Tag: #StoneofWisdom

ACT OF CONSECRATION TO THE IMMACULATE HEART OF MARY

O Mary, Mother of God and our Mother, in this time of trial we turn to you.  As our Mother, you love us and know us: no concern of our hearts is hidden from you.  Mother of mercy, how often we have experienced your watchful care and your peaceful presence!  You never cease to guide us to Jesus, the Prince of Peace.

Yet we have strayed from that path of peace.  We have forgotten the lesson learned from the tragedies of the last century, the sacrifice of the millions who fell in two world wars.  We have disregarded the commitments we made as a community of nations.  We have betrayed peoples’ dreams of peace and the hopes of the young.  We grew sick with greed, we thought only of our own nations and their interests, we grew indifferent and caught up in our selfish needs and concerns.  We chose to ignore God, to be satisfied with our illusions, to grow arrogant and aggressive, to suppress innocent lives and to stockpile weapons.  We stopped being our neighbour’s keepers and stewards of our common home.  We have ravaged the garden of the earth with war and by our sins we have broken the heart of our heavenly Father, who desires us to be brothers and sisters.  We grew indifferent to everyone and everything except ourselves.  Now with shame we cry out: Forgive us, Lord!

Holy Mother, amid the misery of our sinfulness, amid our struggles and weaknesses, amid the mystery of iniquity that is evil and war, you remind us that God never abandons us, but continues to look upon us with love, ever ready to forgive us and raise us up to new life.  He has given you to us and made your Immaculate Heart a refuge for the Church and for all humanity.  By God’s gracious will, you are ever with us; even in the most troubled moments of our history, you are there to guide us with tender love.

We now turn to you and knock at the door of your heart.  We are your beloved children.  In every age you make yourself known to us, calling us to conversion.  At this dark hour, help us and grant us your comfort.  Say to us once more: “Am I not here, I who am your Mother?”  You are able to untie the knots of our hearts and of our times.  In you we place our trust.  We are confident that, especially in moments of trial, you will not be deaf to our supplication and will come to our aid.

That is what you did at Cana in Galilee, when you interceded with Jesus and he worked the first of his signs.  To preserve the joy of the wedding feast, you said to him: “They have no wine” (Jn 2:3).  Now, O Mother, repeat those words and that prayer, for in our own day we have run out of the wine of hope, joy has fled, fraternity has faded.  We have forgotten our humanity and squandered the gift of peace.  We opened our hearts to violence and destructiveness.  How greatly we need your maternal help!

Therefore, O Mother, hear our prayer.
Star of the Sea, do not let us be shipwrecked in the tempest of war.
Ark of the New Covenant, inspire projects and paths of reconciliation.
Queen of Heaven, restore God’s peace to the world.
Eliminate hatred and the thirst for revenge, and teach us forgiveness.
Free us from war, protect our world from the menace of nuclear weapons.
Queen of the Rosary, make us realize our need to pray and to love.
Queen of the Human Family, show people the path of fraternity.
Queen of Peace, obtain peace for our world.

O Mother, may your sorrowful plea stir our hardened hearts.  May the tears you shed for us make this valley parched by our hatred blossom anew.  Amid the thunder of weapons, may your prayer turn our thoughts to peace.  May your maternal touch soothe those who suffer and flee from the rain of bombs.  May your motherly embrace comfort those forced to leave their homes and their native land.  May your Sorrowful Heart move us to compassion and inspire us to open our doors and to care for our brothers and sisters who are injured and cast aside.

Holy Mother of God, as you stood beneath the cross, Jesus, seeing the disciple at your side, said: “Behold your son” (Jn19:26).  In this way he entrusted each of us to you.  To the disciple, and to each of us, he said: “Behold, your Mother” (v. 27).  Mother Mary, we now desire to welcome you into our lives and our history.  At this hour, a weary and distraught humanity stands with you beneath the cross, needing to entrust itself to you and, through you, to consecrate itself to Christ.  The people of Ukraine and Russia, who venerate you with great love, now turn to you, even as your heart beats with compassion for them and for all those peoples decimated by war, hunger, injustice and poverty.

Therefore, Mother of God and our Mother, to your Immaculate Heart we solemnly entrust and consecrate ourselves, the Church and all humanity, especially Russia and Ukraine.  Accept this act that we carry out with confidence and love.  Grant that war may end and peace spread throughout the world.  The “Fiat” that arose from your heart opened the doors of history to the Prince of Peace.  We trust that, through your heart, peace will dawn once more.  To you we consecrate the future of the whole human family, the needs and expectations of every people, the anxieties and hopes of the world.

Through your intercession, may God’s mercy be poured out on the earth and the gentle rhythm of peace return to mark our days. Our Lady of the “Fiat”, on whom the Holy Spirit descended, restore among us the harmony that comes from God. May you, our “living fountain of hope”, water the dryness of our hearts. In your womb Jesus took flesh; help us to foster the growth of communion. You once trod the streets of our world; lead us now on the paths of peace. Amen.

MORNING MASS IN THE CHAPEL OF THEDOMUS SANCTAE MARTHAE

MORNING MASS IN THE CHAPEL OF THE
DOMUS SANCTAE MARTHAE

“The Spirit teaches us everything, introduces us to mystery, 
makes us remember and discern”

Monday, 11 May 2020

Introduction

Today let us join with the faithful of Termoli, on the feast of the Discovery of the body of Saint Timothy. In these days many people have lost their jobs; they have not been re-employed, they work “under the table”… Let us pray for these brothers and sisters of ours who suffer as a result of this lack of work.

Homily

The passage from today’s Gospel is from Jesus’s farewell at the Last Supper (see Jn 14:21-26). The Lord ends with these verses: “I have told you this while I am with you. The Advocate, the Holy Spirit that the Father will send in my name – He will teach you everything and remind you of all that I told you” (vv. 25-26). It is the promise of the Holy Spirit; the Holy Spirit that dwells in us and whom the Father and the Son send. “The Father will send in my name”, says Jesus, to accompany us in life. And they call Him Paraclete. This is the task of the Holy Spirit. In Greek, Paraclete is the one who supports, who accompanies you so you do not fall, who keeps you steadfast, who is near you to sustain you. And the Lord promised us this support, Who is God like Him: He is the Holy Spirit. What does the Holy Spirit do in us? The Lord tells us: “He will teach you everything and remind you of all that I told you” (v. 26). Teaching and remembering. This is the task of the Holy Spirit.

He teaches us: He teaches us the mystery of faith, He teaches us to enter into the mystery, to understand the mystery a bit more. He teaches us Jesus\’s doctrine and He teaches us how to develop our faith without making mistakes, so that the doctrine grows, but always in the same direction: it grows in comprehension. And the Spirit helps us to grow in the understanding of faith, to understand it more, to understand what faith says. Faith is not something static; doctrine is not something static, it grows. It grows like trees grow, always the same, but bigger, with fruit, but always the same, in the same direction. And the Holy Spirit prevents doctrinal error, He prevents it remaining stuck there, without growing in us. He will teach us the things that Jesus taught us, He will develop our comprehension of what Jesus taught us, He will make the doctrine of the Lord grow in us until it reaches maturity. 

And another thing that Jesus says the Holy Spirit does is to remind: “He will… remind you of all that I told you” (v. 26). The Holy Spirit is like our memory. He rouses us: “Remember this, remember that”. He keeps us awake, always awake in the things of the Lord, and He also makes us remember our life: “Think of that moment, think of when you encountered the Lord, think of when you left the Lord”.

Once I heard it said that a person prayed before the Lord in this way: “Lord, I am the same person I was as a child. When I was little I had these dreams. Then I set out on the wrong path. Now you have called me”. I am the same: this is the memory of the Holy Spirit in one’s own life. He leads us to the memory of salvation, to the memory of what Jesus taught, but also to the memory of one’s own life. And what this man said made me think. It is a beautiful way to pray, to look at the Lord and say: “I am the same. I have journeyed a lot, I have made many mistakes, but I am the same, and you love me”. The memory of the journey of life.

And in this memory, the Holy Spirit guides us; He leads us to discern, to discern what we must do now, which is the right path and which is the wrong one, even in small decisions. If we ask for the light of the Holy Spirit, He will help us to discern so as to make the right decisions, the little everyday ones and the big ones. He will accompany us and support us in this discernment.

Therefore, the Spirit teaches us: He will teach us everything, that is, He will make us grow in faith, He introduces us to the mystery. The Spirit reminds us: He reminds us of faith, He reminds us of our life; it is the Spirit who in this teaching and in this memory teaches us to discern the decisions we must make. And the Gospels give a name to this, to the Holy Spirit – yes, Paraclete, because He supports you, but another more beautiful name: the Gift of God. The Spirit is the Gift of God. The Spirit is indeed the gift. He will not leave you alone, He will send you a Paraclete who will sustain you and help you to progress, to remember, discern and grow. The Gift of God is the Holy Spirit.

May the Lord help us to keep this Gift that He has given us in Baptism, and which we all have within.

Spiritual Communion

Those who cannot receive Communion can now make a spiritual communion:

My Jesus, I believe that You are present in the Most Blessed Sacrament. I love you above all things, and I desire to receive You into my soul. Since I cannot now receive you sacramentally, come at least spiritually into my heart. I embrace You as if you were already there, and I unite myself wholly to You. Never permit me to be separated from You.

THE PROMISE

Homily

As He says farewell to His disciples (see Jn 14:15-21), Jesus gives them tranquility, He gives peace, with a promise: “I will not leave you orphans” (v. 18). He defends them from that pain, from that painful feeling of being orphans. In today’s world, there is a great sense of being orphaned: many people have many things, but they lack the Father. And in the history of humanity, this has repeated itself: when the Father is missing, something is lacking and there is always the desire to meet, to rediscover the Father, even in the ancient myths. We can think of the myth of Oedipus, or Telemachus, and many others: always in search of the Father who is missing. Today we can say that we live in a society where the Father is missing, a sense of being orphaned that specifically affects belonging and fraternity. 

And so Jesus promises: “I will ask the Father and He will give you another Paraclete” (v. 16). Jesus says, “I am going away, but someone else will come who will teach you how to access the Father. He will remind you how to access the Father”. The Holy Spirit does not come to “make us His clients”; He comes to point out how to access the Father, to remind us how to access the Father. That is what Jesus opened, what Jesus showed us. A spirituality of the Son alone or the Holy Spirit alone does not exist: the center is the Father. The Son is sent by the Father and returns to the Father. The Holy Spirit is sent by the Father to remind us and to teach us how to access the Father. 

Only with this awareness of being children, that we are not orphans, can we live in peace among ourselves. Wars, either small ones or large ones, always have a dimension of being orphans: the Father who makes peace is missing. And so when Peter and the first community respond to the people regarding why they are Christians (see 1 Pt 3:15-18), it says: “do it with gentleness and reverence, keeping your conscience clear” (v. 16), that is, the gentleness that the Holy Spirit gives. The Holy Spirit teaches us this gentleness, this tenderness of the Father’s children. The Holy Spirit does not teach us to insult. And one of the consequences of this feeling like orphans is insulting, wars, because if there is no Father, there are no brothers, fraternity is lost. They are – this tenderness, reverence, gentleness – they are attitudes of belonging, of belonging to a family that is certain of having a Father. 

“I will pray to the Father and He will send you another Paraclete” (Jn 14:16) who will remind you how to access the Father, He will remind you that we have a Father who is the center of everything, the origin of everything, the one who unites everyone, the salvation of everyone because He sent His Son to save everyone. And now He sends the Holy Spirit to remind us how to access Him, of the Father, of this paternity, of this fraternal attitude of gentleness, tenderness, and peace. 

Let us ask the Holy Spirit to remind us always, always about this access to the Father, that He might remind us that we have a Father. And to this civilization, with this great feeling of being orphaned, may He grant the grace of rediscovering the Father, the Father who gives meaning to all of life

WITH ALL YOUR MIND

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The Gospel of the Lord.

Acclamons la parole de Dieu.

Praise to you, Lord Jesus Christ.

Louange Ă  toi, Seigneur JĂŠsus.

Today\’s Gospel: \”With all your mind\”

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Sometimes there is a message for us in some words of the Gospel that even the evangelists don’t notice. There is an example here, hidden in words so uninteresting that we can’t even be sure who said them. Matthew and Mark say Jesus, while Luke says the scribe.


Jesus (or the scribe) appears to be quoting from the Old Testament, but one phrase does not exist in any text of the Commandments: that we should love the Lord our God with all our mind.


It is easy not to notice this phrase, and indeed Matthew, Mark and Luke don’t notice it. We know this because normally when Jesus departs from the Old Testament it is noticed, and remarked upon, and made the subject of a whole “But I say to you…” discourse.


Not here. There are two aspects to this. One is what it says about the past, the other is what it says to us.

The past is straightforward. The Jews have never been “people of the Book” in the sense of believing in the Bible and nothing but the Bible. They have, it is true, had a peculiar reverence for every sacred word, but they have lived not in unthinking obedience to those words alone but in a dialogue, you might even say in a relationship, with the sacred text. So the fact that “all your mind” appears here, without attracting notice or comment, must mean that it had become a part of the generally accepted interpretation of the words of Scripture. When, centuries after the Pentateuch, the Jews came across the new, Greek ways of thinking – as the Wisdom literature shows that they did – they immediately realised that this new thing called “mind” was included, no doubt about it, in the commandment to love.
What this says to us is more important than just a footnote in the history of ideas. It is the foundation and justification of all science. God does not command the impossible. If he is to be loved with the mind, that can only be because he is lovable with the mind, or, to detheologize the language, because Ultimate Being can be related to rationally. The Gospel phrase tells us that things make sense and that we have the equipment to make sense of them.

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What does omnipotence mean? Does it mean that the Omnipotent can do anything at all? If that were true, all science would be at an end. If God willed that when I dropped a glass on the floor it would shatter, then even if God had willed the same whenever anyone in the past had ever dropped a glass, that would still not bind God. God would still be free to decide, if I dropped a glass on the floor now, that this particular glass, alone among all the glasses in history, should bounce and not break.


Which is to say: on this interpretation of divine omnipotence, science is impossible. We cannot predict the result of an experiment, because next time God may decide differently. We cannot even lay down laws of nature based on previous experience, because to call a law a “law” is to claim to be able to bind God, which is blasphemy.


This is not merely an academic quibble. When the 11th-century Muslim philosopher al-Ghazāli propounded this very idea, it captured the mainstream of Islamic thinking and led to the virtual suicide of science in Islam and the abandonment of rational thinking about the physical world, as being unnecessary, or sacrilegious, or both.
We are saved from this by this one little phrase in the Gospel, about loving God with all our mind. It is more than mere permission, it is a command to understand, to go out and do science, and it was followed whenever Christians had leisure to think. It led to the dazzling 13th-century renaissance and the birth of modern science, and we are still living through its consequences.

As for divine omnipotence, this is not the place to go into it in detail, but the answer to al-Ghazāli must surely be that God can indeed make the glass bounce, but God cannot make the glass bounce and still be God, since to break the laws and regularities of nature whimsically and without reason would be to abandon lovability-with-the-mind. This is exactly the argument that theologians use against pointless or frivolous miracles, but it applies to science as well, and to the possibility of doing science at all.

Audio: Protection All Mighty God; Queen of The Angels

Holy Holy Holy Spirit [God of Power] short music 🎶 audio

https://youtu.be/irkzSjvVp48