#17 Acts of Adoration Jesus Christ in the Blessed Sacrament in reparation for all the offenses committed against Him by mankind [Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament]
by VP
Posted on Thursday November 28, 2024 at 01:00AM in Thursday Reparation
17. We adore Thee, O God of infinite majesty, whom we can never sufficiently adore and reverence! And to make reparation for all the impious oaths pronounced against Thee, we offer up to Thee the pious discourses made in Thy honor by the holy doctors of the Church. 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.
Thanksgiving Day
by VP
Posted on Thursday November 28, 2024 at 12:00AM in Documents
The first Thanksgiving. St. Augustine, FL. September 8, 1565
"May it please your Grace; beloved brethren — It is a gratifying sign of the Christian character of the spirit of our country that once in the year its Chief Executive invites the citizens of the republic to turn aside for awhile from their worldly occupations and interests and cares, in order that congregating in their various houses of worship they may return thanks to the Giver of all good gifts. It is a sad day for any land when the name of God is erased from its laws and unmentioned in its statutes. At the suggestion of the civil authority and the invitation of the spiritual authority to which we owe allegiance, we come together under the beautiful arches of this glorious temple of God, to lift our hearts in grateful thanksgiving in union with the celebrant of the Holy Mass as he chants in the preface of the sacrifice, Gratias agimus Domino Deo Nostro, "Let us give thanks to the Lord our God"; to which we respond a fervent Dignum et justum est, "It is meet and just." And for what shall the hymn of Te Deum ascend today? What shall be the measure of our gratitude? For everything we are and do and have; for life and action and possession are alike all God's, and by His munificence we are what we are, and we have what we possess. But this day has a special significance. It is a state day, and to observe it in its intended purpose we need but observe the motives which prompted its establishment. It was that, as a nation, we might turn with hearts filled with gratitude to the God who gives us temporal prosperity.
The Church in her great hymn of praise, the Gloria in Excelsis, takes the lofty and sublime motive for thanksgiving from the Glory of God Himself, and she sings, gratias agimus tibi propter magnam gloriam tuam. In all conditions of her existence, whether rain or sunshine, in prosperity, in adversity alike she says, "So that God has greater glory the rest matters not," propter magnam gloriam tuam. Day after day, in persecution and trial as in exaltation and triumph, the same chorus goes up to heaven, Gratias agimus tibi propter magnam gloriam tuam. All else may change; kingdoms may rise and fall; nations may be born, flourish for a day, then totter and die; her sons may suffer; her Bishops be exiled; her visible Head be captive; but her faith flinches not; her voice wavers not; still she thinks of only God's Eternal Glory! So alike, Leo imprisoned, and Hildebrand triumphant, lead the grand universal song of thanksgiving, that all adown the centuries has echoed unceasingly from that blessed night when the Angels sang it above the stable of Bethlehem, when God came down to men. This is the sublimest motive for gratitude; this the loftiest motive for thanksgiving. Thus the Church, because she is superhuman, because she lifts her head into the very heaven of heavens, and gazes with clearest vision into the Eternity of God, even while her feet tread upon the lowly earth, passes over the consideration of the gifts to the sublime contemplation of the Giver; forgets, with a sublime oblivion, the land flowing with milk and honey, the vines laden with the bursting grapes, the stores filled with the ripened grain, the fat kine lowing upon the hills, and the children of men with the gleam of plenty in their eyes, to remember only that which touches all, yet is over all," the Greater Glory of God!"
Sermons and Addresses of His Eminence William Cardinal O'Connell, Archbishop of Boston 1922
Twenty-Eighth Day: They have Great Reason to Fear Who Show no Mercy towards the Souls Departed.
by VP
Posted on Thursday November 28, 2024 at 12:00AM in Meditations
"With what measure you mete, it shall be measured to you again." (Matt. VII. 2. ) It will be readily seen that these words of the Divine Savior are applicable also to the assistance we should render the souls departed. The learned Cardinal Cajetan says: "Those who in this life forget the departed, will hereafter, in my opinion, be deprived in Purgatory of all participation in good works and devout prayers, though ever so many be offered for them by others; for Divine Justice is wont in this manner to punish their cruelty and hardness of heart." Hence, he who shows no mercy towards the suffering souls, and remains cold and indifferent to their pains, will even though his souls may have escaped eternal damnation, languish in the flames of Purgatory without relief and consolation and look in vain for friends and intercessors. And the faithful who do not forget the suffering souls completely, but seldom think of them, will not be deprived of friends and intercessors entirely, but will derive very little help and comfort, and their complaints will be answered by the words of St. Paul: "He who soweth sparingly, shall also reap sparingly." (2 Cor. IX. 6).
Prayer: O God, whose goodness and mercy are infinite, have pity on the souls of those, who on account of their want of charity are undeserving of Thy bounty, and accept our fervent prayers in reparation for their faults, that they may not suffer without consolation. Through Christ Our Lord. Amen.
Prayer for Priests in Purgatory: My Jesus, by the sorrows Thou didst suffer in Thine Agony in the Garden, in Thy Scourging and Crowning with thorns, in the Way to Calvary, in Thy Crucifixion and Death, have mercy on the souls of priests in Purgatory, especially those most forgotten and who have no one else to pray for them. I wish to remember all those priests who ministered to me, the priests my heart has never forgotten, and for those that I no longer recall due to my frailty of memory. Do Thou deliver them from the dire torments they endure; call them and admit them to Thy most sweet embrace in Paradise.
Pope Saint Pius X and Saint John Vianney, pray for us and especially for our priests. Amen
Special Intercession: Pray for the souls who suffer for their want of charity.
Lord grant them eternal rest, and let perpetual light shine upon them. May they rest in peace. Amen. (Three times)
Invocation: My Jesus, mercy!
Source: Manual of the Purgatorian Society, Redemptorist Fathers. 1907