9:30 am for two hours--I shall be at Mass here
See EWTN for details, or other Catholic online stations.
Saturday, 18 October 2014
Perfection Series VI: XII Reparation and Religious Life
If you are a young woman and feel the call to live a life of Reparation, there is an order for you.
The Sisters of Reparation of the Sacred Heart have this website. I highly recommend some of my younger readers to consider this order.
http://www.sistersofreparation.org/spirituality.html
They have had "nun camps". http://www.sistersofreparation.org/nun-camp.html
I also recommend Tyburn, which also has 24/7 Adoration. See my past posts on this order.
Thanks to my spiritual brother Emile for this information
On Fasting
Recently, I have been thinking about questions readers have asked me about fasting.
It is dangerous to fast excessively and dangerous never to fast.
Check out what type of fasting you should do with your spiritual director.
The early Church fasted on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, a custom kept in some Eastern Rites.
I know some Latin Rite Catholics who abstain from meat on Wednesday and Friday.
But, one must be sensible about fasting. Sometimes, God does not want us to rely on outward signs of mortification.
Inward signs can be not speaking in a group discussion, holding back one's opinion on Church matters, letting someone else lead even if your gifts are better.
Fasting from criticism or from sadness could also take the place of food fasting.
Americans eat too much and too often compared with Europeans. Greed and gluttony are huge problems. I see few fat people here in Malta and when I do, they turn out to be English or American tourists.
Interesting.
But, if one decides to fast, please ask a priest for advice. Sometimes, for many reasons, we should not be fasting.
One can fall into self-deceit and delusion about excessive penances. Having said that, all of us should be doing some mortification.
Zeal without guidance could be the sins of pride and self-deception. Satan can actually deceive persons concerning material penances which are excessive. In fact, this same deception is that connected to those who follow after false seers. Pride, Gnosticism, Apostasy are all connected. Fasting also must be for a purely objective purpose, such as for the Pope intentions. Fasting means nothing without spiritual discipline.
Perfection VI: XI Reparation
I have chronic pain in some parts of my body as I cannot get surgery as there is no one to care for me in that situation. Therefore, I assign pain to my seminarians and deacons for whom I pray--simple: foot pain for Deacon....., sciatic for ....., shoulder injury pain for ....and knee pain for.....and so on. But, this is not intercessory prayer. It is reparation for the failings, sins, imperfections so that those men may become holy.
Other types of suffering can be matched to a sin or failing. I suffer from poverty, and so I can pray for a specific person who is wealthy and closed to God, for example. If I am suffering from anxiety, I can work on my need to rely completely on Divine Providence, while offering up anxiety for someone who is asleep about the times in which we live and so on....
Reparation can become an entire way of life, a daily habit. Years ago, I was in extreme pain from an injury and had to walk up six flights of steps daily to get to my apartment. I offered each step for someone to be healed of something, and my climbing those stairs several times a day reminded me to pray for this person. But, this was not intercessory prayer for healing of illness, but healing related to sin and a sinful life.
Remember that Christ forgave the paralytic's sin first before He healed that man's body. Why? Because sin causes illness, Original sin, our sin, the sins against us create an atmosphere of illness and dejection. So, in forgiving the sins of the man, Christ healed the entire person.
Reparation asks God to heal sin, heal rebellion, heal apostasy. Reparation joins in the suffering of Christ on the Cross not to make a person feel good but to save that person's soul, including one's own.
In this is an irony, if one is called to a life of Reparation, this is who one saves one's own soul.
And so on...do not waste any opportunity to pray, to do reparation. Again, I think that most reparation is for our own sins and predominant faults until we are in the Illuminative State, but I am willing to be corrected on that matter. It takes a real purity of heart to offer up sacrificial love for someone else, and that indicates that one should be in the state of Illumination.
If a person is called to a life of Reparation, God will give discernment accordingly. One must not assume that and this type of thinking needs the input of a spiritual director.
With a spiritual director years ago, I offered up any merit I obtain for the souls in purgatory. They are my special group I pray for daily.
to be continued...
Perfection Series VI: X Reparation and Friendship
You may distinguish between worldly friendship and that which is good and holy, just as one distinguishes that poisonous honey from what is good--it is sweeter to the taste than ordinary honey, owing to the aconite infused;-- and so worldly friendship is profuse in honeyed words, passionate endearments, commendations of beauty and sensual charms, while true friendship speaks a simple honest language, lauding nought save the Grace of God, its one only foundation.
That strange honey causes giddiness; and so false friendship upsets the mind, makes its victim to totter in the ways of purity and devotion, inducing affected, mincing looks, sensual caresses, inordinate sighings, petty complaints of not being loved, slight but questionable familiarities, gallantries, embraces, and the like, which are sure precursors of evil; whereas true friendship is modest and straightforward in every glance, loving and pure in caresses, has no sighs save for Heaven, no complaints save that God is not loved sufficiently.
That honey confuses the sight, and worldly friendship confuses the judgment, so that men think themselves right while doing evil, and assume their excuses and pretexts to be valid reasoning. They fear the light and love darkness; but true friendship is clear-sighted, and hides nothing--rather seeks to be seen of good men.
Lastly, this poisonous honey leaves an exceeding bitter taste behind; and so false friendship turns to evil desires, upbraidings, slander, deceit, sorrow, confusion and jealousies, too often ending in downright sin; but pure friendship is always the same--modest, courteous and loving--knowing no change save an increasingly pure and perfect union, a type of the blessed friendships of Heaven.
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When young people indulge in looks, words or actions which they would not like to be seen by their parents, husbands or confessors, it is a sure sign that they are damaging their conscience and their honour. Our Lady was troubled when the Angel appeared to her in human form, because she was alone, and he spoke to her with flattering although heavenly words. O Saviour of the world, if purity itself fears an Angel in human shape, how much more need that our impurity should fear men, although they take the likeness of an Angel, if they speak words of earthliness and sensuality!
We can make reparation for our friends in order to enter into more perfect friendships. If one sees an imperfection in a friend, one may pray and do penance so that person becomes a saint. Leading others to perfection through suffering is a great gift of real love in friendship. St. Alphonsus understands that we cannot do all by ourselves. We need each other.
Do you want to be perfect? Surround yourselves with those who want to be perfect.
to be continued....
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St. Alphonsus on Friendship--For My Blog Friends-Perfection VI: IX Reparation
Do you, my child, love every one with the pure love of charity, but have no friendship save with those whose intercourse is good and true, and the purer the bond which unites you so much higher will your friendship be.
If your intercourse is based on science it is praiseworthy, still more if it arises from a participation in goodness, prudence, justice and the like; but if the bond of your mutual liking be charity, devotion and Christian perfection, God knows how very precious a friendship it is!
Precious because it comes from God, because it tends to God, because God is the link that binds you, because it will last for ever in Him. Truly it is a blessed thing to love on earth as we hope to love in Heaven, and to begin that friendship here which is to endure for ever there. I am not now speaking of simple charity, a love due to all mankind, but of that spiritual friendship which binds souls together, leading them to share devotions and spiritual interests, so as to have but one mind between them.
Such as these may well cry out, "Behold, how good and joyful a thing it is, brethren, to dwell together in unity!" (1) Even so, for the "precious ointment" of devotion trickles continually from one heart to the other, so that truly we may say that to such friendship the Lord promises His Blessing and life for evermore.
 To my mind all other friendship is but as a shadow with respect to this, its links mere fragile glass compared to the golden bond of true devotion. Do you form no other friendships. I say "form," because you have no right to cast aside or neglect the natural bonds which draw you to relations, connexions, benefactors or neighbours.
My rules apply to those you deliberately choose to make. There are some who will tell you that you should avoid all special affection or friendship, as likely to engross the heart, distract the mind, excite jealousy, and what not. But they are confusing things. They have read in the works of saintly and devout writers that individual friendships and special intimacies are a great hindrance in the religious life, and therefore they suppose it to be the same with all the world, which is not at all the case.
 Whereas in a well-regulated community every one's aim is true devotion, there is no need for individual intercourse, which might exceed due limits;--in the world those who aim at a devout life require to be united one with another by a holy friendship, which excites, stimulates and encourages them in well-doing. Just as men traversing a plain have no need to hold one another up, as they have who are amid slippery mountain paths, so religious do not need the stay of individual friendships; but those who are living in the world require such for strength and comfort amid the difficulties which beset them.
In the world all have not one aim, one mind, and therefore we must take to us congenial friends, nor is there any undue partiality in such attachments, which are but as the separation of good from evil, the sheep from the goats, the bee from the drone--a necessary separation.
No one can deny that our Dear Lord loved S. John, Lazarus, Martha, Magdalene, with a specially tender friendship, since we are told so in Holy Scripture; and we know that S. Paul dearly loved S. Mark, S. Petronilla, as S. Paul Timothy and Thecla. (2) S. Gregory Nazianzen boasts continually of his friendship with the great S. Basil, of which he says: "It seemed as though with two bodies we had but one soul, and if we may not believe those who say that all things are in all else, at least one must affirm that we were two in one, and one in two --the only object that both had being to grow in holiness, and to mould our present life to our future hopes, thereby forsaking this mortal world before our death." And S. Augustine says that S. Ambrose loved S. Monica by reason of her many virtues, and that she in return loved him as an Angel of God.
What need to affirm so unquestionable a fact! S. Jerome, S. Augustine, S. Gregory, S. Bernard, and all the most notable servants of God, have had special friendships, which in nowise hindered their perfection. S. Paul, in describing evil men, says that they were "without natural affection," (3) i.e. without friendship. And S. Thomas, in common with other philosophers, acknowledges that friendship is a virtue, and he certainly means individual friendships, because he says that we cannot bestow perfect friendship on many persons.
So we see that the highest grace does not lie in being without friendships, but in having none which are not good, holy and true.
How hard this is for those of us whose friendships based on perfection as not close by--but even thousands of miles apart. Also, difficult are those who leave the path of perfection, side-tracked into more human centered friendships.
Honor those who want to help you become perfect.
One can do reparation for one's friends, to help them become more holy. More from St. Alphonsus later. To be continued.... |
Hacking
English friends and Maltese friends have has their email accounts hacked recently. Some in the past weeks and some yesterday. Do not open emails with the title READ ENTIRE DOCUMENT. Connected is a virus which deletes all your emails accounts.
Maliciousness.
Maliciousness.
Wow News from Rome
http://cmtvnews.com/2014/10/17/breaking-pope-harming-the-church/
Cardinal Burke.....synod weakening the Church's discipline on marriage on purpose!
Cardinal Burke.....synod weakening the Church's discipline on marriage on purpose!
Some nations have sense
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2014/10/17/cruise-ship-carrying-texas-ebola-nurse-refused-entry-in-belize/
and new reports out today that Ebola may be airborne.
and new reports out today that Ebola may be airborne.
Tolerance Gone Nutsy
http://tampa.cbslocal.com/2014/10/17/satanic-group-wants-to-put-display-in-capitol-rotunda-showing-devil-descending-into-hell/
“Tolerance is an attitude of reasoned patience toward evil … a forbearance that restrains us from showing anger or inflicting punishment. Tolerance applies only to persons … never to truth. Tolerance applies to the erring, intolerance to the error … Architects are as intolerant about sand as foundations for skyscrapers as doctors are intolerant about germs in the laboratory.
Tolerance does not apply to truth or principles. About these things we must be intolerant, and for this kind of intolerance, so much needed to rouse us from sentimental gush, I make a plea. Intolerance of this kind is the foundation of all stability.”
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Feast Day of St. Luke
Luke has always intrigued me as a person and a writer. He was a physician and, according to tradition, a personal friend of Our Lady, painting the first icon of her while she lived. So, he was also an artist. He may have painted the first icons of Peter and Paul as well.
It is well-known that Luke's Gospel is the Gospel of Women, He has more references to women when Christ was walking this earth than the other three gospel writers.
Perhaps his work as a doctor and his personal relationship with Mary indicate a sensitive man, a man who notices and likes women.
Luke is also the author of the Acts of the Apostles. Therefore, we can add to his many talents, traveling and evangelizing.
Now, no offense to doctors, and I have three friends who are doctors, so intense are their jobs, that they do not have the inclination to do anything but "doctor". This is because they are so busy and so overworked that, unless they go on vacation, they rarely have time to read, travel, much less paint. They must keep up with their fields or specializations, which takes time--a lot of time.
Luke's life is not one of sameness. He presents a complicated personality. Was he married? Did he have children? Or like so many doctors today by necessity, was he married to his work? Was his friendship with Mary an outlet for his need for feminine conversation? Did he meet Mary when John took her to Ephesus? It is said he was not married and became a Catholic through St. Paul. How he met Mary, then, would be a mystery.
We do not know much about Luke, but his writing style is that of a Greek, not a Hebrew, and so is his name. It is said he came from Antioch in Syria, a highly "Hellenistic" city of that time.
Luke is the patron saint of artists, physicians, surgeons, students,glass-workers, brewers, and butchers--a very odd group of people.
Think of Luke today and pray for our doctors. They are under such stress at this time for many reasons.
I think as a doctor Luke must find it amusing that his relics are in three places: Prague, Thebes, and Padua, all pieces of a human from the time of Luke's death and a man of Syrian descent.
Even his relics are intriguing.