The Value of Penance

March 9, 2025By

1st Sunday of Lent 2025
We must imitate the example of Our Lord in the face of temptation.  When we are afflicted by evil thoughts we should turn to the powerful defense of Sacred Scripture.  Christ’s victory over the devil in this Gospel foreshadows His ultimate victory on the Cross.  Unless we do penance, we will surely perish.  We should have a thorough understanding of what the word “penance” means.  Lent is a time of joy, when we shake off sin and prepare for Heaven.  This season presents to us God’s mercy and gives us the opportunity to obtain a peaceful conscience.  God in His justice is bound by His very nature to punish sin, but when we punish ourselves with works of penance, even our smallest acts have great value, if they come from the heart.  There are many such acts that every Catholic should know and put into practice during this season.
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Saved By Love

February 9, 2025By

5th Sunday after Epiphany 2025
This week in the liturgical year is filled with important days.  The lives of St. Blaise and St. Apollonia, as well as the details of the apparitions of Our Lady at Lourdes, should be well known to every Catholic.

During these days, we consider the flight of the Holy Family into Egypt.  They covered a distance of roughly 300 miles through the desert, and all the pains they suffered during this trip were offered up for us.

God wills the salvation of all men, but not all are saved.  With the graces He offers at every moment, our God tries to save us despite the sins we continually commit.  God gives us his love always.  We must not only know God, but we must love Him, because it is only through love that we are saved.  If we truly love God, He should occupy our thoughts more than anything else and we should be on fire with love when we receive Him in Holy Communion.
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Her First Great Sorrow

February 8, 2025By

Feast of the Purification 2025
This feast marks the end of the Nativity and Epiphany seasons. Today we remember both the purification of the Blessed Virgin and the presentation of Our Lord in the temple. The Mother of God was exempt from the legal requirement of purification, however she still submitted to the law due to her humility and desire to be united to sinners. In the Old Law, parents were required to present their first-born son in the temple and to offer five shekels in order to “buy back” the child who was being loaned to them for a time by God. This should remind all parents that your children are not yours but belong to God first. St. Simeon prophesied that Our Lady’s life would be filled with sorrow. This is how she merited the title of Queen of Martyrs and Mater Dolorosa.

Blessed candles, one of the great sacramentals of the Church, are blessed today in the ceremony which has existed from the earliest days of the Church.
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The Holy Family Provides

January 12, 2025By

Feast of the Holy Family 2025
The Blessed Mother kept the mysteries of Our Lord’s life in her heart, and we should invoke her help whenever we meditate on those mysteries.  Holy Scripture shows St. Joseph to be the clear head of the Holy Family, not by his words but by his actions.  The event recorded in the Gospel took place when Christ was twelve years old, at the time when He became a “Son of the Law.”  By His words Christ makes it evident to the whole world that He knew He was God at every moment of His life.  St. Paul tells us in his Epistle the virtues of the Holy Family which we must imitate and use in examining our consciences.  The father is the head of the family and must be the example of the virtue of religion.  The mother is the heart of the family, who keeps all the spiritual and material needs of the children in her heart.  God has given us parents to assist us in attaining Heaven, and children are called to submit to their parents in holy obedience.  Nothing bad will ever happen to us but that which our loving Father allows.
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Inebriated by His Blood

January 1, 2025By

Octave of Christmas 2025
This is the day on which Our Lord began to redeem us by shedding His Blood in the circumcision.  How many sins are committed at every moment?  Yet, the Precious Blood makes up for them infinitely.  How beautiful that our God still desires our love.  Today is also a feast for our Blessed Mother.  We can never do enough to show our love for her.  At the beginning of the new year, we rededicate ourselves to our God and His Mother and renew our promises to them.  The phrase Anno Domini was created so that every year would be measured from the most important day in history.  We must never forget that God created us to show forth His goodness and share with us his everlasting happiness in Heaven.
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Many Hearts Shall Be Revealed

December 29, 2024By

Sunday within the Octave of Christmas 2024
St. Thomas Becket began as a worldly man in England. He was raised to the position of Lord Chancellor by his good friend King Henry II.  St. Thomas renounced his worldly way when he was made bishop, prioritizing the love of God over the approval of the king.  He maintained his loyalty to God even to the shedding of his own blood.

This day is bittersweet because the prophet Simeon foretold the response of both good and evil souls to the coming of the Messiah. We must remember that Christmas is not over yet. We are meant to spend special time this season with the Divine Infant.
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Our Spiritual Resolutions

December 1, 2024By

1st Sunday of Advent 2024
Today is New Year’s Day in the Church, and we are reminded by the violet color at the beginning of the liturgical year to do penance for our sins.  We have a lot of work to do this Advent to prepare for the coming of Our Lord into our souls.  This is the time to make spiritual New Year’s resolutions.  If we wish to obtain our heavenly reward, we must perform the spiritual and corporal works of mercy and maintain purity of body and soul through prayer and mortification.  The Son of God honored our flesh when He took to Himself a human nature.  In following the purpose of this Advent season, let us “put aside the works of darkness and put on the armor of light!”
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God’s Chastisements and the Three Days of Darkness

November 24, 2024By

Last Sunday after Pentecost 2024

This Sunday is not only a reminder of the end of time, but a reminder of the end of each individual life and our particular judgment.  Christ foretold the destruction of Jerusalem, typifying the chastisements the world will face in the last days.  We should be encouraged in seeing how God spared the Christian community of Jerusalem who heeded His warnings.  We too should watch for the signs in our own times and prepare our souls for Christ’s coming.  Whether or not we witness the Three Days of Darkness and the coming punishments of the world, we know that we are all destined to face God and must prepare to do so with the time we have left.
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We Must Answer to God

November 17, 2024By

26th Sunday after Pentecost 2024
In this Epistle St. Paul encourages the Thessalonians, who were enduring persecution for the Faith, instructing them to persevere in their struggle.  The parables in the Gospel similarly encourage Christ’s followers by explaining the external growth of the Church as well as our internal growth in sanctity.  God’s ways are not ours; His way is irresistible.  We should be encouraged by the words of this Gospel and never forget the favors God has sent us.  Our battle is with principalities and powers, and it is easy to be fooled by the sophistries of a pagan society – a society which constantly makes excuses for the murder of the unborn.  Each of us, even the great and powerful, will have to make an answer to God for the choices of his life.
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Our Belief In Purgatory

November 2, 2024By

All Souls Day 2024 – Evening
The Vestment for tonight’s Mass displays a cross intertwined with the branches of a weeping willow, reminding us to weep for those souls who have not reached their heavenly reward.  Because of its implicit denial of the general resurrection of the dead, the practice of cremation was so condemned by the Church that it incurred the penalty of excommunication.  We see how ancient the practice of praying for the dead is from the account of the Machabees.  To say that everyone goes to Heaven directly contradicts the words of Christ, the Scriptures, Tradition, and reason.  The souls in Purgatory are so close to their eternal end, and we must do what we can to speed their journey.
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17
St. Patrick

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