The
Book of Wisdom was written about fifty years before the coming of Christ. Its
author, whose name is not known to us, was probably a member of the Jewish
community at Alexandria, in Egypt. He wrote in Greek, in a style patterned on
that of Hebrew verse. At times he speaks in the person of Solomon, placing his
teachings on the lips of the wise king of Hebrew tradition in order to
emphasize their value. His profound knowledge of the earlier Old Testament
writings is reflected in almost every line of the book, and marks him, like Ben
Sira, as an outstanding representative of religious devotion and learning among
the sages of postexilic Judaism. The primary purpose of the author was the
edification of his co-religionists in a time when they had experienced
suffering and oppression, in part at least at the hands of apostate fellow
Jews. To convey his message he made use of the most popular religious themes of
his time, namely the splendor and worth of divine wisdom, the glorious events
of the exodus, God’s mercy, the folly of idolatry, and the manner in which
God’s justice operates in rewarding or punishing the individual. The first ten
chapters in particular provide background for the teaching of Jesus and for
some New Testament theology about Jesus. Many passages from this section of the
book, notably, are used by the church in the liturgy.
JANUARY 4 First Saturday
sT. eLIZABETH ANN
SETON-11TH DAY OF CHRISTMAS
Wisdom, Chapter 4,
Verse 20
Fearful
shall they come, at the counting up of their sins, and their lawless deeds
shall convict them to their face.
Sounds like purgatory
to me and the judgement of the wicked. Know the Lord of all shows no partiality, nor does he fear greatness in men, because he himself made the great as well
as the small, and he provides for all alike; but for those in power a rigorous
scrutiny does loom.
1. Instead of having short, publicly funded political campaigns with limited and/or free advertising (as a number of Western European countries do), the US has long political campaigns in which candidates are dunned big bucks for advertising. American politicians don’t represent “the people.” With a few honorable exceptions, they represent the 1%. American democracy is being corrupted out of existence.
2. That politicians can be bribed to reduce regulation of industries like banking (what is called “regulatory capture”) means that they will be so bribed.
3. That the chief villains of the 2008 meltdown (from which 90% of Americans have not recovered) have not been prosecuted is itself a form of corruption.
This
month, according to the Los Angeles
Times, the Justice Department decided not to charge Angelo Mozilo, the
former CEO of the former company known as Countrywide Financial Corp., someone
long thought of as a prime potential target Should Americans be outraged that
the meltdown moguls aren't headed for the slammer, as director Charles Ferguson
suggested Sunday night when his documentary, Inside Job, won an Academy
Award? Perhaps. But, nearly three years after the financial crisis hit, a
better way to look at the lack of high-level indictments is as an indictment of
the entire financial system — a system that was rife with avarice, ignorance
and double-dealing.[3]
4. The US military
budget is bloated and enormous, bigger than the military budgets of the
next twelve major states. What isn’t usually realized is that perhaps half of
it is spent on outsourced services, not on the military. It is corporate welfare
on a cosmic scale.
5. The US has a vast
gulag of 2.2 million prisoners in jail and penitentiary. There is an
increasing tendency for prisons to be privatized, and this tendency is
corrupting the system.
6. The rich are
well placed to bribe our politicians to reduce taxes on the rich.
7. The National Security Agency’s domestic spying is a form of corruption in itself, and lends itself
to corruption. With some 4 million government employees and private contractors
engaged in this surveillance, it is highly unlikely that various forms of
insider trading and other corrupt practices are not being committed.
8. As for insider
trading, it turns out Congress undid much of the law it hastily passed
forbidding members, rather belatedly, to engage in insider trading (buying and
selling stock based on their privileged knowledge of future government policy).
That this practice only became an issue recently is another sign of how corrupt
the system is.
9. Asset forfeiture
in the ‘drug war’ is corrupting police departments and the judiciary.
10. Money and corruption have seeped so far into our media system that people can with a
straight face assert that scientists aren’t sure human carbon emissions are
causing global warming.
The Five First Saturday’s devotion is one of the
principal points of the Fatima message. It centers on the urgent need for
mankind to offer reparation and expiate for the many injuries that the
Immaculate Heart of Mary suffers from the hands of both impious and indifferent
men.
On the First Saturday during 5 Consecutive Months, the Devotion consists
of:
1. Going to Confession,
2. Receiving the Sacrament of Holy Communion,
3. Saying five decades of the Rosary,
4. Meditating for 15 minutes on the mysteries of the Rosary.
All
this offered in REPARATION for the sins of blasphemy and ingratitude
committed against the Immaculate Heart of Mary.
During
the third apparition on July 13, 1917, Our Lady revealed that she would come to
ask for the consecration of Russia to her Immaculate Heart and for the
Communion of Reparation of the Five First Saturdays. Consequently, she asked
for the devotion in 1925 and the consecration in 1929. While staying at the
House of the Dorothean Sister in Pontevedra, Portugal, Sister Lucia received a
vision on December 10, 1925 where the Blessed Mother appeared alongside a Boy
who stood over a luminous cloud. Our Lady rested one hand on the Boy’s shoulder
while she held on the other hand a heart pierced with thorns around it. Sister
Lucia heard the Boy say, "Have pity on the Heart of your Most Holy Mother
which is covered with thorns with which ingrate men pierce it at every moment
with no one to make an act of reparation to pull them out." Our Lady
expressed her request in the following words, "See, my daughter, My Heart
surrounded with thorns with which ingrates pierce me at every moment with
blasphemies and ingratitude. You, at least, make sure to console me and
announce that all those who for five months, on the first Saturdays, go to
confession, receive Communion, say five decades of the Rosary and keep me
company for 15 minutes meditating on the mysteries of the Rosary, with the
purpose of making reparation to Me, I promise to assist them at the hour of
death with all the graces necessary for the salvation of their
souls." A few days afterward, Sister Lucia detailed this vision in a
letter addressed to Monsignor Manuel Pereira Lopes, her confessor when she
resided in the Asylum of Vilar in the city of Oporto, Portugal.
Why Five Saturdays?
Sister
Lucia’s confessor questioned her about the reason for the five Saturdays asking
why not seven or nine. She answered him in a letter dated June 12, 1930. In it
she related about a vision she had of Our Lord while staying in the convent
chapel part of the night of the twenty-ninth to the thirtieth of the month of
May, 1930. The reasons Our Lord gave were as follows: The five first Saturdays
correspond to the five kinds of offenses and blasphemies committed against the
Immaculate Heart of Mary. They are:
1.
Blasphemies
against the Immaculate Conception
2.
Blasphemies
against her virginity
3.
Blasphemies
against her divine maternity, at the same time the refusal to accept her as the
Mother of all men
4.
Instilling,
indifference, scorn and even hatred towards this Immaculate Mother in the
hearts of children
5.
Direct
insults against Her sacred images
Let
us keep the above reasons firmly in our minds. Devotions have intentions attached
to them and knowing them adds merit and weight to the practice.
Modifications to the Five First Saturdays Devotion to facilitate its
observation
The
original request of Our Lady asks one to confess and receive Communion on five
consecutive first Saturdays; to say five decades of the Rosary; to meditate
during 15 minutes on the mysteries of the Rosary for the purpose of making
reparation to the Immaculate Heart of Mary in reparations for the sins of men.
In subsequent private visions and apparitions however, Sister Lucia presented
to Our Lord the difficulties that devotees encountered in fulfilling some
conditions. With loving condescension and solicitude, Our Lord deigned to relax
the rules to make this devotion easy to observe:
·
Confession
may be done on other days other than the First Saturdays so long as one
receives Our Lord worthily and has the intention of making reparation to the
Immaculate Heart of Mary.
·
Even
if one forgets to make the intention, it may be done on the next confession,
taking advantage of the first occasion to go to confession.
·
Sister
Lucia also clarified that it is not necessary to meditate on ALL mysteries of
the Rosary on each First Saturdays. One or several suffice.
With
much latitude granted by Our Lord Himself, there is no reason for the faithful
to hesitate or delay this pious practice in the spirit of reparation which the
Immaculate Heart of Mary urgently asks.
This devotion is so necessary in our days
The
culture of vice and sin remains unabated even as one reads this. Abortion,
blasphemy, drug abuse, pornography, divorce and bad marriages, religious
indifference, the advances of the homosexual agenda and others are just some of
society’s many plagues that cut deeply into the Immaculate Heart of Mary. We must console Our Lady amidst all these
insults and injuries to her and her Divine Son. She asks for reparation, she
pleads for our prayers, she hopes for our amendment of life. Let us listen to
her maternal pleas and atone for the ingratitude of men. The First Five
Saturday’s devotion stimulates the spirit of reparation; it instills a tender
love for the Holy Sacraments of Confession and the Blessed Eucharist. It
nurtures a holy affection for the Immaculate Heart of Mary and the Rosary.
Above all, it is an excellent means to maintain one in the state of grace while
immersed in the daily spiritual battles and prosaic existence in the neo-pagan
world that we live in. Let us not delay in observing this devotion for it too
gives us hope for eternal salvation.
Now
is the time to plan to attain a religious retreat or conference before Easter.
This blog was conceived after attending a Marian conference.[5]
This wife, mother and foundress of a religious
congregation was born Elizabeth Ann Bayley on August 28, 1774 in New York City,
the daughter of an eminent physician and professor at what is now Columbia
University. Brought up as an Episcopalian, she received an excellent education,
and from her early years she manifested an unusual concern for the poor. In
1794 Elizabeth married William Seton, with whom she had five children. The loss
of their fortune so affected William's health that in 1803 Elizabeth and William
went to stay with Catholic friends at Livorno, Italy. William died six weeks
after their arrival, and when Elizabeth returned to New York City some six
months later, she was already a convinced Catholic. She met with stern
opposition from her Episcopalian friends but was received into full communion
with the Catholic Church on March 4, 1805. Abandoned by her friends and
relatives, Elizabeth was invited by the superior of the Sulpicians in Baltimore
to launch a school for girls in that city. The school prospered, and eventually
the Sulpician superior, with the approval of Bishop Carroll, gave Elizabeth and
her assistants a rule of life. They were also permitted to make religious
profession and to wear a religious habit. In 1809 Elizabeth moved her young
community to Emmitsburg, Maryland, where she adopted as a rule of life an
adaptation of the rule observed by the Sisters of Charity, founded by St.
Vincent de Paul. Although she did not neglect the ministry to the poor, and
especially to Negroes, she actually laid the foundation for what became the
American parochial school system. She trained teachers and prepared textbooks
for use in the schools; she also opened orphanages in Philadelphia and New York
City. She died at Emmitsburg on January 4, 1821, was beatified by Pope John
XXIII in 1963, and was canonized by Pope Paul VI in 1975.
St. Elizabeth Ann
Seton - Day Eleven[7]
Elizabeth Seton was
born of a wealthy and distinguished Episcopalian family. She was baptized in
the Episcopal faith and was a faithful adherent of the Episcopal Church until
her conversion to Catholicism.
Christmas
Calendar
Read: Today we remember
the first native-born citizen of the United States to be canonized as a saint, Elizabeth Ann Seton.
Reflect: Only if people
change will the world change; and in order to change, people need the light
that comes from God, the light which so unexpectedly [on the night of
Christmas] entered into our night.
11th day of Christmas the
11 pipers piping is a sign for the eleven faithful apostles. It is
interesting to note that Judas’ sin was due to fear, greed, pride and
envy. Today would be a good day to read about the remaining 11 pipers and
their courage to create a Kingdom of God that changed the world.
January 4-9
In its 33rd year, this music festival
continues to draw thousands of people to Colorado who love skiing and music.
The six-day festival features 50+ bands and live performances of Americana
music. If you can’t secure tickets to some of the top-name performers, there
are free concerts at Gondola Square. In between shows hit the slopes, go for a
snowmobile tour or a dog sled ride, soak in the hot springs or try a flight in
a hot air balloon.
Daily
Devotions
[1]http://usccb.org/bible/scripture.cfm?bk=Wisdom&ch=
[2]http://www.juancole.com/2013/12/corrupt-country-world.html
[6]http://www.catholicculture.org/culture/liturgicalyear/calendar/day.cfm?date=2017-01-04
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