Saturday, January 8, 2022

- January 07, 2022

Saturday After Epiphany

ELVIS’ BIRTHDAY

Sirach, Chapter 7, Verse 6

Do not seek to become a judge if you do not have the strength to root out crime, lest you show FEAR in the presence of the prominent and mar your integrity.

Basically, do not start something you cannot finish or you will damage your honor. Our Lord said something similar to this in the Gospel of Luke. Jesus said, “No one who sets a hand to the plow and looks to what was left behind is fit for the kingdom of God.” (Lk. 9:62)

Catechism of the Catholic Church

II. THE VOCATION TO CHASTITY cont.

The various forms of chastity

2348 All the baptized are called to chastity. The Christian has "put on Christ," the model for all chastity. All Christ's faithful are called to lead a chaste life in keeping with their particular states of life. At the moment of his Baptism, the Christian is pledged to lead his affective life in chastity.

2349 "People should cultivate [chastity] in the way that is suited to their state of life. Some profess virginity or consecrated celibacy which enables them to give themselves to God alone with an undivided heart in a remarkable manner. Others live in the way prescribed for all by the moral law, whether they are married or single." Married people are called to live conjugal chastity; others practice chastity in continence: There are three forms of the virtue of chastity: the first is that of spouses, the second that of widows, and the third that of virgins. We do not praise any one of them to the exclusion of the others. This is what makes for the richness of the discipline of the Church.

2350 Those who are engaged to marry are called to live chastity in continence. They should see in this time of testing a discovery of mutual respect, an apprenticeship in fidelity, and the hope of receiving one another from God. They should reserve for marriage the expressions of affection that belong to married love. They will help each other grow in chastity.

Time after Epiphany[1]

The central theme of Advent and Christmastide, the manifestation, or epiphany, of Jesus Christ, also dominates the Weeks after Epiphany. That manifestation began selectively, first to Mary (Ember Wednesday, Annunciation), then to Elizabeth and John the Baptist (Ember Friday, Visitation), and then to Joseph (Vigil of Christmas). Next it grew stronger with the adoration of the Shepherds (Christmas), the Magi at the Manger (Epiphany), Simeon, Anna, and the Doctors in the Temple (Sunday after Christmas, and Holy Family), and even to John the Baptist's disciples (Octave of Epiphany).

But the epiphanies of Jesus Christ did not end with these events. On the contrary, everything that our Lord did and said during His public ministry was designed to manifest His divine nature. It is the Time after Epiphany that corresponds to this period of our Lord's life. The Epistle selections, mostly from Paul's letter to the Romans, stress the calling of both Jew and Gentile to the new revelations, while the Gospel selections narrate the words and deeds of our Lord during His adult ministry in Galilee, the northern region of Israel that was the scene of most of His public life. All of these readings give witness to the astonishing fact that this itinerant preacher was the coeternal Word of God, the Word who spoke as only God can speak and who worked miracles that only the God of heaven and earth can work.

Thus, even though these weeks, with their green vestments and annum (what is called "Ordinary Time" in the new rite), they are more properly seen as continuing the Christmas cycle's focus on "theophany". By helping us to heed the words of Christ and understand the significance of His miracles, the Time after Epiphany deepens our meditation on the mystery of the Incarnation.

Candles[2]Day Fifteen

Candles are a symbol of Christ, the Light of the World. The wax is regarded as typifying in a most appropriate way the flesh of Jesus Christ born of a virgin mother. From this has sprung the further conception that the wick symbolizes more particularly the soul of Jesus Christ and the flame the Divinity which absorbs and dominates both. — Catholic Encyclopedia

Day Fifteen activity (Mexican Christmas)
Day Fifteen recipe (Little Mince Pies)

Celebrate Elvis' Birthday[3]

On Jan. 8, 1935, Elvis Presley was born in a two-room house in Tupelo, Miss. Every year, Graceland — Elvis' estate in Memphis — hosts a five-day-long birthday celebration. Rise bright and early for the Elvis Birthday Proclamation Ceremony on Graceland’s North Lawn, and stay for the birthday-cake cutting.

Elvis and the Nun[4]

Dolores Hart began her career as an actress when she was only 19 years old, making her screen debut in 1957 as Elvis' sweetheart in Loving You. Dolores became an overnight success story and starred with Elvis again in King Creole the following year in 1958. She then took on Broadway, starring in The Pleasure of His Company in 1959, for which she won a Tony Award nomination for Best Featured Actress. Further movie hits followed, including the hugely popular Where the Boys Are and Lisa, the story of a young Holocaust survivor, which earned her a nomination for a Golden Globe for Best Picture/Drama. By now one of Hollywood's rising stars, she went on to make six more films, among them St. Francis of Assisi, where she portrayed Clare, a woman who gives up everything to follow Saint Francis and founds the Order of Poor Clare’s. Dolores' last film role was opposite Hugh O'Brien in 1963 in Come Fly with Me.

At the height of her career, Dolores stunned the world by making the decision to become a cloistered nun and enter the Abbey of Regina Laudis. "I just knew that this was what God wanted from me," she said years later. Mother Dolores' mission as an actress did not end, but rather took a contemplative turn. "I never felt I was 'walking away from Hollywood'" she said recently. "I felt I was walking into something more significant and by that, I took Hollywood with me."

Daily Devotions

· Unite in the work of the Porters of St. Joseph by joining them in fasting: Today's Fast: Protection of Traditional Marriage

· Saturday Litany of the Hours Invoking the Aid of Mother Mary

· Offering to the sacred heart of Jesus

· Drops of Christ’s Blood

· Iceman’s 40 devotion

· Universal Man Plan

· Rosary