 Hello Everyone: It was brought to my attention by a dear friend that today is the feast of St. Teresa's Transverberation or "piercing through" of her heart while she was in prayer. - Aug. 26th. It is not celebrated today though because Sunday takes precedence over the feast day; but as Carmelites - we will mention it because it is so noteworthy. It is a celebration of her love for God! And boy with all that is going on in the world and in the Church - do we need to talk about love! Here are some words taken from Pope Gregory the XV at her canonization: "The chief among Teresa’s virtues was the love of God, which our Lord Jesus Christ increased by means of many visions and revelations. He made her His spouse on one occasion. At other times she saw an angel with a flaming dart piercing her heart. Through these heavenly gifts the flame of divine love in her heart became so strong that, inspired by God, she made the extremely difficult vow of always doing what seemed to her most perfect and most conducive to God’s glory’ (Gregory XV in the Bull of Canonization). Here is an excerpt from Chapter 29 of Life of St. Teresa of Jesus: "Our Lord was pleased that I should have at times a vision of this kind: I saw an angel close by me, on my left side, in bodily form. This I am not accustomed to see, unless very rarely. Though I have visions of angels frequently, yet I see them only by an intellectual vision, such as I have spoken of before. It was our Lord's will that in this vision I should see the angel in this wise. He was not large, but small of stature, and most beautiful—his face burning, as if he were one of the highest angels, who seem to be all of fire: they must be those whom we call cherubim. Their names they never tell me; but I see very well that there is in heaven so great a difference between one angel and another, and between these and the others, that I cannot explain it. I saw in his hand a long spear of gold, and at the iron's point there seemed to be a little fire. He appeared to me to be thrusting it at times into my heart,439 and to pierce my very entrails; when he drew it out, he seemed to draw them out also, and to leave me all on fire with a great love of God. The pain was so great, that it made me moan; and yet so surpassing was the sweetness of this excessive pain, that I could not wish to be rid of it. The soul is satisfied now with nothing less than God. The pain is not bodily, but spiritual; though the body has its share in it, even a large one. It is a caressing of love so sweet which now takes place between the soul and God, that I pray God of His goodness to make him experience it who may think that I am lying. " St. Teresa of Jesus - please pray for us to love God above all things! Please read my latest post under Formation - I Want to See God. The Chapter on Contemplation Ch. VII is just posted. This will help explain St. Teresa's Love!
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 Hello Everyone:
As the news inside and outside the Church seems to be about the plague of homosexuality and pedophilia in the Church. It seems right to talk about Hell and its punishments. It is because we do not talk about it that it is out of our minds and thoughts as a real consequence to sin. Today we are being told that there is no Hell. My sister took my 87 year old Dad to his parish for Mass one Sunday and the Detroit Diocesan pastor was preaching that there is no Hell. What is going on in this Church???? Below is a meditation on Hell by St. Robert Bellarmine, the greatest anti-Protestant Doctor of the Church. Please share with those who claim there is no Hell and I am sure you know of some. Hell is eternal - there are no more chances. May we listen to Our Lady of Fatima and pray for souls - that they may not fall into Hell but may receive the grace to repent and turn back to God. Also as a bonus, there is a link to a short video of a study done of the ashes of Sodom and Gomorrah to prove that it was destroyed by fire and brimstone. Very scientific for those who will only listen to science and not the Bible. Sad to say there are people who are "science only". St. Robert Bellarmine: "Just as “no eye has seen, nor ear has heard nor has entered into human heart that what God had prepared for those who love Him” (Is 64:4; 1 Cor 2:9), so also no human eye has seen nor ear heard nor has it entered into the heart of man what God had prepared for His enemies. Indeed, the punishment of sinners in Hell will be many and complete, that is, unmixed with any consolations, and, what infinitely increases their misery, they will be everlasting. They will be many, I say, because each of the faculties of the soul and each of the five senses of the body will have its torments. Weigh the words of this sentence of the Supreme Judge that is found in the Gospel, “Depart from me, accursed ones, into the eternal fire” (Mt 25:41). “Depart from Me,” he says, that is, move away from the fellowship of the blessed, remain deprived forever of the vision of God, which is the highest and essential happiness and ultimate end for which you were created. “Accursed ones,” that is, cherish no further hope for any kind of blessing; you are deprived of any life of grace, any hope of salvation; the water of wisdom will no more rain upon you, nor the dew of good inspirations. No longer will the ray of celestial light enlighten you, nor will the grace of repentance sprout in you, nor the flower of charity nor the fruit of good works. He who comes from on High (Lk 1:78) will never again visit you from that moment on; you will lack, not only spiritual goods but also material ones, not only eternal benefits but also temporal ones. For you there will be no riches, no pleasures, no consolation, but you will be like the fig tree that I cursed, which immediately dried up, roots and all (Mt 21:19). He says, “Into the fire,” that is, into the furnace of blazing and inextinguishable fire which will take hold not of one member, but of all your members at the same time and burn them with the sharpest pain. “Everlasting,” that is, into the fire which does not need to be fed with wood to keep burning forever, but is whipped up by the breath of Almighty God so that as your guilt will never be destroyed, so there will never be an end to your punishment. Rightly then does the prophet Isaiah exclaim, “Which of you can dwell inside a devouring fire? Which of you can dwell amidst the eternal flames?” (Is 33:14) By this he says that absolutely no one can support that fire patiently, but the damned will be forced against their will to bear it in impatience, anger and despair. He adds: “Their worm shall not die, and their fire shall not be quenched” (Is 66:24). These words are repeated more than once by Our Lord in St. Mark’s Gospel (Mk 9:43, 45, 47). Their remorse of the conscience will increase with the memory of the times when the sinners, had they wanted, could have escaped those punishments with a little effort and enjoyed the everlasting joys of Paradise. No one should think that the damned ones can find a little relief by walking about and changing their places. Hear what the Lord Himself says: “Bind his hands and feet, and cast him forth into the darkness outside where there will be weeping and the gnashing of teeth” (Mt 22:13). Therefore, those wretches, bound hand and foot by eternal chains, will lie forever in the same place, deprived of the light of the sun, moon and stars, scorched by burning fire, weeping and lamenting and gnashing their teeth in their fury and despair. Those who will be thrust down into that place full of horror will suffer not only the most terrible pain in the eternal fire, but also the absolute privation of all things, as well as shame and disgrace full of acute embarrassment and confusion. Indeed, in a flash they will lose their palaces, fields, vineyards, flocks, oxen, clothing, as well as their gold, silver and precious gems, and will be reduced to such destitution that the rich banqueter will desire and beg for a drop of cold water, but will not be heard (Lk 16:24-26). … If what we have said about the loss of all goods, both heavenly and earthly, and about the bitter pains, ignominy and shame, were to have an end or at least were mixed with some sort of consolation or relief, as it happens with all the miseries of this life, then they might be considered tolerable in some way. However, it is absolutely certain and beyond any doubt that, just as the happiness of the blessed will be perpetual and without any afflictions, so the unhappiness of the damned will last forever without any relief. Those who do not make every effort to attain to the Kingdom of Heaven and eternal happiness, regardless of any trials and dangers and shame and death, which the Apostle calls light and passing (2 Cor 4”17), must indeed be blind men and fools. (Taken from The Mind’s Ascent to God by the Ladder of Created Things, in Robert Bellarmine: Spiritual Writings (Classics of Western Spirituality), Paulist Press, 1988, Chap. IV, pp. 219-221)  Hello Everyone:
Tomorrow is a great Fatima feast - the feast of the Immaculate Heart of Mary. This was declared so in the year 1942 by Pope Pius XII after he had consecrated the world to Her Immaculate Heart. He declared the day to be August 22 within the Octave of the Feast of the Assumption, August 15. At Fatima, Our Lady told Sr. Lucia, "Jesus wants to use you to make me known and loved. He wants to establish the devotion to my Immaculate Heart in the world. I promise salvation to those who embrace it and their souls will be loved by God as flowers placed by myself to adorn His throne". There are three principal practices of devotion which Our Lady has requested in honor of her Immaculate Heart: the First Saturday of the month, the Five First Saturdays, and the Consecration of Russia. They bear a marked similarity to the devotions in honor of the Sacred Heart of Jesus.
May we all try to offer more reparation to the Hearts of Jesus and Mary and beg Our Lady's intercession to give us the necessary graces needed to set this Church on its right course so that we can one day see Russia consecrated and so that we may see peace in the world. Holy Mother Mary please instruct us and all priests and guide us so that we may be attentive to God’s grace. Help us and all priests to clear away the hindrance of sin so that we may trust and not fear, may we not doubt the goodness of God, His grace and His mercy. Pray for us and all priests to have a humble and contrite heart to accept the Truth of God in its fullness and cast away all doubt. Help us and all priests to know how ready Jesus is to immediately assist us who seek Him in love. Pray that we may know the merits and love of Jesus’ Passion, Death and Resurrection and may we have the grace to share this with others. Thank You Mary, Our Mother and Queen, for watching over the first Apostles and for continuing to watch over all of us. Please pray for us, and all clergy. May Your Immaculate Heart reign and triumph in the world so that Your Divine Son's Sacred Heart may reign and triumph. May our hearts beat like Your Immaculate Heart - only for Him!  Hello Everyone:
This is a very important post. As we all know, trouble in the Church keeps coming to the surface through media sources - not that this trouble wasn't there already - we just see its ugliness now. This is serious and getting even worse. Something big is about to happen - the ugly sore is overflowing with infection. This site is even more critical in light of this great need for Reparation. This site is about Reparation, Reparation and more Reparation. Who more than one who lives Carmelite spirituality is called to this. Their vocation is LOVE. If you are unfamiliar with this, please study the other headings of this site to learn more and to live it. I congratulate my pastor for beginning yesterday to offer Fridays of Reparation from 6 PM to 12 midnight. This is so needed. (I apologize that I could not make the first night though - I will try to be there in the coming weeks. Thank you for offering this.) I have taken the liberty to reprint part of a post from "Fr. Z's Blog". He too realizes the need for Reparation and calls for it. This was so good that I wanted to repeat some of it here. This was posted on his blog yesterday, 8/17/18: "This is a primarily a supernatural battle that is being fought right now. The bloody trenches and killing alleys are directly through the ranks of the Church’s priests, and they directly involve matters intimately tied into the very center of the Church’s core, priesthood and sacraments like Penance. No priest, no Eucharist, no Church. This war involves human weakness, identity perversion, and also demonic possession. Hence, our response has to involve all of these dimensions. Priests and bishops…. Please start saying Masses and having devotions for reparation and for deliverance from the assaults of the Enemy. We have tried and true spiritual weapons, if only we would dust them off, polish them up, and use them. Enough of this mealy-mouthed excuse making and temporizing. Enough of this rubbish about all the really important things that fill the clerical day, like committees and meetings. If you are going to have a meeting, meet about how we have to do reparation, who will be unlocking the church for Exposition and Rosaries and Novena and CONFESSIONS. Priests and bishops, for the love of all that is Holy, use your mighty spiritual weapons given by Orders and Holy Church’s own authoritative, tried and true Tradition. And, I’ll say it again and again and again… the Devil HATES LATIN. Let’s stop fooling around. Put the .22 long rifle away and start with the .50 cal already. The time for the MaDeuce of our sacred liturgical worship is NOW. Extraordinary Form, brothers. Stop fooling around. If you Latins out there don’t know and can’t use your whole Latin Rite, then.. who the hell are you, anyway? C’mon guys!" This is so right on the money. We need the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass - the unbloody sacrifice of Jesus and we need the Rosary. We can add the Reparation Prayers taught at Fatima for these times. The Third Secret of Fatima was not revealed in 1960 for a reason! It was about what we are seeing now! We are ALL called to take up arms and fight the good fight! Let us win this battle for Christ - Let us reclaim what we have lost and set an example for our children and our children's children. No more snoozing - the time for battle is NOW. Let us pray for and encourage all those priests willing to enter this battle with the Tridentine Mass, Rosary and Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament. Our Lady of Fatima - pray for us! Good St. Joseph - pray for us!!  Hello Everyone:
Happy and Blessed Feast of the Assumption of our Queen and Mother!! How beautiful that God had assumed Her Immaculate Soul and Body into Heaven upon Her Dormition. She deserves the best!! We will only come to know how much She has done for us in the eternal life. How beautiful it will be to see Her in Her splendor and radiance seated upon Her rightful throne as Queen of Heaven (and Earth)! How She has been so misunderstood and so little loved here on this earth! Her importance is about to be revealed though as we inch closer and closer to the Reign of Her Immaculate Heart here on this earth which was promised at Fatima. What a glorious day to live in hope for! How we need a renewal of love - of Christian spirit! It must be evident to anyone who reflects upon the sad state of things that what the world needs more than anything else is spiritual regeneration. The fatherhood of God, the brotherhood of mankind, love and charity, peace and happiness, holiness in the family, all the good things which Christ brought down from Heaven have practically disappeared all because Our Redeemer has been banished from His Kingdom. He has been driven from government, from education, from the home, from the lives of men and women and from all human relations. The social body is no longer vitalized by the life of the spirit of Christ. It is because Our Savior has been dethroned that the peace of the Holy Ghost no longer rests upon the world. Since there is no name under Heaven in which there is salvation for man except the Name of Jesus, the world must be reborn in Him, and, Mary must be the Mother of its regeneration! When the world sat in darkness and in the shadow of death, it was She who gave it its Redeemer; and to the end of time, She will remain our Life, our Sweetness and our Hope! How beautiful and how this fact expresses the love of God the Father in giving us so great, so loving, so beautiful, so self sacrificing a Queen and Mother. Her divine motherhood has made Her the Spiritual Mother of all men and never has it been known that anyone who fled to Her for help was left unaided. If men and nations would return to Her love, they would be as safe as the Infant Jesus was when He rested in Her arms. The Lord is with Her; and if we want Him to be with us, we must love Her whom He has made the Mother of our salvation. This insistence on Mary’s role in the Church for the salvation of all mankind brings us back to the Magnificat, the song of Mary expressing her gratitude: for “the Almighty has done great things for me” (Lk 1:49) In this song, St. Luke expressed, under the inspiration of the Holy Ghost, the interior life of Mary, her love for God, and her dedication to His Holy Will. We could say that he became the first interpreter of the Immaculate Heart of Mary. The Fatima prayer said at the end of each decade: “O my Jesus, forgive us our sins. save us from the fires of hell; lead all souls to Heaven, especially those most in need of Your mercy,” is said to Jesus through Mary in the Rosary. Mary has an essential role in God’s plan in the achieving of the salvation of the human race. It is to this Queen of Heaven that the Church should have recourse in all of its difficulties. It should entrust all its plans to Her because in praying to Her and loving Her, it can respond to the wish expressed by the Savior on the Cross, and it is certain it will not be disappointed in its prayers. We in no way will take anything away from Jesus by doing this but on the contrary we will be giving all to Him through Her hands -- and it is a sure way to Him! St. John Bosco taught his boys the advice of St. Bernard which was the following: “When the storms of temptation burst upon you, when you see yourself driven upon the rocks of tribulation, look up at the star, call upon Mary. When buffeted by the billows of pride, ambition, or hatred, or jealousy, look up at the star, call upon Mary. Should anger, or avarice, or carnal desires violently assail the little vessel of your soul, look up at the star, call upon Mary. If troubled on account of the heinousness of your sins, confounded at the filthy state of your conscience, and terrified at the thought of the awful judgment to come, you begin to sink into the bottomless gulf of sadness and to be absorbed in the abyss of despair, oh, then think of Mary! In danger, in doubts, in difficulties, think of Mary, call upon Mary. Let not Her name depart from your lips. Never suffer it to leave your heart that you may more surely obtain the assistance of Her prayers, neglect not to walk in Her footsteps. With Her for your guide, you will never go astray. While invoking Her, you will never lose heart so long as She is in your mind, you are safe from deception. While She holds you in Her hand, you cannot fall. Under Her protection, you have nothing to fear. If She walks before you, you will not grow weary. If She shows you favor, you will reach your goal – Heaven!” These are encouraging words for such a dismal world that seems to be imploding. She is Queen of all the empire of which He is King; all that He possesses as Son of God, She possesses as the Mother of Jesus. May we pray daily: May His Kingdom come through Mary! Queen of Heaven and Earth pray for us now and at the hour of our death! Mary we love You - please lead us to Jesus so that we may all be with You in Heaven!  Hello Everyone: So sorry for this sad title. The reparation needed for the trampling of the Mass is needed now more than ever! Below is a link to information of bishops allowing priests to offer gay pride Masses. This needs repair. What do they think the Mass is? This is a sacrilege and we must make reparation to the Hearts of Jesus and Mary for this abomination. I just had a conversation with one of my relatives regarding the definition of the Mass and it seems since the "new" catechesis, we have been neglecting to teach the true meaning of the Mass. It is no wonder since we have Protestantized the Mass when it was "reformed". This is amazingly tragic and the reason most laity and many priests are not aware of what the Mass truly is. We have lost the understanding of the fact that the Mass is the unbloodly sacrifice of Jesus on the Cross offered to the Father by the priest who is standing at the altar in "persona Christi". As defined by the Church at the Council of Trent, in the Mass, "The same Christ who offered Himself once in a bloody manner on the altar of the cross, is present and offered in an unbloody manner." Consequently, the Mass is a truly propitiatory sacrifice, which means that by this oblation "the Lord is appeased, He grants grace and the gift of repentance, and He pardons wrongdoings and sins, even grave ones. For it is one and the same victim. He who now makes the offering through the ministry of priests and He who then offered Himself on the cross. The only difference is the manner of offering" (Denzinger 1743). The Mass cannot be understood apart from Calvary, of which it is a re-presentation, memorial, and effective application of the merits gained by Christ. The re-presentation means that because Christ is really present in His humanity, in heaven and on the altar, He is capable now as He was on Good Friday of freely offering Himself to the Father. He can no longer die because He now has a glorified body, but the essence of His oblation remains the same. There has been a scream from the enemy over this reality of the "unbloody Sacrifice" since the Mass was first offered. Since Satan did not like the outcome of the bloody sacrifice - he certainly is going to try to prevent the "unbloody sacrifice" from happening. There has always been an attack on the Mass - "Let's not call it a sacrifice! Jesus died once and for all - it is over! Let's take down the cross and put a resurrection cross! Lets take away the high altar and put in a table - facing the people! Let's move the tabernacle to an inferior place! Let's put the Real Presence of Jesus in the hand of the laity! Let us invite them into the sanctuary and maybe - just maybe - the faithful will lose their faith in the priesthood and the Mass. Maybe we can even get the priest to lose his faith as well! The Church has always set forth the firm and clear principle that: "The way we worship is the way we believe." The doctrinal truths of the Faith are embodied in the worship we offer to God. In other words, it is the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass that teaches us our theology and not the reverse. The True Mass comprises the Apostolic Tradition of faith and morals in its very essence. This Sacrifice instituted by Christ is performed on our altars by the sacrificial action of the Redeemer Himself, truly present under the species of bread and wine, offering Himself as a victim to His Father. And by partaking at Communion of this Victim, we unite ourselves to the Body and Blood of Our Lord, and offer ourselves also in union with Him. We have lost this sense of offering of ourselves as well. Thus, the Church teaches, first, that the Priesthood of the priest is essentially different from that of the faithful, who do not have the Priesthood but who belong to a Church which essentially requires a Priesthood. It is deeply fitting that this Priesthood be celibate, and that its members be differentiated from the faithful by clerical dress. We have lost this belief as well. The respect for the priesthood is lost. Every doctrine essential to the Faith is taught in the Mass. Pope Leo XIII points out in Apostolicae Curae that the Church's enemies have always understood this principle as "They knew only too well the intimate bond that unites faith with worship, the law of belief with the law of prayer, and so, under the pretext of restoring the order of the liturgy to its primitive form, they (the Protestants) corrupted it in many respects to adapt it to the errors of the Innovators." It is no wonder, then, that Luther coined the slogan: "Take away the Mass, destroy the Church." For Luther, the Mass is a sacrifice of praise, that is - an act of praise, of thanksgiving, but most certainly not an expiatory sacrifice which recreates the Sacrifice of Calvary and applies its merits. Describing the liturgical "perversions" Luther observed in some monasteries, he wrote: "The Principal expression of their cult, the Mass, surpasses all impiety and abomination in that they make of it a sacrifice and a good work. Were this the only reason to leave habit and convent and abandon the vows, it would be amply sufficient". (Christiani, p. 258) For Luther, the Mass, which is meant simply to be a communion, has been subjected to a triple bondage: 1) the laity have been deprived of the use of the chalice, 2)they have been bound as to a dogma to the Thomistic opinion on transubstantiation, 3) and the Mass has been made into a sacrifice. (Hmm - that sounds like Novus Ordo) In Elizabethan England, Queen Elizabeth also trampled the idea of the sacrifice by confiscating the Catholic Churches and taking away the high altars and replacing them with tables for the priest to face the people in community. She removed the marble used on the high altar for the Holy Sacrifice and placed that marble in the entrance walkway of the church for the "faithful" to walk on in defiance against the Catholic Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. She replaced the Catholic Mass with an Anglican Mass and made it mandatory for Catholic and Protestant alike to go to this "New Mass" under pain of treason if you refused. (Hmm - that happened after the "New Mass of Pope Paul VI" was introduced!) (Note: you may be saying to yourself - NO Bernadette - the marble was taken out but not stomped upon - NO - many places used this marble outside the church walls for parking lot curbs - source: The Remnant newspaper. St. Alphonsus Liguori (Bishop, Doctor of the Church and Patron of Theologians) explains that "The devil has always attempted, by means of the heretics, to deprive the world of the Mass, making them precursors of the Anti-Christ, who, before anything else, will try to abolish and will actually abolish the Holy Sacrament of the altar, as a punishment for the sins of men, according to the prediction of Daniel: ‘And strength was given him against the continual sacrifice' (Dan. 8:12)." We are living in the days mentioned by St. Alphonsus in the book of Daniel and it looks like the devil has made progress in this. The faithful are falling away and churches are closing! God has allowed this as a punishment for the sins of men and success has been allowed to the enemy -- but God is pouring out His graces upon the faithful that are crying out to Him. The Latin Tridentine Mass is growing and many people, young and old, are flocking to it. Below is a video that was just sent to me today. I wish to share it with you and I hope it will be helpful to you and to your family members and friends. It is very long but shows the "Passion" movie clips alongside the parts of the Mass to emphasize its true meaning. Please find time to watch this and please pass it on. May Our Lady, Queen of Heaven and Earth, pray for us! |
AuthorBernadette Porter is a Traditional Catholic, a wife of 42 years with 6 adult home-schooled children and 6 grandchildren. A sincere devotion to Mary, the Mother of God leads me to want to share "The Church's best kept secret" - Mary! Archives
August 2024
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