Prayer
Consecration to Mary
This is a quick post to tell you that I was wrong with my post last month about the consecration start day for the Marian consecration for the Annunciation. Due to the Feast of Annunciation falling during Holy Week it was moved. The beginning date for the consecration is tomorrow, March 6th. Join both Phil and I as we do our annual consecration.
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Prayer
Prayers for February 2024
Here are some novenas for you to consider this month: February is the Holy Family month. February 5th start a novena to St. Valentine. It would be appropriate for those that suffer from epilepsy, for a happy marriage, for courtship, and for an engagement. Feast Day is February 14th. February 18th start a 30 day novena to St. Joseph. It would be appropriate for fa…
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Prayer
Prayers for December 2023
We are still working on our 54 day rosary novena leading into Christmas. I think I would like to take part in a Our Lady of Guadalupe novena, Infant of Prague novena, and maybe Epiphany. I just get so excited for Advent and Christmas. How about you?
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Prayer
The Sign of the Cross
St. John Vianney, the patron saint of parish priests, possessed a gift for inspiring devotion for the sacred. His words continue to resonate with believers today. One of his most cherished teachings revolved around a simple yet profoundly meaningful gesture - the act of entering a church, taking holy water, and making the sign of the cross. In those sacred moments, S…
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Prayer
Prayers for November 2023
We will be doing a 54 day rosary novena leading into Christmas. I would also take part in a St. Gertrude novena. How about you?
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Prayer
Praying for Priests: A Call to Spiritual Solidarity
When people seek to undermine religion, their first target is often the priest. The reason is simple – when there is no priest, there is no sacrifice, and when there is no sacrifice, there is no religion. Priests are the linchpin that connects the Divine with the human, the sacred with the worldly. Their role is indispensable, and their spiritual well-being is of par…
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Prayer
A Shared Mission of Salvation: The Power of Collective Effort
The mission of the Church is not a solitary endeavor; it's a collective effort that transcends the roles of priests and clergy alone. The Church's mission is not solely shouldered by a select few, as highlighted by the words, "They know that they themselves were not established by Christ to undertake alone the whole salvific mission of the Church to the …
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Prayer
Prayers for October 2023
I will be taking part in the All Souls novena for souls in purgatory and possibly another one or two. How about you?
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Prayer
Faithfulness Over Quantity
"There is a risk of taking on more than one could handle and end up discouraged. A relatively short time (twenty minutes or half an hour), spent faithfully on mental prayer every day, is better than two hours now and then." page 84 This is a gentle reminder that faithfulness beats quantity. A moment in prayer daily beats hours of prayer that leads to dis…
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Prayer
Thirst for the Beloved
"Experience shows that to pray well and to be brought to the state of passive prayer in which God and the soul communicate in depth, the heart must be pierced—pierced, that is, by the love of God, wounded by thirst for the Beloved. Only through such a wound can prayer truly descend into the heart and lodge there. God must touch us at such a deep level of our b…
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Prayer
Mental Prayer
Mental prayer can be described as a form of contemplation in which one seeks to deepen their relationship with God through inward reflection, silent meditation, and attentive listening. This type of prayer involves focusing one's mind and heart on God's presence within oneself and in the world, and allowing God's love and grace to transform one's thou…
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Prayer
God is Always Active
"What matters in mental prayer is not so much what we do, as what God does in us. It is enormously liberating to know this, for sometimes we can do nothing at all in mental prayer. Really, though, it doesn’t matter much, because even if we can’t do anything, God can. In fact, he is always acting in the depths of our soul, even if we don’t realize it. The essenti…
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Prayer
Are You Too Busy Working For God?
"Let those who are fully taken up with activity, who imagine they can move the world by their preaching and their other external works, reflect here for a moment; they will easily understand that they would be much more useful to the Church, and more pleasing to the Lord, not to mention the good example they would set around them, if they dedicated half their …
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Prayer
Prayers for August 2023
“Consecrating ourselves to Mary means accepting her help to offer ourselves and the whole of mankind to him who is holy, infinitely holy; it means accepting her help—by having recourse to her motherly heart, which beneath the cross was opened to love for every human being, for the whole world—in order to offer the world, the individual human being, mankind as a whole…
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Prayer
Not Enough Tme
"THE PROBLEM OF NOT ENOUGH TIME 'I’d really like to do mental prayer, but I don’t have the time.' How often this has been said! And in a hyperactive world like our own, the difficulty is a real one and should not be underestimated. But time is not always the real problem. That real problem is knowing what really matters in life. As a contemporary aut…
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Prayer
Rescue Your Time
"Regarding this problem of time, we should make an act of faith in Jesus’ promise: 'There is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or land, for my sake and for the gospel, who will not receive a hundredfold now in this time!' (Mk 10:29). It is legitimate to apply this to chronological time as well: whoever giv…
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Prayer
Put Down the Phone!
"No sooner has he started to pray than conjured up by his inner unrest, all sorts of other things clamor for attention: a task at work, a conversation, an errand, a newspaper, a book. All these suddenly appear most important, and prayer seems a sheer waste of time. But no sooner has he stopped praying than there is plenty of time, and he fritters it away with …
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Prayer
Forget Your Feelings
"It is often asserted that true prayer cannot be willed or ordered, but must flow spontaneously, like water from the spring, from within. If this does not happen, if it does not well up from our innermost being, one had better not pray at all, for forced prayer is untrue and unnatural. This sounds, at first, convincing; however, if one has gained a fuller under…
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Prayer
Importance of Mental Prayer
"First, we need to be convinced of the vital importance of mental prayer. 'He who avoids prayer is avoiding everything that is good,' said St. John of the Cross. All the saints have spent time praying. Those who were most involved in the service of their neighbor were also contemplatives. St. Vincent de Paul began each day with two or three hours of men…
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Prayer
In God's Presence
"To hear the words of God is a serious matter. At Mount Sinai, the people of Israel prepared themselves for three days before God spoke to them the words of the covenant. In the Mass, we prepare ourselves for this holy encounter with God's Word through the Introductory Rites - the Sign of the Cross, the Confiteor, the Kyrie , and the Gloria . Having marked…
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