Universal Living Rosary Association of Saint Philomena (ULRA)

WITH MARY, EVERYTHING! WITHOUT MARY, NOTHING!

The Cross is a great Mystery which is central to our salvation. It would make us faint from grief if we realized the small number of souls willing to be made conformable to our crucified Christ by embracing the crosses they are given with humility and gratitude. That man who climbs up to Calvary and allows himself to be nailed to the Cross with Jesus, is a hero! He must resolve to relinquish all things, to undertake all things and to suffer everything for Jesus. If anyone wishes to follow Christ, annihilated and crucified, he must deny himself and take up his cross, which is carved from a section of the very Cross borne by Christ on Calvary. The Cross is the grandest of all the gifts God has for His chosen ones on earth; let us carry it with patience and without complaint, not drag it, nor hide it, for it is our weapon of victory and the sceptre of God’s empire. We must carry our cross for there is nothing more necessary, more useful, more agreeable and more glorious than suffering for Jesus Christ.

We must strive to yield to the chisel that is shaping us, otherwise we would remain an unpolished stone, of no value at all, to be disregarded and cast aside. God loves us. He really loves us. He knows what He is doing. Love is behind every one of His telling strokes. Not a single stroke will miss its mark, unless our impatience deflects it. Consider, there at the side of Jesus is Mary, His Mother, who had never known sin, yet whose tender and Immaculate Heart was pierced with a sharp sword even to its very depths. Our sufferings are nothing compared to hers. Who can dare exclaim exemption from the Cross! If we suffer as we should, our cross will be a sweet yoke for Christ will share it with us. Our soul will be borne on it as on a pair of wings to the portals of Heaven.

Dear Friends of the Cross, be prepared to suffer every kind of Cross without any exceptions: poverty, injustice, temporal loss, illness, humiliation, contradiction, calumny, spiritual dryness, desolation, persecution, hunger, poverty, nakedness, exile, imprisonment, the gallows and all tortures. This is the summit of divine glory and true happiness for a real Friend of the Cross.

I remain, one with you in the Immaculate Heart of Mary.

PATTI MELVIN, Director ULRA

Let us pray for one another!

INFINITE LOVE OF THE DIVINE EUCHARIST (continued)

SLAVES OF THE SENSES

Woe and thousand misfortunes to we who live beneath the reign of the senses! We must hasten to reduce our slavery to them by restoring to our heart all the control which it has lost. Deceived by their insatiable greediness, they misjudge for noble and virtuous, what is nothing more than seduction for pride and prestige. From the desire of material possessions flows a self-love which is forgetful of the Creator. God forgotten, the sacred Fire will be extinguished on the scented Altar and our hearts will burn only from the impure and vulgar flame of worldly loves. Apostolic men appear in a region where the Word of God has not been announced with splendor. And soon the churches are filled with an immense crowd of faithful; enclosures destined for the Divine worship become too small. Sacred archways resound incessantly with chant of hymns and the eloquent voice of the missionary. Religious enthusiasm heightens. The Penitential tribunals are congested with sinners striking their breasts. Brilliant and multiple conversions are proclaimed. Wonderful reports are circulated everywhere and virtuous hearts rejoice. The planting of the Cross offers a marvelous spectacle.

In time, the apostles move on or die and, lo, the conversions worked by their divine ministry disappear. Why? It is the senses which have drawn their hearts and nothing more. The eloquent voice of the preachers, the harmony of the sacred chants, the pomp of the ceremonies, the immensity of the congregation, these are what struck the people. As soon as all this ended, the senses, meeting only the objects of human passions, return to the love of profane things. Their noble resolutions and virtuous promises are forgotten. A man who speaks loudly in an anteroom finds his voice resounds in the ears of those who are inside the chamber even though he, himself, does not enter it. This is an image of the effect which the missionaries work upon large numbers of sinners. Jesus Christ has entered into the exterior vestibule of the senses wherein resides the carnal man. From here, His strong voice has penetrated the interior quarters of the soul, wherein resides the spiritual man. Due to the allurement imprinted upon the senses of man and lack of true compunction of heart, the door remains closed to Him. In two words, it is not the heart which has triumphed over the senses, but it is the senses which have subjugated the heart. It is not surprising that the salutary impressions disappear with the exterior show. Who will make our century understand that it is not the carnal man who rules, but spiritual man? It makes no difference that we have allowed Jesus Christ to enter the ante-chamber, if we close the entrance of the drawing-room to Him.

To what a deplorable state the senses have reduced us! In the primitive Church, where the heart and not the senses ruled, the faithful were accustomed to give the most heroic proof of devotion. It was, in a way, a game for them to despise the ferocity of tyrants and to confront the most cruel torments. They marched to their deaths as if to a feast. Today, all that is needed to conquer the fidelity and constancy of Christians is the allurement of a passing joy, the attractions of corruptible beauty, a miserable flattery, or the most scornful of worldly things. Unfortunate Age of the senses! Your children have forgotten Jesus; poor and crucified, Jesus crowned with thorns, dying amid torments; Jesus immolated and always offered in sacrifice in the Sacrament of Love. They have forgotten Him and given themselves up to feasting and to the most unbridled luxury. All their conduct announces that they desire to annihilate the works of a God become Man.

Yes, my Jesus, Thou wast born in the obscurity of a stable to teach us to throw at our feet all perishable vanities. Our Age works to beget a thousand victims to the demon of pride, to the demon of greed and to the third demon whose name is horrendous. These three disgraceful passions have become the only divinity for most men of our day. My God, Thou didst live for thirty years in the humble home of Nazareth, occupied with the most servile work and ignored by the world, to teach us to sanctify the sorrows of our state of life, to inspire in us the love of work. Thy poverty has served to ennoble our poverty. Men of our century, on the contrary, detest poverty and by their insolence and their vanity, coax out innocence from its obscurity, in order to adorn it with blazing vice. They have confused the necessity of working with an irresistible greed to enjoy the goods and pleasures of this world. All this, while Jesus, Victim of His Love, is hidden beneath the most humble appearances, annihilated and cast out. Luxury makes scandalous progress and we excuse ourselves on the vile pretext of the nations’ prosperity and the well-being of the working class.

Since when, O blind and incredulous man, do we see nations become rich by destroying religion? Where is the necessity of trampling the Gospel to favor the class of men who live by their work? Does a world of luxury, prosperity and pomp render man happier?

With the Gospel in one hand and the Cross of Jesus Christ in the other, and eyes raised to Heaven, we should not hesitate to sacrifice the miserable advantages of a perishable life for eternal happiness. In order to walk in the footprints of the Savior God, faith is necessary. Vanity is condemned by both His words and His example.

If we have the misfortune to manifestly contradict God, how can we flatter ourselves that we are on the path of salvation? The gates of Heaven will never open to the children of vanity. I do not agree that luxury is necessary to the happiness of peoples. On the contrary, the fall of empires is preceded by indolence. We have much to fear for our country if we do not bring a cure to this evil which is so profoundly implanted; yes, each and every one of us! It is not the business of the civil powers – it is our business. It concerns us personally: Let us return to the maxims of the Gospel, to Jesus Christ. By doing this, our insolent and unrestrained luxury, so injurious to the welfare of our brethren, will soon be abolished of itself without the need of laws.

SHELTERING THE DIVINE OUTCAST (continued0

THERE IS NO ALTERNATIVE!

“He must increase, but I must decrease.” ( St. John, III:30 )

Christ builds His sanctuary on the ruins of self-love. Therefore, merely to decrease is not enough, self must disappear, in order that, “I live now, not I, but Christ liveth in me.” (Galatians, II: 20)

There are thousands of small sacrifices, so be loving and generous, for it is Love that gives value to sacrifice: whenever you deny yourself anything at all … however small, perhaps checking an impulse of curiosity, not eating an extra mouthful, drinking a refreshing drink slowly, not showing that you feel the heat or cold, or refusing self some small comfort or desire. Each time, you deprive yourself of something for Jesus, you are thinking of Him and loving Him. All the more, when you deprive yourself of something more costly to self!

Disappointments, separations, uncongenial surroundings, seeming injustice, painful remarks, want of consideration, loneliness, and a thousand other things are the instruments that cut away, little by little, the self in order that Christ may increase. The more Christ increases in us, the less importance we attach to irksome affairs of life, the more beauty we find in individuals, the more loving and kind we are in our interpretation of everything about us; to be exact, the more we strive to be holy.

And, yet, how often we deceive ourselves regarding true union with God? Many souls, who are merely enjoying the sensible consolations that God has sent them, are like children playing with ashes that the wind soon will carry away. God does send us consolations, but the proof of His Love lies in the fact that He trusts us enough to ask anything at all of us. If we desire true union with Him, we must always give to Him whatever it is that He asks.

True union does not consist in delights, but in privations. The sign that God dwells in us and that we are possessed by His Love is that we take what hurts, not only patiently but gratefully saying: “I thank You, my Loving Father, but I am not worthy of this. I do not deserve that You should treat me as you treated Your Dearly Beloved Divine Son, Jesus.”

“Be ye holy because I, the Lord Your God, am holy.”
(Leviticus, XIX: 2 )

Holiness is a hidden treasure, an intimate reign – the reign of God within us. Holiness is nothing but love for God Who is Charity. Sanctity consists essentially in union with God, and in the love with which we perform ordinary actions.

Yes, the great secret of sanctity consists in loving much, but this love presupposes an interior and daily warfare — a warfare against our unruly appetites and our self-will, a warfare waged by prayer, which softens the heart and, by its sweetness, compensates for the bitterness inseparable from mortification.

We are sure to become Saints if we are in earnest about it. We must empty the soul, and do away with all that impedes close union with God. We shall be astonished at the progress achieved by the acceptance of petty hurts that come into daily life. Countless annoyances, frustrated plans, unpleasant circumstances – all these hammer us into shape, if we but see them in the “shade of His Hand outstretched caressingly.”

Under the repeated doses of disappointment, sorrow and misfortune, the soul’s vision is being cleared. We are largely indebted to the human forces about us for the degree of Sanctity we acquire. Wrapped in God’s Will, the clumsy blows of humanity will produce in us divine and perfect work.

The calm dignity of Our Loving Lord under the lash of scorn proves how untroubled the soul can be, as the lights of human praise and honor snuff out. As each one burns low, flickers and dies, the anguish of the heart intensifies. If we could but peer through the gloom, we would see Our Loving Lord, reaching out His Hand to extinguish them, one by one, in the proportion of our love for Him, and of our courage to do without them!

Each struggle means a bit more of death to self and an increase of Christ until, if we will it, all of self dies and Christ reigns supreme. But, we must never lose sight of the fact that: God reigns in us only in the same proportion as He is the Master of our will.

This requires great generosity on our part, and a constant awareness of the indwelling of the Divine Guest of our soul: “My God, my Guest, is here! I must be charitable, prudent, patient and meek. Whatever it is He expects, this will I give.”

Our perfection, that is, our practical love for our Divine Guest, consists in doing prescribed daily actions wholeheartedly and well. These actions of our state in life are what God wants of us, for it is by His Grace that we are in that state of life. Therefore, the smallest act done within our profession is highly meritorious, for it is always in the performance of the most common of our duties that we are to find perfection. This implies exactness, fervor and perseverance.

I must give myself to souls generously, with joy and without self-seeking, without seeking anything in return. God sees me! I am His privileged child. May He make of me His little victim of Love!

“I can do all things in Him Who strengthens me.” (Philippians, IV:13)

Only one power is necessary – the power of Grace, but also a docile soul is needed. What treasures we will find in Heaven if we are only faithful! Struggle … Yes! Effort … Yes! But, at the same time … happiness. Holiness is the only real happiness, and the reality of holiness is self-sacrifice, for sacrifice is that which really brings forth fruit.

Your favorite virtue will be neither humility nor mortification, nor any other in particular. It will be the virtue which includes all others — a loving docility to the Divine Guest of your Soul.

Oh, Blessed Trinity, You dwell in my heart such as You dwell in Heaven, though hidden under the veil of Faith. If Your dwelling in me were, in my own eyes, an event of the highest importance, should I be so forgetful of You so frequently, and for so long an interval?

Do I ever ask myself these questions:

1. Do I retire from time to time, if only for a few seconds, into the inner sanctuary of my heart?

2. What would Our Lord do now?

3. What answer would He give to this question?

4. How would He behave in my place?

5. What does He ask of me at this moment?

6. How far removed am I from those souls who, while continuing their work or their conversation, return many times in their day to visit a moment with their Divine and Beloved Guest!

Prayer to Our Lady of Perpetual Help

O Virgin Mother of Perpetual Help, I know that it has never been heard that anyone has called upon you in vain. I invoke you now with childlike confidence. Look down on me, O dearest Mother of Perpetual Help, and obtain for me the grace to make real efforts toward holiness, to make my soul a living Tabernacle where Jesus will ever dwell, to care for nothing but His Holy Will, to be a devoted apostle of His Loving Sacred Heart, to be humble and to love intensely. Love is proven by sacrifice. Do obtain for me, my dearest Mother, the true spirit of self-denial, but let all my sacrifices be humble, hidden, and true – without harming my health or drawing the attention of others. Help me to cover all my sacrifices – the ones God sends, as well as freely chosen mortifications – with a veil of smiles and cheerfulness which will keep them unknown.

Obtain for me the special grace to shelter Jesus by suffering, by voluntary penance, and by the practice of charity. Amen.

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For centuries, our cherished Catholic faith has been passed from person to person, parent to child, etc. Each of us carries in our heart a special memory of how God first graced us with the knowledge of the faith and how Our Blessed Mother, Saint Philomena, Venerable Pauline Jaricot and other saints changed our lives and brought us closer to Christ.

In our work in the Universal Living Rosary Association, we see first hand how millions of souls are currently living without that knowledge of God and are living outside of His grace. We have been given a beautiful opportunity to carry out Christ’s work and pass on our faith and blessings to others who would otherwise never be introduced to Our Lord, the Savior of all mankind. Just as we pray for the souls in Purgatory who have no one to pray for them, we should also make it a part of our life’s mission to pass on our faith to as many souls as possible who have no one else to pass it on to them, who don’t know Our Lord and His promise of salvation.

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