Sunday, May 7, 2023

- May 01, 2023

Fifth Sunday of Easter

COSMO DAY

Deuteronomy, Chapter 6, Verse 13

The LORD, your God, shall you FEAR; him shall you serve, and by his name shall you swear.

I will not serve. Non serviam is Latin for "I will not serve". The phrase is traditionally attributed to Satan, who is thought to have spoken these words as a refusal to serve God in heaven.[1]

Whom do you serve?[2]

What is meant by serving God? Doing the will of God in all things which He requires of us, in whatever state of life we may be placed, and doing this with fidelity, with unwearied zeal, and out of love for Him.

Who are the two masters whom we cannot serve at the same time? God and an inordinate desire for worldly gain. One cannot serve both, because they demand things that are contradictory.

Who are they that serve mammon, or worldly wealth? The avaricious, who, impelled by their longing for riches, offend God by manifold transgressions of His commandments.

Why does Christ refer us to the birds of the air and the lilies of the field? To awaken in us confidence in Divine Providence. If God feeds the young ravens (Ps. cxlvi. 9) and the birds of the air if He decks so beautifully the flowers of the field, how much more will He not care for men, whom He has created after His own image, and adopted as His children.

Are we, then, to use no care or labor? That by no means follows from what has been said. The Savior forbids only that anxiety, proceeding from little faith, which, in striving for maintenance, neglects God s honor and commandments, and the good of one’s soul. For the rest, God Himself has commanded man to labor (Gen. iii. 17-19); and St. Paul says, “If any man will not work, neither let him eat” (n. Thess. iii. 10).

What should preserve us from excessive anxiety? A firm and living faith that God can and will help us. That He can is clear, because He is almighty; that He will is certain, for the reason that He is love that He has promised it to us, more than once, most expressly, and that He is faithful in keeping His promises.

Let us, then, trust in God, and daily renew our confidence in Him, particularly when we say the Creed, or when, in the Our Father, we pray, Give us this day our daily bread.

Consolation in Poverty

In your misery and poverty, say often, with Job: “The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; as it hath pleased the Lord so it is done; blessed be the name of the Lord (Job i. 21). Or seek comfort in these words: “We lead indeed a poor life, but we shall have many good things if we fear God and depart from all sin and do that which is good” (Job iv. 23).

Warning against Usury

Usury is that mortal sin which takes advantage of our neighbor’s poverty and need to extort from him what is justly his own. Would that usurers might bear in mind what the Lord says: “What doth it profit a man if he gain the whole world and suffer the loss of his own soul?” (Matt. xvi. 26.)

ON KEEPING THE LORD'S DAY HOLY[3]

CHAPTER III

DIES ECCLESIAE

The Eucharistic Assembly:
Heart of Sunday

The day of the Church

35. Therefore, the dies Domini is also the dies Ecclesiae. This is why on the pastoral level the community aspect of the Sunday celebration should be particularly stressed. As I have noted elsewhere, among the many activities of a parish, "none is as vital or as community-forming as the Sunday celebration of the Lord's Day and his Eucharist". Mindful of this, the Second Vatican Council recalled that efforts must be made to ensure that there is "within the parish, a lively sense of community, in the first place through the community celebration of Sunday Mass". Subsequent liturgical directives made the same point, asking that on Sundays and holy days the Eucharistic celebrations held normally in other churches and chapels be coordinated with the celebration in the parish church, in order "to foster the sense of the Church community, which is nourished and expressed in a particular way by the community celebration on Sunday, whether around the Bishop, especially in the Cathedral, or in the parish assembly, in which the pastor represents the Bishop".

Fifth Sunday of Easter

The liberty of the New Covenant and its perfection in prayer and the Spirit

The introit of the Mass is again a joyful thanksgiving for our redemption. " Declare the voice of joy, and let it be heard, alleluia; declare it even to the ends of the earth; the Lord hath delivered His people, alleluia, alleluia" (Isaias xlviii. 20). " Shout with joy to God, all the earth, sing ye a psalm to His name, give glory to His praise.

Prayer.

O God, from Whom all good things proceed, grant to Thy suppliants that by Thy inspiration we may think those things that are right, and by Thy direction perform them.

EPISTLE. James i. 23-27.

Dearly Beloved: Be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only: deceiving your own selves. But if a man be a hearer of the word, and not a doer: he shall be compared to a man be holding his own countenance in a glass: for he beheld himself, and went his way, and presently forgot what manner of man he was. But he that hath looked into the perfect law of liberty, and hath continued therein, not becoming a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed. And if any man think himself to be religious, not bridling his tongue, but deceiving his own heart, this man s religion is vain. Religion clean and undefiled before God and the Father, is this: to visit the fatherless and widows in their tribulation: and to keep oneself unspoiled.

GOSPEL. John xvi. 23-30

At that time Jesus said to His disciples: Amen, amen I say to you: if you ask the Father anything in My name, He will give it you. Hitherto you have not asked anything in My name: ask, and you shall receive, that your joy may be full. These things I have spoken to you in proverbs. The hour cometh when I will no more speak to you in proverbs, but will show you plainly of the Father: in that day you shall ask in My name: and I say not to you, that I will ask the Father for you: for the Father Himself loveth you, because you have loved Me, and have believed that I came out from God. I came forth from the Father, and am come into the world: again I leave the world and I go to the Father. His disciples say to Him: Behold now Thou speakest plainly, and speakest no proverb; now we know that Thou knowest all things, and Thou needest not that any man should ask Thee. By this we believe that Thou comest forth from God.

The most effective means of acquiring true Christian spirituality is through participation in the Mass.[4]

New Orleans Founded May 7, 1718[5]

St. Louis Cathedral, the country’s oldest continuously operating cathedral, faces Jackson Square. Melding French, Spanish, Italian, and Afro-Caribbean cultures, New Orleans is a city that is at once elegant and debauched. And while it was gravely impacted by Hurricane Katrina in 2005, the Big Easy has shown formidable resilience. Many of the city’s myriad pleasures are packed within the lively grid of streets that make up the Vieux Carré (aka the French Quarter). It is New Orleans’s most touristy area, yet also its heart. The French laid out the Quarter’s 90 blocks of narrow streets in the 1720s, and the Spanish—who ruled during the mid- to late 18th century—further developed it. Indeed, despite its name, the neighborhood looks more Spanish than French. Wherever you stroll, you risk sensory overload, from jazz on boisterous Bourbon Street to the smell of café au lait and beignets (deep-fried dough dusted with powdered sugar) wafting from Café du Monde in Jackson Square. Decatur Street offers souvenir stands, offbeat boutiques, and charming restaurants. It’s also home to Central Grocery, an old-fashioned Italian deli whose claim to fame is having perfected (some say invented) one of the city’s classic sandwiches, the muffuletta. Royal and Chartres streets are your best bets for upscale shopping.

Be sure to pop into the tacky but fun Pat O’Brien’s to sample their Hurricane, a fruity—and potent—rum cocktail in a glass shaped like a hurricane lamp. Charming Soniat House is comprised of 30 antiques-filled rooms in a cluster of three 19th-century Creole town houses overlooking an interior courtyard garden where guests breakfast on warm biscuits and homemade preserves. For a big-hotel experience, and a big dose of history, it’s hard to beat the lavish 600-room 1886 Hotel Monteleone. Stop by its revolving circus-themed Carousel Bar for a Sazerac cocktail before dinner. The Windsor Court, arguably the finest hotel in the Big Easy, is known for its palatial accommodations, award-winning restaurant, the Grill Room, and museum-quality art collection—yes, that’s a Gainsborough.

Visitor info: www.neworleansonline.com.

Cosmo Day[6]

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.

Catechism of the Catholic Church

PART FOUR: CHRISTIAN PRAYER

SECTION TWO-THE LORD'S PRAYER

Article 3-THE SEVEN PETITIONS

VI. "And Lead Us not into Temptation"

2846 This petition goes to the root of the preceding one, for our sins result from our consenting to temptation; we therefore ask our Father not to "lead" us into temptation. It is difficult to translate the Greek verb used by a single English word: the Greek means both "do not allow us to enter into temptation" and "do not let us yield to temptation." "God cannot be tempted by evil and he himself tempts no one"; on the contrary, he wants to set us free from evil. We ask him not to allow us to take the way that leads to sin. We are engaged in the battle "between flesh and spirit"; this petition implores the Spirit of discernment and strength.

2847 The Holy Spirit makes us discern between trials, which are necessary for the growth of the inner man, and temptation, which leads to sin and death. We must also discern between being tempted and consenting to temptation. Finally, discernment unmasks the lie of temptation, whose object appears to be good, a "delight to the eyes" and desirable, when in reality its fruit is death.
God does not want to impose the good, but wants free beings.... There is a certain usefulness to temptation. No one but God knows what our soul has received from him, not even we ourselves. But temptation reveals it in order to teach us to know ourselves, and in this way we discover our evil inclinations and are obliged to give thanks for the goods that temptation has revealed to us.

2848 "Lead us not into temptation" implies a decision of the heart: "For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.... No one can serve two masters." "If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit." In this assent to the Holy Spirit the Father gives us strength. "No testing has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your strength, but with the temptation will also provide the way of escape, so that you may be able to endure it."

2849 Such a battle and such a victory become possible only through prayer. It is by his prayer that Jesus vanquishes the tempter, both at the outset of his public mission and in the ultimate struggle of his agony. In this petition to our heavenly Father, Christ unites us to his battle and his agony. He urges us to vigilance of the heart in communion with his own. Vigilance is "custody of the heart," and Jesus prayed for us to the Father: "Keep them in your name." The Holy Spirit constantly seeks to awaken us to keep watch. Finally, this petition takes on all its dramatic meaning in relation to the last temptation of our earthly battle; it asks for final perseverance. "Lo, I am coming like a thief! Blessed is he who is awake."

VII "BUT DELIVER US FROM EVIL"

2850 The last petition to our Father is also included in Jesus' prayer: "I am not asking you to take them out of the world, but I ask you to protect them from the evil one." It touches each of us personally, but it is always "we" who pray, in communion with the whole Church, for the deliverance of the whole human family. the Lord's Prayer continually opens us to the range of God's economy of salvation. Our interdependence in the drama of sin and death is turned into solidarity in the Body of Christ, the "communion of saints."

2851 In this petition, evil is not an abstraction, but refers to a person, Satan, the Evil One, the angel who opposes God. the devil (dia-bolos) is the one who "throws himself across" God's plan and his work of salvation accomplished in Christ.

2852 "A murderer from the beginning, . . . a liar and the father of lies," Satan is "the deceiver of the whole world." Through him sin and death entered the world and by his definitive defeat all creation will be "freed from the corruption of sin and death." Now "we know that anyone born of God does not sin, but He who was born of God keeps him, and the evil one does not touch him.
We know that we are of God, and the whole world is in the power of the evil one."

The Lord who has taken away your sin and pardoned your faults also protects you and keeps you from the wiles of your adversary the devil, so that the enemy, who is accustomed to leading into sin, may not surprise you. One who entrusts himself to God does not dread the devil. "If God is for us, who is against us?"

2853 Victory over the "prince of this world" was won once for all at the Hour when Jesus freely gave himself up to death to give us his life. This is the judgment of this world, and the prince of this world is "cast out." "He pursued the woman" but had no hold on her: the new Eve, "full of grace" of the Holy Spirit, is preserved from sin and the corruption of death (the Immaculate Conception and the Assumption of the Most Holy Mother of God, Mary, ever virgin). "Then the dragon was angry with the woman, and went off to make war on the rest of her offspring." Therefore the Spirit and the Church pray: "Come, Lord Jesus," since his coming will deliver us from the Evil One.

2854 When we ask to be delivered from the Evil One, we pray as well to be freed from all evils, present, past, and future, of which he is the author or instigator. In this final petition, the Church brings before the Father all the distress of the world. Along with deliverance from the evils that overwhelm humanity, she implores the precious gift of peace and the grace of perseverance in expectation of Christ's return By praying in this way, she anticipates in humility of faith the gathering together of everyone and everything in him who has "the keys of Death and Hades," who "is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty."

Deliver us, Lord, we beseech you, from every evil and grant us peace in our day, so that aided by your mercy we might be ever free from sin and protected from all anxiety, as we await the blessed hope and the coming of our Savior, Jesus Christ.

THIS WE BELIEVE

PRAYERS AND TEACHINGS OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH

Prayer of St. Francis

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace:
where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
where there is sadness, joy.
O divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek
to be consoled as to console,
to be understood as to understand,
to be loved as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive,
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.

Daily Devotions

· Today in honor of the Holy Trinity do the Divine Office giving your day to God. To honor God REST: no shopping after 6 pm Saturday till Monday. Don’t forget the internet.

· Unite in the work of the Porters of St. Joseph by joining them in fasting: Today's Fast: Holy Bishops and Cardinals

· Litany of the Most Precious Blood of Jesus

· Offering to the sacred heart of Jesus

· Make reparations to the Holy Face

· Drops of Christ’s Blood

· Universal Man Plan