Sunday Meditation: The Feast of Intercessors -- May All the Saints March Us into Paradise!

I love All Saints Day, the feast of all our friends and intercessors who have gone before us. How I look forward to the day I'm included "when the saints go marching in!" What an opportunity to thank them all for their prayers and support. I expect my patron saints to be there cheering me on and, of course, my guardian angel. But then I expect to walk hand in hand with my beloved parents and side by side with my deceased brothers and all the priests who impacted by life from my Baptism. If my husband goes before me, I will look for him in the crowd and run to accept his welcome. So many pro-life friends will be there as well accompanied by the babies we helped to save by God's grace. What rejoicing!

What are Acceptable Halloween Costumes This Woke Year?

I published the article below almost a decade ago and, as I re-read the list, I had to shake my head and give a rueful laugh. Have things changed much? TDS is still high on the list of wokeness. White privilege (especially white male privilege) is still a major theme sometimes with ridiculous claims. In a society that gives preference to anybody but a white man we still hear that they carry all the advantages. Excuse me, but college admissions prove that isn't true as well as less qualified candidates being hired because of "diversity and inclusion." And we recently saw only one white doctor among four or five during my husband's hospital visit. Women seem to have the advantage over white males. And as for the LGBTQ+ agenda, well, it's woke on steroids. Give us a break and stop lying! 

Catholic Lite?

Lite foods may be fine for dieters, but does lite spiritual food really nourish the soul? Today being All Saints Day, my husband and I went to the early low Mass at the Linden Chapel. Yesterday I asked someone what time they were going to Mass on the "Holy Day of Obligation." She reminded me that it isn't a holy day because the feast fell on a Saturday and when they fall on Saturdays or Mondays the obligation is lifted.

Sunday Meditation: Celebrate All Saints and All Souls by Helping Make More Saints!

During the next week, you can free a soul from Purgatory every day by gaining a plenary indulgence. Visit and pray in a cemetery and meet the other regular requirements (praying for the traditional intentions of the Holy Father, receive Communion and go to Confession within a week, and be detached from all sin including venial sin, which is the really hard part.) Just think of the crowd that will be praying you out of Purgatory if you make the effort to help souls now. You can read more about the norms for gaining indulgences by going to Catholic Culture. Pope Francis has extended the indulgence practice for All Saints and the Holy Souls for the entire month of November. What an opportunity to do acts of love and charity for the dead.

Sunday Meditation: Rejoice at Being in the Communion of Saints

St. Dominic, pray for us.

We are never alone!

Celebrate all your patron saints today including your Confirmation name saint. (Mine is St. Dominic.) Don't forget to thank them for interceding for you.



Please join me in praying the Litany of the Saints.

I Love All Saints Day!

And not just for the saints in heaven, but all the little saints at Mass this morning. I saw a tiny angel in the Communion line with her mom and met St. Dominic (barefoot) in the parking lot. At a little reception after Mass we all joined with St. Benedict, St. Rita, several sister saints, one of the shepherd children of Fatima, and many others. So much better than the goblins, ghouls, zombies, and monsters of last night!

I especially love getting to know the more obscure saints whom we don't hear about so much. Blessed Karl of Austria is my latest discovery along with his wife Zita who is a Venerable Servant of God. Right now I'm exploring some of the lesser known November saints. Was St. Vigor vigorous? Do you know the English martyr, Blessed Hugh Green, one of the priests put to death by Queen Elizabeth? What a long line of courageous priests met that same fate bringing the Mass to the faithful Catholic recusants. And then there are the female saints. St. Gebetrude was an abbess in 7th century France. When people say the Church ignores and degrades women remind them of all the women saints who headed monasteries (St. Teresa of Avila, St. Fine, Hilda of Whitby) and founded hospitals, schools and orphanages (St. Frances Cabrini, St. Elizabeth Seton, St. Theodore Guerin). Their number is legion!

All Saints Day Meditation in Art

We visited many churches and shrines on our recent cross country trip. Here are a few portraits in stained glass and sculpture that reminded me of the rich patronage of our Catholic heritage. All you angels and saints, pray for us on this All Saints night and on the vigil of all Souls Day.

The Holy Family and ourModel for the Domestic Church



Our Lady of Guadalup, Patroness of the Americas



Simeon, a great model for grandparents!

  

<>St. Thomas More, one of my favorite saints. 

St. John the Evangelist: Our Model for Sharing the Faith

St. Peter: Let us imitate him and be a rock of faith.

Happy All Saints Day

I love this feast day. Many of the children in our parish arrive for morning Mass dressed as little saints. This morning I saw St. George (last year St. George came with a dinosaur masquerading as a dragon), St. Bernadette, St. Therese, St. Teresa of Avila (I think) and a number of others.

One of my favorite saints has yet to be canonized. Blessed Margaret of Castello, who lived during the middle ages, led a sad life if you evaluate it from the world's standards. She was born blind and a hunchbacked dwarf. Despised by her wealthy parents for her ugliness, she was kept hidden in the castle lest anyone know of her existence. Her parents later imprisoned her in a little room next to a remote chapel in the woods where none of their well-born friends would ever see her or learn of her existence. Later, in hopes of a healing they took her on a pilgrimage to a town a day's journey from their home. When the young woman wasn't healed they abandoned her and left for home.

Imagine being blind and alone in a strange city far from home - with no friends, not even an acquaintance. When she was put out of the church at closing she waited there on the steps hoping her parents would return. They never did. Instead, the beggars took her in and shared what little they had as well as how and where to beg. As the townspeople recognized her holiness, many humble families took her in. Everywhere she stayed, changes occurred as her gentle prayerfulness and humble example invited imitation.

When a noble woman of the town learned she was going blind she begged Margaret to pray for a cure. The little saint tried to get her to conform her will to God's and recognize that the sacrifice of her sight could be a great blessing. But when the woman wept and begged Margaret again, the little saint complied and her friend was cured. Margaret became a third order lay Dominican with a special regard for the poor, the sick, the dying, and prisoners. No wonder! She herself had experienced all these states.

Margaret of Costello is the perfect patron for those despised by the world: the poor, the deformed, the unwanted elderly, the little handicapped babies in the womb who so often are murdered for their imperfection. All can turn to the diminutive little hunchback and trust in her intercession. Her incorrupt body lies under the altar at the Church of St. Domenico in Costello, Italy. Author Joan Carroll Cruz included Margaret in her book, The Incorruptibles.

St. Margaret, pray for our poor deformed world, that we might turn away from sin and back to the will of God.