Tuesday, February 11, 2025

· Rise and shine, time to kickstart your day in style! Begin by honing your inner rockstar for National Get Out Your Guitar Day. Strum a tune or two, maybe even pen your own song – the world is your stage!

· In between jam sessions, channel your inner inventor for National Inventors’ Day. Get crafty with household items, maybe whip up a DIY gadget. Embrace your innovation!

· Take a break from your inventions to celebrate Satisfied Staying Single Day. Treat yourself to a luxurious spa day, binge-watch your favorite show guilt-free, revel in the freedom of solo living.

· Feeling social? It’s National Make a Friend Day – reach out to that neighbor you’ve been meaning to chat with, or catch up with an old pal over a latte for National Latte Day. Expand your social circle and nurture those connections.

· As the day winds down, don your best white shirt in honor of National White Shirt Day. Class and sophistication never go out of style.

· Before you cozy up for the night, reflect on the achievements of grandmothers worldwide for Grandmother Achievement Day. Whip up a batch of peppermint patties or share a heartwarming story – celebrate the incredible women who paved the way.

· So, seize the day, embrace the weird and wonderful mishmash of holidays, and make it a day to remember!

February 11 Tuesday

FEAST OF OUR LADY OF LOURDES

Ezekiel, Chapter 11, Verse 8

You FEAR the sword—that sword I will bring upon you—oracle of the Lord GOD.

Christ said to Peter, “Put your sword back into its sheath, for all who take the sword will perish by the sword.” (Mt. 26:52)

Violence begets violence and takes us away from the will of God. For violent men death and damnation is the usual final outcome. John Pridmore is the exception by the grace of God. John says of himself:

I had what I thought was everything. Money, power, girls, drugs the lot. But yet there was something missing... This struck me more than ever, when I thought I had killed someone. I knew I had to change my life... I now work full time for God. No one pays me. I live completely off his providence, telling my story all over the Earth.

Sampson himself was also a violent man, who was born endowed with great physical strength started out following God but failed to continue walking in the spirit of He that Is. John Maxwell[1] points out that like many men they failed toward the end of their life because they dilute the vision God had given them and have become too comfortable with their success and lack the self-control to overcome their weaknesses. John’s advice to leaders is to be self-disciplined using a quote from Plato, “The first and best victory is to conquer self.” John points out a five-step plan to develop self-discipline in your life.

1. Develop and follow your priorities. Time is a precious commodity, do what’s important first and release yourself from the rest.

2. Make a disciplined lifestyle your goal. Set up systems and routines to ensure you feed the mind, body, spirit and love of neighbor daily.

3. Challenge your excuses. We all make them; push the envelope.

4. Remove rewards until you finish the job. Eat your vegetables first.

5. Stay focused on results. Focus on the outcomes and not the difficulties in accomplishing it; envision the change.

Our model for transformation: Jesus went up to the mountain to pray, and he spent the night in prayer to God. (Luke 6:12)

Our Lady of Lourdes[2]

Today marks the first apparition of the Blessed Virgin Mary in 1858 to fourteen-year-old Marie Bernade (St. Bernadette) Soubirous. Between February 11 and July 16, 1858, the Blessed Virgin appeared eighteen times and showed herself to St. Bernadette in the hollow of the rock at Lourdes. On March 25 she said to the little shepherdess who was only fourteen years of age: "I am the Immaculate Conception." Since then, Lourdes has become a place of pilgrimage, and many cures and conversions have taken place. The message of Lourdes is a call to personal conversion, prayer, and charity.

The Message of the Virgin of Lourdes[3]

One of the better-known apparitions of Our Lady took place in Lourdes, France in 1858. This shrine continues today to be one of the most popular Marian shrines in the world. Thousands of people visit this shrine every year, a special place of devotion to Our Lady, where many miracles have occurred.

Beginning with her first apparition of February 11, 1858, Mary appeared eighteen times to Bernadette Soubirous, a girl of only fourteen years of age. When Bernadette asked the Lady who She was, she received the reply, "I am the Immaculate Conception." Less than four years before, on December 8, 1854, Pius IX had raised the teaching about the Immaculate Conception of Our Lady to be dogma of faith with these words:

By the authority of Our Lord Jesus Christ, of the blessed apostles Peter and Paul, and our own authority, we declare, pronounce, and define: the doctrine which hold that the Most Blessed Virgin Mary was from the first moment of her conception, by the singular, grace and privilege of almighty God, and in view of the merits of Christ Jesus the Savior of the human race, preserved immune from all stain of original sin, is revealed by God and therefore, firmly and constantly to be believed by all the faithful. (The Christian Faith #709).

It is under the title of the Immaculate Conception that Our Lady is especially honored in our own country.

This message can be summed up in the following four points:

1. It is a heavenly confirmation of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception that had just been defined by the Church a few years before.

2. It is an exaltation of the virtues of Christian poverty and humility that are perceived in Bernadette.

3. The spiritual message is that of personal conversion. Our Lady tells Bernadette that the important thing is to be happy in the next life. To attain this, we must accept the cross in this life.

4. Mary stresses the importance of prayer, especially the rosary. Our Lady appeared with a rosary hanging from Her right arm. Penance and humility are also part of the message, as well as a message of mercy for sinners and compassion for the sick.

Things to Do

· Watch “The Song of Bernadette”, a masterpiece filmed in 1943.

· Bring flowers (roses would be appropriate) to your statue of Our Lady at your home altar, especially if you have a statue of Our Lady of Lourdes.

· Obtain some Lourdes holy water and give the parental blessing to your children.

· Give extra care to the sick in your community — cook dinner for a sick mother's family, bring your children to the local nursing home (the elderly love to see children), send flowers to a member of your parish community who is ill.

· Today’s recipes:

o Cassoulet

o French Style Shepherd's Pie

o Initial Cookies

o Minced Chicken (or Turkey) a la King

o Soupe Basque

National Marriage Week-Marriage Retreat[4]

Here is a virtual Marriage Retreat. Join us by taking a few moments each day, together with your spouse, to reflect and pray. This retreat will help you further reflect on what makes marriage unique as established by God, between a man and woman, as the basis for family and society. For more instruction or inspiration, visit foryourmarriage.org or marriageuniqueforareason.org.

· Plan to do the retreats weekly; perhaps on the day of the week you were married.

· Enjoy a good home cooked meal together after your retreat; use a recipe for the saint of the day. Available at Catholicculture.org. Say Grace together and ask to the saint of the day’s intervention.

Catechism of the Catholic Church

Day 243 1817-1821

Hope

1817 Hope is the theological virtue by which we desire the kingdom of heaven and eternal life as our happiness, placing our trust in Christ's promises and relying not on our own strength, but on the help of the grace of the Holy Spirit. "Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful." "The Holy Spirit . . . he poured out upon us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that we might be justified by his grace and become heirs in hope of eternal life."

1818 The virtue of hope responds to the aspiration to happiness which God has placed in the heart of every man; it takes up the hopes that inspire men's activities and purifies them so as to order them to the Kingdom of heaven; it keeps man from discouragement; it sustains him during times of abandonment; it opens up his heart in expectation of eternal beatitude. Buoyed up by hope, he is preserved from selfishness and led to the happiness that flows from charity.

1819 Christian hope takes up and fulfills the hope of the chosen people which has its origin and model in the hope of Abraham, who was blessed abundantly by the promises of God fulfilled in Isaac, and who was purified by the test of the sacrifice. "Hoping against hope, he believed, and thus became the father of many nations."

1820 Christian hope unfolds from the beginning of Jesus' preaching in the proclamation of the beatitudes. the beatitudes raise our hope toward heaven as the new Promised Land; they trace the path that leads through the trials that await the disciples of Jesus. But through the merits of Jesus Christ and of his Passion, God keeps us in the "hope that does not disappoint." Hope is the "sure and steadfast anchor of the soul . . . that enters . . . where Jesus has gone as a forerunner on our behalf." Hope is also a weapon that protects us in the struggle of salvation: "Let us . . . put on the breastplate of faith and charity, and for a helmet the hope of salvation." It affords us joy even under trial: "Rejoice in your hope, be patient in tribulation." Hope is expressed and nourished in prayer, especially in the Our Father, the summary of everything that hope leads us to desire.

1821 We can therefore hope in the glory of heaven promised by God to those who love him and do his will. In every circumstance, each one of us should hope, with the grace of God, to persevere "to the end" and to obtain the joy of heaven, as God's eternal reward for the good works accomplished with the grace of Christ. In hope, the Church prays for "all men to be saved." She longs to be united with Christ, her Bridegroom, in the glory of heaven:

Hope, O my soul, hope. You know neither the day nor the hour. Watch carefully, for everything passes quickly, even though your impatience makes doubtful what is certain, and turns a very short time into a long one. Dream that the more you struggle, the more you prove the love that you bear your God, and the more you will rejoice one day with your Beloved, in a happiness and rapture that can never end.