PathToHoliness

Today is the feast of St. Joseph the worker who is an excellent model for Opus Dei. He was regarded in the Bible as a good and just man and was referred to by his profession (“is this not the carpenter’s son?” Mt. 13:55). The emphasis on Joseph’s work in the Bible and throughout tradition speaks to the importance of our own work in the world.

Be sure to read today’s reading from the Divine Office which comes from Gaudium et Spes n. 33-34 on Man’s Activity Throughout the World.

From St. Josemaria

-Work is man’s original vocation. It is a blessing from God, and those who consider it a punishment are sadl mistaken. The Lord, who is the best of fathers, placed the first man in Paradise ut operaretur, so that he would work (Furrow 482).

-You should maintain throughout the day a constant conversation with Our Lord, a conversation fed even by the things that happen in your professional work. Go in spirit to the tabernacle…and offer to God the work that is in your hands (Forge 745).

Book suggestion: The Sanctification of Work

Today we celebrate the feast of the Annunciation, when the Archangel Gabriel appeared to Mary and announced that she had found favor with God and would conceive and bear a son who would be called the Son of the Most High. This day calls to mind two very specific moments which correspond with the culture of life.

Read more from my post on Reflections of a Paralytic.

The Annunciation – Luke 1:26-38

In the sixth month, the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a town of Galilee called Nazareth,to a virgin betrothed to a man named Joseph, of the house of David, and the virgin’s name was Mary. And coming to her, he said, “Hail, full of grace! The Lord is with you.” But she was greatly troubled at what was said and pondered what sort of greeting this might be. Then the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. Behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall name him Jesus.

He will be great and will be called Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give him the throne of David his father, and he will rule over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.”

But Mary said to the angel, “How can this be, since I have no relations with a man?” And the angel said to her in reply, “The holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. Therefore the child to be born will be called holy, the Son of God. And behold, Elizabeth, your relative, has also conceived a son in her old age, and this is the sixth month for her who was called barren; for nothing will be impossible for God.”

Mary said, “Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord. May it be done to me according to your word.” Then the angel departed from her.

Rejoice in the Risen Christ!

Christ is Risen (Luke 24:1-35)

But at daybreak on the first day of the week they took the spices they had prepared and went to the tomb. They found the stone rolled away from the tomb; but when they entered, they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus. While they were puzzling over this, behold, two men in dazzling garments appeared to them. They were terrified and bowed their faces to the ground. They said to them, “Why do you seek the living one among the dead? He is not here, but he has been raised. Remember what he said to you while he was still in Galilee, that the Son of Man must be handed over to sinners and be crucified, and rise on the third day.” And they remembered his words. Then they returned from the tomb and announced all these things to the eleven and to all the others. The women were Mary Magdalene, Joanna, and Mary the mother of James; the others who accompanied them also told this to the apostles, but their story seemed like nonsense and they did not believe them.

But Peter got up and ran to the tomb, bent down, and saw the burial cloths alone; then he went home amazed at what had happened.

Now that very day two of them were going to a village seven miles from Jerusalem called Emmaus, and they were conversing about all the things that had occurred. And it happened that while they were conversing and debating, Jesus himself drew near and walked with them, but their eyes were prevented from recognizing him. He asked them, “What are you discussing as you walk along?” They stopped, looking downcast. One of them, named Cleopas, said to him in reply, “Are you the only visitor to Jerusalem who does not know of the things that have taken place there in these days?” And he replied to them, “What sort of things?” They said to him, “The things that happened to Jesus the Nazarene, who was a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people, how our chief priests and rulers both handed him over to a sentence of death and crucified him. But we were hoping that he would be the one to redeem Israel; and besides all this, it is now the third day since this took place. Some women from our group, however, have astounded us: they were at the tomb early in the morning and did not find his body; they came back and reported that they had indeed seen a vision of angels who announced that he was alive. Then some of those with us went to the tomb and found things just as the women had described, but him they did not see.” And he said to them, “Oh, how foolish you are! How slow of heart to believe all that the prophets spoke! Was it not necessary that the Messiah should suffer these things and enter into his glory?” Then beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them what referred to him in all the scriptures.

As they approached the village to which they were going, he gave the impression that he was going on farther. But they urged him, “Stay with us, for it is nearly evening and the day is almost over.” So he went in to stay with them. And it happened that, while he was with them at table, he took bread, said the blessing, broke it, and gave it to them. With that their eyes were opened and they recognized him, but he vanished from their sight. Then they said to each other, “Were not our hearts burning (within us) while he spoke to us on the way and opened the scriptures to us?” So they set out at once and returned to Jerusalem where they found gathered together the eleven and those with them who were saying, “The Lord has truly been raised and has appeared to Simon!” Then the two recounted what had taken place on the way and how he was made known to them in the breaking of the bread.

Today’s Office has a great meditation for Holy Saturday. Since Fr. Jay Toborowsky has already posted the whole reading on his blog, I will just point you in that direction. It is from what is only called an “ancient homily on Holy Saturday”. Check it out (h/t Driving Out the Snakes).

Surprise, surprise, I also have found an appropriate excerpt from Spe Salvi as well:

Christ descended into “Hell” and is therefore close to those cast into it, transforming their darkness into light. Suffering and torment is still terrible and well- nigh unbearable. Yet the star of hope has risen—the anchor of the heart reaches the very throne of God. Instead of evil being unleashed within man, the light shines victorious: suffering—without ceasing to be suffering—becomes, despite everything, a hymn of praise (37).

In today’s culture it is considered loving for families to end the lives of their loved ones instead of allowing them to suffer and thus to suffer with them. We kill the unborn instead of giving birth to a disabled child, we starve and dehydrate the severely handicapped who are unable to communicate with us, and we hasten the death of the elderly and the terminally ill. All to avoid or eradicate suffering. But is this true love?

Mother Teresa once said that true love means to “give until it hurts.” This is the true meaning of “consolation”. In his encyclical, Spe Salvi, Pope Benedict explains that the Latin word con-solatio, consolation, “suggests being with the other in his solitude, so that it ceases to be solitude” (para, 38). True love means sacrifice – sacrifice which requires the renunciation of self in such a way that we not only love the one who suffers, but we actually take on another’s suffering as our very own.

Love simply cannot exist without this painful renunciation of myself, for otherwise it becomes pure selfishness and thereby ceases to be love. (38)

To become a person who truly loves is to suffer with the other and for others out of love. There is another quote from Mother Teresa that goes:

I have found the paradox, that if you love until it hurts, there can be no more hurt, only more love.

This is the paradox of the Cross which we celebrate today. Love grows through suffering. Mother Teresa surely lived this out in her work with the poorest of the poor, no doubt using for herself the model of Christ’s Passion and death which is the model of true love and consolation. As Pope Benedict writes:

God cannot suffer, but he can suffer with. Man is worth so much to God that he himself became man in order to suffer with man in an utterly real way—in flesh and blood—as is revealed to us in the account of Jesus’s Passion. Hence in all human suffering we are joined by one who experiences and carries that suffering with us; hence con-solatio is present in all suffering, the consolation of God’s compassionate love—and so the star of hope rises (39)

The Cross is for Christ a burden of love for all humankind. We are called to this same love as Christ has said, “This is my commandment: love one another as I love you” (John 15:12). There is “no greater love” than to lay down one’s life for another and, I would say, to “suffer with” the other. By taking up our own crosses and those of our suffering brothers and sisters, uniting them with the Cross of our Salvation, not only will all truly be consoled, but also our love, and our capacity to love more, will grow as a result.

If we ever want to see the image of true love, we have only to gaze upon the Cross.

Then he took the bread, said the blessing, broke it, and gave it to them, saying, “This is my body, which will be given for you; do this in memory of me.” And likewise the cup after they had eaten, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which will be shed for you.” (Lk. 22:19-20)

“I am the living bread that came down from heaven; whoever eats this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world…Amen, amen, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life within you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him on the last day. For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in him.” (Jn. 6:51, 53-56)

Pope Paul VI on Nazareth:
“Nazareth is a kind of school where we may begin to discover what christ’s life was like and even to understand his Gospel. Here we can observe and ponder the simple appeal of the way God’s Son came to be known, profound yet full of hidden meaning. And gradually we may even learn to imitate him…

May Nazareth serve as a model of what the family should be. May it show us the family’s holy and enduring character and exemplifying its basic function in society: a community of love and sharing, beautiful for the problems it poses and the rewards it brings; in sum, the perfect setting for rearing children – and for this there is no substitute.”

Our Holy Father Pope Benedict XVI is busy this Christmas. You can find out all about it on the Vatican’s Christmas celebrations website.

They’ve already got information up from last night and will have a lot more as the day goes on including live broadcasts produced by the Vatican Television Center.

Here’s an excerpt from the midnight Mass homily:

Heaven does not belong to the geography of space, but to the geography of the heart. And the heart of God, during the Holy Night, stooped down to the stable: the humility of God is Heaven. And if we approach this humility, then we touch Heaven. Then the Earth too is made new. With the humility of the shepherds, let us set out, during this Holy Night, towards the Child in the stable! Let us touch God’s humility, God’s heart! Then his joy will touch us and will make the world more radiant. Amen.

Today is the feast of that great 16th century Spanish mystic and doctor of the Church, St. John of the Cross. Today’s Office of Readings has a passage from a spiritual Canticle of his that says:

“[T]he apostle Paul said of Christ: In him are hidden all the treasures of the wisdom and knowledge of God…Would that men might come at last to see that it is quite impossible to reach the thicket of the riches and wisdom of God except by first entering the thicket of much [interior and exterior] suffering, in such a way that the soul finds there is consolation and desire. The soul that longs for divine wisdom chooses first, and in truth, to enter the thicket of the cross.

Saint Paul therefore urges the Ephesians not to grow weary in the midst of tribulations, but to be rooted and grounded in love, so that they may know with all the saints the breadth, the length, the height and the depth – to know what is beyond knowable, the love of Christ, so as to be filled with all the fullness of God.

Here John speaks of the “narrow gate” through which we must pass to merit eternal life. Sadly so many avoid this gate because it is lined with fire and one inevitably gets burned. But we do not travel through it alone. Pope Benedict, in his encyclical Spe Salvi, speaks of Christ the true shepherd in this way:

“The true shepherd is one who knows even the path that passes through the valley of death; one who walks with me even on the path of final solitude, where no one can accompany me, guiding me through: he himself has walked this path, he has descended into the kingdom of death, he has conquered death, and he has returned to accompany us now and to give us the certainty that, together with him, we can find a way through.”

We are not alone in our sufferings. Indeed, when we suffer we are even closer to the Redeemer through the power of the Cross.

Prayer of Peace by St. John of the Cross:

O blessed Jesus,
give me stillness of soul in You.
Let Your mighty calmness reign in me.
Rule me, O King of Gentleness,
King of Peace.

Read more about St. John of the Cross and his other writings.

Today is the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe, Protectress of the Unborn and the Mother of the Americas. May our nation be helped by her intercession this coming election year on behalf of all those who have no voice.

Our Lady of Guadalupe, we turn to you who are the protectress of unborn children and ask that you intercede for us, so that we may more firmly resolve to join you in protecting all human life. Let our prayers be united to your perpetual motherly intercession on behalf of those whose lives are threatened, be they in the womb of their mother, on the bed of infirmity, or in the latter years of their life. May our prayers also be coupled with peaceful action which witnesses to the goodness and dignity of all human life, so that our firmness of purpose may give courage to those who are fearful and bring light to those who are blinded by sin.
(from a prayer said at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception on January 22, 1999)

Prayer for Victims of Abortion

Holy Mother of God and of the Church, our Lady of Guadalupe, you were chosen by the Father for the Son through the Holy Spirit.

Our Lady of Guadalupe, Protectress of the Unborn, Pray for us!

More on Our Lady of Guadalupe

As I was reflecting on today’s feast day, it struck me what a really pro-life feast we are actually celebrating today (and yes it was a Holy Day of Obligation in the U.S. even though it’s a Saturday since, as a country, we are consecrated to Mary as the Immaculate Conception). God did not choose to purify the womb that would carry His son at some random point in her development outside the womb like, say, her presentation and dedication in the temple or at the Annunciation, both of of which would have seemed appropriate or reasonable. Rather, he chose to preserve the sinlessness of the Mother of God from the very moment of her conception inside the womb of St. Anne. This, like the Incarnation itself and the scene at the Visitation when the unborn John the Baptist leaped for joy in the womb of St. Elizabeth, illustrates the significance and the sacredness of life before birth. Let us pray on this day that such innocent life may once again be preserved and protected in our Nation through the intercession of this Immaculate Mother, Patroness of our Land.

From my Guadalupe Novena (which is now on day 7):

“Merciful Jesus, I beseech You through the intercession of Your dearest Mother, Our Lady of Guadalupe, who nurtured You from childhood, bless my native land. I beg You, Jesus, look not on our sins, but on the tears of little children, on the hunger and cold they suffer. Jesus, for the sake of these innocent ones, grant me the grace that I am asking of You for my country.”
Amen

Today we remember all those who have died. While we mourn for the dead, we also have hope for though, “all have sinned and are deprived of the glory of God.” They are now

“justified freely by his grace through the redemption in Christ Jesus, whom God set forth as an expiation, through faith, by his blood, to prove his righteousness because of the forgiveness of sins previously committed, through the forbearance of God – to prove his righteousness in the present time, that he might be righteous and justify the one who has faith in Jesus.” Rom. 3:23-25

But in order to stand in the presence of God, one must “be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Mt. 5:48). That is why we believe in the, what I call, “cleansing fire” of purgatory. Though one may be justified by faith on earth, there may still be attachments that one must be purged from in order to see the glory of God, though some souls may have experienced this cleansing here on earth.

Here is a song that I have dedicated to a girl I knew in high school who died in a car accident (just 11 months before my own accident) – she was just 14 years old. I did not know her very well, but had a few classes with her. One of those was a speech class in which she gave a speech on Lynard Skynard. It didn’t hit me until I had a dream about her after my accident and started really thinking about her and praying for her, that she played this song, the lyrics of which sound prophetic to me now, during that presentation (probably a month or so before she died).

O Lord, we beg of you, through your loving kindness, have mercy on the soul of your servant (N…), and now that he/she is set free from the defilements of this mortal flesh, restore him/her to her heritage of everlasting salvation. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.

Eternal rest grant unto them, O Lord. And let perpetual light shine upon them. May their souls and the souls of all the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace. Amen.

Today’s readings are beautiful to reflect on when we think about the dead.

Be sure to thank the special saints in your life for all their inspiration and intercession. My patron saints are St. Anne (Anne is my middle name) and St. Mary Magdalene (my Confirmation saint).

Besides Our Lady I also am inspired by, and often call on St. Joseph, St. Therese, St. Anthony, St. Bernadette and Padre Pio. My dad, who hasn’t had much time to post on here recently, enjoys the patronage of St. Charles Boremmeo and St. Francis of Assisi. As a cooperator of Ospus Dei he is also very close to St. Josemaria Escriva, naturally. Who are some of your favorites?

Oh I am also very close to our late Holy Father, JP II, who our whole family had the wonderful privilege of greeting in 2001. Read my post on the two year anniversary of his death: JP II and the Culture of Life:

A wonderful prayer from St. Theresa of Avila:

Let nothing disturb you,
Let nothing frighten you,
All things are passing away:
God never changes.
Patience obtains all things.
Whoever has God lacks nothing;
God alone suffices.

Have you thanked God for your guardian angel today? The angels that God has given us are meant to guide, protect and intercede for us, but they can also become our best companions! One is never too old to speak to one’s guardian angel as one would an old and dear friend. For that matter, one is also never too old for this timeless prayer:

Angel of God my guardian dear,
To whom God’s love commits me here,
Ever this day be at my side
To light, to guard
To rule and to guide.
Amen.

As I was just watching EWTN, I was reminded by Fr. Mitch Pacwa that we can also pray to other peoples’ guardian angels. Every single person has a guardian angel, even our worst enemies, and we can also pray to these angels for the salvation of souls.