Tuesday, February 11, 2025
Candace’s Corner-Try “Codfish Cakes”
· Spirit Hour: Try a wine from St. Bernadette area near Lourdes or a white rose
· Pray Day 2 of the Novena for our Pope and Bishops
· Tuesday: Litany of St. Michael the Archangel
· Carnival Time begins in Catholic Countries.
· Thomas Edison, born on February 11, 1847
· National Cardiac Rehabilitation Week
· Bucket List trip: Greenland
· Plan winter fun:
· Soak in hot springs
· Hit the snow slopes
· Ride a snowmobile
· Go for a dog sled ride
· Ride a hot air balloon
· How to celebrate Feb 11th
· 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)
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
Minced
Chicken (or Turkey) a la King
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.
Daily Devotions
·
Unite in the work of the Porters of St. Joseph by joining them
in fasting: Today's Fast: End
Sex Trafficking, Slavery
·
Offering to
the sacred heart of Jesus
· Rosary
[1] John Maxwell, The Leadership
Bible, 1982.
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