COMMENT: we celebrate Blessed Jacinta and Francisco Marto (20 Feb).

Dear William,
There are so many memories  and meetings with the late Fr. Stephen.
One centres on the find of the Blessed Jacinta picture.
And today ICN prompted us that

Tomorrow we celebrate: 

Blessed Jacinta and Francisco Marto (20 Feb).

Thank you for the conversation with Fr. Stephen;
"He loved 'best' the story of a young cowherd who had learnt to say those opening words, 'Our Father', a story that is told in the book "My Vocation is Love", Jean Lafrance, on St Therese of Lisieux."
I wondered where the book had disappeared. It did not appear in the shelves on SAINTS. After a couple of days later, there the book in the SPIRITUALITY category in the main Library.
As the coin found in the Gospel, it is all more valued to find "My Vocation Is Love."

Yours ...
Donald

+ + + + + + + 

----- Forwarded Message -----
From: William ...
To: Donald ...
Sent: Monday, 11 February 2013, 18:52
Subject: Today and always

Dear Father Donald,

 ...

 Goodness - what a distressing time it has been for the Community....

The very sad goodbyes to dear Father Stephen will have been made. I stood beside you all at the time of the ceremony - the grave preparation photo providing the exact location. I have beside me a photo of him, and his later letters and his delightful 'scribbles' - which, when placed in order, are found to be truly deep and meaningful. It will be in the refectory in particular that you will all look after his place. ...

Your dream of the young face of Jacinta, identified to you these days later in the prayer card in Fr Stephen's missal quite fascinates me. I believe this to be most remarkable - the vision of the face of an angel. It quite absorbs me....

I recall his great delight in the appearance of Our Lady at Fatima, to which he often made reference. I think it had much to do with his identification to the innocent trusting faith of a child.

He loved 'best' the story of a young cowherd who had learnt to say those opening words, 'Our Father', a story that is told in the book "My Vocation is Love", Jean Lafrance, on St Therese of Lisieux. Fr Stephen wrote in my copy: "Page 123 How we had a good holy laugh over that! Fr Stephen" - the passage he was referring to begins with a question to St Therese: "What are you thinking about?" She replied, "I am meditating on the Our Father. It is so sweet to call God our Father!" The entry adds "... and there were tears in her eyes". And there were in Fr Stephen's. The story of the cowherd follows, and he wept with delight as he read it to me. The story is introduced with a narrative: "This story could be applied to Therese and to all those little ones to whom the mysteries of the kingdom are revealed". 

Your retreat will be underway. I wonder what the theme will be... Fr Farrell arrives with the community rising from a frightful bout of illness, to the funeral of one its members, within the week of the start of Lent. There is much of significance there for a retreat topic, indeed. I hope you will all be able to find refreshment and rest within the context.

Thank you for sharing with me - and for allowing me to share with you - in the sad event of Fr Stephen's death. I remember with such affection the ribbing and teasing between the two 'Stephen's' when they stood beside each other: Br Stephen with his eyes twinkling, Fr Stephen throwing back his head in laughter! Good, good memories.

Thank you Father.

With my love in Our Lord,

William

Tuesday 19th - Mass. Madeleine Delbrel -a French Dorothy Day

Nivard,

Thank you, Fr. Nivard, for "Our Father who is in heaven" Mass introduction.

And below you may like another mystic come to the fore in our Monastic Lectionary - Madeleine Delbrel.

"a French Dorothy Day" 

 Madeleine Delbrêl (1904–1964) was a French Catholic author, poet, and mystic, whose works include The Marxist City as Mission Territory (1957), The Contemporary Forms of Atheism (1962), and the posthumous publications We, the Ordinary People of the Streets (1966) and The Joy of Believing (1968). She came to the Catholic faith after a youth spent as a strict atheist. She has been cited by Cardinal Roger Etchegaray as an example for young people to follow in "the arduous battle of holiness."^{[1] Wikipedia}

 Casarella, Peter (2001). "Madeleine Delbrel--a French Dorothy Day--writes We, the Ordinary People of the Streets". Houston Catholic Worker (Casa Juan Diego) XXI (2) 

 ----- Forwarded Message -----

From: Nivard ....
Sent: Tuesday, 19 February 2013, 8:22
Subject: Our Father

Magnificat Adapted, Tue. (19 Feb 13):

"Our Father who in heaven”.

Scripture:  Matthew 6:7-15

 

“I sought the Lord and he answered me” How? Through his Word who “does not return to him empty”. From all our distress the Lord rescues us. He is “close to the broken-hearted”. He delivers us from all our fears by teaching us to pray “Our Father”.

 

The first word “Our” is very significant. We pray as individuals, heart to heart. But more importantly we pray as members of Christ’s Mystical Body, the Church.

 

Father, Help us to be kind and forgiving towards our neighbour as you have been towards us, through Christ our Lord."

From the writings of Madeleine Delbrel (La joie du croire, 71-72)

We give the love of God

My little children, you must truly love one another sums up all that the aged Saint John had to say.

It is God whom we love. Love of God is the first commandment, but the second is like it; that is to say, it is only through others that we can return God's love for us. The dan­ger is that the second commandment may become the first. However, we have a way to check this, which is to love each person as if he were Christ, to love God in every human being, without preference, distinction, or exception.

The second danger is that we may find love impossible, and that is sure to happen if we separate love from faith and hope. It is prayer that gives us faith and hope. Without prayer we can never love. It is in prayer, and prayer alone, that Christ will reveal himself to us in each person we meet, by a faith that grows ever keener and more clear-sighted. It is in prayer that we can ask for the gift of loving each person, a grace without which there can be no love. It is through prayer that our hope will measure up to the stature or number of those we are destined to encounter or to the depth of their needs. It is the expansion of faith and hope by prayer that will clear the path before us of the most cumbersome obstruction to love, 'which is self-concern.

The third danger is that instead of loving as Jesus loved us we may love in a human fashion.This perhaps is the greatest of dangers, since human love, simply because it is love, is a beautiful and noble thing. Unbelievers may show a superb love for others. But we ourselves have not been called to that kind of love. It is not our own love that we have to give: it is the love of God - that love which is a divine Person. That love is God's gift to ourselves, but it remains a gift which must as it were pass through us, bore a channel through us to find its way elsewhere and flow into others. It is a gift that claims sovereign power; we are not to trust in the power of anything else. It is something we may not keep to ourselves, or we risk its being extinguished and ceasing to be a gift.

Jacinta and Francisco Marto, Blessed. 20 Feb.

http://www.mysticsofthechurch.com/2010/03/blessed-francisco-marto-of-fatima.html  

Tuesday, February 19, 2013 1:03 AM GMT  Saint of the day: 19th February Tomorrow we celebrate:  Blessed Jacinta and Francisco Marto Visionaries. Between 13 May and 13 October 1917, three children, Jacinta, Francisco and Lucia, Portuguese shepherds from Aljustrel, saw apparitions of Our Lady at Cova da Iria, near Fatima, a city 110 miles north of Lisbon. At that time, Europe was involved in an extremely bloody war. Portugal itself was in political turmoil, having overthrown its monarchy in 1910; the government disbanded religious organizations soon after. During the first appearance, Mary asked the children to return to that spot on the thirteenth of each month for the next six months. She also asked them to learn to read and write and to pray the rosary "to obtain peace for the world and the end of the war." They were to pray for sinners and for the conversion of Russia, which had recently overthrown Czar Nicholas II and was soon to fall under communism. Up to 90,000 people gathered for Mary's final apparition on October 13, 1917. Less than two years later, in 1919, Francisco died of influenza in his family home. He was 11. He was buried in the parish cemetery and then re-buried in the Fatima basilica in 1952. Jacinta died the next year of influenza in Lisbon. She was just 10. During her illness she offering her suffering for the conversion of sinners, peace in the world and the Holy Father. She was re-buried in the Fatima basilica in 1951. Their cousin, Lucia dos Santos, became a Carmelite nun and was still living when Jacinta and Francisco were beatified in 2000. She died on 13 February 2005. This year, on the third anniversary of her death, at a special Mass in the cathedral of Coimbra, Portugal, Cardinal Jose Saraiva Martins CMF, president of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints, announced that an exception was being made so that the usual five-year wait could be waived and the diocesan stage of the cause for her beatification would begin. The shrine of Our Lady of Fatima is visited by up to 20 million people a year and is particularly dedicated to prayers for peace and reconciliation. http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/saint.php?n=153

First Sunday of Lent. St. Augustine

There are so many Patristic Homilies of the Synoptic Gospels on Jesus' Temptation but St Augustine is exceptional in the context of the discourses on the Psalms.
Information on Psalm 60 commentary of Augustine for the First Sunday of Lent is best depended on the Online Breviary for the accurate reference, (Ps. 60, 2-3: CCL 39, 766).
Saint Augustine's 444 words, as in similar Readings, challenge close reading. In fact, a preamble summarizing leads to opening to the door of Augustine's clarity and simpleness of language.
A blessing discovery.
[Auto Summary 25%, by Word]

What single individual can cry from the ends of the earth? This possession of Christ, this inheritance of Christ, this body of Christ, this one Church of Christ, this unity that we are, cries from the ends of the earth. What does it cry?   Our pilgrimage on earth cannot be exempt from trial. Certainly Christ was tempted by the devil. In Christ you were tempted, for Christ received his flesh from your nature, but by his own power gained salvation for you; he suffered death in your nature, but by his own power gained glory for you; therefore, he suffered temptation in your nature, but by his own power gained victory for you.

  If in Christ we have been tempted, in him we overcome the devil. 

BreviarySunday, 17 February 2013  The First Sunday of Lent     

http://www.ibreviary.com/m/breviario.php?s=ufficio_delle_letture

SECOND READING

From a commentary on the psalms by Saint Augustine, bishop
(Ps. 60, 2-3: CCL 39, 766)

In Christ we suffered temptation, and in him we overcame the devil

Hear, O God, my petition, listen to my prayer. Who is speaking? An individual, it seems. See if it is an individual: I cried to you from the ends of the earth while my heart was in anguish. Now it is no longer one person; rather, it is one in the sense that Christ is one, and we are all his members. What single individual can cry from the ends of the earth? The one who cries from the ends of the earth is none other than the Son’s inheritance. It was said to him: Ask of me, and I shall give you the nations as your inheritance, and the ends of the earth as your possession. This possession of Christ, this inheritance of Christ, this body of Christ, this one Church of Christ, this unity that we are, cries from the ends of the earth. What does it cry? What I said before: Hear, O God, my petition, listen to my prayer; I cried out to you from the ends of the earth. That is, I made this cry to you from the ends of the earth; that is, on all sides.

Why did I make this cry? While my heart was in anguish. The speaker shows that he is present among all the nations of the earth in a condition, not of exalted glory but of severe trial.

Our pilgrimage on earth cannot be exempt from trial. We progress by means of trial. No one knows himself except through trial, or receives a crown except after victory, or strives except against an enemy or temptations.

The one who cries from the ends of the earth is in anguish, but is not left on his own. Christ chose to foreshadow us, who are his body, by means of his body, in which he has died, risen and ascended into heaven, so that the members of his body may hope to follow where their head has gone before.

He made us one with him when he chose to be tempted by Satan. We have heard in the gospel how the Lord Jesus Christ was tempted by the devil in the wilderness. Certainly Christ was tempted by the devil. In Christ you were tempted, for Christ received his flesh from your nature, but by his own power gained life for you; he suffered insults in your nature, but by his own power gained glory for you; therefore, he suffered temptation in your nature, but by his own power gained victory for you.

If in Christ we have been tempted, in him we overcame the devil. Do you think only of Christ’s temptations and fail to think of his victory? See yourself as tempted in him, and see yourself as victorious in him. He could have kept the devil from himself; but if he were not tempted he could not teach you how to triumph over temptation.

Gabrielle Bossis, HE AN D i 1948

It came to speak to my addled brain,

when Gabrielle felt the same sentiment, "Lord, I rack my brains to find ways of loving You and I don't succeed." 

1948

September 9  -  "Lord, I rack my brains to find ways of loving You and I don't succeed." 

 "I am all simplicity

Love Me simply

When you think about Me, feeling sorry at not being able to do better, you love Me

When you act rather from duty than from inclination, you love Me

When you belittle yourself in your own eyes and before others, you love Me

When you want to pray and you deplore the distractions that make your thoughts wander, you love Me

When you hunt for words without being able to express your desires, you love Me

When you forgive a wounding remark; when you give  pleasure for the sake of giving Me pleasure; when you cease to think of yourself in order to try to   reach Me; when you attempt to leave everything as though it were the day of your death; when in thought you join the angels and saints, like one who arrives ahead of time; and when, in the evening, you welcome your tomorrow morning that will unite us, you love Me

It's all very different from what you thought you ought to do in order to love Me

Oh, My little girl, simplify yourself sweetly in My Presence, your love wide - awake

You know very well that I am always there."

Fr. Stephen condolence. Evening News 'Pope Bolt'

See Daisy's Letter and sent Edinburgh Evening News Photos (especially one);

"A striking coincidence: Lighting hits St. Peter's Basilica in the Vatican City last, hours after Pope Benedict XVI shocked the Catholic Church by becoming the first pontiff to resign in almost 600 years.

Bolt from the Blue."

Friday 15th Feb.
From Daisy,
Dear Father, 

It was good to see you and the community at the celebration for Father Stephen's life.
I was pleased to be able toattend and getting a lift made all the difference.
Thank-you for the lovely buffet! your cook does a great job.

The weather was very kind as well - as some days have been awful lately - still spring is around the corner EL!

I have enclosed some pictures of lovely sunsets and one of the {Bolt from the blue} at St. Peter's Basilica. I keep the holy Father in my prayer in my prayers and wish him a contemplative and prayerful retirement.

I am booked into the  Guest house for Easter - God willing will see you asll then.
      Keeping you all in our prayers,
                                 Yours
                                            in
                                                  Christ.
                                                                       Daisy.     ,

+ + + + + + +

Papal Resignation: A bolt from the blue, - indeed!
http://www.asiantribune.com/node/61594 

Hemantha Abeywardena writes from London…

After the announcement of resignation by Pope Benedict, as an inexplicable coincidence, the dome of the basilica of St Peter was struck by a bolt of lightning which a cameraman captured in vivid detail during a thunderstorm in Rome.

There will be plenty of Catholics who want to interpret the significance of the cosmic signal on a day of dramatic developments.

Anyhow several millions of Catholics across the world are still taking in the shocking news announced by Pope Benedict on Monday. The move, however, won global admiration too, as the pontiff became the first to do so in nearly six hundred years – to call it a day when he thought it was impossible him to carry on.  

Jesus' Temptation (Luke 4:1-13). quote St. Raphael ocso

 Sunday, 17 February 2013

First Sunday of Lent - Year C

Gospel

 Saint Luke 4:1-13.

 Filled with the holy Spirit, Jesus returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the desert ...  

Commentary of the day :    

 Saint Raphael Arnaiz Baron (1911-1938), a Spanish Trappist monk 

 Spiritual writings, 15/12/1936 (trans

 'To know how to wait', Mairin Mitchell) 

The Son of God rejects the temptations of other ways and obeys the Father's will

I, too, once went tearing along the roads of Spain, with the idea of making the speedometer register ninety kilometers an hour: how foolish! When I was conscious that for me, the horizon marked earth's uttermost limit, I suffered the disappointment of one who enjoys earthly freedom, for the earth is small and moreover quickly comes to an end

 Man is bounded by narrow and limited horizons, and for him whose soul aspires after infinite horizons, earthly ones aren't enough, they throttle him; the world isn't sufficient for him, and only in the vastness and immensity of God will he find what he is seeking

 You free men, making journeys around this planet, I don't envy you your life in the world; enclosed in a convent at the foot of a Crucifix I have boundless freedom, I have Heaven, I have God

 What a great blessing it is to have a heart that is in love with Him!...

 Poor Brother Rafael!..

 Go on waiting, waiting with that sweet serenity which sure hope gives

 Keep calm, unshaken, a prisoner of your God at the foot of his tabernacle

 Listen to the distant uproar coming from men enjoying a few short days of freedom in the world, listen from afar to their voices, their laughter, their lamentations, their wars

 Listen, and meditate for a moment

 Meditate on a God who is infinite, who made the earth and mankind, He, the supreme Lord of skies and lands, rivers and seas, who in an instant, simply by willing it created out of the void all that exists

 Mediate for a moment on the life of Christ and you will see that it has no freedom, no outcry or clamor; you will see the Son of God subject to humankind, you will see Jesus, obedient, submissive, and with what steadfast calm he keeps as the only law of his life the fulfillment of the Father's will

 And lastly, look on Christ nailed to a cross

 And we talk of freedom!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n0yWBeRtjlk

COMMENT: Quote, St. Raphael ocso

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TI5AQAmNuZY

quote: Saint Raphael Arnaiz Baron (1911-1938),
a Spanish Cistercian monk

Where, then, is true freedom?

It is in the heart of one who loves nothing more than God

It is in the heart of one who is attached neither to spirit nor to matter, but only to God

It is in that soul which is not subject to the “I” of egoism, which soars above its own thoughts, feelings, suffering and enjoyment.

Freedom resides in the soul whose one reason for existence is God, whose life is God and nothing else but God.

The human spirit is small, impoverished, subject to a thousand changes of mood, ups and downs, depressions, disillusionments, etc., and the body to so much weakness

 Freedom, then, is in God, and the soul which truly, in soaring above everything, makes her abode in him, can say that she enjoys freedom to the extent that is possible for one still in the world to do so.

Spiritual writings, 15/12/1936 'To know how to wait'

Saturday after Ash Wednesday. St. Raphael, Cistercian

Saturday, 16 February 2013

Saturday after Ash Wednesday

    

----- Forwarded Message -----
From: DGO <noreply@evzo.org>
To:  Donald....
Sent: Friday, 15 February 2013, 17:03
Subject: The Daily Gospel

Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint Luke 5:27-32.

Jesus saw a tax collector named Levi sitting at the customs post. He said to him, «Follow me.» 

And leaving everything behind, he got up and followed him.... 

Commentary of the day

Saint Raphael Arnaiz Baron (1911-1938), a Spanish Trappist monk 

Spiritual writings, 15/12/1936 (trans. 'To know how to wait', Mairin Mitchell) 

"Leaving everything behind, the man got up and followed him"

Above the monastery some planes are cutting through the sky at tremendous speed. The noise of the engines frightens the birds who take shelter in the cypresses of our cemetery. In front of the convent and crossing the land is a tarred road along which lorries and carloads of tourists, for whom the sight of the monastery has no interest, run at all hours. One of the principal Spanish railways also runs through the fields of the monastery... People tell you that all this is freedom... But the man who reflects a little will see how deluded the world is in the midst of what he calls freedom...

Where, then, is true freedom? It is in the heart of one who loves nothing more than God. It is in the heart of one who is attached neither to spirit nor to matter, but only to God. It is in that soul which is not subject to the “I” of egoism, which soars above its own thoughts, feelings, suffering and enjoyment. Freedom resides in the soul whose one reason for existence is God, whose life is God and nothing else but God.

The human spirit is small, impoverished, subject to a thousand changes of mood, ups and downs, depressions, disillusionments, etc., and the body to so much weakness. Freedom, then, is in God, and the soul which truly, in soaring above everything, makes her abode in him, can say that she enjoys freedom to the extent that is possible for one still in the world to do so.

Jacinta Marto later Blessed

Jacinta Marto bookmarker in Fr. Stephan's Daily Missal.
Front fly leaf, "To Patrick (Joseph) Murphy, from Daddy, March 1938." That would have made  Patrick 14 years.
From your Email, William, you give me clues to trace Stephens path, "... the small red book he always had with him when we met."
Sure enough we found his small book and so many other 'scribbles'.
Prominent was the Dailly Missal from his Daddy. The book markers told the story and chronology of of friends. First was a souvenir of a certain Br. Mark making his Solemn Profession in September 1968, and later the Ordination of Fr. Mark Caira.
Another picture, hidden among the leaves, brings a whole experience.
Two or three days before Stephen's death I had a dream, different from the usual chaotic dreams. But this 'encounter' was with an attractive and friendly young lady. The vivid face of the lassie was very familiar to me. It was the memory but no idea of the name or who she is. I Googled the PICTURES and scanned possible Saints or Blesseds, Venerables or any. Nothing turned up to suggest.
That is the surprise to find this picture in Fr. Stephen's Missal. At once seen, it was the face to recognize.  And it follows the whole story is to be found in the Internet; Blessed Jacinta Marto.

Apart from memory of the face, I had never learned anything about Jacinta, the youngest of the three children of Our Lady of Fatima. For the moment, the details are on the back of the old holy card in Stephen's Missal.
Thank you for for sending your pages from Stephen's "Understanding of Love" etc. So I even browsed to see if there was any mention of the Blessed Jacinta.

_____________________________________

JACINTA MARTO, born at Fatima in Portugal on March 11th 1910, died in hospital at Lisbon on February 20th 1920. aged nearly 10 years.

She was perhaps the most favoured of the three young shepherds, in spite of being the youngest. With her companions, she saw an Angel three times and Our Lady six times. But besides this she had the special privilege of seeing other appearances of the Blessed Virgin, and of the Holy Father. The theme of her life was to pray and make every possible sacrifice, for the conversion of sinners and in reparation to the Immaculate Heart of Mary.

Before she died, she said: “In heaven I'm going to love Jesus very much, and the Immaculate Heart of Mary too."

God has already given many extraordinary graces through her in­tercession. The Process for the Beatification of the Servant of God, Jacinta Marto, was sent to the Sacred Congregation in Rome on the 2nd July, 1979.

PRAYER FOR JACINTA'S BEATIFICATION (For private recitation)

Most Holy Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Ghost, I adore Thee pro­foundly with all the powers of my soul, and I thank Thee for the Apparitions of the Most Holy Virgin in Fatima which have made man­ifest to the world the treasures of her Immaculate Heart.

By the infinite merits of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and through the intercession of the Immaculate Heart of Mary I implore Thee - if it should be for Thy greater glory and the good of our souls - to glorify in the sight of Thy Holy Church Jacinta the shepherdess of Fatima, granting us through her intercession the grace which we implore. Amen.

Our Father, Hail Mary, Glory be to the Father.

Please send deteits of any favours received through the interces­sion of this Servant of God, to the following address:

Vice-Postulador da Causa de Jacinta Marto - Apartado 6 P - 2496 FA TlMA Codex (Portugal).

IMPRIMATUR, Leiren, 20 Februarii 1980

+ ALBERTUS, Episcopus Leiriensis

 Below also a picture of the three children of the apparitions of Our Lady of Fatima.

From left to right, Jacinta Marto, Lúcia dos Santos and Francisco Marto, 
holding their rosaries in 1917. 

  %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%

http://sicsempertyrannisjmj.blogspot.co.uk/2012/02/feast-of-blessed-jacinta-and-francisco.html   

Monday, February 20, 2012

 I would then recommend three books:

 first, find and OLD (1940-50s) copy of Sister Lucia’s memoirs (before all the “editing” was done to it) and get the basic story; second I highly recommend the wonderful little book 

Jacinta: The Flower of Fatima by the Rev. Fr. Joseph Galamba de Oliveira, the English edition of which boasts a preface by a young Father Fulton J. Sheen; 

and finally a very recent work that deals with a lot of the controversy over the message of Fatima in the last few years and is extremely fair and well researched: 

The Fourth Secret of Fatima by Antonio Socci, a well respected Italian journalist who works in and around Rome, and is a personal friend of our Holy Father.