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"The doctrines of Godliness are overturned; the rules of the Church are in confusion; the ambition of the unprincipled seizes upon places of authority; and the chief seat is now openly proposed as a reward for impiety; so that he whose blasphemies are the more shocking, is more eligible for the oversight of the people.

Priestly gravity has perished; there are none left to feed the Lordʼs flock with knowledge; ambitious men are ever spending, in purposes of self-indulgence and bribery, possessions which they hold in trust for the poor. The accurate observation of the canons are no more; there is no restraint upon sin.

Unbelievers laugh at what they see, and the weak are unsettled; faith is doubtful, ignorance is poured over their souls, because the adulterators of the word in wickedness imitate the truth. Religious people keep silence, but every blaspheming tongue is let loose. Sacred things are profaned; those of the laity who are sound in faith avoid the places of worship, as schools of impiety, and raise their hands in solitude with groans and tears to the Lord in heaven."

Source: St. Basil the Great, The Church of the Fathers, John Henry Newman 1868

"I. The week succeeding the birth of her Son had been to Mary a week of exquisite joy, one long ecstasy of heavenly delight, with no sorrow to mar the brightness of the sunshine of His presence. But on the octave of His Nativity all was changed. She began to realize the fact that Jesus had come to suffer — that He Who was infinitely dearer to her than the whole world was to be the Man of Sorrows — and Mary's joy was changed to bitter sorrow. Thus it is for all those who love God. The times when earth seems unable to contain the greatness of their joy are sure to be followed by sorrow and by pain.

2. It seemed but a trifle which thus changed the complexion of Mary's life. The pain that Jesus had to suffer had but a passing smart. Why should she thus grieve over it? It was because it betokened the indignities that He would have to suffer, the character of a victim for sin that He had taken upon Himself. Often a mere trifle destroys the brightness of our life. God uses matters seemingly trivial to teach us our weakness.

3. Yet Mary would not have had it otherwise. She knew it was the will of God, and that was enough for her. Would that I could learn this lesson more perfectly! Then nothing would destroy my peace, as nothing destroyed Mary's. "

Meditations for Christmas . By Rev. Richard F. Clarke S.J. The Catholic Truth Society, London 1891

Sacred Heart, Brittany (France)

"The priests must announce truth. Hence those priests who think they are rendering a service to the Church and who with human prudence allow large concessions to false science under the fatal illusion of being able the more easily to win over erring ones, are making a serious mistake." -- Saint Pius X ( Recipe for the Holiness of Priests )

Prayer to the Sacred Heart for Priests: Remember, O most loving Heart of Jesus, that they for whom I pray are those for whom You prayed so earnestly the night before Your death. These are they to whom You look to continue with You in Your sorrows when others forsake You, who share Your griefs and have inherited your persecutions, according to Your word: That the servant is not greater than his Lord.
Remember, O Heart of Jesus, that they are the objects of the worldʼs hatred and Satanʼs deadliest snares. Keep them then, 0 Jesus, in the safe citadel of Your Sacred Heart and there let them be sanctified in truth.
May they be one with you and one among themselves, and grant that multitudes may be brought through their word to believe in You and love You. Amen.

To the Sacred Heart of Jesus: O Sacred Heart of Jesus, in Thine excessive love for men, in order to redeem souls and save them for heaven, Thou didst shed Thy Precious Blood. With all the fervor of our hearts we beg of Thee to accompany with Thy blessing and Thy grace the labors of priests for the salvation of souls. Grant that with all zeal they may preach Thy sacred doctrine, that they may move to repentance the hearts of sinners, that they may strengthen the good in virtue.

Keep far from our congregation the assaults of the evil one; ward off all scandal and seduction, enmities and envy, uncharitable and bad example. Let Thy love and Thy grace abide in all hearts, that we may strive with great fervor to reach our eternal goal, to avoid sin, to practice virtue, and to encourage each other by a devout life, so that in the everlasting happiness of heaven above we may rejoice in union with Thee. Amen.
O Divine Heart of Jesus, convert sinners, save the dying, deliver the holy souls in purgatory.

"1. At the circumcision, Jewish children received their name as other children do at their baptism. Mary's little Son received the name of Jesus or Deliverer, because He was to deliver men from the slavery of sin. This was His appointed office by the divine command: to put an end to the slavery in which men were held by the devil. He was sent to deliver me from the bondage under which I have long labored, the bondage to the opinion of men, the bondage to ill-temper, the bondage to passion, the bondage to selfishness, the bondage to self-will, the bondage to riches or comforts. O Jesus, Deliverer of those in bondage, by Thy sacred circumcision deliver me !

2. Jesus is also our Deliverer from the terrible consequences of sin. Our sins were remitted by the shedding of His Precious Blood. Without the shedding of blood, says St. Paul, there is no remission. What reason I have to dread the consequences due to my sins! Yet Jesus can and will deliver me from them, if I love Him as I ought.

3. Jesus also is the Deliverer of all creation from the curse which came upon the whole earth at the Fall. He has sanctified it by the drops of His Precious Blood that fell upon it. Hence-forward it became a new earth, and one day He will cleanse it from all its impurities, and renew it to the heavenly beauty, and make it worthy to be the home of His elect. "

Meditations for Christmas . By Rev. Richard F. Clarke S.J. The Catholic Truth Society, London 1891

"1. It seems strange that the spotless Lamb of God should have been subjected to a rite which was the occasion on which Jewish boys were freed from original sin. Was it not derogatory to Jesus, and calculated to produce the false impression that He was not the Son of God, born of a virgin-mother, but a sinful son of Adam, like those around ? Sometimes it is not only lawful, but a duty, to do what is calculated to mislead others, when God enjoins it or some higher motive exists for it.

2. What was this higher motive in the case of the circumcision of Jesus? It was that He might become like us in all things, sin only excepted; that He might be made sin for us, i.e., might bear all the consequences of sin, and the suffering that is the result of sin. O merciful Savior! May my heart be ever full of gratitude to Thee for this Thy divine condescension !

3. Our Lord was circumcised also because He came to fulfill all the Jewish law, with all its rites and ceremonies. He exalted it by His obedience and exact accomplishment of all its details. So I ought to love and obey every enactment of the Church, every ceremony and every detail of her ritual and discipline."

Meditations for Christmas . By Rev. Richard F. Clarke S.J. The Catholic Truth Society, London 1891

The best wish I can make is that you may obtain from God, not what you wish, but what He wishes for you. St. Francois de Sales

Devotion for the month of January: Holy Childood

Prayer to the Holy Infant for priests:
Jesus, Divine Infant, I bless and thank Your most loving Heart for the institution of the priesthood. Priests are sent by You, as You were sent by the Father. To them You entrusted the treasures of Your doctrine, of Your Law, of Your Grace, and souls themselves.
Grant me the grace to love them, to listen to them, and to let myself be guided by them in Your ways. Jesus, send good laborers into Your harvest. May priests be the salt that purifies and preserves; may they be the light of the world; may they be the city placed on the mountain. May they all be formed after Your own Heart. And in heaven may they be surrounded by a joyous throng of those they shepherded on earth. Amen.
Glory Be three times. Infant Jesus, make me love You more and more!

Virtue for the month of January: Perfection

"Be  ye  perfect  as your  Heavenly  Father  is  perfect." St.  Matt., v: 48. 

To  be  perfect  in  one's  vocation,  is  nothing  else  than  to perform the  duties  and  offices  to  which  one  is  obliged,  solely  for  the  honor and  love  of  God,  referring  all  to  His  glory.  Whoever  works  in  this manner,  may  be  called  perfect  in  his  state,  a  man according  to  the heart  and  will  of  God.— St.  Francis  de  Sales. 

"1. On the first day of the year we commemorate the first shedding of the Precious Blood for us. Christmas week, as it draws to a close, introduces us to the new-born King in the weakness of the nature that He shared with sinful man. We now learn that He came, not to manifest His power and majesty, but to be made like unto us in all things as far as it was possible for One Who was the Eternal Son of God. We begin to appreciate that He is flesh of our flesh and bone of our bone.

2. To-day He also proclaims that He is come to suffer for us. We listen to His first cry of pain, and see the strange spectacle of the first commencement of that Life of which the agony upon the cross was the final consummation. How shall we ever thank Him as we ought ? How great a joy we should consider it if we have the privilege of suffering some little pain for Him in return!

3. He also declares to us to-day that He is come to suffer with us, to take part in all the miseries of humanity, to learn by His own experience all that we have to endure in this valley of tears. This it is which should console us in all our troubles. Christ not only knows them all, but has in His mercy felt them all Himself in His sacred Humanity. "

Meditations for Christmas . By Rev. Richard F. Clarke S.J. The Catholic Truth Society, London 1891

"Man being such," Says the Council of Trent, "that, without the help of sensible signs, he can only with difficulty rise to the consideration of divine things, the Church, like a tender mother, has establish certain rites, has ordered that certain parts of the Mass should be said in a low and other in a loud voice. She has also instituted ceremonies: such are mysterious blessings, lights, incense, vestments, and many other things, in accordance with discipline and apostolic tradition. " The end of all this is to add to the majesty of the Adorable Sacrifice, and to lead the minds of the Faithful, by means of these visible signs of piety and religion, to the contemplation of the great mysteries hidden in Christianity.

On this point, the impious agree perfectly in their words and deeds with us. Religion reduced to pure spirituality, says one of them, is very soon banished to the regions of the moon. Another adds that dogmas disappeared with the external signs bearing witness to them. When, at the close of the last century, the disciples of these men, who could argue so well, were pleased to destroy religion among us, with what did they begin? With external worship. They first turned ceremonies into ridicule. They then pulled downs temples, crosses, and altars.

But in vain does man wage war against nature. These pitiless enemies of external worship had scarcely taken the reins of government into their own hands, when they felt all the necessity for public and solemn rites. In order to convert people to their ideas of morality, they hastened to practice what they had condemned, by calling to their aid external worship. They only changed its immortal object, and referred it altogether to human virtues, which are but pompous nonentities when separated from their Author.

They scoffed in their writings and in their lyceums at the worship of the Saints, and substituted for it the worship of heroes, after the manner of the pagans, who rendered the honors of apotheosis only to persons remarkable for extraordinary feats, most generally the ravagers of nations. They jeered at the piety of Catholics towards the precious remains of the just man, and they rendered honors almost divine to their own great men. In fine, is there a single part of Catholic worship that they did not employ to win favor and credit for their lessons with the multitude? Hymns, canticles, altars, the tables of the law, the ark of the constitution, candelabra, sacred fire, holidays, statues of liberty and equality, tutelary genii, and other emblems of the revolution: did they not offer us a collection of religious ceremonies as extensive as that of any other worship?"

Source: Catechism of perseverance, Msgr. Gaume

O sacred and adorable Trinity, hear our prayers on behalf of our holy Father the Pope, our Bishops, our clergy, and for all that are in authority over us.

Bless, we beseech Thee, during the coming year, the whole Catholic Church; convert heretics and unbelievers; soften the hearts of sinners so that they may return to Thy friendship; give prosperity to our country and peace among the nations of the world; pour down Thy blessings upon our friends, relatives, and acquaintances, and upon our enemies, if we have any; assist the poor and the sick; have pity on the souls of those whom this year has taken from us; and do Thou be merciful to those who during the coming year will be summoned before Thy judgment seat. May all our actions be preceded by Thy inspirations and carried on by Thy assistance, so that all our prayers and works, having been begun in Thee, may likewise be ended through Thee. Amen

Saint Sylvester