Posts

Showing posts from October, 2013

Rosary Reflection - Put The Demons To Flight

Image
 Let us end this Month of the Most Holy Rosary with these thoughts: “The Rosary is a powerful weapon to put the demons to flight and to keep oneself from sin… If you desire peace in your hearts, in your homes, and in your country, assemble each evening to recite the Rosary. Let not even one day pass without saying it, no matter how burdened you may be with many cares and labors .” (Pope Pius XI –   Encyclical - Gravescentibus malis )

Monday Musings - I Am Confused. How About You?

Image
 ( (Image from Biblebios.com) If God used Balaam’s donkey to get that prophet’s attention, I guess he can use me to get yours. May these periodic postings on the second and fourth Mondays of each month (God willing) generate fruitful discussion and faithful change.   From much of what has been written recently, some would have us conclude that the problems with, within the Catholic Church and with how the secular world views the Church are the result of the Church’s obstinate insistence on hammering home one difficult moral principle after another and its failure to make its primary mission the physical, emotional, medical, and social well-being of all those in need. (Abbey at Genesee) Correct me if I am wrong. Is it not beyond dispute that most individuals claiming to be Catholic (and certainly most non-Catholics) do not even know the essential Truths of the Catholic Faith or the reason why the Church teaches these Truths?   Is this not the result of poor or non

Sunday Snippets - October 27, 2013

Image
(St. Vincent Ferrer Parish, NYC) It's Sunday (almost) and time to join an interesting group of Catholic bloggers at RAnn's place  where you are sure to find something that will touch your heart and stir your soul. Take a few minutes and visit! This week's question: my favorite saint. St. Catherine of Siena.  Read her biography, The Life of St. Catherine of Siena written by her confessor, Blessed Raymond of Capua and The Dialogue , a spiritual classic, and you will love her too.

Touring Eucharistic Images

Image
As Catholics,  the Eucharist must be the source, center and summit of our lives - that which fuels, sustains and transforms our lives here on earth. This Truth can never be repeated or shared enough. May this small sampling of Eucharistic images found on Pinterest reignite a passion for our Eucharistic Lord in our hearts, minds and souls.

Rosary Reflection - Praying the Rosary with Mary

Image
"Praying the rosary with Mary is a memorial – making present in our own time an event in salvation history. By mediating on the mysteries of the Rosary, Mary brings that event to us, so we can experience its power and grace.   Mary draws us to her Son.   Use your imagination. Meditate on the mysteries.   It will help you grow in your relationship with Jesus.   We are with Him and with Mary in these events."   (Father George P. Schommer, O.P.)

Pondering Tidbits of Truth - October 23, 2013

Image
(Our Lady of the Holy Spirit Center)   Pondering Tidbits of Truth is my simple and inadequate way of providing nuggets of spiritual wisdom for you to chew on from time to time.         Frank Morriss “The Church exists to serve man by showing him the ultimate truths that pertain to his spiritual well-being. It exists to show man the path to heaven and salvation, and to light his way on the path with the light of Christ. It is false to its vocation when it is more concerned with man’s temporal happiness and well-being than the State of his immortal soul.” (From Lumen Gentium: The Church of Our Time Looks at Herself )   St. Francis de Sales   “Tribulations considered in themselves are dreadful things: looked at in God’s Will, they are things of love and delight.” ((From Finding God’s Will For You )   Ven. Fulton J. Sheen “Tolerance applies only to persons, but never to principles. Intolerance applies only to principles, but never to persons. We

Fleeting Glimpses of the Silly, Sentimental and Sublime - A Review

Image
  Here’s the latest review from award winning author, Karen Kelly Boyce.   This book is still available for only $.99 . What are you waiting for? Get your copy HERE! In this fascinating collection of short stories and essays, author Michael Seagriff, leads the reader into a multi-generational world view that includes humor, common sense, and a sense of the eternal. He looks back in time to his beloved father and introduces the reader to a man who put his family before himself and depended on God for all things.

Eucharistic Reflection - Don't Remain Deaf to His Invitation!

Image
  “He makes it ever clearer to me that He wants me to burn with love for Him in devotion to the Blessed Sacrament. Every time I receive Him I must feel renewed that longing which stirs within me to live for Jesus only and to obtain the grace of preservation from so many sins which I should certainly commit if He did not come to my help. How can I remain deaf to His invitation?” (Attributed to Cardinal Angelo Roncalli [Pope John XXIII])

Sunday Snippets - October 20, 2013

Image
 (Our Lady of Guadalupe -  Parish of St. Vincent Ferrer, NYC) It's Sunday and time to join an interesting group of Catholic bloggers at RAnn's place  where you are sure to find something that will touch your heart and stir your soul. Take a few minutes and visit! In response to this week's question, one place to find some helpful info on the rosary is the Confraternity of the Most Holy Rosary . My offerings this week: Eucharistic Reflection - St. Margaret Mary Alacoque, the Blessed Sacrament and the Sacred Heart Rosary Meditation - A Powerful Warlike Weapon Monday Musings - The New Evangelization Is Not So New Sandwiched in between were two powerful images - here and here .

My Lord and My God!

Image
Another image worth a thousand words.  May it permanently imbed Itself in our hearts:

Monday Musings - The New Evangelization Is Not So New

Image
( (Image from Biblebios.com) If God used Balaam’s donkey to get that prophet’s attention, I guess he can use me to get yours. May these periodic postings on the second and fourth Mondays of each month (God willing) generate fruitful discussion and faithful change. [ I know it’s not Monday. Time got away from me this week. What follows has been on my mind for some time. The privilege of recently meeting the Master of the Dominican Order prompted me to tickle my keyboard today and share what all of us lay Catholics (and most especially we Lay Dominicans) must be about .] (Photography©Michael Seagriff) The call to evangelize has been an essential part of our Catholic nature and fiber since the time our blessed Lord walked this earth. He told His apostles to “go make disciples of all nations baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit”.   He did not then, nor does He now, teach that one Church is as good as another. Jesus has

Rosary Reflection - A Powerful Warlike Weapon

Image
"Our merciful God, as you know, raised up against these most direful enemies [Albigensian heretics] a most holy man [St. Dominic], the illustrious parent and founder of the Dominican order.   Great in the integrity of his doctrine, in his example of virtue, and by his apostolic labors, he proceeded undauntedly to attack the enemies of the Catholic Church, not by force of arms; but trusting wholly to that devotion to which he was the first Institute under the name of the holy Rosary, which was the first to disseminate through the length and breadth of the earth by him and his pupils.   Guided, in fact, by divine inspiration and grace, he foresaw that this devotion, like a most powerful warlike weapon, would be the means of putting the enemy to flight, and of confounding their audacity and mad impiety…it is one of the most painful and grievous sights to see so many souls, redeemed by the blood of Christ, snatched from salvation by the whirlwind of an age of error, precipitated i

Don't Forget About Me! - Book Review

Image
  I met the author of this mystery thriller, Don’t You Forget About Me , at a recent Catholic Writers’ Guild Conference. We not only share a passion for writing but are both Lay Dominicans. When Erin invited me to write a review of her book, I jumped at the chance. But I have to be blunt: darn you Erin McCole Cupp !    Shame on you for taking your Lay Dominican vocation seriously and for using your gifts as an author to uniquely share the fruits of your contemplation (and enormous creativity) in an arena Catholics have too long feared to tread – contemporary fiction.   

Eucharistic Reflection - St. Margaret Mary Alacoque, the Blessed Sacrament and the Sacred Heart

Image
"Once when the Blessed Sacrament was exposed, my soul being absorbed in extraordinary recollection, Jesus Christ, my Sweet Master, presented Himself to me. He was brilliant with glory; His five Wounds shone like five suns. Flames darted forth from all parts of His Sacred Humanity, but especially from His adorable breast, which resembled a furnace and which opening, displayed to me His loving and amiable Heart, the living source of these flames."   While Margaret, trembling with emotion, was contemplating Him, ‘He unfolded to me’ she says: the inexplicable wonders of His pure love, and to what excess He had carried it for the love of men from whom He had received only ingratitude: 'This' He said: 'is much more painful to Me than all I suffered in My Passion. If men rendered Me some return of love, I should esteem little all I have done for them, and should wish, if it could be, to suffer it over again: but they meet My eager love with coldness and re

A Too Often Forgotten Truth

Image

Sunday Snippets - October 13, 2013

Image
Basilica-University of Notre Dame) It's Sunday and time to join an interesting group of Catholic bloggers at RAnn's place  where you are sure to find something that will touch your heart and stir your soul. Take a few minutes and visit! This week's question: Have you read a book lately that you'd like to recommend to us? Which one and why?   Yes, “Don’t You Forget About Me” a mystery thriller written by Erin McCole Cupp, scheduled to be released next week. I received a review copy and could not put the book down!   What a fast pace, intriguing, captivating story line - full of surprises. The characters are so very real; many of them (Mary Catherine, Staz and Sister Thomas Marie just to name a few) mirror some of the personalities who populated by younger years.   The author seamlessly incorporates many of today’s hot button issues in this novel – like the culture of death, individual and corporate greed, sexual promiscuity – ones that divid

Just Saying...

Image

Rosary Reflection-Contemplating the Face of Christ

Image
"The Rosary of the Virgin Mary…is a prayer loved by countless saints and encouraged by the Magisterium.   Simple yet profound, it still remains…a prayer of great significance, destined to bring forth a harvest of holiness…The Rosary, though clearly Marian in character, is at heart a Christocentric prayer.   In the sobriety of its elements, it has all the depth of the Gospel message in its entirety, of which it can be said to be a compendium… With the Rosary, the Christian people sit at the school of Mary and is led to contemplate the beauty on the face of Christ and to experience the depths of his love.   Through the Rosary, the faithful receive abundant grace, as though from the very hands of the Mother of the Redeemer…To recite the Rosary is nothing other than to contemplate with Mary the face of Christ."   (Blessed John Paul II - Apostolic Letter - Rosarium Virginis Mariae )  

Pondering Tidbits of Truth - October 10, 2013

Image
(Our Lady of the Holy Spirit Center) Pondering Tidbits of Truth is my simple and inadequate way of providing nuggets of spiritual wisdom for you to chew on from time to time.     Pope Francis “I have a dogmatic certainty: God is in every person’s life. God is in everyone’s life. Even if the life of a person has been a disaster, even if it is destroyed by vices, drugs or anything else—God is in this person’s life. You can, you must try to seek God in every human life. Although the life of a person is a land full of thorns and weeds, there is always a space in which the good seed can grow. You have to trust God.”    (Interview by Antonio Spadaro, SJ)

Eucharistic Reflection - Our Deserted Lord

Image
(Our Lady of the Holy Spirit Center ) “I want to tell them of the poignant sorrows which filled My Heart at the Last Supper. If it was bliss for Me to think of all those to whom I should be both Companion and Heav­enly Food, of all who would surround Me to the End of Time with adoration, reparation, and love. . . this in no wise dimin­ished My grief at the many who would leave Me deserted in My tabernacle and who would not even believe in My Real Pres­ence.  

Sunday Snippets - October 6, 2013

Image
(Courtyard- Our Lady of the Holy Spirit Center  Norwood, OH) It's almost Sunday and time to join an interesting group of Catholic bloggers at RAnn's place  where you are sure to find something of value. Take a few minutes and visit! This week's question: Have you tried the Liturgy of the Hours? As a Lay Dominican I  pray Morning (Lauds) Evening (Vespers) and Night (Compline) prayers. At the beginning, it was a bit confusing (and still is sometimes) but it has brought such a rhythm to my day I would be lost without it. The I-Breviary app simplifies the entire process - no turning pages and getting lost. Try it; you will like it! Here are three of the five entries I posted this past week:   Monday Musings - Follow His Promptings! The Eucharist and the Rosary - Our Spiritual Armament Rosary Reflection - St. Pio Pietrelcina

Rosary Reflection - St. Pio of Pietrelcina

Image
  Since the Catholic Church dedicates the month of October each year to the Most Holy Rosary, I thought I would share some weekly reflections this month on this great gift. What follows is the first installment.   “My son, if we do what we have always done, what our fathers did before us, we cannot go wrong. Satan wants to destroy this prayer, but in this he will never succeed. The Rosary is the prayer of those who triumph over everything and everyone. It was Our Lady who taught us this prayer, just as it was Jesus who taught us the Our Father.”   (St. Pio of Pietrelcina)

Just Saying....

Image

Waking Up Catholic - For Limited Time Get Your Copy for $1.04

Image
I had the privilege  to post a review on "Waking Up Catholic". You will find my comments here. For a limited time, author Chad R. Torgerson wants to make it even easier for you to get  a copy for ONLY $1.04 .  Are you kidding me? Do yourself a favor and order a copy here and now .

The Eucharist and the Rosary - Our Spiritual Armament

Image
(Grotto at Notre Dame University) [What follows is a modification of an article I posted nearly two years ago. It seemed appropriate and timely to share it again.] There are two devotions close to my heart and vital for the future of our Church and for the salvation of our souls - The Eucharist and the Rosary. May we rediscover each day a deeper and more abiding reverence and love for the Blessed Sacrament. May we also use this month - one which the Church dedicates each year to the Most Holy Rosary - to experience and/or re-experience the power and efficacy of this most beautiful prayer, for as Blessed John Paul II taught us: "To recite the Rosary is nothing other than to contemplate with Mary the face of Christ."

Angels - Venerable Fulton J. Sheen

Image
(Our Lady of the Holy Spirit Center Norwood, OH ) "God sets many angels in our paths but often we know them not; in fact we may go through life never knowing that they were agents or messengers of God to lead us in to virtue or to deter us from vice. But they symbolize that constant and benign intervention of God in human history, which stops us on the path to destruction or leads us to success or happiness."   (From Guide to Contentment )       [Just one of 1200 inspiring quotations you will find in Forgotten Truths To Set Faith Afire! - Words to Challenge, Inspire and Instruct  --- Get your copy here ]