Sunday, January 3rd. Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to St Matthew 2,1-12.
Epiphany of the Lord
3 January 2021
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ
When Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, in the days of King
Herod, behold, magi from the east arrived in Jerusalem.
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint Matthew 2,1-12.
When Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, in the days of King Herod, behold, magi from the east arrived in Jerusalem,
saying, “Where is the newborn king of the Jews? We saw his star at its rising and have come to do him homage.”
When King Herod heard this, he was greatly troubled, and all Jerusalem with him.
Assembling all the chief priests and the scribes of the people, he inquired of them where the Messiah was to be born.
They said to him, “In Bethlehem of Judea, for thus it has been written through the prophet:
‘And you, Bethlehem, land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah; since from you shall come a ruler, who is to shepherd my people Israel.'”
Then Herod called the magi secretly and ascertained from them the time of the star’s appearance.
He sent them to Bethlehem and said, “Go and search diligently for the child. When you have found him, bring me word, that I too may go and do him homage.”
After their audience with the king they set out. And behold, the star that they had seen at its rising preceded them, until it came and stopped over the place where the child was.
They were overjoyed at seeing the star,
and on entering the house they saw the child with Mary his mother. They prostrated themselves and did him homage. Then they opened their treasures and offered him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh.
And having been warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they departed for their country by another way.
Copyright © Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, USCCB
©Evangelizo.org 2001-2020
Image: From Bible Hub
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THANK YOU
The Basilica of the National Shrine
The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops.
National Shrine
YOUTUBE
of
The Sunday Mass –
Epiphany of the Lord
3 January 2021
Celebrant & Homilist: Celebrant & Homilist: Reverend Robert Cilinski
East Choir: Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception Choir Cantor & Organist, Washington, D.C.
Epiphany of the Lord — St. Genevieve, VIRGIN
__________________________________________________________________________
ACT OF SPIRITUAL COMMUNION
My Jesus, I believe that You are present in the Blessed Sacrament.
I love You above all things and I desire You in my soul.
Since I cannot now receive You sacramentally,
Come at least spiritually into my heart.
As though You were already there,
I embrace You and unite myself wholly to You;
Permit not that I should ever be separated from You. Amen.
___________________________________________________________________________
Epiphany of the Lord
3 January 2021
Commentary of the day
“They prostrated themselves and offered their gifts” (Mt 2:11)
[On the feast of the Epiphany], moved (…) by the example of the blessed Magi, Gertrude rose up in the fervor of her spirit and prostrated herself with very humble devotion at the most holy feet of the Lord Jesus, worshiping in the name of all that is in the heaven, on earth and in the underworld (cf. Phil 2:10).
And, failing to find a gift she might worthily offer him, she began to traverse the whole world in her anxious desire, seeking amongst every creature whether she could find one worthy of being offered to her only love. Running like this, hot and breathing heavily in the thirst of her ardent fervor, she found despicable things that any creature would have wisely rejected, unworthy of being offered to the praise and glory of the Savior. But she, eagerly seizing hold of them, tried hard to restore them to Him whom all created things should uniquely serve.
Thus she drew into her heart, thanks to her fervent desire, all the pain, fear, grief and anguish that a creature might ever have borne, not for the glory of the Creator but through its own fault and weakness. And she offered them to the Lord like a precious myrrh. Secondly, she drew to herself all the feigned holiness and affected devotion of the hypocrites, Pharisees, heretics and those like them. And she offered it to God in the same way like a very sweet incense. Thirdly, she tried hard to draw into her heart all the feelings of human tenderness and unnatural, impure love of all creatures. And she offered it to the Lord as though it were precious gold.
All these things, then, were gathered together in her heart. But the loving desire, like a blazing fire, with which she tried hard to make a complete homage to her beloved from them, cleansed them of all rust just as gold is purified in the furnace, and they appeared like a noble and wonderful gift for the Lord. The desire to please him in every way, as witnessed by these offerings, brought unsurpassable delights to the Lord, as though he had been treated with presents that were extraordinarily rare.
©Evangelizo.org 2001-2019
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Epiphany of the Lord
3 January 2021
Epiphany of the Lord
THE EPIPHANY OF THE LORD
Solemnity
The Epiphany is the manifestation of Jesus as Messiah of Israel, Son of God and Saviour of the world. The great feast of Epiphany celebrates the adoration of Jesus by the wise men (magi) from the East, together with his baptism in the Jordan and the wedding feast at Cana in Galilee.
In the magi, representatives of the neighbouring pagan religions, the Gospel sees the first-fruits of the nations, who welcome the good news of salvation through the Incarnation. the magi’s coming to Jerusalem in order to pay homage to the king of the Jews shows that they seek in Israel, in the messianic light of the star of David, the one who will be king of the nations.
Their coming means that pagans can discover Jesus and worship him as Son of God and Saviour of the world only by turning towards the Jews and receiving from them the messianic promise as contained in the Old Testament. The Epiphany shows that “the full number of the nations” now takes its “place in the family of the patriarchs”(St. Leo the Great, Sermo 3 in epiphania Domini) and “acquires Israelitica dignitas” (Roman Missal, Easter Vigil, Prayer after the third reading) is made “worthy of the heritage of Israel”.
Catechism of the Catholic Church, § 528 –
Copyright © Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, USCCB
©Evangelizo.org 2001-2019
Image: From Bible Hub
___________________________________________________________________________
Epiphany of the Lord
3 January 2021
Saint of the day
St. Genevieve
VIRGIN
(C. 422 – 512)
SAINT GENEVIEVE
Virgin
(c. 422-512)
Genevieve was born at Nanterre, near Paris. St. Germanus, when passing through, specially noticed a little shepherdess, and predicted her future sanctity. At seven years of age she made a vow of perpetual chastity.
After the death of her parents, Paris became her abode; but she often travelled on works of mercy, which, by the gifts of prophecy and miracles, she unfailingly performed. At one time she was cruelly persecuted: her enemies, jealous of her power, called her a hypocrite and tried to drown her; but St. Germanus having sent her some blessed bread as a token of esteem, the outcry ceased, and ever afterwards she was honored as a Saint.
During the siege of Paris by Childeric, king of the Franks, Genevieve went out with a few followers and procured corn for the starving citizens. Nevertheless Childeric, though a pagan, respected her, and at her request spared the lives of many prisoners. By her exhortations again, when Attila and his Huns were approaching the city, the inhabitants, instead of taking flight, gave themselves to prayer and penance, and averted, as she had foretold, the impending scourge. Clovis, when converted from paganism by his holy wife, St. Clotilda, made Genevieve his constant adviser, and, in spite of his violent character, made a generous and Christian king. She died within a few weeks of that monarch, in 512, aged eighty-nine.
A pestilence broke out at Paris in 1129, which in a short time swept off fourteen thousand persons, and, in spite of all human efforts, daily added to its victims. At length, on November 26th, the shrine of St. Genevieve was carried in solemn procession through the city. That same day but three persons died, the rest recovered, and no others were taken ill. This was but the first of a series of miraculous favors which the city of Paris has obtained through the relics of its patron Saint.
©Evangelizo.org 2001-2019
______________________________________________________________________________
FRANCIS XAVIER SAMSEN
HAPPY JESUS TO ALL
FROM
FRANCIS XAVIER, SAMSEN
THAILAND
________________________________________________________________
Thankyou:
Christmas Channel
Best Nonstop Christmas Songs Medley 2021 🎅 🌲Top Christmas Songs Playlist 2021
___________________________________________________________
Christmas in Vienna
2008(HD)
THANK YOU
Christmas in Vienna” with international soloists such as
Elina Garanča and Juan Diego Flórez
at the Wiener Konzerthaus 2008
______________________________________________
Christmas Non Stop Songs 2019
•Nov 13, 2018
THANK YOU :
Christmas Non Stop Songs 2019
________________________________________________________________
London Symphony Orchestra –
Christmas Classics
(Full Album)
Thank you:
TAM TAM MUSIC
Thank you
London Symphony Orchestra –
_____________________________________________________
MERRY CHRISTMAS
and
A HAPPY NEW YEAR
TO ALL
___________________________________________________
MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL
___________________________________________________
“This is my commandment:
love one another as I love you.”
###########################
Friday, January 1st, Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to St Luke 2,16-21.
Mary, Mother of God – Solemnity
1 January 2021
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ
The shepherds went in haste to Bethlehem and found Mary and Joseph,
and the infant lying in the manger.
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint Luke 2,16-21.
The shepherds went in haste to Bethlehem and found Mary and Joseph, and the infant lying in the manger.
When they saw this, they made known the message that had been told them about this child.
All who heard it were amazed by what had been told them by the shepherds.
And Mary kept all these things, reflecting on them in her heart.
Then the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen, just as it had been told to them.
When eight days were completed for his circumcision, he was named Jesus, the name given him by the angel before he was conceived in the womb.
Copyright © Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, USCCB
©Evangelizo.org 2001-2019
Image: From Bible Hub
###################################################
THANK YOU
National Catholic Broadcasting Council
Daily TV Mass
YouTube
For
Celebrates Daily TV Mass from Loretto Abbey in Toronto,
Ontario, Canada.
by
Fr. Dan Donovan
Catholic Mass Today | Daily TV Mass,
Mary, Mother of God , January 1 2021
Mary, Mother of God – Solemnity
___________________________________________________________________________
ACT OF SPIRITUAL COMMUNION
My Jesus, I believe that You are present in the Blessed Sacrament.
I love You above all things and I desire You in my soul.
Since I cannot now receive You sacramentally,
Come at least spiritually into my heart.
As though You were already there,
I embrace You and unite myself wholly to You;
Permit not that I should ever be separated from You. Amen.
_______________________________________________________________________________________
Mary, Mother of God – Solemnity
1 January 2021
Called children of Mary
Is not Mary the Mother of Christ? Then she is our Mother also. And we must in truth hold that Christ, the Word made Flesh, is also the Savior of mankind. He had a physical body like that of any other man: and again as Savior of the human family, he had a spiritual and mystical body, the society, namely, of those who believe in Christ. “We are many, but one sole body in Christ” (Rom. xii., 5). Now the Blessed Virgin did not conceive the Eternal Son of God merely in order that He might be made man taking His human nature from her, but also in order that by means of the nature assumed from her He might be the Redeemer of men. For which reason the Angel said to the Shepherds: “To-day there is born to you a Savior who is Christ the Lord” (Luke 2:11). Wherefore in the same holy bosom of his most chaste Mother Christ took to Himself flesh, and united to Himself the spiritual body formed by those who were to believe in Him.
Hence Mary, carrying the Savior within her, may be said to have also carried all those whose life was contained in the life of the Savior. Therefore all we who are united to Christ, and as the Apostle says are members of His body, of His flesh, and of His bones (Eph 5:30), have issued from the womb of Mary like a body united to its head. Hence, though in a spiritual and mystical fashion, we are all children of Mary, and she is Mother of us all. (…)
If then the most Blessed Virgin is the Mother at once of God and men, who can doubt that she will work with all diligence to procure that Christ, Head of the Body of the Church (Col 1:18), may transfuse His gifts into us, His members, and above all that of knowing Him and living through Him (I John 4:9)?
ⒸEvangelizo.org 2001-2019
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Mary, Mother of God – Solemnity
1 January 2021
Solemnity
Mary, Mother of God
MARY, MOTHER OF GOD
O marvelous exchange!
Man’s Creator has become man,
born of a virgin.
We have been made sharers in the divinity of Christ
who humbled himself to share in our humanity.
Mary has given birth to a King
whose name is everlasting ;
hers the joy of motherhood,
hers the virgin’s glory.
Never was the like seen before,
never shall it be seen again, alleluia.
By your miraculous birth of the Virgin
you have fulfilled the Scriptures :
like a gentle rain falling upon the earth
you have come down to save your people.
O God, we praised you.
Christian Prayer : The Liturgy of the Hours; Daughters of St. Paul * St. Paul Editions * 1976
©Evangelizo.org 2001-2017
_____________________________________________________________________________
FRANCIS XAVIER SAMSEN
HAPPY JESUS TO ALL
FROM
FRANCIS XAVIER, SAMSEN
THAILAND
________________________________________________________________
Thankyou:
Christmas Channel
Best Nonstop Christmas Songs Medley 2021 🎅 🌲Top Christmas Songs Playlist 2021
___________________________________________________________
Christmas in Vienna
2008(HD)
THANK YOU
Christmas in Vienna” with international soloists such as
Elina Garanča and Juan Diego Flórez
at the Wiener Konzerthaus 2008
______________________________________________
Christmas Non Stop Songs 2019
•Nov 13, 2018
THANK YOU :
Christmas Non Stop Songs 2019
________________________________________________________________
London Symphony Orchestra –
Christmas Classics
(Full Album)
Thank you:
TAM TAM MUSIC
Thank you
London Symphony Orchestra –
_____________________________________________________
MERRY CHRISTMAS
and
A HAPPY NEW YEAR
TO ALL
___________________________________________________
MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL
___________________________________________________
“This is my commandment:
love one another as I love you.”
###########################
_____________________________________________________________________________
Thursday, December 31st. Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to St John 1,1-18.
The Seventh Day in the Octave of Christmas
31 December 2020
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ
No one has ever seen God. The only Son, God,
who is at the Father’s side, has revealed him.
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint John 1,1-18.
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
He was in the beginning with God.
All things came to be through him, and without him nothing came to be. What came to be
through him was life, and this life was the light of the human race;
the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.
A man named John was sent from God.
He came for testimony, to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him.
He was not the light, but came to testify to the light.
The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world.
He was in the world, and the world came to be through him, but the world did not know him.
He came to what was his own, but his own people did not accept him.
But to those who did accept him he gave power to become children of God, to those who believe in his name,
who were born not by natural generation nor by human choice nor by a man’s decision but of God.
And the Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us, and we saw his glory, the glory as of the Father’s only Son, full of grace and truth.
John testified to him and cried out, saying, “This was he of whom I said, ‘The one who is coming after me ranks ahead of me because he existed before me.'”
From his fullness we have all received, grace in place of grace,
because while the law was given through Moses, grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.
No one has ever seen God. The only Son, God, who is at the Father’s side, has revealed him.
Copyright © Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, USCCB
©Evangelizo.org 2001-2019
Image: From Bible Hub
###################################################
THANK YOU
National Catholic Broadcasting Council
Daily TV Mass
YouTube
For
Celebrates Daily TV Mass from Loretto Abbey in Toronto,
Ontario, Canada.
by
Fr. Francis Salasiar, CSC
Catholic Mass Today | Daily TV Mass,
The Seventh Day in the Octave of Christmas , December 31 2020
St. Sylvester I, POPE
___________________________________________________________________________
ACT OF SPIRITUAL COMMUNION
My Jesus, I believe that You are present in the Blessed Sacrament.
I love You above all things and I desire You in my soul.
Since I cannot now receive You sacramentally,
Come at least spiritually into my heart.
As though You were already there,
I embrace You and unite myself wholly to You;
Permit not that I should ever be separated from You. Amen.
_________________________________________________________________________
The Seventh Day in the Octave of Christmas
31 December 2020
Commentary of the day
God is on earth, man is in heaven
God, who gave being to all that is, at the same time united all things together in his providence. Being master, he became a servant (cf, Phil 2:6-7), and so revealed to the world the depth of his providence. God the Word, in becoming incarnate while remaining unchanged, was united through his flesh with the whole of creation.
There is a new wonder in heaven and on earth: God is on earth and man is in heaven. He united men and angels so as to bestow deification on all creation. The knowledge of the holy and coessential Trinity is the sanctification and deification of men and angels. (…) When, in his compassion for man, the Word became flesh (cf. Jn 1:14), he changed neither what he was nor what he became.
Just as we speak of the one Christ as being “from Godhead” and “from manhood” and “in Godhead” and “in manhood”, so we speak of him as being “from two natures” and “in two natures”. (…) Jesus is the Christ, one of the Holy Trinity. You are destined to be his heir (cf. Rm 8:17).
©Evangelizo.org 2001-2019
____________________________________________________________
The Seventh Day in the Octave of Christmas
31 December 2020
Saint of the day
St. Sylvester I
POPE,
(+ 335)
SAINT SYLVESTER
Pope
(? – 335)
Sylvester was born in Rome toward the close of the third century.
He was a young priest when the persecution of the Christians broke out under the tyrant Diocletian. Idols were erected at the corners of the streets, in the market-places, and over the public fountains, so that it was scarcely possible for a Christian to go abroad without being put to the test of offering sacrifice, with the alternative of apostasy or death. During this fiery trial, Sylvester strengthened the confessors and martyrs, God preserving his life from many dangers.
In 312 a new era set in. Constantine, having triumphed under the “standard of the Cross,” declared himself the protector of the Christians, and built them splendid churches. At this juncture Sylvester was elected to the chair of Peter, and was thus the first of the Roman Pontiffs to rule the flock of Christ in security and peace. He profited by these blessings to renew the discipline of the Church, and in two great Councils confirmed her sacred truths. In the Council of Arles he condemned the schism of the Donatists; and in that of Nicæa, the first general Council of the Church, he dealt Arianism its death-blow by declaring that Jesus Christ is the true and very God.
Sylvester died AD 335.
©Evangelizo.org 2001-2019
__________________________________________________________________________
FRANCIS XAVIER SAMSEN
HAPPY JESUS TO ALL
FROM
FRANCIS XAVIER, SAMSEN
THAILAND
________________________________________________________________
Thankyou:
Christmas Channel
Best Nonstop Christmas Songs Medley 2021 🎅 🌲Top Christmas Songs Playlist 2021
___________________________________________________________
Christmas in Vienna
2008(HD)
THANK YOU
Christmas in Vienna” with international soloists such as
Elina Garanča and Juan Diego Flórez
at the Wiener Konzerthaus 2008
______________________________________________
Christmas Non Stop Songs 2019
•Nov 13, 2018
THANK YOU :
Christmas Non Stop Songs 2019
________________________________________________________________
London Symphony Orchestra –
Christmas Classics (Full Album)
Thank you:
TAM TAM MUSIC
Thank you
London Symphony Orchestra –
_____________________________________________________
MERRY CHRISTMAS
and
A HAPPY NEW YEAR
TO ALL
___________________________________________________
MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL
___________________________________________________
“This is my commandment:
love one another as I love you.”
###########################
Tuesday, December 29th. Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to St Luke 2,22-35.
The Fifth Day in the Octave of Christmas
29 December 2020
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ
“Behold, this child is destined for the fall and rise of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be
contradicted (and you yourself a sword will pierce) so that the
thoughts of many hearts may be revealed.”
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint Luke 2,22-35.
When the days were completed for their purification according to the law of Moses, Mary and Joseph took Jesus up to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord,
just as it is written in the law of the Lord, “Every male that opens the womb shall be consecrated to the Lord,”
and to offer the sacrifice of “a pair of turtledoves or two young pigeons,” in accordance with the dictate in the law of the Lord.
Now there was a man in Jerusalem whose name was Simeon. This man was righteous and devout, awaiting the consolation of Israel, and the holy Spirit was upon him.
It had been revealed to him by the holy Spirit that he should not see death before he had seen the Messiah of the Lord.
He came in the Spirit into the temple; and when the parents brought in the child Jesus to perform the custom of the law in regard to him,
he took him into his arms and blessed God, saying:
Now, Master, you may let your servant go in peace, according to your word,
for my eyes have seen your salvation,
which you prepared in sight of all the peoples,
a light for revelation to the Gentiles, and glory for your people Israel.”
The child’s father and mother were amazed at what was said about him;
and Simeon blessed them and said to Mary his mother, “Behold, this child is destined for the fall and rise of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be contradicted (and you yourself a sword will pierce) so that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed.”
Copyright © Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, USCCB
©Evangelizo.org 2001-2019
Image: From Bible Hub
###################################################
THANK YOU
National Catholic Broadcasting Council
Daily TV Mass
YouTube
For
Celebrates Daily TV Mass from Loretto Abbey in Toronto,
Ontario, Canada.
by
Fr. Francis Salasiar, CSC
Catholic Mass Today | Daily TV Mass,
The Fifth Day in the Octave of Christmas , December 29 2020
St. Thomas Becket, BISHOP AND MARTYR
___________________________________________________________________________
ACT OF SPIRITUAL COMMUNION
My Jesus, I believe that You are present in the Blessed Sacrament.
I love You above all things and I desire You in my soul.
Since I cannot now receive You sacramentally,
Come at least spiritually into my heart.
As though You were already there,
I embrace You and unite myself wholly to You;
Permit not that I should ever be separated from You. Amen.
_______________________________________________________________________
The Fifth Day in the Octave of Christmas
29 December 2020
Commentary of the day
“Now, Master, you may let your servant go in peace”
“The kingdom of God is at hand” (Lk 21:31). The kingdom of God, beloved brethren, has begun to be at hand; the reward of life and the joy of eternal salvation and perpetual happiness and the possession of paradise once lost are now coming with the passing of the world; now the things of heaven are succeeding those of earth; great things, small, and eternal things, transitory. What place is there here for anxiety and worry? (…)
It is written that “the just man lives by faith” (Rm 1:17). If you are just and live by faith, if you truly believe in Jesus Christ, why do you, who are destined to be with Christ and secure in the promise of the Lord, not rejoice that you are called to Christ (…)? Take the example of Simeon, the just man who was truly just, who with full faith kept the commandments of God: when the answer had been given him from heaven that he would not die before he had seen Christ, and when Christ as an infant had come into the temple with His mother, he knew in spirit that Christ was now born, concerning whom it had been foretold to him before, and on seeing him he knew that he himself would quickly die.
Happy, therefore, at the death that was now at hand and untroubled at the approaching summons, he took the child into his hands and, blessing God, he cried out and said: “Now, Master, you may let your servant go in peace, according to your word, for my eyes have seen your salvation.” Thus he proved surely and bore witness that the servants of God have peace, they have a free and tranquil repose when, on being released from the storms of this world, they have sought the harbor of our abode and eternal security (…) For that is our peace, that is our sure tranquility, that our steadfast and firm and everlasting security.
©Evangelizo.org 2001-2019
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The Fifth Day in the Octave of Christmas
29 December 2020
Saint of the day
St. Thomas Becket
BISHOP AND MARTYR
(† 1170)
SAINT THOMAS OF CANTERBURY
Bishop and martyr
(c. 1118-1170)
St. Thomas, son of Gilbert Becket, was born in Southwark, England, in 1117. When a youth he was attached to the household of Theobald, Archbishop of Canterbury, who sent him to Paris and Bologna to study law.
He became Archdeacon of Canterbury, then Lord High Chancellor of England; and in 1160, when Archbishop Theobald died, the king insisted on the consecration of St. Thomas in his stead. St. Thomas refused, warning the king that from that hour their friendship would be broken. In the end he yielded, and was consecrated. The conflict at once broke out; St. Thomas resisted the royal customs, which violated the liberties of the Church and the laws of the realm.
After six years of contention, partly spent in. exile, St. Thomas, with full foresight of martyrdom before him, returned as a good shepherd to his Church. On the 29th of December, 1170, just as vespers were beginning, four knights broke into the cathedral, crying: “Where is the archbishop? where is the traitor?” The monks fled, and St. Thomas might easily have escaped. But he advanced, saying: “Here I am—no traitor, but archbishop. What seek you?” “Your life,” they cried. “Gladly do I give it,” was the reply; and bowing his head, the invincible martyr was hacked and hewn till his soul went to God.
Six months later Henry II. submitted to be publicly scourged at the Saint’s shrine, and restored to the Church her full rights.
©Evangelizo.org 2001-2019
__________________________________________________________________________
FRANCIS XAVIER SAMSEN
HAPPY JESUS TO ALL
FROM
FRANCIS XAVIER, SAMSEN
THAILAND
________________________________________________________________
Thankyou: Christmas Channel
Best Nonstop Christmas Songs Medley 2021 🎅 🌲Top Christmas Songs Playlist 2021
___________________________________________________________
Christmas in Vienna
2008(HD)
THANK YOU
Christmas in Vienna” with international soloists such as
Elina Garanča and Juan Diego Flórez
at
the Wiener Konzerthaus 2008
______________________________________________
Christmas Non Stop Songs 2019
•Nov 13, 2018
THANK YOU :
Christmas Non Stop Songs 2019
________________________________________________________________
MERRY CHRISTMAS
and
A HAPPY NEW YEAR
TO ALL
___________________________________________________
MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL
___________________________________________________
“This is my commandment:
love one another as I love you.”
###########################
Sunday, December 27th. Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to St Luke 2,22-40.
The Holy Family – Feast
27 December 2020
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ
“Now, Master, you may let your servant go in peace,
according to your word, for my eyes have seen your salvation,”
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint Luke 2,22-40.
When the days were completed for their purification according to the law of Moses, Mary and Joseph took Jesus up to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord,
just as it is written in the law of the Lord, “Every male that opens the womb shall be consecrated to the Lord,”
and to offer the sacrifice of “a pair of turtledoves or two young pigeons,” in accordance with the dictate in the law of the Lord.
Now there was a man in Jerusalem whose name was Simeon. This man was righteous and devout, awaiting the consolation of Israel, and the holy Spirit was upon him.
It had been revealed to him by the holy Spirit that he should not see death before he had seen the Messiah of the Lord.
He came in the Spirit into the temple; and when the parents brought in the child Jesus to perform the custom of the law in regard to him,
he took him into his arms and blessed God, saying:
Now, Master, you may let your servant go in peace, according to your word,
for my eyes have seen your salvation,
which you prepared in sight of all the peoples,
a light for revelation to the Gentiles, and glory for your people Israel.”
The child’s father and mother were amazed at what was said about him;
and Simeon blessed them and said to Mary his mother, “Behold, this child is destined for the fall and rise of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be contradicted
(and you yourself a sword will pierce) so that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed.”
There was also a prophetess, Anna, the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Asher. She was advanced in years, having lived seven years with her husband after her marriage,
and then as a widow until she was eighty-four. She never left the temple, but worshiped night and day with fasting and prayer.
And coming forward at that very time, she gave thanks to God and spoke about the child to all who were awaiting the redemption of Jerusalem.
When they had fulfilled all the prescriptions of the law of the Lord, they returned to Galilee, to their own town of Nazareth.
The child grew and became strong, filled with wisdom; and the favor of God was upon him.
Copyright © Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, USCCB
©Evangelizo.org 2001-2019
Image: From Bible Hub
####################################
THANK YOU
The Basilica of the National Shrine
The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops.
National Shrine
YOUTUBE
of
The Sunday Mass –
The Holy Family – Feast
27 December 2020
Celebrant & Homilist: Celebrant & Homilist: Reverend Andrew Fisher
East Choir: Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception Choir Cantor & Organist, Washington, D.C.
The Holy Family – Feast — St. John, APOSTLE AND EVANGELIST
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ACT OF SPIRITUAL COMMUNION
My Jesus, I believe that You are present in the Blessed Sacrament.
I love You above all things and I desire You in my soul.
Since I cannot now receive You sacramentally,
Come at least spiritually into my heart.
As though You were already there,
I embrace You and unite myself wholly to You;
Permit not that I should ever be separated from You. Amen.
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The Holy Family – Feast
27 December 2020
Commentary of the day
“They returned to Galilee, to their own town of Nazareth”
You can pray to the Holy Family for your own family: Our Father, who art in heaven, you have given us a model of life in the Holy Family of Nazareth.
Help us, most loving Father, to make a new Nazareth of our own families, where joy and peace will reign. May it be deeply contemplative, fervently eucharistic and joyfully vibrant.
Help us to stay together through good and ill thanks to our praying as a family. Teach us to encounter Jesus in every member of our own families, especially those who suffer and are wounded.
May the eucharistic Heart of Jesus make our hearts as meek and humble as his (Mt 11:29). Help us to fulfill our vocation as a family in holiness.
May we love one another as God loves each one of us more and more every day, and forgive each other’s faults as you forgive our sins.
Most loving Father, help us to accept all you give to us and give all you take from us with a big smile. Immaculate heart of Mary, cause of our joy, pray for us.
Holy Guardian Angels be always with us, guiding us and protecting us. Amen.
©Evangelizo.org 2001-2019
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The Holy Family – Feast
27 December 2020
The Holy Family of Jesus,
Mary, and Joseph –
Feast
The Holy Family
of
Jesus, Mary, and Joseph
(Feast)
The home of Nazareth is the school where we begin to understand the life of Jesus — the school of the Gospel. First, then, a lesson of silence. May esteem for silence, that admirable and indispensable condition of mind, revive in us…
A lesson on family life. May Nazareth teach us what family life is, its communion of love, its austere and simple beauty, and its sacred and inviolable character…
A lesson of work. Nazareth, home of the Carpenter’s Son,” in you I would choose to understand and proclaim the severe and redeeming law of human work.” — (Paul VI at Nazareth, January 5, 1964)
The Holy Family models for us what family life should exemplify. It is a school of virtue for both parents and children. There we find God, and learn how to connect with God and with others. The family is where love is freely given without self-interest. It is where we learn to love, to pray and to practice the gift of charity.
Pope John Paul II has said, “The family, more than any other human reality, is the place in which the person is loved for himself and in which he learns to live the sincere gift of self”.
©Evangelizo.org 2001-2016
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The Holy Family – Feast
27 December 2020
Saint of the day
St. John
APOSTLE AND EVANGELIST
(FEAST)
SAINT JOHN
Apostle and Evangelist
(† c. 100)
Feast
St. John, the youngest of the apostles in age, was son of Zebedee. He was called to follow Christ on the banks of the Jordan during the first days of Our Lord’s ministry. He was one of the privileged few present at the Transfiguration (with Peter and James) and the Agony in the garden.
At the Last Supper his head rested on the bosom of Jesus, and in the hours of the Passion, when others fled or denied their Master, St. John kept his place by the side of Jesus, and at the last stood by the cross with Mary. From the cross the dying Saviour bequeathed his Mother to the care of the faithful apostle, who “from that hour took her to his own;” thus fitly, as St. Austin says, “to a virgin was the Virgin intrusted.”
After the Ascension, St. John lived first at Jerusalem, and then at Ephesus. He was thrown by Domitian into a caldron of boiling oil, and is thus reckoned a martyr, though miraculously preserved from hurt.
Afterwards he was banished to the isle of Patmos, where he received the heavenly visions described in tine Apocalypse. He is the author of the Fourth Gospel, the Apocalypse, and three Epistles.
He died at a great age, in peace, at Ephesus, about the year 100.
©Evangelizo.org 2001-2019
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FRANCIS XAVIER SAMSEN
HAPPY JESUS TO ALL
FROM
FRANCIS XAVIER, SAMSEN
THAILAND
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MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL
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“This is my commandment:
love one another as I love you.”
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Friday, December 25th. Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to St John 1,1-18.
MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL WITH LOVE
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Christmas (Mass of the day)
25 December 2020
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ
“He was not the light, but came to testify to the light.
The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world.”
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint John 1,1-18.
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
He was in the beginning with God.
All things came to be through him, and without him nothing came to be. What came to be
through him was life, and this life was the light of the human race;
the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.
A man named John was sent from God.
He came for testimony, to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him.
He was not the light, but came to testify to the light.
The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world.
He was in the world, and the world came to be through him, but the world did not know him.
He came to what was his own, but his own people did not accept him.
But to those who did accept him he gave power to become children of God, to those who believe in his name,
who were born not by natural generation nor by human choice nor by a man’s decision but of God.
And the Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us, and we saw his glory, the glory as of the Father’s only Son, full of grace and truth.
John testified to him and cried out, saying, “This was he of whom I said, ‘The one who is coming after me ranks ahead of me because he existed before me.'”
From his fullness we have all received, grace in place of grace,
because while the law was given through Moses, grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.
No one has ever seen God. The only Son, God, who is at the Father’s side, has revealed him.
Copyright © Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, USCCB
©Evangelizo.org 2001-2019
Image: From Bible Hub
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THANK YOU
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Daily TV Mass
YouTube
For
Celebrates Daily TV Mass from Loretto Abbey in Toronto,
Ontario, Canada.
by
Father Henk van Meijel S.J
Catholic Mass Today | Daily TV Mass,
Christmas (Mass of the day) , December 25 2020
Bl. Br. Charles of Jesus,PRIEST — St. Eligius, BISHOP
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THANK YOU
The Basilica of the National Shrine
The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops.
National Shrine
YOUTUBE
of
The Sunday Mass –
The Solemn Mass of Christmas –
December 25, 2020 CC
Celebrant & Homilist: Most Reverend Michael F. Burbidge
East Choir: Basilica of the National Shrine of
the Immaculate Conception Choir Cantor & Organist, Washington, D.C.
______________________________________________________
ACT OF SPIRITUAL COMMUNION
My Jesus, I believe that You are present in the Blessed Sacrament.
I love You above all things and I desire You in my soul.
Since I cannot now receive You sacramentally,
Come at least spiritually into my heart.
As though You were already there,
I embrace You and unite myself wholly to You;
Permit not that I should ever be separated from You. Amen.
____________________________________________________________
Christmas (Mass of the day)
25 December 2020
The Son of God has visited the sons of Adam
By a wondrous condescension, an astonishing and unbelievable love, God came down into a body and in the flesh he visited the sons of Adam. (…)
Therefore the Son of God was made the son of man. In unity of person he was God and man: God of the substance of the Father, begotten before the world began,; man of the substance of his mother, born in the world. So, a giant of twin substance, he rejoiced to sing with tuneful voice and sweet airs to the lyre of our body and on the organ made of our flesh, to send forth dulcet sounds to re-echo, as it were, with ineffable harmony, so that he raised up stones, moved trees, drew beasts, led forth on high men delivered from their flesh. For by the sweetness of his wonderful song he raised up from stones sons of Abraham and the trees of the wood, that is the hearts of the Gentiles, he moved to faith. Wild beasts also, that is fierce passions and savage barbarism, he tamed to good ways, and he set among the gods men drawn from among men.
Well, therefore, did (…) songs echo to the ends of the earth.
©Evangelizo.org 2001-2019
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Christmas (Mass of the day)
25 December 2020
Saints of the day
Bl. Br. Charles of Jesus
PRIEST
(1858-1916)
BLESSED CHARLES OF JESUS
Charles de Foucauld
Priest
(1858-1916)
Bl. Charles of Jesus was born in Strasbourg, France on September 15th, 1858. Orphaned at six, he and his sister Marie were raised by their grandfather, in whose footsteps he followed by taking up a military career.
Charles lost his faith as an adolescent. His taste for easy living was well known to all, yet he showed that he could be strong willed and constant in difficult situations. In 1883, he undertook a risky exploration of Morocco. Upon seeing the way Muslims expressed their faith, Charles questioned God and he began repeating, ‘‘My God, if you exist, let me come to know you.’’
After Charles returned to France, the warm, respectful welcome he received from his deeply Christian family made him continue his search. Under the guidance of Fr. Huvelin, Charles rediscovered God in October 1886. He was 28 years old. ‘‘As soon as I believed in God, I understood that I could not do otherwise than to live for him alone.’’
A pilgrimage to the Holy Land revealed Charles’ vocation: To follow Jesus in a life at Nazareth. Charles spent 7 years as a Trappist, first in France and then at Akbès in Syria. Later, he began to lead a life of prayer and adoration, alone, near a convent of Poor Clares in Nazareth.
Ordained at forty-three, Fr. Charles left for the Sahara, living at first in Beni Abbès and later at Tamanrasset among the Tuaregs of the Hoggar. He wanted to be among those who were ‘‘the furthest removed, the most abandoned.’’ He wanted all who drew close to him to find in him a brother, ‘‘a universal brother.’’ With great respect for the culture and faith of those among whom he lived, his desire was to ‘‘shout the Gospel with his life.’’ ‘‘I would like to be sufficiently good that people would say, ‘If such is the servant, what must the Master be like?’’’
On the evening of December 1st 1916, Fr. Charles was killed by a band of marauders who encircled his house.
He had always dreamed of sharing his vocation with others: After having written several rules for religious life, he came to the conclusion that this ‘‘life of Nazareth’’ could be led by all. Today, the spiritual family of Charles de Foucauld encompasses several associations, religious communities and secular institutes for both priests and lay people.
©Evangelizo.org 2001-2019
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Christmas (Mass of the day)
25 December 2020
Saints of the day
St. Eligius
BISHOP
(† 665)
SAINT ELIGIUS
Bishop
(† 665)
Eligius, a goldsmith at Paris, was commissioned by King Clotaire to make a throne. The gold and precious stones given him were so many that he made two instead. Struck by Eligius’ rare honesty, King Clotaire gave Eligius a position at Royal court.
Upon entering court, Eligius mortified his senses and prayed routinely. He had a marvellous zeal for redeeming captives, and for their deliverance would sell his jewels, food, clothes and his very shoes. Through prayers and acts of mercy, Eligius broke the chains binding prisoners, “leading captives in his train” (Eph 4:8, Ps 68:18). For all his ardent works, Eligius’ one delight was making shrines for relics.
His striking virtue caused him, a layman and a goldsmith, to be made Bishop of Noyon. He possessed gifts of miracles and prophecy.
©Evangelizo.org 2001-2019
_________________________________________________________________
FRANCIS XAVIER SAMSEN
HAPPY JESUS TO ALL
FROM
FRANCIS XAVIER, SAMSEN
THAILAND
________________________________________________________________
The
Nativity
MERRY CHRISTMAS
and
A HAPPY NEW YEAR
TO ALL
_______________________________________________________________
MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL
___________________________________________________
“This is my commandment:
love one another as I love you.”
###########################
Thursday, December 24th. Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to St Luke 2,1-14.
The Nativity of the Lord, Mass at Midnight
24 December 2020
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ
The Nativity of the Lord
The angel said to them, “Do not be afraid; for behold,
I proclaim to you good news of great joy that will be for all the people.”
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint Luke 2,1-14.
In those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that the whole world should be enrolled.
This was the first enrollment, when Quirinius was governor of Syria.
So all went to be enrolled, each to his own town.
And Joseph too went up from Galilee from the town of Nazareth to Judea, to the city of David that is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and family of David,
to be enrolled with Mary, his betrothed, who was with child.
While they were there, the time came for her to have her child,
and she gave birth to her firstborn son. She wrapped him in swaddling clothes and laid him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn.
Now there were shepherds in that region living in the fields and keeping the night watch over their flock.
The angel of the Lord appeared to them and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were struck with great fear.
The angel said to them, “Do not be afraid; for behold, I proclaim to you good news of great joy that will be for all the people.
For today in the city of David a savior has been born for you who is Messiah and Lord.
And this will be a sign for you: you will find an infant wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger.”
And suddenly there was a multitude of the heavenly host with the angel, praising God and saying:
Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests.
Copyright © Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, USCCB
©Evangelizo.org 2001-2019
Image: From Bible Hub
###################################################
THANK YOU
National Catholic Broadcasting Council
Daily TV Mass
YouTube
For
Celebrates Daily TV Mass from Loretto Abbey in Toronto,
Ontario, Canada.
by
Father Ernesto De Ciccio
Catholic Mass Today | Daily TV Mass,
Thursday of the Fourth week of Advent, December 24 2020
The Nativity of the Lord — St. Delphinus, BISHOP — Sts. Thrasilla and Emiliana, VIRGINS
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ACT OF SPIRITUAL COMMUNION
My Jesus, I believe that You are present in the Blessed Sacrament.
I love You above all things and I desire You in my soul.
Since I cannot now receive You sacramentally,
Come at least spiritually into my heart.
As though You were already there,
I embrace You and unite myself wholly to You;
Permit not that I should ever be separated from You. Amen.
__________________________________________________________________________________
The Nativity of the Lord, Mass at Midnight
24 December 2020
Commentary of the day
Light shone in the darkness
The heavens were glad, earth exulted when Mary gave birth and hell was troubled and aghast. The heavens in their joy produced a shining star and a glorious army of angels, uttering praise and saying: “Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace to people of good will.” (Lk 2:14) The earth, exulting, brought shepherds giving glory and magi adoring and offering gifts, gold, frankincense and myrrh. (…)
Reflect how that night poured forth light in the darkness and instead of blackness it offered radiance. It gave light before the sun arose and a brightness which, from its exceeding brilliance, obscured the splendor of the sun. Concerning this night the psalmist says: “Night is my light in my delights”. and turning to the Lord he says: “The darkness will not be dark for you and the night will be as bright as the day, for the darkness is as light for him” (cf. Ps 38[139]:11-12 LXX). (…)
Taking up the newborn Emmanuel, Mary beheld a light incomparably fairer than the sun and saw a fire that water cannot quench. She received in the covering of flesh that she had borne the light that enlightens all things, and she was worthy to carry in her arms the Word that carries the universe.
©Evangelizo.org 2001-2019
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The Nativity of the Lord, Mass at Midnight
24 December 2020
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ
The Nativity of the Lord
Nativity of the Lord
THE SON OF GOD BECAME MAN
-
WHY DID THE WORD BECOME FLESH?
With the Nicene Creed, we answer by confessing: “For us men and for our salvation he came down from heaven; by the power of the Holy Spirit, he became incarnate of the Virgin Mary, and was made man.”
The Word became flesh for us in order to save us by reconciling us with God, who “loved us and sent his Son to be the expiation for our sins”: “the Father has sent his Son as the Saviour of the world”, and “he was revealed to take away sins”:
Sick, our nature demanded to be healed; fallen, to be raised up; dead, to rise again. We had lost the possession of the good; it was necessary for it to be given back to us. Closed in the darkness, it was necessary to bring us the light; captives, we awaited a Saviour; prisoners, help; slaves, a liberator. Are these things minor or insignificant? Did they not move God to descend to human nature and visit it, since humanity was in so miserable and unhappy a state? (St. Gregory of Nyssa)
The Word became flesh so that thus we might know God’s love: “In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him.” “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.”
The Word became flesh to be our model of holiness: “Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me.” “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father, but by me.” On the mountain of the Transfiguration, the Father commands: “Listen to him!” Jesus is the model for the Beatitudes and the norm of the new law: “Love one another as I have loved you.” This love implies an effective offering of oneself, after his example.
The Word became flesh to make us “partakers of the divine nature“: “For this is why the Word became man, and the Son of God became the Son of man: so that man, by entering into communion with the Word and thus receiving divine sonship, might become a son of God.” “For the Son of God became man so that we might become God.” “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.”
2 THE INCARNATION
Taking up St. John’s expression, “The Word became flesh”, The Church calls “Incarnation” the fact that the Son of God assumed a human nature in order to accomplish our salvation in it. In a hymn cited by St. Paul, the Church sings the mystery of the Incarnation:
Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. and being found in human form he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even death on a cross. (Ph 2:5-8)
The Letter to the Hebrews refers to the same mystery:
Consequently, when Christ came into the world, he said, “Sacrifices and offerings you have not desired, but a body have you prepared for me; in burnt offerings and sin offerings you have taken no pleasure. Then I said, Lo, I have come to do your will, O God.” (He 10:5-7)
Belief in the true Incarnation of the Son of God is the distinctive sign of Christian faith: “By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit which confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is of God.” Such is the joyous conviction of the Church from her beginning whenever she sings “the mystery of our religion”: “He was manifested in the flesh.”
Catechism of the Catholic Church, § 456-463 – Copyright © Libreria Editrice Vaticana
©Evangelizo.org 2001-2015
©Evangelizo.org 2001-2019
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The Nativity of the Lord, Mass at Midnight
24 December 2020
Saints of the day
St. Delphinus
BISHOP
(† 403)
IMAGE: N/A
SAINT DELPHINUS
Bishop
(† 403)
Little is known of St. Delphinus before his elevation to the episcopate. He assisted at the Council of Saragossa, in 330, in which the Priscillianists were condemned, and also at the Council of Bordeaux, which condemned the same schismatics.
He baptized St. Paulerius in 388, and the latter, in several letters, speaks of him as his father and his master. St. Delphinus died on the 24th of December, 403.
©Evangelizo.org 2001-2019
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The Nativity of the Lord, Mass at Midnight
24 December 2020
Saints of the day
Sts. Thrasilla and Emiliana
VIRGINS
(6TH CENTURY)
IMAGE: N/A
SAINTS THRASILLA and EMILIANA
Virgins
(6th century)
Sts. Thrasilla and Emiliana were aunts of St. Gregory the Great. They lived in their father’s house as retired as in a monastery, far removed from the conversation of men; and, exciting one another to virtue by discourse and example, soon made considerable progress in spiritual life.
Thrasilla was favored one night with a vision of her uncle, St. Felix, Pope, who showed her a seat prepared for her in heaven, saying: “Come; I will receive you into this habitation of light.” She fell sick of a fever the next day. When in her agony, with her eyes fixed on heaven, she cried out to those that were present: “Depart! make room! Jesus is coming.” Soon after these words she breathed out her pious soul into the hands of God on the 24th of December.
A few days after she appeared to her sister Emiliana, and invited her to celebrate with her the Epiphany in eternal bliss. Emiliana fell sick, and died on the 8th of January.
©Evangelizo.org 2001-2019
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FRANCIS XAVIER SAMSEN
HAPPY JESUS TO ALL
FROM
FRANCIS XAVIER, SAMSEN
THAILAND
________________________________________________________________
Merry Christmass
and
a Happy New Year 2021
_____________________________________________________________
Monday, December 21st. Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to St Luke 1,39-45.
Readings for 21 December
21 December 2020
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ
“Most blessed are you among women,
and blessed is the fruit of your womb.”
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint Luke 1,39-45.
Mary set out in those days and traveled to the hill country in haste to a town of Judah,
where she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth.
When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the infant leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth, filled with the holy Spirit,
cried out in a loud voice and said, “Most blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb.
And how does this happen to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?
For at the moment the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the infant in my womb leaped for joy.
Blessed are you who believed that what was spoken to you by the Lord would be fulfilled.”
Copyright © Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, USCCB
©Evangelizo.org 2001-2019
Image: From Bible Hub
###################################################
THANK YOU
National Catholic Broadcasting Council
Daily TV Mass
YouTube
For
Celebrates Daily TV Mass from Loretto Abbey in Toronto,
Ontario, Canada.
by
Fr. Dan Donovan
Catholic Mass Today | Daily TV Mass,
Monday of the Fourth week of Advent, December 21 2020
St. Peter Canisius, PRIEST AND DOCTOR OF THE CHURCH
___________________________________________________
ACT OF SPIRITUAL COMMUNION
My Jesus, I believe that You are present in the Blessed Sacrament.
I love You above all things and I desire You in my soul.
Since I cannot now receive You sacramentally,
Come at least spiritually into my heart.
As though You were already there,
I embrace You and unite myself wholly to You;
Permit not that I should ever be separated from You. Amen.
________________________________________________________________________
Readings for 21 December
21 December 2020
Commentary of the day
“The infant in my womb leaped for joy”
Bearing God within her womb, the Virgin hastened to Elizabeth, whose unborn child, knowing at once the salutation of Mary, rejoiced and, leaping up as if in song, cried out to the Mother of God :
Hail, vine whence springs a never-withering branch.
Hail, orchard of the fruit of life.
Hail, for thou tendest the Husbandman, friend of man (Sg 1:6).
Hail, for thou hast borne the Gardener who cultivates our life.
Hail, earth yielding a rich harvest of redemption.
Hail, table laden with mercy in abundance for the forgiveness of sins.
Hail, for through thee the fields of Eden flower again:
Hail, for thou makest ready a haven of peace for our souls.
Hail, acceptable incense of intercession to God (Gn 8:21).
Hail, propitiation for the whole world.
Hail, loving-kindness of God unto mortal man:
Hail, freedom of approach for mortals unto God.
Hail, Bride without bridegroom!
Tossed inwardly by a storm of doubts, prudent Joseph was troubled: knowing thee to be unwedded, O blameless Virgin, he feared a stolen union. But when he learnt that thy conceiving was from the Holy Spirit (Mt 1:20), he said: “Alleluia, Alleluia, Alleluia!” The shepherds heard the angels glorify Christ’s coming in the flesh. Quickly they ran to the Shepherd and beheld him as a Lamb without spot that had been pastured in the womb of Mary; and they sang praises to her, saying:
Hail, Mother of the Lamb and of the Good Shepherd (Jn 1:29; 10:14).
Hail, fold of the gathered sheep (Jn 10:16).
Hail, protection against rapacious wolves (v. 12).
Hail, key to the door of Paradise.
Hail, for the heavens exult with the earth (Lk 2:14).
Hail, for things on earth rejoice with the heavens.
Hail, never-silent voice of the apostles.
Hail, unconquered courage of the victorious martyrs.
Hail, firm foundation of the faith.
Hail, shining revelation of grace.
Hail, for through thee hell is stripped bare.
Hail, for through thee we are clothed in glory.
Hail, Bride without bridegroom! (…)
Seeing this strange birth, let us become strangers to the world, fixing our minds in heaven. To this end has the Most High God appeared on earth as a lowly man, because he wishes to draw heavenward all who cry aloud to Him: “Alleluia, Alleluia, Alleluia!”
©Evangelizo.org 2001-2019
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Readings for 21 December
21 December 2020
Saint of the day
St. Peter Canisius
PRIEST AND DOCTOR OF THE CHURCH
(1521-1597)
SAINT PETER CANISIUS
Priest and Doctor of the Church
(1521-1597)
St. Peter Canisius was born in 1521, at Nijmegen in Holland. He entered the Society of Jesus, was ordained in 1546, and went to Cologne, where he founded a Jesuit house.
He was a vigorous defender of Catholicism, and published a catechism which was very influential in the Counter-Reformation.
He died in 1597.
©Evangelizo.org 2001-2019
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DAILY GOSPEL OF THE LORD JESUS
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THANK YOU
________________________________________________
“I am the LORD and there is no other,
there is no God besides me.”
Book of Isaiah 45,1.4-6.
_______________________________________________________
FRANCIS XAVIER SAMSEN
HAPPY JESUS TO ALL
FROM
FRANCIS XAVIER, SAMSEN
THAILAND
___________________________________________________
Friday, December 18th. Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to St Matthew 1,18-24.
Readings for 18 December
18 December 2020
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ
“Joseph, son of David,
do not be afraid to take Mary your wife into your home.”
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint Matthew 1,18-24.
This is how the birth of Jesus Christ came about. When his mother Mary was betrothed to Joseph, but before they lived together, she was found with child through the Holy Spirit.
Joseph her husband, since he was a righteous man, yet unwilling to expose her to shame, decided to divorce her quietly.
Such was his intention when, behold, the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, “Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary your wife into your home. For it is through the holy Spirit that this child has been conceived in her.
She will bear a son and you are to name him Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.”
All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet:
Behold, the virgin shall be with child and bear a son, and they shall name him Emmanuel, which means “God is with us.”
When Joseph awoke, he did as the angel of the Lord had commanded him and took his wife into his home.
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Friday of the Third week of Advent, December 18 2020
Bl. Giulia Nemesia Valle — SAINT GATIAN, Bishop
___________________________________________________
ACT OF SPIRITUAL COMMUNION
My Jesus, I believe that You are present in the Blessed Sacrament.
I love You above all things and I desire You in my soul.
Since I cannot now receive You sacramentally,
Come at least spiritually into my heart.
As though You were already there,
I embrace You and unite myself wholly to You;
Permit not that I should ever be separated from You. Amen.
________________________________________________________________________
Readings for 18 December
18 December 2020
Commentary of the day
“She will bear a son and you are to name him Jesus”
The name of Jesus is a divine name that the Lord made known to Mary through the voice of the Archangel Gabriel: “You will give him the name Jesus” (Lk 1:31). A name that, for this reason, is called “above all names”, “the only name by which we can be saved” (Phil 2:9; Acts 4:12). This great name is compared to oil by the Holy Spirit: “Your name is oil poured out” (Sg 1:3). Why? Because, as Saint Bernard explains, just as oil is both light, food and medicine, so the name of Jesus is light for our minds, food for our hearts, medicine for our souls.
Light for our minds: it was the brilliance of this name that enabled the world to pass from the shadows of idolatry to the light of faith. We were born in a land whose inhabitants were all pagans before the coming of the Lord. We should have been as they were if he had not come to enlighten us. So how should we not give thanks to Jesus Christ for the gift of faith! (…)
Food for our hearts: this, too, is what the name of Jesus is. For it calls to our minds all the painful work Jesus accomplished to save us. This is how he comforts us in tribulation, strengthens us to walk along the way of salvation, revives our hope and inflames us with love for our God.
And medicine for our souls: Jesus’ name makes them strong in the face of temptation and our enemies’ attacks. Do they hear this holy name? The powers of hell tremble and take to flight. This is what Saint Paul says: “that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in the heavens, on earth and in the underworld” (Phil 2:10). No one who is tempted will fall if he calls on Jesus, and so long as he calls he will persevere and be saved.
©Evangelizo.org 2001-2019
___________________________________________________
Readings for 18 December
18 December 2020
Saints of the day
Bl. Giulia Nemesia Valle
(1847-1916)
Bl. Giulia Nemesia Valle
(1847-1916)
Giulia is the name chosen by her parents Anselmo Valle and Cristina Dalbar. She was born in Aosta, Italy on the 26th June 1847 and was baptised on the same day in the ancient collegiate church of Saint Orso.
She spends the first years of her life within a happy family with her brother Vincent. The parents’ work who run a milliner’s shop and a solid commercial activity respectively assures a certain welfare. But the mother dies when Giulia is still four. The two orphans are thus entrusted first to the care of the paternal relatives in Aosta and later to the maternal ones in Donnas. Here they find a calm environment The school, catechism and the preparation for the sacraments take place at home under the guide of a priest who happens to be a family friend.
When Giulia is eleven, she is sent to France in Besançon, in a boarding school run by the Sisters of Charity where she could continue her schooling. Her separation from the family costs her a new suffering, a new experience of solitude directing her towards a deep friendship with “the Lord who keeps her mother with Him”.
In Besançon she learns French thoroughly, enriches her culture and becomes skilful in housework. Her simple goodness matures and it renders her loveable and attentive towards the others.
Five years later, Giulia returns to her valley, but her house at Donnas is no longer there. Her father got married again and moved to Pont Saint Martin. Here the familiar situation is strained and living together is not so easy. Her brother Vincent cannot stand her: he goes away alone without receiving any more news from him….Giulia remains, and out of her solitude crops up the stimulus to seek what her family couldn’t provide for her, to look after those who experiment her same lonely situation and find out ways and means that express friendship, understanding, kindness and goodness for everyone.
In that period, the sisters of Charity came to settle at Pont Saint Martin. In them, Giulia rediscovers her teachers of Besançon, the daughters of Saint Jeanne-Antide Thouret who give her help and encouragement. She observes their way of life offered to God and to others and chooses to become one of them. When her fathers presents her the suggestion of a prosperous marriage, Giulia doesn’t hesitate: she has promised her life totally to God : she only desires to become a Sister of Charity.
On the 8th September 1866 her father accompanies her to the Monastery of Santa Margherita in Vercelli where the Sisters of Charity run a noviciate.
A new, peaceful and joyful life starts for her in spite of the suffering separation. It’s now a matter of building a deeper relationship with God, of knowing herself and the mission of the community in order to accomplish God’s will. Giulia starts joyfully her new journey. Every day she discovers what she must lose or acquire: “Jesus strip me of myself, let me be wrapped in you. Jesus I live for you, and I die for you…” is the prayer that already accompanies and will continue to accompany her during her lifetime.
At the end of the noviciate, together with the new habit she receives a new nane: Sr. Nemesia. It’s the name of one of the earliest martyrs of the church. She is delighted and sees in her life’s program : to witness at all costs, totally and for ever her love for Jesus.
She is sent to Tortona, in St. Vincent’s Institute where she finds several activities: an elementary school, cultural courses, a boarding school and an orphanage. She teaches both in the elementary school and French in the higher classes. That’s the favourable ground where she can sow kindness. Sr. Nemesia is present where humble work is to be done, where there is pain to be relieved, where apprehension hinders good relationships, where fatigue, pain and poverty put limits to life.
It was said of her within the institute and in the city: “Oh, the heart of Sr. Nemesia!” Everyone is convinced to have a particular place in this heart that knew no boundaries: Sisters, orphans, pupils, families, poor, the clergy of the nearby seminary, young soldiers of the numerous barracks of Tortona turn to her and seek her as if she were the only Sister present in the house.
When she is nominated superior of the community at the age of forty, Sr. Nemesia feels perplexed, but she remembers that : to be a superior means “to serve”, and therefore she can give herself without any limits. Thus she humbly assents keeping as her guiding program: “Keep a quick pace, without looking behind and concentrate on the one goal : God Alone ! To Him the glory, to the others joy, for me to pay the price, never make others suffer. I shall be very strict with myself and full of charity towards the others : love gratuitously offered is the only thing that remains.”
In the morning of the 10th of May 1903, , the orphans and the boarders find a message addressed to them from Sr. Nemesia: “I am leaving happily, I entrust to our Lady… I shall follow you in every moment of the day”. She left alone at 4 o’clock in the morning, after 36 years… In Borgaro, a small country in the vicinity of Turin, there is a small group of young girls waiting to be accompanied along a new path, towards the total self-gift to God and to serve him later in the poor…They are the novices of the new province of the Sisters of Charity… The method of her formation remains always the same : that of kindness, understanding that educates to renouncement out of love, patience that knows how to wait and how to find the correct way that is convenient to everyone.
Her novices recall : “She knew each one of us, she understood our needs, and she treated us according to our characters. The character of the Provincial Superior which “was perfectly opposite to hers”, disagreed with her method. She was in favour of a rigid, strong and immediate method. Such a difference in their points of view caused relevant contrasts which found their expression in reproaches and humiliations. Sister Nemesia accepted everything in silence, smiling as she went ahead, without hurrying and without neglecting her responsibilities: “From one station to the other, let us continue our way in the desert…and if the desert is deaf, your Creator is always listening…”
Sr. Nemesia’s path nears the end. Already thirteen years have passed since her arrival in Borgaro. About five hundred novices have learnt from her how to walk on the paths traced by God. She has given everything : now the Lord asks her to “hand over” to others even “her noviciate”. The prayer that has become hers since the beginning: “Jesus strip me of myself, let me be wrapped in You” has accompanied her throughout her life. Now she can say “I don’t exist any more”. She has given up everything. It’s the perfect offering of an existence fully offered to Love.
Sr. Nemesia dies on the 18th December 1916.
©Evangelizo.org 2001-2019
________________________________________________________________________
Readings for 18 December
18 December 2020
Saints of the day
St. Gatian
BISHOP
(3RD CENTURY)
IMAGE: N/A
SAINT GATIAN
Bishop
(3rd century)
St. Gatian came from Rome with St. Dionysius of Paris, about the middle of the third century, and preached the Faith principally at Tours in Gaul, where he fixed his episcopal see. The Gauls in that part were extremely addicted to the worship of their idols. But no contradictions or sufferings were able to discourage or daunt this true apostle, and by perseverance he gained several to Christ.
He assembled his little flock in grots and caves, and there celebrated the divine mysteries. He was obliged often to lie hid in lurking holes a long time in order to escape a cruel death, with which the heathens frequently threatened him, and which he was always ready to receive with joy if he had fallen into their hands.
Having continued his labors with unwearied zeal amidst frequent sufferings and dangers for near the space of fifty years, he died in peace, and was honored with miracles.
©Evangelizo.org 2001-2019
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Tuesday, December 15th. Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to St Matthew 21,28-32.
Tuesday of the Third week of Advent
15 December 2020
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ
“Amen, I say to you, tax collectors and prostitutes
are entering the kingdom of God before you.
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint Matthew 21,28-32.
Jesus said to the chief priests and the elders of the people: “What is your opinion? A man had two sons. He came to the first and said, ‘Son, go out and work in the vineyard today.’
He said in reply, ‘I will not,’ but afterwards he changed his mind and went.
The man came to the other son and gave the same order. He said in reply, ‘Yes, sir,’ but did not go.
Which of the two did his father’s will?” They answered, “The first.” Jesus said to them, “Amen, I say to you, tax collectors and prostitutes are entering the kingdom of God before you.
When John came to you in the way of righteousness, you did not believe him; but tax collectors and prostitutes did. Yet even when you saw that, you did not later change your minds and believe him.”
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Tuesday of the Third week of Advent, December 15 2020
St. Virginia Centurione Bracelli — St. Mesmin
___________________________________________________
ACT OF SPIRITUAL COMMUNION
My Jesus, I believe that You are present in the Blessed Sacrament.
I love You above all things and I desire You in my soul.
Since I cannot now receive You sacramentally,
Come at least spiritually into my heart.
As though You were already there,
I embrace You and unite myself wholly to You;
Permit not that I should ever be separated from You. Amen.
__________________________________________________________________________
Tuesday of the Third week of Advent
15 December 2020
Commentary of the day
Repenting at John the Baptist’s cry as he prepares the way of the Lord
And now, with your indulgence, I cannot resist recalling the praises with which Isaiah foretold this way of the Lord’s precepts (…) “And there will be there (…)”, he says, “in the terrible, trackless wastes, a path and a way (…), and it shall be called the holy way” (Is 35:7-8); holy, because it is the sanctification of sinners and the salvation of those who were lost (…)
“The unclean shall not pass over it.” But surely, Isaiah, those who are unclean will not therefore have to travel by another way? Certainly not: all must come to this one way and travel by it. For Christ, who “came to seek and save what had fallen” (Lk 19:10) (…) has laid down this way especially for the unclean. Does this mean then that the unclean will travel along the holy way? Not at all. However unclean a man is when he reaches it, he will no longer be unclean when he travels along it because once he starts along it he is already cleansed. The holy way does admit a man defiled, but immediately cleanses all admitted to it, because it cleanses the faults that have been committed (…) And that is why this way admits the defiled but does not let him travel along it in that state. The way is constricted and is like the “eye of the needle” (Mt 7:14; 19:24) (…)
If you are on the way then fear only one thing: lest you leave it, lest you offend the Lord who leads you along it so that he would abandon you to wander in “the way of your own heart” (Is 57:17) (…) If you feel that the way is too narrow look forward to the end to which it leads you (…) If you cannot see so far, believe Isaiah who could; he is your eye. He must have seen, for he described the consequences: “Behold,” he says, “the redeemed shall walk by this way and the ransomed of the Lord shall return and come to Sion with singing; everlasting joy shall be upon their heads. They shall obtain also joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away” (35:9-10).
©Evangelizo.org 2001-2019
__________________________________________________________
Tuesday of the Third week of Advent
15 December 2020
Saints of the day
St. Virginia Centurione Bracelli
(1587-1651)
SAINT VIRGINIA CENTURIONE BRACELLI
(1587-1651)
Widower, Virginia Centurione Bracelli was born on April 2, 1587, in Genoa, from the family of Giorgio Centurione, duke of the Republic in the year 1621-1622, and Lelia Spinola. Both of them were of the ancient noble origin. She was baptized two days after her birth, received her first religious and literary formation from her mother and private tutor. She soon felt the desire for a cloistered life but she had to succumb to her father’s strong will and marry Gaspare Grimaldi Bracelli on December 10, 1602. Gaspare’s family was both illustrious and wealthy, but he was wholly taken up with gambling and dissolute life. She gave birth to two daughters: Lelia and Isabella.
The conjugal life of Virginia did not last long. As a matter of fact, Gaspare Bracelli, in spite of the matrimony and the fatherhood, he did not abandon his pleasures, which brought him to shorten his life. Virginia, however, with her great patience, prayer and affection, tried to convince her husband to a modest life. Unfortunately, Gaspare fell ill and died on June 13, 1607, in Alessandria, she enabled him to reach a state of grace and peace with God, before his death.
At the age of twenty, she became widow, pronounced her perpetual vow of chastity, refusing the occasion of the second marriage proposed by her father. She lived in her mother-in-law’s house, taking care of the education and the administration of the goods of her children and dedicating herself through prayer and act of charity. In 1610, she clearly felt the special vocation “to serve God through the poor”. Although she was strictly controlled by her father and never disregarded the care for the family, Virginia began to devote herself to the needy. She personally helped the poor by sharing half of her wealth.
Virginia conveniently settled the marriage life of her daughters and totally offered herself to the needs of the abandoned children, the aged, the sick and to elevate the life of the marginalized people. In autumn of 1624-1625, the war between the Liguorian Republic and the Duke of Savoy, supported by France, increasing the unemployment and starvation, led Virginia to welcome in her home at first 15 abandoned youth, and then, with the expansion of the refugees in town, she provided for their needs, especially impoverished women. On August of 1625, with the death of her mother-in-law, she started not only to house the youth but instead to go herself to town, mostly in the disreputable quarters, in search for the needy and in danger of depravity.
To develop the initiative of accomodating the youth, precisely at the time of plague and of famine in 1629-1630, Virginia was obliged to rent the empty convent of Monte Calvario, where she transferred on the 13th of April 1631, together with her beneficiaries placed under the protection of Our Lady of Refuge. Three years after, the Institution expanded into three houses accomodating 300 patients. Hence, she petitioned for the official acknowledgement from the Senate of the Republic, which was conceded on December 13, 1635.
The beneficiaries of Our Lady of Refuge became for Virginia her excellent “daughters”, with whom she shared the food and clothing. She taught them catechism and train them to work so that they could earn their own sustenance. Virginia renounced to purchase the Monte Calvario’s convent because it was very expensive, for this reason, she bought two villas next to Carignano’s Hill that , with the construction of the new annex of the Church dedicated to Our Lady of Refuge, became the Mother House of the Institution. Later, the Institution is divided into two Religious Congregation: the “Sisters of Our Lady of Refuge in Mount Calvary” (Suore di Nostra Signora del Rifugio di Monte Calvario) and the “Daughters of Our Lady on Mount Calvary” (Figlie di Nostra Signora al Monte Calvario).
After the nomination of the Protectors (July 3, 1641), who were considered to be the real superiors of the Institute, Virginia disengaged herself from the government house. She lived in obedience to them as the last “daughter” devoted to the household chores, went out in the morning and in the evening to beg for the sustenance of the living. She was a mother to everyone, specially for the sick, giving them most of her availability. With the increase of the activities and of the efforts, the collaborators of Virginia declined, particularly the women of the middle and upper class, who had feared to compromise their reputation in dealing with the corrupt people. Abandoned by the Auxiliaries and by the Protectors of the Institute, Virginia, while her physical health was weakening, took the position and became responsible for the sisters in Carignano’s House.
Gratified by the Lord with exultations, visions, interior locutions and other mystical gifts, she died on December 15, 1651 at the age of 64.
She was beatified on 22 September 1985 and canonized on 18 May 2003 by Pope John Paul II.
©Evangelizo.org 2001-2019
__________________________________________________________________________
Tuesday of the Third week of Advent
15 December 2020
Saints of the day
St. Mesmin
(† 520)
IMAGE: N/A
St. Mesmin
(† 520)
St. Mesmin was a native of Verdun. The inhabitants of that place having proved disloyal to King Clovis, an uncle of our Saint’s, a priest named Euspice, brought about a reconciliation between the monarch and his subjects. Clovis, appreciating the virtues of Euspice, persuaded him to take up his residence at court, and the servant of God took St. Mesmin along with him.
While journeying to Orleans with Clovis he noticed at about two leagues from the city, beyond the Loire, a solitary spot called Micy, which he thought well suited for a retreat. Having asked for and obtained the place, he with Mesmin and several disciples built there a monastery, of which he took charge.
At his death, which happened about two years after, our Saint was appointed abbot by Eusebius, Bishop of Orleans. During a terrible famine he fed nearly the whole city of Orleans with wheat from his monastery, without perceptibly reducing it; he also drove an enormous serpent out of the place in which he was afterwards buried.
Having governed his monastery ten years, he died as he had lived, in the odor of sanctity, on the 15th of December, 520.
©Evangelizo.org 2001-2019
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Monday, December 14th. Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to St Matthew 21,23-27.
Monday of the Third week of Advent
14 December 2020
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ
“By what authority are you doing these things?
And who gave you this authority?”
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint Matthew 21,23-27.
When Jesus had come into the temple area, the chief priests and the elders of the people approached him as he was teaching and said, “By what authority are you doing these things? And who gave you this authority?”
Jesus said to them in reply, “I shall ask you one question, and if you answer it for me, then I shall tell you by what authority I do these things.
Where was John’s baptism from? Was it of heavenly or of human origin?” They discussed this among themselves and said, “If we say ‘Of heavenly origin,’ he will say to us, ‘Then why did you not believe him?’
But if we say, ‘Of human origin,’ we fear the crowd, for they all regard John as a prophet.”
So they said to Jesus in reply, “We do not know.” He himself said to them, “Neither shall I tell you by what authority I do these things.”
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Monday of the Third week of Advent, December 14 2020
St. John of the Cross, DOCTOR OF THE CHURCH —SAINT NICASIUS,Archbishop, and his Companions,Martyrs, (5th century)
___________________________________________________
ACT OF SPIRITUAL COMMUNION
My Jesus, I believe that You are present in the Blessed Sacrament.
I love You above all things and I desire You in my soul.
Since I cannot now receive You sacramentally,
Come at least spiritually into my heart.
As though You were already there,
I embrace You and unite myself wholly to You;
Permit not that I should ever be separated from You. Amen.
_____________________________________________________________________________
Monday of the Third week of Advent
14 December 2020
Commentary of the day
Witness to God
Every creature has been made to witness to God since all creatures are, as it were, evidence of his goodness. The greatness of creation bears witness in its own way to the divine strength and almighty power, and its beauty to the divine wisdom. Some people receive a special mission from God: they not only bear witness to God from a natural point of view, by the fact of their existence, but even more from a spiritual one through their good works (…) However, those who, not content with receiving divine gifts and carrying out good deeds by God’s grace, pass on these gifts to others by word, encouragement and admonition are even more particularly God’s witnesses. One of these witness was John; he came to spread God’s gifts and proclaim his praises.
This mission of John’s, his role as witness, is of surpassing greatness since no one can bear witness to something except insofar as they participate in it. Jesus said: “We speak of what we know and testify to what we have seen” (Jn 3:11). To bear witness to divine truth presupposes that one knows that truth. That is why Christ also possessed this role of witness: “For this I was born and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth” (Jn 18:37). However Christ and John possessed this role in different ways. Christ possessed this light in himself – more, he was this light – whereas John merely participated in it. That is why Christ bears a witness that is complete; he fully manifests the truth. John, and the other saints, only do so in the measure that they receive this truth.
John’s sublime mission implies his participation in the light of God and his likeness to Christ who, himself, carried out this mission.
©Evangelizo.org 2001-2019
_______________________________________________________
Monday of the Third week of Advent
14 December 2020
Saints of the day
St. John of the Cross
DOCTOR OF THE CHURCH
(1542-1591)
SAINT JOHN OF THE CROSS
Doctor of the Church
(1542-1591)
The father of St. John was discarded by his kindred for marrying a poor orphan, and the Saint, thus born and nurtured in poverty, chose it also for his portion. Unable to learn a trade, he became the servant of the poor in the hospital of Medina, while still pursuing his sacred studies.
In 1563, being then twenty-one, he humbly offered himself as a lay-brother to the Carmelite friars, who, however, knowing his talents, had him ordained priest. He would now have exchanged to the severe Carthusian Order, had not St. Teresa, with the instinct of a Saint, persuaded him to remain and help her in the reform of his own Order. Thus he became the first prior of the Barefooted Carmelites.
His reform, though approved by the general, was rejected by the elder friars, who condemned the Saint as a fugitive and apostate, and cast him into prison, whence he only escaped, after nine months’ suffering, at the risk of his life.
Twice again, before his death, he was shamefully persecuted by his brethren, and publicly disgraced. But his complete abandonment by creatures only deepened his interior peace and devout longing for heaven.
©Evangelizo.org 2001-2019
_____________________________________________________________________________
Monday of the Third week of Advent
14 December 2020
Saints of the day
St. Nicasius
BISHOP, AND HIS COMPANIONS, MARTYRS
(5TH CENTURY)
Image: N/A
SAINT NICASIUS
Archbishop
and his Companions
Martyrs
(5th century)
In the fifth century an army of barbarians from Germany ravaging part of Gaul, plundered the city of Rheims. Nicasius, the holy bishop, had foretold this calamity to his flock.
When he saw the enemy at the gates and in the streets, forgetting himself, and solicitous only for his spiritual children, he went from door to door encouraging all to patience and constancy, and awaking in every breast the most heroic sentiments of piety and religion. In endeavoring to save the lives of his flock he exposed himself to the swords of the infidels, who, after a thousand insults and indignities, cut off his head.
Florens, his deacon, and Jocond, his lector, were massacred by his side. His sister Eutropia, a virtuous virgin, fearing she might be reserved for a fate worse than death, boldly cried out to the infidels that it was her unalterable resolution rather to sacrifice her life than her faith or her integrity and virtue. Upon which they despatched her with their cutlasses.
©Evangelizo.org 2001-2019
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Saturday, December 12th. Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to St Luke 1,26-38.
Our Lady of Guadalupe – Feast
12 December 2020
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ
The angel Gabriel was sent from God to a town of Galilee called Nazareth,
“Hail, full of grace! The Lord is with you.”
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint Luke 1,26-38.
In the sixth month, the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a town of Galilee called Nazareth,
to a virgin betrothed to a man named Joseph, of the house of David, and the virgin’s name was Mary.
And coming to her, he said, “Hail, full of grace! The Lord is with you.”
But she was greatly troubled at what was said and pondered what sort of greeting this might be.
Then the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God.
Behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall name him Jesus.
He will be great and will be called Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give him the throne of David his father,
and he will rule over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.”
But Mary said to the angel, “How can this be, since I have no relations with a man?”
And the angel said to her in reply, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. Therefore the child to be born will be called holy, the Son of God.
And behold, Elizabeth, your relative, has also conceived a son in her old age, and this is the sixth month for her who was called barren;
for nothing will be impossible for God.”
Mary said, “Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord. May it be done to me according to your word.” Then the angel departed from her.
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Ontario, Canada.
by
Fr. David Reilander
Catholic Mass Today | Daily TV Mass,
Friday of the Second week of Advent, December 11 2020
Our Lady of Guadalupe – Feast
___________________________________________________
ACT OF SPIRITUAL COMMUNION
My Jesus, I believe that You are present in the Blessed Sacrament.
I love You above all things and I desire You in my soul.
Since I cannot now receive You sacramentally,
Come at least spiritually into my heart.
As though You were already there,
I embrace You and unite myself wholly to You;
Permit not that I should ever be separated from You. Amen.
______________________________________________________________________________________________
Parish of Our Lady of the Way
North Sydney | Kirribilli | Lavender Bay
Under the care of the Jesuits since 1878
Sunday 13 December 2020 –
3rd Sunday of Advent
Pope Francis’ prayer intention for December: For a deeper relationship with Jesus nourished by
the Word of God and prayer. Andrew Hamilton SJ
Pope Francis’ intention for December describes perfectly a personal Christian faith. It is centred on our
relationship to Jesus and spells out the ways in which that relationship can grow through our familiarity
with Scripture and finding space for prayer. It is something worth praying for.
In Christian faith, of course, Jesus is central. We believe that in him the Son of God joined us and saved
us. Our faith in Jesus is not just a matter of believing that he is the Son of God but is based in a personal
relationship with him. We can see this in the Gospels where the disciples do not join him only because of
what he said and did but are attracted to him because of who he is. They are bound together in
friendship as well as in service. The relationship is developed perhaps most strongly in the Gospel of
John, culminating in the tender scenes after Jesus’ Resurrection, and Jesus’ repeated question to Peter,
‘Do you love me.’ Following Jesus’ way is more than a way of life based on Jesus’ example or his
authority. It is a love affair.
We find the same deep relationship with Jesus in Paul’s letters. Paul never knew Jesus during his
lifetime, but Jesus occupies his whole attention, his desires and all that he does in his ministry. For him
to live is Christ and to lose himself in Christ, and with Christ in God. The same fascination is found in the
early saints and particularly in the medieval church that saw in the humanity of Jesus our way to
understand and respond to God. Passionate Christians from Francis of Assisi through to Ignatius Loyola
prayed to Jesus and imagined themselves in the stories of his life. The stories described in the windows
of churches allowed people to accompany Jesus in the events and the relationships of his life.
As Pope Francis recognises in this month’s intention, people are nourished by prayer and the Word of
God, and both these gifts are focused on Jesus. The Word of God is more than a book: it is a body of
pictures, of statues, of hymns and of prayers that draw us to Jesus and allow us to enter into his life and
death. And more than that the Word of God is Christ himself who, through the Spirit, guides us to find
wisdom and encouragement in our reading of the Scriptures. Prayer means more than saying prayer to
Jesus. It means making space for the Spirit to pray within us and to lead us along Jesus’ path.
This prayer intention is very attractive. So attractive that we might wonder why Pope Francis should ask
us to pray for it. Why don’t we automatically allow prayer and reflection on Scripture to become a central
part of our lives? One reason, of course, is that in the pressure of busy lives in which we have so many
conflicting desires, people, including Jesus, can fall out of our lives and our relationships can grow cool.
Our imagination can be so caught by other things that we leave no space for considering Jesus. As a
result, we become completely preoccupied with the immediate demands of our lives and neglect what
matters more deeply.
As we are blessed now to be able to put CV at the periphery of our lives and not at their centre, this may
be an opportunity for deeper reflection. In that case, Pope Francis’ intention can speak powerfully to us.
It suggests something good that we should want enough to ask for, and then to find a place for in our
lives.
Join the Pope’s Worldwide Prayer Network at http://www.clicktopray.org.
Thank you:
PARISH OF OUR LADY OF THE WAY
_________________________________________________________________________________
Our Lady of Guadalupe – Feast
12 December 2020
Commentary of the day
“How does it happen to me that the mother of my Lord should come to me?”
“Most blessed are you among women and blessed is the fruit of your womb…” For all ages will call you blessed, as you said (Lk 1:48). The daughters of Jerusalem, that is to say, the Church, saw you and proclaimed your happiness… For you are the royal throne near which the angels stood contemplating their Master and Creator, who was seated on it (Dan 7:9). You have become the spiritual Eden, more sacred and more divine than the former one. The earthly Adam lived in the former; in you lives the Lord who came from heaven (1 Cor 15:47). Noah’s ark was a prefiguration of you; it saved the seed of the second creation, for you gave birth to Christ, the world’s salvation, who submerged sin and pacified the floods.
It was you whom the burning bush described ahead of time, whom the tables depicted, on which God wrote (Ex 31:18), which the ark of the covenant told about; it is you whom the golden urn, the candelabra… and Aaron’s staff that blossomed (Num 17:23) obviously prefigured… I almost left out Jacob’s ladder. Just as Jacob saw heaven united with the earth by means of the two ends of the ladder, and the angels descending and ascending on it, and as the one who is really the strong and invincible one engaged in a symbolic struggle with him, thus you yourself became the mediator and ladder by which God came down to us and took upon himself the weakness of our substance, embracing it and closely uniting it to him.
©Evangelizo.org 2001-2019
___________________________________________________________________
Our Lady of Guadalupe – Feast
12 December 2020
Our Lady of Guadalupe –
Feast
Patron of the Americas.
Our Lady of Guadalupe –
In 1531 a “Lady from Heaven” appeared to a humble Native American at Tepeyac, a hill northwest of what is now Mexico City.
She identified herself as the ever virgin Holy Mary, Mother of the True God for whom we live, of the Creator of all things, Lord of heaven and the earth.
She made a request for a church to be built on the site, and submitted her wish to the local Bishop. When the Bishop hesitated, and requested her for a sign, the Mother of God obeyed without delay or question to the Church’s local Bishop, and sent her native messenger to the top of the hill in mid-December to gather an assorment of roses for the Bishop.
After complying to the Bishop’s request for a sign, She also left for us an image of herself imprinted miraculously on the native’s tilma, a poor quality cactus-cloth, which should have deteriorated in 20 years but shows no sign of decay 480 years later and still defies all scientific explanations of its origin.
It apparently even reflects in Her eyes what was in front of her in 1531.
Her message of love and compassion, and her universal promise of help and protection to all mankind, as well as the story of the apparitions, are described in the “Nican Mopohua”, a 16th century document written in the native Nahuatl language.
There is reason to believe that at Tepeyac Mary came in her glorified body, and her actual physical hands rearranged the roses in Juan Diego’s tilma, which makes this apparition very special.
An incredible list of miracles, cures and interventions are attributed to Her. Yearly, between 18 – 20 million pilgrims visit the Basilica, making it Christianity’s most visited sanctuary.
Altogether 25 popes have officially honored Our Lady of Guadalupe. His Holiness John Paul II visited her Sanctuary four times: on his first apostolic trip outside Rome as Pope in 1979, and again in 1990, 1999 and 2002.
The Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe is celebrated on December 12th. In 1999, Pope John Paul II, in his homily from the Solemn Mass at the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe, during his third visit to the sanctuary, declared the date of December the 12th as a Liturgical Holy Day for the whole continent.
During the same visit Pope John Paul II entrusted the cause of life to her loving protection, and placed under her motherly care the innocent lives of children, especially those who are in danger of not being born.
#####################################
My dear little son, I love you. I desire you to know who I am. I am the ever-virgin Mary, Mother of the true God who gives life and maintains its existence. He created all things. He is in all places. He is Lord of Heaven and Earth. I desire a church in this place where your people may experience my compassion. All those who sincerely ask my help in their work and in their sorrows will know my Mother’s Heart in this place. Here I will see their tears; I will console them and they will be at peace. So run now to Tenochtitlan and tell the Bishop all that you have seen and heard.”
Juan, age 57, and who had never been to Tenochtitlan, nonetheless immediately responded to Mary’s request. He went to the palace of the Bishop-elect Fray Juan de Zumarraga and requested to meet immediatly with the bishop. The bishop’s servants, who were suspicious of the rural peasant, kept him waiting for hours. The bishop-elect told Juan that he would consider the request of the Lady and told him he could visit him again if he so desired. Juan was disappointed by the bishop’s response and felt himself unworthy to persuade someone as important as a bishop. He returned to the hill where he had first met Mary and found her there waiting for him. Imploring her to send someone else, she responded:
“My little son, there are many I could send. But you are the one I have chosen.”
She then told him to return the next day to the bishop and repeat the request. On Sunday, after again waiting for hours, Juan met with the bishop who, on re-hearing his story, asked him to ask the Lady to provide a sign as a proof of who she was. Juan dutifully returned to the hill and told Mary, who was again waiting for him there, of the bishop’s request. Mary responded:
“My little son, am I not your Mother? Do not fear. The Bishop shall have his sign. Come back to this place tomorrow. Only peace, my little son.”
Unfortunately, Juan was not able to return to the hill the next day. His uncle had become mortally ill and Juan stayed with him to care for him. After two days, with his uncle near death, Juan left his side to find a priest. Juan had to pass Tepayac Hill to get to the priest. As he was passing, he found Mary waiting for him. She spoke:
“Do not be distressed, my littlest son. Am I not here with you who am your Mother? Are you not under myshadow and protection? Your uncle will not die at this time. There is no reason for you to engage a priest, for his health is restored at this moment. He is quite well. Go to the top of the hill and cut the flowers that are growing there. Bring them then to me.”
While it was freezing on the hillside, Juan obeyed Mary’s instructions and went to the top of the hill where he found a full bloom of Castilian roses. Removing his tilma, a poncho-like cape made of cactus fiber, he cut the roses and carried them back to Mary. She rearranged the roses and told him:
“My little son, this is the sign I am sending to the Bishop. Tell him that with this sign I request his greatest efforts to complete the church I desire in this place. Show these flowers to no one else but the Bishop. You are my trusted ambassador. This time the Bishop will believe all you tell him.”
At the palace, Juan once again came before the bishop and several of his advisors. He told the bishop his story and opened the tilma letting the flowers fall out. But it wasn’t the beautiful roses that caused the bishop and his advisors to fall to their knees; for there, on the tilma, was a picture of the Blessed Virgin Mary precisely as Juan had described her. The next day, after showing the Tilma at the Cathedral, Juan took the bishop to the spot where he first met Mary. He then returned to his village where he met his uncle who was completely cured. His uncle told him he had met a young woman, surrounded by a soft light, who told him that she had just sent his nephew to Tenochtitlan with a picture of herself. She told his uncle:
“Call me and call my image Santa Maria de Guadalupe”.
It’s believed that the word Guadalupe was actually a Spanish mis-translation of the local Aztec dialect. The word that Mary probably used was Coatlallope which means “one who treads on snakes”! Within six years of this apparition, six million Aztecs had converted to Catholicism. The tilma shows Mary as the God-bearer – she is pregnant with her Divine Son. Since the time the tilma was first impressed with a picture of the Mother of God, it has been subject to a variety of environmental hazards including smoke from fires and candles, water from floods and torrential downpours and, in 1921, a bomb which was planted by anti-clerical forces on an altar under it. There was also a cast-iron cross next to the tilma and when the bomb exploded, the cross was twisted out of shape, the marble altar rail was heavily damaged and the tilma was…untouched! Indeed, no one was injured in the Church despite the damage that occurred to a large part of the altar structure.
In 1977, the tilma was examined using infrared photography and digital enhancement techniques. Unlike any painting, the tilma shows no sketching or any sign of outline drawn to permit an artist to produce a painting. Further, the very method used to create the image is still unknown. The image is inexplicable in its longevity and method of production. It can be seen today in a large cathedral built to house up to ten thousand worshipers. It is, by far, the most popular religious pilgrimage site in the Western Hemisphere.
From COL
2012
©Evangelizo.org 2001-2019
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Our Lady of Guadalupe – Feast
12 December 2020
Saints of the day
St. Valery
ABBOT
(565-622)
SAINT VALERY
Abbot
(565-622)
This Saint was born at Auvergne, in the sixth century, and in his childhood kept his father’s sheep. He was yet young when he took the monastic habit in the neighboring monastery of St. Antony.
Seeking the most perfect means of advancing in the paths of all virtues, he passed from this house to the more austere monastery of St. Germanus of Auxerre, and finally to that of Luxeuil, where he spent many years.
He travelled into Neustria, where he converted many infidels, and assembled certain fervent disciples, and laid the foundation of a monastery.
Saint Valery went to receive the recompense of his happy perseverance on the 12th of December in 622.
©Evangelizo.org 2001-2019
_________________________________________________________________________________
Our Lady of Guadalupe – Feast
12 December 2020
Saints of the day
St. Finian
BISHOP
(† C. 549)
SAINT FINIAN
Bishop
(† c. 549)
St. Finian was a native of Leinster, was instructed in the elements of Christian virtue by the disciples of St. Patrick, and passed over into Wales; but about the year 520 he returned into Ireland. To propagate the work of God, our Saint established several monasteries and schools.
St. Finian was chosen and consecrated Bishop of Clonard. In the love of his flock and his zeal for their salvation he was infirm with the infirm, and wept with those that wept. He healed the souls, and often also the bodies, of those that applied to him.
He departed to Our Lord about 549.
©Evangelizo.org 2001-2019
_________________________________________________________________________________
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Book of Isaiah 45,1.4-6.
_______________________________________________________
FRANCIS XAVIER SAMSEN
HAPPY JESUS TO ALL
FROM
FRANCIS XAVIER, SAMSEN
THAILAND
___________________________________________________
Friday, December 11th. Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to St Matthew 11,16-19.
Friday of the Second week of Advent
11 December 2020
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ
‘We played the flute for you, but you did not dance,
we sang a dirge but you did not mourn.’
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint Matthew 11,16-19.
Jesus said to the crowds: “To what shall I compare this generation? It is like children who sit in marketplaces and call to one another,
‘We played the flute for you, but you did not dance, we sang a dirge but you did not mourn.’
For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they said, ‘He is possessed by a demon.’
The Son of Man came eating and drinking and they said, ‘Look, he is a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners.’ But wisdom is vindicated by her works.”
Copyright © Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, USCCB
©Evangelizo.org 2001-2019
Image: From Bible Hub
###################################################
THANK YOU
National Catholic Broadcasting Council
Daily TV Mass
YouTube
For
Celebrates Daily TV Mass from Loretto Abbey in Toronto,
Ontario, Canada.
by
Thomas Cardinal Collins
Catholic Mass Today | Daily TV Mass,
Friday of the Second week of Advent, December 11 2020
St. María Maravillas de Jesús, — St. Damasus I, POPE
___________________________________________________
ACT OF SPIRITUAL COMMUNION
My Jesus, I believe that You are present in the Blessed Sacrament.
I love You above all things and I desire You in my soul.
Since I cannot now receive You sacramentally,
Come at least spiritually into my heart.
As though You were already there,
I embrace You and unite myself wholly to You;
Permit not that I should ever be separated from You. Amen.
________________________________________________________________________________
Friday of the Second week of Advent
11 December 2020
Commentary of the day
Answering God’s call to welcome the Savior
“O Fire ever burning,” let us say together with Saint Augustine: “inflame our souls.” O incarnate Word, you became man to strike in our hearts the fire of divine love, how is it you should find in us such great ingratitude? You held nothing back to enable us to love you; you went as far as to sacrifice your blood and your life. What is the reason we humans remain unmoved by such great gifts? Is it because we know nothing about them? Not at all. People understand and believe it is for love of them you came down from heaven to put on human flesh and take on the burden of their woes. They know it is for love of them you willed to lead a life of constant suffering and undergo a shameful death. How explain, after all this, their living in such absolute forgetfulness of your unequalled kindness? They love their family, they love their friends, they even love their livestock (…); it is for you alone they are without love and without gratitude! But what am I saying? In accusing others of ungratefulness, I condemn myself since my conduct in your regard is even worse than theirs. Nevertheless your mercy gives me courage. I know how long it has borne with me, to forgive me and set me on fire with your love if only I am willing to repent and love you.
Oh yes, my God, I want to repent (…); I want to love you with all my heart. I well see how my heart (…) has abandoned you to love the things of this world, but I also see how, in spite of this betrayal, you yet claim it as your own. And so, with all the strength of my will, I consecrate it and offer it to you. Therefore, be pleased to inflame it wholly with your holy love and grant that from now on it may love no other thing but you, (…). O my Jesus, I love you; I love you, my sovereign Good! I love you, sole love of my soul.
O Mary, my mother, you are the “mother of noble loving” (Sir 24:24 Vg.): grant me the grace of loving my God. It is from you that I hope to gain it.
©Evangelizo.org 2001-2019
______________________________________________________
Friday of the Second week of Advent
11 December 2020
Saints of the day
St. María Maravillas de Jesús
(1891-1974)
SAINT MARÍA MARAVILLAS DE JESÚS
(Pidal y Chico de Guzmán)
Professed Nun of the Order of Discalced Carmelites
(1891-1974)
María de las Maravillas was born in Madrid, Spain, on 4 November 1891, the daughter of Luis Pidal y Mon, the Marquis of Pidal, and Cristina Chico de Guzmán y Muñoz. At the time her father was the Spanish Ambassador to the Holy See, and she grew up in a devout Catholic family.
María made a vow of chastity at the age of five and devoted herself to charitable work. After coming into contact with the writings of St John of the Cross and St Teresa of Jesus, she felt called to become a Discalced Carmelite. Her father, whom she had faithfully assisted when he became ill, died in 1913, and her mother was reluctant to accept her daughter’s decision to enter the Carmelite monastery.
However, on 12 October 1919, María did enter the Discalced Carmelites of El Escorial in Madrid. She made her simple vows on 7 May 1921.
Before her final profession on 30 May 1924, Sr María had already received a special call from God to found the Carmel of Cerro de los Ángeles, and the foundation was inaugurated on 31 October 1926 with three other Carmelites. This was the first of the series of Teresian Carmelite Monasteries that she would establish, according to the Rule and Constitutions of the Discalced Carmelites. María was not being called to found a new order or to “branch off” from the Discalced Carmelites – she herself was very careful in pointing this out; she only sought to live deeply and to transmit the spirit and ideals of St Teresa of Jesus and St John of the Cross.
On 28 June 1926, the Bishop of the Diocese of Madrid-Alcalá appointed her prioress of the new monastery. In 1933 she established another foundation in Kottayam, India, and from this Carmel other foundations were started in India.
Her role as prioress would be permanent in the various monasteries she founded throughout her life, notwithstanding the natural aversion and sense of inadequacy she felt in accepting positions of responsibility. María’s spirit of obedience and love for the Church and for her Carmelite sisters, however, gave her the strength and diligence to carry out this duty with love.
Mother Maravillas was often criticized for the poverty of the convents she founded; charges were made that they were “not solid”, small in size and unfurnished, with bare walls on which hung chosen Bible verses or writings of the Carmelite saints. She would reply, however, that “it is not our concern to plant a seed, since the Discalced Carmelites have already been founded. Even if our convents collapse, nothing will happen”.
During the Spanish Civil War, the nuns of Cerro de los Ángeles lived in an apartment in Madrid. In September 1937 another Carmel in the Batuecas, Salamanca, was founded. In 1939 the monastery of Cerro de los Ángeles was restored. Even amid enormous deprivation, Mother Maravillas instilled courage and happiness, always being an admirable example to her daughters.
But she also remained a mystery even to the nuns closest to her, since only her spiritual directors knew the “dark night of the soul” that she lived throughout her life, which kept her in profound spiritual aridity and trials, and made total faith and abandonment to the will of God her guide.
In the following years, foundations were established in other parts of Spain. Mother Maravillas also restored and sent nuns to her original Carmel of El Escorial and to the venerable monastery of the Incarnation in Avila.
In order to unite the monasteries founded by her and others that had the same finality, she founded the Association of St Teresa, which received official approval from the Holy See in 1972.
On 8 December 1974, the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception, Mother Maravillas was anointed and received Holy Communion. On 11 December, surrounded by her community in the Carmel of La Aldehuela, Madrid, she died. At the time of her death, her sisters report that Mother Maravillas kept repeating the phrase: “What happiness to die a Carmelite!”.
She was beatified on 10 May 1998 and canonized on 4 May 2003 by Pope John Paul II.
©Evangelizo.org 2001-2019
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Friday of the Second week of Advent
11 December 2020
Saints of the day
St. Damasus I
POPE
(† 384)
SAINT DAMASUS I
Pope
(† 384)
St. Damasus was born at Rome at the beginning of the fourth century. He was archdeacon of the Roman Church in 355, when Pope Liberius was banished to Berda, and followed him into exile, but afterward returned to Rome. On the death of Liberius our Saint was chosen to succeed him. Ursinus, a competitor for the high office, incited a revolt, but the holy Pope took only such action as was becoming to the common father of the faithful.
Having freed the Church of this new schism, he turned his attention to the extirpation of Arianism in the West and of Apollinarianism in the East, and for this purpose he convened several councils. He rebuilt the church of St. Laurence, which to this day is known as St. Laurence in Damaso; he made many valuable presents to this church, and settled upon it houses and lands in its vicinity. He likewise drained all the springs of the Vatican, which ran over the bodies that were buried there, and decorated the sepulchres of a great number of martyrs in the cemeteries, and adorned them with epitaphs in verse.
Having sat eighteen years and two months, he died on the 10th of December, in 384, being near fourscore years of age.
©Evangelizo.org 2001-2019
__________________________________________________________________________
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“I am the LORD and there is no other,
there is no God besides me.”
Book of Isaiah 45,1.4-6.
_______________________________________________________
FRANCIS XAVIER SAMSEN
HAPPY JESUS TO ALL
FROM
FRANCIS XAVIER, SAMSEN
THAILAND
___________________________________________________
Thursday, December 10th. Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to St Matthew 11,11-15.
Thursday of the Second week of Advent
10 December 2020
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ
“Amen, I say to you, among those born of women
there has been none greater than John the Baptist”
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint Matthew 11,11-15.
Jesus said to the crowds: “Amen, I say to you, among those born of women there has been none greater than John the Baptist; yet the least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.
From the days of John the Baptist until now, the kingdom of heaven suffers violence, and the violent are taking it by force.
All the prophets and the law prophesied up to the time of John.
And if you are willing to accept it, he is Elijah, the one who is to come.
Whoever has ears ought to hear.”
Copyright © Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, USCCB
©Evangelizo.org 2001-2019
Image: From Bible Hub
###################################################
THANK YOU
National Catholic Broadcasting Council
Daily TV Mass
YouTube
For
Celebrates Daily TV Mass from Loretto Abbey in Toronto,
Ontario, Canada.
by
Fr. Michael Coutts, S.J
Catholic Mass Today | Daily TV Mass,
Thursday of the Second week of Advent, December 10 2020
St. Eulalia, VIRGIN AND MARTYR
___________________________________________________
ACT OF SPIRITUAL COMMUNION
My Jesus, I believe that You are present in the Blessed Sacrament.
I love You above all things and I desire You in my soul.
Since I cannot now receive You sacramentally,
Come at least spiritually into my heart.
As though You were already there,
I embrace You and unite myself wholly to You;
Permit not that I should ever be separated from You. Amen.
___________________________________________________________________________
A Silver Lining
by
Richard Leonard SJ
|
|
Thank you
A Silver Lining
by Richard Leonard SJ
AUSTRALIA
________________________________________________________
Thursday of the Second week of Advent
10 December 2020
Commentary of the day
Let us fulfil what is right and holy!
My children, eternal life is being offered to us, the kingdom of heaven is made ready, and Christ’s inheritance awaits us: the enjoyment of innumerable and unimaginable blessings, the happiness of a great joy and of immortality, glory and honor without measure, and all the other blessings in such great number that human language is not sufficient to make known its grace and mercy (cf. Wsd. 3:9)!
So let us run from now on with increased energy, and above all you, lazy, recalcitrant, dull of heart, friends of murmuring who, unless you improve, are like the cursed fig tree. We surround it with manure (cf. Lk 13:8) and it takes no root at all, we water you with words and not a bit of growth results! “Even now the ax lies at the root of the trees” (Lk 3:9) and I will silence the rest. Let us seek out the fight, bravely pour with our sweat, adorn ourselves with crowns, gain praises, and gather up like a treasure “what eye has not seen, and ear has not heard, and what has not entered the human heart” (1 Cor 2:9).
Let us rule our lives by that of our fathers, that which goes back to the origin, let us follow in the footsteps of their virtues, love their upright deeds, make of our way of life an image of their own. (…) Yes, let us work together with them! Let us act with them! Let us follow in their footsteps! Yes! Let us, too, fulfil what is right and holy! In this way we will share in their glory, we will be crowned and, together with them, exult in the kingdom of heaven, in Christ Jesus our Lord, to whom belongs the glory and the power, with the Father and the Holy Spirit, now and for ever. Amen.
©Evangelizo.org 2001-2019
_______________________________________________
Thursday of the Second week of Advent
10 December 2020
Saint of the day
St. Eulalia
VIRGIN AND MARTYR
(† 304)
SAINT EULALIA
Virgin and Martyr
(† 304)
St. Eulalia was a native of Merida, in Spain. She was but twelve years old when the bloody edicts of Diocletian were issued. Eulalia presented herself before the cruel judge Dacianus, and reproached him for attempting to destroy souls by compelling them to renounce the only true God.
The governor commanded her to be seized, and at first tried to win her over by flattery, but failing in this, he had recourse to threats, and caused the most dreadful instruments of torture to be placed before her eyes, saying to her: “All this you shall escape if you will but touch a little salt and frankincense with the tip of your finger.” Provoked at these seducing flatteries, our Saint threw down the idol, and trampled upon the cake which was laid for the sacrifice. At the judge’s order, two executioners tore her tender sides with iron hooks, so as to leave the very bones bare. Next lighted torches were applied to her breasts and sides; under which torment, instead of groans, nothing was heard from her mouth but thanksgivings. The fire at length catching her hair, surrounded her head and face, and the Saint was stifled by the smoke and flame.
©Evangelizo.org 2001-2019
_________________________________________________________________________
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________________________________________________
“I am the LORD and there is no other,
there is no God besides me.”
Book of Isaiah 45,1.4-6.
_______________________________________________________
FRANCIS XAVIER SAMSEN
HAPPY JESUS TO ALL
FROM
FRANCIS XAVIER, SAMSEN
THAILAND
___________________________________________________
Tuesday, December 8th. Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to St Luke 1,26-38.
Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary – Solemnity
8 December 2020
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ
“Behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son,
and you shall name him Jesus.”
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint Luke 1,26-38.
In the sixth month, the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a town of Galilee called Nazareth,
to a virgin betrothed to a man named Joseph, of the house of David, and the virgin’s name was Mary.
And coming to her, he said, “Hail, full of grace! The Lord is with you.”
But she was greatly troubled at what was said and pondered what sort of greeting this might be.
Then the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God.
Behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall name him Jesus.
He will be great and will be called Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give him the throne of David his father,
and he will rule over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.”
But Mary said to the angel, “How can this be, since I have no relations with a man?”
And the angel said to her in reply, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. Therefore the child to be born will be called holy, the Son of God.
And behold, Elizabeth, your relative, has also conceived a son in her old age, and this is the sixth month for her who was called barren;
for nothing will be impossible for God.”
Mary said, “Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord. May it be done to me according to your word.” Then the angel departed from her.
Copyright © Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, USCCB
©Evangelizo.org 2001-2019
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Celebrates Daily TV Mass from Loretto Abbey in Toronto,
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by
Father Larry Marcille
Catholic Mass Today | Daily TV Mass,
Tuesday of the First week of Advent, December 8 2020
Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary – Solemnity
St. Narcisa de Jesús Martillo Morán — St. Patapius, HERMIT
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ACT OF SPIRITUAL COMMUNION
My Jesus, I believe that You are present in the Blessed Sacrament.
I love You above all things and I desire You in my soul.
Since I cannot now receive You sacramentally,
Come at least spiritually into my heart.
As though You were already there,
I embrace You and unite myself wholly to You;
Permit not that I should ever be separated from You. Amen.
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Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary – Solemnity
8 December 2020
Commentary of the day
To contemplate the Immaculate Virgin Mary
If, as the Apostle declares, faith is nothing else than the substance of things to be hoped for” (Heb 11:1) everyone will easily allow that our faith is confirmed and our hope aroused and strengthened by the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin. The Virgin was kept the more free from all stain of original sin because she was to be the Mother of Christ; and she was the Mother of Christ that the hope of everlasting happiness might be born again in our souls.
Leaving aside charity towards God, who can contemplate the Immaculate Virgin without feeling moved to fulfill that precept which Christ called peculiarly His own, namely that of loving one another as He loved us? “A great sign,” thus the Apostle St. John describes a vision divinely sent him, appears in the heavens: “A woman clothed with the sun, and with the moon under her feet and a crown of twelve stars upon her head” (Rv 12:1). Everyone knows that this woman signified the Virgin Mary, the stainless one who brought forth our Head.
The Apostle continues: “And, being with child, she cried travailing in birth, and was in pain to be delivered” (Rv 12:2). John therefore saw the Most Holy Mother of God already in eternal happiness, yet travailing in a mysterious childbirth. What birth was it? Surely it was the birth of us who, still in exile, are yet to be generated to the perfect charity of God, and to eternal happiness. And the birth pains show the love and desire with which the Virgin from heaven above watches over us, and strives with unwearying prayer to bring about the fulfillment of the number of the elect.
This same charity we desire that all should earnestly endeavor to attain, taking special occasion from (…) feasts in honor of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
©Evangelizo.org 2001-2019
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Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary – Solemnity
8 December 2020
Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary –
Solemnity
Immaculate Conception
of the Blessed Virgin Mary
(Solemnity)
The Feast of the Immaculate Conception celebrates the solemn belief in the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary. It is universally celebrated on December 8, nine months before the feast of the Nativity of Mary, which is celebrated on September 8. A feast called the Conception of Mary arose in the Eastern Church in the seventh century. It came to the West in the eighth century. In the 11th century it received its present name, the Immaculate Conception. In the 18th century it became a feast of the universal Church. It is now recognized as a solemnity.
In 1854, Pius IX solemnly proclaimed: “The most Blessed Virgin Mary, in the first instant of her conception, by a singular grace and privilege granted by almighty God, in view of the merits of Jesus Christ, the savior of the human race, was preserved free from all stain of original sin.”
It took a long time for this doctrine to develop. While many Fathers and Doctors of the Church considered Mary the greatest and holiest of the saints, they often had difficulty in seeing Mary as sinless—either at her conception or throughout her life. Two Franciscans, William of Ware and Blessed John Duns Scotus, helped develop the theology. They pointed out that Mary’s Immaculate Conception enhances Jesus’ redemptive work. Other members of the human race are cleansed from original sin after birth. In Mary, Jesus’ work was so powerful as to prevent original sin at the outset. In Luke 1:28 the angel Gabriel, speaking on God’s behalf, addresses Mary as “full of grace” (or “highly favored”). In that context this phrase means that Mary is receiving all the special divine help necessary for the task ahead. However, the Church grows in understanding with the help of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit led the Church, especially non-theologians, to the insight that Mary had to be the most perfect work of God next to the Incarnation. Or rather, Mary’s intimate association with the Incarnation called for the special involvement of God in Mary’s whole life. The logic of piety helped God’s people to believe that Mary was full of grace and free of sin from the first moment of her existence. Moreover, this great privilege of Mary is the highlight of all that God has done in Jesus. Rightly understood, the incomparable holiness of Mary shows forth the incomparable goodness of God.
“It is no wonder, then, that the usage prevailed among the holy Fathers whereby they called the mother of God entirely holy and free from all stain of sin, fashioned by the Holy Spirit into a kind of new substance and new creature. Adorned from the first instant of her conception with the splendors of an entirely unique holiness, the Virgin of Nazareth is, on God’s command, greeted by an angel messenger as ‘full of grace’ (cf. Luke 1:28). To the heavenly messenger she replies: ‘Behold the handmaid of the Lord, be it done to me according to thy word’ (Luke 1:38)” (Vatican II, Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, 56).
©Evangelizo.org 2001-2016
©Evangelizo.org 2001-2019
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Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary – Solemnity
8 December 2020
Saints of the day
St. Narcisa de Jesús Martillo Morán
(1832-1869)
Saint Narcisa de Jesús Martillo Morán
(1832-1869)
Narcisa de Jesús Martillo Morán was born in 1832 in the hamlet of St Joseph in Nobol, Daule, Ecuador. The Dominicans had been looking after the parish for almost three hundred years. She was the daughter of Peter Martillo and Josephine Morán, landowners, modest people with a deep faith. Her father, who had a lively intelligence and was a great worker, amassed considerable wealth.
He was very devoted to the future saint Marianna of Jesus and Saint Hyacinth of Poland who is venerated fervently throughout the province of Guayas. They had nine children, who grew healthy and strong. Narcisa was the sixth. In 1838, when she was six, her mother died. Helped by a teacher and an older sister she learnt to read, write, sing, play the guitar, sew (a skill she really mastered), weave, embroider and cook. She had great qualities, with a particular bent for music. Often, her prayer became song, and her song was intimate and devout, reaching the heart of Him who well deserved it, as a song which she loved to sing in her youth said.
She had a clear perception of her call to sanctity, especially from when she received confirmation, aged seven, on 16th September 1839. She grew into the habit of withdrawing frequently in a small wood near her home to give herself freely to the contemplation of divine realities. The tree of Guayabo, near which she prayed, is today the destination for large pilgrimages. She turned a small room in her house into a domestic chapel. She decided to imitate Saint Marianna of Jesus, identifying with the vocation of a victim. She undertook a demanding path of penance to unite herself more closely with the suffering Christ and cooperate in the redemption of the world. She helped with the domestic chores and out in the fields. She was a young, thoughtful, lovable, happy girl with a sweet and peaceful character, extremely good and obedient, generous, compassionate towards the poor, very devout, loved by all the neighbours. She was a very attractive young woman, blonde with blue eyes, tall, strong and agile. She showed herself to be an excellent catechist. She could not do without communicating the fire of divine love to her family and to the children of the neighbourhood.
In January 1852 her father, a good man, died. Narcisa, who was then 19, moved to Guayaquil to stay with a very well-known family who lived near the cathedral. She stayed in this city until 1868, except for those months she lived in the city of Cuenca. She moved house a number of times to preserve her privacy and to dedicate herself with greater freedom to prayer and penance, earning her living by doing tailoring work. She helped the poor and the sick. She was docile to the instructions of her spiritual directors and shared ideals, and sometimes a house, with the Blessed Mercedes of Jesus Molina. Driven by a desire for greater perfection, and advised by a Franciscan religious, she set off in June 1868 for Lima (Perù) and lived as a lay member in the Dominican convent of Patrocinio, founded in 1688, in the area where Saint John Macias used to graze his flock. The Lord favoured her with extraordinary gifts, and showed her how pleasing her life was, in the midst of trials of the spirit.
Towards the end of September 1869, she had high fevers. Medical remedies could do little, but she kept up her normal rhythm of life, ending with a novena and the celebration of the Eucharist, with great joy, dressed in white, on the solemnity of the Immaculate Conception of Mary, 8th December 1869, the same day on which Blessed Pius IX opened in Rome Vatican Council I. At the end of the day she took leave of the sisters, saying she was going on a journey very far.
This was taken as a joke, but not long after, one of the sisters, charged with blessing the cells, noticed a splendour and a special scent in Narcisa’s cell. The community gathered and they saw that she was dead. She was 37 years old.
Afterwards, it became known that she had made a private vow of perpetual virginity, poverty, obedience, enclosure, eremitical life, fasting on bread and water, daily Communion, confession, mortification and prayer. All these vows she kept faithfully. She lived in continuous union with Jesus Christ. Her mortifications were very severe. She carried constantly on her body the signs of the Lord’s crucifixion. She had a firm faith and admirable hope. The doctors were amazed that she could have lived so long with so little food. Her body remained supple for a long time and from it came a pleasant scent, and in front of it many graces were granted. The city of Lima acclaimed her as a saint, as did the people of Guayaquil and Nobol. The Dominican Sisters of Patrocinio guarded the memory of her virtues and her tomb with great veneration until her body, practically incorrupt, was transferred to Guayaquil in 1955. The documents of the diocesan process of canonization were handed over to the Congregation for the Causes of Saints in 1964. Pope John Paul II beatified her on 25th October 1992 and Pope Benedict XVI canonized her on 12th October 2008. On 22nd August 1998 they dedicated a shrine in her honour in Nobol, where her incorrupt body is at present. Devotion to the “Niña Narcisa” shows the spontaneous identification of ordinary people with this woman from the Ecuadorian coast. The example of her life, pure and pious, of work and apostolate, sends out a very topical message.
©Evangelizo.org 2001-2019
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Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary – Solemnity
8 December 2020
Saints of the day
St. Patapius
HERMIT
Saint Patapius
Hermit
St. Patapius was the founder of a Monastery in Constantinople. Although a hermit, St. Patapius had profound impacts in the lives of those he met. Two of those whom he met later in life, after carrying out his vocation, would go on to become Saints and the founders of more institutions. St. Patapius’ relics are based near Athens, but his memory is eshrined forever in the hearts of men and the mind of God.
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