Romans, Chapter 8,
Verse 35-39
35 What will separate us from the love of Christ? Will anguish, or
distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or the sword? 36As it is written:
“For your sake we are being slain all the day; we are
looked upon as sheep to be slaughtered.” 37 No, in all these things we conquer
overwhelmingly through him who loved
us. 38 For I am convinced that neither
death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor present things,
nor future things, nor powers, 39 nor height, nor depth,
nor any other creature will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
This is God’s everlasting love for us. He desires that
we seek Him for He never stops seeking us. God created the heavens and the
earth in seven days but at Christ resurrection He recreated the heavens and the
earth in His blood. This is the new creation in Him, Christ our Lord and all
who seek His love and mercy shall receive it.
2174 Jesus rose from the dead "on the first day of the week." Because it is the "first day," the day of Christ's Resurrection recalls the first creation. Because it is the "eighth day" following the Sabbath, it symbolizes the new creation ushered in by Christ's Resurrection. For Christians it has become the first of all days, the first of all feasts, the Lord's Day Sunday:
We all gather on the day of the sun,
for it is the first day [after the Jewish Sabbath, but also the first day] when
God, separating matter from darkness, made the world; and on this same day
Jesus Christ our Savior rose from the dead.
Those who lived according to the old
order of things have come to a new hope, no longer keeping the Sabbath, but the
Lord's Day, in which our life is blessed by him and by his death.
2176 The celebration of Sunday observes
the moral commandment inscribed by nature in the human heart to render to God
an outward, visible, public, and regular worship "as a sign of his
universal beneficence to all." Sunday worship fulfills the moral command
of the Old Covenant, taking up its rhythm and spirit in the weekly celebration
of the Creator and Redeemer of his people.
In marriage, the joy of love needs
to be nurtured. When the search for pleasure becomes obsessive, it holds us in
thrall and keeps us from experiencing other satisfactions. Joy, on the other
hand, increases our pleasure and helps us find fulfillment in any number of
things, even at those times of life when physical pleasure has ebbed. Marital
joy can be experienced even amid sorrow; it involves accepting that marriage is
an inevitable mixture of enjoyment and struggles, tensions and repose, pain and
relief, satisfactions and longings, annoyances and pleasures, but always on the
path of friendship, which inspires married couples to care for one another: “they
help and serve each other”
The love of friendship is called
“charity” when it perceives and esteems the “great worth” of another person.
Beauty – that “great worth” which is other than physical or psychological
appeal – enables us to appreciate the sacredness of a person, without feeling
the need to possess it. In a consumerist society, the sense of beauty is
impoverished and so joy fades. Everything is there to be purchased, possessed
or consumed, including people. Tenderness, on the other hand, is a sign of a
love free of selfish possessiveness. It makes us approach a person with immense
respect and a certain dread of causing them harm or taking away their freedom.
Loving another person involves the joy of contemplating and appreciating their
innate beauty and sacredness, which is greater than my needs. This enables me
to seek their good even when they cannot belong to me, or when they are no
longer physically appealing but intrusive and annoying. The aesthetic
experience of love is expressed in that “gaze” which contemplates other persons
as ends in themselves, even if they are infirm, elderly or physically
unattractive. A look of appreciation has enormous importance, and to
begrudge it is usually hurtful. How many things do spouses and children
sometimes do in order to be noticed! Much hurt and many problems result when we
stop looking at one another. This lies behind the complaints and grievances we
often hear in families: “My husband does not look at me; he acts as if I were
invisible”. “Please look at me when I am talking to you!” “My wife no longer
looks at me, she only has eyes for our children”. “In my own home nobody cares
about me; they do not even see me; it is as if I did not exist.” Love opens our
eyes and enables us to see, beyond all else, the great worth of a human being. The
joy of this contemplative love needs to be cultivated. Since we were made for
love, we know that there is no greater joy than that of sharing good things:
“Give, take, and treat yourself well” (Sir 14:16). The most intense joys in
life arise when we are able to elicit joy in others, as a foretaste of heaven.
We can think of the lovely scene in the film Babette’s Feast, when the generous
cook receives a grateful hug and praise: “Ah, how you will delight the angels!”
It is a joy and a great consolation to bring delight to others, to see them
enjoying themselves. This joy, the fruit of fraternal love, is not that of the
vain and self-centered, but of lovers who delight in the good of those whom
they love, who give freely to them and thus bear good fruit. On the other hand,
joy also grows through pain and sorrow. In the words of Saint Augustine, “the
greater the danger in battle the greater is the joy of victory”. After
suffering and struggling together, spouses are able to experience that it was
worth it, because they achieved some good, learned something as a couple, or
came to appreciate what they have. Few human joys are as deep and thrilling as
those experienced by two people who love one another and have achieved
something as the result of a great, shared effort.
Saint Irene[3]
Irene, a beautiful and chaste Portuguese girl, was murdered before
she reached the age of 20. "An assiduous pupil and a devout believer, the
only times she ever left her house was to attend mass or to pray in the
sanctuary dedicated to Saint Peter on his feast-day. A young nobleman named
Britald happened to see her on one of these rare outings and fell desperately
in love with her. Every time that she went out he waited to catch a glimpse of
her, followed her to church, and eventually made his suit known to her;
however, Irene gave him to understand that she would never marry him.
"Thus rejected, Britald fell into a deep depression and became so ill that
the doctors who were called in to tend him gave him up for lost. Hearing of
this, Irene visited him and told him that she had refused him because she was
no longer free, having already taken a vow of virginity. "Britald at once
accepted her decision and gradually recovered his health. Before Irene left him,
he had sworn that he would respect, and make others respect, her vocation as a
holy virgin, and the two had parted like brother and sister, promising each
other that they would meet again in Paradise. “Irene returned home and resumed
the life of seclusion and study, intending to make her entrance into a convent
before long. But the monk who was giving her private lessons proved to be a
lecherous scoundrel and behaved towards her in a manner as dishonorable as
Britald's was honorable. “Irene repulsed him and had him dismissed at once; but
his lust turning to a desire for revenge, the monk then began to spread
slanderous rumors about her. To those who asked him why he was no longer giving
the girl her private lessons, he replied that he had left on learning that she
was about to become a mother. “This rumor quickly circulated throughout the
town and at length reached Britald who, being frank and trusting and unused to
lies, believed what he was told. In a passion of rage and jealousy, he hired a
mercenary soldier to kill her. Soon afterwards, as she was returning home from
visiting an old man who was crippled, the assassin approached her from behind
and killed her with a single stroke of his sword. “Her body, which was thrown
into the river, was later retrieved by some Benedictines on the banks of the
Tagus, near the town of Scalabris. They gave her a proper burial, made known
her story, and not long afterwards, so great was the veneration in which she
was held, the name of the town of Scalabis was changed to Santarem (Saint
Irene)" (verbatim from Encyclopedia).
·
Santarem in Portuguese means “Saint Irene”, patron of the city. In
the Church of St. Irene, we can find the Miraculous Crucifix of Monteiraz. Church
documents relates that the Body of our Lord became alive (like the Miracle of
Limpias), Jesus arm came down from the crucifix and embraced a small shepherd
girl of the time of the Eucharistic Miracle. The crucifix belonged to a
community of the 12 benedictine monks (Abby of 12 apostles) is from the XII
century, it is still venerated today. Visit this link
o
(http://www.piercedhearts.org/treasures/eucharistic_miracles/santarem.htm) to learn more about the Eucharistic Miracle.
We Are at War!![4]
Spiritually
arm yourself (for both now and Armageddon) and seek forgiveness and forgive
each other so that we may be forgiven on Judgment Day.
The forces of evil know
they are losing and are in full blown panic mode, and so we see this war raging
all around us. Now, we see high level politicians advocating "mob
violence" in order to gain power. Then we discovered that evil even planted the Arch of Baal on the grounds of our
Nation's Capitol, during the Kavanugh/Ford hearings. Now we come to find
out that on the very day we are scheduled to begin this MAHA Spiritual Warfare
Campaign (October 20), witches are gathering to place a hex on Justice Kavanough. We all know that if this pure evil
regains power, we are in terrible trouble. We simply must do everything we can
to "stand in the breach," beginning with our belief in the power of
prayer.
Here's
the plan:
We are asking everyone to
do, at least, numbers 1 thru 4 below. If at all possible, we would like as many
as possible to go "Full On Spiritual Navy Seal" by doing all eight of
these, every day from October 20 to November 6 (Election Day).
1.
Pray
in a State of Grace (Go to Confession)
2.
Believe
God will answer our prayers
3.
October
20 - October 28 - Novena #1 - Pray the St. Jude Prayer
4.
October
29 - November 6 - Novena #2 - Pray the Immaculate Conception Prayer
5.
Pray
the Rosary Daily
6.
Add
Penance (recommend follow-through on some "get-healthier" challenge)
7.
Pray
the St. Michael Chaplet (Call upon St. Michael & Nine Choirs of Angels)
8.
Enlist
18 Saints & 18 Holy Souls into your Holy Alliance, and pray for 18 people
in need of conversion (Learn how HERE)
I
will send daily emails with the prayers and a reflection. Please sign-up HERE. (If you have signed up for Novena for Our Nation or
Nineveh 90, you should be signed up already) Please Note: You can read about this spiritual warfare
campaign in greater detail HERE
The Way[5]
Prayer
"Read
these counsels slowly. Pause to meditate on these thoughts. They are things
that I whisper in your ear-confiding them-as a friend, as a brother, as a
father. And they are being heard by God. I won't tell you anything new. I will
only stir your memory, so that some thought will arise and strike you; and so
you will better your life and set out along ways of prayer and of Love. And in
the end you will be a more worthy soul."
111.
The prayer of a Christian is never a
monologue.
Daily Devotions
[2] Pope Francis, Encyclical on Love.
[4]https://www.romancatholicman.com/spiritual-warfare-campaign-in-lead-up-to-november-6-elections/
[5]http://www.escrivaworks.org/book/the_way-point-1.htm
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