Homily #130317 ( 08min) Play – Fr. Ignatius explains the knowledge of Jesus and God His Father, and how all must respond with faith and love. Pope Francis explained at his first homily that one who does not pray to Jesus, “prays to the devil.”

Ave Maria!
Mass: Passion Sunday – 1st Cl – Form: EF, Iudica Me Deus
Readings: 
1st: heb 9:11-15
Gsp: joh 8:46-59

Audio (MP3)

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Homily #130319b ( 10min) Play – On the solemnity of St. Joseph, Fr. Elias preaches on the close relationship between St. Joseph and St. Francis and therefore how appropriate that Pope Francis’ pontificate is being inaugurated today. The Franciscans connected with the devotion to St Joseph are:

• St. Bernadine of Sienna, a Franciscan, was instrumental in popularizing devotion to St. Joseph.

The following popes that were Third Order Franciscans:

• Bl. Pius IX  – made St Joseph the special protector of the Church in 1870.
• St. Pius X – endorsed the Litany of St. Joseph for public use
• Pius XI – designated him special protector against Communism
• Bl. John XXIII – added St. Joseph’s name to the canon of the Mass.

If we want reform we need to follow St Joseph’s example and humbly acknowledge our place in the holy presence of God.
Ave Maria!
Mass: St. Joseph Husband of the Blessed Virgin Mary – Solemnity – Form: OF
Readings: 
1st: 2sa 7:4-5, 12-14, 16
Resp: psa 89:2-3, 4-5, 27, 29
2nd: rom 4:13, 16-18, 22
Gsp: mat 1:16, 18-21, 24

Audio (MP3)

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MaryCast Specials #198 ( 06min) Play – For the Month of May, Mary’s Month, Mark Miravalle suggests that we participate in a petition to the Pope for the Fifth Dogma and that we read and meditate on his new book “Meet Your Mother.” You can learn more about both at http://www.motherofallpeoples.com/

To ask questions regarding Mary, email Dr Mark Miravalle: mary@motherofallpeoples.com

Ave Maria!

Audio (MP3)

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MaryCast Specials #200 ( 06min) Play – Dr. Mark Miravalle asks us to Adore Jesus following the great example of Pope Francis.

To ask questions regarding Mary, email Dr Mark Miravalle: mary@motherofallpeoples.com

Ave Maria!

Audio (MP3)

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And here I come to my last point. It is an invitation which I make to you, young confirmandi, and to all present. Remain steadfast in the journey of faith, with firm hope in the Lord. This is the secret of our journey! He gives us the courage to swim against the tide. Pay attention, my young friends: to go against the current; this is good for the heart, but we need courage to swim against the tide. Jesus gives us this courage!

There are no difficulties, trials or misunderstandings to fear, provided we remain united to God as branches to the vine, provided we do not lose our friendship with him, provided we make ever more room for him in our lives. This is especially so whenever we feel poor, weak and sinful, because God grants strength to our weakness, riches to our poverty, conversion and forgiveness to our sinfulness. The Lord is so rich in mercy: every time, if we go to him, he forgives us. Let us trust in God’s work! With him we can do great things; he will give us the joy of being his disciples, his witnesses. Commit yourselves to great ideals, to the most important things. We Christians were not chosen by the Lord for little things; push onwards toward the highest principles. Stake your lives on noble ideals, my dear young people!
Pope Francis, May 2013

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Pope Francis speaks about being a joyful (joy filled) Catholic.  He speaks here about the need to praise God in the holy sacrifice of the Mass. We can also extrapolate to the praising of God that comes when we make time for Him in our prayer before the Blessed Sacrament.  Let us praise Him with all our hearts!

And how do we praise God? We praise Him by coming out of ourselves, we praise Him “freely, like the grace that He gives us is free,” said Pope Francis. This pushes us to an examination of conscience on how to pray to God, said Pope Francis, who then turned to those present with a question:

“You here at Mass, do you give praise to God or do you only petition God and thank God? Do you praise God? ‘. This is something new, new in our new spiritual life. Giving praise to God, coming out of ourselves to give praise; spending a little bit of time giving praise. But ‘this Mass is so long!’ If you do not praise God, you will never know the gratuity of spending time praising God, the Mass is long. But if you go with this attitude of joy, of praise to God, that is beautiful! This is what eternity will be: giving praise to God! And that will not be boring: it will be beautiful! This joy makes us free. ”

The model of this praise, and this joy, is once again the Mother of Jesus “The Church – recalled Pope Francis – calls her the” cause of our joy, “Cause Nostrae Letitiae. Why? Because she brings the greatest joy that is Jesus. ‘

“We need to pray to Our Lady, so that bringing Jesus give us the grace of joy, the joy of freedom. That it give us the grace to praise, to praise with a prayer of gratuitous praise, because He is worthy of praise, always. Pray to Our Lady and say to her what the Church says: Veni, Precelsa Domina, Maria, tu nos visita, Lady, thou who art so great, visit us and give us joy. “

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“Faith is not a light which scatters all our darkness, but a lamp which guides our steps in the night and suffices for the journey. To those who suffer, God does not provide arguments which explain everything; rather, his response is that of an accompanying presence…” – Pope Francis, LUMEN FIDEI, Paragraph 57 page 78

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Homily #130903 ( 03min) Play – Our Holy Father Pope Francis is calling for a day of prayer and fasting on September 7th, the vigil of the birth of Our Lady, to obtain peace, especially for the war in Syria. It will also be the first Saturday in September, when we can fulfill what Our Lady has asked of us in the Five First Saturdays devotion, also in order to obtain peace.
Ave Maria!
Mass: St. Gregory the Great – Mem – Form: OF
Readings: 
1st: 2co 4:1-2, 5-7
Resp: psa 96:1-3, 7-8, 10
Gsp: luk 22:24-30

Audio (MP3)

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From the  Encyclical Letter of Pope Francis, Lumen Fidei:

In the Mother of Jesus, faith demonstrated its fruitfulness; when our own spiritual lives bear fruit we become filled with joy, which is the clearest sign of faith’s grandeur. In her own life Mary completed the pilgrimage of faith, following in the footsteps of her Son. In her the faith journey of the Old Testament was thus taken up into the following of Christ, transformed by him and entering into the gaze of the incarnate Son of God.

We can say that in the Blessed Virgin Mary we find something I mentioned earlier, namely that the believer is completely taken up into his or her confession of faith. Because of her close bond with Jesus, Mary is strictly connected to what we believe.

As Virgin and Mother, Mary offers us a clear sign of Christ’s divine Sonship. The eternal origin of Christ is in the Father. He is the Son in a total and unique sense, and so he is born in time without the intervention of a man. As the Son, Jesus brings to the world a new beginning and a new light, the fullness of God’s faithful love bestowed on humanity. But Mary’s true motherhood also ensured for the Son of God an authentic human history, true flesh in which he would die on the cross and rise from the dead. Mary would accompany Jesus to the cross (cf. Jn 19:25), whence her motherhood would extend to each of his disciples (cf. Jn 19:26-27).

She will also be present in the upper room after Jesus’ resurrection and ascension, joining the apostles in imploring the gift of the Spirit (cf. Acts 1:14). The movement of love between Father, Son and Spirit runs through our history, and Christ draws us to himself in order to save us (cf. Jn 12:32). At the centre of our faith is the confession of Jesus, the Son of God, born of a woman, who brings us, through the gift of the Holy Spirit, to adoption as sons and daughters (cf. Gal 4:4).

Let us turn in prayer to Mary, Mother of the Church and Mother of our faith.

Mother, help our faith!  Open our ears to hear God’s word and to recognize his voice and call. Awaken in us a desire to follow in his footsteps, to go forth from our own land and to receive his promise. Help us to be touched by his love, that we may touch him in faith. Help us to entrust ourselves fully to him and to believe in his love, especially at times of trial, beneath the shadow of the cross, when our faith is called to mature. Sow in our faith the joy of the Risen One. Remind us that those who believe are never alone. Teach us to see all things with the eyes of Jesus, that he may be light for our path. And may this light of faith always increase in us, until the dawn of that undying day which is Christ himself, your Son, our Lord!

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From the Encyclical Letter of Pope Francis: Lumen Fidei:

A light to be recovered

There is an urgent need, then, to see once again that faith is a light, for once the flame of faith dies out, all other lights begin to dim. The light of faith is unique, since it is capable of illuminating every aspect of human existence. A light this powerful cannot come from ourselves but from a more primordial source: in a word, it must come from God.

Faith is born of an encounter with the living God who calls us and reveals his love, a love which precedes us and upon which we can lean for security and for building our lives. Transformed by this love, we gain fresh vision, new eyes to see; we realize that it contains a great promise of fulfillment, and that a vision of the future opens up before us. Faith, received from God as a supernatural gift, becomes a light for our way, guiding our journey through time.

On the one hand, it is a light coming from the past, the light of the foundational memory of the life of Jesus which revealed his perfectly trustworthy love, a love capable of triumphing over death. Yet since Christ has risen and draws us beyond death, faith is also a light coming from the future and opening before us vast horizons which guide us beyond our isolated selves towards the breadth of communion.

We come to see that faith does not dwell in shadow and gloom; it is a light for our darkness. Dante, in the Divine Comedy, after professing his faith to Saint Peter, describes that light as a “spark, which then becomes a burning flame and like a heavenly star within me glimmers”.  It is this light of faith that I would now like to consider, so that it can grow and enlighten the present, becoming a star to brighten the horizon of our journey at a time when mankind is particularly in need of light.

The whole encyclical can be read at:

http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/francesco/encyclicals/documents/papa-francesco_20130629_ enciclica-lumen-fidei_en.html

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