+ Saint Philip Neri

St. Philip Neri (1515-1595)

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UPDATES: The Great Thing by Sophia Mason

Also - by Allison

Also - by Elizabeth Scalia

A Great Day for the World

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(Images fr. Whispers in the Loggia, & Intentions for Month of May)

Easter Monday

This joyous Easter Monday, let us call to mind, gentle reader, the Victory which was won, yea, e'en for each of us. In the coming days, I will be reproducing, excerpt by excerpt, portions of Monsignor Ronald A. Knox's little talk on standing firm in a milieu of satanic revolution, "No-Men," from his little volume, The Gospel in Slow Motion. In it, he lauds St. Thomas More and St. John Fisher. He compares the truth that MOST MEN ARE SHEEP vs. the few who are not stupid enough to be hoodwinked by propaganda. About the latter, he says, "You can do nothing with such people, except martyr them."

Rejoice!

Cantalamessa - Truly the Son of God

Here is Father Raniero Cantalamessa's Good Friday homily (ZENIT reports both this and this as the 'Good Friday homily' - go figure).

Holy Saturday

Monsignor Charles Pope weighs in on Where is Jesus Between His Death and Resurrection?

Good Friday

Crucifixion (1500-08) - Grünewald

I began watching Gibson's Passion of the Christ last night. I woke with the lyrics and music of an old Paul Simon song going through my head, The Cross is in the Ballpark (The Obvious Child). May you have a blessed, peaceful, and holy Good Friday. As part of your meditations today, look through A Reluctant Sinner's entry for today here. Listen to the Passion of our Lord Jesus Christ according to St. John at Daniel Mitsui's Lion and the Cardinal here.

Holy Thursday

Last Supper (1530) - Joos van Cleve

Maundy Thursday

3rd Sunday of Lent

Living Water

St David of Wales

St. David of Wales

Bl William Carter

Remember with me today Blessed William Carter. In a day not unlike his of the sinful, banal, and evil, he - as many of us today still do - tried to keep alive Truth, Goodness, and Beauty.

Bl. William, pray for us.

Baptism of the Lord

Baptism of Jesus (1486-90) - Domenico Ghirlandaio

Most Holy Name

Most Holy Name of Jesus

ἐπιφάνεια

Adoration of the Magi (1329) - Giotto

Merry Christmas

All joy and heart's ease be to you and yours!

and pray for our brothers and sisters in places of danger

The Nativity - Film

While pal Frank over at YIMC lauds the highly-laudable Sound of Music, and rightly so, I recommend a faithfully-told and moving portrayal of the events of our Lady and St Joseph's lives leading up to and including The Nativity.

From a cunning and deadly King Herod to hand-wringing parents of Mary, St Anne and St Joachim, the film depicts the way that Providence works in the warp and weft of the human tapestry of history, always allowing for God's interjection of grace at key moments.

This film will warm, bolster, and prepare you in an exceptional way for the coming of the Christ Child.

Rejoicing in Advent

Here's your mid-Advent shot in the arm from Fr Bevil Bramwell. Enjoy, and, rejoice!

Saint Francis Xavier

Saint Francis Xavier

St. Teresa of Avila

Entering Stella Maris Monastery Chapel atop Mt. Carmel that looks graciously down upon Haifa in Israel, a stillness prevails. One painting honors St. Teresa of Avila, the saint whose feast day is today. Other famous Carmelites are honored there also.

My first in-depth time with St. Teresa came when two monks of Holy Cross Abbey, Father Edward and Father Andrew, led an ecumenical group of clergy in a read-through of her Interior Castle. For two Cistercians introducing a variety of Christian ministers to the practice of contemplative prayer, it was a natural choice.

Pray for us, St. Teresa, that we may learn to be still in a world of distractions.

Hymn

O Loveliness exceeding

All loveliness I know,

In exile here below.

What more, I pray Thee, Jesus,

What more have I to learn?

Save yet to love increasingly,

With pure love to yearn,

Save yet to love Thee ever,

With deeper love to burn.

O bind me ever closer,

My nothingness transcend,

May I be never parted

From Being without end.

What more can I desired now

Save, Lord, to see Thy Face

And there at last in heaven above

To build my nesting place,

And there at last forever

To find my resting place.

St Teresa of Jesus

Tr. Teresa of Jesus, O.C.D.

Taken from Carmelite Proper of the Liturgy of the Hours, Rome, Institutum Carmelitanum 1993.

Saint Bernard of Clairvaux

My spiritual director who died in June on the feast day of Sts Peter and Paul said that Saint Bernard of Clairvaux was the "air we breath" at Holy Cross Abbey, Berryville. I had asked him for a good place to begin reading St. Bernard. He sent me a voluminous letter with multiple photocopies, suggestions, one with the still intriguing title of The Family That Overtook Christ: the amazing story of the family of Bernard of Clairvaux.

We remember St. Bernard today as founder of a host of monasteries, the counselor to pontiffs, the figure whom Dante deemed worthy to escort his literary self into Paradise.

St. Bernard, son of knights, pray for us.

St. Maximilian Mary Kolbe

“Courage, my sons. Don’t you see that we are leaving on a mission? They pay our fare in the bargain. What a piece of good luck! The thing to do now is to pray well in order to win as many souls as possible. Let us, then, tell the Blessed Virgin that we are content, and that she can do with us anything she wishes.”

- St. Maximilian Mary Kolbe, when first arrested