Dara’s
Corner Try
- Bucket List Trip: The Alps
- National Month of Hope
·
Fairness
is giving animals their due too this is “Responsible Animal Guardian Month”.
·
In honor of St. Bernard hike a mountain.
o
Piestewa
Peak Summit Trail #300, Phoenix
Mountain Preserve, Phoenix, Arizona, United States | AllTrails.com
§
Piestewa Peak
Summit Trail #300 Hard• Phoenix Mountain Preserve
§
Check out this
2.3-mile out-and-back trail near Phoenix, Arizona. Generally considered a
challenging route. This is a very popular area for hiking, so you'll likely
encounter other people while exploring. The best times to visit this trail are
October through May. You'll need to leave pups at home — dogs aren't allowed on
this trail.
·
After the hike
have a BBQ
·
After
dinner have a brandy in honor of St. Bernard and his dog.
MAY 21 Wednesday of the Fifth Week of Easter
ST.
CHRISTOPHER MAGALLANES
2 Maccabees, Chapter 9, Verse 29
His foster brother
Philip brought the body home; but FEARING
Antiochus’ son, he later withdrew into Egypt, to Ptolemy Philometor.
God
punishes Antiochus IV and after a horrible demise he dies. Philip then
skedaddles back to safe turf after dumping the body off.
Can
anyone really find peace without God?
"Peace"[1]
is a biblical term. In the Old Testament, the Hebrew word for peace is shalôm. Literally, it means
"to be complete or whole".
Shalôm
is used in many
different ways in the Old Testament. It can mean general prosperity or
well-being, safety or success, harmony among friends and family members, and
harmony among nations. When used as a greeting or as a blessing it conveys the
notion that one is wishing all good things to the person addressed.
When the Hebrew of the Old Testament came in contact with the Greek world after
Alexander the Great, the text was translated into a version of the Old
Testament known as the Septuagint. As with many biblical terms, the merging of
Hebrew and Greek words and ideas provided a rich vocabulary for the sacred
authors to express the word of God. Many Greek words were used in an attempt to
capture the richness of the Hebrew concept of shalôm, but the most common was eirene.
In
classical Greek, this term denotes the state that is the opposite of war or
civil disturbance. Eirene
also was used to speak of an inner peace, in which a person had no conflicts or
hostile feelings. Under the influence of Jewish religion and Greek philosophy,
the term evolved to refer to ethical goodness. So, Christians who were native
speakers of Greek began to use eirene
when speaking of the "the good that comes from God either in this age or
the age of salvation". The richness of the word as we use it today can be
traced back to this understanding.
Because
peace is so important for individuals
and for society, we must know how to
achieve and maintain peace. But to achieve each kind of peace requires that we
understand the methods proper to each. Psychologists can help a person achieve
inner harmony and may be able to offer advice on family dynamics and
difficulties, but they are not usually the best source for spiritual guidance,
and they certainly are not the frontline defenders of the civic order. In the
same way, we must not believe that
friendly feelings towards the people of another country will suffice to keep us
at peace with them. When it comes to achieving and maintaining peace, like in
many things in life, it is vital to use the right "tool" for the
right job. Two examples should help illustrate this point. The first has to do with maintaining peace
with God. The second has to do with
establishing peace among nations. Peace with God is God’s gift to us. God alone
can place us in right relationship with him. This teaching is clear in both the
Old and the New Testaments. God initiated the covenant with man, restored it
when we fell, and fulfilled it in Jesus Christ. With Gideon we can say that
"the Lord is our peace".
As
Christians, we know that God dwells in us making us temples of the Holy Spirit.
He promised us that he would provide for all our needs and that "all
things would work together for good for those that love God and are called
according to his purposes". We are told that without him we can do
nothing, but that, in him, we are "more than conquerors". Thus, for
those who have accepted Christ, if we put these teachings together, we
recognize that nothing ought to rob us of our peace.
This
is the main point of Searching for
and Maintaining Peace: A Small Treatise on Peace of Heart, a book
written by Fr. Jacques Philippe, a French priest working in Rome. It is the
type of essay one can return to again and again for solace and motivation. In
it, Fr. Philippe boldly proclaims, "The reasons why we lose our peace are
always bad reasons" because God gives his peace as a gift to those who
entrust themselves to him. Jesus told his disciples: "Peace I leave with
you, my own peace I give you; a peace the world cannot give, this is my gift to
you. Let not your hearts be troubled or afraid". This peace is no
superficial freedom from conflicts or difficulties, but a deep, abiding inner
peace that comes from union with and confidence in God.
St.
Christopher Magallanes and Companions[2]
Like Blessed Miguel Agustin Pro, S.J. (November 23), Cristobal and his twenty-four companion martyrs lived under a very anti-Catholic government in Mexico, one determined to weaken the Catholic faith of its people. Churches, schools and seminaries were closed; foreign clergy were expelled. Cristobal established a clandestine seminary at Totatiche, Jalisco. Magallanes and the other priests were forced to minister secretly to Catholics during the presidency of Plutarco Calles (1924-1928).
All of these
martyrs except three were diocesan priests. David, Manuel and Salvador were
laymen who died with their parish priest, Luis Batis. All of these martyrs
belonged to the Cristero movement, pledging their allegiance to Christ and to
the church that he established to spread the Good News in society—even if
Mexico's leaders had made it a crime to receive baptism or celebrate the Mass.
These martyrs
did not die as a single group but in eight Mexican states, with Jalisco and
Zacatecas having the largest number. They were beatified in 1992 and canonized
eight years later.
—
Excerpted from Saint of the Day, Leonard Foley, O.F.M.
Things
to Do:
·
Read "A Mexican Bloodletting"
·
From the Catholic Culture Library read "Viva Cristo Rey! The Cristeros Versus the Mexican Revolution"
·
Watch "For Greater Glory"
Apostolic Exhortation[3]
Veneremur Cernui – Down in Adoration
Falling
of The Most Reverend Thomas J. Olmsted, Bishop of
Phoenix,
to Priests, Deacons, Religious and the Lay Faithful of the Diocese of Phoenix
on the Sacrament of the Holy Eucharist
My
beloved Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
Part
II
Hold
Nothing Back from Christ
27.
On the sacred day of Holy Thursday, Jesus’ last night with His disciples, He
knew that soon He would return to His Father, but He also knew how much they
will need His presence, one that “The Imitation of Christ” eloquently
describes as consoling and strengthening: “When Jesus is near, all is well
and nothing seems difficult. When He is absent all is hard. When Jesus does not
speak within, all other comfort is empty, but if He says only a word, it brings
great consolation” (Book II Chapter 8). In a certain sense, we can
say that here Jesus faces a dilemma. On the one hand, He desires to return to
His Father and on the other hand, He desires to remain with His disciples.
God’s love always finds an ingenious solution to such dilemma. Jesus returns to
His Father, but by instituting the Sacrament of the Eucharist, at the same time
He remains with His disciples, to accompany them in the challenges,
difficulties, and suffering that they will face as they take on the mission of
preaching the Good News. Through the Eucharist, Jesus gives the greatest gift
of Himself to His disciples and to us. Indeed, the Eucharist is truly the
sacrament of Christ’s love!
28.
God’s love for us did not stop at the Incarnation. He did not just become one
of us and share our life from conception to death and redeem us through His
suffering, Death, and Resurrection. His self-giving love went beyond by
becoming our very nourishment. The Eucharist reveals how much Jesus loves us.
Saint John Vianney, the patron saint of priests, expresses eloquently God’s
extreme love for us in the Eucharist: “Never would we have thought of asking
God to give us His own Son. But what man could not have even imagined, God has
done. What man could not say or think, and what he could not have dared to
desire, God, in His love has said it, planned it and carried His design into
execution. We would never have dared to say to God to have His Son die for us,
to give us His Body to eat, His Blood to drink… In other words, what man could
not even conceive, God has executed. He went further in His designs of love
than we could have dreamed” (The Eucharist Meditation of the Curé D’Ars,
Meditation I).
29. How do we, then, respond to the Lord’s gift of Himself in the Holy Eucharist? Do we really desire Him? Are we anxious to meet Him? Do we desire to encounter Him, become one with Him and receive the gifts He offers us through the Eucharist?
To
be continued…
Catechism of the
Catholic Church
Day 339 2639-2649
PART
FOUR: CHRISTIAN PRAYER
SECTION
ONE-PRAYER IN THE CHRISTIAN LIFE
CHAPTER ONE-THE
REVELATION OF PRAYER - THE UNIVERSAL CALL TO PRAYER
Article 3-IN THE AGE
OF THE CHURCH
V. Prayer of Praise
2639 Praise is the form of prayer which recognizes most
immediately that God is God. It lauds God for his own sake and gives him glory,
quite beyond what he does, but simply because HE IS. It shares in the blessed
happiness of the pure of heart who love God in faith before seeing him in
glory. By praise, the Spirit is joined to our spirits to bear witness that we
are children of God, testifying to the only Son in whom we are adopted and
by whom we glorify the Father. Praise embraces the other forms of prayer and
carries them toward him who is its source and goal: the "one God, the
Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist."
2640 St. Luke in his gospel often expresses wonder and praise at the marvels of Christ and in his Acts of the Apostles stresses them as actions of the Holy Spirit: the community of Jerusalem, the invalid healed by Peter and John, the crowd that gives glory to God for that, and the pagans of Pisidia who "were glad and glorified the word of God."
2641 "[Address] one another in psalms and hymns and
spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with all your
heart." Like the inspired writers of the New Testament, the first
Christian communities read the Book of Psalms in a new way, singing in it the
mystery of Christ. In the newness of the Spirit, they also composed hymns and
canticles in the light of the unheard - of event that God accomplished in his
Son: his Incarnation, his death which conquered death, his Resurrection, and
Ascension to the right hand of the Father. Doxology, the praise of God,
arises from this "marvelous work" of the whole economy of salvation.
2642 The Revelation of "what must soon take
place," the Apocalypse, is borne along by the songs of the heavenly
liturgy but also by the intercession of the "witnesses"
(martyrs). The prophets and the saints, all those who were slain on earth
for their witness to Jesus, the vast throng of those who, having come through
the great tribulation, have gone before us into the Kingdom, all sing the
praise and glory of him who sits on the throne, and of the Lamb. In
communion with them, the Church on earth also sings these songs with faith in
the midst of trial. By means of petition and intercession, faith hopes against
all hope and gives thanks to the "Father of lights," from whom
"every perfect gift" comes down. Thus faith is pure praise.
2643 The Eucharist contains and expresses all forms of
prayer: it is "the pure offering" of the whole Body of Christ to the
glory of God's name and, according to the traditions of East and West, it
is the "sacrifice of praise."
IN BRIEF
2644 The Holy
Spirit who teaches the Church and recalls to her all that Jesus said also
instructs her in the life of prayer, inspiring new expressions of the same
basic forms of prayer: blessing, petition, intercession, thanksgiving, and
praise.
2645 Because God
blesses the human heart, it can in return bless him who is the source of every
blessing.
2646
Forgiveness, the quest for the Kingdom, and every true need are objects of the
prayer of petition.
2647 Prayer of
intercession consists in asking on behalf of another. It knows no boundaries
and extends to one's enemies.
2648 Every joy
and suffering, every event and need can become the matter for thanksgiving
which, sharing in that of Christ, should fill one's whole life: "Give
thanks in all circumstances" (1 Thess 5:18).
2649 Prayer of
praise is entirely disinterested and rises to God, lauds him, and gives him
glory for his own sake, quite beyond what he has done, but simply because HE
IS.
Daily Devotions
·
Unite in the work of the Porters
of St. Joseph by joining them in fasting: Today's Fast: For the intercession of the angels and saints
·
Litany of the Most Precious Blood of Jesus
·
Offering to the sacred heart of Jesus
· Rosary
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