Monday, February 22, 2010

Invocabit

The First Sunday of Lent

Click here to find out more about "Why Invocabit?".

But, I really liked the TRACT of the Mass. (Just for my own reference)

I thought this article was good: The Mystery of Lent

We may be sure that a season so sacred as this of Lent is rich in mysteries. The Church has made it a time of recollection and penance, in preparation for the greatest of all her feasts; she would, therefore, bring into it everything that could excite the faith of her children, and encourage them to go through the arduous work of atonement for their sins. During Septuagesima, we had the number “seventy”, which reminds us of those seventy years of captivity in Babylon, after which God’s chosen people, being purified from idolatry, was to return to Jerusalem and celebrate the Pasch. It is the number “forty” that the Church now brings before us: a number, as St. Jerome observes, which denotes punishment and affliction.

Let us remember the forty days and forty nights of the deluge sent by God in His anger, when He repented that He had made man, and destroyed the whole human race with the exception of one family. Let us consider how the Hebrew people, in punishment for their ingratitude, wandered forty years in the desert, before they were permitted to enter the promised land. Let us listen to our God commanding the Prophet Ezechiel to lie forty days on his right side, as a figure of the siege which was to bring destruction on Jerusalem.

Moses and Elias

There are two persons in the old Testament who represent the two manifestations of God: Moses, who typifies the Law; and Elias, who is the figure of the Prophets. Both of these are permitted to approach God: the first on Sinai, the second on Horeb; but both of them have to prepare for the great favour by an expiatory fast of forty days.

With these mysterious facts before us, we can understand why it is that the Son of God, having become Man for our salvation and wishing to subject Himself to the pain of fasting, chose the number of forty days. The institution of Lent is thus brought before us with everything that can impress the mind with its solemn character, and with its power of appeasing God and purifying our souls. Let us, therefore, look beyond the little world which surrounds us, and see how the whole Christian universe is, at this very time, offering this forty days’ penance as a sacrifice of propitiation to the offended Majesty of God; and let us hope that, as in the case of the Ninivites, He will mercifully accept this year’s offering of our atonement, and pardon us our sins.

The Devil tries to tempt Our Lord during His forty days in the desert.

The number of our days of Lent is, then, a holy mystery: let us now learn, from the liturgy, in what light the Church views her children during these forty days. She considers them as an immense army, fighting day and night against their spiritual enemies. We remember how, on Ash Wednesday, she calls Lent a Christian warfare. In order that we may have that newness of life, which will make us worthy to sing once more our “Alleluia”, we must conquer our three enemies: the devil, the flesh, and the world. We are fellow combatants with our Jesus, for He, too, submits to the triple temptation, suggested to Him by satan in person. Therefore, we must have on our armour, and watch unceasingly. And whereas it is of the utmost importance that our hearts be spirited and brave, the Church gives us a war-song of heaven’s own making, which can fire even cowards with hope of victory and confidence in God’s help: it is the ninetieth Psalm. She inserts the whole of it in the Mass of the first Sunday of Lent, and every day introduces several of its verses into the ferial Office.

She there tells us to rely on the protection, wherewith our heavenly Father covers us, as with a shield; to hope under the shelter of His wings; to have confidence in Him; for that He will deliver us from the snare of the hunter, who had robbed us of the holy liberty of the children of God; to rely upon the succour of the holy angels, who are our brothers, to whom our Lord hath given charge that they keep us in all our ways, and who, when Jesus permitted satan to tempt Him, were the adoring witnesses of His combat, and approached Him, after His victory, proffering to Him their service and homage. Let us well absorb these sentiments wherewith the Church would have us to be inspired; and, during our six weeks’ campaign, let us often repeat this admirable canticle, which so fully describes what the soldiers of Christ should be and feel in this season of the great spiritual warfare.

But the Church is not satisfied with thus animating us to the contest with our enemies: she would also have our minds engrossed with thoughts of deepest import; and for this end she puts before us three great subjects, which she will gradually enfold to us between this and the great Easter solemnity. Let us be all attention to these soul-stirring and instructive lessons.

And firstly, there is the conspiracy of the Jews against our Redeemer. It will be brought before us in its whole history, from its first formation to its final consummation on the great Friday, when we shall behold the Son of God hanging on the wood of the cross. The infamous workings of the Synagogue will be brought before us so regularly, that we shall be able to follow the plot in all its details. We shall be inflamed with love for the august Victim, whose meekness, wisdom, and dignity bespeak a God. The divine drama, which began in the cave of Bethlehem, is to close on Calvary, we may assist at it, by meditating on the passages of the Gospel read to us by the Church during these days of Lent.

The second of the subjects offered to us, for our instruction, requires that we should remember how the feast of Easter is to be the day of new birth for our catechumens, and how, in the early ages of the Church, Lent was the immediate and solemn preparation given to the candidates for Baptism. The holy liturgy of the present season retains much of the instruction she used to give to the catechumens; and as we listen to her magnificent lessons from both the old and the new Testament, whereby she completed their “initiation”, we ought to think with gratitude of how we were not required to wait years before being made children of God, but were mercifully admitted to Baptism even in our infancy. We shall be led to pray for those new catechumens, who this very year, in far distant countries, are receiving instructions from their zealous missioners, and are looking forward, as did the postulants of the primitive Church, to that grand feast of our Saviour’s victory over death, when they are to be cleansed in the waters of Baptism and receive from the contact a new being-regeneration.

Thirdly, we must remember how, formerly, the public penitents, who had been separated on Ash Wednesday from the assembly of the faithful, were the object of the Church’s maternal solicitude during the whole forty days of Lent, and were to be admitted to reconciliation on Maundy Thursday, if their repentance were such as to merit this public forgiveness. We shall have the admirable course of instructions, which were originally designed for these penitents, and which the liturgy, faithful as it ever is to such traditions, still retains for our sake. As we read these sublime passages of the Scripture, we shall naturally think upon our own sins, and on what easy terms they were pardoned us; whereas, had we lived in other times, we should have probably been put through the ordeal of a public and severe penance. This will excite us to fervour, for we shall remember that, whatever changes the indulgence of the Church may lead her to make in her discipline, the justice of our God is ever the same. We shall find in all this an additional motive for offering to His divine Majesty the sacrifice of a contrite heart and we shall go through our penances with that cheerful eagerness, which the conviction of our deserving much severer ones always brings with it.

In the early days, the Church expels the public penitents from the faithful on Ash Wednesday.

In order to keep up the character of mournfulness and austerity which is so well suited to Lent, the Church, for many centuries, admitted very few feasts into this portion of her year, inasmuch as there is always joy where there is even a spiritual feast. In the fourth century, we have the Council of Laodicea forbidding, in its fifty-first canon, the keeping of a feast or commemoration of any saint during Lent, excepting on the Saturdays or Sundays. The Greek Church rigidly maintained this point of lenten discipline; nor was it till many centuries after the Council of Laodicea that she made an exception for March 25, on which day she now keeps the feast of our Lady’s Annunciation.

The Church of Rome maintained this same discipline, at least in principle; but she admitted the feast of the Annunciation at a very early period, and somewhat later, the feast of the apostle St. Matthias, on February 24. During the last few centuries, she has admitted several other feasts into that portion of her general calendar which coincides with Lent; still, she observes a certain restriction, out of respect for the ancient practice.

The reason why the Church of Rome is less severe on this point of excluding the saints’ feasts during Lent, is that the Christians of the West have never looked upon the celebration of a feast as incompatible with fasting; the Greeks, on the contrary, believe that the two are irreconcilable, and as a consequence of this principle, never observe Saturday as a fasting-day, because they always keep it as a solemnity, though they make Holy Saturday an exception, and fast upon it. For the same reason, they do not fast upon the Annunciation.

This strange idea gave rise, in or about the seventh century, to a custom which is peculiar to the Greek Church. It is called the “Mass of the Presanctified”, that is to say, consecrated in a previous Sacrifice. On each Sunday of Lent, the priest consecrates six Hosts, one of which he receives in that Mass; but the remaining five are reserved for a simple Communion, which is made on each of the five following days, without the holy Sacrifice being offered. The Latin Church practices this rite only once in the year, that is, on Good Friday, and this in commemoration of a sublime mystery, which we will explain in its proper place.

This custom of the Greek Church was evidently suggested by the forty-ninth canon of the Council of Laodicea, which forbids the offering of bread for the Sacrifice during Lent, excepting on the Saturdays and Sundays. The Greeks, some centuries later on, concluded from this canon that the celebration of the holy Sacrifice was incompatible with fasting; and we learn from the controversy they had, in the ninth century, with the legate Humbert, that the “Mass of the Presanctified” (which has no other authority to rest on save a canon of the famous Council in “Trullo”, held in 692) was justified by the Greeks on this absurd plea, that the Communion of the Body and Blood of our Lord broke the lenten fast.

The Greeks celebrate this rite in the evening, after Vespers, and the priest alone communicates, as is done now in the Roman liturgy on Good Friday. But for many centuries they have made an exception for the Annunciation; they interrupt the lenten fast on this feast, they celebrate Mass, and the faithful are allowed to receive holy Communion.

The canon of the Council of Laodicea was probably never received in the Western Church. If the suspension of the holy Sacrifice during Lent was ever practiced in Rome, it was only on the Thursdays; and even that custom was abandoned in the eighth century, as we learn from Anastasius the Librarian, who tells us that Pope St. Gregory II, desiring to complete the Roman sacramentary, added Masses for the Thursdays of the first five weeks of Lent. It is difficult to assign the reason of this interruption of the Mass on Thursdays in the Roman Church, or of the like custom observed by the Church of Milan on the Fridays of Lent. The explanations we have found in different authors are not satisfactory. As far as Milan is concerned, we are inclined to think that, not satisfied with the mere adoption of the Roman usage of not celebrating Mass on Good Friday, the Ambrosian Church extended the rite to all the Fridays of Lent.

After thus briefly alluding to these details, we must close our present chapter by a few words on the holy rites which are now observed, during Lent, in our western Churches. We have explained several of these in our ‘Septuagesima.’ The suspension of the “Alleluia”; the purple vestments; the laying aside of the deacon’s dalmatic, and the subdeacon’s tunic; the omission of the two joyful canticles “Gloria in excelsis” and “Te Deum”; the substitution of the mournful “Tract” for the Alleluia-verse in the Mass; the “Benedicamus Domino” instead of the “Ite Missa est”; the additional prayer said over the people after the Postcommunions on ferial days; the celebration of the Vesper Office before midday, excepting on the Sundays: all these are familiar to our readers. We have now only to mention, in addition, the genuflections prescribed for the conclusion of all the Hours of the Divine Office on ferias, and the rubric which bids the choir to kneel, on those same days, during the Canon of the Mass.

There were other ceremonies peculiar to the season of Lent, which were observed in the Churches of the west, but which have now, for many centuries, fallen into general disuse; we say general, because they are still partially kept up in some places. Of these rites, the most imposing was that of putting up a large veil between the choir and the altar, so that neither clergy nor people could look upon the holy mysteries celebrated within the sanctuary. This veil – which was called “the Curtain”, and, generally speaking, was of a purple colour – was a symbol of the penance to which the sinner ought to subject himself, in order to merit the sight of that divine Majesty, before whose face he had committed so many outrages. It signified, moreover, the humiliations endured by our Redeemer, who was a stumbling-block to the proud Synagogue. But as a veil that is suddenly drawn aside, these humiliations were to give way, and be changed into the glories of the Resurrection. Among other places where this rite is still observed, we may mention the metropolitan church of Paris, “Notre Dame”.

Cathedral of Notre Dame of Paris

It was the custom also, in many churches, to veil the crucifix and the statues of the saints as soon as Lent began; in order to excite the faithful to a livelier sense of penance, they were deprived of the consolation which the sight of these holy images always brings to the soul. But this custom, which is still retained in some places, was less general than the more expressive one used in the Roman Church, which we will explain in our next volume-the veiling of the crucifix and statues only in Passiontide.

We learn from the ceremonials of the middle ages that, during Lent, and particularly on the Wednesdays and Fridays, processions used frequently to be made from one church to another. In monasteries, these processions were made in the cloister, and barefooted. This custom was suggested by the practice of Rome, where there is a “Station” for every day of Lent which, for many centuries, began by a procession to the stational church.

Lastly, the Church has always been in the habit of adding to her prayers during the season of Lent. Her discipline was, until recently, that, on ferias, in cathedral and collegiate churches which were not exempted by a custom to the contrary, the following additions were made to the canonical Hours: on Monday, the Office of the Dead; on Wednesday, the Gradual Psalms; and on Friday, the Penitential Psalms. In some churches, during the middle ages, the whole Psalter was added each week of Lent to the usual Office.

(from The Liturgical Year by Dom Prosper Guéranger)

Bulletins for the First Sunday of Lent, 21 February 2010, and the Second Sunday of Lent, 28 February 2010.

I have the full set (so happy yayness) of the Liturgical Year by Dom Gueranger, but I have yet to open it. :( I shall make it a point to read it as often as I can.

Jesus, Mary, I love You; Save Souls

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

Deus propitius esto mihi peccatori

Friday, February 19, 2010

My Catholic Faith Online!

I found this online!!! (this is not in the English Dictionary, but, YAYNESS!!!) Whee!


http://www.catholicbook.com/AgredaCD/MyCatholicFaith/MyCatholicFaith.htm

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On Education

This is for my reference:

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http://stas.org/publications/rectors-letters-separator/rectors-letter/459.html

Education - A Question of Details

This month we would like to share with you some reflections on education, prompted by an apparently insignificant question which was asked by young parents - "Should we give a pacifier to our baby to calm him and, incidentally ("incidentally"? are you sure?), be ourselves at peace?"

Accurately described as being "the art of arts'", education aims to train in virtue a child enowed with a rational soul. However it seems to us that this noble task can succeed only if we open the child's soul to the understanding of details. When this understanding is lost, what in fact disappears is the in-depth understanding of the order of the world, leaving the child completely powerless regarding his passions, which promptly enslave him.

If we neglect to teach the importance of details, the child will rapidly lose the sense of human realities and give free rein to the animal that lives within him. The consequences of this are enormous. What would become of a marriage where no consideration is ever shown to the spouse? What would happen to politeness, which is itself nothing more than a succession of details? Take those details away: politeness would not survive, thus distorting the relations that we maintain with those in authority. Today, we see in society the harmful effects of such distortion.

We could multiply the examples, but we would always draw the same conclusion - namely, that life is made up of small details which we must learn not to overlook. The observance of these details is nothing less than the acknowledgment a higher order in the world, to which we must submit throughout our life.

That question about the pacifier is undeniably only one matter of detail. Knowing now, however, how important details are, we will try to consider seriously a subject that initially seemed trivial.

The child's first instruction in the laws of life is through his different experiences, either of the physical or the psychological order. The child constantly tests the resistance of physical objects and of his parents, subjecting the latter to the barrage of his desires and whims, without even being conscious of it! The problem arises when the parents do not understand that the child's whole life rests upon the foundation of this first formation - and shouldn't the foundations be carefully placed if we want to ensure the solidity of the building?

When the child has to be calmed down, the use of a pacifier is an artificial recourse which has. for the parents, the undeniable attraction of allowing them to avoid practicing the necessary patience. Unconsciously, this easy way out affects their spirit of consecration to God. by helping them to avoid the painful effort of having both to endure the cries of the child and to teach him to master his desires.

Moreover, the pacifier develops a psychological dependence which will result later on in an unhealthy dependence on any kind of consolations. To have recourse to it is neither reasonable nor rare - it is, in fact, nothing more than an easy way out for the harassed parents, but not a way of education in virtue for the child. The child is already learning, in this way, how to satisfy his desires. He establishes a link between his cries of demand and the pacifier, which gives him a well-being that satisfies his animal nature. lie finds an illusory compensation that distorts his relation with reality.

Tomorrow, the demands of his animal nature will be of another kind. Accustomed to satisfy them, he will turn then to artificial paradises that will draw him away from reality, from the law of effort, from virtue. Is this, really, what we want to teach our children? If such were the case, that would not be education.

Education fails or succeeds in this training of the understanding of the detail. We witness this with sadness even here, at the seminary: because they haven't received this training when they were little, certain seminarians go back into the world, although it seemed clear that they had a vocation. But not having the understanding of details and of the effort that they constantly require, they are unable to answer God's call.

But some parents may object that the pacifier only offers to the child some consolation, of which he is in dire need. Couldn't these consolations be considered in the light of a higher nature about which we have ourselves spoken of? Why do we seem to oppose such consolations so fiercely and unrelentingly?

We oppose them because today there is a deplorable confusion between consolation and affection. We must vigorously denounce this extremely pernicious confusion which bogs the child down in an increasingly intense and constant search for consolations that unbalances the man to the profit of the animal that lives within him

The child is, indeed, in search for consolations. But on this point, he is no different from other animals. To give him consolations without trying to lead him to a higher plane is to reduce him to animality and to keep him at this lower plane. Actually, more than consolations, the child is avid to receive tangible proofs of affection.

Even if the difference between consolation and affection seems very slight, an abyss separates them! Consolation is directed at the animal level and cannot exceed this stage. Affection, on the other hand, nourishes the rational soul, which includes in itself the animal and vegetative parts that exist in every man. Thus, by affection - the love of benevolence which wants the good of another and opens the person to virtue - we also meet the "need" for consolations, but we do not bog ourselves down by stopping there. We do not corrupt the child, as we do when we give him only consolations which, not nourishing his soul, must be repeated incessantly, thus creating a devastating dependence. And who can say where will this dependence stop?

On the other hand, by means of affection we elevate the child's soul by turning him towards the higher realities of life and love.

This simple example can help us to realize how affected we are by our times, by this century of pleasures and extreme confusion, subject to the constant pressure of those who are already slaves of this world. We are children of this century! But then, O Blessed Mother, what will happen to our children? Come to our aid, O Lord, we are mad...

In any case, here we have an additional reason to carry out a good Advent in the expectation of His coming into our hearts; hastening it by the vehemence of our prayers!

In Christo Sacerdote et Maria,

Fr. Yves le Roux

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A Private Prayer


O Lord God Almighty, I pray Thee,
by the Precious Blood which Thy Divine Son shed on this day upon the Wood of the Cross,
especially from His Most Sacred Hands and Feet,
deliver the Souls in Purgatory,
and in particular that Soul for which I am most bound to pray;
that no neglect of mine may hinder it from praising Thee
in Thy glory and blessing Thee forever.
Amen


Taken from the Daily Pilgrimage to Purgatory. Click here for the link to an online PDF version of the book.

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

Jesus, Mary, I love You; Save Souls

Thursday, February 18, 2010

From DICI website: We wish you a holy season of Lent

We wish you a holy season of Lent from DICI on Vimeo.

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Wednesday, February 17, 2010

Ash Wednesday

Jesus, Mary, I love You; Save Souls!

Tip of the hat to:

Karyn, for this link:

http://vivificat1.blogspot.com/2010/02/plenty-of-good-reading-for-lent-at-your.html

Daniel, for these links:

List of the Passion of the Christ: Meditation and Contemplations

Archbishop Goodier, The Passion of the Christ, 1941 ----- highly recommended by our priest
http://www.strobertbellarmine.net/books/Goodier--Passion.pdf

Devotion to the Hours of the Passion, 1955
http://www.strobertbellarmine.net/books/Mead--Hours_Passion.pdf

Watchers of the Sacred Passion Vol 1 & 2, Fr Gallwey, SJ, 1922 --- very detailed, referenced by Mel Gibson in the movie, Passion of the Christ
http://www.strobertbellarmine.net/books/Gallwey--Passion_01.pdf
http://www.strobertbellarmine.net/books/Gallwey--Passion_02.pdf

Golgotha: by Fr Kavanagh, SJ
http://www.archive.org/details/golgothastudyofs00kavarich

The Mystery of the Crown of Thorns:
http://www.strobertbellarmine.net/books/Rossi--Thorns.pdf


History of the Sacred Passion: 1881, Luis Palma, SJ
http://www.strobertbellarmine.net/books/Palma--Sacred_Passion.pdf

Jesus Crucified: 1906 ---- very moving meditation from Last Supper to Crucifixion
http://www.archive.org/details/jesuscrucifiedre00waltuoft


Have a Holy Lent!

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Tuesday, February 16, 2010

Post CNY - Pre Lent Preparation (Rosenmontag)

I found this really useful and so I will reproduce it here in full. The author is a Fr. Ives le Roux, Rector of St. Thomas Aquinas Seminary. I got this from an email list that I subscribe to: Our Lady of the Rosary Library.
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Jesus, Mary, I love You, Save souls!


J.M.J.
Quinquagesima Sunday
St. Valentine - Priest, Martyr

BENEFICIAL PENANCE

We have a visceral dread regarding Lent. As a living oyster touched by a drop of lemon juice, we close up tightly when our comforts are threatened, our greatest fear being to have to give them up. We instinctively hate all that opposes our ease.

Once we become habitually led by these instinctive reactions, our intelligence simply fails to see that we have become slaves of our senses. The noble faculties of our soul, intelligence and will, are still there, but we don't give them their place.

We live in a spiritually barren time.

Is Lent really a sinister time to be endured each year, as the sad crowning of an already extremely long and painful winter? Shouldn't it be rather a time of joy and hope?

First of all, let us be rid of this instinctive heaviness that brings us down to the level of animals and prevents us from rightly appreciating the beautiful realities of our life. If we do not make this vital effort, we will confuse joy and pleasure, hope and satisfaction, whereas these realities are of a quite different order.

But let the idea or the desire for declaring war against pleasure as such be far from us. Pleasure is good when it is rightly used, as a means to obtain an end. It is the necessary means by which our sensitive nature helps us to attain our end. Thus, we find legitimate pleasure in eating and this pleasure leads us to sit at table, to sustain and keep us in life. When disease visits us, our sensitive nature withdraws into itself and we lose any appetite. The pleasure of eating dies out, and we can even develop a violent disgust against food. If the pleasure dies completely, we find ourselves in danger of death and those around us must resort to artificial means to keep us alive. Pleasure, as we see, plays an essential part in our lives: it is necessary, but it is not an end in itself.

When, in spite of common sense, we choose to take it for an end, we slide into madness. How could a spiritually healthy man confuse means and end? The use of a fork is certainly an excellent means for taking our nourishment, but not the reason of our presence at table. When this confusion is introduced into the moral order, it is not only madness; it becomes a sin, a voluntary insult against God and His Love. Sin is an immeasurable disorder by which man tries to become his own god by reversing the order of means to end. "You will be like gods!" says the old satanic deception and, as usual, the result is not what we expected: pleasure sought and lived as an end reduces man to a piteous slavery and irremediably leads him away from God and His profound joy. Man, bent under the yoke of pleasure, wanders throughout the world, his eyes lowered, having lost any hope, looking from now on only for the most vile realities. Slave of pleasure, it ! is basically impossible for him to get out of himself and love. He is missing the key, the notion of sacrifice.

A poor being, broken as an inarticulate puppet, he cannot - not even for one moment - conceive of sacrificing himself for the good of another, as he sees the world only through the deformed spectacles of his vain satisfaction. Without sacrifice, however, there cannot be true love, since sacrifice is the first act of love - in a sense, its signature. Only he who loves sacrifices himself - only he who really desires the good of his friend, even at the cost of his own comfort and even of his own life, if that proves to be necessary; in a word, he is ready to sacrifice his goods and to sacrifice himself.

Joy is born from this voluntarily accepted sacrifice; it is its child of predilection. He who, in his relationship with God, possesses this key, is stronger than the death brought by sin, because he does not worry any more about himself, he lives on in the higher order of charity where everything is ordered towards God. His soul, strengthened by this invincible hope, blossoms forth in charity.

The Lenten penance is nothing else than the expression of this joy and this hope, in the daily exercise of mortification. Thanks to it, we satisfy for our faults and we free ourselves from the bonds that keep us attached to our own will and slaves of what others think of us. Thanks to it, we shake off the yoke of our passions and attentively and tirelessly listen to the repeated calls that God addresses to us in the depth of our souls. Thanks to it, we give God the homage that is due to Him, that of our profound dependence, which is nothing but a practical act of worship.
Penance, an act of the virtue of religion, is really a benefit for our soul. It tears the soul from the subjection to the senses and, making it faithful to renounce itself in small things, it leads the soul into the hope of the future good, in "the joy of its Master"!

In Christo sacerdote et Maria,

Fr. Yves le Roux
The Rector's Letter - March 2009
http://stas.org/home.html
--
Sincerely in Christ,
Our Lady of the Rosary Library
"Pray and work for souls"
http://olrl.org


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For good Catholic books, articles and religious goods visit www.olrl.org.

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Friday, February 12, 2010

A wonderful Day and some thoughts

O Jesu, vivens in Maria,
veni et vive in famulis tuis,
in spiritu sanctitatis tuae,
in plenitudine virtutis tuae,
in veritate virtutem tuarum,
in perfectione viarum tuarum,
in communione mysteriorum tuorum,
dominare omni adversae potestati,
in spiritu tuo ad gloriam Patris.
Amen.

One of my most favourite prayers in the whole wide world, I usually say it after receiving my Jesus in Holy Communion. It showcases, besides its obviously very beautiful prayerful requests, its perfectly fascinating symmetrical Latin grammar pyrotechnic. I love how each single word means so much, how Latin grammar differs from English grammar, I enjoy the intellectual challenges it provides. I usually end up feeling very hungry (!: that's how I grow fat...) after spending a few hours staring and trying to understand, interpret the complex grammar. Which means it's a good thing. My brain uses up as much glucose as it can remove from my body. I fall for the enchanting charm of what I term mental exercise. Here, I will place the exact same prayer, except in its English translation:

O Jesus living in Mary!
Come and live in Thy servants,
in the spirit of Thy holiness,
in the fullness of Thy might,
in the truth of Thy virtues,
in the perfection of Thy ways,
in the communion of Thy mysteries.
Subdue every hostile power,
in Thy spirit for the glory of the Father.
Amen.

Here, we understand what every word means, we can differentiate between who is greater, via capitalization, we understand emotions involved, with the exclamation mark placed in the first line of the prayer when we salute the person whom we are addressing this prayer to. I profess an ardency (only just recently, after attending an excellent grammar course) towards English grammar, and am currently head over heels in wanting to understand and master grammar. Pray for me please, my dear readers. :D

I was browsing in a big bookstore today and I found a book which I really want for my library. The Collins (bestselling bilingual dictionaries) easy learning German verbs (in colour). It was a marvellous resource, I felt, as it gave German verbs in all its different forms in tables. One verb with its various forms, depending on how it is used, per page. Beautiful. It was only $20 (SGD) and as I am sitting down here typing out my thoughts, I wonder why I didn't buy it.. *bangs fist to head* I am a ding dong.

---

On a different note, I am listening to this now on YouTube and would like to post it up for my reference.



I recently heard it played by the SSO under Lim Yau. Here is a wikipedia link if you want to read about the story Weber was trying to portray in this his opera, Der Freischuetz. I thought Weber did this quite well. :))

Muede bin ich, geh zur Ruh.

Müde bin ich, geh' zur Ruh',
Schließe beide Äuglein zu;
Vater, laß die Augen dein
Über meinem Bette sein!
Hab' ich Unrecht heut' gethan,
Sieh' es, lieber Gott, nicht an!
Deine Gnad' und Jesu Blut
Macht ja allen Schaden gut.
Alle, die mir sind verwandt,
Gott, laß ruhn in deiner Hand!
Alle Menschen, groß und klein,
Sollen dir befohlen sein.
Kranken Herzen sende Ruh',
Nasse Augen schließe zu;
Laß den Mond am Himmel stehn
Und die stille Welt besehn!

Jesus, Mary, I love You; Save Souls

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

Deus propitius esto mihi peccatori.

Tuesday, February 02, 2010

Happy Candlemas' Day! :D


The Feast of Candlemas, which derives its origin from the loval observance of Jerusalem, marks the end of the feasts included in the Christmas cycle of the Liturgy. It is perhaps the most ancient festival of our Lady. It commemorates not only the obedience of the Blessed Virgin of the Mosaic Law in going to Jerusalem forty days after the birth of her Child nad making the accustomed offerings, but also the Presentation of our Lord in the Temple, and the meeting of the Infant Jesus with the old man Simeon - the Occursus Domini, as the feast was anciently termed. This is the principal theme of the liturgy on this day: Jesus is taken to the Temple "to present Him to the Lord." So the Lord comes to His Temple, and is met by the aged Simeon with joy and recognition.

The procession on this day is one of the most picturesque features of the Western Liturgy. The blessing and distrubution of candles, to be carried lighted in procession, precedes the Mass today - a symbolic presentation of the truth proclaimed in the Canticle of Simeon: our Lord is the "Light for the revelation of the Gentiles." The anthems sung during this procession, eastern in origin, will express the joy and gladness of this happy festival, and the honor and praise we give to our Blessed Lady and her Divine Son by its devout observance.

-From the 1962 Roman Catholic Daily Missal

The presentation in the Temple: 4th Joyful Mystery: Purity & Obedience

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

Jesus, Mary, I love You; Save Souls!



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