Come, O Holy Spirit, Fill the Hearts of Your Faithful and Enkindle in Them the Fire of Thy Love!

My husband and I gave our priests worldly and otherworldly gifts for Christmas. The more important was our spiritual gift of the novena to the Holy Spirit which we plan to begin on New Year's Day. What a good way to begin a new year, we decided, by entreating the Holy Spirit to enlighten our minds and those of our spiritual guides. We expect that not only the priests will benefit from this gift, but we will too. Can you ever pray without being immersed in a pool of grace?

 This morning, during my prayer time, I read an excerpt from St. Claude de la Colombiere's 1674 notes from a retreat in Lyons. It confirmed for me the wisdom of choosing the Holy Spirit novena as a starting place for 2025. What better helper can we invoke as St. Claude writes; and what easier way to endure all things in peace and tranquility?:

A Holy Saturday Sermon from St. John Chrysostom

He descended into hell by Gustave Dore (1832-1883)

I'm breaking my Holy Week silence a few hours early to share a wonderful Holy Saturday sermon sent to me by a dear friend and colleague who used to sidewalk counsel with me at an abortuary in Alexandria next door to Bishop Ireton High School. May it lead us all to a greater sense of gratitude for Christ's monumental event of salvation. The patriarchs and faithful of the Old Testament waited thousands of years to be released from their dark prison as they looked toward the coming of the Savior. May we pray in profound gratitude today and sing Hosannah with them for our release from the devastating consequences of sin!

Give me a Warrior Angel, Not a New Age Wimp!

Angel with the Flaming Sword by Edwin Blashfield (1893)

I'm very fond of angels, especially my personal guardian angel. But, please, I want a real guardian not a wimpy angel like the ones portrayed by new agers who like girly imitations. They love a nicy-nice vision of a Pillsbury Doughboy God surrounded by wraith-like dancing angels more fit for Islam's "heaven" than for the real thing. They finger their crystals and listen to new age music from lotus positions dreaming of a heaven where all are welcome, unrepentant sins and all, where they can continue to mock God for all eternity. Silly angels and a marshmallow God! What an insult to truth! And what a shocking revelation they're in for on Judgment Day! Pray for them!

Give me a strong, young, masculine angel any day -- one with a big flaming sword!

Earth to Pope Francis – Yes, Religions do Make War and No, Church Secretaries are Not Disciples of Satan

Parish secretaries scare me, like...like...they
are disciples of Satan or something.

While we’re here on earth with our feet firmly planted on the ground, Pope Francis flies around the world on his airplane from place to place making what the media takes to be Francis’ latest ex cathedra statements. I suppose we should get used to the fact that every time he’s in flight, he makes mind-boggling off the cuff statements, so mind-boggling that by now we don’t pay much attention to what he says way up there the air. Why bother? We have the Catechism and Canon Law to consult right here on earth.

It’s as if, weighed down by woes and worries of the universal Church, Francis thinks himself not free to speak his mind but as soon as he’s on the plane he’s suddenly transformed into a spouting fountain of floating thoughts clouding his intellect.