Thursday, October 21, 2010

Another Great Suggestion

A friend sent this which is also a great link:

There is much you can heal through prayer and the rosary. I found a great website that has a link that allows you to pray the rosary with others. It is just fantastic and I feel it is important to share good finds with others.




http://www.therosarycellar.com/pray_the_rosary

Wednesday, October 20, 2010

Thanks to a friend's blog!


October is the month of the Holy Rosary, so I would like to share some of my favorite quotes about the rosary:

“Never will anyone who says his Rosary every day be led astray. This is a statement that I would gladly sign with my blood.” Saint Louis de Montfort

“You shall obtain all you ask of me by the recitation of the Rosary.” Our Lady to Blessed Alan de la Roche

“Give me an army saying the Rosary and I will conquer the world.” Pope Blessed Pius IX

“When the Holy Rosary is said well, it gives Jesus and Mary more glory and is more meritorious than any other prayer.” Saint Louis de Montfort

“One day, through the Rosary and the Scapular, Our Lady will save the world.” Saint Dominic

“If you say the Rosary faithfully unto death, I do assure you that, in spite of the gravity of your sins, ‘you will receive a never-fading crown of glory’ (1 St. Peter 5:4).” Saint Louis de Montfort

“You must know that when you ‘hail’ Mary, she immediately greets you! Don’t think that she is one of those rude women of whom there are so many—on the contrary, she is utterly courteous and pleasant. If you greet her, she will answer you right away and converse with you!” Saint Bernardine of Siena

“Recite your Rosary with faith, with humility, with confidence, and with perseverance.” Saint Louis de Montfort

“The Rosary is the most beautiful and the most rich in graces of all prayers; it is the prayer that touches most the Heart of the Mother of God…and if you wish peace to reign in your homes, recite the family Rosary.”

Pope Saint Pius X

“Even if you are on the brink of damnation, even if you have one foot in hell, even if you have sold your soul to the devil as sorcerers do who practice black magic, and even if you are a heretic as obstinate as a devil, sooner or later you will be converted and will amend your life and will save your soul, if—and mark well what I say—if you say the Holy Rosary devoutly every day until death for the purpose of knowing the truth and obtaining contrition and pardon for your sins.” Saint Louis de Montfort

“The Most Holy Virgin in these last times in which we live has given a new efficacy to the recitation of the Rosary to such an extent that there is no problem, no matter how difficult it is, whether temporal or above all spiritual, in the personal life of each one of us, of our families…that cannot be solved by the Rosary. There is no problem, I tell you, no matter how difficult it is, that we cannot resolve by the prayer of the Holy Rosary.” Sister Lucia of Fatima

“How beautiful is the family that recites the Rosary every evening.” Pope John Paul II

“The Rosary is a magnificent and universal prayer for the needs of the Church, the nations and the entire world.”

by Pope John XXIII

“The holy Rosary is a powerful weapon. Use it with confidence and you’ll be amazed at the results.”

by St. Josemaria Escriva

“When lovers are together, they spend hours and hours repeating the same thing: I love you! What is missing in the people who think the Rosary monotonous, is Love.” Sr. Lucia of Fatima

do visit: http://ellengable.wordpress.com/2010/10/20/rosary-quotes/

Friday, October 15, 2010

TWO AGONIES

Dictionaries define agony as extreme mental or physical suffering, struggle and to agonize is to writhe in anguish, to wrestle.


In the Garden, more than any human being ever in history, past, present, future, Jesus embraced all aspects of agony and anguish, taking upon Himself the greatest portion of all agony/anguish any human being ever has, or will, endure – indeed taking it on for each of us as an individual and for all humanity collectively.

Therefore when we are in the seemingly bottomless abyss of agony we should know that we are not alone.

However most of us have experienced, at some point in our lives, such immense agony that the cacophony of our raw emotions screaming their apparently never to end pain deafens the ears of our hearts.

At such times because hyena that he is, preying on the wounded and weakened by agony, the evil one adds his own howl of despair so that noise engulfs us, a noise of helplessness– sometimes to the very edge of the abyss.

When that happens, when agony morphs into depression/despair, when the person has become so overwhelmed with anguish the necessary strength to wrestle with demons seems to have evaporated, either they suffer a complete breakdown or worse, seeking to end the pain, take their own lives.

In my experience as chaplain in hospitals with psychiatric wards, listening to people suffering depression and those who had attempted suicide I was struck by a common denominator: a profound desire to no longer be in anguish, to end the pain of the agony.

I have never met anyone who wanted to stop living.

I met people who simply no longer wanted to hurt.

Yesterday through the night, and today, I have spent in prayer for the soul of yet another priest who took his own life, supposing thereby that his agony would be over.

Had I written yesterday these pages would have been filled with fury directed towards the unknown bishop[s] who abandoned him, the unknown persons who, for whatever reason, failed to see how much pain the priest was in.

There is another type of agony/anguish described by the Servant of God, Catherine Doherty, and so while begging prayer for the souls of all priests who commit suicide, for healing for all priests in despair, and for an end to all forms of abuse and the healing of the victims, I end with these words from Catherine, for how urgently must we call cry out so none believe they are alone or without hope:

“There is an agony that cannot be told in writing or in words. It is the agony of soul and heart of a person in love with God, one who stands at the corner of streets and thoroughfares, in big cities and little towns, begging, imploring, cajoling, crying out: ‘Listen to me! Listen to the words that come through my heart. They are not my words. They are the words of God. He wants to be loved. He came into this world to redeem it, to make us love one another. He died on the cross out of love for us.’” [cf. Urodivoi – 3rd edition, p. 23 – Madonna House Publications]

Saturday, October 02, 2010

GRAZIE! GRATIA!

I found another of those pieces of paper with quotations on it earlier today. The following quotation is from Pope Paul VI and is placed here for mediation:


WE ALL – YOU, ME, EVERYONE – need a solid basis on which to build the edifice of the spiritual life.

The foundation for me comes in two words, two concepts of St. Augustine.

The great mystery of God for me has always been this: that in my MISERIA I still find myself before the MISERICORDIA of God; that I am nothing, wretched; yet God the Father loves me, wants to save me, wants to heal me out of this MISERIA, something I am incapable of doing left to myself.

Then the Father sends His Son, a Son who represents God’s mercy [MISERICORDIA], Who translates it into an act of love towards me, an act of complete self-abandonment to the Father because He must save me too, wretched as I am. But a special grace is needed for this, the grace of conversion. I have to recognize God the Father’s action in His Son in my regard. Once I acknowledge that, God can work in me through His Son: He gives me grace, the grace of Baptism. After the grace of being reborn to God’s life, my life becomes a tension of love, with God drawing me towards Himself. And the loving hand of God draws me onwards towards His mercy, which raises me up when I fall; I have to fix my gaze on Him to be drawn upwards yet again.

Always in all of us, there is this tension between my MISERIA and God’s MISERICORDIA. The whole spiritual life of every one of us lies between those two poles. If I open myself to the action of God and the Holy Spirit and let them do with me what They will, then my tension becomes joyous and I feel within myself a great desire to come to Him and receive His mercy; more than ever I recognize the need to be forgiven, to receive the gift of mercy. Then I feel the need to say grazie, grazie, grazie, thanks, thanks, thanks. And so my whole life becomes a grazie[gratia/thanksgiving/Eucharist] to God because He has saved me, redeemed me, drawn me to Himself in love. It is not anything I have done in my life that saves me, but God’s mercy.