Friday of the Fifth Week of Easter
FIRST FRIDAY-COSMO DAY
Judges, Chapter 9, Verse 21
Then Jotham fled and
escaped to Beer, where he remained for FEAR
of his brother Abimelech.
A
lot of people seem to escape to Beer! That’s a joke but unfortunately it is a
common response to fear. Liquid courage we use to call it in the military.
However, today I would like to change the subject to that of the family.
Jotham
was raised in a large family 70 brothers and we do not know how many sisters.
Families are the breeding ground of either love or hate, of either evil or good
and finally of either excellence or apathy.
A
great family whether large or small is the seedbed of either greatness or
smallness. This is the reason there is such a focus on the family in the church
now. Families are the factories of a person’s character and character
determines a person’s destiny.
First Friday[1]
The
prayer of the Church venerates and honors the Heart of Jesus .
. . which, out of love for men, he allowed to be pierced by our sins." To
those who show him love and who make reparation for sins, however, our Lord
made a great pledge: "I promise you in the unfathomable mercy of
my heart that my omnipotent love will procure the grace of final penitence for
all those who receive communion on nine successive first Fridays of the month;
they will not die in my disfavor, or without having received the sacraments,
since my divine heart will be their sure refuge in the last moments of their
life."
To gain
this grace, we must:
·
Receive
Holy Communion on nine consecutive first Fridays.
·
Have
the intention of honoring the Sacred Heart of Jesus and of reaching final
perseverance.
·
Offer
each Holy Communion as an act of atonement for offenses against the Blessed
Sacrament.
Considerations
The
fullness of God is revealed and given to us in Christ, in the love of Christ,
in Christ's heart. For it is the heart of him in whom "the whole fullness
of deity dwells bodily." Were one to lose sight of this great plan of
God-the overflow of love in the world through the Incarnation, the Redemption
and Pentecost-he could not understand the refinement with which our Lord deals
with us. So, when we talk about the heart of Jesus, we stress the certainty of
God's love and the truth of his commitment to us. When we recommend devotion to
the Sacred Heart, we are recommending that we should give our whole selves to
Jesus, to the whole Jesus-our souls, our feelings and thoughts, our words and
actions, our joys. That is what true devotion to the heart of Jesus means. It
is knowing God and ourselves. It is looking at Jesus and turning to him,
letting him encourage and teach and guide us. The only difficulty that could
beset this devotion would be our own failure to understand the reality of an
incarnate God. But note that God does not say: "In exchange for your own
heart, I will give you a will of pure spirit." No, he gives us a heart, a
human heart, like Christ's. I don't have one heart for loving God and another
for loving people. I love Christ and the Father and the Holy Spirit and our
Lady with the same heart with which I love my parents and my friends. I shall
never tire of repeating this. We must be very human, for otherwise we cannot be
divine. . ..
If
we don't learn from Jesus, we will never love. If, like some people, we were to
think that to keep a clean heart, a heart worthy of God, means "not mixing
it up, not contaminating it" with human affection, we would become
insensitive to other people's pain and sorrow. We would be capable of only an "official
charity," something dry and soulless. But ours would not be the true
charity of Jesus Christ, which involves affection and human warmth. In saying
this, I am not supporting the mistaken theories-pitiful excuses-that misdirect
hearts away from God and lead them into occasions of sin and perdition. .
..
But
I have still a further consideration to put before you. We have to fight
vigorously to do good, precisely because it is difficult for us to resolve
seriously to be just, and there is a long way to go before human relations are
inspired by love and not hatred or indifference. We should also be aware that,
even if we achieve a reasonable distribution of wealth and a harmonious
organization of society, there will still be the suffering of illness, of
misunderstanding, of loneliness, of the death of loved ones, of the experience
of our own limitations. Faced with the weight of all this, a Christian can find
only one genuine answer, a definitive answer: Christ on the cross, a God who
suffers and dies, a God who gives us his heart opened by a lance for the love
of us all. Our Lord abominates injustice and condemns those who commit it. But
he respects the freedom of each individual. He permits injustice to happen
because, as a result of original sin, it is part and parcel of the human
condition.
Yet
his heart is full of love for men. Our suffering, our sadness, our anguish, our
hunger and thirst for justice . . .
he
took all these tortures on himself by means of the cross. . ..
Suffering
is part of God's plans. This is the truth; however difficult it may be for us
to understand it. It was difficult for Jesus Christ the man to undergo his
passion: "Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me;
nevertheless, not my will, but yours, be done." In this tension of pleading
and acceptance of the Father's will, Jesus goes calmly to his death, pardoning
those who crucify him. This supernatural acceptance of suffering was,
precisely, the greatest of all conquests. By dying on the cross, Jesus overcame
death. God brings life from death. The attitude of a child of God is not one of
resignation to a possibly tragic fate; it is the sense of achievement of
someone who has a foretaste of victory. In the name of this victorious love of
Christ, we Christians should go out into the world to be sowers of peace and
joy through everything we say and do. We have to fight-a fight of peace-against
evil, against injustice, against sin.
Thus,
do we serve notice that the present condition of mankind is not
definitive. Only the love of God, shown in the heart of
Christ, will attain our glorious spiritual triumph. Devotion to the Sacred
Heart of Jesus is of great antiquity in the Church. It was St. Margaret Mary
Alacoque, however, who made this devotion widespread. In 1675, within the
octave of the feast of Corpus Christi, our Lord appeared to her and said:
"Behold this heart which, notwithstanding the burning love for men with
which it is consumed and exhausted, meets with no other return from most
Christians than sacrilege, contempt, indifference and ingratitude, even in the
sacrament of my love [the Eucharist].
But
what pierces my heart most deeply is that I am subjected to these insults by
persons especially consecrated to my service." The great promise of the
Sacred Heart is most consoling: the grace of final perseverance and the joy of
having Jesus' heart as our sure refuge and Infinite Ocean of mercy in our last
hour. Almighty and everlasting God look upon the heart of your well-beloved Son
and upon the praise and satisfaction which he offers to you in the name of all
sinners; and grant them pardon when they seek your mercy. We ask this in the
name of Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you for ever and
ever.
1. Love is revealed to us in
the Incarnation, the redemptive journey which Jesus Christ made on our earth,
culminating in the supreme sacrifice of the cross. And on the cross, it showed
itself through a new sign: "One of the soldiers pierced his side with a
spear, and at once there came out blood and water." This water and blood
of Jesus speak to us of a self-sacrifice brought to the last extreme:
"It is
finished"-everything is achieved, for the sake of love. . .
2. Let us realize all the
richness hidden in the words "the Sacred Heart of Jesus." When we
speak of a person's heart, we refer not just to his sentiments, but to the
whole person in his loving dealings with others. In order to help us understand
divine things, Scripture uses the expression "heart" in its full
human meaning, as the summary and source, expression and ultimate basis, of
one's thoughts, words and actions. One is worth what one's heart is worth.
. . .
3. Jesus on the cross, with his
heart overflowing with love for us, is such an eloquent commentary on the value
of people and things that words only get in the way. Men, their happiness and
their lives, are so important that the very Son of God gave himself to redeem
and cleanse and raise them up. "Who will not love this heart so
wounded?" a contemplative asks in this connection. "Who will not
return love for love? Who will not embrace a heart so pure? We, who are made of
flesh, will repay love with love. We will embrace our wounded One, whose hands
and feet ungodly men have nailed; we will cling to his side and to his heart.
Let us pray that we be worthy of linking our heart with his love and of
wounding it with a lance, for it is still hard and impenitent. . .."
Cosmo Day[2]
Cosmopolitans are probably one of the most famous cocktails out there, where people can go out at night and enjoy and fun night dancing, laughing, and singing in clubs. If you love cosmos, then you’ll love Cosmopolitan Day. This drink has been making the rounds for a while, and it highlights the 90’s as one of the best drinks of its time. Let’s check out Cosmopolitan Day! Although the day itself is coined by freelancer writer, Jace Shoemaker-Galloway, who writes about non-traditional holidays, the history of the Cosmo itself is very murky. According to Vinepair.com, the first tracked origins of the cosmo go back to the late nineteenth century, where a cocktail known as the Daisy emerged as a drink with a recipe that called for spirit, sweetener and citrus. Although this isn’t exactly a cosmo, a more direct line for its origins comes from 1968, when Ocean Spray wanted to advertise cranberry juice to adults. They named the drink “The Harpoon” and it called for an ounce of vodka, an ounce of cranberry and a squeeze of lime, which was close to the Cosmo recipe but missed the Cointreau and/or Triple Sec.
Although
legends differ that the Cosmo came from the gay subculture of Miami Beach,
Florida and Provincetown, Massachusetts, the formal invention of the drink is
credited to a bartender named Toby Cecchini, who made the drink while working
at the famous Odeon in Manhattan’s
Tribeca neighborhood in 1987. Its
popularity spread into celebrity culture, where it ended up in The Rainbow
Room, where Madonna is pictured drinking it at a Grammy after party. However,
it was brought into mainstream culture by the famous Tv Show Sex and the City,
where it appeared multiple times throughout the show, creating a cultural
impact on the U.S.
How to Celebrate
Cosmopolitan Day
Want a Cosmo?
Here’s an
amazing recipe you can easily make at home. In a cocktail shaker, mix 1 1/2 ounces
vodka (or citrus vodka), 1-ounce Cointreau orange liqueur, 1/2-ounce lime juice
(fresh), and 1/4-ounce cranberry juice. Strain into a chilled cocktail glass
dipped in sugar, then garnish with an orange peel and voila! Cosmo’s can be as strong or tame as you
like it, but because it has vodka in it, it isn’t exactly the most innocent drink
out there as far as cocktails go. You can also hashtag #CosmopolitanDay on your
social media and share you drinking your fancy cocktail with your friends.
Daily Devotions
·
Manhood of
the Master-week 12 day 3
·
Offering to
the sacred heart of Jesus
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