St. Alexander the Coalman

St. Alexander the Coalman - August 11th

When the city of Comana in Asia Minor had so many Christians that a bishop was needed, St. Gregory the Wonder-Worker came to take charge of choosing one. Many different men were suggested to him, especially one very important and wealthy, but St. Gregory did not choose any of these.

"The Apostles were poor, ordinary men," he said. At that, someone asked sarcastically, "Very well, then. Why don't you pick Alexander the Charcoal-burner?" St. Gregory did not forget those words, even though they had been said so scornfully. He sent Alexander, and the coal trader came all covered with dirt and dressed in rags. His appearance did not fool the Saint for he realized that Alexander was really a wise man. he took him aside and asked him who he actually was. Alexander told him that he had been a noble, educated man who had given away everything he owned so that he could be poor like Christ.

All the people were amazed when St. Gregory chose Alexander to be bishop. But when they learned what kind of wise, holy man Alexander really was, they were very happy to have him for their bishop.

St. Alexander made a fine teacher of the faith and leader of his people. St. Gregory of Nyssa praised him as a great bishop. When persecution came, Alexander gave his life for the faith. He was put to death by fire. So it was that the poor coalman won fame as a Saint and a martyr.

Jesus taught us: Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven." One is poor in spirit when he is not too eager for money for a comfortable life, but works hard, is honest and satisfied with his condition in life. This good person will have a rich place in Heaven.

St. Philomena

St. Philomena The Wonder-Worker - August 11th

St. Philomena is perhaps the most extraordinary saint in the history of the Catholic Church.

When the relics of this 13-year-old Virgin Martyr were discovered in the Roman Catacombs in 1802, she became almost overnight one of the most popular saints in the Church, earning the nickname of "The Wonder-Worker" because of the countless remarkable favors that she sent to those who prayed to her. For a century and a half there was a worlwide Catholic devotion to St. Philomena, approved by many Popes. But amazingly, since the 1960's, she has been forgotten.

This little book by the beloved Fr. Paul O'Sullivan-author of All About the Angels, Read Me or Rue It, The Secret of Confession, etc.-gives the fascinating story of St. Philomena. Fr. O'Sullivan tells of her martyrdom, her miracles, her relics, her partnership with the Cure of Ars, and the great miracle involving Pauline Jaricot, as well as recounting many other true stories of the "dear Little Saint's" generous answers to those who invoke her.

God obviously wishes to give out His gifts and favors throough the hands of St. Philomena, and it is His will that we ask her for them. These pages will give new hope to all whoneed a special friend in Heaven to answer their prayers.

May this little book help to open up the floodgates of heavenly gifts so that once again this sweet young Saint will become known by that beautiful title: St. Philomena-The Wonder-Worker!

St. Lawrence

St. Lawrence - Patron of Cooks and the Poor - August 10th

This famous martyr of Rome was one of seven deacons who were in charge of giving help to the poor and needy. When a persecution broke out, Pope St. Sixtus was condemned to death. As he was led to execution, Lawrence followed him weeping. “Father, where are you going without your deacon?” he said. “I am not leaving you, my son,” answered the Pope. “In three days you will follow me.” Full of joy, Lawrence gave to the poor the rest of the money he had on hand and even sold expensive vessels to have more to give away.

The Prefect of Rome, a greedy pagan, thought the Church had a great fortune hidden away. So he ordered Lawrence to bring the Church’s treasure to him. The Saint said he would, in three days. Then he went through the city and gathered together all the poor and sick people supported by the Church. When he showed them to the Prefect, he said: “This is the Church’s treasure!”

In great anger, the Prefect condemned Lawrence to a slow, cruel death. The Saint was tied on top of an iron grill over a slow fire that roasted his flesh little by little. But Lawrence was burning with so much love of God that he almost did not feel the flames. In fact, God gave him so much strength and joy that he even joked. “Turn me over,” he said to the judge. “I’m done on this side!” And just before he died, he said, ‘It’s cooked enough now.’ then he prayed that the city of Rome might be converted to Jesus and that the Catholic Faith spread all over the world. After that, he went to receive the martyr’s reward.

Today I will not complain about anything. Instead I will suffer my little troubles in peace, for the propagation of the Faith in mission lands.

Motu Proprio - Pope Freed the Traditional Latin Mass

Motu Proprio -

Pope Freed the Traditional Latin Mass

Thanks be to our most merciful Heavenly Father, God and Creator, for hearing our prayers and answering them. With the great grace for having the Holy Father the Pope decree that the Tradtional Latin Mass be freed. As US District General Bishop Bernard Fellay and US District Superior Father John Fullerton of the Society of Saint Pius X have told our parishes to sing the Te Deum in thanksgiving to God for this gift we are most unworthy to receive!!!

Here is Bishop Bernard Fellay's letter on the SSPX website concerning the Motu Proprio
http://sspx.org/superior_generals_ltrs/motu_proprio_supgen_letter_july_7_07.html

The Meaning of the Candy Cane

The Meaning of the Candy Cane

The fascinating story behind the candy cane...

The birth, ministry, and death of Jesus Christ are signified through the elements of the candy cane.

JESUS CHRIST is...our Good Sheperd (staff shape) ~ 1 Pt. 5:4our Rock (hard candy) ! ~ 1 Cor. 10:4our Sinless Savior (white) ~ 2 Cor. 5:21our Sacrifical Lamb (red) ~ Eph. 1:7

The STRIPES symbolize pain inflicted upon Jesus before his death on the cross and a bold Stripe to represent the blood He shed for mankind.

The three stripes can also represent the power and presence of the Trinity (the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost).

The smell and taste of PEPPERMINT relate to the Herb hyssop.

Pslams 5:17 states, "Purge me with hyssop and I shall be clean, wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.

"The candy can is meant to be shared - broken into pieces for all to share.

That reminds us of Jesus' words,"This is my body which is broken for you" (1 Cor. 11:24)

What a sweet way to share the Gospel!

And you just thought it was good candy!

St. John Vianney

St. John Vianney - Patron of Parish Priests - August 9th

John Mary Vianney was born in France. He grew to be a little shepherd of his father’s sheep, a devout boy who loved to pray, but also loved to play horseshoes. When he was eighteen, he told his father he wanted to become a priest, yet it took him two years to obtain his father’s permission, because they were poor and there was much work to be done on the farm. Then the next problem John met was Latin. He just could not seem to learn it! He became so discouraged that he decided to walk sixty miles to the shrine of St. John Francis Regis to beg God’s help. After that, although he had as much trouble as ever with his studies he never again grew discouraged.

John’s next big problem came when through some mistakes, he was drafted into the army! But about a year later he was finally able to enter the seminary. There again, he had a very hard time. He kept working humbly, yet he never did well in his studies. And when the final examination came, he was so upset that he broke down in the middle of it. Yet, because John Mary was a saint and full of common sense, he knew the right answer when he was asked what should be done in this case or that. From Latin books he could not learn, but he was ordained, anyway, because he was a model of goodness.

In his parish of Ars, a little, out-of-the-way village, Father Vianney fasted and did hard penance for his people. He did all he could to make them stop sinning by their drinking and dancing, to come to church and not work on Sunday, and to stop swearing. Pretty soon, the taverns had to close down because they had no business and people began living much better lives. “Our priest is a saint,” they said, “and we must obey him.”

God gave this Saint the power to see into people’s souls and to know the future. Because of this gift, he converted many sinners and helped people to make the right decisions. He became so famous that about three hundred souls came to Ars every day to go to confession to him. Although he would have liked to live in peace in a monastery, St. John Vianney stayed in Ars until he died, and even heard confessions as he lay dying.

We are to seek God’s aid when we find things hard. God never refuses to hear our prayers. He always grants our wishes if they are for our best; otherwise He gives us what is better for us.

Feast of Corpus Christi

Feast of Corpus Christi
Thursday after the Feast of the Holy Trinity
Taken from, “Divine Intimacy,” by Fr. Gabriel of St. Mary Magdalen, O.C.D., pp. 599-600.


PRESENSE OF GOD – “The eternal tide flows hid in living bread. That with its heavenly life too be fed...” (J.C. Poems).


MEDITATION


1. We have gone, step by step, in the course of the liturgical year, from the consideration of the mysteries of the life of Jesus to the contemplation of the Blessed Trinity, whose feast we celebrated last Sunday. Jesus, our Mediator, our Way, has taken us by the hand and led us to the Trinity; and today is seems as though the three Persons Themselves wish to take us back to Jesus, considered in His Eucharist. “No man cometh to the Father but by Me” (Fn 14, 6), Jesus said, and He added, “No man can come to Me except the Father...draw him” (ibid. 6, 44). This is the journey of the Christian soul: from Jesus to the Father, to the Trinity; from the Trinity, from the Father, to Jesus. Jesus brings us to the Father, the Father draws us to Jesus. A Christian cannot do without Christ; He is, in the strictest sense of the word, our Pontiff, the great Bridge-builder who has spanned the abyss between God and us. At the end of the liturgical cycle in which we commemorate the mysteries of the Savior, the Church, who like a good Mother knows that our spiritual life cannot subsist without Jesus, leads us to Him, really and truly present in the Most Holy Sacrament of the altar. The solemnity of the Corpus Domini is not just the simple memorial of an historical event which took place almost two thousand years ago at the Last Supper; rather, it recalls us to the ever-present reality of Jesus always living in our midst. We can say, in truth, that He has not “left us orphans,” but has willed to remain permanently with us, in the integrity of His Person in the fullness of His humanity and His divinity. “There is no other nation so great,” the Divine Office enthusiastically sings, “as to have its gods so near as our God is present to us” (RB). In the Eucharist, Jesus is really Emmanuel, God with us.

2. The Eucharist is not only Jesus actually living among us, but it is Jesus become our Food. This is the chief aspect under which today’s liturgy presents the mystery to us; there is no part of the Mass which does not treat of it directly, or which does not, at least, make some allusion to it. The Introit refers to it when it mentions the wheat and honey with which God once fed the Hebrews in the desert, a miraculous food, and yet a very poor representation of the living, life-giving Bread of the Eucharist. The Epistle (1 Cor 11, 23-29) speaks of it, recalling the institution of this Sacrament, when Jesus “took bread, and giving thanks, broke, and said, ‘Take ye, and eat; this is My Body’”; the Gradual chants, “’The eyes of all hope in You, O Lord, and You give them meat in due season”. The very beautiful Sequence, Lauda Sion, celebrates it at length, and the Gospel (Fn 6, 56-59), echoing the Alleluia, cites the most significant passage in the discourse when Jesus Himself announced the Eucharist. “My Flesh is meat indeed, and My Blood is drink indeed”. The Communion Hymn repeats a sentence of the Epistle, and reminds us that we receive the Body of the Lord worthily. Finally, the Postcommunion tells us that Eucharistic Communion is the pledge of eternal communion, in heaven. But in order to have a better understanding of the immense value of the Eucharist, we must go back to the very words of Jesus, most opportunely recalled in the Gospel of the day, “He that eateth My Flesh and drinketh My Blood, abideth in Me and I in him”. Jesus made Himself our food in order to assimilate us to Himself, to make us live in His life, to make us live in Him, as He Himself lives in His Father. The Eucharist is truly the most convincing proof that God calls us and pleads with us to come to intimate union with Himself.

Blessed John Felton

Blessed John Felton - August 8th

When Pope St. Pius V put Queen Elizabeth I out of the Church because she said she was the head of the Church in England, John Felton fastened the Pope’s announcement right up on a door for everyone to see. Before long, it was discovered who had done that and John was arrested. When he declared that only the Holy Father could be Head of the Catholic Church, he was condemned to death.

Right in front of St. Paul’s Cathedral in London, the scaffold was set up. When John saw the horrible instruments that would be used on his body before his death, he had a terrible fit of fear. But with a mighty effort of will, he overcame that fear, and said: “Now I am ready to die for the Catholic faith!”

Then he knelt down and prayed to God to have mercy on his soul. He was hanged, but cut down from the scaffold before he died. So he was still alive when they began to use the terrible tools on his body. As they pulled his heart out, Blessed John’s daughter heard him murmur: “Jesus, Jesus!”

Eighteen years later, the martyr’s son, Blessed Thomas Felton, followed in his brave father’s footsteps and died for the Faith, too.

We should love our Faith intensely and when the occasion presents itself, we should profess it openly.

St. Cajetan

St. Cajetan - August 7th

Cajetan was the son of a Italian Count. At the University of Padua, where he finished his studies, he spent much time in prayer. That did not make him do poorly in school, however; in fact, his devotion helped him understand things better. Cajetan was made a senator, but after some years, he went to Rome and became a priest. Then he returned to his own city of Vicenza. Although it angered his rich relatives, the Saint joined a group of humble, simple men who devoted themselves to helping the sick and the poor.

St. Cajetan would go all over the city looking for these unfortunate people and serve them himself. He helped at the hospital by waiting on people who had the most disgusting diseases. In other cities he did the same charitable work and also kept encouraging everyone to go to Holy Communion often. “I shall never be happy,” he said, “until I see Christians flocking to feed on the Bread of Life, with eagerness and delight, not with fear and shame.”

Together with these other holy men, St. Cajetan founded an order of religious priests called Theatines. They devoted themselves to preaching, encouraging frequent confession and Communion, helping the sick, and other good works.

Cajetan died at the age of sixty-seven. He had earned for himself the name “hunter of souls.” In his last sickness, he lay on hard boards, even though the doctor advised him to have a mattress. “My Savior died on a cross,” he said. “Let me at least die on wood.”

In imitation of this saint we should make the Holy Eucharist the center of our lives. We will be greatly blessed if we often receive Our Divine Lord in Holy Communion with the proper dispositions.

The Feast of the Holy Trinity

The Feast of the Holy Trinity
Trinity Sunday/First Sunday after Pentecost
Taken from, “Divine Intimacy,” by Fr. Gabriel of St. Mary Magdalen, O.C.D., pp. 585-587.


PRESENCE OF GOD – “I return thanks to You, O God, one and true Trinity, one sovereign divinity, holy and indivisible unity. (RB)”.


MEDITATION


1. From Advent until today, the Church has had us consider the magnificent manifestations of God’s mercy toward men: the Incarnation, the Redemption, Pentecost. Now she directs our attention to the source of these gifts, the most Holy Trinity, from whom everything proceeds. Spontaneously, there rises to our lips the hymn of gratitude expressed in the Introit of the Mass: “Blessed be the Holy Trinity and undivided Unity; we will give glory to Him, because He has shown His mercy to us”: the mercy of God the Father, “who so loved the world that He gave it His only-begotten Son” (cf. Fn 3, 16); the mercy of God the Son, who to redeem us became incarnate and died on the Cross; the mercy of the Holy Spirit, who deigned to come down into our hearts to communicate to us the charity of God and to make us participate in the divine life. The Church has very fittingly included in the Office for today the beautiful antiphon inspired by St. Paul: “Caritas Pater est, gratia Filius, communicatio Spiritus Sanctus, O beta Trinitas!”; the Father is charity, the Son is grace and the Holy Spirit is communication: applying this, the charity of the Father and the grace of the Son are communicated to us by the Holy Spirit, who diffuses them in our heart. The marvelous work of the Trinity in our souls could not be better synthesized. Today’s Office and Mass form a veritable paean of praise and gratitude to the Blessed Trinity; they are a prolonged Gloria Patri and Te Deum. These two hymns-one a succinct epitome, and the other a majestic alternation of praises-are truly the hymns for today, intended to awaken in our hearts a deep echo of praise, thanksgiving, and adoration.

2. Today’s feast draws us to praise and glorify the three Persons of the Blessed Trinity, not only because of the great mercy They have shown to men, but also and especially in Themselves and for Themselves: first, by reason of Their supreme essence which had no beginning and will never have an end; next, because of Their infinite perfections, Their majesty, essential beauty and goodness. Equally worthy of our adoration is the sublime fruitfulness of life by which the Father continually generates the Word, while from the Father and the Word proceeds from the Holy Spirit. The Father is not prior to, or greater to the Word; nor are the Father and the Word prior to or greater than the Holy Spirit. The three divine Persons are all co-eternal and equal among Themselves: the divinity and all the divine perfections and attributes are one and the same in the Father, in the Son, and in the Holy Spirit. What can man say in the presence of such a sublime mystery? What can he understand of it? Nothing! Yet what has been revealed to us is certain, because the Son of God Himself, “who is in the bosom of the Father, He hath declared Him” (Fn 1, 18). But the mystery is so sublime and it so exceeds our understanding, that we can only bow our heads and adore in silence. “O the depth of the riches of the wisdom of the knowledge of God! How incomprehensible are His judgments, and how unsearchable His ways!” exclaims St. Paul in today’s Epistle (Rom 11, 33-36). He who, having been “caught up into paradise,” could neither know nor say anything except that he had "heard secret words which it is not granted to man to utter” (2 Cor 12, 2-4). In the presence of the unspeakable mystery of the Trinity the highest praise is silence, the silence of the soul that adores, knowing that it is incapable of praising or glorifying the divine Majesty worthily.