✝Holy Week Living Lent = From the book: “The spirit of Holy Week", by Mary Perkins Ryan
🧀The Cheese & Crackers = Quotes by St. Thomas Aquinas, St. Bernard, and St. Teresa of Calcutta
🍆The Veggies = my 2💰
🍟The Potatoes = Book: "Meditations for Lent, The Anointing, by Jacques-Bénigne Bossuet
🌭The Seafood = "The Hidden Treasure Or The Immense Excellence Of The Holy Sacrifice Of The Mass", by St. Leonard Of Port Maurice (Part 2 of 5)
🍧The Dessert = Audio presentation: "St. John Chrysostom", by Mike Aquilina
As we all know, sin brought suffering and death to mankind. Without Christ men would have had to endure these evils without finding any meaning in suffering or without looking forward to any vital human living beyond the grave. But the Son of God became man enduring suffering and death like other men, but making of His suffering and death a great offering of obedient love to His Father on behalf of sinful mankind. Suffering united to His can now be of value for the salvation of men and, for all who die united to Christ, death itself has become the gateway to eternal life. Suffering and death are means used by the powers of evil to increase sin among men, to make them less than human and to divide them from one another. But by undergoing suffering and death in obedience to His Father and in love for His Father and for us, Christ makes of them the means to unite us in the family of God; so He re-fashions us to the image of His perfect glorified manhood and bestows upon us the radiant fullness of His divine life.
This is God's great Design revealed to us in the Church for which all the centuries of the Old Testament were the foreshadowing and preparation, and of which all the centuries of Christian history are the carrying-out. God is restoring all things in Christ. He is making in Christ and through Christ a new creation far more wonderful than the first creation. This new creation will be completed and made visible when Christ returns in glory to judge the living and the dead. He will extend His victory over death to the bodies as well as the souls of the redeemed, and will inaugurate the wonderful life of the perfect City of God for which all the ages of human history have been the preparation.
The important thing for us here and now, therefore, is to have the current of Christ's life and action flowing through ours. To put it another way, the true purpose of our lives is to enter into the great redeeming Action of Christ, so that everything we do, everything we suffer and, finally, our own death, will partake of the power and effectiveness of His. For, though we were made without our own cooperation, we are not to be saved without it. And besides, in His great courtesy, Christ not only redeems us. He also makes us able to take part in His work of redemption,—not only to help ourselves, but to help all mankind.” From the book: “The spirit of Holy Week", by Mary Perkins Ryan
🍋"There are some who desire knowledge merely for its own sake; and that is shameful curiosity. And there are others who desire to know, in order that they may themselves be known; and that is vanity, disgraceful too. Others again, desire knowledge in order to acquire money or preferment by it; that too is a discreditable quest. But there are also some who desire knowledge, that they may build up the souls of others with it and that is charity. Others, again, desire it that they may themselves be built up thereby; and that is prudence. Of all these types, only the last two put knowledge to the right use." -St. Bernard
🍠When you talk to them, put all of your love and sweetness into your words—or rather ask Jesus to speak through you.”
—St. Mother Teresa
🃏The right course will be set and mattering least will be how hot the enemy is on our trail
🃏Cause the Way, the Truth and the Life in every situation will prevail
🃏Therefore no need to let anything disturb us or ail
🃏If we place our life in God's hands, He's attentive to every little bitty detail
🃏Every strand of hair is counted, individual specifications precisely regarded for each person, male or female
🃏A big difference in our lives our Heavenly Blessed Mother and St. Joseph will make as well
🃏Cause all parents wants their children to excel
🃏So it is so with Our Blessed Lady and her spouse, signs will be given and it won't be hard to tell
🃏At our lowest points their aroma coming in will strengthen us if we inhale & right away take to heart what we smell
🃏Encouraging our praise & thanksgiving to rise up to our God as a sweet smelling oblation
🃏We learn that this is something we should see as a loving obligation
🃏 Let us offer sacrifices great and small, ever so fragrant to God's glory and elation
🃏 Never falling prey to being victims of blatant abrogation
🃏With eyes wide open let us not fail to look around
🃏Right before us many a treasure of grace will be found
🃏Much love overt and also hidden, to encompasses us with compassionate and kindness from on high to unceasingly abound
🃏Discovered sometimes right before our feet as it is meant to be if we travel aright on solid spiritual ground
🃏Combat boots on, let our feet hit the Pedal
🃏Those serious, who no plans to play, cower or settle
🃏Not letting go of wanting a front row seat, a vision of first class in heaven, therefore willing to stand the heat now, as one fire tried kettle
🃏Hanging tough, by the grace of God not allowing the rising temperatures to melt this metal
🃏A true fool, hands down, for thinking only earthly pleasures and riches are worth hardcore laboring
🃏The same can be said for those who are only concerned with the here and now, up to the minute events that are happening
🃏Time for some serious prioritizing
🃏And to realize that the daily call to carry the cross is something we must never stop contemplating
🃏 Many spiritual methods to help us keep the focus on the worthiness of prevention by the once rather than to cures by the pound is something that can't be beat
🃏Availing ourselves to the Sacraments ties up stray loose ends in a way ever so neat
🃏 Feasting of the Body and Blood of Christ as the gift of finest wheat
🃏Affords assurance of the victory over any impossible feat
🃏To do so worthily and to be intent on persevering until the end, when we hope to hear in our ears a sound ever so sweet
🃏There will be no regrets that we sailed on putting first things first when our Blessed Savior face to face we gloriously meet
tmm/TruGIG
™
"As his time drew near, Jesus came forth from his retreat at Ephraim and returned to Bethany, to the neighborhood of Jerusalem, just six days before the Passover. He came for a feast at the house of his friend Lazarus. Martha was serving, as she usually did, while Mary observed the custom of the Jews and “took a pound of costly ointment of pure nard and anointed the feet of Jesus and wiped his feet with her hair,” with the result that “the house was filled with the fragrance of the ointment”
To Judas’s feigned concern that the oil had not been used in service of the poor, Jesus replied, “You always have the poor with you, and whenever you will, you can do good to them,” but “you will not always have me”
At the same time “let us anoint Jesus. Let us breathe out from our hearts tender desire, chaste love, sweet hope, continual praise. If we wish to love and praise him worthily, let us praise him by our entire life; let us keep his word. Let us open our hearts to him and say with St. Paul that he is “our wisdom, our righteousness and sanctification and redemption”
"The first debt by which we have bound ourselves to God is to render Him supreme honor. Even the natural law lays down this as an indispensable obligation, namely, that every inferior owes homage to his superior, and the more exalted the latter, the greater the homage to which he is entitled. Hence it follows, that as God possesses infinite greatness, we are bound to return Him love, so to say, infinitely infinite. But, alas! where will we, miserable creatures, find any offering worthy of our Creator ? Pass in review before your eyes all the creatures of this world, and you will not find one of them worthy of God. Ah, what offering can there be worthy of God except God Himself? And He who is seated on the throne of His immensity vouchsafes to descend and offer Himself as a victim on our altars, in order that our homage may correspond perfectly with the pre-eminence of His infinite majesty. And this is effected in the holy Mass, in which God is honored as he deserves to be honored, because He is honored by God Himself, that is by Jesus, who, placing Himself a victim on our altars, adores the most holy Trinity by an act of indescribable submission, such as no other can offer; so much so that all the offerings of all created beings, compared to this humiliation of our Divine Redeemer, are as the feeble light of the stars before the meridian splendours of the sun.
'Tis related of a holy woman, whose soul was intensely inflamed with love of God, that she was accustomed to express her ardent longings thus: " Ah, my God, my God, I wish that I had as many hearts and tongues as there are leaves on the trees, atoms in the air, and drops of water in the sea, to love thee as Thou deservest to be loved! Oh, that I could encircle all earth's creatures with my hands, and lay them at thy feet, in order that they might be inflamed with love of Thee, provided I might love Thee more intensely than them all, nay, mor” “intensely than all the angels and saints, more than Paradise itself. One day, when she was thus breathing forth these devout longings with re* doubled fervour, she had the happiness to hear our Lord answering her in these words: <( Dear daughter, be consoled, because, by a single Mass at which you assist devoutly, you can render to me all that glory for which your heart is on fire, hay, and infinitely more."
And are you astounded at hearing this assertion ? But you have no reason to be so; because as our good Jesus is not only man, but true and omnipotent God, He, by humbling,Himself upon the altar, renders, by that very act of humiliation, infinite homage and infinite honor to the most holy Trinity, so that we who co-operate with Him in offering the great sacrifice are thus enabled, through him, to offer unto God homage and honor which is infinite. Oh, stupendous fact! Let us repeat it over and over again, since it never can be too deeply graven on our memories, " Certainly, certainly, by hearing holy Mass with proper dispositions, we offer unto our God homage and honor that is infinite!" Here, now, let holy amazement overwhelm your souls, and reflect that nothing can be truer than the proposition already laid down, namely, that by assisting devoutly at holy Mass, we bestow on God honor far surpassing that which all the choirs of angels and saints, aggregated into one great whole, can bestow upon Him in heaven, for, notwithstanding their state of blessedness, they, like ourselves, are mere creatures, and thus their homage is limited and finite; whereas, in the Mass, Jesus humbles Himself, a humiliation which is infinite in value and merits, and consequently the homage and honor which we render to God, through Him, in the Mass, is a homage and honor that is infinite. And since this grand truth cannot be doubted, ought we not congratulate ourselves on having it in our power to be able to satisfy this first debt by hearing the holy Mass ? Oh, blind world, when wilt thou open thine eyes to a truth so grand and so important? And yet, alas! you will have the folly to say, " a Mas* the more or a Mass the less" counts for nothing! Oh, abominable blindness!”
Audio link:
https://05714042a2232aa91807ef46-qgjpdebgroop4m.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/St.%20John%20Chrysostom.mp3