Claire’s Corner
· 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.
· Bucket List Trip: Around the World “Perfect Weather”
o Baie du Tombeau, Mauritius Island.
· Spirit Hour: Master of the Hounds cocktail
· Foodie: Nutmeg and Mace
· Let Freedom Ring Day 28 Freedom from Acedia
Move it, move it, move it for the Lord
The most dominant sin, that characterizes our culture today is "Acedia." Acedia has been referred to as the "noontime devil."
"Acedia" originates from the Greek, akèdia, meaning "lack of care." It's a kind of "indifference" or a "lack of spiritual energy," which is a phrase from the book by Jean-Charles Nault, O.S.B., The Noonday Devil: Acedia, the Unnamed Evil of Our Times. Nault, the abbot of the Benedictine Abbey of Saint-Wandrille in France, is one of the world's experts on acedia. I recall the acclaim this book had in 2015, and I ordered it, right away. I highly recommend it.
· On Sundays Pray:
o O Glorious Queen of Heaven and Earth, Virgin Most Powerful, thou who hast the power to crush the head of the ancient serpent with thy heel, come and exercise this power flowing from the grace of thine Immaculate Conception. Shield us under the mantle of thy purity and love, draw us into the sweet abode of thy heart and annihilate and render impotent the forces bent on destroying us. Come Most Sovereign Mistress of the Holy Angels and Mistress of the Most Holy Rosary, thou who from the very beginning hast received from God the power and the mission to crush the head of Satan. Send forth thy holy legions, we humbly beseech thee, that under thy command and by thy power they may pursue the evil spirits, counter them on every side, resist their bold attacks and drive them far from us, harming no one on the way, binding them to the foot of the Cross to be judged and sentenced by Jesus Christ Thy Son and to be disposed of by Him as He wills.
o St. Joseph, Patron of the Universal Church, come to our aid in this grave battle against the forces of darkness, repel the attacks of the devil and free the members of the Auxilium Christianorum, and those for whom the priests of the Auxilium Christianorum pray, from the strongholds of the enemy.
o St. Michael, summon the entire heavenly court to engage their forces in this fierce battle against the powers of hell. Come O Prince of Heaven with thy mighty sword and thrust into hell Satan and all the other evil spirits. O Guardian Angels, guide and protect us. Amen.
God's blessings are indeed signs of His goodness, signs of His infinite Love. Are we indifferent to those signs of His goodness and love? Are we so unaware of His signs that we are disconnected from Him that we can take it or leave it?
AUGUST 3 Eighth Sunday after
Pentecost
Luke, Chapter 8, Verse 35-37
People came out to
see what had happened and, when they approached Jesus, they discovered the man
from whom the demons had come out sitting at his feet.
He was clothed and in his right mind, and they were seized with FEAR. Those who
witnessed it told them how the possessed man had been saved. The entire population of
the region of the Gerasenes asked Jesus to leave them because they were seized
with great fear. So, he got into a
boat and returned.
The
population was more Greek than they were Jews; thus, Jesus scared them really
bad, with the exorcism and all. Christ understood their fear and got in the
boat and left. The Church today still has the power of exorcism.
The Latin Church Bishops of the
United States Conference of Catholic Bishops approved the English translation
of De Exorcismis et Supplicationibus Quibusdam, editio typica in
November 2014, and the final text of Exorcisms and
Related Supplications
(ERS). A list of frequently asked
questions on exorcism and its use in the Church's liturgical life was developed
by the Secretariat of Divine Worship. Answers were provided by specialists in
this ministry and by experts in canon law. Since so much of the common
perception of the nature and application of exorcism is shaped by the
exaggerations of movie scripts and television programs, the Committee on Divine
Worship has approved dissemination of these basic questions and answers, in hopes that clear information
is brought to bear on a topic that is often shrouded in mystery or
misinformation.
Do not be afraid. Go and do as you
propose.
Copilot
Luke
8:35–37 is a striking moment of divine intervention met with human fear. The
Gerasenes’ reaction—asking Jesus to leave after witnessing the healing of the
possessed man—reveals how unsettling holiness can be when it disrupts the
familiar. The man was restored, clothed, and lucid, yet the people were seized
with fear. Not awe. Not gratitude. Fear.
Their
worldview may not have been prepared for the radical authority Jesus displayed
over spiritual forces. And yet, Christ’s response—getting into the boat and
leaving—was not rejection, but respect for their freedom. He never forces
himself where he’s unwelcome.
💡
The Church’s continued authority in exorcism, as affirmed in the 2014 approval
of De Exorcismis et Supplicationibus Quibusdam and its English
translation Exorcisms and Related Supplications (ERS), is a testament to
that same divine power still active today. The rite is carefully safeguarded,
requiring discernment, episcopal permission, and deep spiritual preparation.
It’s not theatrical—it’s pastoral.
“Do
not be afraid. Go and do as you propose,” echoes the angelic refrain throughout
scripture. It’s a call to courage, to trust, and to act. Whether confronting
spiritual darkness or stepping into a new mission, fear must not paralyze us.
Lessons
on Fear
From a
Catholic perspective, fear is not merely an emotion to suppress—it’s a
spiritual signal that invites discernment, trust, and transformation. Here are
some key lessons the Church offers on fear:
🙏
1. Holy Fear vs. Crippling Fear
- Holy fear is a gift of the Holy Spirit (Isaiah
11:2–3). It’s not terror, but reverence—a deep awareness of God’s majesty
and justice.
- It leads to humility, repentance, and awe before
God’s presence.
- Crippling fear, on the other hand, is often
rooted in mistrust, anxiety, or spiritual attack. It can paralyze faith
and isolate us from grace.
📖
2. Scripture’s Refrain: “Do Not Be Afraid”
- This phrase appears over 365 times in the Bible—one
for each day of the year.
- Jesus says it to the apostles in storms (Mark 6:50),
to Jairus before raising his daughter (Luke 8:50), and to Mary at the
Annunciation (Luke 1:30).
- It’s not a dismissal of fear, but a call to courage
grounded in divine presence.
🛐
3. Trust in God as the Antidote
- Philippians 4:6–9 teaches: “Have no anxiety at
all, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, make
your requests known to God.”
- Trust is cultivated through prayer, gratitude, and
surrender—not by denying fear, but by placing it in God’s hands.
🕊️
4. Fear as a Path to Peace
- Saints like St. Aloysius Gonzaga and St. Margaret
Mary Alacoque embraced fear as a doorway to deeper trust.
- Their lives show that fear, when offered to God,
becomes a crucible for sanctity.
🧠
5. Practical Catholic Tools for Fear
- Spiritual reading and Lectio Divina
help reframe fear through scripture.
- Sacraments, especially Reconciliation and the
Eucharist, restore peace and spiritual clarity.
- Community support and gratitude practices
can transform anxiety into hope.
ON KEEPING THE LORDS DAY HOLY[1]
CHAPTER
V
DIES
DIERUM
Sunday:
The Primordial
Feast, Revealing the Meaning of Time
CONCLUSION
84. Sustaining
Christian life as it does, Sunday has the additional value of being a testimony
and a proclamation. As a day of prayer, communion and joy, Sunday resounds
throughout society, emanating vital energies and reasons for hope. Sunday is
the proclamation that time, in which he who is the Risen Lord of history makes
his home, is not the grave of our illusions but the cradle of an ever new
future, an opportunity given to us to turn the fleeting moments of this life
into seeds of eternity. Sunday is an invitation to look ahead; it is the day on
which the Christian community cries out to Christ, "Marana tha: Come, O
Lord!" (1 Cor 16:22). With this cry of hope and expectation, the Church is
the companion and support of human hope. From Sunday to Sunday, enlightened by
Christ, she goes forward towards the unending Sunday of the heavenly Jerusalem,
which "has no need of the sun or moon to shine upon it, for the glory of
God is its light and its lamp is the Lamb" (Rev 21:23).
Eighth
Sunday after Pentecost[2]
The
importance of intelligent foresight and the fascinating passage on "the
mammon of iniquity" (Lk. 16.9).
IN the
Introit of the Mass the Church praises God, whose mercy and justice extend to
the ends of the world. “We have received Thy mercy, O God, in the midst of Thy
temple. According to Thy name, O God, so also is Thy praise unto the ends of
the earth; Thy right hand is full of justice. Great is the Lord and exceedingly
to be praised, in the city of our God, in His holy mountain”. (Ps. xlvii. 11,
1).
Prayer. Grant us, we beseech Thee, O Lord, at all times,
the spirit of thinking and doing what is right, that we, who cannot exist
without Thee, may be able to live according to Thy will.
EPISTLE. Rom. viii. 12-17.
Brethren,
we are debtors not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh. For if you
live according to the flesh, you shall die but if by the spirit you mortify the
deeds of the flesh, you shall live. For whosoever are led by the Spirit of God,
they are the sons of God. For you have not received the spirit of bondage again
in fear, but you have received the spirit of adoption of sons, whereby we cry
Abba (Father). For the Spirit Himself giveth testimony to our spirit, that we
are the sons of God. And if sons, heirs also: heirs indeed of God, and joint
heirs with Christ.
“The
works of the flesh are,” according to St. Paul, “fornication, uncleanness,
immodesty, luxury, idolatry, witchcrafts, enmities, contentions, emulations,
wraths, quarrels, dissensions, sects, envies, murders, drunkenness, reviling’s,
and such like” (Gal. v. 19, 20). Those who practice such vices are not children
of God, and will inherit, not heaven, but eternal death. Examine yourself,
therefore, whether you are not living according to the flesh, and for the
future resist sinful desires with God’s assistance, and you will gain a crown
in heaven.
Aspiration. Grant me, Lord, Thy spirit, that I may always
remember the happiness of Thy kingdom, may mortify the lusts of the flesh, and
may walk as Thy child in holy chastity.
Luke xvi. 1-9.
At that time Jesus spoke to
His disciples this parable: There was a certain rich man who had a steward: and
the same was accused unto him, that he had wasted his goods. And he called him,
and said to him: How is it that I hear this of thee? give an account of thy
stewardship: for now, thou canst be steward no longer. And the steward said
within himself: What shall I do, because my lord taketh away from me the
steward ship? To dig I am not able, to beg I am ashamed. I know what I will do,
that when I shall be removed from the stewardship, they may receive me into
their houses. Therefore, calling together every one of his lord’s debtors, he
said to the first: How much dost thou owe my lord? But he said: A hundred
barrels of oil. And he said to him: Take thy bill and sit down quickly, and
write fifty. Then he said to another: And how much dost thou owe? Who said: An
hundred quarters of wheat. He said to him: Take thy bill and write eighty. And
the lord commended the unjust steward, forasmuch as he had done wisely: for the
children of this world are wiser in their generation than the children of
light. And I say to you: Make unto you friends of the mammon of iniquity, that
when you shall fail they may receive you into everlasting dwellings.
Who are meant by the rich man and his steward?
By the rich man is meant
God; by the steward, man. The goods entrusted to the steward are the different
goods and gifts of soul and body, of nature and of grace.
Why did Christ use this parable?
To teach us that God
requires of every man a strict account of whatever has been given to him, to
encourage us to be liberal to the poor, and to warn us against dissipation and
injustice.
How are we to understand the direction “to make unto us friends of the
mammon of iniquity”?
Riches are called the mammon
of iniquity because they so easily lead us to injustice, avarice, excess, and
dissipation. Jesus intended to say that we should, according to our ability,
employ in doing good those worldly goods which so easily carry us into sin. But
He is not to be understood as saying that we should steal, or cheat, or use
goods otherwise unjustly obtained, to give alms.
What friends are we thus to make?
The friends are the good
works which render us pleasing to God, and open to us heaven; the poor, the
saints of God; the angels, who rejoice in our benevolence, and become our
intercessors; and finally Christ, Who regards what is given to the poor as so much
given to Himself (Matt. xxv. 40). “The hands of the poor” says St. Chrysostom, “are
the hands of Christ” through them we send our goods to heaven beforehand, and
through their intercession we obtain the grace of salvation.
Aspiration. Grant me, O most just God and Judge, grace so to
use the goods entrusted to me on earth, that with them I may make my
self-friends to receive me, at the end of my life, into everlasting habitations.
INSTRUCTION ON CALUMNY
Is
calumny a grievous sin?
When
the occasion is important, and the slander is deliberately uttered, with evil
intention, when one’s neighbor is thereby grievously injured, and his good name
damaged, everyone may see how grievous and detestable, in such a case, this sin
is. (Hmm…Fake News?)
Is
it sinful to disclose the faults of our neighbor?
To
make public the faults and sins of our neighbor uselessly, merely for the
entertainment of idle persons, is always sinful. But if, after trying in vain
to correct his faults and sins by brotherly admonition, we make them known to
his parents or superiors, for his punishment and amendment, so far from being a
sin, it is rather a good work and a duty of Christian charity.
Is
it a sin also to listen willingly to calumny?
Yes,
for thereby we furnish the calumniator an occasion for sin and give him
encouragement. For which reason St. Bernard says: “Whether to calumniate be a
greater sin than to listen to the calumniator I will not lightly decide.”
What
ought to restrain us from calumny? The
thought,
1
of the enormities of this sin.
2
of the number of sins occasioned thereby of which the calumniator, as the
occasion of them, becomes partaker.
3
of the difficulty of correcting the harm done, since we cannot know the full
extent of the injury, nor stop the tongues of people. Finally, we must
think about the eternal punishment which follows this sin. The holy Fathers say
that of young persons who are condemned the greater part is for impurity, but
of the old, for calumny.
The Finding of the Body of St. Stephen[3]
The second festival in honor of the holy protomartyr St. Stephen is on the 3rd
of August and was instituted by the Church on the occasion of the discovery of
his precious remains. His body lay long concealed, under the ruins of an old
tomb, in a place twenty miles from Jerusalem, called Caphargamala, where stood
a church which was served by a venerable priest named Lucian.
In the year 415, on
Friday, the 3rd of December, at about nine o'clock at night, Lucian was
sleeping in his bed in the baptistery, where he commonly lay in order to guard
the sacred vessels of the church. Being half awake, he saw a tall, comely old
man of a venerable aspect, who approached him, and, calling him thrice by his
name, bid him go to Jerusalem and tell Bishop John to come and open the tombs
in which his remains and those of certain other servants of Christ lay, that
through their means God might open to many the gates of His clemency. This
vision was repeated twice. After the second time, Lucian went to Jerusalem and
laid the whole affair before Bishop John, who bade him go and search for the
relics, which, the bishop concluded, would be found under a heap of small
stones which lay in a field near his church. In digging up the earth here,
three coffins or chests were found. Lucian sent immediately to acquaint Bishop
John with this. He was then at the Council of Diospolis, and, taking along with
him Eutonius, Bishop of Sebaste, and Eleutherius, Bishop of Jericho, came to
the place.
Upon the opening of St.
Stephen's coffin, the earth shook, and there came out of the coffin such an
agreeable odor that no one remembered to have ever smelled anything like it.
There was a vast multitude of people assembled in that place, among whom were
many persons afflicted with divers’ distempers, of whom seventy-three recovered
their health upon the spot. They kissed the holy relics, and then shut them up.
The Bishop consented to leave a small portion of them at Caphargamala; the rest
were carried in the coffin with singing of psalms and hymns, to the Church of
Sion at Jerusalem. The translation was performed on the 26th of December, on
which day the Church has ever since honored the memory of St. Stephen,
commemorating the discovery of his relics on the 3rd of August probably on
account of the dedication of some church in his honor.
—Excerpted
from Butler's Lives of the Saints
Highlights and Things
to Do:
- Read
the more about the Finding:
- Read
about the relics of St. Stephen and also about the rock relic.
Novena
in Honor of Saint John Marie Vianney[4]
Desire
for Heaven
O
Holy Priest of Ars, your precious remains are contained in a magnificent
reliquary, the donation from the priests of France. But this earthly glory is
only a very pale image of the unspeakable glory which you are enjoying with
God. During the time you were on earth, you used to repeat in your dejected
hours, 'one will rest in the other life." It is done, you are in eternal
peace, and eternal happiness. I desire to follow you one day. Until then, I
hear you saying to me:
"You
should work and fight as long as you are in the world."
Teach
me then to work for the salvation of my soul, to spread the good news and good
example and to do good towards those around me in order that I will receive the
happiness of the Elect with you. Holy Priest of Ars, I have confidence in your
intercession. Pray for me during this novena especially for ... (mention
silently your special intentions).
Our
Father, Hail Mary, Glory Be.
O
St John Vianney, Patron of Priests, pray for us and for all priests!
Bible in a Year-Day 46 Set apart for God
Fr. Mike points out how blessing something sets it apart for the purposes of
God, and it is no longer meant for ordinary uses. So when we are filled with
the spirit of God, our daily task becomes extraordinary, because it is
consecrated to God. Today's readings are Exodus 30-31, Leviticus 22, and Psalm
115.
Daily
Devotions
·
Unite in the work of the Porters of St. Joseph by joining them
in fasting: The
Pope
·
Religion
in the Home for Preschool: August
·
Litany of the Most Precious
Blood of Jesus
·
Offering to
the sacred heart of Jesus
·
Rosary
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