The Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross

Here's the link to last year's post on the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, it is again very amazing to me how time flies and how it just slips by you in a twinkling.

Time, we must grab it, use every moment of it intelligently, smartly. Time, once lost, is gone forever. But, there's one thing good about time, as the years go by, the months, the weeks, the days, the hours, the minutes and the seconds go by, by the time past, we are, seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months and years ... closer and closer to Him, closer and closer to attaining that one, only most important aim/goal of this life - to go to Heaven, to be with Him who is the only Way, the Truth and the Life. To go to Heaven, to be with dearest Mother Mary and all the beautiful Angels and wonderful Saints. To love and to be loved in return, love for Love, life for Life, heart for Heart, (what the Heart of my Jesus and your Jesus too! has to offer to all souls). O how beautiful it is!

Time flies, the deathbed awaits,
The frail human heart falters and stumbles.

But the Cross, O how it heals!

The wounds of the frail human heart.

Now the heart, with each beat, the strength renews.

By the Cross, death is conquered.

Death, ah, death, the bane of mankind,
But Death, O what is death?

The Stain of Sin

- it is life's only true Death.

Please do forgive me, if I start to sound a little funny, writing about death and such. :) But, death, it is something very important. It is something that we all have to think about and face, whether now, tomorrow or when the day comes. For earthly life is but only a pilgrimage, and your deathbed is when the most important moment of your life comes.

As this prayer of St. Pius X to St. Joseph, puts it very very beautifully:

O glorious St. Joseph, model of all who are devoted to labour, obtain for me the grace: To work in a spirit of penance, for the expiation of my many sins; To work conscientiously, putting the call of duty above my inclinations; To work with gratitude and joy, considering it an honour to employ and develop by means of labour, the gifts received from God; To work with order, peace, moderation, and patience, never shrinking from weariness and trials; To work, above all, with purity of intention, and with detachment from self, having ever before my eyes the hour of death and the account I must give of time poorly spent, talents unused, good omitted, and vain complacency in success. All for Jesus, all through Mary; all after thy example, O Patriarch Joseph; such shall be my watchword in life and in death. Amen.

The Holy Eucharist, the Most Blessed Sacrament, is most beautifully explained by this song, O Esca Viatorum. The first few phrases when loosely translated to English from the Latin goes: O Food on our Journey, O Bread of the Angels, O Bread of Heaven! We have Him with us, right here, on earth, the King of kings! To help us along this journey, to aid us, as our human heart is frail and which cannot sustain us fully, as we tred the thorny paths of this earth, yearning for the one and only End - Heaven for all eternity. What a beautiful aspect and most sublime (to me :D) aspect of our Faith!

It was said by a servant of God, If anything could shake my faith in the Eucharist, it would not be the doubt as to how the bread could become flesh, or how Jesus could be in several places and confined into so small a space, because I should answer that God can do everything; but if I were asked how he could love men so much as to make himself their food, I have nothing else to answer but that this is a mystery of faith above my comprehension. O love of Jesus, do Thou make Thyself known to men and do Thou make Thyself loved!

"If Our Lord has shown us the example of suffering, then on the
contrary, we should almost have the desire to suffer with Him, the desire to
sacrifice ourselves with Him! And when the thorn of pain pierces us, we should
be happy, and find in this sacrifice our joy, our happiness, in associating
ourselves - as God wants us to associate ourselves - to the Passion of His Son
for the redemption of the world and for the redemption of our sins. Is this not
but another mark of love from God, His desire that we be united in suffering
with Our Lord Jesus Christ?

...

How beautiful it is, this Christian, this Catholic doctrine!
How completely it transforms our life! How completely it transforms our life
here below! And it is that which prepares us for life eternal "O crux, ave,
spes nostra!" We refer to the Cross as our hope, for in fact, the Cross is
only a road, a way: the way to eternal life, to glory. But it is necessary to
pass by way of the Cross! One must take up the Cross and bear it after Our Lord to arrive at eternal life. This via crucis should be ours throughout the course of our life so as to arrive at life eternal."

- Excerpts taken from a Sermon by Archbishop Lefebvre on the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross in 1975 at the Seminary in Ecône.

And here, is an excerpt from the Epistle of St. Paul to the Philippians, a beautiful piece of writing on his sentiments regarding death, how he longs to be with Jesus and yet at the same time, to stay on with the souls he so dearly loves, for the salvation of more souls for Jesus.

"For to me to live is Christ and to die is gain. But if to live
in the flesh is my lot, this means for me fruitful labour, and I do not know
which to choose. Indeed I am hard pressed from both sides - desiring to depart
and to be with Christ, a lot by far the better; yet to stay on in the flesh is
necessary for your sake. And with this conviction I know that I shall stay on
and continue with you all for your progress and joy in the faith, that your
rejoicing in my regard may abound in Christ Jesus through my coming to you
again.

...

Only let your lives be worthy of the gospel of Christ; so that,
whether I come and see you, or remain absent (St. Paul was hoping to be able
to visit them soon, this epistle was written from Rome in the year 63 A.D.) , I may hear about you, that you are steadfast in one spirit, with one mind
striving together for the faith of the gospel. Do not be terrified in any way by
the adversaries; for this is to them a reason for destruction, but to you for
salvation, and that from God. For you have been given the favour on Christ's
behalf - not only to believe in him but also to suffer for him, while engaged in the same struggle in which you have seen me and now have heard of me."

-Phil. 1:21-30

And thus writes St. Paul, so beautifully... :)

O beautiful Cross of my Jesus!

-------

A picture speaks a thousand words. Along the same lines, many pictures will do the trick. Therefore, many pictures will speak many many a thousand words ... :) haha :D ...

Today's the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, and here are some beautiful beyond beautiful pictures taken from this beautiful book, The Sign of the Cross by Msgr. Jean-Joseph Gaume, published by the Desert Will Flower Press, the Traditional, Trans-Alpine Redemptorists.

And the Cross is never complete, without remembering the other person who suffered just as much for our Salvation ... Her whose Blessed Feast of the Seven Dolors is tomorrow, Dearest Mother Mary:

St. Thérèse of the Child Jesus and Holy Face, my dearest patron saint, a Carmelite, must have ate like this too? on Good Friday, in the Carmel at Lisieux ... :) very beautiful.



Read the caption that accompanies the picture, so wonderfully written I think:

To Create is to love; to conserve is to love; to Redeem is to love; to Sanctify is to love; to Glorify is to love. All Charity comes from the heart. God is, then, a heart. Do you know a Name more delightful? And this Name the Sign of the Cross repeats to us every time we make it.

And here's something to read on Quo vadis...


ECCE CRUCEM DOMINE
FUGITE, PARTES ADVERSAE,
VICIT LEO DE TRIBU JUDA,
RADIX DAVID, ALLELUIA.

-St. Anthony's Brief

Deus propitius esto mihi peccatori

Jesus, Mary, I love Thee; Save Souls!

Jesu mitis et humilis corde, Fac cor nostrum secundum Cor tuum. (ter)