Dominica in Albis (Quasimodo Sunday)

Dominica in Albis (Quasimodo Sunday)

A Sermon by Rev. Jonathan Romanoski, FSSP

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JMJt

“Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy.”

Today we celebrate the last day of our Easter Octave, the end of a day so solemn that it has lasted 8 days, and in the spirit of which we will continue for another 42 days until Pentecost. Dom Gueranger tells us that, “such is the solemnity of this Sunday that... no feast however great, can ever be kept upon it,” which is why for instance we still wait until tomorrow to celebrate the feast of the Annunciation, as it has been trumped by every day of this octave of octaves.

Though often referred to as Low Sunday, it is more liturgically referred to as Sunday in albis, referring to the white garments of the neophytes which are only now set aside after their baptism at the vigil mass, which was the apex of the whole liturgical season, and indeed the center piece of the entire Christian life, as it is the mystery of all holiness and growth in holiness. For in baptism the old man is put to death, and we truly become “partakers of the divine nature,” temples of the Holy Ghost,” other Christs to now live and manifest His life throughout the earth. The Council of Sens, in fact saw the renewal of Baptismal vows, as the chief way to reform and renew the lives of the faithful, as all our sin springs from our neglect and depreciation of this mystery, this ineffable gift of God’s mercy.

It is a feast in which the liturgy has us meditate on the Divine Mercy, well captured in the Divine Mercy image, which echoes the Epistle we just read today, in which we are told that we have the victory which conquers the world- the one true faith, which we have received from the water and the blood which flowed from the side of Jesus Christ, and that we have received the testimony in ourselves, of the Father, the Word and the Holy Ghost now dwelling in our soul, made present by the testimony on earth of the Spirit the Water and the Blood, given to us in Baptism. As Pius XII says in his Encyclical on the Sacred Heart, summing up the Catholic tradition, “from the wounded Heart of the Redeemer was born the Church, the dispenser of the Blood of the Redemption -- whence flows that plentiful stream of Sacramental grace from which the children of the Church drink of eternal life.”

Yet today, as the Church has the newborn children of God set aside their baptismal garment to live a new life, She is ever mindful of the battle that awaits them. And so today She has focus on the second great sacrament of His Mercy, instituted in the Gospel today, when our Lord says to his disciples, “Peace be to you. As the Father hath sent me, I also send you,” as other Christs sharing in the redemption of the world. Then, “he breathed on them,” to re-create the world anew, with the breath that hovered over the waters of creation, and says, “Receive ye the Holy Ghost, whose sins you shall forgive they are forgiven them; and whose sins you shall retain they are retained.” Today the Church fortifies us all, white robes aside, with the Sacrament of Penance, so that if God forbid we neglect to care for the infinite gift of God Himself received in Baptism, we yet have a way to recover this divine state again, through the confession of our sins. But in order that we may understand confession well, and how to confess well, we must first understand what mercy is, which is hardly understood at all today.

“In God,” Blessed Dom Marmion tells us, “There is...one perfection which is perhaps the key of all that befalls us here below: it is mercy. Mercy is love in the face of misery; if there were no misery, there would be no mercy...we shall be in Heaven the living witnesses of the Divine Mercy.” St. Thomas explains this for us in more detail, noting that mercy is a compassionate response to another’s misery. Through our bond with them we sense the evil they suffer as our own, or if they are more distant to us we consider that the same evil could befall us. It arises often first in an emotion of sympathy, but in order to be virtuous it must be governed by right reason, without which it is in fact an emotion which greatly hinders reason and is greatly abused, as evident in those who waste their time for “animal rights,” “tree rights” or whatever fill in the blank “rights” which simply advances through a manipulation of human sympathy, via cute puppies, sad faces, sappy music, or whatever and has no real ordering toward the common good.
And what is the rule that the movement of mercy must obey? St. Augustine tells us, "this movement of the mind obeys reason, when mercy is vouchsafed in such a way that justice is safeguarded, whether we give to the needy or forgive the repentant." That justice is safeguarded. For note well that mercy has as it’s aim the fulfillment of justice, and not the casting off of justice. Consider the great mercy God has shown mankind, in coming to earth, and dying for our sins. He did not come down to earth so as to lower the bar of holiness, telling mankind not to worry about striving for a heavenly life, but rather to raise it, telling us to now be holy as the Father in heaven is Holy. The holiness of God himself! But he descended so as to make it possible- to give us the grace to ascend to heaven. He suffered and died so as to pay the debt of justice, and win for us the grace of justification in our union with Christ crucified. It is quite true that mercy goes beyond justice in that it strives for more than what is merely due, as Christ died for us while we were yet sinners, his enemies, but it is never contrary to justice as it always aims at making others just. Hence the more important spiritual works of mercy- like admonishing the sinner, and instructing the ignorant. How different are these from the world’s effeminate, irrational, counterfeit versions of mercy in tolerating sin, celebrating diversity, saving animals and trees, pacifism, financial assistance for the lazy, and whatever other act which has nothing to do with the true sanctification of souls and their eternal happiness. Such is not the mercy of God and such should not be the mercy of man. The mercy of God is indeed a chief manifestation of His omnipotence, as in it He shows Himself bountiful to our distress, says St. Thomas. Yet mercy is in no way incompatible with God who condemns the sinner to hell to punish him for all eternity unto the glorification of His justice, in which St. Thomas tells us there is yet found the mercy of God, as even this eternal torture is less than a sinner deserves for his infinite offense. Although they differ as acts toward us, in God, mercy and justice are the same, which is the great mystery of this life, of predestination, of heaven and hell. As the Scriptures tell us, “Mercy and truth have met each other: justice and peace have kissed.”

In this light we can understand how confession works, in which the priest exercises the office of judge, as the council of Trent defined. A judge not only to forgive but also to retain sins, in those who are not to be forgiven, that is to say the unrepentant, who confess their sins with no thought of changing their sinful ways or avoiding the near occasion of sin. Contrition, remember is the necessary matter for a valid confession, and one must have a truly supernatural detestation, and resolve to change one’s life and avoid the occasion of sin, so as to be just, in order for it to be valid.. As St. John Bosco said in his day, “more souls are condemned by confessing badly than by not confessing.” The priest in the case of the unrepentant must guard the justice of God and not abuse the sacrament in such sacrilegious application, which would be a mockery of God’s mercy, God will not give His mercy so that we can more conveniently crucify the Son of God anew. But rather, as he extended His mercy to St. Mary Magdalene worthy of being stoned for adultery, so he does to us in confession, telling us “neither will I condemn thee,” but he adds, “go, and now sin no more.”

Let us then go forth with this understanding, confessing our sins from hence forth, not to get out of jail free, but so as to truly reform our life. And inspired by this mercy let us go forth to mercifully help others grow in justice, for St. Thomas says, as regards our external works, “the sum total of the Christian religion consists in mercy.” And according to the challenge of exercising true divine mercy, which aims to increase one’s share in the faith that conquers the world, and the divine nature received from the blood and water of the heart of Christ, shall we be judged.

“Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy.”

Mary, Mother of Mercy: Pray for us.

AMDG
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Dominica Resurrectionis (Easter Sunday)

Dominica Resurrectionis (Easter Sunday)

A Homily by Rev. Jonathan Romanoski, FSSP

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"And if Christ be not risen again, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain... for you are yet in your sins."

It has been my great pleasure to be with you since the feast of the Holy Family, which seems but a short time ago in this liturgical year in which we have passed so quickly from Our Lord’s Nativity, to his Passion and Resurrection. But this compact view should help us see the unity of the mystery of God’s plan, as the divine riddle only makes sense when you hear the end of it.

The Word became Flesh and dwelt amongst us. The fullness of Divine Love itself, came down from heaven, in infinite condescension, to dwell among us, as one of us, like to us in all things but sin. In the first beat of His divine heart, he merited enough grace to redeem the world, being as it was an act of infinite love of a divine person. Yet he was not content to rest there. He wanted to teach us the depths of His love, and most importantly how to Love, as He then took us into the desert for forty days, teaching us to renounce the things of this world, that we might gain those of heaven. And He taught us still further in His Passiontide, the true reality of our sin, by which we spit in the face, crown with thorns, and nail to the cross, Love and Goodness Himself. Yet while we, not accepting his incarnation, and even killing the Author of Life, merited even greater eternal punishment, He still more greatly condescended in His infinite mercy, immolating the mortal flesh He had assumed as a holocaust of divine charity on the cross, begging our pardon, and making Himself captive once again in our midst, in the Most Holy Eucharist, so as to try yet again in the madness of His Divine Love to unite Himself to us His enemies, whom He now calls His friends.

Dom Gueranger sums this us most admirably as he writes, “Everything, both in the order of time and in the workings of the Liturgy, has been a preparation for Easter. The four thousand years that followed the promise made by God to our first parents were crowned by the event that we are now to celebrate... The angels themselves are dazzled by the grand Mystery, as the Church tells us in one of her Easter hymns, where she says: ‘The angels gaze with wonder on the change wrought in mankind: it was flesh that sinned, and now Flesh taketh all sin away, and the God that reigns is the God made Flesh’.”

For today we receive the tangible proof of all that God has revealed and done; that our sins are taken away; and that Christ who was thought unable to save Himself, by His death has conquered death. For Christ has risen, alleluia. Christ has truly risen, alleluia. The Resurrection is the mystery of our Faith, as it is the tangible miracle of miracles, which confirms with certainty all that Christ did and taught; the chief miracle manifesting His divinity, who declared, “I AM the resurrection and the life.”

And so it is the chief miracle, which the world will war against. Let us review their plan of attack, that we may always be ready with a reason for the hope that is within us. They begin against the reliability of the documents which describe the events themselves, the historically inerrant Sacred Scriptures, which any honest historian would have to admit on purely secular grounds are the most reliable documents of any ancient historical account that civilization has, as they are far, far more numerous in manuscript copies, perfectly in accordance with each other in what they teach, and far more ancient in extant manuscripts than any other ancient history. They were attested to by the pagans of their day and most of all by those who shed their blood for what they saw, with no hope of gain in this life, as they were the most miserable of all men, if in this life only, they had hope in Christ, says St. Paul, as there was no earthly gain to be had, and if it were for eternal retribution in the next life, they never would have lied. Which documents as well have so many hard sayings--foolishness to the gentiles, and stumbling blocks to the Jews, and so many shameful facts about their human authors, who abandoned their Lord, and never understood what he was saying. As even Rousseau, that great enemy of the faith, said, “My friend, something made up does not sound like this.”

Yet the enemy does not stop here, as they are not really interested in reason anyway. And so they proceed with their “enlightened” theories about what really happened, thousands of years removed from the fact, asserting that the apostles merely hallucinated out of their exceeding hope to see the Lord resurrected. Yet what do we read? That to the contrary they were not exceedingly credulous, but rather had given up hope, and would not believe St. Mary Magdalene, nor would St. Thomas believe the other apostles until he had placed his hands in Our Lords sacred wounds. And these appearances lasted not for a moment but for forty days straight, in which our Lord spoke and ate with them. And not only did the incredulous apostles and “doubting Thomas” see him, but five-hundred eye witnesses saw him as well, whose testimony was not called into doubt.

All right, so much for that one, let’s try brilliant idea #2- there was an earthquake, and Our Lord’s body fell into the earth and disappeared. Just one little problem- the linen cloths with which his body was wrapped, and his burial shroud, which we still have today, were left behind, neatly arranged. Now, people don’t usually fall through their clothes, do they?

All right, one more, straight from the Pharisees’ playbook. The Pharisees you will recall, giving testimony to the fact that our Lord prophesied his resurrection, became exceedingly afraid that it would come true, and so begged Pilate, to guard the tomb under the Roman seal with soldiers. These were soldiers of the greatest army on the planet, who were defending the seal of Rome itself. If this seal were broken they would have probably been burned alive for betraying it, and those who broke it crucified upside down. The rock placed over it would have weighed about three to four thousand pounds. So against all this we are supposed to believe, (I’m sorry, “rationally deduce”) that twelve incredulous cowards, charged these trained soldiers, or bribed them with fishes or riches that they didn’t have, in exchange for risking their lives and the honor of Rome, and then proceeded to roll away a two-ton stone so that they could hide their dead founder, who was thus proved to have been a liar and a fake, so that they could in turn go about preaching a lie which would be quite ridiculous in content to both Jews and Greeks, living a life of suffering and persecution, without any earthly gain, so as to gain eternal life, which they now knew didn’t exist. Behold the faith of the rationalists so contrary to reason! It takes much less faith to simply acknowledge the fact of the resurrection. No one believed this ludicrous account of the Pharisees either, as the best the enemies could come up with was to say that the soldiers fell asleep, and then the disciples stole the body somehow. As St. Augustine famously quipped, “Sleeping witnesses, you adduce: truly you yourself have fallen asleep.”

Any reasonable man who studies the issue would conclude as Simon Greenleaf, a professor of Law at Harvard, who wrote one of the most authoritative works on the nature of legal evidence ever produced, concluded after scrutinizing the claims of the four Evangelists, that namely, they pass the test of all legal standards with flying colors. And who could believe the contrary, as Dante wrote, “That all the world, said I, should have been turned to Christian, and no miracle been wrought, would in itself be such a miracle, the rest were not an hundredth part so great.”

Why do we review these proofs this morning? Because defending our faith is part of being holy, as St. Peter says, “sanctify the Lord Christ in your hearts, being ready always to satisfy every one that asketh you a reason of that hope which is in you.” And as St. Pius X said, “We are forced to agree with those who hold that the chief cause of the present indifference and, as it were, infirmity of soul, and the serious evils that result from it, is to be found above all in ignorance of things divine.” And the modernists continue to attack with still greater fury our faith from every side. And what is worse, they have poisoned the well itself, shaking the confidence of Catholics in what Vatican I defined are the most certain proofs of divine revelation- miracles and prophecies, in exchange for mere persuasions based on the fulfillment of human hope, with no basis in fact, which is how people think of religion today, who speak of it in a context of nothing more than mere belief, a strong opinion, or just fantasies of the imagination. Such is not the Catholic faith. Our faith is based on facts--et Verbum caro factum est. The Word who became flesh, taught in the flesh, died in the flesh, and rose in the flesh. As the beloved disciple who leaned on our Lord’s breast, stood at Calvary and then beheld the empty tomb wrote, “That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the word of life. For the life was manifested; ...and hath appeared to us: That which we have seen and have heard, we declare unto you, that you also may have fellowship with us, and our fellowship may be with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ. And these things we write to you, that you may rejoice, and your joy may be full.”

Rejoice and be glad O Virgin Mary, Alleluia: for the Lord hath truly risen, Alleluia.

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¡Como Fray Toribio!

¡Como Fray Toribio!

Si me preguntan que cómo me siento después de haber terminado mi tesis doctoral, les respondo, ¡Como Fray Toribio!

Tomado del libro, Fray Gerundio de Campazas, por José Francisco de Isla:

"Era lector [Fray Toribio,] un religioso mozo, como de hasta treinta años escasos, de mediano ingenio, de astante comprehensión, de memoria feliz, estudiantón de cal y canto, furiosamente aristotélico, porque jamás había leído otra filosofía, ni podía tolerar que se hablase de ella; eterno disputador, para lo cual le ayudaba una gran volubilidad de lengua, una voz clara, gruesa y corpulenta, una admirable consistencia de pecho y una maravillosa fortaleza de pulmones: en fin, un escolástico esencialmente tan atestado de voces facultativas, que no usaba de otras, ni las sabía, para explicar las cosas más triviales. Si le preguntaban cómo lo pasaba, respondía:

-Materialiter bien; formaliter, subdistingo: reduplicative ut homo, no me duele nada; reduplicative ut religioso, no deja de haber sus trabajos.

En una ocasión, se le quejó su madre de que, en las cartas que la escribía, no la hablaba palabra de su salud. Y él respondió: «Madre y señoría mía: Es cierto que signate no decía a usted que estaba bueno, pero exercite ya se lo decía. Ahora pongo en noticia de usted como estoy explicando a mis discípulos la trascendencia o la intrascendencia del ente: yo llevo la analogía, y niego la trascendencia. A mi hermana Rosa dirá usted que me alegro mucho lo pase bien, así ut quo como ut quod, y que en cuanto a las calcetas con que me regala, la materia ex qua me pareció un poco gorda, pero la forma artificial viene con todos sus constitutivos. De las cuatro libras de chocolate que usted me envía, diré in rei veritate lo que me parece. Las cualidades intrínsecas son buenas, pero las accidentales le echaron a perder, por haber estado aplicado más tiempo del conveniente a la naturaleza ígnea, mediante la virtud combustiva. B. L. M. de usted su hijo inadaequate et partialiter, y su capellán totaliter et adaequate. -Fray Toribio, lector de artes»."

Dominica de Passione (Passion Sunday)

Dominica de Passione (Passion Sunday)

A Homily by Rev. Jonathan Romanoski, FSSP
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JMJtf

+ He that is of God heareth the words of God +

Today the Church enters upon the sacred mystery of Passiontide, in which She has us turn our entire gaze upon the sufferings of Christ. In ancient times, when the Church was fervent, the faithful redoubled their efforts of penance, almsgiving and pardon to their enemies, to become more mystically united with Christ in His passion. Indeed these two weeks of fasting in particular, St. Leo the Great tells us, goes back to the Apostles themselves. For all has now come to a climactic clash; the malice of the Jews has reached a feverish pitch, as they begin to accuse their Christ and their King, of being none other than the devil himself. Our Lord who no one can accuse of sin, who has worked so many miracles, healed so many lives, and even raised men from the dead, will no longer be tolerated by this world.

Why? Why would the world not love a perfect man who has done them so much good, who has shown himself to have power to overcome their greatest fears- of hunger, of illness and even death? It is because Christ the King came not to establish an earthly kingdom nor lead men back to a paradise of naturalism, without suffering or death, but rather to teach them to hold the world in contempt, to embrace suffering and death so as to attain the Kingdom of Heaven. All his miracles and alleviations of ills were not an end in themselves, as Lazarus would die again, but merely a means to get their attention, that they might hear what He has to say.

And what has he to say? Before Abraham was made I AM. I and the Father are One. I AM the Way the Truth and the Life. No one comes to the Father except through me. The Jews understood all these statements correctly...that He claimed equality with God, but yet they sought to kill Him.

I have spoken of the Jews so far, the religion not the race, who condemned our Lord to death. Indeed they are, according to God’s own word, the first in the order of guilt, as they are the first in the order of promise, having had received God’s self revelation for thousands of years, and amongst whom the fullness of the Godhead dwelt in bodily form, and who thus were the first-hand witnesses of all His teachings and miracles. But this crime of deicide applies to us as well. We, who have cried out every time that we have sinned- I will not serve...We have no king but Caesar...His blood be upon us and upon our children. Indeed, in a sense, it applies more thoroughly to the baptized soul, who has received so much more than all the Patriarchs and Prophets could have ever dreamt of. Our consideration, for these last two weeks, must therefore be not only on our cultural enemies who propagate this social order which rejects Christ’s divinity in every way, which the Church has so often condemned and admonished us to fight against, like the Freemasons, the followers of the Talmud and it’s injunctions to destroy Catholics, and Catholic society, and the many others who work for a secular society in which Christ is not King, but much more must our reflection be on ourselves, our own sins, and the naturalism in our lives, which has no part with Christ. In Catholic days gone by, lawsuits and even wars would be put on hold, so as to focus on the Passion of Christ- which reveals the depths of the Love of God, and the sinfulness of ourselves.

Let us then like Christ, as the gospel and the purple veil bid us, seek to hide ourselves for these two weeks from the world, and escape from the clamor of it’s noise, not by neglecting or avoiding the duties of our state in life in which we find and embrace God’s will, but through a deeper effort at recollection and detachment from diversions and distractions, distractions not so much of the mind but of the will, striving to be still and know that He is God- He who IS, and that we are that which is not.

And what will we discover in this meditation about our sinfulness and God’s holiness? Regarding our sinfulness, we will discover most of all that our sin springs from our forgetfulness of God, a forgetfulness for which we hold the blame, a turning away rather, in which we decide that we will not think of God and His blessed law, that we are not of God. Consider the difference between the convert who knows nothing, who has led a life of sin. When he hits bottom and realizes he “is not,” and that he is rather of God, and turns to hear His voice, how quickly will he learn, as he seeks a remedy for his ignorance, admitting that the knowledge of good and evil is not of himself. Compare his state of knowledge with the Catholic who lives a lukewarm life or one even of sin; who pushes Our Lord out of their life into a little box of one hour on Sunday, maybe; who tells him they are sorry for their sins, but do not mention them in confession, or wait so long to do so, and make no effort to change; who receives the infinite God in Holy Communion, to the holy envy of the angels themselves, but does so sacrilegiously, or when done well never spends time in thanksgiving after Mass, for the greatest gift one could ever receive. Who tell their parents and others to stop telling them of God’s truth when they begin to hang around the wrong crowd, adopt a sinful lifestyle at college, etc. This soul knows not God, because it is not of God, that is, it will not acknowledge its dependency on Him. As one poor soul told me, whom I ask you to pray for, “I don’t believe in Christ because I don’t want to.” Would that we were all so honest about our intentions. The Pharisees were not interested in our Lord’s interpretation of the law, but only an excuse to kill Him, b/c He was not what they WANTED. This is the face behind the ugly mask of sin and our so-called ignorance- our own self will- “do as thou please.”

But He that is of God heareth the words of God. Seek and ye shall find. Those who want to follow the will of God will find it, and in it perfect joy, which the world of self-will, so anxiously filled with unrest and fear of losing its idols, cannot understand. Yet the mystery of our lives, is that we go back and forth, between these two realities- serving God and serving ourselves. One day a partaker of the divine nature, the next day nailing our Lord to the Cross again.

How can we stop this insanity? Let us turn to the meditation on God’s holiness. The Scriptures tell us that if we remember our last end, we shall not sin, our last end being not only death and the passing away of all things, friends, family, with which we were only meant to serve God, but most of all God Himself our last end, the fulfillment of our restless heart, the vision of whom will take away all liberty to sin, as we will finally see that He alone is Good.

And so I recommend to you for these last weeks of Lent, not any particular practice, but the most essential practice, the one thing necessary- the practice of the presence of God. When God spoke to Abraham and said “walk before Me, and be thou perfect.” “He mentioned only one point because it contains all the others,” for “All saints, under both the Old and the New Law, have held to this more than to any other rule,” says Fr. Grou in his great work on the subject called “Spiritual Maxims,” which you can read on-line at Catholic Treasury, along with the other famous work “The Practice of the Presence of God,” by Bro. Lawrence of the Resurrection. To summarize these very inspiring works, Let us say briefly what this practice is based on and how to carry it out.

It is based on the divine indwelling in the soul through sanctifying grace, by which, God Himself tells us, we become partakers of His divine nature, as the Father Son and Holy Ghost take up their abode within the temple of our soul. How little does the baptized soul think of this most necessary consideration. If thou didst but know the gift of God! And who it is that wishes to speak to you in the deep waters of your soul. He whom the heavens cannot contain, He who IS, Goodness, Charity and Absolute Joy itself dwells in your soul by sanctifying grace. How could we ever sin, or put ourselves in the occasion of sin, inviting the devil into our house, where our Divine Saviour dwells, if we kept this in mind.

And how are we to keep this reality in mind? These eminent authors tell us that there are so many ways that the Holy Ghost will inspire one to do so, if they truly seek Him, as men of God, which I encourage you to read about. But the key to this practice- is simply to seek Him in everything. It is not to always try to avoid every other thought and occupation, which would be impossible to do, but rather to seek to love God in every occupation, “whether you eat or drink or whatever you do;” to think of him in those free moments throughout the day, as creator and sustainer of His beautiful creation, as dwelling in our soul, imagining that we have just received our Lord in the Eucharist, as He wishes to dwell there all the day, which will be easier to do if we practice by making a good thanksgiving after Mass.

Mothers, know that you can practice the presence of God in your children, in whom we are certain that the Most Holy Trinity dwells, if they have been baptized and have not reached the age of reason, capable of sinning. May this be your consolation as you rise to nurse them at night. The saints especially recommend contemplation of the Passion, as it so moves the heart; frequent ejaculatory prayers- “My God I love Thee,” “save me O Lord for I am drowning,” “O Mary my heart and my soul,” and whatever else keeps the fire kindled throughout the day for you. You know more about this practice than you think. Consider those who are in love, how while amidst their occupations their beloved remains ever present in their mind, and whenever they have the chance they naturally think of them again. They are animated by this love throughout the day, which is well noted by those around them. They keep their picture on their desk to remind them of their love. They call them or text message them for brief moments throughout the day to tell them they love them. Yet all true loves are but a faint image of the love of Christ the Bridegroom of every baptized soul espoused to Him on the Cross, when His Most Sacred Heart was pierced for love of you. That is the heart of this practice, to love Him in all things, a love which faileth not as our weary minds might if we turned this into some sort of philosophical exercise. I wish I had time to say more. Bro. Lawrence said that it he would have been a preacher it is the only thing he would have spoke of. Yet, it is not so much a thing to speak of but something to practice with one’s whole heart, one’s whole soul, one’s whole mind and one’s whole strength. For this is the mystery of sin and the mystery of holiness- we get to choose. And you will get what you really want. He that is of God, heareth the words of God.

Mary Mother of Divine Grace: Pray for us

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AMDG

Blog Update

Blog Update

Dear Friends,

I want to share with you some news. I am essentially done writing my dissertation. I have to do some revisions and submit it. After two months, if it is approved, I will fly back to Marquette University (Milwaukee, WI) to defend it and receive my doctoral degree.

Thank you for your prayers.

Best,
-FJR.