Our Lady of the Rosary

Jonah 4:1-11; Psalm 86 Lord, you are merciful and gracious; Luke 11:1-4

Today we celebrate the feast of Our Lady of Victory which is also Our Lady of the Rosary.  October in the month of the Rosary.  The rosary is a beautiful prayer that invites us to keep Christ at the center of our life. 

Here is what Pope Benedict has to say about the Rosary:

"The ROsary helps put Christ at the center.  When reciting the rosary the important and meaningful moments of salvation history are relived.  The various steps of Christ are traced. 

With Mary, the human heart is oriented toward the mystery of Jesus.  Thus, Christ is put at the center of our life, the center of our time, the center of our city; through contemplation and meditation of His holy mysteries of joy, light, sorrow, and glory that fill life itself, Mary helps us welcome within ourselves the grace emanating from these mysteries so that through us we may "water" society beginning with our own daily relationships purifying them with the newness of God.  

The Rosary contains within itself the healing power of the Most Holy Name of Jesus invoked with faith and love with every "Hail Mary" bringing with it peace and reconciliation."

Wow!  What a prayer.  

It the recitation of the rosary, the victory of grace fills our hearts and minds and we are transformed and fortified.  

Our Lady of Victory pray for us; Our Lady of the Rosary leads us to Christ. 

who knows

jonah 3:1-10; Psalm 130 If you, O Lord, mark iniquities, who can stand? Luke 10:38-42

We continue to read the story of Jonah and Nineveh; today the people of Nineveh "believe God" and repent. The words of the King to the city echo forth, "Who knows, God may relent and forgive, and withhold his blazing wrath, so that we shall not perish."

Who knows...

We know.  We are people of faith and therefore we live in the know.  We know.  This is the good news, the gospel.  We no longer have to guess.  We know because we have heard. 

"We have seen for ourselves, and can testify, that the Father has sent the Son as savior of the world.  When anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God dwells in him and he in God." 1 John 4:14-15

The cross stands as the definitive answer of God to man.  

We know.  

 We know the One thing that Jesus mentions in the gospel. 

We know.  We just have to live as people who know.  We must cho0se the better part for the better part has chosen us. 

go do likewise

Jonah 1:1-2:2,11; Psalm you will rescue my life from the pit (Jon 2:3-10); Luke 10:25-37

Today's readings include to very well known stories that of Jonah and the whale and the Good Samaritan.  Both of these stories are children's favorites.  They have been told over and over and over again. 

In reading the story of Jonah there are few things that pope to the surface immediately.  

1) Jonah was fleeing from God. He was running from God's mission for his life.  But even in running away he was still effective in leading to conversion of the pagan sailors.  Even in fleeing he still could not get away from the task given.  Running was futile.  We may run but we can never truly hide.  

2) Jonah finally prays to God but only when he is in the bowels of the whale.  This is a commentary on us.  How often do we delay praying until we are in the worst of situations or circumstances.  Again, though, God will take it even though he would rather us pray at all times.

3)  Jonah is finally released from the whale but it is a nasty experience.  He is "vomited" out of the whale.  This was no clean answer to his prayer.  It was messy but effective.  Grace builds on nature.

The story of the good Samaritan also offers a few insights. 

1)The lawyer is one who is learned in the law.  That is he has all the answers so Jesus meets him where he is and lets him reveal the answers he knows.  Jesus will use the knowledge we have. 

2)The questions posed by the lawyer to Jesus, "and who is my neighbor?" is answered by Jesus with another question, "Which was neighbor to the robber's victim?"  Jesus answers the question with a question and the question is not the answer the lawyer was looking for or expecting.  Jesus doesn't tell him who is the neighbor but rather how to be a neighbor, that is how to love.  In learning to love one discovers one's neighbor.  

The lawyer ask for orthodoxy that is what is the "correct thinking or right teaching" and Jesus gives him orthopraxis that is "right doing or right acting."  It is not enough to know we must also live it. 

Only then can we truly embody the words of Jesus, "do this and you will live."  In living correctly we experience eternity here on earth. 

St Francis of Assisi: a lover of love

Bull of canonization by Pope Gregory IX

On St. Francis of Assisi by Pope Leo XIII

On St. Francis of Assisi by Pope Pius XI

Letter to the Faithful by St. Francis of Assisi

Prayer St. Francis asked that people pray the following:

"We adore thee, most Holy  Lord Jesus Christ, here and in all the churches that are in the whole world, and we bless thee; because by thy Holy Cross thou hast redeemed the world."

St. Francis also was noted as saying the following, "What a man is in the sight of God, so much he is and no more."  It is the cross that reveals how much man is in the sight of God.  The true value of life is seen in the wounds of Christ.  The cross is the measure of the world, the measure of man.  Christ crucified is love personified.  Francis was a lover of love itself as seen in Christ. 

St. Francis of Assisi pray for us.

taste of death

Gen 2:18-24; Psalm 128 May the Lord bless us all the days of our life; Hebrews 2:9-11; Mk 10:2-16

St. Paul tells us that Jesus "for a little while was made lower than the angels that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone."

The taste of death is in his mouth...

This is suppose to be the good news of glad tidings announced to the shepherds on that night of nights in which in a manger was born Jesus. 

The wood of the manger was destined to become the wood of the cross and the precious gift of life was destined to taste death for everyone. 

What does this mean "to taste death for everyone."

Well, it doesn't mean that we will never have to taste death.  We do.  We taste death often when a loved one, a brother, a sister, a husband, a wife, a friend, a companion, experiences death. 

It leaves a taste in our mouth.  

Before Christ it was a bitter finality.  The grave was haunting as it is stark.  The dirt was gritty between our teeth.  There was no life, there was no hope, there was just sadness and remorse and confusion and loss.   The bite of death always left a bad after taste.

Things change in Christ.  The bite of death is real.  IT is still bitter.  The dirt is still gritty between our teeth.  But, the resurrection looms large.  The grave has now become a sign of  hope, death gives way to the promise of life to come, loss and confusion point toward a moment of break through even in the midst of a breakdown.

The bite of death though bitter and painful no longer leaves a bad after taste.  Rather the message of good news and glad tidings helps fortify us, strengthen us, fill us, encourages us. 

The taste of death is bitter sweet, hopeful even in loss, life giving even in death.  The cross stands as the measure of the world, as the measure of man. 

guardian

Baruch 1:15-22; Psalm 79 For the glory of your name, O Lord, deliver us; Mt 18:1-5, 10 

In the book of Exodus  23:20 ff we read,  "Thus says the Lord: See I am sending an angel before you, to guard you on your way and bring you to the place I have prepared.  Be attentive to him and heed his voice..." 

The guardian angels we celebrate today. 

We are all companions of angels, a little heaven on earth each and every day.  How much value has God placed upon us to give us each an angel to stand by us and lead and guide us?

Even when we feel alone the reality is we are never alone.  There is always an angel with us guiding us to that place God has prepared.

Jesus in today's gospel teaches us just how the angel protects us and guides us, "their angels in heaven always look upon the face of my heavenly father."

The angels protects us by "looking upon the face of {our} heavenly Father."  They protects us by worship and adoration. 

In their worship we are strengthen in goodness and encouraged on our way. 

We imitate the angels when we celebrate the Eucharist.  We gather to worship and to fall in adoration of our heavenly Father through Jesus who comes to us in the Eucharist.  Think about adoration of the Blessed Sacrament. 

When ever we go to adoration as we bow on our knee we are imitating the angels. 

When we pray for others to grow in strength and goodness we are imitating the angels. 

Now, we can do something the angels can never do.  We not only have angels as companions but we also are invited to receive Jesus in the Eucharist.  Angels can never receive the Eucharist for they have no body.  But, we can!

How much does God love us is seen in this reality: we have JEsus as the bread of life and we have angels as companions and guardians in this life. 

One other thing to ponder: in the agony of the garden according to Luke, an angel was sent to comfort Jesus.  IF Jesus availed himself to the assistance of the angels, should not we as well follow his lead?

scripture

"The Lord will guard you from evil, he will guard your soul.  The Lord will guard you going and coming both now and for ever." Psalm 121

only love counts

Isaiah 66:10-14; Matthew 18:1-4

Today we celebrate the memorial of St. Therese of the Child Jesus.

when asked by her sister before a few days before she died for some word, St. Therese simply put, "only love counts."

A few days later she died with these words upon her lips, "My God...I love thee."

She writes in her autobiography the moment she discovered her calling.  After much toil in her soil looking for God's plan she is filled with ecstatic joy as she proclaims, "O Jesus, my love, at last I have found my calling: my call is love...love sets off the bounds of all vocations, that love is everything, that this same love embraces every time and place.  In one word, that love is everlasting."

Such wisdom for a child has the world seldom known but have often longed for.  We look to this child of grace to day  as we honor the grace of God who made her what she is a saint of saints. 

From the earliest moments of her life she remembers being smitten with God above and all things heavenly.  At the age of three she describes how she would hide between the curtains and the wall and there she would, "think, think about God, about life, about eternity."

She says "from a afar it seems easy to do good to souls, to make them love God more, to mold them according to our own ideas and views.  But coming closer we find, on the contrary, that to do good without God's help is as impossible as to make the sun shine at night."

On prayer: "payer is lifting up of the heart, a look towards heaven, a cry of gratitude and love uttered equally in sorrow and in joy; in a word something  noble, supernatural, which enlarges my soul and unites it to God...I just tell the Lord all I want and he understands."  

She would say that in union with God her little soul would learn to make giant strides.

Her little way has continued to shine the path for many.