Feast of St. Andrew

When Andrew was led to the place of martyrdom, on beholding the cross from a distance he cried out: "O good Cross, so long desired and now set up for my longing soul I confident and rejoicing come to you; exultingly receive me, a disciple of Him who hung on you." Forthwith he was nailed to the cross. For two days he hung there alive, unceasingly proclaiming the doctrine of Christ until he passed on to Him whose likeness in death he had so vehemently desired. The legendary account of our saint's martyrdom has this value: it presents to us the mysticism of the Cross of later times.
–The Church’s Year of Grace

February Meeting

Date: Thursday, February 8

Time: 7:30 pm

Location: Archdiocese Vocations Office (map)

Topic: Service to the Poor

We will be joined by a couple Little Sisters of the Poor who will speak about serving the poor. They will also share some information about their community. There will also time for Q & A with the sisters. Please join us!!
Questions? Email us at: sttheresesociety@gmail.com!

For the Souls in Purgatory

My Jesus, by the sorrows Thou didst suffer in Thine agony in the garden, in Thy scourging & crowning with thorns, in the way to Calvary, in Thy crucifixion & death, have mercy on the souls in purgatory, and especially those that are most forsaken; do Thou deliver them from the dire torments they endure; call them & admit them to Thy most sweet embrace in paradise.

Our Father...

Hail Mary...

Eternal rest, grant unto them, O Lord; and let perpetual light shine upon them. May they rest in peace. Amen.

Prayer for the Holy Father on His Visit to Turkey

Heavenly Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth takes its name, we humbly ask that you sustain, inspire, & protect your servant, Pope Benedict XVI, as he goes on pilgrimage to Turkey – a land to which St. Paul brought the Gospel of your Son; a land where once the Mother of your Son, the Seat of Wisdom, dwelt; a land where faith in your Son’s true divinity was definitively professed. Bless our Holy Father, who comes as a messenger of truth & love to all people of faith & good will dwelling in this land so rich in history. In the power of the Holy Spirit, may this visit of the Holy Father bring about deeper ties of understanding, cooperation, & peace among Roman Catholics, the Orthodox, & those who profess Islam. May the prayers and events of these historic days greatly contribute both to greater accord among those who worship you, the living & true God, & also to peace in our world so often torn apart by war & sectarian violence.
We also ask, O Heavenly Father, that you watch over & protect Pope Benedict & entrust him to the loving care of Mary, under the title of Our Lady of Fatima, a title cherished both by Catholics & Muslims. Through her prayers & maternal love, may Pope Benedict be kept safe from all harm as he prays, bears witness to the Gospel, & invites all peoples to a dialogue of faith, reason, and love. We make our prayer through Christ, our Lord. Amen.
--Composed by Bishop William E. Lori

Sow Happiness

“Act in such a way that all who come in contact with you will go away joyful. Sow happiness about you because you have received much from God; give, then, generously to others. They should take leave of you with their hearts filled with joy, even if they have no more than touched the hem of your garment. Keep well in mind the words I am telling you right now.”
—From the Diary of St. Maria Faustina

Memorial of St. Cecilia

O Eternal God, Who gave us, in the person of St. Cecilia, a powerful protectress, grant that after having faithfully passed our days, like herself, in innocence and holiness, we may one day attain the land of beatitude, where in concert with her, we may praise You and bless You forevermore in eternity. Amen.

Memorial of the Presentation of Mary

God’s love always requires a continuous preparation of freedom on the part of the human being who receives it and today’s feast emphatically shows this preparation. The Blessed Virgin Mary, who is the one who makes the greatest response to the greatest invitation of grace in the history of the world is brought to the Temple by her parents at the age of three. They promised God if they could conceive that they would dedicate their child to the Lord, but they waited to this age before presenting her lest she miss her family.

The Presentation of Mary in the Temple is a most fitting feast to show our thanksgiving, solidarity and support for the cloistered life because all these important themes are united together in her presentation. She goes apart into the enclosure as it were to prepare herself in spousal love to be the Bride of Christ and the Mother of the Redeemer. She spends her time in contemplation nurturing the life of grace with which God will invite her to the singular response of being his mother. She prepares herself for a life long encounter with her Son and begins the long process of keeping everything and pondering them in her heart.

***

In the wonderment of her splendid intuition, Saint Therese of the Child Jesus declares: ‘I understood that the Church had a Heart and that this Heart was ablaze with love. I understood that Love alone enabled the Church’s members to act . . . Yes, I found my place in the Church . . . at the heart of the Church, my Mother, I will be Love’. (Verbi Sponsa, 7)
Cloistered religious are the heart of the Church because they truly show us the complete surrender and concentration of love. They are enclosed not because they have lost something, but because they have found Him.
On this feast of the Presentation of Mary, each member of the Church should look to the contemplatives to see an example of this spousal love for Christ after the example of Our Lady. Like her, we should open the door for Christ knocking there, invite Him to our house and rightly spend each day rejoicing in His presence.
--Fr. Brian Mullady, OP

Read some chapter of a devout book....It is very easy and most necessary, for just as you speak to God when at prayer, God speaks to you when you read.
-- St. Vincent de Paul

Memorial of St. Elizabeth of Hungary

“Adoration. This is a word from heaven. It seems to me that it could be defined as an ecstasy of love. It is love overwhelmed by the beauty, the strength, the immense grandeur of the Beloved. It falls into sort of a swoon, into a full deep silence, the silence that David spoke of when he cried out 'silence is thy praise.' And it is the most beautiful of all praise that is sung eternally in the bosom of the unchanging Trinity, and it is also the last effort of the soul as it overflows and can say no more."
—St. Elizabeth of Hungary

The Vocation of Marriage

The fundamental vocation of Christian married partners is to love one another as Christ has loved them. In the words of Lacordaire, they must each aim to be the other's "particular Christ." Their love, sealed by the sign of the Cross, looks to Christ on the Cross. Not only do they find here the model of the love they are called to have for one another; they are also made capable, by the crucified Christ himself, of having that love for each other, and of persevering in it through all difficulties and renewing it in spite of all failures. Their vocation is at the same time a wider one. Christ's love reaches out to all, and so the love of husband and wife reaches out to their children and beyond their children to their children's children and to the community. They become channels of Christ's love. The special vocation of married people is to show how the world can be made new by Christ's new commandment: "love one another as I have loved you" (John 15:12).
—Love is for Life: Pastoral Letter of the Irish Bishops, 1985

The more we pray, the more we wish to pray. Like a fish which at first swims on the surface of the water, and afterwards plunges down, and is always going deeper; the soul plunges, dives, and loses itself in the sweetness of conversing with God.
-- St. John Vianney

“From the moment of our baptism, God has a special plan for each of us. God calls us to life in Christ, in order that, with Christ, we may offer our whole life in love of God and our neighbor. At our confirmation, God strengthens and increases the life of the Holy Spirit within us, so that we will have the inspiration and strength to respond to God’s call. We are called to follow Christ in holiness of life. This is our vocation. We are called to follow Christ as a married person, a dedicated single person, a consecrated person or an ordained priest. These are the vocations by which we respond to the universal vocation to holiness of life. Whether God calls us to the married life, the dedicated single life, the consecrated life or the priesthood, He asks us to make the gift of our whole life. Others see Christ in us, most of all, through our faithful response to our vocation in life.”—Archbishop Burke, January 2005

Memorial of St. Francis Xavier Cabrini

There is a “diaspora,” a dispersion, even within ourselves. If Jesus were to ask me, as He did that poor demonic in the Gospel: “What is your name?” I too would have to reply: “My name is legion, for there are many of us. There are many of us as there are desires, plans and regrets which we harbor, each one different from and contrary to others which pull us in opposite directions. They literally dis-tract us, drag us apart. Virginity is a powerful aid to progress toward interior unity, in virtue of the fact that it enables us to live united to the Lord, and able to devote ourselves to Him “without distractions.” St. Augustine has written: “Through continence, in fact, we are gathered in and returned to the One, from which we have flowed out into many. For he loves You less who loves something else along with You, which he does not love for Your sake.”
This unity is what Jesus calls “purity of heart,” and it is realized most of all at the level of the will. It consists in wanting fewer and fewer things, until eventually one wants “one thing only”…that one thing being God.
--Raniero Cantalamessa, OFM Cap

On a Mission

“At the end of the Mass the deacon, or in his absence the priest, says to us 'Ite, Missa Est.' Our celebration is over. Go now to live and share with other people what we have received, heard, sung, meditated and prayed. The Mass sends us on mission.
The first duty which the Eucharistic celebration enjoins on us is to live the faith and share it with other people. Evangelization in the express form of proclamation of salvation in Jesus Christ is a priority. We must share with other people 'the supreme good of knowing Christ Jesus.' Every Catholic — priest, consecrated person or lay faithful — will do this according to that person's vocation and mission in the Church and in the world.
In the Eucharistic mystery our beloved Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ is giving us the inestimable gift of himself. He asks for our response. Shall we refuse to pay him back with love? May the Most Blessed Virgin Mary obtain for us the grace to respond with generosity, with constant faith, with heartfelt adoration and with apostolic dynamism.”
—Cardinal Arinze, Address at Westminster Cathedral, April 2006

Feast of the Dedication of St. John Lateran

“In the building of the Church, there must also be an altar. I think that if those of you, disposed & eager for prayer, offer petitions and prayers of supplication to God day & night, you will become the living stones for the altar which Jesus is building.
Consider what praise is ascribed to these stones which make up the altar. The lawgiver Moses said that the altar was to be made of stones, uncovered by iron. What are these stones? Perhaps those uncut & undefiled stones are the holy apostles, all making a single altar, because of their unity of mind and heart. For it was known that with one accord they opened their lips to pray: You Lord, know the hearts of all…
Let us strive to agree among ourselves and to have one mind and voice. May we never quarrel or act from vainglory. But may we remain united in belief and purpose. Then even we may hope to become stones fit for the altar.”
--Homily on Joshua by Origen, priest

Meeting Reminder

St. Therese Society Meeting!!

Thursday (Tomorrow!), 7:30 pm, Office of Vocations

FMI Here

Wait for the LORD with courage;
be stouthearted, and wait for the LORD.
~Psalm 27:14

The psalmist tells us to wait with courage, implying that there will be things which we will fear during our wait. Surely this is not a surprise to any of us; every day seems to bring with it some frustration, some worry. Yet what is our attitude towards these trials? What is our response? Let us ask the Lord for the resolve to continue on our way towards Heaven.

O Most Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of Mercy, at this most critical time, we entrust the United States of America to your loving care. Most Holy Mother, we beg you to reclaim this land for the glory of your Son. Overwhelmed with the burden of the sins of our nation, we cry to you from the depths of our hearts and seek refuge in your motherly protection. Look down with mercy upon us and touch the hearts of our people. Open our minds to the great worth of human life and to the responsibilities that accompany human freedom. Free us from the falsehoods that lead to the evil of abortion and threaten the sanctity of family life. Grant our country the wisdom to proclaim that God’s law is the foundation on which this nation was founded, and that He alone is the True Source of our cherished rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. O Merciful Mother, give us the courage to reject the culture of death and the strength to build a new Culture of Life.

“Brethren, let us follow that vocation by which we are called from life to the fountain of life. He is the fountain, not only of living water, but of eternal life. He is the fountain of light and spiritual illumination; for from him comes all these things: wisdom, life, and eternal light…Therefore, let us seek the fountain of light and life and the living water by despising what we see, by leaving the world and by dwelling in the highest heavens. Let us seek these things, and like rational and shrewd fish may we drink the living water which wells up to eternal life.”—St. Columban, abbot

Memorial of St. Martin de Porres

"The example of Martin’s life is ample evidence that we can strive for holiness & salvation as Christ Jesus has shown us: first, by loving God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind; and second, by loving your neighbor as yourself.
When Martin had come to realize that Christ Jesus suffered for us & that he carried our sins on his body to the cross, he would meditate with remarkable ardor and affection about Christ on the cross. Whenever he would contemplate Christ’s terrible torture he would be reduced to tears. He had an exception love for the great sacrament of the Eucharist and often spent long hours in prayer before the Blessed Sacrament. His desire was to receive the sacrament in communion as often as he could.
…He was tireless in his efforts to reform the criminal, and he would sit up with the sick to bring them comfort. For the poor he would provide food, clothing, and medicine…Common people responded by calling him 'Martin the charitable.'"
--Pope John XXIII at the Canonization of St. Martin de Porres

All Souls Day

We see that death is gain, life is loss…It was by the death of one man that the world was redeemed. Christ did not need to die if he did not want to, but he did not look on death as something to be despised, something to be avoided, and he could have found no better means to save us than by dying. Thus his death is life for all. We are sealed with the sign of his death; when we pray we preach his death; when we offer sacrifice we proclaim his death. His death is victory; his death is a sacred sign; each year his death is celebrated with solemnity by the whole world.
What more should we say about his death since we use this divine example to prove that it was death alone that won freedom from death, and death itself was its own redeemer? Death is then no cause for mourning, for it is the cause of mankind’s salvation. Death is not something o be avoided, for the Son of God did not think it beneath his dignity, nor did he seek to escape it.
--St. Ambrose, bishop

Feast of All Saints

Calling the saints to mind inspires, or rather arouses in us, above all else, a long to enjoy their company, so desirable in itself. We long to share in the citizenship of heaven, to dwell with the spirits of the blessed, to join the assembly of the patriarchs, the ranks of the prophets, the council of apostles, the great host of martyrs, the noble company of confessors and the choir of virgins. In short, we long to be united in happiness with all the saints…
Therefore, we should aim at attaining this glory with a wholehearted and prudent desire. That we may rightly hope and strive for such blessedness, we must above all seek the prayers of the saints. Thus, what is beyond our own powers to obtain will be granted through their intercession.
--St. Bernard