Posts Tagged ‘catholic devotions’

It’s the first of the month and that means it’s once again time for the monthly indulgence Calendar

Also an FYI Knights of Columbus Council 15962 aided by the Legion of Mary Gardner council will be putting on a pancake breakfast Sunday June 8th at St. Bernard’s Parish at St. Camillus Church on Mechanic St. in Fitchburg.

The breakfast will be to raise money to help pay for a defibrillator for the church so it will be available in the event of a heart attack taking place while folks are at mass or a function.

The price is $5 and includes Pancakes and Ham and if you’re eating on site coffee & something to drink. Takeout orders are available which will include pancakes, ham, syrup and spread for those who would rather eat at home.

If you have a large Catholic family we will feed your entire family for a flat $20.

About 300 servings or 75 family servings will cover the full cost even if we don’t raise the lot however much of the cost we can defer is great.

I’ll be cooking that Sunday so I’ll be away all morning, no time for blogging for me that day.

Hope to see you there and while your there if you’re a Catholic man check out the Knights of Columbus and see if you want to be part of our acts of faith and works, and if you’re a Catholic woman check out the Legion of Mary to see if you want to be a part of all they do.

Last Saturday was the feast day of the Apostle of Mercy St. Faustina who was a Polish nun who died at the age of 38 just before the start of World War Two. In her famous diary (you can read it here) she recorded her prayer life and her encounters with Christ, the Blessed Mother and occasionally the enemy and his minions.

There are five shrines to Divine Mercy in the US one in Lombard Illinois, one in Baltimore, One in Chicago, one in Kansas City Missouri, but the National Shrine of Divine Mercy is in Stockbridge Massachusetts near the NY border.

WQPH 89.3 FM Shirley / Fitchburg which hosts my weekly radio show Your Prayer Intentions hosted a bus trip to that shrine on St. Faustina’s feast day last Saturday I attended.

While there I took advantage of the best insurance a person can get for a person or family, perpetual masses.

In addition to a bus load of pilgrims from several parishes in the state and from WQPH we had two priests with us. One Fr. Bob Doughty I interviewed as we were preparing to get on the bus to return. He was in the process of anointing those who wished it and dozens came to him from all the various buses there.

And Father Alex who is from Nigeria who I sat down and spoke with upon our return.

Due to some bus issues it was a short day at the shrine but a fine one. It is very likely that there will be another such trip next year on Oct 4th. If you have an interest in going comment on this post and when things start getting rolling in April I’ll give you a heads up

Cardinal Lamberto: Would you like, to make your confession?
Michael Corleone: [laughs] Your Eminence, I’m uh – I’m uh — it’s been so long, I wouldn’t – wouldn’t – wouldn’t know where to uh, it’s been thirty years, I’d – I’d – I’d use up too much of your time, I think.
Cardinal Lamberto: I always have time to save souls.
Michael Corleone: Well, I’m — I’m beyond redemption.
Cardinal Lamberto: [speaking in Italian to the priest looking after Dom Tommasino] Give us a couple of minutes alone please – thanks… [Turning back to Michael once they leave in English] I hear the confessions of my young priests here. Sometimes the desire to confess is overwhelming. And we must seize the moment.

Michael Corleone: What is the point of confessing, if I don’t repent?
Cardinal Lamberto: I hear you are a practical man. What have you got to lose, eh?

The Godfather Part 3 1990

Today is Divine Mercy Sunday the premier time for repentance. Yesterday I led with a quote from Godfather 2 and note that like Michael Corleone trying to convince Hyman Roth that there was nothing to fear the Devil tries to convince us that our soul is not in danger or in need of confession.

But if we are far along the path of sin there is another tack that is used, the idea that we are beyond redemption.

This is actually the standard MO for the enemy, first to minimize sin when it is happening and then to maximize it to keep you from confession.

For ten days now I’ve been arguing for doing the Divine Mercy chaplet and praying the novena and yesterday I argued for going to a Divine Mercy event today and getting confession and absolution. If none of those argument have flown with you I want to give you one final one, the same one that Cardinal Lamberto gave to Michael Corleone: What have you got to lose?

Closing thought; Here is the scene of Michael confession. Note how it ends:

The Cardinal notes that

  1. Michael’s sins are terrible
  2. It’s just that he suffers for them
  3. Michael won’t change because he [Michael] doesn’t believe he can be redeemed.

YET HE ABSOLVES HIM ANYWAYS.

Despite it all he gives Michael Corleone the clean slate and the CHANCE to choose another path. The Cardinal does his part to save Michael’s soul and give him a fresh start.. It’s on Michael to decide what to do with it.

Here is the March Indulgence Calendar

Here is the blank version:

and I have a little story for you. You may make of it what you will.

I brought my mike with me for total confusion because I needed to record my weekly radio show for WQPH (Queen of Perpetual Help) radio however circumstances never gave me the chance to record. So I figured no big deal I’d record on Monday which I took off but again somehow I just didn’t get a chance to record.

Now I was really getting up to a deadline so I was determined to get the show recorded right after daily mass but somehow I kept getting delayed till FINALLY I was able to get started.

I had just listed the prayer intentions for the show when the phone rang (I don’t have a cell phone) I paused the recording to hear the voice of a friend. He was hospitalized, she already had heart issues which were expected to be fatal and was now recovering from a stroke. She asked for prayers for her mother and children and there was no knowledge of how long she would be around.

Now this is the thing, if I had recorded the show at any of the times I should have it would have been in the bank and her request would have to wait for the next show to air March 9th. If I had managed to get started on my recordings early that morning as I planned same thing. And if she had called just a couple of hours later It would have been too late, I’d be at work and she would have missed me completely.

Nope she called at the exact moment in fact the last possible moment when I could squeeze in her prayer intentions to get them into the show broadcast tomorrow.

I submit and suggest that this type of thing is God’s MO and has been for millennia. Any reading of scripture shows it to be so, and I further submit and suggest that God is just as active as he was during biblical times to those who call upon him, but we’ve trained ourselves, or have been trained not to see what is in front of our faces.

At least that’s my take but feel free to make of it what you will.