Night Office, St. Bernard - picture from Thomas Merton

 Monastic Lectionary of the Divine Office, 

'The only known photograph of God' Used with Permission of the Merton Legacy Trust and the Thomas Merton Center at Bellarmine University. 

  Sent: Thursday, 8 October 2015, 18:41

Subject: Thomas Merton - his photograph & humour

Dear Father Donald,

Your seminar on Saturday - I omitted to mention the man behind the lens of so many of his atmospheric photos, and his humour (see attached!)

William.

COMMENT:

St. Bernard, passage below, rings the pendulum of ‘benevolent / malevolent’. Bernard keeps us often in suspense.

'They enjoyed the Lord's blessings but were utterly ignorant of the Lord of Hosts because he ruled all things so silently'.

'... the one who mightily but invisibly created the world, rules it wisely, and safeguards it benevolently'.

Tomorrow monks are attending the Celebration of Thomas Merton and workshop of photographs of Merton – in the mode....

TWENTY-SEVENTH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME

FRIDAY 9^th October 2015.

First Reading    2 Kings 21:1-18.23 - 22:1

Responsory     Ps 52:1.2.5-7

Why do you boast of your wickedness, you champion of evil? You love evil more than good, falsehood more than truth. + For this God will destroy you, uproot you from the land of the living.

V. The just shall laugh and say: Here is the man who refused to make God his refuge. + For this God ...

Second Reading

From a sermon by Saint Bernard

Sermones in Canticle VI, 2-3: PL.183, 803-804.

Human beings experienced constant benefits but the bene­factor was hidden from them. He reached indeed from end to end mightily, arranging all things pleasantly, but humankind did not perceive him. They enjoyed the Lord's blessings but were utterly ignorant of the Lord of Hosts because he ruled all things so silently. They were from him but not with him; they had life through him but did not live for him; they had understanding from him but did not know him, for they were estranged, ungrateful, foolish. In the end they attributed exist­ence, life, and understanding not to the author of these but to nature or even, much more stupidly, to fortune; many also conceitedly claimed that much was the result of their own diligence and abilities. Think of all that seductive spirits arro­gated to themselves, and all that was attributed to sun and moon or earth and water or even things made by mortal hands! Deference was paid to plants and trees and the tiniest most contemptible seeds as to divinities.

Thus, alas, did men and women lose their true glory, exchanging him for the image of a bull that eats grass. But taking pity on them in their errors, God graciously came from his shaded, thickly wooded mountain and placed his tent in the sun. To those who knew only the flesh he offered his flesh that through it they might learn to perceive the spirit. For while in the flesh he did works through the flesh that were not of the flesh but of God: commanding nature, conquering fate, showing human wisdom to be folly, and vanquishing tyrannous demons. He openly showed himself to be the one through whom these things, whenever they occurred, had all been prepared at one and the same time. In the flesh and through the flesh he worked miracles openly and mightily, spoke a saving message, endured undeserved suffering, and made it clear that he is the one who mightily but invisibly created the world, rules it wisely, and safeguards it benevolently. Finally, when he preached the good news to the ungrateful, offered signs to unbelievers, and prayed for his crucifiers, did he not clearly show himself to be the one who with his Father daily makes his sun rise upon the good and the wicked and the rain fall on the just and the unjust? He himself said as much: If I do not do the works of my Father, do not believe me.

Responsory Ti    3:4; Mt 1:21

When the kindness and generosity of God our Saviour dawned upon the world, it was not because of any good deeds of ours but from compassion that + he saved us through the cleansing water of rebirth and the renewing power of the Holy Spirit which he generously poured out on us through Jesus Christ our Saviour.

V. You shall call him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins. + He saved us ...

John Henry Newman, Bl. Nunraw community Mass 8 October 2015

Blessed John Henry Newman beatified 19 September 19, 2010

Friday, 8 October 2015   

The Mission of My Life - John Henry Cardinal Newman

God has created me to do Him some definite service.He has committed some work to me
which He has not committed to another. 

 I have my mission. I may never know it in this life, but I shall be told it in the next. I am a link in a chain, a bond of connection 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, while not intending it
if I do but keep His commandments.
Therefore, I will trust him, whatever I am,
I can never be thrown away.
If I am in sickness, my sickness may serve Him,
in perpelexity, my perplexity may serve Him.
If I am in sorrow, my sorrow may serve Him.
He does nothing in vain.
He knows what He is about.
He may take away my friends.
He may throw me among strangers.
He may make me feel desolate, make my spirits sink, hide my future from me.
Still, He knows what He is about.

... +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Blessed John Henry Newman was a priest, theologian, writer and preacher. His life spanned most of the 19th century. He was an Anglican for the first half of his life and became a Catholic in the second half. Born in London in 1801, Newman studied at Oxford's Trinity College, was a tutor at Oriel College and for 17 years vicar of the university church, St Mary the Virgin. He published eight volumes of Parochial and Plain Sermons as well as two novels. His poem, the Dream of Gerontius, was set to music by Sir Edward Elgar. After 1833, Newman was a prominent member of the Oxford Movement, which emphasized the Church's debt to the Church Fathers and challenged any tendency to consider truth as completely subjective. Historical research made Newman suspect that the Roman Catholic Church was in closest continuity with the Church that Jesus established. In 1845, he was received into full communion as a Catholic. Two years later he was ordained a Catholic priest in Rome and joined the Congregation of the Oratory, founded three centuries earlier by St Philip Neri. Returning to England, Newman founded Oratory houses in Birmingham and London and for seven years served as rector of the Catholic University of Ireland. Before Newman, Catholic theology tended to ignore history, preferring instead to draw deductions from first principles. After Newman, the lived experience of believers was recognized as a key part of theological reflection. Newman eventually wrote 40 books and 21,000 letters that survive. Most famous are his book-length Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine, On Consulting the Faithful in Matters of Doctrine, Apologia Pro Vita Sua (his spiritual autobiography up to 1864) and Essay on the Grammar of Assent. He accepted Vatican I's teaching on papal infallibility while noting its limits, which many people who favoured that definition were reluctant to do. When Newman was named a cardinal in 1879, he took as his motto 'Cor ad cor loquitur' (Heart speaks to heart). Newman died in 1890. He was buried in Rednal (near Birmingham) 11 years later. After his grave was exhumed in 2008, a new tomb was prepared at the Oratory church in Birmingham. Pope Benedict XVI beatified Newman on 19 September 19, 2010, at Crofton Park, near Birmingham. The Pope noted Newman's emphasis on the vital place of revealed religion in civilized society but also praised his pastoral zeal for the sick, the poor, the bereaved and those in prison.

Luisa Post-it, Effects of Communion in the Divine Will - “prodigies of the greatest conversions.”

Community Monthly Memorial of the Dead. 8th October 2015

Thursday 08/10/2015

   

Communion in the way Jesus

I communicated Myself

communicating Myself

in order to convert

prodigies of the greatest conversions

____________________________________________________

Luisa Post-it, “prodigies of the greatest conversions.”  

October 2, 1916

Effects of Communion in the Divine Will

This morning I received Communion in the way Jesus had taught me - that is, united with His Humanity, His Divinity and His Will; and Jesus, on coming, made Himself seen and I kissed Him and clasped Him to my heart.  He returned my kiss and my embrace, and told me:

“My daughter, how content I am that you have come to receive Me united with my Humanity, Divinity and Will!  You have renewed in Me all the contentment I received when I communicated Myself; and while you were kissing Me and embracing Me, since all of Myself was in you, you contained all creatures, and I felt I was given the kiss of all, the embraces of all, because this was your will, as was Mine in communicating Myself - to return to the Father all the love of creatures, even though many would not love Him.  The Father made up for their love in Me, and I make up for the love of all creatures in you; and having found in my Will one who loves Me, repairs Me, and so much more, in the name of all - because in my Will there is nothing that the creature cannot give Me - I feel like loving creatures even if they offend Me, and I keep inventing stratagems of love around the hardest hearts in order to convert them.  Only for love of these souls who do everything in my Will, do I feel as though chained, captured; and I concede to them the prodigies of the greatest conversions.” 

October Calendar    

 http://luisapiccarreta.co/?page_id=16311    

     

Mgr. Robert Hugh Benson, Graces of the Holy Rosary , in one of his early novels, (1906-09), gave us a beautiful explanation of the rosary

  WEDNESDAY 7TH, October

MEDITATION OF THE DAY

MAGNIFICAT com,

Father Raymond P Lawrence

Graces of the Holy Rosary

Monsignor Hugh Benson, in one of his early novels, (1906-09), gave us a beautiful explanation of the rosary. An old nun is trying to make the devotion clear to a young Protestant girl. The enquirer asks:

"How can prayers said over and over again like that be any good?"

Mistress Margaret was silent for a moment.

"I saw young Mrs Martin last week," she said, "with her little girl in her lap. She had her arms around her mother's neck, and was being rocked to and fro; and every time she rocked she said 'Oh, mother'." 

"But, then," said lsabel, after a moment's silence, "she was only a child." "Except ye become as little children-m quoted Mistress Margaret softly-"you see, my lsabel, we are nothing more than children with God and his Blessed Mother. To say, 'Hail Mary, Hail Mary,' is the best way of telling her how much we love her. And, then, this string of beads is like our Lady's girdle, and her children love to finger it, and whisper to her. And then we say our Our Fathers too; and all the while we are talking, she is showing us pictures of her dear Child, and we look at all the great things he did for us, one by one; and then we turn the page and begin again." 

Those who have profited most from the rosary are the ones who have thus understood it. With hearts full of love they have rested close by the side of our heav­enly Mother; and, whispering words of endearment to her, they have gazed the while at those wonderful pictures which the changing mysteries recall, seeing always something new and beautiful. And when they have come to the end of the picture-book, with the insatiable interest of a child, they have gone back to the beginning and turned every page over again.

FATHER RAYMOND' P. LAWRENCE

 (+ 1968) was a priest of the Diocese of Syracuse, NY, and was the author of the book The Journey Home.

Prayer for the Evening

Come, let us praise the Lord our God

on this feast of the Blessed Virgin Mary!

 ___________________________________________________

Archives   

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Some Visitors

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Robert Hugh Benson Robert Hugh Benson, son of the Archbishop of Canterbury, became a Roman Catholic priest, a novelist, and a prominent writer of apologetics. He published Confessions of a Convert and Lourdesserially in Notre Dame's magazine, The Ave Maria, before he brought them out as books. He visited Notre Dame in April of 1914, seven months before he died at the age of forty-three. The Religion of the Plain Man (1906) Christ in the Church (1910) The Friendship of Christ (1912) Confessions of a Convert (1913) Paradoxes of Catholicism (1913) Lourdes (1914) Poems (1914) Essays (1916)

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Works[edit]

Science fiction

·                  A Mirror of Shalott, Benziger Brothers, 1907.

·                  Lord of the World, Dodd, Mead & Company, 1908 [1st Pub. 1907].

·                  The Dawn of All, B. Herder, 1911.^[6]

Historical fiction

·                  By What Authority?, Isbister, 1904.

·                  Come Rack! Come Rope!, Dodd, Mead & Co., 1913 [1st Pub. 1912].

·                  Oddsfish!, Dodd, Mead & Co., 1914.

·                  The King's Achievement, Burns Oates & Washbourne, Lrd., 1905.

·                  The Queen's Tragedy, Sir Isaac Pitman & Sons Ltd., 1907.

·                  The History of Richard Raynal, Solitary, Sir Isaac Pitman & Sons Ltd., 1912.

·                  Initiation, Dodd, Mead & Co., 1914.^[7]

Contemporary Fiction

·                  The Light Invisible, Sir Isaac Pitman and Sons Ltd., 1906.

·                  The Sentimentalists, Sir Isaac Pitman and Sons Ltd., 1906.

·                  The Conventionalists, Hutchinson & Co., 1908.

·                  The Necromancers, Hutchinson & Co., 1909.

·                  The Winnowing, B. Herder, 1910.

·                  None other gods, B. Herder, 1911.

·                  The Coward, B. Herder, 1912.

·                  An Average Man, Dodd, Mead & Company, 1913.

·                  Loneliness?, Dodd, Mead & Co., 1915.

Our Lady of the Rosary Mass Introduction

Mass Introduction - Fr. Brendan

Fra_Bartolomeo_02_Vision_of_St_Bernard_
with_Sts_Benedict_and_John_the_Evangelist

 ----- Forwarded Message -----

From: Fr. Brendan.......

Sent: Wednesday, 7 October 2015, 11:40

Subject: Fw: Our Lady of the Rosary 2015

On Tuesday, 6 October 2015, 18:35, Fr. Brendan........ wrote:

27 Wed 7 Oct 2015

Lord, teach us how to pray.

Our Lady of the Rosary 

Sister Margaret was explaining the rosary to a Protestant girl.

   Isabel asks, “How can prayers said over and over again like that be of any good?”

   Sister Margaret answered.

“I saw young Mrs Martin last week with her little girl in her lap. She had her arms around her mother’s neck, and was being rocked to and fro. Every time she rocked she said, ‘Oh, me mum’ ”.

   To say, Hail Mary, Hail Mary,’ is the best way of telling her how much we love her. And, then this string of beads is like our Lady’s girdle, and then we say our ‘Our Fathers’ too, and all the while we are talking, she is showing us pictures of her dear Child, one by one, and then we turn the page and begin again.”  (Mgr. Hugh Benson)

 

Father, fill my heart with your love that all my actions may be pleasing to you. Help me to be kind and forgiving towards my neighbour as you have been towards me, through Christ our Lord.

 

The grotto of the Marian apparition
in Tre Fontane Rome Italy

   

Our Lady of the Rosary October 7, sermon St. Bernard

Night Office sermon by Saint Bernard, Abbot

(Sermo de Aquaeductu: Opera Omnia, Edit. Cisterc. 5 [1968], 282-283)

Our Lady of the Rosary October 7

This memory Mariana source devotional connects with the victory of Lepanto (1571), who arrested the great expansion of the Ottoman Empire. St. Pius V attributed that historic event to pray that the Christian people had addressed to the Virgin of the Rosary in the form. (Mess. Rom.) Etymology: Mary = loved by God, from the Egyptian; lady, Hebrew Martyrology: Memory of the Blessed Virgin Mary of the Rosary on this day with the prayer of the Rosary and Marian crown invoking the protection of the holy Mother of God to meditate on the mysteries of Christ, under the guidance of her, which was associated so everything Special incarnation, passion and resurrection of the Son of God.

iBreviaryWednesday, 7 October 2015  Wednesday of the Twenty-Seventh Week in Ordinary Time 

Office of Readings

Morning Prayer

SECOND READING

From a sermon by Saint Bernard, Abbot
(Sermo de Aquaeductu: Opera Omnia, Edit. Cisterc. 5 [1968], 282-283)

We should meditate on the mysteries of salvation

The child to be born of you will be called holy, the Son of God, the fountain of wisdom, the Word of the Father on high. Through you, blessed Virgin, this Word will become flesh, so that even though, as he says: I am in the Father and the Father is in me, it is still true for him to say: “I came forth from God and am here”.

In the beginning was the Word. The spring was gushing forth, yet still within himself. Indeed, the Word was with God, truly dwelling in inaccessible light. And the Lord said from the beginning: I think thoughts of peace and not of affliction. Yet your thought was locked within you, and whatever you thought, we did not know; for who knew the mind of the Lord, or who was his counsellor?

And so the idea of peace came down to do the work of peace: The Word was made flesh and even now dwells among us. It is by faith that he dwells in our hearts, in our memory, our intellect and penetrates even into our imagination. What concept could man have of God if he did not first fashion an image of him in his heart? By nature incomprehensible and inaccessible, he was invisible and unthinkable, but now he wished to be understood, to be seen and thought of.

But how, you ask, was this done? He lay in a manger and rested on a virgin’s breast, preached on a mountain, and spent the night in prayer. He hung on a cross, grew pale in death, and roamed free among the dead and ruled over those in hell. He rose again on the third day, and showed the apostles the wounds of the nails, the signs of victory; and finally in their presence he ascended to the sanctuary of heaven.

How can we not contemplate this story in truth, piety and holiness? Whatever of all this I consider, it is God I am considering; in all this he is my God. I have said it is wise to meditate on these truths, and I have thought it right to recall the abundant sweetness, given by the fruits of this priestly root; and Mary, drawing abundantly from heaven, has caused this sweetness to overflow for us.

RESPONSORY

O Virgin Mary, no other daughter of Jerusalem is your equal,
for you are the mother of the King of kings,
you are the Queen of heaven and of angels.

– Blessed are you among women
and blessed is the fruit of your womb.

Hail, full of grace; the Lord is with you.
– Blessed are you among women
and blessed is the fruit of your womb.

CONCLUDING PRAYER

Let us pray.

Lord,
fill our hearts with your love,
and as you revealed to us by an angel
the coming of your Son as man,
so lead us through his suffering and death
to the glory of his resurrection,
who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, for ever and ever.
– Amen.

Luisa Post-it, 'souls of all kinds'

   

Post-it
Souls of all kinds
the ones sleepy with love
the ignorant of love
the crazy of love
the learned of love
... what interests me the most

      And Jesus added: “I make souls of all kinds: I make the ones sleepy with love, the ignorant of love, the crazy of love, the learned of love.  But, of all this, do you know what interests me the most?  That everything be love.  Anything else which is not love is worth not even a glance.” 

July 23, 1912

The heart must be empty of everything.

Finding myself with my always lovable Jesus, I was lamenting to Him because, in addition to His privations, I also felt my poor heart insensitive, cold, and indifferent to everything, as if it no longer had life.  What a pitiful state mine is!  And even so, I myself am unable to cry over my misfortune.  ‘Since I myself am unable to have compassion for myself - You, have compassion for this heart, which You have loved so much, and which You intended so firmly to receive.’ 

And Jesus: “My daughter, do not afflict yourself for something that deserves no affliction.  Instead of having compassion for these laments and for your heart, I am pleased and I say to you:

‘Rejoice with Me, because I have made a complete purchase of your heart.  And since you no longer feel anything of your very contentment and of the life of your heart, I alone come to enjoy your contentment and your very life.’ 

“You must know that when you do not feel anything from your heart, I draw your heart into my Heart and I keep at rest, in sweet sleep, while I enjoy it.  If you do feel it, then the enjoyment is together.  If you let Me act, after I have given you rest in my Heart and enjoyed it from you, I will come to rest in you and I will make you enjoy the contentment of my Heart.”

“Ah, my daughter, this state is necessary for you, for Me and for the world.  For you: if you had been awake, you would have suffered very much in seeing the chastisements which I am sending now, and the others which I will send.  Therefore, it is necessary to put you to sleep so as not to make you suffer so much.  It is necessary for Me: how much I would have suffered had I not made you content - had I not condescended to what you wanted, since you would not permit Me to send chastisements.  So, it was necessary to put you to sleep.  In certain sad times, with necessity of chastisements, it is necessary to choose ways in the middle in order to be less unhappy.  It is necessary for the world: if I wanted to pour Myself out with you and make you suffer as a lance used to do - and therefore making you content by sparing the world the chastisements - faith, religion, salvation, would be banished even more from the world, especially considering how souls are disposed in these times.  Ah, my daughter, let Me act, whether I have to keep you awake or asleep.  Did you not tell Me to do with you whatever I wanted?  Do you perhaps want to withdraw your word?” 

And I: ‘Never, O Jesus!  Rather, I fear that I have become bad, and because of this I feel I am in this state.’ 

And Jesus: “Listen, my daughter, is it perhaps that some thought, affection or desire which is not for Me has entered into you?  If this were the case, you should fear; but if this is not, it is a sign that I keep your heart in Me and I make it sleep.  The time will come - it will come - when I will have it wake up; then you will see that you will take the attitude of before, and since you will have been at rest, this attitude will be greater.” 

Then He added: “I make souls of all kinds: I make the ones sleepy with love, the ignorant of love, the crazy of love, the learned of love.  But, of all this, do you know what interests me the most?  That everything be love.  Anything else which is not love is worth not even a glance.”