Memorial of Saint Hedwig

St Hedwig’s Beads

http://psalterstudies.wordpress.com/2009/11/14/st-hedwigs-beads/

I was intrigued by the graphic of St Hedwig from the Paternosters site (left) that shows St Hedwig with prayer beads so I decided to look around for more graphics of St Hedwig with beads. The only luck I have had so far is the modern stained glass window to the right. Unfortunately I now can’t find where this modern window comes from.  Does it look to you like those are prayer beads in her hand? Its hard to tell if its prayer beads or a handle to a bag. As a modern window it could have also been inspired by the medieval graphic of her with beads.

So who is St Hedwig? She was a born in Bavarian, 1174, and married a Henry Duke of Silesia and later Duke of Greater Poland at age 12. One of her sisters married King Andrew of Hungrey and another sister became a Benedictine abbess of Lutzingen in Franconia in medieval Germany. Hedwig and Henry had seven children, including Henry the Pious, a duke of medieval Poland, who was killed in the battle of Legnica against the Mongols two years before Hedwig’s death. After the birth and subequent early death of their seventh child, Hedwig and Henry took public vows of chastity. Duke Henry went so far as become tonsured and took the lifestyle of a lay Cisterian brother. Hedwig was renoned for helping the poor and as a patroness of the church. Hedwig and her husband Henry founded and/or supported several monsateries for Augustinians, Dominicans, Francisicans, Cistercians and even Templars.  In 1202 Henry founded a Cisterician convent at Trzebinca, the first religious foundation for women in Silesia, where he was buried in 1238 and she entered a convent upon his death. Their daughter  Gertrude became the first abbess there. She was only there five years before her own death in 1243. Hedwig took the dress and lifestyle of a Cistercian sister but never took her formal vows so that she kept control of her revenue to direct it to the poor. Her pious reputation was such that she was considered a saint in her lifetime. Her daughter Abbess Gertrude was the only one of her seven children to survive her. Two of her grand-daughters by Henry the Pious did eventually become abbesses at St Clara of Trebinca.  St Elizabeth of Thuringia and Mechtilde of Kitzingen were her nieces. She was canonized only 24 years after her death. St Hedwig’s Cathedral in Berlin was built by Frederick the Great in 1773 and is now the cathedral for the Archdiocese of Berlin.

References: St Hedwig, Wikipedi, and St Hedwig, New Advent website.

A the most complete image of the medieavel illustration I’ve found online but I haven’t been able to find any more specific information about its medieval source. If you know any more about St Hedwig’s beads, this illustration or the stained glass window above, please post a comment.

A

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http://www.ibreviary.com/m/breviario.php

iBreviary

Wednesday, 16 October 2013

Wednesday of the Twenty-Eighth Week in Ordinary Time

For the Memorial of Saint Hedwig:

SECOND READING

From the life of Saint Hedwig by a contemporary author
(Acta Sanctorum Octobria 8 [1853], 201-202a)

She Was Always Directed Towards God

Hedwig knew that those living stones that were to be placed in the building of the heavenly Jerusalem had to be smoother out by buffetings and pressures in this world, and that many tribulations would be needed before she could cross over into the glory of her heavenly homeland. And so she exposed herself completely to the waters of suffering and continually exhausted her body with rigorous chastisement. Because of such great daily fasts and abstinences she grew so thin that many wondered how such a feeble and delicate woman could endure these torments.       

She afflicted herself with continual mortification of the flesh, but she did so with prudent discretion. The more attentively she kept watch, the more she grew in the strength of the spirit and in grace, and the more the fire of devotion and divine love blazed within her. She was often borne aloft with such ardent desire and impelled toward God that she would no longer be aware of the things that were around her.

Just as her devotion made her always seek after God, so her generous piety turned her toward her neighbor, and she bountifully bestowed alms on the needy. She gave aid to colleges and to religious persons dwelling within or outside monasteries, to widows and orphans, to the weak and the feeble, to leers and those bound in chains or imprisoned, to travelers and needy women nursing infants. She allowed no one who came to her for help to go away uncomforted.

And because this servant of God never neglected the practice of all good works, God also conferred on her such grace that when she lacked human means to do good, and her own powers failed, the divine power of the sufferings of Christ strengthened her to respond to the needs of her neighbors. And so through diving favor she had the power to relieve the bodily and spiritual troubles of all who sought her help.

RESPONSORY
See Proverbs 31:17-18

She set herself to work with courage;
she put forth all her strength;
– therefore her lamp will never go out.

She has discovered how good it is
to work for the God of wisdom.
– Therefore her lamp will never go out.

Saint Teresa of Avila 15 Oct Let us always be mindful of Christ’s love

Breviary

"It is love alone that gives worth to all things."
- St. Teresa of Avila

Tuesday, 15 October 2013
Tuesday of the Twenty-Eighth Week in Ordinary Time
SECOND READING

From a work by Saint Teresa of Avila, virgin
(Opusc. De libro vitae, cap 22, 6-7. 14)         
Let us always be mindful of Christ’s love

If Christ Jesus dwells in a man as his friend and noble leader, that man can endure all things, for Christ helps and strengthens us and never abandons us. He is a true friend. And I clearly see that if we expect to please him and receive an abundance of his graces, God desires that these graces must come to us from the hands of Christ, through his most sacred humanity, in which God takes delight.

Many, many times I have perceived this through experience. The Lord has told it to me. I have definitely seen that we must enter by this gate if we wish his Sovereign Majesty to reveal to us great and hidden mysteries. A person should desire no other path, even if he is at the summit of contemplation; on this road he walks safely. All blessings come to us through our Lord. He will teach us, for in beholding his life we find that he is the best example.

What more do we desire from such a good friend at our side? Unlike our friends in the world, he will never abandon us when we are troubled or distressed. Blessed is the one who truly loves him and always keeps him near. Let us consider the glorious Saint Paul: it seems that no other name fell from his lips than that of Jesus, because the name of Jesus was fixed and embedded in his heart. Once I had come to understand this truth, I carefully considered the lives of some of the saints, the great contemplatives, and found that they took no other path: Francis, Anthony of Padua, Bernard, Catherine of Siena. A person must walk along this path in freedom, placing himself in God’s hands. If God should desire to raise us to the position of one who is an intimate and shares his secrets, we ought to accept this gladly.

Whenever we think of Christ we should recall the love that led him to bestow on us so many graces and favors, and also the great love God showed in giving us in Christ a pledge of his love; for love calls for love in return. Let us strive to keep this always before our eyes and to rouse ourselves to love him. For if at some time the Lord should grant us the grace of impressing his love on our hearts, all will become easy for us and we shall accomplish great things quickly and without effort.

RESPONSORY
Psalm 73:27, 28; 1 Corinthians 6:17
Those who turn their backs on you will perish.
– What joy to be near my God,
to place all my trust in the Lord.

Whoever is united to the Lord
becomes one spirit with him.
– What joy to be near my God,
to place all my trust in the Lord.

CONCLUDING PRAYER

Let us pray.
Father,
by your Spirit you raised up Saint Teresa of Avila
to show your Church the way to perfection.
May her inspired teaching
awaken in us a longing for true holiness.
Grant this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, for ever and ever.
– Amen.

SAINT TERESA OF AVILA*  15 Oct.

Prayer and Charity

U. 2, 1Jn: 14-24; 4: 19-21

OUR LORD asks but two things of us: love for him and for our neighbour; these are what we must strive to obtain. If we practise both these virtues perfectly we shall be doing his will and so shall be united to him. But t as I said, we are very far from obeying and serving our great Master 60 perfectly in these two matters: May His Majesty give us grace to merit union with him; it is in our power to gain it if we will.   

Moray McLaren, The Cistercians of Sancta Maria Abbey in Nunraw

Moray McLaren

THE SHELL GUIDE TO SCOTLAND 1967

The Cistercians of Sancta Maria Abbey in Nunraw

Gazetteer page 233

GARVALD, East Lothian (Map 3, ref. 35⁹67^'), is a small intimate village of considerable architectural and natural charm lying on the northern slopes of the Lammerrnuir Hills, and situated in a steep valley on the Papana Water. The church dates partly from the 12th cent., and has a sundial dated 1633, and also ancient jougs attached to the W. gable. The church, the cottages, and the houses in the village are built of the attractive deep rose-coloured East Lothian stone. Of recent years, however, Garvald has been associated with a new venture, the roots of which nonetheless lie locally and deeply in the past.

Just above the village to the E. stands a 15th-cent. fortified mansion, restored in a typically Victorian style in 1864. It was established originally by Cistercian nuns. A magnificent painted ceiling dating from 1610 remains, part of which has been removed to the National Museum of Antiquities in EDINBURGH. 

The house now belongs once again to the Cistercian order, and the white-habited Trappists came in 1946 to establish their first monastery in Scotland since the Reformation. In 1952 on Easter Monday, and 814 years after the Easter Monday when the Cistercians began the building of their first monastery in Scotland at MELROSE, the first sod was cut, and the

thirty-five-year task of building the Abbey of Sancta Maria begun. The new Abbey, which is springing up fast, is just to the E. of the old house of Nunraw. The Cistercians of Sancta Maria Abbey in Nunraw sustain their order's custom of hospitality. They are farmers as well as builders, have reclaimed waste moorland, and are well liked in this predominantly Protestant farming district.

    

See the Map references in The Shell Guide to Scotland to the.

Cistercian Abbeys of Scotland

Deer, Cupar, Angus, Nunraw, Newbattle, Saddell, Culross, Balmerino, Sweetheart, Glenluce, Dundrennan, Melrose, Kinloss.

http://nunraw.blogspot.co.uk/2009/10/scottish-cistercian-trail.html   

Jeremiah, reading by Damasus Winzen

Major Prophets (part 3) Book of Jeremiah

Prophet Jeremiah, Russian icon from first quarter of 18th cen. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The Book of Jeremiah is one of the books of the “major prophets,” which are so called not because they are more important than those that we know as the “minor prophets,” but because of their length. There are 5 books of major prophets (Isaiah, Jeremiah, Lamentations, Ezekiel, and Daniel) compared to twelve of minor prophets. Jeremiah is 52 chapters in length.

 http://graceofourlord.com/2013/09/22/major-prophets-part-3-book-of-jeremiah/

Jeremiah

Vigil Reading begins with Jeremiah in October
The monk Damasus Winzen is one of our monastic writers on Scripture.

Word in Season TWENTY-EIGHTH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME Monday Jeremiah 1: 1-19 Second Reading From Pathways in Scripture by Damasus Winzen (1901-1971) If we ask what the book of Jeremiah means to us today, we hear very often the answer that Jeremiah initiates a new period in Old Testament piety which frees the individual from the bonds of community life, that he is the first to record faithfully his innermost religious feelings, and that he is one of the great fighters who fought the battle for liberty of the spirit against tyranny of dead ceremonials. Looked at in this light Jeremiah would automatically become one of the "great liberals," and that would mean one of us. In reality he was wholly God's. God took possession of him before he was born. During his life the word of God was his one and overwhelming passion. Abraham received the promise; Jacob, the blessing; Moses, the staff. David was anointed. Isaiah had his lips cleansed with burning coal. Ezekiel had to eat the scroll. As for Jeremiah, the Lord stretched forth his hand and touched his mouth saying: I am with you, I put my words into your mouth. This day I give you authority over the nations and kingdoms, to root out and pull down, to wreck and to ruin, to build and to plant. It was the Emmanuel (God with us), the God of the Word made flesh, who took possession of Jeremiah. In no other prophet was the union between the prophet's heart and the word of God as intimate and as deep as in Jeremiah. The word was his strength and his cross. It made him, a youth of twenty years and by nature a timid man, a fortified city, an iron pillar, and a bronze wall against the whole land. The word of the Lord, he exclaimed, is in my heart like a burning fire, shut up in my bones. I weary myself to hold it in, but cannot. As for me, he cried out, your word is my joy and my delight, for I bear your name, Lord, Lord of hosts!  He never mixed the word of God with purely human dreams and desires, as the false prophets did. The word of God in his mouth was like a hammer that smashes the rock into pieces. The words of the letter to the Hebrews must be applied to Jeremiah's preaching: For the message of God is a living and active force, sharper than any double-edged sword, piercing through soul and spirit, and joints and marrow, and keen in judging the thoughts and purposes of the mind.   Responsory Ps 119:161-162; see Jn 6:63 Though princes persecute me without cause, I stand in awe of your word. + I delight in your word like one who finds a treasure. V. Your words are spirit, Lord, and they are life. + I delight ...

The Poor of Yahweh (27-28) by Albert Gelin

A Browse to the Library, happily revealed a couple of the Albert Gelin P.S.S. books, as below.
Monastic Office of Vigils

Gelin, Albert (1902-1960) Born at Amplepius in France, he was ordained priest in 1926. In 1929 he joined to Sulpicians, and became one of the most highly regarded Old Testament scholars in the Catholic world. He taught scripture at the seminary of Lyons from 1931-1939, and after 1937 at the University in the same city. He wrote articles for the prestigious Supplement to the Diciionarv of the Bible, and was much involved in the translation of some of the prophetical books of the Bible de Jerusalem.

TWENTY-EIGHTH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME

SUNDAY

First Reading    Zephaniah 3:8-20

Responsory       Zep 2:3; Ps 22:26

Seek the Lord all you in the land who live humbly, obeying his commands. + Seek integrity, seek humility.

V. The poor shall eat and be satisfied; those who seek the Lord shall praise him. + Seek integrity ...

Second Reading From The Poor of Yahweh (27-28) by Albert Gelin

Israel, as it advances along the road of history, constantly encounters God. "Days of the Lord" succeed one another; his appearances are either beneficent or awe-inspiring, either a reward or a punishment, depending on Israel's moral conduct.

This punishment, in the first perspective of the covenant, could not fail to be medicinal and educational. However, after the eighth century, sins multiplied and their gravity increased. Infringements of justice scandalized Amos; Isaiah knew well that he lived in the midst of people of unclean lips; Zephaniah rebuked Judah for faults of pride; Jeremiah was forced to the conclusion that a state of sin existed that made conversion almost impossible. Israel had to learn to accept the sanction of vindictive justice! Yet these prophets, despite all their somber predictions, never lost hope in God's plan for the future. In their eyes the remnant theme safeguarded the theology of the covenant. Henceforth, the task and promises which were once entrusted to the people of Israel as a whole would belong to a small and select group of Israelites. The Israel of tomorrow will be the remnant.

In the seventh century the remnant was given a special name that was to last until the coming of Christ and that made them a people apart. The prophet Zephaniah identified the people of the future as a people of "the poor."

Zephaniah witnessed Judah's first great humiliation. At the end of the eighth century Assyria cut the Promised Land in half as the result of Sennacherib's victorious conquest. Jerusalem was saved by a miracle, but Asshur's protective custody left the people little freedom. Perhaps it was this humbling situation that inspired the prophet to choose the suggestive vocabulary in which he formulated his spiritual synthesis. Israel's endemic poverty had attracted the charitable pity of the Deuteronomist and the prophets. Amos had sympathized with the stooped and emaciated people. Zephaniah borrowed these words and trans­figured them: they ceased to denote failure and became a claim for protection. People must be poor before God, just as they were already poor in the presence of Asshur. Specifically, this meant the rooting out of all pride. Zephaniah invited his con­temporaries to spiritual poverty, which is faith plus abandon­ment, humility and absolute confidence. He insisted that poverty be substituted for pride and made it the authentic spiritual attitude. This fundamental position includes the rectitude of the whole moral life. Lastly, the covenant vocabulary clarified the vocabulary of poverty and justice: the remnant is the people of the future, to whom belong the messianic promises of security and abundance.

Responsory     Lk 4:16-18; Mt 5:3

Jesus stood up to read and found the passage which says: The spirit

of the Lord is upon me because + he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor.

V. Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. + He has anointed

  

Pope to Consecrate Immaculate Heart of Mary Oct. 13

Pope Francis to Consecrate the World to Mary’s Immaculate Heart (16482)

The Holy Father’s prayer will be part of a two-day Marian celebration in October, the month of the Rosary.

by CATHOLIC NEWS AGENCY 08/14/2013 Comments (70)

– CNA

VATICAN CITY — Pope Francis will consecrate the world to the Immaculate Heart of Mary Oct. 13 as part of the Marian Day celebration that will involve the iconic statue of Our Lady of the Rosary of Fatima.

“The Holy Father strongly desires that the Marian Day may have present, as a special sign, one of the most significant Marian icons for Christians throughout the world, and, for that reason, we thought of the beloved original statue of Our Lady of Fatima,” wrote Cardinal Rino Fisichella.

Cardinal Fisichella, who serves as president of the Pontifical Council for the Promotion of the New Evangelization, made his remarks in a letter to Bishop Antonio Marto of Leiria-Fatima.

According to the Portuguese shrine’s website, the statue of Our Lady of Fatima will leave for Rome on the morning of Oct. 12 and return on the afternoon of Oct. 13. The statue normally resides in the shrine’s Little Chapel of Apparitions.

The cardinal said that “all ecclesial entities of Marian spirituality” are invited to take part in the celebration. Hundreds of movements and institutions that emphasize Marian devotion are expected to attend, the Shrine of Our Lady of Fatima says.

The two-day observance includes an Oct. 12 pilgrimage to the tomb of St. Peter and moments of prayer and meditation. On Oct. 13, Pope Francis will celebrate Mass in St. Peter’s Square.

Our Lady of Fatima appeared to three shepherd children in the village of Fatima in Portugal in 1917. She warned of violent trials in the 20th century if the world did not make reparation for sins. She urged prayer and devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary.

At the request of Pope Francis, Cardinal Jose Polycarp, the patriarch of Lisbon, consecrated the Pope’s pontificate to Our Lady of Fatima on May 13, her feast day.

Read more: http://www.ncregister.com/daily-news/pope-francis-to-consecrate-the-world-to-marys-immaculate-heart/#ixzz2hXUhvtnu

John Tauler Spiritual Conferences, Inscribe Text

Saint Augustine said: “Empty yourselves so that you may be filled.”

In another place our Lord said that he is the door through which we must pass. When we pray we must knock on three places on this door if we are to be truly let in.

1.We must knock with all devotion upon the Sacred Heart of our Lord Jesus Christ, the heart that was opened to us in love, the side that was pierced. We must go in there with all devotion, acknowledging that we are the poorest of the poor, that we are nothing; and like the poor man Lazarus before the rich man’s gate, we must beg for the crumbs of grace. He will give us his grace divinely and supernaturally.

2. Next we must knock upon the holy open wounds of his sacred hands, and pray to him to give us knowledge of himself, to enlighten us and lift us up to him.

3. Lastly we must knock upon the door of his sacred feet, and ask him for a love that is divine and true, a love that will unite us with him completely, so that we are submerged and wrapped up in him.

May our loving God help us all so to ask, seek and knock that we may be let in.

John Tauler, "Surely this is a great mystery; but I will explain it to you."

Monastic Office of Vigils, John Tauler

27th Week in Ordinary Time
Thursday

First Reading Isaiah 37:21-35

Responsory          Ps 20:7-8; 121:2

Some put their trust in chariots or horses, but our trust is in the name of the Lord. +They will collapse and fall, but we shall rise and stand firm.

V. My help shall come from the Lord, the creator of heaven and earth. + They will collapse ..

Second Reading

From a conference by John Tauler

Second Reading From a conference by John Tauler

Spiritual Conferences, Colledge and Jane, 241-242

Our Lord goes on to say: “Would a father give his children a stone when they had asked him for fish?”

Then he says: “If you, sinful as you are, know how to give the right thing to your children, how much better will your heavenly Father do, and best of all for those who ask him?”

He who is the Word of truth said that things will be given to those who ask. Then how can it be that so many people do ask, and keep on asking all their lives, and yet are never given this living bread? How can this be, when God is so unutterably merciful, so unstinting, when he gives and forgives as no human being knows how, when he is a thousand times more ready to give than we are to receive? These people say the same holy prayers, the Our Father, our Lord’s own prayer, many psalms and the holy collects inspired by the Holy Ghost, and still they are not given what they ask for. Surely this is a great mystery; but I will explain it to you.

The hearts of these people, the depths of their souls, their love and their desires, are possessed by the love of something alien from God. It does not matter what it is: the dead or the living, themselves or other people. Whatever it is, it possesses and fills the place which the true love of God, the true living bread, should occupy, so that it cannot come to them however much they ask and pray for it.

Master Hugh said: “People can no more live without loving that they can live without souls.” It is up to all of us to see for ourselves what we love, because if one sort of love is to enter our hearts, the other must go out. Saint Augustine said: “Empty yourselves so that you may be filled.”

In another place our Lord said that he is the door through which we must pass. 

When we pray we must knock on three places on this door if we are to be truly let in. We must knock with all devotion upon the Sacred Heart of our Lord Jesus Christ, the heart that was opened to us in love, the side that was pierced. We must go in there with all devotion, acknowledging that we are the poorest of the poor, that we are nothing; and like the poor man Lazarus before the rich man’s gate, we must beg for the crumbs of grace. He will give us his grace divinely and supernaturally. 

Next we must knock upon the holy open wounds of his sacred hands, and pray to him to give us knowl­edge of himself, to enlighten us and lift us up to him. 

Lastly we must knock upon the door of his sacred feet, and ask him for a love that is divine and true, a love that will unite us with him completely, so that we are submerged and wrapped up in him.

May our loving God help us all so to ask, seek and knock that we may be let in.

Responsory          Mt 7:7.11

Ask and you will receive; seek and you will find; + knock and the door will be opened to you.

V. If you who are evil know how to give your children what is good, how much more will your heavenly Father give good things to those who ask him. + Knock ...

Spiritual Conferences. Trns. & Edit.
by Eric Colledge and Sister M. Jane
(Cross and Crown Series of Spirituality... by John TAULER (1961)

John Tauler "We must knock at the Father's heart and beg for bread. This bread is God's love."

 Monastic Office of Vigils, John Tauler

 

Seal of the Dominican Order

27th Week in Ordinary Time
Wednesday

First Reading                          2 Kings 18:37; 19:1-19.35-37

Responsory                                  Ps 20:7-8; 121:2

Some put their trust in chariots or horses, but our trust is in the name of the Lord.₊ They will collapse and fall, but we shall rise and stand firm.

V. My help shall come from the Lord, the creator of heaven and earth. +They will collapse ...

Second Reading From a conference by John Tauler

Spiritual Conferences, Colledge and Jane, 240-241

God is ready to give if we will only ask him properly; and he has been at pains to tell us and urge us and teach us how to ask him properly. All the same, his gifts are only given to those who beg and pray and keep on praying, never to idlers and loungers.

We should observe what we must ask for, and how. If we want to be wholehearted in our prayer, above everything else we must bring our hearts home, call them back from their wanderings among created things, from their distractions, and then with deep humility we must prostrate ourselves at God's feet and ask him to be merciful and generous to us. We must knock at the Father's heart and beg for bread. This bread is God's love. If we have no bread, then we have no appetite for any other food, however rich it may be; we cannot enjoy it, it does not nourish us. God's love is like that; it is the one thing we really need.

So we must ask God to give to us, and ask him to teach us in our prayer and in our spiritual exercises, how to ask him in the way most pleasing to him and most profitable to us. Then we must use whatever methods of prayer come to us, whether they are directed to God's divinity or to the Holy Trinity or to the passion or the sacred wounds of our Lord.

So "ask" means ask the Lord for something. It is not given to everyone to use purely mental prayer; some people have to use words. If you need to do this, speak to our dear Lord lovingly and tenderly with all the most loving words you can think of. This will raise up your love and your heart. Ask the heavenly Father to give you a foretaste of himself through his only Son in whatever way is most pleasing to him; and when you have found the form of prayer that suits you best, even if it is the remembrance of your sins and your faults, persevere in it and make it your own.

"Seek" means seek out whatever is most pleasing to God and most profitable to you. And "knock" means apply yourself with zeal and persistence; because the prize is given to the person who persists to the end

Responseory   Mt 7:7.11

Spiritual Conferences. Trns. & Edit.
by Eric Colledge and Sister M. Jane
(Cross and Crown Series of Spirituality... by John TAULER (1961)

Monastic Office of Vigils, Martin D'Arcy

Martin C. D'Arcy S.J. by: Eman Bonnici

27th Week in Ordinary Time
TUESDAY

First Reading

2 Kings 18:17-36

Responsory          Ps 20:7-8; 121:2

Some put their trust in chariots or horses, but our trust is in the name of the Lord. + They will collapse and fall, but we shall rise and stand firm.

V. My help shall come from the Lord, the creator of heaven and earth. + They will collapse ...

Second Reading

From The Sense of History by Martin D'Arcy, pp. 133-134

D'Arcy, Martin Cyril (1888-1976) A Jesuit who was one of the most influential English Catholics of his age, his homilies and lectures, no less than his writing, inspired, strengthened and deepened the faith of many. He lectured in philosophy both at Oxford, where he was master of Cam­pion Hall, and in the United States. His books include The Nature of Belief, The Meeting of Love and Knowledge, and Facing God.

The clearest example of a pure belief in providence is to be found in the Jewish religion, which rose steadily and defiantly above the mists of surrounding beliefs. The Lord is the one, true God, who created the world and has a purpose for humankind and a mission for his people. No matter what disasters befell them the Jews returned to this faith and hope at the instance of their prophets. The Lord is the everlasting God, who has created the ends of the earth. He shall not faint nor labor, neither is there any searching out of his wisdom. It is he that gives strength to the weary, and increased force and might to them that are not ... They that hope in the Lord shall renew their strength. They shall take wings as eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint. The gospels place in the forefront this idea of providence; the teaching of Christ begins with the declaration of God as the Father who makes life precious by his care for it, and this assurance is more than ratified by the act of the Son of God, who shows his surpassing love for us by dying on our behalf.

In the Christian dispensation providence is looked upon as both universal and particular. As particular it means that every individual is cared for by God, even to the hairs of his head, or as Saint Paul describes it, that all things cooperate for the good of those that love God. As universal, it means that though history is made by the cooperation and clash of human wills, God works in and through it, so that his purposes are fulfilled. This is the idea of providence which has prevailed in the West and wherever Christianity has penetrated, and it lies behind the attempts of various Christian thinkers in the past to sketch a providential view of history. Christians from time immemorial have their own personal needs. Such prayers pervade the liturgy, of which one example is the collect asking that "God, by whose never-failing providence the world is ordered," may "remove from our path all hurtful things, and give us all that will be for our good." Such prayers are warranted by the Lord's Prayer and by the belief of Christians that the divine and human meet in a personal relationship. The language of friendship and love does not, however, lend itself to theory, especially to a theory of history in which the part of God is to be explained.

The new hope stirred at the beginning by the Christian message was not due to any theory of history. It was the fact of the existence of providence which produced a radical change, removing the dark fears that human life signified nothing. Comfort can come when we are sure that all is well, even though we have no idea of how the happy ending is to be brought about.

Responsory     Rom 8:28; Jdt 9:5

We know that by turning everything to their good + God cooperates with all who love him, with all whom he has called according to his purpose.

V. All your ways are prepared beforehand, and your judgments rest on foreknowledge. ₊God cooperates ...

John H. Newman, Bl., 9th October, Liturgy Office

Blessed John Henry Newman

National Calendar for England, Wales, Ireland  9th. October 

http://www.liturgyoffice.org.uk/Calendar/National/Newman.shtml  

Blessed John Henry Newman was beatified by Pope Benedict XVI at a Mass in Cofton Park, Birmingham on Sunday 19 September 2010. At the request of the Bishops he has been included in the National Calendar for England on 9 October as an optional memorial.

Pope Benedict in his homily at the Mass of Beatification said:

Cardinal Newman's motto, Cor ad cor loquitur, or "Heart speaks unto heart", gives us an insight into his understanding of the Christian life as a call to holiness, experienced as the profound desire of the human heart to enter into intimate communion with the Heart of God. He reminds us that faithfulness to prayer gradually transforms us into the divine likeness. As he wrote in one of his many fine sermons, "a habit of prayer, the practice of turning to God and the unseen world in every season, in every place, in every emergency — prayer, I say, has what may be called a natural effect in spiritualizing and elevating the soul. A man is no longer what he was before; gradually — he has imbibed a new set of ideas, and become imbued with fresh principles" (Parochial and Plain Sermons, iv, 230-231). Today's Gospel tells us that no one can be the servant of two masters (cf. Lk 16:13), and Blessed John Henry's teaching on prayer explains how the faithful Christian is definitively taken into the service of the one true Master, who alone has a claim to our unconditional devotion (cf. Mt 23:10). Newman helps us to understand what this means for our daily lives: he tells us that our divine Master has assigned a specific task to each one of us, a "definite service", committed uniquely to every single person: "I have my mission", he wrote, "I am a link in a chain, a bond of connexion between persons. He has not created me for naught. I shall do good, I shall do his work; I shall be an angel of peace, a preacher of truth in my own place — if I do but keep his commandments and serve him in my calling" (Meditations and Devotions, 301-2).

·                     Texts for Mass can be found in the Roman Missal

·                     Texts for the Office of Readings (pdf) are available

A note on the date It is customary for a Saint or a Blessed to be celebrated on the day of their death unless it is impeded by another celebration. Blessed John Henry Newman died on 11 August 1890. The Church across the world celebrates St Clare on August 11 and so another date was sought. One of the reasons that 9 October was chosen was because it falls at the beginning of the University year; an area in which Newman had a particular interest.

 Blessed John Henry Newman, Priest

Born in London in 1801, he was for over twenty years an Anglican clergyman and Fellow of Oriel College, Ox­ford. His studies of the early Church led him progressively towards Catholicism, and in 1845 he embraced “the one true fold of the Redeemer”. In 1847 he was ordained priest and went on to found the Oratory of St Philip Neri in England. He was a prolific and influential writer on a variety of subjects. In 1879 he was created Cardi­nal by Pope Leo XIII. Praised for his humility, unstinting care of souls and contributions to the intellectual life of the Church, he died in Birmingham on 11 August 1890.

From the Common of Pastors,

Office Of Readings

Second Reading

From the writings of Blessed John Henry Newman, Priest

(Apologia Pro Vita Sua, Chapter V: Position of My Mind since 1845, London 1864, pp. 238-239, 250-251)

It was like coming into port after a rough sea.

From the time that I became a Catholic, of course I have no further history of my religious opin­ions to narrate.