"...silent, hidden, permeated with love, imbued with prayer."

Those who love much, suffer much.

Those who laughed at Christ, taunting Him to come down from the Cross, had the same mindset of those who criticize the poor and lonely.

God decides who is rich and who is poor, who has companionship and who does not.

God decides in His Divine Providence, the best way for a person to become a saint. But, we all make choices.

Someone gave me taxi fare so that I can get to Good Friday Mass. Thank you, Reader. How sad the parishes here have no way to pick up those without cars. How sad...a sign of the disintegration of Catholic identity.

Today, I pray especially for all my readers. offering up each pain and suffering most willingly for you all. I am glad to have suffering and choose it freely in order to add substance to prayer.

Diary of Saint Faustina

"Jesus says; 'My daughter, I want to instruct you on how you are to rescue souls through sacrifice and prayer. You will save more souls through prayer and suffering than will a missionary through his teachings and sermons alone. I want to see you as a sacrifice of living love, which only then carries weight before Me... And great will be your power for whomever you intercede. Outwardly, your sacrifice must look like this: silent, hidden, permeated with love, imbued with prayer."

Divine Mercy and Purgation

Today begins the greatest novena of all, to The Divine Mercy.

Please take time to say this beautiful prayer. One more penance for your Good Friday....

In all humility, I must admit I omitted this for years. How careless I was not thinking of all those who would have benefited from these prayers.

Here is the novena...print this out, if you do not have a copy.

http://www.shoj.org/docs/prayer/divine-novena/divine-mercy-novena-and-chaplet-brochure-2-per_page.pdf

I am in the passive purgative way. But, one can also enter into the active purgation, by choosing mortification and extra prayer. As I have noted in the perfection series, one cannot be useful to the Church without personal sanctity. Another state rather than humility only creates actions of egotism.

Here is St. Faustina on this.  "O my Jesus, I know that, in order to be useful to souls, one has to strive for the closest possible union with You, who are Eternal Love... I can be wholly useful to the Church by my personal sanctity, which throbs with life in the whole Church, for we all make up one organism in Jesus."

The Same Moon

Thursday Night, attempting to spend one hour with Jesus in my little chapel, just being there after Compline, I felt so far away from Him and all I love.

This isolation seems to be a purgatorial experience for all the time I wasted talking nonsense, wasting time, and not being focused on God in years gone by.

I felt so far away from my dearest both in Europe, in America, and in Japan, wishing to share the High Holy Days with someone I love.

But, no...these are desert days. I am resigned and now have peace in this place.

But, I also felt so far away from Christ's own experience in Gethsemane, my little chapel being thousands of miles away from the Mediterranean and also "modern", the house having been built in the 1980s.

I complained to Christ that although mentally I was in Gethsemane with Him, but with many distractions, I could not share His place. I would have loved to be in Jerusalem.

Then, I thought of the Passover Moon outside, to the southeast, so large and bright. I got up and looked out the small chapel window. The clouds passed over the white orb, playing hide and seek with its brilliance.

Suddenly, looking at the full moon, I realized that Christ had seen this same moon, this same full Passover Moon. Like a lover desperate to find a tie to one's Beloved, I was consoled realizing we shared the same moon, despite the distance and years.

1,982 years ago, my Dear Lord, the Beloved One, looked at this same moon I saw outside my chapel window in the dark night of Holy Thursday.

Perhaps He thought of me, perhaps, in that Garden, as Christ, the God-Man, could see all the sins I have committed and all of us have, down through the ages as part of His Passion. How sad that I caused Him pain that night.

Today, as I rise for Good Friday Tenebrae, I shall think of Christ in a small prison cell, maybe smaller than this small chapel. No moon, no birds, no sunlight, only the horrible stench and cramped quarters of a dirty cell.

But, for one hour, we shared the moon of the great feast, sharing even in suffering, loss, yet, peace in the nothingness, in the darkness of isolation.

Matthew 26

40 And he cometh to his disciples, and findeth them asleep, and he saith to Peter: What? Could you not watch one hour with me?

Repost for Good Friday

Thursday, 11 April 2013

NO MORE HIDING PLACES?: On Being a Recusant Catholic or Conscientious Christian from Another Denomination in 2013

Posted by Supertradmum

Where are the hiding places? 

LifeSiteNews in the article I just noted in the last post, also refers to two other cases where those who have had religious convictions against gay marriage have been persecuted. Fines are persecutions. Ask the descendants of the once wealthy Recusant families in England. 

However many families, including the Mores, the Ropers, the Throckmortons, the Selbys, the Bounts, the Arundels (for centuries), and perhaps even the Shakespeares were fined over and over and over. From 1581, one sees this in the annals. Many families fled to France. Some were torn to pieces as sides were taken, such as in the Throckmorton Family. Some came to the States and Canada, such as the family noted below in the note. There are few, if any, hiding places NOW.

Recusancy. After 1581, recusancy became an indictable offence, so recusants often appear in quarter sessions records and the fines levied were recorded in the pipe rolls. After 1592 a separate series of rolls, the recusant rolls was created for this purpose which continues until 1691. The pipe rolls also contain the accounts of fines and forfeitures of lands collected under the recusancy acts. Pipe and recusancy rolls are available for viewing at TNA. In 1581, the fine for missing an Anglican service was raised to twenty pounds per month. Also, in that year, a treasonable offence resulting in death was committed by anyone converting to Catholicism or attempting to convert others to the religion. In addition, a fine of 100 marks and a year in prison was imposed on those hearing mass. The details of criminal proceeding and fines levied should be contained within quarter session records. An Act of 1581 also forbade the Catholic education of children. Notice the last sentence. Parents were no longer allowed to raise their children in the Catholic Faith. Are you paying attention? More on the flower fines from another angle. FromLifeSiteNews. There are more links. The combination of legalizing same-sex “marriage” and odious “anti-discrimination” laws have faithful Christians saying their freedom of religion is being violated. And the court cases are piling up. An appeals court in New Mexico found a Christian couple, Elaine and Jonathan Huguenin, guilty of “discrimination” for refusing to photograph a homosexual “wedding.” They were ordered to pay more than $6,600 in fines after denying their services. Canadian homosexual activists demanded “born again Christian” florist Kimberly Evans of New Brunswick be taken to court for refusing to sell flowers for a gay “wedding.” Victoria Childress of Des Moines also faced threats of legal action for refusing to bake a cake for a homosexual ceremony on the grounds that it violated her Christian faith. More on the Recusancy Laws can be found here. I have taken a few of the laws and copied these. 1592 The first separate recusant rolls were compiled consisting mainly of Catholics and lasted up to 1691 (previously recusancy was recorded in the pipe rolls). The rolls recorded the punishments and fines of those who refused to conform to the Anglican doctrine. Memoranda Rolls 1217-1835: includes records of seizure of recusants' lands. 1593 Catholics were obliged to obtain permission to travel beyond five miles from their homes and those absent from home for more than three months were to leave the country. Another Act of the same year ordered that people of the age of 16 who refused to attend an Anglican service were to be imprisoned. Catholics had to worship in isolated places 1606 The Oath of Allegiance was introduced, denying the authority of the Pope and those that refused to swear the oath were liable to be imprisoned. Convicted recusants were ordered to receive Anglican communion once a year or face a fine or seizure of their property. Recusants were also barred from office and professions including the military. Informers were paid £50 for revealing a priest saying mass or persons attending mass. All the restrictions applied to a Protestant who married a Catholic wife. 1625 Catholics forced to pay a double rate of taxation. Tax records can be found in Lay Subsidy Rolls and Catholics and other nonconformists should be recognisable as they paid a double rate. 1661 Clarendon Code 1661-1665. Four Acts passed designed to emasculate the power of nonconformists. Corporation Act. (1661). Catholics and other nonconformists were excluded from official posts unless they took the sacrament of holy communion at an Anglican service. 1662 Act of Conformity. The Act excluded Catholics from holding church office. 1662 Conventicle Act. Made meetings for Catholic and nonconformist worship illegal, even in private houses, where more than four outsiders were present 1665 The Five-Mile Act. Nonconformist and Catholic ministers were forbidden to live or visit within five miles of a town or any other place where they had preached. 1672 Declaration of Indulgence. The Penal Laws against Catholics were relaxed. 1673 Test Act. The strength of anti-Catholic feeling led parliament to order the enforcement of the recusancy laws and pass the Test Act in retaliation against the Declaration of Indulgence. The Act required all those taking up an official post, civil or military, to take the oath and to submit a sacrament certificate that they had taken Anglican communion. Between 1689 and 1702, the requirement to take the oaths and test was extended to beneficed clergy, members of the universities, lawyers, schoolteachers and preachers. The declarations can be found in TNA. 1676 A proclamation ordered a survey of every recusant aged 16 and over. The names were handed to the local Justice of the Peace who called on those named to take the oath or be jailed. 1678 The Popish Plot. A fictitious plot made up by Titus Oates which alleged that Catholics were planning to assassinate King Charles II and bring the Catholic Duke of York to the throne. Estreats Rolls held at TNA hold information on fines imposed on Catholics following the alleged plot. The Estreats Rolls contain valuable genealogical information on those accused of recusancy in the local courts. They will include the recusant's name, parish, rank or occupation and the fine levied. http://hutchinsonfamilyhistory.blogspot.co.uk/2009/09/hutchinson-family-were-catholic.html 1689 The Bill of Rights excluded Catholics from the royal succession. New oaths of supremacy and allegiance were passed and measures were introduced to restrict the freedom of movement of Catholics. The Toleration Act of 1689 eased some restrictions, but the specific acts under the Clarendon Code were not repealed until the 19th century. 1692 Following the double rate of taxation Catholics were forced to pay in 1625, Catholics were obliged to pay double land tax. Catholics and other nonconformist entries should be recognisable amongst the land tax records as they paid double the rate of others. 1699 Recusants were barred from purchasing or inheriting land and any Catholics found practicing their religion could be jailed for life. 1702 The Security of Succession Act. The Act introduced an oath whereby all officials had to deny the right of the son of the exiled James II to succeed to the throne. Some returns of Catholics taking oaths are held by TNA as well as certificates of those who refused to take the oath. 1714 Security of the Sovereign Act. TNA holds certificates of those who refused to take the oath. 1715 Catholics were blamed collectively for the Jacobite rebellion. As a result, everyone over the age of 18 was compelled to swear an Oath of Allegiance. Lists of those who refused to take the oath are normally available at county record offices. 1716 Catholics were required to enrol documents such as wills and conveyances that involved the transfer of property and details can be found in close rolls held by TNA. 1723 Following the Jacobite rebellion of 1715, Catholics refusing to take the oaths of loyalty were required to register their names and estates at quarter sessions or face the seizure of their property. The returns describe the estates in detail, giving precise locations and dimensions of lands. The Forfeited Estates Commission was responsible for overseeing the seizure of the estates and details can be found in the close rolls held at TNA. Resucant Thomas Throckmorton's Tomb

Litany of The Blood of Christ

Litany of the Most Precious Blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ

Lord, have mercy.
Lord, have mercy.
Christ, have mercy.
Christ, have mercy.
Lord, have mercy.
Lord, have mercy. 

Christ, hear us.
Christ, hear us.
Christ, graciously hear us.
Christ, graciously hear us.

God the Father of Heaven,
have mercy on us.
God the Son, Redeemer of the world,
have mercy on us.
God, the Holy Spirit,
have mercy on us.
Holy Trinity, One God,
have mercy on us.

Blood of Christ, only-begotten Son of the eternal Father,
save us.
Blood of Christ, Incarnate Word or God,
save us.
Blood of Christ, of the New and Eternal Testament,
save us.

Blood of Christ, falling upon the earth in Agony,
save us.
Blood of Christ, shed profusely in the Scourging,
save us.
Blood of Christ, flowing forth in the Crowning with Thorns,
save us.
Blood of Christ, poured out on the Cross,
save us. 
Blood of Christ, price of our salvation,
save us.
Blood of Christ, without which there is no forgiveness,
save us.

Blood of Christ, Eucharistic drink and refreshment of souls,
save us.
Blood of Christ, stream of mercy,
save us.
Blood of Christ, victor over demons,
save us.

Blood of Christ, courage of Martyrs,
save us.
Blood of Christ, strength of Confessors,
save us.
Blood of Christ, bringing forth Virgins,
save us.

Blood of Christ, help of those in peril,
save us. 
Blood of Christ, relief of the burdened,
save us.
Blood of Christ, solace in sorrow,
save us.

Blood of Christ, hope of the penitent,
save us.
Blood of Christ, consolation of the dying,
save us. 
Blood of Christ, peace and tenderness of hearts,
save us.

Blood of Christ, pledge of eternal life,
save us.
Blood of Christ, freeing souls from purgatory,
save us.
Blood of Christ, most worthy of all glory and honor,
save us.

Lamb of God, who taketh away the sins of the world,
spare us, O Lord. 
Lamb of God, who taketh away the sins of the world,
graciously hear us, O Lord.
Lamb of God, who taketh away the sins of the world,
have mercy on us, O Lord.
V. Thou hast redeemed us, O Lord, in Thy Blood.
R. And made us, for our God, a kingdom.

Almighty and eternal God, Thou hast appointed Thine only-begotten Son the Redeemer 

of the world and willed to be appeased by his blood. Grant, we beg of Thee, that we may 

worthily adore this price of our salvation and through its power be safeguarded from 

the evils of the present life so that we may rejoice in its fruits forever in heaven. 

Through the same Christ our Lord. Amen.