Today is the Feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel! Let's pray today for all the Carmelites throughout the world and especially for those who are cloistered and praying for the world!
Also, the Church celebrates on this day the feast of the Brown Scapular of Mount Carmel. The scapular, which derives its name from the Latin word scapulæ, meaning shoulders, is a dress which covers the shoulders. It is mentioned in the rule of Saint Benedict as worn by monks over their other dress when they were at work, and it now forms a regular part of the religious dress in the old Orders. But it is best known among Catholics as the name of two little pieces of cloth worn out of devotion to the Blessed Virgin over the shoulders, under the ordinary garb, and connected by strings. The devotion of the scapular, now almost universal in the Catholic Church, began with the Carmelites. The history of its origin is as follows: During the thirteenth century the Carmelite Order suffered great persecution, and on 16 July 1251, while Saint Simon Stock, then general of the Order, was at prayer, the Blessed Virgin appeared to him, holding in her hand a scapular. Giving it to the saint, she said,
"Receive, my dear son, this scapular of thy Order, as the distinctive sign of my confraternity, and the mark of the privilege which I have obtained for thee and the children of Carmel. It is a sign of salvation, a safeguard in danger, and a special pledge of peace and protection till the end of time. Whosoever dies wearing this shall be preserved from eternal flames."
It is much to be wished that people should everywhere join this confraternity, for the honor of Mary and for the salvation of souls, by a life fitted to that end.
In order to have a share in the merits of the sodality every member must:
1. Shun sin, and, according to his state of life, live chastely.
2. Say every day, if possible, seven times, Our Father, Hail Mary, and Glory be to the Father.
3. Strive to serve God by venerating Mary, and imitating her virtues.
While I was in Quito I was able to spend 3 weeks with Salesians from all over Latin America. They came to Quito for the Salesianity class just as I had and I was grateful to hear some of the stories and devotions that are popular in their home countries. One of these devotions has its Feast Day on July 9! That devotion is Our Lady of Chiquinquirá! This is a devotion related to an image of Our Lady of the Rosary that was damaged and moved to Chiquinquirá, Columbia. The image also included St. Andrew the Apostle and St. Anthony of Padua. This image, by the grace of God, began to mend itself on December 26, 1586! Today Our Lady of Chiquinquirá is the patroness of Columbia. In Venezuela the image is honored as La Chinita. The following comes from the Patron Saints Index:
In the mid-16th century the Spanish painter Alonso de Narvaez created a portrait of the Virgin of the Rosary. He painted in pigments from the soil, herbs and flowers of the region of modern Colombia, and his canvas was a rough 44" * 49" cloth woven by Indians. The image of Mary is about a meter high, and stands about a half moon. She has a small, sweet smile, both her face and the Child's are light colored, and she looks like she's about to take a step. She wears a white toque, a rose-coloured robe, and a sky blue cape. A rosary hangs from the little finger of her left hand, and she holds a sceptre in her right. She holds the Christ Child cradled in her left arm, and looks toward him. Christ has a little bird tied to his thumb, and a small rosary hangs from his left hand. To the sides of Mary stand Saint Anthony of Padua and Saint Andrew the Apostle, the personal patrons of the colonist and monk who commissioned the work Don Antonio de Santana and Andrés Jadraque. In 1562 the portrait was placed in a rustic chapel. It was exposed to the air, the roof leaked, and soon the damage caused by the humidity and sun completely obscured the image. In 1577 the damaged painting was moved to Chiquinquirá and stored in an unused room. In 1585 Maria Ramos, a pious woman from Seville, cleaned up the little chapel, and hung the faded canvas in it. Though the image was in terrible shape, she loved to sit and contemplate it. On Friday 26 December 1586 the faded, damaged image was suddenly restored. It's colors were bright, the canvas cleaner, the image clear and seemingly brand new. The healing of the image continued as small holes and tears in the canvas self-sealed. It still has traces of its former damage, the figures seem brighter and clearer from a distance than up close. For 300 years the painting hung unprotected. Thousands of objects were touched against the frail cotton cloth by pilgrims. This rought treatment should have destroyed it, but it healed and survives. Pope Pius VII declared Our Lady of Chiquinquirá patroness of Colombia in 1829, and granted a special liturgy. In 1897 a thick glass plate was placed over it to stop the weather and the excesses of the faithful. The image was canonically crowned in 1919, and in 1927 her sanctuary declared a Basilica.
Maria Goretti's heroic story of love and forgiveness would not be complete without one of its first miraculous fruits: the conversion of Alessandro Serenelli, Maria's murderer.
Immediately after his brutal assault on young Maria Goretti, Alessandro was imprisoned temporarily in Nettuno and then transferred to Regina Coeli prison in Rometo stand trial. After vehemently denying his guilt, he finally broke down in the face of overwhelming testimony. Since he was a minor, he was sentenced to only thirty years hard labor.
A priest came to see him soon afterward, and he turned on the cleric in rage, howling like a maniac and lunging at him.
In the days which followed, Alessandro lost his appetite and grew nervous. After six years of prison, he was near the brink of despair. Then one night, Maria appeared to him in his cell. She smiled at Alessandro and was surrounded by lilies, the flower symbolic of purity.
From that moment, peace invaded Alessandro's heart, and he began to live a constructive life.
After serving his sentence, Alessandro took up residence at a Capuchin monastery, working in the garden as a tertiary. He asked pardon of Maria's mother and accompanied her to Christmas Mass in the parish church where he spoke before the hushed congregation, acknowledging his sin and asking God's forgiveness and the pardon of the community.
Forty years later, on June 24, 1950, Maria was canonized at St. Peter's basilica in Rome, with Alessandro's heart now firmly converted to the Lord. A miraculous fruit of Maria's life, indeed!
Alessandro Serenelli died on May 6th, 1970 in the Capuchin convent of Macerata. He left the following testimony, dated May 5, 1961, as his spiritual legacy:
"I'm nearly 80 years old. I'm about to depart. "Looking back at my past, I can see that in my early youth, I chose a bad path which led me to ruin myself.
"My behavior was influenced by print, mass-media and bad examples which are followed by the majority of young people without even thinking. And I did the same. I was not worried.
"There were a lot of generous and devoted people who surrounded me, but I paid no attention to them because a violent force blinded me and pushed me toward a wrong way of life.
"When I was 20 years-old, I committed a crime of passion. Now, that memory represents something horrible for me. Maria Goretti, now a Saint, was my good Angel, sent to me through Providence to guide and save me. I still have impressed upon my heart her words of rebuke and of pardon. She prayed for me, she interceded for her murderer. Thirty years of prison followed.
"If I had been of age, I would have spent all my life in prison. I accepted to be condemned because it was my own fault.
"Little Maria was really my light, my protectress; with her help, I behaved well during the 27 years of prison and tried to live honestly when I was again accepted among the members of society. The Brothers of St. Francis, Capuchins from Marche, welcomed me with angelic charity into their monastery as a brother, not as a servant. I've been living with their community for 24 years, and now I am serenely waiting to witness the vision of God, to hug my loved ones again, and to be next to my Guardian Angel and her dear mother, Assunta.
"I hope this letter that I wrote can teach others the happy lesson of avoiding evil and of always following the right path, like little children. I feel that religion with its precepts is not something we can live without, but rather it is the real comfort, the real strength in life and the only safe way in every circumstance, even the most painful ones of life."
The following is a reflection of Fr. John Hardon, SJ:
In the Sacrifice of the Mass, Jesus offers Himself to His heavenly Father just as truly as He offered Himself on the Cross. On Calvary, He offered Himself by shedding His blood and thus merited the salvation of the world. In the Mass, He continues to offer Himself just as truly as He did on the first Good Friday. But now, He confers the graces that He won for us on Calvary. What are these graces? In one sentence, they are the graces we need to surrender ourselves to the will of God.
The Church defines sacrifice as the voluntary surrender of something precious to God. That is why Christ continues to sacrifice Himself to His heavenly Father in every Mass that has been offered for the twenty centuries of Christianity. In every Mass, Jesus Christ is present in the fullness of His human nature and therefore with His human will. That is what the double consecration at Mass is all about. It signifies that Jesus is just as willing to shed His blood for our salvation as He willingly and actually shed His blood on Calvary. As the glorified Redeemer, He can no longer die. But He is willing to die.
It is from the Sacrifice of the Mass offered throughout the world that we obtain the strength we need to surrender ourselves to the divine will in this valley of tears.
As we all know from personal experience, God can make heavy demands on our generosity. He will send us trials and difficulties and sufferings. Why? In order that we may prove our submission to His divine will. God will take away so many things, dare I say everything that we consider precious in this world. Again why? In order that we may recognize Him as our Lord and ourselves as His servants.
No words can describe the depth of this necessity to surrender our created wills to the divine will of the Creator. Where, where can we obtain the courage we need to make this self-surrender? Where, except from the God who died on the Cross for our salvation and continues to offer Himself in every Mass.
The lesson this should teach us is obvious. We must assist at Mass as often as we can. We must learn to live the Mass by putting into practice the graces which the Savior gives us through the Holy Sacrifice.
One more observation, in the form of a long quotation from Pope Pius XII in his encyclical Mediator Dei, which is the foundation of the true spirit of the Second Vatican Council.
It is desirable that all the faithful should be aware that to participate in the Eucharistic sacrifice is their chief duty and supreme dignity, and that not in an inert and negligent fashion, giving way to distractions and day-dreaming, but with such earnestness and concentration that they may be united as closely as possible with the High Priest, according to the apostle, Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus (Phil. 2, 5). And together with Him and through Him let them make their oblation, and in union with Him let them offer up themselves.
I do not think I need apologize for this long quotation. The widespread liturgical abuses in the offering of Mass should only inspire us to participate in the Holy Sacrifice as often and as fervently as possible. Saints like Leonard of Port Maurice do not hesitate to say that the world would long ago have been destroyed for its sins except for the Sacrifice of the Mass.
It is through the Mass we are able to imitate Jesus Christ in living lives of total self-surrender to the will of God.
Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati (1901-1925) has been a significant global patron for youth and young adults. St. John Paul II declared him a patron for World Youth Days and deemed him "the man of the beatitudes" as he exemplified those blessings in his everyday life. Pope Francis listed him among the twelve exemplary saints for all young people in his apostolic exhortation, Christus Vivit, "who devoted their lives to Christ... precious reflections of the young Christ; their radiant witness encourages us and awakens us from our lethargy." (CV 49)
Frassati was considered extraordinary in his "ordinariness."
Pier Giorgio was engaged in the life of the Church through regular worship and adoration, service to the poor and marginalized, advocacy for social justice for the disenfranchised and for religious liberty, regular participation in student activities, devotion to his family, and joyful companionship with his friends and fellow Catholics in his community. He saw many parallels between Catholic life and his favorite pastime, mountain-climbing. He would regularly organize trips into the mountains with his close friends with occasions for prayer, liturgies, and conversations about faith on the way up to or down from the summit.
After what would become his final climb he wrote a simple note on a photograph: "Verso L'Alto", which means "to the heights." This phrase has since come to encapsulate his philosophy of mountaineering and his Catholic outlook on life and adventure.
You can learn more about Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati at Frassati USA.
The following comes from Kathy Schiffer at Aleteia:
What do medieval mystic St. Bernard of Clairvaux and modern monk St. Padre Pio have in common? Well, they’re both saints, sharing in the eternal reward that God has prepared for them. But beyond that, both had a sincere devotion to the Shoulder Wound of Christ.
SAINT BERNARD OF CLAIRVAUX, the French abbott and mystic who helped renew the Cistercian Order in the 12th century, related in the annals of Clairvaux a conversation he’d had with our Lord. He prayed, asking Jesus which was his greatest unrecorded suffering; and the Lord answered him:
“I had on My Shoulder while I bore My Cross on the Way of Sorrows, a grievous Wound that was more painful than the others, and which is not recorded by men. Honor this Wound with thy devotion, and I will grant thee whatsoever thou dost ask through its virtue and merit. And in regard to all those who shall venerate this Wound, I will remit to them all their venial sins and will no longer remember their mortal sins.”
ST. PIO OF PIETRELCINA, Capuchin friar, priest and mystic, died in 1968. Padre Pio was known as a confessor and a holy man who for more than 50 years bore the wounds of Christ (the stigmata) on his hands and feet.
In a book published in the Italian language by St. Pio’s friary, titled Il Papa e Il Frate, author Stefano Campanella reported that the future St. Pio had once had a very interesting conversation with Karol Wojtyla, the future Pope St. John Paul II.
According to Campanella, Fr. Wojtyla asked Padre Pio which of his wounds caused the most pain. Fr. Wojtyla expected Padre Pio to say that it was his chest wound; but instead Padre Pio replied, “It is my shoulder wound, which no one knows about and has never been cured or treated.”
In 2008, 40 years after Padre Pio’s death, author Frank Rega wrote about Padre Pio:
At one time Padra [sic] had confided to Brother Modestino Fucci, now the doorkeeper at Padre Pio’s friary in San Giovanni Rotondo, Italy, that his greatest pains occurred when he changed his undershirt. Brother Modestino, like Father Wojtyla, thought that Padre Pio was referring to pains from the chest wound. Then, on February 4, 1971, Brother Modestino was assigned the task of taking an inventory of all the items in the deceased Padre’s cell in the friary, and also his belongings in the archives. That day he discovered that one of Padre Pio’s undershirts bore a circle of bloodstains in the area of the right shoulder.
On that very evening, Brother Modestino asked Padre Pio in prayer to enlighten him about the meaning of the bloodstained undershirt. He asked Padre to give him a sign if he truly bore Christ’s shoulder wound. Then he went to sleep, awakening at 1 a.m. with a terrible, excruciating pain in his shoulder, as if he had been sliced with a knife up to the shoulder bone. He felt that he would die from the pain if it continued, but it lasted only a short time. Then the room became filled with the aroma of a heavenly perfume of flowers — the sign of Padre Pio’s spiritual presence — and he heard a voice saying, “This is what I had to suffer!”
St. Bernard of Clairvaux, after receiving the message from Christ regarding the pain he experienced in his shoulder, sought to foster devotion to the Shoulder Wound of Christ, and penned this prayer: Prayer to the Shoulder Wound of Christ Most loving Jesus, meek Lamb of God, I, a miserable sinner, salute and worship the most Sacred Wound of Thy Shoulder on which Thou didst bear Thy heavy Cross which so tore Thy flesh and laid bare Thy Bones as to inflict on Thee an anguish greater than any other wound of Thy Most Blessed Body. I adore Thee, O Jesus most sorrowful; I praise and glorify Thee, and give Thee thanks for this most sacred and painful Wound, beseeching Thee by that exceeding pain, and by the crushing burden of Thy heavy Cross to be merciful to me, a sinner, to forgive me all my mortal and venial sins, and to lead me on towards Heaven along the Way of Thy Cross. Amen.
There are many stories of Fatima and for everything to be told would be like an Encyclopaedia. One of these stories will be better known on April 25, 2004 when Pope John Paul II declares Alexandrina blessed. If you do not know her story, you can get a great book from Tan Book and Publishers called "Alexandrina, The Agony and The Glory" by Francis Johnson.
Some of the pilgrimages which go to Fatima visit the town of Balasar north of Fatima. It became famous in 1832 when the earth changed to form the appearance of a large cross which you can still see today inside a chapel which has been built over it. Almost exactly 100 years later in the same town, Alexandrina Maria da Costa started suffering the passion of Jesus in answer to the request of Our Lady of Fatima. She ended her life living on the Eucharist alone for the last thirteen years.
Alexandrina was born in April 1904. In 1918, the year after the apparitions of Fatima, Alexandrina and her sister Deolinda and another girl were home when three men knocked at the door, one of whom had previously tried to molest Alexandrina. They broke into the house. Alexandrina (to preserve her chastity) jumped from an upstairs window. The men fled but Alexandrina’s spine had been irreparably injured and she had to remain in bed for the rest of her life. The slightest movement caused her intense pain. She began to grow closer and closer to the Lord and realised that she was suffering in a special way for the salvation of souls. She received Holy Communion every day and her thoughts frequently turned to Jesus in the tabernacle.
She went into her first ecstasy in 1931 when she heard Jesus say to her, “Love, suffer and make reparation.” She saw her vocation to be that of a victim soul, to make reparation for all of us. Under the order of her spiritual director she was dictating her life’s story to her sister but many times the devil threatened her not to write any more. In 1936 Our Lord asked her to spread the message of Fatima and to urge the consecration of the world to the Immaculate Heart and she offered herself as a victim soul for this.
In one of her ecstasies Jesus said to her,
“Keep me company in the Blessed Sacrament. I remain in the tabernacle night and day, waiting to give my love and grace to all who would visit me. But so few come. I am so abandoned, so lonely, so offended…. Many…do not believe in my existence; they do not believe that I live in the tabernacle. They curse me. Others believe, but do not love me and do not visit me; they live as if I were not there… You have chosen to love me in the tabernacles where you can contemplate me, not with the eyes of the body, but those of the soul. I am truly present there as in Heaven, Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity.”
From October 1938 Alexandrina began to suffer the passion of Jesus every Friday. She suffered the passion of Jesus 180 times. Until 1942 she was suffering in silence without fame but after a report appeared in a newspaper from then on she was besieged by pilgrims asking for prayer. During the Holy Week the same year Jesus said to her,
“You will not take food again on earth. Your food will be my Flesh; your drink will be my Divine Blood …”
So on Good Friday 1942 she began an absolute fast which lasted for the more than thirteen years until her death. The only nourishment which her body filled with pain received was Jesus in Holy Communion every morning. News of her fast spread and the crowds became even bigger. Some people had doubts and suspicions about her fast and accused her, her sister and mother of fraud. Therefore she agreed to medical observation. The doctor asked her, “Why do you not eat?” She replied, “I do not eat because I cannot. I feel full. I do not need it. However, I have a longing for food.” It was decided that she should be admitted to a nearby hospital for a thirty day observation of her fast. While she was in the hospital some tried to persuade her to take food. The doctor in charge of the examination was nasty to her and at the end of the thirty days said the nurses watching her must have been deceived and decided she was to remain there for a further ten days. They even showed her tasty food to entice her to eat. When the test was finally over the doctor said to her he would visit her at home not as a doctor-spy but as a friend who esteems her. Part of the medical report reads as follows:
“Her abstinence from solids and liquids was absolute during all that time. We testify also that she retained her weight, and her temperature, breathing, blood pressure, pulse and blood were normal while her mental faculties were constant and lucid and she had not, during these forty days, any natural necessities…The laws of physiology and biochemistry cannot account for the survival of this sick woman…”
While medical science could not explain, the explanation was simple. Jesus had said to Alexandrina,
“You are living by the Eucharist alone because I want to prove to the world the power of the Eucharist and the power of my life in souls.”
She died on 13th October 1955, having received nourishment only from Holy Communion for more than thirteen years. Some of the pilgrimages to Fatima visit her town Balasar and you can visit her house, see her room and visit the local Church where she is buried to the left of the altar.
Today we remember Blessed Junipero Serra. He is the great missionary to California and a great witness of apostolic zeal!
The following comes from the PBS site:
A priest in the Franciscan order of the Catholic Church, Junipero Serra was a driving force in the Spanish conquest and colonization of what is now the state of California.
Serra was born into a humble family on the Spanish island of Mallorca in the Mediterranean Ocean. His parents sent him to a nearby Franciscan school, and his intellectual abilities soon caught the attention of his teachers. At age fifteen he enrolled in a prominent Franciscan school in the nearby city of Palma. The next year he became a novice in the Franciscan order and shortly thereafter was ordained as a priest.
Serra's intellectual acumen and enormous willpower secured his appointment as a professor of theology at the tender age of twenty-four. Six years later, in 1743, he moved on to a professorship at the prestigious Lullian University.
Despite his success as a pulpit orator and professor, Serra hungered for something more. In 1749 he secured permission to travel with some fellow Franciscans who intended to devote themselves to work at a mission near Mexico City. Serra took the long sea voyage to Spain's colonies. Despite ill health from the voyage, upon his arrival in Vera Cruz he insisted on walking all the way to Mexico City, a distance of over two hundred miles. This was the first of many feats of physical stamina and willpower which were to make the Franciscan a legend in his own time.
For some fifteen years, Serra worked in Mexico at much the same tasks as he had in Spain, although he took on missionary work to nearby Indian peoples in addition to preaching, hearing confessions, and helping to administrate Mexico City's College of San Fernando.
In 1767 the Spanish emperor's expulsion of the Jesuits from Spain's colonies led the government to ask the Franciscan Order to replace them as missionaries in Baja (lower) California. Serra was appointed head of these missions. The next year the Spanish governor decided to explore and found missions in Alta (upper) California, the area which is now the state of California. This project was intended both to Christianize the extensive Indian populations and to serve Spain's strategic interest by preventing Russian explorations and possible claims to North America's Pacific coast.
Serra spent the rest of his life as head of the Franciscans in Alta California. Already over fifty years old, dangerously thin, asthmatic, and seriously injured in one of his legs, the undaunted Serra led the founding of the Mission of San Diego in 1769, aided an expedition in locating San Francisco Bay, and personally founded eight other missions, including his lifelong headquarters, the mission San Carlos Borromeo at Carmel. His Herculean efforts subjected him to near-starvation, afflictions of scurvy, and hundreds of miles of walking and horse riding through dangerous terrain. Moreover, he was notorious for his mortifications of the flesh: wearing heavy shirts with sharp wires pointed inward, whipping himself to the point of bleeding, and using a candle to scar the flesh of his chest. His sacrifices bore fruit for the missionaries; by his death in 1784, the nine missions he had founded had a nominally converted Indian population of nearly 5,000.
Serra argued with the Spanish Army over the proper authority of the Franciscans in Alta California, which he thought should subsume that of military commanders. In 1773 he convinced the authorities in Mexico City to increase financial and military support for expansion of his missions, and to expand the authority of the Franciscans over both the army and the baptized mission Indians. He also urged Mexican officials to establish an overland route to Alta California, a suggestion which led to colonizing expeditions from New Mexico which established civilian settlements at San Francisco in 1776 and at Los Angeles in 1781.
Serra wielded this kind of political power because his missions served economic and political purposes as well as religious ends. The number of civilian colonists in Alta California never exceeded 3,200, and the missions with their Indian populations were critical to keeping the region within Spain's political orbit. Economically, the missions produced all of the colony's cattle and grain, and by the 1780's were even producing surpluses sufficient to trade with Mexico for luxury goods.
Despite the frequent conflicts between military and religious authority, for Alta California's Indians the missions and their Franciscan administrators were part and parcel of an enormously destructive colonization process. The Spanish, largely through disease, were responsible for a population decline from about 300,000 Indians in 1769 to about 200,000 by 1821. The strenuous work regime and high population density within the missions themselves also caused high death rates among the mission Indians. By law, all baptized Indians subjected themselves completely to the authority of the Franciscans; they could be whipped, shackled or imprisoned for disobedience, and hunted down if they fled the mission grounds. Indian recruits, who were often forced to convert nearly at gunpoint, could be expected to survive mission life for only about ten years. As one Friar noted, the Indians "live well free but as soon as we reduce them to a Christian and community life... they fatten, sicken, and die."
Junipero Serra is still a well-known figure in California, a virtual icon of the colonial era whose statue stands in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park and in the U.S. Capital. In 1987 Pope John Paul II beatified Serra, the second of three steps necessary for the Church's bestowal of formal sainthood. Many Indians and academics condemned this decision, pointing to the harsh conditions of mission life and Serra's own justification of beatings. (In 1780, Serra wrote: "that spiritual fathers should punish their sons, the Indians, with blows appears to be as old as the conquest of [the Americas]; so general in fact that the saints do not seem to be any exception to the rule.") Defenders of Serra cited the context of his times, his enormous personal sacrifices and religious zeal, and his opposition to punitive military expeditions against the Indians as exonerating factors. More than two centuries after his death, Junipero Serra is still a pivotal figure in California history and the history of the American West, this time as a flashpoint for controversy over European treatment of Indians.
Welcome to the Blog! I am a Catholic Priest and was ordained to the priesthood on August 26, 2000. I hope this site is a place of interest for you where you will find ideas and information on the Catholic faith and the Church.
Today is the Feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel! Let's pray today for all the Carmelites throughout the world and especially for those who are cloistered and praying for the world!
