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.

The Ascension of Our Lord

The Ascension of Our Lord

- 40 days after

Easter/The Resurrection

It is in the basilica of St. Peter, dedicated to one of the chief witnesses of our Lord’s ascension, that this mystery which marks the end of our Lord’s earthly life, is “this day” (Collect) kept.

In the forty days which followed His resurrection, our Redeemer laid the foundations of His Church on which He was soon to send the Holy Ghost.

The Epistle and Gospel describe the scene of the ascension and summarize its teaching. All the chants of the Mass (Introit, Alleluia, Offertory, Communion) celebrate the glory of the Man-God who ascends to the right hand of His Father, while the Preface and the Prayers mention the share in this great mystery that, henceforward, is ours until one day it is finally granted to us to dwell with Him. Throughout the octave the Credo is said so that the Church may express her belief in our Lord’s ascension: “I believe in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God... He ascended into heaven... He sitteth at the right hand of the Father”. The Gloria speaks in the same sense: “O Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son... who sitteth at the right hand of the Father, have mercy on us.” Throughout the octave the Communicants proper to the feast is said.

Every day the prayers of the Ordinary of the Mass remind us at the Offertory and the Canon (Suscipe sancta Trinitas-Unde et memores) that the holy sacrifice is offered in memory of the passion, resurrection, and the glorious ascension into heaven of our Lord Jesus Christ. For the ascension is one of the essential mysteries of our redemption, one of those which all the chosen people of God are called to share in order to be saved: “through Thy death and burial, through Thy holy resurrection, through Thy wonderful ascension, deliver us, O Lord” sings the Church in the Litany of the Saints. We should offer to God the holy sacrifice in memory of the glorious ascension of His Son and cultivate in our souls a burning desire for heaven so that henceforth “we may ever live in mind of heavenly things”.