Christ the Healer
by Mary Katsilometes
Posted on 01/13/2014 8:50:32 PM PST by Salvation
January 14, 2014
Tuesday of the First week in Ordinary Time
Reading 1 1 sm 1:9-20
Hannah rose after a meal at Shiloh,
and presented herself before the LORD;
at the time, Eli the priest was sitting on a chair
near the doorpost of the LORD’s temple.
In her bitterness she prayed to the LORD, weeping copiously,
and she made a vow, promising: “O LORD of hosts,
if you look with pity on the misery of your handmaid,
if you remember me and do not forget me,
if you give your handmaid a male child,
I will give him to the LORD for as long as he lives;
neither wine nor liquor shall he drink,
and no razor shall ever touch his head.”
As she remained long at prayer before the LORD,
Eli watched her mouth, for Hannah was praying silently;
though her lips were moving, her voice could not be heard.
Eli, thinking her drunk, said to her,
“How long will you make a drunken show of yourself?
Sober up from your wine!”
“It isn’t that, my lord,” Hannah answered.
“I am an unhappy woman.
I have had neither wine nor liquor;
I was only pouring out my troubles to the LORD.
Do not think your handmaid a ne’er-do-well;
my prayer has been prompted by my deep sorrow and misery.”
Eli said, “Go in peace,
and may the God of Israel grant you what you have asked of him.”
She replied, “Think kindly of your maidservant,” and left.
She went to her quarters, ate and drank with her husband,
and no longer appeared downcast.
Early the next morning they worshiped before the LORD,
and then returned to their home in Ramah.
When Elkanah had relations with his wife Hannah,
the LORD remembered her.
She conceived, and at the end of her term bore a son
whom she called Samuel, since she had asked the LORD for him.
Responsorial Psalm 1 sm 2:1, 4-5, 6-7, 8abcd
R. (see 1) My heart exults in the Lord, my Savior.
“My heart exults in the LORD,
my horn is exalted in my God.
I have swallowed up my enemies;
I rejoice in my victory.”
R. My heart exults in the Lord, my Savior.
“The bows of the mighty are broken,
while the tottering gird on strength.
The well-fed hire themselves out for bread,
while the hungry batten on spoil.
The barren wife bears seven sons,
while the mother of many languishes.”
R. My heart exults in the Lord, my Savior.
“The LORD puts to death and gives life;
he casts down to the nether world;
he raises up again.
The LORD makes poor and makes rich;
he humbles, he also exalts.”
R. My heart exults in the Lord, my Savior.
“He raises the needy from the dust;
from the dung heap he lifts up the poor,
To seat them with nobles
and make a glorious throne their heritage.”
R. My heart exults in the Lord, my Savior.
Gospel mk 1:21-28
Jesus came to Capernaum with his followers,
and on the sabbath he entered the synagogue and taught.
The people were astonished at his teaching,
for he taught them as one having authority and not as the scribes.
In their synagogue was a man with an unclean spirit;
he cried out, “What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth?
Have you come to destroy us?
I know who you are–the Holy One of God!”
Jesus rebuked him and said, “Quiet! Come out of him!”
The unclean spirit convulsed him and with a loud cry came out of him.
All were amazed and asked one another,
“What is this?
A new teaching with authority.
He commands even the unclean spirits and they obey him.”
His fame spread everywhere throughout the whole region of Galilee.
Tuesday, January 14
Liturgical Color: Green
Today the Church remembers Bl. Peter
Donders. Ordained a priest, he traveled
to Batvia in 1856, to work in a leper
colony. Peter was a constant irritant to
authorities as he fought for better
conditions for the lepers, but always got
what he wanted.
Daily Readings for:January 14, 2014
(Readings on USCCB website)
Collect: Attend to the pleas of your people with heavenly care, O Lord, we pray, that they may see what must be done and gain strength to do what they have seen. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.
RECIPES
ACTIVITIES
o Practical Suggestions for Christian Living (Confirmation)
PRAYERS
o Little Litany of the Holy Souls
· Ordinary Time: January 14th
· Tuesday of the First Week of Ordinary Time
Old Calendar: St. Hilary, bishop and doctor; St. Felix of Nola, priest and martyr
According to the 1962 Missal of Bl. John XXIII the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite, today is the feast of St. Felix who lived in the third century. He was a priest and suffered greatly in the Decian persecution. The tomb of St. Felix at Nola, a small town in the south of Italy, was a much frequented place of pilgrimage in Christian antiquity, and in the Middle Ages veneration of him spread throughout the west. Along with St. Hilary his feast is celebrated today on the Tridentine Calendar. According to the Ordinary Rite St. Hilary's feast is now celebrated on January 13.
St. Felix
In one of the early persecutions the priest Felix was first tortured on the rack, then thrown into a dungeon. While lying chained on broken glass, an angel appeared, loosed his bonds, and led him out to freedom. Later, when the persecution had subsided, he converted many to the Christian faith by his preaching and holy example. However, when he resumed his denunciation of pagan gods and false worship, he was again singled out for arrest and torture; this time he escaped by hiding in a secret recess between two adjacent walls. No sooner had he disappeared into the nook than a thick veil of cobwebs formed over the entrance so that no one suspected he was there. Three months later he died in peace (260), and is therefore a martyr only in the wider sense of the word.
St. Paulinus of Nola (see June 22), who cherished a special devotion toward St. Felix, composed fourteen hymns (carmina natalicia) in his honor. In his day (fifth century) the saint's tomb was visited by pilgrims from far and wide and was noted for its miraculous cures.
— The Church's Year of Grace, Pius Parsch
Patron: Against eye disease; against eye trouble; against false witness; against lies; against perjury; domestic animals; eyes.
Symbols: Cobweb; deacon in prison; spiderweb; young priest carrying an old man (Maximus) on his shoulders; young priest chained in prison with a pitcher and potsherds near him; young priest with a bunch of grapes (symbolizes his care of the aged Maximus); young priest with a spider; young priest with an angel removing his chains.
Things to Do:
The Conundrum of the Webcam in the Sanctuary
Sunday, 12 January 2014 16:28
Adoration and Adoration
I should like to respond to a number of queries that have come to me, of late, concerning the practice by which pious individuals gaze at a webcam image of the Sacred Host exposed in a monstrance and, in some way, consider this tantamount to adoration of the Most Blessed Sacrament. This is a practice that needs to be critically evaluated and clarified; it poses a number of theological and pastoral questions.
First of all, let it be said clearly that God is everywhere present and that God can be adored everywhere and at all times. The three Divine Persons indwell the soul of the baptized and a simple act of faith is sufficient to penetrate the inner sanctuary of their presence and to adore them there in spirit and in truth. This is the teaching of the great Eucharistic mystic, Catherine Mectilde de Bar, as it is the teaching of the Carmelite Blessed Elisabeth of the Trinity. The holy Benedictine says:
“To adore continually it is not necessary to say, “My God, I adore Thee.” It is enough to tend inwardly to God [who is] present, to maintain a profound respect out of reverence for His greatness, believing that He is in us as He truly is. In fact, the Most Holy Trinity dwells in us: the Father acts and operates there with His power, the Son with His wisdom, and the Holy Spirit with His goodness. It is, therefore, in the intimacy of your soul, where the God of majesty abides, that you must adore Him continually.”
Consider also the comforting words of Blessed Elisabeth of the Trinity:
“I think,” she said, “that in Heaven my mission will be to draw souls by helping them go out of themselves to cling to God by a wholly simple and loving movement, and to keep them in this great silence within that will allow God to communicate Himself to them and transform them into Himself.”
The Indwelling Trinity
The affirmations of the mystics are confirmed in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, which, in treating of the indwelling Trinity, refers to the well–known prayer of Blessed Elisabeth.
Even now we are called to be a dwelling for the Most Holy Trinity: “If a man loves me”, says the Lord, “he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him, and make our home with him”:
O my God, Trinity whom I adore, help me forget myself entirely so to establish myself in you, unmovable and peaceful as if my soul were already in eternity. May nothing be able to trouble my peace or make me leave you, O my unchanging God, but may each minute bring me more deeply into your mystery! Grant my soul peace. Make it your heaven, your beloved dwelling and the place of your rest. May I never abandon you there, but may I be there, whole and entire, completely vigilant in my faith, entirely adoring, and wholly given over to your creative action.
Christ, True God and True Man
In speaking of the Second Person of the Holy Trinity, Our Lord Jesus Christ, we must confess that He is a Divine Person having two natures: a divine nature by reason of His being begotten of the Father from all eternity, and a human nature assumed at the moment of the Incarnation in the virginal womb of His most holy Mother. By His divine nature, Christ Jesus is everywhere present; His sacred humanity, however is really, truly, and substantially present only in the glory of heaven, where He is seated at the right hand of the Father, and in the Most Holy Sacrament of the Altar, be it, for example, after the consecration in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, or in the body of the communicant until such time as the sacred species have dissolved, or reserved in the tabernacle, or carried to the sick and dying, or borne in procession, or exposed to the gaze of the faithful in the monstrance.
Power Went Out from Him
The sacred humanity of Our Lord, truly present in the Blessed Sacrament, has all the immediacy of a physical encounter, even if this immediacy is veiled by the sacred species and mediated not by the senses, but by faith alone. One who approaches the Most Holy Sacrament approaches the sacred humanity of Our Lord just as the apostles and the multitudes approached Him during His life on earth. What Saint Luke says concerning this presence of the sacred humanity of Christ is equally true when this same sacred humanity is veiled by the sacred species: Et omnis turba quærebat eum tangere: quia virtus de illo exibat, et sanabat omnes, “all the multitude was eager to touch him, because power went out from him, and healed them all” (Luke 6:19). Thus do we rightly speak of the radiance of the Eucharistic Face of Christ and of the fire of love that emanates from His Eucharistic Heart.
Reality and Image
When one looks at a webcam image of the Sacred Host exposed in the monstrance, one is not looking at the adorable reality of the Body of Christ, but at an image of that adorable reality. Such an image may move one to devotion, may enkindle in one the desire to adore the Most Holy Sacrament, but it is not Eucharistic adoration as such. One might compare the experience with the emotional effect produced by looking at a loved one in a video or photograph; one is not looking a the reality of that loved one’s face but, rather, at an image of that reality. Seeing the image or photograph of a loved one may spurn one to seek out that loved one’s real presence and company, but cannot be equated with it.
Depictions of the Sacred Host
The iconography of the Most Holy Eucharist in the West is rich, particularly from the Catholic Reformation (beginning with the Council of Trent, 1545–1563) until the 19th century. It was not uncommon to display paintings and sculptures of the Most Holy Sacrament depicted, more often than not, in the monstrance. Such images did not and could not replace the actual seeing of the Sacred Host, but attested to a piety strongly oriented towards Eucharistic adoration, reparation, and contemplation. The same may be said of the webcam images of the Most Holy Sacrament. They are images and, as such, must not be considered as a substitute for or as an alternative to real proximity to the sacred humanity of Our Lord in the Sacrament of His Love. There is today, alas, a certain confusion among pious souls concerning this crucial distinction. The proliferation of televised celebrations of Holy Mass has generated a similar and most unfortunate confusion. There is a real danger in the promotion of so–called “webcam adoration”; it can and does lead to grave theological misapprehensions concerning the mystery of Our Lord’s real presence in the Most Holy Sacrament.
We, Benedictine Monks of Perpetual Adoration, wear beneath the scapular of our monastic habit, a small medallion having the form of a 17th century French monstrance containing the Sacred Host. When I touch this “little monstrance” hidden beneath my scapular, I am reminded of the reality that it signifies and quickened in my resolve to approach Our Lord really present in the Sacrament of His Love. Images hold an important — even indispensable — place in Catholic piety in that they are vivid reminders of the reality they portray and signify.
Praying Before an Image
I am not at all convinced that recourse to “webcam adoration” is a healthy development; it is, rather, fraught with theological and sacramental ambiguities that can easily mislead devout souls. It would be better, when one finds oneself incapacitated, home–bound, or otherwise unable to go physically to the Most Holy Sacrament of the Altar, to make use of a sacred image, a holy icon. This was the wise recommendation of the saintly Father Father Mateo Crawley-Boevey, SS.CC. (1875-1960), the apostle of nocturnal adoration in the home. One who prays before an image of Our Lord — a depiction of His Holy Face or of His Sacred Heart — will be moved to seek out the reality of what the image portrays, either by going to Holy Mass, or by visiting a church where the Most Blessed Sacrament is reserved, or by asking to receive the adorable Body of Christ at home, in hospital, in prison or wherever one may find oneself confined, immobilised, or otherwise incapable of receiving Our Lord sacramentally and of tarrying in His real presence .
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Tuesday of the First Week in Ordinary Time
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Mark 1:21-28 Jesus came to Capernaum with his followers, and on the sabbath he entered the synagogue and taught. The people were astonished at his teaching, for he taught them as one having authority and not as the scribes. In their synagogue was a man with an unclean spirit; he cried out, “What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are -- the Holy One of God!” Jesus rebuked him and said, “Quiet! Come out of him!” The unclean spirit convulsed him and with a loud cry came out of him. All were amazed and asked one another, “What is this? A new teaching with authority. He commands even the unclean spirits and they obey him.” His fame spread everywhere throughout the whole region of Galilee. Introductory Prayer: Lord, I long to put you first in my life. It is easy to get caught up in daily activities. But you are not just another activity: you are my Lord and my God. I do believe in you, but I know that I need to believe in you more strongly. I do love you, but I must still strive to love you more than I love myself and my plans. I wish to offer you the best of myself right now in this time of conversation with you. Petition:Lord, may I understand that you are the truth. May I love you as Truth-made-incarnate in my heart. 1. Truth and the Good Interwoven: “For he taught them as one having authority and not as the scribes.” In his encyclical The Splendor of Truth, Pope John Paul II reminded us of the necessary link between freedom, truth and the good. He went so far as to say that a correct understanding of this link is essential for the salvation of the world. Jesus taught with authority because he was both the Truth and the Good. Our freedom consists in recognizing this and living accordingly. Do I sincerely seek the truth in my life? Do I sincerely seek what is truly good, or am I conforming myself in some way to the hedonistic and self-seeking standards of the world? 2. Multiplying Our Good: “What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us?” When our freedom refuses to recognize that Jesus is the Truth and that our greatest good consists in loving and following him, we feel threatened. We try to hold on to the good we imagine that we have apart from him. He does not want to take away the good we have, but rather he wishes to increase and multiply it. But to do so we must allow lesser goods we now have to die so that greater goods might rise with strength. Unless the seed falls to the ground and dies, it remains just a seed. But if it dies it rises to new life (cf. John 12:24). 3. The Demands of Truth: “All were amazed and asked one another, ‘What is this? A new teaching with authority.’” Today we live in a relativistic world, where truth is whatever we want it to be. “Whatever makes you comfortable” is the motto of the day. We are amazed when Jesus breaks the mold of relativism, revealing the lie hidden within it and proclaims that he is the Truth. When the Gospel makes demands on my life, do I shift into relativism and believe that it makes no difference how or if I respond? If the Gospel makes me comfortable I will obey, but if not…. Truth can be demanding, but what a blessing it is that, in the person of Christ, truth is also love, mercy, goodness and joy. Do I love the truth and strive to live in the light? Conversation with Christ:Lord, you know how easily I excuse myself from meeting your demands for my life. I do so even while knowing that when I fulfill them I always discover new strength, hidden energy and untapped resources of love within me. Help me to give myself to you in love, to meet your demands, and to experience the power of grace unleashed within me. Resolution:Today I will offer Christ something that is good but not necessary. By doing this, I will show my love for him and grow in self-detachment, so I can be more open to the good that he wishes to give me. |
The evil spirits that reside in people are more serious than those we watch in horror movies. These evil spirits are more subtle, enticing and manipulative and disguise themselves with good intentions. Remember that Lucifer was once an angel of light, before falling into sin.
The devil is the master of deceit and lies. Evil spirits attempt to separate us from the love of God. They are always linked to the idols of the world, to make us become slaves of these idols, which seek to take the place of God. They make us dialogue with the Devil, and cheat us into believing that in the end, God does not love us, so we think that it’s better to take matters into our own hands and conduct ourselves as God in our own lives.
However, the good news is that man has a strong ally in the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit has the power to dispel and cast off these
evil spirits. Jesus Christ easily ordered the evil spirits to come out. He can do so with us but only if we allow him. A prayer to the Lord, even just for the plea to cast off these evil spirits in our lives will suffice for the Holy Spirit to start acting. There is no doubt that God will triumph over evil. The outcome is clear, but we have to consciously choose God over the idols!
Let us reflect on our own lives today, and consider what kind of idolatry enslaves us.
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