 Glory be to Jesus Christ!Dear Apostles and Benefactors of the Living Rosary,
It gives me great joy to greet all of you! We are prepared for a busy year of evangelization reaching many new souls with the Living Rosary and St. Philomena. We are going to republish our booklet on the Rosary devotion and double what was put out last year, 200,000! This booklet is badly needed in Ukraine. Already, I am making preparations with our priests for the Lenten Bouquet of Masses and Masses during the Easter Octave. One cannot help but notice the great increase of suffering in the world and within our own families. Our union of prayer is badly needed. Our Blessed Lord told His disciples before His Ascension into Heaven that life would be a series of tears, suffering, and the bearing of crosses, while the rest of the world would rejoice and make merry. Bear in your minds the truth that your tears will earn for you joy and pleasure which will be unlimited in duration in the life to come. You must suffer either in this life or in the next. Suffering, contempt and poverty is the lot of a Christian who wishes to save his soul and who tries to be pleasing to God. We suffer for a time, only to be rewarded with a happy Eternity. The merciful God chastises us on account of His great mercy. If we travel from house to house, we will find that in each home is planted the cross of Christ: injustice, sickness, addiction, infidelity, drunkenness, impatience, jealousy and hate. Everyone has a cross to bear! How unfortunate and full of despair is the soul who forgets for what purpose God has sent him that cross!!! Look up to Heaven, lift up your eyes and see the Good Father Who holds ready for you a mansion of glory! God sends you suffering to atone for your sins and the sins of the whole world. God sends you suffering only to crown you with everlasting beatitude. Christ has made our suffering a means to sanctity, a well-spring of merit, and hope for the satisfaction of the sins of mankind. Our tiny agonies and little crucifixions are made divine by the Divinity of Christ. God is not short-sighted; Jesus brought life out of death! The Man of Gethsemane is GOD! His human weakness is Divine strength. The barren road to Calvary is golden with wheat; and, out of its stones, Jesus has made for us the Bread of Life! The fruit of Silence is Prayer, the fruit of Prayer is Faith, the fruit of Faith is Love, the fruit of Love is Service, and the fruit of Service is PEACE! Jesus is our true Model and He never lived one single moment without suffering, an intense suffering which the human mind cannot comprehend! We keep you, each day, in our prayers and find great joy in our union through the Living Rosary. Give to God the things that are God’s: your reason, your heart and your will. Use them only for God and you will be saved. We are God’s property, the children of His Grace and Charity. I extend my priestly blessing to you and your family. Remember me, please, in your good prayers. I impart to you all, my priestly blessing: + In the Name of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost. Amen.
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 Dear Apostle of the Immaculate Heart of Mary,Thank you so much for your very kind donation and your faithfulness in prayer. We never fail to remember you in our Family Rosary. Today, young people are facing great challenges. It is so easy for them to fall in with the wrong company, or to be lured into groups involved with demonic rituals. We do not realize how prevalent witchcraft is and the huge numbers of mind-altering drugs that are available to our youth. They are bored and eager to experiment ‘just one time.’ We must pray for them, guide them and give them an example of a life lived for God. They need to know they are loved and that someone cares deeply about them. Family prayer is vital to ward off evil and, sadly, it is often missing in the home.
We must take the utmost vigilance in guarding our senses against temptation. A lapse of vigilance is very costly. Watch and pray! We must guard, in particular, the windows of our eyes and ears, and keep our minds clean and pure. One of the stratagems of warfare in ancient times was to poison the wells. The wells today are the printing press, cinema, television, radio and theater. They paint the images ofgood and evil on retinas, eardrums and the minds of millions, young and old alike. Society cannot be indifferent to the material carried by these mass media. Porno in the newsstand is a time-bomb with a delayed fuse, which spreads death and destruction in thousands of communities. All action begins in our thoughts. By guarding our thoughts, we control our actions. The best defense is a strong and vigorous offense. It is not enough to resist temptation; we must also advance in virtue and in holiness of life. We must have instant recourse to prayer, which taps the source of spiritual power and strength, and channels it to the soul. Without prayer, our bows have no arrows and our guns are without bullets. Faith moves mountains and faith expresses itself through prayer. O my Savior, give me the Grace of unfailing patience in time of trial.
Let us pray for one another! P.S. With all our hearts, we thank you for your prayers for Richard Fox, our webmaster, who just underwent open-heart surgery on February 13. The surgery was a great success and his recovery went much faster than the surgeons expected. There were a couple “glitches” which required the Hand of God, but they were overcome quickly. Richard is so glad to be back home and back to work for Our Lady and St. Philomena. Thank you, again, for all your prayers and continue to keep him in your good prayers! Richard is a very important part of our Living Rosary Team!
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| INFINITE LOVE OF THE DIVINE EUCHARIST (continued)
JESUS HIDDEN O Jesus, Victim of Thy Love on our Altars, I would wish to speak of Thy boundless charity, incomprehensible patience, profound humility, perfect obedience and prodigious humiliations. But, how would the weakest and the most imperfect of Thy creatures have the temerity to plunge into this ocean of bottomless marvels and endless shores? Am I, then, condemned to remain mute in my admiration? Would Thou have conducted me into the garden of Divine Love only to cause me the sorrow of not being able to gather from it? I am like a child who, placed in a flowerbed dotted with a thousand flowers, falls at each step and finds himself unable to make up a bouquet. Yes, Lord, the loving traits, which disclose Thy tenderness for us are so many that I know not which ones to choose in order to render Thee homage. What then will I do? I will stammer. It is permitted to do so when it is a question of expressing that which surpasses even celestial intelligence. First, I rest my tender regards on the hidden Jesus, on Jesus, prisoner of His Love, on Jesus obedient to His ministers. The senses are prohibited, reason is astonished and faith cries out, “Mortals, prostrate yourselves, adore Jesus Christ beneath the Eucharistic veils! He presents Himself to you under the form of bread because He is your life. He presents Himself to you under the form of wine because He is your strength.” How noble and touching are the motives for which He hides Himself beneath these obscure appearances. If he dazzled His ministers by His Majesty, He would halt their functions. In charming their ears, he would impede their steps by this show of exterior power. He would make them tremble. He likes better to abandon Himself into their hands, without restrictions, without resistance and without any reservation. Such is the law which His Love imposes on Him. Whether His ministers take Him from the Tabernacle to give Him to the faithful, to expose Him to adoration, to bring Him to the sick, or to bless the people, He is always there. He is always disposed to do their will. Everyday, from sunrise until the following daybreak, Jesus is ready to obey them. Whether they carry Him visibly or they judge proper to hide Him in their bosom, Jesus Christ abandons Himself to them. O priests! Who will be able to recount your privileges! The Lamb was immolated for all, but you alone are charged with doing the honors at His table and it is you who invite the guests to the celestial banquet. Jesus Christ came to establish His reign in souls but nothing brilliant announces His presence. His triumph is to vanquish man’s senses by the conquest of His Heart. It is not for man’s heart to be dazzled by his senses. He remains always hidden for the latter in a manner impenetrable. If His ministers carry Him to the sick, He is almost always surrounded by only simple folk who are obscure in the eyes of the world. The hands of the priest are the triumphant chariot on which He travels the roads of the cities. While the kings of earth announce their presence by brilliant cavaliers, by bugles and warlike thunder, Jesus Christ, King of kings, hidden beneath the veils of Love announces His Presence only by the most humble instruments. It would seem to be too little to fulfill His designs this hiding beneath Eucharistic veils. He desires that all which serves His charity will also serve as a proof of our faith. In regards to the sick, even a greater poverty surrounds Him. A piece of furniture destined to be used in the most ordinary way by the people in the house, is used as the throne on which Our Lord reposes. Often, giddy children, thoughtless and frivolous, lean against the piece of furniture and shake the Blessed Sacrament. More often, those who care for the sick one, pass by repeatedly before the Savior without seeming to remember His Presence. It is thus that Thou art pleased to fool our senses, O Divine Jesus! That our heart may establish on their ruins, its empire and offer Thee a homage pure, free, ardent and durable. It is to our heart that Thou dost speak; by Thy patience in suffering the dissipation of those who surround Thee; by Thy gentleness for him who Thou comest to visit; by Thy silence in the outrages which are too often received by Thee, and Thy profound humility … everything done says, “JESUS IS LOVE!” And who can better feel these words of love than the sick person himself? See at what instant he is presented with Thee, when he is most prey to the worst sufferings, discouraged by the weakness that afflicts him, frightened by approaching death. It is in this sorrowful and fatal moment that Thou dost deign to honor him with Thy visit and with Thy Presence. His heart has always been the object of Thy seeking. And, it is now, prior to its last beat that Thou comest to ask of him that last homage which he can render Thee. You seem to say to him, ‘O my child, now that the world has said its farewell to you, now that your benumbed senses are incapable of mastering your heart, don’t you wish to give it to Me? Your refusals during life sorrowed Me without making Me lose hope. I kept silent in the midst of your frivolous amusements because the noise prevented you from hearing Me. But, today, when illusions are taken over by the terror of death ~ TODAY, my son, give Me your heart. Give it to Me with confidence. Repent for having known Me so late and offer yourself as an expiatory sacrifice to My justice, throw yourself in the Heart of My mercy. I exact nothing more after the confession of your infidelities. As a pledge of My perfect reconciliation with you, I give you My Body to imprint in yours the principle of a glorious resurrection, My Blood to mark you with the seal of the elect, My Soul to accompany yours to the feet of the Eternal Tribunal, my Divinity to judge you with the benefits of My mercy before My justice claims its rights over you. Today, my son, I want to drain the last treasures of My Grace in your favor by applying to you, through My Sacrament of Extreme Unction, all the merits of the agony and of the cruel sufferings which I endured for love of you. All your senses will find in the weaknesses which I suffered, the necessary strengths to sustain your heart in its last moments against the temptations of the devil, the horrors of death, and the sufferings of separation, so that thus your soul may be more and more purified to appear before the tribunal of God.’ |
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| SHELTERING THE DIVINE OUTCAST (Continued)It is obvious that, if we deliberately and courageously try, as often as we are able, to fix our minds on Jesus, the center of our souls, we shall soon, by the mere force of habit, as well as the grace of God, become intimate with the Divine Guest of our soul. This intimacy with God can be most easily procured in the following two ways:
I. SILENCE: All noise is waste! All real power is silent! So cultivate quietness in your speech, in your manner, in your thoughts and in your emotions. Speak habitually low. Wait for silence and attention, only then will your low words be dynamic. Speak modestly! Get the reputation of understanding things and, then, what you say will have double force; but be a known exaggerator and you will make no impression at all. Encourage quiet thoughts. Truth is eternal, and eternal things are low-keyed. Imitate God, Who is the most silent of all. He hides in the secret places of hearts. He moves hidden behind the events of history. Contemplate Jesus! It was in the deepest silence that He bore all which He bore for us. JESUS ANSWERED NOTHING Sanctity and silence are inseparable: silence of word, silence of action, silence of life. The atmosphere of silence is the only one where the image of Christ is not tarnished and blackened by the vapors of this reeking world of sin. Have we not noticed that God seems to withdraw from us when our lives are not silent? It is when we are silent that we are recollected and, then, we can catch the whisperings of the Spouse of our hearts as He woos us with His Love. Within the stronghold of silence, we are taught the secrets of the peaceful Master of our house. He speaks to us in silences that are audible, clear and convincing. We find that, almost imperceptibly, we loosen our hold upon the things we most cherish. Life seems to recede. Or, is it we who recede from life? Is it God drawing us away? Is the Holy Ghost enlightening us on our values? It must be so, for we are slipping away from the crowd, soon to be lost in the solitude of our Hidden God. |
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| Greetings Mother Patti!
I have received the box. Thanks so much! I have also sent some forms. Please, when you received it let me know. I do not have anything for distribution when I sign up new members and I need more materials. We have begun the Novena from the 31st January to 8th February. So I am in town preparing for the program. The Bishop has asked me to appoint volunteers in other dioceses. We have four bigger dioceses now. People are ready to spread the devotion. I am really happy for all the things that are in the box and I informed Father. He is so happy about it and he said he is going to write you. I have visited the provinces, appointed new volunteers and shared more of the materials you sent me. These are the pictures that I received from one of my volunteers: Picture-1 is about a cross section of some pupils of the Roman Catholic school in Tikonko which is the oldest school in the village. Picture-2 is also cross section of some pupils in the United Methodist primary school. In pictures-3 is the volunteer I am talking about. He is very devoted and he is ready to work at all time. He is really helping me with the propagation of the Living Rosary. There are so many testimonies coming in right now. The people are really co-operating. Thank you for your prayers. Juliana
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Tags: Association, Catholic, Filomena, Living, Philomena, Philomene, Rosary, Saint, Santa, Universal