St. Teresa of Avila
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St. Teresa prayed,
“Let nothing disturb you,Let nothing frighten you,
All things are passing away:
God never changes.
Patience obtains all things!
Whoever has God lacks nothing;
God alone suffices.”
May nothing disturb us today;
Nothing frighten us;
It will all pass away
God alone will remain;
And suffice for everything.
Pope Callistus
Pope Callistus went from embezzling
to being a slave
to being imprisoned to the mines in Sardina
to Pope.
Quite a journey.
At the time,
There were those who taught that after Baptism,
If a person sinned, they could not be readmitted to Communion.
Callistus however taught that sinners could be readmitted to Communion if they repented.
Callistus had tasted the Mercy of God in Communion
And wanted to make sure that everyone else did too!
Wisdom Wis.7:7-11
When I was young I thought I knew it all.
Who doesn’t at 21!
When you are 21 you DO know everything
The problem though is that your world is rather small at 21.
So there is really not that much to know.
But then as you get older and the world gets bigger
There is more to know.
A lot more!
And That life has more questions than answers.
And in the face of Life’s questions our knowledge is not enough
What we need is Wisdom.
Wisdom gives our knowledge the ability to make the right choices.
To see things more clearly.
Wisdom is to knowledge
What oil is to a car or protein is to an athlete.
Without it a person is not going to get too far.
And the beginning of Wisdom is Silence.
Someone who talks too much really has nothing to say.
But it is not only silencing our lips
But silencing our passions and desires, our fears and anxieties.
Because our passions and fears and desires and anxieties
Cloud and distort our thinking.
And when we silence everything
we can more wisely know what to say and where to go.
And this is what many early Christians did.
They went out into the desert and separated themselves from all the noise so that they could better hear the voice of God.
Many of us cannot go out into the desert
But we can walk out into the fields.
Or Sit in an empty church.
And in the silence Wisdom will begin to speak!
Why The Daily Rosary?
At Fatima: Our Lady said, “I am the Lady of the Rosary”.
St. Francis de Sales said the greatest method of praying is: “Pray the Rosary”
St. Thomas Aquinas preached 40 straight days in Rome, Italy on just the Hail Mary.
St. John Vianney, patron of priests, was seldom seen without a rosary in his hand.
“The rosary is the scourge of the devil” - Pope Adrian VI.
“The rosary is a treasure of graces” - Pope Paul V.
Padre Pio the stigmatic priest said: “The rosary is THE WEAPON”
Pope Leo XIII wrote 9 encyclicals on the rosary.
Pope John XXIII spoke 38 times about our Lady and the Rosary. He prayed 15 decades daily.
St. Louis Marie Grignion de Montfort wrote: “The rosary is the most powerful weapon to touch the Heart of Jesus, Our Redeemer, who so loves His Mother.”
Feast of Pope John XXIII
Pope John XXIII was Pope at a time when the Church and Society were in great change.
The Second Vatican Council had begun and the Civil rights movement was just beginning
And all of it would lead to the tumultuous 1960’s.
And in the face of such change and upheaval,
Pope John would say,
“See everything, overlook a great deal, correct a little.”
There is really very little that one person, even a Pope can do.
So in the face of the changes taking place in our world,
Pope John gives us the same advice,
“See everything, overlook a great deal, and correct a little.”
And leave the rest to God!
Ask, Seek and Knock Lk 11:5-13
Jesus tells us to Ask and it will be given
Seek and we will find;
Knock and the door will be opened to us.
It sounds so simple then why do we not obtain what we want?
Because we ask for ourselves and not God’ Will;
We seek the things of this world rather than the Kingdom of Heaven
and we knock on the wrong doors.
We should be asking to know God’s Will.
seeking only to do God’s Will
And knocking on the door of our Heavenly Father’s House.
If we do We will be blessed good measure and overflowing into the folds of our hearts.
The Lord’s Prayer Lk. 11:1-4
The Lord’s Prayer is the perfect prayer
Because it begins with God.
Calling upon God as our Father and His Holy Name
And seeking to do His Will.
Then it continues by calling to mind our daily needs
For bread and forgiveness
And acknowledging the daily temptations and evils we face.
Concluding that God will deliver us.
All prayer should therefore begin acknowledging God
And seeking to do His Will,
And then proceed to our own needs.
For when we place God first in prayer
We will be confident that He will answer ours as well.
