Today is the feast of St. Alphonsus Liguori, Bishop and Doctor of the Church. Reading about him in Butler's Lives this morning made me realize I really need him for a friend and intercessor. I had to laugh when I read his statement, "By the grace of God I have never confessed having acted from passion." Would that I could make that statement. But now I have a friend in heaven to ask for help! I have no doubt he will respond to my request because he had such zeal to save souls.
My husband's spiritual reading for several months has been Liguori's, Preparation for Death. At our ages, that's a serious consideration. I have many of St. Alphonsus' books and think I will begin reading, Victories of the Martyrs. Walking in their footsteps is a sure path to salvation. In Advent I may delve into The Incarnation, Birth and Infancy of Jesus Christ. For Lent I can study The Passion and the Death of Jesus Christ. St. Alphonsus seems to me to be a one-man library of the faith! One could easily choose his books by the liturgical seasons. I think my first book during this ordinary time will be the short treatise, Love God and Do What You Please adapted by Redemptorist priest M.J. Huber, C.SS.R. He says in the introduction:
St. Alphonsus wanted all God's children to burn with the spirit of Christ. In bringing the good news of Christ to his fellow men he made a vow never to waste a moment of time. Truly the motto of his life might well have been not jus "God and me!" but "For God and for the world!"
St. Alphonsus lived in the post Renaissance age of flowery preaching and "highfalutin mumbo jumbo." His approach in the pulpit emphasized simplicity. "I have never preached a sermon which the poorest old woman in the congregation could not understand." As Butler's Lives tells us:
He treated his penitents as souls to be saved rather than as criminals to be punished or frightened into better ways; he is said never to have refused absolution to a penitent.
This was during a period of rigorism, a holdover from the heresy of Jansenism which denied that man's free will was necessary for salvation. The Jansenists believed that God gives grace where He will or God denies it. All the action is God's; man's free will is insignificant. I'm no student of the Jansenist philosophy but it sounds like Calvinism to me.
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| Wild Bill Cody |
Want to grow in faith? Read the saints. Make friends with them and seek their intercession. Don't you ask people here on earth to pray for you? What makes more sense than to ask your friends in heaven to help?
I'll end with a wonderful article on some spectacular conversions, some unexpected like John Wayne and Wild Bill Cody. And if you have family members about whom you're concerned remember that it's not over until it's over.
Here are 10 of the Most Unexpected Catholic Conversion Stories
Years, ago I was told by a mother of a good priest…….read the lives of saints.
ReplyDeleteSt. Alphonsus was among the first that I read about, what a whipping did I get, he, and St. Teresa of Avila, have shown me repeatedly who I was not, how miserably I was failing, and who I ought to be……moving my consciousness.
There was a time when in my house, family pictures were all over……. on the walls, on side tables, in the bookcases……etc. Then one day I was awakened. I did not want to be reminded of the worldliness of my family (that I was born into), the foolishness of my youth…..etc., my sons were no longer these cute little boys, but young teenagers on their way to manhood.
One morning, I took down most of the frames of my family, of the boys (on Yankee Stadium, by Statue of ‘false’ Liberty….etc), got out holy cards, put in the smaller frames, cut out large pictures from Catholic magazines, books that I salvaged from thrift shops, that were not in good condition, but beautiful Catholic art, and one by one (with exception of few) filled with pictures of the saints, made collage from the holy cards, especially the antique, that I salvaged from old books, that I collected from the thrift shops (treasures). Put ‘crucifix’ in every room, not just above the front door. Took down some mirrors, that have beautiful frames. Went to ACE hardware, to remove the mirrors. I have found a poster of the martyrdom in the Colosseum (‘remember who paved the way for us, I used to say), in another large wooden handmade frame was put a beautiful picture of Our Lady of Guadeloupe, with her foot on Satan’s head, another with 10 Commandments, right by the entrance door, that I bought years ago that came from Vatican.
Years ago, was given to me by a missionary priest, a beautiful image of Our Lady of Fatima, speaking to the children, painted on tiles from Italy.
In no time, the Fatima Angel praying, by the mailbox...... gives me joy to see children running to it and touching the angel, another neighbor passes by, and makes the sign of the cross.
I live in the neighborhood of fallen away Catholics, two Muslim families, few Jewish families, across the street an Evangelical family, who for every Christmas decorate their house with huge Santa Claus, and all the trimmings.
.....long story short, I’m reminded daily that we, Catholics have a true family in Heaven, who intercede for us, if we pray for their intercession……Ave Maria!
St. Alphonsus de Liguori, pray for us!
I would like to recommend a book about Bl. Anna-Maria Taigi, “Wife, Mother and Mystic,” by Albert Bessieres.
ReplyDeleteI have read the book few years ago, but as always is true, that when you read it second time, you read it with the ‘eyes and heart’ of faith.
“Anna-Maria was born at Siena on 29th May 1769…. two and a half months later, on the Feast on the Assumption, on the Island of Corsica, Napoleon I was born. 30 years later their souls were to encounter each other before the Chair of Peter, he the conqueror of the world, striving to overthrow that Chair; she, the poor wife of a porter, defending it like a second Catherine of Siena……again the ‘weak’ had the last word.
Past, and future were to her an open book. She knew the fate of the dead. Her gaze travelled to the ends of the earth. The poor, the great of the world, the princes of the Church came to her for advice or help.
In France the Court of Louis XV, sunk in debauchery, vice was brazen, and shameless.
Pius VII, is dragged from prison to prison by the all-powerful Emperor. Voltairian philosophy became a craze.
It was an apocalyptic period in which thrones fell and people threw off restraints…..the condemnation of this century wherein materialism, lies and pride predominate…….it was a time when Napoleon at Fontanes, said: ‘here below, there are only two powers, the sword and the spirit, but sooner or later the spirit conquers the sword.’
……the five trees of heresy that infest the ‘forest’ should be torn out of the roots……. nationalism, liberalism, freemasonry, modernism, socialism……. then the purification will begin. Let us hope so!
I second your recommendation. On retreat a few years ago I read the book -- absolutely amazing! She had a special friendship with her guardian angel, a good thing for all of us to work on.
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