"The ninth degree of humility is that a monk restrain his tongue and keep silence, not speaking until he is questioned. For Scripture showeth that in much talking thou canst not avoid sin; and that the talkative man shall not prosper on the earth."
(MC)=My Comments= Guess that's why we have two ears and one mouth, we need to be listening more and speaking less. All in the learning mode is more concerned about hearing and listening, then moving into processing mode.
Ephesians 4:29 "Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying, that it may minister grace unto the hearers" |
Proverbs 15:1 "A soft answer turneth away wrath: but grievous words stir up anger" |
Proverbs 21:23 "Whoso keepeth his mouth and his tongue keepeth his soul from troubles." |
James 3:2-10 "For in many things we offend all. If any man offend not in word, the same [is] a perfect man, [and] able also to bridle the whole body" |
Psalms 141:3 "Set a watch, O LORD, before my mouth; keep the door of my lips" |
Psalms 34:13 "Keep thy tongue from evil, and thy lips from speaking guile" |
James 1:26 "If any man among you seem to be religious, and bridleth not his tongue, but deceiveth his own heart, this man's religion [is] vain" |
Proverbs 17:28 "Even a fool, when he holdeth his peace, is counted wise: [and] he that shutteth his lips [is esteemed] a man of understanding" |
1 Peter 3:10 - For he that will love life, and see good days, let him refrain his tongue from evil, and his lips that they speak no guile: |
Proverbs 18:21 - Death and life [are] in the power of the tongue: and they that love it shall eat the fruit thereof. |
Proverbs 15:4 - A wholesome tongue [is] a tree of life: but perverseness therein [is] a breach in the spirit. |
James 3:10 - Out of the same mouth proceedeth blessing and cursing. My brethren, these things ought not so to be. |
Matthew 15:11 "Not that which goeth into the mouth defileth a man; but that which cometh out of the mouth, this defileth a man" |
Titus 3:2 - To speak evil of no man, to be no brawlers, [but] gentle, shewing all meekness unto all men. |
Proverbs 10:19 - In the multitude of words there wanteth not sin: but he that refraineth his lips [is] wise. |
Psalms 52:2 - Thy tongue deviseth mischiefs; like a sharp razor, working deceitfully. |
🌕 "“I have myself felt an extraordinary consolation when I have used holy water. It is certain that I have felt a great joy and inner peace which I cannot describe, a joy with which my soul was quite refreshed. This is not merely an effect of the imagination, nor a rare occurrence. I have experienced it frequently and paid special attention to it. On these occasions I feel like one who, suffering intense thirst, takes a glass of water and is quite refreshed. From this we can see how important everything instituted by the Church is; it comforts me to see the great power which her blessing imparts to water, so great is the difference between blessed and unblessed water.” By St. Teresa of Avila
🍘 "Without intelligence, either one's own or another's, true life is impossible. But many do not know that they do not know, and many think they know when they know nothing. Failings of the intelligence are incorrigible, since those who do not know, do not know themselves, and cannot therefore seek what they lack. Many would be wise if they did not think themselves wise. Thus it happens that though the oracles of wisdom are rare, they are rarely used. To seek advice does not lessen greatness or argue incapacity. On the contrary, to ask advice proves you well advised. Take counsel with reason it you do not wish to court defeat" by Fr. Balthasar Gracian
Talking about "gift", it was a real gift to be allowed to participate on the 100th Anniversary of Fatima. Our traditional day is on a Tuesday, but there was an opening on Friday the 13th, the perfect day and hour, so it was double duty for us this year. We served at the noon Mass on the feast day and Addie hit the ball way, way, way, out of the park. She was a lector par excellence. The Holy Spirit within her was mightily at work. Things got better and better, because almost everyone in the group veiled, considering that a real slam dunk. Graces were truly flowing on that special day. The only persons who were already veiling were Clara, Maggie, and Daphne. Our Blessed Lady of Fatima and the Holy Spirit touched the hearts of those who were not veiling: Siena, Katie, Roxanne, Pat, Monica, Georgiana, and Claudia, as they all said yes to veiling for the Mass. A miracle was when even one of the captains accepted a veil and wore it for the rest of the day on Tuesday.
Before leaving home on the feast of Our Lady of Fatima, the decision was made to ask Our Lady to please give me a special gift on her feast day. Considering the following my prize gift, and it also affirmed a lesson from the Lord in the form of a poem given to me some weeks ago. The poem will be coming as a veggie one of these days. The essence of the lesson is that it's not about how much or what you say, but to make real difference is to pray, pray, pray. Tried to get people to veil with minimal success, but in one shot Our Lady gets fine wine from a bunch of grapes, Alleluia. Eight people not previously veiling, said yes to wearing a mantilla for the Rosary Congress.
Upping the ante in the gift department, this was best of all, and a continuation of the lesson that living prayer and living one's Faith makes a big difference. For several years now when in the presence of the Eucharistic Lord, the Holy Spirit is leading me to not turn my back on the Eucharist, but to back out facing Him when leaving His presence. This started at one of our summer visits to the monastery of the Infant Jesus where my aunt was a cloistered num for many years before entering eternal life. In their chapel, this man came in and backed out. Then my thoughts were: you should do this to. Everyone with ears to hear, should respond to the still small voice that calls out to one and to all. Of course worried thoughts started swirling around about how people might think this was just a showy act. The decision was made to take the flack as penance and do the pleasurable honor to reverence the Lord. Well, when doing this on the Anniversary day, one of the men in charge at the Rosary Congress, followed my example and backed out. What are the chances for that happening in this day and age? Zero to none, except when an open heart is in the hands of the Lord. Excitedly, OUTSIDE of the body of the church, in the foyer which is the appropriate place to converse in church, couldn't wait to tell him that he was my gift on the anniversary of Our Lady of Fatima. He smiled so beautifully and said thank you. It's amazing how from the masses of people gathered, God can find someone to do His bidding. Often it's the least expected person crossing your path that can be the chosen one to fulfill a mission. Also right in front of me, there was a little girl wearing a tee shirt with butterflies on it. The butterfly is the sign that God gave me after my mom's death, to represent that my mom is still with me, though not physically on earth. What are the chances for someone sitting right in front of me to be wearing apparel decorated with butterfly images. Don't think anyone else in church could be found to be sporting butterflies.
The GIG Apostolate Rosary Congress Participants & the precious lambs in their brand new mantillas: thank you, Maggie, Addie, Pat, Daphne, Monica, Clara, Siena, Curt, Claudia, Holland, Georgiana, and Roxanne.
Believe this, a true "wow" moment, Fr. Ken was at the table buying a veil for someone, you go father! We all volunteered to pay for it, but one lady was privileged to end up paying for the veil. Fr. Herb blessed some of our veils and he was so happy, as he wishes everyone would veil before the Lord and imitate Our Blessed Lady. Ok, all of you out there, your time is coming. All of the above is kind of like the side show, now here is the veggie du jour:
On my first day attending the Mass at the Rosary Congress, the realization came about how everything and everyone was created for the Son. This scripture came to mind:
Opened the bible at random to chapter two of Ephesians. It was a surprise to see that verse 10 would reveal another reason for our creation:
Let us be mindful and careful, seeing our living is not to be in vain, but we must live for the Lord God."
Info from this site:
http://blog.franciscanmedia.org/my-rosary-story?utm_campaign=Saint%20of%20the%20Day&utm_source=hs_email&utm_medium=email&utm_content=57121600&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-_GXIBX_GIuWIaDhJeuwkmI2Dz6u7Zc1tFZDtEIhEvj33wgbT9Kd4GnqSQVVxNRU19Ov6kWtA-QvNL8IFeqIMj78TbbXA&_hsmi=57121600
"I'll tell you a story about one rosary and let it stand for so very many of these lovely, silent, haunting companions in our pockets and cars and purses and drawers and under pillows and wrapped around the hands of the dead. This rosary was made 80 years ago by a boy in the woods of Oregon. He was a timber feller working so deep in the woods there were no roads, and the men and boys rode into camp on mules. He was 17 years old that summer and very lonely. One evening he began to carve rosary beads from cedar splits otherwise destined for the fire. He tried to carve a bead a night sitting by the fire. With each bead he would try to remember the story of thbead as his mother had told him. There were the joyful mysteries of good news and visiting cousins and new babies and christenings and finding children whom you feared were lost utterly. There were the sorrowful mysteries of men weeping in the dark and men beating men and men jeering and taunting men and men torturing men and men murdering men under the aegis of the law. There were the glorious mysteries of life defeating death and light returning against epic darkness and epiphanies arriving when no doors or windows seemed open to admit them and love defeating death and the victory of that we know to be true against all evidence that it is not. When he had cut a bead for each of these stories he was finished, for there were at that time no luminous mysteries on which to ponder and pray.
He threaded thin copper wire through each of the beads, setting the mysteries apart with a larger bead cut from yew, and he carved a cross from the shinbone of an elk. He thought about trying to carve a Christ also, but the thought of carving Christ made him uncomfortable. Anyway, he did not think he had the skill, and he did not want to ask one of the older men, some of whom were superb carvers, so he left the cross unadorned, as he said, and put the beads in his pocket. He carried it with him every day the rest of his life.
The beads went with him through Italy and North Africa in the war, and into the wheat fields of Oregon, and back into the woods where he again cut timber for a while, and then all through his travels as a journalist on every blessed muddy road from Canada to California, as he said, and through his brief, but very happy, years in retirement by the sea, where his beads acquired a patina of salt from the mother of all oceans, as he said.
He had it in his pocket the day he was on his knees in his garden and leaned forward and placed his face upon the earth and died, almost 70 years after he finished carving it in the deep woods as a boy. His wife carried the rosary in her pocket for the next two years until the morning she died in her bed, smiling at the prospect of seeing her husband by evening, as she told their son. The son carried the beads in his pocket for the next three days until the moment when he and I were walking out of the church, laughing at one of his father’s thousand salty stories of life in the woods and in the war and in the fields and on the road and by the sea, at which point the son handed it to me and said, “Dad wanted you to have it,” and hustled away to attend to his wife and children and brothers and nieces and nephews.
I wept. Sure, I did. You would weep, too. Sure you would. I have it in my pocket now. I hope to carry it every day the rest of my life, and jingle it absentmindedly, and pray it here and there when I have a moment in the sun, and place it ever so carefully and gently on a shelf every night before I go to bed, touching the elk-bone cross with a smile in memory of my friend George, until the morning of my own death, when I pray for a last few moments of grace in which to hand it to my son, and then close my eyes and go to see the One for whom it was made, who made us. Amen."
Info from this site:
https://www.spiritualdirection.com/2017/10/11/the-effects-of-holy-water
"The question naturally presents itself: whence come the effects of holy water? For the effects of holy water we are indebted principally to our divine Savior. He merited for us the graces we obtain through its usage by His bitter Passion and death. Holy Church, however, who is the custodian of these precious and infinite treasures of grace merited by our Lord, has, in view of these merits, attached these effects to holy water. The power for doing this she has from Christ Himself; hence we owe the effects of holy water primarily to Christ, and secondarily to the will and the prayers of the Church. Concerning the effects, it is to be noted that, by holy water, sanctifying grace is not conferred, but actual grace is obtained, such grace, for instance, through which the intellect is enlightened and the will is moved to avoid evil and to do good. Corporal benefits also are obtained by holy water.
But if we wish to obtain great effects from the use of Holy Water, must we be correspondingly well prepared. To be thus prepared, we must above all be in the state of grace and have firm faith in and submission to Christ and His Holy Church. By this it must not be understood that to one even thus disposed, all the effects attached to the use of holy water will be granted, but we know that graces will be accorded to whoever takes holy water in the proper disposition. How many graces or favors one obtains cannot be determined. Nor will one invariably obtain the good or the grace that he seeks to obtain through holy water however well he may be prepared.
For instance, holy water may be taken to relieve the subject from sickness. He takes it with firm faith and great confidence. Will he be cured without fail? No. On the contrary, however, he will invariably obtain some other grace that is equally as important to him, or more so.But why does holy water not infallibly bring the desired effect, even though used with a proper disposition? The Catechism teaches that the sacramentals, consequently holy water, operate principally by means of the Church’s intercession (CCC 1667). The Church is the bride of the Divine Savior, and hence her prayers are always pleasing to God. When the Church prays, the divine bridegroom prays with her, and for this reason her prayer is powerful with God.
Thus it may happen that a lukewarm Christian may derive great benefit from the use of holy water. The reason for this is that God looks not on the unworthiness of mankind but rather on the prayer of the Church, so pleasing to Him. Especially, though, will the loyal children of the Church, who seek to coordinate their ideas to those of the divine Savior and of the Church, participate in the blissful effects of holy water. Thus far, the effects of holy water have been considered in a general way; they shall now be treated of in detail. These are, as previously stated, of a twofold nature: the effects of grace for the body and the effects of grace for the soul. Words used in the first prayer that the Church pronounces in blessing the salt are “that thou be to all who take thee salvation of soul and body,” and in the second prayer, “let it be to all who take it, health of mind and body.” Inasmuch as harmful influences, and sometimes sickness, originate largely with the devil, the prayer of the Church in the blessing of the water directs herself principally against the evil spirit, and consequently holy water is in an especial manner a means of protection against this evil spirit.
As we learn from these same prayers of the Church, holy water is a special remedy against ills of the body. This effect is contained in the second prayer pronounced over the water. Therein the Church thus addresses herself to God:
Graciously give ear when we call upon Thee, and pour upon this element . . . the power of Thy blessing; let Thy creature salt . . . by divine grace be effectual for driving away diseases, that on whatsoever in the houses or places of the faithful this water shall be sprinkled, it may be freed from all uncleanness and be delivered from hurt.
From these words it is plain that holy water is not only a means to drive away sickness but is likewise a protection against sickness. But Holy Church, in her prayer for the bodily welfare of her children, shows still more foresight. She knows well that not only corporal sufferings, but misfortune in temporal possessions as well, are painful to mankind.
Holy Church consequently offers a means of protection against such mishaps, when she implores in the second prayer over the water, “let not the blast of pestilence nor disease remain” where this water is sprinkled. All harmful influence of the elements, and the powers of the enemy, the Church wishes to keep from mankind, and hence she prays: “and if there be aught which hath ill will to the safety and quietness of the inhabitants, let it flee away at the sprinkling of this water.” Thus holy water advances the bodily welfare of the faithful. A brief narrative will show us that it also achieves the advancement of the soul’s welfare.
As the soul is far superior to the body, so too are the spiritual effects of holy water superior to the corporal effects. The prayers used in the blessing do not specify these spiritual effects; they speak only in general of the advancement of our soul’s salvation through this holy water. For example, in the prayers that are said over the salt, the words occur, “be to all who take theesalvation of soul and body,” and “health of mind and body.” In like manner the spiritual effect is expressed only in a general way in the concluding prayer, when the Church directs her petition to God that He may illumine and sanctify the salt and the water, that wheresoever it shall be sprinkled, by the invocation of Thy holy name all troubling of unclean spirits may be cast out, and the dread of the poisonous serpent be chased far away; and let the presence of the Holy Spirit vouchsafe to be with us, who ask Thy mercy, in every place. In these words the petition is that holy water may shield us against the influence of the evil one — hence the purifying effect — and secure for us assistance in the grace of the Holy Spirit, wherein is expressed the sanctifying effect.
That holy water possesses this purifying and sanctifying effect is indicated in the following prayer used by the Church in its distribution: “Thou shalt sprinkle me, O Lord, with hyssop, and I shall be cleansed : Thou shalt wash me, and I shall be made whiter than snow . . . and all unto whom that water came were saved.” These words clearly point to a purifying and sanctifying effect of holy water. We may not, however, conclude from this that any purifying from mortal sin takes place, because none of the sacramentals cleanses from such sin; but we are correct in assuming a purifying from venial sin and from temporal punishments due to sin. Doctors of the Church agree that holy water causes the remission of venial sin and of temporal punishment due to sin. I quote St. Thomas Aquinas:
“By the sprinkling of holy water the debt of venial sin is wiped out; but not always, however, are all temporal punishments relinquished; this takes place in proportion to the disposition of the person using it, depending on the less or greater degree of ardor in the love for God on the part of the person using it.”
Again the same holy Doctor says that “the sprinkling of holy water brings about the remission of venial sin in the measure of which it excites to contrition.” In accord with the advice of St. Alphonsus, one should strive when using holy water to rise to contrition, that it may prove its purifying effects. Holy water not only possesses the power of cleansing us from venial sin and temporal punishments but also helps us to overcome the temptations of the devil. To bring about this effect, Holy Church asks in the first prayer pronounced over the salt that Almighty God may effect that it serve for the preservation of the people, that “every delusion and wickedness of the devil, and all unclean spirits, may fly and depart.” Still more: in the second prayer over the salt, it shall even shield us against all assaults of spiritual wickedness; hence thus to protect us against temptation, that the devil may have even less power to tempt us.
Holy water also has sanctifying effects. These consist in the actual graces that may be obtained. These are illuminations of the intellect and inspirations of the Holy Spirit that aid the faithful to perform loyally the duties of their state of life, to pray devoutly, to hear a sermon with profit, and especially to assist with recollection and devotion at the Holy Sacrifice of Mass, and thus richly participate in its precious treasures. An illumination, for instance, may be involved when one comes to comprehend, better than he has known before, his faults and particularly his prevailing sin. An inspiration, however, is when an inward voice admonishes him to resolve finally to avoid the occasion of sin, to give up a sinful acquaintance, to shun bad associations or dangerous occasions, with greater determination, and to seek after, with a special devotion and earnestness, the virtue that is in opposition to his prevailing vice. These are effects of the actual graces, effects that holy water can bring about. I do not maintain that the above-named or similar effects of grace must necessarily be attributed to the use of holy water, because we cannot know what and how much it has effected in us. But we do know that it can produce these effects, and we may without doubt have occasion to attribute much of our knowledge and inspiration to the use of holy water."
Link to audio presentation:
http://listen.ewtn.com/~IJ/~IJ000012.mp3