Thursday of the Twenty-fifth Week in Ordinary Time
“For greater things you were born.” (Ven. Mother Luisita)
THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 24th Lk 9: 7-9 “”Herod said. ‘John I beheaded. Who then is this about whom I hear such things?’ And he kept trying to see him.”
- Herod was curious, but definitely not a believer! We receive the gift of Faith in Baptism. But unless Faith is nourished and exercised, it withers and dies! That is why Jesus said, “When the Son of man comes will he find faith on earth?” (Lk. 18:8)
- Therefore, today’s meditation is on growing our faith so we can put it into practice! How do we grow our faith? By praying and meditating on the Life, Death, Resurrection, and Ascension of Our Lord Jesus in the Scriptures – His words, actions, gestures, the movements of His Heart… consider two words: “Jesus wept!”
PART ONE: “God is Indeed Here – Importance of Prayer” by Saint Francis de Sales
PART TWO: GROWING IN FAITH THROUGH THE HOLY ROSARY by Fr. Ed Broom
“God is Indeed Here – Importance of Prayer” by Saint Francis de Sales
We do not see our God, and although faith warns us that He is present, not beholding Him with our mortal eyes, we are too apt to forget Him, and act as though He were afar. Before beginning to pray, it is needful always to rouse the soul to a steadfast remembrance and thought of the Presence of God. This is what David meant when he exclaimed, “If I climb up to Heaven, Thou art there, and if I go down to hell, Thou art there also!”
Therefore, when you make ready to pray, you must say with your whole heart, “God is indeed here.” You also recognize His Sacred Presence by calling to mind that He is not only present in the place where you are, but that He is very specially present in your heart and mind, abiding there as Heart of your heart, Spirit of your spirit. Therefore, David calls Him “the Strength of my heart” and Saint Paul said that in Him “we live and move and have our being.” Dwell upon this thought until you have kindled a great reverence within your heart for God who is so closely present to you.
Prayer opens the understanding to the brightness of Divine Light, and the will to the warmth of Heavenly Love. It is a healing water which causes the roots of our good desires to send forth fresh shoots, which washes away the soul’s imperfections, and allays the thirst of passion. Especially I commend earnest mental prayer to you, more particularly such as bears upon the Life and Passion of Our Lord. If you contemplate Him frequently in meditation, your whole soul will be filled with Him, you will grow in His likeness, and your actions will be molded on His.
He is the Light of the world; therefore, in Him we shall be enlightened and illuminated. He is the Tree of Life, beneath the shadow of which we must find rest. He is the Living Fountain of Jacob’s well, wherein we may wash away every stain. If we cleave to the Savior in meditation, listening to His words, watching His actions and intentions, we shall learn in time, through His grace, to speak, act and will like Himself. Believe me, there is no way to God save through this door. We could not here below contemplate the Godhead, were it not united to the Sacred Humanity of our Savior, whose Life and Death are the best, sweetest and most profitable subjects for meditation. Give an hour every day to meditation. If you can, let it be early in the morning, when your mind will be less cumbered, and fresh after the night’s rest. End.
- Another efficacious means to meditate on the Life, Passion and Death, Resurrection, and Ascension of Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ is through the eyes and Immaculate Heart of Mary by praying the Mysteries of the Rosary. A transforming experience that leads to imitation of Jesus and Mary in our daily lives!
- Moreover, Mary asked the children of Fatima and all believers to pray the Rosary daily until the end of time! For peace in the world, peace in our country, peace in our homes, and peace in our own hearts!
GROWING IN FAITH THROUGH THE HOLY ROSARY by Fr. Ed. Broom, OMV
Jesus sent His Loving Mother, Mary most holy, from heaven to the small town of Fatima, in Portugal in the year 1917. The Queen of heaven and earth appeared to three little shepherd children, Lucia de los Santos and Francisco and Jacinta Marto—brother and sister.
Our Lady appeared six times and every time that she appeared she repeated the message: PRAY THE ROSARY! She revealed her name and identity as OUR LADY OF THE ROSARY. In Lourdes, Our Lady appeared 18 times to Saint Bernadette, and revealed her name and identity as THE IMMACULATE CONCEPTION.
Therefore, we would like to present ten reasons why we should form the most important habit of praying the Rosary, not sporadically or sometimes or simply upon an impulse. Rather, we should form the habit of praying the most Holy Rosary of the Blessed Virgin Mary every day; if possible, we could even pray the Rosary more than once a day, as was often the habit in the lives of many of the saints! Therefore, let us launch into reasons to convince us of the dire importance of loving Our Lady, by loving what she loves and by obeying her command—pray the holy Rosary!
1. OUR LADY TOLD US TO! If a mother repeats to her child an order many times it is because the mother believes in the depths of her heart that the order she is commanding is of great importance. Likewise, the Mother of God and our Mother, Mary most Holy, at Fatima commanded the children, as well as the world at large, six times to pray the Rosary! If it is a command to obey our earthly mothers (the 4th Commandment), how much more should we obey our Heavenly Mother, Mary most Holy!
2. THE ROSARY IS A BIBLICAL PRAYER. Many non-Catholics condemn the recitation of the Holy Rosary. However, very few of those who condemn this most beautiful prayer realize or recognize the fact that the Rosary is a prayer that almost totally has its origins in the Word of God itself! For example, the first series of Mysteries that we call the Joyful Mysteries are all of them found in the Gospel of Saint Luke, Chapters One and Two! This being said, we can get to know and love the Word of God by meditating upon the Mysteries of the Holy Rosary!
3. GETTING TO KNOW, LOVE AND IMITATE JESUS BETTER. Saint Ignatius of Loyola, founder of the Jesuits, and the instrument God used to give us the Spiritual Exercises, offers us a fruit that we should beg for when we meditate or contemplate on the life of Jesus; that fruit, or we might call it virtue, is to arrive at intimate knowledge of Jesus, so that we love Him more ardently, and follow Him more closely. In a parallel sense, when we form the habit of praying the Rosary well, giving our whole self to entering into the scenes or mysteries of the Rosary, one of the most sublime fruits is the same that Ignatius presents. In praying the Rosary, we get to know Jesus, love Jesus, and desire to follow Jesus through the prayers and intercession of the first disciple of Jesus, His Mother Mary!
4. SUMMARY OF THE GOSPEL. Recent Popes, Blessed Paul VI and Saint John XXIII, called the Rosary a summary of the Gospel. This was said even before the insertion of the relatively new mysteries of the Rosary, The Luminous Mysteries. In a short, clear, methodical and systematic form we have the Infancy of Jesus in the Joyful Mysteries. Followed by the Luminous Mysteries, which are a good summary of the Public Life of Jesus (30-33 years of age). Then we have the Passion, suffering and death of Jesus in the Sorrowful Mysteries. Finally, as the summit of the whole prayer, we have the Glorious Mysteries, which of course present Our Lord’s Resurrection and Ascension into heaven, the Coming of the Holy Spirit, and Our Lady’s Assumption into heaven and Coronation as Queen of heaven and earth. As the Popes have alluded to, the contemplation of the mysteries of the most Holy Rosary is a clear and concise summary of the Gospels—the conception, life, death and Resurrection of Jesus seen through the eyes and heart of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
5. MARVELOUS PRAYER THAT CAN LIFT US TO THE HEIGHTS. The Rosary is indeed a marvelous prayer that can lift us to the heights of holiness if prayed well and with perseverance. This prayer is vocal in that we vocalize the beautiful prayers, the Our Father and Hail Mary. It is a meditative prayer in that we reflect upon the meaning of the mysteries and how they can be applied to our own lives right now. Furthermore, it is a contemplative prayer, meaning that we are summoned to enter into the scenes or mysteries of the lives of Jesus and Mary. We are not called to be passive spectators, like going to a movie; rather we are called to enter into these contemplative scenes and become part of the lives of Jesus and Mary! If this is done, we become transformed. The saying is true: tell me with whom you associate, and I will tell you who you are. How true if we apply this to our frequent association, contact and conversation with Jesus and Mary and Saint Joseph! We will be transformed, becoming more and more like them. Our desire and goal are the words of the great Apostle Saint Paul: “It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.” (Gal.2:20)
6. PRAYER OF PEACE OF MIND, HEART AND SOUL, AND WORLD PEACE. In a world in which there is so much tension, fighting, selfishness, and egotism we need a peace-program. Of course the key element is to expel the negative with the most positive possible, and that is to place Jesus and Mary as King and Queen of our world, country, state, city, home, family, and even our individual lives and hearts! At Fatima, Our Lady insisted that the Rosary be prayed to end World War I and also to prevent another war. Our Lady made the warning that if the world did not pray enough, another and worse World War would erupt. And so it happened! Sad to say, not many years after the cessation of World War I, the more bloody and gruesome World War II broke out. Sin and War is due to a lack of the presence of God. The recitation of the most Holy Rosary is the exact opposite. In the Rosary, we invite Jesus into our hearts, families, society and world through the prayerful, peaceful, but powerful presence of Our Lady, Queen of Peace!
7. CONQUERING VICES. Sin can grab hold of us and we become slaves to sin. Jesus Himself says that sin is slavery. A well-known convert once said that before becoming Catholic, he liked going to book stores to look over the books and buy some of them. However, while there, no matter how hard he tried, he could not resist, almost as if he were drawn by a magnet, checking out and browsing through the bad magazines. Though not a Catholic yet, he started to pray the most Holy Rosary, and immediately, his desire to look at the indecent magazines left him totally. He attributed this miracle to the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary and the Holy Rosary. Among the many virtues that Our Lady desires to attain for us is the virtue of purity. One of Our Lady’s messages in Fatima was that most souls are lost for all eternity due to the sins of the flesh, that is to say, sins against the virtue of purity. Jesus expressed this most clearly in one of the Beatitudes: “Blessed are the pure of heart; they will see God.” (Mt 5:8)
8. FAMILY UNITY. One of the most sorrowful realities in the modern world is the breakup of the family unit. Vatican II calls the family the Domestic Church. Saint Pope John Paul II said, “As the family goes, so goes the nation, and so goes the whole world in which we live.” After the attack on the World Trade Center, Sept. 11, 2001, Pope Saint John Paul II published a spiritual masterpiece with the title Blessed Virgin Mary and the Rosary. We encourage all of our readers to read and meditate upon this spiritual masterpiece so as to get to know and love the most Holy Rosary more and more. In this papal document, the saintly pontiff encouraged the world at large to pray the Rosary, but especially for two intentions. First, he exhorted us to pray the Rosary for world peace. Second, he warmly encouraged us to pray the Rosary for the sake and salvation of the family. The Rosary priest, Father Patrick Peyton, expresses this truth in these timely maxims: “The family that prays together, stays together”. And, “A world at prayer is a world at peace!” This being said, every family should make a concerted effort to pray the Rosary together for the sake of their own family, as well as for all of the families of the world, and that peace would reign in the world starting first and foremost within our own individual hearts!
9. THE ROSARY AS A SPIRITUAL SLINGSHOT TO CONQUER THE DEVIL. In one of the most important meditations in the Spiritual Exercises, with the title The Two Standards, Saint Ignatius presents our spiritual life in the light of a fierce combat between Satan and his disciples fighting against Jesus and His disciples for dominion in our souls! Given today’s materialism, consumerism, hedonism, agnosticism, moral relativism, and militant atheism, the devil can hide behind each of these erroneous philosophical systems to trap us and finally enslave us! It almost appears as if we are David against Goliath! (I Samuel 17) David was much younger and smaller, with no military preparation, no sword, no shield, not even any armor. On the other hand, Goliath was a giant, with much experience in battle, wearing armor and wielding a huge crescent sword that he had used to kill many, with a shield bearer preceding him. Goliath curses little David, but David proceeds with confidence in the name of Yahweh, the Lord of Lords and King of Kings. The little shepherd boy approaches the line of battle quickly and resolutely, reaches for a stone, places it in his slingshot and launches it at Goliath. The stone takes off like a rocket and rivets itself in the forehead of Goliath, who quickly cascades to the ground. As the giant lays unconscious on the ground, David wields the sword of Goliath and cuts off his head! Victory!!! Today we are surrounded by many Modern Goliaths, as mentioned and named above. Therefore, for us to win the fierce battle, we must place ourselves under the military leadership of the Blessed Virgin Mary, carry proudly our spiritual weapon— the most Holy Rosary, and use it frequently and confidently. We have sure hope with such a weapon and so great a leader that the battle will be won and the victory will be ours!
10. SPIRITUAL TREASURES STORED UP IN HEAVEN. One of the greatest saint-mystics in the Catholic Church is Saint Gertrude, the Great. Not only is she the author of the classic Herald of Divine Love (read it!!!), but also she was a great mystic and visionary. Jesus often would appear to her and talk to her with great familiarity and love, as He desires to do with us. On one occasion, the saint saw Jesus in heaven. The scene was beautiful! Bathed in light and beauty, Jesus had a huge pile of coins, shiny and glimmering golden coins. As Saint Gertrude contemplated this scene, Jesus placed another golden coin on the top of the huge pile. Curious as to the meaning of the scene, this great lover of Jesus and Mary, Saint Gertrude, begged the Lord to explain its meaning. Without any hesitation Jesus said that those golden coins were the many fervent Hail Marys that Gertrude had prayed, and that she had just finished another, upon which Jesus was depositing another golden coin for all eternity. Therefore, if you want to be a multi-billionaire in heaven, start right now and pray the Rosary, pray the Hail Marys that compose the Rosary. Indeed, Jesus through the intercession Mary, His Mother, the Mother of the Church, and your loving Mother, will store up for you abundant treasures in heaven.
Copyright 2020 Oblates of the Virgin Mary
St. Peter Chanel Church, Hawaiian Gardens, CA
