Taking Courage
by VP
Posted on Sunday January 21, 2024 at 12:00AM in Sermons
"Sometimes, my brethren, we feel discouraged because we have not kept our good resolutions, and are even ready to say it is better not to make any at all, so often do we break them. I have no doubt there are some listening to me who began the new year courageously and with some sincere promises to God of leading a good life, and have already slipped back into the bad old ways; and now they say, What was the matter with my good resolutions? I did not mean to lie to God, yet I have not kept my word with Him; I have relapsed; I am as bad as I was before, maybe I am worse. What, then, was the matter with my good resolutions?
Now, in considering this question let us not get into a panic. God knows us just as we are, and far better than we know ourselves. Therefore He is not so cruel as to hold us strictly to all our promises. "God is true and every man is a liar," says Holy Writ, and our experience of human nature demonstrates that although we are honestly determined to tell the truth, and do tell it, when we promise to God to behave ourselves properly, yet we know very well that in a moment of weakness we may break down, and that is understood when we make our promise. I remember reading of St. Philip Neri that sometimes on waking in the morning he would say, "O Lord, keep thy hand on Philip today or he will betray Thee."
Hence it is a great folly to say, "I do not want to make a promise for fear I could not keep it." That would be good sense if you were going to swear to your promise, or if you were to make a Vow. But a promise to attend Sunday Mass, to keep out of saloons, to stop stealing, to be more good-natured at home, and the like is a very different matter. In such cases we must shut our eyes and go ahead, and meantime pray hard for God's assistance.
There is such a thing as being too fidgety about the future, looking back too far into it or imagining temptations not likely to come up. Once there was an army officer who led an edifying life, and who came to a priest of his acquaintance and informed him that he was in great distress, and feared that he could not persevere. "What is the matter?" said the priest. "Why I know that duelling is a deadly mortal sin; yet if I were challenged to a duel I fear that I should not have the virtue to decline the challenge and suffer the disgrace which would be sure to follow." But," said the priest, "has any one challenged you or is any one likely to do so?"
"Oh, no! not at all;
but..." -
"But wait until the temptation comes. You have made up your mind not to commit mortal sin, and when this particular temptation comes God will give you grace to overcome it."
Do not cast your net too far out into the stream; do not be in a hurry to promise to abstain from any particular sin or to do any particular act of virtue for your whole life except in a general way. In a general way you are determined to keep God's law, honestly and firmly determined. As to this or that particular sin, you hate and detest it and have made up your mind against it; whenever the temptation comes you are resolved to resist it.
There are three things
about which one should make good resolutions rather than about any
others:
First, the practice of prayer;
Second, going to confession and Communion;
Third, avoiding the occasion of sins.
The first two fill our souls with God's grace and the third keeps us out of danger. Put all your good resolutions into company with prayer (and monthly, or at least quarterly), Communion; and you will have no great difficulty in pulling through. From month to month is not so long a time to keep straight, and a good confession and a worthy Communion is God's best help. Morning and night prayers are a mark of predestination to eternal life; keep away from bad company and dangerous places, and avoiding bad reading and all other dangerous occasions, has very much to do with an innocent life and a happy death."
Source: Five-minute Sermons, by the Priests of the Congregation of St. Paul 1893
MIRACLES.
by VP
Posted on Sunday January 14, 2024 at 12:00AM in Sermons
James Tissot: Les noces de Cana (The Marriage at Cana)
"As the Gospel of to-day relates one of the miracles our Lord performed, I am led to say a few words about miracles as used in evidence of the truth of the Divine doctrine of Jesus Christ. Certainly our Lord appealed to miracles sometimes as proof that He had Divine power, but that was by no means the rule. The miracle of changing water into wine was performed for no such purpose. On other occasions He bade those whom He healed to say nothing about it. And St. Matthew expressly said that the reason why He wrought not many miracles among those who knew Him best was because of their unbelief: the very reason we would think why He ought to have worked miracles before their eyes so as to oblige them to believe in Him. And St. John also intimates that our Lord did not place much reliance upon belief that only depended upon miracles; for he says, "Many believed, seeing the signs that He did. But Jesus did not trust Himself to them, for He knew what was in man." If we read the Gospels attentively we shall see that it was true then, as it has been all through the history of Christianity, that the triumph of His Divine truth has not been due to miracles, but rather in spite of them. If there was then, or has been since, anything which the world hates to learn of, and obstinately refuses to credit, it is a miracle.
"The idea of God or any messenger from God pretending to do things a man cannot understand! Don't I know nature well enough to know that even if God made it He cannot change it? To believe in miracles I would have to acknowledge God knows what I cannot know." That is the way men think, if they do not speak out their thoughts quite so plainly. There have always been miracles, plenty of them, enough to convert the whole world to Christianity if that were the means intended by Almighty God to bring about conviction and conversion. A man convinced against his will is of the same opinion still; and miracles convince men against their will - the will of their proud, self-conceited, rebellious heart. They see them plainly as you and I do, but they won't believe them. The triumph of our Lord's holy religion, therefore, has not been due to miracles of healing. These are the things unbelievers hate, as they do every other sign of Christ that demands their submission. But what conquers the world despite itself is Love and the sacrifices that it makes. They cannot stand out against the sight of our Lord's love, even unto death, nor gaze upon the love of those who through all generations have taken His place, and spoken, prayed, preached, suffered, and died in His name, without being won to belief.
So, my brethren, if you
are anxious to convert anybody to our holy faith, never mind about
miracles; and do not be astonished if they poohpooh arguments as strong
as the reasoning of St. Thomas. Go and show them a little of the
unselfish, charitable, self-denying, suffering love of Christ. Let them
see how sweet-spoken and kind you are to the poor, how patient you are
in affliction, how nobly you conquer your passions for God's love, and
resist temptations to drink and steal and gratify desires of the flesh.
Did I say never mind about miracles? I made a mistake. For if you do
what I have just told you, I am inclined to think some of you will be
doing as great a miracle as there is on record. You that are stingy,
give freely. You that dislike the poor, go and serve them. You that are complaining of God's
providence, submit to your lot like a man and a Christian. You that are a
drunkard, take the pledge and keep it. You that are living like a
beast, get honorably married and live chaste. You that have hands
getting hot for hell with ill-gotten money, make full restitution. These
will be miracles - miracles of grace; and against such miracles unbelief
never will have any argument, or power to resist either conviction or
conversion. And then you can say to the unbeliever: If you will not
believe in the Catholic religion for its truth's sake, look at me, and
believe it for the work it can do. It can bring a sinner back to God,
and that is a greater miracle than raising a dead man to life."
Source: Five-minute Sermons for Low Mass, All Sundays of the Year, by Priests of the Congregation of St. Paul. 1893
The Holy Name
by VP
Posted on Tuesday January 02, 2024 at 12:00AM in Sermons
"When We say the Lord's Prayer, my dear brethren, we pray that God's Name may be hallowed on earth as it is in heaven. So great is God and so worthy of our reverence that everything that belongs to Him or that has been devoted to His service partakes of this reverence. A church dedicated to His service is a holy place; the sacred vessels used in the sacrifice of the Mass are holy things, are set apart, and none but those who are ordained can touch them. Anything that came in contact with our Blessed Lord had a certain participation in His sanctity. At one time it was the mere touch of the hem of His garment that cured a woman of a lingering disease; at another it was His spittle that gave hearing to the deaf. As it is with these things, so it is with His holy Nameindeed, much more so.
For His Name to us is representative of all that He has done for us. It is significant of His divinity and of His office as the Redeemer. It was given to Him by the Eternal Father. By the ministry of an angel it was declared that He should be called Jesus, "for He shall save His people from their sins." "For there is no other name under heaven given to men," says St. Peter in today's Epistle, "whereby we must be saved." the same measure as His elevated above all creatures, so is His sacred Name above all other names, "that in the name of Jesus every knee should bow." "From the rising of the sun," says the Psalmist, "until the going down of the same, the name of the Lord is worthy of praise.”
Worthy of praise, my brethren; and yet what is our every-day experience? In all ranks of society, on the street, in the shop, in the home, in the presence of Christ's little ones, men swear, women swear; and little children ere they can use their tongues properly learn to lisp curses and blasphemies. Parents who are God's representatives, and who should love our Lord Jesus Christ and reverence His Name, instead of having a little patience, of acquiring some little control of their temper when anything goes wrong, give loose rein to their tongues and insult our Blessed Lord by their profane use of that Name which is the symbol of His love and mercy. How many there are who bow their head in reverence to that sacred Name in the house of God, and who go to their home or their occupation and use it only to add sin to their soul and give scandal to their neighbors! How often, alas! is that Holy Name dragged through the mire and filth of low, vulgar, and often obscene language.What a detestable vice this is? How worthy of the demon in its rebellion to God's express command, "Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless who taketh His name in vain." Let this feast of the Holy Name serve as an occasion for a renewal of our love and reverence for the Name of Jesus. Let us today make some special acts of reparation to Him for the insults He receives in the profanation of that Holy Name. If we are unfortunate enough to be the slave of this dreadful habit, whether through bad example or carelessness, let the gracious promise of our Lord, "If you ask the Father anything in my Name, amen, I say, He will give it you," be an incentive to hope, be a stimulus to pray for the grace of freedom from that slavery. Habit is strong, but God's grace is stronger; His promise of help is never void.
Blessed be the Name of Jesus!"
Source: Five-minute Sermons for Low Masses on All Sundays of the Year by the Priests of the Congregation of St. Paul, 1893
The Golden Arrow Prayer:
May the most holy, most sacred, most adorable, most incomprehensible and unutterable Name of God be always praised, blessed, loved, adored and glorified in Heaven, on earth, and under the earth, by all the creatures of God, and by the Sacred Heart of Our Lord Jesus Christ, in the Most Holy Sacrament of the Altar. Amen.
Source: Sister Saint-Pierre and the Work of Reparation. Manual of the Archconfraternity of the Holy Face
The Divine Praises in Reparation for Blasphemies
Blessed be God.
Blessed be His Holy Name.
Blessed be Jesus Christ, true God and true Man.
Blessed be the Name of Jesus.
Blessed be His Most Sacred Heart.
Blessed be His Most Precious Blood.
Blessed be Jesus in the Most Holy Sacrament of the Altar.
Blessed be the Holy Spirit, the Paraclete.
Blessed be the great Mother of God, Mary most holy.
Blessed be her holy and Immaculate Conception.
Blessed be her glorious Assumption.
Blessed be the name of Mary, Virgin and Mother,
Blessed be St. Joseph, her most chaste Spouse.
Blessed be God in His Angels and in His Saints.
I salute, adore, and love Thee, O Jesus, my Savior, covered anew with outrages by blasphemers, and I offer Thee, through the heart of Thy blessed Mother, the worship of all the Angels and Saints, as an incense and a perfume of sweet odor, most humbly beseeching Thee, by the virtue of Thy Sacred Face, to repair and renew in me and in all men Thy image disfigured by sin. Amen
Source: Veronica, or the Holy Face of Our Lord Jesus Christ 1871In His Circumcision Jesus Christ Exhibits three testimonies of His Priesthood
by VP
Posted on Monday January 01, 2024 at 12:00AM in Sermons
*' That the Child should be circumcised. "St. Luke it 21.
I. As a Master Of Truth.
II. As the Expiator of our Sins.
III. As the Sanctifier of Souls.
1. Jesus Christ was born, and appeared in the world, as He said of Himself, to "give testimony to the truth" (St. John xviii. 37); and in causing Himself to be circumcised, He began to give this testimony in the clearest manner, by manifesting Himself as the Supreme Truth. He showed that He had true human flesh, in order to confound the heretics of future ages, particularly the Manichean, who attributed to Him a spectral body; the Apollinarians, who imagined His Body to be con-substantial with His Divinity; and the Valentinians, who believed it to be a body brought down from heaven. Moreover, it certified Him to be a true son of Abraham, who received the precept of circumcision as a sign of his faith in the future Messiah. Thus, as St. Thomas says, did He confirm the promises made to the Holy Fathers. Finally He declared another most important truth, to wit, that we must observe the law, for this is the one way of salvation; therefore, as Venerable Bede observes, He would be circumcised precisely on the eighth day, as the law prescribed. In this manner did it become our High Priest to appear as a Master of truth, and it becomes us, His Ministers, to be likewise masters of truth. For this end He has given us in our ordination the Paraclete, who is "the Spirit of Truth," and who " teaches all truth" (St. John xvi. 13). Let us then guard against lying, for lies in a priest's mouth would be shameful. How well did the Apostle fulfill his ministry, from whose lips issued the words: "I say the truth, I lie not" (1 Tim. ii. 7). Moreover, let us teach the truth to the faithful, for it will deliver them from all evil: "you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free" (St. John viii. 32). Let us endeavor to make them walk in the way of truth, that is, in the way of justice, for with St. John, we can "have no greater grace than this," to hear that our " children walk in truth" (3 St. John v. 4), and so shall we and they behold and enjoy the Eternal Truth in Heaven.
2. Jesus Christ was to save His people by the remission of their sins: "For He shall save His people from their sins" (St. Matt. i. 21); but there could never have been such remission without shedding of blood: "without shedding of blood there is no remission" (Heb. ix. 22). Therefore in His Circumcision Jesus Christ shed His first blood, which was as it were the prelude and earnest of the rest, which was shed even to the last drop in His Passion. A holy writer calls it "the Prelude of His future Passion and Death," and St. Bernard says He showed therein His great haste to take our sorrows; He showed Himself ready to shed His Blood for us. This first blood-shedding was exceedingly painful, humiliating, and grievous to Him. It was exceedingly painful, because, unlike other children, He had the full use of reason, and He did not distract Himself from feeling the pain, but, on the contrary, engrossed Himself with it, in order to suffer all its bitterness. Moreover, as St . Thomas says, His Body, being the perfect work of the Holy Ghost, was especially sensitive and delicate. Then, again, it was exceedingly humiliating because, as St. Thomas again says, circumcision was the remedy for original sin, and therefore it was a mark of shame, indicating the appearance of sinful flesh in the Holy of Holies. Finally, it was most grievous to Him, because it bound Him to the observance of the whole Law of Moses, which was a heavy yoke: "I testify again to every man circumcising himself, that he is a debtor to do the whole law" (Gal. v. 3). He observed this Law exactly, and bore its yoke even to His Last Supper, in order to relieve His followers from it: "made under the law, that He might redeem them who were under the law" (Gal. iv. 5). Thus has He taught His Ministers to shrink from no sufferings, humiliations, or burdens whatsoever when the welfare, of the Church is in question. Many, on this account, have offered themselves to God as victims for the people, and "in the time of wrath have made themselves means of reconciliation" (Eccles. xliv. 17). They have been severe to themselves, but to their people full of that charity which is "patient, is kind," which "beareth all things . . . endureth all things" (1 Cor. xiii. 4, 7). Are we ^like these? Do we desire to imitate Jesus Christ? Let us love the little Child of Bethlehem circumcised for us, and so shall we feel ourselves moved to imitate Him.
3. The Holy Child was circumcised in order to operate in us a spiritual circumcision; that is, as St . Thomas says, He took upon Himself the figure in order to accomplish the reality in us. Further, Origen observes, that Christ being our Head, even as we died in His Death, and rose again in His Resurrection, so were we spiritually circumcised when the flesh of our Head was circumcised. Therefore the Apostle tells us: "In Him you are circumcised, with circumcision not made with hand in despoiling of the body of the flesh," but, by the mystery of the Circumcision operating spiritually in you, "in the Circumcision of Christ" (Col. ii. 11). A sign in the flesh was given to the Jews, who were a carnal people, but they often remained " uncircumcised in heart and ears" (Acts vii. 51). Christians, on the contrary, ought to experience a circumcision in the heart, in the putting off of the old generation, of the old man and his deeds, that is to say, of all that belongs to our sinful origin; and in this putting off, as St. Thomas says, sanctity consists. Let us then meditate how Jesus Christ by that painful wound, by the Blood which He then shed, wrought the salvation of souls. Let us carefully examine our hearts that we may see whether they are circumcised, or whether passions are still alive in them impelling us to evil. Let us remember that the priests of Christ are the ministers of spiritual circumcision, as the priests of the line of Aaron were the ministers of carnal circumcision. Christ was circumcised by one of them, or by some Levite in the stable. Let us therefore endeavor to minister it to others, not only by word but by example, and let us pray to our Divine Lord, that, by the virtue of this His Most Precious Blood He would despoil us of the desires of the flesh, and make us live according to the Spirit.
"Turn away my reproach which I have apprehended, for Thy judgments are delightful."—Ps. cxviii. 39.
"Thou hast redeemed us to God in Thy Blood."—Apoc. v. 9.
