I stand at your door in Nazareth
Holy Family, not daring to enter,
being with sin, of trust unworthy.

But you do not live without purpose
in Nazareth; so I dare ask
to hide me in the heart of your Son.

There is naught else with me that can be done.
His heart is a house, calling everyone.
Hide me there as you, O Holy Family,

are hidden in Nazareth; make me ready,
that I may never go out from there
as He waxes in strength, carrying timber,

as He takes drink, as He gets a sliver,
as He sleeps or goes to the temple,
as He consoles dying, joyful Joseph.

May I abide there throughout His public life,
His fasting, His travels, His sacrifices,
healings, abandonments, miracles.

May I only go out from that heart
as a libation poured, from His bed of pain,
born from His word - as the Father ordains.

Amen.

Feast of St. Charbel

O God of Silence, in stillness Your adorable and mysterious Trinity lives, loves and acts. In the silence of time, Your great Mysteries have been accomplished. Blessed is the one who quiets everything within himself and listens to the impelling voice which leads to You. Charbel heard this voice and closed himself in solitude. He separated himself from a self-seeking world and spoke with You. You taught him to deny himself and to die, like the grain of wheat. You asked him to bind himself to You in a life of poverty, chastity and obedience. Freed from himself, he discovered You, 0 Lord, embraced the way of the Cross and filled his spirit with the memory of Your Son’s passion and death. The holy Mysteries became his life, the Eucharist his real food and the Mother of God his consolation. Day and night he sought You in the Scriptures and in the lives of the saints. Through unending prayer his whole life became a living hymn of praise to You and ended in a sacrifice of love that continues to proclaim Your glory. We beseech You, through his intercession, to inspire us to a life of prayer and sacrifice. Help us to live lives of quiet dedication to the service of Your Church, forever.
Amen

Prayer found here.

Listening

"Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening."

Isn't that one of the best phrases, one of the best prayers - so simple, so powerful, so direct? The very first word, "speak", takes away from the one speaking and puts the imperative on the One being spoken to. By the word, "speak", the speaker is already fallen silent. And the speaker addresses himself as "your servant", referring to himself only through the Master he is speaking to.

How much better are these words than something like, "Here I am, Lord, I come to do Your will." Gah, how horrid! Ta da! Here I am! With my trumpet! Now hand me that crosier! I'm here to do Your will - too-ta-too-ta-tooooooooooot!

"...and you do not belong to yourself; for you were bought with a great price..."

Good Old Catholic Links

"The blessing of each communicant at Mass with the Host is a very small detail -- if a blessing imparted by Christ Himself in the Eucharist can be called small. But it does prove that real love resides in and provides for the smallest details, however easy they may be to miss. Real love seeks to satisfy even the tiniest desires of the beloved. Indeed, to real love, nothing is tiny or beneath notice. Real love leaves undone nothing that can possibly be done for the beloved's happiness."

From Anita Moore's excellent post, On Being Starved into Submission.

It's a funny thing, that St. Thomas Aquinas would come to say of his entire body of work that it was as straw, after beholding - as St. Paul before him - the eternal kingdom of God; and that when Jesus appeared to him one day while kneeling in chapel, He would say to Aquinas in regards to his "polemical" writings against those old things that stupid argumentative people call heresies, not "Your entire work, Thomas, is as straw", nor, "You, Thomas, do you think you are significant in doing these things?", nor, "Do you persist in these writings because you think I need you to, who are as a fly in my ray?" but said to him, as one who precedes His eternal authority with the most exquisite courtesy, "You have done well with your writing; what do you wish of Me?"

***

I really like this picture of Fr. Longenecker with his altar servers.

***

I was at Michael O'Brien's site and came across the Holy Cloak Novena. I seem to vaguely remember coming across it somewhere else a while back. O'Brien writes of it:

"This ancient novena of prayers is called the Holy Cloak of St. Joseph, a particular and special way to merit the patronage of this great Saint while also rendering honour to him.

It is to be recited on thirty consecutive days in memory of the thirty years St. Joseph spent in the company of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. If for some reason you cannot recite the prayer on a particular day, you may make up for it by reciting it on the 30th day as many times as the recitation was missed.

The extraordinary graces obtained by this prayer are innumerable. St. Teresa of Avila said: "If you really want to believe in it, prove it to yourself by reciting the Novena and you will be finally convinced."

It is most efficacious to say a prayer for the Souls in Purgatory.

With the same solicitude that we help dry the tears of the suffering souls, so to can we hope that St. Joseph will help dry our tears in our necessities. In this way, St. Joseph's Holy Cloak will spread itself over us and will serve as a shield against all those dangers which beset us so that we may all one day, with the grace of God, obtain eternal salvation.

Our Lord and Our Lady invite us to love and honor and pray to St. Joseph:

Jesus said to St. Margaret Mary, "I wish that every day you offer special prayers to Our mother and St. Joseph, Our most sweet guardian." The Blessed Mother said to the Venerable Maria de Agreda, "You must see to it that you continually increase your love and devotion to this great Saint. In all your necessities, you must avail yourself of his protection, under all circumstances you must encourage as many people as possible toward this devotion . . . for indeed, whatever our devoted spouse requests in Heaven, the Almighty God will grant on Earth.""

I guess it can be started on any day one chooses; and going for thirty days, I'm not sure how that's a novena, but it's called a novena anyways.

Prayer Request

Dear friends, I do not often make prayer requests here, but someone could really have the prayers right now. If you could, pray for my best friend's wife.

Please, and thank you.

Will he be slow to answer them?

From the priest's homily:

"Neglecting to pray...it's self-abuse; it is to abuse yourself."

Devotions Meme

So, I was contemplating during the past few days, without too much intent, a post I would write about devotions, seeing as I had started a devotion again which I did not do last year, and which has been - now that I'm doing it again - like something wonderfully familiar yet new.

Then Terry memes me (yes, I'll verb the word if I want to). In the meme you have to list your five favourite devotions. Well, thank you Terry, for tagging me and for the confirmation.

Here they are:

1. Adoration

2. The Holy Face of Jesus. I've been slack in this one of late. Though I go to Adoration every Tuesday (if because I go practically every day) I do not always remember the intention when I do go. You see, how could I forget that? It happens when you don't consciously keep it in mind. One who practices this devotion is recommended to go every Tuesday before the Blessed Sacrament to make reparation for the insults and injuries which Christ's Holy Countenance has received, and which He receives in the Most Holy Sacrament of the Altar. If one cannot make it to a chapel at the time, one can console the Face of Christ within one's heart - of course, having an image of His Holy Face helps in that regard: "I firmly wish that My Face reflecting the intimate pains of my Soul, the suffering and love of my Heart, be more honoured! Whoever gazes upon My Face already consoles me."

3. Total Consecration to Mary according to Saint Louis Marie de Montfort. This is the devotion which I failed to renew last year, by which I mean that I re-consecrated myself to Mary, but I failed to do the 33 days of preparation again leading up the anniversary of the consecration date, which for me was in 2007. So, consecration to Mary, while being sufficient the first time, is something one is to keep renewing. Anyone who wishes to do this Total Consecration, simply go to this link. All you do is email the apostolate your mailing address, signifying your intention, and they send you, totally free of charge, the preparation booklet, instructions and calendar.

4. The Brown Scapular. As with the above, wearing the Brown Scapular goes with its practices. I pray the rosary instead of the Little Office of the Blessed Virgin. I also pray the Morning Offering:

O my God, in union with the Immaculate Heart of Mary (here kiss your Scapular as a sign of your consecration), I offer Thee the Precious Blood of Jesus from all the altars throughout the world joining with It the offering of my every thought, word and action of this day. O my Jesus, I desire today to gain every indulgence and merit I can, and I offer them, together with myself, to Mary Immaculate, that she may best apply them to the interests of Thy most Sacred Heart. Precious Blood of Jesus, save us! Immaculate Heart of Mary, pray for us! Sacred Heart of Jesus, have mercy on us!

In addition to this is holding the Scapular and kissing it - not always for myself, but for another person who I may happen to be thinking about.

5. The Rosary

Feast Day of the Holy Face

I'm republishing an old post from Febraury 24th. 2009:

THE GOLDEN ARROW PRAYER

May the most holy, most sacred, most adorable, most incomprehensible and ineffable Name of God be forever praised, blessed, loved, adored and glorified in Heaven, on Earth, and under the Earth by all the creatures of God and by the Sacred Heart of Our Lord Jesus Christ in the Most Holy Sacrament of the Altar. Amen.

Eternal Father, I offer Thee the adorable Face of Thy Beloved Son for the honour and glory of Thy Name, for the conversion of sinners and the salvation of the dying. Amen.

After receiving this prayer, Sister Mary of St. Peter was given a vision in which she saw the Sacred Heart of Jesus delightfully wounded by this "Golden Arrow" as torrents of graces streamed from It for the conversion of sinners.


REPARATION PRAYER

Eternal Father, turn away Thy angry gaze from our guilty people whose face has become unsightly in Thine eyes. Look instead upon the Face of Thy Beloved Son, for this is the Face of Him in Whom Thou art well pleased. We now offer Thee this Holy Face, covered with shame and disfigured by bloody bruises in reparation for the crimes of our age in order to appease Thine anger, justly provoked against us. Because Thy Divine Son, our Redeemer, has taken upon His Head all the sins of His members, that they might be spared, we now beg of Thee, Eternal Father, to grant us mercy. AMEN.


AN ASPIRATION TO THE ETERNAL FATHER
TO BE FREQUENTLY RECITED DURING THE DAY

ETERNAL FATHER, we offer You the Holy Face of Jesus, covered with blood, sweat, dust and spittle, in reparation for the crimes of communists, blasphemers, and for the profaners of the Holy Name and of the Holy Day. AMEN.


PRAYER TO REPRODUCE
THE IMAGE OF GOD IN OUR SOULS

Our Lord told Sister Mary of St. Peter that the Image of His Holy Face is like a Divine Stamp which, if applied to souls, through prayer, has the power of imprinting anew within them the Image of God.

I SALUTE THEE, I ADORE THEE, AND I LOVE THEE, OH ADORABLE FACE OF MY BELOVED JESUS, AS THE NOBLE STAMP OF DIVINITY! COMPLETELY SURRENDERING MY SOUL TO THEE, I MOST HUMBLY BEG THEE TO STAMP THIS SEAL UPON US ALL, SO THAT THE IMAGE OF GOD MAY ONCE MORE BE REPRODUCED BY ITS IMPRINT IN OUR SOULS. AMEN.

Thanks to: Catholic Tradition.

Also check out: The Holy Face Association.

Saint Veronica,

pray for us!

Prayer Request

Dear readers, I ask your prayers for my brother-in-law's father who unexpectedly passed away last night. Please pray for the wife of the deceased and for their sons; for the grandchildren and my sister.

Thank you.

An Erasmus Prayer

Lord Jesus Christ, the world's true sun, always rising, never setting, whose life-giving warmth engenders, preserves, nourishes and gladdens all things in heaven and on earth, shine into my soul, I pray: scatter the night of sin and the clouds of error; blaze within me, so that I may go on my way without stumbling, taking no part in shameful deeds done in the dark, but ever walking as one born to the light. Amen.

Advent Prayer

Almighty God, give us grace that we may cast away the works of darkness, and put upon us the armor of light, now in the time of this mortal life, in which thy Son Jesus Christ came to visit us in great humility; that in the last day, when he shall come again in his glorious majesty to judge both the quick and the dead, we may rise to life immortal. Amen.

Advent Prayer

Grant the will, we beseech you, almighty God, to your faithful people, that, running to meet the coming of your Anointed with the gift of good works, we may be found worthy to be gathered at his right hand and thus possess the heavenly kingdom. Amen.

Advent Prayer

Stir up your power, we beseech you, O Lord, and come, that we may be protected from the dangers to which our sins expose us, and thus we may be saved. Amen.

Prayer for the Deceased

O divine Lord, whose adorable heart ardently sighs for the happiness of your children, we humbly pray that you remember the souls of your servants for whom we pray; command that your holy angels receive them and convey them to a place of rest and peace. Amen.

Prayer for one Recently Deceased

Grant your forgiveness, Lord, to the soul of your servant [N.] that, being dead to this world, he/she may live now to you alone, and whatever sins he/she committed through human frailty, do you, in your mercy, absolve. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.

Saturday Prayer for the Faithful Departed

O Lord God omnipotent, I beseech Thee by the Precious Blood which gushed forth from the sacred Side of Thy divine Son Jesus in the presence and to the great sorrow of His most holy Mother, deliver the souls in purgatory and among them all especially that soul which has been most devout to this noble Lady, that it may come quickly into Thy glory, there to praise Thee in her, and her in Thee through all the ages. Amen.

Friday Prayer for the Faithful Departed

O Lord God omnipotent, I beseech Thee by the Precious Blood which Jesus Thy divine Son did shed this day upon the tree of the Cross, especially from His sacred Hands and Feet, deliver the souls in purgatory, and particularly that soul for whom I am most bound to pray, in order that I may not be the cause which hinders Thee from admitting it quickly to the possession of Thy glory where it may praise Thee and bless Thee for evermore. Amen.

Thursday Prayer for the Faithful Departed

O Lord God omnipotent, I beseech Thee by the Precious Body and Blood of Thy divine Son Jesus, which He Himself on the night before His Passion gave as meat and drink to His beloved Apostles and bequeathed to His Holy Church to be the perpetual Sacrifice and life-giving nourishment of His faithful people, deliver the souls in purgatory, but most of all, that soul which was most devoted to this Mystery of infinite love, in order that it may praise Thee therefor, together with Thy divine Son and the Holy Spirit in Thy glory for ever. Amen.

Wednesday Prayer for the Faithful Departed

O Lord God omnipotent, I beseech Thee by the Precious Blood of Thy divine Son Jesus that was shed in the streets of Jerusalem whilst He carried on His sacred shoulders the heavy burden of the Cross, deliver the souls in purgatory and especially that one which is richest in merits in Thy sight, so that, having soon attained the high place in glory to which it is destined, it may praise Thee triumphantly and bless Thee for ever. Amen.

Tuesday Prayer for the Faithful Departed

O Lord God omnipotent, I beseech Thee by the Precious Blood of Thy divine Son Jesus that was shed in His bitter crowning with thorns, deliver the souls in purgatory, and among them all, particularly that soul which is in the greatest need of our prayers, in order that it may not long be delayed in praising Thee in Thy glory and blessing Thee for ever. Amen.