🧀The Cheese & Crackers = Quotes by St. Josemaria Escriva, James Fitzpatrick, and St. John Cassian
🌽The Veggies = My 2💰
🍟The Potatoes = “The Icon of Our Lady of Consolation”, by Elder Joseph of Vatopaidi
🍗The Meat = Book: ”The Prayer of the Presence of God, The Soul Breathes”, by Dom Augustin Guillerand, O. Cart
🍰The Dessert = YouTube Video: “God’s Presence In the Humanity of Christ”, by Fr. Jacques Philippe (Part 6 of 8)
🎡 “I suspect that they have come to the conclusion that Our Lord does not mind if those who have just worshipped Him reverently in prayer at Mass express their love for one another in a warm and cordial manner as they leave the church; that there is no great need for them to wait until they cross the threshold of the vestibule to drop the demeanor we associate with prayer. But the question remains: Does the new after-Mass conviviality do harm to our spiritual lives and that of our fellow parishioners? Is the warmth of the pew-side conversation we see these days a sign of a vital Christian community? Or an indication of a diminished belief in the Real Presence? If it is the latter, we better hold the small talk for the church parking lot, even if someone finds us “stuffy” when we do so”. By James Fitzpatrick
🚈 Let everybody know this. He shall be assigned to the place and to the service to which he gave and devoted himself in this life and he can be sure that in eternity he will have as his lot the service and the companionship which he preferred in this life. By St. John Cassian
💊 Need the perfect prescription to fill
💊Recommending Matthew, Mark, Luke and John
💊You don’t have to worry about them being a con
💊A pleasant discovery to find that they are tried and true
💊Guides pointing to what we should always do
💊Important is what they have to say
💊It’ll pave for us the path to the straight and narrow way
💊Superior and sublime will be the info
💊Helping us to surrender and to totally let go
💊Yes, when it’s looking like things are about to unravel
💊At your fingertips will be the road map
Necessary for travel
💊 With Scripture, go ahead and self medicate
💊 Encourage others, now this is what is safe if you’re into asking others to vaccinate
💊Sometimes it’s like going from boom to bust
💊But we have to always walk by faith and not by sight, trust, trust, we must
💊Now and forever, it’s for God’s Word
💊 By all to be heard
💊There will be times it will work to severely rebuke
💊 To have no parameters and fall off the cliff, that’s only courted by a real kook
💊 If the desire is there to in the right direction swiftly move
💊Then welcome will be God’s reprove
💊No doubt, Scripture can be so comforting
💊 An aid and help when we are mourning
💊 A blessing to hear Jesus speak
💊 His words to us can give us strength when we are weak
💊Learning about the past, quite a valuable find is history
💊Knowing that He is the same yesterday, today and forever and can do what was done in the past is good news for you and for me
💊To know God in His word and to be still
💊Will make it quite possible to be victorious after consuming many a Gospel-Gos-pill
Info from this site: https://pemptousia.com/2018/01/the-icon-of-our-lady-of-consolation/
In the old days, it was the custom that, as they left the main church after Matins, the fathers of the monastery would kiss the icon of Our Lady in the outer narthex. There the Abbot would give the keys to the gates of the Monastery, which had been closed during the night, to the gate-keeper so that he could open them.
One year, at the beginning of the 14th century, on 21 January, the Matins service finished. The fathers withdrew to their cells to rest before beginning their daily duties. This was when the monastery gates would be opened. What they didn’t know was that pirates- at that time the scourge of the Aegean Sea- were lurking outside, ready to break in and enter, with the aim of pillaging the Monastery. The only person in the main church was the abbot, who was engrossed in prayer. Suddenly, he was startled by a voice which seemed not to be that of a human being. In terror, he looked around, but saw no-one, because there wasn’t anybody else in the church. But some-one had spoken. He concentrated and, to his consternation, discovered that the voice was coming from the icon of the Mother of God. He bent his ear respectfully to hear what she was saying. He then heard her voice: ‘Don’t open the monastery gates today, but get up on the walls and disperse the pirates’.
Astonished, the Abbot fixed his eyes on the icon of the Mother of God and became aware of a great miracle.
The figure of Our Lady was alive. The infant Jesus, Whom she was holding in her arms, had also come to life. He moved His right hand and put it over His holy Mother’s mouth, turning His radiant face towards her. In a sweet, child’s voice He said: ‘No, Mother, don’t tell them. They deserve to be punished because they’re neglecting their duties as monks’. Then, with great maternal boldness towards her only Son, Our Lady, the Mother of God, lifted her own hand and gently removed that of Christ. She inclined her face towards the right and said more loudly ‘Don’t open the monastery gates today but get up on the walls and disperse the pirates… And make sure you repent, because my Son’s angry with you’. She then repeated the warning for the third time: ‘Don’t open the monastery gates today’…. After this, Our Lady the Mother of God and her Son returned to being figures in the icon.
Filled with wonder, the Abbot gathered all the fathers and related the supernatural event to them, repeating the words he’d heard from the lips of Our Lady and those of the Divine Infant to His Mother. They all turned in amazement to the place where the wonder-working icon was and their astonishment increased even further. The depiction in the icon had been completely transformed and looked nothing like the one that had previously been there. It was in the form it still has today: Our Lady holding Christ’s hand under her mouth and inclining her head to the right to allow herself to speak. Her expression is full of boundless clemency, love, sympathy and maternal affection. Although Christ is depicted as an infant, He has the stern look of a judge.
This icon really is not made by human hand, because it was made in the form it has today not by a human artist but by the Grace of God, after this wondrous intervention on the part of Our Lady for the preservation of the monastery. It was then named ‘Our Lady of Consolation’, because according to pilgrims to the monastery- who cannot get their fill of gazing at it- the sight of the sweet expression on the face of Our Lady brings respite, rest, serenity and consolation to the human soul.
Through this icon, we see once again the maternal boldness of the Mother of God in interceding to her ‘Son and God’ for forgiveness of our sins and her saving prayers through which she relieves us of the torments which are our due because of the multitude of our sins.
The icon was transferred to the special chapel of the Consolation. The monks keep an icon-lamp in front of it which is never permitted to go out, a Service of Supplication is sung every day and on Fridays there’s a Divine Liturgy. In former years it was the custom that monks were tonsured in this chapel.
Also associated with this icon is the life of Saint Neofytos, who served as the sacristan of the chapel of Our Lady of Consolation.
The saint was away on Monastery business for a time at a dependency on Evia and there he fell seriously ill. He begged Our Lady to allow him to die in the monastery of his repentance and immediately heard her voice saying: ‘Neofytos, go back to your monastery and, a year afterwards, prepare to leave this life’. He thanked Our Lady warmly for the extension to his life and told his disciple to get ready to return to the monastery. And, indeed, a year later, after he’d taken Holy Communion one day, he went up the stairs to the chapel of Consolation and again heard the voice of Our Lady: ‘Neofytos, it’s time for you to leave’. He went to his cell and began to feel unwell. After he’d received forgiveness from all the fathers of the community, he commended his spirit to the Lord.
The Soul Breathes. Prayer should be continuous
📖 Luke 21:36 “Be vigilant at all times and pray that you have the strength to escape the tribulations that are imminent and to stand before the Son of Man.”
Watch ye, therefore, praying at all times. It is the soul breathing. Just as we have to breathe continuously, so we must pray continuously. Prayer is the deep interior movement of which we are barely conscious. To become aware of it, so far as we can, is indeed a great grace. To live, conscious of this movement and of him who is both its source and term, is the greatest of all graces; indeed, it is heaven on earth. On to this deep movement, the continuity of which is unhappily perceived by so few, should be grafted special prayers: that is, those that are more conscious and willed. It is these we properly call "prayers," and which call for fixed times.
The times for these prayers in the case of priests and religious are so precise that they are called `Hours' - that is to say, certain prayers are attached to certain hours during the day and night. They are so determined that the whole day is, as it were, one continuous prayer. The repetition of these prayers turns our vacillating mind, so easily and so often distracted, back to God. Just when our mind could be caught up by some superficial thing, the time for the Divine Office comes round, and our mind is called away from the pressing vanities that might have occupied it, and plunged again in God.
The ordinary Christian is not held by so strict a tie. Regular hours for prayer, filling the day and canalizing everything toward God, is not for him a duty and a daily task. But what for him is not an obligation he may, of course, do out of love. I say out of love, but it is a love which is in his own interest. But even for him, there are fixed times when he ought to recollect himself and renew the divine contact. "In the morning, says the Psalmist, thou shalt hear my voice ... in the morning I will stand before thee
📖 Psalms 5:4-5 “in the morning you will hear my voice; in the morning I will plead before you and wait. You are not a god who delights in evil; no wicked person finds refuge with you”
And the prophet Isaias: "In the morning early, i will watch to thee as if, for him, there could be no other awakening than this, and all time not so occupied was but night and sleep.
📖 Isaiah 26:9 “My soul yearns for you at night, yes, my spirit within me seeks you at dawn;When your judgment comes upon the earth, the world’s inhabitants learn justice”
Still more relevant is that other word of the son of Sirach, falling gently and spreading like dew: "[The wise man] will give his heart to resort early to the Lord that made him, and he will pray in the sight o f the Most High.
📖 Sirach 39:6 “If it pleases the Lord Almighty, he will be filled with the spirit of understanding;He will pour forth his words of wisdomand in prayer give praise to the Lord”
Sleep brings renewal-that is what the word `rest' or repose implies. It revives us, provided we put entirely out of our mind everything that has disturbed us during the day. If on the other hand we pursue in our dreams the things that have attracted us during our waking hours, our sleep only wearies us still further, instead of bringing us rest. Night is thus like a new creation: it relaxes the limbs, gives assurance to the mind, renews the soul and restores our whole being. These hours of repose are hours of unconsciousness. We do not live this deep, restorative contact with our Source; the soul does not perceive him. It wants this contact, and indeed achieves it, but it is not conscious of it. During these hours of sleep, it does not offer to God, who is still its All, the homage of the whole being for which it is responsible. There is a kind of break in the divine intercourse, for although the soul holds the first place in our being, it does not constitute, as we must recognize, our all.
When the body awakens in the morning, and the soul becomes again conscious of this "whole," it resumes command and becomes once more the link and interpreter of the created world, thus renewing its conscious contact with the Creator. That is why in the Psalms at Lauds, we invite the whole of creation to take up again its interrupted praise: All ye works o f the Lord, bless the Lord; praise and exalt him above all for ever
📖 Daniel 3:57 “Bless the Lord, all you works of the Lord, praise and exalt him above all forever”
YouTube Video: “God’s Presence In the Humanity of Christ”, by Fr. Jacques Philippe (Part
6 of 8)
Video link: https://youtu.be/NAMGKsRc_tw