The 1st Sunday of Advent

Sacred Heart of Jesus, Have Mercy on us,

Immaculate Heart of Mary, Pray for us.

Saint Joseph, Pray for us.

Saint Ignatius receiving the Spiritual Exercises From the Immaculate Virgin Mary

As we embark on this new Catholic year, the whole liturgical year starts today, with the 1st Sunday of Advent, with the whole advent period also known as "the second lent" as we prepare for the greatest gift of our redemption, the birth of our Lord and Saviour, Dearest Jesus, I thought I did like to post something up, to ask for your continual prayers, especially as in the post as stated on the feast of St. Catherine of Alexandria and also for the men's retreat that is now, even as I'm typing here, just beginning for a group of men from the Singapore priory.

My daddy, uncle clement and kenneth are there now, having their retreat together with 5 other men, let us all remember them in our prayers as they embark on their journey, as a few others of us did in June this year (for the ladies - picture in the flickr badge at the sidebar of this blog). A very important time in their Catholic lives, as it sincerely was for the ladies =), the silent retreat according to the Spiritual Exercises of Saint Ignatius as given to St Ignatius by our Dearest Blessed Mother in the year 1521-1522 A.D. (as per the picture as above). Let's say a Veni Creator for them.

Angeline and I were just saying how we wished we were the ones going for the retreat!

(as we waved the men away at the ferry terminal, nisey was at her fencing competition)

I haven't blogged much about the retreat we had from 4th to 9th of June 2006, so I will elaborate a little here: My first Ignatian Retreat and also the 1st retreat of my entire life, it was the most beautiful and touching moment of my life, the time of my life when it actually turned around and the event that helped me turn my whole life around. It really helps to center your life, "catholically", and make you think straight, especially in this chaotic times we live in now. (not a case of presentism)

It will help you in making decisions that will change your life, as in a previous post, on how it will help in helping you with your Catholic life and regarding the state of your life, especially for young adults. Please pray for me. =) Everything according to God's will! but one thing I'm sure is that I will be very happy because I will be making Jesus happy if I do His will. =D

=) and I'm only a few days to the end of this semester's exams, I cannot wait, but still, I must run this final lap, with 2 heavy papers on the 6th. Do pray for me, and I will pray for all my blog readers too! and do let us all also pray for the Dear Holy Pope, His Holiness Benedict XVI, to give him the strength for all his decisions, that he must remember that he is the Vicar of Christ, the most powerful man on earth now at this very moment in time, that he will have the strength to do the right things, May the Blessed Virgin Bless Him and Protect Him! =D p/s: do read the latest news from dici.org, the million rosaries bouquet has passed the 1 million mark! (its 2.5 million if I read correctly) Deo gratias et Mariae!

Let us continue to "Storm the Heavens"!

and, here's something really very interesting from this morning's sermon by Fr. Pfeiffer (i think that's how his name is spelt) who is preaching the men's retreat together with Fr. Couture:

(you can find it here =D)

O yes, here's something written by Pope Pius XI in 1925 in his encyclical Mens Nostra recommending the Spiritual Exercises of Saint Ignatius:

Now it is recognized that among all the methods of "Spiritual Exercises"
which very laudably adhere to the principles of sound Catholic asceticism one
has ever held the foremost place and adorned by the full and repeated
approbation of the Holy See and honored by the praises of men, distinguished for
spiritual doctrine and sanctity, has borne abundant fruits of holiness during
the space of well nigh four hundred years; we mean the method introduced by St.
Ignatius of Loyola, whom we are pleased to call the chief and peculiar Master of
"Spiritual Exercises" whose "admirable book of "Exercises" ever since it was
solemnly approved, praised, and commended by our predecessor Paul III of happy
memory, already to repeat some words we once used, before our elevation to the
Chair of Peter, already we say "stood forth and conspicuous as a most wise and
universal code of laws for the direction of souls in the way of salvation and
perfection; an unexhausted fountain of most excellent and most solid piety; as a
most keen stimulus, and a well instructed guide showing the way to secure the
amendment of morals and attain the summit of the spiritual life."

And in very deed, the excellence of spiritual doctrine altogether free from the perils and
errors of false mysticism, the admirable facility of adapting the exercises to
any order or state of man, whether they devote themselves to contemplation in
the cloisters, or lead an active life in the affairs of the world, the apt
co-ordination of the various parts, the wonderful and lucid order in the
meditation of truths that seem to follow naturally one from another; and lastly
the spiritual lessons which after casting off the yoke of sin and washing away
the diseases inherent in his morals lead a man through the safe paths of
abnegation and the removal of evil habits up to the supreme heights of prayer
and divine love; without doubt all these are things which sufficiently show the
efficacious nature of the Ignatian method and abundantly commend the Ignatian
meditations.

God Bless All!

Deo gratias et Mariae!

In Christo et Mariae!

Jesus, Mary, I love Thee, Save Souls! =)

Decisions.

O Sweet Heart of Mary, Be My Salvation! Immaculate Heart of Mary, convert sinners, save souls from hell! - Jacinta

(one of the 3 children depicted in the above picture, whom Mother Mary appeared to at Fatima in 1917, before the October Bolshevik Revolution in Russia.)

This book is recommended if you want to read more about Fatima:

+The Whole Truth about Fatima - The Third Secret by Frere Michel de la Sainte Trinite+

-the link I got above is an abridged version of the book - i think - because the original 'book' comes in 3 volumes-Or it might not even be the book I'm referring too =) once I'm certain its the right book, I'll repost the link. =)

You must wonder why I'm suddenly blogging on such a topic - on making Decisions.

This is partly because this has been on my mind for a sufficient period of time today.

As I was walking slowly to the exam hall for my most recently over CA (yay!), and after saying the Angelus, it came to me that our lives are also based on the decisions that we make. To me, the reason why the Angelus prayer is so good is because it commemorates and it brings the person who says the prayer with his heart, back to the moment in time when a huge huge decision was to be made by a person, made so perfect (She's the only person in this world to be born without the stain of original sin), to be the Mother of the Almighty.

Here's the short prayer, it is said 3 times a day, at 6am-12pm-6pm.

A little history about this prayer, this prayer was promulgated by the Popes, to obtain divine help, through the recital of the Rosary and the Angelus in all the Christian lands during the Crusades. This prayer has been said ever since then in the Church.

It consists of 3 parts:

1) The Angel of the Lord declared unto Mary.

And She conceived of the Holy Ghost.

Hail Mary, Full of Grace, the Lord is with Thee, Blessed art Thou amongst women and Blessed is the fruit of Thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us, sinners now and at the hour of our death.

2) Behold the handmaid of the Lord,

Be it done unto me according to Thy word.

Hail Mary ...

3) And the Word was made flesh.

And dwelt amongst us.

Hail Mary ...

V. Pray for us, O holy Mother of God.

R. That we may be made worthy of the promises of Christ.

Let us pray:

Pour forth, we beseech Thee, O Lord, Thy grace into our hearts, that we, to whom the Incarnation of Christ, Thy Son, was made known by the message of an angel, may by His Passion and Cross, be brought to the glory of His Resurrection. Through the same Christ, our Lord. Amen.

So great was this huge decision that was made, that this changed the entire course of events for the whole world. It was because of this decision that dearest Mother Mary, through the grace of the Most High, made, that allowed for the Saviour of the world to come into this darkness.

It was this decision, that thereby, the fate of all souls since the beginning of time to the end of time was changed. She was the one that said yes to God and thus, to a certain extent, helped accomplish for us, our salvation. In a sense, she made the first committed step, and there was no turning back after she said yes to God. This is one of the reasons why the dearest Blessed Virgin has been given the title, the Co-Redemptrix of mankind, our salvation, because, by virtue of this huge decision she made, she helped save mankind. That is why, we Catholics love her as our dearest Mother.

And here are a few lines from one of my favourite hymns, that, I think, beautifully describes who the Most Blessed Virgin is:

Mary is Our Queen, O Sing to her,

Mary is Our Mother, Trust in her,

Mary is the star that shines at night,

Guiding us to Jesus, Our True Light,

Mary is the Creature of our race

Whom the Holy Spirit filled with grace,

To become the Mother of our Lord,

The God Whom she adored.

(repeating the words of the ArchAngel Gabriel to Mother Mary):

Ave, Ave, Ave Maria!

Ave, Ave, Ave Maria.

Coming back to the main topic on making decisions: Decisions that we make are also very important, because it is through all the decisions that we make, things happen, pathways change and our life changes because we make decisions that affect us in some way or another. I like this analogy that I heard somewhere:

Making decisions can be tough, by virtue of the fact that some decisions we make are more life changing (e.g. discerning your state of life, changing and amending your life etc.etc.) than some of the other types of decisions that we daily make. (I think you know what I'm trying to say :))

Thing is, making a decision can be likened to a donkey standing before a bridge, a pathway all laid out for it. Using myself as an example, perhaps I'm the donkey and I stand before the bridge and I know that there's this decision I have to make. (i.e. whether to cross the bridge or not) And it's either I cross the bridge or I turn back and go on with what I used to be doing, (going away from the bridge). There are 3 things I, as the donkey in this analogy, can do, (this corresponds to the 3 classes of men, as from the spiritual exercise of St. Ignatius of Loyola).

1) I would like to cross the bridge because I know my life will change and I know that I will be assured of my salvation, but, as St. Augustine, in his Confessions, said: O Lord, make me chaste, but not now! ... and I put off trying to cross the bridge because my will is not strong enough, and when the hour of death comes, I would be berating myself for not choosing to cross the bridge, the means by which I, the donkey would be assured of my salvation.. (but St Augustine did not make this decision no.1, he made the biggest decision to change his life with the no.3 I'll be explaining, in a minute.) This first decision puts the donkey in the class of people who are the "Later On" people.

2) I want to cross the bridge, but looking back at the amount of time and effort I took to come to this point, that is, before the bridge, and in an effort to keep all that I have 'earnt', because I know that once I cross the bridge, I would have to leave everything behind, I decide that I will not cross the bridge. This is the story of Pontius Pilate - and in the end, I do exactly what I didn't want to do - and remain in exactly the same situation I was in, before I made the decision.

3) I, the donkey, knowing that being a donkey is no good and wanting to change the situation I'm in, or my way of doing things, for the better, make the big decision to cross the bridge as I know what I am doing is right and that what I'm doing corresponds exactly to what God wills, I cross the bridge and am very happy, even though the crossing of the bridge will bring along huge sacrifices, I know that in the end, I'd be better able to make use of this means to attain this end that I want for my soul, I make the right 'non-donkey' decision and cross the bridge and reach what I want to attain, in accordance to the will of God. This is the story of all the saints. This is the story of how real champions are created, champions because they want to give their all to God, make the right decision, change their lives and do everything in their means to reach, attain this one end, this one main goal of our lives - heaven. From the old testament, Abraham fits into this category because he did the will of God, and when God called him to sacrifice the Son whom you love - Isaac - whom God gave to his wife, Sara and him in old age, he did so with no hesitation, no qualms and in the end, God gave him his eternal reward. (not to worry, Isaac survived without even a cut on his skin) This faith of Abraham, in God, was so strong, so huge, it can be said he believed blindly in the faith, but I must say when I say he believed blindly, it means he surrended himself to the will of God completely and unhesitantly. Not to the extent that you say you believe blindly and do all the wrong things.

Making a decision is something like that. Imagine the donkey, standing at the edge of the bridge, moving his head about, thinking what to do. In the end, its the decision, its the sacrifice that has to be made that will be the most difficult, especially when its life changing, but once you make the decision, once you get over it, with the grace of God, and the aid of Mother Mary, the Angels and the Saints, you cross the bridge into your new life and you find that making the sacrifice is easy, and that the only thing stopping you is your mind accepting the decision that you know is right before you. All of us aspire to do point no.3 but sometimes, we do have our human frailities and we find it difficult to do so (me too!!), but take it to heart that many others have been that donkey, and many others have made that life-changing decision, and have chosen point no.3 and that point no.3 is not so difficult to do after all, as a Catholic, I will say, you do have Jesus, Mary, your Angel, all the Angels, your patrons and all the Saints behind you, who will all, if we accept that decision help you in accepting the huge decision. =)

God knows that we are all frail and weak, as humans, and that is why we have the Mass, whence which we can apply what He said to us in the gospels, that He will be with us, till the end of time.

O Holy Virgin Mary, protect me; pray to Jesus for me! :)

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Have a Great Day everyone. God Bless!

In Christo et Maria!