Archbishop Sheen: Laugh... God is with us!

Devotion to Christ by Fr Benedict Groeschel, CFR

12 Promises of of the Sacred Heart of Jesus

The following comes from Sacred Heart Devotion:

Listed below are the “12 Promises” of the Sacred Heart of Jesus to St. Margaret Mary to encourage all Catholics to know and understand the benefit of practicing the Devotion and to encourage all to take up its immediate practice.

1. I will give them all the graces necessary in their state of life.
2. I will give peace in their families and will unite families that are divided.
3. I will console them in all their troubles.
4. I will be their refuge during life and above all in death.
5. I will bestow the blessings of Heaven on all their enterprises.
6. Sinners shall find in my Heart the source and infinite ocean of mercy.
7. Tepid souls shall become fervent.
8. Fervent souls shall rise quickly to great perfection.
9. I will bless those places wherein the image of My Heart shall be exposed and honored and will imprint My love on the hearts of those who would wear this image on their person. I will also destroy in them all disordered movements.
10. I will give to priests who are animated by a tender devotion to my Divine Heart the gift of touching the most hardened hearts.
11. Those who promote this devotion shall have their names written in my Heart, never to be effaced.
12. I promise you in the excessive mercy of my Heart that my all-powerful love will grant to all those who communicate on the First Friday in nine consecutive months, the grace of final penitence: they will not die in my disgrace, nor without receiving their Sacraments. My Divine Heart shall be their safe refuge in this last moment.

(The Nine Fridays must be made in honor of His Sacred Heart, meaning, practicing the devotion and having a great love of His Sacred Heart. They must be on the first Friday of the month for nine consecutive months, and Communion must be received.)

Fr. Benedict Groeschel: The Journey Home

What is Piety? And How Does a Lack of Piety Spell Doom for Us?

The following comes from the Msgr. Charles Pope:

In the modern world the word “piety” has come to be associated with being religious. And while it does have religious application, its original meaning was far wider and richer. The English word “piety” comes from the Latin pietas, which spoke of family love, and by extension love for one’s ancestors,  of one’s country, and surely of God. Cicero defined pietas as the virtue “which admonishes us to do our duty to our country or our parents or other blood relations.”

For the ancient Romans piety was one of the highest virtues since it was the virtue that knit families and ultimately all society together in love, loyalty and a shared, reciprocal duty. Piety also roots us in our past and gave proper reverence to our ancestors.

I hope you can see how essential piety is and why, if we do not recapture it more fully in the modern world, our culture is likely doomed. Piety is like a glue that holds us together. Without its precious effects, we fall apart into factions, our families dissolve, and the “weave” of our culture gives way to tear and dry rot.

Recently over at the Catholic Education Resource Center Donald Demarco (Professor at Holy Apostles College and Seminary in Cromwell CT) wrote some helpful reflections on Piety. I’d like to share some excerpts here, the full article is HERE.

“Piety,” said Cicero, “is justice toward the gods,” and “the foundation of all virtues.” By extension, piety is the just recognition of all we owe to our ancestors. [Thus], the basis of piety is the sober realization that we owe our existence and our substance to powers beyond ourselves. We are social, communal beings. We are not islands; we are part of the mainland…..

“Greatness” is never a purely individual accomplishment. Its roots are always in others and in times past….Our beginning coincides with a debt. Piety requires us to be grateful to those who begot us. It also evokes in us a duty to give what we have so that we can give to our descendents as our ancestors gave to us. [And] Piety, by honoring what poured out from the past to become our own living substance, enlarges and enriches us. It disposes us to give thanks and to live in such a manner that we ourselves may one day become worthy objects for the thanks of others.

Piety was a favorite virtue of Socrates. Far from considering himself a self-made man….[he] gave full credit for whatever civility he enjoyed to those who preceded him. Ralph Waldo Emerson, by contrast, America’s head cheerleader for the man of self-reliance, spoke of “the sovereign individual, free, self-reliant, and alone in his greatness.” Emerson’s belief in the “greatness” of the individual is a dangerous illusion. It is a presumption that naturally leads to pride.

The great enemy of piety is individualism. Individualism is the illusion that we are somehow self-made, self-reliant, and self-sufficient. It is essentially an anti-social form of thinking that belongs to Nietzsche, Rousseau, Sartre, and Ayn Rand rather than to Socrates, St. Augustine, St. Thomas Aquinas, and the Founding Fathers of the American Constitution.

The soul of individualism is unfettered choice. Abortion, for example, is presumed to be a private affair. Magically, as its advocates allege, it affects neither the child, its father, the family, nor society…. “Individuality” is the result of a fall from grace. Adam and Eve behaved as persons until sin reduced them to individuals. As individuals, they began lusting after each other. The aprons of fig leaves they fashioned indicated that they were profoundly ashamed of their new identities as self-centered and self-absorbed individuals.

Yes, individualism leaves us largely closed in our self and pathetically self-conscious.

So many of our struggles in this modern era center on a loss of piety, a loss of love and duty owed to our families, community, Church and nation. Our families and our duties to them and the wider community are sacrificed on the “altar” of self-love and self-aggrandizement. Divorce and cohabitation stab at the heart of families ties and family loyalty. We indulge our sexual passions and selfishly cling to our supposed right to be happy at high cost of a devastated family structure, and a heavy-laden community. Church and nation, that are somehow supposed to carry the weight of our imprudent and selfish choices. We speak incessantly of rights but almost never of duties.  Love of me, and what I “owe myself” is alive and well, but love and duty toward family, Church, community, and nation has grown cold. “I gotta be me” results in many, very small and competing worlds.

Further,  Our modern and post-Cartesian era is mired in a “hermeneutic of discontinuity.” That is to say, we have significantly cut our ties with the past. Our ancestors, and antiquity have little to say to us since we have closed our eyes and ears to them. The “Democracy of the Dead,” as Chesterton called tradition, has been cut off by the “Berlin Wall” of modern pride. Our love and respect for our ancestors and the duty we have to honor their wisdom is, to a large extent, gone. We largely see ourselves as “come of age” and are arrogantly dismissive of past ages. As such our continuity with our ancestors and with the wisdom they accumulated is ruptured, and our mistakes are both predictable and often downright silly. As we indulge our passions, and are largely lacking in self-control, we who pride ourselves as “come of age” look more like silly and immature teenagers, than the technical titans we boast of being. It is one thing to go to the moon, it is another to wisely accept need to learn from the past.

Some will like to emphasize the errors of the past, such as slavery, in order to dismiss it. But this misses the point that we learn, not only from the good things of the past, but also from the errors of the past. I learned as much from my parents’ struggles as from their strengths. We do not honor our ancestors because they are perfect. Rather we honor the collected wisdom they have handed on to us, some of which was discovered in the cauldron of struggle and sin.

Finally, the loss of piety also means the significant loss of learning. Without the respect and honor of our parents, teachers and ancestors, there can be no learning. If I do not respect you I cannot learn from you. It is no surprise that in our current American culture, which often celebrates youthful rebellion, that learning, tradition and faith are in a grave crisis. Teachers in classrooms spend so much time in discipline that there is little quality learning time. Parents, whose children are often taught by popular music and television that “adults are stupid” and “out of touch” give little thought to dismissing their parents wisdom. Where there is no respect, there can be no learning.

It is no surprise that the opening commandment of the second table of the Law is “Honor your Father and Your Mother that you may have long life in the land.” For God knows well that if a generation lacks piety, it severs itself from no only from worldly tradition but also from Sacred Tradition. Without reverence, without piety, there is no learning and there is no faith. We are cut off from the glorious wisdom God entrusted to our ancestors. It is no wonder that, in these largely impious and individualistic times,  faith is considered irrelevant to many and the Churches are increasingly empty.

Pray for piety. Pray for the gift of strong and abiding love for your family, for Church, for community and nation. Pray too for a deep love and respect for the ancestors who have gone before us, stretching back into antiquity. We owe a great debt to our family, nation, Church and ancestors. They have much to teach us, not only by their strengths, but also by their struggles. Scripture says,  Remember your leaders, who spoke the word of God to you. Consider the outcome of their way of life and imitate their faith(Heb 13:7).

This song is rooted in Hebrews 12:1-3 and the opening lines say, We are surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses, looking on, encouraging us to do the will of the Lord! We are surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses. Let us stand worthy and be faithful to God’s call. The photos in this video are from the clerestory walls of my own parish, showing the saints in the “cloud of witnesses.”

I Am With You Always: Fr. Benedict Groeschel on Devotion to Christ

On Veneration of the Precious Blood

The following comes from the Catholic Herald:

As Catholics, we are depriving ourselves and our loved ones by not venerating the Precious Blood with more fervour and sincere reverence. Now that we are in July, the month dedicated to the Most Precious Blood, we must immerse ourselves in the awesome truth that offering the Precious Blood is a powerful means of interceding for the souls of loved ones, and for the souls of people who have wronged us.

On the Cross, Our Lord shed His Blood to atone for our sins. We owe our redemption to Our Lord’s bloody sacrifice, ‘For this is my blood of the new covenant which is shed for the many, for the remission of sins’ (Matthew 26:28). If Our Lord established a New Covenant by His Sacrifice on the Cross, the highest sacrifice of the Old Law was the offering of the Paschal Lamb. Moses took the blood of sacrificial animals, sprinkled it upon the people and said: ‘This is the blood of the covenant, which the Lord has made with you’ (Exodus 24:8). In the new covenant, Our Lord, as Son of the Father, is the Lamb of God who offered himself on the altar of the Cross to redeem mankind from their sin and wipe clean the sins of the world with His Blood.

Modern Catholics are too prone to thinking that Our Lord’s Passion and the Divine Gift of His Precious Blood is something locked in the past, done and dusted, and we fail to see that it is a powerful means of helping souls get to Heaven in our times. When, in fact, us poor urchins may actually offer the Precious Blood to God the Father. It seems a contradiction that us sinners can take part in something so glorious. Fr Frederick William Faber’s book, The Precious Blood describes the experiences of saints who were given special visions to see the way a sinner can benefit from offering the Precious Blood. The Carmelite saint, St Mary Magdalen de Pazzi, when in a rapture, saw that, ‘every time a human being offers up the Blood by which he was redeemed, he offers a gift of infinite worth, which can be equalled by no other.’ Inspired by her vision, St Mary Magdalen de Pazzi offered the Precious Blood fifty times for the souls of the living and the dead, and then God rewarded her with visions of the multitudes of souls that had been saved from perdition or delivered from Purgatory. The prayer we may use is from The Raccolta: ‘Eternal Father, I offer Thee the Most Precious Blood of Jesus Christ, in satisfaction of my sins, in supplication for the holy souls in Purgatory and for the needs of Holy Church (name a soul).’

The Curé of Ars, St John Vianney drew on the most perfect way of offering the Most Precious Blood: he asked Our Lady to offer it for him, and said that it never failed to obtain for him the grace or favour he sought. Here is the Marian offering of the Precious Blood: ‘Immaculate Heart of Mary, do thou offer to the Eternal Father the Precious Blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ, for the conversion of sinners, especially, (name the soul).’ St Dominic actually had a vision of Our Lady sprinkling devout people in his congregation with the Precious Blood. 

At Holy Mass, during the Consecration, we may ask Our Lady to offer the Precious Blood for the conversion of people living bad lives and doing harm to themselves and others, for the souls in Purgatory and for renewal in the Church. 

The last point is perhaps the most neglected, if we want Mother Church to know rejuvenation by virtue of having leaders and a laity that are cleaned of their sinful ways, we must offer the Precious Blood for them. Here in Britain, we have a constant reminder to offer the Precious Blood for the sanctity of both leaders and laity, because Westminster Cathedral the mother church of England and Wales was dedicated to the Most Precious Blood in 1895.

The Sacred Heart of Jesus

The following comes from the Sacred Heart Devotion site:

"And He showed me that it was His great desire of being loved by men and of withdrawing them from the path of ruin into which Satan hurls such crowds of them, that made Him form the design of manifesting His Heart to men, with all the treasures of love, of mercy, of grace, of sanctification and salvation which it contains, in order that those who desire to render Him and procure for Him all the honor and love possible, might themselves be abundantly enriched with those divine treasures of which this Heart is the source.

He should be honored under the figure of this Heart of flesh, and its image should be exposed...He promised me that wherever this image should be exposed with a view to showing it special honor, He would pour forth His blessings and graces. This devotion was the last effort of His love that He would grant to men in these latter ages, in order to withdraw them from the empire of Satan which He desired to destroy, and thus to introduce them into the sweet liberty of the rule of His love, which He wished to restore in the hearts of all those who should embrace this devotion."..... "The devotion is so pleasing to Him that He can refuse nothing to those who practice it."

from Revelations of Our Lord to St. Margaret Mary Alacoque

Month of the Sacred Heart of Jesus

The month of June is set apart for devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. It is a devotion that was important to St. John Bosco and that is part of our Salesian tradition as well.

Margaret Mary Alacoque entered the Visitation Convent in 1671 and six years later Christ appeared to her in a vision in which "I could plainly see His heart, pierced and bleeding, yet there were flames, too, coming from it and a crown of thorns around it. He told me to behold His heart which so loved humanity. Then He seemed to take my very heart from me and place it there in His heart. In return He gave me back part of His flaming heart."

In all, there were four revelations, the last of which is responsible for the nine First Fridays' devotion. Also requested by the Sacred Heart was the establishment of a feast in His honor. We now celebrate this Feast of Sacred Heart on the first Friday after the octave of the Solemnity of the Body and Blood of Christ, in addition to honoring the Sacred Heart every first Friday of the month. You can find out more about this beautiful devotion here.

Saint of the Day: Margaret Mary Alacoque

Today is the feast of St. Margaret Mary Alacoque. She is the Saint of the Sacred Heart Devotion! Devotion to the Sacred Heart, as we know it, began about the year 1672. On repeated occasions, Jesus appeared to Saint Margaret Mary, a Visitation nun, in France, and He explained to her the devotion to His Sacred Heart as He wanted people to practice it. During the apparition He asked to be honored in the symbol of His Heart of flesh; he asked for acts of reparation, for frequent Communion, Communion on the First Friday of the month, and the keeping of the Holy Hour.

"And He [Christ] showed me that it was His great desire of being loved by men and of withdrawing them from the path of ruin that made Him form the design of manifesting His Heart to men, with all the treasures of love, of mercy, of grace, of sanctification and salvation which it contains, in order that those who desire to render Him and procure Him all the honour and love possible, might themselves be abundantly enriched with those divine treasures of which His heart is the source." — from Revelations of Our Lord to St. Mary Margaret Alacoque

To learn more about St. Margaret check out the New Advent page!

Divine Mercy Sunday

To say the Chaplet of the Divine Mercy:

Begin the Chaplet with the Our Father, the Hail Mary and the Apostle's Creed.

Then on the large bead before each decade:
Eternal Father,
I offer You the Body and Blood,
Soul and Divinity of Your dearly beloved Son,
Our Lord Jesus Christ,
in atonement for our sins,
and those of the whole world

On the ten small beads of each decade, say:
For the sake of His
sorrowful Passion,
have mercy on us
and on the whole world.

Conclude with (repeat 3 times):
Holy God,
Holy Mighty One,
Holy Immortal One,
have mercy on us
and on the whole world.

Closing Prayer (optional)

Eternal God, in whom mercy is endless
and the treasury of compassion - inexhaustible,
look kindly upon us and increase Your mercy in us,
that in difficult moments we might not despair
nor become despondent,
but with great confidence submit ourselves to Your
holy will, which is Love and Mercy itself.

And I Will Give You Rest

Two Things

Divine Mercy image in Chicago's Daly Plaza reaching thousands

The following comes from the CNA:

One of the fastest-growing devotions in the Catholic Church is reaching the heart of downtown Chicago through the work of the Heralds of Divine Mercy. The organization is publicly displaying a large image of Christ during a nine-day campaign of 24-hour prayer and evangelism.

“The Divine Mercy Project is really about having an opportunity to witness to the culture, in environments we're normally pushed out of,” said Michael C.X. Sullivan, a 40-year-old lawyer who developed the idea earlier this year. “It's specifically for the conversion of Chicago, America, and the world.”

The prayer vigil is taking place in Daly Plaza, a crowded area that features a number of civil administrative buildings. There, the Heralds of Divine Mercy are displaying a large cross along with a ten-foot-tall image of Christ based on the visions of St. Faustina Kowalska. While some participants remain in prayer, others take their turn distributing cards that promote the message of God's mercy.

Sullivan said his five-year-old son had become an enthusiastic evangelist, along with the many other participants who have manned the image in shifts all day and night. “He shoots out across Daly Plaza,” Sullivan said, “running right up to people and giving them the card.”

“Most people receive it, and look at it, and you see their countenance shift – there's a kind of a brightening. However, you also see a real darkness in some people, a hardness in them. So we say a prayer for them, if they don't want to receive this gift.”

CNA caught up with Sullivan on April 25, the fourth day of the campaign. During the afternoon, a “Life Mob” of about 50 pro-life Catholic young people had showed up with a large “rosary” made of dozens of helium filled balloons.

The young participants held down the large chain of balloons as they recited the Chaplet of Divine Mercy, a prayer that is associated with the image and typically prayed on rosary beads.

“Then they let go of all these balloons,” Sullivan recalled, “so there was this rosary floating up in the sky in front of city hall, in front of this icon of political corruption.”

“I broke out in laughter – it was just awesome.”

The vigil has taken on a more joyous tone since Easter Sunday. During Good Friday and Holy Saturday, however, the large image of Christ was covered with a purple cloth, indicating the solemnity of those liturgical days. The gesture intrigued many passers-by, who wondered what would appear when it was unveiled.

“The vigil participants were out there praying, and people were asking them, 'Why is this covered?'” said Sullivan. “Our culture is one that doesn't want to wait in expectation. Just having it veiled, for those days, was a witness to a more sacramental worldview.”

Now that the image is visible, Sullivan says it is awakening many Chicagoans' quietly suppressed faith.

“We've had people who work in the nearby buildings, sometimes coming up and just kneeling before it,” he observed. “There is this multitude out there that is crying out in silence for God's presence – in all levels of society, whether they're cleaning ladies or at the top of the ladder in media, news, banking, or politics.”

“When they see this sign – this sign that Christ exists, that there are people of faith who are willing to be out there 24 hours a day – they identify with those people. It's feeding and nourishing that inner life of faith in them.”

“I think our culture is ready for Catholics to become more 'evangelical' – more demonstrative, taking the strength of our faith into the public square without compromise.”

He believes that the Divine Mercy image, which shows rays of blood and water flowing from Jesus' heart, is a striking means of evangelism – especially in a highly visual culture, where images can have more impact than words.

“I think our Lord knew that we were entering into this time of a highly visual culture,” Sullivan said. “We have no idea how many people are being touched just by driving by and seeing it. We're seeing police officers drive up and stop near it, and they have this look in their eyes. There's something that is happening to them.”

“We trust that the Lord will use this image as a means of touching souls – because he said he would.”

St. Faustina Kowalska, the 20th century Polish nun whose visions inspired the image, said that Jesus asked her to have it painted and displayed as a sign of God's love during the upheavals of modern history. Sullivan and his fellow vigil participants expect to pass out 20,000 cards bearing the image, along with a prayer and a passage from St. Faustina's diary.

While the Divine Mercy Project seeks to evangelize the public, it also has the goal of encouraging Catholics to perform the “corporal works of mercy” – acts such as feeding the hungry, visiting the sick and imprisoned, and sheltering the homeless. These acts, Sullivan noted, are an essential part of the message given to the world through St. Faustina.

“Jesus said that the strongest faith is of no avail without works,” he said. “Christ demands deeds of mercy.”

The Heralds of Divine Mercy are already getting requests from at least five other U.S. states, where devotees want to launch similar campaigns in the public square. Sullivan believes that the project has national potential, as long as Catholics are willing to step out and take the necessary risks.

“You can say 'Jesus, I trust in you' to your heart's content,” he said, “but if there's no risk involved in that trust, then where is the proof? As Catholics, we really have to put more on the line.”

“Our fears and anxieties keep the power of our faith locked up,” said Sullivan. “But when we lead with prayer, and take risks, God shows up.”

Devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus

The Year of Priests Begins

In 2002 Pope John Paul II established a World Day of Prayer for Priests to be observed on the Solemnity of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. This year the World Day of Prayer will be observed on June 19, the Feast of the Sacred Heart. This Day of Prayer will also mark the opening of the Year for Priests.

All Catholics are encouraged to remember their priests through prayer, the celebration of the Mass, and Eucharistic adoration on June 19 and throughout the Year for Priests.

For more information on the year for priests please click here and here.

Also, to learn about the Plenary Indulgence for the Year for Priests please click here.

Divine Mercy Sunday