O Most Blessed Mother, heart of love, heart of mercy, ever listening, caring, consoling, hear our prayer. As your children, we implore your intercession with Jesus your Son. Receive with understanding and compassion the petitions we place before you today, especially those so deep in our heart.
We are comforted in knowing your heart is ever open to those who ask for your prayer. We trust to your gentle care and intercession, those whom we love and who are sick or lonely or hurting. Help all of us, Holy Mother, to bear our burdens in this life until we may share eternal life and peace with God forever.
Amen.
Deacon James Keating, PhD, the director of Theological Formation for the Institute for Priestly Formation, located at Creighton University, in Omaha, is making available to ”Discerning Hearts” and all who listen, his series of programs entitled “The Way of Mystery”.
The Vatican II documents remind us that the spiritual journey is not made in a vacuum, that God has chosen to save us, not individually, but as The People of God. The Eucharist must help Christians to make their choices by discerning out of Christ’s paschal mystery. For this process to take place, however, Christians must first understand how the Eucharist puts them in touch with Christ’s passion, death, and resurrection, and what concrete implications being in touch with this mystery has for their daily lives.
Episode 5 Praying with Scripture: Christian Contemplation and Meditation in the Ignatian tradition w/Fr. Timothy Gallagher
Fr. Gallagher continues to discuss the differences and benefits of meditation and contemplation – the cornerstones of Ignatius of Loyola’s spiritual practice.
Father Timothy M. Gallagher, O.M.V., was ordained in 1979 as a member of the Oblates of the Virgin Mary, a religious community dedicated to retreats and spiritual formation according to the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius. Fr. Gallagher is featured on the EWTN series “Living the Discerning Life: The Spiritual Teachings of St. Ignatius of Loyola”.
For more information on how to obtain copies of Fr. Gallaghers’s various books and audio which are available for purchase, please visit his website: frtimothygallagher.org
It was a delight to once again have a conversation with Vinny Flynn, who has authored “21 Ways to Worship: A Guide to Eucharistic Adoration”. Short and to the point, the meditations brought forward by Vinny are packed with aids to help us deepen our appreciation of this gift of the very presence of God. Possibly undervalued as an important spiritual practice, Eucharistic adoration is an essential spiritual encounter for those who wish to truly enter into this Year of Faith. Vinny’s work helps those who wish to begin this vital devotion, and deepens the experience for those who have been fed by this practice over the years. A don’t miss…buy one for yourself and one to leave in your church’s Eucharist Chapel for others to enjoy.
“Vinny Flynn played an important role in my life of worship when I came back to the Catholic church. His new work, 21 Ways To Worship, has something for everyone when it comes to developing a life of intimacy with God. This is what we are going to be doing for eternity, so now is the time to begin.” ~Jeff Cavins
“Vinny Flynn has done it again! With his fun, accessible, and faith-filled style, he gives us yet another key to unlocking the mystery of Christ’s Eucharistic love. This time, he shares the secrets to “keeping it real” before the Lord’s Real Presence. This book is more than just another devotional; it actually teaches us how to pray, and it does so in a way that’s holy, humorous, and human. Enjoy the book. Enjoy the Lord.” ~Fr. Michael Gaitley, MIC
Author, Consoling the Heart of Jesus and 33 Days to Morning Glory
In the minds of non-Catholics, Catholicism often conjures images of Catholic stuff: candles, crucifixes, rosaries, statues, holy water, oils,
and the like. These are called sacramentals—not to be confused with the seven sacraments, they are material items that the Lord uses as conduits of his blessing. Because of our belief in sacramentals, Catholics have sometimes been accused of practicing magic. But magic is the pagan or new age belief that an object has power in and of itself. Sacramentals are the Christian belief that the living and true God uses His creation as instruments of grace and healing.
Sacramentals appear all throughout the Scriptures. James speaks of anointing with oil.1 Acts of the Apostles tells us that Paul’s handkerchiefs brought healing power to those they touched.2In the Old Testament, Elisha’s bones were used to bring a dead man back to life.3
And of course the Gospels portray Our Lord himself often using water, mud or even his own spit to perform mighty works of healing and cleansing, a power which Jesus passed on to his priests to be continued to this day.4 Sacramentals are neither magic nor make believe, but powerful weapons to be utilized in our spiritual journeys.
1 – Js. 5:14
2 – Acts 19:11-12
3 – 2 Kgs. 13:21
4 – cf. Mt. 10:7-8; Lk. 10:18-20; Jn. 20:21-23, etc.
Jesus said to his disciples:
“The kingdom of heaven is like a treasure buried in a field,
which a person finds and hides again,
and out of joy goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.
Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant
searching for fine pearls.
When he finds a pearl of great price,
he goes and sells all that he has and buys it.
Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a net thrown into the sea,
which collects fish of every kind.
When it is full they haul it ashore
and sit down to put what is good into buckets.
What is bad they throw away.
Thus it will be at the end of the age.
The angels will go out and separate the wicked from the righteous
and throw them into the fiery furnace,
where there will be wailing and grinding of teeth.
“Do you understand all these things?”
They answered, “Yes.”
And he replied,
“Then every scribe who has been instructed in the kingdom of heaven
is like the head of a household
who brings from his storeroom both the new and the old.”
The Resilient Church with Mike Aquilina, offers a fascinating look at the trials and triumphs of the Catholic Church over the past two thousand years. Fast-paced sketches of critical periods in church history give readers perspective on the challenges faced by the church today. Mike Aquilina does not shrink from the realities of the past, including badly behaved leaders and those who betrayed the Lord. Yet he also leaves us all with well-founded hope for the future: God remains faithful in every circumstance and fulfills his promise to remain with his church always.
For the text of the Chaplet and other prayers, visit the Discerning Hearts St. Charbel Page
Memorial: 24 December
Son of a mule driver. Raised by an uncle who opposed the boy’s youthful piety. The boy’s favorite book was Thomas a Kempis’ The Imitation of Christ. At age 23 he snuck away to join the Baladite monastery of Saint Maron at Annaya, where he took the name Charbel in memory of a 2nd-century martyr. Professed his solemn vows in 1853. Ordained in 1859, becoming a hieromonk. He lived as a model monk but dreamed of living like the ancient desert fathers. Hermit from 1875 until his death 23 years later, living on the bare minimum of everything. Gained a reputation for holiness and was much sought for counsel and blessing. He had a great personal devotion to the Blessed Sacrament and was known to levitate during his prayers. He was briefly paralyzed for unknown reasons just before his death on Christmas Eve, 1898.
“…a hermit of the Lebanese mountain is inscribed in the number of the blessed, a new eminent member of monastic sanctity is enriching, by his example and his intercession, the entire Christian people. May he make us understand, in a world largely fascinated by wealth and comfort, the paramount value of poverty, penance and asceticism, to liberate the soul in its ascent to God…” Pope Paul VI, October 9, 1977
Born: 8 May 1828 at Beka-Kafra, Lebanon as Joseph Zaroun Makhlouf
Died: 24 December 1898 at Annaya of natural causes
Beatified: 1965 by Pope Paul VI
Canonized: 9 October 1977 by Pope Paul VI
Episode 17 -The Way of Mystery: The Eucharist and Moral Living
Mystical experiences and consoling prayer. Prayer is earnestly desired, because it is something we delight in. Also the prayer that will spontaneously occur. Another type of experience is the aspect of the sacramental encounter.
Deacon James Keating, PhD, the director of Theological Formation for the Institute for Priestly Formation, located at Creighton University, in Omaha, is making available to ”Discerning Hearts” and all who listen, his series of programs entitled “The Way of Mystery”.
The Vatican II documents remind us that the spiritual journey is not made in a vacuum, that God has chosen to save us, not individually, but as The People of God. The Eucharist must help Christians to make their choices by discerning out of Christ’s paschal mystery. For this process to take place, however, Christians must first understand how the Eucharist puts them in touch with Christ’s passion, death, and resurrection, and what concrete implications being in touch with this mystery has for their daily lives.
The celebrated English convert, John Henry Cardinal Newman, pointed out that the Catholic Church can be likened to a tiny acorn which grows into a tree—though it looks entirely different, it remains in its essence, the same thing. Likewise, a human grows from a tiny child to an adolescent through adulthood to old age, yet he remains the same person with the same DNA.
So too the Church grows and develops as the living Body of Christ. Of course, the Church of over one billion people today is not a mirror image of the relatively tiny Church in the first century Mediterranean we read about in the New Testament—nor should it be. The Church’s organization and outward forms are dynamic, not static, and must change to meet the needs of the age—yet the Church remains the same Church believing the same Faith.
The Church’s doctrine also grows and develops—never contradicting itself, but deepening with years of reflection and clarification. For instance, it was not until Christ’s divinity was denied that the Nicene Council gave us the Creed we profess each Sunday at Mass, which states precisely what we do and do not believe about our Lord. And so the grows the Church until the consummation of time.
