Thursday, June 17, 2010 Memorial
Blessed Joseph-Marie Cassant ocso
Fr. Nivard introduced the Mass
In today’s Gospel we have the ‘Our Father’.
“Your Father knows what you need before you ask him.”
It is through the gift of the Holy Spirit that we can know God personally and call him “Abba, Father” (Rom. 8:15).
We have the grace to approach God our Father with confidence and boldness. Jesus has opened the way to the Father‘s heart.
Fortunately he does not give us what we deserve. Instead, he responds with grace and mercy. It is his nature to love generously, to forgive mercifully.
When he gives, he gives more than we need.
Thus we see how Blessed Marie Joseph, whose feast we have today, asked to be a priest and ended up as both priest and monk. Being a monk was his parish priest’s idea, not his. Marie Joseph burned with devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. In this he is one with many Cistercian saints, Lutgarde, Mechtilde and Gertrude.
In the Intercessions, Fr. Hugh made the striking similarity between the three recent Saint/Beati of the Cistercian Order.
As vocations, the three died under 30 years and the three died by TB. The disease of tuberculosis was rife at the time.
Bl. Marie-Joseph Cassant
St. Rafael Arnaiz Baron
We prayed for those who died of TB and for those who suffer of it at present.
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