Advent and Christmas Wisdom with St Alphonsus Liguori

Advent and Christmas Wisdom with St Alphonsus Liguori

15 December – Saturday of the Second week of Advent

The greatest sorrow of Jesus

“Consider Jesus, who revealed to the Venerable Agatha of the Cross, that which afflicted Him more than any other sorrow was hardness of the hearts of humanity.   This sorrow, was the bitter chalice that Jesus begged the Father to remove from Him, saying, “Let this chalice pass from me.  ” What chalice?   The contempt with which His love was treated. Our Lord revealed to St Catherine of Siena that this was the reason that He exclaimed from the cross, “My God, my God, why have You forsaken me?”

Knowing this sorrow, let us change our will, repent of our sins and resolve to love God. In this way, we shall then find peace, that is, the divine friendship that we seek.   We beg the Lord for the necessary grace to execute what we propose.   We call upon our Blessed Lady and ask that she not cease to pray until we are changed and made into what God wishes us to be.”

Scripture
“So also will the Son of Man suffer at their hands.”
Matthew 17:12b

Prayer (St Alphonsus)

“O my most amiable Jesus,
how much have I caused You to suffer?
In the future,
I will love You above all things,
ready to give up my life a thousand times,
in order to accomplish Your will.
Mary Holy Mother,
I beg your prayer and loving care.
Please help us all.
Amen”

Advent Action
Today’s Scriptures encourage us to look for the signs of Jesus, who will restore life to us. “Lord, help me see the signs of Your coming.   Let me not be blinded by the glare of business or the millions of lights in malls and on trees.   Rather, let me look for You in the small things of the day, with my heart longing for You.    “Christ dwelt for nine months in the tabernacle of Mary’s womb.   He dwells until the end of the ages in the tabernacle of the Church’s faith.   He will dwell forever, in the knowledge and love of each faithful soul.” [Blessed Isaac of Stella (c 1100-1170) Cistercian Monk]   Amen!”

“Now is the time to say to Jesus: 
“Lord, I have let myself be deceived;
in a thousand ways I have shunned Your love, 
yet here I am once more, 
to renew my covenant with You. 
I need you. 
Save me once again, Lord,
take me once more into 
Your redeeming embrace”.

Pope Francis – The Joy of the Gospel

Note:  I am unable to make images again.   I pray I may find a solution soon.

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Our Morning Offering – 15 December “Saturdays with Mary”

Our Morning Offering – 15 December – Saturday of the Second week of Advent

O Most Blessed and Sweet Virgin Mary
By St Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) Doctor of the Church

0 most blessed and sweet Virgin Mary,
Mother of God, filled with all tenderness,
Daughter of the most high King,
Lady of the Angels,
Mother of all the faithful,
On this day and all the days of my life,
I entrust to your merciful heart,
my body and my soul,
all my acts, thoughts, choices,
desires, words, deeds,
my entire life and death,
So that, with your assistance,
all may be ordered to the good
according to the will of your beloved Son,
our Lord Jesus Christ.
Amen

Thought for the Day – 14 December -Traces of the Divine Beauty in Creation

Thought for the Day – 14 December – The Memorial of St John of the Cross (1542-1591) Doctor of the Church

Traces of the Divine Beauty in Creation
From The Spiritual Canticle by Saint John of the Cross

“Created things in themselves, as Saint Augustine declares, give testimony to God’s grandeur and excellence.   For God created all things with remarkable ease and brevity and in them He left some trace of who He is, not only in giving all things being from nothing but even by endowing them, with innumerable graces and qualities, making them beautiful in a wonderful order and unfailing dependence on one another.  All of this He did through His own wisdom, the Word, His only begotten Son by whom He created them.

Saint Paul says:  The Son of God is the splendour of His glory and the image of His substance.   It should be known that only with this figure, His Son, did God look at all things, that is, He communicated to them their natural being and many natural graces and gifts and made them complete and perfect, as is said in Genesis:  God looked at all things that He made, and they were very good.   To look and behold that they were very good, was to make them very good in the Word, his Son.

Not only by looking at them did He communicate natural being and graces, as we said but also with this image of His Son alone, He clothed them in beauty by imparting to them supernatural being.   This He did when He became man and elevated human nature in the beauty of God and consequently all creatures, since in human nature He was united with them all.

Accordingly, the Son of God proclaimed:  If I be lifted up from the earth, I will elevate all things to me.   And in this elevation of all things through the incarnation of His Son and through the glory of His resurrection according to the flesh, the Father did not merely beautify creatures partially but rather, we can say, clothed them wholly in beauty and dignity.”

“Lord I am not worthy but only say the word and I shall be healed.”

St John of the Cross, Pray for Us!

Quotes of the Day – 14 December – St John of the Cross (1542-1591) Doctor of the Church

Quotes of the Day – 14 December – The Memorial of St John of the Cross (1542-1591) Doctor of the Church

“If a man wishes to be sure of the road
he treads on, he must close his eyes
and walk in the dark.”

“The road is narrow. 
He who wishes to travel it more easily 
must cast off all things and use the cross as his cane. 
In other words, he must be truly resolved 
to suffer willingly for the love of God in all things.”

“Live in the world,
as if only God and your soul were in it,
then your heart will never be made captive,
by any earthly thing.”

“O you souls who wish to go on
with so much safety and consolation,
if you knew how pleasing to God is suffering
and how much it helps in acquiring other good things,
you would never seek consolation in anything;
but you would rather look upon it,
as a great happiness to bear the Cross of the Lord.”

It is a matter of real sorrow when God has given us strength to break stronger fetters, those of vanity and sin, that we neglect our own progress and the attainment of such great blessings, because we will not detach ourselves from trifles. 
Not only do we not advance, we fall back. 
For it is well known, that on the spiritual road, not to go on overcoming self, is to go backwards and not to increase our gain, is to lose.
As wood can never be transformed into fire, if one necessary degree of heat is missing, so the soul, that has even one imperfection, can never be perfectly transformed in God.

“Happiness is not a destination,
it’s a method of travel.”

“We must dig deeply in Christ.
He is like a rich mine
with many pockets containing treasures –
however deep we dig,
we will never find their end or their limit.
Indeed, in every pocket new seams of fresh riches
are discovered on all sides.”

“At the end of your life,
you will be judged by your love.”

“Now that I no longer desire all,
I have it all, without desire.”

St John of the Cross (1542-1591) Doctor of the Church

Advent and Christmas Wisdom with St Alphonsus Liguori

Advent and Christmas Wisdom with St Alphonsus Liguori

14 December – Friday of the Second week of Advent

Jesus suffers so much in order to gain our hearts

“Consider that Jesus suffered for our love.   During His entire life, He had no other purpose than the glory of God and our salvation.   Even though He could have saved us without suffering, He chose to embrace a life of suffering. He was poor, despised and deprived of every comfort, with a death that was more desolate and bitter than any death ever endured by a martyr or penitent.   All of this, was done for the sole purpose of helping us understand the greatness of His love for us.

Saint Bonaventure exclaims, ‘It is a wonder to see a God endure such sufferings, shedding tears in a stable, poor in a workshop, languishing on a cross, in short afflicted and troubled His whole life, all because of His love for sinful humanity.'”

Scripture
“I am the Lord your God,
who teaches you to profit,
who leads you in the way you should go.”
Isaiah 48:17

Prayer (St Alphonsus)

“O sovereign God,
help me not to be ungrateful
for all that You have given me.
Help me to die in love with You.
Mary, my hope, help me.
Pray to Jesus for me.”

Advent Action
“O my Lord Jesus, whose love for me has been so great as to bring You down from heaven to save me, teach me, dear Lord, my sin—teach me its heinousness—teach me truly to repent of it—and pardon it in Your great mercy! I beg You, O my dear Saviour, to recover me! Your grace alone can do it. I cannot save myself. I cannot recover my lost ground. I cannot turn to You, I cannot please You, or save my soul without You. I shall go from bad to worse, I shall fall from You entirely, I shall quite harden myself against my neglect of duty, if I rely on my own strength. I shall make myself my centre instead of making it in You. I shall worship some idol of my own framing instead of You, the only true God and my Maker, unless You hinder it by Your grace. O my dear Lord, hear me! I have lived long enough in this undecided, wavering, unsatisfactory state. I wish to be Your good servant. I wish to sin no more. Be gracious to me and enable me to be what I know I ought to be.”…Blessed John Henry Newman (1801-1890)

Our Morning Offering – 14 December – O King of Gentleness

Our Morning Offering – 14 December – The Memorial of St John of the Cross (1542-1591) Doctor of the Church

O King of Gentleness
By St John of the Cross

O blessed Jesus,
give me stillness of soul in You.
Let Your mighty calmness reign in me.
Rule me, O King of Gentleness,
King of Peace.

Saint of the Day – 14 December – St John of the Cross OCD (1542-1591)

Saint of the Day – 14 December – St John of the Cross OCD (1542-1591)

John is a saint because his life was a heroic effort to live up to his name:  “of the Cross.” The folly of the cross came to full realisation in time.   “Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me” (Mark 8:34b) is the story of John’s life. The Paschal Mystery—through death to life—strongly marks John as reformer, mystic-poet and theologian-priest.

Ordained a Carmelite priest in 1567 at age 25, John met Teresa of Avila and like her, vowed himself to the primitive Rule of the Carmelites.   As partner with Teresa and in his own right, John engaged in the work of reform and came to experience the price of reform – increasing opposition, misunderstanding, persecution, imprisonment.   He came to know the cross acutely—to experience the dying of Jesus—as he sat month after month in his dark, damp, narrow cell with only his God.

Yet, the paradox!   In this dying of imprisonment John came to life, uttering poetry.   In the darkness of the dungeon, John’s spirit came into the Light.   There are many mystics, many poets – John is unique as mystic-poet, expressing in his prison-cross the ecstasy of mystical union with God in the Spiritual Canticle.

But as agony leads to ecstasy, so John had his Ascent to Mount Carmel, as he named it in his prose masterpiece.   As man-Christian-Carmelite, he experienced in himself this purifying ascent;  as spiritual director, he sensed it in others; as psychologist-theologian, he described and analysed it in his prose writings.   His prose works are outstanding in underscoring the cost of discipleship, the path of union with God – rigorous discipline, abandonment, purification.   Uniquely and strongly John underlines the gospel paradox: the cross leads to resurrection, agony to ecstasy, darkness to light, abandonment to possession, denial to self to union with God.   If you want to save your life, you must lose it.   John is truly “of the Cross.”   He died at 49—a life short, but full.

Full Biography here:  https://anastpaul.wordpress.com/2017/12/14/saint-of-the-day-14-december-1542-1591-doctor-of-the-church/