Universal Living Rosary Association of Saint Philomena (ULRA)

THE INFINITE LOVE OF THE DIVINE EUCHARIST (continued)

LOVE OF JESUS CHRIST

Let our senses be vanquished by His Heart and our heart, in its turn, be conquered by the Infinite Love of Jesus Christ! Without this, it will be impossible for us to understand the mystery of a God crucified. Are not His humiliations, His wounds, His crown of thorns and His annihilation in the Divine Eucharist enough to render us sensitive to His Love? It is to conquer our heart that this generous God, in these Last Days, shows us His own Heart, vanquished by His charity for all men. He wishes to awaken our sensibilities by His tenderness, placed alongside our indifference. He wishes to confound our ingratitude by our remembrance of His blessings. Devotion to the Sacred Heart is principally established to help us triumph over our senses and to break their shameful chains. The genius of godlessness understands this well and, for that reason, it has not ceased to manifest its rage against this pious devotion. The faithful must understand this better and show great eagerness and steadfastness in making reparation to Jesus Christ. If this last attempt of His goodness does not succeed, He will be reduced to proving to us, in a terrible manner, that Infinite Love is outraged. This Infinite Love will then be changed into indignation. Let us hasten to recognize that the Divine Heart of Jesus, adored on our Altars, is the sole sign of salvation.

Let us address ourselves to Him with tender confidence. By the ardor of our vows and our honorable intent to amend our ways, we will do violence to His mercy and obtain the miracle of deliverance. Let us entreat Our Savior to show Himself to His Church. Let us surround His Tabernacle and speak to Him of our sad situation. Let us have no doubt that He Who changes bread into His Body and wine into His Blood at the words of the priest, will have no difficulty in working a prodigy in our favor, equivalent or perhaps even greater than this.

Let us cease to delude ourselves. The dangers are great. The godless have joined together by a most horrible means. Iniquity has made a pact with iniquity to dethrone Jesus Christ. Hell has extended its empire. The moment has arrived when the irreligious do not cover up or hide their evil designs. Already, they make immense sacrifices to accomplish their evil ends. Nothing will make them renounce their resolutions – not fatigue, danger or even the outpouring of their blood. They will pursue Our Lord until the time when He, in turn, forces them to recognize Him as their liberator, or to lament the rigorous blows of His justice. Impious ones, even if you had the most numerous and valiant armies, all the gold and all the silver in the Universe, the greatest dignitaries, generals and even emperors, one breath from the mouth of Jesus Christ, whom you pretend to conquer, would suffice to extinguish you. Mock me, if you wish, for my simple faith. As for me, I take the lead and laugh at your enterprises, your reasoning and all your power. No, however feeble I may be, I do not fear you. I believe in Jesus Christ. He is the King of my heart. He will vanquish you on the day He has marked for His triumph.

This speech, which I daringly make to the impious, will appear presumptuous to those who are accustomed to judge according to appearances. Hurry Lord, Thyself, to justify me! It is time to arise and to pass sentence on Thy cause. Thou must urge the impious to advance, in spite of their prudence to hide their fury. It is necessary. Each day is a horrible outrage. None of Thy adorers feel competent to defend Thy rights. Fear, stupor and, even more, indifference have paralyzed the small number of subjects who have remained faithful to Thee. Each one passes to another the obligation to declare war against Thy treacherous enemies. The simple faithful depend on their pastors; the pastors recognize themselves powerless, and nobody devotes himself to Thy glory. While they wait, Thou art abandoned by the whole universe which seems to cry out: “Christ, defend Thyself!"

Thy friends dare not offer Thee their arms, nor do they stand in the front lines to attack and curb the insolence of Thy enemies. Fear and human respect prevent them from marching courageously into this spiritual battle. They persist in considering themselves incompetent. Show us, O Lord, that Thou hast need of no one! O, hidden Jesus, interrupt Thy long silence! O King of Glory, make Thy power shine. O Eternal Priest, give us proof that Thy powers are not suspended. O Eternal Word! O First Cause! Give a lesson to Christians of all circumstances. Teach them, it is not secondary causes in which their trust should be placed, but in Thee. Do not suffer any longer by allowing them to speak incessantly of worldly powers without mentioning Thee. Tolerate no longer their saying: “All is well," while Thou art forgotten, insulted and considered the last among Thy people.

ALL GOES WELL

All goes well! O my Jesus, is it possible to hear such talk? I wonder! Does it matter to Thy people that while the exterior state of society appears prosperous with increased temporal advantages abounding … men have become hardened in their malice and have entirely lost sight of their immortal destiny? The earth is peopled by apostates and daily gives birth to new crimes and new impieties. The Church, our tender Mother, bewails the loss of Her children, who abandon Her one after the other. They are insensitive to Her tears. Many rejoice at Her sorrows and would not be upset to see Her succumb beneath the weight of Her sufferings. All is well! Woe to me, if I would participate in this cowardly manner of reasoning! Woe to me, if the sight of Jesus forgotten, belittled and persecuted by His own people does not disturb my sleep and plunge me into an irremediable sadness!

Woe to me, if I cease to long for the glory of the Church, my most tender Mother, with a less lively ardor than a babe in the cradle longs for the breast that feeds it! Woe to me, if all that tends to tarnish the shine of its beauty, to desolate its tenderness, to tear out its heart and, to rob it of its glorious privileges, does not cause my soul a suffering more acute than the bite of a scorpion to my body!

SHELTERING THE DIVINE OUTCAST (continued)

SEEK ME ALWAYS WITHIN THY HEART!

It is only after Christ has taken – has been given – full control of our hearts that, often times, He allows darkness to enter into our souls. Such was the case with our dear Saint ‘Little Thérèse.’ Our Lord allowed her soul to be overwhelmed with darkness, and the thought of Heaven, which had been her consolation from her earliest childhood, now became the subject of temptations to doubt, bringing her conflict and torture. They were never to leave her. Assailed by them, yet sustained by the grace of blind faith, she persevered heroically to the end. Her trial was so mysterious, her doubts so dark, and her desolation so extreme that she frankly says, it is beyond her power to explain what she went through. Yet, she was content to relinquish the joy of Jesus’ Presence in order to give Him the whole of her love.

We must keep in mind that the Road of Pain is the way to Heaven and, consequently, that the hurtful things are the most divine blessings, and should be embraced as God’s greatest gifts. The Cross makes us like unto Jesus. It is the pledge of union with His adorable Heart. There is no real love, no real holiness, without having to pay for it at its own price. Therefore, take every trifling cross as a fragment of the Sacred Host, in which, in spite of its littleness, you find your God, whole and entire.

For sanctity, it is necessary that you should, at all your duties, abide as much as possible in the Presence of God, cultivating His Divine Presence in your soul. Turn your thoughts upon yourself and look within. There, you will find your Master and Bridegroom, Who ever dwells within you and Who will never forsake you.

Saint Teresa of Avila says, “Oh, if only I could describe how the soul holds communion with this Companion, with nothing to intrude on the solitude of itself and its Spouse, whenever it seeks to retire within itself into this private heaven, shutting its door against all the world!

I say, ‘the soul seeks’ because you must understand that this is NOT a supernatural state but something which, with the grace of God, we can desire and obtain for ourselves. This grace is always implied when I say that we are able to do anything for, without it, we can do nothing – nothing – nor could we, by any strength of our own, even think one single good thought.”

St. Margaret Mary once described her prayer thus, “I generally finish without any other request or offering other than that of offering My Jesus to His Eternal Father in this manner:

“My God, I offer You Your Well-Beloved Son in thanksgiving for all the benefits You have conferred upon me and, for my request, my offering, my adoration, all my resolutions. Finally, I offer Him for my love and for my all. Receive Him, Eternal Father, for all that You wish of me, since I can offer You nothing worthy of You except Him Whom You give to me to enjoy with so much love.

Don’t worry in the least over the trouble you feel about a drooping life. Join yourself as much as you possibly can to the Sacred Heart of Jesus Christ Our Lord – first, to acquire the necessary dispositions and, finally, for atonement. Can you, for instance, achieve nothing at prayer? Do not worry. Be content with offering that which your Divine Savior offers for us in the Most Holy Sacrament of the Altar. He offers all His ardor in reparation for our lukewarmness.”

“I will glory in my infirmity that the power of
Christ may dwell in me.” (II Corinthians, XII: 9)

The more we advance in the spiritual life, the more we become conscious of our own powerlessness and nothingness, and of our inability in and of ourselves to do anything worthy of God. This forces us to have recourse, in the most immediate and direct way, to our Divine Intercessor “ever pleading for us.” A very good thing for us to say is this: “My God. I love Thee in union with all the infinite love being offered to Thee at this moment in all of the Masses which are now being said.”

Infinite Love thus infuses into our own tiny love and, so, great acts of love may be accomplished in the small cell of the heart. Jesus will have become for us the principle of our thoughts, will, happiness and strength. The heart of the true servant of God is His sanctuary, where He constantly dwells.

We cannot always be kneeling before the Altar, so He makes His Tabernacle in our hearts. But, it is not with Jesus only that the soul dwells and communes unceasingly. United to Him and in His Holy Name, she speaks constantly to the Father and to the Holy Ghost. She does this quite simply without any noise of words. It is like a loving glance, a silent turning of the soul toward God.

She offers to the Father the actions, the prayers, the sufferings, the aspirations and the desires which Jesus produces in her. She offers herself unceasingly in union with the Heart of Jesus, Who is Himself the source of her love. She offers in turn His incomparable and unbounded devotion, His unfathomable humility, and all His infinite perfections to the Eternal Father, to repair and drown in these abysses, the sins of the whole world.

“My God, I wish to make reparation to Thee in union with the infinite reparation being offered to Thee at this moment in all the Masses being said at this time.”

Above all, the interior soul delights in offering to God the love of Jesus dying on the Cross, the supreme act of sacrifice. In essence, the day of the soul who is identified with Jesus is more than a continual prayer, it is an offering more like a continual Mass. The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass itself is the culmination point, and the most solemn moment of the soul’s continual sacrifice of itself.

“Put ye on Christ, Our Lord; be ye souls of Prayer. Build all on this, not here alone or there, but moving whatsoever path be trod, with your heart and mind uplifted to your God."

“ABIDE IN ME.” (St. John, XV: 4)

Abide in me! What an unusual invitation! What a plea for sanctity! What a call to intimacy! What an assurance of God’s thirst for our love! Shall we accept this invitation, respond to this call? Or, shall we let ‘well-enough’ alone and refuse to make so hazardous a venture? We already live with God, why do more? We have joined His forces. We spend our lives for Him. What more can we do? Can we do more than live with God? It would seem that we could, since God is inviting us to do more.

God first invited us to dwell with Him; now He invites us to dwell in Him, in God! The words are so baffling that they bewilder us! To dwell in God! To bury ourselves in the Divinity! To live a life within a life! Is this not far beyond the hopes we cherished when we surrendered all to God, or thought we had surrendered all to Him? Is it beyond our comprehension?

Yes, it surely is. But He Who invites us will make all perfectly clear. It is within the sanctuary of our soul, where God resides, that He begs us to abide in Him. This intimate life in God is offered to all, but it is forced upon no one, and it is accepted by few. Many attempt it, but they soon turn back to the sociability of the world. Few sufficiently penetrate it to find the joy of hiddenness. Few are brave enough to give up all for God. Few trust Him so unreservedly as to part completely from self. Few are willing to die for Him.

ABIDE IN ME!

This is a mysterious call. Its fulfillment, too, is a mystery. It is the soul’s highest possible achievement. It is the human merging into the Divine.

Our Divine Lord says, “You shall know the Spirit of Truth because He shall abide with you, and shall be in you. If anyone love Me, My Father will love Him, and We will come to him, and take up Our abode with him,” (St. John. XIV, 17: 23)

We must turn our gaze inward to catch a glimpse of Him Whom we know not, but to Whom we have given our lives. He invites us to abide with Him, to withdraw within the soul that we may live hidden lives within Him.

Thanks for your last mail. Here are the testimonies I promised to send you for the miracles performed by Saint Philomena’s holy oil and Our Lady’s Brown Scapulars.

1. Raymond Massawe is a Living Rosary promoter in Moshi. He visited the maternity ward in Kibosho Hospital; there were fifteen women waiting their time to give birth. He gave them St. Philomena’s small pictures. Fourteen of them took the pictures but the last one refused; Miraculously, that night, all fourteen women gave birth safely. It was only the one who refused to take St. Philomena’s picture who remained. The next day, the woman looked for the man so that he could give her St. Philomena’s picture; she succeeded to receive the picture. The doctor told her that she must go for an operation. She kindly asked the nurse to take the picture of St. Philomena into the operating theatre. The picture was kept under her head in the operating theatre; before the operation started, she gave birth safely. The surgeon and the nurses were amazed. Thank you Saint Philomena!

2. A mother was appointed for operation because of problems with her pregnancy. One of the family members gave her a picture of St. Philomena. She went for a check-up. The doctor found there was no need for operation. The mother gave birth safely. The baby was born with arms folded across her chest as St. Philomena does. Thank you, St. Philomena, Wonder-Worker!

3. Brigita is a mother who was suffering with an ear disease for long time. Her ears were aching and giving out pus. She joined the ULRA and applied St. Philomena’s holy oil. She was cured completely. Thank you, St. Philomena!

4. Brenda was a student in class five at St. Pius Boarding Primary School at Tarakea in Rombo. Tarakea is about 120 km from Moshi town. Last year 2013, in January, she suddenly had a severe problem with her vocal system. She failed completely to speak. She was sent to several hospitals but their efforts were fruitless; there was no medical help. From January 2013 to June 2013, she was attending school. Her head teacher advised her parents to transfer her to the special school for the dumb. The parents failed to do so for they did not have funds. They took her to her grandmother who lives in Moshi. Her grandmother decided to transfer her to the nearby common day school to save the cost. Brenda’s grandmother is a ULRA promoter. In July, as she was in a monthly diocesan meeting, she introduced her granddaughter’s problem. As a diocesan chairman, I gave her Saint Philomena’s oil for Brenda. Her grandmother took the holy oil and put a drop into the water and let her drink it in the evening hours. The next morning, when Brenda woke up, she shouted out in joy. Miraculously, Brenda received her speech again. Thank you, St. Philomena!

5. Tommy is a form two student at Don Bosco Seminary in Mafinga-Iringa, Tanzania. From Moshi to Iringa, it is about 175 km. Tommy was clothed with the Brown Scapular by a Priest in June 2013, along with other ULRA members at Moshi Cathedral. On September 2013 in the morning, Tommy left for the class; he forgot his Scapular which was on his friend’s bed. On that very day, about 10 a.m., while the students were in their classes their dormitory caught fire due to a short circuit. All the students’ possessions were burnt out except the only bed with the Scapular on it. The bed with its mattress, bedcover, bed sheet, blanket and a Scapular on it were not touched by fire flames. All the students and the people who came to stop the fire were amazed. The Rector said, “I know that the Scapular does miracles!” Thank you, Our Lady of Mount Carmel!

6. Lusia had problems with her pregnancy. She was in the clinic where she was told by the maternity specialist that there was complication in her pregnancy. She was told to go for an operation. She applied St. Philomena’s holy oil around her stomach. When she went for a check–up before operation, the specialist found that she had no longer any complication and she could bear without operation. Lusia gave birth safely. Thank you, Saint Philomena!

7. Raymond was suffering with diabetes and heart disease; he was serious and admitted to the hospital for seven months. Because he could not help himself, he requested the St. Philomena’s holy oil. He put a drop of the holy oil into a cup of fresh milk and drank it. After he had taken it, he started getting well slowly. On the third day, he recovered completely. The doctors were amazed. He went for a checkup. He was told that he has neither diabetes nor heart disease. They discharged him from the hospital. Till now, he has no symptom of diabetes or heart disease. Raymond used to wear glasses as he was suffering from short sightedness. He applied Saint Philomena’s holy oil on his eyelids. He is completely cured. Now, he does not use glasses for he is no longer short sighted. Thank you, St. Philomena!

< STEPHEN – MOSHI, TANZANIA >

Share Your Gift of Faith

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.

This is the box we send out to the foreign Missions $77.95. It contains Rosaries, Scapulars, Miraculous Medals, Cord & Oil, Newsletters, Calendars, Catechism books, 2 TAN books, large color prints, lists and encouragement for our Promoters.

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