Sunday, 1 November 2015
All Saints The Church Triumphant 'the life of glory is richer far than the life of grace'
Monastic Lectionary of the Divine Office,
Karl Adam - The Spirit of Catholicism.
https://www.ewtn.com/library/THEOLOGY/SPIRCATH.HTM
The Church Triumphant (eccles a triumphans).—Hosts of the redeemed are continually passing into heaven, whether directly, or mediately by the road of purification in the Suffering Church. They pass into the presence of the Lamb and of Him who sits upon the throne, in order face to face—and no longer in mere similitude and image—to contemplate the Trinity, in whose bosom are all possibilities and all realities, the unborn God from out of whose eternal wellspring of life all beings drink existence and strength, motion and beauty, truth and love. There is none there who has not been brought home by God's mercy alone. All are redeemed, from the highest seraph to the new- born child just sealed by the grace of baptism as it left the world. Delivered from all selfish limitations and raised above all earthly anxieties, they live, within that sphere of love which their life on earth has traced out for them, the great life of God. It is true life, no idle stagnation, but a continual activity of sense and mind and will. It is true that they can merit no longer, nor bear fruit now for the Kingdom of Heaven. For the Kingdom of Heaven is established and grace has finished its work. But the life of glory is richer far than the life of grace. The infinite spaces of the Being of God, in all Its width and depth, provide a source in which the soul seeks and finds the satisfaction of its most intimate yearnings. New possibilities continually reveal themselves, new vistas of truth, new springs of joy. Being incorporated in the most sacred Humanity of Jesus, the soul is joined in most mysterious intimacy to the Godhead Itself. It hears the heartbeats of God and feels the deep life that pulsates within the Divinity. The soul is set and lives at the center of all being, whence the sources of all life flow, where the meaning of all existence shines forth in the Triune God, where all power and all beauty, all peace and all blessedness, are become pure actuality and purest present, are made an eternal now.
This life of the saints, in its superabundant and inexhaustible fruitfulness, is at the same time a life of the rich est variety and fullness. The one Spirit of Jesus, their Head and Mediator, is manifested in His saints in all the rich variety of their individual lives, and according to the various measure in which every single soul, with its own special gifts and its own special call, has received and employed the grace of God. The one conception of the saintly man, of the servant of Christ, is embodied in an infinite variety of forms. The Litany of the Saints takes us rapidly through this "celestial hierarchy." Beginning at the throne of the most holy Trinity and passing thence to Mary, the Mother of God, and then through the hosts of the angelic choirs to the solitary penance of the great Precursor, St. John the Baptist, it leads us to St. Joseph, the foster-father of the Lord, the man of quiet dutifulness and simplicity of soul. Next to them tower the figures of the Patriarchs and Prophets, primitive and sometimes strange figures, but men of strong faith, of sacred constancy, of ardent desire. Sharply contrasted with them are the witnesses of the fulfillment, the apostles and disciples of the Lord: Peter, Paul, Andrew, James and the rest. And while every name denotes a special gift, a special character, a special life, yet all are united in one only love and in one gospel of joy and gladness. And around and about these outstanding figures what a harvest and rich crop of infinite color and in infinitely divese fields! All holy martyrs—All holy bishops and confessors—All holy doctors—All holy priests and levites—All holy monks and hermits—All holy virgins and widows—All saints of God. It is that "great multitude which no man can number, of all nations, and tribes, and peoples, and tongues: standing before the throne and in sight of the Lamb, clothed with white robes, and palms in their hands" (Apoc.vii, 9).
Saturday, 31 October 2015
SATURDAY OFFICE OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN MARY 31/10/2015
24/10/2015
SATURDAY OFFICE OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN MARY
Optional Reading for the Period between October 7 and Advent
A sermon of Saint Bernard*
"HAIL, full of grace, the Lord is with you" (Lk 1,28). Notice how the angel did not say "the Lord is in you," but "the Lord is with you." For God, who by the simplicity of his essence is equal
----- Forwarded Message -----
From: Donald ...
Sent: Saturday, 31 October 2015, 7:33
Subject: Mary Saturday 31 Oct 205
From: Donald ...
Sent: Saturday, 31 October 2015, 7:33
Subject: Mary Saturday 31 Oct 205
To check Blog.
Sent from my iPad.
Sent from my iPad.
BLESSED VIRGIN MARY MOTHER OF HOPE
Feast: July 9
Devotion to the most holy Virgin under the title of Mother of Holy Hope has been practiced in the Congregation of the Passion from the beginning. It was promoted in a special way by the great missionary, Father Thomas Struzzieri, who later became a bishop. He carried a picture of our Mother of Holy Hope with him on missions. This picture was reproduced and placed in the rooms of our religious so that they might be reminded to ask our Lady's assistance in their spiritual needs. The Blessed Virgin thus became the special model and support of our hope, and she remains so.
Mary always shows herself as the Mother of Hope
One of the titles rightly attributed to the Blessed Virgin Mary is that of Mother of Holy Hope. Hope is that virtue which anchors the ship of our soul in the stormy sea of this troubled world. It is a comfort left to us after the fall of Adam, a support in our weakness which encourages us to practice the Christian virtues. Hope is defined by theologians as a virtue planted in us by God which enables us confidently to expect from God eternal life and the aids that lead to it. Since Mary possessed this virtue in an heroic degree, she is appropriately called Mother of Holy Hope.
Instead of looking to worldly patrons, as people generally do, Mary trusted solely in God. She desired nothing and sought nothing but eternal life and the way to reach it. The world and all those things that the children of Adam are deceived into admiring and desiring were to her as though not existing. For her, earth seemed to be a desert, so that even the angels marveled, if one may speak in that way, that she could be so complete a stranger to created things. They seemed to say: "Who is this coming up from the desert, leaning upon her lover?"
Although endowed with extraordinary graces and unstained by original sin, Mary never counted on any resource of her own. Rather, she knew that God is the author of every good thing and the source of all perfection. She confided in him amid the dangers of persecution while she was a fugitive from her own country. She hoped in him even when she saw her divine Son die on the cross and the apostles dispersed, and she hoped in him when enemies turned on the infant Church, the loving bride of her divine Son. Supported by this confidence, she remained firm in the midst of what seemed like disaster, and strengthened those who, in their discouragement and need, turned to her as to a mother. She encouraged the weak, lifted up those who had fallen and urged the strong to ever greater trust.
We must not think that Mary has resigned from such maternal service in our day. Certainly not! Even now, from that exalted throne where she reigns in glory, Mary reaches out a mother's hand to those who have failed. She graciously appears to them in the ways, and meets them with all solicitude, comforting them and giving them courage. She heartens the good, praying that they may be fearless and unconquerable in the adversities of life. She inspires pastors and inflames with love the flock they shepherd for Christ. In a word, she never ceases to exercise her role as Mother of Holy Hope.
From the Mariology of Blessed Dominic of the Mother of. God, C.P. Priest
Read More: What is Mary's Hope?
http://www.passionistnuns.org/meditation/MCMShuhmann/index.htm
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Night Office Saturday Mary
Sent from my iPad.
Sent from my iPad.
CHAPTER SIX. From Jean Danielou.
OF all the psychological attitudes described in the Bible, none is more intimately characteristic of the Christian's active role in sacred history than the quality of hope, which may indeed be called the specific virtue of life in the time-process. On the foundation of the past, hope looks forward to the future in the experience of the present moment: these are the constitutive aspects of its definition. Its whole basis is in elapsed events, the actual promises of God and the beginnings of their fulfilment. Its movement is wholly towards futurity, in the expectation of the kingdom of God, whose establishment is to be the culmination of history. Here and now it is nothing but a faithful patience undismayed by trouble and difficulty, the very character of a spiritual man.
Hope does not mean optimism. Optimism is easy: it consists in supposing that everything i s s ure to work out in the end, automatically. In a more analytical form, its conception of evil is of a certain transitional dislocation or disturbance, which will rectify itself, as it were a growing-pain. By this elimination of all that is tragic from the problem of evil, optimism would destroy the very nature of hope. To delude men into thinking that the remedy for human ills is in their own hands is actually to put them out of the way of salvation. One example of this fallacious optimism is the Marxist dogma that a change in the economic conditions of life suffices to transform mankind. But even apart from materialism, the same dangerous illusion recurs in other systems, for instance when the mere act of withdrawal from the world of the senses is proposed as the way for mankind to find itself and attain to the Absolute.
Pessimistic doctrines, by comparison, seem far more sensible, for at least they take some account of the tragic element in the life of mankind: and this i s something that can hardly be denied in the contemporary world, with all its injustice and cruelty, and with the observable incidence of suffering and death. The merest intellectual probity demands that we should face these facts, even though (or because) it takes more courage to do so than to indulge in illusory fantasies. Besides, it is of the essence of pessimism to recognize the fact of man's inability to improve his own lot; in this respect, those who have seen furthest into human nature are all pessimists, like Angustine, Pascal, and Kierkegaard; and Péguy graduated from an optimistic socialism towards the despairing position represented by the second Jeanne d'Arc. The attitude of despair is a precondition of hope; for the first act of hope is a cry for help, which springs from the awareness of a desperate situation. ......
Friday, 30 October 2015
Sr. Patricia FMM. Tribute to Sr. Patricia from Wm.
 |
| Site of St. Maur - arch remain |
----- Forwarded Message -----
From: William W....
To: nunrawdonald....
Sent: Thursday, 29 October 2015, 15:04
Subject: Re: Tribute to Sr. Patricia
From: William W....
To: nunrawdonald....
Sent: Thursday, 29 October 2015, 15:04
Subject: Re: Tribute to Sr. Patricia
Dear Father Donald,
No epitaph more poignant could have been written for your Sister Patricia than the prayer of devotion of Luisa spelling out a lifetime of experience of love lived in Our Lord.
And the skies revealing the jet stream told you standing there of the mystery of a life lived in Divine Love - heavenwards! for as the skies darkened at Our Saviour's death, the morning arose with light at his resurrection, and the bright skies received him... the Lord of Creation who is so evident in our world.
The leaves in our street are copiously falling, a carpet of wonder as Autumn tells us its message, a time for reflection, and your dear Sister resting in this mystery.
With love and prayers,
William
----Original message----
From : nunrawdonald...
Date : 28/10/2015 - 05:33 (GMTST)
Subject : Litany of Love in iPad
Luisa P. - Litany of Love
- 85It is Love that runs upon the wings of the winds;
- 86if the waters murmur, I extend my arms to you;
- 87if the leaves move, I clasp you to my Heart;
- 88if the flower gives out its fragrance, I cheer you with Love.
- 89All Creation, in mute language, tells you, in chorus:
- 90‘From you alone do I want life of Love’.
- 91Love do I want, Love I desire, for Love I beg from within your heart.
- 92I am only content if you give Me love."
- 93‘My Good, my All, insatiable Love,
- 94if You want Love, then give me Love;
- 95if You want me happy, then speak to Me of Love;
- 96if You want me content, then render me Love.
- 97Love invests me, Love makes me fly,
- 98and brings me to the Throne of my Maker.
- 99Love shows me the uncreated Wisdom,
- 100It leads me into the Eternal Love,
- 101and there do I set my home.
- 102Life of Love, I will live in your Heart;
- 103I will love You for all,
- 104I will love You with all,
- 105I will love You in all.
- 106Jesus, seal me completely with Love inside your Heart;
- 107empty my veins, and instead of blood, let Love flow in them;
- 108take away my breath, and let me breathe air of Love;
- 109burn my bones and flesh, and weave me completely - completely with Love.
- 110May Love transform me, may Love conform me,
- 111may Love teach me how to suffer with You;
- 112may Love crucify me,
- 113and make me all similar to You.’
Over the grave... Jet stream in sky of Sr. Patricia at cemetery - arrow straight to heaven.
Sent from my iPad
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Franciscan Missionaries of Mary - WELCOME
www.fmmii.org/
England, Ireland, Scotland and Malta constitute a Province of the Franciscan Missionaries of Mary Institute. They share the Franciscan and missionaries ...
Sancta Maria Abbey: http://www.nunraw.com.uk (Website) Blogspot :http://www.nunraw.blogspot.co.uk, Doneword :http://www.donewill.blogspot.co.uk |domdonald.org.uk, Emails: nunrawdonald@yahoo.com, nunrawdonald@gmail.com
Sr. Patricia FMM St. Joseph's Convent, Rush
Obituary by one of the FMMs
Death Notice:
McGLYNN (Rush, Co. Dublin) - October 13, 2015, (peacefully), after a long illness, Sr. Patricia (FMM);
deeply regretted by her religious community,
her brothers Fr. Brendan-Nivard and, Fr. Donald (OCSO), her sisters Sr. Noreen, Sr. Mary, Sr. Josephine and Sr. Christina (FMM's),
deeply regretted by her religious community,
her brothers Fr. Brendan-Nivard and, Fr. Donald (OCSO), her sisters Sr. Noreen, Sr. Mary, Sr. Josephine and Sr. Christina (FMM's),
extended family and friends.
R.I.P.
R.I.P.
Funeral Mass tomorrow (Friday) in St. Joseph's Convent, Old Road, Rush at 11.30 o'c.
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Obituary by Sr. Josephine McGlynn, FMM.
SR. PATRICIA MCGLYNN, F.M.M.
R.I.P.
Patricia was born On 27th February, 1937 in Glasgow. She was 'sandwiched' between myself, Jo, and the baby, Christina, so we became known as the three 'wee ones' while Brendan, Noreen, Mary and James were the 'four big ones'. In 1939, Mum and the seven of us had to move to West Donegal to avoid being split up and sent to different parts of Scotland during the war. Dad had to stay in Scotland to work and to help in the war effort. We lived in a simple two roomed cottage in the beauty, peace and tranquillity of a small village, Ballykillduff, not far from the breathtaking Atlantic coast. It had two essentials - a Church and a Primary School. We spent 6 very happy years there before returning to Glasgow in 1945 to continue our education.
As I reflected on Patricia's life, the Scripture passage which came to mind was Phil. 3:10-15.
" All I want is to know Christ and to experience the power of His Resurrection, to share in His sufferings and become like Him in his death, in the hope that I myself will be raised from death to Life. I do not claim that I have already succeeded, or have already become perfect, I keep striving to win the prize for which Jesus Christ has already won me for Himself. Of course, my brothers, I do not think I have already won it; the one thing I do, however, is to forget what is behind me and do my best to reach what is ahead. So I run straight towards the goal in order to win the prize, which is God's call through Christ Jesus to the life above."
For me this passage sums up Patricia's life and. her deepest desires and now- "IT IS FULFILLED", her deepest desires have been granted.
She was a lively, outgoing, high spirited lass but was also quick tempered and stubborn at times! She loved sports, games .athletics, dancing etc. I have a lovely photo of her proudly holding a silver cup she won in the championship High Jump at school. We never tired teasing her about an incident which happened when we were quite small.
"The local boys, including our 2 holy monks decided to collect stingy nettles and to chase the girls. We all scattered, helter skelter screaming - except one - our Patricia!! She bent down quickly started collecting pebbles and started pelting the boys with them! At this point they decided to give up and went away."
She had a beautiful voice and loved music and singing and was always the one who would lead us in song. When the Charisrnatic Renewal came much later, she was in her element. One day Mum realised that Patricia was missing and asked where she was. The answer was "Over the road with the Boyles entertaining them with singing and dancing!" While preparing for her First Holy Communion she was seen distributing 'Holy Communion' i.e. bread to a row of little friends! That , was a long time before Vatican II or mention of women's ordination.
As a late teenager, she was an enthusiastic member of the Legion of Mary and delighted in the opportunity to spread God's Word and to encourage people in their Faith. On finishing school, she helped Dad in his business for a few years before entering our Novitiate in Coldash in March 1957. After her First Profession, she did her Nurses Training in London and after her Final Vows, she was missioned to Pakistan. By nature Patricia was very caring and compassionate, so she was very happy nursing the poor in our Hospital, St Raphael's in Lyallpur and in St. Joseph’s Hospice for the seriously, physically handicapped of all ages. I believe these were among her happiest and most fulfilling years.
Sadly after twenty years in Pakistan, she had to return to the Home Province due to health problems. A new battle began, not a "battle with the boys" but a battle with ill health due to 'Bipolar' and depression which she faced with the same courage and determination.
She was determined to remain faithful to her life of prayer, the active Apostolate and the living out of her "Ecce and Fiat" - come what may! This was evident especially in her' years in Aberdeen. Helen, a good friend from there gave a beautiful testimony during the Golden Jubilee celebrations of the "three wee ones" in Nunraw Abbey in 2008. I don't remember her exact words but they went something like this:
 |
| visit to Sr. Patricia. Dec 2013 |
"Patricia is a great Missionary. She regularly visits the elderly and helps them in many ways. She is active in our Parish, is a woman of prayer and is a great inspiration for all of us. She is not afraid to reach out to people, even strangers, if she thinks they are in need and often invites them to our Charismatic prayer. We love her. We treasure her. We need her. Please Sisters, whoever your superiors are, tell them not to move Patricia but to leave her with us in Aberdeen."
She did remain for a few more years but a time came when she needed care so she moved to our Rush Community four years ago and was very happy to do so - feeling she was COMING HOME. Only God knows how much she has suffered from her illness but a big consolation is that she was always surrounded by LOVE. She died very peacefully on Tuesday is" October. Deo Gratias. MAY SHE REST IN PEACE.
I can imagine Patricia saying to me now:- "Too many words Jo! It's not like you! Please say the words I want you to say for me, the ones I was not able to speak these past months, the ones I longed to say but could only express with my eyes or a smile!"
What are those words?
"THANK YOU, THANK YOU WITH ALL MY HEART!
THANK YOU MY BELOVED FMMS, THANK YOU MY BELOVED SISTERS, BROTHERS AND ALL
FAMILY MEMBERS! THANK YOU FAITHFUL FRIENDS!
A SPECIAL THANK YOU TO MY INCREDIBLE CARERS AND STAFF here in St Joseph's for you’re never failing thoughtfulness, your unbounded love and tender care and compassion Words cannot express how much I love you all! I will certainly continue to pray for you all in Heaven".
In the race for eternal life, Patricia has crossed the finishing line, so as we praise and thank God for her life, we rejoice with her in winning the prize to which God has now called her and in her new found happiness - fully united with the Lord, the Saints, the Angels and of course our beloved Mum and Dad.
AMEN ALLELUIA ALLELUIA
Sancta Maria Abbey: http://www.nunraw.com.uk (Website) Blogspot :http://www.nunraw.blogspot.co.uk, Doneword :http://www.donewill.blogspot.co.uk |domdonald.org.uk, Emails: nunrawdonald@yahoo.com, nunrawdonald@gmail.com
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