Sunday Meditation: The Frustration of Lost Items

Today is the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross. My plan was to spend the day re-reading Louis de Wohl's wonderful historical novel, St. Helena and the True Cross. Only one problem. I can't find it. The shelf with Mary Windeatt's saint novels is where it should be, but it isn't. I remember reading it a few years ago so I know I own the book, but where did I put it?

I looked through my alphabetically arranged lives of the saints and it isn't there. Then I went upstairs where I have two shelves of biographies and it wasn't there either. So instead of spending the day following my intended pursuit, I will read the entry on St. Helena in Butler's Lives of the Saints and offer up my frustration for the poor souls in Purgatory. 

Feast of St. Joseph the Worker

Thinking of and praying for St. Joseph's assistance is a great way to start the month of May, especially with the upcoming conclave to elect a new pope beginning on May 7th. St. Joseph served the little domestic Church of the Holy Family as its head. He guards the universal Church. 

Are you praying for the pope?

You should be. 

The Italians call him "Il Papa." He is our spiritual father. Does a child have the right to disrespect his natural father? Does the 4th Commandment say, "Honor your mother and father unless they offend you, sin against you, or make mistakes that hurt you?"

We have an obligation to pray for the pope just as we have an obligation to pray for our natural fathers, especially as they approach death.

That thought struck me today as I read about Pope St. Gregory the Great who's feast is today in the traditional calendar. I read this in Butler's Lives of the Saints:

Feast of St. Bartholomew: Come and See!

I've always loved St. Nathaniel, (son of Tholomew, hence Bartholomew). After Philip invites Nathaniel to "Come and see," because he has found the Messiah, he takes him to Jesus. Nathaniel is a bit skeptical. "Can anything good come from Nazareth?"Jesus greets Nathaniel saying, "Here is a true Israelite; there is no duplicity in him." What a compliment. Wouldn't you want others to say that about you?

Are You and I Willing to Die for the Faith? St. Stephen, Pray for Us.

For some reason, I got it into my head this morning that today is the feast of St. Stephen. I must have been suffering a senior moment. (Is that a symptom of COVID 19)? I know it's not the feast of St. Stephen, so where did that come from? (His feast is actually December 26th.) 

Let Us Seek the Truth Like the Wise Men of Old!

Adoration of the Magi, Albrecht Durer 1504

Meditating on the Magi is a humbling experience. Think of the immensity of their project. It was over a thousand miles from their home in Persia to Bethlehem. As pagans, what did they know about the coming Messiah? They must have been great seekers of truth. And so they received a call from truth Himself. How else could they have the courage to even take the first step.

Feast of Christ the King: "He Shall Send His Angels with a Trumpet and a Great Voice!"

On this last Sunday of the liturgical year we celebrate the feast of Christ the King. It should remind us that we are not a people who put our trust in men, but in the God of the Universe, the Word made flesh. As long as we live in Him we can never be defeated by the slings and arrows of the evil one.

Say Thank You to Your Patron Saints Today!

All Saints Day is the perfect time to give special recognition to your patron saints. I am truly blessed to have been named for our Blessed Mother and her mother, St. Anne. I was born the day after the feast of the Annunciation so Mary was an obvious and appropriate choice. (Most of my siblings also have names associated with a saint whose feast day is near the date of their births.) How I love the feast that celebrates what I can only consider the most significant day in human history when the Word became flesh and began His journey among us. Without Mary's yes, the Incarnation, and the passion, death, and resurrection of our Divine Lord we would remain spiritually dead in the primordial muck of original sin. Thank you, Mary!

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.

St. John the Baptist and the Fortnight for Freedom

It's interesting that St. John the Baptist's feast today falls within the U.S. bishops' Fortnight for Freedom project. Perhaps that was deliberate although I think the event is more linked to the 4th of July. His is one of the few birthdays celebrated by the Church and one of the few saints with multiple feast days.(His beheading is commemorated on August 29 and his baptizing the Lord on January 13.)

St. John is certainly an appropriate saint for the Fortnight for Freedom. King Herod had him killed because he dared to speak out about the man's corruption. (No religious freedom rights for loudmouthed saints!) His preaching earned him the diabolical hatred of Herod's wife, Herodias. She bided her time until she could bring about John's murder with the aid of her seductive daughter and Herod's lust.

How many of us dare to speak truth to power, even to the emotional power of our children, relatives, and friends? We shrink from anything that makes us "uncomfortable." Somebody might think we are "judgmental." Not that we need to imitate the fire and brimstone style of a Savonarola calling for the Church to rule the state, but we are called to witness, going out "to the whole world." We would do well to reach at least the first circle of the world by speaking the truth to family and friends.

But it's not easy to do, God knows. What a blessing that we have in John the Baptist the perfect saint to intercede for us as we evangelize, one who prepared the way of the Lord by his preaching and the witness of his life. He can help prepare us as well.

St. John the Baptist, pray for us!

Our Lady of Guadalupe, Patroness of the Americas, Pray for Us!

Heavenly Portrait in Basilica in Mexico

Our Lady of Guadalupe, Mystical Rose

How much we need Mary's intercession! If any country needed conversion both for our own sake and the sake of the world, it's us. Why? Because we remain a Christian nation even if many are falling away. And we have the protection of the Blessed Sacrament in our many, many churches throughout our country. We must offer hope to the world through our faithful practice of the Catholic faith and our intercession for all those in need.

Priests in pagan countries describe how widespread diabolic activity is. We are protected by the Real Presence of Our Sacred Lord in the tabernacle. The devil is active in the United States, but tortured souls have many aids to save them from Satan's snares. Eucharistic adoration, the use of sacramentals like holy water, blessed salt, and blessed objects also help us to resist the snares of the devil.

Our Lady of Guadalupe crushed the serpent god Quetzlcoatl in Mexico by her apparitions to St. Juan Diego. While the Spanish had few conversions before Mary appeared on Tepeyac Hill, afterwards millions embraced the faith. Mary, please come to us again and help your "poor banished children of Eve."

Resist the devil and he will flee from you. Pray the St. Michael exorcism prayer often, especially in times of temptation.

Put Your Shoes Out for St. Nicholas the Wonder-Worker

I love St. Nicholas. He was meek, loved the poor, and deprived himself of many good things to share with others. What a model for Advent. You can read about this great saint here and here.

Being meek didn't keep him from defending the faith with zeal. It's said that during one of the most contentious meetings during the Council of Nicea, he crossed the room and took a swing at the heretic Arius who denied that Christ was God.

Gosh, we could use some bishops like that in these days of playing kissy face with dissenters and outright heretics.

I'm putting my shoe out for St. Nicholas and asking him to fill it with spiritual intercessions that I might be more like him.

St. Nicholas, pray for us!

Who is the King of Your Heart?

On the Feast of Christ the King....What matters to you most? Your possessions? Your significant other? Your next meal? Your addiction?

Why would you settle for things that will fade, rust, and die? Even the people in your life are a threat to your salvation if they become idols who take the place that only belongs to God. When you love them in Him, your love for them is true and pure and good.

But do you know God? Do you know how intimately He loves you and wants to be the Lord of your life? Bow down today before Christ our King and beg Him to show His face to you. Once you look into His eyes, truly look into His eyes, nothing in life will ever satisfy you again except your relationship with Him! "O Lord, you made our hearts for Thee and ever restless will they be until they rest in Thee." (paraphrasing St. Augustine)

Lord Jesus, reign in my heart and make me grow ever closer to Your Sacred Heart that beats with such love for me. Mary, my mother, take my hand and lead me to your Son that I might be His humble maidservant as you were!

I love you, Lord Jesus, increase my faith.

Happy Feast Day, St. Teresa

I love St. Teresa of Avila. I spent months using a little booklet of seventeen Communion meditations she wrote as my own thanksgiving after Mass. Whenever I got to the end I started over. You can tell how much the little paperback was handled because it's taped and held together with rubber bands. I still use it occasionally.

The title of my booklet is Lingering with my Lord, but it wasn't a title St. Teresa selected. According to the introduction the translator, Michael Griffin, she frequently didn't title her works. When the meditations were published in 1588 the publisher, Luis de Leon, called it "Exclamations or meditations of the soul to its God, written by Mother Teresa of Jesus, on different days, according to the spirit communicated to her by our Lord after she made her Communion, in the year 1569." Wow! How did he fit all that on the cover? The title most often given to the book is Exclamations of the Soul to God. I like Griffin's title better. It has a sense of savoring -- "taste and see the goodness of the Lord."

Today I'm savoring once again St. Teresa's meditations and I offer you a few tastes as well:

Feast of Our Lady of Sorrows

When I wake up in the night, I pray: sometimes Mother Teresa's "instant novena" of nine Memorares, sometimes decades of the rosary, sometimes seven Hail Mary's for the seven sorrows of the Blessed Mother. Will you comfort Our Lady before you go to bed tonight?

Mary's Seven Sorrows

        Simeon Prophesies that a sword will pierce Mary's heart 

        Mary and Joseph Flee into Egypt to Protect Jesus from Herod's Evil Plan 

        Mary and Joseph Search in Sorrow throughout Jerusalem for the Christ Child 

        Mary Meets Jesus on the Via Dolorosa as he carries His cross to Calvary 

        Mary Grieves at the foot of the Cross for Her Suffering Son 

        Mary Receives the Dead Body of Her Son at the Foot of the Cross 

Mary Accompanies the Body of Jesus to the Tomb

For more go here.

St. Rose of Lima, Pray for Us!

Wouldn't it be wonderful if all of us loved Jesus the way Rose of Lima did? Her name was really Isabella, but she was such a beautiful infant everyone called her Rose. She lived a quiet life making a little hermitage in the back yard of her family's home, refused to marry, and even did things to disfigure her beauty like rub her face with pepper. She didn't want the young men flocking around her like bees to a flower. Here's a brief summary of her heroic life:

When her parents fell into financial trouble, she worked in the garden all day and sewed at night. Ten years of struggle against her parents began when they tried to make Rose marry. They refused to let her enter a convent, and out of obedience she continued her life of penance and solitude at home as a member of the Third Order of St. Dominic. So deep was her desire to live the life of Christ that she spent most of her time at home in solitude. 

During the last few years of her life, Rose set up a room in the house where she cared for homeless children, the elderly and the sick. This was a beginning of social services in Peru. Though secluded in life and activity, she was brought to the attention of Inquisition interrogators, who could only say that she was influenced by grace. (Read more here.)

Rose was the first saint of the Americas. She died in 1617, only 31-years-old, was beatified 50 years after her death, and canonized a few years later.  What a wonderful saint for our coddled age! We would do well to imitate her humble life.

I am happy to have two little granddaughters named after her, Amelia Rose and Marianna Rose. Happy feast day, girls!

Happy Feast Day, St. James and Jamie!

St. James the Greater, brother of St. John

I love St. James! Both St. Jameses in fact. Having visited Santiago de Compostela in northwest Spain when my daughter was teaching at the university, I grew to really appreciate St. James the Greater, the brother of John. And then there is "St. James the Lesser" (I wonder if he was physically smaller or was he just quieter than the "Son of Thunder?") who told us in his epistle that "faith without works is dead." (HT to Janet for catching my error. Maybe this will keep me straight in the future about the two Jameses. )

Anyway, you gotta love a man who knows the score and articulates it so clearly! So thanks, St. James the Lesser

When our youngest child, a daughter, was born on August 2nd, the feast of St. Eusebius, we considered name possibilities. Much as I like the historian saint, I even have his history on my saints bookshelf, we couldn't think of a name variation our daughter wouldn't roll her eyes and groan about when she was older. ("Eusie? Mom, you've got to be kidding! What were you thinking?")

St. James the Lesser, uncle of James and John

So we looked at nearby dates for a more girl-friendly patron.  And there was my friend St. James
the Greater only a week earlier on July 25th. (St. James the Lesser's feast is May 3rd) So Jamie she became. The only questions we got were, "What's her real name? Isn't Jamie a nickname?"

Nope, Jamie she is, check out her birth certificate.

So Happy Feast Day to St. James the Greater and his namesake Jamie who can claim the other St. James for a patron as well. And thanks for the great epistle, St. James the Less.

St. James the Greater and St. James the Lesser, Pray for us!

Celebrate St. Joseph the Worker Today...

And offer your labors through his intercession. May all our work be to the greater honor and glory of God.

A little history:

St. Joseph, Patron of the Universal Church,...

...pray for our poor, sick world, and especially for innocent children who are so targeted by Satan. Bless the work of all those committed to rescuing little ones from abortion, teaching them the faith, and helping families in crisis. St. Joseph, guardian of Mary and the Christ Child, watch over our families and intercede for us.

Childhood of Christ by 16th c. painter Gerrit van Honthorst,  from the Hermitage, St. Petersburg

What Do You Think?

Could you be a martyr like St. Agatha whose feast is today? Would you suffer torture for your faith? Because tradition tells us that one of St. Agatha's tortures was to have her breasts cut off, she is the patron of women who suffer breast cancer. 

St. Agatha of Sicily, pray for us.

Here's her history from Catholic Online: