Oct 13 Sun - God alone is good.

 Oct 13 Sun
God alone is good. Or, as wise philosophers would say, God is Goodness himself. And all things are possible for God. That is, He is Omnipotent.
The rich man was rich, he was used to people going out of their way to be agreeable to him and to agree with him. Yet now, he had approached Jesus in excitement but went away sad.

The apostles were amazed and exceedingly astonished that rich people, who had it made here on earth, did not also have it made in heaven.
Maybe the rich young man shared this attitude as well. Perhaps he was expecting double congratulations from Our Lord: first for being rich and second for being faithful to the commandments.

Still, Jesus loved the rich man. Not because he was rich. Not even, I think, because he had kept all the commandments from his youth. (And we must ask, did he keep all these commands from his youth? Our Lord had just said, “No one is good but God alone.” When Our Lord said, “You are lacking one thing,” was he being a little ironic?) I think Jesus loved him because he is God who is good. He loves us, too: because he is good, …and we are poor sinners.

All things are possible for God. A man can't save himself by what he does on his own. But God can save a man. To do so, God invites man’s cooperation. Thus, Our Lord’s invitation to the rich man.

The young man was not generous. He chose to keep his riches, which he could go on enjoying for years, but he lost his opportunity to have Jesus, whom he would have had forever. Jesus Christ challenges us to swap the material riches of this world for eternal happiness.

With God’s grace and our freedom, we can be generous, as the rich man, sadly, was not, but which the disciples, happily, were.

This is why we offer back to God every morning (and renew throughout the day) everything we have received. May our prayers, as people of God, help us enter his Kingdom.

If only Christians who are rich in possessions and talents may learn to share what they are and have with those who have less.

God our Father, grant us courage, trust, and integrity. Fill us with the joy that Christ gives us, to do a great deal of good in the world around us. Make us wise with the wisdom of Jesus, who lives with you forever.

We thank our holy Mother Mary. For from her hand, we receive every grace from God. She gave us Jesus, the blessed fruit of her womb. From God, she gained for us our Christian vocation and watches continually over us. Have you never wanted to tell your mother, when she showered you with kisses and toys: "How good you are!" Well... tell our Blessed Lady: "My Mother, how good you are!"

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Oct 12 Sat - Today, Our Lady of the Pillar.

 

Oct 12 Sat
Today, Our Lady of the Pillar. “To Jesus, we always go, and to him, we always return through Mary," as St. Josemaría advised us: “We can't abandon the many Marian devotions that are proofs of our love for our Lady. Otherwise, how are we men, who need to show our love with specific words and gestures, going to express our affection, our gratitude, our veneration for the Lady who, by her fiat—be it done unto me according to your word—made us brothers of God and heirs of his glory?"

“If devotion to Mary weakens in the soul of a Christian, he immediately begins to stray off the right road and could easily end up losing the love of God. The Holy Trinity chose to have the Word come down to earth to redeem us from sin, and to restore us to our supernatural condition as children of God. And also, so that we could see our God clothed in flesh like ours and contemplate the palpable and tangible reality that we have been called to become partakers of the divine nature. And this "divinization," which comes to us through grace, is a direct consequence of the Word having taken human nature upon himself in the most pure womb of holy Mary."

“Our Lady, therefore, can never disappear from the Christian's daily horizon. It is not a matter of indifference to stop frequenting those shrines her children have built for her out of love; it is not a matter of indifference to pass by her image without an affectionate greeting; it is not a matter of indifference to let time go by without singing that loving serenade to her, the holy Rosary, a song of faith, the nuptial song of the soul that has found Jesus through Mary."

“Now we can understand the true meaning of Pillar. It is not, nor has it ever been, the cause of any sterile sentimentalism. Rather, it is the firm base for a custom of true and solid Christian conduct. There, God's sons and daughters are educated in the faith."

“The story of Pillar takes us back to the days of the apostles, to the very beginning of evangelization, the proclamation of the Good News. We find ourselves in the same situation today. Two thousand years count for nothing in the face of our Lord's eternal grandeur. James, Paul, John, Andrew, and the other apostles are walking alongside us. Peter resides in Rome, with the unceasing responsibility to confirm us all in obedience to the faith. If we close our eyes and let our imagination act, we can relive the scene that St Luke relates, as if in a recent letter: All these with one accord devoted themselves to prayer, together with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus, and with his brethren.”

“Our Lady of the Pillar speaks to us of strength in our faith, our hope, and our love. With Mary, in the Cenacle, we receive the Holy Spirit that filled the house where they were sitting. The Paraclete will not abandon his Church. Our Lady will multiply the number of Christians on earth who are convinced that it is worthwhile to give their lives for the Love of God."
Video available in You Tube: https://youtu.be/6CZwCvcT4bA

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Oct 11 Fri - 7 Steps to help a Young Person come back to the Church

 

Oct 11 Fri
7 Steps to help a Young Person come back to the Church

Often, I hear from parents, “My child has left the Faith, and I’m devastated. What should I do?”

What they most need is a plan, a proven road map.

But here are seven simple strategies you can use to draw your child back. These steps can take months or years to complete.

1. Pray, fast, and sacrifice

Commit right now to praying 5-10 minutes each day for your child’s return. Jesus’ parable of the persistent widow (Lk 18:1-8) confirms that God loves tireless prayer — even if you pray for the same need every day. Don’t give up, and don’t think your prayer is unheeded or pointless. Look at what St. Monica’s prayers did for St. Augustine.

Skip a meal, or better, give up Facebook or Netflix for a week, or willingly bear a small pain. Then offer your sufferings to God on behalf of your child. Unite them to the cross and ask that he send new grace into your child’s life.

2. Equip yourself

You can’t give what you don’t have. You may be excited about sharing the Faith, but enthusiasm and goodwill won’t get you far. You need to know your faith. The two go-to sources are the Bible and the catechism.

3. Plant the seeds

You should also begin planting “seed gifts” in his life. Leave a booklet on his desk, mail him a DVD, or drop a CD in his car. One seed is unconditional love. He must know that you totally will his good. Only then will he listen to you.

4. Start the conversation

At some point, you need to open a dialogue about God and the Church. You might say, “Can I ask you something? I wonder if you’d be up for talking about spiritual things sometime. I know you have a mixed relationship with the Church, but would you be open to chatting about it with me? I simply want to listen.”
Then do just that: listen. Don’t respond to the objections or criticisms just yet.

5. Move the dialogue forward

You’ve now identified why your child left the Church. Maybe he drifted away unintentionally. Maybe he disagrees with the Church’s moral teachings. Or maybe he no longer believes in God. Whatever the case, now’s the time to start discussing those factors.
Speak with joy and positivity.

6. Invite and connect

Once your child expresses curiosity and openness to returning, invite him to a weekend retreat, or perhaps a small-group study. Your goal is to re-establish the communal bonds of faith.
Only extend these invitations after he’s expressed openness to returning, otherwise you may push him away.

7. Close the loop

Finally, you need to help your child formally reconcile with the Church. Lots of people get stuck here, they simply do not know how to come back.

The key is to never give up hope. Hopelessness is not a word in God’s vocabulary. As long as your child still has breath, there is always hope. God loves your child even more than you do.
Some excerpts from Brandon Vogt

Oct 10 Thu - Do you know what Amen means?

 

Oct 10 Thu
Do you know what Amen means?
The Hebrew word Emunah may not sound familiar to you at first, but how about the word Amen?

The Hebrew word emunah (אמונה, pronounced “eh-moo-nah”) means “faith” or “belief”. But it is often also translated as “faithfulness.” And yet, it describes much more than just believing a statement about God. It describes a life of full reliance upon Him.

Emunah is faith that results in faithfulness, implying action. The word Amen shares the root with Emunah; it means “so be it” or “may it be so,” and shares the root also with eman, meaning “to confirm,” and with haemeen, which means “to trust.”

Consider now all the meanings together and you’ll realize that, when we say “Amen” at the end of a prayer, it is not just a closing statement or ritual word. It is an agreement to act upon what we have prayed.

Allow the awareness of “Amen” to serve as a reminder each time you pray. It’s easy to ask something of God in prayer. But as His children, we are invited into a partnership of life with Him.
Faith doesn’t just happen in your head – it must be in your entire life.

Throughout the Bible, the idea of faith is like a staircase. You may intellectually know that the stairs will bring you up to the next level. But you can’t just believe that the stairs are there. You have to climb the stairs!

I love what St. James, wrote: “Faith without works is dead.” Emunah is faith completed by works.

What about when the Lord allows us, His sons and daughters, to face a challenge to our faith? The times when He knows and allows us to walk into circumstances that turn out to be challenging or even downright wretched?

Jesus sent His followers into the storm because He knew it was there that He would reveal His love and mercy!
Jesus’ apostles needed to ask for His intervention—even in prayer. We need BOTH the understanding, and the action. When we assume faith is just about what you know, then we miss half of what it means Emunah – faith! We need to be able to say with confidence, “Amen,” and mean it.

In a sense, emunah is also an expression of persistence, or steadfastness. It is often in those difficult circumstances that a certain level of endurance is cultivated. Our faith becomes tenacious.
Other words to describe emunah are: reliable, dependable, stable, steady, verified, true.

Emunah faith is backed up with action consistent with the assertion of faith. Faith placed in God and all that He promised to us in Jesus is how we possess the kingdom of heaven while on the earth.

Do the people around you see your faith in actions? Do you live your faith in God only through words …or through the way you serve Him?

Excerpts from ‘The Meaning of Amen and the Hebrew Word for Faith’ By Avital Snow
Also available in You Tube: https://youtu.be/63PF05CyG_0

Video:

 

Oct 9 Wed - Opus Dei exists to serve the Church

 

Oct 9 Wed
Opus Dei exists to serve the Church.
However, we cannot rest content with good intentions. Jesus rewards us for love shown in deeds, not for ineffectual good intentions; very specific deeds, small ones perhaps, but deeds done out of love.

Every day we must strive to perform deeds of love, because every day we can and should come closer to our Lord. “Since our first conscious decision really to follow the teaching of Christ, we have no doubt made good progress along the way of faithfulness to his word. And yet isn't it true that there is still much to be done? Isn't it true, particularly, that there is still so much pride in us? We need, most probably, to change again, to be more loyal and humble, so that we become less selfish and let Christ grow in us, for he must become more and more, I must become less and less."
Even though you see your limitations, still, God is counting on you.”

Bishop Ramón (Raimo, in Finnish) Goyarrola, a member of Opus Dei, was ordained a bishop in November 2023. What is most striking about him, is that he is the only bishop in all of Finland, a country of more than 338,000 square kilometers (a bit bigger than the Philippines), where there are barely 20,000 Catholics, that is, 1% of the population. In addition, Msgr. Goyarrola is a physician, a native of Bilbao, Spain. With a smile, he also recalls that he was born the same day and time that Neil Armstrong stepped on the moon, a fact that has always seemed significant to him. “I've come a long way too,” he joked, referring to his geographical location.

Despite the challenges facing his diocese –especially the economic ones, since the State of Finland mainly finances the Lutheran Church and contributes only 6 euros per Catholic–, Msgr. Goyarrola maintains a hopeful message: “I am optimistic, I want to focus on pastoral work, not so much on money. I see the diocese as a family, in which I have to find food for my children”.

The bishop also has great apostolic projects for the future of the country: “We want to open a Catholic school, a residence for the elderly, a camp for young people, and a house for spiritual retreats”, he commented with great enthusiasm. For him, there are no difficulties.

He also underlines the remarkable ecumenism that exists in the country: “It is a blessing from God, we Catholics are one family”. He tells, for example, how during this year the first procession of Our Lady was organized together with the Orthodox through the streets of Helsinki: “The tourists were amazed”. The bishop also reflects on his own mission and the sense of service that guides his life: “To serve, serve and serve. When you serve you have no time for yourself. You get an incredible inner peace. Speaking of his future and that of his community, he expressed optimism: “I have so many dreams here. When you fall in love, everything is possible. When I came to Finland, I fell in love."
Pic: Msgr. Goyarrola baptizing an adult.
Video available in You Tube: https://youtu.be/rzug82sufK4

Oct 8 Tue - What is the use of holy water?

 

Oct 8 Tue
What is the use of holy water?
Priest Stephen Rossetti, an exorcist of the Archdiocese of Washington, recounts some illustrative experiences he had as an exorcist that show the true face of the devil and also the power of God.

He recalls the case of a possessed woman. Without her knowing it -recounts this exorcist- he blessed her room with holy water. Even so, no human eye could not detect anything changed.”

The next day, the woman texted him:
- “Did you do anything in my room?” the possessed woman asked.
- “Why do you ask?” the priest replied.
- “You blessed my room,” she replied.
- “How did you know?” the exorcist asked again.
- “Something changed. They (the demons) hated it. They still hate it.”

According to the exorcist, this conversion was very “enlightening.” It helped him confirm that the woman was possessed. “She had ‘occult knowledge’. There is no way she could have known that I blessed and exorcised her room. She received this knowledge through demons. Having occult knowledge is a strong sign of true possession.”

This conversation confirmed “the power and importance of having a priestly blessing, especially the blessing of our homes. The demons hate it and are repelled by it”.

Another possessed woman told him that, when she approached a blessed home, she had great difficulty entering; the same thing happened to her with churches. Another possessed man said to him that, when he entered a blessed home, he could see the demon tormenting him stay outside.
“A blessed home is a sacred place, and the demons are repelled by anything sacred.”

Holy water is an effective sacramental of the Church, especially during exorcisms. Some claim that holy water is a kind of “Catholic superstition” and they received it with “disbelief.”

“There is no water in hell,” the priest reminds us. “Yet water is a necessary source of life. In hell, there is only death.”
The New Testament bears witness to this. In the Gospel of Luke, a rich and ruthless man died and was sent to “the underworld where he was tormented... He cried out, ‘Send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, for I am suffering torment in these flames.’”

Water is an essential element in baptism to cast out Satan's influence and make way for God's sanctifying grace.

For this reason, “a little water blessed by a priest doesn't seem much. But when it touches the demons, they cry out in agony. When it touches the faithful, they receive God's blessing.”
Excerpts from Javier Lozano

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Oct 7 Mon - Today is Our Lady of the Rosary

 

 

Oct 7 Mon
Today is Our Lady of the Rosary. The praying of the Rosary is pleasing to our heavenly Mother. It truly reaches her heart, as we see from the many graces Christians received when they recited this prayer.

Your rosary is like a ladder that you climb, step by step, drawing closer to our Lady, which means finding Christ. Through Mary, the rosary leads us to Christ. Christ is the goal of this long, repeated invocation to Mary. We speak to Mary to reach Christ. She is our Lord's Mother and brought him into the world. And she brings us to Him if we are devoted to her.

The rosary consists of vocal prayer, and meditation on the mysteries. It requires explicit attention, since it not only involves an elevation of our soul to God but also reflection upon the realities contemplated, to draw out consequences for our life and nourishment for our piety.

Though, indeed, we always say the same things in the rosary, don't people in love always say the same things to each other...? We contemplate our Lord's life and that of his holy Mother in the mysteries of the rosary.

In our meditation, “We look at Him and know that He is looking at us. At other times we will consider God's greatness and our littleness. Still other times we tell Him, in detail, things that He knows so well, things which may and even ought to overwhelm us, things that are for his glory and not for our interest since He is more concerned about them than we are."

St. Josemaría gave some general guidelines to meditate on the mysteries: “It's a matter of saying ten aspirations, one for each mystery, preferably five in the morning and five in the afternoon. A brief consideration of each mystery is enough. This will give rise to some internal words in our hearts: some words from Scripture, an aspiration we know, or anything else that comes to our mind and heart at that moment. It doesn't matter if it's always the same. What's important is that we pray briefly each day about the mysteries of the rosary."

Contemplation of the mysteries is what gives life to the rosary. “The holy Rosary is like a handshake, a greeting. The strength of the handshake depends upon the affection one has for the other person," said St. Josemaría. Though the external gesture is always the same, the meaning differs. With the same words, each tells our Lady his most intimate thoughts and expresses his personal, child-like affection.

The rosary is a brief but light-filled contemplation of the life of our Lord and our Lady; a contemplation that is always very personal. In it, “We share in the holy family conversation. We see the Messiah growing up. We admire his thirty years of hidden life. We are present at his Passion and Death. We become amazed at the glory of His Resurrection. In a word: carried away by Love (the only real love is Love), we contemplate every moment of the life of Christ."

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Oct 6 Sun - Today is the Anniversary of the Canonization of St. Josemaría Escrivá

 

Oct 6 Sun
Today is the Anniversary of the Canonization of St. Josemaría Escrivá (2002), Founder of Opus Dei.

The Church has both the permanence of what is universally valid, and the youthfulness of everything that lives and grows. Revealed truth, although unchangeable, is made clearer by opportune doctrinal developments in the exposition of the riches of the deposit of faith, and it is constantly being studied in greater depth.

The kingdom of God always expands and gathers new people into its fold. St Cyril exclaimed as he preached to the people of Jerusalem. “Consider for a moment the number of souls in the world: the Holy Spirit is acting in each one of them according to their needs. He is present in your midst, and aware of your dispositions; he knows your mind and conscience, all that you think and say."

"By the will of God," in words which St. Paul VI used in a message he wrote to St. Josemaría in 1964, the “Opus Dei was born in our time as a clear expression of the Church's perennial youthfulness. Placed as We are by divine will at the helm of Peter's boat ... We ponder with fatherly satisfaction all that Opus Dei has done and continues to do for God's kingdom; the desire to do good which inspires it; the fervent love for the Church and for her visible Head which distinguishes it; the ardent zeal for souls which leads it to undertake the arduous and difficult paths of the apostolate of presence and witness in every sector of contemporary life."

Opus Dei’s apostolate is a service to the Church. St. Josemaría wrote, “constitutes a new fact in ecclesiastical history, while at the same time being as old as the Gospel itself." And although it is a path with its own features within the Church, the Work is universal, and provides Christians with a deep Catholic sense.

Because of its emphasis on work as the proper material for our sanctification, its spirit is open to people of every age, race, and state in life: married and single, priests and laity, men and women, young and old. The universality of its spirit enables its Christian faithful to reach souls in every sphere of life. “We can well say, without boasting, that the Work of God has opened up as a vocation the divine pathways of the earth."

The knowledge that our personal vocation is a sharing in the Church's universal mission should lead us to feel a greater sense of responsibility.
“We will show that we are Catholics by the fruits of sanctity which we produce, for sanctity does not admit of frontiers, nor is it the patrimony of any particular group. We will show that we are Catholics if we pray, if we strive to talk with God at all times, if always and in all things, we make an effort to be just (in the broadest sense of the word "justice", which nowadays is quite often used with a materialistic and erroneous connotation); if we love and defend the personal freedom of all."

Memory Verse
“That is why a man leaves his father and mother and clings to his wife, and the two become one flesh.” (Gen. 2:24)

Practical Application
Take some time this week to pray for, and with your family. Thank God for the blessing of the Sacrament of Matrimony and ask specifically for a renewed outpouring of grace on your marriage and family

Video:

Oct 5 Sat - What makes a good pastor?

 

Oct 5 Sat
*What makes a good pastor?*
The figure at the center of the series ‘Band of Brothers,’ is the Captain, Richard ‘Dick’ Winters. He was the ideal officer, close to his troops, yet with a discernible distance, a man of the utmost integrity and probity, willing to bend the rules when their absurdity is apparent.

He was loved by his men; his soldiers declared they would follow him anywhere. In battle, he reveals the leadership qualities of a good shepherd of the flock, a bishop or pastor.

Dick Winters exhibited the two key attributes of what is needed in a good shepherd in the Church, as in a good officer. In the first place, he was willing to lay down his life for his men – or his sheep. He does not run away at the approach of the wolf: that is what the hireling does.

Winters reminds me of the great Archbishop of Canterbury, St. Anselm, a man with all the attributes of the Good Shepherd.

Monsignor Ronald Knox once wrote that only three Archbishops of the See of Canterbury had been canonized since the Norman invasion in 1066: St. Edmund, St. Thomas (Becket), and the great St. Anselm.

He draws a fascinating conclusion about how each of the three men came to be canonized. St. Edmund was made the archbishop because he was a saint. St. Thomas Becket became a saint because he was an archbishop. St. Edmund “learned to be great in spite of being good,” St. Thomas “learned to be good in spite of being great.” Only in St. Anselm were both characteristics found from the beginning: he was both great and good.

St. Anselm, as a leader of men and shepherd of the sheep, prefiguring the martyrdom of his successor, St. Thomas, was willing to oppose the attempts of the State, in his case the King, to control the life of the Church. For him, “Eucharistic coherence” led to exile. He was willing to lay down his life for the sheep and lead in battle. He refused to run from the wolf, even if the wolf wore a crown. Although always known as a peacemaker, he would not compromise his principles or deny the truth.

Does the office make the man, or the man make the office? For Becket, as Knox describes, it was clearly the office, but for St. Anselm, and for Dick Winters, the essential combination of goodness and greatness were there from the beginning.

The officer most despised by the men of Easy Company, was not Winters, but the officer during the Battle of Bastogne, and in many of the firefights, hid in his foxhole, too timid, cowardly, and fearful to lead.

In the fog of battle, physical and spiritual, soldiers and sheep need good and great men. There are many who are good, but few who are great. Perhaps the good men in the Church might consider if they want easy company, or to be an Easy Company man.
Excerpts from Fr. Benedict Kiely

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Oct 4 Fri - To follow Jesus, we need to be detached from all things.

 

Oct 4 Fri
*To follow Jesus, we need to be detached from all things.*

Although Christ was rich, he became poor for your sake, so you might become rich by his poverty. “If only we could live with more trust in divine Providence, how many worries and anxieties we would be spared! Then that fear which, as Jesus said, is typical of people who lack a supernatural outlook on life, would disappear.”

“Since your Father well knows what you need, we have every reason to be optimistic on our journey through life, with our souls completely detached from those earthly things that seem so very necessary. God will provide. Believe me, this is the only way to be lords of creation, and to avoid the pitiful slavery into which so many people fall because they forget that they are God's children and spend their time worrying about tomorrow or a future they may never see."

We want to travel through this world with the calm and elegance of people who know how to use and to love earthly things, but without becoming caught up in them; people who don't allow any of the things of this world, even for an instant, to gain mastery over them.

There are certain unmistakable signs of true detachment: “Don't consider anything your own. Don't have anything superfluous. Don't complain when something needed is missing ... When you must choose, take what is poorest and least attractive." If we truly love the Christian virtue of poverty, then we will love its consequences.

Detachment is a necessary condition for following Christ closely. We practice it following our situation, taking care of the material things that we use, such as our own personal effects, our clothing, the furniture in the house, the things we use at work, and so on.

As regards our expenses, “We are parents of a large but poor family. Thus, if at times you feel the pinch of poverty, don't get dejected and don't rebel against it. But you should try to use all the upright means available to get over such a situation, because to do otherwise would be to tempt God's providence. And while you are so fighting, remember also the omnia in bonum!: all things, even scarcity and poverty, work together unto the good of those who love God. Get into the habit, from now on, of facing up cheerfully to little deprivations and discomforts, to cold and heat, to the lack of things you feel you can't do without, to being unable to rest as and when you would like to, to hunger, loneliness, ingratitude, misunderstanding, disgrace..."

Our hope is not based on earthly things; we cannot put our hearts into anything passing. With this conviction, let us ask our Blessed Mother to help us to imitate Christ, who, though rich, became poor for us, and had nowhere to lay his head. Let us ask her to obtain for us the grace of a true and total detachment in the middle of the world.

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Oct 3 Thu - All who want to live for God need to practice mortification.

 

Oct 3 Thu
*All who want to live for God need to practice mortification.*
To illustrate this concept, St. Josemaría used the story of a writer who wrote about a dream. In it, he was faced with two paths. The first path was wide and smooth, filled with comfortable inns, taverns, and beautiful distractions. Crowds of people traveled this road, indulging in ephemeral and superficial joys. However, this path ultimately led to a bottomless precipice. It is the path chosen by those who seek material pleasure, falsely boasting a happiness they do not possess, and relentlessly pursuing comfort and pleasure.

These individuals are terrified of suffering, self-denial, and sacrifice. They want nothing to do with the Cross of Christ, thinking it to be madness. But it is they who are truly insane, enslaved by envy, gluttony, and sensuality. In the end, they suffer even more, only realizing too late that they had exchanged their earthly and eternal happiness for meaningless trifles.

In this dream, another path emerges, heading in a completely different direction. This path is steep and narrow, requiring travelers to abandon horses and proceed on foot. They have to navigate through thorns, briars, rocks, and boulders. Their clothing is torn, and their flesh is even wounded. However, at the end of this arduous journey awaited a paradise garden - eternal happiness and heaven. This is the path chosen by those who humble themselves and willingly sacrifice themselves for others out of love for Jesus. It is the path of those unafraid of uphill climbs, faithfully shouldering the cross, no matter its weight, knowing that if they fell, they can rise again and continue their ascent. Christ provides strength to these travelers.

To live with Christ, we must die with him, carrying the Cross in our own bodies. By contemplating the suffering Jesus endured during his Passion and Death, we can overcome our resistance and rekindle our determination to follow the Lord closely. “I love Christ on the Cross so deeply that every crucifix serves as a loving reproach from my God, saying: I suffering, and you... a coward. I loving you, and you… forgetting me. I begging you, and you... denying me. I here, with arms wide open as an Eternal Priest, suffering all that can be suffered for love of you... and you complaining at the slightest misunderstanding, over the tiniest humiliation..."

We must practice specific corporal mortifications in a spirit of atonement and zeal to co-redeem. Let us ask ourselves now, in God's presence, whether we take advantage of the grace He sends us to practice those corporal mortifications in a cheerful, sporting spirit.

Video:

Oct 2 Wed - From the Prelate, excerpts of his letter.

 

Oct 2 Wed

From the Prelate, excerpts of his letter.

On September 14th, we celebrate the Exaltation of the Holy Cross. One of the important lessons we can learn from Jesus on Calvary is found in the phrase he uttered from that height: "I thirst" (Jn 19:28).

 

Christ thirsts for souls, to redeem the world, to bring his word and love to all hearts. This should challenge each of us personally: Do I have that same thirst? Do I share in the fire that burned in his heart? Am I consumed by zeal for souls wherever I am? Do I fearlessly strive to enkindle the people I meet through my prayer and atonement, through my sincere friendship?

 

We can recall St. Josemaría's insistence that our mission is to bring the fire of our Lord to all souls in the middle of the world, a fire that we hold in our hearts: "Don't let your life be barren. Be useful. Make yourself felt. Shine forth with the torch of your faith and your love. With your apostolic life, wipe out the trail of filth and slime left by the corrupt sowers of hatred. And set aflame all the ways of the earth with the fire of Christ that you bear in your heart" (The Way, no. 1).

 

To shine forth, wipe out, set aflame. These phrases will become an ever-increasing reality in our lives as we contemplate the wounded heart of Jesus and allow the Holy Spirit to set us aflame with that same fire. I have reminded you on other occasions that we don't do apostolate; we are apostles. We Christians are Christ passing by along the paths of the earth. And despite our personal littleness, we want, with God's grace, to illumine intellects with clear doctrine, to erase the filth of sin with our own expiation, to enkindle hearts with love.

 

The Holy Cross speaks to all of us. Let us not be afraid of love, of giving life in abundance, even if it seems that we are losing our life, because that is not the case. Let us not be afraid to make Christ known through our lives, whom so many souls are seeking thirstily, often without even realizing it. "We must bring into our life, to make them our own, the life and death of Christ. We must die through mortification and penance, so that Christ may live in us through Love. And then follow in the footsteps of Christ, with a zeal to co-redeem all mankind" (The Way of the Cross, XIV Station).

 

With the desire to bring Jesus everywhere, the sick are especially effective in helping. United to the Cross of Christ, together with Mary, as we will contemplate on the 15th, you who are sick uphold the world through your suffering and are a source of apostolic fruitfulness.

 

Let us ask our Lord, for everyone, that the experience of suffering may enkindle in us ever more strongly the light of faith, the assurance of hope, and the fire of charity, and along with them, joy. 

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