Wednesday General Audience: Do not be ‘part-time’ Christians

(Vatican Radio) In preparation for the Feast of Pentecost and in the context of the Year of Faith catechesis on the Creed, Pope Francis dedicated his Wednesday audience to the action that the Holy Spirit accomplishes in us, in guiding us to the Truth.

He said “In this Year of Faith let us ask ourselves if we have actually taken a few steps to get to know Christ and the truths of faith more, by reading and meditating on the Scriptures, studying the Catechism, steadily approaching the Sacraments. But at the same time let us ask ourselves what steps we are taking so that the faith directs our whole existence. Do not be a ‘part-time” Christian, at certain moments, in certain circumstances, in certain choices, be Christian at all times! The truth of Christ, that the Holy Spirit teaches us and gives us, always and forever involves our daily lives. Let us invoke him more often, to guide us on the path of Christ’s disciples”.

Ahead of the audience the Holy father released two white doves into the sky over St Peter’s Square, presented to him by pilgrims.

And in a moment of dialogue with the crowd, estimated at over 70 thousand again this Wednesday, Pope Francis asked them to pray to Holy Spirit every day. “Will you do it?” he asked, the crowd answered “yes”. The Pope was not content however, and again said : “I can’t hear you!”, to which the crowd shouted even louder “YES!”.

Our Lady of Fatima: a reflection on her warning about Hell

The appearance of Our Lady at Fatima (whose feast day we celebrated yesterday) was not an apparition in isolation. It followed in a long line of apparitions that included those of Paray Le Monial, Le Rue de Bac, La Sallette and Lourdes, all of which had occurred in the previous century. It is noteworthy that the apparitions at Fatima, took place between May and October of 1917, on the eve of the Bolshevik revolution, 200 years after the establishment of Freemasonry in 1717 and 400 years after the Religious Revolution initiated by Martin Luther in 1517.

The message of Fatima was not merely a call to repentance and prayer, but had a much wider significance, having a bearing on both political and theological matters, with firmly prophetic predictions in respect of Nations and the Church.

However, the Fatima messages may have seemed to have diminished in importance during these last 50 years, paradoxically because the prophesies of Our Lady have been already fulfilled! But Fatima is as important today as it has ever been, perhaps even more so.

World War II, where it is calculated 50 million people lost their lives, took place after the “strange lights in the sky” in 1938 of which Our Lady had foretold. Communist Russia “spread her errors” (atheism and secularism) throughout the world as Our Lady had also predicted. Even the prophecy of the attempt on the life of the Pope, Bl. John Paul II (part of the third ‘secret’ of Fatima) has come and gone, and now faded in the memory of many.

Devotion to Our Blessed Lady is not popular among our separated Protestant brothers, and in the current false climate of ‘Ecumenism’, any talk of the Mother of God is considered ‘politically incorrect’! Sin, and the current lack of a sense of sin, is rampant. The basic ‘call to repentance’, prayer and sacrifice for sinners, the carrying of one’s cross with patience and humility, are not messages the laid-back, comfort-loving, libertine masses want to hear.

Belief in and veneration of the Blessed Sacrament, an essential requirement for all Catholics, has declined drastically.

This Great Apostasy and rebellion of mankind, both in the secular world and within the Church itself, with all its terrible consequences of wars and disasters, and that Our Lady foretold at Fatima would happen “if men do not mend their ways”, is what many believe we are living today. Therefore Our Lady’s words on how to remedy this catastrophe are more appropriate than ever.

Most unpopular of all the messages given at Fatima is the frightening idea of Eternal Damnation for unrepentant sinners! “Hell is so passé” they say, “so negative and out-dated”. Our Lady showing this terrible place of torment to the three young children of Fatima is thus an appalling idea for many. Yet it was precisely because Hell is real, that Our Lady, the most loving of Mothers, seeing her children had wandered to the brink of a vast abyss, had came to warn us of the danger. Our Blessed Lord spoke of its existence to His disciples time and time again, and yet once more mankind, in his search for unbridled sensuality and pleasure, was turning deaf ears to the Gospel teachings on the reality of Hell.  (The prevailing idea among believers, that everyone will end up in Heaven one day no matter how they live their lives, is totally false and dangerously naive.)

Hell for all eternity? What a horrendous, terrifying prospect! We would not wish such a destiny for even the wickedest criminals. Should we not to do everything, everything, in our power to prevent such a fate for anyone, ourselves included of course?

Our Lady told the children that God wants to establish “Devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary in the world” as a sure way for men to turn from Evil. (And as we have said before, Devotion to Mary leads automatically to Devotion to Jesus Christ.) “Many souls go to Hell because there is no one to pray and make sacrifices for them. Pray, pray much and make sacrifices for souls”. Prayer and sacrifice. Two vital ways we can all, old and young, sick and healthy, heed Our Lady’s pleading, and become willing victims to save souls. Using every available moment to turn our hearts and minds to prayer, even in the normal carrying out of our daily duties, and turning every opportunity during the day (and there are plenty) to make little sacrifices for the conversion of sinners, we are actively participating in Christ’s mission in His Mystical Body. By generously offering our whole lives as ready victims for the good of others, we not only console the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart of Mary, but we bring about the necessary graces for men to turn from sin, to repent and amend their lives. Our Lady is calling us, her children, to be the instruments for souls who have lost their way (as perhaps we ourselves had once upon a time) to find their way back to the path that leads to Heaven. There they shall encounter the ever-lasting peace and joy only Faith and Hope in God can bring. Our true home is Heaven; we were made for Heaven. Let us work towards that end.

Naturally, this plan of life will not go unrewarded for each one of us either, and we too have our own sins for which to make reparation! This is the profound meaning of the ‘Communion of Saints’. “Since all the faithful form one body, the good of each is communicated to the others. . . ” (CCC 947)

“In the end my Immaculate Heart will triumph!” We have Our Lady’s promise of ultimate triumph over Satan and his reign in the world; it is our duty, and with the assurance of God’s assistance, to bring about this triumph. “And then a period of peace will be granted to the world”, Our Lady told the children at Fatima. How greatly we need that peace today.

The simple prayer Our Lady taught the children of Fatima to be said at the end of each decade of the Rosary:

Oh My Jesus, forgive us our sins, save us from the fires of Hell, lead all souls to Heaven, especially those who have most need of Thy mercy.

Real love

Found this on The Deacon’s Bench. 

A sincere man with a striking message about love:

Venerable Fulton Sheen: Our Blessed Lady, The Tabernacle of the Lord, Holy Hour.

On this 13th May, when we honour Our Lady of Fatima, more wisdom from Fulton |Sheen.

The following is a homily given by  Venerable Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen during a Mass at the 41st International Eucharistic Congress in Philadelphia in 1976. 

Fifty-seven years ago when I was ordained a priest, I took two resolutions: one, that I would say Mass every Saturday in honour of our Blessed Lady, for her protection during my priesthood. The second resolution was that every day of my life I would make a Holy Hour in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament. These two are now conjoined, as I address you on the subject of Mary, the Tabernacle of the Lord. I shall speak of Mary and the Host, Mary and the Sword, Mary and the Holy Hour.

Not one of us has the power to make our own mother. If we did, we would have made her the most beautiful woman in the world. Our Lord pre-existed His own mother. Therefore He could make her the perfect mother. He thought of her from all eternity. As a matter of fact, the first Immaculate Conception was in the mind of God. When the first Paradise was lost, God said that He would make another Paradise; this Paradise, flesh-girt, to be gardened by a new Adam, would be our Blessed Mother.

God had told Moses, “Make a tabernacle that I may dwell with my people.” Tabernacles were of stone and gold until an angel came to the Blessed Mother and asked her if she would become the mother of our Lord. She said, “I am a virgin. I do not know man.”

And God said: “In the older tabernacles there was the Shekinah, ‘the cloud of my presence,’ that overshadowed the temple. Now my Holy Spirit will overshadow you, and he that will be born of you will be called the Son of the Most High God.”

Notice Mary did not give birth to a foetus.

The Word was made flesh and tabernacled within her. In a certain sense, it was Mary’s first Holy Communion, for she had within herself the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Christ. Now Communion is not only oneness with Christ, it is oneness with everyone in the Church and oneness with humanity. That is the reason why this Eucharistic Congress spoke of the hunger of the spirit and the hunger of the body.

So when the Blessed Mother possessed within herself Christ, the first thing she did was to do a social act. She went to visit her old cousin, Elizabeth, who was aleady six months with child. When she came to Elizabeth, Elizabeth said, “The child leaped with joy in my womb.” Christ had met John the Baptist in Elizabeth, and John the Baptist adored the Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity in Mary. That was the moment when the Blessed Mother became what Pius X called her on the 13th of December, 1905, the “Mother of the Blessed Sacrament.” And she radiated the presence of Christ to John. So Elizabeth, now, after adoring the Christ within Mary, venerates her. “Who am I that the mother of my Lord should come to me?” Elizabeth was here acknowledging that somehow or other Mary is related to the Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of Christ Himself.

The Holy Father’s Canonisation Mass: Full Text.

At Mass for the Seventh Sunday of Easter, Pope Francis canonized 800 Martyrs from the Italian city of Otranto, along with two Latin American religious Foundresses, Mother Laura Montoya e Upegui – the first Colombian saint – and Mother Maria Guadalupe Garcia Zavala, from Mexico.

In his homily, the Holy Father asked us to “look on the new saints in the light of the Word of God proclaimed: a Word that invited us to be faithful to Christ, even unto martyrdom; a word that recalled to us the urgency and the beauty of bringing Christ and his Gospel to everyone; a word that spoke to us about the witness of charity, without which even martyrdom and mission lose their Christian savor.”

Today, he said, “the Church proposes for our veneration a host of martyrs, who were called together to the supreme witness to the Gospel.” The more than 800 Martyrs of Otranto, when faced with the choice of renouncing Christ or death, remained faithful to the Gospel. It is precisely their faith, the Pope said, that gave them the strength to remain faithful. He prayed, “As we venerate the martyrs of Otranto, let us ask God to sustain those many Christians who, in these times and in many parts of the world, right now, still suffer violence, and give them the courage and fidelity to respond to evil with good.”

Pope Francis and “The Religious Sense”: A commentary by Fr. Barron

Hat-tip to Jabbapapa

Otranto Martyrs: exceptional witness of fidelity to Christ

(Vatican Radio) Today, Pope Francis will preside at a Mass for the Canonization of Blessed Antonio Primaldo and Companions; Blessed Laura di Santa Caterina da Siena Montoya y Upegui, virgin and foundress of the Congregation of the Missionaries of Mary Immaculate and St Catherine of Siena; Blessed Maria Guadalupe Garcia Zavala, co-foundress of the Congregation of the Handmaids of St Margaret Mary (Alacoque) and the Poor.

The announcement of the canonization was made at a consistory on 11 February – a consistory made historic by Benedict XVI’s announcement that he would resign the papacy.

Among those being canonized on Sunday are 800 martyrs who gave their lives for Christ in 1480 – Antonio Primaldo and his Companions. These were the Martyrs of Otranto. Dr. Donald Prudlo, associate professor of Medieval History at Jacksonville State University, Alabama, spoke with Christopher Wells about their dramatic story: