Meditations

Read more about the article Meditations for the Chaplet of Divine Mercy

Meditations for the Chaplet of Divine Mercy

A Chaplet of Reparation The Chaplet of Divine Mercy is a meditative prayer to God Our Father. Contemplating the suffering of Jesus with compassion is a way to enter into His suffering and offer reparation for our sins and the sins of the whole world. These meditations can be used at each decade. I.  Before the Last Supper, Jesus said His goodbye to His Mother.  They both knew it was their final embrace before His death.  How much Jesus suffered knowing He could do nothing to lessen Her sorrow. II. At the Last Supper, Jesus gave His own Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity to His Apostles.  In spite of the love he received and in spite of the warnings of his fate, Judas still chose to betray Jesus.  How much Jesus suffered from the coldness of Judas’s heart. III. Jesus, the King of the Universe, is brought before Pontius Pilate who treats Him as a curiosity, an amusement.  Without compassion Pontius Pilate orders the scourging of a man he knows is innocent.  How much Jesus suffered for the indifference of Pontius Pilate. IV. Simon of Cyrene stood before Jesus, saw His blood-stained cloak, the sweat and blood pouring down the face of Jesus, His cheeks covered by the spittle of the crowd -- and felt no pity.  He had to be forced to help carry the cross.  How much Jesus suffered from the contempt of those for whom He was dying. V. The Romans nailed His wrists at the point where so many nerves come together that even morphine cannot kill the pain.  He suffered the humiliation of the world gloating over His naked, tortured body as He convulsed in agony. ---------- A Chaplet of Reparation - Praying with the Saints I. Saint Joseph suffered the loss of the child Jesus for three days.  In sorrow he searched for Him without consolation and offered up his suffering to join it with the suffering of abandonment Jesus would feel in the garden of Gethsemane when all of His disciples ran away.  We too offer up the times we felt abandoned by family and friends in reparation for the times we too abandoned or neglected God.  We ask Saint Joseph to intercede for us so that Our Lord will give us the grace of constancy and perseverance in times of trial. II. Saint Maria Goretti was devoted to chastity and resisted her rapist because she did not want him to commit a sin.  She suffered 14 stab wounds and joined her suffering to Jesus’s suffering in the scourging.  We too offer up the times when others have offended our chastity whether in word or deed in reparation for the times we were unchaste in our thoughts, in our words, or in our deeds.  We ask Saint Maria Goretti to intercede for us so Our Lord will give us the grace of purity of heart. III. Saint Venantius suffered torture and attempted execution five times by the Roman authorities, but his Guardian Angel…

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Read more about the article Angels

Angels

For He will give His angels charge of you to guard you in all your ways.  (Ps 91:11) When we think of angels, we remember the angel Gabriel coming to the Blessed Virgin Mary and asking her to be the mother of Jesus or the heavenly host announcing the birth of Jesus to the shepherds, or the angel warning Joseph to take Mary and Jesus and flee to Egypt.  We think of them being in Heaven, but we often forget they are among us.  Scripture mentions angels 96 times – 80 times in the New Testament.  Many times the angels are helping people in need, and they have not stopped helping in our modern times either. Each of us has a guardian angel.  As a child I somehow knew that I had a guardian angel although I don’t remember if anyone told me about it.  When I grew up, no one talked about angels and I grew to believe that it was something that I had made up in my own head.  It wasn’t until Bob and MaryLou’s prayer group when they told us that our guardian angel loves us the way that our mother loves us that I developed a relationship with my own guardian angel. In honor of the Feast of the Guardian Angels (October 2), I have compiled stories submitted by readers anonymously about the miracles they have experienced through the intercession of their Guardian Angels. If you would like to contribute your story, feel free to post it in the comments section. Blessed be God in His angels and in His saints. Our miracle is also one attached to the rosary. We were heading to my parents for Thanksgiving on Wednesday after school had finished. It was a 6 hour drive in North Carolina, so chilly but dry. We had just left the city behind and were going through farmland, with signs warning us not to pick up hitchhikers for there was a jail nearby. We just finished the rosary when the car died. No system worked. Chris and I looked at each other, wondering what to do. It wasn't just the two of us, there was 2 month old Nicholas in the backseat. Cell phones were not ubiquitous then. While we were trying to decide if Chris should try to go to the house I thought I saw a little while back, a police car drove up behind us. The police man asked if we were the gray car that needed help. We were definitely in need of help and our car was gray. We are sure that our quick rescue was the result of Mary and our Guardian Angels watching over us. I was on my way out to lunch with a friend who happened to be a devout atheist.  I lost my footing and started falling head first down a flight of concrete steps. My friend was behind me and tried to reach out but couldn’t grab me.  When I was three-quarters of…

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Read more about the article The Pearl of Great Price

The Pearl of Great Price

The kingdom of heaven is like a merchant searching for fine pearls. When he finds a pearl of great price, he goes and sells all that he has and buys it. (Mt 13:45-46) Most of us think of Heaven as somewhere in the clouds with the angels singing and where everyone is happy, but a closer look informs us that the Kingdom of Heaven is not just a place to go when we die.  It is an experience, a state of being beyond human understanding that exists in the present moment and in the eternal now. Jesus knows our limitations – we cannot understand what cannot be conceived even in our imagination, so He speaks in similes, giving us concrete images we do understand. He wants us to truly seek Heaven because He desires our highest good and wants us to experience unending joy.  We have the tendency to keep ourselves very busy, preoccupied with the small details of going to school, raising families, performing well at work, saving for a house -- or a bigger house. Pursuing these things is not wrong as long as we keep them in the right perspective. Are we serving God in the fulfilling of our duties, or are we merely serving our own egos? There is a simple test we can give ourselves to see if we are on the right track.  When we obtain the object that we seek, whether it be a new pair of shoes or a promotion, how do we act two weeks later when the thrill of the new thing wears off? Do we appreciate what we have and express gratitude, or do we fill ourselves with dissatisfaction over what we do not yet have and focus on acquiring the next bright, shiny object?  The first mindset leads to joy and the second mindset leads to depression; the first mindset focuses our thoughts on our Creator and the second mindset focuses only on ourselves. We can turn this around with one simple change – The Morning Offering.  It’s a very short prayer we can place in front of the coffee pot, on the bathroom mirror, or the refrigerator.  It's twenty five seconds a day that can change our entire perspective. Every one of us needs this change in perspective, even the saints. St. Thérèse of Lisieux wrote of wanting new shoes for Christmas in spite of her family’s poverty, St Francis of Assisi was busy enjoying the pleasures of extraordinary wealth and position, and St. Catherine of Genoa used her wealth to distract herself from a miserable marriage.  Each of them had an encounter with Love, however, that made them want to change course --Thérèse going to a cloistered convent, Francis abandoning his worldly goods for a life of poverty, prayer, and preaching, and Catherine caring for the sick at the hospital in Genoa, while making a life habit of frequent confession and offering penances.  They became saints because they encountered God’s love and spent their lives searching…

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Read more about the article Hallowed Be Thy Name

Hallowed Be Thy Name

The name of God is so holy that Moses was given the second commandment, “You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain,” and Jesus praised His Father’s Name in the most important prayer He taught us.  Honoring this commandment has profound effects not only on our spiritual life, but also on our mental and emotional well-being. It doesn’t take a genius to see that when teens and young adults are exposed to the extreme vulgarity that pervades much of our music, movies, tv shows, books, and even speech, that they become angry or depressed themselves.  Many adults have been angry or depressed for so long they don’t remember when that feeling began.  Taking the Lord’s Name in vain is a serious sin that harms the soul.  According to St. Thomas Aquinas, a doctor of the Church, serious sin also dulls the intellect.  According to neuroscientists, repeated actions and exposure to intense emotional states rewire our brains and reinforce those habits.  So when young people listen to angry music and think they feel better because the music expresses their feelings, what is actually happening is they have remapped their brains and anger has now become a more comfortable emotion. There is a way out of this morass.  Jesus Himself guides the way:  “Hallowed be Thy Name.”  Praising the Name of God not only fulfills our obligation to Him, it brings us to the center of His Divine Heart.  Praising Him elevates our own souls because it actually fills us with His joy. Anyone who has attended a Charismatic Conference or Mass understands the power of praise music and its ability to touch us profoundly.  For those who are introverts or are struggling with depression or anxiety, Gregorian Chant is profoundly healing.  Neuroscientists have demonstrated that when engaged in Chant, the entire brain lights up on imaging machines.  Meditating on the Rosary in Chant has been shown to remap and heal the brain. Praising the Holy Name of God brings us innumerable blessings.  We increase in our own humility – the understanding of who God is as Our Creator and who we are as the created. As our souls marvel at His glory, our faith increases and our fears disperse.  We increase in gratitude; we change our focus from ourselves and our list of wants, to Him and the many gifts and mercies He has already bestowed on us. His hope within us increases, which in turn increases our generosity toward others and expands our capacity to give and receive love. Praise Him and He meets us where we are, as we are.  Whenever we find ourselves still struggling with attaining peace and joy, then we start with a deep examination of conscience, forgive others from our heart, and go to Confession.  We need not have any fear of being rejected because that won’t happen.  When Jesus hung on the cross, He saw every sin that each of us would ever commit.  He saw each one of…

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