to form and nourish and increase little Thomas, in ways so complex and mysterious that no scientist has even begun to chart them thoroughly.

“Didst Thou not form me in my mother’s womb? I praise Thee for my wondrous fashioning, for all the wonders of my creation. Of my soul Thou hast full knowledge, and this mortal frame has no mysteries for Thee, Who didst contrive it in secret, devise its pattern, there in the dark recesses of the earth.”

And surely this is the special joy of those months of pregnancy, the joy that underlies all the discomfort and annoyance and weariness and nervous strain–to know that God is using you in such a special way, that you are as it were His loom on which He is weaving the substance of a human body; that it is His work which is going on in you; that He is watching over it to see that it comes out according to His Will.

When you are having a baby, you cannot help being God’s instrument. Your body is for those nine months what your whole self ought to be all the time–the instrument through which God is working to achieve His plans.

How beautifully the prayer of the Church for an expectant mother expresses the truth of a baby’s coming to be: “Accept the offering of a contrite heart and the fervent prayer of Thy handmaid, as she humbly pleads for the life of her child whom she has conceived by Thy Will.

Guard her child-birth, and defend her from all assaults and injury of the bitter enemy. By the obstetric hand of Thy mercy may her infant happily see the light of day, and, being re-born in holy Baptism, forever seek Thy ways and come to everlasting life, through Jesus Christ Thy Son.”

Here is the point and glory of the whole process of parenthood–that our children should be re-born in Baptism, should always seek God’s ways and should come to everlasting life through Christ Our Lord. For we do not get married merely to bring forth more human beings. We marry in Christ to bring forth new human creatures whom God will make His children by Baptism.

We do not get married merely to carry on the human race; we get married to build up the Mystical Body of Christ. We get married so that we ourselves and our children will do God’s Will as members of Christ’s Mystical Body on earth and together share in His everlasting happiness in heaven.

So now two streams of life meet in our Thomas’ life:–the stream of natural life coming from Adam and the stream of supernatural life coming from Our Lord on Calvary.

There were two births for this one little boy: his first from me in the hospital, his second from the baptismal font in the Cathedral, “the immaculate womb of our holy Mother, the Church.”

And the wonder of Christian parenthood is that he had to have the natural life we were made able to give him, before he could receive super-natural life, divine life from God and from the Church.

He could not have come to his second birth unless we had given him his first. To become God’s child, God first made him our child–and here he is, one Christian baby, flat on his stomach with his legs kicking, reaching out through the bars of his play-pen to make his truck roll back and forth on the floor outside.

How amazingly the marvels of our re-making reflect the wonderful process of our making (or, rather, the other way around. And why should one be amazed, since God made the natural order to reflect and so teach us about the supernatural?).

For God gave our Thomas his natural life both through our cooperation in forming his body and through His Own direct action in creating his soul. And similarly, He gave him supernatural life by water and His Holy Spirit, through the action of the Church and through the direct action of His sanctifying grace.

Just as God did not bring Thomas into natural existence without the cooperation of all his ancestors down from Adam to John and myself, so

He did not give him supernatural life without the cooperation of innumerable human minds and wills and deeds.

Our child’s “share in the divine nature” comes to him directly by the working of the Holy Spirit, but it comes to him from Christ Our Lord, God and man, through the power of His Passion and Death and Resurrection.

And it comes to him also through the Church, born from our Lord’s side on the Cross to be the new Eve, the mother of all who would live by Christ’s life.

How many generations of bishops have lived and worked and handed on the priestly power first received by the Apostles from Christ Our Lord in Palestine nineteen hundred years ago, so that there would be a blessed font in a Cathedral in Boston, Massachusetts in the year 1947, and a priest of the Church to act in Christ’s person and to give our child his second birth from that font, his birth to everlasting life, his birth into the family of God! How kind God is to his human creatures, to let us work with Him not only in His work of making, but also of redeeming and sanctifying…

A loud cry breaks in on my meditations. The little “terminus ad quem” (as we used to be taught to say in philosophy class) of all this divine and human action, has rolled his truck too far away from the pen and is desperately trying to reach it.

What is Mummy doing?

And from upstairs floats the pathetic repeated wail of our older child of God: “Mummy, is it time to get up yet?”

To work is to pray? Well, then, back to prayer!

“The love of parents is made manifest only through sacrifice, respect for the human nature of their children, companionship and a deep interest in the studies, the work, the play and the progress of their children. It does not injure the children by coddling them; it does not stunt them by unreasonable severity in its demands and punishments.” -Fr. Donald Miller, C.SS.R., 1950’s

Beautiful Brass Agate Purple Stone Sts. Louis and Zelie Martin Rosary!

Available here.

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Loving and Thanking God – How to Raise Good Catholic Children

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loving God, morning offering, teadning your child to pray, thanking God, traditional catholic prayers

The devil trembles when, in spite of your not wanting to, you get on your knees and pray!

How to Raise Good Catholic Children, by Mary Reed Newland

Spiritual and temporal needs over with, children can turn to the joy that is simply loving God. “I love You, Blessed Jesus, and I love Your Blessed Mother.”

This must be the part He listens for the hardest. It’s really all He asks, because if love is there and a right disposition, with grace the rest will follow.

So we encourage children to say it over and over until their whole idea of God is bound inseparably to their love for Him. After the loving comes the thanking; one follows the other with ease.

“And thank You for . . .” each night a different blessing, from babies and books to lollipops and circuses — anything and everything — so that they will see that their world is full of blessings straight from the hand of God.

Gradually, as they grow older, the form of their prayers will change. If they attend parochial school and Sister recommends certain practices, we should help to put these into effect. They will learn formal prayers, prayers proper to each liturgical season, the family Rosary, the Stations of the Cross, Mass preparations, and much more.

But the approach of their prayers remains unchanged, the contrition, asking, praising, and thanksgiving are in all these, and if they understand, above all, that prayer is talking to God, the knowledge will never leave them.

Knowing all this, however, is still no guarantee that children will always want to pray. Would that all grown-ups always wanted to pray. But they don’t, and their own perversity is not always the reason.

Many times God allows it to be hard to pray, simply to school us in applying our wills, to teach us that the value of prayer does not depend on the amount of emotion we can whip up.

So when “Time for prayers” is greeted with moans and groans, it’s time to explain that saying prayers when you least want to, simply because you love God and have a kind of dry respect and a sense of obedience, is to gain the greatest merit for them.

Many times the saints had trouble getting excited about prayers, but they said them, because prayers were due and their value had nothing to do with how eagerly they went about saying them.

“But with so many people in the world praying, I get the feeling God can’t really be listening to me.” Here we can remind our children of how our Lord said that God counts even the hairs on our heads, and all the sparrows that fall.

It’s hard to understand, but we need not understand; we need only believe that every word and sigh and flick of an eyelash is watched and weighed and counted, and every word is heard as though we were the only one praying.

The morning offering can be a simple form of gathering up the day and all it will hold and giving it to God.

Our children say, “I offer You this day as a prayer of love and thanksgiving, and thank You for keeping me safe through the night. Please help me to be pure and good, and keep me safe from harm. Please help us all with our work.”

They can offer it for one or many intentions, or simply give it to Jesus and Mary and ask them to apply its merits as they wish.

The “safe through the night” isn’t meant to imply that dying in the night would be the horror of horrors, but to remind them of God’s watchfulness while we sleep and to teach that, if we have survived the night, obviously God’s will for us includes another day of work and play and prayer to be lived as best we can.

When the older children started catechism classes (we have no parochial schools in our town), Sister taught them the traditional Morning Offering; so now they like to say that. But whatever form of offering they use, the important thing is to think of it like the net that strained with many fishes but still did not break. It will hold all the good a child can say and think and do in his entire day and give him a wonderful sense of having used every minute.

Many times I have heard one or another of our children (who are really no more pious than other children) say, “There, now wiping the dishes is part of my prayers because I made my Morning Offering.”

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“Life is too short to spend it doing things that don’t get you where you want to go. For instance, if it’s important to you to read aloud to your kids, but you find yourself rarely doing that, you’ll feel the disconnect and it will discourage you. You’ll feel off track and out of sorts, but might not be able to put your finger on why.
Spend some time thinking about what you DO want in your life. Then make those choices each day. When you live intentionally and with purpose, it will make a tremendous difference in your life and the lives of those you love.” – Charlotte Siems

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When my children were young I loved to read to them stories, poems and nursery rhymes! They knew those rhymes inside and out and it was such a happy pastime! I did yearn, at times, for little ditties that had more meaning…….So I decided to write a book myself for the generation after me….especially thinking of my grandchildren, but for all Catholic children everywhere!

This is a 140 page fun-packed book full of Catholic poems and pictures!

It gives us some lovely rhymes that can, and should, be committed to heart by your children. Not only will it provide all the benefits of reading and memorizing, but it will supply some simple reflections that will turn those little minds to what is most important in their life….their Catholic Faith.

Available here.

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