CAPG's Blog 

"There are some who derive satisfaction from the virtues they practice because their tendencies are all that way.

For example, a mother will pride herself on the fact that she gives some alms, that she frequents the Sacraments, that she even reads some spiritual books -- yet she sees without dismay that her children are keeping away from the Sacraments. Her children do not make their Easter duty, yet this mother, from time to time, gives them permission to go to amusements, to dances, to weddings, and sometimes to the winter gatherings. She loves to see her daughters appearing in public; she thinks that if they do not frequent these places of debauchery, no one will know them and they will not be able to find themselves husbands and homes.

Yes, undoubtedly they would be unknown -- but only to the libertines. Yes, my dear brethren, they will not find themselves husbands from among those who would treat them like the most wretched slaves. This mother loves to see them well turned out; this mother loves to see them in the company of some young men who are wealthier than they are. After certain prayers and some good works, which certainly she will do, she thinks herself to be on the road to Heaven. Carry on, my good mother; you are only a blind hypocrite; you have only the appearance of virtue. You set your mind at rest with the thought that you make some visits to the Blessed Sacrament; without any doubt that is a good thing; but your daughter is at a dance; but your daughter is at the cabaret with libertines, and they will be spewing out nothing but one kind or another of indecency; but your daughter, tonight, is in a place where she should not be. Go away, blind and abandoned mother, go out and leave your prayers. Do you not see that you are doing as the Jews did, who bent the knee before Jesus Christ to make a semblance of adoring Him? So, then, you come to adore God, while your children are out to crucify Him. Poor blind creature, you do not know either what you say or what you do. Your prayers are only an insult which you offer to God. Begin by going to find your daughter, who is losing her soul; then you may return to God to ask Him for your conversion.

A father thinks that it is quite enough to maintain good order in his house; he will not have anyone swearing or using obscene words. That is very good. But he has no scruple about allowing his boys to go to amusements, to fairs, and all sorts of pleasures like that. This same father permits work to be done on Sundays on the slightest pretext, even such as not to go against the wishes of his reapers or his threshers. However, you see him in church adoring God, even prostrate before Him: he is trying to avoid the slightest distraction. But tell me, my friends, how do you suppose God can look upon such people as that? Carry on, my poor friend, you are blind. Go and learn your duties and then you may come to offer your prayers to God.

Do you not see that you are doing the work of Pontius Pilate, who recognized Jesus Christ and who yet condemned Him? You will see this other man, who is charitable, who gives alms, who is touched by the poverty of his neighbor. That is quite good. But he allows his children to live in the greatest ignorance. Perhaps they do not even know what they should do in order to be saved. Go along, my poor man. You are blind. Your alms and your sympathy are leading you, with great steps, straight to Hell.

Here is another who has plenty of good qualities. He likes to help everyone. But he cannot tolerate his unfortunate wife or his poor children, upon whom he heaps insults, and possibly even ill-treats. Carry on, my friend, your religion is worth nothing.

This one thinks that he is quite good because he is not a blasphemer or a thief, or even unchaste, but he goes to no trouble at all to correct those thoughts of hatred, of revenge, of envy, and of jealousy which fill his soul almost every day. My friend, your religion can only ruin you.

We see others, too, who are all full of pious practices, who become full of scruples at omitting some prayers they usually say. They would think themselves lost if they were not at Holy Communion on certain days when they have the habit of receiving, but trifles make them impatient and grumblers. A mere word which they did not care for will fill them with coldness and dislike. They will have difficulty in being civil to their neighbor; they will want to have nothing to do with him; on different pretexts, they will avoid his company; they will find that someone has been behaving badly in respect of them. Go away, you poor hypocrites, go and become converted; after that you may have recourse to the Sacraments, which, in your state, without knowing it, you are only profaning with your wrongly understood devotion."

Source: The Sermons of the Cure d'Ars 1960, p 159

Prayer for Lent: O Lord who, for our sake, didst fast forty days and forty nights; give us grace to use such abstinence that, our flesh being subdued to the spirit, we may worthily lament and acknowledge our wretchedness, and may obtain perfect remission and forgiveness of Thee, the God of all mercy, who livest and reignest with the Father and Holy Ghost, one God, world without end. Amen

"Our catechism teaches us, my children, that prayer is an elevation, an application of our mind and heart to God, to make known to Him our wants and to ask for His assistance.

We do not see the good God, my children; but He sees us, He hears us, He wills that we should raise towards Him what is most noble in us - our mind and our heart. When we pray with attention, with humility of mind and of heart, we quit the earth, we rise to heaven, we penetrate into the Bosom of God, we go and converse with the angels and the saints.

It was by prayer that the saints reached heaven; and by prayer we too shall reach it. Yes, my children, prayer is the source of all graces, the mother of all virtues, the efficacious and universal way by which God wills that we should come to Him.

He says to us: "Ask, and you shall receive." No one but God could make such promises and keep them. See, the good God does not say to us, "Ask such and such a thing, and I will grant it;" but He says in general: "If you ask the Father anything in My name, He will give it to you."

O my children! Ought not this promise to fill us with confidence, and to make us pray fervently all the days of our poor life? Ought we not to be ashamed of our idleness, of our indifference to prayer, when our Divine Savior, the Dispenser of all graces, has given us such touching examples of it? for you know that the Gospel tells us He prayed often, and even passed the night in prayer? Are we as just, as holy, as this Divine Savior? Have we no graces to ask for? Let us enter into ourselves; let us consider. Do not the continual needs of our soul and of our body warn us to have recourse to Him who alone can supply them? How many enemies to vanquish! the devil, the world, and ourselves.

How many bad habits to overcome, how many passions to subdue, how many sins to efface! In so frightful and painful a situation, what remains to us, my children? The armor of the saints: prayer, that necessary virtue, indispensable to good as well as to bad Christians. Within the reach of the ignorant as well as the learned, enjoined to the simple and to the enlightened, it is the virtue of all mankind; it is the science of all the faithful! Everyone on the earth who has a heart, everyone who has the use of reason, ought to love and pray to God; to have recourse to Him when He is irritated; to thank Him when He confers favors; to humble themselves when He strikes.

See, my children, we are poor people, who have been taught to beg spiritually, and we do not know how to beg. We are sick people, to whom a cure has been promised, and we do not know how to ask for it. The good God does not require of us fine prayers, but prayers which come from the bottom of our heart.

St. Ignatius was once traveling with several of his companions; they each carried on their shoulders a little bag, containing what was most necessary for them on the journey. A good Christian, seeing that they were fatigued, was interiorly excited to relieve them; he asked them as a favor to let him help them to carry their burdens. They yielded to his entreaties. When they had arrived at the inn, this man who had followed them, seeing that the Fathers knelt down at a little distance from each other to pray, knelt down also. When the Fathers rose again, they were astonished to see that this man had remained prostrate all the time they were praying; they expressed to him their surprise, and asked him what he had being doing. His answer edified them very much, for he said: "I did nothing but say, Those who pray so devoutly are saints; I am their beast of burden; O Lord! I have the intention of doing what they do; I say to Thee whatever they say." These were afterwards his ordinary words, and he arrived by means of this at a sublime degree of prayer.

Thus, my children, you see that there is no one who cannot pray, and pray at all times, and in all places; by night or by day; amid the most severe labors, or in repose; in the country, at home, in traveling. The good God is everywhere ready to hear your prayers, provided you address them to Him with faith and humility."

Source: The Spirit of the Cure d'Ars by Abbe Monnin, p.259, 1865

Prayer for Lent: O Lord who, for our sake, didst fast forty days and forty nights; give us grace to use such abstinence that, our flesh being subdued to the spirit, we may worthily lament and acknowledge our wretchedness, and may obtain perfect remission and forgiveness of Thee, the God of all mercy, who livest and reignest with the Father and Holy Ghost, one God, world without end. Amen

"Anger is an emotion of the soul, which leads us violently to repel whatever hurts or displeases us.

This emotion, my children, comes from the devil; it shows that we are in his hands; that he is the master of our heart; that he holds all the strings of it, and makes us dance as he pleases. See, a person who puts himself in a passion is like a puppet; he knows neither what he says, nor what he does; the devil guides him entirely. He strikes right and left; his hair stands up like the bristles of a hedgehog; his eyes start out of his head, he is a scorpion, a furious lion...

Why do we, my children, put ourselves into such a state? Is it not pitiable? It is, mind, because we do not love the good God. Our heart is given up to the demon of pride, who is angry when he thinks himself despised; to the demon of avarice, who is irritated when he suffers any loss; to the demon of luxury, who is indignant when his pleasures are interfered with...

How unhappy we are, my children, thus to be the sport of demons! They do whatever they please with us; they suggest to us evil-speaking, calumny, hatred, vengeance; they even drive us so far as to put our neighbor to death. See, Cain killed his brother Abel out of jealousy; Saul wished to take away the life of David; Theodosius cause the massacred of the inhabitants of Thessalonica, to revenge a personal affront...

If we do not put our neighbor to death, we are angry with him, we curse him, we give him to the devil, we wish for this death, we wish for our own. In our fury, we blaspheme the holy Name of God; we accuse His Providence...What fury, what impiety! And what is more deplorable, my children, we are carried to these excesses for a trifle, for a word, for the least injustice! Where is our faith? Where is our reason? We say in excuse that it is anger that makes us swear; but one sin cannot excuse another sin. The good God equally condemns anger and the excesses that are its consequences.

How we sadden our guardian angel! He is always there at our side, to send us good thoughts, and he sees us do nothing but evil. If we did like St. Remigius, we should never be angry. See, this saint, being questioned by a Father of the desert how he managed to be always in an even temper, replied: "I often consider that my guardian angel is always by my side, who assists me in all my needs, who tells me what I ought to do and what I ought to say, and who writes down, after each of my actions, the way in which I have done it."

Philip II, King of Spain, having passed several hours of the night in writing a long letter to the Pope, gave it to his secretary to fold up and seal. He, being half asleep, made a mistake; when he meant to put sand on the letter, he took the ink-bottle and covered all the paper with ink. While he was ashamed and inconsolable, the king said, quite calmly, "No very great harm is done; there is another sheet of paper" and he took it, and employed the rest of the night in writing a second letter, without showing the least displeasure with his secretary."

Source: The Spirit of the Cure d'Ars, by Abbe Monnin, p.247, 1865

Prayer for Lent: O Lord who, for our sake, didst fast forty days and forty nights; give us grace to use such abstinence that, our flesh being subdued to the spirit, we may worthily lament and acknowledge our wretchedness, and may obtain perfect remission and forgiveness of Thee, the God of all mercy, who livest and reignest with the Father and Holy Ghost, one God, world without end. Amen

"Having received a good education, and observed the corruption of the world, he resolved to withdraw from it. He entered into a deep cave, and continued there for three years in prayer, mortification and fasting. No one was acquainted with his retreat, but one religious man, whose care it was to supply him with bread. Offer up your prayers for all who are engaged in the corruptions of the world, and beseech God to inspire them with the thoughts of retiring from it. Though all cannot hide themselves in deserts, there are none who have it not in their power to withdraw from so much of the world, at least, as is to them an occasion of sin.

Being discovered at length in that retirement, he was obliged to quit it; but still lived in solitude, with his usual rigours. God permitted him to be assaulted with most violent temptations; but being truly apprehensive of the danger in which he was, he resolved to repel force by force, and going into a field, laid himself down in the midst of nettles and briars, till the pain had extinguished that fire which his enemy had kindled; and thus the wounds of his body became the eure of his soul: for from that time he was never molested with the like temptations. Pray for all in these difficulties, that God would be their protector and comfort. And if you are at present in peace, prepare at least, against the day of battle.

"The Medal of St. Benedict: This highly indulgenced medal bears a likeness of the great "Father of the Monastic Life." In his right hand is a cross, beside which are the words: "Crux Patric Benedicti" (The Cross of the Father Benedict"); in his left hand is the book of the Benedictine rule. At his feet are represented a chalice and a raven, symbols of the priesthood and of hermit life. Around the edge are the words: "Ejus in Obitu Nostro Praesentia Muniamur" ("At our death may we be fortified by his presence"). On the reverse side is a cross, on the vertical bar of which are the initial letters of the words "Crux Sacra Sit Mihi Lux" ("The holy Cross be my light"); on the horizontal bar are the initials of "Non Draco Sit Mihi Dux" ("Let not the Dragon be my guide"); and around are other letters signifying other Latin mottoes. At the top is usually the word "Pax" ("Peace") or the monogram IHS.

This form of the Benedict medal commemorates the 1400th anniversary of the birth of St. Benedict, celebrated in 1880. (...)
The medal of St. Benedict was first approved by Benedict XIV in 1741, an further indulgences were granted by Pius IX in 1877 and by Pius X in 1907."

Source:The Externals of the Catholic Church, By Rev. Fr. John Francis Sullivan from the Diocese of Providence p 226. 1918
The Medal Or Cross of St. Benedict: Its Origin, Meaning, and Privileges by Prosper Guéranger

We are gluttonous, my children, when we take food in excess, more than is required for the support of our poor body; when we drink beyond what is necessary, so as even to lose our senses and our reason. . . Oh, how shameful is this vice! How it degrades us! See, it puts us below the brutes: the animals never drink more than to satisfy their thirst: they content themselves with eating enough; and we, when we have satisfied our appetite, when our body can bear no more, we still have recourse to all sorts of little delicacies; we take wine and liquors to repletion! Is it not pitiful? We can no longer keep upon our legs; we fall, we roll into the ditch and into the mud, we become the laughing stock of everyone, even the sport of little children. If death were to surprise us in this state, my children, we should not have time to recollect ourselves; we should fall in that state into the hands of the good God. What a misfortune, my children! How would our soul be surprised! How would it be astonished! We should shudder with horror at seeing the lost who are in Hell.

Do not let us be led by our appetite; we shall ruin our health, we shall lose our soul. See, my children, intemperance and debauchery are the support of doctors; that lets them live, and gives them a great deal of practice. We hear every day, such a one was drunk, and falling down he broke his leg; another, passing a river on a plank, fell into the water and was drowned. Intemperance and drunkenness are the companions of the wicked rich man. A moment of pleasure in this world will cost us very dear in the other. There they will be tormented by a raging hunger and a devouring thirst; they will not even have a drop of water to refresh themselves; their tongue and their body will be consumed by the flames for a whole eternity.

O my children! We do not think about it; and yet that will not fail to happen to some amongst us, perhaps even before the end of the year! St. Paul said that those who give themselves to excess in eating and drinking shall not possess the kingdom of God. Let us reflect on these words!

Look at the saints: they pass their life in penance, and we would pass ours in the midst of enjoyments and pleasures. St. Elizabeth, Queen of Portugal, fasted all Advent, and also from St. John Baptist's day to the Assumption. Soon after, she began another Lent, which lasted till the feast of St. Michael. She lived upon bread and water only on Fridays and Saturdays, and on the vigils of the feasts of the Blessed Virgin and of the Apostles. They say that St. Bernard drank oil for wine. St. Isidore never ate without shedding tears!

If we were good Christians, we should do as the saints have done. We should gain a great deal for Heaven at our meals; we should deprive ourselves of many little things which, without being hurtful to our body, would be very pleasing to the good God; but we choose rather to satisfy our taste than to please God; we drown, we stifle our soul in wine and food.

My children, God will not say to us at the Day of Judgment, "Give Me an account of thy body"; but, "Give Me an account of thy soul; what hast thou done with it?" . . . What shall we answer Him? Do we take as much care of our soul as of our body? O my children! Let us no longer live for the pleasure of eating; let us live as the saints have done; let us mortify ourselves as they were mortified. The saints never indulged themselves in the pleasures of good cheer. Their pleasure was to feed on Jesus Christ! Let us follow their footsteps on this earth, and we shall gain the crown which they have in Heaven."

source: The Spirit of the Cure of Ars by l'Abbe Monnin 1865

Prayer for Lent: O Lord who, for our sake, didst fast forty days and forty nights; give us grace to use such abstinence that, our flesh being subdued to the spirit, we may worthily lament and acknowledge our wretchedness, and may obtain perfect remission and forgiveness of Thee, the God of all mercy, who livest and reignest with the Father and Holy Ghost, one God, world without end. Amen

" Luxury is the love of the pleasures that are contrary to purity.

No sins, my children, ruin and destroy a soul so quickly as this shameful sin; it snatches us out of the hands of the good God, and hurls us like a stone into an abyss of mire and corruption. Once plunged in this mire, we cannot get out, we make a deeper hole in it everyday, we sink lower and lower. Then we lose the faith, we laugh at the truths of religion, we no longer see heaven, we do not fear hell. O my children! how much are they to be pitied who give way to this passion! How wretched they are! Their soul, which was so beautiful, which attracted the eyes of the good God, over which he leant as one leans over a perfumed rose, has become like a rotten carcass, of which the pestilential odor rises even to His throne.

See, my children; Jesus Christ endure patiently, among His Apostles, men who were proud, ambitious, greedy, - even one who betrayed Him; but He could not bear the least stain of impurity in any of them; it is of all vices that which He has most in abhorrence: "My Spirit does not dwell in you," the Lord says, "if you are nothing but flesh and corruption."

God gives up the impure, then, to all the wicked inclinations of his heart. He lets him wallow, like the vile swine, in the mire, and does not even let him smell its offensive exhalations.

The immodest man is odious to everyone, and is not aware of it. God has set the mark of ignominy on his forehead, and he is not ashamed; he has a face of brass and a heart of bronze; it is vain you talk to him of honor, of virtue: he is full of nothing but arrogance and pride. The eternal truths, death, judgment, paradise, hell, - nothing terrifies him, nothing can move him.

So, my children, of all sins that of impurity is the most difficult to eradicate. Other sins forge for us chains of iron, but this one makes them of bull's -hide, which can be neither broken nor rent; it is a fire, a furnace, which consumes even to the most advanced old age.

See those two infamous old men who attempted the purity of the chaste Susannah; they had kept the fire of their youth even till they were decrepit. When the body is worn out with debauchery, when they can no longer satisfy their passions, they supply the place of it, oh, shame! by infamous desires and memories.

With one foot in the grave, they still speak the language of passion, till their last breath; they die as they have lived, impenitent; for what penance can be done by the impure, what sacrifice can he impose on himself at his death who during his life has always given way to his passions? Can one at the last moment expect a good confession, a good Communion, from him who has concealed one of these shameful sins, perhaps, from his earliest youth - who has heaped sacrilege on sacrilege? Will the tongue, which has been silent up to this day, be unloosed at the last moment? No, no, my children; God has abandoned him; many sheets of lead already weigh upon him; he will add another, and it will be the last..."

Source: The Spirit of the Cure d'Ars. p 239 1960

Prayer for Lent: O Lord who, for our sake, didst fast forty days and forty nights; give us grace to use such abstinence that, our flesh being subdued to the spirit, we may worthily lament and acknowledge our wretchedness, and may obtain perfect remission and forgiveness of Thee, the God of all mercy, who livest and reignest with the Father and Holy Ghost, one God, world without end. Amen

8. We adore Thee, Sovereign Lord of the universe, to Whom all knees both in heaven and earth should bend, all reverence be paid! And in order to repair the many blasphemies against thy honor, we offer up to Thee the praises and homage of the Principalities. Eternal praise and thanksgiving be to the Most Holy and Most Divine Sacrament.

O Queen of heaven and earth, hope of mankind, who adores thy Divine Son incessantly! We entreat thee, that, since we have the honor to be of the number of thy children, thou would interest thyself in our behalf and make satisfaction for us, and in our name, to our Eternal Judge, by rendering to Him the duties which we ourselves are incapable of performing. Amen

Source: CAPG