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Sr Marie-Andre, SCMC – Mary Mother of Life – 40 Days for Life

sma — Sun, 15 Jun 2008 12:48:20 +0000

40 Days for Life returns this fall! At least 500 tiny humans were spared due to the prayer, fasting, and witness last year. What efforts could we not spare to get this beautiful work better known?

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Jun 18 – Homily – Fr Bonaventure: Pray in Quiet

apostolate — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 11:56:18 +0000

Homily #080618 ( 09min) Play – Do not pray, fast or do good works to get attention or you will be doing nothing pleasing to God. Rather go to a quiet room to pray, which includes the interior room of our hearts wherever we may be.
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Video – Face of Pro-Life #37: Brian Daly & 40 Days for Life

apostolate — Sun, 06 Jul 2008 07:05:28 +0000

Face of Pro-Life #37 – Brian Daly talks about 40 Days for Life Campaign ( 30min) >>> Play	?
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Ave Maria!

[Update: The 2008 40-Days-for-Life Vigil starts Sept 24 in approximately 300 cities across America, praying outside of abortion clinics 24 hours a day for 40 days ending Nov 2, just prior to the presidential election. www.40daysforlife.com]

Brian Daly, an organizer for the 40 Days for Life Campaign, talks the purpose of the campaign, its goals and its future in its hopes of ending abortion once and for all. Ave Maria!

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Prayer Knocks, Fasting Obtains, Mercy Receives

Sr. JosephMary f.t.i. — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 20:00:30 +0000

Ave Maria Mediations

Prayer, Fasting and Mercy by St. Peter Chrysologus

There are three things, my brethren, by which faith stands firm, devotion remains constant, and virtue endures. They are prayer, fasting and mercy. Prayer knocks at the door, fasting obtains, mercy receives. Prayer, mercy and fasting: these three are one, and they give life to each other.

Fasting is the soul of prayer, mercy is the lifeblood of fasting. Let no one try to separate them; they cannot be separated. If you have only one of them or not all together, you have nothing. So if you pray, fast; if you fast, show mercy; if you want your petition to be heard, hear the petition of others. If you do not close your ear to others you open God’s ear to yourself.

When you fast, see the fasting of others. If you want God to know that you are hungry, know that another is hungry. If you hope for mercy, show mercy. If you look for kindness, show kindness. If you want to receive, give. If you ask for yourself what you deny to others, your asking is a mockery.

Let this be the pattern for all men when they practise mercy: show mercy to others in the same way, with the same generosity, with the same promptness, as you want others to show mercy to you.

Therefore, let prayer, mercy and fasting be one single plea to God on our behalf, one speech in our defence, a threefold united prayer in our favour. Let us use fasting to make up for what we have lost by despising others. Let us offer our souls in sacrifice by means of fasting. There is nothing more pleasing that we can offer to God, as the psalmist said in prophecy: A sacrifice to God is a broken spirit; God does not despise a bruised and humbled heart.

Offer your soul to God, make him an oblation of your fasting, so that your soul may be a pure offering, a holy sacrifice, a living victim, remaining your own and at the same time made over to God. Whoever fails to give this to God will not be excused, for if you are to give him yourself you are never without the means of giving. To make these acceptable, mercy must be added. Fasting bears no fruit unless it is watered by mercy. Fasting dries up when mercy dries up. Mercy is to fasting as rain is to earth.

However much you may cultivate your heart, clear the soil of your nature, root out vices, sow virtues, if you do not release the springs of mercy, your fasting will bear no fruit. When you fast, if your mercy is thin your harvest will be thin; when you fast, what you pour out in mercy overflows into your barn. Therefore, do not lose by saving, but gather in by scattering. Give to the poor, and you give to yourself. You will not be allowed to keep what you have refused to give to others.

St. Peter is an early Church Father and as one of the greatest preachers of the early church explains the key penitential practices of Lent-prayer, fasting, and almsgiving or mercy. Saint Peter Chrysologus declares that Prayer knocks at the door, fasting obtains, mercy receives. He shows how prayer, mercy and fasting are one, and they give life to each other. This reading is used by the Roman Church for the Office of Readings for Tuesday of the 3rd week of Lent. St. Peter Chrysologus was the bishop of Ravenna, Italy in the middle of the 5th century. His sermons were so inspiring that he was given the title “Chrysologus” (greek for “Golden-worded) and was eventually declared a “Doctor of the Church.”

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Jul 04 – Homily – Fr Bonaventure: New Wine

apostolate — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 11:38:21 +0000

Homily #090704 ( 07min) Play – Fr. Bonaventure explains today’s Gospel that the fasting of the new testament will be done in the name of Christ and in conjunction with the sacraments and so be new wine.
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Aug 30 – Homily – Fr Angelo: Sin of Lip Service

apostolate — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 16:58:19 +0000

Homily #090830 ( 20min) Play – In order to have faith we must do more than just lip service but do His will. Even the Pharisees who did many of the things that God told them to do were accused by Our Lord of doing mere lip service. Listen to Fr. Angelo explain the true meaning of doing the Lord’s will.

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Feb 17 – Homily – Fr Angelo: Our Time Is Limited

apostolate — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 17:37:47 +0000

Homily #100217 ( 08min) Play – How time flies, even in Lent. This time of penance comes and goes before we know it. Let us participate in the grace of Easter by participating in the 40 days of Lent.
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On the Importance of Fasting

Sr. JosephMary f.t.i. — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 20:00:03 +0000

For nearly two thousand years, Catholics have read, re-read and reflected upon the great passage in the sixth chapter of the gospel of Matthew in which Jesus lays out the three essential practices of Christian life: prayer, fasting, and almsgiving.

Every Ash Wednesday around the globe, in lavishly tiled basilicas, in wood planked chapels, in modest oratories with dirt floors, in carpeted suburban parishes, and in the great multiplicity of sizes, shapes and styles of Catholic houses worship, the Catholic imagination is called to attentive reflection on these prescriptions from Our Lord: When you pray; When you give alms; When you fast.

When Ash Wednesday Mass is finished, the next forty days – all of Lent- is observed in the context of this passage. This happens every year without fail. These three essential practices of Christian life are brought to our attention and emphasized. You would think that we Catholics would get the point.

But do we?

How many Catholics understand the normal Christian life to be composed of a healthy dose of all three? Sure, we’re supposed to pray. Everyone believes that.

Giving alms – once we get past the archaic word, is also commonly accepted. We live in a society where giving to charities and doing service work is considered a normal part of our civic life. It takes no great faith commitment to do this.

But fasting?

Who fasts? And if we do fast, isn’t that just obedience to some minimal Church norms during Lent?

But where does Christ say that fasting was to be done exclusively during Lent? And where does He say that it is exclusively penitential? Yet somehow, in our collective consciousness, that is precisely what most of us think.

As Catholics, we are called to imitate Christ in all things. He is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. We are called by Him to take up our cross everyday and follow Him. So shouldn’t we pay close attention to what He actually said and did?

For instance, what was the final stage of His preparation for His public ministry? Forty days of fasting in the desert! Is fasting important? Consider this. When the devil appeared to Jesus to try to thwart his mission, what was the VERY FIRST thing he tried to get Jesus to do? Look it up (Matthew 4:1-4) He tried to get Jesus to break his fast! Yes, fasting is just that powerful and the devil understood this profoundly.

I believe that the Lord has led me to focus attention on the power of fasting as a regular part of the Christian life. To pray is good. To give alms is good. But fasting is the glue. To fast is to combine prayer and almsgiving. It is to pray with your body. It is to give spiritual alms. In striving for holiness, prayer lifts you up. Almsgiving coupled with prayer is a selfless movement of love that powers you higher.

But fasting? Fasting allows you to soar to supernatural heights virtually unimaginable. This is not because you yourself are in control, but because fasting is an abandonment of control, a radical letting go that, along with sacramental confession, allows all barriers to your acceptance of God’s love to be broken.

Did you know that none other than St. Paul himself received his mission after a three day absolute fast? Yep. He was knocked off his horse, made blind, and then led to Damascus. Then for three days he was unable to see, and he neither ate nor drank. (Acts 9:9) When the Lord sent Ananias to Judas’ house to lay hands on Saul (his pre-conversion name), he found Saul in the midst of intense prayer and fasting. The rest is history.

Is fasting important for the spiritual life?

The very first pope, St. Peter, the rock upon whom Christ built his Church, the man to whom Christ gave the keys to the kingdom, also received a very important message at the end of what appears in scripture to be a fast. It is well known that after the resurrection and ascension of Jesus into heaven, Peter initially favored Jewish Christians. He saw the Jewish people as the rightful heirs to Christ’s actions and message. But we can learn much from Peter. Even an apostle needed to learn and grow in submission to God’s will. In Acts 10, it says that while he was still hungry and people were making preparations to feed him, Peter received a revelation that would alter the future of Christianity. The gospel was for not exclusively for the Jews, it was for everyone! A pretty important insight gained while being hungry.

Fasting is like one of the three legs on the stool of Christian life. Without all three legs, the stool cannot stand as it should. I believe that fasting, as an ordinary practice of Christian life, must be recovered if we are to live any kind of balance. Fasting pulls together and amplifies all other acts of piety. It gives prayer and almsgiving a power and a vitality that might come to you as a great surprise. I’ve been surprised by fasting and there are many stories to tell.

It is my belief that if the average Catholic understood the intimacy possible with Our Lord through fasting, if he understood the power it has in the spiritual realm, he would desire it so passionately that he would pursue it at any cost. The astonishing secret is that price is not really very high. In fact, it is absolutely free.

A threefold cord is not quickly broken. Ecclesiastes 4:12

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Hymns 4 Lent

apostolate — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 10:35:28 +0000

From Catholiques1

please view in 480p mode.~
In ieiunio et fletu orabant sacerdotes: parce Domine populo tuo, et ne des hereditatem tuam in perditionem. Inter vestibulum et altare plorabant sacerdotes dicentes: Parce populo tuo.
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Fasting and weeping, the priests shall pray: Spare thy people, Lord, and give not thy heritage over to destruction. Between the porch and altar, the priests shall pray: Spare thy people. Hear my prayer, O Lord
and let my crying come unto thee.
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Derelinquit impius viam suam, et vir iniquus cogitationes suas, et reveratur ad Dominum, et miserebitur eius: quia benignus at misericors est, et praestabilis super malitia, Dominus Deus noster.

The wicked man forsakes his ways, and the unrighteous man his thoughts; and let him return unto the Lord, and He will have mercy upon him: for the Lord our God is gracious and merciful, and ever ready to relent when he threatens disaster.

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Feb 20 – Homily – Fr Angelo: Prayer and Fasting

apostolate — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 12:33:15 +0000

Homily #120220 ( 04min) Play – “This kind can only come out by prayer and fasting” – only by supernatural means can our conversion be achieved – therefore our own cooperation in that work must be to use the tools that are available to us. Fasting – we empty ourselves to allow God to fill us. We need to detach ourselves form the things of this world- by Prayer and Fasting.
Ave Maria!
Mass: Ordinary Form – Monday 7th Week of Ordinary Time
Readings:
1st Reading: James 3:13-18
Responsorial Psalm: 19:8, 9, 10, 15
Gospel: Mark 9:14-29

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