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Our Lady, Protector of Ukraine, pray for peace.

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The Proper Way To Receive Holy Communion | Traditional Catholic Femininity 🌹🙏🌹

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* Taken from Simple Rosary Meditations by a Dominican Tertiary (London: Burns Oates & Washbourne, 1951).

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HOMILY for the Feast of the Holy Name of Jesus

Acts 4:8-12; Luke 2:21

These days after Christmas are especially beautiful because the Church’s Liturgy and her solemn feasts teach us the identity of the Babe of Bethlehem, the One who was laid in the manger. The Church does not allow for any sentimentality, nor are we merely to honour a generic mother and child, nor are we to bask in any premature triumph. Rather, the birth of this Child is followed, in the Church’s Liturgy, by the shedding of blood: St Stephen the protomartyr, the Holy Innocents, and St Thomas of Canterbury all shed their blood for Christ and for his Mystical Body, the Church, and they are commemorated in the Octave of Christmas. However, the holy martyrs all died for Christ because of who he uniquely is, and what he has accomplished for Mankind. 

Today’s Gospel shows us firstly what has been done for us: Christ is the One who has first shed his blood for the salvation of Mankind. For the first time, the infant Christ, just eight days old, shed his blood at his circumcision, and in doing so he inaugurated a new covenant between God and Man. Indeed, he himself is the new and eternal covenant, because in him God and Man are hypostatically united; he is the Lord God made flesh and dwelling among us!  

This is the wonder of the Incarnation, which results in a “sweet and marvellous exchange” that the Church’s Liturgy contemplates in these days of Christmastide. As St Thomas Aquinas says: “The only-begotten Son of God, wanting to make us sharers in his divinity, assumed our nature, so that he, made man, might make men gods”. The martyrs, therefore, willingly and lovingly shed their blood and die for Christ because they know that, united to him through grace, they now share in the divine nature which cannot die. Moreover, St Basil the Great said: “Just as the death which is in the flesh, transmitted to us through Adam, was swallowed up by the Godhead, so was the sin taken away by the righteousness which is in Christ Jesus”. 

Through the Incarnation, therefore, God has saved us from our sins and from the eternal death that humanity has deserved because of original and actual sin. Hence, at his circumcision, the Newborn Son of the Virgin is named ‘Jesus’, the name revealed by the angel Gabriel, and this name, in Hebrew, means: ‘God is salvation’, or ‘God saves’. Thus the holy name of Jesus tells us what God is doing for humanity in the person of Jesus Christ: Through Jesus, and Jesus alone, God himself is acting to save us from sin, from eternal death, and from the powers of hell. But God not only saves us, but he is, moreover humanity’s salvation because he changes our destiny. For through Jesus, and Jesus alone, God is acting to elevate our human natures, giving us Christ’s grace through the Sacraments and through a life of charity, so that we might be changed and become, no longer sinful men who think like the rest of the world, but rather men and women who think and behave like Christ. Hence St Gregory Nazianzen said: “Let us seek to be like Christ, because Christ also became like us: to become gods through him since he himself, through us, became a man. He took the worst upon himself to make us a gift of the best.”

Therefore, no matter what the world’s tyrants throw at a Christian martyr, no matter what is inflicted upon them, they willingly endure the worst and go to their death with this fundamental hope, a hope that we share because it is expressed in the Post-Communion prayer of today’s Mass: that our names are written in heaven, thanks to our faith in the saving Name of Jesus. Truly, God has made a gift of the best to us, giving us a share in his divine nature, a promise of heaven if we but trust in his holy name and call upon him. Hence the English martyrs of the Reformation period had a beautiful prayer which simply said: “Jesu, Jesu, Jesu, be to me Jesus”, meaning, be to me, salvation. For the name of Jesus is synonymous with our salvation, and the holy martyrs called upon his holy name with reverence and love, and in doing so, they confessed that Jesus is Lord, “true God from true God.” For only God can be our salvation; only God saves. So, to call upon Jesus as our salvation, to trust in the power of his holy name, is to acknowledge his divinity; it is to acknowledge his identity, and to profess belief in him as “God from God… consubstantial with the Father.”

All these lines from the Creed concerning the nature and identity of Jesus Christ, which we sing every Sunday, are densely expressed in the Church’s Liturgy at Christmastide, and particularly on this feast of the Holy Name. For St Peter declares in the reading we hear today that “there is salvation in no one else” other than Jesus Christ “for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.” (Acts 4:12) Therefore, when, in the Gospel, we recall that the angel reveals that the Virgin’s Son is to be called Jesus, and he sheds his blood at the circumcision, we are thus given to know that the Lord who saves all Mankind is none other than this Baby, this One whom all heaven and earth and all under the earth shall one day come to adore (cf Phil 2:10), as today’s entrance chant declares. So the Second Vatican Council taught: “God’s Word, by whom all things were made, was Himself made flesh so that as perfect man He might save all men and sum up all things in Himself… He it is Whom the Father raised from the dead, lifted on high and stationed at His right hand, making Him judge of the living and the dead.” (Gaudium et spes, 45)

On the back of the chasuble I am wearing today, therefore, you will see the Holy Name of Jesus, abbreviated in Greek. But in the centre of the Cross on the chasuble, there is the face of a martyr, the first martyr of the Dominican Order, called Peter of Verona. His presence is significant, not only because he points to all the martyrs who shed their blood for Christ, with faith in the saving power of Jesus. But, moreover, St Peter Martyr points to the importance of true faith in the identity and person of Jesus Christ; doctrine matters. 

For, as an Inquisitor, St Peter Martyr was, like all the first Dominicans, deeply opposed to the Albigensian heresy that denied the orthodox doctrine concerning the Incarnation of Christ.  Because of their wrong belief, these heretics denied the goodness of God’s created world; they denied the dignity and reverence due to the human body and advocated suicide and childlessness; they believed, erroneously, in a good God who they said created spiritual things, and an evil god that created material things. 

But, as we know, there is only one God who is Creator of all things, visible and invisible. And  the one God became Man for the sake of our salvation, hence there is only one name given to us under heaven by which we must be saved. So, the Second Person of the Holy Trinity, Jesus Christ, assumed our human nature and united it to himself, becoming for us Men the new and eternal covenant, a covenant that is indicated by the circumcision, and sealed by the shedding of his blood on the Cross, and ratified in the giving of his Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity in the Holy Mass. 

Therefore, when St Peter Martyr was struck down by an assassin he wrote on the dusty ground with his blood: “Credo in unum Deum”, the first words of the Creed, for in doing so, he professed with his life’s blood, the true Faith, the saving Faith, the necessary belief in who Jesus is, and in what he has done for us. For, as St Gregory Nazianzen says: “What has not been assumed has not been healed”. So, by assuming our humanity, by his Incarnation as Man, Jesus Christ our true God, has healed our sinful human natures: Jesus Christ has saved us from our sins, our turbulent emotions, our lusts and desires, our illness and griefs, and our mortality. Hence the Second Vatican Council rightly declared: “The Lord is the goal of human history, the focal point of the longings of history and of civilization, the centre of the human race, the joy of every heart and the answer to all its yearnings.” (ibid.) Therefore, as St Paul says, “at the name of Jesus [let] every knee… bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and [let] every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord” (Phil 2:10-11). For if we do not acknowledge him now in this lifetime, we shall certainly have to do so when he returns in glory to vindicate the faith of his martyrs, and to judge the living and the dead. (cf Apoc 6:10)

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The Meeting of Sts. Dominic and Francis of Assisi, 1435, Fra Angelico

Medium: panel,tempera

https://www.wikiart.org/en/fra-angelico/the-meeting-of-sts-dominic-and-francis-of-assisi-1435

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“The world offers you comfort. But you were not made for comfort. You were made for greatness.” — Benedict XVI

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Prayer which St. Vincent Ferrer recited over possessed persons, taken from St. Vincent Ferrer, His Life, Spiritual Teaching, and Practical Devotion

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“all generations shall call me blessed.” [Lk. 1:48]

(“me proclamarão bem-aventurada todas as gerações” [Lc. 1:48])

Japan (Japão)

Africa

Korea (Coréia)

India

Switzerland (Suíça)

England (Inglaterra)

Philippines (Filipinas)

China 

Amazon Rainforest (Amazônia)

I’ll just leave it here. <3 

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Incensation of the Altar According to the Ambrosian Rite at the Church of Sancta Maria ad Martyres (Pantheon) in Rome

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“Mary took a pound of costly ointment of pure nard and anointed the feet of Jesus and wiped his feet with her hair; and the house was filled with the fragrance of the ointment.”

— John 12:3

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I stan for his take bigtime

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Such a great and overwhelming truth.

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Things that will never be true:

1. You can be Catholic and pro-choice.

2. The Church can/will change doctrine.

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Today is the 50th anniversary of Humanae Vitae. from: https://patcrosscartoons.com/

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WHO IS HE?

In Genesis, He is the seed of the woman. In Exodus, He is the Passover Lamb. In Leviticus, He is our High Priest. In Numbers, He is pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night. In Deuteronomy, He is the prophet like unto Moses. In Joshua, He is the captain of our salvation. In Judges, He is our judge and lawgiver. In Ruth, He is our kinsman redeemer. In I and II Samuel, He is our trusted prophet. In Kings and Chronicles, He is our reigning king. In Erza, He is our faithful scribe. In Nehemiah, He is the rebuilder of the broken down walls of human life. In Ester, He is our Mordecai. In Job, He is our ever-living redeemer: “For I know my redeemer lives.” In Psalms, He is our shepherd. In Proverbs and Ecclesiastes, He is our wisdom. In Song of Solomon, He is the lover and the bridegroom. In Isaiah, He is the prince of peace. In Jeremiah, He is the righteous branch. In Lamentations, He is the weeping prophet. In Ezekiel, He is the wonderful four-faced man. In Daniel, He is the fourth man walking in the midst of the burning fiery furnaces of life. In Hosea, He is the husband forever married to the backslider. In Joel, He is the mighty baptizer in the Holy Ghost. In Amos, He is my burden bearer. In Obadiah, He is mighty to save. In Jonah, He is God’s great foreign missionary. In Micah, He is the messenger of beautiful feet. In Nahum, He is the avenger of God’s elect. In Habakkuk, He is God’s evangelist, crying, “Revive thy work in the midst of the years.” In Zephaniah, He is our Savior. In Haggai, He is the restorer of the lost heritage of Israel. In Zechariah, He is fountain opened up on the house of David for sin and uncleanness. In Malachi, He is the Son of Righteousness arisen with healing in His wings. In Matthew, He is the Messiah. In Mark, He is the wonder worker. In Luke, He is the Son of Man. In John, He is the Son of God. In Acts, He is the mighty baptizer in the Holy Ghost. In Romans, He is my justifier. In Corinthians, He is my sanctifier. In Galatians, He is the redeemer from the curse of the law. In Ephesians, He is the Christ of unsearchable riches. In Philippians, He is the God that supplies all my needs. In Colossians, He is the fullness of the godhead bodily. In I and II Thessalonians, He is my soon-coming King! In I and II Timothy, He is the mediator between God and man. In Tidus, He is my faithful pastor. In Philemon, He is the friend that sticketh closer than a brother. In Hebrews, He is the blood of the everlasting covenant. In James, He is our Great Physician, for “the prayer of faith shall save the sick.” In I and II Peter, He is my good shepherd. In I John, He is love. In II John, He is love.   In III John, He is love. In Jude, He is the Lord coming with 10,000 of His saints. In Revelation, He is King of Kings and Lord of Lords.

HE IS THE WORD OF GOD.

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Litany of Holy Father Dominic from Kyrie Eleison

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V. Behold a man without blame, a worshipper of God in truth, keeping himself clean from every evil work, and abiding still in his innocency. R. May he pray for all people, that their sins may be forgiven unto them.