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FR. MATEO ON THE HOLY SACRIFICE OF THE MASS (continued) “LOVE AND YOU WILL UNDERSTAND.” This is the place to appreciate a saying popular among the saints, “love and you will understand.” If you really wish to penetrate the obscurity of this great mystery, to contemplate the incomprehensible in the drama of the holy Altar, then, love, love, love passionately, and you will understand! In the divine light kindled by an immense love, you will see what Mary, the Queen of Sorrows, saw on Golgotha. How calm Mary was! How full of a sweet and unchanging peace as She watched the deicide accomplished by the executioners. She neither cried out nor made indignant protest. Yet, She suffered an agony, for She is the Mother, a unique Mother in the sublime nobility of Her divine and virginal motherhood. See how she stands fearless in the midst of unutterable suffering, yet filled with unchangeable peace. Her weeping is like a wounded dove, and her moaning like the strains of a hymn, a MAGNIFICAT, enrapturing the angels! How can we explain this incomprehensible attitude of Mary on Calvary? Her peace comes from the depth of her heart, for she loved as no other here below has ever loved. Love leads her to penetrate the mystery of the wisdom and folly of the Cross! She is undisturbed and calm because she sees! Yes, she sees and wonderfully comprehends the mystery of Calvary because she loves with the heart of a queen, a virgin and a martyr. She is the Mother of fair love! Let us pray to her that she may obtain for us, together with a light of great understanding, a fire of immense love. Then, like her we will penetrate the mystery of the Cross and the Altar! Love and you will understand! Saints like the Curé of Ars, Philip Neri, Vincent de Paul and John Bosco, certainly possessed this science of charity; they loved with a love as strong as death. That is why they are the “Specialist-Saints” of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. How many great masters in theology would receive a high rating were they to submit to an examination on this thesis given by the Curé of Ars? We have floods of electric light, but it is cold and harmful to the eyes of the soul. Such is the electric brilliance of a student who reads much but prays little. He keeps his eyes open, for he would see. But unconsciously he suffers a spiritual cataract, for he has no time for meditation. He is unfortunate in not loving with a great love. The Altar is the height which attains the throne of the Most High. Only those learned men reach this height who are saints — Thomas Aquinas, Bonaventure, Bellarmine, Contardo Ferrini. For Holy Mass, as someone has said, is the official ecstasy of the Church; a higher degree of contemplation than that of St. Paul. Yet withal, there are many humble little people who can relish with pleasure the mystery of the Holy Sacrifice. They truly have the privilege of lifting the veil, and should we ask them how they explain Holy Mass relative to God’s glory and the salvation of souls, we would indeed be greatly astonished at their answer. And as you listened to them with wonder, you would appreciate with deep feeling why the Saviour, trembling with joy, cried out: “I give thee thanks O Father, because thou hast hidden these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them to little ones.” (Luke 1 0:21) Let us then love Jesus Christ. Let us love Him with a heart ablaze with a holy joy. Then, to reward us for our love, He will lead us into the sanctuary of His Heart, there to tell us the secrets which the Father confided to Him, the Splendour of His Majesty and His well—beloved Son. Let us love, and He who called Himself “the light of the world,” He who is the mediator and High Priest of the Holy Sacrifice, will give us the key of understanding which He reserves for His friends, like St. John, the privileged Apostle of the cenacle and Calvary. If we love with an immense charity, as the saints alone know how to love, we will then understand even as they understood the precious and delightful fruit of their love. Love and you will understand! During the adoration and prayer of the faithful, while the celebrant offers the Divine Victim to the Father in this, the greatest of actions, the angels and saints of heaven sing out with, “God so loved the world that He gave His only—begotten Son” (Jn. 3:1 6). Contemplate Him at the Altar. He is indeed a Victim of His love for the Father, but also the Victim of the love which moves Him to give His whole self to us creatures with no grateful return. |
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| Dearest Patti,
May Almighty God bless those who help the poor souls to find Jesus in their life! You are all remembered in our prayers. Thank you so much for the box of sacramental materials that you have sent. They have become our weapons to fight all kinds of evil in our places. The poor souls shown in the photos below hardly find a word to appreciate you for the gifts they received. They say many times, “Thank you! Thank you!” God will bless you more in your life. You have a wonderful place in Heaven. I have sent the lists of those who taken a Decade, through the post office mail. < James Wau – PAPUA NEW GUINEA >
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FR. MATEO ON THE HOLY SACRIFICE OF THE MASS (continued)
TRUE LOVE IS GIVING ONESELF We are coming towards the close of this meditation and I hope that it has acted as a beautiful sun to enlighten and warm your hearts. It is necessary in this place to dwell on a point of doctrine found in every page of the Gospel and the Epistles of St. Paul. It is what St. Paul calls the “science of the charity of Christ,” the charity that “presseth us.” (2 Cor. 5:1 4) It is too bad that there are so many who hesitate to speak on this subject simply because they are afraid of love. In excusing themselves, they openly try to keep us from the danger of what they call fantastic and poetic “sentimentality,” “affectedness”, and “fancies,” as though the first Commandment: Thou shalt love, were an error of heaven and the spirit and fiery style of St. Paul weakness or dreaming! Love is decidedly not mere sentiment nor poetry! Love is the giving of oneself! The sublime donation of self to God and the good of souls always has been and will ever continue to be the basis and essential element of all Christian virtue. Divine love is the great secret — the only secret of all heroism. “Love is the fulfilling of the Law.” (Rom 13:10). To love is to possess God in the depth of our souls. But God is love! Thus, whoever loves truly is either a saint now or well on the road to sainthood. It is easy to pride oneself on being a thinker or intellectual, for this costs nothing in the way of moral consequences. Such pretense is often nothing but self-inflation, happily painless. But to love has always been exceedingly arduous! In fact, to give oneself, to surrender oneself in imitation of Jesus Christ, so far from being a sentimental love, is an interior martyrdom. True love is always a noble tyrant. Yet, “love is the first and the greatest commandment.” Since it is so easy to believe and to be called a thinker and intellectual, believers and thinkers abound. But cowardice keeps many of them from giving themselves, from loving with their whole heart, and the result is that there are few saints. Ask the martyr of the lepers, the celebrated Father Damien, whether love is a sentimentalism, a weakness … or rather a sweet and terrible tyrant! The Holy Sacrifice is above all the Mystery of Faith and Love. We find its supernatural explanation in these words, as solemn as they are divine and strong: “God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son.” (Jn. 3:16) These are the words of the Holy Spirit. Further comment is useless. Yes, the Love of God the Father, and of God the Son, Incarnate and Victim through love, gives us the key of this ineffable Mystery! Just as the beatific vision resolves itself in an endless ecstasy of love, so here below the Mystery of the Holy Sacrifice is revealed in the light which pours forth from the flame of a burning love. |
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| Dear Director Melvin,
Ave Maria! It was already eight months after the super typhoon Haiyan hit in our place. In God’s grace we are now in the recovery stage and start again our new life after the deadly storm. We pray for all the members of the ULRA who died, particularly in the Metropolitan Archdiocese of Palo. MAY THEY REST IN PEACE! AMEN. Here are the current updates about my works regarding our mission and apostolate: Last July 13, 2014, we were blessed to have an official audience with His Excellency Most Rev. Filomeno G. Bactol, DD, Bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Naval. He is a pious devotee of our beautiful Saint Philomena and a ULRA member. He gave his blessing and permission to spread the ULRA in his entire diocese. And the good news to us, he accepted our request to him to become our Spiritual Director for the Ecclesiastical Provinces of Palo which comprises of one Archdiocese and four Dioceses in the Island of Leyte in the Philippines. By the way, bishop asks me to retrieve his assigned Decade because he forgot. May I request also to send an official communication to the Bishop thanking him for accepting our request to be our Spiritual Director. As soon as we receive the Endorsement Letter from the office of the bishop, we will immediately begin our mission to the Diocese of Naval. I also request you to send us mission materials intended for the Diocese of Naval. You can address your letter to the Bishop: MOST REV. FILOMENO G. BACTOL, D.D., Roman Catholic Diocese of Naval, Chancery Office, Corvera St. Naval, Biliran Province, Philippines. The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Palo is the “Metropolitan See” in the island of Leyte, where our operation center is located. They have 76 parishes in the entire archdiocese of Palo but not even one parish is dedicated to Saint Philomena. Therefore, last July 19, 2014, I was blessed to talk with Archbishop John F. Du, D.D., and told him my plan and intention to build an official chapel for the Living Rosary Association in his diocese. He grants a positive response on this matter. I conveyed this plan to the Parish Priest of the area to discuss and make necessary agreements to avoid any conflict of interest in this regards and he pledged to help us. What we have now is the lot for the chapel donated by the anonymous St. Philomena Devotee. It is just a small area enough for the chapel and office of ULRA, about 111.8 square meters. Please pray for our financial needs to build the Shrine of the Blessed Mother and Saint Philomena. I am also awaiting his new Endorsement Letter for his Archdiocese for the continuation of the ULRA mission. The 2014 ULRA feast day of Saint Philomena will be held at Saint Francis Xavier Parish at Palompon, Leyte. We will celebrate the feast day with solemn simplicity and we will offer this celebration in remembrance of all our brothers and sisters who were victims of typhoon Haiyan. The new registration forms will be mailed to you. We are still gathering the lists from different promoters. We need more materials for the mission for these two dioceses. Hope you will provide us before the mission starts. As of now, that is all the activities we been doing besides the promotion of the ULRA. Please continue to pray for us! We too pray for you and the rest of the Philomenian Family in the world. Thank you so much for all your support. May God bless us always! In Mary and St. Philomena: Bro. Gelson Abecia Picture taken after our meeting at Bishop Bactol’s office in Naval.
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Share Your Gift of FaithFor 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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Tags: Catholic, Filomena, Living, Philomena, Philomene, Rosary, Santa, Universal