steadfast

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Monday, 6 May 2013 : 6th Week of Easter (Gospel Reading)

John 15 : 26 – John 16 : 4a

From the Father, I will send you the Spirit of truth. When the Helper has come from the Father, He will be My witness, and you, too, will be My witnesses, for you have been with Me from the beginning.

I tell you all this to keep you from stumbling and falling away. They will put you out of the synagogue. Still more, the hour is coming, when anyone who kills you will claim to be serving God; they will do this, because they have not known the Father or Me.

I tell you all these things now so that, when the time comes, you may remember that  I told you.

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Pope Francis to canonise 802 new saints on Sunday, 12 May 2013

http://www.romereports.com/palio/meet-the-soon-to-be-saints-of-the-catholic-church-english-9981.html#.UYurAcrTc78

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Pope Francis will canonise 802 new saints in a canonisation ceremony during the Mass on Sunday, 12 May 2013 at St. Peter’s Square.

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The most notable among the 802 new saints, are 800 among the saints themselves, who are the Martyrs of Otranto, who were martyred in 1480, when the rising Ottoman Empire raided Otranto, a city in Southern Italy, in one of their numerous raids against Christendom and the Lord’s faithful ones.

The 800 martyrs were the captured peoples of Otranto, who refused to abandon their faith and therefore live. They chose death and remain in the Lord instead. For this faith, they were declared martyrs and were beatified by Pope Clement XIV in 1771.

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Today, their relics and remains can be most obviously seen in the Chapel in Otranto are placed in glass display behind the Altar, as seen in the above picture. Led by Antonio Primaldo, the local tailor who led the townspeople in the invasion times, they were martyred by the Ottomans for defending their faith. They will henceforth be known as Saints Antonio Primaldo and Companions after their canonisation.

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The other saint to be canonised with the Martyrs of Otranto is St. Laura Montoya, or also known as St. Laura of St. Catherine of Siena, who was a religious nun from Colombia, who worked hard to evangelise the local native populations, and tried her best to end prejudice and discrimination against the native Indian population. She will be Colombia’s first saint ever.

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And the other saint to be also canonised with them is Mother Lupita, who was a Mexican nun that established a new religious organisation dedicated to the service of the poor and the less fortunate in Mexico, which had to often brave danger in their missions, because of the hostile situation at the time, with Mexico teeming with anti-Church sentiments. She will become the second female saint from Mexico.

The Martyr Saints of Otranto, Saint Laura, and Saint Lupita, pray for us.

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Thursday, 25 April 2013 : 4th Week of Easter, Feast of St. Mark the Evangelist (Psalm)

Psalm 88 : 2-3, 6-7, 16-17

I will sing forever, o Lord, of Your love and proclaim Your faithfulness from age to age. I will declare how steadfast is Your love, how firm Your faithfulness.

The heavens proclaim Your wonders, o Lord; the assembly of the holy ones recalls Your faithfulness. Who in the skies can compare with the Lord; who of the heaven-born is like Him?

Blessed is the people who know Your praise. They walk in the light of Your face. They celebrate all day Your Name and Your protection lifts them up.

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Thursday, 25 April 2013 : 4th Week of Easter, Feast of St. Mark the Evangelist (First Reading)

1 Peter 5 : 5b-14

All of you must clothe yourself with humility in your dealings with one another, because God opposes the proud but gives His grace to the humble. Bow down, then, before the power of God so that He will raise you up at the appointed time. Place all your worries on Him since He takes care of you.

Be sober and alert because your enemy the devil prowls about like a roaring lion seeking someone to devour. Stand your ground, firm in your faith, knowing that our brothers and sisters, scattered throughout the world, are confronting similar sufferings. God, the giver of all grace, has called you to share in Christ’s eternal Glory and after you have suffered a little, He will bring you to perfection : He will confirm, strengthen, and establish you forever. Glory be to Him forever and ever. Amen.

I have had these few lines of encouragement written to you by Silvanus, our brother, whom I know to be trustworthy. For I wanted to remind you of the kindness of God really present in all this. Hold on to it.

Greetings from the community in Babylon, gathered by God, and from my son, Mark. Greet one another with a friendly embrace. Peace to you all who are in Christ.

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Pope Benedict XVI’s retirement and what the world thinks of it : Why we should not fear and worry

http://www.catholicherald.co.uk/commentandblogs/2013/03/01/every-snarky-comment-about-the-pope-is-an-insult-to-me/

Indeed, as we all should know, the world does not like us, it does not like the Pope who leads the Church, just as it does not like Christ, as He Himself had said that this world hated Me, and it will also hate and persecute those who believes in Me and follow My teachings and My ways.

But we should not fear, and we should neither worry, but we must be courageous and steadfast as God will guide us and He will surely protect us from harm. Let us all, rather than hating the world and hating these people and institutions which had made so many attacks on the Pope and the Church, let us forgive them, and pray for them. That they all too will learn the truth of Christ, and be enlightened. Let us show them what is the Church and our faith all about, not by attacking back viciously or having any siege mentality, but let us offer ourselves in love, to embrace those who hates us, that they too will believe in God and His love.

God bless us all, and God bless His Holy Church, our Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, his successor-to-be, and bless the world with all its people. Amen.

 

Content of the article from site above :

 

Every snarky comment about the Pope is an insult to me

People outside the faith will never understand how much the Holy Father means to us

By on Friday, 1 March 2013

The See of Peter is vacant, and as a result, like so many others all over the world, I feel a little bereft as I write this. Yesterday, as in so many other parishes, we did our best to mark the end of Benedict XVI’s reign and ministry as Supreme Pastor. The children in our primary school, many of whom were not born when he was elected, had a celebration; and there was, in the evening, Vespers, Benediction and Te Deum, followed by food and drink. It was nice to be able to say goodbye to a Pope while he was still alive – a novel event – rather than to mark his death and burial; but all the time I was aware of those pictures on the television, of the helicopter flying past the dome of St Peter’s taking the Pope away from us all. It felt like a bereavement, and it felt that way because it was a bereavement.

I was born in the early months of Pope Paul VI’s reign, and so I have seen four Popes, and await my fifth. I have had a deep personal attachment to all four, even though I never met any of them in the flesh, and I only ever saw John Paul II from an immense distance. But, the Pope is our father, and we love him; he belongs to us, we are part of the same family of faith. These four pontiffs have had a great formative influence on me, and I do not think that someone who is not a Catholic can really understand this. Andrew Brown,  who writes for the Guardian, always writes well, and he has great insight into religious matters, but he stands outside the family of faith, and as a result, he does not get why this Pope, indeed any Pope, matters to us so intensely. The Church is not an organisation like the United Nations or the European Union or the Liberal Democrat Party. It is the Mystical Body of Christ. To be Catholic is to experience the joy, peace and love that belonging to the Mystical Body brings; it is to be in communion with the Pope, which is the visible sign of that Mystical unity. And that in the end is why I cannot really express to anyone just how intensely I loved Benedict XVI, John Paul II, John Paul I, and Paul VI, or how intensely I will love the Pope who is to be elected shortly.

This is the mystery of the Mystical Body. Those outside the Church need to deal with it. It is the way we are. And it is the reason why when people make snarky comments on Twitter about the Pope, any Pope, they do not really insult the Successor of the Apostles, they insult me.

How happy I am that, wherever I have been in the world, I have been with people who profess the Catholic Faith, people who follow Christ and follow Peter. Ubi Petrus, ibi Ecclesia, ibi vita eterna. For those who need a translation: Where Peter is, there is the Church, there is eternal life!