Blog Post 4/30/2022

"O Lord, go with me And be my guide, In my most need Be by my side:

If you are guiding me

I shall not want,

If you are guarding me

I shall not fear,

Though I am walking

In the valley of the shadow Of my dying,

You are walking with me, And when I am not

You will have taken me.”  [November 2013, John S. Dunne, C.S.C]

 

One day each of us will go home and walk in the garden of God’s Kingdom, may each day we have here on earth prepare us for that walk.

 

Our Lady of Perpetual Help, intercede for us.

St. Michael, ask God to help the Ukrainians.

May God Be Praised and your day be Blessed.

Blog Post 4/29/2022

St. Margaret Mary Alacoque was canonized by Pope Benedict XV in 1920, her witness to the Lord’s great love for each one of us is based on Jesus’ great revelation in St. John’s Gospel - God is Love. The idea of devotion to the Sacred Heart was offered to us by St. Margaret Mary Alacoque after Jesus revealed to her that His human heart was to be the symbol of His divine love for each of us and all of us.

 

Jesus made 12 promises through St. Margaret Mary Alacoque, one of those promises is “Sinners will find in my heart an infinite ocean of mercy.”

 

Look each day to Jesus for His mercy, it is always there for you.

 

Our Lady of Perpetual Help, intercede for us.

St. Michael, ask God to help the Ukrainians.

May God Be Praised and your day be Blessed.

 

 

Blog Post 4/28/2022 - C.S. Lewis offers us this penetrating insight in “Mere Christianity”

 

“And let me make it quite clear that when Christians say the Christ-life is in them, they do not mean simply something mental or moral. When they speak of being ‘in Christ’ or of Christ being ‘in them’, this is not simply a way of saying that they are thinking about Christ or copying Him. They mean that Christ is actually operating through them; that the whole mass of Christians are the physical organism through which Christ acts—that we are His fingers and muscles, the cells of His body.

 

And perhaps that explains one or two things. It explains why this new life is spread not only by purely mental acts like belief, but by bodily acts like baptism and Holy Communion. It is not merely the spreading of an idea; it is more like evolution—a biological or superbiological fact. There is no good trying to be more spiritual than God. God never meant man to be a purely spiritual creature. That is why He uses material things like bread and wine to put the new life into us. We may think this rather crude and unspiritual. God does not: He invented eating. He likes matter. He invented it.”  [C.S. Lewis, p. 64]

 

Reflect on Lewis’ words.

 

 

 

Our Lady of Perpetual Help, intercede for us.

St. Michael, ask God to help the Ukrainians.

May God Be Praised and your day be Blessed.

 

Blog Post 4/27/2022

 

“May each breath we take praise You, Lord.  May each step we rake proclaim You, Lord.

May each action we take honor You, Lord.

And, when we reach Heaven’s Gates may we hear, You say, ‘Come good and faithful servant I longed for you to join Me in the Kingdom.’”

 

May God Be Praised.

 

 

 

*The image is available at the Salesian Shop https://www.salesianshop.com/the-sacred-artwork-of-bro-mickey-mcgrath/

Blog Post 4/26/2022

 

"Never be in a hurry; do everything quietly and in a calm spirit. Do not lose your inner peace for anything whatsoever, even if your whole world seems upset."  (de Sales)

 May God Be Praised!

 

Blog Post 4/25/2022 - Hope

 

Hope

 

Thomas Merton said, “…The real hope, then, is not in something we think we can do, but in God who is making something good out of it in some way we can not see.”

 

May God Be Praised!

Blog Post 4/24/2022 Octave of Easter, 2nd Sunday of Easter and Divine Mercy Sunday

Octave of Easter, 2^nd Sunday of Easter and Divine Mercy Sunday

 

 

 

And with St. Francis de Sales let us remember, "We shall steer safely through every storm, so long as our heart is right, our intention fervent, our courage steadfast, and our trust fixed on God."

 

 

 

 

 

Today let’s join with our ancestors and HOPE for: the desert to become fertile,

their scattered and divided people to be gathered again,

the blind would see,

the deaf would hear,

the lame would walk,

the blessings of everlasting peace.

 

Let us be thankful for God’s mercy and His Boundless love.

 

May God Be Praised!

 

Cross chalk drawing done by my twin granddaughters, praise God for the next generation.   Alleluia! Alleluia!

Blog Post 4/23/2022 - Thoughts on Death from St. Francis de Sales and Karl Rahner, SJ

 

Thoughts on Death from St. Francis de Sales and Karl Rahner, SJ

 

In his homily for Fr. Dan Gambet, OSFS' [2^nd President of Allentown College of St. Francis de Sales/de Sales University] Funeral, Father Lewis Fiorelli, OSFS shared a powerful insight on death from Karl Rahner, “I love what the late Jesuit theologian, Karl Rahner, writes about those who go before us in death.  His words speak beautifully of what our faith tells us about believers when they pass through the door of death to what St. Jane de Chantal describes as “a blessed eternity.”

 

Rahner writes: "The great mistake of many people, even pious persons, is to imagine that those whom death has taken leave us. They do not leave us. They remain! Where are they? In the darkness? Oh, no! It is WE who are in darkness. We do not see them, but they see us. Their eyes, radiant with glory, are fixed upon our eyes filled with tears. Oh, infinite consolation! Though invisible to us, our dead are not absent.

 

I have often reflected upon the surest comfort for those who mourn. It is this: a firm faith in the real and continual presence of our loved ones; it is the clear and penetrating conviction that death has not destroyed them, nor carried them away.

 

They are not even absent, but living near to us, transfigured: having lost, in their glorious change, no delicacy of their souls, no tenderness of their affection. On the contrary, they have, in depth and in fervor of devotion, grown larger a hundredfold.  Death is, for the good, a translation into light, into power, into love. Those who on earth were only ordinary Christians become perfect. Those who were good become sublime.”

 

St. Francis de Sales offers us these words about death, “The distance from Heaven to Earth cannot separate hearts that God has united.”  And "Let God gather to Himself what He has planted in His garden.  He takes nothing out of season."

 

Death leads us to the “land of the living” [St. Augustine’s phrase], where every tear is wiped away, every cross removed, every burden ended, and every joy unending.

 

May God Be Praised!

 

4/22/2022 - Friday in the Octave of Easter

 

 

Friday in the Octave of Easter

 

A man walking in the desert one evening heard a voice say, pick up stones and pebbles put them in your pocket and tomorrow you will be both happy and sad.

 

The next morning as he was walking, he checked his pockets and indeed was both happy and sad.

 

The pebbles and stones he picked up had turned into precious rubies, diamonds and gold.

Happy he picked up some but sad that he hadn’t picked up more. This Easter Season remove the pebbles and stones that you didn’t get to in Lent and feast on the diamonds and gold of the Resurrection

 

Alleluia, Alleluia let the holy anthem rise ….  He is risen, He is risen, and Hope abounds.

 

May God Be Praised! 

 

Painting by The Two Disciples at the Tomb by Henry Ossawa Tanner, 1906

 

 

Blog Post 4/21/2022 - Thursday in the Octave of Easter

 Thursday in the Octave of Easter

 

Rabbi Harold Kushner said, “Religion is not primarily a set of beliefs, a collection of prayers or a series of rituals.  Religion is first foremost a way of seeing.  It can’t change facts about the world we live in, but it can change the way we see those facts, and that in itself can often make a difference.”

 

Jesus’ Resurrection changed His followers forever, He changed our vision[our way of seeing] of reality forever, allow Christ’s Resurrection to be the center of your life and His vision to guide you.

 

May God Be Praised!

 

Blog Post 4/20/2022 - Wednesday in the Octave of Easter

                                                         Wednesday in the Octave of Easter 

 

                                                       Te Deum "We Praise Thee, O God"

                                                            May God Be Praised!

Blog Post 4/23/2022 - Saturday in the Octave of Easter

                                                         Saturday in the Octave of Easter

 

Thomas Merton said, “…The real hope, then, is not in something we think we can do, but in God who is making something good out of it in some way we can not see.”

 

May God Be Praised!

 

Blog Post 4/19/2022 – Tuesday in the Octave of Easter

  

Tuesday in the Octave of Easter

 

Today we celebrate, we remember, our salvation is announced and like Samuel we respond to the Risen Lord Jesus “Speak Lord, your servant is listening” [1 Samuel 3:9]

 

 

Alleluia! Alleluia!

 

 

May God Be Praised!

Blog Post Easter Monday 4/18/2022

  

 

 

 

Monday in the Octave of Easter

 

 

 

 

 

“Some say, Jesus is the Greatest Story ever told, I believe Jesus, True God & True Man, is the Greatest Truth ever revealed! Alleluia, Alleluia!” (Deacon Kelly)

Share the Good News!

 

Alleluia! Alleluia!

May God Be Praised!

 

Blog Post 4/17/2022 - EASTER SUNDAY

                                                EASTER SUNDAY

 

 

 

“He is Risen – ALLELUIA, ALLELUIA!”

 

“So many words ready to burst forth.

Words of poets.

Words of scientists.

Words of musicians.

Words of theologians.

Words of artists.

All waiting to be born.

Words eager to give birth to the one immortal idea of all ages.

And the only words that find life are so simple, so brief, so uncomplicated that many great minds have overlooked them:

‘He has risen!’ [Mark 16:6]

The Word is risen.”  (Stations of the Cross, by Rev. T. Ronald Haney, with Illustrations by Bro. Michael O’Neill McGrath, OSFS)

 

 

May God Be Praised!

 

 

 

Blog Post 4/16/2022 – Holy Saturday

 

Holy Saturday

 

 

“The Cross, the Tomb and the Resurrection of Christ are the source of all blessings, the gateway to all graces and the crucifixion reminds us that we are sinners, yet we are loved.  The resurrection expands that love to eternity.”  [Dcn. George Kelly]

 

 

“O God, bend my heart to follow Your will and allow my voice to praise Your Holy Name, cleanse me from any worthless, evil, or distracting thoughts.  Grant me Your grace to pray today with reverence, awe and love.  Listen to my supplication, hear my prayer, and answer me.  Guide me with Your Spirit that I may shine forth Your Radiance to the world.”  [Dcn. George Kelly]

 

Our Lady of Perpetual Help, intercede for us.

St. Michael, ask God to help the Ukrainians.

May God Be Praised and your day be Blessed.

 

“God of Peace, ... you draw us together to witness the depth of your love for us. Allow that love now to intercede in the invasion of Ukraine. Rescue your children. Unite our family. End this war.”  Amen. [Tatyana Borodina]

 

Blog Post – Good Friday 4/15/2022

 

                                                 “It is over, and it is the dawn.”

Blog Post 4/14/2022 Holy Week – The Gift of the Eucharist

Holy Week – The Gift of the Eucharist

 

Today we celebrate the Mass of the Lord’s Supper His great gift to us, it is our great privilege to be nourished by His Body and His Blood.

 

So may we follow the advice of St. Francis de Sales “In fact, there is no other art than to set ourselves to the work of loving Him [God], applying ourselves to the practice of those things that are pleasing to Him [God].”  The Art of Loving God, p.108

 

“What is the place the Eucharist has in the history of salvation?  The answer is that it has no particular place – it is the whole thing.”  Cardinal Cantalamessa

 

Our Lady of Perpetual Help, intercede for us.

St. Michael, ask God to help the Ukrainians.

May God Be Praised and your day be Blessed.

 

“God of Peace, in Lent you draw us together to witness the depth of your love for us. Allow that love now to intercede in the invasion of Ukraine. Rescue your children. Unite our family. End this war.”  Amen. [Tatyana Borodina]