My Favorite Picture of Our Lady

St. Ignatius Loyola

Tomorrow evening begins our Cathedral’s Teaching Tuesday series on prayer. (See my post “An AMAZING Experience!” https://amoiesu.wordpress.com/2015/01/30/an-amazing-experience/) The classes that inspired Father Lankeit to give these talks draw from the wisdom of one of my most favorite saints: Ignatius of Loyola.

St. Ignatius Loyola (1491-1556) was a very noble soldier of the Spanish army. His courage was so remarkable that after losing a fierce battle with the French, his enemies admired him and took it upon themselves to treat his leg that had been smashed by a cannonball. Unfortunately, medical care back then was not sufficient to treat such a serious injury. After the extremely painful and not completely successful surgeries, the action-loving warrior was bored to tears while confined to his bed indefinitely. He asked his sister-in-law (in whose house he was staying) for books containing grand tales of battle, but all she could find were a couple volumes on the life of Christ and of the Saints. In reading these books out of sheer desperation, he discovered the battle for souls to which he was called and started the Jesuit Order (of which our dear Pope Francis is a member) upon recovery. He wrote the famous Spiritual Exercises and was so grateful to God for His blessings each day, that he was constantly on the verge of tears. He died of illness at age 65. He is the patron of retreats, scruples, vocational discernment, and the Jesuit Order.

The Anima Christi by St. Ignatius Loyola

Soul of Christ, sanctify me.
Body of Christ, save me.
Blood of Christ, inebriate me.
Water from the side of Christ, wash me.
Passion of Christ, strengthen me.
O Good Jesus, hear me.
Within your wounds hide me.
Permit me not to be separated from you.
From the wicked foe, defend me.
At the hour of my death, call me
and bid me come to you
That with your saints I may praise you
For ever and ever. Amen.

More than boy-crazy

A beautiful vocation story!

Messy Jesus Business

“How can you be a nun? You’re the most boy-crazy girl I know!”

My good friend first jokingly teased me with this question when we were both still teenagers. I was in the earliest stages of my discernment at the time, and I couldn’t give her a good answer to her question.

That was nearly two decades ago. I like to think that I’ve matured a lot since I was a boy-crazy teenager, and that I’ve come to understand how the complex parts of my personality can all enrich my relationship with God. Over the years, I have become convinced that God used my teenaged feelings to steer me toward my vocation. In fact, being “boy-crazy” actually influenced my first experience of “call” to the Catholic Sisterhood.

I was a teen who deeply desired to please God. I remember praying for guidance regarding my attraction to a certain boy while…

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Spiritual Communion

“Spiritual Communion is the reserve of Eucharistic Life and Love always available for lovers of the Eucharistic Jesus. By means of Spiritual Communion the loving desires are satisfied of the soul that wants to be united with Jesus, its dear Bridegroom. Spiritual Communion is a union of love between the soul and Jesus in the Host. This union is spiritual but nonetheless real, more real than than between the soul and the body, ‘because the soul lives more where it loves than where it lives,’ says St. John of the Cross. As is evident, Spiritual Communion assumes that we have faith in the Real Presence of Jesus in the Tabernacle. It implies that we would like Sacramental Communion, and it demands a gratitude for Jesus’ gift of this Sacrament. All this is expressed simply and briefly in the formula of St. Alphonsus: ‘My Jesus, I believe that You are really present in the most Blessed Sacrament. I love Thee above all things, and I desire to possess Thee within my soul, Since I cannot now receive Thee sacramentally, come at least spiritually into my heart. (Pause.) I embrace Thee as being already there and unite myself wholly to Thee. Never, never permit me to be separated from Thee. Amen.’ Spiritual Communion, as St. Thomas Aquinas and St. Alphonsus Liguori teach, produces effects similar to Sacramental Communion, according to the dispositions with which it is made, the greater or less earnestness with which Jesus is desired, and the greater or less love with which Jesus is welcomed and given due attention. A special advantage of Spiritual Communion is that we can make it as often as we like–even hundreds of times a day–when we like–even late at night–and wherever we like–even in a desert, or up in an airplane. It is fitting to make a Spiritual Communion especially when we are attending Holy Mass and cannot receive Our Lord sacramentally. While the priest is receiving his Holy Communion, our soul should share in it by inviting Jesus into our heart. In this way every Holy Mass we hear is a complete one, with the Offertory, the sacrificial Consecration, and Holy Communion. Jesus Himself told St. Catherine of Siena in a vision how precious a Spiritual Communion is. The Saint was afraid that a Spiritual Communion was nothing compared to a Sacramental Communion. In the vision, Our Lord held up two ciboriums, and said, ‘In this golden ciborium I put your Sacramental Communions. In this silver ciborium I put your Spiritual Communions. Both ciboriums are quite pleasing to Me.’ And once Jesus said to St. Margaret Mary Alacoque, when she was absorbed in addressing yearning sighs to Him in the tabernacle, ‘I love so much a soul’s desire to receive Me, that I hasten to it each time it summons Me by its yearnings.’ It is not hard to see how much Spiritual Communion has been loved by the Saints. Spiritual Communion at least partly satisfied that ardent desire to be united to their Beloved. Jesus Himself said, ‘Abide in Me and I in you.’ (John 15:4). And Spiritual Communion helps us stay united to Jesus, even when we are far from a Church. There was no other way to appease the fond yearning that burned in the hearts of the Saints. ‘O God, my whole soul longs for You. As a deer for running water, my whole soul thirsts for God.’ (Ps. 42:2). This is the loving sigh of the Saints. St. Catherine of Genoa exclaimed, ‘O dear Spouse (of my soul), I so strongly crave the joy of being with Thee, that it seems to me that if I were dead, I would come to life in order to receive Thee in Holy Communion.’ Blessed Agatha of the Cross felt such an acute yearning to live always united to Jesus in the Eucharist, that she remarked, ‘If the Confessor had not taught me to make Spiritual Communion, I could not have lived.’ For St. Mary Frances of the Five Wounds, likewise, Spiritual Communion was the only relief from the acute pain she felt when shut up at home far from her beloved Lord, especially when she was not allowed to receive Sacramental Communion. At such a time she went out on the terrace of her home and, looking at the Church, she tearfully sighed, ‘Happy are they who have received Thee today in the Blessed Sacrament, O Jesus. Blessed are the walls of the Church that guard my Jesus. Blessed are the priests, who are always near the most lovable Jesus.’ Spiritual Communion alone was able to satisfy her a little. Here is one of the counsels which Padre Pio of Pietrelcina gave to one of his spiritual daughters: ‘In the course of the day, when it is not permitted to you to do otherwise, call Jesus, even in the midst of all your occupations, with a resigned sigh of the soul and He will come and will remain always united with your soul by means of His grace and His holy love. Make a spiritual flight before the Tabernacle, when you cannot go there with your body, and there pour out the ardent desires of your spirit and embrace the Beloved of souls, better than if it had been permitted to you to receive Him sacramentally.’ Let us, too, profit by this great gift. During the times that we suffer trial or feel abandoned, for example, what can be more valuable to us than the company of our Sacramental Lord by means of Spiritual Communion? This holy practice can work with ease to fill our days with acts and sentiments of love, and can make us live in an embrace of love that depends just on our often renewing it so that we scarcely ever interrupt it. St. Angela Merici was extremely fond of Spiritual Communion. Not only did she make it often and exhort others to do it, but she chose to leave it as an inheritance to her daughters, so that they might practice it ever afterwards. What shall we say of St. Francis de Sales? Does not his whole life seem like a chain of Spiritual Communions? He made a resolution to make a Spiritual Communion at least every quarter of an hour. Saint Maximilian M. Kolbe had the same resolve from the time of his youth. The Servant of God, Andrew Baltrami, has left us a short page of his personal diary, which is a little program for a life lived in uninterrupted Spiritual Communion with Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament. These are his words: ‘Wherever I may be I will often think of Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament. I will fix my thoughts on the holy Tabernacle–even when I happen to wake up at night–adoring Him from where I am, calling to Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament, offering up to Him the action I am performing. I will install one telegraph cable from my study to the Church, another from my bedroom, and a third from our refectory; and as often as I can, I will send messages of love to Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament.’ What a stream of divine affections must have passed over those precious cables! The Saints were eager to make use of these and similar holy means in order to find an outlet for their overflowing hearts; for they never felt they had gone far enough in their endeavor to love. ‘The more I love Thee, the less I love Thee,’ exclaimed St. Frances Xavier Cabrini, ‘because I would like to love Thee more, but I cannot. Oh enlarge, enlarge my heart.’ When St. Roch spent five years in prison because he had been judged to be a dangerous vagabond, in his cell he kept his eyes ever fixed at the window, praying in the meantime. The guard asked, ‘What are you looking at?’ The Saint answered, ‘I am looking at the tower of the parish church.’ The tower reminded him of a church, a tabernacle, and the Eucharistic Jesus, inseparably joined to his heart. The holy Cure of Ars said to his flock, ‘At the sight of a church tower you can say: Jesus is there, for there a priest has celebrated Mass.’ Blessed Louis Guanella, when he was traveling by train with pilgrimages to the various shrines, used to always advise pilgrims to turn their minds and hearts to Jesus every time they saw a church tower from the carriage window, ‘Every bell tower,’ he would say, ‘indicates a church, where there is a Tabernacle, where Mass is said, and where Jesus stays.’ Let us take a lesson from the Saints. They would like to pass on some spark of the love burning in their hearts. Let us undertake to make many Spiritual Communions, especially during the busiest moments of the day. Then soon the fire of love will enter us. For something very consoling that St. Leonard of Port Maurice assures us of, is this: ‘If you practice the holy exercise of Spiritual Communion a good many times each day, within a month you will see yourself completely changed.’ Hardly a month–clear enough, is it not?”

— JESUS OUR EUCHARISTIC LOVE  by  Fr. Stefano Manelli, O. F. M. Conv., S. T. D.

Thoughts for Lent

Fearing the Silence.   Another excellent post on Catholic Stand!

http://thelittleways.com/how-to-make-sacrifice-beads

HAPPY LENT!!!

How Salvation is Like Marriage

How Salvation is Like Marriage.

Excellent post on Catholic Stand blog!

The “I love you”s of Jesus in Nature

fall leaves: “When you see red leaves, remember that I love you to death. When you see orange, remember that I am burning with love for you. When you see yellow and gold, remember that you are as gold in My eyes. When you see brown, remember that nothing will stop Me from being there for you, not mangers, not the dirt of the Earth, not crosses, nothing.”

snow: “Never forget that you are My Bride.” (Isaiah 54:5)

crashing waves: “I simply can’t contain the power of My love for you! Listen to the whispers of My love.”

stars: “I give you diamonds like no other.”

moon: “When you see this shining white circle in the sky, remember that I shine in the Sacred Host just for you.”

thunder and lightning: “I am so fully charged with love for you that it just spills over. I just have to shout My love for you.”

flowers: “You’re even more beautiful to Me than this flower, and your fragrance is sweeter to Me than even this.”

singing birds: “I wrote this love song just for you.”

sunrise/sunset: “When you see red, remember that I would do anything for you. When see orange, remember that nothing can quench the fire of My love for you. When you see yellow or gold, remember that you are My sunshine. When you see pink or rose, remember that you are My “rose of Sharon” (Song of Solomon 2:1). When you see purple, remember that I come to you even in a chalice.”

green grass: “I have carpeted the Earth so that even your feet will be safe.”

rainbow: “I promise to always protect you.” (Genesis 9:12-15)

rain: “I will shower on you any graces you need. Just ask!”

clouds: “I will carry you as gently as I carry theses clouds.”

warm sunshine: “Feel the warmth of My embrace.”

soft breeze and rustling leaves: “Feel My gentle caress and listen to the whispers of My love.”

VALENTINE FROM THE LOVER OF YOUR SOUL

John 15:9 —  As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you; abide in my love.

 

I have loved you with an everlasting love;
    therefore I have continued my faithfulness to you. —  Jeremiah 31:3

 

John 16:27

for the Father himself loves you, because you have loved me and have believed that I came from the Father.

 

Revelation 3:9

Behold, I will make those of the synagogue of Satan….. come and bow down before your feet, and learn that I have loved you.

…the Lord your God turned the curse into a blessing for you, because the Lord your God loved you. —  Deuteronomy 23:5

 

Isaiah 43:4 

Because you are precious in my eyes, and honored, and I love you, I give men in return for you, peoples in exchange for your life.

Please pray for De Maria’s wife

Please pray for De Maria and his wife.

CatholicBibleTalk

She had a heart attack today.  She will have a procedure done tomorrow to give her a “stint”.

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Handy Tip

Many of you who read my blog are pretty familiar with blogs and have probably figured this out already, but for those of you haven’t:

The button in the top right corner of this window that looks something like this

is the menu button. Clicking it will reveal hidden pages you may enjoy, such as “About Grace Jezek” “Favorite Books” and “Favorite Movies”. These last two pages are often updated, as I find more awesome books and movies I just have to recommend.