Merry Christmas

(Image Source: Embedded Faith.org)

"O Come, O Come Emmanuel" - MaryAnne Muglia

Just had to share one of my all time favorite Advent  hymns performed in a breathtaking and majestic manner. Close you eyes and enjoy!

A Simple Reflection on Mary's Fiat

Image Source: Wikimedia Commons)

[I am recycling this simple reflection which got lost amid an earlier and lengthier post.]

In today’s Gospel (Luke 1:26-38) we hear the angel Gabriel’s familiar greeting to our heavenly Mother Mary: “Hail full of grace”. We repeat that salutation every time we pray the “Hail Mary”.  As a result, we sometimes forget the significance of those words and the rest of this Scripture passage.

When told by the angel that she, a virgin, would conceive the God-man, she asked him: “How can that be?” His reply – she would conceive not naturally but by the power of the Holy Spirit - was all Mary needed to hear. Without further hesitation, she said “let it be done to me according to they word”.

How often have we said “How can this be?” in response to promptings we have received – some no doubt from the Holy Spirit? Today’s Gospel should be an unmistakable reminder that, like Mary,  we must also say “Yes” to whatever God asks of us, knowing and trusting He will give us whatever assistance is necessary to fulfill His request.

Mary’s “fiat” changed the eternal fate of mankind. In a similar but lesser way, God will use our “Yes” to His invitations to change the hearts and souls of those known to Him.

But remember: He will not use us, if we say “No” to Him.

 

Pray that we may never let our selfishness and fear deprive us of the privilege of being part of God’s perfect plan.

Mary Our Mother

(Our Lady of the Blessed Sacrament)

"Reflect on the fact that though our sins put Christ on the cross, His Mother loves us!"
 

(From God, A Woman and The Way by Rev. M. Raymond, OCSO)

St. Martin de Porres and My Sister

(Statue of St. Martin de Porres at St. Vicnert Ferrer Parish, NYC)

Today we Dominicans celebrate the memorial of St. Martin de Porres (1579-1639) – one of three Dominican saints who walked the streets of Lima, Peru in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries - St. Rose of Lima and St. John Macias being the other two.

St. John XXIII canonized St. Martin on May 6, 1962.

There are a number of reasons why I have a great fondness for St. Martin de Porres.

He was a simple, humble and holy layman who initially refused the Dominican habit, not feeling worthy to wear it. After serving his Dominican brothers for nine years, as an act of obedience, he made his Solemn vows as a lay Dominican brother.

Rosary Reflection - Its Beauty

"The entire Rosary has the beauty of reproducing the theological thoughts concerning Mary, they are reproduced in the entire dialectic of truth and deduction. Marian theology and the Rosary are two poems that are united into one, two hymns forming one hymn, two magnificent temples, two cathedrals of thought and piety, that come together as one...

Here in the Rosary, piety speaks in the language of theologians. Here meditation rises to the heights attained by scholars. Here prayer dwells where the scholars are brought to a halt.

Marian theology and the Rosary are therefore similar to two temples having at the same height their pinnacles and spires. The people of God in the Church have found the Rosary, its Book of Psalms. The clergy have the Divine Office, the people have the Rosary. Like The Divine Comedy, the Rosary is a trilogy: it recalls the joys, sorrows, and triumphs of Jesus and in perfect symmetry, for each part it has five chants, and each chant in turn is an episode. 

The Rosary could very well be called the poem of human redemption. The Rosary is a poem that takes its lively but simplistic hues from the pure palette of the Gospel; while at the same time it draws its logical ties, its harmonious responses, its entire intimate dialectic from the highest theology."

                         

  (Blessed Bartolo Longo)

Rosary Reflection - Receive a Never-Fading Crown of Glory

"If you say the Rosary faithfully until death, I do assure you that, in spite of the gravity of your sins 'you shall receive a never-fading crown of glory'. Even if you are on the brink of damnation, even if you have one foot in hell, even if you have sold your soul to the devil as sorcerers do who practice black magic, and even if you are a heretic as obstinate as a devil, sooner or later you will be converted and will amend your life and save your soul, if - and mark well what I say - if you say the Rosary devoutly every day until death for the purpose of knowing the truth and obtaining contrition and pardon for your sins."

(St. Louis Marie de Montfort)

Rosary Reflection - Rosary Is The Book of The Blind

(Photo©Michael Seagriff)

"The rosary is the book of the blind, where souls see and there enact the greatest drama of love the world has ever known; it is the book of the simple, which initiates them into mysteries and knowledge more satisfying than the education of other men; it is the book of the aged, whose eyes close upon the shadow of this world, and open on the substance of the next.  The power of the rosary is beyond description."    

               (Venerable Fulton J. Sheen)

Our Lady of the Rosary, Adoration and My Friend Mike

(Image source: Wikimedia Commons)

Today we celebrate the memorial of our Lady of the Rosary, instituted by Pope Pius V. He attributed the naval victory over the Turks at the Battle of Lepanto in 1571 to the Blessed Mother's intercession after the Christian world sought her aid through the Rosary. The Nashville Dominicans provide an interesting summary of this miraculous event and of Pius V. I encourage you to read their article here.

As a Lay Dominican, I have come to treasure the rosary, contemplating the richness of its mysteries every day.

But I also have a fondness for this particular memorial beyond my love of the rosary. You will understand why after reading about my friend Mike. The article that follows is one of twenty stories from my book, Fleeting Glimpses of the Silly, Sentimental and Sublime:

Rosary Reflection - When Parents Pray The Rosary

"The faults of children are not always imputed to the parents, especially when they have instructed them and given good example. Our Lord, in His wondrous Providence, allows children to break the hearts of devout fathers and mothers. Thus the decisions your children have made don't make you a failure as a parent in God's eyes. You are entitled to feel sorrow, but not necessarily guilt. Do not cease praying for your children; God's grace can touch a hardened heart. Commend your children to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. When parents pray the Rosary, at the end of each decade they should hold the Rosary aloft and say to her, 'With these beads bind my children to your Immaculate Heart"'. She will attend to their souls."

(St. Louise de Marillac)

October - The Month of the Rosary - Calling Upon Mary

(Image source)

October is the month dedicated to the most Holy Rosary of our Blessed Mother Mary. 

We Dominicans love Mary. We treasure her Rosary and make it a priority in our daily prayer lives. Devotion to Mother Mary and the Rosary go hand in hand.

St. Mary Magdalene and the Dominican Order

(Image source: Wikimedia Commons)

Today the universal Church celebrates the memorial of Saint Mary Magdalene - great sinner transformed by the forgiveness, mercy and grace of her beloved Lord into a great saint.

Over the centuries various spiritual writers have referred to her to as the Apostle to the Apostles, the Evangelist of the Resurrection and the Apostle of the Ascension.

The Dominicans have a great devotion to Mary Magdalene as explained here by the Nashville Dominicans. She is also the patroness of the Dominican Order. You can find out why by watching this most informative presentation by Fr. Dominic Legge, O.P..

Before visiting those sites, why not join the rest of the Dominican family, by reading the following excerpt from the Life Of St. Mary Magdalene by Rabanus Maurus, which is offered as the second reading in today’s Office of Readings  in the Dominican supplement to the Liturgy of the Hours:

Beware of what you desire...

The great Dominican preacher, St. Vincent Ferrer (1350-1419), never hesitated speaking the Truth, no matter how uncomfortable it might make his listeners. 

Why? He had one and only one concern - the salvation of souls. 

How do these words of his make you feel?

A Lenten Reflection from St. Thomas Aquinas

(St. Agatha's, Canastota, NY)

I have been journeying through Lent this year with the aid of the Angelic Doctor, St. Thomas Aquinas. I thought you might find the following worthy of reflection and contemplation this Passion week:

“The Passion of Christ suffices to reform completely our entire life. For whosoever desires to live perfectly, need do nothing more than despise those things which Christ on the cross despised, and love the things which Christ loved. For no example of virtue is absent from the cross.

Why I am a Christian, and a Catholic

I've had people say, "you can't really believe that Christian stuff, can you?"

And then, once I became Catholic, some (certainly not all) Protestants began with, "You don't really believe all that Mary stuff, do you. Or that it's not bread and wine, but Jesus? Really?"

Well, let's start with why I'm a Christian.

At age 20, I wasn't really Christian in thought, word, or deed. I was exploring various philosophical and Eastern religious alternatives. But then I was confronted with reality.

The simple fact is that the New Testament documents are THE BEST ATTESTED DOCUMENTS of the ancient world, bar none.We have 9 manuscripts of Caesars Commentaries on the Gallic Wars, all of them dating from the 10th century. Scholars never voice any doubts about their authenticity.

Yet, we have literally tens of thousands of New Testament manuscripts, some of them dating from mere decades after the life of Christ, even within the lifetime of the Apostles. If one applies the same criteria to them that one applies to any other other ancient manuscript, there is no doubt whatsoever that they are, indeed, authentic and were written by those to whom Tradition ascribes authorship.

In addition, there is much internal evidence to suggest their authenticity. Take the Gospel of Luke, for example. It includes medical terminology of the day - exactly what one would expect of a 1st century physician. And it contains historical detail which has only otherwise recently come to light through archaeological means, e.g., Quirinius's governing of Syria in the late first century BC.

So, the New Testament is authentic. But, what of the content?
There are two factors which I find compelling.

One - Jesus was one of three things.
If He was not, as he claimed, the Son of God, indentifying Himself with YHWH ("Before Abraham was, I am"), then either he deliberately misled (i.e., he was a liar; hardly the "good man" that his non-Christian 'fans' would have him be), or he was deluded. So, Lord, Liar, or Lunatic? Liar and lunatic seem beyond absurd.

Two - the Resurrection. The apostles claimed this from the very beginning. Unless it's true, it's a truly absurd claim. So, if Jesus wasn't resurrected, why didn't Rome produce a body? Why didn't the Sanhedrin produce a body? Why would the the apostles go to their death for what they would KNOW to be a lie?
So, either one must accept the resurrection, or accept that the Romans, the Jews, and the Apostles all acted in an absurd manner.

So, I'm a Christian.

But, at about 31-32 years old, I was confronted with the question of what became of the Church Jesus left. Is it today's Catholic Church, is it today's Orthodox Faith, or some form of Protestantism. Examining the earliest post Christian writings, I found bishops, I found a belief that the bread and wine in the Eucharist somehow truly becomes the Body and Blood of Jesus.
I asked myself - did the Church go THAT far astray as soon as the last apostle died? Did Christ allow his spotless bride to become spotted? Did He leave her or forsake her?

Of course not!!!

I could no longer accept the Protestantism in which I'd been raised.

But, having been Protestant, I could never, EVER be Catholic. So I became Orthodox.

But the more I read, I kept coming across the information that I summarize here:  
https://www.facebook.com/notes/lou-pizzuti/first-post-apostolic-work-supports-the-papacy/548019735243684

Tomorrow, I celebrate the 19th anniversary of my reception into the Catholic Church, after God dragged me in, screaming and kicking.

(originally published 2/28/2014)