The Miraculous Conversion of Alessandro Serenelli

The following comes from MariaGoretti.org:

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."

 Signature, Alessandro Serenelli

Deepen Your Personal Relationship with Jesus

The following comes from the Catholic Exchange:

The Lord calls us all to have a personal relationship with Him. This personal relationship is based on knowledge — God know­ing us and we knowing God. God already knows us; His knowl­edge is perfect. Despite our best attempts to ignore Him, God has always known us. But we weren’t born with this knowledge of God.

Even when we discover God through revelation, we might know about God but still might not know Him. In the Bible, to “know” someone is to engage in sexual intercourse with that person. When we speak of knowing God, and of God know­ing us, we are speaking about a different but similarly intimate relationship with Him.

Jesus tells His disciples:

Not every one who says to me, “Lord, Lord,” shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. On that day many will say to me, “Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?” And then will I declare to them, “I never knew you; depart from me, you evildoers.” (Matt. 7:21–23)

It is clear that those who will be accepted into heaven are those who know God, who have a personal relationship with Him. The question is: What does it mean to have a personal relationship with the Lord? It means that we let God be in charge of our lives, that we form a relationship with His Mystical Body, and that we get to know His Mother. It also demands that we seek a constant and perpetual conversion, serve others in love, and create disciples.

Let’s look at various ways to develop or deepen your personal relationship with the Lord: through prayer, letting God be in control of your life, being involved with the Church, growing in devotion to the Blessed Mother, and seeking spiritual direction.

Pray

Because prayer is personal, it is the most direct way of developing and maintaining a personal relationship with the Lord. The time we spend talking to our loved ones, and listening to their needs and concerns, allows our relationship with them to grow deeper. Likewise, when we grow in our relationship with God through prayer, we come to understand Him better and to understand His will for us.

A good prayer life requires practice, discipline, commitment, openness, honesty, and love. To get a good start on your prayer life, or even to add to it, look for a book of Catholic prayers, of which there are many kinds. Also, check out a breviary, which is a book of liturgical prayers. There are also several apps for your phone or tablet that contain many prayers, including the bre­viary. Make a place in your home, a room or a corner, for prayer.

In flight training, when one pilot hands the control over to the other, the receiver says, “My controls,” and the giver responds with, “Your controls” as he lets go of all controls, and again the receiving pilot responds with “I have full control.” When we have a personal relationship with Jesus, we aren’t even copilots, because He is always in control. When we trust God and give Him complete control of our lives — which we never really had much control over in the first place — God performs maneuvers and makeovers that we never thought possible. Moreover, He re­moves all boundaries that hold us down and frees our spirits to soar.

This is especially true in the case of sin. We cannot become free of sin and distress until we let God transform us. We let God transform us by participating in the sacraments, serving others, praying, and reading Scripture regularly.

A Relationship with the Church

A personal relationship with Jesus also means a personal rela­tionship with His Church. Recall the story of Saul on his way to Damascus to punish and persecute Christians.

But Saul, still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord, went to the high priest and asked him for letters to the synagogues at Damascus, so that if he found any belonging to the Way, men or women, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem. Now as he journeyed he approached Damascus, and suddenly a light from heaven flashed about him. And he fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to him, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?” And he said, “Who are you, Lord?” And he said, “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting.” (Acts 9:1–5)

Saul must have been confused. He persecuted Christians, this he knew, but the voice he heard was not one of the men or women he had directly persecuted. This voice was telling him that by persecuting Christ’s people, Saul was persecuting Christ Himself. Saul, who later became Paul, would soon realize that Jesus identifies directly with His people — not in a symbolic way, but in reality.

Because of this identity, the Second Vatican Council docu­ment Lumen Gentium rightly says:

God gathered together as one all those who in faith look upon Jesus as the author of salvation and the source of unity and peace, and established them as the Church that for each and all it may be the visible sacrament of this saving unity. (no. 9)

We see clearly that the Church is the most profound institu­tion in the world. Jesus came to establish the kingdom of God, and to make that happen, He established a Church and prom­ised to remain with her always (Matt. 28:20). He has given His Church authority (see Matt. 10:16; 28:19) and commissioned her to teach and to remind His people of everything He said (John 14:26; 16:13).

We are therefore called to have a relationship with Jesus and His Church. To have a good relationship with the Church, we should turn to her as a source of truth, participate in her sacraments, and obey her laws, for when we obey the Church, we obey Christ:

He who hears you hears me, and he who rejects you rejects me, and he who rejects me rejects him who sent me. (Luke 10:16)

Read the rest here.

5 Ways to Practice Conversion

The following comes from the Catholic Exchange:

Be converted, the kingdom of God is at hand.

These are the first world we hear from the lips of Our Blessed Savior as He initiates His Public ministry. Conversion in Greek is Metanoia, meaning change of heart. The core of the teaching of the Precursor of Jesus, St. John the Baptist, was the same, “Be converted because the Kingdom of God is at hand.” Furthermore, St. Peter and the Apostles also preached the call to conversion. Therefore, if the greatest of all prophets, the first Pope, and Jesus Himself preached the urgency of conversion then indeed it must be important!

The Church, the Mystical Body of Christ, reiterates this message in various forms and seasons. At the start of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, after greeting the people, the priest invites himself and the whole congregation to pause briefly for an examination of conscience. On what? Our communal and personal recognition of sin and humble invocation that God would have mercy on us and help us to undergo metanoia—conversion of life.

Ways that we can undergo a true conversion of life

The following are ways that we can delve deep into our souls and strive for a sincere and deep conversion of life! However, we must always remember that true conversion of life is more God’s work in our souls than our doing. We must collaborate with the grace of the Lord!

1. Memory. Our memory is in need of constant purification. St. Paul exhorts us to put on the mind of Christ; then he says that you have the mind of Christ. Past wounds in our early years, addictions that enslaved, abuses either physical, emotional, social or moral—all of these must be brought to the Lord for a deep healing and conversion. One short but powerful suggestion: The Word of God! The Word of God is powerful like a two-edged sword that separates bone from marrow. The daily reading of the Word of God in prayerful meditation can result in the conversion of the mind. One more step: memorize Sacred Scripture! If you like this analogy: what chlorine is and does to a swimming pool (cleansing and purifying) the Word of God can do to the human mind. Lord, may your Word be a light for my path and a torch for my steps!

2. Eyes. Our eyes need constant vigilance and control. Unfortunately, the most powerful addiction in the United States is that of pornography. Children are exposed to this ravenous and merciless wolf at a very tender age. Studies show that pornography can be more powerful than the addiction to drugs. A recovering gang member, drug-addict and alcoholic rejoiced that he was able to conquer all the above vices. However, he could not detach himself from the addiction to pornography. Three suggestions to attain this metanoia/conversion.

•  At the crack of dawn upon waking, to consecrate one’s whole being— especially the eyes—to the Immaculate Heart of Mary.
• Second, when tempted invoke the Precious Blood of Jesus as a shield against the fiery darts of the devil.
• Lastly, visit the Blessed Sacrament exposed and contemplate the Eucharistic heart of Jesus. In the words of the Psalmist: “Look to the Lord and be radiant with joy.”

3. Tongue. Our tongue has to be controlled constantly! Saint James reminds us poignantly that we should be slow to speak and quick to listen. Jesus reminds us that every word that issues from our mouth will be subject to judgment. Also the Lord tells us that from the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. Three concrete suggestions to attain conversion of our mouth, a transformation of our speech. First, we should get in the habit of speaking more to God and less to people. Second, we should learn to hold back our impulses and think before we speak. Finally, apply the Golden Rule of Jesus to speech. Do to others what you would have them do to you; say to others what you would like them say to you! Following this advice we are on the highway to converting our tongue!

4. Intentions. Being honest with ourselves we must humble admit that our intentions are often mixed. Even in the best of actions are hidden some self-seeking, self-love and vanity. Sincere examination of conscience will highlight this truth! In the Diary of Saint Faustina, time and time again Jesus manifests His desire that she always have purity of intention, that her actions be done to please Him and for the honor and glory of God. The Bible points out that man sees the appearance but God reads the heart. In the Sermon on the Mount Jesus strictly warns us not to do our actions to be seen and praised by man. Remember! Do your actions such that your right hand does not even know what your left hand is doing. Your father who sees in secret will recompense you.

The motto of St. Ignatius, the founder of the Company of Jesus (the Jesuits) is four letters: A.M.D.G. —Ad Maiorem Dei Gloriam—meaning, for the greater glory of God. That indeed should be the motivating principle that drives all of our actions in life! One concrete suggestion to obtain the conversion/metanoia of our intentions— Give all to Jesus through the hands of Mary. In the classic of St. Louis de Montfort, True Devotion to Mary, St. Louis presents a scene in which a pauper desires to present the King with an apple. The apple is not of the best, nor is the pauper the most worthy of admiration. However there is a secret to access to the heart of the King—the love the King has for his Queen. If the pauper can reach the Queen and give her the apple, then her Highness will take the apple, polish it, place it on a golden platter next to a beautiful flower and present it to the King. Then the King will accept it. Why? Not because of the pauper but because of the powerful and irresistible persuasion of the Queen. If we place our intentions in the Immaculate Heart of Mary then she purifies, embellishes and corrects our distorted motives!

5. Heart. Last but not least we all must go through a daily conversion of the very center of our being— our heart. Jesus says that from the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. The human heart can contain within it the most noble of intentions, but the human heart can also embrace the most despicable of desires! Constant conversion/metanoia of heart is necessary on a daily basis!

What might be the most efficacious means to undergo a true conversion of heart? Simple and to the point: Fervent and passionate daily communion! In Holy Communion we receive the totality of Jesus: His Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity. Therefore, if we receive His Body, that means we also receive His Sacred Heart. In the most Sacred Heart of Jesus can be found all of the most sublime virtues and to the highest degree of holiness and perfection.

Faith, hope, charity, patience, purity, meekness, obedience, mortification, fortitude— just to mention a few, are some of the virtues present in the Sacred Heart of Jesus. These virtues are present in every Consecrated Host that we can receive in Holy Communion on a daily basis. In a real sense, we can undergo a daily spiritual heart transplant every time we receive Holy Communion with faith, devotion and love. Beyond a shadow of doubt, Holy Communion received with the proper dispositions is by far the most efficacious channel to arrive at a true conversion of heart. Our Lord’s loving Heart burns and consumes all that is ugly and ignoble in our hearts so that we can truly say with the Apostle Saint Paul: “It is no longer I who live but Christ who lives in me!”

The Prophetic Ratzinger

In 1969 Fr. Joseph Ratzinger gave a series of interviews on the future of the Church.  These interviews can be found in the book Faith and the Future by Ignatius Press.  The following comes from Vultus Christi:

The future of the Church can and will issue from those whose roots are deep and who live from the pure fullness of their faith. It will not issue from those who accommodate themselves merely to the passing moment or from those who merely criticize others and assume that they themselves are infallible measuring rods; nor will it issue from those who take the easier road, who sidestep the passion of faith, declaring false and obsolete, tyrannous and legalistic, all that makes demands upon men, that hurts them and compels them to sacrifice themselves. 

To put this more positively: The future of the Church, once again as always, will be reshaped by saints, by men, that is, whose minds probe deeper than the slogans of the day, who see more than others see, because their lives embrace a wider reality. Unselfishness, which makes men free, is attained only through the patience of small daily acts of self-denial. By this daily passion, which alone reveals to a man in how many ways he is enslaved by his own ego, by this daily passion and by it alone, a man’s eyes are slowly opened. He sees only to the extent that he has lived and suffered. If today we are scarcely able any longer to become aware of God, that is because we find it so easy to evade ourselves, to flee from the depths of our being by means of the narcotic of some pleasure or other. Thus our own interior depths remain closed to us. If it is true that a man can see only with his heart, then how blind we are! 

How does all this affect the problem we are examining? It means that the big talk of those who prophesy a Church without God and without faith is all empty chatter. We have no need of a Church that celebrates the cult of action in political prayers. It is utterly superfluous. Therefore, it will destroy itself. What will remain is the Church of Jesus Christ, the Church that believes in the God who has become man and promises us life beyond death. The kind of priest who is no more than a social worker can be replaced by the psychotherapist and other specialists; but but the priest who is no specialist; who does not stand on the sidelines, watching the game, giving official advice, but in the name of God places himself at the disposal of men, who is beside them in their sorrows, in their joys, in their hope and in their fear, such a priest will certainly be needed in the future. 

Let us go a step farther. From the crisis of today the Church of tomorrow will emerge a Church that has lost much She will become small and will have to start afresh more or less from the beginning. She will no longer be able to inhabit many of the edifices she built in prosperity. As the number of her adherents diminishes, so will she loose many of her social privileges. In contrast to an earlier age, she will be seen much more as a voluntary society, entered only by free decision . As a small society, she will make much bigger demands on the initiative of her individual members. Undoubtedly she will discover new forms of ministry and will ordain to the priesthood approved Christians who pursue some profession. In many smaller congregations or in self-contained social groups, pastoral care will normally be provided in this fashion. Along-side this, the full-time ministry of the priesthood will be indispensable as formerly. But in all of the changes at which one might guess, the Church will find her essence afresh and with full conviction in that which was always at her center: faith in the triune God, in Jesus Christ, the Son of God made man, in the presence of the Spirit until the end of the world. In faith and prayer she will again recognize the sacraments as the worship of God and not as a subject for liturgical scholarship. 

The Church will be a more spiritual Church, not presuming upon a political mandate, flirting as little with the Left as with the Right. It will be hard-going for the Church, for the process of crystallization and clarification will cost her much valuable energy. It will make her poor and cause her to become the Church of the meek. The process will be all the more arduous, for sectarian narrow-mindedness as well as pompous self-will will have to be shed. One may predict that all of this will take time. The process will be long and wearisome as was the road from the false progressivism on the eve of the French Revolution — when a bishop might be thought smart if he made fun of dogmas and even insinuated that the existence of God was by no means certain — to the renewal of the nineteenth century. But when the trial of this sifting is past, a great power will flow from a more spiritualized and simplified Church. Men in a totally planned world will find themselves unspeakably lonely. If they have completely lost sight of God, they will feel the whole horror of their poverty. Then they will discover the little flock of believers as something wholly new. They will discover it as a hope that is meant for them, an answer for which they have always been searching in secret. 

And so it seems certain to me that the Church is facing very hard times. The real crisis has scarcely begun. We will have to count on terrific upheavals. But I am equally certain about what will remain at the end: not the Church of the political cult, which is dead already, but the Church of faith. She may well no longer be the dominant social power to the extent that she was until recently; but she will enjoy a fresh blossoming and be seen as man’s home, where he will find life and hope beyond death.

Catholicisms Pivotal Player: St. John Henry Newman

Word on Fire and Bishop Barron have made this episode of the Pivotal Players available at the canonization of St. John Henry Newman.  It is beautifully done and well worth watching.  Here is more on Cardinal Newman from Bishop Barron at Word on Fire:

As I compose these words, I am preparing to leave for Rome, where I will attend the canonization Mass for John Henry Newman, and then for Oxford, where I will give a paper on Newman’s thought in regard to evangelization. Needless to say, the great English convert is much on my mind these days. As I read the myriad commentaries on the new saint, I’m particularly struck by how often he is co-opted by the various political parties active in the Church today—and how this co-opting both distorts Newman and actually makes him less interesting and relevant for our time. I should like to show this by drawing attention to two major themes in Newman’s writing—namely, the development of doctrine and the primacy of conscience.St. John Henry Newman did indeed teach that doctrines, precisely because they exist in the play of lively minds, develop over time. And he did indeed say, in this epistemological context, “to live is to change and to be perfect is to have changed often.” But does this give us license to argue, as some on the left suggest, that Newman advocated a freewheeling liberalism, an openness to any and all change? I hope the question answers itself. In his Biglietto speech, delivered upon receiving the notification of his elevation to the Cardinalatial office, Newman bluntly announced that his entire professional career could be rightly characterized as a struggle against liberalism in matters of religion. By “liberalism” he meant the view that there is no objective and reliable truth in regard to religious claims. Moreover, Newman was keenly aware that doctrines undergo both legitimate development and corruption. In other words, their “growth” can be an ongoing manifestation of truths implicit in them, or it can be a devolution, an errant or cancerous outcropping. And this is, of course, why he taught that a living voice of authority, someone able to determine the difference between the two, is necessary in the Church. None of this has a thing to do with permissiveness or an advocacy of change for the sake of change.In point of fact, the development of doctrine, on Newman’s reading, is not so much a pro-liberal idea as an anti-Protestant one. It was a standard assertion of Protestants in the nineteenth century that many doctrines and practices within Catholicism represent a betrayal of biblical revelation. They called, accordingly, for a return to the scriptural sources and to the purity of the first-century Church. Newman saw this as an antiquarianism. What appears unbiblical within Catholicism are, in fact, developments of belief and practice that have naturally emerged through the efforts of theologians and under the discipline of the Church’s Magisterium. His implied interlocutor in the Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine is not the stuffy Catholic traditionalist, but the sola Scriptura Protestant apologist.

Read the rest here.

Testimony of Samia Zumout: Medjugorje, Conversion and Giving Everything to God

Testimony of Samia Zumout in 2010 prior to her diagnosis with primary progressive Multiple Sclerosis in 2011. She talks about her conversion story in Medjugorje and the journey that our Lord Jesus Christ took her on to leave her career as an attorney to become a missionary of his healing love.

Faces Among Icons: Conversion of Russia to her Christian Roots

The following comes from Crux:

One hundred years after the Russian Revolution - when the Bolsheviks and Vladimir Lenin overthrew the Tsar and took control of the Russian state, eventually leading to the formation of the Soviet Union - a new documentary produced by Catholic News Service, chronicles both the ruin and the rebirth of the Russian Orthodox Church during that time.

The documentary, Faces among Icons, was released earlier this month, and showcases a range of individuals providing firsthand accounts of the changes that have occurred within the country since the fall of communism and offering their perspectives on the extent to which church-state cooperation is healthy for the future.

Following the Revolution, Russian believers faced severe persecution. While the exact numbers are unknown, an estimated 12-20 million Russian believers were killed for their faith throughout the twentieth century.

As one of the documentary’s main subjects, Eugene Vodolazkin, recounts, “There were more martyrs in our country during the 20^th century than there were during all previous epochs.”

Yet despite such devastation, the persecuted faithful kept the Church alive during this time and in many ways, Faces among Icons is a testimonial to the resilience of faith and proof that indeed, “the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church,” as the Church father Tertullian once said.

Another interviewee, Daniel Khudyakor, a Russian Orthodox churchgoer, highlights the recent progress by noting “There has never been a time in our history when so many churches and monasteries were being opened without persecution.”

In the past thirty years, 20,000 churches have been restored and over 800 monasteries restored or reopened.

“We are modern, but we are keeping our traditions,” says another churchgoer in the film.

By some accounts, eighty percent of the country’s 144 million inhabitants identify as Russian Orthodox, yet only an estimated five to eight percent attend services at Easter, the Church’s largest feast, an indication that the work of renewal is an ongoing effort.

Yet, the documentary focuses predominantly on the faith of the younger generations, who are still influenced by the country’s recent history, but are eager not to let it define them.

“For us students, young people of the faith, the whole idea of the Church was our search for something unique, something different from the Soviet environment,” says one of the film’s subjects.

He goes on to add that it is “not only a search for faith, but a search for the true Russia.”

Read the rest here.

Essentials of Conversion

The following come from Dr. Kenneth J. Howell at the Coming Home Network:

Becoming a Catholic can be a difficult row to hoe. The process of conversion is a complex one that involves almost every aspect of a person’s life. When people experience internal struggles of faith, marital discord because of possible conversion, the alienation of family members, or the loss of employment, the inherent obstacles of conversion hit them right in the face.

Yet, those who come as adults to the Catholic Church from another background do not have proprietary rights on the title of convert. The word “convert” derives from the Latin verb convertere and literally means “to turn to be with” (con = with, vertere = turn). It expresses the same meaning as the Greek word metanoia, the word used in the New Testament regularly translated as “repentance.” Converts are people who have changed their life and have moved closer to God through faith and repentance. Conversion in the Catholic sense is a lifelong process of repentance (metanoia), faith, and good works that yields a profound internal change of heart, ultimately leading to final union with God. In the final analysis, becoming Catholic is not about changing churches or adopting a new religion; it is a movement from Here to Eternity.

Whether one is a cradle Catholic or from outside the visible confines of the Catholic Church, conversion involves a process of change in one’s worldview that reaches to the core of one’s being. It is not for the faint of heart. Hidden beneath the process of conversion lie other more subtle obstacles that can be easily missed by those drawn to the Church. In their enthusiasm for a new-found faith or expression of the faith, potential converts can sometimes miss what a deep conversion really consists of. In this and following months, I would like to point to five areas that are both stumbling blocks and stepping stones for converts to the Catholic Faith.

The Handwriting on the Wall (1958) by Dr.Billy Graham

Saint of the day: Mary of Egypt

Today we remember the Feast of a Saint who went from Prostitute to Hermit! The following comes from the CNA:

April 1, is the feast of a little-known saint whose story demonstrates the power of the Church as the home of forgiveness, redemption and mercy. St. Mary of Egypt was a prostitute for 17 years before she received the Eucharist and chose the life of a hermit.

Born in 344 A.D., Mary of Egypt moved to the city of Alexandria when she was 12 years old and worked as a prostitute for 17 years. With the intention of continuing her trade, she joined a large group that was making a pilgrimage to Jerusalem for the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross.

On the feast day itself, she joined the crowd as it was headed to the church in order to venerate the relic of the True Cross, again with the intention of luring others into sin. When she got to the door of the church, she was unable to enter. A miraculous force propelled her away from the door each time she approached. After trying to get in three or four times, Mary of Egypt moved to a corner of the churchyard and began to cry tears of remorse.

Then she saw a statue of the Blessed Virgin. She prayed to the Holy Mother for permission to enter the church for the purposes of venerating the relic. She promised the Virgin Mother that if she were allowed to enter the church, she would renounce the world and its ways.

Mary of Egypt entered the church, venerated the relic and returned to the statue outside to pray for guidance. She heard a voice telling her to cross the Jordan River and find rest. She set out and in the evening, she arrived at the Jordan and received communion in a church dedicated to St. John the Baptist.

The next day, she crossed the river and went into the desert, where she lived alone for 47 years. Then, while making his Lenten retreat, a priest named Zosimus found the hermitess. She asked him to return to the banks of the Jordan on Holy Thursday of the following year and to bring her Communion. The priest was true to his word and returned bearing the Eucharist. Mary told him to come back again the next year, but to the place where he had originally met her.

When Zosimus returned in a year’s time, he found Mary’s corpse. On the ground beside it was a written request that she be buried accompanied by a statement that she had died one year ago, in 421 A.D., on the very night she had received Holy Communion.

The Journey Home: Tim Staples

Silence and the Radical Christian Life

Here is a great reflection for Lent. The following comes from the Sinners Guide:

Silence should be part of every Christian’s life. Unfortunately silence is becoming more and more scarce in our society. It doesn’t come without Cultivation.

Why is silence so important? Every baptized Catholic has the threefold vocation of Priest, Prophet and King. We cannot fully take up the role of Prophet without first cultivating silence in our everyday life. Why? Being a prophet is more than proclaiming the Truths handed to us from the Church. God speaks to us all individually and we each have a part in His plan and a unique message for the world. We will never hear that message that is deep inside us without cultivating silence in our every day life.

Its not easy to find times when we can be in solitude to try and work towards that special silence where we can really communicate on a deeper level with God. Solitude and Silence certainly never came easy for me. Before I was married it was pretty common for me to have the television or radio on all day. As soon as I got home I would turn one of them one for some “background” noise. Once I got married I really learned from my wife to cherish silence she hates background noise and rarely ever wants the television or radio on. Now with my busy life (like most everyone else) I have to wake up early to find time for silence. It has to be a priority for me or it won‘t happen.
Some tips to help cultivate silence in your daily life:

1. Make it a priority. Set aside time each day to not only pray but listen to God
2. Make it the same time each day. This builds a habit and shows how important it is to us
3. Turn off EVERYTHING. (TV, Radio, Cell Phone, Laptop Etc.)
4. Write down things that are distracting you. For example things you need to accomplish
5. Work hard to keep your mind on the conversation with God
6. Use the little times to practice. (In the car, the shower, as you are falling asleep)
7. Most of all: Ask God for his help. He wants to speak to each one of us. His message is personal.

“Solitude enables you to make contact with yourself, a necessity if you want to realize yourself- not to repeat like a parrot a few acquired formulas, but to be the prophet of God within you who speaks a unique language to each man”

A. G. Sertillanges, O.P.

Oh that my people would listen to me…

Psalm 81:13

Pope Francis: It's never too late for conversion

(CNA/EWTN News) God's patience towards sinners is without limit, yet the time for conversion is now, Pope Francis said during his Sunday Angelus address at the Vatican.

“It is never too late to convert, but it is urgent, it is now! Let us begin today,” said the Pope Feb. 28 to the crowds in St. Peter's Square.

Delivering his remarks before leading those present in the Marian prayer, the Pope spoke on Jesus' “invincible patience,” explaining how God's “unyielding concern for sinners” should provoke impatience in ourselves.

“Have you thought of God's patience? Have you even thought of his unyielding concern for sinners, how this should provoke impatience against ourselves?”

“It is never to late to convert! Never! Up until the last moment: The patience of God who waits for us.”

Pope Francis recounted the story from St. Therese of Lisieux, who prayed for the conversion of a criminal who had been condemned to death, and had refused interventions from the priest. It was not until his final moment that he took the Crucifix held by the priest and kissed it.

“The patience of God! And he does the same with us, with all of us!” the Pope said. “And this is his mercy.”

The Conversion of St. Paul

The following comes from the American Catholic site:

Paul’s entire life can be explained in terms of one experience—his meeting with Jesus on the road to Damascus. In an instant, he saw that all the zeal of his dynamic personality was being wasted, like the strength of a boxer swinging wildly. Perhaps he had never seen Jesus, who was only a few years older. But he had acquired a zealot’s hatred of all Jesus stood for, as he began to harass the Church:

“...entering house after house and dragging out men and women, he handed them over for imprisonment” (Acts 8:3b). Now he himself was “entered,” possessed, all his energy harnessed to one goal—being a slave of Christ in the ministry of reconciliation, an instrument to help others experience the one Savior.

One sentence determined his theology: “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting” (Acts 9:5b). Jesus was mysteriously identified with people—the loving group of people Saul had been running down like criminals. Jesus, he saw, was the mysterious fulfillment of all he had been blindly pursuing.

From then on, his only work was to “present everyone perfect in Christ. For this I labor and struggle, in accord with the exercise of his power working within me” (Colossians 1:28b-29). “For our gospel did not come to you in word alone, but also in power and in the Holy Spirit and [with] much conviction” (1 Thessalonians 1:5a).

Paul’s life became a tireless proclaiming and living out of the message of the cross: Christians die baptismally to sin and are buried with Christ; they are dead to all that is sinful and unredeemed in the world. They are made into a new creation, already sharing Christ’s victory and someday to rise from the dead like him. Through this risen Christ the Father pours out the Spirit on them, making them completely new.

So Paul’s great message to the world was: You are saved entirely by God, not by anything you can do. Saving faith is the gift of total, free, personal and loving commitment to Christ, a commitment that then bears fruit in more “works” than the Law could ever contemplate.

"Here comes everybody!"

The following comes from Kathy Schiffer at  Seasons of Grace:

WHAT DO THESE PEOPLE HAVE IN COMMON?

• Actors John Wayne, Gary Cooper, Jim Nabors, Faye Dunaway, Vincent Price, Susan Hayward and Patricia Neal
• Academics and intellectualsHadley Arkes (Amherst), Mortimer Adler (Great Books), Robert Bork (Yale), G.K. Chesterton
• Royalty King Charles II ( Great Britain )
• Artist Peter Paul Rubens
• Heroes of the Old West Kit Carson, Buffalo Bill and Doc Holliday
• Musician Dave Brubeck
• Politicians John Ellis (Jeb) Bush and Newt Gingrich
• Famed coach Knute Rockne (Notre Dame)
• Playwrights Tennessee Williams and Oscar Wilde
• Novelists Ernest Hemingway, Evelyn Waugh, Sigrid Undset and Dean Koontz

If you guessed “They’re all converts to Catholicism,” you’re absolutely right! All of these famous people—and many thousands of others—have made the journey into the hushed reverence of the Catholic Church.

Read the rest here.

Dr. Scott Hahn: Avoiding arrogance while evangelizing

Discovering Catholicism: Saved from a Life of Drugs

"Our Hearts are Restless Until They Rest in You"

The following comes from St. Augustine's Confessions:

Great are you, O Lord, and exceedingly worthy of praise; your power is immense, and your wisdom beyond reckoning. And so we men, who are a due part of your creation, long to praise you – we also carry our mortality about with us, carry the evidence of our sin and with it the proof that you thwart the proud. You arouse us so that praising you may bring us joy, because you have made us and drawn us to yourself, and our heart is unquiet until it rests in you.

Grant me to know and understand, Lord, which comes first. To call upon you or to praise you? To know you or to call upon you? Must we know you before we can call upon you? Anyone who invokes what is still unknown may be making a mistake. Or should you be invoked first, so that we may then come to know you? But how can people call upon someone in whom they do not yet believe? And how can they believe without a preacher?

But scripture tells us that those who seek the Lord will praise him, for as they seek they find him, and on finding him they will praise him. Let me seek you then, Lord, even while I am calling upon you, and call upon you even as I believe in you; for to us you have indeed been preached. My faith calls upon you, Lord, this faith which is your gift to me, which you have breathed into me through the humanity of your Son and the ministry of your preacher.

How shall I call upon my God, my God and my Lord, when by the very act of calling upon him I would be calling him into myself? Is there any place within me into which my God might come? How should the God who made heaven and earth come into me? Is there any room in me for you, Lord, my God? Even heaven and earth, which you have made and in which you have made me – can even they contain you? Since nothing that exists would exist without you, does it follow that whatever exists does in some way contain you? 

But if this is so, how can I, who am one of these existing things, ask you to come into me, when I would not exist at all unless you were already in me? Not yet am I in hell, after all but even if I were, you would be there too; for if I descend into the underworld, you are there. No, my God, I would not exist, I would not be at all, if you were not in me. Or should I say, rather, that I should not exist if I were not in you, from whom are all things, through whom are all things, in whom are all things? Yes, Lord, that is the truth, that is indeed the truth. To what place can I invite you, then, since I am in you? Or where could you come from, in order to come into me? To what place outside heaven and earth could I travel, so that my God could come to me there, the God who said, I fill heaven and earth?

Who will grant it to me to find peace in you? Who will grant me this grace, that you should come into my heart and inebriate it, enabling me to forget the evils that beset me and embrace you, my only good? What are you to me? Have mercy on me, so that I may tell. What indeed am I to you, that you should command me to love you, and grow angry with me if I do not, and threaten me with enormous woes? Is not the failure to love you woe enough in itself?

Alas for me! Through your own merciful dealings with me, O Lord my God, tell me what you are to me. Say to my soul, I am your salvation. Say it so that I can hear it. My heart is listening, Lord; open the ears of my heart and say to my soul, I am your salvation. Let me run towards this voice and seize hold of you. Do not hide your face from me: let me die so that I may see it, for not to see it would be death to me indeed.

The Fruit of Faithful Prayer of Two Mothers

The following comes from In God's Company 2:

In June of 2012, our pilgrimage group visited the “castle” in Medjugorje to hear the testimony of Patrick Latta. Patrick began his testimony by introducing himself as a businessman from Canada. He began, “I quit going to school when I was 16 to go wash cars in a car lot….10 years later I bought the company. I was a super salesman. I bought my own Honda dealership. I bought my own BMW dealership. We were the top gun in Western Canada. Nobody could outsell us.”

   Patrick’s wife, Nancy, popped in as he was speaking. “This is my wife, Nancy –  this is my treasure."  Nancy says the story he is telling is not their story, but the fruit of 48 years of prayer by Patrick’s mother – an orphan raised by sisters of St. Joseph – and the faithful prayer and perseverance of her own mother, who was praying for her for 30 years. “The story you are about to hear is a story of God's mercy and grace. We have never seen Our Lady. We have had no mystical experiences. We have no special gifts. This story is a result of the faithful prayer of two mothers.”

   Patrick continued his story. “I had nothing to do with God, church, marriage, sacraments, school. I had a horrible time in Catholic school." One day, when Patrick was on the football field, the head coach yelled in front of everyone, “Hey, Latta, you can't play because you don't pay to come here." Patrick did not know he did not pay. "That was the end of my school – that was the end in believing in God."

    "I have four children [from two previous marriages]. My children never saw the inside of the church – ever."  He used to say to his children, "This is god," and would hold up money. “When you have enough of this, you have all the god you want." Patrick lamented, “That's a father speaking to his children.” He said that one day his youngest son came home from school and announced he had been baptized Anglican. Patrick said to his son, “You're supposed to be Catholic." "Dad, you never took me inside a church." Patrick again lamented, “Wasn't I a great father? And that's how I lived – no God, no prayer, no church. But my business was fantastic, so I have a huge successful business and I don't need God. It was I, I, I …”

   After his second divorce, Patrick met Nancy. Within two months they were living together. “No God, no prayer, no church, no marriage, no sacrament – nothing – living in mortal sin. We lived together six years.”  One day, Nancy said that they should get married. Patrick agreed, and they got married the next day in a helicopter on top of a mountain. He hired a JP and asked the pilot to be the best man. He didn't even know his name. When he came home from work the next day, Nancy was crying. She said, "I don't feel married." She wanted to get married in a church. Patrick said, “Nancy, do you know how much that helicopter cost?" She said, “I don't care about your helicopter. We have to get married in a church." Patrick reminded her that he had two previous divorces.

   Nancy went to see the bishop, who had documentation on Patrick's annulment from his first marriage. Patrick did not even know the marriage was annulled! The second document said that Patrick’s second marriage was never valid. The next day Nancy went to a church called “Immaculate Heart of Mary” to ask the priest to marry them. The priest agreed, but said to Nancy, “You’re out of your mind to marry this guy in church. He'll never change. He's the worst case I've ever seen. You are not going to make a success of this marriage –  there's no chance." Patrick agreed to attend marriage preparation classes and he made many promises – go to Mass, Confession, etc. – but admits he is a “professional promiser” since he is a car dealer. They did get married in the church, but Patrick said it didn't mean anything, and he broke every promise he made. That's how they lived… until one day when Nancy's brother sent them a book of messages of Our Lady of Medjugorje.

   When they received the book, Patrick was not interested, so he handed the book to Nancy, but she gave it back to him and said, "Here, my pagan husband, you throw them away and it's on your conscience." The word “conscience” wouldn't let Patrick throw the book away. He opened it and looked for the shortest message in the book. It said, “I call you to conversion for the last time." Then something happened. The tears just started and they wouldn't stop. He asked Nancy, "Why didn't you tell me about these messages? Why didn't you tell me they were true?"  Patrick confessed, “I saw myself for the first time – I'm Catholic and lived in mortal sin for 30 years. And it came back to me in one second – boom! In one minute everything changed in my life.”  He warned, “The day you see yourself as you live on this earth and you are Catholic and you are living in mortal sin – it's the worst day of your life, because reality hits you so hard and it's the truth."  

   Patrick began to read the messages – they became his whole life. He and Nancy even traveled to Oregon to attend a conference about the messages. Patrick was very touched when a priest at the conference suggested that everyone consecrate their children to the Immaculate Heart of Mary.

   At this point in the talk, Patrick decided to do some audience participation. There was a group of high school boys there from Boston, so he chose three of them to role-play as his sons. He said to the first boy that the school called and said he was expelled for using drugs and possibly dealing drugs. Patrick said – as he held up some money – that the principal had told him that this was the problem. “Your kids have too much." Patrick said that his son, who had dreadlocks at the time, replied, “This is my life. Leave me alone." Then Patrick called over the boy who was to play another of his sons, and said this kid was a super rugby player, but had a drinking problem. He mentioned the time that this son could not find his yellow Barracuda in a parking lot because he was so drunk.

   Then Patrick called over a young woman from our group to play his 17 year-old daughter who wanted to get married. When she was divorced at age 19, Patrick gave her his car and his credit card and told her to go to California and find someone else. That's exactly what she did, and two years later she was divorced again.

   “Drugs, alcohol, divorce – a fourth kid I can't even talk about. His immorality is so off-the-wall. Why that lifestyle?” His son told him, “Because I never had a father.” Patrick looked at the young people who were playing his kids. “These are my four children that I never baptized. I never said a prayer with you from the day you were born. I never took you inside a church… You had everything money could buy. Your cars were $70,000.”

   Referring to the priest at the conference, Patrick said, “And the priest said to consecrate these kids to the Mother of God. Well, they’re the most helpless situation you could have with four children. These words ‘consecrate them to the Mother of God’ hit me so hard.” Patrick didn't know how to do the consecration. So he looked at the statue of Our Lady at the conference and said, "Blessed Mother, take my kids, and, Blessed Mother, You be the parent that I never was, because I'm a total failure.” 

  Patrick and Nancy spent two days at this conference and learned all about the messages. He said the number one message of Our Lady is to pray the Rosary, because when you do, you’ll see miracles in your family. The second message of Our Lady is to go to Mass – minimum of Sunday. Patrick started to say the Rosary and go to Mass.

   The third message Patrick said is the most difficult. Our Lady said She wants us to fast on Wednesdays and Fridays. Patrick looked up all the messages on fasting, and found that Our lady said, "When you pray and fast you can stop wars."  Patrick thought, “What war am I going to stop?”  Then the light went on – “I got a war on drugs, I got a war on alcohol, I got a war with divorces, I got a war on immorality you can't even talk about. My house is a war zone!”  He repeated, “Fasting stops wars." So they learned to fast every Wednesday and Friday. “When you fast you have no fear of the future.” Patrick admitted he had a hard time fasting. “It's the hardest message because we think fasting is for somebody else, but if you don't listen to the coach he can’t help you.”

   The next message is reading the Bible. They didn't even own a Bible, so Nancy had to buy one. Patrick said the fifth message is the big message of Medjugorje. “You can't start conversion without Confession.” Patrick had not been to Confession for 30 years and had lots to confess." You know what the priest did? He said, ‘I absolve you.’ I broke into tears. ‘I absolve you.’ Who can say that? Nobody has that power – only a priest. I'm shocked at the mercy of God and I'm shocked at the power the priest has in Confession. 30 years of mortal sin went down the drain in one Confession!”

   Speaking about the “castle” Patrick and Nancy built, Patrick said, “This is why this is a house of prayer for priests –  because the priest in Confession saved my life. Everything changed with that Confession.”  They have 300-400 priests a year come there, and also look after the religious, sisters, and seminarians and young men looking for vocations.

    Patrick went back to talking about his kids. He asked the youngest son if he’d like to pray a Rosary with them and he declined for months before he finally agreed. Today, 19 years later, that son is a Catholic, married, with two beautiful kids. He is a teacher at a Catholic high school, and one year he even took 52 kids from his school to Medjugorje.

   The second son went to Medjugorje once, and Patrick gave him a rosary. He went back to Canada and later called Patrick to tell him he quit drinking, quit rugby, and became a fireman.  Patrick said, “How is that possible?” And the son said, "The rosary you gave me in Medjugorje." Today he is married and has two beautiful kids. Patrick paraphrased, “Our Lady said if you do this (holding up the rosary), I'll show you miracles in your family.”

   For 10 years, Patrick did not hear from his daughter. In February of 2012, he got a phone call from her. She said she was in Canada and wanted to come to Medjugorje."Daddy, I want to start again. Daddy, I don't want to be separated from the family anymore."  At this point, she had been through three divorces.  She came for two weeks to Medjugorje. She got a healing of her problem with alcohol and went back to the University for a nursing degree. Her life completely changed. “The divorce is gone – the alcohol is gone – the drugs are gone – from someone who started to pray.”  Patrick asked for prayers for his oldest son who still lives an immoral lifestyle. Our Lady said that when you consecrate your kids to the Immaculate Heart, they will be saved. For 48 years, as Patrick's mother prayed, she saw nothing; but then he went home to Canada one time, and took his mother to Mass. She cried, "The black sheep is home; the prodigal son has come home!" 

   This year Patrick and Nancy will celebrate their 25th anniversary. Patrick held up his rosary as he recalled how the priest said their marriage would not work. Patrick sold his car dealerships, boat, house, cars, and everything to move to Medjugorje without even knowing where it was. Why? He quipped, “The Mother of God lives here and I want to be Her neighbor.” Patrick said that Our lady appeared 17 times on their property, since Marija lives next door. During an apparition, Marija consecrated their property to Our Lady and Her Son. Our Lady smiled and said, "I'm joyful that you consecrated this place to me. Those who come here I will bless and protect." Patrick beams, “A real message from the Mother of God to a guy who did everything wrong – 30 years of mortal sin. Can you imagine the mercy of God?”  Holding up a rosary, he concluded, “This is the answer to every problem. This is the answer to your marriage. This is the answer to your kids."