Ave Maria!

Filmed two years ago at NACEPF host John Primeau and Fr. Angelo Geiger, FI discuss how Mel Gibson’s movie “The Passion” helps us to know Christ. Starting with the question “do we really know Christ??? they discuss how the movie shows that Jesus is God and God is Love by portraying His super-abundant love that is willing and able to suffer unto death for our redemption and then rise from the dead. Fr. Angelo then discusses how we should show our gratitude by repenting and being willing to suffer with him and so participate in the redemption of all mankind, “taking up our cross daily and following him.?? The movie destroys the modern idea that suffering and love is opposed. Christ suffers out of love for us. The superabundance of Christ’s suffering shows the goodness of God and the wickedness of sin. All of which makes the movie one of the best means today for counteracting the lax morality that is destroying our society.

Ave Maria!

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Ave Maria!

Starting with the Last Seven words of Christ on the Cross that refer to Psalm 22:1, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me??? and later in verse 9, “You have drawn me out of the womb. You entrusted me to my mother’s breast and placed me on her lap.?? Fr. Peter Fehlner makes the connection between Christ’s crucifixion and the incarnation and thus Mary. His cry is not one of despair but, as the rest of the Psalm indicates, He willed the Crucifixion as well as the Incarnation that made it possible. Mary who cooperated with God in bringing Christ into the world, cooperates with God in the Redemption as she stands at the foot of the cross.

He covers the thinking of the Fathers of the Church on this matter, Moses the Law and Elias the prophet, the Transfiguration of the Lord on Mt. Tabor, the Virgin Birth and much more. Come listen to this most important video as we approach the crucifixion…

Ave Maria!

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Ave Maria!

While we were in NY on 9/11 we ran into John Solicia who found the famous Steal I-Beam Cross that fell from the towers when they collapsed. The Cross is now mounted alongside St. Peters 50 feet from were Our Lady of America was placed on 9/11. Eventually the Cross will be part of the memorial at Ground Zero when it is completed. While we were doing the interview the names of those who died where being read on the load speaker at the memorial service at Ground Zero and can be heard in the background. Listen to this inspiring account of hope and light that the Cross can bring in the midst of great darkness and despair.

Ave Maria!

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Marycast Specials #1 ( 10min) Play – During the 16th World Day of the Sick on February 11, The Holy Father Pope Benedict XVI gives his strongest statement yet on the direct participation of Our Lady in the Redemption of the world at Calvary.“Mary is a model of total self-abandonment to the will of God: she received in her heart the eternal Word and she conceived it in her virginal womb; she trusted in God and, with her soul pierced by a sword (cf. Lk 2:35), she did not hesitate to share the passion of her Son, renewing on Calvary at the foot of the Cross her ‘Yes’ of the Annunciation.”

Ave Maria!

Audio (MP3)

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Homily #080316 ( 16min) Play – First we sing, “Hosanna”, and then we come into the chapel and say, “Crucify Him”. Are we really the friends of Jesus? Let ask?Our Blessed Mother to accompany us during this Holy Week and learn from Her how to be a friend of Jesus. Let us go to the Cross with Our Lady and St John.
Ave Maria! Mass readings
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Homily #080519 ( 10min) Play – Wordly wisdom comes from experiencing the world but supernatural wisdom comes from experiencing God. Listen as Fr Angelo explains how through following the commandments of God, maintaining a prayer life and especially taking up our cross daily, we can experience God, and so gain wisdom and joy in this world and the next.
Ave Maria! Mass readings
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Homily #080606 ( 08min) Play – Our Lord came not to rule in human terms but in love, through the cross, which is a stumbling block to the chosen people.
Ave Maria! Mass readings
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Homily #080717 ( 07min) Play – Fr. Angelo Geiger explains the meaning of the today’s Gospel where Our Lord will give us rest and yet will burden us at the same time. Through the grace of meekness and humility of heart what was once burdensome will become easy, even a cross.
Ave Maria! Mass readings
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Homily #080922 ( 9min) Play – The light all receive in baptism is faith. We must be witnesses to our faith in the world by taking up our cross daily and follow Christ for the conversion and sanctification of the world, in imitation of the recent example of St Maximilian Mary Kolbe.
Ave Maria! Mass readings
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Blessing

May the Lord bless you
and keep you;
may the Lord show his face to you
and have compassion on you!
May he turn his face to you
and give you peace!

Amen.

St. Francis’ Prayer in Praise of God Given to Brother Leo

You are holy, Lord, the only God, and Your deeds are wonderful.
You are strong.
You are great.
You are the Most High.
You are Almighty.
You, Holy Father are King of heaven and earth.
You are Three and One, Lord God, all Good.
You are Good, all Good, supreme Good, Lord God, living and true.
You are love.
You are wisdom.
You are humility.
You are endurance.
You are rest.
You are peace.
You are joy and gladness.
You are justice and moderation.
You are all our riches, and You suffice for us.
You are beauty.
You are gentleness.
You are our protector.
You are our guardian and defender.
You are our courage.
You are our haven and our hope.
You are our faith, our great consolation.
You are our eternal life, Great and Wonderful Lord, God Almighty, Merciful Savior.

Prayer of St. Francis
Before the Blessed Sacrament

We adore You,
O Lord Jesus Christ,
in this Church and all the Churches of the world,
and we bless You,
because,
by Your holy Cross You have redeemed the world

At first?glance, the San Damiano crucifix gives the impression that Christ is merely standing before the cross, not hanging from it in agony. After all, Roman crucifixion was an ugly form of torture that left the condemned hanging from their arms by their own weight to die a slow death of suffocation. Some of the condemned were tied to the cross with ropes, and, in certain cases, as with our Lord, nails were driven through wrists and ankles to grind against raw bone, setting nerves afire with searing pain.

And yet here, in this image, Christ seems to be almost serene. What, then, could be the reason for such an odd depiction of the central mystery of Christian faith?

Well, look a bit closer and notice the background scenes that actually define the shape of the cross.

First, behind the center of Christ?s body, you can see the figures described in John 19:25?27: on the left, his mother Mary along with John himself, and, on the right, first his mother?s sister Mary the wife of Clopas, then Mary of Magdala, and then the centurion who proclaimed, ?Truly this man was the Son of God!? (Mark 15:39). The smaller figures depict the soldier Longinus on the left with his spear, and on the right the man who put the sponge soaked in wine to Christ?s mouth. This central part of the image therefore depicts the mystery of the Crucifixion.

But now look at the arms of Christ. What do you see behind them? That long, dark, rectangular area is Christ?s tomb. But not just the tomb?the empty tomb. Notice the four angels along the bottom and the figures of Peter and John, as described in John 20:2?10, peering into the emptiness with amazement. This part of the background, then, represents the mystery of the Resurrection.

Finally, look at the T-shaped area above Christ?s head. There you can see Christ rising up into heaven; above his head the hand of the Father gives his blessing. For here, at last, is the culmination of his earthly mission and his return to his place at the right hand of the Father: the mystery of the Ascension.

So the entire San Damiano crucifix depicts not just the fact of the crucifixion, but it depicts the three mysteries that reside behind the crucifixion. To the world, the cross is a stumbling block and foolishness (1 Corinthians 1:23); but to the eyes of faith the cross is the Crucifixion, the Resurrection, and the Ascension, in their full simultaneous reality.

This image, of course, is the image that converted Saint Francis from a life of self-indulgence to a life of total obedience to God?s will.

Francis learned to rejoice in the overwhelming beauty of God?s creation?a beauty signfying God?s love?yet he did not desire anything of the material world for his own fulfillment. Instead, he desired nothing but to receive our Lord with a pure heart and chaste body.

And, as he showed through the rest of his life, Francis fully understood the reason for the odd depiction of Christ?s serenity upon the San Damiano crucifix. For when someone accepts injustice, cruelty, and contempt with patience, without being ruffled and without murmuring, and endures it all with charity and total faith, what else can we call it but perfect joy? And so, right from the beginning, Francis understood that the ?background? to all human suffering must be total faith in the ultimate triumph of the Cross.

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