Sts. Cyril and Methodius

Sts. Cyril and Methodius - July 7th

These two brothers were born in Macedonia. Methodius was much older than Cyril, but they both became priests and shared the same holy desires to spread the faith. Cyril was the first to lead a group of missionaries to central Europe to convert a people called Khazars. He learned their language in a short time and succeeded in converting both ruler and his people.

The mission of Methodius, who had become a monk, had a very unusual beginning. He was an excellent artist and was sent to the King Bulgaria to paint a picture for his palace. The king, a pagan, asked the saint to paint a terrifying scene, and St. Methodius painted a tremendous picture of the Last Judgement. When he explained it, it made a great impression on the King. In this wise way, Methodius had a chance to preach the Faith, and the King was converted. At first the people were angry, but before too long, they followed their King’s example.

Saints Cyril and Methodius are called the Apostles of the Southern Slavs, because they brought the Faith to so many of the Slavic people. They also are remembered for having invented an alphabet in which the Slavic language might be written.

After St. Cyril died, his holy brother continued his work for another fifteen years.

Let us always remember that after death, Jesus will judge us for every thought, word and action.

What is a Sacrament?/Confession Guide

The Ten Commandments

1. I AM THE LORD, THY GOD; THOU SHALT NOT HAVE STRANGE GODS BEFORE ME.
2. THOU SHALT NOT TAKE THE NAME OF THE LORD, THY GOD, IN VAIN.
3. REMEMBER TO KEEP HOLY THE LORD'S DAY.
4. HONOR THY FATHER AND THY MOTHER.
5. THOU SHALT NOT KILL.
6. THOU SHALT NOT COMMIT ADULTERY.
7. THOU SHALT NOT STEAL.
8. THOU SHALT NOT BEAR FALSE WITNESS AGAISNT THY NEIGHBOR.
9. THOU SHALT NOT COVET THY NEIGHBOR'S WIFE.
10. THOU SHALT NOT COVET THY NEIGHBOR'S GOODS.


The Seven Sacraments

Baptism
Confirmation
Penance
Holy Eucharist
Extreme Unction
Holy Orders
Matrimony

What is a sacrament?
A sacrament is an outward sign of inward grace, instituted by Jesus Christ.

Going to Confession

1. Know your sins.
2. Be sorry for them.
3. Promise Jesus never to sin again.
4. Confess your sins to the priest.
5. Do the penance the priest gives you.

"Bless me Father for I have sinned. It has been (say how long it has been since your last or if it is your first just say, 'this is my first confession') since my last confession and these are my sins:"

Name your sins and number how many times committed.
After you say your sins you say:

"For these and all the sins from my past life, I am heartily sorry."

Then listen to the priest's advice and do the penance he gives you after you leave the confessional box, and if you have any questions and would like some advice, ask the priest.

Then you say the Act of Contrition loud enough for the priest to hear you:

"Oh, my God, I am heartily sorry for having offended Thee; and I detest all my sins because I dread the lost of Heaven and the pains of Hell: but most of all because they offend Thee, my God, Who art all good and deserving of all my love. I firmly resolve with the help of Thy grace, to confess my sins, to do penance, and to amend my life. Amen."

Jesus Christ gave us the Sacrament of Penance. By confessing our sins, we receive forgiveness and grace from Him.

References:
http://www.sspxafrica.com/documents/2004_April/Just_for_the_little_ones.htm
You can find books on the Sacrament of Penance at: http://www.tanbooks.com/index.php?keyword=Confession&PHPSESSID=d4ea74fdd4d57deaf4e92fd7d3cfad5f&page=shop/search&user_id

St. Maria Goretti

St. Maria Goretti - Patroness of Children, Children of Mary, Girls, Rape Victims, Young - July 6th

Mary was the young daughter of a poor Italian widow. She was nicknamed Marietta, and at the age of twelve was already a very pretty young lady. She helped her mother on the farm, in the house and with the care of the other children. Never did she complain because they were so poor. In fact, she cheered up her poor mother and was a great comfort to her. She went to Mass regularly even though it meant a two-hour walk, and she went as often as she could to confession and Holy Communion.

Marietta was also very modest and careful to guard her purity. When a young man named Alexander tried a few times to make her sin, she absolutely refused and she did her best to avoid him from that time on. Then one summer day, she was alone in the cottage mending clothes, and Alexander came again to try to make her sin. This time, he dragged the poor girl into a room and when she tried to scream, he stuffed a handkerchief into her mouth. Yet she managed to keep saying, ‘No, no! It is a mortal sin. God doesn’t want it. If you commit you will go to hell!” And she struggled as much as she could. Furiously Alexander began to strike her with a knife. Again and again he struck, and then he ran away.

Marietta was taken to a hospital, where she died about twenty-four hours later. During her last hours, she forgave her murderer. Her only worry was for her mother. With great joy, she received Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament and then went to Heaven.

Alexander was sent to prison where, for a long time, he did not repent of his horrible crime. Then one night he had a dream or vision of Mary Goretti offering him flowers. From that moment on he was a changed man. When he was freed from prison after many years, the first thing he did was to beg Mary’s mother for forgiveness.

On the day Mary Goretti was declared “Blessed,” her own mother was there in Rome for the great celebration. And when the Pope declared Mary as saint, more people gathered to honor her than had ever come for such a ceremony before. St. Mary Goretti is called a “martyr of holy purity.”

Alexander had become so impure because he used to read bad magazines. Mary Goretti was so pure, instead, because she went to the Sacraments as often as possible. Let us imitate this heroic young girl. Jesus will give us the strength we need to keep pure.

St. Anthony Mary Zaccaria

St. Anthony Mary Zaccaria - July 5th

Anthony was born in Italy. While he was still young, his father died, but his good mother raised his carefully. She encouraged him in the special love he felt for the sufferings of poor people, and sent him to the University of Padua to become a doctor. Anthony was only twenty-two when he graduated.

The young doctor was very successful, yet he did not feel satisfied with his work. He wanted to become a priest. He began to study theology while still continuing to care for the sick, to comfort and inspire the dying. He used all his spare moments to read and meditate on the Epistles of St. Paul. He had read the life of the great Apostle many time, and had given much thought to his virtues. Now he was burning with a strong desire to become a saint and to save souls.

So, after he was ordained a priest, St. Anthony Mary moved to the great city of Milan, to be able to help many more people. He also founded a Congregation of priests under the protection of St. Paul. In imitation of the Apostle, he and his priests preached everywhere, in churches or streets. They repeated the words and sentences of the Letters of St. Paul, explaining them with easy words, and their sermons were very successful.

Later, St. Anthony directed the founding of a Congregation for women devoted to saving girls from lives of sin. The Saint had a great love for Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament, and it was he who began the holy practice of the Forty Hours Devotion.

St. Anthony Mary Zaccaria used to say, “I have never asked St. Paul for a grace without having received it.” In imitation of him, let us ask St. Paul for the grace we need the most.

St. Bertha

St. Bertha - July 4th

This French saint was twenty years old when she married a good man named Siegfrid. He came from a noble family like her own.

Together Bertha and her husband loved and served God, and the Lord sent them five children. After Siegfrid died, Bertha entered the convent in Northern France which she and her husband had built. With her went her two oldest daughters, Gertrude and Deotila.

St. Bertha helped to have three great churches built in France. One of these was in honor of the famous St. Martin of Tours. Another great work she did was to increase the fervor with which the Sisters in her Community served God. Then she made her daughter, St. Deotila, Abbess of the convent. After all this, St. Bertha retired alone to a cell near the chapel. There, hidden and content, she lived a life of mortification and continual prayer until she died.

All saints became saints, because they filled their lives with good works and prayer. Selfish or lazy people will never become saints, unless they change.

St. Heliodorus

St. Heliodorus - July 3rd

Helidorus was a soldier who met the great St. Jerome and became his disciple. When St. Jerome went to the East with other companions, Heliodorus went with them. But he refused to follow Jerome when the Saint moved into the desert to live.

Heliodorus loved and respected St. Jerome as his guide and teacher in divine things. Yet he felt that duty called him back to work for souls in the cities, instead of staying in the desert as a hermit.

St. Heliodorus was named Bishop of his own city shortly after he returned home. He made an excellent Bishop, full of zeal for the good of souls. St. Jerome never lost his affection for Helidorus, even though he had been very hurt when he left. In fact, he told the priest Nepotian to take Heliodorus as his model of a Christian pastor. And in the Introduction to one of the books of the bible which he translated, St. Jerome thanked Heliodorus for the great encouragement and gifts of money he had given him to carry on his work.

These two great Saints had to separate to labor in different ways for God, but their lives show that they still loved each other and sanctified themselves.

We will respect everyone’s good ideas, even when they are different from our own.

The Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary

The Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary

- July 2nd

Visitation means, “visit.” From the Archangel Gabriel, the blessed Virgin Mary had learned that her cousin Elizabeth was to become a mother in her old age. At once, then, she started out on the long journey to her cousin’s home. Mary hid the great privilege she herself had just received of becoming God’s mother, but she went to congratulate her dear cousin. She knew, too, that Elizabeth would need her help.


The trip Mary had to make was long and painful and dangerous, but she did not let that stop her from her errand of charity. When she reached her cousin’s house, she was the first to greet Elizabeth. At that moment, God revealed to Elizabeth that Mary had become His mother. “How have I deserved that the Mother of my Lord should come to me?” Elizabeth cried. Hearing this praise, the humble Mary took no pride in it. Instead, she gave all the credit to God, Who had so blessed her.


“My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit has rejoiced in God my Savior,” she said. “For He has regarded the lowliness of His handmaid, and holy is His Name.”


What graces the Blessed Virgin Mother brought to the home of her cousin! St. John, while still hidden in his mother’s womb, was cleansed of original sin; Zachary was able to speak again, and St. Elizabeth was filled with the gifts of God, the Holy Ghost.


Mary stayed three months at her cousin’s home. With great kindness and love, she helped Elizabeth, doing every little service she could for her.


Just as Elizabeth’s home was filled with graces by Mary’s visit, so will we be blessed if we are devoted to out Heavenly Mother.

The Precious Blood of Our Lord

The Precious Blood of Our Lord

- July 1st

It was mostly St. Caspar del Bufalo who spread the special devotion to the Precious Blood of Jesus. This holy priest of Italy was determined to make people honor the Precious Blood, and his sermons were like “religious earthquakes.”

St. Caspar founded the Missioners of the Precious Blood, and another holy soul, Blessed Mary de Mattias was inspired by one of St. Caspar’s sermons to start a Congregation of Sisters Adorers of the Precious Blood. St. Caspar said he would die happy if a feast were established in honor of Our Savior’s Precious Blood. Just twelve years after his death, Pope Pius IX established this Feast.


It is only right that we should honor the Precious Blood of Jesus, as we honor His Sacred Heart. Jesus shed His precious Blood for our salvation many times during His life: when he was circumcised, when He sweat blood in the Garden of Gethsemane, when He was scourged and crowned with thorns, when the soldiers nailed His hands and feet to the cross, and when His heart was pierced with a sword.


Jesus shed His blood to the last drop to save us from hell. To honor the Precious Blood today we will offer to Jesus some little sacrifices.

Feast of the Most Precious Blood

Feast of the Most Precious Blood - July 1st

(The following is taken from Dom Prosper Guéranger's entry in The Liturgical Year for July 1, in Volume XII of the 1983 Marian House edition of the English translation by the Benedictines of Stanbrook.)

John the Baptist has pointed out the Lamb, Peter has firmly established his throne, Paul has prepared the bride; their joint work, admirable in its unity, at once suggests the reason for their feasts occurring almost simultaneously in the cycle. The alliance being now secured, all three fall into shade; whilst the bride herself, raised up by them to such loftly heights, appears alone before us, holding in her hands the sacred cup of the nuptial-feast."

"This gives the key of today's solemnity, revealing how its appearance in the heavens of the holy liturgy at this particular season is replete with mystery. The Church, it is true, has already made known to the sons of the new covenant, in a much more solemn matter, the price of the Blood that redeemed them, its nutritive strength, and the adorng homage is its due. On Good Friday, earth and heaven beheld all sin drowned in the saving stream, whose eternal flood-gates at last gave way beneath the combined effort of man's violence and of the love of the divine Heart. The festival of Corpus Christi witnessed our prostrate worship before the altars whereon is perpetuated the Sacrifice of Calvary, and where the outpouring of the precious Blood affords drink to the humblest little ones, as well as to the mightiest potentates of earth, lowly bowed in adoration before it."

"How is it, then, that holy Church is now inviting all Christians to hail, in a particular manner, the stream of life ever gushing from the sacred fount? What else can this mean, but that the preceding solemnities have by no means exhausted the mystery? The peace which this Blood has made to reign in the high places as well as in the low; the impetus of its wave bearing back the sons of Adam from the yawning gulf, purified, renewed, and dazzling white in the radiance of their heavenly apparel; the sacred Table outspread before them on the waters' brink, and the chalice brimful of inebriation - all this preparation and display would be objectless, all these splendours would be incomprehensible, if man were not brought to see therein the wooings of a love that could never endure its advances to be outdone by the pretensions of any other. Therefore, the Blood of Jesus is set before our eyes at this moment as the Blood of the Testament; the pledge of the alliance proposed to us by God [Exodus 24: 8; Hebrews 9: 20]' the dower stipulated by eternal Wisdom for this divine union to which He is inviting all men, and its consummation in our soul which is being urged forward with such vehemence by the Holy Ghost."

"'Having therefore, brethren, a confidence in entering into the Holies by the Blood of Christ,' says the apostle, 'a new and living way which He hath dedicated for through the veil - that is to say, His flesh - let us draw near with a pure heart in fullness of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with clean water, let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He is faithful that hath promised. Let us consider one another to provoke unto charity and to good works [Hebrews 10: 19-24]. And may the God of peace who brought again from the dead the great Pastor of the sheep, our Lord Jesus Christ, in the Blood of the everlasting Testament, fit you in all goodness, that you may do His will: doing in you that which is well-pleasing in His sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom is glory forever and ever. Amen! [Hebrews 13: 20,21].'"

"Nor must we omit to mention here, that this feast is a monument of one of the most brilliant victories of holy Church in our own age. [Blessed Pope] Pius IX had been driven out from Rome in [November] 1848 by the triumphant revolution; but the following year, just about this season, his power was re-established. Under the aegis of the apostles on June 28 and the two following days, the eldest daughter of the Church [a former nickname for France], faithful to her past glories, swept the ramparts of the eternal city; and on July 2, Mary's festival [the feast of the Visitation on the traditional calendar], the victory was completed. Not long after this, a twofold decree notified to the city and the world the Pontiff's gratitude and the way in which he intended to perpetuate, in the sacred liturgy, the memory of these events."

The Martyrdom of St. Paul

The Martyrdom of St. Paul - June 30th

St. Paul is the great Apostle who first persecuted the Christians and then was converted. At the time of his conversion, Jesus had said: I will show him how much he must suffer for Me.”

St. Paul loved Jesus Crucified very much-so much that he became living copy of Our Divine Savior. All his life, during his many missionary trips, St. Paul met troubles and went through dangers of every kind. He was whipped, stoned, shipwrecked, and lost at sea. Many, many times, he was hungry, thirsty, and cold.

Yet, he always trusted in God. He never stopped preaching. “The love of Jesus presses me onward,” he said. In reward, God gave him great comfort and in every suffering.

When St. Paul found out that the Emperor Nero had begun a terrible persecution in Rome, he hurried back to Rome to comfort and encourage the Christians. The thought of the danger did not stop him. Before long, however, he and St. Peter were also put in prison and condemned. They were led out to execution together. As they walked along, these two great heroes of Christ encouraged each other.

At a certain point they were separated. St. Peter was crucified on Vatican Hill, and St. Paul was taken and beheaded near the place where his Basilica now stands. With what faith St. Paul bowed his head to accept the blow! From prison he had written: “Behold, the time of my deliverance is at hand. I have fought the good fight. I have kept the Faith. And there is laid up for me a crown, which the Lord will give me and to all those who love and serve Him.”

When we have some trouble or little cross, let us think of St. Paul, and let us pray to him for patience and more love of God.